On Archive of Our Own (AO3), a massive, fan-created trove of tales, there are nearly 5,000 stories tagged as belonging to A Song of Ice and Fire, and more than 2,600 tagged Game of Thrones. They span alternate universes from modern London to Romanov-era Russia; they envision the story post-"A Dance with Dragons"; they revel in character studies and beloved pairings. (Was Arya/Gendry ever so popular before viewers saw Joe Dempsie's abs?)

And, of course, they offer lots of inventive, carefully labeled smut. If you assume that all fanfic is of the Harry-and-Draco-get-it-on-on-the-Quidditch-field sort, you might be surprised (or disappointed). Plenty of "Thrones" fic stays on the straight side, exploring the moment Catelyn and Ned fell in love, or imagining a burgeoning relationship between Myrcella Baratheon and Robb Stark. Still, sometimes Margaery and Sansa make out; sometimes Theon and Robb get really, really close. There's something for everyone, provided you're willing to see George R.R. Martin's characters in ever more compromising positions.

Continue Reading...

So if you’re looking to stay current with the best documentaries and news videos, make sure you’re subscribed to The I Files. We explore beyond the headlines and always come back with great stories – and we do it all without rifling through your browser history. In other words, we have no idea how many times you’ve Googled your ex.

“NSA Whistle-Blower Tells All,” Laura Poitras for The New York Times’ Op-Docs

Continue Reading...

George R.R. Martin has always drawn deeply from history in A Song of Ice and Fire. From thinly veiled Mongol hordes, to Hadrian’s Wall carved of a few hundred feet of ice, to Greek Fire and the mighty harbor chains of medieval Constantinople. And he has admitted that the War of Roses in particular provided the germ of the story, the conflagration of Lancaster and York mapping onto Lannister and Stark. As such, it’s entirely appropriate to look to history to consider the direction that the overall story is moving towards.

Continue Reading...

Following the trail of the coquettish Lillian Leitzel, the "World’s Most Marvelous Gymnast,” and her gravity-defying partner, Alfredo Codona, "Queen of the Air" is an irresistible romantic biography of the Brad and Angelina of the Big Top, writes Laura Miller.

Jensen knows how to tell this story, with just the right degree of old-timey melodrama. Here’s how he describes an argument during the long years when Codona drove himself to perfect the Triple: His father and brother “begged him to abandon his quest for the feat before it killed him or, worse, left him such a pathetic cripple that he would be belted into a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Codona could not be persuaded.” In counterpoint, he pulls back the curtains concealing the brutality of the performer’s lot: celebrated and fawned over one year, forced by an accident to work as an auto mechanic the next. Leitzel was surrounded by admirers and showered with gifts, but before going to bed every night she injected caffeine into her shoulder socket to tame the “pulsating, and some nights, hammering pain.” Unlike even the most battered professional athletes, she performed twice a day, every day during the circus’ season, and on off-season gigs in Europe.

Continue Reading...

Less than 24 hours later, the Internet started speculating about what Beck's big revelation might be.

Here's a roundup of theories being floated about the news that will "change everything" -- and a few we came up with ourselves:

Immigration reform is really a ploy to implement a perpetual Democratic majority 

Conservative watchdog site Right Wing Watch speculated that a Beck radio segment about an "immigration revolt" among Congressional Republicans may have been the pundit's big news. That same day, the Blaze floated a theory -- echoing Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. -- that progressive Democrats were conspiring to sneak "perpetual amnesty" into the immigration reform package to ensure they stay in power forever, basically. "The bill is worse than universal healthcare. Listen to me, it is worse than universal healthcare, and in the coming days as we get closer, we will explain why it's worse than universal healthcare. It is the death knell of the country, there is no recovery from this one. None. No recovery," Beck said.

Continue Reading...

HBO’s Game of Thrones returned for its third season on Sunday having already inspired a variety of media, from a Helmut Lang line of clothing to satires like School of Thrones, Game of Cats, and a ’90s version of the opening credits (set, of course, to Queen’s “I Want It All.”) Like the novels on which the show is partly based, Game of Thrones has resonated with viewers in a way that only a handful of shows have.

Continue Reading...

Join Salon staffers as we discuss it all now!

Continue Reading...

This season, the slow, slow saga of Bran making his way to the wall or Davos learning to read took place alongside much more kinetic arcs, like the loss of Jaime’s Lannister’s hand, his friendship with Brienne, or the fate of Robb Stark and his army. Arya has been in nearly every episode, but has been more or less moved by grown men with agendas from place to place, waiting for her own story to truly begin. This particular weave of slack and taut storylines gives “Game of Thrones” its all encompassing, larger-than-the-viewer feel. But it also means, looking back on the last 10 episodes, what stand out to me are not episodes or some mesh of story lines but specific moments: Catelyn begging for Robb’s life, Jaime’s stump in the mud, Daenerys walking through the unsullied asking them to follow her, Brienne in the bear pit, Margaery fingering that cross bow.

Continue Reading...

How has it been to act without a hand?

It’s a little complicated, actually. I have three to four versions [of no hand]. The one in really wide shots, I can use my own hand. We can just hide that. That’s the easiest. But as soon as we get in closer, we can’t do that, so then they have a couple of fake arms that I put on just above my elbow. And then I have to hide my own arm down my pants, in my crack, and that’s a little uncomfortable. And then of course there was the scene we did in the bath, and that was a third version where I spent two hours having this arm attached, again above my elbow, but as a real second limb. And then a few times -- there’s a shot where I walk from the back and they have to use CGI to remove my real arm, so I was wearing this green glove.  I hope they come up with something smart for the next season.

Continue Reading...

That's right: HBO doesn't merely present the "TV-MA" designation before its shows -- it also lists exactly the sort of mature-audiences-only action that's going to go down. In the last 19 episodes (all of seasons 2 and 3, so far), every single episode has featured "adult language" and "adult content"; four contained "strong sexual content"; 18 contained "violence" (in nine of those instances, "graphic violence"); 14 featured nudity (in one instance "brief nudity").

If "graphic violence" is left off the table, viewers can safely presume the episode is merely scene-setting for the battles to come; if there's no nudity, the show's about to spend time on the more violent pursuits of Westeros (and a certain segment of the viewing public might as well shut the sets off). HBO used to spoil when Richard Jenkins' dead-dad character would be returning by crediting him as a guest star in the "Six Feet Under" opening credits, but at least this feels like it's serving a purpose -- helping whatever parent is otherwise uninformed enough to consider letting the kiddos watch "Thrones" -- while hinting at the episodes' content for the rest of us. Here are this season's advisories, compared against what happens after the episode actually begins.

Continue Reading...

Last night on "Conan," the talk show host showed "Game of Thrones" creator George R. R. Martin viewer reactions to the most recent episode. "Those clips were set up by people who had read the books 13 years ago and knew it was coming," Martin said. "I saw one of them saying in a comment, 'Now you know why your nerdy friends were really depressed 13 years ago.' "

Fans who are still depressed, however, can find some solace in a preview of the "Game of Thrones" soundtrack, which just hit the Internet.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

A sampling of the agony and the ecstasy more agony:

[embedtweet id="341413884432883712"]

[embedtweet id="341476681606918144"]

[embedtweet id="341527741373480960"]

[embedtweet id="341498236554575872"]

[embedtweet id="341521812703825920"]

[embedtweet id="341423341636288512"]

[embedtweet id="341406267727814656"]

[embedtweet id="341381115887640577"]

[embedtweet id="341393191146250240"]

[embedtweet id="341374271509131264"]

Continue Reading...

All season, “Game of Thrones” has been very steadily setting up the Red Wedding. Readers of the book (and the spoiled. There has got to be some joke connecting the unspoiled and the unsullied) have been awaiting it since before the season began. But David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have been very canny about not forecasting the big, awful event on the horizon, giving us no insight into the Freys' or Boltons' plotting and letting Robb go on and on about strategy that he’ll now never get to use.  (Did the presence of a man on a rack on Robb’s Stratego board mean he’s responsible for Theon’s current circumstance?) In retrospect, the biggest hints have been the sentimental and romantic scenes between Talissa and Robb, sweet moments that were supposed to make their deaths more horrible. They were pretty effective.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

We're discussing it now!

Continue Reading...

What has been happening to Theon Greyjoy this season is off book. In the novels, Theon is brutally tortured, but not on the page. The details of his ordeal are coming entirely from David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and their writers— and they are ghastly. In this episode—  titled “The Bear and the Maiden Fair,” which you’ll recall is the folk song the Hold Steady sang over the end credits of this season’s third episode — a brutalized Theon is untied, given water, and then groped and mounted by two beautiful young and eventually naked women until, even in his half-living state, he becomes aroused. The whole encounter is so surreal and perverse it seems like a dream, but it’s not. As Theon starts to writhe, his sociopathic torturer re-emerges, remarks on Theon’s known cocksmanship, and then, as the camera cuts away, presumably cuts off his penis.

Continue Reading...

In the comments and on Twitter, it was rightfully pointed out that my list did not have any men on it, except Jeremy Piven, a classic example of an over-actor (at least in his post-“Entourage” years).  Are men not bad actors too? Obviously, yes, they are. (Though I do think that because the world is unjust, male actors are often given more to do and so just by dint of screen time can come across more strongly than their female counterparts: See Rick Grimes on “The Walking Dead,” for example.) So, to toss out a few names in the interest of gender-balanced snark, here are some dudes who fail the Julie Taylor test as well.

Continue Reading...

Only Mark Zuckerberg could throw a billion-dollar deal on ice to sit down with his friends and watch Game of Thrones.

We're at least a few years away from calling the 28-year-old Facebook CEO an eccentric billionaire (because a) he's not old; and b) he hasn't thrown stacks of benjamins from a hot air balloon just yet), but this is just one of the few details about the Facebook-Instagram deal that shook up the Web last year.

Writing for Vanity Fair, Kara Swisher has a comprehensive look at how the deal went down. Instagram's cofounders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger opted to sell to Facebook—rather than take a competing offer from Twitter—because, as Systrom told Krieger, “I really like Mark, and I really like his company. And I really like what Facebook is trying to achieve.”

Continue Reading...