Westeros

It’s always a pleasure to interview writer and story editor Bryan Cogman, who has so far written an episode of each season, including what are amounting to two of our personal favorites of the series: “What is Dead May Never Die” and his season three episode, “Kissed by Fire”.

Below, I talk with Bryan about the episode, the introduction of new characters, his proudest moments, and much more. It’s a lengthy one but, we hope, a good one. Enjoy!

Interview

All right, thanks so much for taking the time, first off!

Now, often episodes seem to have their titles decided at the last minute—George’s episode went through a couple of different names before it was settled. Was “Kissed by Fire” always the title you preferred for your episode?

To read the rest, go to the full interview.

UPDATE: We’ve now posted the recap and analysis of “Kissed by Fire”.

As HBO only provided us the first four episodes of the new season, from here on out our Game of Thrones episode guides will get update only after the initial airing. We hope to be able to get at least the analysis and book-to-screen up by the time the west coast airing is completed, but the extensive recap tends to take rather longer than that, and will probably not appear until later on Monday.

Until then, however, we’ve now posted our book to screen information on the episode guide for “Kissed by Fire”.

Thanks to Bleeding Cool, we’ve learned that Avatar Press executive Jim Kuhoric spoke at a panel at C2E2 about various Avatar Press projects, and in the course of it he discussed some of what’s coming from George R.R. Martin. First and foremost, of course, is the comic book adaptation of GRRM’s World Fantasy Award-winning novella The Skin Trade, to go along with their earlier adaptation of Fevre Dream. Thanks to that, Kuhoric revealed that GRRM will be at San Diego’s Comic-Con (which GRRM has previously announced), where he’ll make an appearance at Avatar’s booth and sign books.

The most intersting item, however, was Kuhoric revealing that there’s a “George R.R. Martin original” in the works, which “may” be superhero related. Kuhoric suggests this is a departure, as previously the works they’ve published have simply been adaptations. They’ll reveal more later, but what I suspect this is is a brand new Wild Cards original comic book story, which will almost certainly be scripted by someone other than GRRM (possibly Daniel Abraham, responsible for the adaptation of Fevre Dream and the Dynamic Entertainment comic Wild Cards: Hard Call?).

To see Kuhoric’s sremarks, watch below beginning at the 2:50 mark:

Last week, we announced a contest—courtesy of the HBO Store—to win a Game of Thrones beanie. That one’s done, and we even threw in an additional prize of a matching scarf to the winner…

... but in their generosity, HBO has also given us another contest item: a House Stark blanket, to keep you extra-warm when winter is coming. To enter, all you have to do is follow Westeros.org and tweet #GoTBlanket!

Alas, yes, contest is US only. But we’ll have some international contests quite soon!

Kansas City’s annual, venerable ConQuest convention is about to have its 44th(!) con from May 24th through the 26th, and as it happens, George R.R. Martin will be a guest there. He and Parris have long been supporters of this convention, which we’ve been told is one of the best fandom-organized conventions around. Many other guests will be on hand, including guests of honor Patrick Rothfuss and John Picacio (award-winning illustrator of the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar.

Here’s the press release from the convention itself:

“Dracarys!”

A great and long-awaited ending to an excellent episode. For our full recap, review, and book-to-screen breakdown, just go ahead to our episode guide for “And Now His Watch is Ended”.

HBO and the HBO Store have teamed up to offer up a special sweepstakes (US Only). in which you can win some pretty amazing props from the set:

More details, and how to enter, at the HBO Store!

Australian comedy band The Axis of Awesome have decided to share their views on Game of Thrones, and we suspect it gives voice to feelings some fans of the novels have occasionally had well up in some deep, dark corner of their soul:

“Hollywood cannot live up to the power of imagination!”—so full of rage, and yet so very true!

It was only a matter of time before comedy icon Alfred E. Neuman sat on the Iron Throne on the cover of MAD Magazine. And that time has now come.

The humor magazine is at last tackling Game of Thrones, with a cover that homages the season one image of Eddard Stark on the throne. Neuman has a rather different throne, indeed…

The issue goes on sails on April 30th. For those interested in a subscription, you can try here.

We’ve now updated our episode guide for “Walk of Punishment” with HBO’s “Inside the Episode” regular feature, as well as their own recap video… plus our own Youtube video discussing the episode in terms of some historical details of interest, as well as a quick commentary on our personal highs and lows of the episode. We’re finally starting to catch up with getting the videos done in good time, and hopefully from here on out they’ll be available soon after the end of the US airing!

You can find the video below:

Courtesy of the HBO store, we’ve a couple of brief contests for interested fans. Before we go any further, though: this is US only; sorry folks, but keep an eye out, we’ve some international contests coming up soon!

So, first contest: you can win this most excellent Targaryen beanie! Good way to show your Fire and Blood pride, isn’t it? Especially as things heat up for Daenerys in Slaver’s Bay…

How to enter? Just follow us on Twitter and tweet #GoTBeanie! Only one entry per person will be counted, so no need to keep RTing… well, unless you really want to!

This long video from HBO provides a good overview of the many new characters introduced this season, along with interview excerpts with the actors, the producers, and George R.R. Martin:

Poor Edmure gets such a hiding in this video! Can’t catch a break, it seems…

Conan O’Brien had an interesting guest last night, when Nikolaj Coster-Waldau appeared to talk about Game of Thrones and related matters. This initial segment reveals some details about an upcoming scene in the series, so it’s something of a mild spoiler ...

... while this anecdote featuring a bathroom stall and George Clooney is just plain funny:

Via James Hibberd at EW, it looks like “Dark Wings, Dark Words” has managed the feat of becoming the second most-viewed episode of the series to date, with its ratings dropping very little from last week’s highly-rated opening. Really steady numbers such as these are a pretty good sign for the show, it goes without saying.

Well, this is a bit earlier than usual: Amazon.com is already listing the Bluray and DVD sets for season 3. No release date as yet, though as usual we suppose that’ll be for next year rather than the holiday season.

In the UK, this year’s nominees for the prestigious BAFTA Television awards have been announced, and Game of Thrones actually has two separate nominations. One of them is a BAFTA-proper—it’s nominated in the International Award category, alongside The Bridge, Homeland, and fellow HBO show Girls—and the other is the Radio Times Audience Award, which is decided by the voting public.

The awards will be handed out on May 12th.

(Thanks to @TataniaRose for bring it to our attention.)

Finished the latest episode of Game of Thrones? We’ve posted our recap, review and analysis, and book-to-screen breakdown over at our episode guide! We’ll have additional content—our video review, and perhaps a few other tidbits—appearing tomorrow and the day after, as they become available.

Access Hollywood have again been at it with some excellent Game of Thrones coverage this year, and we’d thought we should share two recent interviews we’ve particularly enjoyed. First, Mackenzie Crook—who plays Orell, a wildling skinchanger (which, for mysterious reasons, has been simplified to just being a warg—those of you with a bit of knowledge of Germanic or Scandinavian languages, past or present, may understand why this is an inaccuracy)—is finally interviewed at length about his experience of the production and just a bit about his character.

Second, one of the most entertaining actors in the production is Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, who discusses his character’s miraculous survival in this video interview:

We previously reported that Texas A&M’s Cushing Memorial Library had arranged for “Deeper than Swords”, an exhibition of material from their collection of material from GRRM that they have been archiving for many years. Martin himself was present for a couple of days of the event, and now those who missed out on the opportunity to attend can get a taste thanks to the university recording and placing on Youtube’s Martin’s speech and interview which was a centerpiece of the whole event:

For more from the event, see this post from author Martha Wells, who attended the events and took many photos of the exhibit and events.

Very recently, Linda and I were interviewed by Andrew Burns for the UK’s The Big Issue, a widely-circulated magazine that will likely be familiar to many in the UK.

Not sold on newstands, it’s only sold by homeless men and women who are given a means to work and an opportunity to improve their lives. You’ll find it being sold in many of the UK’s cities.

We’d been told that they needed a picture of us for the feature they’re writing on Game of Thrones... ... but it was quite the surprise to discover that we’re on the cover! The magazine will be on sale this week, and besides our interview, it also features a broader look at the series and show, and an editorial piece on fantasy literature and its appeal in the current economic climate.

If you’re in a UK, definitely give it a look if you’ve the opportunity. And if you see it, let us know what you think!

Subject says it all! This is earlier than I expected—after the initial first season of a show, it often seems like HBO prefers to wait out renewal news—but it’s pretty much exactly what I expected: a full on renewal for season 4.

Read the press release below:

James Hibberd has the scoop that the premiere episode of season 3 of Game of Thrones, “Valar Dohaeris”, is the most watched episode ever of the series. The initial 9PM showing pulled 4.4 million viewers, while with repeats the show reached 6.7 million viewers. That’s an increase of 13 percent over last year’s premiere. And that’s with the Easter holiday and the finale of AMC’s smash hit The Walking Dead scheduled at the same time. Hibberd notes that the 10PM reairing in particular had strong numbers for a repeat, and he suggests that’s because some viewers switched to the show after Dead was done.

By way of comparison, last year fellow HBO show True Blood scored 5.2 million viewers on the initial airing of their premiere… but just 6.3 million with repeats.

There are some excellent—and rather intriguing—shots in this new critic spot ahead of the premiere tonight:

Continuing our interview series, next up is actress Rose Leslie, who had a memorable turn as Ygritte last season.

In this interview, she gives some hints about things to come, discusses just how often Kit Harington smiles, and much more. I note one place where she laughs… but truth be told, she laughs often and was clearly enjoying herself immensely at being involved in a project like Game of Thrones.

Interview

What can you tell us about season 3?

Why is Ygritte interested in Jon Snow? What piques her interest?

Want more? Read the rest!