Westeros

Once again, James Hibberd has the scoop, revealing that Mark Gatiss—writer and actor on Sherlock, among many other pop favorite shows—will be returning on season 5 to reprise his role as Tycho Nestoris of the Iron Bank of Braavos. Last seen negotiating with Stannis Baratheon over the Bank’s financial support, his appearance in season 5 certainly heralds more use of Braavos and the Iron Bank for this season.

Hibberd also adds that Gatiss will be filming in Croatia next week.

Although HBO’s Game of Thrones was blanked at the Primetime Emmys, the number of nominations the show received was among the most any regular drama series received this year…. and when you factor the Creative Arts Emmys (of which the show won four), it was the most nominated drama of the year with a total of 19. The show’s cast and crew were out in force in support, and thanks to so many people being around Los Angeles it certainly helped get some involvement in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge as GRRM, Sibel Kekilli, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey, and Kit Harington all took the challenge for the cause. Others who have participated from the cast: Pedro Pascal, Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, and Joe Dempsie.

Besides the Emmys, we were present at Loncon where “The Rains of Castamere received the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) Hugo Award. David Benioff and Dan Weiss were both in the crowd, and seemed very pleased to be at their first ever Worldcon for such an occasion. Both of them have spoken in the past of their mutual love of genre literature when they were younger, when they read the likes of Fritz Leiber, Le Guin, and Tolkien, and speaking with them afterward they certainly seemed over the moon at winning the most well-known genre award around.

This is the third consecutive win for Game of Thrones at the Hugos, and this one in particular was noteworthy for winning despite being in the UK, with an outsized UK-based membership who rallied around Doctor Who. “The Rains of Castamere” had a substantial lead in first selections, but as episodes were eliminated “The Day of the Doctor” began to gather more and more steam until coming within passing distance… only for Orphan Black being dropped from the list, and votes for it redistributed, giving the episode a surge that led to its victory.

We have two pairs of tickets to see George R.R. Martin and Robin Hobb on Tuesday 19th August at the Freemasons Hall in London! This event is a once in a lifetime chance to see to two of the world’s greatest storytellers discuss how they build their fictional universes, create their characters and balance fantasy and reality,  their influences and inspirations, their struggles and successes. A must-attend for all fantasy fans. To enter the competition, just answer two simple questions:

* The Stark children aren’t the only people in the fantasy genre who have a close association with a wolf. In fact, Robin Hobb has a particularly notable example of this in her Farseer trilogy. What’s the name of Fitz’s wolf in that series?

* Which of the Stark direwolves is your favorite, and why?

You can leave your answer in comments below. The contest closes Thursday evening, so be quick ... and be ready to keep an eye on your Facebook messages in case you’re a winner as we’ll need your contact information!

If you would like to hear more about HarperVoyager’s authors including George and Robin, why not subscribe to their newsletter http://harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk/subscribe/ “>here.

And tickets for the event, which includes a signed copy of Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb, are available

According to the Belfast Telegraph, veteran Northern Irish actor J.J. Murphy passed away mere days after filming his first scene for season 5 of Game of Thrones. Heretofore an unpublicized member of the cast, the Telegraph reports that Murphy was cast in the role of Ser Denys Mallister, a senior man of the Night’s Watch who in the novels was the commander of the Shadow Tower and a leading candidate to succeed Lord Commander Mormont. The Telegraph notes he was due to film more scenes, and speculates as to whether the role will be removed from the show or if another actor will be cast to fill it.

Murphy, 86 years old at the time of his death, had decades of theatre experience. According to the Telegraph, he was best known for his work at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, where actors such as Liam Neeson and Ciaran Hinds cut their teeth and learned their craft alongside him. Our condolences to his friends and family.

UPDATE: HBO’s publicity twitter has released the following statement from David Benioff and Dan Weiss:

One of the original parts of Westeros was A Ring of Ice and Fire, a webring that sought to bring together all A Song of Ice and Fire fansites when the fandom still was in its infancy. Over time, webrings grew rather obsolete and outdated as a way of connecting similar sites and eventually the third-party solutions disappeared. We did attempt to make our own within the software we use to run Westeros, but it was poorly suited to it, and as a result the webring has been defunct in all but name for several years. We have now finally pulled the plug on it and removed that section from the site.

However, we are still very much interested in seeing the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom thrive and given the amount of traffic that we do get at Westeros, we thought that we might at least replace the webring with a simpler, more straight-forward solution in the shape of a Links database. Now, if you click through to that page, you will notice that it is as of yet very much in its infancy. However, the submission page is up and running and we hope that we will start getting a few submissions so that we can shape the rest of the page around the content once it starts appearing.

Thanks to the intrepid Marino Santirso, Westeros.org is happy to present his diary from the London Film and Comic Convention. Over the coming days, we’ll be posting interviews with a number of Game of Thrones actors that were present at the convention, and as always they’re quite the charming bunch. Marino has provided an introduction to the diary—and himself—here... and as it happens, we’ve also posted the very first interview as well with actor Finn Jones, who plays the famous Knight of Flowers, Ser Loras Tyrell. Finn was actually one of the first actors we ourselves interviewed way back during the first season, and we’re pleased to say he’s as exuberant as always!

You can read Finn’s interview here. As the week progresses, we’ll add further interviews with the likes of Gethin Anthony (Renly Baratheon), Kate Dickie (Lysa Arryn), Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne), and Kristian Nairn (HODOR) !

HBO’s just sent out a release noting that today, the season 4 boxed set of Game of Thrones can now be pre-ordered (US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD). Here’s the full release concerning the contents, and the differences between the DVD and Bluray editions:

Fans who can make it to London on August 19th, take notice: tickets for the Harper Collins Voyager and blinkbox-sponsored evening with George R.R. Martin and Robin Hobb now on sale. It’s a world exclusive event, on the eve of the publication of Hobb’s continuation of her landmark Farseer series with Fool’s Assassin, and the two authors will likely discuss their respective works, the fantasy genre in general, and much more. It’s definitely an exclusive opportunity for genre fans!

In the course of yesterday’s Game of Thrones panel, George dropped a bomb shell for fans eager to hear about the next entry in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, revealing a character who’ll be making an appearance in the prologue. Terri Schwartz of Zap2it managed to get a hold of him right after the panel, and tried to get a bit more information out of him. Those questions, and more—including another confirmation from GRRM that he will not be writing a season 5 script—can be seen here.

Some thoughts on it after the cut.

Well, this is an interesting revelation at EW’s interview with yesterday’s panelists. When asked if he’s writing for season 5, George admits that he is not, in fact, doing so. This will be the first time that the show has not had a GRRM-penned episode. Martin cites his work on The Winds of Winter as the primary reason. You can find the full interview below (the question, and Martin’s response, starts at the 1:10 mark):

The panel’s over, and the big news out of it is that HBO revealed a number of the new cast members via a casting video, seen below (keep reading for HBO’s press release, and a bonus season 4 blooper reel!):

San Diego Comic Con is in full swing, and today will see the now-traditional Game of Thrones panel featuring a bevy of cast and crew, including GRRM himself, all hosted by Craig Ferguson (if only Geoff Peterson could co-host…!) But there’s a lot more going on at the convention that’s Game of Thrones related as the biggest comic and media convention in the U.S. gets rolling. A number of licensed creators, including Funko, Insight, and more are also present… and so, too, is Dark Horse.

Among the SDCC exclusive premieres taking place from Dark Horse—including a Lannister shield plaque and Bolton map marker (more abou those later), they’re unveiling a new deluxe figure, this time depicting (the late) Tywin Lannister looking as stern and aristocratic as ever. Here’s what Dark Horse has to say about the release:

A litlte bird tells us that Tywin is just the first in a new series of deluxe figures from Dark Horse, but more on that in weeks to come.

If you’re at SDCC, make sure to drop by Dark Horse’s booth, #2615, and get a closer look at the Tywin figure and everything else they have on display!

Right after Loncon 3—this year’s World Science Fiction Convention—wraps up, George R.R. Martin and fellow fantasist Robin Hobb will be making a special appearance in central London on August 19th. The news, from Martin’s UK publisher Harper Collins Voyager, notes that seating will be limited so tickets are running at £45… but in partnership with sponsor Blinkbox, the event will be streamed on Blinkbox’s Facebook page for all of those who couldn’t get tickets (or live on the wrong continent to consider getting them!)

On a related note, Voyager has recently revealed the UK cover for the forthcoming The World of Ice and Fire, which Linda and I have co-written with George. It’s a variation on the American cover, with a black background and some distinctive flames as well other things like font choices to bring it in line with the U.K’s editions of the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Now that filming is soon to commence later this month, EW—as always!—gets the scoop on just who’s directing each episode of season 5. Some interesting new names in this one, and some interesting details:

As James Hibberd points out, David Benioff and Dan Weiss aren’t taking up director duties as they have with the last few seasons, and other than Nutter every one of the directors is brand new to the series…

Well, sort of. Jeremy Podeswa was set to direct  at least one episode of season 2—almost certainly “Blackwater”—when a family situation forced him to drop out. His taking the middle set of episodes may be indicative that there’s some sort of big turn—potentially something action-heavy—taking place in those episodes, given not only the fact that he had been pegged to direct the action-heavy “Blackwater” but has also directed episodes of HBO’s The Pacific, including (with David Nutter) the episode “Iwo Jima” about the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Also of note is the way that every director is directing two episode, contiguous blocks. That may provide some advantages for the scheduling of filming.

The Primetime Emmys have announced their nominations for this year’s award, and the ever.popular Game of Thrones leads the field with a total of 20 nominations in 19 categories, including a number in the “major” categories: Best Drama, Supporting Actor (Peter Dinklage), Supporting Actress (Lena Headey), Guest Actress (Diana Rigg), Writing, and Direction (Neil Marshall for Watchers on the Wall). Other nominations are Casting in a Drama, two entries in the Cinematography category (for Anette Haellmigk, who acted as director of photography for a six of last season’s episodes, as well as Jonathan Freeman, also responsible for several episodes), Costuming, Hairstyling, Interactive Program (for HBO’s use of Instagram and Facebook), Makeup, Music Composition, Prosthetic Makeup, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Stunt Coordination, Art Direction, and Visual Effects.

It’s a tough field in the major categories, especially with Breaking Bad‘s final season under consideration, and performances by its supporting cast in Aaron Paul and Anna Gunn, while a HBO sister program True Detective has Cary Fukunaga’s direction and Nic Pizzolatto’s writing to contend with as well. Still, as they say, it’s an honor to be nominated. The Emmy awards will be handed out on August 25th.