Westeros

It seems that the “old maester”, Grand Maester Pycelle or Maester Aemon, has been cast and GRRM has some clues for his identity. We think we know who this is already, however. The role was originally lined up for an esteemed, world-class actor according to GRRM, when Pycelle was written into a new scene for the pilot which we later learned was removed for time and never filmed. And one name has been commonly recommended for him, a name that’s near and dear to GRRM’s heart: Roy Dotrice, who read the first three novels for the audiobook versions.

An actor with a long career in film and theatre, Dotrice has certainly been a popular choice for a part, and Pycelle or Maester Aemon were really the only two choices for him. Martin once stated some years back that Roy Dotrice would have been his pick for Barristan Selmy, when the ages matched up better.

As to why we’re so sure?

“has lived many lives, brief but numerous.”—Dotrice starred in the play, Brief Lives, and has had many, many roles as well.

“In his youth he fought in the wars that some say inspired all of this.”—He played Edward IV in War of the Roses, a miniseries from 1965.

“He has been a king and a god”—Besides playing Edward, he was also George IV in Shaka Zulu, and he played Zeus in Hercules: The Legendary Journey.

“He’ll always be daddy”—And of course, he played the role of Father in Beauty and the Beast, which GRRM had a hand in producing and writing.

Here’s an interesting attempt to gather together photos of announced cast members for HBO’s Game of Thrones. It sets the pictures side by side with the art of popular A Song of Ice and Fire artist Roman V. Papsuev, also known as Amoka. Papusev’s portraits started as a fan project, but he has received the praise and support of series author George R.R. Martin, and has been hired to produce art for professional publications such as The Art of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and The World of Ice and Fire (forthcoming).

What started as rumors has now come to pass, as young British actor Finn Jones has been cast in the role of Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers. A young, brash knight, younger son of a great lord of the realm, Ser Loras is famed for his youthful beauty and his prodigious skill on the tourney ground. GRRM adds some more details, noting that while the decisions had been made to cast him when rumors came out, the actual contracts and the like had not been signed until very recently.  GRRM adds that the audition scene for Ser Loras was a scene from the third book, A Storm of Swords.

Embedded below is a reel of Finn Jones:

Fantasy Flight Games has updated their support site for their forthcoming Battles of Westeros tactical combat game, following their recent scenarios preview. The support site includes a PDF download of the full rules for the game.

What follows is a comparison of Google’s search volume from U.S. addresses for the phrases “Game of Thrones” (blue) and “Boardwalk Empire” (red), their two new shows. Boardwalk Empire has an amazing pedigree, with Martin Scorsese as producer and director of its pilot, and a host of well-regarded actors, as well as rumored buckets of production money unlike any pilot every filmed. And yet . . .

The 1 month timeline is screwy, but it does let us see the relative spike in search traffic volume for Game of Thrones when the teaser and sub-site premiered as compared to Boardwalk Empire‘s more modest spike in activity after their promo and newest trailer release. It looks like GoT had three times the search volume following the teaser, a huge gain presaged by the report that the first novel ended up on Amazon.com’s Movers & Shaker list for awhile.

Of course, we’ve been getting more about Boardwalk Empire for longer, but it’s interesting to see on the “max” scale that the show has only on a couple of occasions spiked above the volume for the Game of Thrones phrase. Some significant portion of that volume (especially back before 2008) is due to the novels, of course, but the huge spikes of late—and the upward trend seen in the “max” scale—are definitely in large part due to the series. This show has more pre-production buzz than any show HBO’s ever aired before, near as we can tell—probably a motivator for such an early unveiling of the sub-site (have we said thanks for that, yet? Thanks, HBO!)—and if we look how True Blood trended, it’s possible that the series could bring down the internet if it pushes the right buttons for HBO viewers.

Avatar Press is publishing Fevre Dream #2 today (tomorrow in the U.K.), the second part of their adaption of George R.R. Martin’s vampire horror novel. The script is by novellist Daniel Abraham, with art by Rafa Lopez. Avatar’s published a Flash-based preview, embedded below:

Fantasy Flight Games, creators of the popular Game of Thrones Living Card Game and the A Game of Thrones board game, have now published a sneak peek at the five starting scenarios in their latest game, Battles of Westeros, based on George R.R. Martin’s setting. The tactical combat game’s scenarios are at least in part inspired by events described in the first novel, including the Battle of the Green Fork and the Whispering Wood.

George R.R. Martin has updated his “Not a Blog” with a new post catching up on what’s going on of late. Of course, with the recent release of the teaser for HBO’s adaption, that heads off the list. He notes casting continues for many roles, and amusingly complains about having invented so many characters. Roles mentioned are, “Mycah, Janos Slynt, Gendry, Tobho Mott, Old Nan, Shagga, Syrio, Marillion, Doreah, Alliser Thorne, Grenn, Pyp, Rast, Osha..:” He also states that Nina Gold, the casting director, is finding some great choices, and the work continues for those who they have not quite settled on.

In other news, GRRM states that the cross-genre anthology he’s editing with Gardner Dozois, Down These Strange Streets, looks likely to be deliverable to the publisher in a month. “Kong”—A Dance with Dragons—on the other hand continues to be a battle. He states he’s been working on the epilogue, not entirely satisfactorily, before switching to rewriting a Tyrion chapter which has gone much better. He cautions that just because he was writing the epilogue does not mean he is done—he often writes chapters out of order.

Finally, he mentions forthcoming appearances: the Clarion writer’s workshop in San Diego in July, a signing at Mysterious Galaxy, but San Diego Comic-con is not likely to happen ... On the other hand, New York Comic-con in October seems a likely bet, according to George. And why not? As the east coast’s answer to SDCC, it’d be an excellent venue for a panel and full-blown promotion for HBO’s new series, as well as the various comic book properties being developed based on his work…

Extras NI, a casting agency in Northern Ireland, has put out a fresh call for extras for HBO’s Game of Thrones. Some excellent details here about the production and what they’re looking for in terms of extras. They list shooting as taking place from August to December (which more or less fits the late July to December dates we’ve been provided before), We’ll paste the salient bits below the cut, but it looks like there’s an opening casting call on June 26th, between 2pm and 6pm, at the Holiday Inn on Ormeau Avenue in Belfast.

All right, after the teaser, the picture, and the goodies, it’s time to show HBO just how crazy we are for their adaption of Game of Thrones.

Just head on over to Television Without Pity and vote for the series in their massive, 24 category Tubey award. TWoP is one of the largest TV fan sites on the web, and the Tubeys are garnering some attention, so this is a great chance to help get the word out there.

Where’s the show? In the very last category, “Most Anticipated Show of 2010-2011”. Vote now!

HBO’s release of the teaser and their opening of the official site for the series—an unprecedented move for a series almost a year out from airing! Straight from the sight are a number of high-resolution images of Ned Stark, perfectly suitable for a widescreen desktop or mobile phone:

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They’ve also released a Quicktime version of the teaser which is slightly higher quality, which can be downloaded here. Thanks to paulo at WICblog for digging these out.

So, the teaser and the still of Sean Bean as Eddard has drawn a mountain of attention. We’ve sliced and diced the teaser, dissecting it to point out what it shows.

But what didn’t we see that we would have expected to see? I’m not talking Daenerys Targaryen or Catelyn Stark—roles that have since been recast and which will have to be reshot. But roles that, at least to our knowledge, haven’t been recast?

Well, the Stark children are missing, but in 20 seconds you can’t really touch on them. We don’t see Jason Momoa as Drogo directly, but that’s probably because his scenes would have been with Tamzin Merchant, the former Daenerys Targaryen. But it’s perhaps a little surprising that we don’t see the direwolf dead in the snow, and it’s very surprising that there’s no clear look at the Lannisters (though we hint that there’s a rather unclear look in our teaser dissection), who are the primary antagonists (kinda-sorta) in the first book(s). Especially when they’re led by three recognizable actors in pop culture circles: Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Peter Dinklage. Why weren’t they featured, at least briefly? If not all three—since Ned was the sole Stark representative, basically—then why not Dinklage as Tyrion? And for that matter, how about Mark Addy as Robert? Though the laughter may have been him…

A press for time is probably the answer, but we have to say, we’d have foregone some of those repeated shots of the rangers or the Dothraki for a split-second look at Dinklage as Tyrion. Perhaps the next teaser, HBO? ;)

So, now that the huge explosion of amazement has happened ... just what did we see in that ultra-fast 20 second trailer?

What follows is our best attempt to look at it frame-by-frame to identify some of the key scenes, now with images thanks to A Song of Ice and Fire forum member thersites (all images © HBO). Suffice it to say, this is probably spoilerish, so read below:

And a special little present… straight to us from HBO, we’ve a second promotional image to compliment the first still!

Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO. Used with permission.

Stunning! HBO has now gone the full court press, with a full website including a web forum. Amazingly exciting.

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

Oh, what a tease! What did you think?