Werthead

I think it might be advisable to adopt a Star Wars-style 'level' system of canonicity. For example, I'd suggest something like this: A level - everything in the Song of Ice and Fire novels and the Dunk 'n' Egg short stories. Where information conflicts, the more recent reference or the more frequent one is taken as being correct. B level - pronouncements by GRRM; information given in SSM posts, interviews and blog entries; personal correspondence with GRRM (i.e. GRRM's descriptions of the Targaryen kings given in his emails to Amoka that they made public); information from the pen and paper RPGs provided directly by GRRM; information from spoiler chapters and book readings from signings/conventions etc. This information is assumed to be correct until it is supersceded or replaced by later information. Non-canon - anything written by anyone other than GRRM, including material from the TV series, the Cyanide computer games, the pen and paper RPGs etc. A rough rule like that might be helpful in determining what is canon and what isn't.

GRRM's short story anthology, Dreamsongs (publshed in two volumes in paperback) contains autobiographical essays between each section. In one of these he talks about how R'hllor, Barristan, Dothraki and a few other terms and names originated in fantasy short stories he wrote as a teenager but never finished or published.

I believe Ran is working on this for the server move. However, there is the TV-specific Wiki to cover the TV show (withy a strict no-spoilers-from-the-books policy).

People are free to use the maps from the TV wiki. There isn't any copyright or anything on them as far as I am aware: The Free Cities Westeros and the Free Cities (note that the map of Westeros is Happy Ent's map from the book wiki just recoloured anyway)

The Winds of Winter is the sixth volume of A Song of Ice and Fire. It is currently planned to be the penultimate volume of the series, to be followed by A Dream of Spring. George R.R. Martin has not ruled out expending the series to eight books if it proves necessary. There is no date set for completion or publication at this time. According to Martin, both Winter and Spring will likely be around 1,500 manuscript (MS) pages in length, similar to A Storm of Swords (1,521 MS pages) and A Dance with Dragons (1,510 MS pages). This works out at roughly 420,000 words. It is possible that the book will be shorter if Martin finds more satisfying, earlier break points in the narrative for each character arc. Based on the previous volumes, the book cannot be much longer, as at that point the book will need to be split in half. However, given the dramatic increase in the popularity of the series since A Dance with Dragons was published, it may be possible to make the book somewhat longer. In June 2013, GRRM indicated that he had completed approximately one-quarter of the novel. This would be around 375 MS pages of completed material with an unknown further amount in drafts and rough chapters. This is a very rough estimate, however. In March 2014, Martin reported that The Winds of Winter has so far not required anything like the extensive rewrites and structural changes that A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons had required from very early on, and he was making better progress than he had with them. However, he did not put a figure on his progress. In April 2015, Martin reported that he hopes to finish the book by the end of 2015 and get it on the shelves before Season 6 of Game of Thrones airs, which is expected to happen in April 2016. In the event, this did not transpire. In April 2018, Martin confirmed that the book would not be released before the end of the year. In June 2020, Martin gave his first substantive report on his progress in several years. He confirmed he was taking advantage of the pandemic lockdown in New Mexico to focus on the book and had completed several chapters and was writing more. He indicated a hope that The Winds of Winter would be completed by the summer of 2021. In July 2022, Martin gave more substantive updates via his blog and a podcast interview with Game of Owns. He stated that the narrative of the novel has moved away from that shown in the final seasons of the television series Game of Thrones and that, although some things will remain similar, other things will be very different. Characters who survived the TV series will die in the books and characters who have died in the TV show will survive the books. He also reported being close to completing the chapters for several characters for the novel, including Tyrion. He also stated that the book will be longer than A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons, "not 30 pages longer but closer to 300 pages longer." There is the possibility of the novel being split for publication, but if so his preference would be for the two halves to be published simultaneously. Content Approximately 100-200 MS pages of material was held back from the completion of A Dance with Dragons to kick-start The Winds of Winter. This material is believed to comprise: The list of confirmed and known POV characters for the book so far consists of: An unknown Prologue character Arianne Martell Arya Stark Bran Stark Sansa Stark Aeron 'Damphair' Greyjoy Barristan Selmy Theon Greyjoy Victarion Greyjoy Tyrion Lannister Cersei Lannister Daenerys Targaryen Areo Hotah Asha Greyjoy Jaime Lannister Brienne of Tarth Martin has confirmed that there will be no new POV characters in The Winds of Winter (aside from the traditional one-off prologue character), for the first time in the series. Released Chapters Theon I Arianne I Barristan I Tyrion II (available in the World of Ice and Fire App) Mercy (Arya I) Alayne (Sansa I) Chapters Read at Conventions Arianne II Victarion I Tyrion I Barristan II Chapters Mentioned/Known to Exist Aeron I Daenerys I Bran I Prologue In addition it is assumed that most, if not all, of the POV characters who survived A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons will return. These will consist of Melisandre, Areo Hotah, Jon Connington, Samwell Tarly and, assuming he survived the events of the prior novel, Jon Snow. The book will have a prologue (like the other five volumes) but we do not know if it will have an epilogue. From an interview with EW's Shelf Life website, George indicates what storylines will likely feature in the next book: List of Updates 29 June 2013: After two years, it appears that GRRM has completed roughly one-quarter of The Winds of Winter. However, GRRM has said that the relatively slow rate of progress is down to his time being taken up by a large number of other projects he took on in a fit of optimism after completing ADWD. These projects included The Lands of Ice and Fire map collection, The World of Ice and Fire guide book and the anthologies Dangerous Women, Rogues, Down These Strange Streets, Old Mars and Old Venus. This, combined with PR work for the HBO TV series, has left him with less time to work on TWoW than he'd wish, though he has continued to work on it when possible. As of early 2013, these side-projects have mostly been completed, with GRRM's remaining projects comprising solely TWoW, a Wild Cards book and a final polish on The World of Ice and Fire (which is tentatively scheduled to be published in Spring 2014). This will allow him to concentrate almost all of his writing efforts exclusively on TWoW going forwards. GRRM has reiterated his intention to stay ahead of the HBO TV series, which may have to begin filming The Winds of Winter material as early as 2015 (and A Dream of Spring possibly a year later), and has suggested it might be possible for him to finish the book by the end of 2014 with a good head of steam, but this was not a firm estimate. 26 January 2014: George R.R. Martin's UK editor, Jane Johnson, has confirmed that The Winds of Winter will not be published in 2014, but that late 2015 remains a possibility. 28 March 2014: GRRM reports that so far The Winds of Winter has not required anything like the rewriting and edits that were required by the previous two novels. Although this raised fans' optimism that the book would be finished relatively quickly, Martin was careful not to put any figures on his progress or expected completion date. 27 July 2014: GRRM confirms he will not be writing a script for Season 5 of Game of Thrones, nor commit to any further travels or appearances, until TWoW is done. It is unclear if he will still be writing a script for Season 6, which would be required in early 2015. 8 January 2015: The Wars and Politics of Westeros blog pulls together the extant information on TWoW. Jane Johnson again confirms that The Winds of Winter is not presently on the publication schedule for 2015. 4 April 2015: GRRM has said that he hopes to finish the book by 2015 and get it on the shelves by the time Season 6 of the TV show airs (in April 2016). He cautions that he might be being over-optimistic, but notes that he is clearing his decks of other commitments to finish the novel ASAP. 26 April 2018: GRRM has confirmed that Fire and Blood, a book consisting of material he wrote for The World of Ice and Fire in 2012 but had to be cut and summarised for reasons of space, will be released in November 2018. The Winds of Winter will not be coming "this year." 23 June 2020: GRRM confirms that he has spent time writing material for Cersei, Asha, Tyrion, Ser Barristan and Areo Hotah, and is in the middle of writing material for Arya Stark. He indicates that the book is "huge" and that it will not be completed imminently, but he hopes to finish it by the summer of 2021. 10 July 2022: Updates from GRRM's blog and Game of Owns. This post will be updated as additional info comes in.

I don't understand. There is no information available anywhere (that I have been able to find) about any actor playing Rorge, Biter or Jaqen, or those extras meaning to represent them. If there's no information, it cannot be used and you can't reference something that doesn't exist. And yeah, we need more references for the behind-the-scenes pages (there already is on the Production Timeline page, over 300 of them, in fact). We started off using them but it got a little silly with redundant information (1: The episode, 2: The episode, 3: The episode, 4: The episode, 5: The preceding episode, 6: The episode). Yet something else that can go on The List.

If any of those actors were meant to be Jaqen, Rorge or Biter, it's likely they'd be credited somewhere (if not on the same episode, than on a resume somewhere, like the actors playing Bracken, Karstark and Glover were). Since they're not, I'd hold fire on identifying them as anyone. On the TV Wiki, the rule we follow is that we only make entries for things we are sure of, and that goes doubly so for the pictures (although I note someone's assigned a picture to Maege Mormont when we don't have confirmation she's in the series or that is supposed to be her, so that may have to be changed). Since there is no information on any of those three actors being meant to represent book characters, I wouldn't use pictures for any of them, unless that changes in the interim.

I'm actually sceptical that the other men are Rorge and Biter, since if HBO went to the expense of hiring 'proper' actors for them it'd make sense to give them some lines to justify the cost (like they did with Hot Pie and Lommy Greenhands), and if they're extras here and replaced by proper actors next year, that'd be odd. I think the rule to follow there is that since the three characters in the cage are not identified in the TV show, we shouldn't leap to conclusions. Until we find someone from the production saying, "Oh yeah, they're meant to be...", I wouldn't assign characters to any of the actors where they're not clearly identified.

I just thought this. The guy in the hood was clearly Jaqen, since that gives them the freedom to cast whoever they want for the role in Season 2. So that needs to come down.

Good stuff. We did already know that, though. GRRM's read out the first two Davos chapters at conventions, and because AFFC and ADWD take place simultaneously those chapters take place before he meets the alleged fate Cersei was told about in AFFC. We don't know whether he survives beyond that point, though.

Season 1 101: Winter is Coming Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Tim Van Patten (some sequences by Tom McCarthy) Airing: 17 April 2011 on HBO (US), 18 April 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) 102: The Kingsroad Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Tim Van Patten Airing: 24 April 2011 on HBO (US), 25 April 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) 103: Lord Snow Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Brian Kirk Airing: 1 May 2011 on HBO (US), 2 May 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) 104: Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things Written by Brian Cogman Directed by Brian Kirk Airing: 8 May 2011 on HBO (US), 9 May 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) 105: The Wolf and the Lion Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Brian Kirk Airing: 15 May 2011 on HBO (US), 16 May 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) 106: A Golden Crown Written by Jane Espenson Directed by Daniel Minahan Airing: 22 May 2011 on HBO (US), 23 May 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) 107: You Win or You Die Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Daniel Minahan Airing: 29 May 2011 on HBO (US), 20 May 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) (tbc) 108: The Pointy End Written by George R.R. Martin Directed by Daniel Minahan Airing: 5 June 2011 on HBO (US), 6 June 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) (tbc) 109: Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Alan Taylor Airing: 12 June 2011 on HBO (US), 13 June 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) (tbc) 110: Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Alan Taylor Airing: 19 June 2011 on HBO (US), 20 June 2011 on Sky Atlantic (UK) (tbc)

There's also a Cornish influence. Cornwall is a peninsular (extended westwards rather than eastwards though) and fiercely independant (aside from the formerly separate countries of Wales and Scotland, Cornwall is - arguably - the most independently-minded part of the UK), plus there's the whole Dornish/Cornish thing. Cornwall doesn't have any deserts though ;)

I think GRRM has said that Avalon doesn't really have his favour any more. After taking the time off to do the Doorways project he came back to find A Song of Ice and Fire really working well and sparking ideas whilst Avalon had gone cold. It'd be interesting to see the material he'd completed for it. The same thing happened after The Armageddon Rag bombed, which discouraged him from completing Black and White and Red All Over (title probably incorrect) but he did publish the completed material in a later short story collection. Not sure what you mean here. ASoS wasn't split, aside from the UK paperback and a few other foreign editions.

Question: is AWoIaF going to be covering the merchandising spin offs, the board games, the computer game etc? I've had requests to cover them on the GoT Wiki, but I want to keep that as TV-centric as possible. WoIaF seems a better fit for everything that spins off the books themselves (whilst a TV-spin-off computer game could be covered on the TV wiki as well, for example).

Finally managed to update the post by deleting the old, out-of-date material first. Not with HBO. They take a lot longer to release their shows on DVD, sometimes not until just before the next season is due to start airing. This is even more pronounced in other countries: True Blood Season 2 only came out on DVD in the UK a couple of months ago, and S3 is not due until late next year.

No.

This post and thread is an attempt to put together the 'factual' history (i.e. of the writing of the series) of A Song of Ice and Fire, something I know has been mooted a few times. I dare say this initial post will be much-edited as we get more info and refine things, but this is, as a rough overview, how things have gone down. Long Ago George RR Martin collected toy knights and castles as a child, upgrading to more professional models as he got older. Some of his earliest stories and attempts at fiction in a fantasy world resulted in names thatany ASoIaF fan will find familiar: Prince R'hllor of Raugg and his boisterous, swaggering companion, Argilac the Arrogant were the heroes of a story called Dark Gods of Kor-Yuban (never published). In a planned but never-written sequel, Argilac teams up with Barron, the Bloody Blade of the Dothrak Empire, to slay the winged demons who killed Barron's grandfather, Barristan the Bold. Years later, GRRM reused some of these names in his fantasy series: R'hllor is, of course, the red god of Essos; Argilac the Arrogant was the last Storm King slain by Orys Baratheon during Aegon's Conquest; the Dothrak Empire obviously was recast as the Dothraki khalasars; and Barristan the Bold transformed into Ser Barristan Selmy of the Kingsguard. More on this can be found in GRRM's essay, 'The Heirs of Turtle Castle', in Dreamsongs. Career Divergence In 1983 George RR Martin was a successful author, thanks to the immense success of Fevre Dream, a horror novel about vampires on the Mississippi after the American Civil War. In that year he published The Armageddon Rag, his next novel, about a rock band called the Nazgul and fantastical events surrounding their attempt to reform for a new tour. Whilst very well reviewed and nominated for major awards, the novel bombed commercially and Martin felt that it had almost killed his literary career. He abandoned work on his novel-in-progress, Black and White and Red All Over (the extant material can be found in his collection Quartet) and ended up working in Hollywood, on The New Twilight Zone (1985-89; Martin worked on the first two seasons). In 1987 he moved to Beauty and the Beast, an urban fantasy series set in New York, and worked as a producer, scriptwriter and script editor. He worked on all three seasons of the show before it was cancelled in early 1990. Whilst working in Hollywood, Martin kept his hand in with fiction, publishing Tuf Voyaging (a fix-up novel of previously-published short stories and novellas, with some new material) in 1986 and beginning the Wild Cards series of 'mosaic novels' (short stories by different authors held together by a tight continuity) in 1987. These works sold quite well, with Wild Cards going on to become a major success, restoring Martin's reputation in the literary SF world. A Beheading After Beauty and the Beast's cancellation Martin worked on some pilots and other projects which never made it to the screen. Feeling frustrated creatively in Hollywood (despite being well-paid), Martin returned home to Santa Fe to work on a new novel, Avalon, an epic SF book set in his 'Thousand Worlds' mileu. In 1991, whilst work on Avalon was proceeding satisfactorily, Martin was suddenly struck by the image of a man being beheaded whilst a young boy watched. He wrote the scene and found it expanding into a second chapter and then a third. He was initially unsure if this new work was a short story, a novella, a novel or possibly even more than that. He ended up writing over 100 manuscript pages before he received a telephone call from Hollywood: a pilot script he had been working on, Doorways, had been put into development by the studio. Abandoning work on the new book, Martin decamped to Hollywood to work on the Doorways project for about two years. During this time he found himself thinking about the story, wondering what Tyrion Lannister's story was going to be whilst attending casting sessions and so on. After Doorway's pilot failed to impress the networks, he returned to Santa Fe in 1993 and resumed work on the book. For a time he considered writing a book set in a fictional world but with no fantastical elements. He reconsidered after a talk with his friend and colleague Phyllis Eisenstein, who urged him to 'put the dragons in' and make it a broad, sweeping fantasy epic. By this time he had decided that the series was going to be a trilogy called A Song of Ice and Fire, consisting of the novels A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter. His agent began shopping the project around and it sold to Bantam in the USA and, after a fierce bidding war, to HarperCollins in the UK for the impressive sum of £450,000 (over $600,000 at the time). Expanding the Series and Splitting Books By late 1995 or early 1996, A Game of Thrones had ballooned into a massive novel, more than 1,200 manuscript pages in length. Martin had planned to end the first book with an event called the 'Red Wedding' but he was barely halfway there. He extracted 1,088 manuscript pages, climaxing at a dramatically-satisfying point and delivered it to his publishers. He now believed that the series would be four books in length, with the second half of AGoT now dubbed A Clash of Kings. He resumed work on ACoK whilst AGoT was published in the UK and USA in August 1996 to a reasonably strong reception. In the UK HarperCollins Voyager previewed the book with a free 100-page extract of the novel, whilst in America the Daenerys chapters were condensed into a novella called Blood of the Dragon, which went on to win a Hugo Award in 1997. Whilst work on A Clash of Kings proceeded, Martin was asked to submit a story to Robert Silverberg's Legends collection. He agreed, penning a story set much earlier in the history of Westeros called The Hedge Knight. By this time Martin realised that the story he was telling was much bigger than he first realised. Pausing briefly, he penned a rough outline which convinced him that A Clash of Kings was also going to be two books, and The Winds of Winter was going to be two as well. He also envisaged a 'five-year gap' between the two halves of the story to help the children and dragons age and grow up. When Legends was published in early 1998, the introduction noted that A Song of Ice and Fire was now a six-book series consisting of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Dance with Dragons, The Winds of Winter and A Time For Wolves. A Clash of Kings followed and was published in October 1998 in the UK and in the USA in February 1999. Once again, Martin had a lot more manuscript pages written, including a lot of Tyrion's story for the following story, and this gave him a head start on the third book. He completed A Storm of Swords in late April 2000. By this time, the sales of the series had reached the point where the publishers were prepared to 'rush' the book out: the UK edition hit the shelves just three months later in July, whilst the American edition followed in November, hitting the lower reaches of the New York Times bestseller list. The novel was nominated for the 2001 Hugo Award and came second, narrowly missing out to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The Five-Year Gap Martin begun work on A Dance with Dragons in earnest towards the end of 2000. As planned, the story picked up five years after the events of A Storm of Swords. Initially, this approach worked well, with the younger characters now older and more realistically capable of handling their new storylines. However, as the writing wore on Martin found a growing reliance on flashbacks and exposition to explain why certain ongoing storylines had not progressed for half a decade. By the middle of 2001 this tendency appears to have overtaken the book, making the worth of the five-year-gap questionable. Finally, in September 2001 Martin announced that he had completely scrapped and deleted all of the material he had worked on in the preceding year and started again from scratch with a new book, A Feast for Crows. Work on A Feast for Crows continued for the next three and a half years but was plagued by problems. Martin attempted a new prologue structure which touched base with many 'lesser' characters from Dorne and the Iron Islands rather than just being from one POV. This got far too long and was eventually broken up into a series of smaller chapters scattered through the books. Martin also found that whilst 'filling in the gap' worked well for some characters, such as Brienne, Cersei, Jaime, Sansa and Arya, it did not work out so well for others, such as Tyrion, Daenerys and Jon, who seemed to be ready to move into their next storylines (i.e. the ones planned for A Dance with Dragons) immediately. This introduced timeline problems as the storylines for the two sets of characters threatened to get out of synch with one another. By May 2005, the novel was almost three years overdue. Martin had managed to release a sequel to The Hedge Knight, entitled The Sworn Sword, but the novel remained incomplete and had ballooned to over 1,600 manuscript pages in length. Martin had completed several character arcs, but many of the others only had small amounts of material written for them, or were incomplete. After discussing the situation with his friend and occasional writing partner Daniel Abraham, Martin decided to separate the characters by location, as this also corresponded with the characters whose storylines were complete and those who were not. Characters in the south of Westeros and a few others remained in A Feast for Crows, which comprised 1,100 manuscript pages, and the characters in the North and in Essos were moved into the next book, which now had almost 550 manuscript pages completed for it. Rather than split A Feast for Crows in two, Martin decided that the next book in the series would remain entitled A Dance with Dragons, suggesting that he hoped to combine the originally-planned events for that novel with the 'flipside' of events in A Feast for Crows. A Feast for Crows was delivered in May 2005 and published in the UK in October 2005, and a month later in the United States. Upon A Feast for Crows' publication, the book hit the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, shifting half a million copies in hardcover in its first year on sale and attracting many award nominations. Dancing in the Dark Martin's original plan - as outlined in the now-infamous 'Note' at the end of A Feast for Crows - was that the 550 manuscript pages he had held back for A Dance with Dragons would remain unchanged and an additional 500-600 manuscript pages would be required to bring the novel to completion. Using the writing speed he achieved at the end of A Feast for Crows (when he wrote 300 MS pages in about six months), he estimated it would take approximately one year to complete the novel. However, this plan proved to be optimistic from the start. After delivering the book, Martin's publishers requested that, after the lengthy gap since ASoS, he take part in the most ambitious signing tour for the series seen yet, including numerous dates across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom stripped over a period of six months. Once he returned to work on A Dance with Dragons in early 2006 he appeared to reconsider his previous plans for the book, reporting on changes requiring the rewriting of much of the extant material he had left over from A Feast for Crows. The plans for A Dance with Dragons also grew more ambitious: the book was now going to expand substantially beyond the timeline of A Feast for Crows and hopefully further the stories of characters left on cliffhanger endings in that book. This also introduced fresh timeline complexities to the book that Martin found difficult to resolve. Work proceeded slowly and frustratingly on the novel in this period, with Martin later admitting to periods of pressure and stress, both from outside sources and from his own growing perfectionism. Several times Martin reported being months away from completion, only for additional complexities to arise requiring extensive rewrites. In particular, the climax of the book proved extremely problematic with a number of important storylines and major characters set to converge in the city of Meereen. Martin's difficulties with this sequence of chapters (initially two chapters, later broken into four) became known as the 'Meereenese Knot' and appears to have stymied the book's completion for a long period of time. In addition, several bookstores and sellers (most notably Amazon) continuously gave out false and apparently invented release dates without Martin's permission, resulting in reader frustration when these imaginary dates were missed. However, there was also good news: in early 2007 the television company HBO optioned the rights to the series. In late 2009 they produced a one-hour pilot based on the series, and over the second half of 2010 filmed a ten-episode full season based on A Game of Thrones, with Martin acting as a consultant and penning one episode. Martin also completed the third Dunk 'n' Egg story, The Mystery Knight, which was published in early 2010 in the Warriors anthology. Work on Dragons continued through this period. In early 2010 Martin confirmed that A Dance with Dragons' structure was now more ambitious than originally planned: the first half of the book would run alongside A Feast for Crows and the second half would take place after and incorporate a number of additional POV characters from the previous novel as well. The book was substantially larger than first planned as well, eventually coming in at 1,511 MS pages, shorter than A Storm of Swords by only a hair's breadth. Finally, in early March 2011 Martin and his publishers announced a final release date for A Dance with Dragons: Tuesday, 13 July 2011. Despite some scepticism from some quarters, the novel hit the planned release date. Propelled by the success of the Game of Thrones series on HBO, the book not only hit the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, but stayed there for a week and later returned, whilst also spending many weeks in the #2 spot. Impressively, shortly after release A Dance with Dragons rapidly became the biggest-selling fiction novel of the year (although it was later overtaken by 50 Shades of Grey and its sequels). Critical reviews were positive, although there was some criticism of Martin's decision (revealed in an interview) to move some major climaxes out of the book and into the following novel. Winter is Coming... Following the publication of A Dance with Dragons, Martin embarked on a signing tour for the novel. During this tour he confirmed earlier reports that roughly 100-150 MS pages of material had been completed for the sixth book, The Winds of Winter, and that he would very definitely not be making any promises about its release date. Returning home after the tour, he prioritised finishing the fourth Dunk 'n' Egg story (which has the working title The She-Wolves or She-Wolves of Winterfell) and approving The World of Ice and Fire companion book for publication, both due in 2012. He also revealed that a compilation of all four Dunk 'n' Egg stories would follow in the not-too-distant future. In 2012 and early 2013, Martin reported that work on The Winds of Winter had been slowed by him taking on more commitments than he had originally intended in the wake of A Dance with Dragons's completion. These projects - The Lands of Ice and Fire (a collection of maps), The World of Ice and Fire (a guidebook to the series) and a series of anthologies (Old Mars, Old Venus, Down These Strange Streets, Dangerous Women, Rogues) - were completed by early 2013, allowing Martin to concentrate on Winter. Martin also put several other projects, including The She-Wolves, on the back-burner so he could devote more time to the novel. On the red carpet for the premiere of the third season of the Game of Thrones TV series in April 2013, Martin confirmed that he had completed about a quarter of the novel, which he expected to come in at around 1,500 manuscript pages once again (suggesting he had roughly 375 manuscript pages completed and edited, with an unknown number of pages in partials and drafts). Martin chose not to give detailed or specific page counts after that point, although he did refute a highly speculative story in January 2014 that he had 1,000 manuscript pages completed. Castmembers from Game of Thrones gave off-the-cuff reports in late 2013 and early 2014 that Martin had half or more of the book completed, but this information appears to be speculative and has not been confirmed. After The Winds of Winter, a further novel is projected to bring the series to a close: A Dream of Spring (formerly entitled A Time for Wolves). Martin has not ruled out expanding the series to eight books, but has said he'd prefer to keep it to seven. In March 2014, HBO announced that Game of Thrones would end with its seventh season (expected in 2017) and that they would be using storyline and character outlines provided by Martin. Martin confirmed that he hopes to have The Winds of Winter out long before then, with reports from his UK editor suggesting that they hope to publish it in late 2015, but this news raises the possibility of HBO overtaking Martin and completing the story before the final novel is published.

At the moment Game of Thrones is known to be airing on the following channels in the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru & Venezuela HBO Latin America. Asian Territories HBO Asia in certain countries (unconfirmed so far). Australia On Showcase for Foxtel and Austar, possibly in July 2011. Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia & Slovenia, HBO Central Europe in April 2011. Canada HBO Canada, on 17 April 2011. Denmark, Finland, Norway & Sweden Canal +, possibly in Spring 2011 after the American premiere. France Originally announced as Orange, although some sources are now saying Canal+. Israel DBS. South Africa M-Net (channel DStv 110). Spain Initally on Canal+ starting on 9 May 2011, then six to twelve months later on Nitro, the new free-to-air channel from A3. United Kingdom Sky Atlantic, starting on 18 April 2011, the day after the American premiere. United States Sunday evenings on HBO, starting on 17 April 2011. If you hear other information, please post it here and I'll update this first post.

Yeah, the Qartheen just give her a few ships. There's no sign whatsoever that they're Aurane Waters's ships. In fact, due to the timeline (these are events still happening around the time AFFC starts) it is impossible for them to be Aurane's.

All the worldbuilding information on White Harbour is very interesting and welcome. But, I am concerned that the stuff over Baby Aegon, rumours from the east, the Northmen having difficulty choosing sides and especially Davos examining the reasons for his loyalty to Stannis is all ground that has been covered before, quite a bit. I'm hoping ADWD moves more decisively towards the conclusion of the series at a stronger pace and some other chapters (the prologue and Reek's, in particular) show GRRM covering important events and setting up major plot movements with skillful economy, but this one feels a little more flabby. That said, I could see this being the last we see of Davos and we assume he's dead, then Wyman's fleet turns up later in the book to kick some arse with Davos at its head, and this chapter could just set that up by itself, so maybe that's not a problem. We'll see.

Firefox, latest version. Cleared cache and history, restarted browser, restarted computer, tried it on quick and full edit. No joy. Maybe the edits are taking the post over the maximum character limit?

That's weird. I can't update the original post. Whenever I try and click on Submit Post, it just keeps saying, "You must enter a post." :shocked:

Episode titles are preferable (amongst other things, they make identifying them on the wiki easier!). I think either abstract titles, book quotes or simple descriptive ones work quite well. Babylon 5, Lost, BSG and Rome all have great episode titles, for example. Descriptive or quotation episode titles could include (a very obvious selection): As Tall as a King (Tyrion victorious in the duel in the Vale?) The Whispering Woods (or maybe 'The Night is Dark and Full of Terrors') The King of the North (the final episode) The City of Bones (Dany in Vaes Tolorro) A Clash of Kings (confrontation between Stannis and Renly) The House of the Undying (Dany in the warlock house) All Men Must Die (Jaqen killing on Arya's behalf) The Battle of the Blackwater (or maybe 'The Bridge of Ships' or 'The Gates of Hell') The Fist of the First Men The Brotherhood Without Banners The Rains of Castamere (probably less spoilery than 'The Red Wedding') A Storm of Swords (the Battle of the Wall) Book 4 ironically makes things a little easier with the descriptive chapter titles.

Updated with all the new casting news.

Bloody hell, I'd let that get old :) Updated with the new casting announcements (Emilia Clarke, Finn Jones, Kristian Nairn), the new writers and who's writing what episode, and the new director (Brian Kirk) announcement as well.