Talk:A Song of Ice and Fire/Archive 1

Fourth novel title

The 4th Book is now called 'A Feast for Crows' and will be published sometime around September 2003.

Clean-Up?

There's a lot of discussion and speculation on this talk page about the publication of AFFC which has obviously already come to pass and therefore is now irrelevant. Can I suggest we clean up or archive this information? Cheers--Werthead 21:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Publication Date of A Feast for Crows

A excerpt from George R R Martin's site on June 2004:

I have been getting even more email asking if the latest publication date announced by one bookstore or another is correct. It isn't. I don't even care what date it is. I am still writing the book. Until it is done and delivered, all these announced pubdates are arrived at by throwing darts at a calendar. - George R. R. Martin

None of the messages on GRRM's site since then have announced any further publication date information. Hence I would consider this pubdate (i.e., date unknown) the most authoritative. Adding in other points of view here seems a little silly... Connelly 11:59, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

War of the Roses

I'd never heard of the war of roses until Ajd added that to the page. I looked it up and found it very interesting. It is rather obvious that he drew inspiration from that war. A great addition to the article.

Ivanhoe as reference

The knights, their tourneys, even some characters remind me of Ivanhoe. (Gregor Clegane as Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, Sandor Clegane as Brian De Bois-Guilbert. :)) )

Houses

The houses section should probably be moved to another page. We could (I might) also create a template called Template:ASOIAFHouses similar to Template:ASOIAFPlaces for the great houses (and any other major houses), and make pages for each, where each page lists the pledged houses as well. —siroχo 09:20, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

• At random, I noticed that there is no link in the nav-box to the List of Houses. Books, minor characters, and places, but no major-characters option? Seems a tad silly to me. Marblespire 07:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The problem is with Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire. Since it's called characetrs and not minor characters, it should at least point to the house articles. — Laura Scudder ☎ 08:07, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Ok, it at least links to all the houses now. Still is lacking the short descriptions of each I think it needs, but that can wait a bit. — Laura Scudder ☎ 08:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that made sense. The Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire page really contains Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire that don't belong to a major house. Some are major, some are minor. Some even are POVs. Linking to the major houses is not necessary, and certainly no navigational aid. If you want to find a character, the List of characters from A Song of Ice and Fire is the place to go. Why? Well, where would you look for Catelyn Stark of House Tully? House Stark? House Tully? Better yet, where is Joffrey? The reader shouldn't have to guess the editor's choices for deciding such issues. Arbor 17:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
    • The problem is that we have no central place for characters aside from List of characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, which is not exactly helpful navigationally. Notice how only house names are linked there, while characters described in Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire are simply listed without any info or links to where there is info. Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire really needs to be moved a better title unless it has some sort of summary or links for all the major characters. We need to decide which article will be the central repository for all major characters, and that one should be in the template. — Laura Scudder ☎ 22:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm in the process of fixing List of characters in A Song of Ice and Fire so that it links directly to the character-specific subsections for every character who has one, either on a House page or on Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire. That won't make it any more useful as a central page, since it's bloated and full of incredibly minor characters, but it will make the page less useless. I'm not sure we have much need for a page that acts as a direct central repository, though, or for listing all the House pages on Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire. However inaptly named, that page already points the reader to both the list page and the House pages, in the intro. Listing all of the Great Houses there, and particularly adding brief discussions of them, seems rather redundant. There's currently a "Great Houses" template in use on all House pages; perhaps it could be useful in some way on "Characters from..." Brendan 23:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Completion Announcement

I took this out because Martin has not updated the site yet. I realize that this has been reported on the board by Bronn and backed up by Parris, but I think we should hold off on putting it here until George makes the official announcement on Monday. Indrian 00:33, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Release

Why are we trusting a quote that was merely "reportedly" said at a book expo over the Amazon and distributor dates? Snowspinner 15:49, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Because some of us know these people personally. However, I understand the verifiability issue. [1], report #80, is a statement from GRRM's wife/significant other. Arbor 16:28, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Merging in character articles?

I came across a character article Beric Dondarrion, and as it seemed pretty small, propsed that it be merged with this article. I didn't do it myself as the current structure of this article did not contain a character section, so I thouhgt I'd open it up for discussion first. Thoughts, anyone?

He should go to Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire. (If he were of a greater House, say House Targaryen, he would belong there. But House Dondarrion doesn't deserve its own page. so he goes to the catch-all Characters from A Song of Ice and Fire. Thanks for trying to clean this up, by the way. Arbor 08:43, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I've now made the merge. (I also added a link to that character page to the Books template; maybe it should be changed to the comprensive one(List of...), though. Thanks for the response! JesseW 16:35, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I think you're right—it should. Also, the Characters from... ought to make it clear that many (most?) of the really interesting characters aren't on that page at all, but distributed over various House Blah pages or even their own page. I'd be grateful if you look at that. Arbor 17:38, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Arya pronunciation

I removed some homebrewn attempts for what seems to be (?) a variant pronunciation of Arya. But I'm not sure. The suggest was "are-ya", whatever that means. Is this meant to be different from the first suggestion? If no, it has to go, as per WP guidlines (use IPA). If yes, it is interesting and needs to be included. Please answer the following, and I will try to insert it properly

1. Which syllable is stressed? If it's the first, then I cannot really discern a big difference from ['ɑːrɪə].
2. Is the r pronounced? Because I say are as ['ɑː], and there sure is not r in ya.
3. Do you mean ['ɑːrjɑː]? (Last vowel like the first, but unstressed, i more like j)
4. Who says it this way, and what is the source for that?

Arbor 08:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not the one who introduced the pronunciation into the article (pronunciation is not a particular interest of mine), but I can offer a couple notes on it. The source is Martin himself, per Report #104 on [2]. The problem with that is that it's based on the reporter's own understanding of the colloquial phrase "Are ya?" (As in "Are ya (short form of "you") coming to the show or not?") It's particularly ambiguous as to the final vowel; I think it could credibly be ['ɑːrjɑ:] or ['ɑrj^] or ['ɑrjə].

The big difference as compared to Dotrice is that it's two syllables, not three, and has [j] rather than [ɪ]. I'm not at all sure that we should put it in without knowing more clearly what the final vowel is, though. Brendan 09:46, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the source. The problem with this is the same as with most of the other "con reports", for the reason you mention—most of them are useless, and tell us more about the reporter's pronunciation than about GRRM's. In the current case, I cannot see what we can do, GRRM could easily have said ['ɑːrɪə] at the reading, and the reporter gives his or her closest interpretion, wanting to stress that GRRM doesnt say [ɑ'rʌɪə]. I bemoan this situation as much as the next person. Arbor 11:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There are a couple audio interviews with GRRM online; I may listen to them sometime in the hope that he'll happen to mention Arya somewhere. If so, I'll let you know how he pronounces it. Brendan 20:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I found an interview where he uses her name. It is in fact ['ɑːrɪə], just like the Dotrice pronunciation. You can find it at the Martin interview in the archive at [3], about 1/3 of the way through. So no change to the article needs to be made. Brendan 20:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I've looked at some web pages (such as [4] and [5]) and listened to the Random House audio interview ([6]) and edited the pronunciation section accordingly. For instance, I've given Cersei as ['sɜ:rseɪ], and added Doran, Elia, Hodor, Rickon, and Sansa. The transcription of Baratheon seems implausible, but I don't know of an audio snippet of it or a pronunciation hint available on the Web from someone who's spoken with GRRM.Scentoni 10:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem is (i) the attributions are no longer correct. The audiobooks certainly don't use rhotic pronunciation, so you cannot attribute that to them. If you want to attribute it to GRRM (no doubt correctly so), I would be grateful if you updated the attributions as well. (ii) Inferring GRRM pronunciations from the audio interview is good. That's a faithful source. But inferring them from people's records at cons is bad, because you (as a WP editor) add unverifiable information by transforming an ill-defined proh-NAUN-see-ey-shun (or is it per-noun-cee-ehshin) to a very well-defined and faithful one (IPA). That violates WP:V; Wikipedia cannot be a primary source. (I started this effort, and the first version of this page was promptly voted for deletion, and correctly so, for precisely that reason: It's unverifiable. Here's the vote.) Until somebody else (like Ran) collects an external list of IPA pronunciations I cannot see how we can turn people's con reports into proper IPA. I am frustrated by that as much as the next guy. Arbor 13:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

To expand on this: Wikipedia can never have a page attempting to do Correct pronunciations of XYZ. That's not what Wikipedia does; it's not normative. What we can do here is to describe some pronunciations. For example those that we can verify, like the audiobooks'. You and I might agree that GRRM's pronunciations are much more interesting that some stuffy British actor's. But that's irrelevant. Your or mine opinion what the "correct" pronunciation is doesn't enter into it. Wikipedia collects viewpoints—it doesn't arbitrate the truth ("Verifiability, not Truth, is the standard for inclusion on Wikipedia". So we can do GRRM's pronunciations of XYZ and Dotrice's pronunciation of XYZ. That's what we are trying to do here. Describe and attribute. Don't arbitrate. Arbor 13:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think laymen's pronunciation guides are of no use whatsoever—particularly those guides that are found in GRRM's own emails and such—but I agree it's best to solidify the foundations of the section before discussing expansion. Because of that, I took the article and pasted back in the previous version of the pronunciation section and started again from there.

The way I initially read the section, it appeared that most of the entries were unattributed, and so I made changes that used the same set of sources, without specifying the attribution for each change. I think now that I misread the section, and that the entries without any specific attribution were actually meant to have a default attribution of "RD and/or JL"—that is, that either that's the way the word was pronounced by RD in the audiobooks (and JL didn't use the word at all) or that's the way it was pronounced by JL (and RD didn't use the word at all), or that both RD and JL used the word and pronounced it identically. Could you confirm that this understanding is correct? Because of this uncertainty, I marked those pronunciations with a question mark (?). If I misunderstood the attribution, some other readers probably have too, and it seems best to me to attribute every entry explicitly. Perhaps we should change that to another label, like AB for audiobook, or RD&/JL. A more painstaking solution (though not necessarily a better one) would be for you or someone else familiar with the audiobooks to make this more detailed, changing the ? to either RD, JL, or RD&JL, as appropriate for each entry.

I listened carefully to the two GRRM interviews linked in the article, and transcribed the names I heard. The Wikipedia:Footnotes system has difficulty dealing with multiple references to the same footnote, and it seems unwieldy to have a list of many individual footnotes just for the pronunciation section. Since there are only two interviews, it makes more sense to me to have only two footnotes (located in the introductory paragraph with a key) and use the labels RH and FF to identify the source for each entry. Take a look at this version and tell me what you think. Scentoni 06:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

This looks great! Thank you a million times for doing this; I will give it a detailed look later. Arbor 06:31, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Arbor. I see you've added some more pronunciations, marked CBC. Could you put a reference for this source into the article, parallel to the Random House and Fast Forward interviews? Is it Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or some other CBC? Is it available on the web? Also, some of these pronunciations seem to be in a dialect of English other than what GRRM speaks...the word "no" in general American English is [noʊ] or sometimes [no], not [nəʊ], so I think e.g. Areo Hotah and Doran need to be modified. Scentoni 18:08, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yup, there is some cleanup left. AE "no" would maybe even be [o(ʊ)], to be consistent with IPA chart for English. And I want to add Arianne. Arbor 18:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Plans for series pages

(This discussion is not solely about the page titled A Song of Ice and Fire, but about all the pages dealing with topics from the series; I've started it here for convenience.)

I've been thinking lately about how to make the aSoIaF pages on Wiki more useful. (No, I don't have anything better to do with my time; why do you ask?) Six months ago, when I was new to Wiki, I did a lot of revision on the various character pages. Looking at them now, I do think they still need some work- I hadn't quite figured out how to do a character section without summarizing book plot, and successive revisions have in some cases created issues I'd like to look at- but for the time being, they're good enough; there's certainly a lot of detail there (perhaps too much, but never mind).

By contrast, there seems to me to be a paucity of information on the milieu. We do have a few pages dealing with this (Westeros, Wars in..., Tourneys in...), but not all of them are as fleshed-out as they could be. Also, between them these articles offer a lot of opportunity to expand on history and geography, but no so much about the culture and institutions of the series. The way I'd like to remedy that is a catchall page about organizations in the books. "Organizations" is a broad term by intention: I'd like the page to discuss briefly groups like the Kingsguard, the maesters of the Citadel, and the Faceless Men.

Why do this? For one thing, it will help contextualize the character pages. One problem I ran into while rewriting them, and that I've seen looking at subsequent revisions, is that explaining what happens to characters requires going into detail about the milieu. How can we discuss Arya's training among the Faceless Men without saying quite a bit about what Faceless Men are, or mention that Jaime Lannister was the youngest Kingsguard in history without saying what the Kingsguard is? Too often the only recourse has been to add little asides in the character sections themselves, which bulks out the articles and pulls them off topic.

Another reason is that I think such a page will be more immediately useful than the character pages. As I mentioned, the character pages tend to read like plot summaries. While this is somewhat correctable, to a degree plot summary will always play a role there. But plot summaries are easier to glean from reviewing the books. The scattered info about how organizations work can be harder to find via casual reading, so collecting them in one place creates a useful resource.

Why not just create individual articles for each group? For one thing, I think they would probably be AFD'd quickly, and I'm not sure that would be wrong. Just as consolidating most of the character information into Great House pages and a catch-all creates a potentially encyclopedic article out of hundreds of potential stubs, putting all these discussion together allows for a broad overview that works better for general audiences. Also, putting all these things into one article encourages brevity, which I think is important in keeping away from fancruft.

You can see my early work at sectioning such a page at User:Brendan Moody/Kingsguard. The stuff at the bottom of the page is random information about Aerys's court that I pulled out of Aerys Targaryen before it was merged, and should not be mistaken for something that would be added to any page in its present form. You can see from the sections I've worked out there that I'd like to see Night's Watch merged with this page if it is created. Anyone is welcome to add new sections or content to that subpage; if an article is created, I'd like it to be of respectable length right from the beginning, to reduce the possibility of AFD.

So this is what I'd like to hear from other users: (1) Do you think such a page is a good idea? (2) If not, how could we better include this information (or should we include it at all)? (3) What are other organizations that should be discussed if this page does happen? (4) Can you come up with a decent name for the page? The best I can do is Organizations in A Song of Ice and Fire, which I think is terribly clunky and anachronistic. (5) I'd also like to know what others think could be done to improve Westeros and Wars in A Song of Ice and Fire, both of which offer the sort of information I'd like to see from the organizations page. Thanks for reading this bloated, rambling request, and please do comment. Brendan Moody 00:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I hadn't seen this comment before. As you can see I've already created stand alone Maester, Kingsguard and Night's Watch pages. I would think that many of the Orgs in aSoIaF deserve their own pages just on extent of info alone. I think major institutions can get their own pages when they fall under the following criteria:

• They are populated by POV or other important characters. (i.e. Night's Watch and Kingsguard)
• They serve as a central plot device themselves (i.e. Night's Watch)
• They are unique to the point that a detailed explanation is needed for the reader to understand the basics and why it's important (i.e. Maesters)

I wouldn't support an Organizations page because there would only be two ways in which to do it: put every Org in there or only the Orgs that do not warrant their own page in a situation similar to what we have now with the characters pages. If we took the first route then I think we would end up with a very messy and very long page that would be hard to navigate. This is possible to fix with alot of work and some painful trimming edits but I think the reader will be better served navigating by the aSoIaF Template and wikilinks and not having to keep going back to one massive page to find what s/he wants.

The second choice is, I think, better left alone in favor of minor context summaries of minor Orgs such as The Faceless Men and religious groups (that might get their own pages in the next few books). This makes it easier to learn as you go and puts everything into place when the reader needs it.

Also we might want to consider a Wikiproject for this kind of discussion and editing work. NeoFreak 18:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I'd given up these plans, and am happy with the current structure in any case. Brendan Moody 19:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think a project or portal or whatever it's called would be a good idea. A nontrivial number of editors are now contributing good material, and some sort of unified frontend would be great for co-ordination. Anybody care to point to a similar setup that we might emulate? Have the Harry Potter people or the WoT people already done this? Arbor 20:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I would love to one day have a quality Portal for ASOIAF but I think we are lacking in material to warrant one at the moment. A great example, as usual, of a good portal is the Tolkien portal at Portal:Middle-Earth. As far as the Wot pages go I would say that they are the last thing we would want to use as an example or inspiration as they are a stub filled mess with very hit and miss writing. As a matter of fact I think the ASOIAF pages are already better than the WoT. Still, I think a Wikiproject for the half dozen major editors to collaborate and attract new attention and editors to the pages would be great. I'll start to fish around and try to review the standards and practices for Projects but I'm as of this moment not familiar enough with them to speak as an authority. NeoFreak 00:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been looking at the WikiProject guidelines, and I'd say we clearly meet them; it suggests a minimum of three to five articles (we have 35 so far) and five interested editors (I'd say there are about ten semi-regular ASOIAF page editors, and "If you have less than the minimum number of editors recommended above, it may still be worth creating a WikiProject if the work being done involves a lot of coordination," which it clearly does). There are already Wikiprojects on Discworld, the Harry Potter books, the Inheritance trilogy, and the Narnia books, which are of comparable size and/or complexity to this series. All of which is a long-winded explanation for my creation of Wikipedia:WikiProject A Song of Ice and Fire. Please pop on over and help organize it. Brendan Moody 04:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Martin quote about third person ominiscient?

I am sure GRRM has made a general comment about 3rd person omniscient, something along the lines of it being the best way of writing modern novels. That would fit well under the Style and themes headline. Anybody knows what I am rambling about? Arbor 19:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Trying to find it on westeros.org, not much luck so far. In the meantime: this may be useful to you: "When asked about his favorite/least favorite characters were, he quickly said Tyrion was his favorite character to write and that Bran's chapters were the most difficult and usually the ones left for last in the books released so far. But there aren't any characters that he dislikes per say, as he maintained that he had to be able to 'get into their heads' and 'understand them' in order to be able to tell the story as he wanted. He said the multiple PoV perspective was essential for understanding SOIAF, as he believed it offered a way for not just him, but for the readers to gain multiple perspective on the same events." Paul Willocx 19:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Adaptations

I included the three adaptations to other media (CCG, PRG, board game) here, summary style. These belong to the series-spanning article (this one) instead of Game of Thrones, I believe. (We can discuss this.) I also suggest that two of the articles (RPG, board game) be changed into a redirect to the current page. Currently they contain no other information than what I copied to this page, and that's simply too little for an article. Whenever somebody wants to expand the stubs into full articles, we can revivify the articles. The CCG, on the other hand, has a fully fledged out main article. Also, is Adapatations the best title for this? How about In other media? Arbor 20:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Arbor, I was doing a big edit on this page at the same time you were and some rather odd things started happening to it. Took me a few minutes to fix it. I've put up a section in the article called 'Spin-Offs' which seemed to fit the bill for this section and transferred your information across to it. To be honest, I'd have left the board game and RPG sections up as there's plenty of information that can be put up on them (pictures of the boxes/books and the expansions, further info on the fact that Mongoose Publishing want to pick up the RPG and are trying to work out the financial details etc) and it's an area I might want to look at a few weeks down the road (although I've spent about six hours today on this page and ironing out problems in the plot summaries for the novels, so it's not something I want to do just now). Let me know what you think of the new-look ASoIaF page as well. I'm unsure about having the pictures up so high in particular.--Werthead 21:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Minor Edits

I note that there have been some minor edits sprinkled throughout a lot of the ASoIaF pages, mostly by user 128.210.12.95 . Some are good, but some are speculative and some are factually incorrect (Daenerys may become a canny politican by the end of the series, but she isn't one yet and she has no idea about war: that's why she has military advisors). Please remember to list your reasons for edits on the related talk pages. Cheers.--Werthead 22:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits by anon

I reverted the recent edits by an anon user that seemed to be motivated by Brendan Moody's revert of his POV edits to Terry Goodkind. I did, however, think he had a couple of good points and went ahead and reimplemented two of his changes. The part about genre-defying depiction of feudal society may be true to a degree, but does overhype that aspect of the series in a POV manner. I also removed the portion about recomendations by other authors as part of an "impressive" prerelease campaign. There is nothing unusual about getting famous authors to comment on a new fantasy series, and there does not seem to be any reason to single this out for Martin. If someone disagrees with these removals, they can certainly put that information back in. Indrian 03:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

No, they seem to be good edits on your part. Most of the people that are going to devote time to editing GRRMs pages are fans so we should always police ourselves and be on the look out for POV even if that attention is brought by a Goodkin fan in "retaliation" for having his own POV edited out. It's not really an anon IP, it's Mystar. Look up his history of edits and it will paint all the picture you really need. We do need to find that Time article and source it though as it's relevent. I'll see if I can't find it today unless someone else can dig it up first. NeoFreak 14:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yikes. Hopefully we get no more of that, but good call on the removal of the POV. I hadn't really read through this page in a while and I didn't realize it needed the help it did. -Captain Crawdad 10:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation guide Question

In the pronounciation guide, what does the CBC stand for? Some of the creditings are to GRRM-CBC for example, and while the other acronyms are listed, I couldn't find CBC.Coldwind 19:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It's a long interview that GRRM did when he toured Canada to promote FfC. Arbor 20:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for table: # chapters per POV

Wouldn't a table like this be somewhat informative? It's verifiable and NPOV, and furthermore a good way to explain the POV structure, and some of the structural changes in it (like the increasing number of "other" POVs and the split between volumes 4 and 5).

Number of chapters per point of view character

	Game	Clash	Storm	Feast
Bran	7	7	4	–
Catelyn	11	7	7	–
Daenerys	10	5	6	–
Eddard	15	–	–	–
Jon	9	8	12	–
Arya	5	10	8	3
Tyrion	9	14	11	–
Sansa	6	8	6	3
Davos	–	3	6	–
Theon	–	6	–	–
Jaime	–	–	9	7
Samwell	–	–	4	5
Cersei	–	–	–	10
Brienne	–	–	–	8
Others	1	1	2	10

I, for one, like the concept. It's spoilerish but I don't think that should really be a big concern in an encyclopedia. Maybe a page count could be introduced as well? NeoFreak 14:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't the page count depend on the edition, whether it's paperback or hardcover and so on and so forth? —Nightstallion (?) 19:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a very good point, I didn't even think of that. Duh. I guess the US hardcover should be used as all the books are in that form, they are the most common esp on an englsih wikipedia. As far as I know the only diffrence would be the cover art from edition to edition so it wouldn't matter if we used the 1st 2nd or 3rd. NeoFreak 19:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The format used for the Wheel of Time main page, where they have a similar table, is interesting. Personally I don't think it's entirely necessary, but if you want to set such a table up, than sure. It's not a spoiler since we already list the POV characters in each book anyway. As for page count, you could use the mass-market paperback page counts as actually they are the most common format for the books and I believe they are consistent between the UK and US editions. However, we do have the headache of ASoS being split in two in the UK, which would require accounting for on such a table.--Werthead 23:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Finished the table. I think this is good information—it makes a point about chapter structure in general, but also about the drastic change of viewpoint characters in Feast. This way we don't have to write hogwash like "Many fans were disappointed by the number of foreign POVs introduced in FfC and missed their favourites". Instead, we can just point this out in the table without making a value judgement or guessing what "many fans" may or may not have felt. As to page counts, I am not sure how much interesting information they add (apart from number-cruft). If anybody wants to add them, go ahead. Arbor 09:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

So...umm...why isn't this in the article, if everyone seems to agree? Also, can anyone remind me what the 'other' POV chapters are? Are you counting the prologues (Ser Royce, Maester Cressen, Chett)? --Alex

"Ice and Fire"

The part where it says that the only place that the title is referred to is in Dany's vision of Rhaegar is only half-true. When the Reeds present themselves at Bran's feast, they swear their loyalty to him "by ice and fire". Furthermore, I thought it was pretty clear that ice and fire symbolize the Starks and Lannisters, respectively. Throughout the series, the Starks are described as having ice flowing through their veins, while the Lannister color is crimson, etc. If you guys think that counts as 'original research' then take it out, but the part about the Reeds is worth mentioning.--Alex

• Your first point about the Reeds is valid and may be worth mentioning, but it is in no way clear that Ice and Fire represent Stark and Lannister. In fact, that is a highly unlikely interpretation. Far more believeable is that it either symbolizes Daenerys and Jon or the war between the Great Other and R'hllor. All of this, of course, is speculation, and therefore none of it need be discussed at length in the article. Indrian 17:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Pictures of books

I was reading through the article and noticed that the pictures of books as they are now obscure the title of at least the themes section. I tried editing them down to 100px and looked at the preview - the covers seem pretty visible to me, and it fixed the formatting of the titles and sections. Thoughts? WLU 12:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That's weird. I just looked at the previous version and the heading was fine. Anyway, I thought I had corrected a problem and it turns out it may not have been there, so if anyone prefers the 200px size images, I'm not too attached. It does seem to be bumping the edit tags down, perhaps a tabled version of the book covers might be useful? WLU 12:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm still obsessing over the images. Here's a possible way of displaying the 4 covers so it's a horizontal row rather than a vertical column. You are more limited on how you can manipulate them, but it doesn't screw up the edits or headings from what I can see. WLU

• 
  2005 US Edition of A Game of Thrones from Bantam
• 
  2005 US Edition of A Clash of Kings from Bantam
• 
  2005 US Edition of A Storm of Swords from Bantam
• 
  2005 US Edition of A Feast for Crows from Bantam

Or there's an image table:

Novels in A Song of Ice and Fire

2005 US Edition of A Game of Thrones from Bantam

2005 US Edition of A Clash of Kings from Bantam

2005 US Edition of A Storm of Swords from Bantam

2005 US Edition of A Feast for Crows from Bantam

Though I don't understand why SoS and FfC are smaller than the others.

I must say that I really hate the horizontal layout. It looks wrong and pushes down some of the text on the screen, creating a sort of vacuum of information at the top of the page. None of the computers I use display any problems when the book covers are placed along the right side. I think they should be moved back to the way they were. -Captain Crawdad 05:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The vacuum is 'cause of the index list, which is very long and I don't think can be moved around. I'm not super attached to the layout, not enough to revert it if someone else feels really strongly, but if it was switched back to along the right, I found the old pictures were very large and messed up the layout. I'm using Safari on a Mac to view them, perhaps that's why - when I view it on the old size and layout, it cuts off one of the headings and the edits hyperlinks above each section are all screwed up. Again, perhaps it's just 'cause of my program. I tried a preview of the old way, but with the images at 100px, I found it to be reasonably satisfactory - you can still see them, the text isn't overwhelming the picture and it doesn't seem to mess with the headings. Anyone know a way to put it in some sort of grid next to the contents box? That might solve my problems, but then again my problems might be unique to the computer and programs I'm using. I'm not a regular contributor here, so I bow before the preferences of those who are. WLU 14:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The Ice Dragon?

Isn't new novel: The Ice Dragon set in the ASolaF world? It's written by Martin. It should be included in the list AWP_Lizard

No, "The Ice Dragon" isn't actually set in the Ice and Fire world, though some of the promotional material inaccurately suggests that it is. Brendan Moody 00:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Template updates

I've corrected a couple of links I missed on the template, added categories, added associated items, and changed the colour scheme (couldn't find a color to match the lavendar-ish background for the categories cells, so went with shades of grey). Pejorative.majeure 20:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

HBO Adaption

Breaking news, perhaps, but surely this should be mentioned in the article somewhere? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.3.0.12 (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC).

It is, in the Spinoffs section. Brendan Moody 18:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Rewording was nessary. People cannot be expected to read the wording "It was announced...etc..." with out asking the question Who announced it. Also as it is not yet cut in stone, it only remains a possibility. Like many other of GRRM's books that have been optioned. When it is produced, then it is considered a series to be aired and not simply a possibility. Slso adding the term "expected" is proper and we do not yet know more than what they expect or wish to do. It could well turn out that they break up a book into two seasons or use two books per seasen. At this point "expected" is the only realiable wording that works. Mystar 05:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent touches Keven and Brenden Well statedMystar 13:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The reason I changed the heading is because it is not calling for a theatrical or film adaptation, it called for a TV series only. WLU 19:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I changed the section heading back to TV adaptation because I think headings should refer to what is currently in the article, not what might (and is pretty unlikely to) come in the future. If more adaptations do come up, we should change the main heading to "Adaptations" and have subheadings for each type, like the Spin-offs section. -Captain Crawdad 19:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Weapon Replicas

Added a subsection on the planned weapon replicas to the Spin-offs section. 195.235.227.10 17:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC) Grey Wolf

Trivia

Those references to Machiavelli are thin in my opinion, perhaps they should be removeed. But i'll leave the decision to someone else70.111.23.108 19:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

• Done. Indrian 19:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you ever even read The Prince? They are direct references to specific chapters. Check your own research. Orracle107 19:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

• Chapter 17 - CONCERNING CRUELTY AND CLEMENCY, AND WHETHER IT IS BETTER TO BE LOVED THAN FEARED

[7]

• Chapter 18 - CONCERNING THE WAY IN WHICH PRINCES SHOULD KEEP FAITH[8]

It's not that it's wrong, you are no doubt right. The problem is, to put it simply, in order for it to not be original research somebody else has to say it first, and in a reliable source outside of wikipedia. I know it seems obvious but we are not allowed to put forth our own observations as fact at wikipedia. NeoFreak 20:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing that up. Orracle107 20:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Have you thought about joining the Song of Ice and Fire wikiproject? We could use some new editors that are interested in working in this subject. NeoFreak 23:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

"At least" seven novels?

I have removed the phrase "at least" from the top of the article. There is no evidence anywhere (at least officially) that the series will expand beyond this, and GRRM isn't suggesting it. Therefore I consider it misleading. 74.225.243.175 02:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

There is this article. http://www.inquisitr.com/2340224/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-to-write-8-books-in-total/

A Song of Ice and Fire Inspiration

I thought it was a different story that inspired Martin to write A Song of Ice and Fire. Can anyone confirm the story? [REL] 2007 August 10

No, it was Memory, Sorrow and Thorn that made GRRM think that an epic fantasy series could be written to appeal to a more mature audience than contemporary authors (I assume he was thinking of the likes of Terry Brooks and David Eddings). I gather his impression was that the last proper, 'adult' epic fantasy series was Thomas Covenant a deacade earlier. It's in the So Spake Martin part of Westeros.org somewhere. I'll see if I can look it up when I have more time.--Werthead 21:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Critical Response

This really is just a shoddy section. It makes it seem like A Feast For Crows was a terrible book, that was reviewed awfully. While some readers dislike the character of Brienne, it seems unneccesary to include in a criticism, especially because we don't know if her chapters will have any deeper meaning later in the series. I suggest scrapping the section and writing the actual critical response to the novels from actual critics, not just a critical response to the novels. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.48.201 (talk) 04:28, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

AFFC is actually the most consistently well-reviewed book in the series. Even A Storm of Swords got some bad reviews on release, but all the major print reviews of AFFC I read (SFX, Dreamwatch, Starburst etc) were unanimous in their praise of it, and it was nominated for the Hugo. I am also removing the 'self-published' template as the only source mentioned in that section is SFX Magazine, which is published by Future Publishing (one of the UK's largest publishers) and is Europe's biggest-selling science fiction magazine. Not sure what that template was doing there.--Werthead 21:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Computer games section

This section piqued my interest, it mentions that mods were made, but only lists the games they're based on, not the mods themselves. Including these would be nice, because...well, I'm interested. Leedeth 13:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Posting the names of the mods themselves or anything else pretty much amounts to advertising. I was part of a team developing a PW for ASOIAF using Neverwinter Nights, but 'advertising' here just seemed kind of wrong. The project is on hold, since I'm currently heading up a popular Wheel of Time PW, and no one else seemed to have the energy and desire to continue.JCSeer (talk) 07:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:2005 SoS cover.jpg

Image:2005 SoS cover.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 21:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe this was fixed by re-uploading the image with a smaller one (<300x300) that satisfies the Fair Use guidelins. WLU (talk) 21:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparently not, as all the cover images are now gone. I haven't a clue on how to work with cover images but I think this needs to be fixed.--Werthead (talk) 18:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I fucking hate image use. I think we may be able to use the same cover as A Game of Thrones - it's used twice already and has a fair use rationale that seems to support its use on List of fantasy novels. I'm surprised I wasn't notified when SOS was deleted. One cover isn't as good as all 4, but it's better than none. I'll ask the guy who deleted the old images. WLU (talk) 18:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The thing that BetacommandBot looks for is a fair use rationale for every article that the image is used in. Image:2005 SoS cover.jpg only had a template, which needed to be supplemented by a rationale. — Laura Scudder ☎ 20:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Images straw poll

So I've been talking to an admin and there are a couple options for the covers. The lowest option is having a single cover image of one of the books (probably AGOT since it's got the best fair use rationale to date I think). The best is having multiple covers as a collage, a la Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, which I could probably make without too much trouble. So the debate becomes, should we have a set of a single batch of covers, or the US/UK covers (i.e. standard fantasy versus the more abstract images, not sure if it is edition or country lines that splits them though) or the set of those two, plus the pretty bad-ass Australian covers [9]. So, what is people's preference? If I can't get it done today, it'll have to wait until March as I'm on wikibreak next week. WLU (talk) 12:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd just pick a set. In fact, if there's agreement on which set, I could whip one up in no time. — Laura Scudder ☎ 02:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd go for the American covers on the grounds that they are the most commonly-available and there are more of them in print, plus the American cover for A Dance with Dragons is now available (whilst the UK one isn't, yet) and that can be added to the image. Just to note that I am planning a major revamp of the ASoIaF page using some of the Featured Article pages (like Lord of the Rings) as a guideline. The page at the moment is okay, but I think we really want to go to town on it and make it look as excellent as possible ;-) I also think that the 'spin-off' section - which is now the largest part of the article - should be reduced to a summary and a dedicated page listing those spin-offs should be created instead. SFX also had a major article by Joe Abercrombie on the series in last month's issue which can be used as a sourced for exploration of the series' themes. Abercrombie also posted a second article on the series on his own website, which can also be sourced. With ADWD coming out this year (hopefully) interest in this page should rise again.--Werthead (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, I say go ahead with the American covers. If it's not done by tomorrow, I may try to do it (but don't let that stop anyone else from taking care of it first). Werth - I'm sure you are aware of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(writing_about_fiction), WP:BOOKS, WP:NOVEL and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/ArticleTemplate? There's probably other guidance as well, and you could ask User:Kevinalewis for help or guidance - he's been very good about discussing with me in the past. WLU (talk) 00:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Brit cover for ADWD is up as well, but ir does occur to me that that could be confusing, with two volumes for ASoS. The US covers seem the way to go. I tried putting a combo image up here

but I couldn't get the size right and the only image manipulation software I have is, err, Paint, which tends to pixellate the image when you shrink it and make it look rubbish. I may try this again but it's been tedious work so far, to be honest.--Werthead (talk) 23:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

• There is a convention in publishing is that the 1st edition is the most significant - so the first edition covers should be those used. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

For AGoT, I agree. However, the Wikipedia convention on series overview articles (such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc) seems to be that a consistent style is preferred. As such the latest editions of the series make the most sense.--Werthead (talk) 17:20, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

One thing I don't like about the current images is the white line that stretches across all the books, looks odd to me but I don't mind being over-ruled. Aside from that I think you did a great job with the picture, particular given you had to use paint (feel your pain, paint sucks). From my understanding of image use, a small image is preferred so we don't violate copyright or something, and it's going in the infobox anyway so it doesn't have to look good up close. I resized to 200px and I think it looks OK, I say good job and have no hesitation about putting it on the page. Kevin, is the first edition mandatory, or just a best practice? I do prefer the current image 'cause I don't have to make a new one : ) and I think its less busy and tacky. Plus, do they even make the old traditional fantasy covers for the most recent publications? WLU (talk) 20:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Added image, let me know if there's any concerns. I think it's more than adequate, I think it's good. WLU (talk) 18:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Plot Summary

Is there any justification for Westeros being described as a "South American sized continent"? Reading the books, it seemed more like it was an island the size of Britain. Indeed it seems like a fantasy world version of feudal Britain, down to the Viking-like groups on small islands off the coast (Orkneys, Hebrides), the protective wall to the north (like Hadrian's Wall) and the wild painted people beyond that wall (a.k.a the Picts/Scots). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.99.63.218 (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

It's modeled on Britain in some ways, including those you mention, but Britain itself would be far too small for the scale of the series' action. The South America comparison comes from the author himself; I've added a reference. Brendan Moody (talk) 18:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

In addition, the Wall by itself is 300 miles long, half the length of the island of Britain. You can use the Wall as a scale bar (GRRM confirmed this is valid on this week's Barnes & Noble forum Q&A). This gives a distance from the Wall to the south coast of Dorne of approximately 3,000 miles (South America is about 4,000 miles from the Panama Canal to the southern tip of Chile), with an unknown amount of land north of the Wall.--Werthead (talk) 03:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

New RPG

Anyone think this section needs to be updated? According to the page the Corebook was supposed to be out awhile ago, but I haven't seen anything on it and as far as I know, it's not out yet. Can somebody verify? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.136.3.10 (talk) 19:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• The RPG book needs to be approved by GRRM before it can be released. Apparently GRRM has decided to make finishing ADWD as his top priority, and therefore the RPG will not proceed until he has completed that book and can sign off on the RPG. I wouldn't expect to see it before the New Year at the earliest. Note that the RPG is fully completed and ready to go, they are just waiting for GRRM to give the green light to it.--Werthead (talk) 23:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

A name for the eastern continent

This shows how behind the times I am with the SSM. GRRM called the eastern continent 'Essos' in an interview in Spain last year.--Werthead (talk) 00:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Blood of Dragons MUSH

Only as I was mostly done with the edits to include Blood of Dragons MUSH was I reminded of the policies regarding conflict of interest in linking. So I'm leave it up to the fellow editors to decide whether Blood of Dragons MUSH is suitably notable (as the only authorized on-line, text-based RPG) to be mentioned, and whether it merits a separate link in External links (as the Citadel and the forum have received). Elio Garcia (talk) 13:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

And I was just about to remind you of that ;)
I'm thinking that it is OK, but I'd welcome some kind of direct quote or more reliable reference supporting the "specifically authorized by the author to date". A pity that [10] doesn't mention it. Is there something in SSM that you know of? Not quite reliable, but it would be better.
The external links section is pretty long already, in my opinion, so it might not survive there for very long.
Cheers, Amalthea 14:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Nothing in the SSM, as it's not quite the right place for something like that. We can place GRRM's authorization mail and a follow up regarding the fact that we were the only authorized game as of the time of his mail (I've never heard him or anyone saying that he's authorized another game since) in the Blood of Dragons FAQ. Will edit the reference link to that page as soon as that's done. Thanks for the advice, Amalthea! 81.224.96.70 (talk) 18:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

A direct quote would be great, and should satisfy everyone.
Thanks, Elio, and Cheers, Amalthea 02:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Edited the ref. I left in the note regarding verification, in case anyone finds referencing a page on our own site not quite verifiable enough. That said, there is this on-line chat in which GRRM mentions in passing that someone should have asked permission as we did before we started our game. ("I wish they had asked permission, at least, the way Elio and Linda did before beginning their Seven Kingdoms MUSH.") That's hosted on third-party site, and might be considered more reliable? Elio Garcia (talk) 22:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's fine, I fully trust that you're not misrepresenting his quote. If the messages from GRRM were dated in the FAQ it would be even better, but it should be OK as it is. Thanks & Cheers, Amalthea 22:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Timeline correct?

Is the timeline in the overview section correct? It seems to me that the dragons had been gone from the world for several hundred years before the time of the novel - and if House T had only conquored the land 280 odd years ago, they would have only had dragons for less than a hundred years - and that seems at odds with the number of dragon skulls in the red castly and really seems to compress the time that breeding the dragons in the dragon pits making them smaller and weaker each generation.

First, I think that the reason the Targaryens were able to conquer much of Westeros in the first place is that they had dragons - Vhagar, Meraxes and Balerion. Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya had dragons when they began their conquering. --Pyreforge 12:50, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

But that still doesnt address my question of the aparent compression of the time that is implied - If the Targaryens conquored the continent 280 years ago and dragons have been gone from the world for 200 years, that leaves 80 years of rule under dragons, which would be, say, 4 generations in which the dragons to have gone from imposing monsters to extinct. There seems to be too many dragon skulls in the castle basement for that timeline to work.

The Targaryen conquest was about 300 years before the time of the novels: the Targaryen succession listed at the end of the appendix to A Game of Thrones places Aerys' death 283 years after Aegon's Landing, and the series commences fifteen years after that. The same succession listing also dates the death of the last dragons to the reign of Aegon III, about 130-160 years (not 80) after the landing. Dragons have only been gone from the world for about 150 years when the series starts, not 200. References in the text to "hundreds of years" are rounding or hyperbole. Brendan Moody 03:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, the Targaryens were on Dragonstone for 200 years before the Conquest, presumably during which time they also had dragons. The oldest dragon skulls are said to be 'thousands' of years old, suggesting that the Targaryens brought some of the most noteworthy ones with them from Valyria to Dragonstone, and later to King's Landing. Presumably they considered them important heirlooms of the house.--Werthead (talk) 03:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

150 years is correct. This is explicitly stated several times in the text. SharkD  Talk  07:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Blind Guardian songs about the novels

Hi everybody, The power metal band Blind Guardian have written a couple of songs about the novels. I think that it would be nice to include them in the article. I had written a new section about it, but it was deleted claiming it was not "a part of the novels". What do you think? Should we at least add a sentence about this? I think it is definitely worth it.

You can see more details about the songs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Edge_of_Time#Song_Information The songs are "War of the Thrones" and "A Voice in the Dark".

Cheers, Trelos physikos (talk) 17:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

This type of thing is usually considered trivia. However, if you can find a reliable, verifiable source (like a review) which discusses this, it may establish enough notability for the information to be included in the article in some way. Thanks.— TAnthony^Talk 22:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Great, I will work on it asap. However, the question remains: should it be in a new section, eg Trivia as you suggested, or a subsection, under Adaptation or Franchise for example? Thanks Trelos physikos (talk) 07:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Definitely do not create a new section called Trivia, we specifically need to avoid presenting anything as such (see WP:TRIVIA. Sourced info about this would probably fit nicely into the Franchise section even though it's not a licensed use of ASOIAF material.— TAnthony^Talk 15:26, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I have added a couple of sentences about this and a reference. If there is some problem, please discuss it here and do not delete anything like some guy did with my previous addition. Thanks.Trelos physikos (talk) 19:01, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

We discussed it on my talk page and on this talk page. See WP:CYCLE. The sentences could definitely use a reliable source. Beach drifter (talk) 16:33, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, what do you think about these two: gamertagged.net or blackgate.com Trelos physikos (talk) 14:33, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Both appear to be something slightly more professional than blogs but not much else. In the first link I can find no mention of Martin but in the second it at least clearly says that their album is about ASOIAF. A press release from the band or something of that nature would be good. The westeros.org ref isn't any good because it just makes a statement with no backing, not unlike the blackgate site. Beach drifter (talk) 17:33, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

In the first link there is a clear mention of the Game of Thrones in the paragraph (surprise!) about the "Voice in the Dark" song. Anyway, if you want more convincing you can have a look at the booklet of the album regarding the two songs War of Thrones and A Voice in the Dark or at this review from metal-sound.net (it clearly mentions that the two songs are written for ASOIAF). Also, I will send an email directly to Blind Guardian later today and kindly ask them to put some comment on their page (don't expect a quick reply as they are on tour). If these won't convince you (especially the review from "metal-sound.net", I don't know what will :( Trelos physikos (talk) 08:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't need convincing, it's got nothing to do with that, I just want good sources for the article that meet wp:source. Beach drifter (talk) 20:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The band hasn't replied yet but I managed to dig up (with google) a relevant post from the official blind-guardian site that clearly and beyond doubt proves my point. The post was about previewing some of the songs (including both of the ones relevant to this topic). You can't get any better source than this! Trelos physikos (talk) 14:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Tables

Is anyone else good with tables? The translation table looks like hell. I could try to fix it but it would take me hours and I'd probably ruin it in the process. Kermit814 (talk) 19:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Fantasy?

I see this labelled unambiguously "fantasy". I haven't read the books, just been watching the HBO series, but is it possible to classify this as SF? Could this world be some far future human colony, like Darkover or Pern that lost its technology? Human colonists could have brought any number of earth animals and plants as well. Are there any hints of this in the books (e.g., things that could be relics of high technology) or has GRRM ever been asked this? Barsoomian (talk) 05:39, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

There hasn't been any hint of that in the books or from GRRM. There has been what appears to be magic though (the Wall, the Others, Mellisande, the Warlocks of Quarth). Magic appears to be on the rise since (or possibly because of) the birth of the dragons. It definitely seems to be fantasy, though a relatively low magic context compared to many other fantasy series.Caidh (talk) 13:18, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

There's magic in Pern and Darkover (though you could handwave them as psychic powers). So that alone isn't definitive. Or a better example , Iain M Banks' Inversions (novel), which reads like a medieval fantasy if you don't realise the magic is actually "Culture" technology. Maybe at the end of Book 7 we find the crashed spaceship. So that remains speculation. Barsoomian (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Science_fantasy "If it is one of space travel and proton-pistols, it gets classified as "science fiction", and the appropriate terms (cloaking device, matter-transmitter) are used; if it is one of castles, sailing ships and swords, it gets classified as "fantasy", and we instead speak of magic rings and travel by enchantment. In short, science fiction uses technology to explain impossible phenomena while fantasy employs magic." There's always room for debate, but I would say that since GRRM never tries in any way, shape or form to explain his impossible phenomena that it should be categorized as fantasy. Kermit814 (talk) 19:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

criticisms

this thing reads a little like a puff piece I don't have a credible source, but I can't help but think many people feel as I do: that after the first book or so, the series is outrageously padded with all sorts of irrelevant stuff; there are 100s of pages that could be cut with no deficit what so ever also, while the introduction of some sex and bodily functions is a welcome relief from the wierd asexuality of tolkein, and say wheel of time, I find that martin often seems to go overboard, like a kid trying to shock his parents with naughty words...enough already with descriptions of bowel movements !!! also, the authors habit of "killing" characters off and then returning them gets tiresome after a while; it was fun the first one or two times, but afte that it is just lazy plotting and story telling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.135.33 (talk) 01:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

external links

As I said in my editsummary, one link has now become three and more will follow if we let this go (for example, why not include WiC, the television series is important as well!). We actually have a guideline dealing with this kind of stuff: wp:External links, of which wp:ELMAYBE#3 states quite clearly open directory links should be used instead of long lists of links. Also, the IP editor argued earlier that it should be kept because the Russian and French wikipedia have links. This is not a valid argument, as each language wikipedia acts independent and has its own rules. What is allowed on Russian wikipedia may be forbidden here and vice versa. Yoenit (talk) 09:29, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The wiki clearly falls into the links that is allowed or to be considered. It contains detailed information on the subject. That is also the reason it was added. To show were people could find more and neutral info. So instead of saying "more then two is a long list, which not allowed" you should point out why each link is suitable or not.Scafloc (talk) 09:44, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I am all for none of these sites being added here, and indeed you will see in the edit history that I removed the wiki several times in the current dispute. All of them used to be linked here, but they were pruned long ago and do not really seem necessary. It is much better to have the one already existing link to fan sites in general, which includes the wiki, westeros, ToH, and any other fansite a reader may be interested in. If the wiki is going to be included, however, other sites to which the reader may go to find additional neutral info also need to be added. There is no justification for adding the wiki and only the wiki. That is why I added the two other major sources for neutral information as a compromise. I agree with Yoenit that none of them should be included, but was hoping to end the edit war with a compromise. Indeed, the edit war appeared to have reached a conclusion with said compromise until Yoenit entered the debate again. While I agree with Yoenit in general, however, I also think it fair to point out that he has mischaracterized the situation. No one would advocate including WiC because it is a news site, not a source for further "encyclopedic" info on the series that is outside the scope of wikipedia. The Citadel and the wiki, both part of Westeros.org, and Tower of the Hand are the only sources I am aware of that provide a large enough amount of information to be worth including here. While I agree none is better than three, Yoenit's assertion that adding these three creates a slippery slope for the inclusion of more links is flat out wrong. Indrian (talk) 10:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The link should be kept because it provides detailed information on the subject, the existence of French and Russian wiki's has nothing todo with policy but to emphasize the scope of that wiki project. with the point being that more readers across all of wikipidea could easily find more neutral info in one place, where also editors who wish to expand the topic beyond the scope of wikipidea can do so using same tools.

As for links Indrian added in the name of "appeasement", I already said that I see no reason to add none of them(also because of the policy mentioned by Yoenit), but couldn't bare to continue adrian's "all or nothing" edit war, trying to promote his favourite site over readers best interest. IMO we should keep 1.martin's official website 2.list of correspondences with martin 3.Wiki as a neutral extension 4.Open directory listing of all other site. 109.64.217.2 (talk) 11:16, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Tower of the Hand satisfies the same "neutral encyclopedic content standard" as the wiki, and you have yet to explain how this is not the case. Furthermore, I never attempted to re-add Tower of the Hand to the links after it was removed (along with the wiki and a host of other sites) a long time ago and would not have added it now if not for your repeated attempts to add the equally unnecessary wiki, which like Tower of the Hand can be accessed from the all-encompassing list of fan sites. You are the only one attempting to add "your favorite site" without regards to other sources of information. Also, since two separate editors removed your link as unnecessary and you continued to add it anyway and now admit you do not even want to accept a compromise, you are the only user edit warring here. Indrian (talk) 11:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I am suggesting the addition of the proposed wiki link, for consideration base on it's own merits.(not shopping for bundles). thus the only viable question is why it's the best option. which I answered before, that TOH is a portal(much like westeros only much smaller), that feature everything from news on the Tv show to games. with it's "encyclopedic content" being a small sub section and not nearly as extensive(by few magnitudes) as the proposed dedicated wiki just as well it doesnt have nearly the same scope as the proposed wiki which includes french and russian sister projects which are already linked here; and it not as consistent in terms of editing tools. thus the proposed wiki provides the natural most extensive extension to the scope of the this article, to our readers. 109.64.217.2 (talk) 13:04, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you are mistaken about Tower of the Hand. ToH is in no way like Westeros.org and has never tried to take on the role of that site as a community hub. There is a blog at the site which covers a wide variety of topics on a regular basis, including news and essays, but no forums. The encyclopedic content is not a small sub-section and actually constitutes the majority of the site. Also its scope is just as large as the wiki, though as it is not a collaborative project it does take longer to update for new material. There are complete chapter summaries for the first four books and the first two Dunk & Egg short stories, most of which are more extensive than the summaries on the wiki, with summaries of the other materials pending. Entries are included for every character, house, organization, geographic location, historical event, etc. in the books as well as complete family trees for all the houses and a map of Westeros with known major landmarks identified. Tower of the Hand is older than the wiki, and it took years (don't know exactly how long because I do not follow this kind of thing as a hobby) for the wiki to first reach and then surpass the number of content pages on Tower of the Hand. Volume of pages alone does not really tell the tale, though, as organizational differences at the wiki serve to inflate the number of pages covering the same content vis-a-vis ToH and therefore makes comparison on page volume alone a bit of an apples and oranges proposition. Tower of the Hand has nearly 3,000 entries for people, places, and things, which does not count chapter summary pages or other info. Just looking at a sampling of pages between the two sites, it varies which source has more information on any given topic. They fill the same niche at the same level of comprehensiveness (barring updating concerns) and appear equal to me as sources of content. That is why I believe that if one is there, the other should be too and why if both are there then the Citadel at Westeros should also be included because its cultural concordance and heraldry database are both valuable and different in kind from both ToH and the wiki. My first preference, however, is still to leave all these pages to the site directory, where users can easily peruse a variety of fan-generated content and decide for themselves which sites serve their personal needs best. Indrian (talk) 13:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

That's a nice sale pitch... but the bottom line is that the proposed wiki is larger, more well-developed, has larger community and more consistent with wikipidea style, although TOH do have some nice graphics. 109.64.217.2 (talk) 15:44, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, which I am not particularly interested in changing, but you are merely being subjective, as both sites are extensively developed and "community size" does not really matter when the topic at hand is neutral encyclopedia information and is not even a particularly valid point of comparison when one site is a wiki and the other is not (I assume you mean community of people developing the site and not users, because there is no way I know of to measure which site receives more use unless both sites share their stats since the wiki is part of the larger Westeros.org and therefore public ranking tools cannot distinguish between Westeros, including its forums, and the wiki). You have not provided an objective criteria by which the wiki is "more well-developed" and in my perusals of both sites I think it is fairer to say that each site has certain areas in which it presents more information. Of course, this is exactly the reason why this stuff is best left off the page. The wiki is already represented through the directory of sites, so your continued desire to extoll it above all other sources and give it special treatment on the webpage reeks of bias. I have never belittled the wiki as a source of information, but your attempt to belittle other sources as a way of enhancing your own also speaks to this bias. No one is trying to push a site onto the page except you, I only want to ensure that all three sources containing significant information appear if one does and would much rather leave all three off. I think it best to do the neutral thing, which is to leave it to the site directory and let users decide what suits them best, and I am not alone in this opinion. At the end of the day, they are all just fans sites with ordinary people summarizing information contained in the books, which stretches the definition of "encyclopedic content" about as far as you can, plus the information on both sites has no interest for general users wishing to learn more about the topic since they are rife with spoilers and therefore only of interest to people actually reading the books and are more useful to keep track of characters, events, etc. as opposed to educating oneself about the series. This would therefore seem to bring the matter to a close unless other editors weigh in with new points of discussion.Indrian (talk) 22:07, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

"one site is a wiki and the other is not", exactly my point from before, about the proposed wiki providing a natural extension to scope of wikipidea! when I read the novel, I found that Wikipidea had the best general information on the series, but it also lacked on so many specifics that were impossible to add since every time I tried to add, since they were mercilessly cleaved by the 'out of scope' and other reasons. which is how I got the wiki, a place where I could find additional information and continue to contribute in the spirit of Wikipedia and why I suggest it here, it's why the proposed wiki sister projects are linked here and it's also why I never considered your TOH or westeros or any number of other fan sites.

as for the rest, I suggest you take some time to do more googling before you claim it's impossible to distinguished the stats, just as I did before commenting on it; also if we ignore the major topic which are covered on wikipidea as well, then TOH is as developed as the wikia project (unless you count the list of 2000 on liner character pages), so again hands down the wikipidea like proposed WIKI. 109.64.217.2 (talk) 07:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Joffrey and Thommen "illegitimate"?

The lines "Lord Eddard Stark, King Robert's Hand, finds out Robert's children are illegitimate, and that the throne should therefore fall to the second of the three Baratheon brothers" and "Tommen Baratheon, allegedly Robert's son, but illegitimate too" are misleading according to my reading. If Joffrey and Thommen are the children of Cersei and Jaime then they are not illegitimate children of Robert, but rather not his children at all. He has illegitimate children - Gendry, etc - but none of them are claimants to the throne (at least to the end of A Clash of Kings, as far as I read). The relevant fact regarding Joffrey and Thommen is that Robert was not (by this claim) their father. They could be considered Cersei's illegitimate children. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 03:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI: Working on this article

I have started expanding this article (currently in userspace), see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire#Working_on_A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:18, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the Reception section, which appears to solely concentrate on positive comments; would it be worth noting the contrast between critical and reader response to particularly the fourth and fifth books at sites such as Amazon, where reviews have been less glowing regarding areas such as book length and lack of character/plot development? 212.225.127.33 (talk) 23:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that a balanced view with critical response is useful. I do think we need reviews from reliable sources though as opposed to Amazon user reviews.Caidh (talk) 00:34, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The reception section is nowhere finished (I just dumped the current content there when restructuring the article). There is a collection of esteemed info/sources at e.g. User:Sgeureka/ASOIAF#Critical_response, which I intend to work into the article in a balanced fashion (pro/con) in the foreseeable future. Like Caidh has hinted at, Amazon reviews should NOT be used, as some of the customer reviews/stars were provided by extreme fanboys or crazy hater-wackos, and wikipedia shouldn't rely on that. Anyone is free to add reception information from reliable sources (be it pro or con) when he believes it to improve the article. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:36, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Definitely wasn't suggesting adding Amazon user reviews, merely pointing out the consensus or trend that seemed to be emerging from readers over the course of the series; I'm not sure where to look for third-party sources that comment on this, though. 212.225.121.137 (talk) 17:33, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Split section proposals

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire#Meta-article_restructuring. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:A Song of Ice and Fire/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sadads (talk · contribs) 00:22, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I am User:Sadads, and I always like to give a little background on me before I begin reviews. I am a student of History and English, and have been contributing to Wikipedia for a while, mostly in fiction, but also in a wide variety of topics. I have been the primary contributer to GAs in literature including Quicksilver (novel) and The Great Lover (novel). I see the GA review as a process of peer review, less a approval process. I will be providing comments on major issues as well as minor edits over the next couple weeks. I will check of the various parts on the checklist and provide comments in the comments section bellow. The coments section is for conversation about improving the article, the checklist for me to keep track of my work. Since this article is so long and complex, it may be a long review. If I am somehow neglegent at any point, please contact me on my talk page or via Email. I have to say that I am particularly excited about working on this article, I love the novel series and the television series Sadads (talk) 00:22, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments

Hello Sadads. It's nice to have you as the GA reviewer for this article. Take as much time as you need with this review; I'm still to polish the Themes and Fandom sections for possible WP:SPINOUT issues before I am satisfied with the article. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry its been a couple days, I ran into a lot more work then I thought I had this week going into finals week next week. After midday monday EST, I will be on some copyediting, comments and the stuff :) Sadads (talk) 16:36, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Sadads, I see you haven't been on-wiki for a while. I'll be on vacation starting May 17 and will only return at the end of the month. If the GA review takes more time than the next few days (counting from today), I won't be unable to address the GA concerns for a while. – sgeureka ^t•c 14:10, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Sadads hasn't edited on Wikipedia for over a month. At this point, should we assume that this review is not going to get finished and return it to the GAN to-be-reviewed pool, or did you want to try the supplied email link in the hopes that it might get a response? BlueMoonset (talk) 01:17, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I sent Sadads an email two days ago asking if he'll return soon or if he wants someone else to take over here. He hasn't replied yet. I intended to wait two more days before I'd have asked at GAN how to proceed. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:10, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I left a notice at WT:GAN#A Song of Ice and Fire GAN asking for closure in some way due to the uncertain situation with Sadads, unfortunately. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:44, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I restarted the review process so that another reviewer can step in. Best of luck, Imzadi 1979 → 09:09, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

High fantasy?

Having just finished the second book, I'll concede that magical elements seem to increasingly creep into the series as it advances - presumably because of the return of dragons? - but in the first book there's very little explicitly supernatural content, even the references to Aegon the Conqueror's dragons could be interpreted as metaphor and/or myth if you tried, so I'd argue that the first book might be better categorised as low fantasy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.221.88.125 (talk) 23:57, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. An example categorization could be:

• Low fantasy: A Song of Fire and Ice. People die because they fall of their horse and break their necks. Most supernatural elements are monsters and magic is mostly used in terms of simple illusions or elements of horror.
• Medium fantasy: Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. Eventually elements of high magic appear (the fey), but most fantasy elements are put on a certain realistic framework. Dragons are actually draccus, a big vegetarian lizard that spits fire but doesn't fly. Magic works by rules similar to chemistry/physics in that the conservation of energy and matter is mantained.
• High fantasy: The Sword of Truth saga by Terry Goodkind. Prophecy is a big plot motivator. Magic is not explained and destroys armies of millions of soldiers in an instant.

--Bairesdragon (talk) 02:12, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Fandom

Edited the word "harassed" out as neither of the two sites mentioned ever harassed George R. R. Martin. Unless a clear citation of harassment can be given this should remain so. Edited out the word "renegade" as it has subjective implications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.81.193 (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the first provided source (The Globe and Mail) for that sentence does say "After being stamped out there, angry fans calling themselves GRRuMblers formed new online groups to harass him, including such blogs as Finish the Book, George, brimming with vituperation." And the second provided source (The New Yorker) says "Yet Verhoeve, operating under the nom de guerre of Slynt, now runs a Web forum dedicated to denigrating Martin and his supporters. The site is called Is Winter Coming?" and later "An entire community of apostates—a shadow fandom—is now devoted to taunting Martin, his associates, ..." Plus, it actually uses the word "renegade", as in "In Verhoeve’s telling, disaffected fans—who sometimes call themselves GRRuMblers—formed a renegade movement in 2009, ..."But I guess the current more neutral phrasing ("creating sites such as Finish the Book, George and Is Winter Coming?") will also do. – sgeureka ^t•c 05:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I would argue both sites fall under WP:BLP and should be handled carefully: "A harmful statement about a small group or organization comes closer to being a BLP problem than a similar statement about a larger group; and when the group is very small, it may be impossible to draw a distinction between the group and the individuals that make up the group. When in doubt, make sure you are using high-quality sources." Denaar (talk) 00:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation guide

The pronunciation guide, although an excellent idea, is not helpful at all to people who can't read the phonetic language... which is almost everyone. I would do this myself, but I don't know the exact pronunciations. So will someone who can read this or who already knows the sounds write them there? For example - Cersei: Sir - sigh (if indeed that is how that name is pronounced). Thank you!

• Um this may sound dumb but ʒ what is this? I wanted to learn how to prounouce and that is one of the "letters" I saw, is it my brouser?
  • Guys, it's just IPA. It's the standard way of representing pronunciations here. It's the same way pronuncations are indicated all over the wiki. If you don't want to bother learning it - as I certainly don't - you can always just keep an IPA reference open as you read the pronuncations. Sniffnoy 18:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Problem is the stupid IPA symbols don't even display correctly in all browsers, as the anonymous poster before you has discovered. When half of the pronunciations show up as several ʒ symbols instead of what they're supposed to show up as, all the references in the world aren't going to amount to a hill of beans. Whoever decided wiki should only ever use IPA did plenty of users a tremendous disservice. 76.226.99.12 (talk) 04:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
      • ...what? ʒ is a perfectly valid IPA symbol, it's the symbol for the "zh" sound. "dʒ" indicates a j sound. Was it used incorrectly? Sniffnoy (talk) 19:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the entire pronounciation guide's presence is a bit dubious since GRRM himself has said there is no set pronounciation for the books. The pronounciations he uses when reading are different from what his audiobook readers use, for example. There are a couple of pronounciations he insists on = 'Jaime' is pronounced like 'Jamie', not 'JAY-MA' - but overall I'd say the pronounciation section can be culled, at least until such time as GRRM releases an 'official' guide.--Werthead (talk) 03:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with Werthead. Wikipedia should not provide pronunciation guides unless they are provided by the author; but to suggest that IPA should be replaced with plain alphabet transliterations (as in the original comment) is not a good idea. Wikipedia is accessible worldwide. To suggest that "Cersei" should be written "Sir - sigh" only serves people who pronounce Cersei in a General American English accent. Someone from rural Louisiana or Texas would not pronounce "sigh" the same way as someone from New York or Toronto. Ghanaians do not pronounce "Sir" the same way as RP speaking Londoners or Singaporeans. Transliterations are generally a bad idea in standard international works of reference. I suggest consulting google to find a free, complete unicode font. If you think your browser is at fault, update it or download firefox or chrome. Unicode is not problematic on the modern internet. --Rawlangs (talk) 18:22, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

References

I have been searching references to this sentence "Martin gradually extended the originally planned trilogy into four, six and eventually seven volumes.", but I´m not able to find them. Anyone lucky? --Irbian (talk) 20:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Ref 17 [11], see also section "First three novels (1991–2000)", third paragraph. – sgeureka ^t•c 06:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Perfect! Thanks :) --Irbian (talk) 14:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:A Song of Ice and Fire/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Aircorn (talk · contribs) 05:44, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I have read all the books so know a bit about the story. I think some of this could be difficult as there are still 2? books to come and the story could go in so many directions. I will leave some comments below as I work through the sections (leaving the lead to last). Feel free to comment on any of them as you see fit. I might make a few prose changes as I go. Please revert if you do not agree with them and we can discuss the changes further. AIRcorn (talk) 07:23, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Comments

• Thank you for starting the review. I'll have more time on the weekend. Also, after reading through the article very recently, I've found some improvable spots on my own, so don't be surprised if I make changes without your input. :-) – sgeureka ^t•c 07:35, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
• I am still here. If my progress is taking you too long, please say so, and I'll try to give this absolute priority (uncommonly interesting RL work and the good weather are keeping me away from the internet, and hence wikipedia). – sgeureka ^t•c 17:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• I am getting ready to address the remaining comments in the next couple of hours. – sgeureka ^t•c 13:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Where has the time gone if not for the Pareto principle? My schedule is full tomorrow, so I'll be back on Tuesday. – sgeureka ^t•c 16:28, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Finally got some spare time. I will have another read through thus while the olympics plays in the background. Sorry about the delay. AIRcorn (talk) 07:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
• Nothing but spare time today, so I hope to have addressed the last few issues. I also read through the article changes (page history) from the last month including your changes, and everything appears to be alright from my perspective. I also left some comments below. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Plot Synopsis

• invincible power Is this right. Strong no doubt, but invincible seems too much.
  • I couldn't find an alternative (not my phrase in the first place), but I think just "power" works. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
• the books follow three stories that are divided by geography and participants I would question this too. If anything there are a lot more than three stories or it is just one big multifaceted story. This calls into question the set up of the next three paragraphs. I think the plot summaries for the "stories" are good, but maybe there is a better way to organise it. Of couse if you find a citation for three stories that might be enough.
  • Well, you're right, but I've tried different forms of organisation months ago (e.g. chronology), and the current organisation is the only way I could make it work. For now, I've rewritten the phrase to say "three major storylines". My main non-subjective argument for this organisation is the split of the fourth and fifth book, which take place in parallel and separate it that way too: (1) political struggles of Westeros all in A Feast for Crows, (2) the Wall+North stories making up roughly the half of A Dance with Dragons, (3) Daenerys and other Essos POV characters making up the other half of A Dance with Dragons. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I would leave it set up how you have. How about not defining the story so precisely. For example: "The story starts off as Winter is approaching and the books follow various characters spread across divergant landscapes." AIRcorn (talk) 11:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Yup, that works. Rewritten. – sgeureka ^t•c 19:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• The sentinels of the Wall, the Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, spend most of their time dealing with the human wildlings living beyond the Wall, when the first Others appear in A Game of Thrones. Something not quite right about this sentence.
  • The grammar appears right to my non-native ears: The [people] spend most of their time [doing X] when [Y happens]. Maybe the comma throws you off, or it should be The [people] are spending most of their time [doing X] when [Y happens]. (???) Either way, I'll try to think of another way to phrase this. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Both. You could probably drop the last comma easily enough. Spend sounds wrong (not good at explaining grammar, just recognise it when it sounds funny). I think it is the tense. "are spending" would work. AIRcorn (talk) 11:50, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Comma now gone, "are spending". – sgeureka ^t•c 19:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• Her story is isolated from the others until more POV characters join her in A Dance with Dragons Not completely. Barriston joins in Clash (I think). Minor quibble, but she is no more joined to th maybe other stories now than she was then.
  • Barristan is not a POV character until Dance, so her story is told exclusively through her eyes until Dance. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. AIRcorn (talk) 10:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
• Because her family standard is the dragon, these creatures are of symbolic value before they grow big enough to be of tactical use for her goal of reclaiming the Iron Throne. I would have thought it was more because they were Dragons, not so much that they are the symbol of her standard.
  • Yeah, this link is bordering OR, although A Storm of Swords makes it clear that she regards the dragons as symbolic ("three heads has the dragons"). Since I'll have to leave in a minute, I've changed "Because" to "With" for now. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Publishing history

• Can you check this edit [12]. It changed some page numbers around.
  • Added sources and asked the other editor for comment since I had to change some of his numbers. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:33, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• Could some more information be given about the novellas. Are they written by George? Do they follow the story exactly as presented in the other novels?
  • I'd go as far as saying they're virtually identical to the chapter sets, as per the westeros forum and my speedy cross-check of the third novella. The only change I found were the introduction words ("Aeron Damphair was drowning men..." vs. "The prophet was drowning men..."). Therefore, I've boldly changed "based on" to "compiled from". – sgeureka ^t•c 12:33, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• Released for pre-release publicity, a sample novella called Blood of the Dragon went on to win the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella. "Released for pre-release." Could this be reworded. It reads kinda funny.
  • Changed. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:33, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• He has previously gotten in trouble from fans for repeatedly estimating his publication dates too optimistically and thus refrains from making absolute estimates for book six. Is there a better way to say "previously gotten in trouble from fans"? It sounds a bit like he is treated like a child by his fans. Maybe "received criticism".
  • Rewritten to avoid the criticism part altogether; I couldn't really make it work with "fan criticism", and the professional critics largely weren't be bothered. – sgeureka ^t•c 19:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• Martin would love to return to writing short stories, novellas... There are a few of these. I wonder if it would be better to use "Martin says he would ..." a bit more. It comes across a bit too biographical.
  • Rewritten per your suggestion. – sgeureka ^t•c 19:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Inspiration etc

• George R. R. Martin believes the most profound influences to be the ones experienced in childhood,[55] reading H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Andre Norton,[20] Isaac Asimov,[23] Fritz Leiber, and Mervyn Peake[56] in his youth. ???
  • What exactly do you see as the problem with this sentence, besides the wrong tense ("reading H. P. Lovecraft" -> "having read H. P. Lovecraft", which is fixed now)? Too biographical, too many names, too irrelevant? – sgeureka ^t•c 19:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I didn't really understand it when I first read it, although "having read" makes the meaning clearer to me. I can't access ref #55 " Deep Magic", does it talk about the authors mentioned here? This doesn't really say they influenced him so I am a little worried that it is synthesis (i.e. one source saying he believes the biggest influences happen in childhood and others saying what books he read in his childhood does not necessarily mean those authors influenced him, which is what is being implied here). Would you consider removing the first sentence and rewording the next two? For example: George R. R. Martin read H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Andre Norton,[20] Isaac Asimov,[23] Fritz Leiber, and Mervyn Peake[56] in his youth. He does not categorize these authors' literature as science fiction, fantasy or horror[56] and will write from any genre as a result. I don't know the Deep Magic reference so it might need to need to be changed. AIRcorn (talk) 10:37, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
    • As an aside I remeber when reading Dreamsongs that Martin gave an example of a science fiction journal that said it wanted sci fi stories not westerns dressed up as sci fi (there was an example of how just changing a few words around could change the genre). Martin made a big point of saying that it wasn't the genre that was important, but the story itself. I think this is what this paragraph is trying to say, that he is not stuck up on genres. AIRcorn (talk) 10:37, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Below is the quote from Deep Magic, which IMO backs up everything. I took part of your suggestion into the article, but all-in-all, I feel synthesis is not an issue. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Q: What influences have helped you become the writer you are?

A: The most profound are the ones you experience when you're young. Writers that you have read growing up. I read science fiction, fantasy, and horror interchangeably. My father would call them all "weird stuff". They influenced the fact I write from all the genres easily. Heinlein's Have Space Suit-Will Travel was my first foray into science fiction. I read Robert E. Howard first as fantasy, then Tolkien next, and he had a profound effect. For Horror, definately Lovecraft.

• Martin himself never categorized these authors' imaginative literature into science fiction and fantasy or horror[56] and nowadays writes from all these genres easily. "Imaginative literature"- if it is a quote from Martin I would put quote marks around it. "Himself" - redundant. "Science fiction and fantasy or horror" - does this mean science fiction and fantasy or horror or science fiction and fantasy or horror? "Nowadays" - might not hold true in a few more years, better to give an as of date. "Writes from all these genres easily" - Who is saying this?
  • All addressed. – sgeureka ^t•c 19:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• although Martin considered the series not particularly Vancean. What does Vancean mean? I know, but had to look it up. Can we use language that the average reader will understand.
  • Jack Vance (to whom "Vancean" refers) is named+linked immediately before. If the author's name doesn't ring a bell (I frankly don't know anything about the named authors except Tolkien), then the reader is free to click on the provided link to learn more, I guess. – sgeureka ^t•c 19:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I guess Vancean and Vance did not immideately click with me. I originally thought it was some in house word to describe literature. Not a major point and I guess it is pretty obvious now that I look at it. AIRcorn (talk) 10:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
• whose writing still dominates the genre. I am not sure the source is strong enough to state this so matter-of-factly.
  • Added another source that shows Tolien's/TLotR's dominance in the public mind. Tolkien, who "founded" the epic fantasy genre, certainly dominated my used GRRM interviews by 95%, and although I am a fantasy layman, I'd be surprised if anyone seriously questioned that claim (see WP:BLUE). – sgeureka ^t•c 15:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• However, where historic fiction leaves versed readers with knowing the historic outcome, grammar
  • Removed "with". – sgeureka ^t•c 15:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Martin is widely credited with taking fantasy fiction into a more adult direction Source: "Martin is widely credited with taking such fiction in a more adult direction." "Widely credited" always begs the question "by whom", although in this case I think the preceding sentences cover it well.
  • Rewritten to not be so close to the original source ("Martin is widely credited with broadening the fantasy fiction genre for adult content"), but I guess/agree that sentence could really stand without a source and just be a summary of the next few sentences. – sgeureka ^t•c 15:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• His original contract gave one-year deadlines, based on his previous literary works in his Hollywood days,[30] but Martin failed to take the new book lengths into account. I don't understand. He was given one year deadlines because of the work he did for Hollywood?
  • Specified. – sgeureka ^t•c 15:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Martin said to only be able to immerse himself in the fictional world and write from his own office in Santa Fe, New Mexico Grammar
  • Restructured ("Martin said he needed to be in his own office in Santa Fe, New Mexico to immerse himself in the fictional world and write."). – sgeureka ^t•c 15:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• to know specific points before needed in writing. This is a bit awkward
  • Rewritten ("to have the facts at hand if needed during writing"). – sgeureka ^t•c 15:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Some changed details significantly affect the further story. This too
  • Clarified ("On occasion, improvised details have significantly affected the planned story.") – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• By the fourth book, Martin said to keep more notes than ever before to keep track of the many subplots,[23] which have become so detailed and sprawling by the fifth book to be unwieldy. Grammar
  • Slightly rewritten, but I can't really put my finger on what's wrong with this one, so I have asked another editor to give it a grammar check. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• ditto Would not use this, repeating unclear would be better
  • It's a quote, so I won't change this. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Should have noticed that. AIRcorn (talk) 10:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
• The New York Times noted the particular importance of In what way were they important
  • Changed to "The New York Times noted the story importance of". Since a long quote comes afterwards, I am reluctant to split this into "The NYT notes the importance of [long character list] for the story." – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• only that Martin now writes all POV parts in A Song of Ice and Fire as the sole author Is this necessary? It is kind of implied and makes the sentence a bit awkward.
  • Removed that bit, but put "As the sole author, ..." at the beginning of the next sentence. I am not too hung up if you feel that's still unneccessary. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• although Martin heeds story developments to not be predictable. Not sure what this means
  • Rephrased to "although Martin pays attention to not make the story predictable". – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Each character is designed to have his (her) own internal voice What is meant by internal voice?
  • Clarified and moved that sentence part two paragraphs down, where it fits better. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• but also the manners of friends but instead of what?
  • Clarified to "but also from the manners of his friends" (the sentence part right before goes "Martin drew most inspiration from history ... and his own experiences,"). – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Martin deliberately ignored the writing rules to never give two characters a name starting with the same letter Reference (for the written rules part)
  • The same as the sentence afterwards. To avoid confusion, I've added that ref again right behind the first sentence. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Finally, Martin sees the characters as the heart of the story, Why finally. The previous sentences were not numbered and did not appear to be in any special order.
  • Always hated that part myself. I merged the two sentence parts into the paragraphs above without the "finally". – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• I am a little worried that all the reviewers opinions are attributed to the newspapers. It is not really the newspapers opinions, but the authors. It is also a bit weird to read that the "the Atlantic pondered" or the "Los Angeles Times remarked" as these are human characteristics and newspapers as inanimate objects can't do these things.
  • I tried to mix it up even more per your suggestion. The marketing praise in my ASOIAF paperback copies (you know, "The major fantasy of the decade ... compulsively readable" kind of stuff) name just the newspapers 50-66 percent of the time (and the real people's names the other times), so I guess it isn't that wrong to just name the newspaper in uncontroversial places. – sgeureka ^t•c 15:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Last sections

• The series has been translated into more than 20 languages;[3] the fifth book was said to be translated into over 40 languages. Said by who?
  • Dealt with. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• Could the sales graph be made a bit larger? What does the y axis mean?
  • I am reluctant to increase the image size, as per WP:IMGSIZE. Are the numbers too small for you, or why do you think an increased image size would help? y axis == spot in the bestseller list; I'll upload another image with the axis description ("bestseller rank") when I'm at my home PC. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Uploaded another image version with y axis name. – sgeureka ^t•c 16:28, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
      • I have seen requests at FA for larger images, especially if they have improtant numbers that need to be seen. It is not a requiremnt for GA as far as I am aware so I will leave it up to you. AIRcorn (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
        • I think the trend is more important than the actual bestseller rank. I can clearly read "bestseller rank" and obviously the trend on my PC screen, which isn't the biggest (17 inch with a resolution of 1366x768), so I think the current displayed image size is alright for most WP readers, and I'll leave it as it is. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• During his years in television, Martin's novels slowly earned him a reputation in science fiction circles, How do his years in televison tie in with his novels earning him a reputation
  • In no way, hence replaced with "During the 1980s and early 1990s". – sgeureka ^t•c 17:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• although he said to only receive a few fans letters a year in the pre-internet days. grammar
  • I hope it's better now. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• By 2005, Martin received many fan e-mails and was about 2000 letters behind that may go unanswered for years. Grammar
  • Sentence fully rewritten. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• I think there is a new computor MMORPG called GOT: Seven Kingdoms soon to be released that is not mentioned in "Other Works".
  • Since it doesn't have an article (yet), I'd leave it out like most of the other merchandise items without an article. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. AIRcorn (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking good. A few replies to some comments above. AIRcorn (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC) Thanks for your patience. I am happy that this is at least at Good article quality. AIRcorn (talk) 11:26, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Genre categorization

I know this article is currently undergoing GA review, and so I didn't want to garishly change something so major in the lede, but are we sure this fits the description of "high fantasy"? I personally think that a large part of the series better fits the low fantasy label, and there are a lot of reviewers who seem to think that way too. Perhaps the series doesn't fit neatly into either category; maybe it would be best to simply describe it as "fantasy" in the lede and refrain from specifying either way? Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 01:08, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Although I wrote the majority of the article, I am fairly inexperienced with the many fantasy sub-genres. The "Genre" section names the fantasy genre definitions for which I could find sources, and that's what's reflected in the lede. I never touched the info box, so that may be a place where more (sourced?) editing may be called for. – sgeureka ^t•c 07:31, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The first book is definitely low fantasy. I would say play it safe and just use fantasy. AIRcorn (talk) 13:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay I looked into this a bit more and my understanding of High and Low fantasy does not mesh with the wikipedia articles. There is some disagreement with wikipedia [13] and our classification of this series[14] online. A google book search is mixed [15], but generally seems to agree with our definition. There is probably enough there to add a few alternative views to our articles though. I won't fail this due the description in the infobox, but would still recommend just using fantasy. AIRcorn (talk) 09:19, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Since GRRM classified it as Epic fantasy (redirects to High fantasy), I've only left High fantasy with a ref in the infobox and removed everything else. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Paperback release date pushed back

According to amazon, the paperback release date of ADwD is pushed back to March 13, 2013. This influences the appearance date of the sample chapter for TWoW in the Planned_novels_and_future section. Did not find a non amazon-source for that, so I feel unsure of how to fix it here (and it's too late and I should go to bed). Pbro (talk) 04:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Dealt with, used a comment by GRRM. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Films

Disney, Pixar, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Heyday Films, Team Todd and Roth Films plan to make Theatrical-release Live action/CGI-animated 3D hybrid film series based on this novel series and is distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.145.198 (talk) 10:49, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

CDo you have a source to back this up? I could not find one after a quick search. AIRcorn (talk) 11:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

The Themes section reads like a fanboy essay

Just wanted to point out what the title says. I hope someone sees to it to fix the style or at least tag it, as I don't remember the tags to mark for this sort of thing. 94.64.248.225 (talk) 22:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

While it's remarkably well-cited and attributed, and I applaud whoever tackled that task, I happen to agree with you about the tone, so I'm marking it as such. And let me preempt any {{sofixit}}s by promising I'll be back to look at it. Laura Scudder | talk 22:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

For me the whole article seems very (for Wikipedia standards) biased towards praising the book. 94.75.114.148 (talk) 14:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Number of copies sold

While there are no reliable numbers of the total sale worldwide, the series has so far sold 24 millions in North America (Link) and 27 millions in the Commonwealth countries (Link). In other words, at least 51 million copies. I added this information to the article, and for some reason, it was removed. Why? 84.210.10.52 (talk) 19:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Plot

Does anybody know if there is the Full Plot of the Song of Ice and Fire on Wikipedia?? And if not, then where can I find it?.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Soshial (talk • contribs) 09:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You can find the full plot only by reading the individual book articles. Orracle107 (talk) 04:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yup, if the series article had the full plot on it, it would likely exceed the recommended size allowance for a Wikipedia article.--Werthead (talk) 21:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Guess this fits here as well as anywhere: "Entertainment Weekly" has an interview with the producers of the HBO series...which presumably will follow the same plot line as the books...in which they state that George R.R. Martin's ending for the series is "absolutely satisfying". There is also a photo of Daenerys, holding a dragon egg and sitting on the "Iron Thrown." Here's the link: http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/03/19/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-ending/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.75.37 (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

issues

This whole article is written like an advertisement. Blanket (and wrong) statements are made about how Martin's work is innovative. Certainly SIF has interesting elements, but not by any means novel, either in isolation or combined. Yes, it eschews simplicity, but do does most of the literature that endures. Yes, from media adapatations of some works one may think the whole of their author's output is limited in this or that regard, but that's why judgements should not be passed on such flimsy experience. Someone should go through every single sentence in this article and trim the belieber stuff. 82.155.49.228 (talk) 16:06, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Honestly I think the article is absolutely packed with fancruft and other information that isn't relevant. I have never seen anything even remotely resembling the "Inspiration and Writing" section on any other book or series page before (or, at least no section nearly that long), and the "Themes" section links to Themes in A Song of Ice and Fire so there is no need for it to be six paragraphs long. Not to mention the fact that either the Critical Response section is heavily biased or there are no negative reviews of this series at all, aside from a small amount of disappointment with A Feast For Crows. The last paragraph mentions "the most critical voices" but quotes two reviews that ultimately praised the series. This whole article reads like a George R. R. Martin fan page of some kind rather than a Wikipedia article. -Rycr (talk) 06:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Reply Does either of you have negative reviews that could be used to balance the article better? I'd be happy to dirty work and incorporate them into the wiki article, but I've found the reviewers who stick around for thousands of pages are usually also the ones who like the books. Same for the people interviewing the author (why should GRRM talk to them if they shoot him down). So most of the source material for this article is just positive to begin with (seriously, negative reviews and critical interviews were the exception in 2011, and the one secondary book I have seemed to be unusable in-universe fanwank). Maybe secondary sources have gotten more balanced since I've stopped looking in 2011, so I sincerely invite you to fix any perceived short comings of the article if you have access to good secondary material. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:16, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

"a set of over a thousand named characters." ?

Is there any evidence for this? Certainly there are a lot. And a lot more than most books. Even if there are a thousand named individual people in the books it would seem to be hyperbole to call them 'characters'. In most books on writing, for example, a character is considered to be a person with more than a name: they have history, motives, relationships, fears and desires. If I'm wrong, then perhaps 'set' (in the quote above) should be changed to 'cast'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.53.186.67 (talk) 13:11, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Franchise

I realize GRRM is more involved with the franchise process than most fantasy authors, but the section is loaded with details that crosses into the territory of fancruft. I have two suggestions: 1) we clean it up, summarize it briefly, and then merge it within the adaptation section (which also needs to be condensed), or 2) we move the whole Franchise section into a new page titled something along the lines of 'Franchise of A Song of Ice and Fire' and then create a 'See also' section where we provide a wikilink to it. Thoughts or any other suggestions? —Mirlen^Talk 14:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Franchise should even be included as it is not related to the series itself, but of things derived from it. Make new entries for each game, calendar and whatever else is out there if you want, or maybe an all-encompassing page for that aspect of things, but this page should be limited to info regarding the series itself, with little grey area once one starts talking about derivatives. If someone believes otherwise, please say so, else somebody go ahead and take it down or move it after some time. Mukanil (talk) 15:23, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The articles on this subject (or these subjects) seem to have a lot of issues around keeping clearly defined lines between content about the books vs (in particular) the tv series (especially excessive mentions of details about the tv series). I've been making various edits to try to address this but it's a big job. I wonder if renaming some of the articles to make it clearer that it applies to the books or to the tv series or whatever may help.--TyrS 02:45, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

RfC on Oathkeeper article

There's an RS-related RfC on the article about the season-four episode Oathkeeper. Participation and fresh voices would be welcome. The matter concerns a single-line reference to the chapters upon which the episode was based. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Italics

According to the manual of style, series of books are not supposed to be in italics. The exact entry under the section for items that should not receive italics (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles#Neither) is this:

• Media franchises (including a trilogy or other series of novels or films) or fictional universes, except in a case that contains or consists of the name of an italicized individual work

Since none of the novels has the title "A Song of Ice and Fire", it would seem that the series shouldn't be italicized. Is there something I'm overlooking? -- Fyrael (talk) 20:01, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. If you look at the talk page for that section of the manual of style, you'll see that there's been some discussion over the years about cases like this, and the manual itself has been changed back and forth a couple times. Despite the current wording, I'm not sure that there's actually a consensus not to italicize titles of book series, at least in cases like this one, where the series has a definite overall title rather than an informal label (like "the Harry Potter books" or "the Hardy Boys series"). It's probably worth discussing at the MOS talk page before changing this or any of the many other book series articles that use italics. Brendan Moody (talk) 22:22, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I very much considered starting a discussion there, but previous attempts seem to have gotten no traction. The talk page there is not very active. Perhaps I'll give it a shot anyway. -- Fyrael (talk) 00:09, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Is WatchersOnTheWall.com an expert SPS?

There is an RfC at Game of Thrones (season 5) regarding whether the site WatchersOnTheWall.com meets the criteria for an expert self-published source (and is therefore suitable for use on Wikipedia). Participation is welcome. Piandme (talk) 01:14, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Game of Thrones and chapter-to-episode statements

RfC: Should the article state which chapters appear in the episode?

This RfC is specifically about one episode, "Oathkeeper," but it is likely to affect all Game of Thrones episode articles. Specifically, should the episodes contain a line such as, "This episode was based on [specific chapters] of [specific book(s)]"? Right now, some episode articles have lines like this and some don't, always in the Writing section. Here's an example: [16] So far, the first few respondents have outlined the reasons for and against inclusion pretty well, but we need more voices. Participation is welcome and appreciated. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The World of Ice and Fire

With the upcoming release of "The World of Ice and Fire" by George and company, would it be a good idea for someone to create a wikipedia page for it as it currently just links to Works based on A Song of Ice and Fire, which is just a sentence. I think it would be a good page to create now before the book is released, before adding content from the book when it is published, but there is plenty of information to create a page now. Piandme (talk) 20:03, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Genre

Should be classified as fantasy. It is not at all epic fantasy. This is misleading potential fans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.171.187.130 (talk) 20:58, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

What is the definition of "epic fantasy"? Surely a work spanning more than 5,000 pages and a whole world qualifies as "epic"? Further on topic of genre, what is "High fantasy" vs. "Low fantasy"? I'm tempted to say I can't define High Fantasy, but I know it when I read it... D A Patriarche, BSc (talk) (talk) 16:34, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

See also ==Genre categorization== above, these should probably be merged, but I understand it's bad form to redact a Talk page. D A Patriarche, BSc (talk) (talk) 16:45, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Our categorization has to be based on how external reliable sources categorize the series, not our own interpretation as editors. The designation "Epic fantasy" has a great source (in the infobox). Obviously ASOIAF may have elements of other fantasy subgenera and I'd be surprised if other sources haven't called it high fantasy etc., in which case it would be appropriate (in my opinion) to list other genres as well (with citations).— TAnthony^Talk 14:30, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Historical and literary sources - unsourced

I think we need t source these allusions a lot better. As it stands, the only source¹ listed in the section leads to a web portal to an online forum discussing the books, and not specific historical or literary sources noting the comparisons. I don't want to remove it, but it needs referencing, and right quick. I am going to tag the section as unreferenced, and give folk time to find good (read: non-fan forum) sourcing, about a month, and then it will be removed. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 19:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I added sources for the literary section, but the historical one is more dubious. I don't think GRRM has ever gone into great detail about historical allusions other than saying that he found Rome and the War of the Roses to be somewhat influential. I'll look at pruning and resourcing the sub-section into something more supported.--Werthead (talk) 14:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the Westeros.org website is an officially-recognised source of information on the books (the creators are co-writing the official ASoIaF companion book with GRRM at this moment) and that subsection of the website is a record of GRRM's own comments which are reprinted with his explicit permission. It's not a comparison (see my comments above), but GRRM has stated that the Wars of the Roses are an influence on the series. The historical section needs to be reworded and resourced (I gather the original reference was lost when the website was reorganised a couple of years back), which I will get to as soon as I have the time to go looking for the quotations.--Werthead (talk) 23:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"Numerous parallels have been seen between the events and characters in A Song of Ice and Fire and events and people involved in the Wars of the Roses. Two of the principal families in A Song of Ice and Fire, the Starks and the Lannisters, are seen as representing the historical House of York and House of Lancaster, respectively." -The similarities seem to stop at the names. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.146.21.142 (talk) 10:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

After a year, it's clear that this section was Original Research. It has been removed. ∅BRIT 17:23, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Martin has commented on the English and French historical influences on this story (read it here:Martin's historical influences).(User:Lu Xun) —Preceding undated comment added 06:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC).

Interesting about these historical sources but I have to say I find all the similarities to the war of the roses, Holy Roman Empire and everything else high-medieval to be exceedingly slight. However the similarities with British Dark Age history are surely two strong to be coincidence. It strikes me that the novels contain the stories of Romano-British people struggling to contain competing christian/pagan (old gods/new gods) influences, the decline of Roman (Andal) civilisation, Saxon and Viking (various people from Essos) encroachment, various degrees of influence, and puppet kings, and the running down of the wall allowing the Celtic (wildling/first men) tribes to encroach. No idea if there is any evidence for that or not but the parallels are very strong. I've read the Anglo Saxon Chronicles and it does feel like reading Ice and Fire almost word for word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.146.80 (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Thinking on this more I'd say we are in around the 6th/7th century. That makes the Valerians/Targarians the Saxons and gives us the Vikings (Dothraki?) to look forward to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.146.80 (talk) 16:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion this question lacks information about Maurice Druon's The Iron King. It's a french novel that GRRM has read. (he confirms it in interviews like this one (in french) or this one on his website. There are a lot of similarities between GRRM work and Druon's and I think it should be acknowledged on his page.

Keeping in mind that this novel of Druon is about narrating the story of the kings of France and Great-Britain around the 1300's, and that the tone and protagonists are very similar to ASOIAF (except the magic and dragons stuff). It would be interesting talking about this influence of his, and the parallels he made when creating the families of Westeros. p.s. I'm sorry if my post is written bad, i'm new to this 93.44.68.213 (talk) 00:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Druon is already mentioned in the lede of the article, but yes, certainly there should be some text in the body to complement that mention. Brendan Moody (talk) 00:18, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm astounded if no source has pointed out the similarity between Lancaster and York and Lannister and Stark.--Jack Upland (talk) 14:21, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

When did he say that?

Martin classified A Song of Ice and Fire as "epic fantasy"[1] and specifically named Tad Williams as very influential for the writing of the series. Tad Williams???? He wrote his books well after ASOIAF. Why would Tad be influential in is writing? 24.154.130.201 (talk) 01:30, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Though Tad Williams continues writing, his first and possibly best known fantasy series, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn was released between 1988 and 1993, all before the release of A Song of Ice and Fire. Caidh (talk) 04:50, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

And the interview where Martin says this is found in the citation at the end of the sentence that mentions it. -- Fyrael (talk) 17:05, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Is the disambig note necessary?

Does anyone looking for the TV show search for "A Song of Ice and Fire"? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:58, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Martin's stance on the possibility of others continuing the story after his death?

I considered adding this to the article, but no matter how I tried to word it it sounded kind of morbid. I already essentially added it to an unrelated article a few months back. What do others think? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:10, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Year and Seasons

I am surprised there is no critique of the strange relationship between year and seasons. I know this is fantasy, but surely GRRM has some idea of what defines a year? 13 moons perhaps? The late Hal Clement would doubtless have had a scientific explanation, maybe a trinary system with a neutron star etc. I don't insist that fantasy obey the laws of our universe, but it should have its own self-consistent laws. Surely there is critical comment out there on this? I'll do some Googling, but unfortunately "year" and "season" are not good search words. Anyone have a lead on this? D A Patriarche, BSc (talk) (talk) 00:18, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Martin has been asked more than once about years and seasons; here is one version of the answer he always gives, and the fourth response here is another. I doubt there's been enough critical comment on the topic in significant sources to make it worth adding anything to the article, though. Brendan Moody (talk) 00:39, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, if there's no sig critical comment out there, it doesn't belong in the article. Tnx for the links. D A Patriarche, BSc (talk) (talk) 16:28, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Virtually all of the "RS" media coverage of the series in the past few years is inane and superficial commentary based in full or in part on the TV adaptation, and it often confuses the TV show with the books. If there is wide coverage of this specific topic (as opposed to just "the seasons last several years -- isn't that weird") this may need to be taken into account before including such commentary in the article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:15, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 November 2016

In the Plot Synopsis section of given page, it has been written that Aegon I's sisters' names are Visenys and Rhaenys. While Rhaenys is correct, Visenys isn't. The other sister was named "Visenya", not Visenys. Please change "Visenys" to Visenya. https://www.google.co.in/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Aegon+the+conqueror%27s+sisters

117.195.56.254 (talk) 10:33, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Done Topher385 (talk) 11:09, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 February 2017 Unclear information about the War of the Five Kings

The following is unclear "When Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark, King Robert's "Hand" (chief advisor), discovers that Joffrey and his siblings are the product of incest between Cersei and her twin brother Jaime, Eddard is executed for treason. In response, Robert's brothers Stannis and Renly both lay separate claims to the throne. During this period of instability, two of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros attempt to become independent from the Iron Throne: Ned Stark's eldest son Robb is proclaimed King in the North, while Balon Greyjoy desires to recover the sovereignty of his region, the Iron Islands." First, Stannis and Renly lay their claims after learning about the incest, not about Eddard being beheaded. Second, Robb Stark takes up arms to save his father, Eddard, and sisters, Arya and Sansa. After Eddard's death he tries to save his sisters and to dethrone the Lannisters, but not to claim the Iron Throne himself. Third, the Iron Islands is not one of the seven kingdoms, only a region of them. Greyjoy does declare an independence though. EnemyTortoise15 (talk) 09:08, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

 Not done--Absence of WP:RS and an inability to infer what precise changes you wish to incorporate.Winged Blades ^Godric 16:19, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 21 May 2017

There is no show like it. 109.150.16.233 (talk) 17:24, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

That might be so, but as you have not requested any specific changes to this article, there is nothing left to do here. Altamel (talk) 18:59, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

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Anyone more familiar with the series than I care to add it to this list?

Types of mythological or fantastic beings in contemporary fiction is a page of, well, fantasy works (movie, TV, written, whatever) and the assorted mythological and/or fantastic critters they contain. This series would likely qualify. Anyone care to add it? Tamtrible (talk) 23:55, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

"Foreshadowing" the HBO series?

I kinda feel like the sentence After the success of The Lord of the Rings films, Martin received his first inquiries to the rights of the Ice and Fire series from various producers and filmmakers. should be moved out of where it is and into the "Derived works" section, as it looks really out of place where it is, and both the cited source and (virtually?) every other possible source discussing that point would be a source about the TV show Game of Thrones, rather than a chronological history of the publication of the book series. Thoughts? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:26, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

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• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20470532_20511966,00.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120204044334/http://www.georgerrmartin.com/archive01.html to http://www.georgerrmartin.com/archive01.html
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Up for deletion Myrcella Baratheon

• Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Myrcella Baratheon (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs|google) AfD discussion

This is the vanguard of a second wave of an AFD offensive on Game of Thrones-related characters. Note also that there's a proposal to prevent new users from commenting at AfD. That might be significant for such a high-traffic article and so provides good context. I've added lots of sources. WP:Hey, but more is always in order 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:15, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

The above blatantly non-neutral message is inappropriate canvassing -- "the vanguard of a second wave of an AFD offensive"!? For one thing, whether (and which!) individual ASOIAF characters should get standalone articles has been a controversial issue among ASOIAF editors for years (I remember having a conversation about the banned editor User:AffeL's creations back before he was banned), and this "second wave" thing is a conspiracy theory dreamed up by the WP:ARS crowd that is quite out of line with the facts, and WP:HEY clearly doesn't apply when the article was WP:ALLPLOT at the time of nomination and still is now. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:27, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Word usage in the books :: keep or delete this section?

I inserted a section A Song of Ice and Fire#Word usage in the books, and it was deleted twice as trivia by the same editor. I do not want to start an edit war, so please let us discuss here whether or not this section has merit. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:40, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi, unsourced material does not belong into articles and can be removed immediately. WP:INDISCRIMINATE also applies. WikiHannibal (talk) 08:36, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

The source is the books that this article is about. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:08, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

That is a primary source. Are there reliable, secondary or tertiary sources on the topic? Dimadick (talk) 10:02, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Actually the books do not provide an analysis of this "word usage", so there is not even a primary source. This appears to be completely original research. -- Fyrael (talk) 18:46, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

"冰与火之歌" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 冰与火之歌. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Not a very active user (talk) 09:38, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

"George R. R. Martin/A Song of Ice and Fire" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect George R. R. Martin/A Song of Ice and Fire. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Not a very active user (talk) 09:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

"House Connington" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect House Connington. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Not a very active user (talk) 10:03, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

"Pronunciation of names in A Song of Ice and Fire" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Pronunciation of names in A Song of Ice and Fire. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Not a very active user (talk) 10:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

"The War of the Usurper" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect The War of the Usurper. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Not a very active user (talk) 10:28, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

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"War of the Ninepenny Kings" listed at Redirects for discussion

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June 2021 interview: series may end with Winds of Winter

This interview from June 2021 seems to suggest that Martin is now planning to end the series with Book 6. Might be worth updating the appropriate sections. 70.73.90.119 (talk) 15:04, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think so; the article doesn't actually make that claim. Saying the article "seems to suggest" that is based on how you interpret Martin saying "I'm still working on the book but you'll see my ending when that comes out." But if there was actual reason to believe the number of books was changing, that would have been the headline of the article! AJD (talk) 16:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Not necessarily. And I probably should have linked to the original TV interview the news site was reporting on. I think this page and the news station missed the news. (I work as a news editor and there were questions I would have jumped in with had I been conducting the interview and for me the news is the fact he suggests in the interview the series ends with the next book and I would have asked him if that's what he meant.). That said, I did not add to the main article for two reasons. One is this is a "good" article so adds need to be approved and also it's possible as you suggest that Martin might be giving the wrong impression. However, and this is totally anecdotal so again has no place in the article, this isn't the first time I have read Martin interviews suggesting that he's ending it with Book 6 (indeed this very article has content indicating that Martin will decide what to do with Book 7 after 6 is done). So I've just put it here as a heads up. Maybe a reporter will ask the right questions next time and we'll get a more clear answer from Martin. 70.73.90.119 (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Are there things he says in the interview other than "you'll see my ending when that comes out" that give that impression? But anyway, unless we have reliable sources stating that he may be planning to end the series after book 6, it doesn't belong here. AJD (talk) 18:48, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): DarianAfkhami.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Publication Schedule for 'A Dance With Dragons'

This was getting kind of long-winded. I've reduced it somewhat (excessive details about who said what date where) and wouldn't object if anyone further tightened it up. -- Steve, Oct 28, 2010

No other big book series

Regarding A Song of Ice and Fire as his masterpiece, Martin is certain never to write anything on this scale again

I'd say this is a bit of an odd statement by now, considering the author is approaching the age of his life expectancy and it's taking him over a decade to finish the next novel in the series. If he ever will (which i wholeheartedly hope). PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 18:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)