Westeros

Today marks GRRM’s 78th birthday, and there’s a nice early gift for George ahead of the occasion, thanks to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms winning its very first Emmy Award in its inaugural outing!

At the 78th Emmy Awards, the series took home the award for Outstanding Stunt Performance. The award went to the stunt performers Zach Roberts, Gyula Tóth, Chris Cox and Jake Cox for their (spectacular) work on “In the Name of the Mother,” the fifth episode of the show’s first season which featured the much-anticipated trial of seven sequence.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms had received nine nominations in all, including Outstanding Drama Series, which was a great result for the show.

George nevertheless had plenty of reason to celebrate, and took part in pre-Emmy and afterparty events, as well as attending the award show alongside show runner Ira Parker and actors Peter Claffey, Dexter Sol Ansell, and more from the show.

George R.R. Martin and Dexter Sol Ansell (Egg) at the Emmy afterparty.

Hot on the heels of the finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, WaterTower Music—Warner Bros. in-house label—has announced that the season 1 soundtrack, composed by Dan Romer, is now available to stream from multiple sources such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Tidal… and Youtube. We contacted Romer after the first episode, asking particularly about the title of the closing music that impressed us so much and whether a soundtrack would be released, and he did say he hoped it’d be out quite soon. Looks like he delivered.

And speaking of that episode 1 final track, our favorite from the show, it turns out it’s titled “The Luck is Ours Alone.” Of course!

We’re back one last time (almost!) to discuss the finale of the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and we certainly have some thoughts about the episode.

As we discuss at the end, we are considering scheduling a live stream to go over the season a last time, but we’ll see how feasible that is—been quite a few years since we last did a live stream.

The penultimate episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has aired, and Linda and Elio are back to discuss their thoughts on the episode, go over changes from “The Hedge Knight”, and discuss a bit of world-building:

See below for additional videos from HBO—the final episode trailer and the “Inside the Episode”—plus a link to the translation of Ser Arlan of Pennytree’s Dothraki(!) song from Dothraki language creator, David J. Peterson

While this notice is a bit late, we actually posted our review, discussion, and book-to-screen commentary for episode 4 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, “Seven”, over on Youtube yesterday. You can see it below:

Next Sunday’s episode is titled “Seven”.

Below, you can also see the “Inside the Episode” as well as the teaser for the penultimate, 5th episode, “In the Name of the Mother.”

We’ve posted our review, discussion, and book-to-screen commentary for episode 3 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, “The Squire”, over on Youtube! You can see it below:

Next Sunday’s episode is titled “Seven”.

Deadline has a good their interview with Casey Bloys, Chief Content Officer of HBO, touching on a number of their shows, such as The Pitt and Heated Rivalry (which they have licensed in the US and other territories, and whose performance they are very pleased by). But of particular interest to our fellow fans would be the extended discussion of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and other projects in development… and some remarks on George R.R. Martin’s involvement.

Biggest news for us? Deadline indicates, before diving into the interview, that it’s said that the legendary animator Genndy Tartakovsky—creator of the original Star Wars: Clone Wars, Samurai Jack, and Primal—is attached to the Nine Voyages of the Sea Snake animated series about Corlys Velaryon. Interestingly, we know Ryan Condal is a big fan of Tartakovsky, and one wonders if he had any involvement in getting Tartakovsky on board.

Some choice pieces from the interview below.

A still from the Black Knight test Tartakovsky released on Instagram, a stalled Sony Pictures project.

We’ve posted our review, discussion, and book-to-screen commentary for episode 2 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, “Hard Salt Beef”, over on Youtube! You can see it below:

Next Sunday’s episode is titled “The Squire”.

After a very long break from making use of Youtube, Linda and I have put together a video reviewing and discussing the premiere episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. We cover some notable changes from the text (very few, all considered; it is incredibly faithful), share some thoughts on the use of humor, and more.

Unfortunately, we did have some notable challenges with audio when making this video, but we think we’ve figured out the problem (RF interference from hell caused by a wireless connection) going forward. Apologies for any issues!

We’ve just posted our review of the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms over to our Features page. Here’s the start:

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the new show from HBO set 90 years prior to the events of A Game of Thrones, takes that setting’s focus on the high lords and ladies of Westeros and turns it on its head. It brings viewers into a narrow focus on the life of a lowly hedge knight, Dunk – or Ser Duncan the Tall – and his young bald squire, Egg. Adapted from George R.R. Martin’s World Fantasy Award-nominated 1998 novella “The Hedge Knight”, the much-loved story and its characters are brought to life with real warmth, while adding some new elements that at times work very well and at other times… well, mileage may vary.

I have a very vivid memory of when I first encountered “The Hedge Knight”. Linda and I had already become fans of A Game of Thrones and were eagerly awaiting A Clash of Kings. But before that, Robert Silverberg’s anthology Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy came out, and among the stories from many big name authors was “The Hedge Knight”. I remember picking it up at my university bookstore as soon as it was released, and quite literally walking home (in sweltering, humid August heat) while turning the pages of this massive book at the same time. The characters popped from the page, the spectacle of the tourney was vividly rendered, and it made the expectation for the next novel all the greater. I’m happy to say that in most ways (especially those that matter), this show is exceptionally well-adapted.

To read the rest of the review, follow the link!

Peter Claffey as Dunk and Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg

With a month to go until the release of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO has released its first behind-the-scenes look at the show with sound bites from showrunner Ira Parker, as well as George R.R. Martin, Peter Claffey, and more!

HBO has also released a number of new stills from the show, featuring the principal cast, which you can see below.

As is tradition, HBO has released its latest “what’s upcoming next year” video, and this one features a number of new moments from House of the Dragon‘s third season including a great glimpse at Lord Ormund Hightower (James Norton) in a breastplate engraved with images of the the High Tower, the Mother, and the Warrior, as well as Corlys Velaryon, Alyn of Hull, the queens Alicent and Rhaenyra, and Prince Aemond.

While no official release date has been given, by sheer happenstance Matt Smith was on the UK show This Morning and let slip that he thought it will premiere this August:

The HBO video also has some clips from the forthcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but pretty sure it’s nothing we have not seen before.

As promised yesterday, here is HBO’s final trailer for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ahead of its January 18th release:

HBO has just dropped a teaser for the final A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms trailer, which will be released tomorrow. It captures one of the early moments in George R.R. Martin’s original “The Hedge Knight” that won the hearts of many readers:

HBO has also released a number of new images of cast members!

And here it is, folks, the much-anticipated trailer to HBO Max’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms:

And here’s the link to the livestream to the NYCC panel, courtesy of ReedPop and Popverse: