Are the Novels a Primary Source?

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

7 minutes ago, jet199 said:

I'm petty sure that Bran will be revealed to be the narrator of the story at the end so the books are a secondary source. There is a theory for this somewhere on the board but I can't link to it now. Basically the change in chapter headings that happens in AFFC, descriptions such as "The Sacrifice" rather than character's names, is due to fact that Bran is just learning his greenseering so can identify people accurately. Theon's chapters changes back to Theon once he goes to the heart tree and Bran had a good look at him.

Even if this is true, the books are still a primary source in both the litarary and faux-historical definition.

- Bran is relating things he somehow witnesses during his lifetime, so by in-world history standards it's all still a primary source.

- The books are still, in reality, written by GRRM, so by literary standards they are still primary sources.

[Roddy Darwin]

Quick question. Someone on another thread mentioned something that made me think back to this thread. 

What about official pictures? Whether it be items such as swords or pictures of people and castles. Is the wiki or app considered official, as in, did George give approval or direction to artists? I believe I read he did for somethings, but my mind is trying to hard to remember what it was and is coming up blank. 

Just to add to what was said about the pictures from the WOIAF:

Waaay back, GRRM also sent very detailed descriptions of loads of Targs to Amok so he could draw them. They can all be found as SSMs now (and the resulting pictures are on Amok's website )

It's still not canon, much like the rest of the SSMs, but it's still full of nice little gems imho (like Shiera's description, which Yolkboy raised as one of his very many hints for his S+B=M)

[HexMachina]

8 minutes ago, Roddy Darwin said:

Just to add to what was said about the pictures from the WOIAF:

Waaay back, GRRM also sent very detailed descriptions of loads of Targs to Amok so he could draw them. They can all be found as SSMs now (and the resulting pictures are on Amok's website )

It's still not canon, much like the rest of the SSMs, but it's still full of nice little gems imho (like Shiera's description, which Yolkboy raised as one of his very many hints for his S+B=M)

Yep, iirc it was Aegon IV's Great Bastards, Baelor's sisters, and the Mistresses of Aegon IV he described in particular detail. Definitely the Great Bastards though. 

And, to tie back into the wiki discussion, I know some pages at least used to contain these descriptions in addition to stuff from the books. Another example of that I can think of is Mellario, whose page at one point (not sure about now) contained the SSM about her strained marriage