Game of Thrones

The full list of all the Episode titles for the first series

• Episode 1 – Winter is Coming
• Episode 2 – The Kingsroad
• Episode 3 – Lord Snow
• Episode 4 – Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
• Episode 5 – The Wolf and the Lion
• Episode 6 – A Golden Crown
• Episode 7 – You Win or You Die
• Episode 8 – The Pointy End
• Episode 9 – Baelor
• Episode 10 – Fire and Blood

A treat for us here HBO have release a 15 minute preview of the first part of the first episode. Watch below

We are very excited and will welcome your opinions below.

Unfortunatley due the demanding nature of my New Job, house move and young family (I know real life) I haved really let this site slip over the last few months and as the new series approaches I think it is a shame that the site is neglected at this time.

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.

OK I was very suprised to a large spike of traffic today from www.ew.com, I was suprised anyone from such a large site had even heard of us let alone linked to us, bu there it was 300 visitors yesterday from www.EW.com.

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.

Its of subject but I have been enjoying the Beebs Dr Who, and really like Matt Smith as the new doctor and his wonderful assistant Karen Gillan.

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.

Sorry about the lack of posting of late, a few reasons;

1. It is a lull period in the production cycle much mores peculation than news

2. I’ve just started a new job and things are busy.

3. My little ones juts turned 3 months and my eldest is 3 years.

4. We have just started re doing out ‘look what we did in Africa site’  www.aprilandjon.co.uk and that takes up some time.

Anyway we should start to see things heat up again soon enjoy.

Upon the conclusion of other favoured author pole, I was very surprised to find that fans of George RR Martins none conciliatory fiction actually voted for good old Conciliatory JRR Tolkien by a country mile 45% as there next most favoured author.

I was expecting another of the darker modern authors such as Joe Abercrombie to rank higher.

I am a great Tolkien fan myself and will never stop being in love with Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit even though I don’t really enjoy his other works (Sorry the Silmarillion is pants).  But he is so twee, he is a man of between the wars middle England, and so is the Shire.

I love the tweeness of his works(maybe not the twee singing though), but its stands a stark contrast to the bleakness of George Martins ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series of books, and I am pleasantly surprised to find I am not alone in being willing to embrace both.

Next came Jordan and Pratchet tied (18%), two writers who are popular, but I have never been a great fan of either. I find Pratchet smug (I’m sorry he juts knows he is too clever by half) and Jordan overblown and just a little verbose (I gave up on book 6.).

As stated I was surprised to see Joe Abercrombie down in forth place with 8% of the vote. I writer I have never read but associated with none conciliatory and a good bit darker than George Martin.

Finally I was sad to see a guilty pleasure of mine Raymond Fiest coming in last. I do really like Raymond’s later books, but I will admit he was never genre busting or of a stand out quality.

Anyway the full results can be found below

Apart from George RR Martin who is your favourite fantasy author?

This is just a short post to ask what we know about how is Big ASOIAF is in China?, the stats for this site has juts gone Balastic with Chinese visitors, visiting from two sites cndkc.net and bbs.wbzd.net. Both being Chinese language sites (sorry for the ignorance I can’t tell Cantonese from Mandarin).

With English speaking Chinese interest drowning out both US and UK traffic, ( 40% of Todays traffic comes from China. ) I have to wonder how big is ‘A song of Ice and Fire’ and George RR Martins work in China?

Is the Chinese interest in the books?  Lena Headey, Sean Bean or something else?

If any of our Chinese guests would like to make a comment and shine some light on these questions, it would make my day.

I have just got to say a happy first birthday to the Winter is Coming blog, I cant believe a site which is that young has managed to generate and create as much interest as it has.

When we receive a link, a tweet or comment for on the blogfrom WIC  our traffic goes through the roof , which shows how central to the Game of Thrones community the site is.

So congrats to all at winter is coming  for the quality of posts, news and hard work, and also the open and generous way the they link to other newer sites in the community which shows a generousity of spirit which is not always shown on the internet.

As stated in a previous posts filming on the 4th was inside the paint hall, but was not as stated elsewhere and blindly ( copied by me ) the Arrival of the King, but a sparing scene between some of the youngster characters.

Reports from extras talk about great costuming and excellent qualityin production values, but they are generally being good and giving very litttle away.

Also the numbers  of extras is interesting with over 100 being needed for thursdays filming. That is a big crowd.

Also coming from both extars reports and CRRMs blog is the fact there is a 2nd castle being used for filming in Ireland as well. Pure speculation from me is that they will be using the two castles to create the look and feel of the larger fictional castle of winterfell, but we will see.

Another peice of gossip to come out of the Dublin meet is that Sean Bean was both difficult and expensive to get into the Pilot, no suprises really as he is one of the bigger names with Hollywood pedeigree in the cast, and this is still currently just a TV pilot.