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.

In the wake of the announcement of Game of Thrones being renewed for a 3rd season (which George R.R. Martin also commented on), Northern Ireland Screen has confirmed that the production will continue to be based in Northern Ireland. Th show will receive funding from the Northern Ireland Screen fund supported by Invest NI and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. Shooting will take place in the Paint Hall film studio, the new sound stages in Belfast, the Linen Mill Film Studios in Banbridge and various other locations throughout Northern Ireland.

George R.R. Martin has posted about the Season 3 renewal, and he adds some interesting information: the number and working title of the episode he’ll be writing for that season, while apparently confirming that it’ll be a 10 episode season:

Having planned to run this last week just before the premiere, and then just after the premiere, and then when we had the renewal news, and then this past weekend… and, look at that, there’s renewal news!

Well, it’s finally live: the last interview from our trip to the international press junket in London in late February, where we talk with executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss. I’d met David before when I visited the set back during the filming of the first season, and I’d spoken to the both of them during an interview around that time as well, but it was the first time meeting Dan… and yes, he’s just as much One Of Us as you can imagine, geek boys and girls; check out the question regarding the shirt he was wearing!

Read the interview!

This just in from HBO:

If you consider yourself a “super-fan” of Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire—if you can recite the names of all of Walder Frey’s sons while standing on your head, or have an amazing costume as Mord the Jailer, or have made up a tune to “The Rains of Castamere”, or have painted Jaime Lannister riding a horse down a cliff while declaiming epic poetry as he plays the high harp with one hand and cuts down a White Walker with the sword in his other hand, have covered yourself in house sigil tats, or had a wedding where “The Rains of Castamere” also featured —then Sky Atlantic’s very cool Thronecast program wants you to get in touch to possibly be featured in a future episode.

And if you’re in the London area? Probably even better for your chances to get on! If you’d like to volunteer and be considered for the program, contact Thronecast at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The second episode of season two, The Night Lands, pulled a 3.8 million viewership on the initial airing according to James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly. This is a very slight dip from the 3.9 million for the first episode, and given that it was a holiday weekend as well as typical post-premier drop-off it has to be considered a good sign.

Our detailed recap, analysis, and book-to-screen breakdown—plus some extra material in the form of a short video Linda and I have prepared providing some background for those who haven’t read the books and our take on the highs and lows of the episode—can now be found over at our episode page!

At 2PM Eastern today, CNN’s The Next List will be airing a 30-minute episode focused entirely on the work of David J. Peterson (Dedalvs on Twitter), creator of the Dothraki language on HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Leading up to it, CNN has posted up some clips featuring remarks from executive producers David Benioff & Dan Weiss, as well as star Emilia Clarke, regarding the importance of the language to the show. Here’s one of them:

It’s worth noting that the Next List blog also contains guest posts from Peterson, touching on the topics of creating languages and the history of invented languages in Hollywood. Well worth reading!

This is quite cool—Eastercon is live streaming selected panels via UStream... and right this moment they’re streaming Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel) going through fight choreography (with a friend of ours, no less—Jo, a historical re-enactor, member of the Brotherhood without Banners, and an all-around awesome person). John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) is also on hand!

It looks like the next panel being streamed from Eastercon will be a Wild Cards panel featuring George R.R. Martin, so stay tuned!

So, everyone hoped for word that HBO was happy with Game of Thrones and would announce on Monday morning that it was ordering another season. Or, as last year, maybe it’d be a day or two more - Tuesday or Wednesday.

Now it’s Friday… and nothing. What’s happening?

The return of Game of Thrones to Sky Atlantic heralds many things—among them, the return of Sky’s after-show, Thronecast. Hosted by Geoff Lloyd, it’s a fun—and often irreverent (in a good way!)—show that has a bit of everything. The upcoming episode 2 will feature an interview with the delightful Maisie Williams.

Oh, and every segment contains a few words on various topics from Linda and I, generally explaining arcane bits of background or discussing how fans are receiving aspects of the show this time around. It’s always nice to chat with Geoff.

If you’re in the UK, you can catch Thronecast at the official site, where you’ll also find interviews with a number of actors that Thronecast got a hold of during the press junket at the end of February. The show also available via iTunes, for your iOS devices or Mac/PC.