Westeros

Another episode down, and we’re back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:

We’re in the home stretch now, with just two episodes to go. Next up will be “The Green Council”, followed up by “The Black Queen” to conclude the first season of House of the Dragon.

King Viserys on the Iron Throne.

The official Youtube page for the Game of Thrones Studio Tour at the Linen Mill Studio in Northern Ireland— exclusive home to an enormous assortment of props, weapons, armor, costumes, and even whole sets from the TV show—has released a lengthy video where the show’s weapons master, Tommy Dunne, speaks at length about his work on the show as it relates specifically to the infamous catspaw dagger that has now become so central to House of the Dragon. See below for the video!

The original catspaw dagger as seen on Game of Thrones. The new version is closely based on it, but its proportions have been tweaked for House of the Dragon.

Another episode down, and we’re back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:

The next episode will give us what we believe will be a last time jump this season (and perhaps for all the show from here on out), aging up the children a bit further.

Lord Corlys Velaryon and Princess Rhaenys with their granddaughters Baela and Rhaena. Copyright Ollie Upton/HBO

An interview long in the making, we finally got to sit down with Ryan Condal, lead writer, executive producer, and now sole show runner of House of the Dragon last week to talk about the show. After Linda had a chance to say hello then headed off to keep an eye on our very rambunctious puppy Lancelot, we started the interview.

We open up with a question on post-production, and then get into the weeds on favorite book characters, depictions of violence, heraldry, a forgotten Valyrian house, the change from book canon when casting the Velaryons, whether Ryan will continue with the show after completing this particular story, and more.

Click here for the interview!

Ryan Condal behind the scenes with a maquette of Caraxes. ©️ Ollie Upton/HBO

Half way through the season, and “The Princess and the Queen” makes the boldest jump yet as a decade has passed since the previous episode, new actors play key roles, and a passel of new young characters appear. Linda and I return with with our usual non-review focus on providing some more background information and changes from the source material to the screen. Lots of background in this particular episode:

Ser Laenor supports Princess Rhaenyra as she’s called to present the newborn Prince Joffrey to the queen.

Today features a very notable birthday. No, we don’t mean Sophia Loren’s (though that’s very fine company to be in). It’s in fact George R.R. Martin’s birthday today, making him 74 years young. Six years ago we were invited to write a tribute to George over at Tor.com, that you can read here. We know fans of his work—and fans of the good he’s done for the genre, for fandom, and for the various good causes he has contributed to—the world over wish him well on this auspicious day.

One of the nonprofit organizations GRRM has been a major supporter of is the Stagecoach Foundation, which he co-founded to help provide training and work opportunities for residents of New Mexico in the state’s burgeoning film industry. A donation to the foundation would no doubt be very welcome, especially today!

George R.R. Martin on the set for his cameo in the Game of Thrones pilot, which was later reshot and lost that footage. He has yet to make a formal cameo on one of HBO’s shows.

The very eventful “We Light the Way” has aired globally, and we’re back with our usual non-review focus on providing some more background information and changes from the source material to the screen. We even have some dragon facts!

If you enjoyed the video, please do consider liking and subscribing, and feel free to comment with your own thoughts or questions!

Alicent Hightower embodying her house’s signal for war by wearing a green gown.

We’re back to discuss the events of “King of the Narrow Sea”, with our usual non-review focus on providing some more background information and changes from the source material to the screen. It’s an eventful episode, although one distinctly lacking in new dragon facts to discuss:

If you enjoyed the video, please do consider liking and subscribing, and feel free to comment with your own thoughts or questions!

Daemon Targaryen wearing the crown of the King of the Narrow Sea.

Both Linda and I got our first glimpses at the House of the Dragon-inspired beverages from Danish brewery Mikkeller (dubbing themselves House Mikkeller of Denmark, naturally) at the premieres of House of the Dragon in Stockholm and Amsterdam. The red Caraxes cans were very prominent at the afterparty bars, and seemed to be quite popular. Mikkeller Brewery contacted us about trying a sample of the beers, which we were glad to do despite neither of us being experienced with beer (non-alcholic or otherwise!) and we have to say it was a very interesting experience that makes us think we’re going to have to start branching out from the ciders which are normally all we drink when it comes to alcohol.

Below, you’ll see our video “review”, which I put in quotes because we’re woefully lacking in knowledge to give thorough and detailed impressions!

A photo from the European premiere’s afterparty in Amsterdam.

We’re back to discuss the third episode of House of the Dragon, titled “Second of His Name”. As usual, we discuss some changes from the source material, provide some additional background information for things touched on only lightly in the episode, and finally some dragon facts (quite brief ones, in this case!)

Well, this was big, surprising news. The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd has reported that after three, exhausting years working on bringing the first season of House of the Dragon to the screen Miguel Sapochnik is leaving the show and Ryan Condal will be the sole show runner. However, the very experienced director Alan Taylor—who played a key role in directing a number of early episodes of Game of Thrones—has come on board as an executive producer and director instead.

Another new episode of House of the Dragon, and another episode of Linda and Elio discussing it! This time we look into some of the changes to a couple of Kingsguard knights, and dive more into House Velaryon now that the episode reveals a change the show has made to their relationship to the Targaryens.

You can see the episode below:

Share your thoughts on the video, and let us know if there’s any changes or background details you’d like us to discuss in future episodes!

This tweet says it all:

Over at The Hollywood Reporter, James Hibberd provides a bit more detail, citing HBO’s report that in the US the show has cleared over 20 million viewers since the premiere, the kind of strong opening they were hoping for.

Just two months away from the release of The Rise of the Dragon, a book we’ve co-authored that takes Fire and Blood, boils it down to the essentials, and fills the rest of the pages with over 180 pieces of glorious, all-new artwork from artists both familiar and brand new to fans of A Song of Ice and Fire. Random House has started the wheels rolling promoting the book by releasing this video with George R.R. Martin where he talks about the book and its connection to House of the Dragon:

Been a long time since we’ve done one of these, and suffice it to say the combination of rusty recollection plus a bunch of new equipment made this a bit of a trial. Add a very lively puppy plus sundry other things, and this video is later than we hoped, but it’s done. As we remarked in our “Not a Review” of the first six episodes, we’re not really reviewing the show (as we did—and then Linda did solo after I quit—with Game of Thrones) but instead discussing some of the choices and changes made in the adaptation, as well as providing some background information and (of course) dragon facts.

You can see the episode below: