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.

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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..

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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

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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In fact only other Castles were used in the filming of Monty Python and the Holy Grail Kidwelly Castle which appears near the start of the film, Bodiam Castle in Kent is used for the outside shot in the Lancelot at the wedding scene and final Castle Stalker which was used for ‘Castle Argghhhhhhhh’ at the end of the film.

Everything else we may see when we look at Monty Python and the quest and the Holy Grails that looks like a castle is Doune castle.

The big four scenes filmed at the castle were,

The French Taunting Scene

Probably one of the most famous and over quoted Pythons scenes ever, which sees John Cleese playing a French night taunting King Arthur with lines such as ‘Your father was a hamster and your mother smelt of elderberries’ which bizarrely is now a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream Flavour.

Anyway digressions aside this scene was filmed on the East Wall internally, and on the South Wall externally. The reason for this being is that the south wall has no step, so for the external shots the pythons are actually stood on a very large scaffold erected for the filming.

The Camelot Dance.

A someone what bizarre scene involving dancing cabaret knights, which has been expertly reproduced in lego.

click here for lego camelot dance

This was filmed largely in the great hall in which the Winterfell banquet scenes for Game of Thrones were also filmed.

Castle Anthrax

Where Sir Galahad the Chaste was tempted and pursued by Zute and a number of virgins was filmed in the kitchens and servery next to the great hall.

To my knowledge nothing has been mentioned about using that part of the Castle for the filming Game of Thrones, but they could be included in the hall scenes due to there proximity.

Sir Lancelot and the Wedding

All of the scenes with Sir Lancelot his butchery at the wedding were filmed mainly in the courtyard, and the steps heading up to the great hall and servery. Which is part of the castle I would be very surprised if it didn’t make it into the film at some point.

Something I found out as I researched this article which is the Pythons had planned to use a number of castles but Scottish heritage removed permission at the last moment and thus the pythons were forced to use Doune Castle to represent large numbers of castles in the film.

Pythons fans still congregate here once a year, and the Castle has held a Monty Python day every year since 2004, please dont ask me when it is.

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Obviously there are the fans of George RR Martins ‘A Song of Fire and Ice books’, who are making up the core fanbase and intererst for this project, however the cast  has raised interest from cult TV fans for a number of shows and  genres. Myself run a Sharpe website and am thus have had the exciting show brought to my attention via the career of Sean Bean, but we are also seeing interest coming in from Fans of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles created via Lena Headey involvement (not sure why anyone be interested in the career of such a pretty woman.) and the casting of Jason Momoa creating interest from Stargate fans.

Also I think the similar subject matter and Sean Beans role as Boromir will start to see numbers of classic Tolkien fans taking an interest in both the HBO series, and the books of George RR Martin.

I would be interested to see what gave you your interest in the pilot?

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