OMG OMG OMG!!!

So, thanks to my favourite website, io9.com, I just learned that HBO has cast my favourite character from George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' for the fourth season of their great adaptation, Game of Thrones.

http://io9.com/game-of-thrones-has-cast-its-red-viper-618296783

Pedro Pascal (below) will be playing the Red Viper, Oberyn Martell, Prince of Dorne, the most epic badass of all time. I have no idea who the actor is, but he'll look good in the part.

Phwoar.

From io9:

EW shares this note about the casting from the showrunners:

“This was a tough one,” say showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss about the casting. “The Red Viper is sexy and charming, yet believably dangerous; intensely likable, yet driven by hate. The boys love him, the girls love him, and he loves them all back. Unless your last name is Lannister. We found a fellow who can handle the job description and make it seem effortless. He wasn’t easy to find and he won’t be easy to stop.”

SPOILERS!! The Red Viper shows up in King's Landing for King Joffrey's marriage to Margaery Tyrell. Spoilers: he hates both families with a passion. He's also bisexual, as is his bastard lover Ellaria Sand, who he insists on seating at the high table of the feast amid the snooty nobles, much to Queen Cersei's displeasure. The Dornish don't care though, they do things differently in the South.

But the Viper isn't just there for dessert, oh no, he's come seeking justice for the murder of his beloved sister Elia (wife of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, the son of the Mad King). Elia was brutally raped and killed by the Mountain when Tywin Lannister's armies sacked the capitol at the height of Robert's Rebellion, and her two children were murdered on Tywin's orders and presented to the newly-crowned Robert as evidence of the Lannisters' loyalty to their new king. After all these long years, the Viper wants the Mountain's head, yes, but he wants the man who gave the orders too.

The Viper has eight fiery bastard daughters back in Dorne, known as the Sand Snakes. One of these daughters will become very important later on, as will the murder of Elia's children. This is by no means a tangent to the main narrative - the Dornish have been kept out of the first books and the early seasons of the show because their part is an important one. I have been WAITING for this, if they do this right, I will be supremely happy.