A Blog of Ice and Fire
As is traditional, at the end of each year HBO releases a year-in-review video which also then looks ahead to what’s coming next year. This year is no different, as at the 1:38 mark we get four quick glimpses of four of the show’s central characters: Cersei, Jon, Tyrion, and Arya. These are so swift that I’m not sure we’d consider them spoilerish… but just in case, lets just say there are spoilers:
Over at EW, James Hibberd reveals a design for Arya Stark’s brand new costume for the upcoming season of Game of Thrones. With quotes from Maisie Williams, the article notes it’s a radical new design for Arya who has spent most of the past four seasons in androgynous clothing, and now has something a bit more feminine with which to blend in in the Free City of Braavos.
She also teases an upcoming scene, one that has to do with her previous clothing, which sounds like it may be drawn from a sequence in A Feast for Crows.
An interesting viral marketing campaign from HBO for next year’s Game of Thrones has hit the web: Three-eyed Raven is a new site that allows users to sign up for Twitter or (in select countries) SMS notifications of “the sight”, short (and by short, we mean very short) teaser videos that provide a brief glimpse at the upcoming season. The first video—which you’ll receive a link to after signing up—features Arya and a hint of a location she’ll be spending a great deal of time at.
Doubtless more teasers will drop in the coming months.
As the title says, Telltales Games has released the first teaser trailer for Game of Thrones: Iron from Ice, an episodic adventure following the lives of members of the northern House Forrester of Ironrath in a sort of side-story that fits along with the continuity of HBO’s Game of Thrones. The game promises to have appearances from notable characters from the series—including Cersei and Tyrion Lannister, and Ramsay Snow—and it seems the actors will be voicing their characters. Here’s the trailer below:
Alongside this, Telltales has sent character images and brief details to a number of gaming and media sites, which have been very helpfully compiled over at IGN. These short profiles reveal thirteen original characters who’ll appear in the game, although there’s no sign which of these will be among the five playable characters.
The first episode is set to release before the end of the year.
It’s been going around the gaming press that a community manager at Telltale Games has revealed that they intend to have the officially-licensed Game of Thrones adventure game titled Iron from Ice out by the end of the year. A little less than a year ago, Telltale’s acquisition of the license from HBO became big news among gamers, as Telltale’s recent adventure games—their Walking Dead game in particular—have been popularly and critically acclaimed for their storytelling and characters.
Last month, Telltale released a very short teaser hinting at a North-based storyline, mentioning some of the minor houses in the wolfswood:
Courtesy of HBO, we have an exclusive excerpt from Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones: Seasons 3 and 4 , written by Cat Taylor, assistant and official “keeper of scrolls” for Game of Thrones, as well as the lead writer on HBO’s Making Game of Thrones production blog. The first book in the series, covering the first two seasons, was written by writer and co-producer Bryan Cogman, and was a fantastic look behind the scenes, filled with photographs, interviews, VFX renderings, and concept art that showed the massive scale and complexity of the production, as well as the amount of talent involved in making it the visual splendor that it is.
This excerpt suggests that the second volume in the series will do the same, as it gives us an inside look at the appearance of the giants and the mammoths in “The Watchers on the Wall”:
Deutsche Welle—a German broadcaster that was among the first to have a web presence way back in 1994—celebrates the 20th anniversary of that presence by doing something… rather unique. See their press release below to learn just what they’re up to:
Deutsche Welle reporting live from Westeros
Deutsche Welle (DW) Director General Peter Limbourg sees the need for reliable information on the current conflicts in “Game of Thrones”. Users worldwide have also been called out to help DW develop “Valyrian” and “Dothraki” as official DW languages.
In celebration of the 20th anniversary of DW’s first website, Germany’s international broadcaster has expanded its online reporting to include the continents Westeros and Essos. The focus should specifically deal with the current conflicts that have been made public on the series “Game of Thrones”. Limbourg sees DW’s role as being a reliable source of information: “The international bestseller from George R.R. Martin presents a multifaceted albeit notoriously subjective view of the events. The TV series from HBO is a global phenomena – but the standard of reporting leaves a lot to be desired.”
DW has been a trusted source of news and information for more than 60 years. It has become a tradition at DW to use extraordinary anniversaries to provide a tongue-in-cheek look at what “worldwide” actually means. To celebrate 10 years online in 2004, DW expanded its range of online content to include the Klingon language.
Starting today, the new online special answers the most pressing questions from “Game of Thrones” at http://ift.tt/1qYpWuK. Like what qualifies the Night’s Watch to be the arctic special forces? And what secrets are lost in a raven-based communications system?
In order to provide information among new target audiences requires certain linguistic skills. In the world of “Game of Thrones”, the most used languages are “Valyrian” and “Dothraki”. But these have just recently been made public here. New words are discovered and deciphered each day, with new rules and dialects that are discussed by fans.
“It’s that type of diversity that we want to highlight here,” says Limbourg. “That’s why you won’t find any complete articles in Valyrian and Dothraki, but rather interactive translation pages. Piece for piece, we will be completing a new version of the website and everyone can take part.”
DW has been online since 1994. It was the first German public broadcaster to go online and even outpaced international competitors like the BBC by three years. Today, dw.de is available in 30 languages – not including Valyrian and Dothraki – and has 33 million unique visitors per month.
