Imminent Ned / Brace Yourselves, Winter is Coming

Imminent Ned / Brace Yourselves, Winter is Coming

Part of a series on Game of Thrones. [View Related Entries]

Updated May 03, 2019 at 03:40PM EDT by Brad.

Added Oct 02, 2011 at 08:02PM EDT by Zipodybop.

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About

Imminent Ned (also know as "Winter is Coming") is an image macro series featuring the character Eddard "Ned" Stark from the HBO series Game of Thrones, a television adaption of George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. Its snowclone template "Brace Yourselves, X is Coming" can be versatilely used to forewarn or proclaim the impending arrival of a highly anticipated event, a product or an internet meme.

Origin

In George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, the phrase "winter is coming" is prominently featured as the motto of House Stark of Winterfell, a noble clan renowned for its fortified ancient castle. It was also used in the HBO series Game of Thrones as the title of the pilot episode, which aired on April 17th, 2011, as well as for several promotional trailers and posters.



An image macro featuring a photo of an owl and the phrase "winter is coming" (shown below, left) was submitted to Quickmeme[1] in July 2011, but the phrase didn't take off until it was paired with an HBO promotional portrait of Ned Stark (played by Sean Bean) later in August that year. The earliest known instance using this image (shown below, right) surfaced shortly after the U.S. East Coast earthquake on August 23rd, 2011.


WINTER IS COMING 00才 quickmeme.com BRACE YOURSELVES THE EARTHQUAKE POSTS ARE COMING

Spread

Throughout 2011, Game of Thrones continued to climb in viewership and ratings and so did the prevalence of the image macro series on Reddit, where the subreddit[7] for the show had gained a large following of 20,128 subscribers by early October 2011. On Quickmeme, numerous entries dedicated to the series emerged in August 2011, most notably Imminent Ned[2], Winter is Coming and Ned Star Winter[3] is Coming. Outside of Reddit, there is a fan site for the TV series under the domain WinterIsComing.net and similar image macros can be found on Memebase[6] unde the tag "Winter is Coming" and Tumblr[4] under the tag "Imminent Ned."

Trump "Sanctions Are Coming" Tweet

On November 2nd, 2018, Donald Trump tweeted an image of himself with the words "Sanctions are coming" in the Game of Thrones logo superimposed over him (shown below). The "sanctions" in question are supposed to be against Iran, as the White House Twitter account qualified, "President @realDonaldTrump is reimposing all sanctions lifted under the unacceptable Iran deal. The U.S. is reimposing the toughest sanctions ever on Iran, targeting many of the corrupt regime’s critical sectors."[9]


Donald J. Trump Follow ) ﹀ @realDonaldTrump SANCTIONS R E CⓛMING NO VEMBER 5

Reactions to the tweet ranged from confusion to mockery. Many who saw it were unaware of what Trump was referencing. User @swin24 tweeted "Against who/what?" (shown below, left). User @ditzkoff tweeted "i'm starting to question whether we are a grown-up, adult country," gaining over 190 retweets and 1,400 likes (shown below, right). Reactions to the tweet were covered by Daily Dot.[10]


Asawin Suebsae ng e @swin24 Lol against who/what Donald J. Trump Φ @realDonaldTrump SANCTIONS RE COMING NOVEM BER 5 12:04 PM - Nov 2, 2018 Dave Itzkoff @ditzkoff i'm starting to question whether we are a grown-up, adult country Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump SANCTIONS R E COMING NO V EMBER S 12:08 PM - Nov 2, 2018

Notable Examples

As of June 2012, there are more than 1470 posts related to the phrase on Reddit[5], nearly 20,000 aggregated instances on Quickmeme and at least 1,330 likes on Facebook.[8]


BRACE YOURSELF STEVEJOBS POSTS ARE COMING Braceyoursefl, the Holiday Music iscoming Steam Winter Sale
BRACE YOURSELF ELECTION SEASON IS COMING memegenerator.net BRACE YOURSELF MIDTERMS ARE COMING memegenerator.net SKYRIM IS COMING quickmeme.com
BRACE YOURSELVES THE COMPLAINTSABOUT FACEBOOK CHANGES ARE COMING BRACE YOURSELVES PEOPLE ARE GOING TO START ACTING LIKE WHITNEY HOUSTON WAS A F------ SAINT BRACE YOURSELVES THEE3 POSTS ARE COMING
BRACEYOURSELVES THE FALSE CLAIMS OF IRISH HERATAGE ARE COMING BRACE YOURSELF SHITSTORM IS COMING memegenerator.net BRACE YOURSELF POSTS ABOUT BRACING YOURSELFARE COMING memegenerator.net

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Search queries for "winter is coming" saw a brief spike in April of 2011, coinciding with the premiere episode of HBO's Game of Thrones.

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