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Is anybody else annoyed that there are 3 different illustrations of dragonstone in this book?


Zarafrustra

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Why not? A unique work, designed especially for a King is the perfect work to contain the king of fancy art work we see in the books. We know that the Maesters do have art work in their books.

The only thing that would probably be anachronistic is the art style. But my headcanon is that it's in the "vivid Myrish style" briefly mentioned in Game of Thrones.

Well, plenty of historic texts and scrolls did not have any such artwork.

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Well, plenty of historic texts and scrolls did not have any such artwork.

And some did. There are a few references in the series, and TWOIAF itself about maester's works which include art work. If GRRM says the art isn't canon it's not canon, but it's weird to de-canonise it when it's perfectly congruous with the canon. So I'm going to headcanon it myself.

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You asked why the artwork wouldn't be considered in-universe, and I was pointing out that a lot of historic scrolls wouldn't contain artwork. To me it's pretty straightforward as to why the artwork is only for the benefit of us, rather than part of Maester Yandel's work. I don't think it's weird at all - it's only in there for the benefit of those spending money on the book, really.

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Well, plenty of historic texts and scrolls did not have any such artwork.

You should look up the Devils Bible. That monstrosity has all sorts of artwork through out it. An entire page devoted to the image of the Devil.

Theres all sorts of historic texts and scrolls that have artistic renderings in it.

If its been confirmed the artwork is not in-universe then it really doesnt matter. But artwork has always been apart of ancient historical texts to do the very thing it does for us now. To convey to the reader an image of what it is theyre reading.

Personally I can believe that the pg 230 Dragonstone is more akin to the real thing in-universe and that the first one we see is a more 'stylistic' view of it. Something imbellished and with such detail that it seems fanciful and fairytale like. The pg 230 Dragonstone looks more like something that ancient peoples would have built and carved out of a rock they thought was shaped similar to a dragon. Something that has been weathered by time and events.

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You should look up the Devils Bible. That monstrosity has all sorts of artwork through out it. An entire page devoted to the image of the Devil.

Theres all sorts of historic texts and scrolls that have artistic renderings in it.

Aye, there are - my point was that there are plenty that don't, so it fits fine that a Maester writing a history for Robert wouldn't put any such artwork in.

Conversely, had Martin worked closely with each and every artist and thus decided that Mastaer Yandel had received funds to commission artists for his project and work, making the images canon, then it also works fine.

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Aye, there are - my point was that there are plenty that don't, so it fits fine that a Maester writing a history for Robert wouldn't put any such artwork in.

Conversely, had Martin worked closely with each and every artist and thus decided that Mastaer Yandel had received funds to commission artists for his project and work, making the images canon, then it also works fine.

It also makes sense that he would. Its a special unique work that is meant to stroke the ego of a King. Going all out is sort of what you do for someone important.

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The art is inspired by George's work, and some pictures (castles and stuff) are pretty close to his head image, but there are glaring mistakes in some of the pictures. For instance, Daemon II had not black hair when he was captured by Bloodraven, the depiction of the crown of Aegon the Unworthy worn by Aerys II on some of the pictures (and the crown of Jaehaerys I worn by Viserys I) is wrong, and so forth.



Not to mention that in-universe Yandel's book could never have had the art it contains in our reality.


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It also makes sense that he would. Its a special unique work that is meant to stroke the ego of a King. Going all out is sort of what you do for someone important.

Which I mentioned in the post that you quoted. My point was merely that the images not being canon, and only for our benefit, makes sense.

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The art is inspired by George's work, and some pictures (castles and stuff) are pretty close to his head image, but there are glaring mistakes in some of the pictures. For instance, Daemon II had not black hair when he was captured by Bloodraven, the depiction of the crown of Aegon the Unworthy worn by Aerys II on some of the pictures (and the crown of Jaehaerys I worn by Viserys I), and so forth.

Not to mention that in-universe Yandel's book could never have had the art it contains in our reality.

I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually get another edition with in-universe portraits and artwork.

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Well, I had the chance to see previous versions of Aegon's mistress, and how Aegon's crown looked in an earlier version of the coronation picture, and George really had input on the art, that much is obvious.



I'm really in favor of a special edition of the book with new medieval style like art, especially because that could be a way to include less art and more text, and would thus be a way to give us more on pretty much every topic...


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...and then further editions of Fire and Blood can be published, along with updated versions of ASOAIF and Dunk & Egg, at which point finally Georgerion the Black Dread can rest during the long reign of the Publisher's Peace, dieing of old age at around 200 years.


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Personally I can believe that the pg 230 Dragonstone is more akin to the real thing in-universe and that the first one we see is a more 'stylistic' view of it. Something imbellished and with such detail that it seems fanciful and fairytale like. The pg 230 Dragonstone looks more like something that ancient peoples would have built and carved out of a rock they thought was shaped similar to a dragon. Something that has been weathered by time and events.

It should be the other way around - Dragonstone really is supposed to look like something out of a fairy tale. It wasn't just crafted from an already sort of dragon shaped rock, it was shaped by magic.

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FWIW, none of the art is "in-world". It's illustrations by "out-of-world" modern artists as a compliment to the text.

No plans of an edition of the book with new, "medieval-style" art, so far as I know. Would be kind of neat, but I suspect something like that would have to be for a shorter project, needing fewer illustrations, and would probably be a limited edition thing from Subterranean or something.

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I'm not even slightly annoyed. It must have been a massive project to assemble this many original paintings and illustrations for the book. I count twenty-seven names on the contributing artist page and each one of them was using their own imagination to interpret the text when creating their images. I love the variety we see in these pages.


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I don't have the book in front of me but I remember when I first got it I felt like that. I can't 100% recall which pictures i'm thinking of, besides the first one early on in the book which by the way was an awesome illustration - the one which was dark with a few people in the foreground. There's another one a bit later on which from memory was a daytime pic, from the perspective of looking beside the dragon statue (with a thin winding path leading up the hill). On closer inspection I think that that picture goes hand in hand with the first one, but where the first one is taken from in front of the main monument, the second one I would guess was from around 1-5km to the right (can't tell if NSEW) looking back across towards where the first pic would be. You can just see the opening of a little bay in the background, if you went in there and looked to the right, i'd say that's where you'd be looking at whats depicted in the first picture.



As for the third dragonstone, I can't picture it in my head so I can't comment.


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It is not good to canonise any type of illustrative art made for a fiction. That puts the readers' fantasy in manacles. I like the artwork in the book, but it would have been a really bad idea to tell that "this is how for example Robert Baratheon or Daenerys or the Others looked like, and you are not really allowed to imagine something different or draw or paint something different based on the text and your own fantasy, because that will ever be incorrect".


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