Westeros

The Worlds of If review blog had an interesting post regarding fate and fortune in A Song of Ice and Fire as seen from the perspective of certain points raised by David Quint in his study of Renaissance heroic poetry. Namely, Quint contrasts the role of Fate in unified epics (ala the Iliad or The Lord of the Rings) as opposed to Fortune in more episodic literature (e.g. the Odyssey), and the blogger at Worlds of If points out how these ideas might apply to seeing some of the innate differences between Martin’s series and Tolkien’s before it. Some thoughtful points are raised that help to get into the heart of how Martin’s take on epic fantasy is different from what came before.

Two caveats: there are general spoilers for the first three books, and I’m not sure about the application of the term “anti-Epic Fantasy” to the series, which I think may be going a bit too far.

The Octocon Q&A has just wrapped, and we’ve posted a transcription from lady narcissa (from the A Song of Ice and Fire forum) to the So Spake Martin collection of correspondence and convention reports. Quite a lot of good material,but be aware that there are some small spoilers here and there for the previous books and A Dance with Dragons.

Via WiCnet, we learn that HBO has confirmed actor Ian Beattie has been cast in the role of Ser Meryn Trant, one of the seven knights of the Kingsguard. He’s due to film at the end of October with Miltos Yerolemou, who plays Syrio Forel. Miltos recently revealed that he’s due to film a scene that’s brand new and not from the books, as well. Possibly Lord Stark’s hiring of Arya’s “dancing master”... ?

Also intriguingly, we have a report that a casting call has gone out for a “head priestess” of the Dothraki, described as being in her 50’s, of mixed race or Mediterranean in appearance, and she must have a good singing voice to pronounce a prophecy. This role is needed for episode number 6.

This would be one of the dosh khaleen, the crones who rule over Vaes Dothrak and maintain the rituals of the Dothraki people. Although there’s no clear hierarchy to the dosh khaleen, in the novel the crone who is depicted most is a “bent and shrivelled stick of a woman”, suggesting that the oldest of the women—who are all former khaleesis, consigned to this ritual role following the death of the khal to whom they were wed—takes a leading role in rituals.

After posing a quiz question (a rather spoilerish one at that, actually—naughty, naughty!), HBO has posted a new still from the Game of Thrones production that features Jerome Flynn as the sellsword Bronn. Flynn’s almost unrecognizable to my eye, and I suspect this photo will ease the concerns of some who know him best (or perhaps worst, depending on who you ask) from his Robson & Jerome days when his casting was announced. He really looks the part!

Conan Stevens, the actor cast as the huge and brutal Ser Gregor Clegane, has posted about the various concerns and issues with fight scenes. He includes a number of anecdotes, including two from HBO’s Game of Thrones concerning the dangers of equipment failure and how a character’s style is developed:

In related news, Conan reports that the action film he co-wrote and co-stars in, Bangkok Adrenaline, has had its U,S. release just two days ago. A perfect opportunity to get a look at the 7’ tall actor! He provides a link to the “un"official fan site for the film, which describes its origins and provides links to clips.

Via WICnet, it seems someone named tek has already decoded Lysa’s coded message. Wow! Full details behind the extended text:

Bryan Cogman provides a post written during the Shane’s Castle tourney filming for HBO’s Game of Thrones, filmed back in August, and it’s full of interesting details ... like the Fruit Ninja craze that has swept the crew. And that the tourney—depicted in two separate chapters of A Game of Thrones—is split across episodes IV and V. But one detail leapt out at us as just the sort of thing we love best, that graphic artist Jim Stanes was working on the production and that he had done a great design for House Royce (Bronze Yohn and his sons were at the tourney in the novels).

We quickly found his blog, where we noticed he worked on Kingdom of Heaven (David, Dan, if you’re reading this—we’ve always imagined the Dornish look much like that!) and then @straphe pointed out to us that Stanes had uploaded the Targaryen arms back in December. I did a little more digging and stumbled across this beauty, described as a coded message from the production.

Before the image loaded, I of course thought it was Lysa’s to Catelyn .... but the script is so radically different from our own (which is what is being used for Westerosi)

. Of course, the fact that he uploaded it back in December suggests it was from the pilot, where only Lysa’s message to Catelyn really makes any sense.

According to this report from io9, which is reporting from New York Comic Con, GRRM’s editor Anne Groell has revealed that George has informed his publisher that he has five chapters left to write to complete A Dance with Dragons, and that those five chapters already exist in partial form. According to Anne:

This is an advance on the last update on the subject, where 8 POVs were completed.

UPDATE: DelReySpectra confirmed that GRRM has told Anne that he had just five chapters left to write. Very cool.

The Making Game of Thrones site from HBO has a brand new entry in the Artisans series, revisiting production designer Gemma Jackson as she discusses the functional winch built for scenes shot in Castle Black. This makes a nice companion piece to Bryan Cogman’s earlier post. You can watch the video below:

It’s interesting that the lift is basically a repurposed industrial building site lift, with much of the machinery tucked away and some work done to make it seem like a primitive medieval contraption of wood and iron.

Via the Rabbit, we have what may be the very first image from Game of Thrones filming in Malta:

Posted by Flickr member bertiebears, he describes it as the set for another film, The Devil’s Double, being filmed in Mdina. He appears to be in error as that film has wrapped production and is, in any case, a story about Saddam Hussein’s double. This morning, a Game of Thrones extra said he was 100% certain that was an exterior shot being filmed for King’s Landing and added “yes gold cloaks on horseback. Girl to right in foreground wearing exactly same costume as female Tourney peasants.”

Compare the costuming of the horsemen to the gold cloak in the background of this screencap, and the costuming of the extras on foot to what’s seen here and here. Note in particular the white-bearded man in red and white robes—possibly a septon—in the Sandor tourney screencap, and the white-bearded man in the background of the Malta photo wearing what seems to be the same garment.

We have to say, the costuming of the people on foot is a little baffling to us, as our first thought was that these may be Pentoshi. The clothing depicted here is extremely similar to Graeco-Roman costume of the ancient world, and seems markedly different from the glimpses had from the In Production behind the scenes video. But given that the extra in question has taken part in filming over a number of days, including the tourney that featured so many extras, we’ll take it as a given that commoners in King’s Landing wear some notably different costumes from the nobility.

In what appears to be a confirmation that Game of Thrones will use Malta for at least some King’s Landing exterior scenes, musician Wilko Johnson—cast as Ser Ilyn Payne, the royal executioner—will be filming there, according the Essex Echo and their discussion with his manager. It’s indicated that he had filmed for a week in September in the Belfast area, and there’ll be more shooting later this month in Malta. The article provides a great quote:

“He pulled his usual scary face on the set, but the director told him ‘you don’t need to do scary, you are scary’.”

Timothy van Patten, one of HBO’s most well-known and well-regarded directors with credits including The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Pacific, Deadwood, Rome, The Wire, and nearly half the episodes of Boardwalk Empire, has come on board to direct at least one episode of HBO’s new fantasy drama series. He joins previously announced directors Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, and Alan Taylor.

Although this information has unofficially been floating around for a week or two (a hat-tip to The Rabbit for first noting it to us), HBO asked us to hold off on reporting it as GRRM had been intending to do it. However, with his busy schedule and departure for Ireland for awhile, they gave us the go ahead. We can certainly understand that, given his profile among A-list television directors.

Amy of Shiny Cooking has posted a fantastic write-up of an A Song of Ice and Fire-theme dinner party she put together for the Project Food Blog challenge, which is currently being voted on. She includes a photo of the menu for the day, which features quotes and references for many of the dishes.

It sounds like a delicious set of dishes, with a Dornish-themed starter all the way through dessert which were—what else?—lemon cakes. Definitely worth a vote!

There’s a new post on HBO’s Making Game of Thrones site from writer and production right-hand man Bryan Cogman. Dating somewhere from mid-August, we think, he discusses filming scenes for episode III and IV at the site of the Castle Black set in Magheramorne Quarry. He notes that the set contains both exterior and interior locations, and lists a few of them as well as well as the functioning winch elevator.

George R.R. Martin, in Ireland in advance of Octocon, has posted an update on several fronts, noting the io9 interview, the award nominations for Songs of the Dying Earth, and Pat’s Wild Cards contest.

The other piece of information in his post is something of a landmark, and we’ll leave it in his own words:

Congratulations to GRRM and Bantam! And bear in mind, that’s just the U.S. mass market paperbacks—many tens of thousands more have been published in the U.K., Australia, and other foreign territories.