Westeros

Adam Savage, famed special effects fabricator best known for co-hosting Mythbusters, has a great Youtube series called Tested that’s been a great success. So much so that he’s been invited behind the scenes of a number of productions and effects houses over time… and the latest such behind-the-scenes tour involves none other than House of the Dragon.

Promising to be the first of several videos from the production, the introductory episode features master armourer Tim Lewis as he shows Adam swords and other blades that the production has made… including a look at what I am quite certain was their hero Ice while still in the earliest stages of creation.

As always, the highlight for us was the detailed, close-up look at Peter Johnsson’s remarkable Blackfyre and Dark Sister. Some amazing details in those, but a great surprise was learning that Corlys Velaryon’s dagger includes a crude astrolabe in the pommel, suitable to his place as a famed navigator and sailor.

Via Variety, a press conference today with House of the Dragon ahow runner Ryan Condal provided the confirmation of what many suspected: the fourth season will also be the last for the show. This makes sense, given the pace. There are some other interesting remarks there, including Condal indicating he doesn’t yet know if the third season will be 8 or 10 episodes yet, and that he believes production will begin in early 2025:

House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal and his co-host, David Mandel (Seinfeld, Veep, White House Plumbers), have returned for the latest season of their terrific props podcast, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of. Occasionally, Ryan brings on guests from the crew of his show, and this latest episode features season 2 costume designer Caroline McCall going over her work on the show.

Well worth a listen. For those who want to skip the opening section discussing props (like Ryan’s consideration of how to display his recently-purchased Deckard jacket from Bladerunner) and comic art, the conversation with McCall starts at the 13:45 mark:

Among topics covered are the work on Ser Simon Strong’s costuming, bespoke armor design and budgetary considerations, the importance of the breakdown department, the use of heraldry, and more.

The exciting penultimate episode, “The Red Sowing”, has caused quite the stir! As usual, Linda and I have posted a video recapping the episode and discussing its deviations from the source material in Fire and Blood, illuminating background that may not be obvious to viewers, and some dragon lore.

Another episode aired, and we’re rapidly approaching the end of the second season of House of the Dragon. As usual, Linda and I have posted a video recapping the episode and discussing its deviations from the source material in Fire and Blood, illuminating background that may not be obvious to viewers, and some dragon lore.

And, speaking of dragon lore, a lengthy post on dragons, their legs, and their habits from GRRM got a lot of attention almost two weeks ago. Given that some of what he talks about seems related to House of the Dragon, we’re going to add some of our own thoughts ... following the video, and the extras that HBO released around the episode.

We’ve been remiss to share that we have posted our video recapping the 5th episode of House of the Dragon, “Regent”, written by Ti Mikkel (fans may recognize her as an assistant to none other than GRRM himself, who has been in the writer’s room from the early days). It’s a very political-maneuvering filled episode, and we dig in to the deviations from Fire and Blood as well as some bits of background and dragon discussion.

You can see the video below:

The most spectacular episode of House of the Dragon to date has aired, and Linda and I have recorded a video running through the episode, discussing changes from Fire and Blood, and some bits of background and dragon discussion. A good deal of heraldry discussion, it must be said, thanks to the prominent role of House Darklyn!

You can see the video below:

We’re off traveling to neighboring Norway for the next couple of days, but thought that this would make a good opportunity to set the record straight on a couple of claims about the Dance of the Dragons as originally envisioned by GRRM, as there’s a lot of rumors and half-understood details going around in a big internet game of telephone. We’ve done two so far, and there may be others, but you can see the first one—concerning the age difference and precise relationship between Rhaenyra and Aegon II—below!

Another exciting episode of House of the Dragon has come and gone, and Linda and I have recorded a video running through the episode, discussing changes from Fire and Blood, and some bits of background and dragon discussion. You can see the video below:

For those who’ve missed it, here is our discussion of changes, background details, and this and that concerning House of the Dragon‘s second episode, “Rhaenyra the Cruel”:

See below for some extra videos from HBO, including the teaser for next week’s episode, the Inside the Episode, and a segment from The House the Dragon Built

Earlier this week, Linda and I had the pleasure to once again interview House of the Dragon co-creator and show runner Ryan Condal. As we were able to do it after the airing of the first episode (you’ll find our video discussing the episode here), the fact that a lot of fans asked us to ask about the changes to Blood and Cheese when adapting Fire and Blood to the screen is a major topic. We also discuss new props, books he has read for research purposes, the new opening, the possibility of a new opening theme from Ramin Djawadi, unsung heroes of the production, and more!

This last month has been one of the busiest I can remember, with road trips to neighboring Norway and Denmark and all sorts of other things, so we’ve been a bit behind in getting the initial content out for episode one, “A Son for a Son”. We’re now trying to rectify that by catching up with a report on our attending a special screening of the premiere episode of House of the Dragon in Stockholm, including some thoughts in sparked in response to a critic’s commentary on the cinematography of the new season.

But first, one part of being so busy is that while we pushed out our commentary video soon after the first episode aired, we thought we’d make a post about it sometime during what turned out to be a very long evening post-screening. So, for those who’ve missed it, here’s our video:

And now to discussing the screening, and whether the show’s cinematography has gotten worse since Miguel Sapochnik left.

Linda and Elio at the post-screening afterparty.

It’s not usual for HBO to do this even before the premiere, but it seemed a foregone conclusion to everyone (including GRRM and Ryan Condal, based on remarks they have made) that House of the Dragon would see at least one more season. But now the word is official, via a press release from HBO:

Short and sweet, as they say.

We thought that given the very successful launch of the final trailer for the second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon, some of the scenes and images we see sparked some curiosity and thinking from us as we tried to identify various details. Follow us below as we go over 30-odd screenshots from the trailer!

Straight from Max’s press desk is the announcement of a unique contest for musical artists in the US (and D.C.), challenging them to create remixes of the House of the Dragon theme using stems available at Beatport’s Loopcloud platform. Judges for the contest will include Beatport, Ed Banger Records, and “select cast members from HBO’s House of the Dragon”.

And the prize? Per the announcement: