Westeros

Thronecast is almost upon us—following hard on the April 2nd premiere of Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic in the UK—and they’ve kindly allowed us to have the exclusive first look at some of their interviews from the press junket. We’ve already posted the interview with David Benioff and Dan Weiss, but lets follow that up to revisit with Charles Dance, aka Lord Tywin Lannister, whom we have recently interviewed ourselves.

You’ll get a bit more information… including spoilers, both for the first three novels in the series and for this season, so don’t play the video if that’s a problem!

For many other interviews, visit our featured interview page!

Continuing our series of interviews Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. This is actually the third time we’ve interviewed Nikolaj—see here and here—and as always it’s a pleasure to hear from him.

This is the first time we’ve met him in person, and he’s as charming as you might expect. He takes a great deal of relish in this role he plays—a role that he’s indicated (in another interview) features what may well be the best scene he’s ever had to play as an actor—and brings his own perspective to bear on the most loathed knight in the Seven Kingdoms, what makes him tick, and what he wants. And there’s hints, here and there, of things he’s really not allowed to talk about…

Read it here!

Thanks to our friends over at Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast—where Linda and I will, indeed, be resuming our weekly presence!—we’ve received the opportunity to share Kelly-Anne Smith’s interview with Game of Thrones executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss from the international press junket that we attened late in February. Here it is!

Stay tuned, another interview is going up shortly (you can catch up on the one’s we’ve published to date here... and we’ve our own interview with Benioff and Weiss set to be released tomorrow!

Continuing our series of interviews from the international press junket—see here for those, and all of our season 1 interviews as well!—we had the chance to meet with and talk to actor Kit Harington about his role as Jon Snow.

The young actor is definitely a favorite with some fans, and he discusses a bit of the fun fans have with the series, while sharing anecdotes from Iceland about the cold, fight scenes, and newcomer to the series Rose Leslie. Plus some intriguing thoughts about what Jon Snow thinks about his mother, these days, as well as the benefits (and pitfalls!) of working in scenes that feature significant digital elements (i.e. direwolves).

Read it here!

P.S.

This is actually the second interview we had with Kit—he was kind enough to talk to us last year as well, and you can see that interview here. And for those hungry for more interviews? Not one, but two interviews on Saturday, leading up to a final interview from the junket on Sunday. Don’t forget that Sunday is #GoTDay, and that we’ll be live commenting the first episode of season 1, “Winter is Coming”, while it airs on HBO2. See here for more, and find out who else is going to be commenting the episodes during the Game of Thrones marathon!

A very long, very interesting interview with GRRM has just been published over at Marvel.com, the official website of Marvel Comics. It’s very comics-centric, reaching back to his fan letters in the 60’s, his visits to Comic-Con, his views on the recent Marvel movies, and more. And, yes, some A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones talk.

Check it out!

An article concerning the question of why British accents dominate fantasy takes a cool little detour to the A Song of Ice and Fire forum, where the journalist writing the article—Brian Wheeler—started a thread to query fans on the board on the topic. Rather neat, and an interesting question that ties into the general notion that the “past” sounds English, for whatever reason.

Iain Glen, who plays Ser Jorah Mormont in HBO’s Game of Thrones, also touched on the topic in our interview with him late last month.

HBO has declared that this Sunday will be #GoTDay on Twitter—they want that tag trending, and if the rabid fans can bring Twitter to its knees, all the better! Leading up the much-anticipated premiere of the first episode, “The North Remembers”, HBO will be running a marathon featuring all ten episodes of the first season on HBO2, starting from 10:30AM Eastern, 7:30 AM Pacific.

And just to make sure Twitter starts buckling, they’ve announced that HBO Connect’s social platform is going to be put to work, featuring live tweeting commentaries and Q&As with fan favorites like Kristian Nairn and Finn Jones, with writer Bryan Cogman... and with fan sites like Winter is Coming and… err, well, Westeros.org!

And to kick it off? That’d be us! Tune in to HBO2 (or, if you don’t have it, start up your Bluray or DVD—that’s what we’ll be doing!) at 10:30 Eastern (7:30 Pacific—I know, who wakes up that early on a Sunday except masochists and fanatics?) on Sunday, hop on over to our snazzy, official HBO Connect page, and join the conversation as we all watch and discuss episode 1 of season 1, “Winter is Coming”

And another interesting cross promotion effort for Game of Thrones, this time via the official Facebook page: fifty people will get one of five house sigils tattooed on their arms by tattoo artists at NY Ink, including Ami James.

Here’s the details:

Time: March 30th (TODAY) from 12PM to 8PM
Place: Wooster Street Social Club, 43 Wooster Street between Grand & Broome, SOHO, NYC
What: First come, first serve from 12-8, maximum of 50 people.

If you’re interested, I suspect it may make sense to get to that line early. And if you get one? Make sure to share a picture or two!

These two essays are terrific reads, and they come from the the venerable Foreign Affairs magazine no less! The first from Charli Carpenter is a response to arguments that the series embodies political realism, noting that some of its features belong more in the realm of human security than realpolitik. Very interesting reading, and some trenchant remarks from Professor Carpenter regarding the subject of gender depiction in the novels (make sure to check out this amusing post on the topic of Drogo’s war speech that she wrote last year).

And the other… well, that one just had me amazed. Historian Kelly DeVries (whose Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century is a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in medieval society and warfare) looks at the series through a historical lens, noting that Martin has eschewed the general boring facets of medieval life (really, life in pretty much any time period is generally boring when looked at as a whole—the moments of terror tend to be few and far between for most people at most times) to dramatize things in a way that DeVries approves.

The Wall Street Journal’s John Jurgenson has a very interesting article concerning the production of the second season. Here’s a few useful statistics:

• Average of 9.3. million viewers, vs. 10.7 million for Boardwalk and a peak of 13 million for True Blood in its third season.
• First season budget of roughly $60 million (which we’ve reported before), now up roughly 15% (so $69 million, give or take—with hints that a large part of it was due to episode 9, “Blackwater”, written by GRRM.)
• 106 shooting days, 3/4ths spent with two units (“Dragon” and “Wolf”) filming simultaneously.
• For the Battle of the Blackwater, David and Dan initially wanted to build 9 ship sets. They got 1.

Also of interest? Season 3 location scouting is already going on, though there’s been no official greenlight. Expect it on Monday or Tuesday at the latest—we’re 100% confident that season 3 is a no-brainer, at this stage. The only real question is if they’ll announce they’re ordering season 4 as well (beware rumors that they’ll film two seasons back to back, however—deeply unlikely).

Gods, do I love baseball, and the MLB & HBO for teaming up to cross-promote the April 1st premiere of Game of Thrones and April 4th opening day of the season with this beautifully edited video:

Amazing. No real new clips, though I do believe the fellow on fire is glimpsed slightly earlier than before. And of course, the last word is Tyrion’s.

Something must be in the air, because as spring comes around, thoughts clearly turn towards traveling for some. And in this case, they seem to have informed two quite different (and quite good!) interviews from two travel sites. George R.R Martin is certainly no stranger to travel, and in fact is presently in the UK ahead of Eastercon and his appearance at the Bloomsbury Theatre.

First up, Josh Roberts conducts an excellent interview with George for Smarter Travel. As noted at the top of the interview, it has some major spoilers for all five novels in the series, but it’s noted when they’re crossing into the spoiler section. Here’s a favorite part from it:

Some last bits of promotional material sneaking out from HBO. This time, we’ve two new videos featuring a look at new characters and new destinations that we’ll be seeing this season. Good stuff, and an excellent chance to hear from some of the newest cast members:

EW continues its exclusive series of interviews leading up to the premiere of Game of Thrones, as James Hibberd shares his interview with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Ser Jaime Lannister) and Lena Headey (Queen Cersei Lannister). Some interesting comments in there from both actors. Including Coster-Waldau’s dislike of the fact that Jaime’s imprisoned, but he had to admit that it was important for the character’s journey for him to be out of the action. It must gnaw at Jaime, when you think about it, to be locked up when deeds are being done and the Lannister family needs defending.

You can find more of EW’s excellent coverage of the series at this link.

That’s right, folks: the last day of Week 3 in Hulu’s “Best in Show” tournament, and Game of Thrones is pitted against Sons of Anarchy. Worse yet, SoA is leading by a very narrow margin: 51% to 49%

A margin so very narrow that I suspect that if every single person who read this post voted, and voted now, we’d turn the tables.

If you folks vote and Game of Thrones takes the prize, I’ll let you all select which interview we’ll run next—do you want to hear from Kit Harrington, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, or Emilia Clarke? Vote, leave your answer in comments, and help the show carry the day in the third week of the tourney!

The fourth in our series of interviews from the international press junket Westeros.org attended last month (see our latest interview for links to all three earlier interviews), this time we’re touching on a brand new character to the series: Ser Davos Seaworth, the “Onion Knight” who faithfully serves Stannis Baratheon.

Irish actor Liam Cunningham plays the role, and plays it well from what we’ve seen of the first four episodes, conveying Davos’s conviction in his loyalty to Stannis despite the odds against the eldest surviving Baratheon. In the interview below, Cunningham discussed his role, the contents of the pouch at his neck, who he’d love to see dub him in Brazil, and shows his true colors as a fan of the series with an insatiable appetite for more. If you’ve seen earlier interviews with Cunningham, you know he’s amusing, and he was very charming as he chatted with us!

Read the interview!

Courtesy of HBO, here are six brand new clips from the first episode of the new season, “The North Remembers”! Focused primarily on Tyrion and Jon—with four of the six clips devoted to their part of the story—you’ll also get a glimpse of King Robb and Alton Lannister, as well as a nice look at Daenerys Targaryen and Drogon.

And as an added treat, if you’re in the UK or Ireland, you can get access to Sky’s interview special! I was there when they filmed some of these interviews, during the press junket in London, and it sounded like they got some great material. More about that junket shortly…

The third in our series of interview from the international press round table interview junket (see our previous two interviews: Charles Dance and Michelle Fairley), this time we’ll cross the narrow sea, through the tall grass of the Dothraki sea, and into the red waste and beyond to talk with Iain Glen, who plays Ser Jorah Mormont, Daenerys’s guardian, advisor, companion…. and perhaps a bit more. A Scottish actor gifted with a charm and a voice that apparently gets not a few hearts racing, Glen has done a bit of everything on stage and screen, including roles in blockbusters like Kingdom of Heaven and smash hits like Downton Abbey and, of course, HBO’s Game of Thrones.

In the interview, Glen discusses a range of topics: Jorah’s relationship to Daenerys, what we might expect over the next season, how it was to work in Dubrovnik, and more.

Read the interview!

Having had the opportunity (courtesy of HBO) to see the first four episodes of this coming season (premiering April 1st in the US and Latin America, April 2nd in the UK and—I believe—a deal of Eastern Europe), Linda and I share some very general thoughts on what to expect from those episodes, and what the dangers might be for the rest of the season. All in all, the first four episodes play pretty well, but for our part the first two episodes start on the back foot somewhat—they’re not as strong as we might have liked, and we try and give some sense of why.

As always, we’re die-hard fans of the novels and everything, inevitably, is touched by that perspective… but sometimes, reasonable and even necessary decisions for the sake of adaptation don’t necessarily lead to the very best storytelling. It’s a difficult beast, adapting a mammoth series such as A Song of Ice and Fire, and it can’t fire on all cylinder all the time. But most of the time? It gets there, for the most part, and there are some sections of the story which should please even the most hardcore purists. Other areas… perhaps not so much, especially as sometimes the changes seem gratuitous, change for the sake of change.

To read our thoughts in full, go here!

Tomorrow will see the Game of Thrones graphic novel—collecting the first six issues of the series, which were published by Dynamite Entertainment—hitting store shelves (Order: Amazon US, Amazon UK). Adapted by the team of Daniel Abraham and Tommy F. Patterson, with covers by Mike S. Miller.

The first in four planned volumes, the collection will eventually contain all twenty-four issues of the A Game of Thrones adaptation, with plans to continue adapting the series if the audience is there for it—a potentially monumental effort, if each book takes a minimum of two years to adapt!

HBO has kindly dropped us a note revealing that they’re set to announce a brand new book, a companion to the TV series, titled Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones (Pre-order: Amazon US).

This book, written by Bryan Cogman (the designated keeper of the lore for the series, writer for both seasons, story editor, and the man behind the first year of Making Game of Thrones set reports) with a foreword by George R.R. Martin and an introduction by executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, is due fall 2012. Here’s the press release with more details—but in brief: exclusive interviews with cast and crew, photos galore, a map of Westeros, material on the Dothraki language, and more!

You can pre-order the book at Amazon US.

April is coming, and it’s time for HBO to kick Game of Thrones promotion into high gear. Earlier today we shared the news of the “You Win or You Die” video being put online… and to follow it up, there’s a bevy of new character images to be seen. Starting here, you’ll find images of a number of the new cast members, including the very best shot of Ygritte yet.

Besides that, HBO’s also provided us a Q&A with executive producers and chief writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss which, for the most part, is quite good… but we had to leave a little editorial preface, because sometimes the show’s producers and actors put forward one particular notion that we find a little bit questionable! Read it for yourself here. This will be the first of two Benioff & Weiss interviews we’ll be bringing you, as our account of the roundtable interview we took part in with the executive producers will be up some time next week.

HBO is being very generous indeed, now having released the whole “You Win or You Die” promo—which, so far as I recall, doesn’t air on the HBO channel until the 25th—online, via Youtube. Great inteview bits, mostly recapping the first season for viewers… but also giving a taste of season 2!

David J. Peterson, the constructed language expert who was hired by the production of Game of Thrones, will be on Reddit today taking part in the Ask Me Anything series they have there. Great chance to learn more about his work on the show, his views on conlang in general, and anything else you can think of!

Based off of early viewing of the second season—screeners went out to critics beginning two days ago (our set will be arriving this Thursday, with any luck)—Ken Tucker over at EW.com gives the first several episodes an overall A- score in his overall impressions. His wrap up makes for a choice quote:

A pretty good start, and we now that the Daily Beast’s Jace Lacob has been very positive on the first three episodes he’s already viewed.

Continuing our series of interviews leading up to the April 1st (or April 2nd, if in the UK) premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones! At the press junket the day after the episode 1 screening which I intended, I had the opportunity to interview a number of actors, as well as the executive producers, about this season of the show. You’ve already seen our interview with Charles Dance, and now we bring another veteran of the show: Michelle Fairley, Lady Catelyn Stark herself.

To say that this is an opportunity I’ve long been looking forward to is an understatement—Fairley happens to play my favorite character in the novels, after all, and I was eager to learn more about her views on the character, and the series in general. Below you’ll get some hints about what’s in store for Catelyn this season, and maybe what’s in store for House Tully, too… and you’ll learn a bit about what it’s like to suddenly become so recognizable as the show’s burgeoning popularity grows by leaps and bounds.

Read the interview!

Game of Thrones isn’t just about allegiances. When people describe the series, a lot of pithy words are thrown around: war, honor, gritty, brutal, intrigue, and more, as people try to encapsulate all the things it means to them. HBO’s now taking that to the next level with their latest social media initative via HBO Connect, the site that provides fans and viewers of HBO’s television programs an added layer to what they watch and a greater sense of fan community with such things as real time interviews with actors and creators,  or feeds for trending HBO-related topics in Twitter.

And, in particular, visualizers which allow fans to share in the experience, connect with one another, and get a sense of the social landscape surrounding their favorite programs.

The newest of these Twitter visualizers? The #got140 visualizer is a nifty one that releases a new word each day, asking fans to use that word in a tweet that tries to describe the show. Previous words have included “power”, “murder”, “blood”, “winter”, “war”, and “honor”. And today’s word? “Betray”. So get working, Twitter fans of @GameOfThrones and @westerosorg! Me, I’m curious as to just how many Twitter user avatars (and their tweets) the page can display at one time…

A brand new promotion for the series has been launched on Facebook, Pledge Your Allegiance, where fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones can pledge themselves to one of the warring houses. A fun idea… and one that’s being promoted in part by the release of a series of “Pledge Your Allegiance” videos offering choice moments from each Great House. This includes our first and most extensive looks at Pyke and Balon Greyjoy, as well as another lightning-quick glimpse at Yara

Asha Greyjoy, as well as some other new glimpses of scenes we haven’t yet seen.

See them below:

HBO has sent out a hot new poster (quite literally) to promote the second season, much in the style of the first official art.

Besides that, the release of the poster coincides with this announcement from HBO regarding the on-line Viewer’s Guide:

At the end of February, I had the privilege of joining international press in a two-day junket to London. The first day featured a screening of the first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones—more on which later, when we’re allowed to say more about it!—and the second day featured several hours of round-table interviews with a number of actors, as well as executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss. Those will all be going up apace in the days to come. Of all the interviews, however, one of our personal favorites was the one with veteran, respected actor Charles Dance, who plays Lord Tywin Lannister, the uncompromising, ruthless patriarch of the Lannister clan, and we’ve decided that it was very well suited to leading off the interview.

Having acted for some forty years, Dance had his start with the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, and went on to roles in many television and film productions, including parts in The Jewel in the Crown, Bleak House, The Last Action Hero, and Gosford Park. In the interview that follows, Dance discusses his role as Tywin Lannister in some detail, the scale and scope of HBO’s production, and his future legacy as an actor.

Read the interview!

The editor of Game of Thrones and Philosophy (Order: US Paperback, US Kindle, UK), Professor Henry O. Jacoby, will be interviewed on the Secret Lives of Men at 3PM Eastern—that’s about an hour from now—concerning the book and the source material that’s inspired its essays from a number of philosophers.

If you miss the interview, it should be in their archive shortly afterward… and while you’re waiting, here’s our own interview with Professor Jacoby regarding the book, for which we were honored to provide the foreword.

HBO has been generous with the character profiles, and has now placed Robb Stark and Stannis Baratheon profiles out on Youtube. They contain quite a bit of new stuff—including a great look at Oona Chaplin as Jeyne of No Last Name and Lucian Msamati as Salladhor Saan:

Last night HBO premiered a brand new trailer on its channel, but they’ve very kindly made it available on HBO.com. Titled “Price For Our Sins”—not our favorite line revealed from trailers thus far, we must say—it largely features images we’ve seen before, but there’s a handful of new shots to get excited about.

Besides that, we’ve forgotten to note that the Making Game of Thrones website has a great little feature on the weapons of the show, featuring the weaponmaster Tommy Dunne. Some really amazing swords and their accoutrements this season, beautifully crafted. Lightbringer and Hearteater are especially impressive!

TIFF has posted the very last part of the “In Conversation” interview with GRRM, at its Youtube channel. And for fans of the novels, this one’s particularly cool—the last nine minutes feature his reading a short excerpt from a The Winds of Winter chapter! Definite spoilers for those who’ve not yet read all five novels in the series:

Yesterday, the news rolled in that Game of Thrones had secured the #2 overall sales spot for DVD and Bluray sales according to Nielsen VideoScan, registering about 78% of the sales of another newcomer, the film Immortals and well ahead of last week’s top sellers, Puss in Boots and Hugo. 57% of sales were in the Bluray edition, as well, which is an enormous figure for a television series.

Now Yahoo.au was among the first to post this Reuters report, which states:

On top of that, the show is said to have, “set an HBO series record for sales of digital downloads from outlets such as iTunesapple, the network said, but it did not provide figures.”

As promised, HBO Canada and TIFF have posted the “In Conversation” with George R.R. Martin, hosted by Teri Hart. Looking at it, it looks to just be the first part of the interview, but there’s definitely plenty to watch as Hart and Martin discuss his work, his fans, and the television show. You can see it below:

Other interviews, and reports about the full “In Conversation” interview, can be found at the March section of the So Spake Martin collection.

First up in EW’s big Game of Thrones coverage? An interview with the lovely Emilia Clarke regarding the second season of the show.

Among the topics discussed is the challenge of working with dragons, the changes from book to screen (“slight different” she says), and the popularity of the show, its fans, and whether she’s getting recognized. I do believe she’s mentioned getting a free yogurt before thanks to the role, so that’s something.

Remember, this month’s issue of Entertainment Weekly comes with four different Game of Thrones covers. Inside, there’ll be more cast interviews and exclusive photos, some of which EW.com has shared. Featuring Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Daenerys Targaryen, and Kit Harington, the pictures range from the hilarious rocking-out cast members to a tender Cersei and Jaime moment. And wait, there’s more: an additional gallery of behind-the-scenes photos, covering a number of actors, including young Callum Wharry (Tommen) and Aimee Richardson (Myrcella).

Or vice versa, perhaps! It looks like Entertainment Weekly has some major coverage coming this way in the coming days, both on-line and in print, with not one, not two, not three, but four collectible covers featuring Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Lena Headey.

And speaking of them… don’t miss this shot from the cast photoshoot in Belfast. Hilarious.

At the article, James Hibberd already brings a bit of news regarding budgets and effects for direwolves and dragons—go over there to check them out. There’s one bit that caught my eye, however:

We mentioned yesterday that GRRM was going to appear on the CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos Hour, and to keep an eye out on the official site for the online video. But the show’s producers went the extra mile and posted the full, extended interview on Youtube. We’ve added it to the So Spake Martin collection, along with links to reports and interviews from the TIFF “In Conversation” and other media appearances by GRRM, but you can see it embedded below:

And for those of you in Canada? HBO Canada has the “In Conversation” video up already, and posted here, but it’s region-locked for Canadians only (for now—TIFF.net plans to post it on their Youtube channel next week).

I heard a rumor that this existed…

And now it’s out for everyone to see. To promote the second season of Game of Thrones (mark your calendars: April 1st in the U.S. and Latin America, April 2nd in the U.K.), HBO‘s released a gruesome new poster… and it’s a big spoiler, so if you don’t know anything about the series or have just started watching, don’t look. For those who want to get a closer look, on the other hand, make sure to visit Wondercon this weekend, where you’ll be able to get a photo taken and have yourself inserted into the picture.

You’ll see what I mean by that, below the cut:

Atlus USA has provided a sneak peek of the combat system used for the Game of Thrones RPG being created by Cyanide Studios, due May 15th: (Pre-order: Amazon US Xbox, Amazon US PS3). It gives a look at both the class and leveling system, and a more detailed look at their combat mechanics which enter a “bullet-time” like mode whenever selecting options or issuing commands, rather than fully stopping the action.

Built using the Unreal 3 engine, the game follows two characters—Mors Westford and Alester Sarwyck—in a campaign that starts just before the first novel, taking them to various locations including the westerlands, the riverlands, King’s Landing, and the Wall. For more information, check out our most recent post which links to the Podcast of Ice and Fire’s recent interview with two members of Atlus.

Access Hollywood had a great interview with Tom Wlaschiha recently… and now they’ve gone and gotten us our very first look at him in costume (and wig!) for his role as Jaqen H’ghar, that international man of mystery who plays an important role in Arya’s story this season.

Jaqen indicates he comes from the Free City of Lorath, which in some ways is the remotest of the Free Cities, and we know very little about them… but we do learn a bit about him, as the books progress, and suffice it to say many fans of the novels are looking forward to seeing how he translates to the screen.

Access Hollywood promises to have an interview with Maisie Williams up tomorrow, but their article with the photo excerpts a brief bit touching on her first meeting Tom and figuring out who he was playing.

Quite a few interviews with George these last couple of days, thanks to his visit to Toronto, courtesy of HBO Canada and Random House. Yesterday, of course, was the Teri Hart-hosted “In Conversation” with George, sponsored by TIFF, and that’s led to a couple of reports (and there’s the promise of a video from the event, to be posted some time next week). Both reports from the invent join two other interviews with the CBC’s Canada AM morning news program and the Q radio program. The Q program is particularly interesting, with some great questions.

You can find the reports from “In Conversation”, plus links or embeds of the CBC items, over at the So Spake Martin entry for March.

Also, for Canadians, George will also be appearing on television tonight, on the George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight program. That should be online tomorrow at the latest, by the looks of it, at the show’s online video page.

Straight from HBO come a press release touting the second season, and providing title, credits, and summary information for the first half of the season. We already have all the titles, but now we see the first of the two episodes Vanessa Taylor has written—episode 4, “Garden of Bones”—and learn a bit more about the breakdown of episodes.

There are some mild spoilers, which I’ll be following up a little bit with commentary between episode summaries.

Having fallen behind a fair bit due to various things going on, we’re now working to get our screencap gallery up to date, with our usual commentary covering details connected to the books, to the production, and more! First up, we’ve gotten very nearly 100 images together from the latest two trailers, which you can find starting on this page of the Previews gallery, with the first image being this one from the “Seven Devils” trailer.

Next up? The four new character  featurettes, as soon as we can get to them.

Lots of Jon Snow here, his character featurette joining the others that HBO have busily putting up on Youtube. Including what I believe is our first look at Ben Crompton as (that’d be the third person with the short beard between Sam and Jon in one or two shots) and Robert Pugh as Craster:

We’ve learned this recently, but sat on it for awhile… but it seems the cat is out of the bag, so to speak! Last season, David Benioff & Dan Weiss, Bryan Cogman, George R.R. Martin, and the incomparable Jane Espenson wrote the ten episodes of season 1. Espenson wasn’t able to write for this second season due to her other commitments (including as a producer on Once Upon a Time, which recently had a sly reference to the show in an Espenson-penned script). Some assumed that that meant that the four remaining writers from last season would cover all the episodes…

But not so! In fact, two episodes of this season are written by Vanessa Taylor, who’s an HBO veteran and has extensive producer credits (which may explain why she’s a co-executive producer on this season of the show, joining director Alan Taylor in getting that credit). Among her prior projects? Co-producing HBO’s Tell Me you Love Me and executive producer on the Washingtonienne pilot from 2009, as well as a writer and co-producer on J.J. Abram’s Alias.

As to what episodes she wrote? One wonders….

Today is a good day, as HBO has decided to release a mass of new videos over at its official Youtube channel for Game of Thrones. Not only is the HD version of “The More You Love” now available, but three character featurettes—focusing on Joffrey, Daenerys, and Renly, and their supporting cast (yep—lots of Natalie Dormer as Margaery and Gwendoline Christie as Brienne!)

See them below:

Cyanide’s Game of Thrones RPG is nearing release, with its publication (both in North America via Atlus and Europe via Focus Home Interactive) set for the middle of May. We’ve been covering the news of the game over the course of the last months, including the most recent news regarding a free art book with pre-orders, but I have to say, the good folks at the Podcast of Ice and Fire have gotten a real scoop: an interview Aram and Scott from Atlus to discuss the game. Good stuff—Amin and Mimi are gamers and they (and their forum members) ask the questions many gamers would like answers to.

Make sure to give it a listen!

And from late last month, here’s another of the taste of the game, with a look at another new location: the seat of Castlewood, where part of the game plays out.

Wow. Yet another new trailer, this one seeming to take its thematic focus on the topic of love.. and containing our first looks (in the show) of Ygritte and what I do believe is Yara

Asha. Plus a magnificent cityscape of King’s Landing, looking much nearer to how I suspect many fans envisioned it now that its architecture is more along the lines of continental Europe. Very interesting…

Thanks to Massively, we’ve gotten quite a few more details concerning Bigpoint‘s officialy licensed Game of Thrones massively multiplayer roleplaying game. They had a chance to sit down with some of the developers of the game during the San Francisco Game Developers Conference, and certainly got some interesting details out of them that expand on our previous report.

Details of the game’s combat system are expanded on, as are its skills-based system. One of the most important points for many players when considering a free-to-play MMO is the fact that there’s a fear players with deep pockets can “buy” their way to the top of the pile… but Bigpoint insists that the game is not balanced that way, and skilled players are always going to trump less skilled players, regardless of what perks the less skilled players have. It’s probably true that when looking between players of equal skill, those bought-for perks are going to give them the edge… but it’s at least a good move to make sure those perks don’t destabilize competition across all levels of play.

The territory-gain system sounds interesting, with three classes of battle—ranging from 20 v 20 fort battles to big, 50 v 50 castle battles to secure a territory for your side. The voting for a Hand each week, on the other hand, does sound sort of strange on the face of it. Who will vote, and how is this mechanic explained in terms that make sense? It’ll be interesting to learn more as the game develops. On the whole, this seems very much a combat-focused game with a secondary political element (which seems largely to be about deciding when to jump ship to a different faction), but it seems to have potential according to what Massively and other gaming sites who were at GDC have to say.

We’ve also added a sub-section in our gallery for the MMO, with the six high-resolution images that Bigpoint has released so far. The game uses hte Unity engine, which provides very robust graphical performance inside the browser, and it certainly does look quite good from these images.

Thanks to the scores of people who commented on our two posts regarding Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (pre-order:  US Paperback, US Kindle, UK)!

The copy of the book, signed by Professor Jacoby, has now been won: congratulations to Natalia Nznk! The response on this contest was so great, we’re putting our minds towards a few others in the future.

Remember, the book is out next week, hitting shelves on May 13th.

The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco is in full swing, and massive online game developer Bigpoint is there to give journalists an early preview of their progress with the licensed, Game of Thrones MMORPG. With an Iron Throne on hand to draw attention to their close ties with HBO’s successful fantasy series.

Here’s what we’ve gleaned from two reports, from Games Radar and MMORPG.com, each of which has a new screenshot of the game:

• Based on the television series, it takes place shortly after the end of season 1 as the war for the throne begins. There are three (initial?) factions: Stark, Lannister, and Baratheon. You can also avoid picking a faction for awhile, but there are benefits to having one… but you and your guild (representing a minor house) can always jump ship to a different faction if it benefits you, which is touted as one of the means of playing out the political aspects of the game.
• The game is a sandbox-style game focused on PvP (that’s player vs. player) action and warfare. Players can take part in ranked 5 on 5 duels, or battle for control of castles and fortresses in the massive, open-world sandbox. From what Games Radar reports, the combat is action-based, with players able to earn “cards” that allow them to summon NPCs like Jaime Lannister to help your side out in a fight. Games Radar found these mechanics clunky, but Bigpoint noted this was still quite early in the process.
• Using the Unity graphics system, this is a browser-based game… but it’s indicated that the graphics look really amazing for this sort of game. That said, it’s clear from comments that hardcore gamers are dubious of browser-based, free-to-play games.
• The game is skill-based rather than class-based, but you can specialize your character down the route of melee, ranged, or commander skills (which allow you to provide positive modifiers to allies and negative modifiers to enemies).

All in all, sounds interesting, and we’re going to try and keep atop the news as the game approaches its beta in the Fall. Bigpoint has also launched the official site for the game, where you can presently sign up to indicate your interest in receiving news updates concerning the game. They also have an official twitter account.

A couple of days ago we announced a contest to win a copy of Blackwell’s forthcoming Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (Pre-order:  US Paperback, US Kindle, UK), and there we promised an interview with Professor Henry O. Jacoby, editor of the book and one of its contributors.

You can find it below, as we ask him seven questions (starting to feel like a “thing”, having seven questions!) about his work, the book, and some of his thoughts on questions that concern the series. And after you’ve read it, please feel free to leave a comment… not least because your comments will be entered into the pool for winning a copy of the book!

Gosh, it feels like the actors have been through a junket or three at this point! Here’s a few more interviews that have popped up onto our radar in the last couples of days:

Using the infamous refrain of the ironborn devotees of the Drowned God, “What is Dead May Never Die” turns out to be the title for the third episode of season 2—and the first not penned by David Benioff & Dan Weiss. Instead, this one’s written by story editor Bryan Cogman, who wrote last season’s fourth episode, “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”.

I think it’s a pretty safe bet it’ll be giving us our first, in-depth look at the Iron Islands…

For the titles of the first two episodes, see our earlier post.

For awhile now, we’ve been sitting on some information regarding one of the upcoming, Ice and Fire-related things that George and we are involved in. But now, in the last days, things have been moving quite quickly, and it’s time to pull back the curtain.

Some have seen a listing for a product named Maps of Ice and Fire at Random House’s sites. But this is not, in fact, the final title. We can exclusively reveal that the final title is The Lands of Ice and Fire, which will be a boxed collection of posters featuring quite a few different maps, covering everything from the Seven Kingdoms we all know and love, to the lands Across the Narrow Sea… including the fabled Yi Ti, the lands of the Jade Sea, and the mysterious Asshai-by-the-Shadow. There’ll even be maps of a city or two.

This will be the most accurate and complete maps of the world of the setting ever published, featuring lands and places that we’ve never even heard of before—including long-dead kingdoms, half-forgotten cities, and more. I’m not presently certain as to who the artist(s) is/will be… but I’ve been looking over George’s own, hand-drawn maps (we’ve been asked to help proof them and do some of this and that for the final product—and no, don’t ask us for any details!), and suffice it to say, there’s plenty there to fire the imagination for any artist.

The poster collection is due to be released on October 30th or thereabouts, and you can pre-order it now.

Last month, we reported on the forthcoming release of Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (Pre-order:  US, UK), part of the Blackwell Pop Culture and Philosophy series of popular philosophy books.

This week, we’re offering readers of Westeros.org a chance to win a copy, signed by editor and contributor Henry O. Jacoby.

All you need to do to enter? Leave a comment on this post, and we’ll select a winner at random! The winner will be announced on Friday, and the book will be dispatched soon after.

Keep an eye out in the next day or two, as well, as we’ll have an exclusive interview with Professor Jacoby and a chance to improve your odds of winning the signed copy by leaving a comment on the interview as well.

Really, it’s a full-court press! To start off, here are Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Michelle Fairley, and Kit Harington discussing the first season of Game of Thrones as part of press for the Blu-ray and DVD release… plus, perhaps, a few hints as to the second season.

And then, for something completely different, Wilko Johnson—ace guitarist of Dr. Feelgood and the retiring Ilyn Payne—chats with Nörrbottens Kuriren about his role in the series, including the second season, and a bit about his touring plans. Though he’s not really a fan of the novels (not to his tastes), he seems to have had great fun taking part in the filming, and even proposes a spin-off idea…

And, though not an interview, here’s a couple of photos and a video of Emilia Clarke during a GQ UK photoshoot.

Update: And here are executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss… with a little commentary from an HBO representative on the side. ;)

HBO has quietly been adding a few new items to its store in the run-up to season 2. Besides getting more of the Cersei Lannister posters in stock from season 1, there’s some brand new shirts that are rather cool (including a Westeros map shirt), plus some knick-knacks such as house sigil and character magnet sets. You can find these, and much, much more, over at the Westeros Store.

Busy, busy times. Thanks to an invitation from the excellent Amin of Podcast of Ice and Fire, yesterday I joined him, Alex from Tower of the Hand, Apocalypse Dan, and Stefan Sasse from TotH and Boiled Leather for the latest episode of the podcast (which mysteriously ended up with the episde number of 69… hrm!)

Lots of good discussion about the TV series and the books, but naturally it’s full of spoilers and the occasional off-color humor. Check it out!

Two weeks ago, Linda and I flew over to London to do the tourist thing… and one thing more: meet the team from Sky Atlantic and Koink that put together last season’s Thronecast, and film a special video bringing together the HBO Uk “Sessions” series of DVD/Bluray promotional videos with Sky’s Thronecast! It was great to meet host Geoff Lloyd in person at last, as well as Ben Barnes from Sky Atlantic and Georgie Hobbs, who joined Linda and I in discussing the series. And seeing Miltos Yerolemou again (and introducing him to Linda) was a treat.

I have to say, they all did great… me? Not so much—extemporaneous speaking and getting to the point is not necessarily my strong suit!

In any case, here it is:

Will there be more Thronecast for the second season, you ask? We’ll see what we’ll see…

Boy, the Old Vic Tunnels DVD launch was massive for getting photos and interviews with the actors, wasn’t it? Someone helpfully pointed out that there’s even more in the way of interviews via Getty Images. They’re watermarked, but they feature a massive swath of the cast, including Emilia Clarke, Michelle Fairley, Oona Chaplin and Rose Leslie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gwendoline Christie, Isaac Hempstead Wright…. basically, almost everybody!

Plus, Digital Spy has a few more.

Twitter exploded last night with news that The Simpsons made another reference to Game of Thrones in the latest episode… and not just any reference, but a long couch sequence spoofing the TV series’s opening with its clockwork world. You can see it here—and if you’re in the US and have cable or satellite, you can view the episode online at Fox’s official site.

Last night, HBO did a couple of nice things. First, they released the “Seven Devils” trailer in its full, 720p glory, which you can check out below… but they also released a re-cut version of the “Power and Glory” trailer on HBO following the airing of Luck, including a handful of new shots. These include our first look at Robert Pugh as Craster... and our first real look at Grey Wind. Thanks to fan @FittenTrim, we’ve an image that you will definitely want to check out.

It’s just a somewhat grainy still, but it looks really, really good. Hopefully this will lay to rest some of the CG concerns!

Until HBO puts that online in HD to get a better look, though, here’s “Seven Devils”:

James Hibberd at EW has the exclusive new trailer for the second seasons of Game of Thrones, with a decidedly different style to earlier trailers as it uses the song “Seven Devils ” by Florence + the Machine (note: big fans!) over images of war and turmoil in the Seven Kingdoms. Many of the shots are those we’ve seen before… but there’s a slightly better glimpse of Pyat Pree, some new dialog from Tyrion that comes from the novel, and some nice shots from Iceland.

Check it out!

We’ve seen the invite and the red carpet photos from Wednesday’s extravagant DVD launch party in London… but now you can listen in on some of the interviews with many of the show’s actors, and get more of a glimpse of just what was going on inside the Old Vic Tunnels, thanks to this video showing the festivities between clips of the actors being interviewed:

And then there’s this excellent series of inteviews, conducted by Helen O’Hara for the UK’s leading film and television magazine, Empire Online. This one’s nicely edited, with some excellent back-and-forth.

Just a few days away from the release of the Blu-ray and DVD sets of the first season of Game of Thrones on both sides of the Pond (UK DVD, UK Blu-ray, US DVD, US Blu-ray), and it seemed like the right time to give a more in-depth look into the production of the set. If you’ve read our review, the production values of the added features completely blew us away.

Thanks to HBO and Bryan Cogman, we learned a lot of this could be put down to the hard work of Herzog and Company, a creative production company who specializes in producing added content for DVDs and Blu-rays, among many other things they do. HBO put us in touch with Adam Vadnais, executive director of digital design at the company, and he was happy to answer seven (not a coincidence, that) questions for us!

Read the interview!

Access Hollywood continues on its Game of Thrones interview tear, this time talking to Tom Wlaschiha, who plays the mysterious Jaqen H’ghar. Good interview, which reveals that the character’s long hair—dyed red and white—and his penchant for speaking in third person have all been retained for the show (huzzah!)

With any luck, Jaqen will be as much of a favorite character for fans of the TV show as he’s become for fans of the books.

... in another interview, that is, this time with NY Magazine’s Vulture. There’s some spoilers in there, so beware if you want to stay unspoiled. Here’s the most spoilerish bit, and some speculation below: