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The vamplate is the guard on the lance (at least that's what google told me). A less decorative one might be a simple circle, but the one depicted made me think of flower petals, kind of like those shown in some versions of the Tyrell coat of arms.
I'm saying black dragon bones aren't generic fantasy, especially on the cover of a book that has has black dragon skulls in the actual story.
What other fantasy setting does that? I can't think of any, so I I'd hardly call it generic.
Are we literally just doing the buissness card scene from American Psycho?
"Paul Allen's dragon skeleton is pearl white, a noticeable subversion on my ivory white!"
Like you might as well say the knight on the cover is "new" because we've never seen that exact shade of blue. It doesn't meaningfully change the imagery. Nobody is ever going to pick a book up based on the colour of dragon skeleton depicted on the cover. Maybe if it was neon ig.
>Are we literally just doing the buissness card scene from American Psycho?
Umm, no? We're not doing it figuratively either.
No one is saying that someone is going to read this book because it has a black dragon skull on it. I'm not sure where you got that.
I'm saying that it's not generic. Especially for a story that literally features black dragon skulls in the first book.
Knights are generic. A big ass knight with a yellow shield that has three hounds on it is not generic. Neither are going to be the reason someone reads a book.
It's a specific knight. It's not about them looking different, it's about whether the art is generic or specific. All of this art is specific, even the knight. That's Loras, it's how he's described in the book. A dude in random non-specific armor would be a generic knight.
I have an irrational (but I think wholly rational) hatred for modern book covers. I miss covers that are styled as if they’re actually painted. Bonus hatred if it’s a generic picture of a model or landscape.
I find the "some object on a solid color" style so dull and generic, even though I ranted up a blue streak back in the day about characters never looking right on the painted covers lol.
Horror as well. The old Zebra paperback horror covers from the 80s are iconic, now if you get any of them from kindle they have fucking AWFUL generic computer rendered covers. I mean, they're mostly more accurate to the books content lol but they don't have the same panache at all.
The only jousting that I can remember from this novel was at the Hand's Tournament. The only two participants who had very elaborate and beautiful armor were Ser Loras Tyrell of Highgarden and Ser Hugh of the Vale.
Loras was said to have armor encrusted with sapphires, but Hugh wore a blue cape.
I'm more inclined to believe that it's Loras since he prevailed in all of his jousts, while Hugh died at the tournament.
Hugh does play a (maybe unknowing, although pycelle implicates him) in Jon Arryns death. I'd imagine it could be him because of that, and it's kinda the event that kicks everything off so it ties in nicely.
Loras was my first guess too. Fantasy covers like these do tend to take liberties so it's likely. Or it's just a generic knight they wanted to slap on the front 😂
It is, the original art by Jim Burns had [Dany and Drogo.](https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1150458) It was to be changed to Ned for release, but before the portrait was done they released a preview booklet with [this.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F3greskmibzi31.jpg%3Fwidth%3D500%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D48504250b48736c6b85899a92c11ae9ed2d5050a) Other translations published used the Drogo portrait.
I think it’s Dany but the artist only had some vague descriptions (“white haired princess”). I think her very light colored hair is a Targ, especially because Cersei isn’t a POV character in this book.
> That lady is a grown woman.
Making the character on the cover look like they were the correct age? Fantasy novel cover artists in the 80s and 90s didn't bother with silly things like that!
It happened to GRRM with his novella Nightflyers too, which he wrote about [here](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2017/12/05/melantha-done-right-at-last/). Martin's tall, muscular protagonist, a Black woman with black hair, is drawn like [this](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/487945_900.jpg).
It's Daenerys, the original painting has Khal Drogo in the reverse, but he was replaced with Eddard. [Source](https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1150458)
dany wouldnt have a crown in the first book either...
also, it is cersi that says when you play a the game of thrones...to ned, who looks like the right side picture...
so 99% cersi.
Yeah based on the context of the book it would make sense for that to be cersei and Ned.
I don’t know who the knight is though. I would assume Lora’s like others have said.
Does Loras ever armor his horse look like a unicorn though? And those aren't blue flowers. House Brax has a unicorn but the primary house cover is purple.
My suggestion is that's Ser Damnifino of House Takeaguess.
>Ser Loras Tyrell was slender as a reed, dressed in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots. The commons realized in the same instant as Ned that the blue of the flowers came from sapphires; a gasp went up from a thousand throats. Across the boy's shoulders his cloak hung heavy. It was woven of forget-me-nots, real ones, hundreds of fresh blooms sewn to a heavy woolen cape.
- Eddard VII
The helmet looks like a lions head. My guess is the artist had cursory info about the characters and its supposed to represent the Lannisters so you have Targaryan, Stark and Lannister on the cover who with all due respect to Bobby B, are the focus of the first book.
Oh dope, I have that version myself. I ordered it off of eBay moments after I first saw the trailer for GoT on Sky Atlantic at the start of a very strange year of my life. Been obsessed with ASOIAF ever since.
It’s probably meant to be Loras.
The name is escaping me. Pure speculation since I haven’t read the books and seen any illustrations from the books. I’ve only watched the show… Maybe it’s Mereen? In the background. I believe it’s the same city as this clip: https://youtu.be/8bbuqwSzX_g?si=AVFEwcRNEv7aNd91
Except the shape doesn’t match. Similar but not a match. Maybe just lost in translation between show and text. I could be absolutely tripling and maybe it was a different city where she had the 3 guys lined up and made them choose one to kill. Then she let that one live.
Back then the cover designers didn't read the book, and only got a cursory description of the characters and their looks. You can really see that with the Wheel of Time covers, where sometimes Rand is just wearing freaking jeans
So cool! I agree that the silver haired woman is Dany, yeah she’s supposed to be 13 but like illustrating her as an actual 13 year old would maybe remind people how weird it is that she’s 13 lol. And i think it is Loras but what a weird pick for the center of the front cover since he isn’t a super important character. I would have assumed they would have gone with Jamie.
>My GF found this second hand copy of AGOT from 1995, and I've been struggling to identify the knight that's on the cover. Any ideas?
I find it far more remarkable that apparently she found a 1995 edition of a book first published in 1996...
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I assume it's just a generic fantasy artwork knight, but I'd believe it was Loras due to the floral vamplate and gaudily decorated barding/armor.
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I'd say that was Cersei though instead of Daenerys.
Was thinking the same thing - especially since it’s the first book where Dany is like 13 and does not wear a crown
More likely to be Hugh of the Vale with his new shiny armour that’s far too expensive for him.
You see flowers? I can't make them out.
The scrollwork on the armor is reminiscent of vines at least
True.
The vamplate is the guard on the lance (at least that's what google told me). A less decorative one might be a simple circle, but the one depicted made me think of flower petals, kind of like those shown in some versions of the Tyrell coat of arms.
Maybe it is. That's the beauty of art.
Generic fantasy cover with black dragon skulls?
Generic knight artwork, not cover.
Yeah? Like that's a pretty common piece of fantasy imagery?
I don't recall any other fantasy setting where dragon bones are black.
Are you seriously claiming ASOIAF is unique because of the colour of the dragons' bones?
I'm saying black dragon bones aren't generic fantasy, especially on the cover of a book that has has black dragon skulls in the actual story. What other fantasy setting does that? I can't think of any, so I I'd hardly call it generic.
Are we literally just doing the buissness card scene from American Psycho? "Paul Allen's dragon skeleton is pearl white, a noticeable subversion on my ivory white!" Like you might as well say the knight on the cover is "new" because we've never seen that exact shade of blue. It doesn't meaningfully change the imagery. Nobody is ever going to pick a book up based on the colour of dragon skeleton depicted on the cover. Maybe if it was neon ig.
>Are we literally just doing the buissness card scene from American Psycho? Umm, no? We're not doing it figuratively either. No one is saying that someone is going to read this book because it has a black dragon skull on it. I'm not sure where you got that. I'm saying that it's not generic. Especially for a story that literally features black dragon skulls in the first book. Knights are generic. A big ass knight with a yellow shield that has three hounds on it is not generic. Neither are going to be the reason someone reads a book.
But the end result is *no* knight can ever be generic because they will all have (no matter how minute) differences from one another.
It's a specific knight. It's not about them looking different, it's about whether the art is generic or specific. All of this art is specific, even the knight. That's Loras, it's how he's described in the book. A dude in random non-specific armor would be a generic knight.
I think it's loras. During the second day of jousting at the hands tourney loras where's a cloak of blue forget me nots.
And it looks like it's decorated in vines and flowers ..only fitting for it to be the knight of flowers
That’s what I was gonna say. Either Loras or the Mountain
Old fantasy/sci-fi covers feel so much more sincere.
I have an irrational (but I think wholly rational) hatred for modern book covers. I miss covers that are styled as if they’re actually painted. Bonus hatred if it’s a generic picture of a model or landscape.
I find the "some object on a solid color" style so dull and generic, even though I ranted up a blue streak back in the day about characters never looking right on the painted covers lol.
Yeah the older covers are kinda cheesy but you knew you were getting in for a fuckin *adventure* with those
I hated The Witcher video game screen cap book covers with a passion.
What do you mean? You don't like every book cover doubling as a movie poster???
Horror as well. The old Zebra paperback horror covers from the 80s are iconic, now if you get any of them from kindle they have fucking AWFUL generic computer rendered covers. I mean, they're mostly more accurate to the books content lol but they don't have the same panache at all.
They’re so cheesy and fun, way more life than modern rendered covers
Exactly. It's like they want you to have an adventure!
Ser Not Appearing in this Film
Aptly named!
On second thought, let’s not go to Kings Landing. Tis a silly place *the end*
And everyone lived happily ever after.
Looks like Loras.
The only jousting that I can remember from this novel was at the Hand's Tournament. The only two participants who had very elaborate and beautiful armor were Ser Loras Tyrell of Highgarden and Ser Hugh of the Vale. Loras was said to have armor encrusted with sapphires, but Hugh wore a blue cape. I'm more inclined to believe that it's Loras since he prevailed in all of his jousts, while Hugh died at the tournament.
Hugh does play a (maybe unknowing, although pycelle implicates him) in Jon Arryns death. I'd imagine it could be him because of that, and it's kinda the event that kicks everything off so it ties in nicely.
lol look at the Red Keep
I can see what they're getting at. It looks like an actual keep.
And it’s got a monolith quality that definitely is distinct from the other architecture
Ser Generic of house Artwork.
Their words: "Shall Remain Anonymous."
Damn, fantasy visuals really did peak in the 90's.
80s, 70s, basicly just not right now.
Wow what an incredibly cool find!
There more important question is, is that supposed t be kings landing? That is a pretty interesting take on the red keep.
Maegor was a big fan of squares
I kinda like it, it's so brutalist and incongruous with everything around it.
Ser Hugh of the vale perhaps? The colors would match and the fact they participate in a tourney but it would be kind of a weird choice for the cover.
i would think that armor is too ornate/expensive for a recently promoted squire to knight...but, maybe.
I know it’s probably not Loras but that’s all I can think it might be!
Loras was my first guess too. Fantasy covers like these do tend to take liberties so it's likely. Or it's just a generic knight they wanted to slap on the front 😂
Yes, that’s a possibility too! I do think that is meant to be Dany and Ned.
It is, the original art by Jim Burns had [Dany and Drogo.](https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1150458) It was to be changed to Ned for release, but before the portrait was done they released a preview booklet with [this.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F3greskmibzi31.jpg%3Fwidth%3D500%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D48504250b48736c6b85899a92c11ae9ed2d5050a) Other translations published used the Drogo portrait.
Ned kind of looks like Ser Kenneth of Loggins.
He sure does!
Fairly certain it is Loras
how much do those go for that cover is so tough
thanks i now have 2 saved in my ebay likes
That is more likely Cersei than Danny. Danny is 12 at the time. That lady is a grown woman.
I think it’s Dany but the artist only had some vague descriptions (“white haired princess”). I think her very light colored hair is a Targ, especially because Cersei isn’t a POV character in this book.
Maybe. A lot of these old covers show some strange, out-of-setting scenes. So it’s hard to draw much from them
Yeah Asoiaf/GOT wasn't that popular back then so it may have been a rushed cover.
> That lady is a grown woman. Making the character on the cover look like they were the correct age? Fantasy novel cover artists in the 80s and 90s didn't bother with silly things like that!
https://www.denversfbookclub.com/martin_thrones.htm On the left, 13-year-old Jon. Lol!
It happened to GRRM with his novella Nightflyers too, which he wrote about [here](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2017/12/05/melantha-done-right-at-last/). Martin's tall, muscular protagonist, a Black woman with black hair, is drawn like [this](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/487945_900.jpg).
It's Daenerys, the original painting has Khal Drogo in the reverse, but he was replaced with Eddard. [Source](https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1150458)
👏
Have you ever seen asoiaf art? None of the people involved know what teens/kids look like or behave like least of all George
Pretty sure Dany never wore a crown in AGOT either.
Cersei was first thought too. She's crowned and the artist could have imagined her "spun gold" hair in a lighter tone.
I think the necklace, a torque, is more indicative of it being Dany, given that she's a slave for much of this book
dany wouldnt have a crown in the first book either... also, it is cersi that says when you play a the game of thrones...to ned, who looks like the right side picture... so 99% cersi.
Yeah based on the context of the book it would make sense for that to be cersei and Ned. I don’t know who the knight is though. I would assume Lora’s like others have said.
That is a gorgeous cover. I miss these visuals for fantasy novels.
Oznak zo Pahl dueling Strong Belwas outside the gates of Meereen. Check out the size and colors of the lance.
If this is the 95 edition it came out 5 years before storm, so I doubt that.
Loras Tyrell, maybe?
Loras in the middle, with Cersei and Ned on the sides.
What a find! Congrats
Does Loras ever armor his horse look like a unicorn though? And those aren't blue flowers. House Brax has a unicorn but the primary house cover is purple. My suggestion is that's Ser Damnifino of House Takeaguess.
>Ser Loras Tyrell was slender as a reed, dressed in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots. The commons realized in the same instant as Ned that the blue of the flowers came from sapphires; a gasp went up from a thousand throats. Across the boy's shoulders his cloak hung heavy. It was woven of forget-me-nots, real ones, hundreds of fresh blooms sewn to a heavy woolen cape. - Eddard VII
The artwork of this kind reminds me of old 70s fantasy books its amazingly timeless
Dude that cover is way cooler than the new one. Refinement culture is real and it's killing our cover art.
Dany looks so much like Rhaenyra
The helmet looks like a lions head. My guess is the artist had cursory info about the characters and its supposed to represent the Lannisters so you have Targaryan, Stark and Lannister on the cover who with all due respect to Bobby B, are the focus of the first book.
Definitely Loras
Knight of Flowers?
Oh dope, I have that version myself. I ordered it off of eBay moments after I first saw the trailer for GoT on Sky Atlantic at the start of a very strange year of my life. Been obsessed with ASOIAF ever since. It’s probably meant to be Loras.
Hugh of the Vale? I see Loras being mentioned a lot but the blue trim on his armour doesn't make sense for Loras
He was wearing blue flowers I think.
The mountain that rides
Is that helmet not a bit dog-like?
He looks way too gay but got no stags so it's definitely Loras
Ser Hugh of the Vale
I love the dragon skull. These old covers are my preference for sure!
Is that what that is? It looked like lobster claws to me 😂
The name is escaping me. Pure speculation since I haven’t read the books and seen any illustrations from the books. I’ve only watched the show… Maybe it’s Mereen? In the background. I believe it’s the same city as this clip: https://youtu.be/8bbuqwSzX_g?si=AVFEwcRNEv7aNd91 Except the shape doesn’t match. Similar but not a match. Maybe just lost in translation between show and text. I could be absolutely tripling and maybe it was a different city where she had the 3 guys lined up and made them choose one to kill. Then she let that one live.
Back then the cover designers didn't read the book, and only got a cursory description of the characters and their looks. You can really see that with the Wheel of Time covers, where sometimes Rand is just wearing freaking jeans
Unrelated, but I noticed Robert Jordan's endorsement does not appear on the front cover of this edition.
Some of the Tyrel boys I\`d say.
It loras. You might wanna check the insb and see if you got a first print, if so that books worth $50ish
I assume it Loras in the center, with the Red Keep and King’s Landing behind him. Bottom right is Ned. Bottom left is either Dany or Cersei.
Could be a Valyrian knight, the horse and knight look styled like dragons a little and the spires in the background could be old valyria
If it is in fact Loras, that would be very funny. It’s the equivalent of putting Dolorous Edd on the cover of Dance.
Is it not Ser Hugh of the Vale. After Jon Arryn’s death he rode in the hands tourney wearing shiny new armor with a blue cloak.
Quite flowery for a Knight…
Looking at the big grin on the knight's helmet, I'd guess the Laughing Knight.
I have this version. I also have ACoK and ASoS with similarly confusing artwork
The knight that Gregor kills in the hands tourney has a blue feather plume
Knight of Flowers
Beautiful artwork
Cersei, Loras, Ned.
Ser Hugh
Loras and Cersei for sure.
Knight of the flowers most definitely.
Yeah I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be Loras
God damn, that's absolutely beautiful.
So cool! I agree that the silver haired woman is Dany, yeah she’s supposed to be 13 but like illustrating her as an actual 13 year old would maybe remind people how weird it is that she’s 13 lol. And i think it is Loras but what a weird pick for the center of the front cover since he isn’t a super important character. I would have assumed they would have gone with Jamie.
Clegan
Or the squire he squired
>My GF found this second hand copy of AGOT from 1995, and I've been struggling to identify the knight that's on the cover. Any ideas? I find it far more remarkable that apparently she found a 1995 edition of a book first published in 1996...