Westeros

An armored knight at the Hand’s tourney. We originally believed this was Ser Hugh of the Vale, but we notice the lack of the cloth or mail aventail in the other screen cap that is evident here. Still, the armor looks extremely similar, and we suspect it is him. In any case, this is a pretty full plate of armor, with some chainmail at the gaps evident. The scalloped lames of the fauld (the armor at his hip; in the novels, “lobstered” is the term used to refer to armor that uses overlapping lames of metal) reminds us of Gothic armor. This is not a style GRRM particularly envisioned, but a number of artists (including Tom Meier) have looked to that aesthetic for inspiration, and it seems a fine way to add some variety to the styles of armor shown in the show.

The “white armor” look of it—that is, the highly-polished steel—looks quite good. In the books, such armor is often noted as “silvered”, which is probably quite literally armor that has been silver-plated in that case, which shows off the fabulous wealth of many of the houses in the setting as compared to their counterparts in the real Middle Ages. Some go further and make heavy use of gold-plated armor, but more on that later.

If this is Ser Hugh, we also see that he’s lacking a cloak such as is described in the novel. This is an ubiquitous garment in Westeros, and it is particularly common at tourneys, where colorful cloaks bearing heraldic arms are a part of the pageantry. Cloaks seem relegated to almost never being worn with clothing in the series.

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