Strange Images in the Maps

[Ladyknight the Butch]

I noticed these strange images in the maps of the different regions of Westeros in TWOIAF. Each map of a different region has a couple features that are not map. The meaning of some are obvious, such as the Map Legend and the Compass Rose, but there are some features that I find baffling and they are driving me nuts trying to figure out what they are there for or what they signify. The main one is a shape along the border of each map, sort of shaped like a mouse-hole in the wainscotting. You can see different things through the arch on each map, shapes like a ball or or a baleful eye staring back. Some of the maps have circles with phases of the moon in them or circles with random slices of color. Do these mean something, or are they just a device of the artist? Has anyone been able to derive any meaning from them? At first I thought the arches might be some kind of flip book, but they are in different positions on different maps.

[The hairy bear]

I spent some time looking at them and I couldn't see any meaning there.

The "mouse holes" are different in each map, with four elements (black circle, floor, swirl and shadow-casting-cloud) changing their relative positions. The banners of the legend do not seem to follow any pattern. And the circles with weird shapes make no sense.

To be honest, the maps are one of the huge letdowns in the World Book. A lot of important locations still missing, not much thought has been put on the resources (just one per region, and with important mistakes such as placing no "wine" in the Arbor. IMO, one of the biggest failures of George as a world builder is geography.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

To be honest, the maps are one of the huge letdowns in the World Book. A lot of important locations still missing, not much thought has been put on the resources (just one per region, and with important mistakes such as placing no "wine" in the Arbor. IMO, one of the biggest failures of George as a world builder is geography.

And Saltpans and Maidenpool being unable to decide whether they are in the Riverlands or the Vale and the Crownlands, dancing about 100 miles across the borders.

As well as the Golden Tooth being marked in the central Westerlands instead of guarding the border.

Not a complete list.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Well, to me the Reach providing food to King's Landing - which is about 1000km away - is quite interesting. Especially given that the food was transported up the Rose Road.

That means by wagon train.

[Lady Blackmont]

Who even cares?

I make my own, more accurate maps. But the official ones work fine.

[Jak Scaletongue]

Who even cares?

I make my own, more accurate maps. But the official ones work fine.

Because some of us are naturally curious and/or not at all artistic enough to do it ourselves...

[Yukle]

I really like the maps, in their detail and colour, but agree that it's frustrating that each region apparently only produces one key resource. If it's going to be so bland and barely mentioned - why mention it at all? I'm happy with just the main villages, towns and cities being on it.

The borders seem to fluctuate, too. For instance, inspection of the border between the Vale and the Riverlands shows that it's a different shape on both maps. The Saltpans moving region is an obvious mistake.

The maps made for the series in the Lands of Ice and Fire are spectacular, though. The book even uses some of these maps throughout it, such as the one showing the castles of the wall, as well as most of the maps of Essos, Sothyros and the Summer Isles. These maps are a blend of topographic and geographic, including major cities and towns. I have that map collection and really like it.

The World of Ice and Fire's maps are rich in their colouring and the way they look like pages folded into the volume are a nice touch. However, it would've been a better touch if the cities and towns were labelled in the same handmade style, rather than being clearly computerised. The way that the maps include folding and torn edges suggests they wanted some element of immersion - yet the computerised typefaces suggest they didn't really mind if they didn't have a realistic flair.

If they were insistent on including the resources on the legend, then I think they should've had much much smaller labels for them, and had them a little more numerous. It is a little unbelievable that the tiny Iron Islands are the only main exporters of Iron and Tin, especially given their general reluctance to trade as a means to gain power. Similarly, that the North would only export lumber - surely being descendants of the first men, they'd have a blossoming dependence on copper?

To answer another question: the references to the moon on the maps could be a reference to how distances are calculated. This is an old trick known to cartographers for centuries: tracking the moon's phases and movements through the skies is a great way of determining distances on a planet. Simply make your self a triangle, using two points on the planet and then the moon as another point, and you can calculate how far away the two points on the planet are. You can also figure out how far away the moon is (as an estimate, not exactly precisely), by measuring the angles it makes compared to the earth's horizon and using two points on the planet whose distances are already known with great accuracy.

It's not a flawless method, because the planet isn't a perfect sphere and the moon doesn't orbit as a perfect circle, and measuring angles has some element of inaccuracy, but it's nonetheless excellent for making maps on a very large scale (such as countries).

[DNDM]

I noticed these strange images in the maps of the different regions of Westeros in TWOIAF. Each map of a different region has a couple features that are not map. The meaning of some are obvious, such as the Map Legend and the Compass Rose, but there are some features that I find baffling and they are driving me nuts trying to figure out what they are there for or what they signify. The main one is a shape along the border of each map, sort of shaped like a mouse-hole in the wainscotting. You can see different things through the arch on each map, shapes like a ball or or a baleful eye staring back. Some of the maps have circles with phases of the moon in them or circles with random slices of color. Do these mean something, or are they just a device of the artist? Has anyone been able to derive any meaning from them? At first I thought the arches might be some kind of flip book, but they are in different positions on different maps.

I spent some time looking at them and I couldn't see any meaning there.

The "mouse holes" are different in each map, with four elements (black circle, floor, swirl and shadow-casting-cloud) changing their relative positions. The banners of the legend do not seem to follow any pattern. And the circles with weird shapes make no sense.

I spent some time on it as well, with the same questions. I suspected some kind of code, or cryptographic thing... I tried photocopying the maps and putting them together using these stranges symbols, but that gave nothing. I even tried to send a couple question to Michael Gellatly, the artist, but he never answered.Some of the strangest symbols are on his website as well, maybe it's something that got meaning in his work, but not in ASOIAF.

To answer another question: the references to the moon on the maps could be a reference to how distances are calculated. This is an old trick known to cartographers for centuries: tracking the moon's phases and movements through the skies is a great way of determining distances on a planet. Simply make your self a triangle, using two points on the planet and then the moon as another point, and you can calculate how far away the two points on the planet are. You can also figure out how far away the moon is (as an estimate, not exactly precisely), by measuring the angles it makes compared to the earth's horizon and using two points on the planet whose distances are already known with great accuracy.

It's not a flawless method, because the planet isn't a perfect sphere and the moon doesn't orbit as a perfect circle, and measuring angles has some element of inaccuracy, but it's nonetheless excellent for making maps on a very large scale (such as countries).

Interesting.

[Lord Hanna]

Who even cares?

I make my own, more accurate maps. But the official ones work fine.

Obviously some people care, so what's your point? Why even post that? Literally 0 reason to post a comment like that. Not everything revolves around what you care about.

Anyways, as for the discussion, i agree....the maps were horrible. I was expecting much more detailed, complete maps. Expecting to see most of the Lord's castles on there (at least the ones mentioned/have lines). Then again, with the world map book, i can see why they didn't go into too much detail.

[Fat Mac]

Obviously some people care, so what's your point? Why even post that? Literally 0 reason to post a comment like that. Not everything revolves around what you care about.

Anyways, as for the discussion, i agree....the maps were horrible. I was expecting much more detailed, complete maps. Expecting to see most of the Lord's castles on there (at least the ones mentioned/have lines). Then again, with the world map book, i can see why they didn't go into too much detail.

I wouldn't say they were horrible, but I expected more detail as well. The best thing about the maps is that we finally got official borders, though they were very close to what was assumed anyway.

[Jak Scaletongue]

I think the thing about detail was probably a concious decision to draw them like a map of England would have been drawn around 1500-1600.

While I certainly would have appreciated far more detailed maps, I also see why they would want "in-world" maps for an "in-world" book. So, in that respect, the design of the maps make sense. A Google Earth or atlas type map would look very out of place inside that book!

[Bironic]

To be honest, the maps are one of the huge letdowns in the World Book. A lot of important locations still missing, not much thought has been put on the resources (just one per region, and with important mistakes such as placing no "wine" in the Arbor. IMO, one of the biggest failures of George as a world builder is geography.

I agree with that. I think one of the reasons that the maps in TWOIAF were bad, was the Lands of Ice and Fire map collection, I mean who would buy it if you get the same or even better maps in TWOIAF?

I hope will get more detailed maps in TWOW.

Well, to me the Reach providing food to King's Landing - which is about 1000km away - is quite interesting. Especially given that the food was transported up the Rose Road.

That means by wagon train.

Although you could argue that they ship it around Dorne, but this is actually not mentioned in the books.I think this is one of the examples that GRRM isn't that good at geography/worldbuilding. His strength are character development, plot, etc. Hence all the discussions how many troops/inhabitants each region has.

[Jak Scaletongue]

Although you could argue that they ship it around Dorne, but this is actually not mentioned in the books.I think this is one of the examples that GRRM isn't that good at geography/worldbuilding. His strength are character development, plot, etc. Hence all the discussions how many troops/inhabitants each region has.

Probably depends where it's being harvested and shipped from. Places in the northern half of the Reach would probably send it, by wagon train, straight to King's Landing - it would take longer to send it all the way to the south just to put it on a ship and send it around Dorne. But the southern half of the Reach probably does exactly that - if the grain/foodstuffs are already near a harbour, it would be faster to put it on a ship.

And then, of course, if the land in question borders a river - it's probably faster to send it downriver to a harbour then it would be to send it by wagon.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

I wouldn't say they were horrible, but I expected more detail as well. The best thing about the maps is that we finally got official borders, though they were very close to what was assumed anyway.

Well, except for the sad fact that the "official" borders are flat-out wrong. The most obvious example are the Riverlands-Crownlands-Vale borders, because we've got two maps depicting that exact spot and we can watch the borders differing by 200 miles or the like, and several towns with established position change regions.

But the Westerlands map for example isn't much better, just better hidden, with the Golden Tooth being shown in it's heartland instead of guarding the border.

[King_Slayer]

The maps have differences, such as borders, because they're supposed to be hand-drawn by Yandel (or some Maester) and humans aren't perfect. Especially with the limited technology and resources of the time period.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

I noticed these strange images in the maps of the different regions of Westeros in TWOIAF.  Each map of a different region has a couple features that are not map. The meaning of some are obvious, such as the Map Legend and the Compass Rose, but there are some features that I find baffling and they are driving me nuts trying to figure out what they are there for or what they signify. The main one is a shape along the border of each map, sort of shaped like a mouse-hole in the wainscotting. You can see different things through the arch on each map, shapes like a ball or or a baleful eye staring back.  Some of the maps have circles with phases of the moon in them or circles with random slices of color.  Do these mean something, or are they just a device of the artist? Has anyone been able to derive any meaning from them?  At first I thought the arches might be some kind of flip book, but they are in different positions on different maps.

Those mouse holes drove me nuts!  I am so very disappointed with the maps.  I saw the picture of the wolf with the red eyes with a paw on a Lannister Helm that appears to have a rat's tail coming out of the helm.  What is this even doing on a map?  I'm sure there is a story it relates to, or I thought so when I saw it the first time.  Now when I look at some of the stuff on the maps and can't find it in a legend I think they played a dirty trick on  us.  Maps are supposed to be informative.  These are just as convoluted as the stories are.  Ridiculous!  I spent good time trying to figure out what the mouse holes meant.  Apparently, they mean nothing but a waste of time!