Yet another interesting concept of Bran Stark as the Three-Eyed Raven. This one by Indonesian artist Fredrick Runtu at ArtStation.

Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont) has been in the news a lot because of The Last of Us now airing on HBO. In one recent interview she came out as nonbinary.

Ahead of the series’ debut, she sat down with The New York Times for an interview published online Wednesday and was candid about how she identifies.

“I guess my gender has always been very fluid,” Ramsey said. “Someone would call me ‘she’ or ‘her’ and I wouldn’t think about it, but I knew that if someone called me ‘he’ it was a bit exciting.”

[ ... ]

As for pronouns, Ramsey said she would check “nonbinary” if it’s an option on a form. “I’m very much just a person,” she added. “Being gendered isn’t something that I particularly like, but in terms of pronouns, I really couldn’t care less.” 

It's not exactly a spoiler to point out that HotD Season 1 shows the Targaryens near the height of their power while GoT shows largely the opposite.

Rhaenys Targaryen from the Black trailer for HotD Season 2.

Rhaenys seems to be getting the best lines in the S2 trailers.

If this continues during the season, we might conclude that the Queen Who Never Was is the Queen Who Should Have Been.

The expression "bend the knee" certainly existed long before ASoIaF. But since the first book was published on 06 August 1996 its use in English has soared.

Google Books Ngram Viewer, of course, only covers books. So there was a dip after the publication of A Dance of Dragons in 2011. Though because of the HBO series the expression has entered the general lexicon and is being used by people who've neither read ASoIaF nor seen GoT. So as of 2019, the current end date of Ngram searching, it was moderately trending upwards again.

The mass worldwide web, at least Net 1.0, began around 1995. That's slightly before the time A Game of Thrones was published. So there's not much data prior to its publication to compare online use of "bend the knee" before its release and after. But use of the phrase is now extremely common – particularly in political discussions. Mainstream legit news media use it unselfconsciously.

It seems to be used particularly often in connection with a certain US political figure.

However, with several criminal cases facing him this year, another GoT phrase may apply to him: Winter is Coming for Donald Trump.

Ewan Mitchell b. 08 March 1997 Derby, England, UK

Our strong wishes for a great day! 🎂

Remember the series that was supposed to be about the era of Bran the Builder? I'm not sure if it was officially called "Blood Moon" but that's the name a lot of people are using to refer to it.

In any case, it was scrapped after millions of dollars were spent on it. That seems like an terrible waste, they should have at least tried to salvage a one-off TV movie out of it.

So Flora Moody is a hair and makeup artist who worked on the project. She posted a clip which seems to feature several images from the defunct series at Instagram.

Dan Selcke at Winter Is Coming writes...

While House of the Dragon is set over one hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones, Blood Moon would have taken place thousands of years before the likes of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister were born. To this day, we don't know exactly what it was about, although we have clues. We know it had a large ensemble cast, though, including Miranda Richardson, Denise Gough, Jamie Campbell Bower (who went on to play Vecna on Stranger Things), Shiela Atim, Toby Regbo, and Naomi Watts, who would have played “a charismatic socialite with a dark secret.” Details remain elusive, but reports have it that Watts may have played a member of the Casterly family, the people who occupied Casterly Rock before the Lannisters tricked them out of it, and that the pilot would have revolved around a marriage between a Castlery girl and a Stark boy. What exactly would have happened after that, we'll never know. Still, a whole pilot was shot and scrapped; there are still pictures of Watts and company in full costume on set floating around the internet. In fact, a bunch of new ones just got uploaded. Hair and makeup designer Flora Moody posted a video of images from the set to her Instagram page.

The House Casterly was said to have been tricked out of their holdings by Lann the Clever – progenitor of House Lannister.

Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen with their seven combined offspring (minus stillborn Visenya). By American artist mrm215 at DeviantArt. See more of her art here.

« I’ve been working…I’m 12 years late with Winds of Winter…I’m just going to put it right out there: you guys don’t have to pester me about it. »

— George R.R. Martin quoted in an article republished at MSN about his progress on The Winds of Winter.

Somebody could write a seven-volume chronicle about GRRM's epic struggle to complete the sixth volume of ASoIaF. Perhaps it could be made into a series.

ICYMI, a script for an apparently deleted scene from HotD S01E10 Involving Rhaenyra Targaryen and Jacaerys Velaryon. While not officially confirmed, it makes lots of sense in the context of the episode.

If Rhaenyra was having any reservations about going to war, they disappeared when she got news that Luke had been devoured by Aemond's dragon Vhagar.

That deleted scene in the context of the end of the episode does seem to boost Jace's cred. So in Season 2 Jace's counsel might be taken more seriously by Rhaenyra.

Respect to images originator @darksvster.

Welsh actor Rhys Ifans is a lot more than Otto Hightower. Off camera he's one of the funniest people on the House of the Dragon set.

He's a passionate supporter of Wales. He recently gave an impromptu patriotic pep talk to the Welsh team before a Euro 2024 play-off.

As for Wales, House Hightower may not be blood of the dragon, but the flag of Wales does include a dragon.

HBO-MAX has released six House of the Dragon posters for Season 2. In addition to the one of Rhaenyra above, here's one of Aemond.

^^^ A strong pose.

See all six here.

«ALL MUST CHOOSE»

They are committed to a S2 premiere in June but as I type this I haven't seen a specific date.

Caraxes, AKA the Blood Wyrm, by Mexican artist Oz Galeano. See more of his art at Dribbble.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has eight seasons of faux Medieval cred thanks to his character Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones. In an upcoming production by the BBC and CBS Studios he gets to recreate some actual 11th century history in the series King and Conqueror.

Nikolaj's character never got to rule the Seven Kingdoms. But in King and Conqueror he portrays William the Conqueror who became King of England and ultimately the founder of the royal line which still reigns in London.

George R.R. Martin was heavily influenced by English, French, and Scottish history in ASoIaF. GRRM may have had William the Conqueror in mind when writing about Aegon I Targaryen.

In 1066, the English King Edward the Confessor died without an heir. As if dying without a direct descendant to claim the throne wasn't one of the most chaotic things a king could do, Edward took it a step further: He allegedly promised the throne to both his brother-in-law, Harold Godwinson, and to a distant relative, William of Normandy. Harold and William weren't the only ones with a claim, either. While the pope endorsed William's claim, the resulting war of succession would force Harold to fight Harald Hardrada, the king of Norway, who also claimed the thrones of Denmark and England and invaded the latter alongside Harold's brother, Tostig. Anglo-Saxon King Harold would have to defeat Harald before meeting William and his Norman invasion at the Battle of Hastings, all in the same year. If that sounds to you like a lot of drama that could easily be its own television series, you aren't alone. CBS Studios and the BBC are teaming to produce "King and Conqueror," a show about this most pivotal event in English history. James Norton ("Happy Valley") and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ("Game of Thrones") are attached to be the titular King Harold and William the Conqueror, respectively. [ ... ] Historians might disagree on whose side of the story is more accurate, but screenwriters and producers agree that no matter what happened, the 1,000-year-old story will make for great television. Michael Robert Johnson ("Sherlock Holmes") will pen the series while Baltasar Kormákur ("2 Guns") will direct. "King and Conqueror" begins production in 2024.

There's actually a physical artistic link between the account of William's conquest in the 1060s and Game of Thrones.

After William's victory, his half-brother Bishop Odo was apparently the commissioner of a tapestry embroidered with scenes which tell the epic story of William's conquest. The cloth, now known as the Bayeaux Tapestry is an amazing 70 meters long. It can be viewed here.

So volunteers at the Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland where GoT was produced created a tapestry in the style of the Bayeaux Tapestry which tells the story of all eight seasons of GoT. See our 2019 post about it.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau visited Jimmy Kimmel to talk about his new Bloomberg Media series An Optimist’s Guide To The Planet.

He said Game of Thrones has been a great icebreaker when talking to people around the world in the new series.

He didn't run into any dragons though he did talk to a scientist who discovered plastic-eating worms.

Why Team Black is in the right.

Something that was pointed out in the vid: Aegon II came to power by means of a coup – albeit a palace coup.