Game of Thrones (season 3)

Plot

After defeating Stannis Baratheon at the Battle of the Blackwater, the Lannisters hold a firm grasp on the Iron Throne. They are threatened by their new ally House Tyrell, powerful and manipulative players of the game. Tyrion Lannister struggles with losing the power he had as Hand of the King, and feels his father doesn't appreciate the service he provided the family as Hand. Meanwhile, Jaime Lannister continues his attempt to return home, and begins to form a bond with his road companion, Brienne of Tarth.

The Starks find themselves losing the war. They lost the support of Lord Walder Frey, after Robb Stark broke his vow to him by marrying Talisa Maegyr, and many members of Robb's army are losing faith in him. His relationship with his mother has also turned icy after her freeing of Jaime Lannister, though the reported deaths of her father and the younger Stark boys brings them closer. In reality, Bran and Rickon Stark are alive and continuing their journey north, with new strange allies in the Reed siblings. It was Theon Greyjoy who faked the Stark boys' deaths, and is now being physically tortured under an unknown person's command. However, a mysterious boy claiming to be sent by Theons's sister plans to aid his escape. Arya Stark, on her journey home with companions Gendry and Hot Pie, finds herself entangled with The Brotherhood without Banners and Sandor "The Hound" Clegane. Sansa Stark remains in King's Landing a prisoner of the Lannisters, but is now being offered help by both the treacherous Petyr Baelish and the Tyrells.

At Dragonstone, Stannis Baratheon appears a broken man after being crushed at the Battle of the Blackwater. His advisor Ser Davos is imprisoned after attempting to kill Melisandre, who still believes her god, the Lord of Light, will help Stannis return to prominence.

Beyond the Wall, Jon Snow joins Mance Rayder's wildling army, but with hidden intentions. His vows are tested more than ever by a growing romance with wildling Ygritte, as he finds that he will have to choose between her and the Night's Watch. The latter has been largely decimated by a White Walker attack, and a group of them is making their way back to the Wall. However, many of the rangers find themselves also questioning their vows, putting Lord Commander Mormont's and Samwell Tarly's lives in danger.

Across the Narrow sea in Astapor, Daenerys Targaryen continues her quest to reclaim the seven kingdoms. She has a new companion in former King's Guard commander Barristan Selmy, and is still advised by Jorah Mormont. She contemplates buying the Unsullied, an elite army of harshly trained eunuchs. They are controlled by a cruel master with an intelligent young translator, Missandei.

Guest cast

The recurring actors listed here are those who appeared in season 3. They are listed by the region in which they first appear.

The musicians Will Champion of Coldplay and Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol made cameo appearances, and Bart the Bear 2 (a.k.a. "Little Bart") was the bear that fought in the pit at Harrenhal.

Production

Game of Thrones rapidly became a critical and commercial success after it started airing in April 2011. A few days after ratings for the second season's premiere, "The North Remembers", hit a series high of 8.3 million viewers, HBO announced the show's renewal for a third season. Prior to that announcement, there had been rumors and reports that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss planned to shoot seasons three and four simultaneously. Benioff said that this would be very efficient, but impossible to write.

The ten episodes of the third season are longer than the previous seasons', about 54 or 57 minutes as opposed to about 52. The season's budget was reported to be around 50 million U.S. dollars.

Writing

The third season is based on the first half of the novel A Storm of Swords. Benioff had previously said that A Storm of Swords would need to be adapted in two seasons on account of its length. Benioff and Weiss also noted that they thought of Game of Thrones as an adaptation of the series as a whole, rather than of individual novels, which gave them the liberty to move scenes back and forth across novels according to the requirements of the screen adaptation. According to Benioff, the third season contains a particularly memorable scene from A Storm of Swords, the prospect of filming which was part of their motivation to adapt the novels for television in the first place. The writing credits for the third season now state "Written for television by", instead of the usual "Written by" credit.

Season 3 saw the first significant use of the Valyrian languages, spoken in doomed Valyria and its former colonies in Essos. The constructed languages were developed by linguist David J. Peterson based on the few words Martin invented for the novels. Peterson had previously developed the Dothraki language, used principally in season 1.

Casting

The third season adds previously recurring actors Oona Chaplin (Talisa Maegyr), Joe Dempsie (Gendry) and Rose Leslie (Ygritte) to the series' main cast.

After an absence of one season David Bradley returns as Walder Frey, Ian McElhinney as Barristan Selmy, Peter Vaughan as Maester Aemon, Josef Altin as Pypar and Luke McEwan as Rast.

Crew

David Benioff and D. B. Weiss serve as main writers and showrunners for the third season. They co-wrote seven out of ten episodes. The remaining three episodes were written by Bryan Cogman, Vanessa Taylor, and the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin.

Daniel Minahan, Alex Graves, Michelle MacLaren, and David Nutter each directed two episodes. One further episode was directed by previous series cinematographer, Alik Sakharov, whereas another was co-directed by Benioff and Weiss, both making their directorial debuts, although only Benioff is credited for directing the episode.

Filming

The filming of the third season began in early July 2012, and concluded with the wrap of the unit filming in Iceland on November 24, 2012. Filming in Iceland, for scenes in five of the season's ten episodes, took place near Akureyri and Lake Mývatn. Dimmuborgir was used as the location for Mance Rayder's wildling army camp, and the Grjótagjá cave was used as establishing shot of Jon Snow and Ygrite in the cave although most of this scene was filmed in the studio. The filming in Iceland lasted eight days, as opposed to nearly a month for season 2. Kit Harington (Jon Snow) broke an ankle in an accident in July, which required the Iceland shoots to be pushed back to give him time to heal, as well as the occasional use of a body double.

The production was again based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and continued to receive support from the Northern Ireland Screen fund. The production used various locations in Northern Ireland to film scenes in the North and the Riverlands. The production also returned to Dubrovnik in Croatia for scenes in King's Landing. Morocco, a new location, was used to film Daenerys' scenes in Essos such as the city of Astapor, for which locations in Essaouira were used. A scene involving a live bear was filmed in Los Angeles.

Music

The U.S. indie rock band The Hold Steady recorded "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", a ribald folk song from Martin's novels. The recording is played over the end credits of episode three, and the song is sung by Brienne and Jaime's captors in the same episode. Set to music by series composer Ramin Djawadi, the recording was released on a seven-inch record on Record Store Day, April 20, 2013.

The soundtrack for the season was released digitally on June 4, 2013, and on CD on July 2, 2013.

Critical reception

Review aggregator Metacritic has a score of 91 for season 3, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 25 reviews. While the season 3 finale ("Mhysa") was generally well received, IGN's Matt Fowler stated, "Season 3 may have stumbled slightly with its finale, but up until then it was thrilling and traumatic." Overall, he gave season 3 a 9/10 rating. On Rotten Tomatoes, the third season has a 97% approval rating from 41 critics with an average rating of 8.4 out of 10; the season also received a 96% average episode score.

Accolades

For the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards, the third season received 16 nominations, including for Outstanding Drama Series, Peter Dinklage for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Emilia Clarke for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Diana Rigg for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, and David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for the episode "The Rains of Castamere". That episode also won the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Game of Thrones won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Drama for the 29th TCA Awards, and also received a nomination for Program of the Year. For the 20th Screen Actors Guild Awards, the cast was nominated for Best Drama Ensemble, Peter Dinklage was nominated for Best Drama Actor, and the series won for Best Stunt Team.

Broadcast

The day after the third season premiered in the U.S., it premiered in the United Kingdom on Sky Atlantic, in Australia on Foxtel, and in New Zealand on SoHo.

Home media

The third season was released on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1 on February 18, 2014 (2014-02-18), in region 2 on February 17, 2014 (2014-02-17) and in region 4 on February 19, 2014 (2014-02-19).

It was made available for purchase as a digital download on the iTunes store, in Australia only, in parallel to the U.S. premiere. However, on May 14, 2013, Foxtel blocked the Australian iTunes store from making the episodes available soon after they screened in the U.S. Season 3 was reported to be the most infringed TV show via torrents during spring 2013, estimated to be 5.2 million downloads via BitTorrent.

Copyright infringement

The third season of Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV series in 2013.