Westeros

HBO has sent out two preview images… and unusually, one of them is not for the next episode, “The Prince of Winterfell”, but also for the penultimate episode of the season, the George R.R. Martin-penned, “Blackwater”.

The image to the right features Varys—who has been absent for the last few episodes—speaking with Tyrion in episode 8 as Tyrion seems to be examining a very topical book about the history of sieges in Westeros. Not a tome described in the novels (should have been a tattered, partial manuscript of Ayrmidon’s Engines of War!)

And the more notable image, that of Bronn with a longbow (!) preparing to send a firey arrow… somewhere. What’s going on? No idea. However, we may be getting a hint on May 27, 10:01 Pacific / May 28, 1:01 am Eastern, because it looks like a special preview for “Blackwater” will be airing at that time. Exciting!

Casting is well under way for season 3 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, and though rumors and whispers are running around about which roles are being sought—we can pretty reliably say that Daario Naharis, Shireen Baratheon, and Edmure Tully are among roles being sought, that Brynden Tully (aka the Blackfish) also seems likely from details we’ve picked up from a recent (now vanished) audition video, and of course significant roles for this season such as Mance Rayder are also being sought, while it certainly sounds from the show that the character of Ramsay Snow is going to be needed.

It’s notable that the casting for extras is also underway... and a detail rather caught our eye:

We set the fundraiser for Westeros.org at what I thought was a not-very-modest goal—about twice as much as we ever really asked for before—and it turns out, I very much undervalued how much the site means to the community of users! After less than a week, the fundraising has come to a close… and we raised something north of $3000! An amazing job, one and all, and we truly appreciate it. Many, many thanks to everyone who contributed, to those who would if they could, and everyone who’s contributed to make it such a terrific community site.

The Game of Thrones RPG contest grew to a close yesterday, and now I can name the winners!

From the competition for our Twitter followers:

• Brandon Excell
• Robert Dimitri

From the competition for our Facebook followers:

• Christopher VeRn Varney
• Valeria Vianes

Congratulations to the winners! They’ve all been contacted via Twitter or Facebook, and will see their copies of the Game of Thrones RPG sent to them once we have the mailing addresses. The Game of Thrones game has been released in the US today (XBox, PS3, PC Download) and will be available in the rest of the world from June 1st (UK XBox, UK PS3, UK PC DVD).

As the screeners have dried up, reviews here on out will no longer be posted earlier than Monday… and after quite a few hours of work, I’ve finished up most of our material for A Man Without Honor. The usual video we create won’t be done until tomorrow, however—apologies for that, but writing the recap, analysis, and chapter-by-chapter breakdown took most of the day!

And for those interested, here’s the preview video for “The Prince of Winterfell”.

One of the most recent departures from the show has been that of Irri, the Dothraki handmaiden and companion to Daenerys Targaryen. Played by actress Amrita Acharia, Irri showed herself to be spirited and dutiful, and it seems that last trait may well have led to her character’s very unexpected death on the series. We had the opportunity to speak to Amrita about he role, what it was like to be involved in a production of this scale, the difficulties of acting when speaking an imaginary language, and the problem of being one of the Horse Lords but without ever riding a horse… !

Unlike most of our interviews, this one has been published at Suvudu, where I’ve contributed a number of reviews and articles related to Game of Thrones. So go ahead and read the interview!

The Game of Thrones RPG is rapidly approaching, and Cyanide Studio and Focus Home Interactive—perhaps taking a page from HBO’s many behind the scenes videos—has released a video taking us “Behind the Wall”:

We’ve also updated our gallery with a heap of new screen shots.

The RPG hits shelves on the 15th of May in North America, and Junest 1st in the rest of the world. And if you’re in the US and interested in winning a copy for XBox or PS3? Look here!

May 15th is the date in the U.S. for the release of Atlus USA’s and Cyanide Studio’s Game of Thrones RPG for XBox and PS3 (as well as PC, via Steam or Amazon downloads)... and we have a contest to win one of four copies for those of you lucky to be in the US!

We have four copies to give away, winner’s choice as to XBox or PS3 (sorry, no PC copies to give away) and these include the exclusive pre-order art book. The competition is US only (sorry! we’ll see if we can’t offer one for those elsewhere in the world nearer the release date) and we want to to give everyone a couple of entries… so here’s how you do it:

• Like our Facebook Page and comment on this post (not in the timeline, in the actual comments below!)
• Follow @westerosorg on Twitter and RT this contest announcement.

We’ll have a drawing for 2 copies for Facebook commenters and 2 copies for Twitter followers/RTers.

One entry per social site, please—multiple entries beyond that will be disqualified! Winners will be announced on Monday following the contest close at 12PM Eastern Time, and we’ll get in touch as quickly as possible to get your address and preference as to whether you prefer the XBox or PS3 version. Once we have addresses, the copies will be mailed out some time on or after May 15th.

Good luck!

It’s that time of year again, folks, to support the Westeros.org community. It’s not just the forums and website, that have seen far more activity and membership than they ever have, but it’s also the Wiki of Ice and Fire (the premiere ASoIaF wiki on the web) which is one of the most visited parts of the site—well over a million unique visitors per month, coming by to look up all the details that you, the community, have put up there to share your knowledge and love of the series.

If you’ve ever used the resources of Westeros.org, discussed a theory on the forum, browsed the wiki—please consider chipping in a bit of money for the fundraiser! The funds raised will go directly to our wonderful server admin Sparks to defray the costs of hosting , and allow us to start looking into upgrades that might further improve the speed and stability of the servers.

Many thanks for your time, consideration, and (we hope) your donation! ChipIn allows payments through credit card or Paypal; sorry, we can’t take money orders, cheques, or cash, but we do appreciate the thought!

The Game of Thrones roleplaying game will be released in just six short days (in the US—it’ll be June 1st for Europe and the rest of the world), and if you haven’t pre-ordered, it’s soon the last chance to do so!

Over at Amazon US, the XBox and PS3 versions include an art book as a pre-order bonus, or you can just go an preorder the downloadable PC version . All three versions are up for pre-order at Amazon UK as well (UK XBox, UK PS3, UK PC DVD)... and of course you can just go ahead and pre-order the PC game for download at Steam, although that seems to be set to the June 1st release date for Europe.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has released a terrific interview with the lead developers from Cyanide and—if you’ll excuse the fact that English isn’t their first language—it’s quite informative about some of their approach, including how they took a page or two from GRRM. Good stuff, and by the comments it looks like a few people find the game even more interesting. The interview also includes an amusing tidbit where we learn that GRRM says the death of a character was because of his assistant Ty Franck’s suggestion, and that Cyandie is already hard at work on DLC content for the game.

Atlus has also set up a Facebook page for the game, where you can find the latest images and videos, and keep abreast of the latest developments as the release approaches and fans start looking for the DLC content!

On top of that, Atlus has set up a Facebook page for the game

Thanks to TV By The Numbers, the ratings for “The Old Gods and the New”, the 6th episode of Game of Thrones. According to their numbers, the show is holding very steady with a 3.879 million viewers live and same day. Plus, it just managed to climb a tenth of a point to reach the 2.0 demographic share.

These numbers don’t really mean all that much for HBO, since they don’t depend on advertising, which is what the Nielsen figures are ultimately about… but it does show that the audience is very much committed to the show, as they should be. It’s hard to imagine that it’s only three more episode for “Blackwater”, which promises spectacle on an unheard-of scale for the show… and then after that, the final episode, “Valar Morghulis”, closing out the season.

Our full coverage of the episode, including our bonus material, is now available! And once you’re done looking at that, feel free to share your thoughts over at the episode sub-forum at the A Song of Ice and Fire Forum to discuss and rate the episode!

For those who are eagerly awaiting the September 19th release of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones, a visual companion to the TV seres (Amazon Preorder: US, UK), we’ve been pointed to a brief preview PDF giving a glimpse at a few pages of photos, interviews, and concept art.

The layout and design looks terrific… and more importantly, there’s certain to be some excellent behind-the-scenes information. The preview already reveals the fascinating fact that they scanned—presumably with lasers—the whole of Magheramorne quarry and the Castle Black set so that the CG team had accurate models to work from!

Thanks to olafkeith for pointing the PDFs availability.

For those who’ve eagerly awaited the premiere of season 2 in Sweden (and the rest of Canal+ in the Nordic countries!), the wait is coming to an end! In about half an hour, the first episode, “The North Remembers” will be premiering.

And for those of you who want a bit more material to go along with when you inevitably decide to rewatch the first season… SVT’s TV Cirkeln is complete and will be available on SVT Play for the next year. Of particular note? Episode 10 featured Westeros.org’s very own Linda, joining Johanna, Kodjo, and Roger, discussing the finale of the season and things to look forward to going into the next season!

The annual Locus Awards—voted by subscribers to the SF/F genre’s leading industry magazine, as well by the public over the Internet—have announced their 2012 Locus Award finalists, and one familiar name is apparent: A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin is among the five Fantasy Novel finalists. The winner of the award each year is the highest vote-earner, and later in the year the full results will be published. The award itself will be handed out at the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle, on June 17th.

Another familiar name or two crops up as well: Best Artist finalist John Picacio, who created the amazing 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, and the novel Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey—the pen name of writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (who is also known as GRRM’s personal assistant)—as one of the five finalists in the Science Fiction Novel category.

Congratulations to them, and to all the other deserving finalists.