spoilers for A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons
reld...@usa.net
had time to read a lot of the posts on it. It's possible I'll be
repeating things already known--apologies if this is old news. But
since I just talked to GRRM about upcoming developments in A Song of
Ice and Fire, I thought it was worthwhile writing this down. Some of
it, at least, may be of interest to people here:
(spoiler space)
I had dinner with GRRM on Friday night and then spent an hour
interviewing him the next day. In person he is a short, round munchkin
with a frizzy grey beard, always wearing a cap and a novelty teeshirt
of some kind. He's a lot of fun except when dealing with questions
that he finds hard to answer.
GRRM talked about why he originally was going to have a five-year gap
in the characters' lives between A Storm of Swords and A Feast for
Crows, and then changed his mind. He had wanted the five-year gap so
that the child characters could get older. (He said the child
characters are the hardest ones for him to write.) But then he thought
about the adult characters such as Cersei, Tyrion, and others, and how
it was impossible to say "Nothing important happened in their lives for
five years," so he did away with the time gap.
The reason why it has taken so long for A Feast for Crows to be
published is because the tale grew in the telling so much. GRRM said
he kept thinking of new things involving all the characters, and
finally the manuscript got too long to publish as one volume. So he
decided to publish it as two volumes. A Feast for Crows, which is
coming out this November, will be followed shortly by A Dance of
Dragons, which is almost completed already.
For the first time, not all the characters will appear in each volume.
A Feast for Crows will be concerned solely with the political intrigue
of Kings Landing; characters far away from there, such as Daenerys in
the East, won't appear in it. But the following volume, A Dance with
Dragons, will be largely concerned with Daenerys and her dragons, and
also with events north of the Wall involving Jon Snow and his men.
Evidently there will be just a brief glimpse of Jon Snow and his men in
A Feast for Crows, and that only for the purpose of showing how Jon
Snow sends Samwell Tarly south so that he can study in Oldtown to
become a Maester. Jon Snow foresees that he will need a new Maester to
replace Maester Aemon. Samwell is reluctant to go, but Jon explains
the necessity to him. Presumably, after Samwell leaves the Wall there
will be more chapters devoted to his training in Oldtown.
GRRM said the series will probably total seven volumes. But it sounds
as if he is being flexible about that, in case he keeps getting more
new ideas that will result in additional volumes, as has already been
the case with A Feast for Crows. He also said that the strange
phenomenon of the fantasy world's long seasons will be explained in the
final volume of the series.
GRRM said that he doesn't have a "Big Board" or a special computer
program to keep all the events and characters straight. He says he
does it all in his head, by means of using the brain cells that most
people use to cope with everyday life!
GRRM said that his favorite character is Tyrion Lannister, and he
identifies a lot with Tyrion. (Tyrion is also one of my favorite
characters; my other favorites are Arya Stark and Brienne of Tarth.)
GRRM said the Tyrion chapters are very easy to write, and they seem to
write themselves without any effort from him.
With regard to characterization and point of view, GRRM said that for
any character who is a POV character he has to find something that he
and readers can sympathize with even if the character in question does
reprehensible things. He said there is always something he can find,
or if not then it just won't be a POV character. Gregor Clegane, for
example, could never be a POV character, but Jaime Lannister can be
despite his bad actions, because there's more to Jaime than that. GRRM
mentioned that Cersei will be a major POV character in A Feast for
Crows. I was outraged by this and commented "You just won't ever leave
us any character we can purely hate, will you?". GRRM smiled at that,
and that's when he gave the counter-example of Gregor Clegane.
I asked a lot of questions about the world-building involved in A Song
of Ice and Fire--why the fantasy world is so earthlike in certain ways,
with Caucasians in the northwest, Mongol-like Dothraki in the east,
black people and zebras in the south, etc., and why some of the
characters even have names from terrestrial languages such as Robert
and Richard (Germanic) and Philip and Jason (Greek); his answers were
that the earthlike characteristics of the flora, fauna, and ethnic
groups were just something he wanted--in other words, no real answer at
all--and that he viewed names such as Robert, Richard, Philip, and
Jason as "neutral" names with no real ties to any language, whereas he
would never give one of his characters a name such as Pierre because to
him that isn't a "neutral" name. When I demurred about this, GRRM
became rather testy and told me my problem was that I knew too much
about languages. (I still fail to see the logic in viewing the names
Robert, Richard, Philip, and Jason as any more "neutral" than
Pierre--they aren't, of course.)
The last question I asked him was about religion in his fantasy world.
I thought the religious tolerance in Westeros between tree-worshipers
and worshipers of the Seven was remarkable. GRRM said there hadn't
always been tolerance, and the situation as seen at the beginning of A
Game of Thrones was a compromise that had been worked out after much
conflict in the past. But this is a situation now changing with the
introduction of Melisandre and her fanaticism regarding
Rh'llor--essentially, religious tolerance is becoming a thing of the
past in Westeros. When Robert Baratheon overcame the Targaryens, he
opened up Westeros to all sorts of changes in tradition--thus, Cersei's
unprecedented move in dismissing Ser Barristan Selmy from the
Kingsguard, etc. Westeros is now in a state of flux.
That's about all I can remember.
Clairel
Elio M. Garcia Jr.
Very interesting report, Dr. Eldevik. :) Would you be willing to give
permission to repost the info elsewhere? It'd be perfect for the 'So Spake
Martin' collection <http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM>, where I'm trying
to collect reports from conventions, mails from GRRM to fans, etc. :)
Re: names being "neutral" to GRRM, I could suppose that what he wanted to
get across that the names just don't make the typical reader ponder the
historical origins of said names. They're "standard" names for the
Anglo-American readers, and don't catch one's attention, unlike his more
fantastic names like Nymeria or Daenerys.
That said, I think it's clear GRRM isn't very methodical when it comes to
some of his world-building details. :)
--
[Upon a Dzurlord learning of the murder of a critic by a painter]
"And it was well done, too. I'd have done the same, only-"
"Yes?"
"I don't paint." (Steven Brust, _The Phoenix Guards_)
reld...@usa.net
Elio M. Garcia Jr. wrote:
> Re: names being "neutral" to GRRM, I could suppose that what he wanted to
> get across that the names just don't make the typical reader ponder the
> historical origins of said names. They're "standard" names for the
> Anglo-American readers, and don't catch one's attention, unlike his more
> fantastic names like Nymeria or Daenerys.
--I know that's what he means, but it doesn't make sense. When a name
that originated in a specific linguistic-cultural matrix on Earth shows
up in a fantasy world that has no connection with Earth, it sure as
hell is going to catch the attention of anyone with half a brain. As I
said to GRRM, the Roberts, Richards, Philips, and Jasons in his fantasy
world break the consistency of the fantasy for me.
It's different in a world like C.S. Lewis's Narnia, where there have
been many comings and goings between Earth and Narnia through
dimensional portals or "chinks." The existence of names from Earth
cultures there makes sense. The fact that the inhabitants speak
English makes sense too--in The Magician's Nephew we see the creation
of Narnia, which occurred circa 1900 A.D. earth time, and we know that
English was the language given to the first created beings on Narnia
because Aslan willed it so. Evidently Aslan also willed that certain
elements from pre-existing Earth cultures should be present in Narnia:
thus we have Bacchus and his Maenads, fauns with Latin names such as
Tumnus, etc. "Aslan willed it so" is enough of a reason for that; in
Lewis's universe Aslan is lord of all worlds and dimensions.
But there isn't any such thing at the back of A Song of Ice and Fire,
so the elements clearly lifted from Earth culture make no sense.
Convergent social evolution can adequately explain certain things such
as the customs of chivalry found in Westeros, but they cannot explain
the existence there of Earth names with specific derivations.
Clairel (note--this is my preferred monicker on Usenet)
reld...@usa.net
Elio M. Garcia Jr. wrote:
> Very interesting report, Dr. Eldevik. :) Would you be willing to give
> permission to repost the info elsewhere? It'd be perfect for the 'So Spake
> Martin' collection <http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM>, where I'm trying
> to collect reports from conventions, mails from GRRM to fans, etc. :)
--I guess it's okay to repost there. You can say that it was all from
the Conestoga con, July 15-16.
Clairel
mad...@starmail.com
> explain certain things such as the customs of
> chivalry found in Westeros, but they cannot
> explain the existence there of Earth names with
> specific derivations.
It also cannot explain why the characters speak English. However,
since nobody would read the book if the characters spoke grrmish, it's
a given that we must suspend our disbelief about their choice of
languages.
If we accept that they speak English, or some slight variation thereof,
then we must also accept that the names are English, or variations
thereof.
Richard Boye
Here's a question, by the way, that's always interested me.
GRRM is writing in English, and therefore his puns, names and
alliterative by-names are in English.
For example, are house names that are English words like Redfort,
Hunter, Gardener, Ashmark, hell even House Stark. My question is, are
they translated into the vernacular in the foreign translations, or are
they left in English?
Similarly, by-names like, umm, Garlan the Gallant, how well do they
translate? GRRM is a big fan of alliteration, i.e. Wenda the White Fawn,
Big Belly Ben, Brown Ben Plumm, etc... Are there any foreign
translations where the by-names don't really 'work?'
--
Richard M. Boye' * wa...@webspan.net
Typing into the Void: rmb...@gmail.com
http://www.webspan.net/~waldo/books/blogger.html
"Some men lead lives of quiet desperation.
My desperation makes a pathetic whining sound
pet...@adobe.com
> since nobody would read the book if the characters spoke grrmish, it's
> a given that we must suspend our disbelief about their choice of
> languages.
>
> If we accept that they speak English, or some slight variation thereof,
> then we must also accept that the names are English, or variations
> thereof.
That's my take on it as well.
The treatment is not meant to represent that the person literally
carries that name, any more than that they are literally speaking
English in Westeros. It is meant to set up the mood in the reader as to
which people have exotic or family-specific names, which people have
bland conventional names, and which people have names that are a bit
old-fashioned even for Westeros.
Those characters who are meant to have names that are unremarkable in
Westeros are given names that are similarly unremarkable for English
speakers. Their names may not have originated in English, but they have
been widely used among English speakers for at least a hundred years.
Note that Martin never uses a name that comes across as blatantly
modern to our sensibilities, like Britney. The people who are meant to
have names that are slightly antique are often given spelling
variations on classic names, like Eddard for Edward and Petyr for
Peter.
So if translating the books into another language, the way to do it in
the GRRM "spirit" would be to leave the exotic names like Nymeria,
Cersei, Melisandre, Daenerys, Tywin and Tyrion untranslated, convert
the names that are ordinary spellings of names that have long been
common in English-speaking cultures into names that are common among
the speakers of the destination language, and convert the names that
are spelling variations of classic names into spelling variations of
names common in the destination language. So Petyr might be translated
as Pyerre in French, for example. People named after herbs, jewels,
flowers, etc. would have their names translated as the regular words.
This is not to say that the books will actually be translated that way.
Translation standards are nearly always set by the local publishers,
and the author often has little control over them.
Elio M. Garcia Jr.
> For example, are house names that are English words like Redfort,
> Hunter, Gardener, Ashmark, hell even House Stark. My question is, are
> they translated into the vernacular in the foreign translations, or are
> they left in English?
Linda doesn't think much of the Swedish translation that we peeked at in a
bookstore. But basically, personal and house names were kept the same,
while some house seats had their names translated.
> Similarly, by-names like, umm, Garlan the Gallant, how well do they
> translate? GRRM is a big fan of alliteration, i.e. Wenda the White Fawn,
> Big Belly Ben, Brown Ben Plumm, etc... Are there any foreign
> translations where the by-names don't really 'work?'
Can't recall that off the top of our heads. Linda does think a clever
translator could have translated them quite well, keeping much of the sense
and occasionally keeping the alliteration (Linda would, for example,
translateBarristan the Bold as Barristan den Bålde; 'båld', however, is
quite archaic in Swedish, which raises up various issues related to
competing theories of translation.)
From the examples you give, in Swedish Brown Ben would be easy - Brune Ben
(which is sort of funny, since there's a House Brune, but I suppose their
Brune is indeed related to Brown ...). Wenda - Wenda den Vita Hjortkalven.
Big Belly Ben - Storbukade Ben, or perhaps Bredbukade Ben (which would more
literally be Broad Bellied Ben, but close enough).
(Have to say, bukade would make me think of bukkake, but that's what it's
like being an American living in Sweden; I hope most people are more
blissfully ignorant than I. Damned internets.)
Matthias Feser
> So if translating the books into another language, the way to do it in
> the GRRM "spirit" would be to leave the exotic names like Nymeria,
> Cersei, Melisandre, Daenerys, Tywin and Tyrion untranslated, convert
> the names that are ordinary spellings of names that have long been
> common in English-speaking cultures into names that are common among
> the speakers of the destination language, and convert the names that
> are spelling variations of classic names into spelling variations of
> names common in the destination language. So Petyr might be translated
> as Pyerre in French, for example. People named after herbs, jewels,
> flowers, etc. would have their names translated as the regular words.
It is not done like this, at least not in the German translation. There
- I just checked - the reader finds a crude mixture of Germanized
bynames, unaltered English names (the worst case for this are the
wolfs' names, which remain English).
> This is not to say that the books will actually be translated that way.
> Translation standards are nearly always set by the local publishers,
> and the author often has little control over them.
Alas. It is just so.
A little postscript to the neutrality of the names chosen: The Martells
of Dorne bear the name of the founder of the Carolingian dynasty, Karl
Martell, who kept the Arabic expansion from successfully crossing the
Pyrenees and to do so "invented" the heavy cavalry. Thus being the
"father" of chivalry, feudalism, knights, and: Fantasy, as we know
it....
wesl...@hotmail.com
Jenny Chase
>of Dorne bear the name of the founder of the >Carolingian dynasty, Karl
>Martell, who kept the Arabic expansion from >successfully crossing the
>Pyrenees and to do so "invented" the heavy >cavalry.
Interesting. I only got that it suggested "martial".
I think I was told that in the German translation some of the
placenames which meant something - the Tower of Joy, Sunspear,
Winterfell - were translated and some weren't. My source thought it was
rather well done, translating the obviously literal ones and leaving
the slightly more abstruse ones.
Not sure if the Tower of Joy is what it's actually called, though, or
just what Rhaegar called it.
--Jenny
willre...@yahoo.com
I know you put "invented" in quotes but the claim is still too much.
The Parthians, Sarmatians, Sakas, the late Persians, etc, all had
heavily armored nobles as well as horse-archers and depended on the
former for shock-action and breaking an enemy that had been disordered
by the arrow-storms. The Byzantine Kataphrakts were derivitive of these
Persian-speaking peoples.
Will in New Haven
--
To ride, to shoot the bow, to tell the truth.
Eoghan Scully
> > However,
> > since nobody would read the book if the characters spoke grrmish, it's
> > a given that we must suspend our disbelief about their choice of
> > languages.
> >
> > If we accept that they speak English, or some slight variation thereof,
> > then we must also accept that the names are English, or variations
> > thereof.
>
> That's my take on it as well.
>
> The treatment is not meant to represent that the person literally
> carries that name, any more than that they are literally speaking
> English in Westeros. It is meant to set up the mood in the reader as to
> which people have exotic or family-specific names, which people have
> bland conventional names, and which people have names that are a bit
> old-fashioned even for Westeros.
Me too.
'Appendix F: On Translation' in LotR gives a very good account of this
process as Tolkien practiced it.
Some names that were meaningless to the Hobbits were merely updated in
spelling e.g. Tuk -> Took. Some meaningless names had their endings
changed to indicate gender, e.g. Bilba->Bilbo.
Other names were actually translated, e.g. Kalimac->Meriadoc since kali
means merry in Westron.
The origin of nams has also been translated so that mainstream hobbit
names are often germanic in origin, while some placenames are
deliberately celtic in origin to indicate that those names sounded as
strange to mainstream hobbit ears as celtic names do to modern english
speakers.
It may be that the choice of names of Westerosi by GRRM has some similar
reasoning so that the names of germanic origin indicate one particular
cultural heritage in Westeros while names of classical origin indicate
another. Even if that wasn't deliberate by GRRM, Westeros does seem to
be as much a melting post as England was, so names with a variety of
different origins makes sense.
reld...@usa.net
--The trouble with using the Tolkien analogy is that GRRM said to me
"Well, I could have taken the Tolkien route and said that Robert and so
forth aren't *really* the characters' names. But that's not what I
decided to do."
GRRM made it clear to me that Robert, Richard, Jason, Philip, etc., are
the *actual* names of the characters, not just terrestrial equivalents
chosen to show the familiarity the characters' names had in their own
cultural context.
And so that is the basis of my objections.
Clairel
willre...@yahoo.com
That's what you get for talking to an author. He can say that to anyone
he pleases but it is not evident from the text and so needn't matter to
the reader. I think it is as likely that Robert, when he was alive and
before he was King, was called "Urmpsik" by his friends as "Robert."
PERHAPS somewhat less likely as the actually name may well have started
with the dog's growl like Robert.
Will in New Haven
--
This hand will raise now;
There is no I to do it.
The cards themselves act.
reld...@usa.net
--Let me try to be clearer.
In the absence of a specific statement by an author, I assume that the
names of characters in a fantasy novel are their actual names, and
aren't substitutes for something else. Thus, for example, when I first
dipped in to "The Fellowship of the Ring" back in 1968, I assumed that
Sam Gamgee's name really was Sam. It wasn't till several days later,
when I had worked my way through to the appendices at the end of "The
Return of the King," that I got the information from Tolkien that the
names of the hobbits, the Bree-men, the Rohirrim, the northern Woodmen,
and the dwarves given in the narrative were all substitute names, i.e.,
real-world names names chosen by Tolkien from either English cultural
tradition or the traditions of neighboring countries and related
languages, so that the names would have an ambience and associations
equivalent to those of the characters' real names in the Common Tongue
or related languages of Middle Earth.
I adjusted to this information. It got easier for me when I began to
study medieval Germanic philology, because then I could see exactly
what Tolkien was doing and why. Therefore I accept Tolkien's
statements about the characters' names in the appendices.
But in general, I assume that the "default position" in a fantasy novel
is that the names given in the text are the characters' actual names.
Thus, when I first began reading "A Game of Thrones," long before I
ever talked to George R.R. Martin, I assumed that the names Robert,
Philip, etc., were those characters' actual names. And nothing has
come along since then to contradict that--no authorial appendices
giving a Tolkienesque explanation, nothing. And my original assumption
about Martin's fantasy novels still stands. When Martin confirmed it
for me during the interview, he was only reinforcing what I had always
assumed from the outset.
He specifically disavowed any sort of Tolkienesque name-substitution
system. But even if I had never heard him say anything about it one
way or the other, my original assumption would have continued to be the
assumption I held.
And so, with or without GRRM's confirmation of what I originally
assumed, I'm obliged to take the view that names such as Robert, etc.,
are supposed to be "real" in his fantasyverse. And to me that will
always be a blemish because there's no logical explanation for it.
If there were travel between worlds in these novels, and some
inhabitant of our real world had traveled to the Martin fantasyverse
and influenced its inhabitants to use real-world names such as Robert,
etc., then there would be a logical explanation. That's essentially
the situation in C.S. Lewis's Narnia. But without any travel between
worlds, it's just too much of a coincidence that exact duplicates of
real-world names (and multisyllabic names at that) could show up as
actual names of characters in the Martin fantasyverse. As I said
before, for me it's very jarring, and a violation of the fantasy's
self-consistency.
And that, I hope, will be my last word on the subject!
Clairel