Mourn Game of Thrones' Dead at This Sydney Graveyard

Fans are invited to mourn Game of Thrones’ dead at a pop-up graveyard in Sydney.

You can’t get too attached to anyone on Game of Thrones – before you know it, their head is squeezed in by a giant, they’re eaten alive by their own dogs or their throat is slit at their son’s wedding.

To commemorate the many – many, many – casualties from the Seven Kingdoms and celebrate the advent of the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, Foxtel has organised a suitably sombre occasion.

The experience is called Grave of Thrones and it’s a graveyard in Centennial Park dedicated to the memory of characters for whom an eternal winter has descended. And given that there have been, according to fan site Winteriscoming.net, 174,373 deaths during the first seven seasons of the show, the graveyard is rather large.

Spread over 2000 square metres, the burial ground is crowded with gravestones for 34 notorious characters such as Little Finger, Ramsay Bolton and the Sand Snakes. Each headstone records the life and death of the deceased in incredible detail: we dare you not to cry when standing at the grave of Hodor, crafted in the shape of a pair of hands holding a door.

More than 30 sculptors, artists and designers have worked around the clock for 10 weeks to bring the graveyard to life, as it were, and each headstone, monument and mausoleum is richly layered with references to the show. It was created to be interactive – mourners are encouraged to leave tributes for their favourite characters: a goblet of wine for King Joffrey, perhaps, or a golden trinket for Viserys Targaryen.

The pop-up is open to the public from Friday 12 April until Sunday 14 April from 7am until 6pm. Go to Grave of Thrones to download a map of the graveyard and an audio tour of the cemetery. Game of Thrones season 8 premieres on Foxtel on Monday 15 April at 11am.