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The Winds of Winter ~ Preview Collection is listed on amazon with a release date of September 6. I want to believe.
Later edit: it's listed as having 196 pages so it has to be a collection of the so far released chapters. Hope shattered.

It will be a very short series before they die of Dengueos Feveros.

> Come on you know you want to see knights take on Velicoraptors

Your wish is my command. Behold, The Dinosaur Lords

"It's like a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones." --George R. R. Martin

All this Tommen love reminds me of one of my favorite pictures of the good king.

Also I never noticed the line about "going away inside" while Joff did inexplicable things, seems parallel to what Jaime describes doing when watching the mad king, like father, like son I suppose.

You saying that makes me think about what stephen king wrote about writing The Stand in his book On Writing, basically it got to be such a big long book with so many characters he just got stuck and decided on (I'll avoid spoilers) something bad happens and a lot of characters are killed, essentially forcing the remaining characters to make a move and begin advancing the plot again.

It feels ridiculous to tell GRRM that he needs to kill characters but after reading TWOW chapters that have been released, there are characters that are clearly just meandering with no purpose.

funny. I always just tought it was to show that Petyr is demonic.

>Baal (/ˈbeɪl/ bayl; sometimes spelled Bael, Baël (French), Baell) is in 17th century goetic occult writings one of the seven princes of Hell. The name is drawn from the Canaanite deity Baal mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the primary god of the Phoenicians.

>In this unholy hierarchy, Baal (usually spelt "Bael" in this context; there is a possibility that the two figures aren't connected) was ranked as the first and principal king in Hell, ruling over the East. According to some authors Baal is a Duke, with sixty-six legions of demons under his command.

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Baal_(demon)

Those interested in this mod should also check out Westeros: Age of petty Kings. It's also a mod for Medieval 2, but centered in Westeros before Aegon's conquest. It has been out for a few years now. Great mod.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/westeros-age-of-petty-kings

I'm quite fond of The North Remembers. Obviously not quite on the same level as Martin's work, but it's entertaining as hell and offers a (mostly) satisfactory conclusion to the story.

Good selections, but I'm a little disappointed that no candidates that were out of left field made it in

Edit: Hi-jacking my top comment to say I created a 64 person losers bracket. Check it out!

Google Doc

Imgur link - very blurry though

Let me know if this is something you are interested in voting on!

Thanks for sharing, this is a great deal for any Kindle users who don't have this book yet, or if you just want to have a digital copy. (If you don't have a Kindle device you can just download the Amazon Kindle app and read on your own phone or tablet.)

Direct link here: https://www.amazon.com/Knight-Seven-Kingdoms-Song-Fire-ebook/dp/B00S3R6HAE/

I seriously cannot believe that anyone missed this. You have four days left to order this.

>https://teespring.com/manderlysmeatpies

and heres the original thread.

>http://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/y7pjx/spoiler_adwd_the_north_remembers_fanart_updated/

Drop the creator a thank you. He worked really hard on it.

Lysa thinking Sansa is plotting to steal Littlefinger.

This one is controversial here but Tyrion's theory that Joffrey hired the assassin to kill Bran doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It was actually Mance.

Actually, it's possible, albeit not very likely.

Sun Tzu (a famous Chinese general whose tactics are studied even in our time) addressed this issue in his book "The Art of War":

> To a surrounded enemy, you must always leave a way of escape.

Intuitively, that doesn't sound correct. If you can surround your enemy, then why shouldn't you?

Well, the answer is pretty simple. You never want to fight men who have nothing to lose. Absolutely never. Soldiers fight with extreme ferocity when their backs are up against the wall. Sun Tzu argued that the best way to execute an encirclement is by leaving a small gap so that the enemy could rout. Killing men who flee is easy, killing men who fight is hard. The Persians didn't take his advice at the famous Battle of Thermopylae and that ended badly for them.

One more thing, Ramsay's men were in a phalanx formation (a tactic that was very popular in Ancient Greece, but not so much during the High Middle Ages). This formation was a strong defensive formation, but its main weakness (besides low manoeuvrability) was that when one part of the formation fell, the entire formation collapsed. A good example would be The Battle of Cynoscephalae. During that battle, the Romans sent elephants against the Macedonian phalanx, and the Macedonians routed. Jon could have done the same thing with Wun Wun. A fucking giant is like an improved war elephant. Had Jon punctured a hole through the Bolton phalanx, he could have won.

As others mentioned, there were a lot of battles that involved complete encirclement tactics that were won (Cannae and Walaja for example) but it's a risky tactic, especially with phalanx.

Disclaimer: this is not my area of expertise; any corrections will be gladly accepted!

Popular? Sure. I'll give you that. Most popular? That is both intuitively and demonstrably untrue.

My favorite artistic rendition of Tyrion Lannister.

No tufts of black hair but other than that in my head this is spot-on.

Artist: Rodrigo W. R. Rezende

GRRM talking about D&D (22. august 2017) https://meduza.io/en/feature/2017/08/22/fantasy-needs-magic

>They are independent. They can do whatever they want. I don’t have any power… any contractual right to [stop them]. I consult with them. I talk to them on a regular basis. Of course, years ago, we had a series of very long meetings, where I told them some of the big twists and turns and huge events that were coming in the last few books. So they’ve been touching [on] some of these, and doing some of the reveals, but they have also been departing in various ways.

It wouldn't surprise me if ASOIAF "ended" with the construction of a second wall, once the others were pushed back into the lands of always winter. Anonine's wall was created AFTER Hadrian's wall, after all...

I mean, I get that ASOIAF is loosely inspired by the War of the Roses (which was significantly later than 142 AD), but hey.

If you haven't already you should check out On Writing by King. It's incredibly fascinating and gives a brilliant insight into him, how he writes and moreover his process behind it, his absolute revulsion at adverbs, coming up with ideas, advice for beginner authors, etc. It also contains a postscript about his accident (he was hit while he was writing it and it was the first book he finished after it when he thought he might never be able to write again) and how it effected his writing.

And, of course, it's pretty well written too. Informal, pretty short, and very interesting especially when he goes through early drafts of his work (like 1408, indeed he even wrote that short story for this book to be an example) and explains his reasoning behind things, why he cut certain things, put things in, changed things (like changing Ostermeyer to Olin - because it shortened his story by 15 lines and he realized that in the audiobook he'd be better off saying Olin a lot instead of repeating Ostermeyer!), etc.

Would recommend.

Nymeria's wolf pack will come into play in some way:

> "You know, I don’t like to give things away." says Martin, a grin spreading across his face. "But you don’t hang a giant wolf pack on the wall unless you intend to use it."

> -Source

As a whole, medieval women had their first period at 15 or 16. Noblewomen would have had theirs earlier but, even so, eleven would have been almost unheard of, and twelve relatively rare. Based on medieval sources, it seems that they would have reached the age of menarche at 13 or 14^1 , though even then there was one school of thought which said women weren't capable of having a healthy child until the age of 20. Other medieval authors seem to have thought that women were capable of giving birth to healthy children from 15 onwards^2 , but that's still a few years past 11 and certainly gives time for maturation.

So, no, Sansa wouldn't necessarily be close to being considered an adult in a practical sense (distinct from a legal sense). There's still plenty of room for her to realistically be a silly little girl.

^1 Amundsen, Darrel W., and Carol Jean Diers. “The Age of Menarche in Medieval Europe.” Human Biology, vol. 45, no. 3, 1973, pp. 363–369., www.jstor.org/stable/41459883.

^2 Post, J. B. “Ages at Menarche and Menopause: Some Mediaeval Authorities.” Population Studies, vol. 25, no. 1, 1971, pp. 83–87., www.jstor.org/stable/2172750.

Puerpural fever, also known as "childbed fever." It's what killed most women who died from childbirth in the days before modern medicine. Childbirth is traumatic to a woman's body, particularly the first birth, and presents a large number of opportunities for the bacteria normally present on/in the human body to gain abnormal access to the bloodstream and become deadly via septicemia or peritonitis. The entire uterine lining is susceptible to infection after the separation of the placenta. This is particularly likely if the birth is difficult and non-sterile hands or instruments are used to try and bring the baby out.

Add in that a woman's immune system is thoroughly stressed after nine months of pregnancy, and you have a chance for a lot of deadly infections to take hold. And they can take up to ten days to show symptoms.

I do wonder a bit whether or not a maester was present. Unless the Tower of Joy was a lot more inaccessible than it seems, I find it odd that Rhaegar and his friends and the Kingsguard didn't manage to scare a maester up from the neighboring lands to help Lyanna with her delivery, particularly after she started getting obviously sick. Yeah, they may have wanted to keep her location secret, but what's the point of protecting someone via secrecy just to have her die of illness instead?

I wonder if there's a maester out there somewhere who could attest to what REALLY killed Lyanna Stark...and maybe provide signed witness documents?

I actually physically own this map ( as well as many others), and it's from the Lands of Ice and Fire map collection, which predates WOIAF by a year.

I don't own WOIAF, so I can't comment on that. Perhaps it reproduced the maps and made them canon.

It kills me, because David Benioff wrote one of my favorite novels. I had such high hopes when I learned he was on this project. (The audiobook is especially great, Ron Perlman is the reader.)

Yeah, what was so annoying about that scene in an otherwise great episode is that the next scene with Tyrion after he presumably sits down with Bran is the fireplace chat and he’s like “I think we’ll live”. I was like “please don’t let this show cheese out and leave all these characters standing.” I mean, I loved everyone in that room but there needed to be stakes for the story to have any poignancy.

I interpreted that scene as Bran giving Tyrion some comfort about the war with the Night King but maybe Tyrion isn’t 10/10 sure he believes in Bran’s capabilities yet. So he tries to offer a bit a comfort/levity to the rest, but he’s not really sure he believes it, so he passes it off as a joke.

One thing is for sure, Funko really nailed Bran’s emotional range when they designed his figurine. So accurate, it’s uncanny. ��

https://www.amazon.com/Funko-Pop-Television-Collectible-Multicolor/dp/B07DFGC7FR

Anyone interested in the process of writing should get Stephen Kings "On Writing". He narrates the audio book, too, which is great. He talks about the difficulty and awesomeness of writing in a great way.

In fact GRRM should get it too. There's some tips in there he would appreciate.

Ok so they aren't completely accurate but I still thought it was cool. Here is the artist's tumblr the original source of this, and his etsy where you can buy a print

>And additionally I'm supposed to believe Frey's, Roose, Tywin and Sybell negotiations over vast distances were somehow kept secret, even when in most other cases if 3 persons knows some secret, it will be leaked.

They all used NordVPN and Signal.

And Stephen King (in his book On Writing) recommends cutting 10% of your old material on each review/draft. So, if you followed that rule and did two new drafts of each book, you'd have an extra book's worth of material after Book 5.

I wouldn't be surprised if GRRM operates similarly when writing. He does describe himself as more of a gardener author rather than than an architect.

So far this season is averaging 12% more than last season, so that would project to 9.08 million viewers for E10 to last year's 8.11 (although E9 would probably have reached 8 million if not for the NBA, so you could say ~9.3 million is more likely)

Disclaimer - if the USA defeat Argentina tonight and hence play in the Copa America final - which starts an hour before E10 (and lasts around 2 hours), the ratings might not be so high - but even in the world of ASOIAF, USMNT defeating la albiceleste is one twist too far (then again, read the second paragraph and the last sentence of this article about the likelihood of the Cavaliers coming back from 0-2...)

>“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame. But, if orders are clear and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their oficers.”

-Sun Tzu The Art of War

Rob's order was unclear/not understood by Edmure. Rob told him to hold the castle not how to hold it. By not giving specific instructions Edmure is forced to believe that the strategy of defending the castle was at his discretion: which is natural given that Edmure knows the castle and surrounding lands. More so when that is the case 99.9% of the time in fuedal war-fare.

Edmure knew that Riverun's strength was in it's ability to seperate the besieging forces and use sorties to weaken them piecemeal. Rob himself used this technique when he lifted the siege.

It's also Robs job to know the dispositions of his officers and select the right commander for the right tasks. If he wanted someone to sit back and let Roband his Northmen win all the glory he should have chosen the Blackfish

One of the times they were playing "the game". Arya insists that she hated him and the waif keeps hitting her bc she is lying. I think she eventually admitted that she wanted to hate him. Looks like she later said he wasn't in her list anymore actually http://aminoapps.com/page/thrones/2859121/a-girl-speaks-of-the-hound

According to Wikipedia, ADWD was announced 4 months prior to release, so if TWOW was to be released in Q2 (which I doubt it will at this point) we'd likely hear the announcement around now.

> "On March 3, 2011, publishing imprint Bantam Spectra announced that the novel would be released on July 12, 2011. Martin delivered the manuscript to his editor on April 27, 2011..."

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dance_with_Dragons

You can get all three stories collected in one volume entitled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for less than $20 on Amazon.

This edition contains exclusive new artwork but has the original three stories in their original form.

June 2016 - GRRM asks Stephen King how he writes so fast

Stephen King has pretty good idea of what "working on it" means I think. Here's an excerpt from his autobiography/writing guide:

>“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Basically, professional writers treat writing like a job. That means putting your butt in a seat and putting words on a page with a consistent schedule, whether you want to or not.

I'm not saying this isn't what GRRM is doing, I don't know his life, I don't know his schedule, but I have my doubts.

Weir might come from weird. Here's the etymology of weird:

> Old English wyrd ‘destiny,’ of Germanic origin. The adjective (late Middle English) originally meant ‘having the power to control destiny,’ and was used especially in the Weird Sisters, originally referring to the Fates, later the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth ; the latter use gave rise to the sense ‘unearthly’ (early 19th cent). http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/weird

It could also come from were- as in werewolf. That prefix means man, as in part man, part wolf. The trees are part human due to the greenseers.

I think it's a different kind of frustration though. Like I feel like I'm a 5 hour drive away from something, so I've got to go there someday. You're a 5 hour plane trip.

You really need to make sure you understand how to get there you own way: go to techie events, learn to make a sales pitch, learn to recruit and organize. Get the free edition of http://www.justinmind.com/ and learn how to design out the app so you can pitch it to people, etc. A different kind of pressure.

I just want to do all it myself.

Hi! Looks like you want to subscribe to Wild Cards Facts!

Did you know that book 5, "Down and Dirty," can be found on Amazon for $0.49? Quite a bargain!

Please reply "THX MR TUDBURY" to unsubscribe from Wild Cards Facts.

> "You know, I don't like to give things away." says Martin, a grin spreading across his face. "But you don't hang a giant wolf pack on the wall unless you intend to use it."
http://mashable.com/2014/11/16/george-rr-martin-charity-event/

On the first day listed March 15,2011 if you search by "top" one of the results says release date info for book 6

That is perfect, for as long as we can search back people have been speculating about when TWOW will come out, even when there were less then 300 crows here.

The answer is that he is semi-retired and barely works on the book at this point. This is from his New Year post: "I worked on the book a couple of days ago, revising a Theon chapter and adding some new material, and I will writing on it again tomorrow." This is him saying he's making process. He's PROUD that he worked on the book "a couple of days ago" and plans to work on it again tomorrow? Why doesn't he just plan to write every day?

Most productive writers (e.g., Stephen King, Haruki Murakami in this article http://www.openculture.com/2015/12/the-daily-habits-of-famous-writers.html ) have a daily schedule. They sit down at their desk at exactly the same time every day and work for a certain period. Maybe it's only four hours, maybe it's six, but they have a work ethic. Obviously, GRRM does not. He stresses about not making any progress and does not in fact actually make progress.

Obviously I'm not saying he needs to be chained to his desk until he finishes his novel, but if he's still pretending to be a professional writer he should at least meet his readers halfway and show up to work every day.

A friend of mine started with A Feast for Crows and didn't have much of an issue, but I would DEFINITELY recommend starting with book one.

Game of Thrones will very much feel like a retread, as season one was incredibly faithful, but there's much more depth to be found in the novels with the books' second person perspective. I was a huge fan of the show only until three months ago when I finally picked up this great collection and I've had a fantastic time catching up. There are many secondary characters that aren't vital to the plot and don't appear in the show, but just being familiar with them by the time the books really part from the show will make it a much more enjoyable read.

Best get some toilet paper, you've got some cleaning up to do.

44 year old, 5'3" woman lifts front end of 4,500 pound car off ground to help rescue child underneath. "My body hurts all over now" after she did it.

Great analysis. GRRM said that he doesn't want any rules to magic, but he has to have some kind of basic idea and rules... But he did say this, just few days ago:

>And I try to keep the magic magical — something mysterious and dark and dangerous, and something never completely understood. I don’t want to go down the route of having magic schools and classes where, if you say these six words, something will reliably happen. Magic doesn’t work that way. Magic is playing with forces you don’t completely understand. And perhaps with beings or deities you don’t completely understand. It should have a sense of peril about it. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2017/08/22/fantasy-needs-magic

He actually does use Wordstar. (4th paragraph.) It sounds as if he doesn't even use DOSBox, so a floppy disk might actually be involved.

As a fat guy who loves food, I've always loved his food-porn. Not just because I love descriptions of food, but because I really am able to immerse myself in the scene. Smell and taste are some of the most memory-triggering senses we have, and it puts you right there with the character.

However, you are absolutely right that he's using this as a way to convey the class divisions and the hardship of war, and it's not something that is often brought up.

Also, if anyone doesn't know about it, I highly recommend the Official Games of Thrones Cookbook. It's got excellent, real medieval recipes based on the food in the book:(https://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492)

And as a reference point - I have a ~110,000-word manuscript in ms format sitting on my desktop right now. It's 388 pages long (including appendices). That's the size of a hefty novel. So when he's talking about 542 ms pages here and 472 there, we're talking the length of like a novel and a half, somewhere on the order of 150,000 words. Those 70 pages he cut are equal to aboue 20,000 words - the length of a D&E novella, IIRC.

The Jon thing is interesting; I didn't know that about those specific chapters. Writing comes in fits and spurts. When ya feel it, ya feel it; when ya don't, ya don't. 5 chapters...referencing this lovely post, rewriting 5 Jon chapters is looking to be arond 25k-30k words. At about a month-and-a-half, that's just under 1,000 words/day(!).

GRRM said this about show and D&D just few days ago:

>They are independent. They can do whatever they want. I don’t have any power… any contractual right to [stop them].

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2017/08/22/fantasy-needs-magic

So, Fire and Blood is 640 pages long (75 of which are illustrations). There's some stats about it in the Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Untitled-Ballantine/dp/152479628X/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523998199&sr=8-1&keywords=9781524796297

It's the size of a regular ASOIAF book and weighs 2.3 pounds. A few of the stories are "unabridged" versions of stories he wrote in other books, but most of it is wholly original, and ends at the end of the Dance of Dragons war. This is also the "full story", the first part of the GRRMarillion, which isn't leaving out any parts to "no one knows" unless it's never going to be told. Interesting, and hopefully it'll tide people over a while. Hopefully it also explains some of the main series mysteries.

I'm really hoping we get that Winds book I've heard so much about soon, too. I just hope he doesn't rush it. Sure it's probably going to come out around 8 years after the previous book in the series, but... seems like it'll come out next year.

The only thing that came close to the intrigue of ASOIAF was The Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon. George R. R. Martin called The Accursed Kings "the original game of thrones", citing Druon's novels as an inspiration for his own series A Song of Ice and Fire. Swapped babies/hidden princes/murder/intrigue... but it is all real history. The audiobooks are good and on Audible. The Iron King is the first book. It is only 3.99 in kindle version now and only 9 bucks for the audiobook if you buy the kindle book https://www.amazon.com/Iron-King-Accursed-Kings-Book-ebook/dp/B00B0PFYKK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accursed_Kings

I read Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones by Shiloh Carroll.

Carroll challenges GRRM's claim that his books are "realistic" or "historically accurate", by his biases for constructing what "realism" feels like in his fiction. She brings a depth of understanding of "medievalism" (the interpretation of the medieval era) in contrast to "medieval history" -- Yes, this book is pomo, academic, and extensively footnoted.

Carroll gets a few details of r/asoiaf's hivemind wrong, such as not reading Jon Connington as gay, but on topics like neomedievalist chivalric conventions and "monstrous woman" tropes, the discussions are solid.

The chapter on "Postcolonialism and Slavery" is the best one, showing a deep knowledge of and engagement with colonialist literatures, while placing GRRM's work in its literary context. Interestingly, the Andal invasion is discussed as a colonizing event, in terms of how it is understood by characters of the AGOT era. However, for the r/asoiaf audience, this section suffers from not incorporating the deep history provided by TWOIAF and the novellas.

Show!Sansa's story gets a lot of attention in the chapter on HBO GoT, with an argument that there are many layers of misunderstanding of medieval history contributing to her fate. Carroll dislikes Sansa's friendship with Margaery because it cuts into the distress of book!Sansa's political isolation. And Season 5 Sansa is criticized because the Northern lords would not tolerate the abuse of a trueborn Stark daughter in a "realistic" feudal setting.

TL;DR: Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones was not written for the online fandom. But if you are interested in a brisk read (186pp + a thorough bibliography) that touches on major scholarly entry points for engaging with GRRM's masterwork, I would recommend it highly.

Stephen King has the same advice in On Writing.

I'll paraphrase. A story is like a fossil in the earth, fully formed, complete, waiting to be dug up.

The author's job is to dig that fossil up intact, without harming it. If you are careless, heavy handed, don't have the right tools or abilities, it will come out in pieces or just destroyed.

The story's job is to be told Once you've told it...to yourself, to an interested friend, to the internet, on an outline, or in a shitty rough draft that you didn't give proper time to, it will vanish. It's goal is completed.

And your goal as an author? Failed.

This is actually not an uncommon idiom. I believe it originates in the Bible, but can't quote chapter and verse. Anyway, it's been used for ages. JFK said in a speech during the Cuban Missile Crisis, "even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth." A similar phrase is used in The Devil and Daniel Webster: "and there's talk of running him for governor--and it's dust and ashes in his mouth." The phrase even has a reference page on the Oxford Dictionaries web site: turn to ashes in one's mouth.

Point being, in this case, I think Tyrion is just using an established idiom that doesn't necessarily foreshadow anything.

If it's a popular book (which it is) there should be lots on it. Ask the research desk in your library. Or you can try Google Scholar.

https://teespring.com/stores/ccshop

Digital paintings I've done inspired by this season of Game of Thrones. Constructive criticism is very welcome! Any suggestions as to other designs people would love to see is welcome too! I'm looking to add a lot more content to my shop in the coming weeks.

It makes great sense, as I had a very similar experience with Taoist political philosophy! I read The Art of War first, then Liu Ji's commentaries, then the Tao Te Ching, then the Huainanzi (bad order in terms of chronology, but it actually worked really well for progressively broadening the scope and looking at specific applications).

The Huainanzi is the one I keep coming back to most often, with wonderful quotes like:

The Martial Lord of Wei asked one of his ministers what made a nation perish. The minister replied, "Numerous victories in numerous wars."

The lord said, "A nation is fortunate to win numerous victories in numerous wars -- why would it perish thereby?"

The minister said, "When there are repeated wars, the people are weakened; when they score repeated victories, rulers become haughty. Let haughty rulers command weakened people, and rare is the nation that will not perish as a result."

at least they're not as bad as the video game adaptations. Thank the gods for Telltale for doing both series justice (yeah, their Game of Thrones game hasn't come out yet, but there's no way it'll be as bad as the other one)

This post reminds me of a GRRM quote:

Ten years from now, no one is going to care how quickly the books came out

>Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into to his own selfish, worst impulses.

>In some senses, Theon is struggling all the way through to be a hero. They both come out of the same situation: they’re both raised in Winterfell by Eddard Stark, but they’re not part of the real, core family. Theon is a ward, and Jon Snow is a bastard son. So they’re both a little outside, but Jon handles this successfully, and Theon fails to handle this. He is poisoned by his own envy and his sense of not belonging.

Source

Looks like True Detective is scheduled for a 9PM EDT airing (for those who, like me, don't actually have any idea when True Detective airs on HBO).

Thought about pre-ordering and something is... fishy. Can you tell me why is there such a price difference between this version and this one? Both are Hardback

"Causing mild fear." https://www.wordnik.com/words/chilling

"gravely disturbing or frightening" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chilling

"to horrify or frighten" (google's definition when used in regards to a 'chilling passage' from a novel)

Here is a link to an old theories discussion site

A lot of fans expected Robb to marry Dany. This poster was right about a few things.

By: Charles the Uncivil > --------->Who I think will definitely die before the end of the series, and the reasons why: Robb, Sansa, Jaime, and Gregor Clegane. Why they will die: Robb: See Dany's visions in the House of the Undying. She sees a dead man with the head of a wolf wearing an iron crown, presiding over a party of butchered banqueters. That is definitely Robb. I think that the Boltons or the Freys are going to betray him. Sansa: Her magical wolf is dead. It's only a matter of time before she follows it. Jaime: He's confessed fathering the royal children, and Catelyn was about to do something extremely nasty to him. If she doesn't kill him, he'll be assassinated before he can confess in public. Gregor Clegane's head was promised to Doran Martell. These are the only ones I'm at all certain about, though I'm guessing that if Stannis survived the battle of Kings Landing, he'll start sending his shadow assassin after the royal family. >

Go to amazon and have a look inside the book. You can read a couple of pages, and make a decision based off of that.

Here's a link (click)

Stephen King talks about the HP series in his fabulous book "On Writing", saying that an aspiring writer "could do much worse than to read the HP books. They're just fun, pure story from beginning to end." JK is a great storyteller, if nothing else.

There is an app called "Web Alert" ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.webalert), which will check for changes in any desired website. So you can set the http://grrm.livejournal.com/ and set it to check for updates even every 1 minute if you'd like.

R + L = J

^ possibly the first internet post where this is speculated.

According to the theory, Lyanna and Rhaegar are Jon's parents. Further expanded upon, it is speculated that there is something in Lyanna's crypt at Winterfell that legitimizes Jon as a Targaryen.

This is the set I got.

I really love them. It was my first time reading the series, and the little leather volumes felt fantastic in the hand. They're printed rather small, and on quite thin paper, so you get 1100 pages in a fairly tight package. My only complaint would be when you're on the first or last few chapters it can be awkward to hold one handed, but that's true of any long book.

Unfortunately there's no such thing as guarantees for matching books. Sets are constantly changed when they reach a new stage of 'completion' or get a rerelease. I'd accept that they're not going to match until the post series sets come out after A Dream of Spring.

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you all know there is a groupon deal for the Con of Thrones and day passes are only $40. The weekend passes on groupon are $160 as well. However if you purchase passes for each individual day, then your total will come to $120. Pretty good deal. https://www.groupon.com/deals/goldstar-con-of-thrones

Man, this question gets asked like every week! It's amazing.

There were a few points to Quent. Most are thematic/worldbuildy. We get insight into the complex political shit going on with Yunkai, and we see firsthand the capriciousness of sellsword companies. We also get eyes in Volantis, which GRRM does several times throughout ADWD - I believe to set up Volantis to be destroyed next book.

Quent also has thematic importance, like I said. The first line of his first chapter is "Adventure stank." That about sums it up, really. It's a little 4-chapter vignette that deals with the harsh realities behind a romantic-sounding mission. The prince is going to sneak off and, through adventure and danger, win the heart of the princess! Except that's not what happens. Quentyn is terrified of Dany, and is really the consummate innocent. Doran makes a big stink about protecting innocents, but Quentyn's story shows us that, like Arianne, Doran is not above using innocent people to accomplish his goals.

And then there are the plot importances. We get the dragons released, of course, and we see the dragons firsthand - an important thing to do, when they're locked in the pits for most of the book. There's also the matter that Doran will now be backed into a corner. Aegon VI is a Targaryen who is here in Westeros and is winning battles. If you're Doran, you're going to pick the Targaryen in the hand over the dragons in the bush any day of the week.

Quentyn's story is really remarkably efficient. In four chapters, GRRM takes care of all those points I listed above. /u/BryndenBFish usually has some good answers to this too - where you at bud?

Anyway, if you want to read more of my thoughts, here's a link to a blog post I did a while back about quent: https://wordpress.com/post/76049864/26/

Since I don't know how detailed you want to go, I'll instead point you to two resources

• wiki on geography
• world of ice and fire ap

This is a total wormhole of a question. I think you'll actually have a lot of fun digging around finding places that you like.

ok fine i'll do a couple. Have a couple ones up by the wall ie castle black etc. name the mountain ranges and major rivers.

• North would have white harbor, the neck, bear island, dreadfort, deepwood motte and skagos. There are some other fun names like wolfswood, seadragon point and cape kraken.
• riverlands need twins, riverrun, harrenhall, godseye
• iron islands is fine just to name them in general. but old wyk, great wyk, harlaw and pyke would cover it.
• vale needs eyrie, fingers, sisters and maybe gulltown. mountains of moon and bay of crabs are great names.
• westerlands, you could probaly drop lannisport because casterly rock is like literally next to it. golden tooth is good. maybe throw the crag and ashmark too.
• reach need arbor, oldtown and highgarden. maybe ashford too.
• stormlands need storms end, tarth, and probably summerhall.
• crownlands need king's landing, maidenpool, crackclaw point and duskendale. oh and dragonstone.
• dorne needs sunspear, starfell, arm/stepstones.

I listened to them all and really enjoyed them.

On a side note, audible has a version of Sun Tzu's The Art of War read by Littlefinger himself Aidan Gillen. It's not for sale but a free part of being a subscriber. It's under Channels in the Celebrity Voices section.

King's book On Writing really shows how it's not impossible to become a known writer if you're willing to put in the work. I found a lot of similar life struggles, and I'd suggest anyone who wants to write professionally read it in addition to the other standards.

The Ironborn are not effective in battle due to strength in numbers but rather how those forces are applied.

The following is a condenced excerpt of the Void and Actuality and Mauvering sections of Sun Tzu's The Art of War

>When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of its momentum; when the strike of a hawk breaks the body of its prey, it is because of timing.

>Thus, the momentum of one skilled in war is overwhelming, and his attack precisely timed. His potential is that of a fully drawn crossbow; his timing, that of the release of the trigger.

>A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation. His offensive will be irresistible if he makes for his enemy's weak positions; he cannot be overtaken when he withdraws if he moves swiftly.

>When I wish to give battle, my enemy, even though protected by high walls and deep moats, cannot help but engage me, for I attack a position he must relieve.

>When I wish to avoid battle, I may defend myself simply be drawing a line on the ground; the enemy will be unable to attack me because I divert him from going where he wishes.

>Appear at places which he is unable to rescue; move swiftly in a direction where you are least expected.

>War is based on deception. Move when it is advantageous and create changes in the situation by dispersal and concentration of forces.

>When raiding and plundering, be fierce as fire; in standing, firm as the mountains. When hiding, be as unfathomable as things behind the clouds; when moving, fall like a thunderbolt.

>When you plunder the countryside, divide your forces. When you conquer territory, defend strategic points.

>Weigh the situation before you move. He who knows the artifice of diversion will be victorious. Such is the art of manuevering.

Septon Meribald -- for his broken men speech. That was a fantastic moment in the books, that really would have been something to see well acted in the show.

http://genius.com/George-r-r-martin-a-feast-for-crows-brienne-v-broken-men-speech-annotated

The "Thing he finds in the crypts" could be Rhaegar's Harp, which is detailed in a theory here.

This is a pretty good theory, I'm interested to see if anything plays out like this.

Aye this map is 1583

Many more at Old Maps Online - that links to Somerset, you can play around to find others.

In his AMA, he tells a story about filming that scene where he said "at the age of 80 and a girl’s cock around my mouth!” Apparently Jerome Flynn (Bronn) couldn't stop laughing so they had to stop filming for the day

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/22sber/i_am_peter_dinklage_you_probably_know_me_as/cgpwz42

It's the original source at Apple.com:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/gameofthrones/

I downloaded it with JDownloader. However, since then, it's become available to download directly on HD Trailers.com:

http://www.hd-trailers.net/movie/game-of-thrones-season-5/

The graphic novels are actually pretty well done. They're faithful adaptations that don't really change anything, they just streamline the story a bit. But, by virtue of being adaptations, they're not canon for the novels.

Two years ago, I'd have told you to just go with the graphic novels since they were easier to find than the three separate anthologies containing the original stories, but now that all three of the original stories have been collected in a single volume that you can get for $18 on Amazon, I'd say go with that.

Plus, the new collected edition comes with original illustrations. Not the same as a graphic novel, but still cool.

In May 29, 2005 when GRRM announced that AFFC was done, he also stated that ADWD was half done. ADWD ended up being published a little bit over 6 years later in July 12, 2011.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20051231002117/http://www.georgerrmartin.com/done.html

Right!

> "You know, I don't like to give things away." says Martin, a grin spreading across his face. "But you don't hang a giant wolf pack on the wall unless you intend to use it."

From this interview.

A while ago I re-read the books by POV groups, it was actually a lot of fun and gave me some good insight into how GRRM writes each character. Here is the post I made about it. Note: it only goes up to AFFC but the rest should be easy to figure out.

Also, if you haven't already, I suggest re-reading Feast and Dance as one gigantic book. The chapter order isn't perfected yet, IMO, but this is the best compilation I've found.

Enjoy!

Ten years from now no one is going to care how quickly the books came out.The only thing that anyone will remember isbhow good theybwere.That isnmy main concern and always will be.-GRRM 20 July 2007

Words are wind,George, words are wind

This has been really fun, honestly, seeing all the talk around something I had taken for granted!

I didn't know about the astronomical/meteorological difference in seasons, but this spells it out pretty clearly.

As far as the "official" first day of winter in the US goes, I can't really tell if there even is one. NOAA says:

>The Winter Solstice Marks the official first day of winter and officially begins at 11:11 AM this December 21st.

...but that's the only governmental reference to an "official" start I can even find, so who even knows? Like you said, what's far more important is what's outside your window, not what's on the calendar!

Or it could be from 'weird'.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/weird

> Old English wyrd ‘destiny,’ of Germanic origin. The adjective (late Middle English) originally meant ‘having the power to control destiny,’ and was used especially in the Weird Sisters, originally referring to the Fates, later the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth ; the latter use gave rise to the sense ‘unearthly’ (early 19th cent).

Yeah, but thats not really the majority of r/asoiaf, is it? The general consensus is that the first three are the best with ASOS being the best.

Here's a poll for which book is the worst. Only one I could find on here with a good amount of votes.

Total votes: 1516

1. AFFC 810 votes (53%)

I think most people would put AFFC and ADWD low on their ranking list. That doesn't mean they are bad, just that the others are too good.

I'm not saying he didn't. Maybe he actually did. That's not what really matters.

I'm just implying that Doran perhaps planned this indirectly by letting it happen, well knowing that they will both die in the attempt. No matter what, Myrcella was supposed to die "accidentally," and Darkstar should have been a part of that, and now that he knows the truth of Myrcella's time with the Martells he may put Dorne in the Iron Throne's sights.

Pretty much Doran is a master at the game of thrones. He influences things over the long run, indirectly, and is literally always making little quips that could come straight out of The Art of War. He let this happen, maybe even made it happen. But things didn't go exactly as planned.

Oh, this one is Igbo! Okay

> EE-FAY-may-loo

My phone mic is shitty as hell but here's a sound clip of the pronunciation.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Primary stress is on the first two syllables - weird, I know, but it's actually important than you stress both high or else the name would mean something else entirely. An English equivalent...would be like the way you stress both syllables in "jumping" when you say "jumping jacks".

Secondary stress is on the "loo". So it's kind of like a chant.

The syllables almost always start on a consonant sound. So for instance you say "I-fe", not "If-e".

Finally (and also for future reference), the hardest part is getting the vowel sounds right. The vowels are longer and more distinct than you usually hear in English, sort of in between a long and short vowel.

• The "i" is pronounced longer than in "it" but shorter than in "eat", sort of like the one at the end of "happy".

• The "e" in "fe" is pronounced like "fate".

• The "e" in "me" is actually supposed to be pronounced distinctly, like in "may", but not as drawn out since it isn't stressed. Most English speakers (and myself as well, when I'm speaking quickly) substitute a schwa sound - as long as you can hear it distinctly you're fine.

• The "u" in "lu" is a very short sound, but pronounced with rising intonation. Like the "oo" in "wood", but pronounced with a rising intonation.

P.S. If you liked Americanah, you should try The Thing Around Your Neck by the same author - it's a collection of short stories. Her other two novels - Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun - are...well. Certain characters will give you a Joffrey/Ramsay feel. Only these ones are real.

:shrug: I would say we can go to the audio books for confirmation but Roy Doltrice managed to pronounce "Catelyn" four different ways in two paragraphs, so...

Luckily, Dolorous is a real word.

Merriam Webster says doe lur us with a long O.

The Cambridge dictionary has it listed both ways: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/dolorous

It's not the necklace Olenna tosses.

This is the necklace Olenna tosses. It's made of gold, and chunky.

This is the necklace Sansa gives Dontos. It has these greenish blue beads. And Dontos says that it belonged to his mother's mother. Steffon Hollard's wife's mother. I wonder who she was. I believe the Hollards and Darklyns will be of importance to the story eventually - because of their involvement in Duskendale.

As for the poison, I guess we will have our answers in a few weeks.

you don't understand what he is talking about and so your title is highly misleading.

"I started out very quiet and I beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr. de Maupassant. I’ve fought two draws with Mr. Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody’s going to get me in any ring with Mr. Tolstoy unless I’m crazy or I keep getting better. " -- Ernest Hemingway

GRRM was saying "who would think himself better than Tolkin?" and then he answered: Hemingway (because that guy had an ego as big as the Wall) and pointed to "All that 'wrestling with Tolstoy' stuff" which I quote above. When asked who won, he answered Tolstoy because that's what Hemingway himself thought.

After some Google sleuthing, it seems that these are the special edition volumes of the books published by HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780007441426

The Barnes and Noble deluxe edition is pretty nice-looking too.

This art was done for the show, by Jim Stanes. I think he mentioned somewhere that he was inspired by works of Ivan Bilibin, Russian artist and illustrator from the beginning of the 20th century, and by his classic depictions of Russian folklore dragon - Zmey Gorynych (loosely translated as Mountan Snake/Wyrm) such as this one: http://www.wikiart.org/ru/ivan-bilibin/zmey-gorynych-1912#supersized-artistPaintings-203776

Put

 

between them?

>The eldest was her father's age; the other two could not have been much older than Sansa, who had been her sister.

 

>"Dagmer will smash them," insisted Cromm, who had never met a woman he loved half so much as battle.

Also, add RES to your browser. One of the many, many tools it has is the "Source" button beneath people's posts/comments. It shows you how they formatted their stuff.

Not sure if copycat, or similar ideas at similar times, but A Game of Firms was first with this concept (and has more houses than just Targaryen). I think I even have that link from this sub.

True, and I think that was remarkably stupid. He also could have benefited from reading The Art of War, where Sun Tzu lays out why it might be helpful to leave your enemy an avenue of escape. But let's be honest, Ramsay had no intention of letting anyone escape that abbatoir.

If the show wasn't going to be revealing major things that have yet to published, I don't think GRRM would be releasing sample chapters like "Mercy" and "Alayne" the season before a scene based upon the writing is filmed for the show. The typos, and errors in Alayne also suggest to me that GRRM is also in a bit of a rush, when it comes to revealing things himself. GRRM releasing those specific chapters, when others are available, suggest that he does want to be the one to reveal certain things. However, he has just written too slowly. A relevant quote is the one where he says something to the effect of "In 10 years people won't care which came out first, the novels will be badass because I am going to write them well and not rush -Drops Mic" http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20170722T071459&p0=1440&msg=%22Ten%20years%20from%20now,%20no%20one%20is%20going%20to%20care%20how%20quickly%20the%20books%20came%20out.%20The%20only%20thing%20that%20will%20matter,%20the%20...

A Wiki of Ice and Fire is legal, like Wikipedia is legal. Their content is under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, so what I did is legal, since I put a link to the Wiki and a link to the license :)

What a delightful read. For those of you feeling some renewed interest in Huck Finn, I highly recommend Elijah Wood's audiobook performance. Seems like a bizarre narrator choice on the face of it, but once you hear it, you'll know what's up.

It's inverted in a way (getting something wrong spectacularly instead of accidentally right), but the definition for dramatic irony is loose enough to accomadate for it:

A literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.

We believe on a reread that Tyrion is completely wrong in his thoughts (words), and that there is a significance behind it (Jon being a true Claimant). That's all that's required.

It's like how we have a potential dramatic irony through Melissandre later on. She says Aemon is too blind to see Azor Ahai in front of him (Stannis); yet later she looks into the flames to find Stannis and they show only Snow. Herein the irony is that her blind faith in Stannis means she can't see that AA is (probably) right in front of her in the fires.

Jojen Paste is great and fine and dandy, but this one spends A LOT of time digging at Bloodraven being evil, which feels like a fool's errand. Yes, he's in a tree in the far north, yes he's surrounded by skulls and might use bloodmagic, and tells Bran he needs to use the darkness.

But...

>The battle between Good and Evil is a theme of much of fantasy. But I think the battle between Good and Evil is fought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. It’s not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they’re really ugly. These are some of the things that Tolkien did; he made them work fabulously, but in the hands of his imitators, they become total clichés. I mean the orc-like creatures who always do dress in black and... they’re really ugly and they’ve got facial deformities or something. You can tell that if somebody’s ugly, he must be evil. And then Tolkien’s heroes are all very attractive people and all that, of course, again this became cliché in the hands of the Tolkien imitators.

>Interview with TIME Entertainment, Fantasy and History, April 2011.

And plus, we know a lot about Brynden's history when he was Hand. He was possibly the most Machiavellian ruler Westeros has ever had. He was always willing to lie and murder if it meant the ends were good for the well-being of the realm. Nothing about Bloodraven really says he's evil except cliches. If Jojen Paste is real, it's more like bloodmagic is a means to an end for him. He's a nuanced character, not Emperor Palpatine.