mormont

[nitpick] Actually, apart from Ran all the mods have a positive rep, including Angalin though I'm sure she hasn't actually posted since the rep system was created. I realise I have now cursed us all to being negged to within an inch of our lives. No need to thank me, fellow mods. :P Not sure I agree with either point. Taking away the negs means that some people who are now zero or negative will have a positive rep: there being no way, in that case, to cancel out a 'plus'. So, people who have (e.g.) controversial views, popular with a handful but deeply unpopular with the majority, will be more likely to get a positive rep if you make it positive-only. That's a significant difference. It makes it, in my view, worse than no system at all, because it's confusing and misleading. That's one reason I came round to being against the positive-only. Making it non-anonymous wouldn't bother me - I've handed out a few negs and would be quite happy to defend each and every one of them. I appreciate that others might feel more constrained, but I can't see how this equates to getting rid of it altogether, which appears to be what you're saying.

Think you might be disappointed... GRRM made a comment about that. IIRC, he said that the 'main' viewpoints would be Jon and Dany and Tyrion, with around eight (?) chapters each. That doesn't leave enough room for more than four Bran chapters, I think.

One Goodkind topic is enough, I think, especially since they're not substantially different. :)

Well, I agree with you there... but is it due to a deliberate reference/homage to Rama? Almost certainly not.

The number '3' is pretty culturally significant generally in the West: consider the Holy Trinity, fairy tales and other stories (there are always three princes, three wishes, three witches: Peter denies Jesus three times, etc.). Whole books have been written about this in anthropology. So I'm fairly sure this is not drawn from a specific source. Particularly as to some degree GRRM seems to have deliberately used seven rather than three as a culturally significant number in Westeros.

There is a pinned thread on this topic in General that contains many such historical and literary (well, for a braod definition of 'literary' ;)) references. I'm moving this there. :)

Re: 'direwolf', 'destrier' and especially 'citadel'. All three are very common and generic words in fantasy fiction and not ones anyone who'd read much fantasy (or history for that matter) would be unfamiliar with or need to 'look up'. And GRRM has read a lot of both. ;) I'm quite certain he was familiar with the words before reading Wolfe.

It is, but it is also a reference to 'Songs the Dead Men Sing', the title of an anthology of GRRM's own works, and a title he's had in mind for use since even before that book. ;) There's no indication that I can recall that Faceless Men have any genetic heritage that lets them do what they do.

Oops, brain burp. Said Silverberg, meant Lieber*. :blush: Hey, they're both German names! :P I imagine George might well have read DWJ: but I know he's read Lieber. The names don't signify much, I think. Unless there are some other parallels. * I do this all the time in RL. Example: the other week in a memo I referred to a work colleague, Bruce [T], as 'Bruce Campbell' throughout. :P

It's unlikely... movable dwellings have a loooong history in folklore. Silverberg has one in his Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, IIRC, inspired in turn by Baba Yaga myths. And frankly I'd be more willing to believe George has read Silverberg than Diana Wynne Jones. :P