Westeros

As we’ve previously reported, HBO Go will have episode 7 available immediately after episode 6 airs, so there will be some very lucky fans next weekend who’ll get it a week earlier than everyone without HBO Go. HBO has now released a preview video touting this special occasion, and it includes some never-before-seen clips and dialogue from the episode, which can be seen below.

Via James Hibberd at EW, we now have the numbers for this past Sunday’s episode: 2.6 million viewers, up from last week, with 3.3 million viewers after the encore performance is factored in and a 8.1 million viewer per-episode average to date. Good numbers!

The news is slightly less rosy in the U.K., in that it seems Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic actually dropped down to 522,000, losing almost all of the 20% gain from the last week. We’re guessing last week’s number was anomalous, perhaps related to the holiday weekend, and factoring it out it looks like the show’s climbed a little bit compared to the week before last. These numbers are still quite strong for the fledgling number, putting it on par with some of their very top broadcasts.

Now that the show is at its half way point, it looks like Bluebolt—the chief VFX vendor for HBO’s Game of Thrones—is starting to be interviewed, revealing some great details about their work. This profile at Below the Line News is an excellent read…

And also a spoilerish one, especially regarding some work that’ll close out the season. If you’ve not read the books, we suggest skipping it. Here’s a couple of the coolest tidbits, however:

HBO’s realized just how popular Game of Thrones merchandise can be, apparently, because we notice that the show has quickly grown into the second most merchandised show at the HBO Store (only True Blood is ahead of it, in terms of total items). And the store keeps on growing, with HBO having added a number of cool t-shirts—including shirts to cover the last, unrepresented houses, House Tyrell and House Martell—and one of the top-requested items from fans: banners!

We’ve collected them all in our affiliate store, for easy perusal! Unfortunately, HBO Us only ships within North America, I believe. The HBO UK Store adds options for those there… and I notice that they seem to list some items that HBO U.S: hasn’t yet added. Very cool!

We’re having a chat party!

Westeros.org and the good people at Philo—a social media site for television fans—are teaming up to host a chat party for next Sunday’s episode, “A Golden Crown”, with official HBO merchandise as prizes. Just sign up at Philo and make sure to participate in next Sunday’s chat to connect with fellow fans and have a chance at the prizes!

Depending on how tired Linda and I are—it’ll be 3 AM when episode 6 starts to air in the U.S.—we may well be participating directly, watching our copy of the screener and maybe offering some tidbits concerning changes between screener and air.

We’ve posted our recap and analysis, plus a look at the adaptation from book-to-screen (including the addition of new scenes), to our episode guide for the momentous fifth episode, “The Wolf and the Lion”. Have at it, and remember that you can always discuss and rate the episode with fellow fans at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum.

Over at “Not a Blog”, GRRM shares the latest preview for the upcoming episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones... and it prompts him to reveal one of the new point of views that will feature in A Dance with Dragons (US, UK). See below, with some spoiler protection, to find out who it is;

Another episode, another insightful article from Pearson Moore of Winterfell Keep. In his discussion of “Cripples, Bastard, and Broken Things”, Pearson examines the subject of illegitimacy—literal and figurative—as portrayed through representations of several characters in the episode. It’s an insightful, interesting look into the subject, well worth reading while counting the hours to Sunday’s upcoming episode.

We’ve posted our audio discussion for “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”, recorded with Tom and Daniel of MTV Geek. We discuss various facets of the previous episode, including the changes that led to Sansa and Sandor not having their moment from the book. There are very minor spoilers regarding the second novel, A Clash of Kings

We’ve just been told that Focus Home Interactive and Cyanide Studio have fully opened the official website for their forthcoming strategy game, Game of Thrones: Genesis, with additional information and screen shots. The site also has a forum devoted to the game.

There’s a particularly great one showing a closer look at the dragon model—love the fact that there’s a rider in the saddle!

Art of the Title, a rather cool website focused on the art of main title design, has a terrific interview with creative designer Angus Wall, an Emmy-award winning title designer and recent recipient of the Academy Award for film editing. They go over the Game of Thrones title sequence in some detail.

Best of all, the article is heavily illustrated with concept art and high-resolution stills from the sequence. Plus, the highest resolution glimpse at the map that includes Essos ... including Essos’s eastern coast, on the opposite side of the Sunset Sea. This one’s so cool that we’ve added it to our Gallery, with some comments.

Dartmouth’s student newspaper profiles alumnus David Benioff, and Game of Thrones is briefly discussed. Of note is the fact that it states Benioff (presumably with Gemma Jackson, and perhaps D.B. Weiss) spent ten days scouting possible locations in Croatia and Spain. Croatia, Spain, and Turkey are three areas that we’ve now learned of as possible shooting locations for the second season.

Locus Magazine has posted the list of finalists in this year’s Locus Award, and there’s a number of finalists we’re extremely pleased to see present:

• Novella: “The Mystery Knight” by George R.R. Martin, published in Warriors (US, UK), edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
• Short story: “The Thing About Cassandra”> by Neil Gaiman, published in Songs of Love and Death (US, UK), edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
• Anthology: Warriors (US, UK), edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
• Best Artist: John Picacio, artist for the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (US, UK)
• Best Editor: Gardner Dozois, co-editor of Warriors (US, UK) and Songs of Love and Death (US, UK)

Congratulations to GRRM, Gardner, Neil, and John, as well as all the other finalists!

The fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones often reveal some great talent, turned towards celebrating the story they love. Whether it’s cooking up a storm, depicting the lands and the characters, or just plain rocking out, it’s always good. And now, one of the newest additions to the fan pantheon of awesome, ASoIaF/GoT inspired works are…

Infographics. But not just any infographics, no. These infographics from HauteSlides beautifully, succinctly, and humorously lay out the inter-relationships between various families, and gives a nice, clean look at the key locations of the story. Great work from graphic designer Magda Maslowska!

This week’s installment of Sky’s Thronecast not only features Linda and I with an awesome new webcam (are you excited yet?!), but it also has a fun interview with actor Jason Momoa, who plays Khal Drogo. The webcast itself contains a short except from the interview, while the landing page for it features the full interview as a separate video.