Westeros

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:

Entertainment Weekly has the first exclusive interview with Knight of the Seven Kingdoms show-runner Ira Parker, ahead of the first public preview of the show at New York Comic Con this coming Thursday during the panel, “HBO / HBO Max presents A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – Journey into Westeros with Dunk and Egg”.

In the interview, a few interesting points come up. Front and center is the fact that for thematic reasons, this show will not open with the expansive opening title of its predecessors, but a simple title card before launching right into the story. Parker states to EW:

“All decisions came down to Dunk, trying to channel the type of person he is into every aspect of this show, even the title sequence… The title sequences on the original [Game of Thrones] and House of Dragon are big and epic and incredible. Ramin Djawadi’s score is orchestral and large and beautiful. That’s not really Dunk’s M.O. He’s plain and he’s simple and he’s to-the-point. He doesn’t have a lot of flash to him.”

Parker then goes on to note that he promised George R.R. Martin that, per EW, “he would never shift to a perspective of anyone in the upper class. Viewers will always stick with Dunk, Egg, and this lower rim of Westeros society: the armorers, the performers, the barmaids, the whores, and the like.”

And then he says some rather interesting things about the state of House Targaryen at the time of the tourney at Ashford. More on that below, plus how to watch the panel livestreamed courtesy of Popverse!

George R.R. Martin with star Peter Claffey and show runner Ira Parker (right).

New York Comic Con returns from October 9th through 12th at the Javits Center, and with it comes its lists of guests. Prominent among them, listed as a guest of honor, is George R.R. Martin. With the Seattle Worldcon in August, this may be the only convention appearances GRRM will be making this year. According to the information on the NYCC page, George will be there on Friday and Saturday. Reports are that the Saturday is entirely sold out, but there may still be tickets for Friday.

(Fun fact: George not only attended the first New York Comiccon in 1964, but was the very first person to shell out $1.50 for a ticket.)

Speaking of big media conventions, Ryan Condal confirmed in the latest episode of his prop collecting podcast, The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of, that there were no plans to promote the still-filming House of the Dragon at San Diego Comic Con as they did last year. In fact, it will be the first SDCC Condal will have missed since moving to LA (barring the Covid years when it did not take place) due to how intense a period July would be for production, and seemed quite sad about it. However, he promised he would push to return to the show next year, citing how much he enjoyed the screening (of last season’s episode 7) and hoped they would repeat something like that.