Westeros

For those who’ve always wondered a bit what the series might have looked like at various stages during conceptualization of the people and places, Kimberley Pope—a concept artist who’s worked on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Agora, Elizabeth: the Golden Age, and of course Game of Thrones—has shared a number of examples of concept art, both for this season and last. There’s some spoilers in the season 2 material, rather mild… but there’s also a lot of amazing material, including various iterations of the Dragonstone and Harrenhal designs, good looks at the Eyrie with a kind of cable car (instead of a winch cage), and more.

Very much worth a gander.

The licensed Game of Thrones action roleplaying game, developed by Cyanide Studio and published by Atlus USA (in the US) and Focus Home Interactive (Europe), is approaching with a June 1st release date. The PS3and XBox versions have been available for pre-order for awhile, and include an incentive in the form of an art book… but finally, the PC version can be readily ordered thanks to Steam’s pre-purchase option.

We’ve given the game extensive coverage in the past, that’s worth checking out, plus make sure to visit the official site for more information!

Thanks to Adam Whitehead for pointing out the pre-purchase option now being available.

Besides our analysis and recaps posted in the Episodes section, Linda and I provide commentary in various other places: our Youtube channel, Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast, MTV News’s Watching the Thrones covers the video angle. But besides that, I provide a bit of additional commentary on the episodes, and the setting and story in general, via Random Houses’s SF/F/H portal, Suvudu.

Each week, an additional review—generally focusing on and providing a bit more detail on thoughts raised in our own analysis of each episode—but, perhaps of more interest, brief essays touching on various topics relevant to the past episode. You can find all of these posts by keeping an eye on the Game of Thrones tag over at Suvudu. Next essay will be up later this week, focusing on Melisandre of Asshai, and the magic she performs.

One of the key deviations from the novels this season is that Robb Stark, played by Scottish actor Richard Madden, will be followed in his journey through the narrative when the book pulled away and kept him in the background.

In past interviews, the executive producers have said a large part of the reason was that they loved Madden and his presence on the show, and they wanted to see more of him. It’s difficult not to see their point: handsome, capable of playing stalwart and naive by turns, and charismatic, Madden draws the eye whenever he’s on screen portraying Eddard Stark’s son, who is now the King in the North.

We had a chance to speak with Madden on the phone while he’s in L.A. doing the press thing, and decided to ask him questions (and, in one case, make a proposal) based on what fans submitted to us.

Read the interview!

With the episode just completed, we’ve posted our full coverage of episode 4 of Game of Thrones, “Garden of Bones”. A detailed recap, a lengthy analysis, and a breakdown of transforming the book to the screen are all available, plus a video Linda and I made in the “Extras” section to provide some additional background and share our thoughts on the best and worst scenes.

Check it out!

Gold Derby has a mass of pictures and details concerning HBO’s “for your consideration” package that they’ve sent out to the 15,000-strong Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to help provide material for them to decide their Emmy nominations. Of particular note to fans will be the Game of Thrones actors and actresses that HBO has submitted for consideration with the academy:

• Best Actor/Actress: None. Which is interesting, to say the least. Is it because the ensemble cast suggests there’s no single lead actor? That’s fair enough, but it does seem strange to not have Dinklage here when he’s now heading the credits…
• Best Supporting Actor: Peter Dinklage, of course, joined by Alfie Allen, Kit Harington, and Richard Madden. As Gold Derby notes, eligible performers can submit on their own, so nothing is stopping Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Stephen Dillane, Liam Cunningham, or others for submitting themselves.
• Best Supporting Actress: Maisie Williams, Michelle Fairley, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, and Sophie Turner.
• Best Drama: Game of Thrones joins Boardwalk Empire, Luck, and True Blood.

Thanks to a post at our forum, we’ve learned of a report at Variety that discusses just how well HBO’s Game of Thrones has done for itself. The most salient detail:

These are very strong numbers indeed. From a bit of Googling, at its height True Blood managed 12.7 million viewers per week… and it feels like there’s room to grow, both in the overall averge and in the initial airing ratings as well. After the very strong “What is Dead May Never Die”, it’ll be interesting to see how “Garden of Bones” performs. Will it climb a little thanks to the buzz? Will the weekly average pick up a bit more quickly?

TV Guide has an exclusive story looking at the many women of HBO’s Game of Thrones, with what seems to be quotes from interviews with a number of the actresses, as well as the executive producers. Nice idea, and I suspect there’ll be some juicy bits of information in there. It’s a digital exclusive, as well, or at least it’s showing up first on their digital platforms for those with access to the Kindle Fire or the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Ah, this reminds me of the late 90’s, when web and IRC chats were the way to chat with authors on-line. These days it’s all interviews with a few sent in questions at times, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but it certainly feels a bit less participatory. I wonder if HBO might ever borrow a page from Starz, where at several points

In any case, Empire Onlne—the portal of the UKs Empire Magazine, which covers film and television with a particular interest in genre—will be hosting a live web-chat with George R.R. Martin this coming Monday at 1PM British time (that’d be 8AM Eastern, 5 AM Pacific). Only room for 500 people to sit in on the chat, which will be moderated by Empire Online’s staff. Some of them have even read the books, so one hopes they’ll grab some excellent questions which aren’t so often asked (please, please, Empire: skip the “Which character is most like you” and “How did you start the series” questions that seem to be a staple of these things!)

There was more than one interview conducted during Eastercon with A Song of Ice and Fire writer and creator, George R.R. Martin. While George took part in various panels and an official interview for the convention, he took time out to talk with Geoff Lloyd, the host of Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast.

Here’s what he had to say on a number of topics—including which characters in the show are quite different from his own representation of them in the book (one of them is somewhat of a surprise to me!)

Speaking of Thronecast, you can find every episode for this season linked in the Extras section of the various Season 2 episode guides, as well as our own videos plus our contributions to MTV News’ “Watching the Throne” program.

Word just in on the ratings for episode 3, “What is Dead May Never Die”, and the results (as reported by EW) are rock solid: a 3.8 million rating, just like last week.

Now lets see if this episode and the next, and the buzz we expect them to generate—it’s really good television!—will start seeing the ratings climb.

Almost a year ago, we first had a long chat with writer and keeper of the mythos, Bryan Cogman, about his role in the first season, which included writing the episode, “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”.

Bryan was there almost from the ground floor, helping during the time of the pilot, and becoming the right hand man to David and Dan as they developed, wrote, and produced the show. Going into the second season, he received the title of story editor… and he wrote the extremely well-received third episode of the series, “What is Dead May Never Die”.

In the interview below, Bryan discusses various aspects of the episode, his overall role on the show, and more. Insightful as always!

Read the interview!

While everyone’s still reveling in the great episode, “What is Dead May Never Die”, HBO’s decided to be generous and put out a couple of new videos filling in background related to the religious environment in the novels. It certainly provides more context to what Stannis was doing on Dragonstone when he burned the statues of the Seven!

And as a bonus—and since we missed it when it was initially put up, HBO decided that Maisie, Isaac, and Sophie signing along with the Game of Thrones theme—which you can find on their commentary on the DVD/Bluray—was worthy of being a video in its own right. We agree!

HBO has released its recap and inside look into the latest episode, “What is Dead May Never Die”, with executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss discussing several of the key scenes and characters. We’ve added the recap to our own recap section, and the Inside the Episode to our analysis section—check them out!

And because we forgot this last night, we’ve also made public our “Bonus material” for episode 3 in the Extras section of the episode page, where Linda and I provide some background that isn’t apparent in the novels for those who’ve not read them, as well as discuss what we consider the high and low points in the episode.

While HBO was at it, they also released the preview for the fourth episode, “Garden of Bones”, which will see the return to Daenerys Targaryen’s story and that of Stannis Baratheon. It’s a good one, written by new staff writer Vanessa Taylor. We’ve written up our own brief preview of next week’s episode, as well, which teases some of what you’ll see.

We’ve posted our full recap, analysis, and scene-by-scene breakdown of the latest Game of Thrones episode from HBO, “What is Dead May Never Die”. Great episode, our favorite so far—and it contains our favorite sequence in all four episodes (in fact, it’s probably one of our favorite sequences in the whole series to date!)

Once you’ve looked that over, please feel free to join fellow fans in discussing the episode—both from the perspective of those familiar with the books and those who aren’t, in separate threads—at the A Song of Ice and Fire, and rate the episode while you’re at it! Membership at the forum costs nothing and, hey, you can use FB or Twitter logins to make it easier.