Ciao vi posto le domande e le brevi risposte di Martin al Convegno appena concluso in Canada e riportate dai reporter americani. Come al solito è tutto in English, pertanto AAA cercasi volenteroso traduttore. Se dovesse arrivare altro materiale inerente a questo lo inserirò qui.

Ciao

Da Torcon (Toronto Canada)

Given that some of this stuff could fit into the So Spake Martin convention report, I figured I should make a separate page for it, for anyone at Torcon who might want to contribute.

Basically, this is for any book-related questions that GRRM answered for people in the course of the con, or any interesting details he might have dropped in the course of conversation, etc. Stuff that's relevant to the series, basically. I will copy in a couple of notable bits I saw.

Posted by Rhelle:

Q&A after Monday reading

This chapter was originally part of the prologue, of which was 250 pages. Now the material will be spread throughout the book. POVs are listed and George says "Meeren with Dany" and it sounded to me like she was going to stay there throughout the book.

George was asked if he would change anything and he says nothing major.

We are completely "shit out of luck" if George dies.

Regarding the size and geography of Westeros: it is about the size of South America. It is Not in the southern hemisphere. Stop asking George about distances and travel time. Measuring the realm by the reference of how long the Wall is NOT valid.

George says he is drowning in POVs and will have to start killing some off soon. (said with laughter)

AFFC is getting longer and more difficult to fit the entire 5 years in.

Some people will never be POVs: Littlefinger, Varys, Howland Reed, and others who know too much.

George gave out props to Ran and says he checks with Ran for mistakes. (GO RAN!!! Yes, we cheered you)

ASOIAF is loosely based on the War of the Roses and the 100 year war.

Politics: look at all people, not just POVs and he thinks through what these people want-what they are after, what is in it for them.

No regrets about killing of chars.

George talks about nutty fans, and related a story about a woman who contacted him complaining that he killed her daughter, who was named Kathryn (Beauty and the Beast).

he confirmed it was bassicly the size of south america too. for whats that worth.

anbd when i askedh i myour question ran abotu brandon he siad he oculdnt be 100% sure without chekcing his ntoes but he thoguht it was after harrenhall.

::if he remembers nay of hte other questions and answers he will stick them in::

"These Songs will not be to everyone's taste, for there is little variation among them, all of them containing the same words, such as: hero, knight, horseman, galley slave, serpent, dragon, wolf, lion, eagle, falcon's nest and sword, sabres, lances, necklets, medallions, decrees, heads chopped off, slaves carried away, etc. May those who find them pleasing sing them; may those who do not, go off to sleep."

"KAH! KAH KAH!" Why do these crows keep calling my name? Thought KAH.

"I still think there is a big problem with having a pyromaniac like Mel stationed on a big wall of ice."

Fleshing out some of the notes Rhelle took on the Q&A:

"George was asked if he would change anything and he says nothing major."

The person asking the question noted that, when Tolkien wrote LotR, he had the advantage of completing the entire trilogy prior to publication, and therefore could revise portions of, say, the first book while he was writing the second. The person asked whether, since George's works are serial, were there any changes he would make? George said that there are a few minor details he's noticed that are inconsistent between books, and these are the only things he would change (and *has* changed in later editions).

"We are completely 'shit out of luck' if George dies." And "George gave out props to Ran and says he checks with Ran for mistakes. (GO RAN!!! Yes, we cheered you)."

I recall these being all part of one answer, but my memory could be faulty. I believe the question was: Did George have an idea how the books are going to end? Is it written down somewhere? How does he keep all the details straight? And what happens if he dies? George gave his, 'sorry, SOL' answer. He said that he does keep some details written down on his computer, but mostly it's all "up here" in his head. "Also, there's a man called Elio in Sweden, and he knows all the details, knows everything better than I do. I can just ask Elio."

I don't recall what the question was, but our Tolkien fans would be interested in a snippet George mentioned. He said one of the beauties of LotR is how the book starts out with a small world, and gradually expands. You start with this huge sprawling map, and it's just of the Hobbit lands, and this is all our hobbits really know of. There's no talk of, say, Minias Tirith [and no LotR fans better come excoriate me for spelling that wrong] at the beginning. Then, when the journey begins, the hobbits -- and the readers -- get this incredible sense of an ever-expanding world, and how they are just a small part of it.

The guy who asked whether Westeros was in the southern hemisphere was really quite certain George was gonna say yes to that one, and seemed shocked when George said, "Ummmm. No."

Tommen rhymes with "omen."

Chataya is shuh-TIE-yuh.

George mentioned over and over this weekend how he doesn't feel that there's really a boundary between fantasy and sci fi. My new prediction is that the Others are actually space aliens, that the 'dragons' asleep below Dragonstone and Winterfell are actually space ships, and that we'll end with Dany's dragons in a fight with aliens shooting space lasers. You heard it here first, folks!

i too picked up a few thigs in talking with him...

in no particular order:

we won't see any (or very little) of rickon in affc.

i was talking with george and the dude from ffg who does the card game, and george asked the ffg guy how he was going to balance the power of the families (stark, lannister, greyjoy, etc) once the dragons are full grown. he said something like "once dany lands in westeros with full grown dragons, they are gonna kickass all over the place" (paraphrasing - it was something more like 'they will be tougher than anything we've seen since aegon the conquorer.')

we probably won't get the pov from an other, but we will find out more about them (history, motives, etc.)

damn - there were a few more that i thought were noteworthy, but i can't remember right now...

ok, some more info:

that convo that was referred to above went like this:

Q: "Do you know how the books will end?"

GRRM: "YES" (emphatically)

Q: "So do you have it written down somewhere... just in case?"

GRRM: "Nope. It's all in my head. So if i die, you all are shit out of luck"

On POVs

george said that at first he was just going to use the original povs from AGoT for the entire series, then he realized that he needed to see what stannis was doing, but didnt want to use stannis as a pov. so he created davos. davos was his first pov. the rest followed.

interesting to note: no kings are povs. robert, stannis, renly, robb, balon, joff, tommen... with the exception of course of jon on writing his povs, as rhelle mentioned above, he uses their motivations and desires. what do they want? what do they want to achieve? what drives them? what SHOULD they do? ethics, morals, ambitions, etc... all part of the mix

On the 5 year gap

this has probably already been discussed before, but here goes. george said that he was writing ADwD and was writing the flashbacks (he confirmed that they would have been flashbacks) and then he realized that he couldn't just skip things like myrcella being crowned and the resulting dornish problems, for example. originally he had wanted to skip the 5 years to make the kids older. but he said he realized that he was being impatient, and that those 5 years had too much important stuff to skim over, and as banditski noted above, rickon will not be in AFfC. george's exact words: "no, he's not old enough yet."

On Jaime

at a panel:

Q: "Did you know from the beginning that you would flesh jaime out and make him a pov?"

GRRM: "I knew i would flesh him out, but no, i did not know he would be a pov."

some pronunciations:

Lyanna = lye-anna

Catelyn = cat-linn

Maester = may-ster (that one's pretty obvious)

Moat Cailin = Moat Cah-lan

Sansa = Saun-sa

Khaleesi = Khal-eee-see

Missandei = mees-anday

Tommen = Toam-in

Davos = Dah-vos

Varys = Var-us

many of you probably knew those, but they were new to me! so i thought i'd share

Something weird: i THINK he indicated that the dragons are NOT all the same sex. my question was intercepted, but i believe that was the answer. cool. reign of fire baby!

one of my favorite things that george said: he was talking about how he uses ancient software on his computer and he said something like "no fucking dancing paperclip for me." lol. we were dying.

Varys = Var-us

And here I was this whole time thinking it was Va-riss.

Interesting about Rickon. A real angry badass is just what the Starks need to get them back on their feet again.