With a little over a month left until Season Three of Game of Thrones airs, fans (like me) are getting hungry for glimpses of the show. HBO, for their part, has been holding on to new footage tightly, apparently in an effort to ramp up fans’ excitement via the time honored art of withholding. For me, this is working very well.

On the bright side, though, the release of the Game of Throne’s second season means that there are hours of new footage, deleted scenes, and featurettes have hit the web. While none of them show anything of the upcoming third season, they do help ease the withdrawals pains a bit.

In this deleted scene (SPOILER ALERT-RUN FOR YOUR LIFE), Littlefinger and Varys trade barbs, mostly about the travails of being a eunuch. For fans of these two amazing characters (and the actors who play them) this is a gem, even though I can see why it was cut. This scene doesn’t advance the plot in any way, and is mostly a rehash of a similar scene from the first season.

[springboard type=”video” id=”671681″ player=”ulfb001″ width=”480″ height=”400″ ]

This is the scene I am most glad they cut, a poorly acted and extremely sacrilegious scene in which Doreah (who dies of illness in the books) murders Irri (who does not die in the books). Why they decided to go this way I could not say. I can only say that I’m glad that they cut this scene.

[springboard type=”video” id=”671683″ player=”ulfb001″ width=”480″ height=”400″ ]

Here’s one I wish had stayed in the series. The Hound is one of my favorite characters in the books and the scenes that focus on his fixation on Sansa go a long way to showing why. In this scene, Rory McCann shows us that Clegane is not just a fearsome monster, but he’s not simply “hiding” a sensitive man underneath a fearsome façade either.

[springboard type=”video” id=”671685″ player=”ulfb001″ width=”480″ height=”400″ ]

Finally, there are a number of vignettes about the “History and Lore of Westeros” that are definitely worth watching, especially if you’ve not read the books. There are no spoilers in these, so watch away.

Robert’s Rebellion

[springboard type=”video” id=”671687″ player=”ulfb001″ width=”480″ height=”400″ ]

Davos Seaworth

[springboard type=”video” id=”671689″ player=”ulfb001″ width=”480″ height=”400″ ]

House Clegane

[springboard type=”video” id=”671691″ player=”ulfb001″ width=”480″ height=”400″ ]

For the rest of the History and Lore of Westeros, look here  and for more deleted scenes, check out the Season Two on DVD or Blu-Ray set.