Westeros

With Game of Thrones: The Mad Kingwell on its way after a somewhat delayed first performance, the Royal Shakespeare Company has sent out word that they have shared their first image of the primary cast in full costume. Featuring characters from the eponymous Mad King, Aerys I, to Eddard Stark, it gives us our best look yet at the costuming and the approach the show has taken to bring them to life. Absolutely love the lilac hue of Ashara’s gown, for example, and the elaborate styling of Queen Rhaella’s hair is incredible.

See the full press release that came with the image below!

Left to right, the portrait includes Tanisha Spring as Ashara Dayne, Elizabeth Ayodele as Princess Elia Martell, Mariah Gale as Queen Rhaella Targaryen, Callum Woodhouse as Lord Robert Baratheon, Michael Shaeffer as King Aerys II Targaryen, Harmony Rose-Bremner as Lyanna Stark, Luke Brady as Brandon Stark, Noah Ritter as Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Michael Abubakar as Eddard Stark.

With the first preview of Game of Thrones: The Mad King now having taken place (and to a standing ovation, too!), there has understandably been a great deal of discussion about its revelations and, especially, about which parts of the play are or should be considered “canon”.

Naturally, people have asked us about this because of our long involvement with George and his work, both as long-time fans and lore “experts”, and as collaborators on The World of Ice and Fire, so it may be useful to explain how we understand the situation, based on our experiences and knowledge. Before we start, though, a disclaimer:  we have not directly spoken to George or the creatives about any of the specifics of the play. And, for that matter, we will do so without discussing the substance of the play or spoiling any of its details.

So, we’ve written an article in the Features section of the site delving into the question, and offering up our understanding of the situation.

Tyler Jacobson, one of the leading illustrators in contemporary fantasy art and illustration, is best known for his work on Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons—including standard covers for major Dungeons & Dragons core books, and a particularly famous piece for Magic: The Gathering that was a D & D crossover featuring Drizzt Do’Urden that sold at auction for $155,000, one of the highest M: TG original art sales on record —he brings more than a decade of experience in both traditional and digital illustration to the project, winning plaudits including recognition such as the prestigious Spectrum and Jack Gaughan awards.

He is now the latest notable artist to get involved in the long-running A Song of Ice and Fire calendar series, joining the likes of Ted Nasmith, Magali Villenueve, Gary Gianni, John Picacio, Sam Hogg, Arantza Sestayo, and many more. I had the pleasure of interviewing him just before he was set to travel to Amsterdam,  the host of this year’s MagicCon, to discuss the 2027 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar which is set to be released on July 21st (you can pre-order here. Not only do we discuss five of the pieces, including an exclusive piece never seen before, but he reveals just a bit about a couple of other of the pieces fans can look forward to.

Daenerys Stormborn with her dragons Drogon, Rhaegal, and Visersion. Art by Tyler Jacobson.

A very special occasion for collectors and bibliophiles: to mark the 30th anniversary of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, the Folio Society has announced a new signed limited edition of the novel, with the fantastic Jonathan Burton once again providing the artwork after having provided the art for the previous ASoIaF editions.

As reported exclusively by People, only 1,000 copies will be produced, each signed by George R.R. Martin. The 872-page single-volume edition features a “dragon-leather” binding, tipped-in artwork, handmade endpapers, a rolled map, and a clamshell box. The Folio Society’s own page also notes an exclusive introduction by Joe Abercrombie.

The Folio Society describes this as their most ambitious Limited Edition to date, produced with British craftspeople including James Cropper for the bespoke endpapers and Ludlow Bookbinders for the binding. Folio editor James Rose told People that the volume looks as if it had been “taken directly from the Citadel library itself.”

Full details below:

A Game of Thrones 30th Anniversary Limited Edition from the Folio Society.

After five years of gestation, the long-in-the-works theatrical production based on the events of the tourney at Harrenhal has come to fruition. Per the press release we just received:

See the rest of the press release below, but all we can say is wow. Incredibly exciting to finally see things come to fruition… and it explains, I think, why George spent a deal a time in the UK recently (well, that, and season 2 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms being under way).

Random House has published the first details on the 2027 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, revealing the name of the artist involved and the cover image which will be one of the thirteen pieces in the calendar. The calendar will be illustrated by Tyler Jacobson, an award-winning artist who is very well known for his fantasy works in Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons circles in particular—a few years ago a piece of his, a painting of Drizzt do’Uren, sold for $155,000 at auction, setting a record price (which possibly has not been exceeded still).

The art features Beric Dondarrion in battle, with a great depiction of the Dondarrion coat of arms. There’s a suspiciously gigantic figure fighting behind him, who might possibly be Gregor Clegane?

A big splashy announcement of a recent advance by Colossal Biosciences, creators of the “wooly mouse”, with the revelation that they have essentially recreated the 10,000-years extinct dire wolf which once roamed North America. The first two are named Romulus and Remus, after the legendary founders of Rome who were nursed by a she-wolf, while their younger “sister” is named… Khaleesi.

But what really got our attention was the concurrent reporting from The Hollywood Reporter that not only explicitly links the wolves with the direwolves of Game of Thrones, but also reveals that none other than George R.R. Martin is an investor and adviser… and so, too, is Peter Jackson, who provided a certain prop for a photoshoot with Romulus and Remus that Game of Thrones fans may recognize…

Mark the date: July 22, 2025 will see the release of the latest calendar based on the works of George R.R. Martin. This time, award-winning artist Tom Kidd will be providing 12 paintings (plus a 13th, bonus fold-out poster) inspired by the adventures of Dunk and Egg. This is not Kidd’s first foray into George’s work, having provided art for the illustrated limited edition of the novel Dying of the Light.

But speaking of those adventures, there’s one rather interesting detail. From the official blurb:

This would be the first we’ve ever heard of the fact that Ser Duncan the Tall would find himself in Essos in the course of his life. Quite interesting!

And now the celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire comes to its conclusion, with a piece of art that is very different from everything that’s come before it.

I’ve seen confusion about the “canon” nature of the artwork, despite out initial post indicating that this is a wholly unofficial series of commissions, for a wholly unofficial anniversary celebration. That said, of course, we direct the artists to the books, and in the cases of dragons we felt free to give them the colors that George had indicated to us for The Rise of the Dragon, which we couldn’t find a way to share in all cases.

But this piece of art, by the terrific Fran Vegas, is different. The location is one that has been referenced, and glimpsed once in official art (in The World of Ice and Fire in fact): Summerhall. But the scene… well, we admit, that is what some fans call “headcanon”. We just love the idea of the image, and feeling free to see it rendered by a capable of artist, we asked for it.

And that concludes the anniversary, as far as Westeros.org is concerned. Linda and I? We’ll be at dinner right about now, because not only is this the 10th year to the day of the publication of The World of Ice and Fire, it’s also our 10th wedding anniversary.

We thank you all for the well-wishes, and all the support we’ve had over all the years.

Ten years ago today, The World of Ice and Fire was published, introducing fans and readers to a huge bevy of new information regarding the history and the world behind George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. We’ve been celebrating that event over these past two weeks.

It was a long journey to get it made, working with George R.R. Martin, our editor Anne Groell, the team at Ten Speed Press who helped put it together, and a score or artists. The book hit the New York Times bestseller list on release, and has sold perennially ever since as new readers come along who fall in love with the world GRRM has created.

As promised, on this particularly auspicious day, we are sharing not one but two pieces of original art, by artists Linda and I commissioned to give back something to our fellow fans. You’ve had dragons aplenty, and the great tourney at Harrenhal. For this piece, however, we went to the novels, specifically to A Clash of Kings, and to a moment that… well, yes, Game of Thrones didn’t give readers this moment. So we thought we could rectify that, a little.

To help us, we turned to Arantza Sestayo, the Spanish artist behind the 2022 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, and who also contributed art to the illustrated A Game of Thrones. We owe particular thanks to our friend, Javi Marcos of Los Siete Reinos, who made the introduction that made this possible.

This is the penultimate day of our celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, and as we said yesterday, we wanted to bring the last pieces of art to where it all started: A Song of Ice and Fire.

So here’s another image, a scene we’ve never seen directly—it’s only been referenced in the novels—brought to life by Ice and Fire veteran René Aigner, who took what we asked for and pushed it up to another level of poignancy.

Eddard Stark delivers Dawn to Ashara Dayne

With this final flurry of art celebrating the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, we wanted to bring the material back to A Song of Ice and Fire. René Aigner set the scene with his rendition of the “greatest tourney of them all” at Harrenhal in the year of the false spring, and Joshua Cairós gave us a vignette in the form of the Knight of the Laughing Tree. To cap off this particular theme, we wanted something that captured the excitement of the joust.

GRRM has said “a lot happened at Harrenhal”, a fact hinted in the books, and in the pages of The World of Ice and Fire and its account of the origins of Lord Whent’s great tourney. We’ve heard bits and pieces, and among them we’ve heard the results of some of the jousts… but as far as I know, no artist has really depicted the competitors actually competing. We thought we’d rectify that, and we asked comic creator, artist, and novelist Mark Smylie—whose Artesia comics, and the incredible epic fantasy world therein (which have given birth to an RPG, a second RPG in development, and not one but two novels with at least one more planned), are a favorite of ours—to do just that in one of the more detailed, character-packed pieces of art we’ve asked for. The scene?

We think not only have we never seen any jousts from Harrenhal depicted, but we also think Brandon Stark in the lists has never been shown, either. That has now been rectified!

For this 8th art reveal in celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, we turn once again—and for a last time—to Rudolf Hima. His Grey Ghost and Tyraxes were great additions to the canon of A Song of Ice and Fire dragon art, but we wanted something a bit more narratively-driven for his final contribution. And yes, it relates to House of the Dragon, and maybe to things we’re not likely to see there that were described in The World of Ice and Fire and Fire and Blood.

I hesitate to name it above the fold, for those who do not want spoilers… but after the image we’ll discuss it some!

We’re back! The tenth anniversary celebration for The World of Ice and Fire continues. You’ve seen dragons aplenty now—and not the last, too—but another theme Linda and I settled on when we contacted artists may start to become clearer when we reveal this new piece. This one, we’re happy to say, was created for us by the very talented Spanish artist Joshua Cairós, who we we had the pleasure of working with on The Rise of the Dragon.

Our first concept for him was, I admit, overly ambitious—maybe we’ll revisit it some day; perhaps the 20th anniversary? But as we talked about alternatives, another idea presented itself: a depiction of the Knight of the Laughing Tree in armor.

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s image reveal, the celebration of the 10th anniversary since the publication of The World of Ice and Fire continues, and Rudolf Hima did a fantastic job giving fans—and us—another dragon. This time, it’s the young dragon Tyraxes, the dragon of Joffrey Velaryon, who on House of the Dragon is much younger and much smaller at this point in time than he is in the books.

The Dragonpit is, once more, the scene of this image. We think Rudolf did a fantastic job of capturing the magical hue of the dragon’s fire, a feature that George has described but which the TV shows have not made use of so far.