Westeros

A Dance with Dragons (US, UK) is now completely done, according to George R.R. Martin, with his . The final manuscript is 1,510 pages, just shy of the A Storm of Swords final manuscript—the “sweat” of the book removed about 61 pages from the final tally. He even provides some details regarding new POVs, saying that his original plans had only included one new POV… but in the end, there are four additional ones, with 16 total POV characters (not counting the prologue and the epilogue characters).

Most interestingly of all, he provides a rather detailed summary of the road towards completion, back from when he was hopeful he could finish the novel in a year.

Below, behind spoiler protection, is our run-down of those POVs, extrapolating from what he’s said and filling in some blanks from remarks he’s made in the past:

George R.R. Martin’s official website has had a few updates of late. Most notably, he has provided his mostly-complete US signing tour schedule, though he’s indicated there’s probably one more stop to be decided. He’s also announced his presence at Semana Negra in Gijon, Spain in 2012.

At his “Not a Blog” he’s also made several posts, including a reminder about the forthcoming publication of the latest entry in the Wild Cards, Fort Freak, the signing of a contract for the 22nd entry in the series tentatively titled Lowball that would be a follow-up to Fort Freak, and a recommendation that viewers of the TV show (and fans in general) consider donating to the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, a rescue organization for wolves and wolf-hybrids.

HBO has released two clips from episode 6, “A Golden Crown”. The first features a convalescing Ned waking up to find Robert and Cersei in his room, while the second features an entirely new scene between Syrio Forel and Arya Stark.

“The things he does for love.”

Our latest interview is now up! Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Ser Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones, took the time to answer a few questions from us concerning his role in the production. From Jaime’s reasons for being a Kingsguard to just how Coster-Waldau got pulled into the production to begin with, Nikolaj provides some interesting answers.

Read the interview.

Over at Suvudu, we’ve shared some further thoughts on “The Wolf and the Lion” that may be of interest to readers. Suvudu.com, a website set up by Random House, is an excellent site for SF/F, Comics, and more, with news items and the occasional special features.

On top of that, we’re a bit tardy, but we’ve finally gotten our audio commentary up for the episode, recorded in conjunction with MTV Geek.

Conan Stevens was hinting at some big news in our Conan Stevens. Well, the news—or at least some of it—has broken in an unexpected corner of the web…

... Peter Jackson’s official Facebook page, where he announces several castings, including one Mr. Stevens as an orc by the name of Azog! There’s a terrific picture included in the post, showing the 5’5” Jackson next to the 7’ tall Stevens. Congratulations to Conan—lets just hope this doesn’t interfere with his second season filming!

... is somewhat exaggerated!

Some concern among fans cropped up after the recent Thronecast which stated that Lord Hoster Tully (Catelyn’s father and Lord of Riverrun) was killed at the Trident, whereas he’s alive when the novels start. We’ve checked with the “keeper of the mythos” for the production, Bryan Cogman, who says that in the show canon, Lord Hoster is very much alive (but not well, being very ill) . So, chalk that one up to a small error that cropped into Thronecast’s material at some point!

Over the last couple of days, some more interviews have been trickling out from the production. We’ve already shared a look at BlueBolt’s VFX work for the production, but there’s also a brand new Emilia Clarke interview as well as a fun (but very spoilerish) interview with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau at The Vulture.

On top of that, the Times of Malta has an excellent article looking at the production’s presence in Malta, with some nice factoids at the end regarding the length of the shoot, the number of extras and local production crew involved, and some of the filming locations. A good read for those interested in a behind-the-scenes look at the production.

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;