Westeros

The nominees for this year’s Primetime Emmy awards are now out, and House of the Dragon has added six fresh nominations to its tally, making the total of 14 nominations across the first two seasons. While this is the first time a show in the Game of Thrones universe has not received an Outstanding Drama nomination, it has a bevy of technical award nominations that underscore the show’s incredible production values. These include:

HBO has announced three new cast members for House of the Dragon Season 3, each taking on important roles as knights caught up in the brutal Dance of the Dragons. I believe at least one of these has been hinted at previously, when Steve Toussaint posted an image of a script listing a number of characters who were present.

You can see the list of the actors and their characters below, as well as some additional thoughts from us!

Barry Sloane, Tom Cullen, and Joplin Sibtain.

The latest episode of The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast, co-hosted by House of the Dragon show runner Ryan Condal and his friend and fellow prop collector David Mandel—whose credits include Seinfeld, Veep, and White House Plumbers—features prosthetics artist Waldo Mason, who joins them to discuss his career, creative process, and some behind-the-scenes teases from House of the Dragon Season 3 where he works as the lead makeup special effects artist.

Waldo Mason is a legendary figure in prosthetics, with a career spanning over thirty years. His work has brought creatures, wounds, and faces to life in films like Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, the Harry Potter series, Game of Thrones, and Rogue One. He’s also a worked on a number of Ridley Scott productions going back to Gladiator (he has some frank remarks to make about a certain star’s behavior on set at the time), as well as Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus.

In the episode, there’s a fun moment where Ryan hints there’s something in Season 3 he’d like to “liberate” for his own collection—prompting Waldo to laugh and ask, “Well, is it large?” Apparently not, but Ryan and he would confer about there maybe needing to be two of what object he was interested in. Waldo also shares that he was particularly eager to sculpt two specific heads this season. One didn’t appear in the initial brief, to his disappointment—but it sounds like it made it into the revised plan after all. See below for our guess, and beware spoilers drawn from Fire and Blood!

House of the Dragon‘s third season officially kicked off a few days ago, and HBO wanted to make sure everyone knew it by having star Emma d’Arcy make the announcement in a video:

There’s quite a bit more news besides that, however, as some new castings have been revealed… and a new interview with show runner and co-creator Ryan Condal responds to some questions from EW about the season to come… and gives his version of the situation that stirred a great deal of controversy preceding it.

As far as the casting goes, two northerners have been announced: Dan Fogler will play Ser Torrhen Manderly, and Tommy Flanagan will play

[Edit: Ryan Condal has since confirmed to us that Roderick is a lord on the show, not a knight.]

See the full press release that came with the announcement, and list of returning cast members as well as confirmed new ones, below!

At a recent Emmys FYC (“For Your Consideration” event), House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal, executive producer Sara Hess, and a bevy of key cast members teased a number of details about the in-production Season 3, which as yet does not have a release date (though it’ll certainly be sometime in 2026). Noting that cameras haven’t quite started rolling—on The Stuff Dreams Are MAde Of podcast, recorded a week or two so earlier, he noted he was in Wales for final location scouting—the showrunner revealed that writing was basically done on the season. Condal and company hinted that this season will cover four major events described in Fire and Blood, GRRM’s account on which the show is based, and that there would be some new faces in the cast but that most of the significant characters had already been introduced.

Deadline has a detailed report concerning everything said in a recent interview by HBO’s Head of Drama Series & Films, Francesca Orsi, regarding the Game of Thrones franchise. Besides the usual update on House of the Dragon and its massive opening for season 3 (cameras start rolling in March, according to reports), Orsi reveals that HBO’s so bullish on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms that if they renew it they may well order two seasons to be filmed back-to-back.

Touching on a subject very near and dear to our hearts, the House of the Dragon official podcast, hosted by Jason Concepcion and Greta Johnsen, has invited show runner Ryan Condal to answer a number of questions about adapting Fire and Blood to the screen. A lot of big topics are spoken of, including Nettles, Damon’s time in Harrenhal, Aegon’s prophetic dream, and more… and at the end, a discussion of George R.R. Martin’s role as an executive producer on the project which, I think, lays out a sense of how much role GRRM actually has at this stage in the production.

Interestingly, this is a surprise episode—two weeks ago, they announced that they’d have a final episode about now… but that one has been pushed into the future because, according to the hosts, they had so many fan questions sent to them after the finale about adaptation choices that they thought it was worth an added podcast. Things have been fairly quiet in the month since the show ended, though we suppose GRRM indicating issues with the season and making clear that he felt a lot has gone wrong on the show. NOTE: There are spoilers, not just for Fire and Blood, but GRRM reveals details about current plans for season 3.

But then, he has begun his promised post (archive link) about Blood and Cheese, and the butterfly effect it causes, and seems like he’ll go further in explaining his problems with the season.

ETA: An update, as HBO has issued a response via a spokesperson:

Adam Savage, famed special effects fabricator best known for co-hosting Mythbusters, has a great Youtube series called Tested that’s been a great success. So much so that he’s been invited behind the scenes of a number of productions and effects houses over time… and the latest such behind-the-scenes tour involves none other than House of the Dragon.

Promising to be the first of several videos from the production, the introductory episode features master armourer Tim Lewis as he shows Adam swords and other blades that the production has made… including a look at what I am quite certain was their hero Ice while still in the earliest stages of creation.

As always, the highlight for us was the detailed, close-up look at Peter Johnsson’s remarkable Blackfyre and Dark Sister. Some amazing details in those, but a great surprise was learning that Corlys Velaryon’s dagger includes a crude astrolabe in the pommel, suitable to his place as a famed navigator and sailor.

Via Variety, a press conference today with House of the Dragon ahow runner Ryan Condal provided the confirmation of what many suspected: the fourth season will also be the last for the show. This makes sense, given the pace. There are some other interesting remarks there, including Condal indicating he doesn’t yet know if the third season will be 8 or 10 episodes yet, and that he believes production will begin in early 2025:

House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal and his co-host, David Mandel (Seinfeld, Veep, White House Plumbers), have returned for the latest season of their terrific props podcast, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of. Occasionally, Ryan brings on guests from the crew of his show, and this latest episode features season 2 costume designer Caroline McCall going over her work on the show.

Well worth a listen. For those who want to skip the opening section discussing props (like Ryan’s consideration of how to display his recently-purchased Deckard jacket from Bladerunner) and comic art, the conversation with McCall starts at the 13:45 mark:

Among topics covered are the work on Ser Simon Strong’s costuming, bespoke armor design and budgetary considerations, the importance of the breakdown department, the use of heraldry, and more.

The exciting penultimate episode, “The Red Sowing”, has caused quite the stir! As usual, Linda and I have posted a video recapping the episode and discussing its deviations from the source material in Fire and Blood, illuminating background that may not be obvious to viewers, and some dragon lore.

Another episode aired, and we’re rapidly approaching the end of the second season of House of the Dragon. As usual, Linda and I have posted a video recapping the episode and discussing its deviations from the source material in Fire and Blood, illuminating background that may not be obvious to viewers, and some dragon lore.

And, speaking of dragon lore, a lengthy post on dragons, their legs, and their habits from GRRM got a lot of attention almost two weeks ago. Given that some of what he talks about seems related to House of the Dragon, we’re going to add some of our own thoughts ... following the video, and the extras that HBO released around the episode.

We’ve been remiss to share that we have posted our video recapping the 5th episode of House of the Dragon, “Regent”, written by Ti Mikkel (fans may recognize her as an assistant to none other than GRRM himself, who has been in the writer’s room from the early days). It’s a very political-maneuvering filled episode, and we dig in to the deviations from Fire and Blood as well as some bits of background and dragon discussion.

You can see the video below:

We’re off traveling to neighboring Norway for the next couple of days, but thought that this would make a good opportunity to set the record straight on a couple of claims about the Dance of the Dragons as originally envisioned by GRRM, as there’s a lot of rumors and half-understood details going around in a big internet game of telephone. We’ve done two so far, and there may be others, but you can see the first one—concerning the age difference and precise relationship between Rhaenyra and Aegon II—below!

Another exciting episode of House of the Dragon has come and gone, and Linda and I have recorded a video running through the episode, discussing changes from Fire and Blood, and some bits of background and dragon discussion. You can see the video below: