Though a lot has been made of HBO’s healthy viewing figures for Game of Thrones in the states, being a UK based fan site, we are much more interested in how the show has perfomed in the UK.

As you may have seen from earlier posts I am not a fan of Sky, News Corp, or Rupert Murdoch, and I was dismayed by HBO’s decision to tie in with SKY in the UK.

Up until this point Sky executives must have been worrying about viewing figures for the new channel. Previous best figures were for Boardwalk Empire on the launch night of the new series which averaged 438,000 viewers for its premier.

This sounds like fair figures, but the story hasn’t generally been rosy for Sky Atlantic. Entourage which on ITV2 was regularly getting 200,000 visitors, only received 18,000 for its series premier on Sky.

Sky’s response from Mike Darcey, chief operating officer of BSkyB was to claim that he didn’t look at ratings any more and he stopped looking at the results “a long time ago”, that he was more concerned with column inches written, “We will look at success in a different way”.

My reading of the comments and figures is that Sky Atlantic was in deep trouble, and looking like becoming a very expensive flop!

However figures in for Game of Thrones have come in very healthy with an average of 743,000 viewers watching live on Monday night and overall figures of 1.07 million viewers when time shift viewing is taken into consideration.

I wonder if Mr Darcey has looked at those figures? or is he still only interested in column inches?

Obviously good news for SKY, but is it good news for HBO and Game of Thrones? Well if they had opted for the show to be seen on one of free to air, the channels most of us in the UK would of liked to have seen it on (E4, BBC2, More 4 ) we would have seen much higher viewing figures, probably in the region of 2.4 to 2.6 million as Sky Atlantic is only in approx 40% of UK households, and its traditional subscriber base doesn’t really match HBO’s intelligent output very well.

I belive this figures suggest that HBO have a show that would of been an absolute smash in the UK if it was not on Sky, but on a more accessible channel.

What does this mean?

1. Bleak is that only word that can sum up this first 15 minutes. There is bleakness in the plot, the imagery, the scenery a stoeic hardness to the characters and even the demands of duty.
2. That its is captivating, for 15 minutes I have been drawn in and not been able to do more that scrawl one word ona peice of paper as the preview has grabbed me. I was drawn in and lost in the world of death and ice.
3. That time went faster than I thought, nothing dragged, and I could not believe we had covered all 15 minutes already. I do not expect this series to drag often point.

Beyond my lack of note taking what else struck me about the preview?

• The acting, I have to say that I was impressed with every performance brief though they were, I was suprised I wasn’t annoyed by Sean Bean ever present Yorkshire accent, in fact I was suprised I managed to distinguish this character from Richard Sharpe and Boromir in a very limited amount of screen time, I think we may get more here than Sean Bean being Sean Bean. However three performances stood out for me in the preview and I think we will all be delighted by them going forward these were Michelle Fairley as Cat,  Kit Harrington as Jon Snow and  Maise Williams as Arya Stark.
• The use of silence and lack of score, I actually found the silences and the limited use of a score very nervey. I think I was supposed to, but being more used to a heavier use of music or soundscape I am still unsure how this is going to pan out.
• The look and feel is gorgeous, from costumes, to props, to scenery and CGI. I have been almost immediatley pulled into a world which is rich and believable in its detail. Not quite movie standard but a very high standard for TV nonetheless.
• Also I think the cinematography has shown flashes of inspiration. Nothing mindblowing but a few interesting and creative shots which make thing smore watchable and at times a little edgier, the two that spring to mind are the the shot where the riders come from behind camera, and also the shot starting from the headsmans block.
• I have also got to comment on the headcount, thats alot of beheadings for 15 minutes, let us see if it can be bettered at any point in the series?

Anyway those were my impressions I will welcome yours comments below.

Therefor I would like to make the offer off being very willing to publish other peoples thoughts, articles and writing regarding the upcoming Game of Thrones Tv series on this blog.

So if you would like to be regular writer or just post one article contact me on the site contact form and I will try to make sure that your article or blog posts gets a decent airing on the site, which despite my negligence still gets considerable traffic.

However personally I will try to be better.

I was more suprised whenI found the link and I felt we had been accused of slagging Mark Addy Off and suggesting  he would make Robert Baratheon as a clown.  Which was in my opinion  not what I had said at all. You read the earlier post here.

The exact quote was

Mark Addy: ”It’s time-consuming, shooting riding. It’s hard to portray a fearsome warrior who was merciless in his pursuit of power. There was talk like ‘Why are they turning the king into a clown?’ because I’ve been in funny stuff before. But I think once they see it, the fans will love this.”

What suprised me first was we were the supposed source of internet rumours, and then I realsesd it was a quote from Mark and not the EW jouranlist.

In reponse to this I would like to say a few things.

• First is that I am flattered that Mark has ever read or has been aware of this blogs existence.
• Second that in my opinion all I said is that I love Marks work , but wondered if he would be able to keep the dangerous and threatening  aspect of Roberts Character, never that his casting was turning the character of Robert into a clown.
• Thirdly I would never give my opinion that much credence  anyway .

Anyway from the pics release it is all looking good.

Of all of the series five episodesVincent and the Doctor has stood as as something remarkable, however when look at who was involved you understand why. Take a Bow Mr Curtis and Mt Nighy.

However sap that I am I found this delightful little compilation on youtube and think its deserves an plug, let me know what you think.

I am taking a break from Game of Thrones to talk about something happening in the UK which has caught the public imagination.

OK many of you have heard of the X factor and Rage against the Machine in a fight for the UK Christmas number one. At first glance it’s a wonderful piece of silliness, with the possibility of ‘killing in the name of’ been played at 2;45 on Christmas Day afternoon on Primetime BBC one Christmas Top of the Pops.

Looking at it we are seeing directly clash between traditional media and social media. The X factor stands with the backing of 3 months of 3 hours a week, prime time TV programming/commercials for the winners single, 100’s of pages of newspaper press coverage about the show, the biggest media buzz in main stream British media, and the might of Sony’s PR department behind it.

Rage against the Machine didn’t even involve them selves in the start of this venture. It was a married couple of unknown people starting face book group, in some faceless suburb of England.

So we have it the combined might of British Traditional media lined up against a Facebook group, and surprisingly at the moment the Facebook group is winning.

Currently Rage against the machines 16 year old metal classic is out selling , the X factors Joe McEldreys single via 2 to 1, and the bookies have made Rage Against the Machine favourite to get the Christmas number 1 slot in the UK.

We still have a few days to go but it is very possible that a Facebook group (admittedly now with 750,000 members) may cause one of the biggest media upsets of the year.

The reason I suppose is zeitgeist, as we move from the age of dominance of broadcast media into power of social media, people have actually got frustrated with being told what to buy, what to watch, what to like by big media. They are just loving the chance to do something to tip the balance, however trivial, unimportant and slightly daft.

This is not a clash of RATM against Joe McElderry, or even hard music and soft music, it’s a clash of media broadcast vrs social, and a clash of cultures modern vrs post modern.  People seem to be truly delighted at the possibility of a facebook group defying the odds, even people who aren’t RAGE fans are now buying the single.

However we need to understand there have been numerous groups and attempts, to subvert this process before, this year was an attempt to get journey(?????) to number one as well. Only this one has taken off.

This goes to illustrate that though social marketing may work its still a very hit and miss process. Your average facebook group will not be able to have a great effect on anything mainstream for the vast majority of the time.

What does this mean, in itself nothing, but it is probably a symbol of social media gaining more and more influence and having a greater ability to upset the apple cart of traditional big media within our society. or maybe its just as Roald Dahl said “A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” and it means nothing..

This site has notably been set up as an English language Game of Thrones site, targeted English and US visitors, and has been running for 6 weeks. We have already received 5,000 different visitors from 81 different countries.

This means that the Genuine interest in game of thrones is very widespread. The more exotic locations we have had people visiting from include Libya, Iran, Mongolia, Qatar and Georgia.

Only 28% come from the USA and 15% from the UK. A whopping 11% come from Germany but most of those guys were just looking at pictures of Lena Headey.

China comes in 4^th at 6% beating Canada into 5^th place with 4%, who would of thought that for an English language site. Looks like there is a ready market for this program in China already.

Spain, Sweden, Italy, Isreal and Australia make up the rest of the top 10 locations with not a great deal to choose between them.

In fact the only places we haven’t received visitors from are West and Central and Southern Africa, Antarctica and central Asia.

Why bother to report on this? Well I know that they are stats from one website, but people have come here for one reason that they are interested in HBO’s Game of Thrones projects or George RR Martins ‘A Song of  Ice and Fire Books’. ( Apart from the Germans that is.)

This means there is a truly worldwide buzz going on about this project. Exciting?  maybe ………

Anyway top 25 countries

Total counties: 81

Of all the parts in game of Thrones I think the role of Tyrion Lannister is both the most important and the most difficult.

The most important  as he is the most popular character, in my opinion the best written character in ‘A Game of Thrones’ and probably the character who I think sets the tone of the books.

The most difficult as I am not aware of an other mainstream film or TV shows which centers around has heroic or anti heroic character which is played by someone who is ……. How do you say this nicely? A little on the short side, ….. oh stuff it a dwarf.

Now I am not saying it is correct, nice, justified or in any way fair, but the fact of the matter is characters Peter Dinklage’s size have usually been kept as comedy relief in ensemble pieces of work, out and out comedy characters in comedy films or weird freaks placed on screen to make us feel discomfort, and disoriented in horror.

In Tyrion Lannister we have a real three dimensional character, not a caricature. He is the closest thing Game of Thrones has to a central anti hero character, he is the classic ‘good bad guy’, or is that the ‘bad good guy’. We are expected to deal with his sexuality without laughs, guwaffs or titters at the mention of the words ‘dwarf ‘and ‘sex’ in the same sentence.  Let’s face in being a dwarf Tyrion Lannister becomes a genre breaking character.

Historically Bigotry has been broken down by bold and brave individuals who have performed, and succeeded in there chosen field.  One thinks of Jesse Owens in Munich, demolishing the myth of the master race, not by politics, or politically statements, just by running faster than anyone else. He could run, he ran, he demolished an evil lie and embarrassed the liar.

No I would not assume that the treatment short people get is the equivalent of Nazi Germany, but im sure it’s uncomfortable. I would also assume as a dwarf actor you get sick of the slightly insulting cliché roles you are offered. Peter has a chance in this role to truly humanise dwarf characters, to have them seen as competent and capable people, to have a dwarf as an a hero(anti hero), not a comedy side kick.

Is it a big ask for a big man? Not really Peter is an actor all he has to do is act. If he is good, the role has been written in such a way that it could redefine the way short guys are seen in cinema and TV. If he is bad the role is so genre breaking it could make the whole show tank if done badly.

Tyrion Lannister comes in as the fans favourite character, this is no surprise to me. For three reasons one he has been written excellently by George RR Martin , two he is an original character ( I am still not sure yet whether he is truly original or a twist on an archetype, but there has not been a Tyrion Lannister before.) and three he is by the far the most contemporary character within the books, i.e. readers identify with him much more than other characters within the books, because he thinks the same way and has the same values as they do.

In 2^nd place comes Ayra Stark, this does surprise me, and yet it doesn’t as I wanted to vote for her myself. In the first book she is well written, and again has a contemporary character which speaks of her appeal, but her story arc is short. We see a seeing development and much promise, but no fulfilment. I am really keen to see how Ayra and her story arc grows and develops within the next books.

In 3^rd place came John Snow. I feel his Story arc is the best developed within ‘A Game of Thrones’ and is a truly rounded, likeable, hero character. If anyone is the ‘Luke Skywalker’ of ‘A Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow is your man.  He was my choice to. I also feel the George managed to convey a character that was close to but having different motivations and ideologies than a contemporary man.

I was very surprised to see Petyr Baelish come in 4^th, he was just thrown into the mix as he was written with a certain degree of charm, and I didn’t want a list full of Stark kids. It surprised me to see him pull more votes than Ned stark, which im ignoring and putting down to people voting for what they see in the coming books.

Ned at lower down the list  isn’t really a surprise seeing as he only makes it 2/3 of the way into the first book, people who have read further have a much high chance of identifying with one of the longer surviving characters.  However as stated I was surprised that Petyr beat him for 4^th place.

As far as Cersei Lannister getting a vote, whoever you are you are a sick bunny !

Finally Rob Stark at 7^th was a surprise, I didn’t except him to compete, but I didn’t expect him to fait quite this bad. He is old fashioned hero someone our parents or grand parents may of voted for, but he is removed from contemporary people and seems duty bound, stuffy and full of himself. However one vote would have been nice.

Anyway enough comment on what was a bit of fun.

For me as an adult fan of fantasy films, LOTR attained this very well. However the Narnia films died on their feet, because I just could not believe in the film for the duration of the story.  I could not look past certain aspects and put my disbelief to one side for a moment.

For myself, the suspension of disbelief  requires two things:

Firstly, it needs to be a world is consistent and in which the fantasy setting has an ethos and a mythology and does not stray too far from that central mythology.  When Santa turned up in Narnia, what little suspension of disbelief I had was instantly shattered. However in comparison, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the rings knew its mythology, stuck it to its mythology, and I was therefore able to immerse myself within the story.

Secondly, the world has to be believable and consistent with its own laws of logic. Jackson’s take on middle earth was by no means realistic, but everything worked (more or less) with its own mythology.  Characters had roles and limits and worked consistently within them. When I accepted the premises which the world worked in, I was asked to believe nothing which was unreasonable.

Narnia on the other hand was a complete mess. It had no tangible internal logic and was impossible to believe. A major factor in this was the capabilities shown by characters who were small children. It took a fantasy and made it into a fairy tale for me.

It is much easier to maintain a suspension of disbelief in the written form where images are much more controlled by our imagination and detached from the world we know than it is on the screen where imagery is created for us and reminds of our daily reality by its very visual nature.

This is my concern for Game of Thrones. The setting is dark and violent  and does not take prisoners, but as the books continue, some of the major characters are nothing more than young children , who in any earthly situation would be out of their depth. It is easier for us to maintain that suspension of disbelief in the written form, but will it survive the translation onto the big screen where we see in essence teenagers taking to the fore?

The answer comes not from me but from the man who coined the phrase,  Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He said what is needed to maintain that suspension of disbelief is “ … a human interest and a semblance of truth…”. If the human side of the story can be kept alive and well, and the essential nature of the characters believable (especially the children), we should be able to see this potential problem fade into background”.