Cersei’s elephants in the Game Of Thrones premiere come from the books

Last night’s Game Of Thrones premiere offered us something we rarely get to see – a shaken Cersei Lannister. What was she upset about? Elephants. Yes, apparently there are elephants in the world of GOT, but not in Westeros.

In a bid to boost her army Cersei had ordered The Golden Company to ship over mercenary reinforcements so she could protect her reign of the Iron Throne from the incoming flood of White Walkers.

Euron Greyjoy managed to bring over 20,000 men and 2,000 horses, but absolutely zero elephants – much to Cersei’s disgust. ‘That’s disappointing,’ she said when she heard the bad news.

Obviously, the reason no elephants made it over to King’s Landing is because the animals don’t do too well on long journeys across the sea on wooden boats.

Visibly angry by the revelation that elephants won’t feature in her bolstered army, Cersei won’t let the elephant situation drop. ‘I wanted those elephants,’ she tells Euron again, after they’ve had a bit of fun.

But there’s actually a reason Cersei bangs on about her lack of elephants. As pointed out by Vulture, The Golden Company were actually famous for their elephants – all 24 of them – so it’s no wonder the current queen feels a little downtrodden on her deal.

(Now feels the right time to let you know that one of the elephants was named Little Pussy.)

As we know, the books and the series have now narratively parted ways – after all, there’s only so much you can fit into an hour of TV – and to add insult to injury, in the alternate literary universe Cersei did get her elephants. Well, of them.

In George R. R. Martin’s fifth GOT novel, A Dance With Dragons, we learn of The Golden Company through a rather long-winded side story that has thankfully been cut from the HBO show lest it get even more complicated.

Someone in the writer’s room clearly wasn’t happy with this decision, and so decided to throw in an elephant-sized easter egg for viewers who have also read the series so far.

In a way, we’re glad we didn’t get the elephants in the show. They’d only end up being murdered by dragons anyway.

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