Westeros

James Hibberd (with contributions from Kim Masters) has the scoop, sharing that multiple sources have told him that:

Hibberd’s article places this in context of recent history at HBO, including the facts that Benioff & Weiss had briefly considered a trilogy of films to wrap up the TV show, George R.R. Martin was interested in seeing his universe on the big screen, and the sense that the idea that a property could be only on TV or only in cinemas is increasingly considered outdated in this new era dominated by streaming.

And now the celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire comes to its conclusion, with a piece of art that is very different from everything that’s come before it.

I’ve seen confusion about the “canon” nature of the artwork, despite out initial post indicating that this is a wholly unofficial series of commissions, for a wholly unofficial anniversary celebration. That said, of course, we direct the artists to the books, and in the cases of dragons we felt free to give them the colors that George had indicated to us for The Rise of the Dragon, which we couldn’t find a way to share in all cases.

But this piece of art, by the terrific Fran Vegas, is different. The location is one that has been referenced, and glimpsed once in official art (in The World of Ice and Fire in fact): Summerhall. But the scene… well, we admit, that is what some fans call “headcanon”. We just love the idea of the image, and feeling free to see it rendered by a capable of artist, we asked for it.

And that concludes the anniversary, as far as Westeros.org is concerned. Linda and I? We’ll be at dinner right about now, because not only is this the 10th year to the day of the publication of The World of Ice and Fire, it’s also our 10th wedding anniversary.

We thank you all for the well-wishes, and all the support we’ve had over all the years.

Ten years ago today, The World of Ice and Fire was published, introducing fans and readers to a huge bevy of new information regarding the history and the world behind George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. We’ve been celebrating that event over these past two weeks.

It was a long journey to get it made, working with George R.R. Martin, our editor Anne Groell, the team at Ten Speed Press who helped put it together, and a score or artists. The book hit the New York Times bestseller list on release, and has sold perennially ever since as new readers come along who fall in love with the world GRRM has created.

As promised, on this particularly auspicious day, we are sharing not one but two pieces of original art, by artists Linda and I commissioned to give back something to our fellow fans. You’ve had dragons aplenty, and the great tourney at Harrenhal. For this piece, however, we went to the novels, specifically to A Clash of Kings, and to a moment that… well, yes, Game of Thrones didn’t give readers this moment. So we thought we could rectify that, a little.

To help us, we turned to Arantza Sestayo, the Spanish artist behind the 2022 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, and who also contributed art to the illustrated A Game of Thrones. We owe particular thanks to our friend, Javi Marcos of Los Siete Reinos, who made the introduction that made this possible.

This is the penultimate day of our celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, and as we said yesterday, we wanted to bring the last pieces of art to where it all started: A Song of Ice and Fire.

So here’s another image, a scene we’ve never seen directly—it’s only been referenced in the novels—brought to life by Ice and Fire veteran René Aigner, who took what we asked for and pushed it up to another level of poignancy.

Eddard Stark delivers Dawn to Ashara Dayne

With this final flurry of art celebrating the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, we wanted to bring the material back to A Song of Ice and Fire. René Aigner set the scene with his rendition of the “greatest tourney of them all” at Harrenhal in the year of the false spring, and Joshua Cairós gave us a vignette in the form of the Knight of the Laughing Tree. To cap off this particular theme, we wanted something that captured the excitement of the joust.

GRRM has said “a lot happened at Harrenhal”, a fact hinted in the books, and in the pages of The World of Ice and Fire and its account of the origins of Lord Whent’s great tourney. We’ve heard bits and pieces, and among them we’ve heard the results of some of the jousts… but as far as I know, no artist has really depicted the competitors actually competing. We thought we’d rectify that, and we asked comic creator, artist, and novelist Mark Smylie—whose Artesia comics, and the incredible epic fantasy world therein (which have given birth to an RPG, a second RPG in development, and not one but two novels with at least one more planned), are a favorite of ours—to do just that in one of the more detailed, character-packed pieces of art we’ve asked for. The scene?

We think not only have we never seen any jousts from Harrenhal depicted, but we also think Brandon Stark in the lists has never been shown, either. That has now been rectified!

For this 8th art reveal in celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, we turn once again—and for a last time—to Rudolf Hima. His Grey Ghost and Tyraxes were great additions to the canon of A Song of Ice and Fire dragon art, but we wanted something a bit more narratively-driven for his final contribution. And yes, it relates to House of the Dragon, and maybe to things we’re not likely to see there that were described in The World of Ice and Fire and Fire and Blood.

I hesitate to name it above the fold, for those who do not want spoilers… but after the image we’ll discuss it some!

The dragons return for one more round, during this tenth anniversary celebration for The World of Ice and Fire.

Dragons have always been such a key part of A Song of Ice and Fire, from the time Daenerys Targaryen’s three “children” were born through to the present. The World of Ice and Fire introduced fans to nearly all the dragons of the Dance (with the exception of Syrax, who was given a passing mention), and in the course of that book and The Rise of the Dragon we gave fans a look at a number of them, and more. But one that we never managed to show in its full glory, with its rider on its back, is Dreamfyre. We thought we’d take the opportunity of Ertaç Altınöz‘s involvement in this celebration by asking him to give him just that.

So here is Dreamfyre, with Helaena Targaryen riding her in the skies.

We’re back! The tenth anniversary celebration for The World of Ice and Fire continues. You’ve seen dragons aplenty now—and not the last, too—but another theme Linda and I settled on when we contacted artists may start to become clearer when we reveal this new piece. This one, we’re happy to say, was created for us by the very talented Spanish artist Joshua Cairós, who we we had the pleasure of working with on The Rise of the Dragon.

Our first concept for him was, I admit, overly ambitious—maybe we’ll revisit it some day; perhaps the 20th anniversary? But as we talked about alternatives, another idea presented itself: a depiction of the Knight of the Laughing Tree in armor.

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s image reveal, the celebration of the 10th anniversary since the publication of The World of Ice and Fire continues, and Rudolf Hima did a fantastic job giving fans—and us—another dragon. This time, it’s the young dragon Tyraxes, the dragon of Joffrey Velaryon, who on House of the Dragon is much younger and much smaller at this point in time than he is in the books.

The Dragonpit is, once more, the scene of this image. We think Rudolf did a fantastic job of capturing the magical hue of the dragon’s fire, a feature that George has described but which the TV shows have not made use of so far.

The dragons are back, and so is Ertaç Altınöz, as we continue commemorating the 10th anniversary celebration since the The World of Ice and Fire. Before, he gave us Sunfyre, the golden dragon in his splendor. And now? Morning, the dragon of Rhaena Targaryen ... at least in Fire and Blood, because House of the Dragon seems to have removed the dragon from the show, alas.

And not Morning as fans have tended to see it, a young creature riding on her shoulder, but the dragon now large and strong and able to carry Rhaena on long journeys. When we wondered at a setting, we thought that it’d be appropriate to contrast the dragon—one of the very last living dragons—with the ruins of the Dragonpit, and Ertaç kindly obliged.

Continuing the 10th anniversary celebration for The World of Ice and Fire, a change of pace. The first two days featured dragons—Sunfyre by Ertaç Altınöz and Grey Ghost by Rudolf Hima—but today we start another theme. We’ve heard and seen much of Harrenhal in the books, and even in House of the Dragon.  There’s been lots of art, too, featuring Harren’s huge, cursed castle… but most of it is of its imposing bulk, or of that fateful moment when Rhaegar Targaryen presented the crown of the queen of love and beauty to Lyanna Stark.

But to our recollection, no one has tried to show the great, grand tourney in all of its sprawling splendor before. That’s what we asked René Aigner—a veteran of The World of Ice and Fire, The Rise of the Dragon, and the 2023 World of Fire and Blood Calendar—to do, and we think he did a superlative job.

The 10th anniversary celebration for The World of Ice and Fire continues, with a companion of sorts to our previous image, as we look at another dragon from the Dance. This one seems to have disappeared entirely from House of the Dragon, though it was obliquely referenced in the first season, but we always had a bit of fondness for it. Here is the wild dragon known as the Grey Ghost, a shy creature that kept away from men, and preferred fish to anything else, beautifully rendered by artist Rudolf Hima:

To kick off our celebration of the 10th anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire, we commissioned Ertaç Altınöz to depict Sunfyre, the golden dragon of Aegon II—featured, all too briefly, in House of the Dragon. Ertaç gave us this beautiful image, of the great dragon spreading its wings as it suns itself.

Four and final teasers for the art we’ve commissioned to celebrate the tenth anniversary of The World of Ice and Fire. Starting tomorrow, one will be released each weekday, with a final two images on October 28th to close off the celebration. The artists—all professionals—who’ve worked with us have created some fantastic artwork which we thinks fans will enjoy seeing. We certainly have!

The third and final day of the Heritage Auctions Game of Thrones prop and costume auction drew to a close, and did so with a bang (we’ve recapped Day 1 and Day 2 in previous posts). Mid-way through the auction of the last ~300 items, an auctioneer announced that it had now become the 2nd highest grossing Entertainment prop and costume auction in history, and was now chasing the legendary Debbie Reynold’s auction of 2011. While it did not meet that number, it came close with a total of $22,115,719 in sales including the buyers’ premiums.

And a big chunk of the $8.5 million raised on that final day came in the form of the touring Iron Throne which went for a whopping $1.49 million dollars. An absolutely stunning sum, by any measure, especially when you consider that HBO made more than one replica throne for exhibitions and tours… and that for a brief time you could order your own replica through the HBO Store for a cool $30,000. I strongly suspect we’ll be seeing another Iron Throne put to auction in the future, given this result.

Could this throne, displayed at Stockholm’s Royal Armoury back in 2014, be the same that sold at auction? A close inspection comparing it to Heritage’s photos certainly show no obvious diferences, but as we said, there were multiple of these and they may well all have been pretty exact replicas!

Yesterday, we wrote a long post about the 10th anniversary since the publication of The World of Ice and Fire, and shared our first teases of twelve new pieces of fan art we commissioned by professional artists (most of whom are veterans of The Rise of the Dragon, or of the A Song of Ice and Fire calendars and official illustrated editions). This post will be shorter. Here’s four more mysterious glimpses at the art we’ll begin to release on a daily basis from the 14th through to the October 28th anniversary date!

Day two of the Heritage Auctions Game of Thrones auction started off with a bang when the first new entry into the six-figure sale list was Jon’s Snow’s season 6 Night’s Watch ensemble with an included “action” Longclaw. Realized price? $337,500, becoming the most expensive piece sold to date.

A few other notable pieces hit the six-figure mark throughout the day. Oberyn Martell’s trial by combat ensemble was next to break the mark, followed by what to me was probably the most surprising result among the big sellers: the Lannister “family litter” used in season 5. It’s beautifully crafted, but I had no idea it’d draw that much attention. After that, the last item we saw to reach $100,000 before we went to bed was the “Shame” bell, which I recall David Mandel of the The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast expected to do well.

And that wasn’t even half way through the six-figure sellers. When we checked the final results, lets just say our eyes went wide.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of The World of Ice and Fire. When it hit shelves in the US, UK, and elsewhere, it debuted on multiple bestseller lists. It had been 8 long years in the making—more, if you count when George first mentioned the possibility to me over dinner in 2004—and, on arrival, launched thousands of new conversations in the fandom, and has contributed to a dizzying amount of podcasts, vlogs, cosplay and other fan works.

It also, pretty directly, gave birth to Fire and Blood, as something like 80% of the material in that book was originally written by George for The World of Ice and Fire. And so there is a direct line, from George asking me if he thought Linda and I would like to help him on a world book, to House of the Dragon today. And, for that matter, to a number of the HBO projects that are or have been under development: the Ten Thousand ships, the Nine Voyages of Corlys Velaryon, an animated show about the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, Aegon’s Conquest, and who knows what else that hasn’t yet been revealed. Even a play, The Iron Throne (formerly known as Harrenhal), is likely to pull from the Year of the False Spring material George created for the book which gave fans never-before-revealed insights into how and why Lord Whent’s great tourney came to be. They all sprang from George’s pen for the book, and our role in many of these pieces was to help organize and excerpt and compress it down to fit within the bounds of a book that was originally contracted to be 50,000 words long (and ultimately weighed it at more than 180,000.)

Linda and I have been, and will always be, grateful for the opportunity to work with George in providing an expansion of the knowledge fans had about the world he’d created, and all the opportunities it’s given us. We’ve been invited to hold talks in more libraries across Sweden than we can count, have visited wonderful countries like Spain, Northern Ireland and Ireland, the Netherlands, and more to make appearances or sign books or take part in convention programming, attended an art exhibition in Berlin dedicated to works inspired by the book, we filmed numerous segments for Sky’s Thronecast in the UK, we’ve attended premieres, and much, much more. Along the way we’ve made many new acquaintances and friends, and that’s made this all the more gratifying to us.

It has been quite a ride, one we could never have imagined 25 years ago when we were just fans who wanted to run a little game based on these books we loved, and who started a small website to collect information about the books to share with fans the world over.

(This month also, not coincidentally, marks our 10th wedding anniversary—we decided it was an auspicious time to finally tie the knot, after spending 15 years together in Sweden.)

So, thankful to all the fans who have enjoyed the book, who have enjoyed all the art it contains and has inspired, Linda and I took it upon ourselves—entirely on our own initiative; this is not some secret marketing ploy or an attempt to hint at anything other than our love of George’s world and the fandom that shares that love!— to approach a number of professional artists to add just a few more illustrations for fans to enjoy. These works range from things that could well have been included in the original The World of Ice and Fire, or in The Rise of the Dragon, and are guided mostly by things we wanted to see done by these artists in particular.

Today, and over the weekend, we’re going to tease the twelve pieces of art we commissioned, posting them at about 7PM Swedish time each day… and over the following weekdays, leading up to the precise anniversary of October 28th, we’ll be releasing a new piece of art at 7PM our time as well. To get us started, you’ll see the first four teasers below. These teasers are randomly selected, and do not reflect the order we’ve planned for the final pieces.

Over at Not a Blog, George R.R. Martin has continued his promised updates about his recent travels, this time discussing his visit to the HBO production of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (George notes it may still end up having The Hedge Knight as the title). This one’s quite special, because George features a number of candid, behind-the-scenes photos from his visits showing the Ashford meadow tourney grounds set, as well as actors in costume including the eponymous Ser Duncan the Tall (played by Peter Claffey) and the cousins Fossoway as well.

The first day of the three day Game of Thrones prop and costume auction run by Heritage Auctions started well, with nearly $5.36 million realized across the first 290-odd listings in the auction. We kept track of it as long as we could, and by the time we went to bed we’d noted that several items had cleared the $100,000 mark. Gregor Clegane’s tourney armor was the first to hit six figures and ended up just shy of $200,000, followed by a prototype dragon egg from the first season (a second egg just missed the mark).
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After that, Arya Stark’s season 2 “boy” ensemble with an included “action” version of Needle hit $150,000, which seemed like a very expected number. And then, fittingly, the first item to hit $200,000—just beating out the Mountain that Ride’s armor—was the Hound’s armor ensemble. After that point, we went to bed, but in the morning we found two more items made it to the prestigious six-figure club: a full Jaime Lannister Kinsguard ensemble. Because of the inclusion of both a prop hand and an “action” Oathkeeper, this one was an especially valuable listing, and the bidders recognized it as they drove it up to become the day’s top item with a final realized price of $212,500.