Even in the land of Westeros — which is as far removed from modern times as could conceivably be — there is no escaping modern pop music. George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series became a pop culture sensation after first being adapted for HBO in 2011. In the beginning, Game of Thrones endeared itself to fans by being admirably close to the source material. But the longer Martin delayed on finishing the series, the more showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff had to improvise. Later seasons became less streamlined and more meta than should have been allowed.
Season 7, in particular, featured a distracting appearance from pop musician, Ed Sheeran. While your casual viewer may not be aware that the singer which Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) happens across in a Lannister camp is none other than the “Shape of You” singer, he certainly wastes no time in singing everyone a little diddy. Even stranger is the scene itself. Despite being a camp full of Lannisters, Arya breaks bread with them and openly confesses to her desire to kill Queen Cersei (Lena Headey). But that may have had more to do with the reasoning behind the cameo than anything else.
The ending of Game of Thrones had been met with some divisiveness. As the creatives behind the scenes were gearing up to end the series, they made strange choices, even deciding to show up in Westworld, implying that Game of Thrones is just another cultivated theme park. But choosing to include Sheeran had less to do with fan discourse and more to do with one of its central actors. Williams had grown up on Game of Thrones and endeared herself to audiences as scrappy Arya Stark. According to winteriscoming.net, Benioff stated that the appearance was a gift for Williams ahead of the final season.
“We knew that Maisie was a big fan of Ed Sheeran, and for years we’ve been trying to get him on the show so we can surprise Maisie. This year we finally did it.”
The scene is brief, with Sheeran only having a line or two outside of singing his jingle. But Arya takes a seat beside him as the rest of the Lannister crew exchange words. True to the final seasons of the series, this had little to do with the plot, which caused an unfortunate backlash against the appearance. But in the grand scheme of crimes that Game of Thrones enacted against the fans, the slight is hardly worth losing sleep over now.