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Keeping track of the characters, how does one do it?


Terry Sperling

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On the first reads, I missed a lot, because I read right through without looking anything up. And I didn't use the appendix to look anything up until the second read of every book. At the same time, I would also look on the most detailed map I had where the person who was just introduced was from. But this was a long time ago, before I knew there was a fandom, and way before the wiki. These days, I'd say look every new character you run into up on the wiki, either immediately or at the end of every chapter. AND look on the map. Associating them with where they're from helps you remember a family, even if you forget the Lord's second son's bastard's first name.



A super-fun project I did after I first ordered my big Westeros wall map was doing a reread and putting colored pins on the map where each POV was located during their chapter. This was like reread five or six. It hadn't sunk in to me how much Arya really got around before leaving the continent. Distance never meant much when I read it, but when I could see it illustrated, it really gave me perspective.


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A super-fun project I did after I first ordered my big Westeros wall map was doing a reread and putting colored pins on the map where each POV was located during their chapter. This was like reread five or six. It hadn't sunk in to me how much Arya really got around before leaving the continent. Distance never meant much when I read it, but when I could see it illustrated, it really gave me perspective.

This sounds like a lot of fun.

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It was a lot of fun! So much that I am sorry that I waited so long to do it! I had been meaning to do it since 2005 or so, but I am a giant dork and wanted to wait until I could buy an official map. I had the books, and theoretically I could have had maps blown up, but I waited because I knew The World of Ice and Fire was being worked on. I assumed, rightly, that the maps would become more detailed. But while I was waiting, the HBO series was announced, and I ordered a map from the HBO shop. I like to buy official also because I want to support the artist and their work, and felt better about blowing up my map after I had purchased it separately.



The only problem I had was when Dance came out, I ran out of colors of pins, so I turned the "dead" characters into all black so I could reuse their colors. It was a labor of love, and I won't say I enjoyed that reread MORE than the previous ones, I just enjoyed it in a DIFFERENT WAY, focusing on strategy by geography, characters' locations in relation to one another, and like I said, ground covered. I think the idea came to me on my second reread when Arya was initially on her way north with Yoren's recruits. I was thinking she missed a few chances to run into Rob, and narrowly missed running into The Mountain. I believe I was incorrect on both counts, but it was an interesting way to find out.


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I had given up on keeping track of all the characters in the books.

I simply just read on, and when I cannot remember a character, just read on and ignore my ignorance.

I have done the same :D

Then TWOW will be released I will re-read first two books slowly to understand more. Also I hope I will be patient and will learn Family trees so to remember who is who.

I would love to have a big map of the World of Ice and Fire, but my partner would think that I am mad or something like that :(

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