The second day of Con of Thrones was as eventful and enjoyable as the first. After interviewing a member of the cast (more on that later), I attended a huge panel called Bringing Westeros to Life. Sound designer Paula Fairfield and invented language guru David J. Peterson were on the stage, and listening to them really brought home how much passion they put into their work.
For example, Fairfield told a moving story about how she recorded a “half-cry, half-whistle” noise her dog angel Angel used to make. She incorporated that sound into Drogon’s purr, a sound you only hear him make when he’s around Daenerys. Angel has died, but the sound is still a part of Drogon’s vocabulary.
And for his part, Peterson took the name of one of his dead cats and made it the Dothraki word for “friend.” Those are sad stories, but it’s fun to see how much of themselves the people behind the scenes put into the show, even if the actors, writers, and directors are the ones we most instinctually want to credit with making the show great, because they’re the most forward-facing.
Next, I attended a panel called The Myth of the “Strong Female Characters,” which discussed how the show portrays its many female characters. The number, variety, and importance of female characters is one of the things that sets George R.R. Martin’s story apart from a lot of other popular fantasy fiction, and it was terrific to hear hosts @BeautyBrienne, Laura Stone, and Lauren Sarner discuss them intelligently.
From there it was on to the Great Hall to hear Ashaya of the History of Westeros blog and Emmett Booth talk about Dorne. In the Defending Dorne panel, the two of them examined in detail the important Dorne and the Dornish characters play to the overall arc of A Song of Ice and Fire. I’ll be honest: I was kind of hoping they were going to defend the choices the show has made in relation to Dorne on the show, but I was probably setting myself up for disappointment there. No one can defend that.
The most fun panel of the day for me was a discussion about The Best Ruler in Westeros/Essos, where hosts Dave Gonzales, Joanna Robinson, and Neil Miller (all of whom are featured on the A Storm of Spoilers podcast) debated who deserved the title of the best ruler in this story. The audience got heavily involved, too, and all sorts of names were suggested, from Jon Snow to Daenerys Targaryen to Sansa Stark to Lyanna Mormont to Gendry to Varys to Cersei to, confusingly, the Sealord of Braavos.
But in the end, there could only be one. After narrowing down the candidates, one character walked away with the title: Book!Stannis.
Finally, I attended the Con’s cosplay contest, which was amazing. Seriously, the amount of work some of the attendees put into their outfits was mind-boggling. Have a sample.
Please, Night King, accept this offering and spare me when winter comes. @ConOfThrones #GameofThrones #PrepareForWinter pic.twitter.com/k1OZf2JCJC
— Ben Conrad (@BenNConrad) July 1, 2017
We're LOVING all the amazing cosplay this weekend! pic.twitter.com/JIb4qUFu9C
— Con Of Thrones (@ConOfThrones) July 1, 2017
Personally, I loved the girl in the lower right-hand corner of the tweet above, who dressed as the explosion of the Sept of Baelor. Now that’s creativity.
Still, the unquestioned champion of the contest was this guy:
Why yes, that is a live human person in an 8-FOOT-TALL WUN WUN SUIT. So glad you asked.
That costume was so insane…anyway, he won first prize, and then he and his fellow cosplayer did a celebratory dance.
What will the third and final day of the Con bring? Stay tuned.