Westeros

Another evening, another episode of House of the Dragon. This one may be a surprise for many, as it shifts almost entirely (besides the cold open) to Rhaenyra’s story as she tries to get a grip with King’s Landing, the city she finally claimed at the end of the previous episode. Suffice it to say, there’s quite a lot to untangle about this episode.

House of the Dragon has just aired, and as usual we’re back with a video discussing what happened and what we thought of it! See the video on Youtube:

It’s a busy episode with a lot of major events largely headed towards a single destination, but lets just say some of what transpired left us puzzled.

The first episode of the penultimate season of House of the Dragon, and Westeros.org’s founders return to Youtube (from sunny Denmark!) to discuss it in detail, covering the major character and story beats.

It’s certainly an eventful episode, filled with spectacular moments in the back half, with every penny on the screen. But is it all equally good from start to finish? That’s a matter of some discussion…

Just a bit over a week left to the premiere of House of the Dragon‘s third season premiere, and another behind the scenes teaser has dropped, this time focused on the absolutely massive logistics behind the spectacles promised for this season which explain, to some degree, just why it takes so long to produce a season:

Among the details are that the season involved 314 days of filming, with the naval battle that will be featured in the opening alone taking 27 days of shooting.

Now out, the latest trailer is also the last for the upcoming House of the Dragon season 3. The penultimate season promises a great deal of bloodshed, between battles on land and sea.

Tommy Flanagan as Lord Roderick Dustin, Lord of Barrowton.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced the full cast for the world premiere of Game of Thrones: The Mad King, the new stage play based on George R. R. Martin’s novels, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and directed by Dominic Cooke.

The production will run at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from Monday 20 July to Saturday 5 September 2026, with official opening night on Saturday 8 August. Set in the final years before the events of the novels, the play promises to bring audiences face to face with familiar figures from Houses Targaryen, Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, and Martell.

Michael Shaeffer will play King Aerys II Targaryen. His long list of film and television credits includes Bodyguard, The Salisbury Poisonings, The ABC Murders, Chernobyl, Black Mirror, Game of Thrones, Kraven the Hunter, and Star Wars: Rogue One, where fans may remember him as General Corssin. This will be Shaeffer’s RSC debut.

Michael Shaeffer and the rest of the cast

Ahead of the June 21st release, HBO has begun to ramp up promotion of House of the Dragon‘s penultimate season. First, they released the official poster art. And now, during the upfronts going on with the press, they have released a behind the scenes video with, among other things, good looks at several of the show’s new characters who’ll all play significant roles in the Dance of the Dragons. As well, at the upfronts HBO revealed that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 2, presently filming on location in the Canary Islands, is set to return in the first couple of months of 2027.

See the video below!

A very special occasion for collectors and bibliophiles: to mark the 30th anniversary of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, the Folio Society has announced a new signed limited edition of the novel, with the fantastic Jonathan Burton once again providing the artwork after having provided the art for the previous ASoIaF editions.

As reported exclusively by People, only 1,000 copies will be produced, each signed by George R.R. Martin. The 872-page single-volume edition features a “dragon-leather” binding, tipped-in artwork, handmade endpapers, a rolled map, and a clamshell box. The Folio Society’s own page also notes an exclusive introduction by Joe Abercrombie.

The Folio Society describes this as their most ambitious Limited Edition to date, produced with British craftspeople including James Cropper for the bespoke endpapers and Ludlow Bookbinders for the binding. Folio editor James Rose told People that the volume looks as if it had been “taken directly from the Citadel library itself.”

Full details below:

A Game of Thrones 30th Anniversary Limited Edition from the Folio Society.

HBO has set the date for the upcoming and penultimate season of House of the Dragon: June 21st. And to mark that announcement, here’s a dragon-filled, bloody new teaser promising quite a lot of violence (as one might have expected from a show about the Dance of the Dragons).

Suffice it to say, some of the details we see don’t seem to have too much connection to the version of the events described in Fire and Blood, but others seem readily identifiable. And dragons—there are definitely a lot of them involved in the events this season will be covering, by the looks of it.

Last month, news broke that Beau Willamon (House of Cards, Andor) was working on a Game of Thrones-related project, with speculation that it was related to Aegon the Conqueror and his conquest of the Seven Kingdoms. At CinemaCon 2026, where the studios present their upcoming films and slates to the press and exhibitors, Warner Brothers confirmed the news when it made a presentation related to its plans for “2027 and beyond”, where Variety reports that the working title Game of Thrones: Aegon’s Conquest was revealed.

Aegon on Balerion the Black Dread, burning Harrenhal. Art by Marc Simonetti.

Following February’s reveal that the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company would be putting on the world premiere of Game of Thrones: The Mad King at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, the RSC has now followed up with details including the names of additional creative team members, as well as ticket sale details and, most importantly, actual performance dates starting on July 20th with the official opening night being on August 8th.

Among the announcements in the press release are that a new seating configuration will be used to place the audience “at the very heart of the action — immersed in the intrigue and theatrical spectacle that promises to make this production truly epic,” as well as the fact that among the creatives are Puppetry and Movement heads Nick Barnes and Finn Cadwell (winners of the 2022 Olivier Award for their work on the theatrical Life of Pi).

Full details below!

Key art for Game of Thrones: The Mad King

Variety reports that three of the main roles for the in-production 2nd season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms have been cast. One of the names was leaked awhile ago, I believe, but the other two seem new to us—and two, at least, are exciting to us.

Lucy Boynton, Peter Mullan, and Babou Ceesay. Images CC-by-SA, by GabboT / Gage Skidmore / Andymiah

Via Page Six Hollywood, an interesting bit of news has come out that screenwriter Beau Willimon (House of Cards, Andor) is working on writing a script for a Game of Thrones-related film. Page Six Hollywood speculates that it’s an Aegon the Conqueror film, which is interesting given recent news that the Conquest was being developed for both film and television. We initially thought all of this was tied to HBO keeping room open to see what fit the material best, but that was with the belief that Mattson Tomlin was the writer developing it.

Aegon the Conqueror, by Amok (Roman Papusev)

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.