Game of Thrones - Season 3

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As Game of Thrones smashes download records this week, an extra act of sharing will soon come from a most unusual source. Sick and tired of the poor quality offered by HBO’s official streaming service, the director of movie Iron Sky says he’s going to take retaliatory action. Complaining about their delivery the Finnish director told HBO that their service “sucks” so in future he’ll download the show from The Pirate Bay.

It’s certainly been an eventful few days for smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones.

On Sunday and just before the premiere of the new season, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo went further than almost anyone expected by admitting that piracy does have an upside.

He described massive downloading of the show as “a compliment” and added that it does nothing to damage DVD revenues. A good thing, considering what followed next.

http://torrentfreak.com/ill-downloa...irate-bay-iron-sky-director-tells-hbo-130403/

 

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To the surprise of absolutely nobody, HBO have commissioned Game Of Thrones for a fourth season following the Season 3 premier, which attracted 4.4 million viewers on its first broadcast, and 710,000 for its UK premier on Sky Atlantic – up from Season 2′s 522,000.


The first episode of Season 3 – reviewed here – is also the most torrented TV episode ever, with 163,088 people downloading and seeding it on filesharing platform Bittorrent – mostly from the US, with the UK and Australia in second and third place.


“I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but it is a compliment of sorts,” HBO programming president Michael Lombardo stated. “The demand is there. And it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales.”

http://www.scifinow.co.uk/news/39683/game-of-thrones-season-4-confirmed-by-hbo/

Still half of TWD viewing numbers.

 

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Here’s what happened when we went to the swanky Game of Thrones season 3 UK premiere and chatted to a few of the cast members…

Spoiler-warning: The bit with Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth) contains brief, oblique reference to some of her season three scenes. Non-A Song of Ice and Fire readers may wish to skip it.

Even in absence, Dame Diana Rigg has the sovereign presence to make people sit up straight and behave themselves. At the mere mention of her name, Finn Jones, the young actor who plays her on-screen grandson Ser Loras Tyrell in Game of Thrones, segues from swagger to awe, following up his description of the Tyrell family in season three as “hot badass b*tches who are going to f**k s**t up” to an earnest list of “amazing”, “wonderful”, “classic legend”, and “such a privilege”. Good to know the Queen of Thorns (or “Nan”, as Jones calls her) commands the proper respect around these parts.

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/game-of...hristie-paul-kaye-isaac-hempstead-wright-more

 

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Costar Alfie Allen discusses the state of his character, Theon Greyjoy:

“I think my character is severely misguided. I don’t think he’s super evil. He’s just a boy, really, trying to prove himself to his father. I think that’s a universal theme. Even if you’re not looking for your parents’ approval, you really kind of are. I think there’s a nice guy down there... There’s 15 to 20 percent of Game of Thrones fans who will be feeling sorry for him this season and the rest will just be laughing and enjoying it immensely,”
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http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/04/07/game-of-thrones-theon/

 

[JoanDrake]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/03/game-of-thrones-ice-wall-science/

Or maybe it's not so fantastic after all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete

Though, IMO, all the Wildfire the alchemists of Kingslanding had could do it some harm under any circumstance, and it seemed they could readily make more.

Also, couldn't it be buttressed against flow? Soil flows like ice when it's wet, doesn't it? and I've heard of some retaining walls that that have lasted for hundreds of years


OK, it's magic. I just HATE that. I'll accept it with the dragons because of the obvious metaphor with atom bombs, but ****, why not just have a magical sword that kills everybody just by being drawn or something"

 

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Edmure Tully should have talked back to the King in the North.
On last night’s Game of Thrones, the new character of Lord Edmure (Tobias Menzies) can’t understand why his nephew and king, Robb Stark (Richard Madden), upbraids him for beating the hated Lannisters. Robb explains that Edmure made a dumb battlefield decision — more on that in a second — that redounded to the Lannister enemy’s benefit, all for negligible strategic gain. It’s never wise to talk back to the King, but someone needs to tell Robb: Oh, you mean like your entire war plan?


Not only is Robb Stark the white hat of Game of Thrones — a warm, generous and reluctant king — he’s portrayed to viewers as one of its fiercest warriors. “He’s a boy, and he’s never lost a battle!” rages his enemy, Tywin Lannister. But the Young Wolf is a case study in the difference between winning battles and winning wars. Robb is an excellent company commander, leading from the front and inspiring his men with both his bravery and his battle prowess. He’s also a terrible general.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/04/robb-stark/

Game of Thrones has a bit of a problem when it comes to music.
It’s not that the score – by composer Ramin Djawadi – isn’t good. It’s quite excellent, actually, with a theme song that sticks in your head like peanut butter on the roof your mouth. The problem is the source materials for Thrones. Books can’t be heard, after all, and thus are not the ideal medium for depicting what the music of Westeros sounds like. (Though the many fan versions of Martin’s songs that float around online give it their best shot.)

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/04/game-of-thrones-music/

 

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Do women like Game of Thrones? Depends on whether you consult the articles people write on the subject, or the actual demographic data, since they often come to very different conclusions. Shortly after the the 2011 debut of HBO’s medieval drama, a scathing New York Times review dismissed the series as “boy fiction” and inexplicably suggested that the show was oversexualized (mostly using naked women) “out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise.” More recently, Thrillist posted an insulting article called “Why Your Girl Hates Game of Thrones” whose reasons included ”[women] hate gross things,” “it’s hard to follow,” and “it reminds [women] of the kids that used to play magic [sic] cards in the cafeteria.” (As if that’s a bad thing to be reminded of?)


http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/06/women-game-of-thrones/