Westeros

One of the more divergent episodes of the season has concluded, and Westeros.org’s episode guide for “The Sons of the Harpy” is now live! Our usual detailed recap, book-to-screen breakdown, and analysis—plus extras from HBO —are all now available for your reading pleasure. We also just managed to get our review video up on Youtube, which means it’s still processing the higher definition options. For those who can’t wait, you’ll find the video below:

HBO has released details on May’s upcoming episodes of Game of Thrones, and while these have largely leaked out earlier, their press release includes details on the 8th episode. The title itself might be considered a spoiler by some, so we’re putting full details below the cut:

And finally we’ve managed to actually complete all of our commentary, analysis, and the like before the episode aired! This means that the “High Sparrow” episode guide is ready to be looked at, with our usual examination of the episode, its place as an adaptation, and more. And as a bonus, here’s our Youtube review of the video, which you can find with the rest of our videos at our channel:

Back in 2006, GRRM did an appearance in Second Life (he posted about it here and there’s a brief video of it as well). He did a reading and there was a surprise appearance by David Benioff and Dan Weiss, as the event followed not too long after the announcement that HBO would be producing Game of Thrones. Elio and I both created avatars to attend the event and as it happened, we stuck around. Since then, Second Life has developed enormously—not the least visually—and today the MMO is home to a wide array of thriving communities, from fashionistas to fantasy fans. One activity that brings many of its avatars together are events that raise money for various causes. In particular, several events are hosted each year that are part of the Relay for Life and one of these is the Fantasy Faire.

This year, the Fantasy Faire includes a Literary Festival and on Sunday the 26th of April at 6am to 8am Pacific time I will be making an appearance to speak about (and perhaps read from) The World of Ice and Fire.

Due to the server issues last week (which—knock on wood—are now more or less sorted out thanks to our amazing host) , we were quite delayed with our “The Wars to Come” coverage, but we’ve more or less corrected that for “The House of Black and White”. The guide includes an exhaustive summary of the episode, our usual book-to-screen breakdown, and of course our review of the episode, plus a number of extras—namely HBO’s post-episode videos, including a nice look at the Water Gardens as represented by the Real Alcazár of Seville.

Our own video review will be along in a day or three, depending on our schedules. Until then, enjoy the episode guide!

The premiere of “The Wars to Come”—our written review is still forthcoming, but we’ve posted our usual video review (some minor audio and editing glitches—new workflow, new camera!—but those are brief)—has not only become the highest rated premiere episode of Game of Thrones;, but the highest rated episode, period, with nearly 8 million viewers. As Variety notes, that’s about 800,000 more than its second highest rated episode, “Mockingbird”. And across the pond, Sky Atlantic in the UK reported that their airing on Monday was also their highest rated episode ever, with 1.6 million viewers in the overnight rating.

Just in time for the start of the 5th season, Pyrrha has expanded their collection of officially licensed Game of Thrones jewellery. Matching rings have joined the previously existing talisman necklaces, two new styles of necklaces have been added, one featuring the heraldic devices on a rounder talisman and one featuring them on a proper shield. The latter matches well with the new shield cuffs, though if you want something slimmer (and a bit kinder to the wallet, admittedly!) for your arm the new ID bracelets with house words on might be just the thing. Most of the pieces are available in either sterling silver or bronze, though the shield cuffs seem to be available only in silver. Its just too bad that not all the houses that they’ve done so far get represented in each of the collections, though likely it comes down to what has been popular so far. Still, we would have loved to see some more Martell pieces.

For those who’ve been asking, various thing in real life have led to this coming out later than intended… but here it is at last, our early impressions of season 5. As noted at the start, we’ve already provided some views on the first episode, but this covers the three additional episodes that were included in the screener package. It’s a long piece, but in a lot of ways it barely scratches the surface, as there’s a lot of story packed into season 5.

You can find the feature here in our Features page.

The terrific Shire Post Mint, who’ve been creating A Song of Ice and Fire-related, George R.R. Martin-licensed coinage for years, have come up with another fun project after their last Kickstarter to create actual gold dragon coins proved a great success. This time, instead of aiming at the high-end collectors who go crazy for authenticity, Tom Maringer and company have launched a Kickstarter to make coins/tokens with a bit of A Game of Thrones flair, suitable a variety of games (but they’re particularly suited to Fantasy Flight Games’ Game of Thrones Living Card Game)  and other houses.

Featuring a wide array of subjects—from ancient royal houses to modern great houses to foreign powers—the coins are a treat for any collector or gamer who can make use of them. The Kickstarter has just 9 days to go, and is still just shy of its goal, so we definitely recommend checking it out and giving it your consideration.

For more ASoIaF coins from the Shire Post Mint, see here!

People have been hoping for a third and final full length trailer ahead of the premiere of season 5 of Game of Thrones on April 12th, but it looks unlikely at this point. However, the powers that be at HBO have smiled down on eager fans and released not one but three new promo spots, shorter but with a handful of new glimpses of scenes that fans haven’t yet seen before. The first is called the Future Promo , featuring Littlefinger with some rather ironic words:

And the second is the Sinners Promo, featuring Jonathan Pryce’s zealous septon:

And finally, the Enemy Promo, which features only one new shot at the very start, we think:

Not literally… but figuratively? Sure thing. Hafþór JúlÃ%ADus Björnsson—best known for playing Ser Gregor Clegane in season 4, as well as matching legendary feats of strength as one of the world’s strongest men—is coming to Philadelphia for the newly-inaugurated Philadelphia Renfaire on May 16th and May 17th. It’s a rare chance to meet the big man from Iceland, and for those who want to see how they size up the Renaissance Faire has some exclusive VIP packages that give fans the opportunity to meet him, to work out with him, and even to fight alongside him in a special short film!

For more information on tickets and details on the special events focusing on Thor, see here. And while you’re at it, check out the wanted poster about his presence on the premises (including the claim that he’s wanted for horse theft, a deed committed by lifting up a horse and carrying it off. I could well believe he could pick up a fair-sized horse.)

A brief but excellent interview with George R.R. Martin—hot on the heels of his release of a new sample chapter from The Winds of Winter—discusses his efforts on that book (and why it’s taken so long), a major twist that he’s deciding on (and whether the TV show can replicate it or not), and a series in development with HBO that’s currently having its pilot script written.

Absolutely worth checking this one out, not least for the key piece of information that GRRM is making all efforts to have The Winds of Winter published before season 6 of Game of Thrones airs.

Ah, George R.R. Martin has finally posted a chapter from The Winds of Winter that Linda and I had the pleasure of reading a couple of years ago. Suffice it to say, it contains spoilers! In fact, we’re not even naming the character in question, for those who’d rather not know.

You can read the chapter here.

At the San Francisco premiere of Game of Thrones, Access Hollywood asked George R.R. Martin a few questions. The first? Whether he’d write a script for the sixth season… and the answer is, “No”:

Note that this statement comes less than two weeks after GRRM commented on Livejournal that he was at that time “wrestling” with the same question. So it looks likely that he settled on an answer pretty much around the time that he decided to remove some appearances from his schedule.

George R.R. Martin revealed on his Not a Blog that he had decided to go and update his book samples pages at his official site with a new The World of Ice and Fire sample… but it’s not quite a sample from the book: “The Westerlands” is in fact George’s original write up of Westerlands history, one of a number of such write-ups he did as his contribution for the book. Due to size constraints, Linda and I then worked with our editor Anne Groell to compress it down to fit the book.

Now, one note of caution: this is an unedited, unpublished text. In fact, purusing it, it’s a very close match for the original text George sent, before we turned it around with some comments pointing out some continuity issues. George is aware of them and will doubtless incorporate them in the future if he decides to publish it, but in any case there are differences between the two texts because we incorporated those necessary changes and fixes into TWoIaF. Some have asked us if we can at least consider all details not contradicting the books and TWoIaF as “canon”, but I’d again underline the fact that this isn’t really a published text. Until it’s in a fixed format—as in, published in a book or an anthology—it’s not canonical, as all unpublished details are entirely subject to change at George’s whim. I’d guess very little of it will change if George did decide to publish it, beyond those things already fixed for The World of Ice and Fire, but that’s where it stands.

In any case, go read it!