Hafþór Björnsson — The Mountain from Game of Thrones, Iceland’s Strongest Man, and the self-proclaimed “FUTURE OF STRENGTH” — zipped over to England this weekend for London Film and Comic Con. The event itself is really only worth noting because Björnsson tweeted out this picture of himself seated on a replica of the Iron Throne, and he included no text at all in the tweet, which almost made it seem like a threat. Like he might return and take it by force. Like he might do it without telling any of the writers or other actors, just choosing to show up on set one day and announce that he’s the king now and including an implied dare to hold an opinion in the alternative. Like that. Which would be fun.
But I digress. The real fun came on his return trip to Iceland. There are two steps here. We will address them one at a time. First, this:
Being to big can sometimes be pain in the ass, especially when you're traveling. #icelandair pic.twitter.com/lntYBKpd1X
— Hafþór J Björnsson (@ThorBjornsson_) October 18, 2014
To be very clear: this is a delightful tweet. Giant man in what appears to be a tiny airplane bathroom, quizzical cocked eyebrow implying that using said bathroom will be difficult at best and “THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE SO I WILL NOW SMASH MY FIST THROUGH THESE URINE-SOAKED WALLS” at worst, the fact that a full-size iPhone looks like an iPod Nano in his meaty paws, all of it. Just a truly delightful tweet. It’s not necessarily a surprise, as his feed is basically littered with them, but still, has to be noted.
Moving along. As you can see, he tagged the tweet “#Icelandair.” This brings us to our second step:
@ThorBjornsson_ Hi Hafþór! Unfortunately our planes are designed to fly over mountains, not carry them. We do hope you enjoyed your flight!
— Icelandair (@Icelandair) October 19, 2014
Now, normally the general concept of a brand searching hashtags for people discussing its product or service and then replying to said people would make my eye start twitching a little, but this, this, is some good brand tweeting. And it’s even more impressive because Björnsson doesn’t mention Game of Thrones anywhere in his Twitter bio. (“Pro Strongman Athlete, Worlds Strongest Man competitor, Iceland’s Strongest Man 2011, 2012, 2013 Father.”) This means either (a) Iceland Air’s social media person saw a monster of a human in one of the company’s planes and thought “I should Google him,” or, more likely, (b) Iceland Air’s social media person is a fan of Game of Thrones and/or the Icelandic strongman circuit, was familiar with Björnsson’s career and role on the show, and has a pretty decent sense of humor. Yup, really just great work out of everyone here.
In conclusion, here is Björnsson turning a perfectly nice t-shirt into dishrags, because it should probably be included every time his name comes up. The end.
