Interesting interview with GRRM about the setting and locales of ASOIAF. Spoilers ahoy.

Sauce

I particularly like the information revealed about the Land of Always Winter. Changes my idea on how the rest of the series will go.

 

I've read up to Clash of Kings and intend to pick up Storm of Swords soon. I am of the opinion that the series is incredible. Fantastic, even. It's one of the better series I've read in memory, with perhaps only The Dresden Files surpassing it.

I've begun watching the HBO series as well, and so far it does the books justice, but I feel like they get too much done in a single episode. I realize that it took me an hour to read up to the part where Jaime pushes Bran, but at the same time, it just feels... too fast. I dunno, maybe that's just my sense of pacing.

My only criticism for the books themselves is that far too many people die. I am aware of the fact that it's war and everything, but what happened at Winterfell once Robb left felt a little... I don't know, heavy-handed?

Also, Sansa is an idiot. There's no two ways about it. In my opinion, her idiocy is comporable to Lori on The Walking Dead, although at least Sansa has the excuse that she's thirteen.

As far as the series' casting goes, a lot of them, I feel, are spot-on, and the actors do their characters justice. Of course, then again, I saw preview stuff for the HBO series before I started reading the books, so I couldn't help but imagine Sean Bean as Ned Stark.

 

All Sansa has ever had to be is a perfect little lady. As the series goes on and she has to make it though more and more shit she becomes a more and more capable, sometimes manipulative character. She's actually had some of the most enjoyable development throughout the series imo.

 

Pretty much. She made one bad decision, which I blame on Ned, and is now paying for it. Ned warned Arya about their situation but was content to let Sansa live in a bubble and she did something childish and understandable, since then she's gotten much better.

 

Not sure how interested any of you are in ASOIAF history, but I'm a total fanatic over it. Work on a History of Westeros podcast, etc.

So my excitement about some new info from the forthcoming The Lands of Ice and Fire and The World of Ice and Fire is huge.

Some info we already had, but a lot we could only conjecture, and some new details entirely.

Sauce
Shittier Sauce

 

Finally made up a Facebook page for the podcast I mentioned before. Staggering the uploading of podcasts, but there are 3 up: Lannister & Baratheon, and a two-parter on Stark.

Anyway, not looking for likes, though that'd be nice, I mainly just thought some of you might be interested. Upcoming are an episode on the Golden Company, the Dance of the Dragons, the Iron Islands, and more. I was never a fan of podcasts before this, but I have to say, it's really fun delving into the huge amount of information that GRRM provides.

History of Westeros

 

'The Lands of Ice and Fire', aka the 'map book', comes out in ten days. Leading up to its release, MTV has released several preview images.

I love this type of in-depth world-building, so I'm already sold on the idea, but still, I like what I've seen so far. I've taken the liberty of uploading the images here, for any interested parties.

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Beyond the Wall



The Dothraki Sea



The Known World



Braavos



The third one is my personal favorite, with everything in it unique to map, no mention of anything of the sort in the books.

 

Was on the ASOIAF wiki just now, going from link to link when I saw this:

And that had me wondering about what if the Targaryens had just conquered the Free Cities instead of the Seven Kingdoms.

 

New images from 'The Lands of Ice and Fire'.

The Jade Gates:


Asshai:


Asshai! It would seem the Shadow Lands are aptly named...but why? Why are they so dark? What lies to the south of Asshai? It's been confirmed as not being Sothoryos. A fourth continent perhaps? A shadow continent? I have no idea!

 

So... "the shadow" is a range of mountains?

Heh.

Check out that river going right into them...

 

I was under the impression that Castle Black is deliberately unfortified, is the map wrong?

 

Probably. Perhaps the map-maker isn't very familiar with the world, and was just working from GRRM's notes.

 

Coming home from working third shift to see these is so satisfying.

 

I think that it was fortified only from the front.

 

That's how Martin describes it, so that it is only effective against an attack from the north.

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More images:
Very small slices, but I still found them intriguing.

The East:


The Dothraki Sea:


Westeros:


The Free Cities:

 

Just got The Lands of Ice and Fire book. Very very VERY pleased, but it sucks that the maps are all folded up, thus making it less aesthetically pleasing to hang them up.

Fucking creases, man.

 

Also pleased with the new map book. Some observations:

Yi Ti is not when I thought it'd be. I thought it'd be closer to Assahi, but it's not much past Qarth. Also, it's not a city, but an entire jungle region off the coast of the Jade Sea.

The Jade Gates are between Qarth, and a large island 'Great Moraq'. I'm surprised Qarth can get away with such high tariffs, since you'd think sea captains might think about just going around Great Moraq to take them.

Assahi is just as far away as advertised, on the edge of the 'known world'. To the south is a small slice of continent, across the Saffron Straits, called 'Ulthos'. It has no features save for a river, and is colored black, just as the Shadow Lands are. Hmmm.

The map doesn't show the Eastern coast of Essos. The Known World ends before the coast.

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Oh, and here's a rough sketch of the Known World, pulled from the Westeros forums.

 

Don't know if anyone's seen these before - minimalist sigils of some of the major houses, and some minor. Nicely done actually.

Also, I'm new to having read the books (just finished aDwD) and having read this thread, I think I'm alone in the ironborn being my favourite faction generally. Well, more specifically Victarion and Asha, who I think are both pretty awesome characters. But the rest of the ironborn, when shown pillaging the shores of the Reach in Feast (?), are pretty cool also.

On the mainland, I've always supported Stannis while reading - that's a weird one as well, as the books are written in such a way as to influence the reader to support Daenerys' claim. I like his character, and his claim is the most sound imo.

Anyway, yeah. Fucking awesome series, and tWoW can't come quick enough.

 

I can't help but see the Eastern Mediterranean in the map. With Westeros looking like a misplaced, mutated Britain.

 

Something about the map looks very weird to me. Like, the area depicted on the map looks like it should just be a small part of a greater world, maybe the size of Europe relative to the rest of the world. And yet we know Westeros alone is around the size of Europe, which implies that the known world is a good portion of the total world.

I dunno why, but it just looks to me like there should be a lot more. I think it's the shape of the continents. Because they're relatively long and thin they look like peninsulars off a much larger land mass.