I need something to fill the emptiness of the next 11 months.
HBO
HBO
Separating Church and State: A How-To Guide by Cersei Lannister.
memesallovertheplace.tumblr.com
starkwillendurestone.tumblr.com
While reading Rafael Alvarez’s Crabtown, USA, I came across the chapter on his early days at City Squeeze, the self-published tabloid founded in 1977 by Johns Hopkins grads Russ Smith and Alan Hirsch, which became the City Paper in 1978. As Alvarez observed, the Smith-era City Paper “seemed like it existed solely to unnerve The Sun.” Smith and Hirsch sold the paper in 1987 to Scranton, PA-based Times-Shamrock Communications, but – irony of ironies – in 2014 the City Paper was purchased by none other than…the Baltimore Sun Media Group! (Smith went on to found the New York Press, which may have existed solely to unnerve the New York Times during Russ’ reign from 1988-2002.) I wrote for City Paper in the early ’80s and must confess that, though I disagreed with his politics, I liked Russ Smith. I mean, who else hires writers based on what drugs they did in college and whether they liked Dylan? (That was the gist of my interview, which was held at 2612 N. Charles Street – formerly the childhood home of my grandmother, Ruth Stone Warner! It later housed the offices of her brother William F. Stone’s architectural firm!) Anyway, as I was thinking back to those days, I came across this detailed profile of the enigmatic Smith. – Tom Warner
Alternatively Yours
by Dale Keiger (Johns Hopkins Magazine, February 2003)
The weekly New York Press is loud, vulgar, disrespectful, and unpredictable. That suits founder Russ Smith ’77 just fine.
Bruce Springsteen once penned a lyric about “a rich man singin’ in a poor man’s shirt.” Now consider Russ Smith ’77. He’s rich enough to afford a penthouse in Tribeca, keep two kids in private school, and complain about estate taxes. He makes the occasional guest appearance in the pinstripe-and-white-shirt pages of The Wall Street Journal, but for more than 14 years he has written for a journalistic poor man’s shirt, a free newspaper called New York Press.
The Press, which Smith founded in 1988, is a gadfly: loud, vulgar, self-indulgent, disrespectful, and bracing. It has been on the wrong side of journalism’s tracks for all of its existence. It raises too much hell, publishes too much crude language, and carries too many explicit sex ads to be mainstream. Yet it prints too much right-wing commentary — much of it written by Smith — to be a member of the alternative orthodoxy. If The Village Voice is Joan Baez — earnest, iconic, and getting long in the tooth — the Press is the Sex Pistols, loud, crude, and sneering at how predictable and respectable the alternative press, including the Voice, has become.
Every Tuesday morning, 116,000 copies of the Press appear in news boxes on the street corners of Manhattan. A typical issue has about 120 pages, two-thirds of them devoted to listings and advertisements for clubs, restaurants, galleries, theaters, real estate, and the goods and services provided by people who call themselves Mistress Monique and Electra, the “wicked wonder.” Editorial content might include a personal essay by a college senior one month from graduation, an article about New York lounge singers, an interview with Motown’s Funk Brothers, and comics by Lynda Barry and Tony Millionaire. Plus a weekly feature called “Mugger.”
Continue reading “Alternatively Yours” at Johns Hopkins Magazine.
The cast of Game of Thrones has plenty to discuss with the epic sixth season coming to a close Sunday night. Expressing their excitement for the growth of the series, Sophie Turner relishes in Sansa’s victory at The Hollywood Reporter. With Vulture, Aidan Gillen (Littlefinger) discusses his character’s influence and the slick conniver’s motives.
Episode 9 of the newest season featured a key moment for Sansa. After finally getting revenge on Ramsay Bolton, Turner says:
There’s a feeling of rooting for her. This is something everyone wanted out of Sansa. She had certainly been building up to this over the past five seasons, her first kill. But I think what people should be maybe a bit wary of is how much she seemed to enjoy it. I have to give a lot of credit to Miguel [Sapochnik], the director of the episode. That was kind of his idea, the look back in, where it lasts a little bit too long. I think Sansa could maybe develop a taste for killing. Who knows. It could be a little worrying, for sure.
She also reflects on her complicated relationship with her half-brother cousin Jon Snow:
I think Sansa trusts Jon to make morally right decisions, but I’m not sure if she trusts him with the kind of political things. I don’t know if she trusts Davos completely, and he’s kind of his advisor. I think it’s more about being open with each other, like with Sansa writing to Littlefinger for the Knights of the Vale. I think Jon means they need to be more open with each other and tell each other what’s going on — and it’s very frustrating for Sansa to hear him say that. She knows he means it more about her than it is him talking about himself. And he really needs to trust her.
Allies Littlefinger and Sansa also shared a look during the White Wolf’s coronation. Turner offers her insight:
As you say, she rejects him in the beginning, but there’s definitely something in her that’s… it’s kind of a jealousy toward Jon. He’s getting all of the credit for basically Sansa saving his ass. Obviously he played a huge part in the Battle of the Bastards, but Sansa really saved him. There’s a bit of jealousy there. She looks at Littlefinger knowing that he would have put her as Queen in the North, and given her the credit she deserves. I don’t think she’s gunning for the Iron Throne anytime soon, but she realizes that Littlefinger might be a better ally than she thought, a more trustworthy ally than she thought.
For more, including how she thinks Sansa will react to the revelation of Jon’s mother, head on over to The Hollywood Reporter!
After hearing Turner’s take on the subtle glance between Sansa and Littlefinger, Aidan Gillen reviews his actions with Vulture.
We only had a few scenes with Littlefinger in season six. But one thing he was trying to do consistently was sow some kind of seed of disquiet with Sansa in terms of Jon, and how closely related they really are, and how valid he really is as a king, or a leader, or a brother, while at the same time encouraging what might be her own position. There’s a certain amount of, “I told you so. Is this what you want? Can you trust him?” And all of that has been said anyway, in the previous scene. But there’s also a degree of excitement, because the lords are pledging their allegiance to Jon Snow, and we didn’t necessarily know it would go that way. Speaking for Littlefinger, it was one of those moments where you go, “Fuck! Maybe this is a bigger thing than I thought it would be. How are we going to deal with this?” Given that he enjoys chaos and uncertainty and the thrill of all of that, it was a big moment for him.
Will Sansa be tempted by Littlefinger’s promises of power or will she remain true to the new King in the North? Gillen dissects Littlefinger’s impact on Sansa:
She really is becoming more like me. More Baelish–like in the way she’s operating, and the fact that she’s operating at all. She has become a player under my tutelage, and that’s what I wanted. There’s a scene way back when we’re discussing a battle, a scene with Cersei, and we’re talking about Stannis and the Boltons, and letting the two of them tear each other apart, and coming in at the last minute with the Knights of the Vale. Who’s to say that Sansa wasn’t thinking of doing something like that as well? Let them kill each other. Again, it’s not likely, but not impossible.
Has our little bird really become that mischievous?
He also touches on the possibilities of his betrayal of Ned Stark coming back to haunt him:
I guess in times like that, it would be difficult to know what information would be widely, readily, quickly available. By the time a story gets out, there might be 40 different versions of it. And if you are a manipulative, political type, you’ll make sure to get your counterstory out immediately. And then you can assume there’s some leeway — if you ever are confronted with it, you can say, “Yeah, but it wasn’t quite the way you heard it.” I very obviously held a dagger to Ned Stark’s throat, which as television viewers saw in massive close-up, but the part of the story that’s the most damning evidence of betrayal — my holding a dagger to his throat — may not be out there. Everybody didn’t see it. But yeah, things come home to roost, and we are approaching the endgame, and things are going to get trickier for everyone, but particularly for people who have spun webs of lies and deceit.
Gillen delves more into the mind of his sinister character at Vulture!
Variety spoke with Turner, and asked for her opinion on people thinking Sansa and Jon might get together. She says:
Oh my god, really? I haven’t actually heard that. Stranger things on “Game of Thrones” have happened… Maybe politically, it makes sense, I honestly don’t know how I would feel about that, I’d have to speak to the producers about that one. Honestly, what I think is going to happen – and I don’t know where the story is going to go, but I think Jon and Daenerys are going to end up together, probably. I feel like Jon and Sansa would be a strange one, especially because isn’t it considered not legitimate if you haven’t consummated the marriage, and I really don’t think either of them would be particularly up for that. It would be very difficult to do that. [Laughs.]
How do you think this Sansa/Littlefinger alliance will fare? Will she be throwing another repugnant man to the dogs? Let us know below!
The post Sophie Turner and Aidan Gillen on the Game of Thrones Season 6 Finale appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Hello, fair readers of Watchers on the Wall! This is your final roundup of videos for the season. What do our Unsullied think? Book readers? What does the spectrum of viewpoints include? How about speculation for next season? Since none of us basically knows what’s going to happen, I for one am ready to board the Cenk Theory Express!
So let’s see WTF WTF?!? had to say about this episode, this season, next season, the books, the election, life in general…
I’m so glad Cenk’s prediction of R+L=J that he put together live on the show has proven true, may it embolden him to come up with more theories.
Ozzy Man
Gay of Thrones
History of Westeros: thanks for the nice Tweet guys, that was super chill.
HappyCool
I hope you’ve had a good time following the reactions of the personalities we post week after week, and to make these posts has been an honor and a privilege, etc. I hope to see you next year; I’m looking forward to it!
Other links!
The post Game of Thrones Season 6, Episode 10 “The Winds of Winter” Video Recap Roundup appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
I am not a movie or TV soundtrack person. There are a few TV themes I’m attached too–like the Downton Abbey opening for instance–but in general I’m not big on dramatic orchestrations that play underneath the drama. It has to be a really well done piece of music placed just right for me to even notice mot of the time….and that’s the way it should be. Unless it’s a musical, the music should be subtly enhancing, not getting in the way aurally.
I have made exceptions for Game of Thrones. The opening theme, Drogon’s Theme (which is actually the back half of a larger piece entitled “The Dance of Dragons”) and now Ramin Djawadi’s latest piece, from the finale, entitled “The Light of the Seven.” Djawadi sat down with The Hollywood Reporter after the finale and discussed his accidental hit among fans.
Ironically, Djawadi had only just joined Twitter this year, about halfway through the Game of Thrones season, so he had only a few followers prior to the finale, and a fairly quiet existence on social media. That all changed by 9:30pm EST on Sunday. “….when the finale aired, my Twitter account blew up.” You and the Sept of Baelor, buddy….
The interesting thing to me was the use of the piano. When we started the season, [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss], and Miguel Sapochnik, the director of the episode, reached out to me and said, “There’s something coming up in episode 10.” We talked about “The Light of the Seven,” and how it needed to be a new piece of music. Any kind of character theme could tip it, and we didn’t want to tip the audience. Miguel brought it up: “What about the piano?” We discussed it. The piano is not really in the language of theGame of Thrones score. We went back and forth about it, and then we came up with the organ, which we used last season with Cersei during the atonement walk and some of the other scenes when she’s in prison. But the piano was the new instrument…. there’s really nothing like it. The piano has this decay and attack at the same time. We even experimented with the harp, but the harp was not as haunting as the piano. The piano has a huge dynamic range that almost no other instruments have
Djawadi says the fact that the opening scene has no dialogue for long stretches meant the track had to be nice and long too. (Nearly ten minutes.) One thing he also pointed out–I always assumed that I’m not noticing the music a lot of the time in the show…but actually for long periods, there is no music. That changes dramatically this season, which is why the entire set of episodes has felt different.
It was an amazing opportunity to have a long sequence that can carry music like this. In the history of Game of Thrones, there’s also a lot of sequences that are without music….Very rarely do we have these long pieces of music like this. This season I think we had it more than in any other season… even the early episodes, like the Hodor scenes [in “The Door”], that’s a ten minute section with all music and very beautiful shifts within. And the “Battle of the Bastards” as well. That’s a 22-minute sequence.
As for the vocalists in “The Light of the Seven,” which most people think is a boy’s choir–it is boys singing…but there are only two. Djawadi said that was inspired by “the little kids running around,” ie: Qyburn’s “Little Birds.” Just in case they weren’t creepy enough.
Spoilers, obviously!
McDonald’s brings out the worst in us.
YouTube: W Magazine / Via youtube.com
YouTube: W Magazine / Via youtube.com
YouTube: W Magazine / Via youtube.com
Season 6 is in the books — but how well do you remember the wild finale?
I am the god of cheese and wine.
THE queen. Contains spoilers.
HBO
margaerytyrellsource.tumblr.com
HBO / Via margaerytyrellsource.tumblr.com
![20160603_ep610_Publicity_Still_016.00111618[1]](http://watchersonthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20160603_ep610_Publicity_Still_016.001116181-1024x576.jpg)
Director Miguel Sapochnik discusses his work on the Game of Thrones season finale this week. Speaking with Vulture, he acknowledges major influences on the incredible King’s Landing opener:
The Godfather definitely had a hand in the conception of this sequence, but I also looked at various James Bond sequences for the explosions of the villain’s lairs. We wanted to make sure that it didn’t feel like a cheap trick to blow up the Sept of Baelor, and at the same time embrace the fact that it was something that people probably saw coming. How could we make it still feel like a shock?
Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Sapochnik notes:
The first step was looking for a way to achieve it within the constraints of a television budget and schedule. First, the explosion was only seen from outside the Sept but I really wanted to see the High Sparrow get it so I story boarded a sequence that included this and David and Dan liked it so we put it in.
As for Septa Unella’s fate possibly being worse originally than what we saw, he tells EW, “I don’t know the details of that,” he replied. “Although I suspect it wasn’t pretty. I think everyone pretty much got what they deserved in pretty much the way it was written. And anyway, who says Septa Unella’s dead?”
Sapochnik says to Vulture that the most difficult shot to get was the final one, of Daenerys’ armada setting sail. The cold climate caused problems for their leading lady.
Emilia [Clarke] got so cold, her jaw started shaking uncontrollably and she totally lost her thread as far as what she was meant to be thinking in that moment (the cold will do that). She asked me to help, so I suggested that she just hum the theme to Game of Thrones in her head while we were rolling the cameras, and apparently that worked because it’s the take we used in the final cut!
![ep610_001_02034719[1]](http://watchersonthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ep610_001_020347191-1024x576.jpg)
Costume designer Michele Clapton spoke with Vulture about her intentions behind her design for Cersei’s new crown, unveiled in the finale. As with all Game of Thrones clothing and jewelry, a great deal of thought went into its creation.
I chose to make it in silver with just wisps of gold to try to show her isolation, her mental disentangling from her family. There is no reference to [her late husband, Robert] Baratheon; there is no need anymore. She doesn’t have to try and prove a link. The center of the crown is the lion sigil abstracted — its mane represents the Iron Throne, her desire. She has made it her own — she is reborn.
Composer Ramin Djawadi speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about his work on this season’s music and particularly “Light of the Seven,” the track that scored the King’s Landing sequence in the season finale. He gets into the nitty-gritty of his work, explaining the thought processes behind certain choices. For instance, he explains the origins of the eerie child vocals that play in the music, beginning with Pycelle’s murder. He tells THR:
This comes back to when we started talking about it conceptually. “What about the piano? What about the organ?” I said, “Well, what about these kids? We have these kids running around. What about solo vocals? Boys’ vocals?” So when these vocals come in, that’s when you see the knife. We thought the voices added another level of this haunting experience. It’s two boys, that’s it. Not a big choir. It’s two solo boys singing. […] It’s two boys and they sing in unison, which might be why it sounds bigger. And every once in a while, they hit a note where they don’t sing the same note, and it creates this tension. That’s also intentional. You want this jarring feeling, that there’s this unison line, but then it kind of departs, and then comes back together. That was the idea behind that, to enhance that tension.
The post Behind the creation of the Game of Thrones finale with Miguel Sapochnik, Michele Clapton and Ramin Djawadi appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Winter is here.
HBO / Season 4, Episode 3
HBO / Season 4, Episode 2
HBO / Season 6, Episode 9
HBO, Season 6, Episode 9
Season 6 is over. Long live season 6. You’ve been fantastic sleuthing partners through each episode, and we’d like to ask you back for another jump into oblivion— into season 7! Thank you again for the detailed responses and thoughtful conclusions, it would be an honor to have you join us in the offseason read of A Feast With Dragons.
After the cut, you’ll find questions we’ve asked ourselves and will be disputing as the show records. Let’s do this.
Listen to “The Winds of Winter” here.
What do you believe?
1. What will the rule of Queen Cersei look like? Who will ally themselves with the Lannisters? Will Jaime confront the Mad Queen much like he confronted the Mad King?
2. What will Bran do now that he knows the truth about Jon Snow? Will the truth about Jon unravel or empower the North?
3. What will show Sam do in Oldtown? Will he at least drink fearsomely strong cider?
For good measure..
Where were Jorah, Brienne, Podrick, the White Walkers, and Gendry (lol) in the finale?
That’s it. Let us know what and why in the comments below! Make sure to listen for your thoughts, theories, and input once this episode is released.
The post Give us your thoughts following “The Winds of Winter” appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
In more new post-finale interviews, Isaac Hempstead Wright talks about Bran’s revelation in episode 10, fan theories and what Bran might be up to next season on Game of Thrones. We also hear from Robert Aramayo about playing young Ned and his part in the Tower of Joy sequences.
In an interview with Access Hollywood, Hempstead Wright discussed the highly-anticipated Tower of Joy scene between Ned and Lyanna which seemingly confirmed the R+L=J theory … though the 17 year-old pointed out that it’s really only an X+L=J reveal, since neither the audience nor Bran heard Lyanna name the father.
“I remember going to my mum, going, ‘Ah, no, no. It’s Rhaegar isn’t it?’ She goes ‘Well, no. Not according to the script. We don’t know yet.’ I’m like, ‘Ahhh’ … [Bran] doesn’t exactly know what’s going on [between Lyanna and Ned]. He doesn’t really know why he’s being shown this anyway … I think it’s quite a key element that Bran sees this and understands its significance, but doesn’t exactly quite have the full picture yet. And I think that’s clearly something that will kind of be explored in scenes to come.”
Still, Hempstead Wright expects Bran’s priority will now be finding Jon and telling him what he’s learned. He imagines the Stark children, once reunited, could make quite the Westerosi “dream team.”
“I think what Bran would see, will be like, ‘Well, we’ve got this fantastic leader and warrior in Jon, we’ve got this superb diplomat in Sansa, and we got my magic thing going on. We can rule the world.’ And of course Arya with her ninja stuff and face-changing kind of assassin stuff, we’re the dream team, like Captain America.”
In an interview with Vulture, Hempstead Wright addressed some of the fan theories that have yet to be confirmed, such as the possibility that the Night King’s touch on Bran has magically bound him to the White Walkers.
“If Bran goes through the Wall, then can the White Walkers come through? That might be a difficult decision to make. That could be the end of Bran. Or maybe it just means that Bran needs to get through the Wall very quickly. Run! It’s going to be tough, whatever happens.”
He agreed with the The Hollywood Reporter that, as of the season 6 finale, we’ve reached the tip of the endgame.
“It’s all coming together, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s all reaching this crescendo of all these different forces coming together to a focal point and getting ready to implode. It feels like we’re getting very close to the final conclusion. God knows how we’re going to make a conclusion out of this massive thriving mess of murders and death and ice zombies and all sorts, but it’s going to be pretty spectacular.”
The Hollywood Reporter speaks with Robert Aramayo this week about the revelations of the Tower of Joy in the season finale, and the filming of his scenes.
“We shot it in December, the later piece,” the actor says. “The other one was much earlier on; a couple of months before.”
Aramayo says Ned didn’t know what he was going to find. “That’s the interesting thing. He thinks perhaps that his sister is being tortured or something, that something very horrible is going on behind the door. And what he actually sees isn’t actually seeing anything different, really. He walks in and sees his sister on the bed with blood everywhere. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows that something bad is happening.”
Of the key moment when Lyanna is whispering the secret in Ned’s ear, he explains, “She’s just giving him the information he needs to know before she dies. It’s all kind of a whirlwind for Ned. She pushes his head toward the baby, and that’s when it all clicks together. Certainly before that moment, he’s still in a place of, ‘What is she talking about?’ She’s giving him all of this information, but none of it feels fully connected yet, until the moment he lays eyes on the baby, and everything drops into place.”
Ultimately, he says, “I think that day in his life is all about honor. That’s the operative word of that day. The variations, as you say, in beating someone in battle dishonorably, the death of a warrior he admired so much, the death of his sister who was one of the most loved people in his life, and then the responsibility of taking care of a brand new life that’s absolutely and completely in his hands… sometimes the honorable thing to do is putting yourself on the firing line to protect something greater than yourself. That’s something he learns right now: to be principled and honorable, sometimes you’re the one who has to suffer.”
Aramayo speaks eloquently on a number of other aspects of the scene such as working with the baby Jon and with Aisling Franciosi, so check out the complete interview at The Hollywood Reporter.
The post Isaac Hempstead Wright and Robert Aramayo discuss the Tower of Joy and Game of Thrones’ endgame appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
The Game of Thrones cast at San Diego Comic Con 2015
HBO confirmed today officially that Game of Thrones is once again returning to San Diego Comic Con. We can look forward to several members of the cast and crew of the show participating in panels and autograph sessions at SDCC, on July 22nd.
The complete panel info, according to HBO:
Friday, July 22
The GAME OF THRONES panel in Hall H at 2:15 p.m. will be moderated by Rob McElhenney. Panelists include: executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, director Michael Sapochnik and cast members (in alphabetical order) John Bradley (Samwell Tarly), Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos Seaworth), Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei), Isaac Hemptstead Wright (Bran Stark), Conleth Hill (Varys), Faye Marsay (The Waif), Kristian Nairn (Hodor), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) and Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark). Autograph signing is at 4:15 p.m.
The aforementioned autograph signings for Game of Thrones (and all HBO programs) take place in the Warner Bros. booth #4545. If you’re planning on attending Comic Con, be aware that that Warner Bros. follows SDCC’s ticket drawing/wristband distribution procedure for all signings, and “all ticket drawings and wristband distributions will take place in the morning of the day of the specific signing at the Sails Pavilion floor, between Ballroom 20 and Rooms 6A, 6BCF and 6DE.” Good. Got it? Get ’em!
For those of us who won’t be attending in person, we can still follow the coverage online. The Game of Thrones Twitter account will be covering the panel, and you can check out the hashtag #GoTSDCC to see what’s happening. We’ll be following along that day and posting up a storm as details from the panel flow in. Here’s hoping HBO graces us with some news on the day, or at least a great gag reel like they have in years past!
The post Game of Thrones confirmed for San Diego Comic Con 2016 appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Itzurun Beach. Photo by Mikel González.
Game of Thrones Season 6 has been over for all of three days, and already news about Season 7 is coming in. In addition to HBO announcing the lineup of directors for the new year, Spanish newspaper Gara reports that the production is scouting locations in Northern Spain, specifically the town of Zumaia. Although the newspaper doesn’t yet have official confirmation, it reports that scouts are already trying to secure accommodations, and that shooting could begin as early as September.
Fresco Films, which handles locations scouting for HBO in Spain, is particularly interested in Itzurun Beach, pictured above. The beach is noted for its cliffs, and also features flysch, a sedimentary rock formation that can be quite striking. Check out some pictures.
It doesn’t take a ton of imagination to see how this location could stand in for somewhere in Westeros. And we’re assuming that it will be in Westeros, considering that Arya is officially back on the continent and Daenerys was headed there at the end of the season. We may be done with Essos for good.
It’s harder to guess what exactly it’ll be used for. Might this be where Daenerys lands her fleet, possibly in Dorne? Seeing as it’s a beach, we can’t rule out the possibility that it’ll stand in for a part of the Iron Islands, either.
What do you guys think? Here’s another look at the area.
h/t EITB, Los Siete Reinos
R’hllor approved.
HBO
HBO
Shireen was killed because Melisandre convinced Stannis that sacrificing his daughter was the right thing to do for R'hllor.
HBO / Via gameofthronesdaily.com
HBO / Via gameofthronesdaily.com
Gone are the days of waiting around for some director to let it slip that he was going to be working on Game of Thrones next season. Now they just announce it immediately after the previous season ends through PR man, I mean, Entertainment Weekly reporter James Hibberd. Here then is the director roster for season 7:
– Alan Taylor: An Emmy-winning veteran of The Sopranos, Taylor helped pioneer the visual storytelling style of the show when he helmed the pivotal ninth and 10th episodes of season 1, particularly “Baelor” (the episode where Ned Stark was executed). The Thrones producers were so impressed they gave Taylor four episodes to helm in season 2 – including the premiere and the finale. Then Marvel snatched him up for Thor: The Dark World followed by Taylor reuniting with Emilia Clarke to direct her big-screen role in Terminator: Genisys. Now he’s back on Thrones for the first time since 2012.
– Jeremy Podeswa: The Canadian director and Boardwalk Empire veteran scored an Emmy nomination for directing the show’s most controversial hour, season 5’s darkly tense “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.” This year he directed the propulsive season premiere as well as Jon Snow’s riveting resurrection episode, “Home.”
– Mark Mylod: A four-time director on the show, the British veteran of Showtime’s Shameless and HBO’s Entourage took on this season’s uniquely textured re-introduction of the The Hound in “The Broken Man,” as well as Arya’s exciting chase sequence in “No One.”
– Matt Shakman: A newcomer to the series. Shakman is best known for his work on FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a comedy loved by Benioff and Weiss (the showrunners even wrote an episode, “Flowers for Charlie,” although it’s not one of the 39 episodes Shakman has directed). Shakman has also helmed episodes of AMC’s Mad Men, CBS’ The Good Wife and FX’s Fargo.
WinterPhil: So, the bad news: Miguel Sapochnik is not returning for season seven. I can only hope that means he has bigger and better things planned, because he deserves it. Those last two episodes this season were masterfully done. The good news is… Alan Taylor is back! In my opinion, he was the one who really solidified Thrones‘ cinematic style with his work in season one. Go back and watch that first season and see how different the first episodes are in their direction and shot selection. Taylor really broke away from that and gave the show a much more epic, cinematic feel. It was no surprise to me he went on to direct big-budget Hollywood movies. But now he’s back and I’m excited to see what he can do on this show with a bigger budget!
The post Season 7 directors announced appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Season 6 is over, and we’re back to looking ahead at the next season of Game of Thrones! Today we have some season 7 locations news for you, out of Spain.
The Basque newspaper Gara, via EITB, reports that the town of Zumaia, in the northern part of Spain will be a new location for season 7. Itzurun Beach is the specific location Game of Thrones is reportedly interested in. Representatives of Fresco Films (who handle production services for GoT in Spain) have been scouting the area and are searching for accommodations. Gara‘s sources don’t have official confirmation yet, but say that it should be coming “in the near future.” Filming could begin in September, if the source is correct.
Itzurun Beach is a beautiful area that has unique geological features called “flysch,” striated layers of rock, in addition to more typical beach sand areas.
![flysch-zumaia-4[2]](http://watchersonthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/flysch-zumaia-42.jpg)
There is no news as to which storyline this location could be used for, so we’re left to speculate at this point. Game of Thrones has used several of the Northern Irish beaches, so it’s not too surprising they might want to expand into other countries. The terrain is not too different from what we’ve seen of Westeros coastlines, shot in in Northern Ireland.
Is this another Westeros site? Perhaps someplace unique like Dragonstone since Daenerys is on the move and has to land somewhere- why not her birthplace? Or will Dany or Euron’s ships brings them to places other than Westeros before we finally get that arrival in Westeros that we’ve been waiting for, for so long. Or something else altogether!
What do you think, readers?
Big thanks to our reader Llámalo X for bringing the info to our attention!
The post Game of Thrones reportedly eyeing a location in northern Spain appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Putting the R in R+L=J.
Most fans also took it as confirmation that his father is Rhaegar Targaryen, the man who kidnapped (or perhaps eloped with) Lyanna. But although there is overwhelming evidence that supports this, it wasn't explicitly stated in the show – and so some are speculating Jon's father could actually be someone else. Someone like Robert Baratheon, Aerys Targaryen, or even Ned Stark himself.
It's a bit odd really, considering the showrunners seem to be keen to keep the mystery of Jon's father alive at least a little longer. Not only did they mute part of what Lyanna said to Ned in the Tower of Joy – which would no doubt identify him as a Targaryen once and for all – they've also mostly avoided commenting on the scene outside of the show.
There will probably still be some sceptics out there. But to be honest, there is no textual evidence that Ned and Lyanna had an incestuous relationship, and nothing that indicates Lyanna could have been impregnated by Aerys Targaryen either. There is actually evidence against Robert Baratheon being Jon's father – specifically, the fact Lyanna asked Ned to protect Jon from Robert because he'd kill him if he found out about him. It doesn't make any sense that Robert would kill his own child with Lyanna – it does, however, make a lot of sense that he'd want to kill Rhaegar's child.
HBO / Via makinggameofthrones.com
“The Winds of Winter” is here at last. Sadly, I’m not talking about the sixth book in A Song of Ice and Fire—that tome remains in the “unfinished” category for now. But the sixth season finale of Game of Thrones was eventful enough to earn the right to share a title with one of the books. Of course when it came down to it, and perhaps without a trace of actual intent, critical discussions circled around Cersei Lannister. So much so, in fact, that, just as the character seizes power for herself in the episode, she also seizes the reviews for herself, provoking the most discussion out of an episode that featured revenge for the Red Wedding and apparent confirmation of R+L=J. Explosions have that effect, I guess.
Alyssa Rosenberg at the Washington Post, discussing the difference between what feels good and what is right, has this to say about the cracking foundations of the Lannister family:
Tommen is a decent, guileless person raised by a woman whose love was like poison.[…]his death is a tragedy; it saves no one, and serves only to turn Cersei’s triumph into wormwood. She always told her brother and lover Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) that it was the two of them against the rest of the world. But now that it is only the two of them: no husband to discover Cersei and Jaime’s affair, no children whose legitimacy must be defended and safeguarded. Their paradise is shot through with rot and gall. What happens when you’re alone with the person you love and discover that they are actually the snake in the garden, the voice tempting you to ruin all along?
Alan Sepinwall edged away from directly calling Cersei a villain (which was an underlying theme of everything written about the character this week) and instead focused on the character’s emotional journey:
She has had virtually everything taken from her — her mother, her father, all three children — just as the old woman once prophesied, but she will not stop fighting for control of her life and her story and for all that she feels she is still owed. She is the full and proper queen of Westeros now, not because of whom she married or whom she gave birth to, but because of actions she took, power she seized, lives she snuffed out because it suited her to do so. She doesn’t exactly look happy when she ascends the throne in her fabulous black dress — nor even as smug as she appears when welcoming Septa Unella to her new life of bondage and torture — but she looks… content.
Myles McNutt, the book-reader reviewer at the A.V. Club, contrasts Cersei’s “blow it all to hell” plan with the more subtle (but ultimately, in this case, futile) schemes of Margaery Tyrell:
Cersei doesn’t have the foresight to play chess with the pieces she has, preferring to upend the board in a fit of rage. She may seem in control as she sips wine while watching the Sept explode in a ball of green fire, but what happens next shows just how little foresight she has. Not only does Tommen kill himself, but Lady Olenna turns her considerable resources to Daenerys. Cersei’s power comes from fear, as unstable as the Mad King, who also used fear to rule, and whose actions Cersei echoes by using wildfire to kill a mass of people for her own petty reasons.
Shortsightedness was a general complaint of Brandon Nowalk, the Unsullied A.V. Club reviewer, who found the show’s blatant disregard for consequences a bit concerning. That concern plays into Willa Paskin’s review of the finale, in which she breaks down the wish-fulfillment aspects of this season:
Having spent seasons teaching us that violence is contagious and no one is immune, whether they die in body or soul, the rapidly approaching conclusion turned these principles into chuff. The season began by breaking the show’s first rule. Turns out some heroes are too important to die, and Jon Snow, killed at the end of Season 5, resurrected in Season 6, is one of them. Anyone can die, except him—and Dany and probably Arya. And then arrived the season finale, a rousing episode in which merciless vengeance starts to look pretty badass.
(I believe the TVTropes name for this phenomenon of undying-ness is “Plot Armor.”) Paskin’s arguments were echoed by Sonia Sarayia, writing for Variety this week. Her piece discusses how the working premise of A Song of Ice and Fire—deconstructing fantasy narrative tropes as they existed in the ’90s—is a great way to begin a story, but makes it much harder to build a coherent ending:
What Benioff and Weiss have decided to do is to stop deconstructing. This sixth season of “Game Of Thrones” has been about picking up the loose ends and making some sense of the landscape they inherited. And the result has been a season that is both explosive and frequently hollow, as the story has attempted to satisfy “Thrones” fans with a type of storytelling that is definitively antithetical to what made “Game Of Thrones” so popular and so satisfying. The result is a mix of conventional action sequences, indie filmmaking and pure camp — an intriguing and at times fascinating combination, but one that is a far cry from the brooding, bloody drama about the human condition that “Game Of Thrones” once was.
This particular conversation is probably not over—we’ll be having it again next year, when Thrones begins its final march to the endgame. And we’ll probably have it when The Winds of Winter finally reaches our bookshelves. But the wish-fulfillment aspect of the season did not dull its excitement for many others. “The Winds of Winter” was hailed by a fair few people as one of the best episodes of the series. We’ll have to see how those “Best Episode” polls shake out once we’ve all had enough time to process this one.
Special shout-out to Washington Post’s David Malitz: “Sam went to the library.” He sure did, buddy. He sure did.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
FINALLY. Warning: Spoilers!
HBO
As promised! More nerds! Part Two– For You!
Yadda yadda yadda.
What, you need me to hold your hand? It’s the last godsdamned episode of the season! Dive in, people!
Game of Thrones! The Winds of Winter! Twitter! Hashtags, hashtags, hashtags!
(Here’s Part 1 in case you missed it.)
Seriously! Dive in!
The rest is down yonder.
…
See you next year, nerds! And we’ll… talk about your mothers.
I promise!
The post Promise Me, Nerd: Part 2 appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Picture by @ThePixelFactor
Nerds, nerds, nerds! It happened! IT HAPPENED!
…Okay, a lot of stuff happened on Game of Thrones.
This sucker was big. So big that, in advance, I prepared TWO (2) season-ending Twitter posts!
So before y’all go HAYWIRE about the shortened length of this one… it’s actually longer.
(Second part is coming later tonight.)
Twitter hashtags for “The Winds of Winter” are obvious: #GameOfThrones, #ThronesYall, #DemThrones, #TheWindsOfWinter, #WindsOfWinter, and #GoTs6 (always check that first)
If you want to go straight to the SLIDESHOW version, CLICK HERE! The rest is below.
We’re all excite. But let’s just start at the beginning, shall we?
SOON TO COME…. Promise Me, Nerd: Part 2!
The post Promise Me, Nerd: Part 1 appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Could it be that Jon’s real name is a little more…Targaryen-ish?
So now we know that Jon Snow is almost definitely the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and not Ned Stark's bastard. There's a chance that Jon could be Robert Baratheon's son, but where's the fun in that?
HBO
Start watching the clip around 3m40s to hear the moment.
"Lyanna starts by whispering 'His name is,' and then what follows appears to be a three syllable word that appears to start with a J," wrote sparkledavisjr. "I'm not a great lip-reader, but I'm fairly certain what she says is Jaehaerys."
HBO
Can you guess what episode these screengrabs of show writer David Benioff are from?
TOO SOON.
HBO
HBO
Twitter / Via Twitter: @crying_jordan
Cycle / HBO / Via youtube.com
“The Winds of Winter” was loaded with action and dramatic turns, and our heads are still spinning. Thankfully, Game of Thrones interviews are flowing freely this week, providing more insight into the key moments of the season finale.
Bella Ramsey has made a splash in her few appearances on Game of Thrones this season, as the ten-year-old Lady of Bear Island. Lyanna Mormont is a new fan favorite, and MakingGameofThrones speaks with Ramsey this week about her experience with the show.
On the huge fan reaction to her character, Bella says, “It’s crazy really. I didn’t expect anything like it. I am very, very happy that people like Lyanna Mormont. We had to keep it quiet that I had a part in GoT so now it’s out, my family have had lots of people they know contacting them, really excited they have seen me.”
Game of Thrones was her first filming experience, says the actress. She finds it difficult to name a favorite scene of hers (“I loved them all”). Discussing the finale, she says, “I loved Episode 10, but the room we were filming in was like an overheated sauna, so probably Episode 7 [“The Broken Man”]. Although, I also loved riding Iggy the horse, too.”
On playing the tough young lady, she says, “It was good, really good, being fierce. It all kind of comes naturally when I become Lyanna because it’s in her nature; it’s just who she is. I loved the script for Episode 10 [“The Winds of Winter”] – how she doesn’t care that she is the youngest person in the room, and proceeds to shame the three leaders.”
Bella has a lot more to say about her experience and her character over at MGoT.
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David Benioff and D.B. Weiss speak to Deadline about this season and the future of Game of Thrones. The showrunners reaffirm their comments in Variety from April, saying more or less the exact same thing and estimating there will “70-75 hours, and that’s what we’ll end up with. Call it 73 for now.” So we still have uncertain numbers for the endgame of the show, but an estimate that tells us the end is nigh.
Asked about female-centric vibe of the show, Benioff says among his remarks, “so many of the most interesting and formidable characters are women. The obstacles that stand between them and what they want are so much more formidable than the obstacles that face people in much of our lives…it was lots of fun and rewarding to think about the ways they could overcome obstacles and press their advantages and interests the way men would. You’d be hard pressed to call Cersei a heroine; she just blew up several thousand people, few of which had done her any particular wrong. But she’s a formidable severely flawed and damaged person.”
As for the question of whether Arya was targeting Jaime as well at the Twins, Benioff confirms that “the eyes she was making toward him were about who he was, and the murderous wheels of vengeance were spinning in his brain over how, maybe, she could get a two for one on this deal.” She stuck with her original plans however, and carried out only the hit on Walder. As Benioff notes, Jaime isn’t actually on her list.
Benioff and Weiss discuss much more at Deadline so you can the rest over there at the source.
One of the saddest casualties of the finale’s bloodbath was the teenage king Tommen, who committed suicide after his mother blew up the sept of Baelor. Actor Dean-Charles Chapman (who took over the role of Tommen in season 4) tells The Hollywood Reporter he learned of Tommen’s fate the night before the cast table-read, done before the filming of season 6.
He says, “I couldn’t have asked for a better way to have that news broken to me. Them telling me beforehand really helped me out, otherwise I would have been in a state when I read it in the scripts. I probably would have cried.”
As for Tommen’s death, Chapman is content with it. He tells THR, “He had a dark ending, but I was thankful about the way he went. Everyone on the show ends up getting their head blown off or squeezed, or stabbed. Tommen was a peaceful guy. And in a way, he goes out in a peaceful way. But a dark way. It’s sad.”
Discussing his death scene with MGoT, the actor explains the scene we saw was not the only version shot. “We tried a few different versions. The one that made the edit was more shell shock instead of Tommen bawling his eyes out and feeling sadness, anger or revenge. His number one priority – his wife – was in that Sept. He knows that it is game over for him. I think taking off the crown is Tommen giving up.”
His favorite scene from the series? “I’d probably choose the Ser Pounce scene in ‘Oathkeeper.’ That was my first day, so that meant a lot to me. It’s an iconic scene for Tommen with Ser Pounce and Margaery. It was a long, hard day, because the cat was a bit of a diva,” Chapman tells MGoT.
Here’s hoping the cat survived Cersei’s wildfire stunt.
The king is dead, long live Ser Pounce!
The post The showrunners address the future of Game of Thrones; Bella Ramsey and Dean-Charles Chapman discuss that big finale appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
They’ve done it again! Zap2it is reporting that “The Winds of Winter, ” the season finale of Game of Thrones has recorded the highest same-day ratings in the history of the show, beating its previous record set by the season 5 finale.
On Sunday night, Game of Thrones brought in 8.89 million viewers during the epic finale. This tops the 8.11 million viewers that GoT recorded for last year’s Season 5 finale “Mother’s Mercy.”
I can’t even claim to be that surprised by the news. All season, GoT has been ramping up the reveals, the drama and the action, and after last week’s “Battle of the Bastards,” people are more excited than ever. People turned up for “The Winds of Winter” and the episode delivered. I can only imagine what the final ratings will look like, with all the rewatching and word-of-mouth spreading.
The post “The Winds of Winter” brings record ratings for Game of Thrones appeared first on Watchers on the Wall.
Whenever Game of Thrones stages a sequence the production is particularly proud of, it does an extra behind-the-scenes breakdown with the folks who made it happen. From discussing the costumes and props at Joffrey and Margaery’s wedding in Season 4, to diving deep into the VFX that went into the creation of such violent battles as the Massacre at Hardhome and the attack on Daznak’s Pit, these “Anatomy of a Scene” videos are often times as fascinating to watch as the episode itself.
And usually when you have a major scene like King’s Landing in the finale, it is exactly the stuff that “Anatomy of a Scenes,” are made of. But this week’s climactic wildfire explosion wasn’t just a stand alone exercise in how can we stretch what is normally done on a television budget to something beyond what we’ve seen on screen before. It was a take down of an entire phalanx of characters, including the entire Tyrell house. (Olenna may have survived, but she is technically considered House Redwyne, since her Tyrell husband has been dead these many years.) Instead, it gets it’s own completely separate featurette, entitled “Uprooting the Rose.”
Everyone is rounded up for this piece, including producers Benioff and Weiss and their choice to go back to the wildfire which was first introduced in Season 2, and director Miguel Sapochnik, who staged the nearly 30 minute scene. Many of the actors who were part of it also talk about their reaction to this scene, from Lena Headey, who plays Cersei, to Eugene Simon, whose character Lancel gets led down to the catacombs and tries to stop the blast, and of course, Jonathan Pryce, the High Sparrow and Natalie Dormer, who has my favorite line that it’s the first time we’ve had a major scene in the Sept and no one is getting married.
Note that when the visual effects artists talk about blowing up the Sept, they don’t just consider it from the 30 minute scene either–we get shots of how the smoking aftermath was also generated for Jaime’s return. We also roll into the final scene in King’s Landing and Cersei taking the throne.
And it was also interesting to me that Bryan Cogman ses Tommen’s suicide as not actually part of Cersei’s plan. Personally, when I watched it, I saw Tommen being locked in his room watching this unfold as Cersei both punishing him for siding with those people against her, as well as a display of her power to him. Not that I think she wanted him to commit suicide, but there was an angle here where she had to know she was hurting him, and that’s why when he kills himself, she doesn’t mourning. She just keeps moving.
Sadly, the clip that goes with it is not the full 20 odd minutes, it’s just the final three in the Sept, from Margaery realizing that they all need to leave, now, to the Sept exploding while Cersei takes a sip of wine.
And for those, like me, who can’t get enough of that track that played under it, entitled “The Light of the Seven,” it is available on Spotify, as of yesterday.
