The promotional machine is beginning to pick up steam for the second season of HBO’s mega-hit Game of Thrones. The first show is set to air on April Fool’s Day and what better way to whet rabid fans’ appetites than with a series of posters of some of the favorite characters from the show. Each of the posters features a memorable quote by the character.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, Peter Dinklage, who won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, is featured in two of the posters. Dinklage plays Tyrion Lannister, the wise-cracking dwarf with a razor-sharp intellect who easily has the most memorable quotes in the books by George R.R. Martin and the HBO series.
Tyrion is by far my favorite from the books and the HBO series not only because you know when he appears you know you’re going to hear some side-splitting sarcasm (I don’t want to provide any spoilers), but also he must overcome his stature to win notice from his cold father.
Dinklage shines in the role and heck, he’s from New Jersey, so I have to root for him. You might remember Dinklage from many movie roles, including playing Miles Finch, the pretentious children’s book author in the Will Ferrell movie Elf.
Also on two of the posters is the Daenerys Targaryen, the waifish princess transformed into Dothraki queen played by attractive Emilia Clarke. Daenerys is the exiled true queen of the Seven Kingdoms looking to regain her throne. While she might be very young, Daenerys has one big thing going for her—a trio of fire-breathing dragons.
In one of the posters, Daenerys stands next to her “sun and stars,” her warrior king husband Khal Drogo, played by Jason Momoa. Momoa starred in last year’s flop Conan the Barbarian.
Perhaps my favorite poster is that of tomboy Arya Stark, played by 14-year-old English actress Maisie Williams. Arya is the third child of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn Stark. Arya’s poster quote reads, “Anyone can be killed.” That is at the heart of Martin’s magnificent series of novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, which turns conventional fantasy writing on its head: heroes die on a regular basis and villains seem to advance in power and stature.
Speaking of which, also featured on a poster are incestuous sister and brother, Cersei and Jaime Lannister, who’ll do anything to stay together short of…well, nothing.
Whiny teenage King Joffrey Baratheon and Lord Varys, “the Spider,” also get their due.
For this coming season, Martin will be writing one of the episodes of Games of Thrones. The episode, “Blackwater,” will focus on a major battle in the books, “The Battle of Blackwater Bay.”
If you’re a George R.R. Martin fan, you might want to make your way to Chicago this August. Martin’s scheduled to appear at Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, August 30 to September 3.
The character poster release follows an earlier poster campaign “War is Coming,” which has been wrapped on city buses and slapped on the walls of subway stations in the last few weeks. The HBO P.R. folks might have been better off using, “Winter is Coming,” a phrase of foreboding straight out of the books and readily identifiable to Thrones fans.
By the way, while you are checking out these great posters, you can also watch last season’s episodes (again or for the first time), as well as some special Game of Thrones features on HBO’s website.
Tags: Arya Stark, Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones, George R R Martin, HBO, Jason Momoa, Maisie Williams, Peter Dinklage, Posters, TV, Tyrion Lannister
About the Author
Written by J.R. Snyder
Born in the suburbs of Philadelphia, raised on the streets on New York and cultivated in the dark, dingy corridors of local comic book shops, John is a professional journalist, avid reader, amateur photographer and thumb-banging handyman.
I see having your character die does not necessarily mean that you will omitted from the new posters.