Mexico’s historic Chapultepec Castle has been depicted flying the black Targaryen flag and officials in Mexico are not amused.
The plot of the House of the Dragon, a Game of Thrones prequel, apparently involves countries taking sides in a civil war for control of the fictitious Iron Throne.
The producers of the HBO series on Monday posted a video of the 19th-century Mexico City hilltop castle showing the black Targaryen flag hanging over the battlements.
Photo: Reuters
The flag, representing Queen Rhaenyra, predictably has a dragon on it.
Mexican officials on Monday issued a statement saying it was not true and threatening to sue.
However, it is not because they support Laenor Velaryon.
Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said that the flags were generated by technology and had never really hung at the site.
Game of Thrones social media accounts posted similar images of other world landmarks, including New York City bridges.
The institute, which is the legal guardian of Mexico’s historic buildings and artifacts, was hopping mad that the historical site had been used in the ad campaign, and said that it would take legal action.
“The reproduction of images of this site for use in promoting this series has not been authorized,” it said. “For this reason, the INAH legal department will take all necessary legal measures, because this constitutes an improper use of images of a historical site.”
HBO did not respond to messages seeking comment.
It is unclear whether Mexico can win the legal battle against artificial intelligence and computer-generated images.
The institute did not claim authorship rights of the original video.
The site is open to the public, so anyone could have filmed it.
During the 1846-1948 Mexican-American War, the castle was the site of the 1847 battle of Chapultepec, when Mexicans defending the heights where the castle stands died rather than surrender to US troops.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
RSS