Westeros

After the release of the Johnnie Walker White Walker limited edition blended whisky, HBO and DIAGEO have teamed up to now release their limited edition collection of classic single malt whiskys with Game of Thrones-inspired dress. These whiskys are now available for pre-order on Amazon in select EU countries (presently that seems to mean the UK, Italy, and Germany) as well as Malts.com.

We’ll link them all below:

• Game of Thrones House Stark â`“ Dalwhinnie Winter’s Frost; SRP: £48 for 700cl; ABV 43%
• Game of Thrones House Tully â`“ Singleton of Glendullan Select; SRP: £38 for 700cl; ABV 40%
• Game of Thrones House Targaryen â`“ Cardhu Gold Reserve; SRP: £48 for 700cl; ABV 40%
• Game of Thrones House Lannister â`“ Lagavulin 9 Year Old; SRP: £65 700cl; ABV 46%
• Game of Thrones The Night’s Watch â`“ Oban Bay Reserve; SRP: £65 for 700cl; ABV 43%
• Game of Thrones House Greyjoy â`“ Talisker Select Reserve; SRP: £48 for 700cl; ABV 45.8%
• Game of Thrones House Baratheon â`“ Royal Lochnagar 12 Year Old; SRP: £38 for 700cl; ABV 40%
• Game of Thrones House Tyrell â`“ Clynelish Reserve; SRP: £48 for 700cl; ABV 51.2%

We’re not whisky enthusiasts, but DIAGEO and HBO seem to have put some real thought into this selection, matching up houses (and the Night’s Watch) with whiskys that have some matching quality. For example, the Cardhu Gold Reserve is associated with House Targaryen and Daenerys because of the fact that that distillery was founded by two women, and the Oban was selected to represent the Night’s Watch because the distillery sits beneath a cliff much as Castle Black sits beneath the Wall. Clever.

After much anticipation and guesswork, HBO has announced the date for the premiere of the final season of Game of Thrones. That date, according to the new, poignant teaser is April 14th:

From EW, the pilot production for HBO’s new Game of Thrones successor show—“The Long Night”, as George calls it (but HBO tells him not to)—has collected eight new actors as well as announed its director.

Veteran TV director S.J. Clarkson will direct. Her credits include HBO’s prestige series Vinyl (which, sadly, failed to draw in viewers), Jessica Jones, Life on Mars, and much more—and

was set to helm the as-yet unnamed new Star Trek film. Joining her and the previously-announced Naomi Watts and Josh Whitehouse are eight additional actors. See their details below!

HBO has posted two videos, with the hashtag #ForTheThrone, to promote the 8th season. In the process, they confirm expectations that the final season will premiere in April, 2019.

The first is more of a direct tease, a montage of key moments from across the seasons:

The second, with a “spoilers ahead” warning, is actually from “A Golden Crown”, the 6th episode of the first season:

More videos have been published since at the official Game of Thrones Youtube channel. There’s more to the announcement from HBO, incuding special events in New York and Los Angeles, special emojis, and more. See the press release below:

HBO and Danielle Nicole have partnered to create a line of Game of Thrones handbags and accessories. This 18-piece collection will feature backpacks, pouches, wristlets, and more featuring the devices and colors of the Lannisters, Starks, and Targaryens. Launching November 8, 2018, the collection was also inspired by the costumes featured on the show, as well as the dragons and direwolves regularly seen in the series.

Each piece is made with non - leather materials and will be available starting November 8th at Boxlunch.com and on December 8th at Danielle-nicole.com. Prices of the collection range from $18 to $88.

We were in the midst of writing up our post about yesterday’s big casting news that the splendid Naomi Watts had been cast for the pilot of the Game of Thrones successor/prequel, tenatively titled The Long Night, when news broke of a second lead actor being announced: Josh Whitehouse, a British actor that fans of Poldark (as we are) will recognize as the romantic, tragic Hugh Armitage.

There’s no information to speak of of Whitehouse’s role in the series, but the EW piece by James Hibberd did share this about Watts’ character:

“Socialite” has raised eyebrows among fans, as the sort of society that has a “fashionable” or “high” society doesn’t seem like it would fit a Bronze Age-like era as described in the novels. Some interesting thoughts have been put forward, such as her character actually being from Essos and one of the more advanced civilizations that existed there while Westeros was near to barbaric. For my part, I’m guessing that the term is being used very loosely to indicate a character who has made many alliances through personal connections, a “peace-weaver” if you will, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxon conception of noblewomen binding feuding tribes together through marriage and through their conduct as hostesses and advisors. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Responding to the news, George R.R. Martin weighed in with the expectation that there’d be more announcements soon (as there has been) and the fact that “a couple” of the pitched projects are still being developed, one or more of which may relate to Fire and Blood and its history of the Targaryens from Aegon I to the regency of Aegon III. The word “couple” might well suggest that of the four or five pitches made to HBO, a couple have now fallen by the wayside. Whether this includes Bryan Cogman’s pitch, which we know involved GRRM closely, we do not know but his recently announced overall deal with Amazon does suggest it.

Back in August, we shared the news that HBO had teamed up with Nerial to bring its popular mobile game series, Reigns, to the world of Game of Thrones. Today is the launch date for the game, which is available at the iTunes App Store, Google Play Store, and on Steam.

We’ve had the opportunity to play it in beta, and were very impressed by the way it boiled down elements of the series and its characters to its deceptively-simple gameplay. At heart, it’s a strategy game where the player takes on the role of a monarch from the world of Game of Thrones as they’re faced by choices which become increasingly perilous because the player has to strike a balance between the four pillars of their reign—military power, the Faith, the people, and money—so as to avoid a messy and premature end to their reign. And while this is going on, “winter is coming” in the form of the white walkers and their wights.

There’s a fun metatextual narrative, and some interesting quirks to the gameplay. I’ll say we’ve completed the game, but there are character cards and achievements we haven’t yet come across so even when you’re “done” there’ll likely be some things left to explore.

But enough of that. We’ll be live streaming some initial gameplay, and taking questions on the game, the books, the novellas, the TV series, and more for anyone who wants to drop by!

We knew something was up awhile back when a fact-checker for the New York Times contacted us with some questions for an article that was in the works by Charles Yu. That piece has now been published, a lengthy profile and interview with George R.R. Martin about his work with a special focus on A Song of Ice and Fire and the world Martin has built in the process of writing the novels. Westeros gets mentioned, as does the Wiki of Ice and Fire and the Brotherhood without Banners fan group, which is terrific.

As a companion to the piece, the NY Times also published a Q&A with GRRM with questions from fans. Some questions are silly, but some interesting ones as well, including one on dieties and the conflict with the Others that led George to immediately pass on answering before the question was even out.

Took awhile for us to get this edited together, but we have our promised 2nd video covering the rest of our trip to Northern Ireland, with a focus on the 2nd annual Winterfell Festival atCastle Ward. Our first post, and video, can be found here.

Once again, our many thanks to the National Trust, Castle Ward, Giant Tours Ireland, Winterfell Tours, and The Cuan.

We’ve one more video from our trip left to share, about 15 more minutes of a second talk with Ian McElhinney. The first talk we edited (and the only complete one) is already online.

HBO and Diaego have announced a partnership to bring Johnnie Walker to Westeros with a collection of nine whiskys. One of the most striking, visually, is the limited-edition White Walker blend best served out of the freezer… and with a special thermochromic ink on the bottle that changes according to temperature. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau had a chance to enjoy it, though normally speaking Jaime Lannister would rather not face a White Walker.

By some fortuitous timing, HBO went ahead and announced some big news yesterday, namely that they’re establishing Game of Thrones Legacy attracations which will place key sets in place at relevant filming locations in Northern Ireland. This means sets used for Castle Black, Winterfell, and King’s Landing, and perhaps others, will become official attractions. We’ll include the full press release below… but first, our first video from our visit to Northern Ireland the weekend before last, with a couple of Game of Thrones filming locations and some other notable sites along the way. If you have headphones on, beware there’s some noise from water and wind that may need you to turn things down a bit:

Next video will be on the Winterfell Festival itself! And if you missed it, here’s a taste of that, a Q&A with Ian McElhinney.

Now, on to the press release:

As part of our weekened getaway to Northern Ireland, Linda and I attended the Winterfell Festival held at Castle Ward. Among the events and activities were Q&As and interviews with Mark Addy (King Robert) and Ian McElhinney (Ser Barristan). Below is a video of one of the two public events Mr. McElhinney attended, discussing his career, horsemanship, and of course Game of Thrones.

Unseen Westeros is an ambitious project by a group of matte painters and visual effects artists who have all worked on HBO’s Game of Thrones. With the approval and support of George R.R. Martin, German publisher Penhaligon, and Westeros.org, the artists have produced scores of paintings depicting locales from The World of Ice and Fire, many of them first introduced in that book.

Suffice it to say, it’s very flattering to have been a part of something that has inspired so many artists. Linda and/or I are likely to attend one or more of the days of the exhibition, and we may have some more to announce in that regards down the road. We’ve seen quite a bit of the art, and suffice it to say these artists are all extremely talented, and it’s remarkable to see how they bring some of the many fascinating, strange, or epic locales described in the world book to life.

The exhibition is targeting January 23rd to January 27th, with an impressive venue—a former powerplant in Berlin—for the art to be displayed in. Of course, all these things cost, and the project has a Kickstarter to help cover the costs (which they itemize). Supporters to the Kickstarter can get anything from a credit on the backers’ wall at the exhibition to an album from official exhibition music composers Wolf & Moon and on through a limited edition art catalog or even (at the 2500+ euro level—two of those are gone, already!) an original painting.

To learn more about the project and support it, visit the Kickstarter. To apply for free tickets in advance, go to Eventbrite.

Keep an eye out on our Youtube channel, as we’ll be making a video or two responding to some as-yet-unseen artwork to give everyone a taste of what’s to come!

As we’ve noted in our recent Game of Thrones news roundup, Linda and I were away to Northern Ireland this past weekend on a trip sponsored by Tourism NI to see the Winterfell Festival at the beautiful Castle Ward estate that served as a filming location for Winterfell and much, much more. It marks my fourth visit to Northern Ireland, and each time has been a pleasure from the very first visit to look at the set and watch some of the filming with George to the previous visit thanks to Tourism NI to see the beautifully carved Doors of Game of Thrones, and now on to this one.

We’ve captured a lot of photos and video footage from the junket, just over 30 gigabytes. Keep an eye out over the coming days for posts and videos featuring some of the iconic locations, and even actors—we met with Mark Addy and Ian McElhinney when they were there at Castle Ward, and filmed a lengthy interview McElhinney held before an audience that we’ll publish soon.

And as it happens, some of the treasures are still coming—such as the following treat from Boyd Rankin, weaponmaker-extraordinaire responsible for many of the iconic weapons on the show who also served as Mikken on season 1 on the show (he says it was his well-worn, slightly charred leather apron that was cast) . We’ve already shared a couple of photos on our Instagram from seeing Boyd at Castle Ward, featuring an image of the original Longclaw before it was burned, bear’s head-pommel and all, and another of a new memento for us in the form of a knife made for season 4 that was never used…. but this is a bit different.

Boyd happens to have been involved with the show right from the pilot, and was on hand for filming in Morocco where the original meeting and wedding of Daenerys and Drogo was filmed (that’s when Tom McCarthy was directing, and Tamsin Merchant was playing Daenerys). As fans may know, George R.R. Martin had a cameo during the filming, a cameo that was never repeated… and never made it to air, as the Dany role was recast and the whole of her sequences were reshot. There have been one or two leaked photos from the pilot since then, but none has ever shown George in his costume for his cameo…

... until now, that is. Taken by Mr. Rankin, and used with his permission, this is the first time that we know of that anyone outside of the production has seen this:

We’re back from having spent the weekend in Northern Ireland, looking at the sites and enjoying the Winterfell Festival. We have a lot of photographs and video from the trip, including a Q&A with Barristan Selmy himself, Ian McElhinney. For some sneak previews, make sure to check our social pages at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Of course, while we were away, there was some Game of Thrones-related news of note that we thought we should quickly cover, including some remarks from George from the red carpet at last night’s Emmy awards. See below for the quick news roundup!