Westeros

Last week, we announced a contest—courtesy of the HBO Store—to win a Game of Thrones beanie. That one’s done, and we even threw in an additional prize of a matching scarf to the winner…

... but in their generosity, HBO has also given us another contest item: a House Stark blanket, to keep you extra-warm when winter is coming. To enter, all you have to do is follow Westeros.org and tweet #GoTBlanket!

Alas, yes, contest is US only. But we’ll have some international contests quite soon!

Kansas City’s annual, venerable ConQuest convention is about to have its 44th(!) con from May 24th through the 26th, and as it happens, George R.R. Martin will be a guest there. He and Parris have long been supporters of this convention, which we’ve been told is one of the best fandom-organized conventions around. Many other guests will be on hand, including guests of honor Patrick Rothfuss and John Picacio (award-winning illustrator of the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar.

Here’s the press release from the convention itself:

“Dracarys!”

A great and long-awaited ending to an excellent episode. For our full recap, review, and book-to-screen breakdown, just go ahead to our episode guide for “And Now His Watch is Ended”.

HBO and the HBO Store have teamed up to offer up a special sweepstakes (US Only). in which you can win some pretty amazing props from the set:

More details, and how to enter, at the HBO Store!

Australian comedy band The Axis of Awesome have decided to share their views on Game of Thrones, and we suspect it gives voice to feelings some fans of the novels have occasionally had well up in some deep, dark corner of their soul:

“Hollywood cannot live up to the power of imagination!”—so full of rage, and yet so very true!

It was only a matter of time before comedy icon Alfred E. Neuman sat on the Iron Throne on the cover of MAD Magazine. And that time has now come.

The humor magazine is at last tackling Game of Thrones, with a cover that homages the season one image of Eddard Stark on the throne. Neuman has a rather different throne, indeed…

The issue goes on sails on April 30th. For those interested in a subscription, you can try here.

We’ve now updated our episode guide for “Walk of Punishment” with HBO’s “Inside the Episode” regular feature, as well as their own recap video… plus our own Youtube video discussing the episode in terms of some historical details of interest, as well as a quick commentary on our personal highs and lows of the episode. We’re finally starting to catch up with getting the videos done in good time, and hopefully from here on out they’ll be available soon after the end of the US airing!

You can find the video below:

Courtesy of the HBO store, we’ve a couple of brief contests for interested fans. Before we go any further, though: this is US only; sorry folks, but keep an eye out, we’ve some international contests coming up soon!

So, first contest: you can win this most excellent Targaryen beanie! Good way to show your Fire and Blood pride, isn’t it? Especially as things heat up for Daenerys in Slaver’s Bay…

How to enter? Just follow us on Twitter and tweet #GoTBeanie! Only one entry per person will be counted, so no need to keep RTing… well, unless you really want to!

This long video from HBO provides a good overview of the many new characters introduced this season, along with interview excerpts with the actors, the producers, and George R.R. Martin:

Poor Edmure gets such a hiding in this video! Can’t catch a break, it seems…

Conan O’Brien had an interesting guest last night, when Nikolaj Coster-Waldau appeared to talk about Game of Thrones and related matters. This initial segment reveals some details about an upcoming scene in the series, so it’s something of a mild spoiler ...

... while this anecdote featuring a bathroom stall and George Clooney is just plain funny:

Via James Hibberd at EW, it looks like “Dark Wings, Dark Words” has managed the feat of becoming the second most-viewed episode of the series to date, with its ratings dropping very little from last week’s highly-rated opening. Really steady numbers such as these are a pretty good sign for the show, it goes without saying.

Well, this is a bit earlier than usual: Amazon.com is already listing the Bluray and DVD sets for season 3. No release date as yet, though as usual we suppose that’ll be for next year rather than the holiday season.

In the UK, this year’s nominees for the prestigious BAFTA Television awards have been announced, and Game of Thrones actually has two separate nominations. One of them is a BAFTA-proper—it’s nominated in the International Award category, alongside The Bridge, Homeland, and fellow HBO show Girls—and the other is the Radio Times Audience Award, which is decided by the voting public.

The awards will be handed out on May 12th.

(Thanks to @TataniaRose for bring it to our attention.)

Finished the latest episode of Game of Thrones? We’ve posted our recap, review and analysis, and book-to-screen breakdown over at our episode guide! We’ll have additional content—our video review, and perhaps a few other tidbits—appearing tomorrow and the day after, as they become available.

Access Hollywood have again been at it with some excellent Game of Thrones coverage this year, and we’d thought we should share two recent interviews we’ve particularly enjoyed. First, Mackenzie Crook—who plays Orell, a wildling skinchanger (which, for mysterious reasons, has been simplified to just being a warg—those of you with a bit of knowledge of Germanic or Scandinavian languages, past or present, may understand why this is an inaccuracy)—is finally interviewed at length about his experience of the production and just a bit about his character.

Second, one of the most entertaining actors in the production is Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, who discusses his character’s miraculous survival in this video interview: