Westeros

HBO has clarified that the promo showing up tonight before the 8PM film is, in fact, a promo spot for the Inside Game of Thrones 15-minute program which we’ve already reported on. It may well contain some new, quick shots that give a sense of what the promo piece will show on December 5th before the Boardwalk Empire finale, but it’s not the promised 3rd teaser.

Instead, the new 3rd teaser will start airing on Sunday, not Saturday. Again, we fully expect it will air just before or just after Boardwalk Empire, but we’ll try to get more specific information.

HBO has not only confirmed last night’s report of a 15-minute long “Inside Game of Thrones” program on Sunday, December 5th, but they’ve also revealed that there’s going to be a brand new teaser scheduled to air this Saturday and

Sunday.

We don’t have specific times as of yet, but we’d expect the teasers to air in the vicinity of major original programming (after or before this weekend’s Boardwalk Empire seems a likely bet), and in any case we’re told that they will be placed on the Making Game of Thrones site in short order. Expect Westeros.org to provide its usual embedded links and thorough analysis when we get a hold of them out here!

Additional: HBO indicated to us that it will run just before the 8PM film, so we’re thinking tuning in at 7:45 would be a good idea to make sure you don’t miss it on your TV screen.

Thanks to a tweet, it seems we’ve discovered that HBO is getting ready to roll out the big promotional guns for Game of Thrones starting December 5th, which happens to be the finale of their big costume drama, Boardwalk Empire. At first there was some confusion… but a quick check with ogebaba led me to HBO’s on-line schedule. Put in Game of Thrones and what you get is two showings on Sunday, at 8:45 and 11:45, of what’s said to be a 15 minute program. You can see the initial listing here. The program description is, “A special sneak preview of the highly anticipated HBO series Game of Thrones”.

After that, the program will be put into regular rotation at least through January 6th, though it’s listed as being 10 minutes there. At a guess, the 15 minute version could contain some exclusive, one-time extras like a scene… or it could be material connected to Boardwalk or other programming. Regardless, at least 10 minutes of Game of Thrones-centric material seems a shoe-in.

The question is then ... what’s the material? At a guess, we’re likely to see some of the Artisans material, at least, which has not been aired on HBO as far as we know. But it seems quite likely that there’ll be at least something new as well.

Thanks to long-time forum member ogbebaba for tipping us off!

Needle, an officially approved replica of Arya Stark’s sword, is on sale through the holidays thanks to Valyrian Steel. Designed and produced with George R.R. Martin’s direct input, this is the only such replica of Needle currently available to be purchased. If you’d like to see pictures and ordering information, visit their store,

Via “Not a Blog”, George informs fans that a report and video from Fantasy Flight Games following their Days of Ice and Fire event have been posted. The video’s quite cool, featuring GRRM’s remarks on his cameo in HBO’s Game of Thrones, a few examples of name pronunciations, and remarks from a panel including two of his Wild Cards collaborators, Melinda Snodgrass (who’s just posted some interesting thoughts on Dragon Age 2) and Ian Tregillis.

You can find these reports (plus the video), along with other Days of Ice and Fire reports, at the So Spake Martin collection.

George R.R. Martin has confirmed that David Bradley, best known as Harry Potter’s Argus Filch, has been cast as Walder Frey. See our previous post on the matter.

In that item, we also noted GRRM had confirmed that the role of Donal Noye was not being cast, at least not for this season. However, HBO has confirmed that Andrew Wilde (via Winter is Coming. Tobho Mott is the wealthy foreign armorer who is visited by Lord Eddard during his time in King’s Landing. Scenes featuring him, and Joe Dempsie (cast as his bull-headed apprentice Gendry), were already filmed in Malta some weeks back.

That’s where GRRM’s clues seem to be pointing that way, as a number of fans have been commenting on the web and Twitter. David Bradley, presently best known for his role as Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films, fits the clues to a tee. Born in 1942, the actor was part of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre (hence the Olivier name check), played Cohen the Barbarian in one of the Pratchett adaptions (Cohen being a parody of Conan the Barbarian, presently being played by Jason Momoa, aka Khal Drogo), was in Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens), Vanity Fair (Thackeray), and been in an adaption of The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer).

It’s an interesting choice, in that the actor is about twenty years younger than Lord Walder is in A Game of Thrones, but his acting credentials can’t be denied, including a 1991 Olivier Award for his portrayal of the Fool in King Lear with the Royal National Theatre. Below is a clip featuring him in a similar role, as Henry VIII’s fool, Will Somers, in The Tudors:

As an extra note, in the comments to his post, GRRM notes that Castle Black’s one-armed blacksmith, Donal Noye, is not appearing (at least not in the first season). I’ve heard that Tyrion Lannister will be getting much of his role in the first novel (don’t worry, he’s not losing an arm!)

New clues have appeared on George R.R. Martins’s “Not a Blog”, and it seems clear they’re for a role that’s been much speculated: Lord Walder Frey. The clue is as follows:

This is one I’ve been asking for for awhile, and boy, am I happy to see it. HBO’s Making Game of Thrones has posted a brand new Artisans video, this one featuring weaponsmaster Tommy Dunne as he discusses—and shows—a number of weapons made for the series. Among them, one can see Ser Gregor Clegane’s greatsword standing next to Eddard Stark’s Ice, Ser Waymar Royce’s amber-encrusted sword, and more:

Look particularly closely at the weapons behind Dunne at the opening. There’s one balde that looks as if it has ring guards on it, and it’s quite slender and long… is that Arya’s sword, Needle? I am suspicious!

Edited: My speculation is confirmed by a little bird—it is, indeed, Needle.

Natalia Tena, cast in the role of the wildling spearwife Osha after wowing the producers with her audition, is off to Belfast to film more scenes for HBO’s Game of Thrones. This news comes via the official Twitter account for Molotov Jukebox, the band which Tena is lead vocalist for. You can watch their latest video for their song “Laid to Rest”, with a saucy performance from Tena, right here:

Tena has also resumed her supporting role of Tonks in the latest installment of the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain that Rides, has climbed over the corpses of his enemies to reach the championship of Suvudu’s Villains Cagematch 2010. His final opponent? The Reaper, from the works of Terry Brooks. Suvudu has a great write-up of how they think the battle would go… except for the fact that they have the end result wrong. ;)

Want to weigh in? Vote now!

Although filming in Malta has already wrapped, the latest “Dispatches from the Seven Kingdoms” post by Bryan Cogman is from nearer the start of shooting. He discusses an important showdown in Episode V that features some impressive swordsmanship. The walled medieval town of Mdina serves as the locale for a number of King’s Landing exterior shots, and is one of many locations to be used by the production on Malta and the neighboring island of Gozo.

One notable part is his description of what the various directors were doing at that time. While we already have the precise breakdown of which director is directing which episode, getting a sense of when the blocks were overlapping at various stages is interesting:

I’ll be here for about three weeks for the first block - Episodes III through VIII (Brian Kirk and Dan Minahan directing).  Filming on Episodes I & II continues in Belfast (Tim Van Patten at the helm) and Alan Taylor has begun prep on Episodes IX and X.  Needless to say, it’s a lot to keep straight.

It’s amusing that he’s re-read A Clash of Kings five times so far (as of that post)—quite a lot of cramming involved in his role as the keeper of the mythos.

In his latest “Not a Blog” post, George R.R. Martin discusses his catching up on the football games he’s missed over the last few weeks while overseas. At the very end, there’s a small note regarding A Dance with Dragons: “Meanwhile, in Westeros, I am wrestling with krakens.”

HBO’s Making Game of Thrones site has a new photo up from the set:

Click through to see our discussion of just what we’re seeing, but lets just say it’s an important dagger, and an equally important book on which it lies…

They also ask fans to share their views as to what other props they’d like to see. Here’s Westeros.org’s list:

• Dragon egg (one or all three)
• A dragon skull
• Notable weapons (Longclaw, Needle, an arakh, a dragonbone bow)
• Notable armor (the Hound’s helm, Gendry’s helm, Loras Tyrell’s armor)
• The Iron Throne
• The heart tree at Winterfell

Entertainment Weekly‘s print edition has hit the stands today (with this fetching series of covers that should be hard to miss), and inside it contains a bit more information (rather spoilerish, but so it goes) and several new photos from their exclusive. Below, we’ll discuss the new pictures, using the captions EW provides with each image.