There’s a lot going on in Altered Carbon, Netflix’s outrageously expensive sci-fi show. There’s flying stuff, naked people, crazy drugs, people with no clothes on, ridiculous violence, people with their bits out, absurd metaphysical concepts and people’s bottoms.
But, eagle-eyed viewers have spotted something else as well. In among the neon, bullets, buttocks and mind-bending concepts, is a nod to Game of Thrones.
Remember the Seven, the New Gods that the High Sparrow and his pals worshipped until Cersei blew them up? They’re known as the Father, the Mother, the Maiden, the Crone, the Warrior, the Smith, and the Stranger, and all represent one facet of existence.
They’ve got a logo, because even in Westeros, branding is all-important. Check out the logo on the tarp behind Elliot Carver there.
Good logo, right? That star, if you ever want to draw it on your pencil case or anything, is a unicursal heptagram with a vertex interval step of three. You’re welcome.
Now take a look at the far-future cyberpunk stained glass window in Altered Carbon…
While Game of Thrones takes place in a different world to ours, Altered Carbon is set on Earth, just the Earth of the distant future, the year 2384. Does this mean that, in the next 366 years or so, people will start following this made-up religion? There’s no reason not to, really - it’s as plausible as a lot of ‘real’ religions are, has that cool-ass logo, and seems easier than learning Dothraki as a way of taking your fandom to an extreme.
So presumably it’ll start with a few hardcore Throneheads adopting the ways of the High Sparrow, and as time goes on and it spreads, the televised roots of their new faith will matter less and less, and it’ll go from being ‘that goofy fake religion off the telly’ to one of the world’s most predominant belief systems. That’s the only possible answer.
Like, the other possible explanation is that Thrones and Carbon have a mutual pal in director Miguel Sapochnik. He did some of the most impressive, battle-based GoT episodes, including ‘Hardhome’ and ’Battle of the Bastards’, and has directed six of Altered Carbon’s ten-episode first season.
So it might just be a fun in-joke. But that sounds unlikely, right? It’s probably the the-whole-world-being-taken-over-by-a-goofy-faith thing.
(Images: Netflix / HBO)
