George Bush in Game of Thrones

Did you know that former President of the United States, George W. Bush has a cameo appearance in the season one finale of the awesome HBO series Game of Thrones?

Well, he kindof makes an appearance.

43rd President of the United States

See, at the end of season one, several of the newly anointed king's enemies have been beheaded and the heads placed on pikes as a warning to others. Joffrey, being the punk kid that he is and punch drunk on power as the king, really likes throwing around his newfound authority by cutting off body parts of those he dislikes. Sometimes it's hands, sometimes tongues, bust mostly it's heads. In the series finale, Joffrey forces Sansa Stark to look at the decapitated head of her father and a few others stuck on pikes atop the castle wall, which is a very mean thing to do to the woman you will soon marry.

Total brat and terrible king

In an effort to depict the chaos and calamity that Joffrey brought to King's Landing, which serves as the capital city for the Seven Kingdoms, HBO needed to get their hands on a lot of decapitated heads. The prop department HBO contracted to provide these heads came up with a George W. Bush head that they had used in a previous gig. They put a wig on it, bloodied it up a bit, and made sure it was turned at an obscure angle when filming began.

Saw her dad and G.W.B. on a pike

Nobody even knew that the prop was a head of President Bush. That is, it went unnoticed until one of the producers said something on the commentary on the Blu-Ray. Even then, it took several months for people to catch on. The original air date for the episode was June 19, 2011, and the Blu-Ray was released on March 6, 2012.

The exchange between series creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss on the episode commentary went something like this:

"People may not have noticed this. They should back up. The last head on the left is George Bush."

"George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes."

"It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around."

It seems innocent enough. At the time of production for season one of Game of Thrones, HBO didn't know if they were going to have a mega-hit or a complete flop on their hands. They were trying to do an epic fantasy series justice while keeping the budget low. HBO could have lost a ton of money if the series didn't catch on with the public. The production was looking to reduce costs any way they could. It stands to reason that the prop department would mine their warehouse for materials they could recycle from other projects rather than make all new props.

A prop that doesn't hurt anyone but the person who sits on it

However, now that people are aware that Bush's likeness was used to depict a beheaded figure, this has become a real headache for HBO. They are taking unprecedented, and some might say silly, steps to smooth over this situation. For starters, they released an apologetic statement on Facebook.

"We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste. We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."

Alright, apologizing at the first hint of trouble. That's fine. You would think that would be the end of things, but no! They are also recalling existing inventory of Blu-Rays and DVDs and pulling digital video copies from HBOGo. One presumes that they will be digitally altering the scene to remove or replace the offending image.

Somewhere, the Imp is amused

It all seems like a major knee-jerk overreaction to me. There's little reason to be offended by a company re-using a prop, even if the prop in question is a head of a former President. It wasn't done with malice, it wasn't done for political gain. This is a crisis that hurts noone, and yet HBO flipped their lid. I would feel much better about the state of society if HBO just shrugged their shoulders and carried on with business as usual. Instead, they have caved to phantom pressure. They are taking what at most should be a minor issue and blowing it way out of proportion.

What do you think of the Game of Thrones crisis? Do you view this as President Bush's head on a pike, or is it simply a prop? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter!