‘Game of Thrones’ season 3: HBO carves out first promo art

Weeks after first saying that “Game of Thrones” season 3 would start rolling out some sort of promotional material soon, HBO has now followed suit and released what has to be the most nondescript poster ever: it is a date seemingly set on stone, and not much more.

You can see the full promo art below, but there is hardly any difference between it and the horizontal version above. The only real discernible difference between the horizon and vertical ads is the placement of the HBO logo; both have three lines through the first zero, which is an obvious reference to this being season 3 just as season 2 featured a pair of lines.

There are two separate interpretations we can think of when it comes to the design:

1. It is meant to be cold and bleak as a representation of winter finally arriving in Westeros, as evidenced even more by the latest sighting of the White Walkers by some of the characters.

2. It is meant to be more of a tombstone, which is certainly appropriate given the massive lost of life both in the past and coming up in the future for some of these characters.

Either way, we are now officially more excited than we were this morning about seeing more of the Starks and the Lannisters. So well done, HBO; you’ve achieved what was likely your mission from the onset.

What do you think about this promo art, and is it indicative of the cold (and in many ways bleak) tone that you expect to see from the new season?