Westeros

After its series of “Valar Morghulis” posters, with their stark black-and-white depictions of the show’s key characters, HBO now provides a somewhat more colorful image. I think it’s quite striking…

... even if they do insist on calling it a three-eyed raven.

Via EW, fans can now read a paragraph—yes, a whole paragraph!—from The Winds of Winter. This is actually a clever means of noting a unique approach that Random House has decided to use to promote the World of Ice and Fire app (Buy: iOS, Android): the next big update (which, yes, Linda and I have worked on and teased, due next month, will also include the full chapter that is being previewed here.

As I said in the tease, the update will be of particular interest to fans of The Lands of Ice and Fire (Order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), as it will provide some new information on some of the new lands and places that the map has revealed, as well as additions of a number of characters that previously weren’t covered in the update.

Following on today’s earlier sneak peek from EW, HBO has now released three character teasers focusing on Tyrion (seen in the Tyrion peek), Daenerys, and the Starks. You can see them below:

James Hibberd over at EW once again has the scoop, revealing a series of character posters—focused, interestingly, on the Lannister bunch—done in striking black-and-white and featuring the ominous phrase, “Valar Morghulis”.  Along with the posters is a very brief video, focused on Tyrion and giving a sense of the sort of predicament he will be finding himself in this season.

All in all, very much a mood piece, setting a tone for what season 4 is going to be bringing. Hibberd hints that more posters and videos shall be hitting the web soon enough, doubtless in a similar vein.

Earlier this month, we noted the upcoming fundraising drive for the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, sponsored by none other than George R.R. Martin and Parris McBride. As promised, we’d note when it went live… and it now has. A massive amount of A Song of Ice and Fire-related books and memorabilia, as well as Wild Cards books and other works by Martin, is in the offering, with various packages available at different funding levels.

The proceeds will go to support the Westeros Pack—named after characters from the novels—by providing them a larger habitat, which sounds excellent. All funding levels include signed “adoption” certificates, showing your sponorship of a particular wolf (or wolves) in the pack.

Dark Sword Miniatures, official license holders of A Song of Ice and Fire miniature figures, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help them get more figures out, more quickly. The new expansion—featuring figures such as an armored Barristan Selmy, mounted versions of Loras Tyrell and Khal Drogo, Arianne Martell, Prince Joffrey, and many more—are all sculpted by the truly amazing Tom Meier, one of the very finest miniature sculptors now or, indeed, ever.

And to gild the lily, as Dark Sword Miniatures founder Jim Ludwig notes, every one of Meier’s sculpts is created with the direct involvement and approval of Martin, so in many ways these figures are probably as close as anyone will ever get to seeing Martin’s own vision of his characters and the way they should be clothed, armed, or armored (case in point: Drogo’s arakh is indeed more or less a saber, which fits Martin’s remarks on the subject.)

Launching yesterday with a $10,000 goal, the Kickstarter was fully founded in just over two hours. Since then, it’s nearly hit $25,000, and two stretch goals have been reached. More stretch goals are likely to come, and given the length of time which remains, it could go very far indeed.

HBO has just aired the second Game of Thrones trailer, teasing just a bit more of what’s to come for Season 4. You can see it below:

Season 4 premieres on April 6th, at 9:00PM Eastern.

Following our recent post giving a quick run down on what’s going on on the toy front of Game of Thrones licensing, we’re pleased to share some news from Dark Horse. While NY Toy Fair has just started, they’ve given us a look at one of the latest products they’re making, a sizable bust of Sandor Clegane, aka the Hound.

As you can see below, the highly-deailed Clegane bust features features a hinged visor for his helmet, a feat which I can’t say I’ve ever seen before of a collectible bust of this sort. Whether others have done it or not, though, it’s certainly a neat touch, allowing fans the chance to display him how they like.

Occasionally, our running of Westeros.org leads to opportunities only tangentially related to A Song of Ice and Fire, but they can lead to some very interesting things (such as the contest we’ll be announcing further below…)

In the past, I’ve made some noise about an independent comic book series, Artesia, written and illustrated by Mark Smylie. Inspired by, among other things, A Song of Ice and Fire, Smylie set out to create an epic fantasy following the eponymous character and the world-changing events around her. His “Known World” setting grew to enormous proportions, spanning continents, containing dozens of gods and recounting events over thousands of years (and multiple dating systems, while he was at it). The scope of it was on par with what one sees in literary epic fantasy, but in comic book form? Pretty much unheard of in the English-language market. Smylie’s terrific watercolor artwork was paired with a formal, Shakespearian sort of prose and an extremely earthy, gritty setting. There’s high magic, there’s ghouls and demons and vampires, there’s incredibly-realized battles between armored knights, there’s intrigue and murder, there’s sex and sexual politics—it has it all.

Taking a page from Han Zimmer’s Inception score, HBO is teasing a brand new trailer due this Sunday night with this very brief Vine video—and accompanying audio—that suggests it may focus on Daenerys and the story in the east:

No new images here, but it certainly whets the appetite to see more.

As the Season 3 Blu-Ray release approaches its February 18th release date (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD),  HBO and HBO UK hosted a very special event for bloggers, media, and fans presenting an early look at the kind of exclusive features the Blu-ray will take place. We were invited, and I happily trooped off to London while Linda held down the fort.

Hosted at the lovely Soho hotel, the event featured an open bar (very important, that!), a magnificent Red Wedding-themed cake made by the talented Choccywoccydoodah team, and a terrific hostess in Maisie Williams. After an initial bit of chatting—including with Nick and Ben from the University of Exeter’s Game of Thrones Society—we were ushered in to the Soho’s theatre for a screening of the Blu-Ray-exclusive, detailed behind the scenes look at the creation of “The Rains of Castamere”. The episode was introduced by Maisie, who discussed her reaction and that of fans the world over to the infamous Red Wedding—reactions that led HBO to create this teaser for the collection:

As the program started with the familiar strains of the Game of Thrones theme, we saw the typical picture-in-picture approach to showing the episode and also behind the scene interviews, shots, and more that described the action as it was going on, how it was put together, and more. It should prove very insightful for those who want to learn what goes into creating an episode, and adapting written material to the screen. Courtesy of HBO, here’s a taste of what this will look like, with an excerpt from the episode:

Afterward, HBO gave out gift bags to those who had attended, including their own very slice of the Red Wedding cake. All in all, it was a terrific event, put together first and foremost for the fans of Game of Thrones. Hopefully UK fans will get more opportunities in the future to take part in such special screening events!

Titancon—a convention by the fans, for the fans based in Belfast—has announced that it will be returning for 2014! Having started as a small effort to bring a convention to Belfast with Game of Thrones as a part of its theme, its expanded its scope to include a focus on SF/F literature, with many noted authors as past guests… and of course, a few actors from HBO’s hit TV show besides.

The convention will be based out of the Wellington Park Hotel, and will run from September 12th through Sept 14th. Besides the literary event on that Friday, the Game of Thrones-focused event on Saturday will be sure to feature a number of actors (guests not yet determined, as it depends on their shooting schedules), and Sunday will see the return of the ever-popular guided bus tour of key Game of Thrones locations.

For more information about the convention, visit the Titancon website!

As season 4 approaches, the licensing juggernaut that is HBO’s Game of Thrones keeps on moving as well. Things are heating up significantly in the toy area (keep reading for a contest to win some of the figures!), as figurines and miniatures based on the Game of Thrones license have proven very popular. Leading the way, of course, has been Funko‘s POP! series of figures, which are being released in new editions with some regularity. Funko has been expanding, however, in two directions.

First, to really encourage the collecting craze, Funko has created its new “blind box” minis in the same style as the POP! figures. The “blind boxes”—named for the fact that you never know what you’re going to get—are going to lead to a lot of collecting and trading. The other direction Funko has gone, however, is creating the first-ever 6” collectible action figures for the series. Not yet really released, Toy Ark spotted early photos of the figures via an eBay auction of someone who had gotten a hold of them early. The initial series of six figures include Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister , The Hound, a White Walker, Daenerys Targaryen, and Ned Stark.

Last night, HBO aired a 15 minute feature highlighting what’s to come in season 4… and embracing the magic of the Internet, they have releaed it on to Youtube. You can watch it below:

Having watched that, what has you most excited?

(Our usual screencapping efforts shall be delayed a few days, as some other Game of Thrones-relevant things take precedence!)

George R.R. Martin and Parris McBride have long been supporters of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in New Mexico, a non-profit organization whose mission is to rescue and provide a sanctuary for captive-bred wolves, wolf-dogs, and othe related animals. The establishment of the Westeros Pack at the sanctuary—each wolf named after a character (or direwolf!) from A Song of Ice and Fire—is a natural extension of that. George and Parris have previously helped raise over $7,000 for the sanctuary by donating A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones memorabilia for a fundraising auction, and now they’re at it again—this time by supporting another charity auction on behalf of the pack.

The auction itself hasn’t launched yet, but in the interim you can learn about all the members of the pack, and even donate directly to adopt one of the wolves (or the whole pack of them).

When the auction goes live, we’ll be sharing a reminder…. but in the interim, Leyton Cougar, director of Wild Wolf Spirit Santcuary, answers a very important question: