David M. Benett/Dave Benett/WireImageSPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t watched Sunday night’s premiere of Game of Thrones, stop reading now.
Ed Sheeran‘s cameo appearance in the premiere of the wildly popular HBO drama was the second most-tweeted about moment of the entire episode, following the cold open in which the entire Frey family met an untimely death.
Ed played one of a band of soldiers loyal to the Lannisters. Arya, played by Maisie Williams, stumbles across them in the forest, and ends up sharing their dinner of rabbit and blackberry wine. She notices them because Ed is singing a song called “Hands of Gold,” the lyrics of which originally appeared in the books in George R. R. Martin‘s series.
She says, “That’s a pretty song, and he replies, “It’s a new one.”
In the books, the song was written by a minstrel who learns of Tyrion’s illicit relationship with Shae and tries to blackmail him. The lyrics go, “She was his secret treasure/She was his shame and his bliss/And a chain and a keep are nothing/Compared to a woman’s kiss/For hands of gold are always cold/But a woman’s hands are warm.”
Some fans are now speculating that because Jaime Lannister literally has a hand made out of gold, the presence of the song now indicates that it’s about about Jaime and Cersei’s illicit relationship, and that it predicts that Jaime will kill Cersei by strangling her.
The episode itself inspired 2.4 million tweets, making it the most tweeted-about Game of Thrones episode ever. The third most-tweeted about moment was when Daenerys and Tyrion land at Dragonstone.
Ed posted a number of photos from the set, one captioned, “Throwback to the time I was a Lannister.”
Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
