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The Wiki-Timeline Project [Calculations]


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Update: On October 23, the count resulted in a total of 557 characters in the project, for who a total of 531 calculations have been made for a year of birth, and 70 calculations for the years of death, making it 601 calculations in total! (end update)

 

What originally began as an attempt to calculate the birth years for the main characters (or those that I found interesting), slowly but surely grew in to a rather bigger project. So in an attempt to make this part of the wiki more factual, I've been searching through the books and novella's in the past few months for quotes that give statements about the timing of the birth or death of a character, or placing of events.

I was my idea to make a page that can be used as a reference on the other wikipages, since I sometimes wondered where certain years on the wiki-entries of characters came from, and by reading on the forum for the past year, I noticed that there were more people with the same problem. To take away those questions, I've written the pages that over the past few days appeared on the wiki. To take away any doubt anyone might have, I've written the pages with as many references to the books as is possible. This all to make the wiki a more complete image of the world of A Song of Ice and Fire.

This made me end up with a list of +400 characters, whose year of birth can either (1) be determined precisely 2) be determined rather precisely, giving a timeframe of a few years, (3) not be determined that precisely, giving a timeframe of roughly 20 years, or (4) not be determined at all, giving only a minimum year or a maximum year, but not both. For a select amount of characters, even a year (timeframe) of death could be calculated.

To my surprise, most of those years or timeframes were either placed on the wiki wrongly (with information of someone's age in aCoK, for example, whereas additional information that could be found in the later books was not used) or not placed on the wiki at all, which only served to fuel my enthusiasm.

For the years of birth and death, I've created 4 new pages on the wiki. Originally, I had hoped to fit it all on one page, but the page started having problems after a certain size was passed. I also noticed I had written much more than expected when I first started.

To avoid any editing problems in the future, I've thus split it all in 4 pages, with a usefull navigation template that brings you to the page (or letter) of your choosing with only one click of a button :)  For the events, I've started another page, with currently a lot of room to spare (but which also isn't completely finished).

The idea is to use these pages to determine years which aren't specifically stated anywhere in the text of the novels or novellas. Should, for instance, a character's birth year, year of death, or the year when an event occured ever be mentioned, the entry could be removed on the calculation pages.

English is not my first language, so there might be grammar errors, spelling errors, or simply typos to be found in the text. Should you read the pages and find any, don't hesitate to change them :) I know wiki-pages have talk-pages, but I figured a thread would be usefull for a deeper discussion, when that should be necessary.

 

The calculations can be found on the following pages:

  • For the birth and death years, Page 1 (A-D), 2 (E-J), 3 (K-Q) and 4 (R-W)
  • For the events

 

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Thank you all!



I'm still working on placing all the calculated years on the each characters wiki-page, and the Events page still isn't completely done, but it's getting there, little by little :)






@Rhaenys_Targaryen: I think I owe you 3 or 4 drinks or an equivalent, should we ever meet :)




I am going to keep that in mind ;) :D


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Thank you all for the kind words! :D




Now for some opinions... I have been adding the results of the calculations on the character pages (in the info boxes under "Born in" and "Died in"). It goes slowly, but I'll get there ;)



However, I realised that the page "Years after Aegon's Conquest" does need some editing as well. Currently, though the page is being edited for a new lay-out, it displays lists of births and deaths for every year. I've come across several wrong birth years in the character boxes already, and I've only changed about 25% by now, so I'm expecting to find several other wrong ones.



For some characters I did find only one possible birth year, but for most, there are 2 or 3 or 4 options. I figured that those with few options might still deserve a place on the page of "Years after Aegon's Conquest" (characters that can only have a timeframe, like the 20 years some Frey's have, cannot possibly be placed on such a page).



I just am not sure on how to do such a thing best.



Taking Duncan the Tall as an example, he was born in either 291, 292 or 293AC. Should I place him under those three years the following:



Year 291 After the Conquest


* (Possibly) Dunk, later in life known as Ser Duncan the Tall, from Flea Bottom. Dunk's other options for his birth year are 292AC and 293AC (Reference to the calculation)



Year 292 After the Conquest


* (Possibly) Dunk, later in life known as Ser Duncan the Tall, from Flea Bottom. Dunk's other options for his birth year are 291AC and 293AC (Reference to the calculation)



Year 293 After the Conquest


* (Possibly) Dunk, later in life known as Ser Duncan the Tall, from Flea Bottom. Dunk's other options for his birth year are 291AC and 292AC (Reference to the calculation)




? Would this be the best way? Or is there someone who knows a better way? I figured such a thing could be done for those characters with only a few options, but not for those with a larger timeframe (like more than 5 possible birth years).


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Great work, thank you very much!



I just have one remark regarding the age differences of the sisters Catelyn/Lysa and Sansa/Arya. You assume they must be 2+ years apart. Well, my sister and I are actually 1 ½ years apart, but, as I (like Sansa) was born late in the year and my sister in the middle of the year after the next, we usually say that we are two years apart. That could apply for Sansa and Arya as well, and Catelyn and Lysa maybe 2 or 3 month more apart from each other. Maybe you want to take this into consideration.


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Great work, thank you very much!

I just have one remark regarding the age differences of the sisters Catelyn/Lysa and Sansa/Arya. You assume they must be 2+ years apart. Well, my sister and I are actually 1 ½ years apart, but, as I (like Sansa) was born late in the year and my sister in the middle of the year after the next, we usually say that we are two years apart. That could apply for Sansa and Arya as well, and Catelyn and Lysa maybe 2 or 3 month more apart from each other. Maybe you want to take this into consideration.

Hello! Welcome to the forum, and thank you for the kind words :)

You are right, of course, that two siblings that state they are 2 years apart could in reality have been born apart anywhere between 1,5 years and 2,5 years (less than 1,5 would logically be rounded down to 1, and any more than 2,5 would logically be rounded up to 3). But there is a reason I've put Lysa and Catelyn and Sansa and Arya at a difference between 2 and 2,5, and not between 1,5 and 2.

In the timeline of the books, we can see roughly how much Sansa and Arya's birthdays are apart. Assuming you've read all the books, when Sansa gets married in 299AC, she says that within a moons turn she'll be turning 13. When reading that sentence in the books, we cannot know yet whether or not that means that she'll be turning 13 within a week, or within 2 weeks, or actually after only 30 days. We can only be certain that 30 days later, she'll be 13, no matter on which day of those 30 her nameday actually is.

When counting all the mentioned days that occur after news of Sansa's marriage reaches her family and the beginning of the new year, we can already count more than 30 days. Since Arya tells us (either in Feast or in Dance) that a moons turn is 30 days, we can see that 30 days after Sansa's wedding the year is still 299AC. Thus we know that Sansa turns 13 in 299AC. We can't be exactly sure where in the year, but it is certain that her nameday falls in the end.. Probably somewhere in the first or second week of December.

Arya, however, we see, has her nameday a few months after the start of the year. We can see this during her travels, where she is both 10 and 11 during the same year. This occurs after Sansa has turned 13. So while we have Sansa turning 13 in late 299AC (which places her birth in 286AC), we have Arya turning 11 a few short months after 300AC has begun (placing her birth in 289AC).

At a first glance you'd say that the two girls are 3 years apart, not the 2 that they kept menioning in a Game of Thrones. But what we can see with the closer look, is that Sansa was born in late 286AC, while Arya was born in early 289AC. That's more than 2 exact years, that comes down to 2 years and a few months. We cannot be certain how many months, but definitly some months.

Now, as to Lysa and Catelyn, we have this quote from Catelyn:

How young they all had been-she no older than Sansa, Lysa younger than Arya, and Petyr younger still, yet eager.

Catelyn thinks back of her childhood. This quote (espcially the bolded part) shows that Catelyn and Lysa differ more in age than Sansa and Arya do. However, from a Game of Thrones, we know that Catelyn and Lysa also differ only 2 years in age. Knowingn that Arya and Sansa were born more than 2 years apart, we can see how Catelyn and Lysa are approaching the maximum of 2,5 years to differ in age.

Catelyn's birth occurd in 264AC. Differing between 2 and 2,5 years from Lysa would put Lysa's birth in 266AC, with a slight possibility of Lysa's birth falling in 267AC (if Lysa was born early in 267AC, and Catelyn in the second half of 264AC).

So you can se that Sansa and Arya, and thus also Catelyn and Lysa, are definitly not 1,5 years apart. They both differ more than 2 years from each other, but less than 2,5 (since, like I said, 2,5 or up would logically be rounded up to a difference of 3 years, I think).

Is the explanation clear this way, or is there still something you don't understand? I'm happy to explain it in such cases.

Also, since you were in doubt (and the pages was created to eliminate doubt :) ), where do you think the explanation could be elaborated a bit more? I'll change it on the pages where necessary, just tell me where to look ;)

Edit: I've changed Lysa's birth now to "either in 266AC or 267AC", since it wasn't right to assume that the situation of Catelyn and Lysa (264 and 266) would be different than the situation of Sansa and Arya (286 and 289). This way, it is possible for Catelyn to have been born (1) in the first half of 264AC, which would mean that Lysa was born in the second half of 266, and also for Catelyn to have been born (2) in the second half of 264AC, which would mean that Lysa was born in early 267AC.

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Domeric Bolton

Let me know if there's anything missing ;)

You're awesome!

That looks all above board. I just never know what to make of Roose's line to Theon about Domeric: "Not even Lord Rickard's daughter could outrace him." But I suppose the most reasonable interpretation is to see this as a hypothetical, rather than actual, comparison of their horsemanship.

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Rhaenys, for the main characters, wouldn't it be interesting to give information about the time of the birthday in the year? In most cases we don't know the precise month/moon, but I guess some times it can be found if the birthday is early, in the middle, or late in the year. For example, Joffrey's birthday is obviously at the beginning of the year, with him turning thirteen at the beginning of Clash.

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Rhaenys, for the main characters, wouldn't it be interesting to give information about the time of the birthday in the year? In most cases we don't know the precise month/moon, but I guess some times it can be found if the birthday is early, in the middle, or late in the year. For example, Joffrey's birthday is obviously at the beginning of the year, with him turning thirteen at the beginning of Clash.

I've been thinking about that as well! :D

After this project is completed (thus edited into the wiki completely), I'm going to take another look at the most precise timeline that's currently online.

The calculations I've done have uncovered some mistakes in there, that need fixing, and others have found some mistakes in that timeline as well the last few weeks. As an editor to that timeline, I want to try and get those mistakes out.

Then I wanted to make a page in the excel document to show the timeranges of the births. So your idea has been in my head for some time now :)

That timeline cannot be placed on the wiki, of course, for obvious reasons.

But for all those characters for who such a determination can be done, using quotes from the books, for them that could be added to the wiki, sure. For the Stark childeren, this definitly can be done. And for Dany, perhaps, I imagine.

When all the years have been edited into the character pages and on the "Years after Aegon's Conquest" timeline pages, I'll dive into that ;) I like the nameday-idea. Time will tell whether it can actually be done. It can be done for some, at least (the Stark children, for example). Perhaps that would be more something for on the Events page though? Under (5)miscellaneous, (5.2)The North.

Because I still have stuff standing ready for on that page as well :p

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