Don’t worry about it.

Here you go, for everyone in Europe and Asia and Saturn’s moons, and those who don’t have HBO (yet, I hope), and those who just want to watch it thirty times (hey, I’m way ahead of you):

<lj-embed id=”65″/>

Enjoy.

And for lagniappe, check out HBO’s brand new GAME OF THRONES web page:

http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones

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Auditions continue in Dublin, Belfast, and London for a whole bunch of parts, both major and minor, on HBO’s GAME OF THRONES.

Sometimes it is a very hard job.

I’ve just reviewed the tapes of twelve young women reading for the part of Shae.

Excuse me. I need to go take a cold shower now.

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Those of you who read Mo Ryan’s blog for the CHICAGO TRIBUNE will already have heard the news: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2010/05/game-of-thrones-hbo.html

Yes, the role of Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO series of GAME OF THRONES has been recast.

Our new Daenerys is a beautiful and talented young actress named Emilia Clarke, a recent graduate of Drama Centre London. You can learn more about her here:

http://www.spotlight.com/7655-7861-0395

I haven’t had the chance to meet Emilia yet, but I’ve seen her auditions. She gave some kickass readings, winning out over some amazing competition from all around the world. She should make a great Dany.

(None of which should be taken in any way as a slight against Tamzin Merchant, another wonderful young actress. Her perfomance as Dany in the pilot was wonderful, I thought).

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… on the theory that, sooner or later, we have to stop talking about fanfic.

So, let’s see. Casting is in full swing for the HBO series. No one has been cast yet. But I think we’re getting close on a few roles.

I’ve been looking at many audition tapes. Varys. Littlefinger. Pyp. Grenn. Sam. Ser Gregor. Renly. Bronn. Septa Mordane. Jory. The Old Bear. Even Marillion. And probably some other characters that I’ve forgotten about, writing this off the top of my head.

Some very hard choices await us. For some parts, a wealth of great possibilities, and no way to go wrong. For others, two or three strong contenders, then it tails off sharply. For a few, we have yet to see anyone who excites us, so the search goes on.

I’ve been asked if I will once again be giving “hints” when parts are cast. Honest answer: I don’t know. I had fun with that last time around, and I think you guys did too. (It astonished me how quickly you solved some of those puzzles). But now that we have an actual series, HBO may very well want all casting announcements to come through them. Or maybe they won’t care. In any case, he who pays the piper calls the tune, so I’ll dance to whatever they play.

Tell you what, though… to save you guys the trouble of trying to parse every syllable of my posts here for hints and hidden meanings that do not exist, I will use a simple signal. If I do add any posts with casting hints, I’ll use my Froggy the Gremlin userpic. If Froggy is not up there, then there are no hints in the post, so don’t sweat it. (This is pretty much what I did last time round, I’m just making it explicit).

I think we’re going to get some great people.

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It’s May, it’s May, hurray.

What’s more, I actually met a deadline. I turned in the first draft of my script for episode eight of A GAME OF THRONES to David and Dan on the day it was due. Today, as it happens.

It’s too long and too expensive, but that’s true of every first draft teleplay and screenplay that I ever wrote. I’ve titled it “The Pointy End,” though I don’t know if that will endure. Last I heard, it hadn’t been decided whether we’d be using episode titles or not.

One monkey off my back. At least until it’s time for rewrites, and the second draft.

Other monkeys are still frolicking up there, including Kong. He was a king in his world, but we’ll teach him fear…

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… or something like that.

Truth is, I suck at foreign languages. Always have. Always will.

That can be a real drawback for a fantasist working in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien, who set the bar very high where imaginary languages are concerned. JRRT was a linguist of rare talent who invented not one but two Elvish tongues, not to mention dwarvish, Numenorean, the Black Tongue of Mordor, etc. etc. An astonishing feat of linguistic worldbuilding, and one that is never likely to be duplicated.

Certainly not by me. A few years ago, I got a very nice email from a reader who wanted to know more about the vocabulary and syntax of High Valyrian. I blush to admit that I had to reply, “Uh… well… all I know about High Valyrian is the seven words I’ve made up to date. When I need an eighth, I’ll make that up too… but I don’t have a whole imaginary language in my desk here, the way Tolkien did.”

The same was true of Dothraki. Lots of characters speak the language of the horselords in my novels, and I did pepper the text with a few Dothraki words like khal and arakh… but for the most part I was content just to say, “They were speaking Dothraki,” and give the sense of what was said, playing with the syntax and sentence rhythms a bit to convey a flavor.

That would obviously not work for television, however, where you actally have to HEAR what the characters are saying, even if you don’t necessarily understand the words. So when the pilot was filmed, HBO brought in a world-class expert to create a Dothraki tongue that went well beyond my “khaleesi” and “khalasar.”

His name is David J. Peterson, and here’s some more about him and the language he’s devising, straight from the good folks at Home Box Office:

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David J. Peterson, an expert language creator from the Language Creation Society (LCS), has been chosen to create the Dothraki language for HBO’s upcoming fantasy series GAME OF THRONES, based on the book series !œA Song of Ice and Fire,! by George R.R. Martin.

When GAME OF THRONES executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss needed a language for the Dothraki, Martin’s race of nomadic warriors, they turned to the Language Creation Society. The LCS solicited and vetted a number of proposals for the Dothraki language from its pool of experts, with Peterson’s proposal ultimately being selected by the GAME OF THRONES production team.

Peterson drew inspiration from George R.R. Martin’s description of the language, as well as from such languages as Russian, Turkish, Estonian, Inuktitut and Swahili. However, the Dothraki language is no mere hodgepodge, babble or pidgin. It has its own unique sound, extensive vocabulary of more than 1,800 words and complex grammatical structure.

!œIn designing Dothraki, I wanted to remain as faithful as possible to the extant material in George R.R. Martin’s series,! says Peterson. !œThough there isn’t a lot of data, there is evidence of a dominant word order [subject-verb-object], of adjectives appearing after nouns, and of the lack of a copula [!˜to be’]. I’ve remained faithful to these elements, creating a sound aesthetic that will be familiar to readers, while giving the language depth and authenticity. My fondest desire is for fans of the series to look at a word from the Dothraki language and be unable to tell if it came from the books or from me !” and for viewers not even to realize it’s a constructed language.!

!œWe’re tremendously excited to be working with David and the LCS,! says producer D.B. Weiss. !œThe language he’s devised is phenomenal. It captures the essence of the Dothraki, and brings another level of richness to their world. We look forward to his first collection of Dothraki love sonnets.!

Did you know? (Hash yer ray nesi?)

The name for the Dothraki people !” and their language !” derives from the verb !œdothralat! (!œto ride!).

The Dothraki have four different words for !œcarry,! three for !œpush,! three for !œpull! and at least eight for !œhorse,! but no word that means !œplease! or !œfollow.!

The longest word in Dothraki is !œathastokhdeveshizaroon,! which means !œfrom nonsense.!

The words for !œrelated,! !œweighted net,! !œeclipse,! !œdispute,! !œredhead,! !œoath,! !œfuneral pyre,! !œevidence,! !œomen,! !œfang! and !œharvest moon! all have one element in common: !œqoy,! the Dothraki word for !œblood.!

Dothraki for !œto dream! !“ !œthirat atthiraride! !“ literally means !œto live a wooden life!; in Dothraki, !œwooden! (!œido!) is synonymous with !œfake.!

The word for !œpride! !“ !œathjahakar! !“ is derived from !œjahak,! the traditional long braid worn by Dothraki warriors (!œlajaki!).

More information about the Dothraki language (and their love poems) will be released over the course of the series.

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I look forward to the day when someone translates Shakespeare into Dothraki. They’ve already done a Klingon translation, and probably an Elvish one as well, so what the hell.

Meanwhile, I need to find out the proper Dothraki for “it is known.”

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I’ve received a lot of emails from readers outside the United States, asking if the GAME OF THRONES television series will be shown in their countries.

The answer to that is complicated, and depends in large part on the country.

HBO does have a number of branches, partners, subsidiaries, and affiliates abroad, who take all of their programming. All of those will be showing the series.

In Canada, the show will be seen on HBO Canada, same days and times as in the US.

In Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Chile, the series will be shown on HBO Latin America, though days and times may vary.

In France, GAME OF THRONES will be shown on Orange.

In Israel, on DBS.

HBO Central Europe will offer the series in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic.

HBO Asia will offer the series to the countries in their territories, though which ones will pick it up and when they will show it remains to be confirmed. There may be content questions in some Asian markets.

In some of these countries, HBO is a premium channel, as in the United States. You have to sign up and subscribe to it (and pay for it), it is not one of the channels you get for free just by turning on your television.

As for the countries not listed here… next week in Cannes there will be a huge television trade show attended by broadcasters and program directors from stations all around the globe. HBO will be there, screening its new shows and selling them. GAME OF THRONES will be one of the series whose rights will be on offer. In a few more weeks we should know which countries bought the series… and which did not. Let’s hope your favorite station is one of those to pick it up.

!

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