Westeros

As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men… but at last we finished our promised season 1 overview/discussion of House of the Dragon, which you can see here:

We’ve some other odds and ends to discuss, such as an extra video we did discussing the finale after Elio’s return from Spain, and a podcast Elio recorded for the Boiled Leather Audio Hour podcast, details about which you can find below!

Arrax approaching Storm’s End.

Today is the day: The Rise of the Dragon has hit book shelves in many countries! It’s also available as an e-book ... and even as an audio book, read by the wonderful Harry Lloyd (Viserys Targaryen in Game of Thrones) which is a particular honor since we’re huge fans of his. We’ve been amazed by the positive response online, especially at the various art previews, and we have to say we owe a lot to all the artists who worked hard to make this what this is. There’s a lot of promotion going on, but one we particularly enjoyed is this trailer from our terrific UK publisher, Harper Voyager:

In the lead up to today’s release, George R.R. Martin took part in an online event where he spoke with friend and author David Anthony Durham to promote the book as well as House of the Dragon. While the stream has not been publicly released as of yet, read below for some of our realtime tweeting of some choice remarks and information from George… including an update on progress on The Winds of Winter!

The final episode of the first season of House of the Dragon is done, and we’re (actually, just Linda initially, but we’ll have more videos in the days to come) back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:

And that concludes the first season of House of the Dragon! The Dance has truly begun.

Rhaenyra by the Painted Table, lit by fire from below.

The penultimate episode of the first season of House of the Dragon is done, and we’re back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:

Next up will be “The Black Queen” to conclude the first season of House of the Dragon.

The Green Council, as Otto and Alicent Hightower inform the councillors of the king’s death while Ser Criston Cole watches.

Another episode down, and we’re back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:

We’re in the home stretch now, with just two episodes to go. Next up will be “The Green Council”, followed up by “The Black Queen” to conclude the first season of House of the Dragon.

King Viserys on the Iron Throne.

The official Youtube page for the Game of Thrones Studio Tour at the Linen Mill Studio in Northern Ireland— exclusive home to an enormous assortment of props, weapons, armor, costumes, and even whole sets from the TV show—has released a lengthy video where the show’s weapons master, Tommy Dunne, speaks at length about his work on the show as it relates specifically to the infamous catspaw dagger that has now become so central to House of the Dragon. See below for the video!

The original catspaw dagger as seen on Game of Thrones. The new version is closely based on it, but its proportions have been tweaked for House of the Dragon.

An interview long in the making, we finally got to sit down with Ryan Condal, lead writer, executive producer, and now sole show runner of House of the Dragon last week to talk about the show. After Linda had a chance to say hello then headed off to keep an eye on our very rambunctious puppy Lancelot, we started the interview.

We open up with a question on post-production, and then get into the weeds on favorite book characters, depictions of violence, heraldry, a forgotten Valyrian house, the change from book canon when casting the Velaryons, whether Ryan will continue with the show after completing this particular story, and more.

Click here for the interview!

Ryan Condal behind the scenes with a maquette of Caraxes. ©️ Ollie Upton/HBO

Half way through the season, and “The Princess and the Queen” makes the boldest jump yet as a decade has passed since the previous episode, new actors play key roles, and a passel of new young characters appear. Linda and I return with with our usual non-review focus on providing some more background information and changes from the source material to the screen. Lots of background in this particular episode:

Ser Laenor supports Princess Rhaenyra as she’s called to present the newborn Prince Joffrey to the queen.

Both Linda and I got our first glimpses at the House of the Dragon-inspired beverages from Danish brewery Mikkeller (dubbing themselves House Mikkeller of Denmark, naturally) at the premieres of House of the Dragon in Stockholm and Amsterdam. The red Caraxes cans were very prominent at the afterparty bars, and seemed to be quite popular. Mikkeller Brewery contacted us about trying a sample of the beers, which we were glad to do despite neither of us being experienced with beer (non-alcholic or otherwise!) and we have to say it was a very interesting experience that makes us think we’re going to have to start branching out from the ciders which are normally all we drink when it comes to alcohol.

Below, you’ll see our video “review”, which I put in quotes because we’re woefully lacking in knowledge to give thorough and detailed impressions!

A photo from the European premiere’s afterparty in Amsterdam.

We’re back to discuss the third episode of House of the Dragon, titled “Second of His Name”. As usual, we discuss some changes from the source material, provide some additional background information for things touched on only lightly in the episode, and finally some dragon facts (quite brief ones, in this case!)

Well, this was big, surprising news. The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd has reported that after three, exhausting years working on bringing the first season of House of the Dragon to the screen Miguel Sapochnik is leaving the show and Ryan Condal will be the sole show runner. However, the very experienced director Alan Taylor—who played a key role in directing a number of early episodes of Game of Thrones—has come on board as an executive producer and director instead.

This tweet says it all:

Over at The Hollywood Reporter, James Hibberd provides a bit more detail, citing HBO’s report that in the US the show has cleared over 20 million viewers since the premiere, the kind of strong opening they were hoping for.

Been a long time since we’ve done one of these, and suffice it to say the combination of rusty recollection plus a bunch of new equipment made this a bit of a trial. Add a very lively puppy plus sundry other things, and this video is later than we hoped, but it’s done. As we remarked in our “Not a Review” of the first six episodes, we’re not really reviewing the show (as we did—and then Linda did solo after I quit—with Game of Thrones) but instead discussing some of the choices and changes made in the adaptation, as well as providing some background information and (of course) dragon facts.

You can see the episode below:

We’ve had the opportunity to watch the first six episodes of House of the Dragon, courtesy of HBO Max, and we certainly have some thoughts about the show. We’ve placed our “Not a Review” in our Features section which hasn’t seen much use since Game of Thrones came to an end, so go read it there.

A brand new promo ahead of the airing of House of the Dragon... and it includes an excellent look at the last living dragon from the Conquest, Vhagar: