Westeros
The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain
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House of the Dragon
As is tradition, HBO has released its latest “what’s upcoming next year” video, and this one features a number of new moments from House of the Dragon‘s third season including a great glimpse at Lord Ormund Hightower (James Norton) in a breastplate engraved with images of the the High Tower, the Mother, and the Warrior, as well as Corlys Velaryon, Alyn of Hull, the queens Alicent and Rhaenyra, and Prince Aemond.
While no official release date has been given, by sheer happenstance Matt Smith was on the UK show This Morning and let slip that he thought it will premiere this August:
The HBO video also has some clips from the forthcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but pretty sure it’s nothing we have not seen before.
Over at the movie prop collecting podcast The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, House of the Dragon co-creator Ryan Condal recently offered a window into the show’s production as the third season filming is hurtling to completion, detailing a tradition he’s started on the show.
Speaking with his co-host, David Mandel (Veep, Seinfeld), Condal confirmed that as the series moves into its later seasons, a growing number of principal characters are having their “series wrap”. Filmed sometime after the 13th or 14th based on remarks on a recent auction, Condal noted that in the last ten days or so of filming there were several such “wraps”. In the unforgiving world of Westeros, of course, we all know what that means. Condal, whose passion for props apparently amuses his show’s directors and writers, revealed that he has adopted a tradition inspired by Peter Jackson’s celebrated practice on The Lord of the Rings: sending off each departing actor with a significant prop tied to their character.
After the Emmy Awards, where HBO Max shows took a combined 30 wins (including Best Drama Series with The Pitt), CEO Casey Bloys held court with the press such as The Wrap and Deadline) at an after-party and discussed a number of different topic, covering a wide range of their shows. But for fans of the universe HBO is making out of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the most interesting details related to the scheduling of both A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and the third season of House of the Dragon.
On the former, Bloys revealed that they are planning to premiere A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms this January, so just four months from now. As noted back in May, originally the show had aimed for a 2025 release but was bumped. With this January window apparently locked in, it seems it only just missed the original target.
Via Deadline, they have confirmed that Australian actress Annie Shapero has been cast to play the role of Alysanne Blackwood.
In the history as written by George R.R. Martin, Alysanne was the young maiden aunt of the even-younger Ben Blackwood, and was a skilled archer who took part in a number of battles during the Dance of the Dragons. It’s unclear how much of that will remain unchanged, but according to Deadline Alysanne will appear in five of the eight episodes in the third season of House of the Dragon.
Alysanne Blackwood at the Battle of the Burning Mill, a battle briefly featured during season 2 but without her presence being explicitly noted.
The nominees for this year’s Primetime Emmy awards are now out, and House of the Dragon has added six fresh nominations to its tally, making the total of 14 nominations across the first two seasons. While this is the first time a show in the Game of Thrones universe has not received an Outstanding Drama nomination, it has a bevy of technical award nominations that underscore the show’s incredible production values. These include:
New York Comic Con returns from October 9th through 12th at the Javits Center, and with it comes its lists of guests. Prominent among them, listed as a guest of honor, is George R.R. Martin. With the Seattle Worldcon in August, this may be the only convention appearances GRRM will be making this year. According to the information on the NYCC page, George will be there on Friday and Saturday. Reports are that the Saturday is entirely sold out, but there may still be tickets for Friday.
(Fun fact: George not only attended the first New York Comiccon in 1964, but was the very first person to shell out $1.50 for a ticket.)
Speaking of big media conventions, Ryan Condal confirmed in the latest episode of his prop collecting podcast, The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of, that there were no plans to promote the still-filming House of the Dragon at San Diego Comic Con as they did last year. In fact, it will be the first SDCC Condal will have missed since moving to LA (barring the Covid years when it did not take place) due to how intense a period July would be for production, and seemed quite sad about it. However, he promised he would push to return to the show next year, citing how much he enjoyed the screening (of last season’s episode 7) and hoped they would repeat something like that.
HBO has announced three new cast members for House of the Dragon Season 3, each taking on important roles as knights caught up in the brutal Dance of the Dragons. I believe at least one of these has been hinted at previously, when Steve Toussaint posted an image of a script listing a number of characters who were present.
You can see the list of the actors and their characters below, as well as some additional thoughts from us!
Barry Sloane, Tom Cullen, and Joplin Sibtain.
House of the Dragon‘s third season officially kicked off a few days ago, and HBO wanted to make sure everyone knew it by having star Emma d’Arcy make the announcement in a video:
The fight for the Throne is far from over.
— House of the Dragon (@HouseofDragon) March 31, 2025
S3 of #HOTD is now in production. pic.twitter.com/NUe4POwIJM
There’s quite a bit more news besides that, however, as some new castings have been revealed… and a new interview with show runner and co-creator Ryan Condal responds to some questions from EW about the season to come… and gives his version of the situation that stirred a great deal of controversy preceding it.
As far as the casting goes, two northerners have been announced: Dan Fogler will play Ser Torrhen Manderly, and Tommy Flanagan will play
[Edit: Ryan Condal has since confirmed to us that Roderick is a lord on the show, not a knight.]
See the full press release that came with the announcement, and list of returning cast members as well as confirmed new ones, below!
At a recent Emmys FYC (“For Your Consideration” event), House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal, executive producer Sara Hess, and a bevy of key cast members teased a number of details about the in-production Season 3, which as yet does not have a release date (though it’ll certainly be sometime in 2026). Noting that cameras haven’t quite started rolling—on The Stuff Dreams Are MAde Of podcast, recorded a week or two so earlier, he noted he was in Wales for final location scouting—the showrunner revealed that writing was basically done on the season. Condal and company hinted that this season will cover four major events described in Fire and Blood, GRRM’s account on which the show is based, and that there would be some new faces in the cast but that most of the significant characters had already been introduced.
On the heels of Heritage’s record-breaking Game of Thrones auction, there’s now a first for House of the Dragon as the production and HBO have donated a Daemon Targaryen costume from season 1, episode 6—worn by Matt Smith in the scenes where Daemon and Laena fly their dragons above Pentos—to be auctioned off at Propstore as part of the Costume Designers Guild Awards’
contribution to that IATSE Emergency Relief Fund’s auction following the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. It is a screen-matched costume and, from what I can tell, complete including gloves, boots, and belts, all resplendent with hand-stitched embroidery.
Deadline has a detailed report concerning everything said in a recent interview by HBO’s Head of Drama Series & Films, Francesca Orsi, regarding the Game of Thrones franchise. Besides the usual update on House of the Dragon and its massive opening for season 3 (cameras start rolling in March, according to reports), Orsi reveals that HBO’s so bullish on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms that if they renew it they may well order two seasons to be filmed back-to-back.
Variety offers an exclusive piece of news, that English actor James Norton has been cast as Ormund Hightower, the Lord of Oldtown, for the third season of House of the Dragon. He’s not a stranger to period and genre films, as he played one of the leads in the BBC’s 2016 adaptation of War and Peace, and played a rather fun role in the HBO sf-tinged series The Nevers. Still to be seen is his role as Harold Godwinson in the upcoming King and Conqueror, which puts him across from Game of Thrones‘alumnus Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who is playing William the Conqueror.
To kick off our celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, we commissioned Ertaç Altınöz to depict Sunfyre, the golden dragon of Aegon II—featured, all too briefly, in House of the Dragon. Ertaç gave us this beautiful image, of the great dragon spreading its wings as it suns itself.
Touching on a subject very near and dear to our hearts, the House of the Dragon official podcast, hosted by Jason Concepcion and Greta Johnsen, has invited show runner Ryan Condal to answer a number of questions about adapting Fire and Blood to the screen. A lot of big topics are spoken of, including Nettles, Damon’s time in Harrenhal, Aegon’s prophetic dream, and more… and at the end, a discussion of George R.R. Martin’s role as an executive producer on the project which, I think, lays out a sense of how much role GRRM actually has at this stage in the production.
Interestingly, this is a surprise episode—two weeks ago, they announced that they’d have a final episode about now… but that one has been pushed into the future because, according to the hosts, they had so many fan questions sent to them after the finale about adaptation choices that they thought it was worth an added podcast. Things have been fairly quiet in the month since the show ended, though we suppose GRRM indicating issues with the season and making clear that he felt a lot has gone wrong on the show. NOTE: There are spoilers, not just for Fire and Blood, but GRRM reveals details about current plans for season 3.
But then, he has begun his promised post (archive link) about Blood and Cheese, and the butterfly effect it causes, and seems like he’ll go further in explaining his problems with the season.
ETA: An update, as HBO has issued a response via a spokesperson:
“There are few greater fans of George R.R. Martin and his book Fire & Blood than the creative team on House of the Dragon, both in production and at HBO. Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”
