George RR Martin has been sneaking Muppets references into Fire And Blood and other Game of Thrones books

Step forward, Lord Kermit and Ser Elmo

(HBO/Disney)

The ever-expanding A Song of Ice and Fire universe is filled with so many characters that it must be a struggle to come up with names for them all. So much of a struggle perhaps that you start just naming them after Muppets.

There’s been a theory circulating among George RR Martin’s fans for some time that the author is sneaking in references to the puppet characters with House Tully.

We already knew of a Grover Tully and his grandson Elmo, but Martin’s latest Game of Thrones book, Fire & Blood, details a Kermit Tully, who was Lord of Riverrun and remembered as “green as summer grass”.

There's also potential Sesame Street reference: Kermit Tully had a brother named Oscar who was “still greener” and “cursed with the sort of prickly pride so common in second sons”. So, a grouch, then?

Grover, Elmo, Kermit and Oscar are, of course, all real names, but it’s hard to believe that the Tullys weren’t so christened because of their famous puppet namesakes.

The name of the son who came in-between Grover and Elmo is at present unknown, but perhaps we can expect it to be Bunsen or Gonzo.

With Martin still keeping fans waiting on The Winds of Winter, not everyone’s delighted with his Muppet mischief.

“I’m all for fun little references, but the Kermit/Elmo thing was lazy.” one fan complained on Reddit.