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GRRM talks about what it means title Ice and Fire


blckp

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A drink from cup of ice and a drink from cup of fire really tells who is song of ice and fire ..a child of three

Or you know someone who will be a part of massive changes in both essos ( summer)and westeros ( ice )

Or as benioff and Weiss put she summers in essos and winters in westeros ..

Couple of things: 

Draongs as athreat to civilization :

I can't but stop laughing at this .when people talk about dany and her conquest and how much she will succeeded they come up with a reminder how these dragons are babies compared to past ..

And these same people will tell that this baby dragons are threat to civilization..

Make up your minds ...last time I checked dragons coexisted with humans for thousands of years..

So is there any son of WW and dany ...to be called as song of ice and fire ..

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That was prompted by the question.

Interviewer reduced the books to 3 plotlines. 1 being clearly ice, 1 being clearly fire, 1 being the KL politics.

GRRM simply accepts the premise and categorizes them appropriately. It doesn't mean there aren't other alternate or even more appropriate meanings in the title.

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42 minutes ago, Eiko Dragonhorn said:

That was prompted by the question.

Interviewer reduced the books to 3 plotlines. 1 being clearly ice, 1 being clearly fire, 1 being the KL politics.

GRRM simply accepts the premise and categorizes them appropriately. It doesn't mean there aren't other alternate or even more appropriate meanings in the title.

Yeah exactly, it was a response not a declaration.

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I also liked when the interviewer commented that anarchists seem to come out on top in the Ice and Fire world, and George responded: "Well, we will see who comes out on top in the end."

This kind of links to his comments from years ago about the Starks being down and out now, but that the story is not done yet.

Also, he basically refuted the idea that everything in his story is morally relative and that there is no good or evil. He clearly stated that the battle between good and evil is very important, but that everyone has to fight that battle on a daily basis within their own hearts first. Meaning that while even his heroes will be flawed individuals, there nevertheless is a cause of good to be fought for, and evil to be vanquished.

Proving that he is not a nihilistic moral relativist after all. Instead, he simply says that like in real life, the lines between good and evil people are not as clearcut as fiction sometimes depicts it.

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5 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I also liked when the interviewer commented that anarchists seem to come out on top in the Ice and Fire world, and George responded: "Well, we will see who comes out on top in the end."

This kind of links to his comments from years ago about the Starks being down and out now, but that the story is not done yet.

Also, he basically refuted the idea that everything in his story is morally relative and that there is no good or evil. He clearly stated that the battle between good and evil is very important, but that everyone has to fight that battle on a daily basis within their own hearts first. Meaning that while even his heroes will be flawed individuals, there nevertheless is a cause of good to be fought for, and evil to be vanquished.

Proving that he is not a nihilistic moral relativist after all. Instead, he simply says that like in real life, the lines between good and evil people are not as clearcut as fiction sometimes depicts it.

I'm more irritated by the Preston Jacobs narrative that A Song of Ice and Fire is intensely anti-war because it also happens to show the cost of war.

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11 minutes ago, Red Helm said:

I'm more irritated by the Preston Jacobs narrative that A Song of Ice and Fire is intensely anti-war because it also happens to show the cost of war.

Who on earth cares about what this Preston Whatshisface guy thinks? No one on this site takes him seriously, and this site has the most knowledgeable fandom of Ice and Fire in the world.

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Who on earth cares about what this Preston Whatshisface guy thinks? No one on this site takes him seriously, and this site has the most knowledgeable fandom of Ice and Fire in the world.

:agree:

He's a total nomark.

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8 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Thanks for posting this. I was most pleased to see the absolute assertion that Jeyne Westerling-Stark is not pregnant being put out there. 

Nobody ever believed that nonsense, anyway. You have to be crazy to even come up with the idea when George deliberately introduced a woman like Sybell Spicer who was both capable and determined to ensure that Robb's line would die with him.

As to the general question:

It is pretty obvious that the Song of Ice and Fire as an event is going to be the war led by a or some Targaryen hero(es) against the Others. Everybody could see that since the first book. One didn't even need the House of the Undying to introduce the term. 

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There's nothing really new or revealing in this interview. Yes, we knew Dany and her dragons represent Fire and the Others represent Ice, nothing new here. The one thing that Martin did say that might be interpreted as revealing is when he states (paraphrasing) that people in KL and by extension Westeros are so consumed by their petty struggle for power that they fail to see the threats developing in the periphery. Now an argument can be made that by using the plural, Martin is implying that Dany and her dragons are a threat to Westeros just as the Others are.

As to the argument that the conflict between Ice and Fire is the Song of Ice and Fire, I believe GRRM uses "a dance" as a metaphor for war/conflict. "A song" in my opinion is a metaphor for a union/harmony of opposites, as in Rhaegar's statement that "his is the Song of Ice and Fire." So I don't think Song implies war instead I think it implies just the opposite, that is, the bringing together of two opposing forces, in this case two opposing natural elements -- Ice and Fire -- that are equally necessary for the survival of humanity.

Martin reiterates in this interview that he does not believe in pure evil (although I fail to see how he's going to make the Others' army of mindless zombies capable of making a distinction between good and evil) and most evil acts are done by people who believe they are doing righteous acts. So I doubt we are going to have a final battle where the forces of good team up and defeat the forces of evil in the traditional sense. There most likely will be a battle for dawn but who the players are and what their motives are is still anybody's guess.   

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@teej6

The Targaryens in exile were a threat to the Baratheon regime and its allies back in AGoT (and they are still a threat to whoever rules in KL when Dany arrives). But she is not necessarily a threat to Westeros.

Originally ADwD was supposed to be about Dany's conquest of Westeros and considering that Evil Jaime was supposed to sit the Iron Throne at this point we can reasonably assume that Dany wouldn't have toppled some beloved and popular king... And we also got confirmation that Dany is one of the main POVs to stay with us until the end, so she is going to play a major role in the fight against the Others, meaning that she is not going to be an antagonist.

A song can be as much as a euphemism for a war as a dance. We have the name Aemon Steelsong attesting to that. That one refers clearly to the battle in which he was born. Castle names like Strongsong, Nightsong also suggests that songs and deeds of arms and valor are intricately connected in this world.

The idea that both and ice and fire are necessary for the survival of humanity in this world is also not really indicated by the text as far as I can see. Ice, cold, and winter are continuously presented as bad things. There is nothing inherently good in winter or cold. Fire isn't necessarily that great, either, of course, but in small doses it warms the body, cooks your food, sterilizes your wounds, gives you light at night, and so on. The sole positive thing ice does in the books is cooling down Pycelle's sweetened milk (and Ned doesn't even like that).

The Starks/Northmen endure and survive in winter (or have done so until now). That means they are hard men accustomed to harsh climates, but that doesn't make them icy in any real sense. Not in a story in which there are actual ice demons.

Whatever means the Others use is irrelevant, by the way. If their motives are just then using zombies to eradicate the vermin that are destroying their lands (or the lands of the Children) isn't inherently bad. It just looks that way from the biased view of a helpless human child who is about to be killed and wightified.

I'm pretty sure it will turn out that the people directing/leading the Others are beings who are pretty convinced that what they are doing is a noble thing and worthy of praise throughout the coming (human-free) eons.

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