Westeros

So, eager to hear a little bit about what the first episode will reveal to those watching? HBO teases the season premiere episode “Valar Dohaeris”, and runs through a lengthy list of notable returning and new cast members, in a press release they’ve sent to the media. As there’s spoilers herein, to some degree, we’re just going to put everything under the cut… so click on through!

Over at EW, James Hibberd has posted the first of fifteen exclusive interviews ahead of the March 31st premiere of Game of Thrones. The first interview features Gwendoline Christie—Brienne of Tarth on the show—discussing initial reactions to her casting and her character’s journey, with just a wee bit of detail regarding scenes she’s filmed for this season.

Check it out, and keep an eye on the #EWThrones hashtag on Twitter to learn when the rest of the interviews are published, as they will be once each weekday until the premiere.

Eager to make sure fans who’ve been waiting for the third season are fully caught up to speed, HBO has prepared a recap program that covers key story and thematic points of the last season, along with commentary from actors and producers along the way. Check it out below:

While the traveling exhibit is just about to open in Toronto (with special guest Rose Leslie, aka Ygritte), fans who won’t be able to make it to the locations can still get a taste of what you might see there thanks to the wonders of the internet.

Over at the official Making Game of Thrones production blog, propmaster Gordon Fitzgerald provides some great insight into the process of making props for the show, which certainly has some of the best production values in television (and, I have to say, one of the best crews in television):

And then, via Cat Taylor, we learn that concept artist Will Simpson now has a Facebook fan page where he’s sharing some of the art he has created for the show. Never seen his gift to GRRM before!

Last night, we posted about the Game of Thrones-themed Sports Illustrated Power Issue. We now have the podcast—hosted by Richard Deitsch—with GRRM, which you can find here along with a partial transcript of some of Martin’s remarks.

It’s very much sports-oriented, but there’s some remarks that touch on the characters and the setting (such as Martin’s comparison of knights to athletes).

We’ve placed this interview in the So Spake Martin collection, where you’ll find a great deal of links to interviews, correspondence, and reports from readings, panels, and conventions.

The annual “Power Issue” of Sports Illustrated is on its way, and this time around it seems the editors have chosen a Game of Thrones theme. Not only does NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sit on the Iron Throne on the cover, as he’s ranked the #1 most powerful person in sport, but artist John Hendrix provides this very cool depiction of the modern day sports empires re-envisioned A Song of Ice and Fire style. “The Land of Always Hockey” is particularly choice.

It also sounds like Richard Deitsch of SI will soon be posting a podcast with George R.R. Martin:

Told my podcast and Q&A with @gameofthrones king George R. R. Martin will post today. You’ll enjoy his thoughts on Bill Belichick.

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) March 6, 2013

To learn more about the issue, visit the Sports Illustrated website.

At some point, I need to gather up all these interviews with actors that have been sneaking out the last month or two, and just make a big post with them all. Until then, however, here’s a interview with Rose Leslie, who plays Ygritte on Game of Thrones, courtesy of Access Hollywood. Nice to hear from her, as she didn’t get much in the way of attention for the second season when her role was something of a late entry into the series.

James Hibberd at EW has another scoop regarding season 3 of Game of Thrones. Just as with last year’s reveal that The National performed “The Rains of Castamere” for the show, indie rock band The Hold Steady are performing a rendition of—get this—“The Bear and the Maiden Fair”, a very popular bit of song in Westeros.

Hibberd quotes the producers:

So, that will be rather interesting to hear. I’m guessing it’ll be included on the official soundtrack for season 3, as well… and may well be released as a single before hand.

Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin reveals that the success of the 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, and the very promising work in Gary Gianni’s 2014 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (Pre-order) , has led Bantam to contract the amazing Donato Giancola to illustrate a 2015 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar. One of the foremost artists working in SF/F, he has won multiple Chesley and Hugo Awards for his artwork.

We’ve always hoped Donato would illustrate characters and scenes from the novels in a more substantial body of work than he has previously—his Melisandre painting (Melisandre painting for the cover of Dragon Magazine2 #307 has been his lone piece of ASoIaF art for far too long. Finally, that’s being rectified. We’ve been fans of his work since his gorgeous “Joan of Arc” painting was used for the cover of Mary Gentle’s Ash: A Secret History (a fantasy series we very much recommend to fans of ASoIaF, by the way).

It’s now live, quite surprisingly—we had supposed it’d premiere on Sunday, but nope, HBO has given us a little early gift. Some nice new moments, though it’s not in fact a full 2 minutes long:

Valyrian Steel, makers of replicas based on the novels and the TV series, have announced the latest replica in their Game of Thrones line: the Stark infantry shield, an exact copy of those used on the television show. These are already available for preorder, and should be released for Spring 2013. Fortunately, they’re not a limited run (as the ASoIaF-based replicas, made with George R.R. Martin’s direct input, are) so there should be plenty of time to save your pennies and groats.

The official Game of Thrones Twitter channel has just started unleashing a series of official character posters for season 3, which shall soon see an extended version of the season 3 trailer hit HBO, HBO On Demand, and (we suspect) the internet.

These posters will begin to appear in print and outdoors promotion (think bus stops and buses, posters, etc.) from next week. You can see them all below:

Many expected it, and now it seems it’s true—a 2 minute, extended version of the season 3 trailer will be available via HBO On Demand on March 4th… and so shall almost certainly be airing on HBO proper on Sunday evening, probably somewhere in relation to Girls.

Guess it’s just as well I hadn’t had time to screencap it, I suppose. I’ll just screencap the extended version.

I wonder what the extended trailer will show us that we haven’t seen yet? Anything fans are hoping to get a glimpse of that they haven’t yet seen?

Been a busy week for us here at Westeros.org, with a trip taking me out of commission for a couple of days… but I did pick up some interesting information along the way. And now that it’s out, we may as well share it as well: titles for most of the episodes for season 3.

• “Valar Dohaeris” (pairing nicely with last season’s finale)
• “Dark Wings, Dark Words”
• “Walk of Punishment”
• “And Now His Watch is Ended”
• “Kissed by Fire”
• Still untitled
• “The Bear and the Maiden Fair”
• Still untitled
• “The Rains of Castamere”
• “Mhysa”

We’ll be adding these to our Episode guide once we dig our way out from under mail and screencapping and manuscripts everything else we’re up to at the moment!

And here it is, folks, what many have been waiting for:

What’d you think?

Normally we’d screencap this right off, but as it’s almost 6:30AM, that’ll have to wait. But definitely some things to digest. Two notable things we’ll note: