Westeros

We’ve gone through the HBO Store’s current selection of Game of Thrones t-shirts and picked out a few of the newer releases for your perusal. After all, who doesn’t need a set of t-shirts for summer (even one that reads “Winter is Here”)?

We particularly like some of the new designs incorporating house sigils, such as this Stark, Targaryen and Lannister shirt, and of course everyone needs a Hodor shirt.

Don’t fancy fighting through the hordes of fans at Comic Con to get a look at some of the exclusive Game of Thrones merchandise launched there? Don’t worry, the HBO store has limited quantities of the exclusive products on sale.

If you want to take home your very own giant, albeit in a more portable format, the Mag the MightyFunko Pop might be just the thing. Or, if you prefer a smaller trio, there’s an exclusive Funko Dorbz 3-Pack featuring a White Walker, Joffrey Baratheon and the Hound.

Should you like something more substantial there’s also the metallic silver Night King bust. Just keep it hidden in case you play the Game of Thrones: Clue with the exclusive Expansion Set and someone is a sore loser.

The Game of Thrones Season 6 Blu-ray and DVD set is due to hit shelves on November 15th (with digital HD available sooner on August 1st). HBO has finally revealed the contents of the the sets, and there’s quite a lot of interest—particularly a great deal of matter relating to the Tourney at Harrenhal. Quite interesting!

Here’s the full details below:

HBO has sent out a press release concerning the 7th season of Game of Thrones, confirming several details—most notably the total number of episodes for the season, seven—that have come out over the last weeks. The press release is below:

NOTE: Due to the overwhelming interest in the Game of Thrones Comic Con Scavenger Hunt announced earlier today, the process of selecting winners is being modified. Fans will now have until 5pm on Saturday, July 23, to complete all of the Twitter photo challenges. Once completed, they can go to USAopoly’s CLUE: Game of Thrones Experience Booth #1017 between 9:30am-5pm PT on Saturday to enter their name, contact info and Twitter handle into a raffle for a chance to win one of 15 prize packs valued at approximately $200.

HBO‘s Game of Thrones is going to have a big presence at San Diego Comic Con, as it has done in previous years. This year, they’ve added something new: a scavenger hunt for attendees, hunting around licensee booths for photo opportunities with some of the many licensed Game of Thrones products for a chance to win a nifty prize pack including games, toys, and more!

Full details in the press release below:

This week, Linda and I will be featuring our visit to Northern Ireland last week as we toured the locations of the ten Game of Thrones themed doors that are scattered around the country, many of them in close association with noteworthy filming locations from the HBO series. We’ve already made our first post, introducing the series and the first of the two doors—you’ll find it here! We had a wonderful time, as can be expected—everyone was incredibly friendly, and we met some real characters along the way! The only thing more fantastic than some of the meals we had were the scenic landscapes, especially the coast of Antrim which is very justly renowned.

But more on all that in the days to come!

While Elio & I are enjoying the sights and flavors of Northern Ireland (courtesy of Discover NI)—we’ll be posting some of the adventure as we go along on our Twitter and Facebook page—those who watched the last episode of Game of Thrones can watch my review of “The Winds of Winter” in our episode guide. Here’s the review embedded below for the impatient!

As to the tenth and final death poll, we had many, many entries indeed. Lots of fans had a lot of correct guesses, but in the end among those we randomly selected one of our Twitter followers, @MidnightAnswers. Many thanks for all who participated! Maybe we’ll do this again next season, assuming there’s enough characters left alive to make it an actual challenge!

HBO is sneaking out the Game of Thrones Season 6 Soundtrack, which is due to hit shelves on June 24th for digital downloads, June 29th on CD, and as a 3-disc vinyl set on July 1st. This, despite a few days ago there being no sign of it on Amazon or other retailers. Quite the surprise!

But, notably, HBO and Pandora have teamed up to give a free preview of the album from June 21st (that’d be today) through June 24th. You can hear it yourself as an Exclusive Album Preview (provided you’re in one of the countries Pandora can stream to!)

Here’s the full track listing:

1) Main Titles
2) Blood of My Blood
3) Light of the Seven
4) Needle
5) Coronation
6) Feed the Hounds
7) My Watch has Ended
8) The Red Woman
9) Hold the Door
10) Khaleesi
11) Maester
12) A Painless Death
13) Reign
14) Let’s Play a Game
15) Bastard
16) Trust Each Other
17) Winter Has Come
18) Hear Me Roar
19) The Winds of Winter

The episode guide for “The Battle of the Bastards” now includes Linda’s video review of the episode, plus HBO’s various video extras and more. We’ll embed the review below:

And as has been tradition this season, we’ve had a result (quite a lot of correct guesses, as you can guess) for our death poll on the forum for the episode! Congratulations to board member “Elaena Targaryen” who was one of the many to guess one of the major deaths!

This now leads us to the final poll for the season, for “The Winds of Winter”. This one’s special because we’ll open it to all three venues: our Facebook Page, our Twitter, and of course the ASoIaF Forum. And yes, this means you can enter three times, with three different guesses if you want, though only one guess per venue.

To enter, share a guess at a named, recurring character who dies in the season finale (sorry, “Bald Sparrow #4” doesn’t count!) Only one guess per person per venue. Also, no flashback character deaths need apply! To enter on our forum, join the forum and post to the thread about this post in the Game of Thrones News sub-forum. To enter on the Facebook page, follow us and post your guess in the page post about the final poll. Finally, to enter on Twitter, follow us and tweet your guess to @westerosorg while adding the hash tag #gotdeathpoll10. We’ll collate all the guesses and choose one random winner from those who guessed correctly!

Oh, and the prizes? Besides a choice between the A Game of Thrones 20th Annviersary Illustrated edition (note: not yet published) and the A Game of Thrones: The Board Game 2nd Edition from Fantasy Flight Games, Linda and I will also send a signed copy of The World of Ice and Fire.

Good luck!

Our episode guide for “No One” has now been updated with Linda’s review of the episode—including an amusing bit which we decided to leave in, when our dog Breeze decided to wander by and it wasnt’ clear whether he was going to demand some attention or not!—which we’ll embed below:

Besides that, we also had results with our 8th Death Poll, and have contacted the two randomly-selected winners who correctly guessed if any characters would die this episode, and named one of them correctly. This means we’re now launching a pentultimate ninth Death Poll for “The Battle of the Bastards, and this one returns to being exclusive to the A Song of Ice and Fire Forum.

HBO has released Season 3 and Season 4 of its limited edition Steelbook Game of Thrones blu-rays, and they’ve kindly given us a look at these particularly interesting editions.

The primary difference between these and the regular Blu-ray sets are in the packaging, first, which was designed by Elastic (the same guys who brought us the famous Game of Thrones intro). This packaging echoes that introduction, but gives it a bit of style to transfer to this very 2D medium. Oh, and each one features a collectible magnet (the Frey sigil and a Night’s Watch emblem referencing a raven and Longclaw), which is a nice touch.

The other, and perhaps bigger difference, is the actual content of the Bluray. It has all the same material as the previous Bluray set in terms of featurettes and commentaries, but for those who are audiophiles it has a special treat: the episodes have been remixed to use Dolby’s Atmos system. For those who have an Atmos-compliant sound system, that means that when a dragon breaths a gout of flame, the Atmos decoder will be able to process that sound and place it spatially in a way that makes sense. Instead of a simple decision about “left”, “right”, “center”, Atmos speakers can direct the sound to “move” appropriately. It’s a bit hard to explain, but our review of the S1 and S2 Steelbooks may help give more of an idea. We didn’t have a chance to test these Blu-rays on an Atmos system this time around, but we’re going to guess an episode like “The Rains of Castamere” or “The Watchers on the Wall” are going to benefit quite a lot from the Atmos technology.

The Season 3 and Season 4 Steelbook Blu-rays are now out, both online and in retail stores!

Our episode guide for The Broken Man is now updated not only with a book-to-screen analysis but also HBO’s video extras for the episode as well as a rather earlier-than-usual written review of the episode. Unfortunately, the illness that hit me last week and prevented our mid-week A Song of Ice and Fire video has now hit Linda, leaving her without a voice and not feeling too well. So, no video review today, and maybe not for a couple more days. Our apologies!

In the mean time, we also had a fun result with the Game of Thrones death poll, as a few people correctly guessed whether anyone would die this episode. We’ve picked a winner—@mackarillo—and are now on to Death Poll #8! This is the Facebook edition of the contest. To enter, simply like Westeros on Facebook and make your guess as a comment on our post on the page about the contest. Acceptable guesses include a single, non-flashback named and recurring character, or simply “no one”. Multiple guesses will be discarded. Because the last Facebook contest failed to turn up any winners, we’ll select two winners if possible from a random draw of all those who offer correct guesses.

As to the prizes? Winners can choose either the Iron Throne Construction Set from McFarlane Toys or A Feast for Ice and Fire.

Good luck!

After a number of delays and travails, the documentary Fair Game which examines the critical and media landscape surrounding HBO’s Game of Thrones has now been released on Vimeo. It’s not free—there’s a $1 digital rental fee—but if you’ve time (it’s just shy of 90 minutes) and are interested in the topic as discussed by interview and journalist Miodrag Zarkovic with a number of commentators including Newsday’s TV reviewer Verne Gay, Salon.com co-founder Laura Miller, NYU Professor Dana Polan, and more (including Elio GarcÃ%ADa of Westeros.org and Stefan Stasse of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour), it’s well worth the time.

You can find out more at the website Internet Remembers!

The episode guide for “The Door” now contains HBO’s post-episode extras, as well as our book-to-screen breakdown and a video review of the episode. This particular episode proved extremely popular, looking at our traffic… and that likely has to do a bit with some of its major revelations. The video, which we’ll embed below, discusses those revelations in detail and considers what implications they have for the A Song of Ice and Fire novels.

In related news, we closed the death poll somewhat early due to the leak that took place earlier yesterday… and so, as it happens, absolutely no one correctly guessed whether anyone died and/or who died in the episode. This is the second death poll to have that happen! This means that the next time we do a Facebook poll (that would be for episode 8), there’ll be two winners chosen.

But on to Death Poll #6! This round of the Death Poll-which will be about guessing deaths for the third episode-will be open to our Forum members, so if you’re not already signed up you will need to get that sorted out to have another chance at winning. The prizes on offer will be the same as for the Twitter & Facebook rounds- will be a choice between the Dark Horse Deluxe Hodor & Bran figure and The Lands of Ice and Fire poster map collection. To enter, just find this post in the Game of Thrones News subforum and post your guess. Acceptable guesses include a single, non-flashback named and recurring character, or simply “no one”. Multiple guesses will be discarded.

Good luck!

The episode guide for “Book of the Stranger” has been updated with Linda’s video review of the episode, as well as a book-to-screen analysis and a few of HBO’s extras such as the “Inside the Episode”. More content to come, and keep an eye out later this week when Linda and I will return to discussing A Song of Ice and Fire in a video that will be at least tangentially related to the events of the episode.

In related news, our fourth Death Poll received a result as well, as our Twitter followers made some shrewd guesses. Congratulations to @marisaog, as well as to @aimieyig since the first death poll had no winners.

This leads to the next poll, for “The Door”, which is once again for our Facebook followers once again. To enter, simply like Westeros on Facebook and make your guess as a comment on this post. One chosen winner will have a choice between the Dark Horse Deluxe Hodor & Bran figure and The Lands of Ice and Fire poster map collection.