Westeros

HBO has been keeping busy with the HBO Store, adding new shirts, jewelry, steins, and more in the last month. We’ve compiled most of these at our store page (which benefits the continued maintenance and operation of Westeros.org), but two new items have cropped up that might be interest. First, there’s an awesome new shirt featuring Needle and the text, “Stick Them With the Pointy End” (that’s going to be popular!), and a poster map featuring the Seven Kingdoms and a bit of the coastline of Essos.

Have at them!

Varese Sarabande, leading publisher of soundtracks, has announced that the Game of Thrones soundtrack by Ramin Djawadi is on its way! Due June 14th, there’s no more information about just how many tracks there’ll be, but we can be sure that the title theme (and perhaps one or two variations) are going to be a part of it.

With the big announcement today of the completion of A Dance with Dragons (preorder: US, UK), it might be easy to forget that just last week GRRM was named on the Time 100 list. Last night, Parris and GRRM attended the gala event for those honored on the list, and NY Magazine’s Vulture has an exclusive conversation with GRRM from the gala.

Featured in it? The fact that he and Carlton Cuse (of Lost) fame had a chat about George’s remarks concerning the show’s finale which started a “feud” with Damon Lindelof. Sounds like it went quite well. Also notable is the fact that Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) is a fan of Game of Thrones, and in particular of Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen. To quote the article:

So suggests George R.R. Martin’s latest “Not a Blog” post! Titled, “twas beauty..” and then followed by a picture of a dead King Kong, it’s clear “Kong”—A Dance with Dragons (US, UK)—is down for the count!

UPDATED: And just to hammer the point home, series editor Anne Groell confirms it also.

A Dance with Dragons is due to hit bookshelves in North America and the United Kingdom on July 12.

Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast has been a terrific approach by the broadcaster to making the show accessible to fans, especially viewers who’ve never read the novels before. Professional produced, each episode (which goes up each Monday after the show airs in the U.K.) offers pointers, brief guides, and more. And, yeah, it includes Linda and I doing brief segments (Linda really is a lot better at this sort of thing than I am!).

On top of all that, Sky’s also releasing interviews with the cast each week. First up was Mark Addy, and now Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who particularly impresses us with his handle on the character. And, to gild the lily a bit more, Thronecast is also available via iTunes, and there they’ve released the BAFTA Screening Q&A with members of the cast and crew: Sean Bean, Harry Lloyd, Mark Addy, and production designer Gemma Jackson.

Now, I’ll wait for this iTunes download to crawl along so I can check it out…

Linda and I have again joined with Tom and Daniel of MTV Geek to discuss last Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones, “The Kingsroad”. We spend some time discussing the difficulties in conveying the passage of time in the story, the use of the direwolves, and mention some of the things we’re most looking forward to in the next episode.

You can find it in our “The Kingsroad” episode guide in MP3 downloadable and streaming format,

An article in the U.K. film and television industry trade website, Broadcast Now, notes that Northern Irish companies are gearing up for the return of Game of Thrones to production. While a representative of HBO has indicated that it’s premature to say that any locations have been set in stone, I think we can say that odds are extremely good for Northern Ireland again being the headquarters for the production.

And of note? A “late July” start has been stated by the production. This fits with what we’ve heard elsewhere. Some may find it a bit surprising that they’ll start that long after the greenlight, especially with the difficulties this past autumn and winter caused for them due to weather, but it seems like the production is very comfortable with this date.

Late July causes another question, though. That’s when San Diego Comic Con takes place. Is HBO skipping out on it? We find that incredibly unlikely, and just as unlikely is their giving the show a presence there but not having key cast members on hand for the inevitable, massive panel. So we’re going to have to suppose that “late July” could mean some time after July 24th (the final day of the convention).

The L.A. Weekly’s “Squid Ink” page, which focuses on “Food in Literature”, discusses the George R.R. Martin unofficial fan club, the Brotherhood without Banners, in relation to the traditional “quest” GRRM assigns fans at various conventions around the world. A leading light of the fandom, David McCaman (who really was the driving force behind the creation of the group) explains the origins of the quests, and gives some examples of past events.

But why is it on “Squid Ink”? Because the quests have inevitably involved tracking down some particular item of food, usually a local delicacy. Those who succeed in the quest—whether it was collecting burnt ends in Kansas City, tasting lamprey pie in Toronto, or finding haggis in Glasgow—were “knighted” by GRRM into a special order. It’s great fun. To add a bit of local color, David notes that at the Worldcon in Anaheim scores of fans participated in getting a hold of hot dogs from Pink’s Hot Dogs. The writer, Margy Rochlin, noted that that was a 70 mile round trip. Now I know why Linda and I didn’t tag along with anyone on that particular quest…

The next change to get knighted by GRRM? Renovation, the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention, held in Reno, Nevada. Having attended two Worldcons, if you’ve any interest in genre literature, or want a great opportunity to meet George and fellow fans, Renovation is going to be a great opportunity. And, you know, the knighthood ain’t bad!

To learn more about the Brotherhood without Banners, feel free to visit the forum at westeros.org

Although the show already landed the greenlight for a second season, some have been wondering how the ratings would go in the second week. James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly provides the answer: steady. Despite it being an Easter Sunday, the show seems to have held onto the premiere viewership of 2.2 million people, and added an additional 723,000 viewers when it was repeated at 11PM.

Hibberd also notes that the first episode, including all repeats through the week, On Demand viewings, and other such outlets, has reached 6.8 million viewers so far.

It’s hard to gauge whether “holding steady” under the circumstances is a good, bad, or rather neutral sign. At a guess, the viewership across the whole of this week will be a more interesting indicator of what the show’s early impact will be, but even then it’ll be too early to tell if it’ll have legs and start growing an audience.

According to Valyrian Steel, the supply of the very limited “Damascus” steel version of Longclaw is running low, with only ten left in stock. For some, these are the only “real” examples of Longclaw, using pattern-welding (also known as “damascus”) to create the pattern, rather than paint as with the regular edition of the sword. This is the officially authorized version of the weapon, designed with George R.R. Martin’s direct guidance and approval; the HBO weapons were designed by the production company without GRRM’s direct input, and currently HBO does not have the rights to licensing out replicas of those.

If you’re interested in learning more or ordering, go here.

Thanks to our content partnership with MTV Geek, we’ve a new feature article to share for those interested in the series. Dr. Catherine Smith-Akel, a scholar of Medieval studies, approaches her first read of A Game of Thrones from a historical perspective, teasing out parallels between history (English history, primarily, in this first piece) and the story. It’s a good read if you’ve an interest in the historical antecedents to some of the characters and places.

Read Part I of Smith-Akel’s A Historical Dissection of A Game Of Thrones.

Besides our episode guide, with our commentary and recap, there were quite a few notable recaps, reviews, and reactions released immediately following the airing of “The Kingsroad”. Plus, HBO’s released a preview of the next episode. See below for some of the highlights!

Enjoyed that episode, didn’t you? With maybe a quibble or two?

See our detailed recap and analysis, our list of notable changes and added scenes, and a few sample images depicting scenes and moments from the episode! And after that, make sure to visit our forum to discuss it with fellow fans.

We’ve posted a new item in our Game of Thrones Features section, an interview with the weapon master for the production, Tommy Dunne. With over fifteen years of experience, he has worked on some very high-profile projects, both on Hollywood film projects and for HBO. Now leading the Armory department for Game of Thrones, Mr. Dunne fills us in on some of his background, some of the decisions made for the weapon and designs, and what’s become of King Robert’s warhammer.

Read the interview!

Due to some hard drive issues, the A Song of Ice and Fire forum was down for a bit. Our wonderful host has done some things to try and stabilize it to (hopefully) handle the post-Game of Thrones crush of traffic, but some time next week the system will have to go down to have the disk replaced and an image restored. We don’t have a day or date as of yet, but bear that in mind if it goes down at some point at next week. And bear in mind that if it goes down this weekend, it’s probably that disk acting up.