The Winds of Winter Episode Guide and Death Poll Result

While Elio & I are enjoying the sights and flavors of Northern Ireland (courtesy of Discover NI)—we’ll be posting some of the adventure as we go along on our Twitter and Facebook page—those who watched the last episode of Game of Thrones can watch my review of “The Winds of Winter” in our episode guide. Here’s the review embedded below for the impatient!

As to the tenth and final death poll, we had many, many entries indeed. Lots of fans had a lot of correct guesses, but in the end among those we randomly selected one of our Twitter followers, @MidnightAnswers. Many thanks for all who participated! Maybe we’ll do this again next season, assuming there’s enough characters left alive to make it an actual challenge!

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Game of Thrones Season 6 Soundtrack

HBO’ is sneaking out the Game of Thrones Season 6 Soundtrack, which is due to hit shelves on June 24th for digital downloads, June 29th on CD, and as a 3-disc vinyl set on July 1st. This, despite a few days ago there being no sign of it on Amazon or other retailers. Quite the surprise!

But, notably, HBO and Pandora have teamed up to give a free preview of the album from June 21st (that’d be today) through June 24th. You can hear it yourself as an Exclusive Album Preview (provided you’re in one of the countries Pandora can stream to!)

Here’s the full track listing:

1) Main Titles
2) Blood of My Blood
3) Light of the Seven
4) Needle
5) Coronation
6) Feed the Hounds
7) My Watch has Ended
8) The Red Woman
9) Hold the Door
10) Khaleesi
11) Maester
12) A Painless Death
13) Reign
14) Let’s Play a Game
15) Bastard
16) Trust Each Other
17) Winter Has Come
18) Hear Me Roar
19) The Winds of Winter

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Battle of the Bastards Guide and Death Poll Finale

The episode guide for “The Battle of the Bastards” now includes Linda’s video review of the episode, plus HBO’s various video extras and more. We’ll embed the review below:

And as has been tradition this season, we’ve had a result (quite a lot of correct guesses, as you can guess) for our death poll on the forum for the episode! Congratulations to board member “Elaena Targaryen” who was one of the many to guess one of the major deaths!

This now leads us to the final poll for the season, for “The Winds of Winter”. This one’s special because we’ll open it to all three venues: our Facebook Page, our Twitter, and of course the ASoIaF Forum. And yes, this means you can enter three times, with three different guesses if you want, though only one guess per venue.

To enter, share a guess at a named, recurring character who dies in the season finale (sorry, “Bald Sparrow #4” doesn’t count!) Only one guess per person per venue. Also, no flashback character deaths need apply! To enter on our forum, just post to the thread about this post in the Game of Thrones News sub-forum (we’ll provide a link shortly). To enter on the Facebook page, just post your guess in the page post about the final poll. Finally, to enter on Twitter, just tweet your guess to @westerosorg while adding the hash tag #gotdeathpoll10. We’ll collate all the guesses and choose one random winner from those who guessed correctly!

Oh, and the prizes? Besides a choice between the A Game of Thrones 20th Annviersary Illustrated edition (note: not yet published) and the A Game of Thrones: The Board Game 2nd Edition from Fantasy Flight Games, Linda and I will also send a signed copy of The World of Ice and Fire.

Good luck!

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No One Episode Guide and Death Poll Results

Our episode guide for “No One” has now been updated with Linda’s review of the episode—including an amusing bit which we decided to leave in, when our dog Breeze decided to wander by and it wasnt’ clear whether he was going to demand some attention or not!—which we’ll embed below:

Besides that, we also had results with our 8th Death Poll, and have contacted the two randomly-selected winners who correctly guessed if any characters would die this episode, and named one of them correctly. This means we’re now launching a pentultimate ninth Death Poll for “The Battle of the Bastards, and this one returns to being exclusive to the A Song of Ice and Fire Forum.

read on >>>

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Game of Thrones Steelbook Season 3 & 4 Released

HBO has released Season 3 and Season 4 of its limited edition Steelbook Game of Thrones blu-rays, and they’ve kindly given us a look at these particularly interesting editions.

The primary difference between these and the regular Blu-ray sets are in the packaging, first, which was designed by Elastic (the same guys who brought us the famous Game of Thrones intro). This packaging echoes that introduction, but gives it a bit of style to transfer to this very 2D medium. Oh, and each one features a collectible magnet (the Frey sigil and a Night’s Watch emblem referencing a raven and Longclaw), which is a nice touch.

The other, and perhaps bigger difference, is the actual content of the Bluray. It has all the same material as the previous Bluray set in terms of featurettes and commentaries, but for those who are audiophiles it has a special treat: the episodes have been remixed to use Dolby’s Atmos system. For those who have an Atmos-compliant sound system, that means that when a dragon breaths a gout of flame, the Atmos decoder will be able to process that sound and place it spatially in a way that makes sense. Instead of a simple decision about “left”, “right”, “center”, Atmos speakers can direct the sound to “move” appropriately. It’s a bit hard to explain, but our review of the S1 and S2 Steelbooks may help give more of an idea. We didn’t have a chance to test these Blu-rays on an Atmos system this time around, but we’re going to guess an episode like “The Rains of Castamere” or “The Watchers on the Wall” are going to benefit quite a lot from the Atmos technology.

The Season 3 and Season 4 Steelbook Blu-rays are now out, both online and in retail stores!

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The Broken Man Episode Guide and Death Poll Results

Our episode guide for The Broken Man is now updated not only with a book-to-screen analysis but also HBO’s video extras for the episode as well as a rather earlier-than-usual written review of the episode. Unfortunately, the illness that hit me last week and prevented our mid-week A Song of Ice and Fire video has now hit Linda, leaving her without a voice and not feeling too well. So, no video review today, and maybe not for a couple more days. Our apologies!

In the mean time, we also had a fun result with the Game of Thrones death poll, as a few people correctly guessed whether anyone would die this episode. We’ve picked a winner—@mackarillo—and are now on to Death Poll #8! This is the Facebook edition of the contest. To enter, simply like Westeros on Facebook and make your guess as a comment on our post on the page about the contest. Acceptable guesses include a single, non-flashback named and recurring character, or simply “no one”. Multiple guesses will be discarded. Because the last Facebook contest failed to turn up any winners, we’ll select two winners if possible from a random draw of all those who offer correct guesses.

As to the prizes? Winners can choose either the Iron Throne Construction Set from McFarlane Toys or A Feast for Ice and Fire.

Good luck!

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Fair Game Released

After a number of delays and travails, the documentary Fair Game which examines the critical and media landscape surrounding HBO’s Game of Thrones has now been released on Vimeo. It’s not free—there’s a $1 digital rental fee—but if you’ve time (it’s just shy of 90 minutes) and are interested in the topic as discussed by interview and journalist Miodrag Zarkovic with a number of commentators including Newsday’s TV reviewer Verne Gay, Salon.com co-founder Laura Miller, NYU Professor Dana Polan, and more (including Elio García of Westeros.org and Steffan Stasse of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour), it’s well worth the time.

You can find out more at the website Internet Remembers!

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