Westeros

In his introduction to A Feast of Ice and Fire (Order Now: US, US Kindle, Amazon UK), George R.R. Martin writes that he has been accused of writing “food porn” with his lengthy, detailed descriptions of what his characters eat. Fortunately, it is this very habit of his that inspired the mouthwatering exploration of the food of A Song of Ice and Fire that this book represents.

The two women behind it all, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer, started their foray into the food of Westeros—and Essos!—by way of a blog, Inn at the Crossroads, around the time of the first season of Game of Thrones. Their attempts to recreate favourite dishes from the books eventually caught the attention of George R.R. Martin and this led to the book that now has been released, just in time for your Game of Thrones season finale parties.

With all the work we’ve had the last couple of days, I forgot to mention that our video looking at Blackwater” is now on-line! We’ve included it in the episode guide’s extras section, along with the penultimate episode of Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast. Good stuff in there, including a nice Skype chat with Kristian Nairn (aka Hodor).

Besides that, we also have the “Valar Morghulis” final trailer, showing some nice hints of what’s to come in the final episode of the season.

Last but certainly not least, I had promised fans on Twitter a special video if SerIanMC—that’d be Ian McElhinney, who played Ser Barristan Selmy last season—passed 1,000 followers after recently joining Twitter for the first time (here’s a photo he shared to prove it really is him!). Well, that happened right after I tweeted. And so a video was made, being a fairly detailed (if not quite complete—and yes, I had to make some corrections after the fact since I didn’t want to spend even more time re-recording and editing!). You can find it, and many more, at our channel, but I’ll embed it here (NOTE: This is really for non-book readers; if you’ve read the books, you’ve seen pretty much everything I have to say!):

If you like it, and you’re on Twitter, do follow Ian!

It’s common practice for cable companies alike to skip airing their headline programs on a big holiday like the Memorial Day Weekend, and we saw that with Starz skipping Magic City and Showtime The Borgias. But HBO decided to go ahead and keep serving up Game of Thrones once a week. I know we’re all glad to have seen “Blackwater” when we did, but it did have one negative impact: ratings, which dipped a bit.

According to TV by the Numbers, while the episode did win the second place spot in the cable rankings (behind yet more NBA playoffs), it dropped to a 1.6 share (from 2.0) in the 18-49 demographic and 3.384 million viewers for the first airing, with a second airing later in the evening adding an additional 863,000 for a total of 4.244 million viewers. It’s genuinely a holiday thing, so no worries, and the finale may well get the uptick some are hoping to see to put it over the 4 million initial and 5 million total viewership some have hoped for.

On the other hand, James Hibbred at EW notes that last year, the seventh episode also aired on Memorial Day weekend and scored 2.4 million… so you can see that the series is way up overall from where it was this time last year. On top of that, Hibberd adds another important piece of information, perhaps the information HBO considers the most important of all: total average viewership per episode has climbed to 10.3 million viewers when factoring in HBO Go, repeat viewings, and On Demand. That secures its place as the third most-watched series on HBO, and if it continues to climb it may well displace True Blood as #2. #1 is, of course, The Sopranos.

Perhaps to help that along, starting on June 2nd at 6PM the HBO Zone channel will be running not one, not two, but three back-to-back marathons of all nine S2 episodes, back to back, with the final airing of Blackwater timed to just before the premiere of “Valar Morghulis”.

James Hibberd over at EW has a nice scoop on some of the new characters that will be introduced in season 3. Some of these we’ve reported about already—Lady Catelyn’s brother Ser Edmure and her uncle Ser Brynden, called the Blackfish, as well as the sellsword Daario Naharis—and others are quite new. You’ll have to check out EW for the whole list, but here’s a couple more fans should be very happy to hear about:

This is not an exhaustive list, as James notes, but rather a sampling of some of the key characters in play for this season. Little birds have told us that Ramsay Snow, Lord Bolton’s bastard, is also being cast, and a leaked audition revealed that the sellsword Vargo Hoat was also casting. We’ve ever heard whispers of some other characters in the East that Daenerys shall be meeting, besides Daario Naharis.

HBO’s placed the trailer for the final episode, “Valar Morghulis”, up at Youtube in HD. Looks interesting, and I can spot a scene or two that comes straight from the books… and one or two that are definitely brand new. Hrm!

Our full coverage of “Blackwater”, written by George R.R. Martin and directed by Neil Marshall, is now live! It’s quite lengthy, so the short version: amazing.

Our usual video will be available some time tomorrow. Until then, enjoy the episode guide! And if you want to see what fellow fans are saying, and perhaps even join the discussion, visit the forum!

This innocuous post from Northern Ireland Screen, calling for trainees to join it’s Skills Development Scheme. But thanks to this tweet from Cat Taylor, it looks like most (if not all) the trainees will end up working on season 3 of Game of Thrones. If you met the application criteria, it’s a great opportunity to have a hand in the show!

A huge, amazing episode deserves a huge, amazing response, and “Blackwater” seems to have gotten it. The title went on to Twitter’s trend list, and tweets were fast and furious. Writer George R.R. Martin and director Neil Marshal have, based on early responses, turned in the single most well-regarded episode of the series to date. A lot of it has to do with the spectacle, no doubt…. but a good deal has to do with the skillful, cinematic direction and the writing that brought some of the characters to life in a way no one else seems to quite be able to manage.

Our full coverage of the episode will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon or early evening (that’s US hours), but until then make sure to visit the forum, read the responses from fellow fans and, hey, even sign up for the forum and wade into the discussion youself!

A competition! 

In support for a brand new webseries, The Clandestine, that’s currently getting funded through Kickstarter (there’s another familiar name involved, for those fans who followed the show from the start), the mighty Conan Stevens—the actor who brought to life Ser Gregor Clegane in the first season, and who’s currently set to have a role as a big, bad orc in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit—is running a giveaway contest.

The prize, Game of Thrones fans?

A bit belated on our part, as personal stuff has kept us busy these last couple of weeks, but GRRM has a number of updates at “Not a Blog” which we thought we’d make note of, with comments. See them below:

We’ve updated the So Spake Martin collection—our archive of correspondence, interviews, and more with George R.R. Martin—with the latest interview we’ve seen from GRRM, with Mark Lawson for the BBC’s Frontrow program.

UPDATE: It looks like the soundtrack is already available for download at iTunes (if you’ve an account with the US store, in any case).

Thanks to Film Music Reporter, we’ve the full track listing for the Game of Thrones Season 2 soundtrack (Preorder at Amazon: US, UK), which has been pushed back to a June 19th release date.

Here’s the full list… and there’s some vague spoilers in here, so beware:

• 1. Main Title (1:46)
• 2. The Throne Is Mine (3:15)
• 3. What Is Dead May Never Die (2:06)
• 4. Warrior Of Light (3:03)
• 5. Valar Morghulis (2:59)
• 6. Winterfell (2:42)
• 7. Qarth (2:11)
• 8. Wildfire (3:39)
• 9. I Am Hers, She Is Mine (2:17)
• 10. Pyat Pree (2:12)
• 11. Don’t Die With A Clean Sword (3:22)
• 12. We Are The Watchers On The Wall (2:37)
• 13. Pay The Iron Price (2:32)
• 14. One More Drink Before The War (2:05)
• 15. House Of The Undying (5:02)
• 16. Stand And Fight (2:04)
• 17. The Old Gods And The New (2:38)
• 18. Mother Of Dragons (2:34)
• 19. I Will Keep You Safe (2:17)
• 20. The Rains Of Castomere† Performed by The National (2:23)
• 21. Three Blasts (2:40)

Yes, “The Rains of Castamere” is misspelled, and yes, we’ve seen to it that HBO has been notified just in case that can be fixed. Most notable about it is the fact that it seems we’ll be getting a rendition of the song by the indie rock band The National. We’re guessing that if it appears on the show, it’ll be an end credits thing rather than somehow shoe-horning them into an actual episode!

Animation World Network has an interesting piece discussing the truly international effort to creat VFX for Game of Thrones, with the work largely being handled and supervised by Pixomondo.

Episodes can range from having as few as 60 VFX shots to as many as 140 VFX shots (I’m guessing that upper end is where “Blackwater” falls). Some interesting notes about changes to the dragon design to show that they’re growing, and a lot of talk of how the work was handled by nine of the twelve Pixomondo studios across the globe, plus some work outsourced to other VFX production companies, Baked FX (which has a brief announcement about their involvement) and Entity FX.

According to TV by the Numbers, the latest episode “The Prince of Winterfell has ticked up to match its series high of 3.9 million viewers and 2.0 share, narrowly missing beating the second round of the NBA playoffs as top cable show on Sunday. The second showing later that evening added just over a million more viewers and a 0.5 share, taking it to just shy of 5 million viewers in all.

Will “Blackwater” get us over the 4 million and 5 million marks respectively? Given all the promotion from HBO positioning this episode as something of an event, I think odds are good at least a few subscribers are going to tune in to see what the fuss is all about.

Bryan Cogman, story editor, writer of “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things” and the awesome “What Is Dead May Never Die” (still the most-liked episode of the second season according to fans at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum), and a fellow fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, has deactivated his twitter account. Why? Bryan explains in a statement he wrote that he’s asked us to share, and you can read it below:

Episode 8 is come and gone, and our full coverage of the episode can be found at our “The Prince of Winterfell” episode guide! This includes the full recap, our review/analysis, and our book-to-screen break down. The bonus video... maybe tomorrow, but possibly later, as family business is keeping us busy through Wednesday; our apologies!

This interview with executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss is a great read, as they discuss the upcoming “Blackwater” in some detail. There are some mild spoilers for those who haven’t read the novels, but a lot more of it is about the challenges of producing the battle. They’ve already previously noted that they received a “stipend” above and beyond the decided season budget to be able to put it together, but one interesting detail that I believe is new is the fact that originally “Blackwater” was due to be directed by another director until a personal emergency forced put an end to that. Neil Marshal was the name that popped up as a replacement, and it worked very well indeed.

I’m going to guess that the unnamed director was Jeremy Podeswa, who had at one point indicated (during, I believe, a red carpet interview) that Game of Thrones was on his schedule and then seemed to never be mentioned again in connection with the show. Podeswa’s credits include a number of HBO shows and miniseries, perhaps most saliently The Pacific in which he directed the episode “Iwo Jima”.

In any case, make sure to check out the interview, which includes another preview for the episode.

We’ve heard about a social Game of Thrones game being in the works in the past on several occasions… and now, finally, it looks like they’re getting ready to reveal more about it. Here’s the press release announcing the game, made in partnership between HBO and Disruptor Beam, which seems to indicate that the game is their first big launch (though they do have prior experience developing games):

And here is that promised teaser for “Blackwater”:

HBO has also released a trailer titled “War of the Five Kings” which adds a couple more glimpses of the episode, as well as doing a very succinct job of setting up all the rival kings (and their situation to date):

Looks like there’ll be much blood and mayhem in this Neil Marshal-directed, George R.R. Martin-written episode!

(And yes, our coverage of “A Prince of Winterfell” is still not going up until Monday afternoon !)

Of course, it’s “The Prince of Winterfell” tonight at 9PM Eastern, and that promises to be an interesting episode… but for many fans, the episode that’s been looming first and foremost all season long has been “Blackwater”, penned by one George R.R. Martin. It promises to be an epic episode.

So epic that HBO is releasing a special promo for the episode this Sunday at 10:01 Pacific… or 1:01 Eastern on Monday, and it should be available online via HBO.com, Making Game of Thrones, and of course the official Youtube channel. So, yeah, check that one out. ;) We’ll probably be getting up early tomorrow just to get a peek at it.

Oh, and so epic, that in the lead up to it, no screeners have gone out to us (and possibly to others), not even for “The Prince of Winterfell”. So our usual coverage is set for Monday afternoon at the earliest, time permitting. Until then, enjoy the episode!

HBO has sent out two preview images… and unusually, one of them is not for the next episode, “The Prince of Winterfell”, but also for the penultimate episode of the season, the George R.R. Martin-penned, “Blackwater”.

The image to the right features Varys—who has been absent for the last few episodes—speaking with Tyrion in episode 8 as Tyrion seems to be examining a very topical book about the history of sieges in Westeros. Not a tome described in the novels (should have been a tattered, partial manuscript of Ayrmidon’s Engines of War!)

And the more notable image, that of Bronn with a longbow (!) preparing to send a firey arrow… somewhere. What’s going on? No idea. However, we may be getting a hint on May 27, 10:01 Pacific / May 28, 1:01 am Eastern, because it looks like a special preview for “Blackwater” will be airing at that time. Exciting!

Casting is well under way for season 3 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, and though rumors and whispers are running around about which roles are being sought—we can pretty reliably say that Daario Naharis, Shireen Baratheon, and Edmure Tully are among roles being sought, that Brynden Tully (aka the Blackfish) also seems likely from details we’ve picked up from a recent (now vanished) audition video, and of course significant roles for this season such as Mance Rayder are also being sought, while it certainly sounds from the show that the character of Ramsay Snow is going to be needed.

It’s notable that the casting for extras is also underway... and a detail rather caught our eye:

We set the fundraiser for Westeros.org at what I thought was a not-very-modest goal—about twice as much as we ever really asked for before—and it turns out, I very much undervalued how much the site means to the community of users! After less than a week, the fundraising has come to a close… and we raised something north of $3000! An amazing job, one and all, and we truly appreciate it. Many, many thanks to everyone who contributed, to those who would if they could, and everyone who’s contributed to make it such a terrific community site.

The Game of Thrones RPG contest grew to a close yesterday, and now I can name the winners!

From the competition for our Twitter followers:

• Brandon Excell
• Robert Dimitri

From the competition for our Facebook followers:

• Christopher VeRn Varney
• Valeria Vianes

Congratulations to the winners! They’ve all been contacted via Twitter or Facebook, and will see their copies of the Game of Thrones RPG sent to them once we have the mailing addresses. The Game of Thrones game has been released in the US today (XBox, PS3, PC Download) and will be available in the rest of the world from June 1st (UK XBox, UK PS3, UK PC DVD).

As the screeners have dried up, reviews here on out will no longer be posted earlier than Monday… and after quite a few hours of work, I’ve finished up most of our material for A Man Without Honor. The usual video we create won’t be done until tomorrow, however—apologies for that, but writing the recap, analysis, and chapter-by-chapter breakdown took most of the day!

And for those interested, here’s the preview video for “The Prince of Winterfell”.

One of the most recent departures from the show has been that of Irri, the Dothraki handmaiden and companion to Daenerys Targaryen. Played by actress Amrita Acharia, Irri showed herself to be spirited and dutiful, and it seems that last trait may well have led to her character’s very unexpected death on the series. We had the opportunity to speak to Amrita about he role, what it was like to be involved in a production of this scale, the difficulties of acting when speaking an imaginary language, and the problem of being one of the Horse Lords but without ever riding a horse… !

Unlike most of our interviews, this one has been published at Suvudu, where I’ve contributed a number of reviews and articles related to Game of Thrones. So go ahead and read the interview!

The Game of Thrones RPG is rapidly approaching, and Cyanide Studio and Focus Home Interactive—perhaps taking a page from HBO’s many behind the scenes videos—has released a video taking us “Behind the Wall”:

We’ve also updated our gallery with a heap of new screen shots.

The RPG hits shelves on the 15th of May in North America, and Junest 1st in the rest of the world. And if you’re in the US and interested in winning a copy for XBox or PS3? Look here!

May 15th is the date in the U.S. for the release of Atlus USA’s and Cyanide Studio’s Game of Thrones RPG for XBox and PS3 (as well as PC, via Steam or Amazon downloads)... and we have a contest to win one of four copies for those of you lucky to be in the US!

We have four copies to give away, winner’s choice as to XBox or PS3 (sorry, no PC copies to give away) and these include the exclusive pre-order art book. The competition is US only (sorry! we’ll see if we can’t offer one for those elsewhere in the world nearer the release date) and we want to to give everyone a couple of entries… so here’s how you do it:

• Like our Facebook Page and comment on this post (not in the timeline, in the actual comments below!)
• Follow @westerosorg on Twitter and RT this contest announcement.

We’ll have a drawing for 2 copies for Facebook commenters and 2 copies for Twitter followers/RTers.

One entry per social site, please—multiple entries beyond that will be disqualified! Winners will be announced on Monday following the contest close at 12PM Eastern Time, and we’ll get in touch as quickly as possible to get your address and preference as to whether you prefer the XBox or PS3 version. Once we have addresses, the copies will be mailed out some time on or after May 15th.

Good luck!

It’s that time of year again, folks, to support the Westeros.org community. It’s not just the forums and website, that have seen far more activity and membership than they ever have, but it’s also the Wiki of Ice and Fire (the premiere ASoIaF wiki on the web) which is one of the most visited parts of the site—well over a million unique visitors per month, coming by to look up all the details that you, the community, have put up there to share your knowledge and love of the series.

If you’ve ever used the resources of Westeros.org, discussed a theory on the forum, browsed the wiki—please consider chipping in a bit of money for the fundraiser! The funds raised will go directly to our wonderful server admin Sparks to defray the costs of hosting , and allow us to start looking into upgrades that might further improve the speed and stability of the servers.

Many thanks for your time, consideration, and (we hope) your donation! ChipIn allows payments through credit card or Paypal; sorry, we can’t take money orders, cheques, or cash, but we do appreciate the thought!

The Game of Thrones roleplaying game will be released in just six short days (in the US—it’ll be June 1st for Europe and the rest of the world), and if you haven’t pre-ordered, it’s soon the last chance to do so!

Over at Amazon US, the XBox and PS3 versions include an art book as a pre-order bonus, or you can just go an preorder the downloadable PC version . All three versions are up for pre-order at Amazon UK as well (UK XBox, UK PS3, UK PC DVD)... and of course you can just go ahead and pre-order the PC game for download at Steam, although that seems to be set to the June 1st release date for Europe.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has released a terrific interview with the lead developers from Cyanide and—if you’ll excuse the fact that English isn’t their first language—it’s quite informative about some of their approach, including how they took a page or two from GRRM. Good stuff, and by the comments it looks like a few people find the game even more interesting. The interview also includes an amusing tidbit where we learn that GRRM says the death of a character was because of his assistant Ty Franck’s suggestion, and that Cyandie is already hard at work on DLC content for the game.

Atlus has also set up a Facebook page for the game, where you can find the latest images and videos, and keep abreast of the latest developments as the release approaches and fans start looking for the DLC content!

On top of that, Atlus has set up a Facebook page for the game

Thanks to TV By The Numbers, the ratings for “The Old Gods and the New”, the 6th episode of Game of Thrones. According to their numbers, the show is holding very steady with a 3.879 million viewers live and same day. Plus, it just managed to climb a tenth of a point to reach the 2.0 demographic share.

These numbers don’t really mean all that much for HBO, since they don’t depend on advertising, which is what the Nielsen figures are ultimately about… but it does show that the audience is very much committed to the show, as they should be. It’s hard to imagine that it’s only three more episode for “Blackwater”, which promises spectacle on an unheard-of scale for the show… and then after that, the final episode, “Valar Morghulis”, closing out the season.

Our full coverage of the episode, including our bonus material, is now available! And once you’re done looking at that, feel free to share your thoughts over at the episode sub-forum at the A Song of Ice and Fire Forum to discuss and rate the episode!

For those who are eagerly awaiting the September 19th release of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones, a visual companion to the TV seres (Amazon Preorder: US, UK), we’ve been pointed to a brief preview PDF giving a glimpse at a few pages of photos, interviews, and concept art.

The layout and design looks terrific… and more importantly, there’s certain to be some excellent behind-the-scenes information. The preview already reveals the fascinating fact that they scanned—presumably with lasers—the whole of Magheramorne quarry and the Castle Black set so that the CG team had accurate models to work from!

Thanks to olafkeith for pointing the PDFs availability.

For those who’ve eagerly awaited the premiere of season 2 in Sweden (and the rest of Canal+ in the Nordic countries!), the wait is coming to an end! In about half an hour, the first episode, “The North Remembers” will be premiering.

And for those of you who want a bit more material to go along with when you inevitably decide to rewatch the first season… SVT’s TV Cirkeln is complete and will be available on SVT Play for the next year. Of particular note? Episode 10 featured Westeros.org’s very own Linda, joining Johanna, Kodjo, and Roger, discussing the finale of the season and things to look forward to going into the next season!

The annual Locus Awards—voted by subscribers to the SF/F genre’s leading industry magazine, as well by the public over the Internet—have announced their 2012 Locus Award finalists, and one familiar name is apparent: A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin is among the five Fantasy Novel finalists. The winner of the award each year is the highest vote-earner, and later in the year the full results will be published. The award itself will be handed out at the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle, on June 17th.

Another familiar name or two crops up as well: Best Artist finalist John Picacio, who created the amazing 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, and the novel Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey—the pen name of writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (who is also known as GRRM’s personal assistant)—as one of the five finalists in the Science Fiction Novel category.

Congratulations to them, and to all the other deserving finalists.

Great news! The latest episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, “The Ghost of Harrenhal” has not only climbed a tenth of a point to a 1.9 share and 3.9 million viewers, but it also tied the NBA playoffs to lead Sunday night cable. Adding the second airing that night pushes it to a 4.7 million final on the day.

It’d be terrific to see it crack 2.0, 4 million, and 5 million respectively by the time we see the season’s final episode, “Valar Morghulis”. You have to think the buzz for the 9th episode, or at least after it, should do it, but we’ll have to wait and see.