New footage from 'House of the Dragon' shows how the Iron Throne has been changed to better match George R.R. Martin's version from the books

• HBO released the first footage from "House of the Dragon" - a "Game of Thrones" prequel series.
• The trailer shows a new take on the Iron Throne, with more swords in the seat and surrounding steps.
• This new version is more in line with how George R.R. Martin describes the throne in his books.

The first look at HBO's "Game of Thrones" prequel series, "House of the Dragon," includes a glimpse at what the Iron Throne looked like under Targaryen rule. The new design seen in the trailer is closer to the description given by author George R.R. Martin in his book series.

"The HBO throne has become iconic," Martin wrote in a lengthy 2013 blog post about the difference between his Iron Throne and the show's version. "And well it might. It's a terrific design, and it has served the show very well [...] And yet... it's still not right."

He continued: "It's not the Iron Throne I want my readers to see."

Martin's ideal version of the Iron Throne was shown in a published encyclopedic book about the history of Westeros

The Iron Throne in "Game of Thrones" was symmetrical, and much smaller than Martin's vision. In his blog post, Martin says the changes were made for reasonable and practical reasons, given the size of the studio space where "Game of Thrones" was filmed.

An artist named Marc Simonetti drew an illustration of the Iron Throne that was used in Martin's book "A World of Ice and Fire," as well as featured in a themed calendar.

"Marc has come closer here to capturing the Iron Throne as I picture it than any other artist to tackle it," Martin said in his blog. "From now on, THIS will be the reference I give to every other artist tackling a throne room scene. This Iron Throne is massive. Ugly. Asymmetric. It's a throne made by blacksmiths hammering together half-melted, broken, twisted swords, wrenched from the hands of dead men or yielded up by defeated foes... a symbol of conquest."

The Iron Throne and the look of its surrounding room was a key element in many scenes of 'Game of Thrones'

When "Game of Thrones" begins, King Robert Baratheon has been ruling Westeros from the Iron Throne for more than a decade. He made design changes to the throne room, stripping away the symbols of House Targaryen.

In the second season of "Game of Thrones," after the Lannisters have seized power, King Joffrey redecorated the throne room once again, claiming he wanted to return it to its "proper appearance."

"Say what you will about the Targaryens, they were conquerors," Joffrey says in the season two premiere. "That is a seat for a conqueror. It needs a room to match it - not vines and flowers."

Over the course of "Game of Thrones," the Iron Throne was occupied by several more rulers and then ultimately destroyed in the series finale. Daenerys Targaryen was one of the last people to remark upon the iconic throne. In the season eight finale, she finally saw the seat of power in person for the first time.

In a seemingly meta-moment from "Game of Thrones" showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Daenerys observed that the throne didn't live up to her imagination.

"When I was a girl, my brother told me it was made with a thousand swords from Aegon's fallen enemies," she told Jon Snow. "What do a thousand swords look like in the mind of a little girl who can't count to 20? I imagined a mountain of swords too high to climb. So many fallen enemies you could only see the soles of Aegon's feet."

While the new design of the Iron Throne in "House of the Dragon" still doesn't make up a chair "too high to climb," there are certainly closer to 1,000 swords in its back and the surrounding base.

There's more height to the seat, and it appears to be more asymmetrical than the version we know from "Game of Thrones." The ground around the throne, as well as the steps leading up to it, are also covered in melted blades that stick up like a protective thorny bramble.

Cleverly, you can still see the silhouette of the "Game of Thrones" version among the added blades. Perhaps "House of the Dragon" will include some hint at how the throne was eventually made smaller.

"House of the Dragon" will premiere sometime in 2022. You can read everything you need to know about the new series here.

Watch the first trailer for HBO's new series below: