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George R. R. Martin Answers Fan Questions | Penguin Random House | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: George R. R. Martin Answers Fan Questions
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The content features an interview with a writer discussing their creative process, favorite characters, and insights into the world of Westeros, with a particular focus on the history and potential future stories within the "A Song of Ice and Fire" universe.
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hi well I'm back uh with my friend uh
and we're gonna
answer a few fan questions that have
been uh sent in here uh
uh
which of your characters
would you most like to have dinner with
uh well that would depend in part on uh
the purpose of uh the dinner
um if I wanted a wit and entertainment
uh Tyrion Lannister very few people as
uh you know funny or witty as a Tyrion
but he's also dangerous too if you uh
annoy him he could uh you know send you
to the dungeon or cut your head off
um if I was simply looking for a
wonderful meal uh go to Penthouse and
eat with illyrio mopatas he uh he has
some marvelous uh feasts uh set before him
him
or I suppose you could go to the uh you
know the Inn on the Trident and and see
what hot pie was uh whipping up um
another character that might be fun to
have dinner with would be uh Shea when
she was alive but uh probably for
reasons that I shouldn't go into um
um
is there a character that you would have
liked to explore and write more about
but not able to
in A Song of Ice and Fire or Fire and
Blood uh well yes there are in fact a
lot of characters um
um
one of the things uh about fire and
blood in particular
is its nature as a history meant I was
summarizing things and as I as I
summarize those things and characters
appeared be they major minor there was
always part of me the the novelist part
in the back of my mind said I could
write a whole novel about that that character
character
um oh boy I wish I had time to I could
at least write a story about them
um and I've been tempted to do that uh
many times
characters
it's hard to explain in some ways why
some characters
trigger something in me or or fascinate
me and others maybe don't but uh um
a character like us
the the Dragon Knight um
um
this very Gallant one of the greatest
knights in in the history of Westeros or um
or Nettles
um who you know is a is a dragon writer
in the dance where does she come from
where does she go to what is her life
like what is her life like after she
Fades from the public sphere
um those are interesting
um I have thought at various points of
writing an entire novel about uh carrot
we haven't gotten to you yet aegon the
fourth aegoning unworthy he's like the
Henry the eighth of uh
of West Rose except worse he has all
these Mr C's and he's he's not a nice
guy but he's an interesting guy and
that's that's something that uh you know
fascinates me what makes a villain what
makes a a hero um are there people who
are all good and all evil I don't I
don't know but there's a million
characters I I just need to live to be
you know 150 uh and I can write all of this
this
uh what was one of your favorite scenes
to write in a series
and one of your least favorite um
well one scene I don't know if I could
name one favorite scene and one least
favorite scene I did generally always
like writing about Tyrion the Tyrion
chapter seemed to write themselves and I
had a very hard time to struggle with
writing from bran because bran of all
the characters was the one who was most
involved in Magic and I think magic and
fantasy sorcery the supernatural all of
these things have to be handled with a
great deal of care or they can overwhelm
the uh the story
so um I rewrote some of those brand
chapters over and over again and I'm
still struggling with the new ones that
are in uh
in The Winds of Winter but uh hopefully
we're we're getting there um
um
what's seen from Fire and Blood are you
most excited is he brought to the screen
uh well yeah the battle over to guard time
time
although that battle that they did in
the season finale was pretty uh
pretty amazing too um
what is your favorite seemingly minor moment
moment
that changed the course of uh westeros's history
there are a couple of them um I think uh
in in the first in the Hedge night the
first Duncan egg story uh the death of
Baylor breakspeare who was the uh the
heir next in line to the throne and I
think would have been a very strong and
very competent King who who dies to
defend the um the honor of an
insignificant hedge knight uh how was
Westeros history different if Baylor
does not die
um that would be
very significant and similarly the whole
dance with the dragons I mentioned
earlier the the air and this
air in the spear I mean Harris the Old
King had 13 children it seemed a
succession was very
solid he had the proverbial air and a
sphere and two very competent
Sons amen and Balon and Eamon was killed
while flying on his Dragon to uh Tarth
to help defend the Isle against some you
know Pirates and mirish people and he
was killed by a crossbow well it was not
even meant for him there was you know
the the
even starve Tarth the the Lord was well
known to the mirrish and they were
determined to take him out and uh
crossbowmen didn't even recognize who
was this new guy who was walking
alongside him but he just missed and suddenly
suddenly
the whole succession was thrown into
doubt and in some ways you could say
that was one of the first things that
caused the dance of the dragons
uh when you first imagined characters in
A Song of Ice and Fire and Fire and
Blood were there any that changed in
unexpected ways as the story uh
developed yes
in fact there were so many that I couldn't
couldn't
even begin to tell you um it's the way I
write I've I've talked about this in
many interviews and many blog posts two
types of writers the architect and a
gardener and um the architect plans
everything ahead of time
but the gardeners just starts to write
the story and the characters come alive
and they take him in unexpected
directions so sometimes it's an
unexpected character who pops up and uh
captivates you and takes over the story
and does take it in unexpected
directions I remember one of the First
characters to do that was Brawn you know
Tyrion is on the road and he he meets at
an end he runs into these two cell
swords Brawn and chicken and uh
then he gets arrested by uh Catelyn
Stark and um
he has to travel to the irie and he's
put on trial and and Braun steps forward
uh to defend him um I needed someone it
could have easily have been chigging at
that stage but no I killed chicken I
just just I like to name Braun bitter
and the more time Tyrion spent with
Braun the more interesting the character
became to me I wanted to know who he was
and what about him and I liked his
dialogue I liked the sound of him he
played very well off
Tyrion so but that's only one character
there are many many other characters
that have done the same thing to uh to a
greater or less extent in uh
in these books um
um
if you could choose a time or place in
westerosi history then you could revisit
in future stories what would it be uh
you know virtually everything in Fire
and Blood
all the histories there's part of me
that would love to uh
flesh them out a little more tell the
tell the full story in the form of a
novella or a novel um
um
and we saw even more of that in the in
the TV show I mean it we had 10 episodes
um people have
said that time jumps were jarring to
them and you know raniera's relationship
with Harwin strong um
um
she had three children by him but we
never even you know we never see them
get together for the first time or cast
we never have a scene when they first
slept with each other we we don't know
uh exactly what has happened and how he
felt about that and how Lenor felt about
him there's a whole story there there's
a at least a novella maybe a a novel but
um we we simply did not have the time to
tell it
um and it did not fit the format of my
history book so
but it's a story and I would love to
Fire and Blood is strongly informed by
the biases of Washington gildane and mushroom
mushroom
well mushroom is only one of gildane's
sources there's also Eustis and uh
or a while who recount these events do
you consider House of dragon to be a
companion piece of the book that shows
the true nature of events as they
actually happened
or will only you ever know the truth
well how meta do you want to get I mean
there is no truth I make all this stuff
up uh Archer Mason gildane mushroom all
of those things and uh
what is the truth uh will we ever know
the truth of uh Hannibal uh or Spartacus
as in David's novel will we ever know
the truth of what happened at the black
dinner of Scotland
um will we ever know the truth of
any of these things
truth gets obscured um
so I say with Kipling there are 9 and 20
ways of constructing tribal lays and
are you team black
or Team Green well I don't know
read the book
you have to
make your own mind up on that
maybe I'm a bit of both teams um
what smaller house in Westeros
It's the Most Fascinating to you
and why um
again that's a that's a tough one um
um
I do get interested in the history of uh
many of these uh smaller houses
obviously House of valerion which was largely
largely
very much in the background in A Song of
Ice and Fire but is very much in the
foreground of
Fire and Blood and House of the Dragon
um is a house that has engaged me and
you know one of the successor shows
we're working on is called Nine voyages
it's the uh earlier Voyage of Corliss
valerion who was the Sinbad the Sailor
the Magellan
um the Captain Kirk on the water of
Westeros and he made these incredible
nine voyages to the far ends of the
Earth so house valerion is is uh one
that's interested in me I've always had
a soft spot for house Blackwood which
has an interesting history and they're
one of the few houses south of the neck
that still follows the old gods and has
a weary tree and they they have not
adopted the faith of the seven that's an
interesting to me how did they uh how
did they work out
some of the houses in Doran interests me
a great deal uh you know nymeria how she
uh unified all of Dorne all of the petty
kingdoms that's fascinating and I hope
we hope to tell that story too in one of
the successor shows uh 10 000 ships but
also how starful which is the ha uh the
the house Dane which is headquarters at
Starfall and they have the the sword
Dawn which is even more potent than the
Valerian steel swords it's forged from a
full-length star and the man who Wheels
it is called a sword of the morning and
they have a at least in my head they
have a very colorful Rich kind of
mysterious interesting background at uh
one day I would like to write about
there just need to be seven of me and
they need to be 37 hours in the day and
I need to be 35 years old again but uh
sadly none of these things are likely to occur
occur
and finally you asked a question I knew
I was going to get do you have an update
on the Winds of Winter um
you know it's the same update I've been
giving for a long time I'm I continue to
it continues to get longer and longer I
mean I was working on it the day before
I flew back here for three or four days
but I was
I was rereading some chapters that I'd
written earlier and I didn't like them
well enough and uh so I kind of ripped
them apart and rewrote them
um and I've had some ideas while I've
been on this trip I got to get back and
and hopefully get to it while the ideas
are still
fresh in my head
um it's a big big book I've said that
before it's a challenging book um
um
it's probably going to be a larger book than
than
any of the previous volumes in the
series The what
the um desert dragons and Storm of
Swords are the two largest books in the
series they were both about 1500
manuscript pages I think this one is
going to be longer than that by the time
I finish it and I think I'm about three
quarters of the way done maybe
um but that's not a hundred percent done
so I I have to continue to work on it
and of course then there's the issue
here of my friends at random house when
I deliver this monstrous book that will
be as big of this Dragon
are they going to try to make me cut it
in two or are they going to do something
other horrible to me ah no
we'll find out about that but first I
have to finish it I I have to get it all
done and uh I've given up making
predictions because people press me and
press me when's it going to be done and
I make what I think is the best case
estimate and then stuff happens
and um yeah that's um then everybody
gets mad that I lied and I've never lied
about these predictions that are best I
can make
but I guess I overestimate my ability to
get stuff done and I underestimate the
amount of interruptions and other
projects and other demands that will
distract me and uh so on and so on but
it's in progress I'm working on it um
um
one day it will be done
and then
it will come out
and then
the next day
someone will tweet me
when will we see a dream of spring so
so
uh yes I I can see the future I'm a
science fiction guy
anyway that's all we have for you tonight
tonight um
um
so I hope you've enjoyed this talk it
was great having David here
um I think we could uh
we could have talked for another two or
three hours um
um
but um he has to get home and get
working on the ice dragon
um so do um
do pick up Fire and Blood do pick up
this incredible art book that we have uh
rise of the dragons and uh also please
do pick up some of my Wild Card books
David David is in those along with a lot
of other marvelous writers and pick up
some of David's own novels his Acacia
High fantasy series his books about
Hannibal and pride of Carthage
um terrific reads and
I think you'll really enjoy them if you
like historical fiction historical
fantasy Epic Fantasy
any of these things so
so
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