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Being that the Title sequence for Game of Thrones tells us a lot about each house, each city for that particular series or represents a place in the world of Game of Thrones. I keep on wondering what is the thing that looks like a lit up shield in the below picture;

Here it is again later on in the Title sequence;

And I don't think it is the sun as there is a place where they show what seems to be the sun in the picture below:

So what is it supposed to be, or what is it supposed to represent?

Gallifreyan
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1 Answers1

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What you see is the sun in the centre of what the creators call an astrolabe, but what should be called an armillary sphere (we thank @Irishpanda for pointing this out):

If I interpret this article (where I also took the concept above from) correctly, the whole map we see is actually on the inner side of a Dyson sphere, and the astrolabe is suspended in its centre.

To quote Angus Wall, the creative director1 of the sequence (emphasis mine):

The fact that I wanted to be able to move the camera anywhere led us to the fact that this whole world had to exist on the inside of a sphere, which took us a while to figure out.

[. . .]

You have a sphere. Next question was “how is it lit?” And obviously, If you have a whole world inside a sphere, what would be in the middle of that sphere? The sun! Or whatever the light source of this world is.

In short, it's a giant sphere around the sun, so the thing you highlight is supposed to be, at least metaphorically, the star that shines upon the world the TV series is set on.

1 Fun fact - same studio made the title sequence to American Gods, the "Origins of Ilvermorny" clip for Pottermore, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

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  • I think the whole contraption is called an astrolabe, not just the center part of it. – RichS Jun 12 '17 at 14:43
  • @RichS The metal thing seems to be called an astrolabe, the outer sphere (i.e. the map) is referred to as the sphere. – Gallifreyan Jun 12 '17 at 14:54
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    While there are spherical astrolabes, I believe the more precise term for that would be an armillary sphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillary_sphere – Irishpanda Jun 12 '17 at 14:55
  • I always thought the sphere represented the comet. It's a burning sphere flying across the sky. The map stretched out below is the earth. – adcoon Jun 12 '17 at 15:16
  • @adcoon I always thought it was the fun above a globe. Turns out it's a sun inside a sphere. Ah, well. – Gallifreyan Jun 12 '17 at 15:41
  • @Gallifreyan But looking closely at the concept art you provided, the sun and moon are both represented on one of the rings. The other ring of note has the various houses. If the sun is on one of the rings, it can't also be in the center, right? – adcoon Jun 12 '17 at 15:50
  • @adcoon So are the major houses - but they can't be on the astrolabia and the map, right? Something's fishy! – Gallifreyan Jun 12 '17 at 15:52
  • @Gallifreyan Good point. I think there are two different and separate perspectives. One is that of the map and the comet flying above in the sky. The other is of the comet itself, which is a model/representation of the world as a whole, with the sun and moon on one band and the houses - representing the earth - on another band. The burning center then isn't part of the second perspective. But to be fair, maybe I'm over-thinking this. – adcoon Jun 12 '17 at 16:04