How did that Starbucks cup end up on ‘Game of Thrones’?

By Nardine SaadStaff Writer

May 6, 2019 10:50 AM PT

Forget those theories about the Night King’s true identity and dragon resurrections. The latest “Game of Thrones” guessing game has everything to do with a Starbucks coffee cup that made its way into a feast scene on Sunday.

Beware: Spoilers are coming.

The blooper was briefly seen in “The Last of the Starks,” sitting unassumingly on a Winterfell banquet table between Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and Jon Snow (Kit Harington).

Starbucks promptly weighed in Monday morning with a winking tweet promoting one of its beverages: “TBH we’re surprised she didn’t order a Dragon Drink.” And HBO cracked its own joke about the mishap, saying in a statement: “The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake. Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea.”

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Given the lavish show’s exorbitant budget and recent critiques about its lighting and battle scenes, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gaffe still had viewers consumed with the how and why of it all.

Incidentally, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss also made cameos as Wildling warriors in the feast scene, but were eclipsed by the anachronism — as were the major heartbreaks and deaths of the Season 8 episode.

The blunder even elicited a statement from the show’s longtime art director, Hauke Richter, who told Variety that it was forgotten on set and has been “so blown out of proportion [because] it has not happened with ‘Thrones’ so far.”

Executive producer Bernie Caulfield also told WNYC’s “All of It” that she, too, couldn’t believe the cup made it into the scene. She apologized for it while also making light of its reception.

“Our on-set prop people and decorators are so on it 1,000%,” Caulfield said. “Nowadays you can’t believe what you see ’cause people can put things into a photo that really doesn’t exist. But I guess maybe it was there, I’m not sure. But, yeah. We’re sorry! Westeros was the first place to actually, you know, have Starbucks, and it’s a little-known fact.”

Still, the reactions were fast, funny and ferocious as the cup’s presence dominated next-day chatter online. Here are a few of the internet’s funniest theories: