LA ‘Game of Thrones’ fan convention debuts with stars, cosplay, dragons

December 10, 2022

The first official “Game of Thrones” fan convention debuted at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday with modest crowds for the top-notch programming the day provided.

The Game Of Thrones Official Fan Convention – like Arya Stark in Season One – was small but mighty.

You could sit on the Iron Throne from the original show and take a seat on the royal chair from the spinoff series “Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon.”

You could also pose for social media clout-shots by different and very large dragons, one of them a skull like those seen in the crypts beneath the Red Keep, the other an animatronic, red-eyes-a-glowing, I’m-about-to-charbroil-you dragon head.

Kristofer Hivju, who played Tormund Giantsbane in the Game of Thrones series, speaks at a panel during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Jack Gleeson, who played Joffrey Baratheon in the Game of Thrones series, speaks at a panel during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

From left: Mike Melillo, 29, as Jamie Lannister, Justin Rickert, 22, as Tyrion Lannister and Travis Melilla, 29, as Tywin Lannister, traveled from Las Vegas to attend the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Esme Bianco, who played Ros in the Game of Thrones series, speaks at a panel during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Fans of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones and and its spinoff, House of the Dragon, gathered for the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Clem Garcia, 55, of New York, poses as a member of the Lannister army during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Zak Mcintosh, 29, Brin Rego, 32, and Taaron Howard, 28, of Sacramento pose in costume during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Griffin Ryan, 2, of Anaheim wears a set of dragon wings and a tail as he makes his way through the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Amy Ferguson, 45, of Phoenix, Ariz., poses in costume during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Kishan Jeter, 49, of Houston, Texas, poses in costume as Syrio Forel during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Steven Alva, 20, of Phoenix, Ariz., poses in costume during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Brin Rego, 32, of Sacramento poses in costume for a photo during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Zak Mcintosh, 29, of Sacramento, in costume as Jon Snow during the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Angelica Reyes, left, and Paulina Duran, traveled from Mexico to attend the Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. The convention featured exhibits, panels and meet and greets with some of the actors of the hit HBO Game of Thrones series and its spinoff, House of the Dragon. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

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“Game of Thrones” actors including Daniel Portman, who played steadfast squire Podrick Payne, and Jack Gleeson, who played the sociopathic prince Joffrey Baratheon, were among the stars on hand for signings and panels on Friday.

And, as you can probably guess, there was cosplay. Some realistic, some casual, and some like 2-year-old Griffin Ryan, whose mother Fatima Ryan dressed him up as a dragon, just absolutely cute.

“I love ‘Game of Thrones’ and I was thinking, ‘OK, maybe he can wear a baby dragon,’” the Anaheim woman said of her son whose birthday was Friday as well.

As for the appeal of the show and this convention to her?

“It’s all about the kings and queens, the dragons, and most especially the throne,” Ryan said. “I want to sit on that throne.”

Here are highlights from the first day of the three-day convention devoted to creator George R.R. Martin’s works.

Lannisters enthroned

The throne room was empty early Friday when Tywin Lannister and his sons Jaime and Tyrion, in town from homes in Las Vegas, seized their chance to take selfies on the Iron Throne.

“Instantly, we were big fans of the show,” said Travis Melillo, who came dressed as Tywin, head of House Lannister. “The characters in particular.”

He said he picked Tywin Lannister because the character played by Charles Dance was his favorite in the show. “I’m a villain guy,” Melillo said. “But he’s also very powerful and sets the tone.”

His brother Mike Melillo cosplayed as Jaime Lannister, complete with the gold artificial hand he gets in later seasons of the show.

“He has the best arc in the show in my opinion,” Mike Melillo said of the knight played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. “From the worst character in the first show to the most redeemed by the end.”

Ros lives on

Actress Esmé Bianco played Ros, a prostitute in Kings Landing, for the first three seasons of “Game Of Thrones” before her character ended up like so many others: Dead.

“I lasted two seasons longer than Ned Stark,” she noted of the character played by Sean Bean, whose death in Season One signaled that this series was absolutely unafraid of knocking off a major player.

Bianco was at her autograph table when we asked about her experiences on the show and the fandom that follows it.

“It’s been very exciting,” she said. “‘Game of Thrones’ fans are really, really dedicated. I’ve learned so much about the show from them. Even things that I’ve forgotten.”

Leaving the show after the first three of its eight seasons allowed her to enjoy the stories that followed hers more, she said.

“It was relieving in a way,” Bianco said. “I, like most actors, don’t like to watch myself. Once I was dead on the show, it sort of freed me up to enjoy it. And not panic: ‘Oh my God, my scene is next!’”

Is that Jon Snow?

Zak McIntosh says the first time he watched “Game of Thrones” as a high school student he thought his friends were laughing at him but had no idea why. The reveal came when Jon Snow, the character played by Kit Harington, arrived on screen.

“They go, ‘Dude! The guy is you! You need to do this,’” the Sacramento resident said.

So McIntosh did, and still does. More than a decade later, he and two friends arrived at the Game Of Thrones Official Fan Convention in cosplay with McIntosh as Jon Snow, of course, and Brin Rego as the red priestess Melisandre and Taaran Howard as a soldier of the Night’s Watch.

McIntosh, Rego and Howard do other kinds of cosplay too, he said, but Jon Snow is his signature look. For the convention, he brought three different costumes worn by the character at different points in the series. And at comic conventions and other fan gatherings he’s wowed fans and sometimes “Game of Thrones” actors, too.

“One time I passed Kate Dickey, who was Lysa Arryn, in the hall of our hotel,” he said. “I looked at her, she looked at me. She says, ‘You started a rumor that Kit Harington is here.’”

(Harington will, in fact, be at the convention on Sunday.)

Sexy Podrick

Actor Daniel Portman played Podrick Payne, who begins the series as Tyrion Lannister’s squire. He takes up service to Brienne of Tarth, who becomes the first female knight in Westeros, and he is finally is elevated to a knighthood himself.

All of that’s great, but almost half the questions he got had to do with the scene where Tyrion discovers Pod is a virgin and sends him off to the King’s Landing brothel with a pocketful of gold.

“That amount of pleasure can ruin a young man’s life,” Portman said to the laughter of the crowd. “Everybody assumes it was a gift, but it was crushing. I’ve been celibate ever since.”

In fairness, he got other questions, too. In response to one, he admitted – for the first time in public, he said – that he’d never read the “Game of Thrones” books, though he always said he had.

He also said he hasn’t watched all of the series, which Jack Gleeson, who played the evil prince Joffrey Baratheon, also said one panel later.

“I know how it ends, obviously, and how it begins,” Portman said. “And some in the middle, too.”

Wilding times

Hivju as Tormund Giantsbane was a fan favorite for his wild eyes, battle skills, and seasons of hopeful courtship of Brienne of Tarth, played by Gwendoline Christie. His panel was, predictably, delightful.

Hivju said his favorite person on set was Harington, partly for their off-camera activities.

“We were playing ‘Game of Thrones’ but in the tent where we were stuck we were playing Risk,” he said of the take-over-the-world board game. “We tried to play the ‘Game of Thrones’ version of Risk, but we spent two hours wondering why the North only had one border, so we ended up playing the regular version.”

Toward the end of the series, he was constantly anxious that he might let slip how it ended.

“Sometimes I’d wake in the night and think, ‘Did I say something wrong?! Did I spoil the end?’” Hivju said. “It’s still there in my spine.”

When a group of wildlings led by Tormund climb the Wall that keeps Westeros safe from the North, Hivju’s ice-climbing skills from growing up in Norway proved valuable, though the crew wasn’t so impressed.

“They built the actual wall and we climbed it with real axes,” he said. “Every time I went on it, I broke it. So they hated me: ‘Now we have to fill the holes.’

The convention continues Saturday and Sunday. For all the details go to Creationent.com/got_wp.

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