On Kings' Landing being Mediterranean

[Dryvus]

It's a wattle-and-daub city, which is an emphatically European look.

[Ran]

GRRM says that King's Landing gets snow, but "infrequently", in the winter. Sub-tropical ala Florida sounds wrong to me. More like... southern France, perhaps.

[mummer]

Well, I imagine that importing palm trees into somewhere like Scotland is a modern affectation. I can't imagine Scotland having such trees historically.

But we're talking about a fantasy world with its own history. Scotland wasn't invaded by a crazy family of dragonriders from a magically demolished continent. The whole history of King's Landing is about new things being brought into Westeros. It's not as if you need high technology to bring a few palm seedlings on a ship, and as affectations go, there's nothing necessarily modern about this one.

Anyway I think the Scotland example, or mine of San Francisco, wasn't about King's Landing actually resembling those places-- just a response to the idea that palm trees can only grow in very hot climates, which is clearly not true.

[mormont]

No, but to the average viewer the presence of palm trees is certainly associated with very hot climates, which is the relevant point.

[Cereal Forel]

Am I the only one who finds it humorous how often we try to inject real world aspects (climate, physics, etc etc) into a wholly fictional setting?

[Padraig]

What Mormont said. I don't think we need to excuse the HBO production for having a different KL to the book KL (by suggesting that the palms were brought to the place). The HBO KL is what it is. All part of the adaptation process. As I said before, the change doesn't make much of a difference to the plot. It may mean that Dorne has to be warmer than the book Dorne also but I don't see how that is a big deal.

[blasted_saber]

Perhaps the show is what GRRM had envisioned? Since its all speculation on our part what KL actually looks like, how are we to know they have it wrong and we have it right, considering it is his story?

[FatCatOberyn]

I live on the Mediterranean (the Balkans), and while the palm trees do look a bit out-of-place, it is logical to presume that they were imported from some more exotic place (like the Summer isles). For example, in my "village" we have palm trees and pine by the sea, but in my courtyard, which is only 500 or less away from the sea, I have an oak forest. And it does get very hot in here during summer.

But I can't imagine that the poor parts of town will have such sparkling white buildings and architecture like that.

And, let's not forget that the climates and the seasons are much different in the world of ASoIaF compared to our own.

[Ran]

As someone said up-thread, George describes King's Landing as a daub-and-wattle city, with wooden hovels and muddy streets -- it's very English, really, though you can look a bit further south, too. Not Maltese, though.

King's Landing looks like Mdina and other such places in Malta because that's the location they found best suitable to their needs for various reasons, but "Spot on for King's Landing" was not in the equation.

It's all part of the compromises that have to happen in translating from page to screen. :)

[mummer]

No, but to the average viewer the presence of palm trees is certainly associated with very hot climates, which is the relevant point.

Of course at this point we're just guessing at what other people will think... but I could just as easily say that a North American television viewer is likely to associate palm trees with Los Angeles, where the average daytime temperature is 75 degrees.

I realize not everyone lives on the West Coast, but California is massively overrepresented in TV and movies... so it seems odd to assume that someone's going to see a couple of palms and think it must be a tropical area, rather than just sunny.

ps. I'm new to this board except as a lurker, but I'm excited to be involved in what might well be one of the top ten most irrelevant GOT design arguments ever!

[Juba]

Perhaps the show is what GRRM had envisioned? Since its all speculation on our part what KL actually looks like, how are we to know they have it wrong and we have it right, considering it is his story?

By simply reading the text--the novels state--without any kind of doubt--that King's Landing is set within a temperate climate (as Ran said, most likely resembling France or similar) and that the geography is daub-and wattle, i.e northern European pre-modern. The Kingswood isn't a fucking jungle people, it's populated with boar, deer, and other temperate climate animals (or maybe the Targaryans imported them with the palm trees).

Another thing I keep seeing here--"King's landing was described as "hot" in the books!" Well, that's because it's the end of Summer, not because HBO got things right and the rest of us (and Martin's text) are wrong.

I'm sure HBO had 'better' reasons (budgetary most likely) for this change than many of the others they've made, but to say it's really a genius idea or canon with the books is just wrong.

Sorry folks, even the great HBO is not infallible, and some of their concepts will not be the best (in fact, I can think of many other ASoIaF adaptions (though of course, none of this size) that are much better and truer to the series--the Hedge Knight comics, Tom Meier's miniature sculpts, Mike Miller, Micheal Komarck, and Amok's artwork.)

[FatCatOberyn]

By simply reading the text--the novels state--without any kind of doubt--that King's Landing is set within a temperate climate (as Ran said, most likely resembling France or similar) and that the geography is daub-and wattle, i.e northern European pre-modern. The Kingswood isn't a fucking jungle people, it's populated with boar, deer, and other temperate climate animals (or maybe the Targaryans imported them with the palm trees).

As I have already stated, I live on the mediterranean (Istria, Croatia, Ex-Yu, the Balkans), and while there are imported palm trees on the coastline of my "village", my own courtyard, which is only 500 meters or less inland, has an oak forest (note, some 300 meters to the east of the oak forest, on the other end of my courtyard, are two "imported" palm trees), and the area was populated with deer and boar before it was inhabited by so many people. In the past, many hunters from Italy came here to hunt.

[lacuna]

As I have already stated, I live on the mediterranean (Istria, Croatia, Ex-Yu, the Balkans), and while there are imported palm trees on the coastline of my "village", my own courtyard, which is only 500 meters or less inland, has an oak forest (note, some 300 meters to the east of the oak forest, on the other end of my courtyard, are two "imported" palm trees), and the area was populated with deer and boar before it was inhabited by so many people. In the past, many hunters from Italy came here to hunt.

Shame they're not filming in Croatia then! ;)

I lived in Malta for a year, and whatever isn't urban sprawl is relatively barren. To my recollection, there wasn't a decent sized forest anywhere. There are "ordinary" trees there as well, just not that many, and as fresh water is relatively scarce in Malta for half the year, most are surrounded by houses that definitely wouldn't fit in KL.

Not that it won't work in and of itself, but as Juba says, once you start to take the surrounding regions into account as well, the threads start to unravel fast.

[Vacuum]

I think I know the reasoning behind this:

This way, Dorne will have to be even hotter - like Ethiopia.

And thus, Samuel L. Jackson will be able to play Prince Oberyn, and I can die happy.

Samuel L. Jackson as the Red Viper? I thought he'd had it with those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane? :P

[FatCatOberyn]

Shame they're not filming in Croatia then! ;)

I lived in Malta for a year, and whatever isn't urban sprawl is relatively barren. To my recollection, there wasn't a decent sized forest anywhere. There are "ordinary" trees there as well, just not that many, and as fresh water is relatively scarce in Malta for half the year, most are surrounded by houses that definitely wouldn't fit in KL.

Not that it won't work in and of itself, but as Juba says, once you start to take the surrounding regions into account as well, the threads start to unravel fast.

Then they probably won't be filming the forest scenes in Malta :)

Maybe they already shot them when they were in Ireland and Britain.

[Padraig]

Maybe they already shot them when they were in Ireland and Britain.

Probably yes. :) It probably does require some creativity to combine the 2 (KL the city + forest) in our heads so that they are in the same vicinity. But that's a fantasy world for you.

I realize not everyone lives on the West Coast, but California is massively overrepresented in TV and movies... so it seems odd to assume that someone's going to see a couple of palms and think it must be a tropical area, rather than just sunny.

I'm not sure what you mean by "sunny". LA is certainly a very warm place also. Like the Meditterranean. KL's book setting is analagous to neither, although it has plenty sun too. I still don't understand why we must try to show that the book KL is the same as the HBO KL.

[mummer]

Probably yes. :) It probably does require some creativity to combine the 2 (KL the city + forest) in our heads so that they are in the same vicinity. But that's a fantasy world for you.

That's really standard practice in movies and TV. Locations that are 20 feet apart in the story may be filmed 1000 miles apart, and vice versa. And if they wanted a long-distance landscape view of King's Landing with forests near it, that would almost certainly have to be an effects shot anyway even if there were forests nearby, just to avoid showing signs of modern civilization.

I'm not sure what you mean by "sunny". LA is certainly a very warm place also. Like the Meditterranean. KL's book setting is analagous to neither, although it has plenty sun too. I still don't understand why we must try to show that the book KL is the same as the HBO KL.

I don't understand why you're directing this reply at me, since I never said anything about making it the same as the book. I said repeatedly that I was only talking about the freaking palm trees, specifically in response to various people who kept insisting that they would only be found in a tropical setting, or that people who saw them on TV would immediately assume it was a tropical setting (which LA certainly isn't) as opposed to Mediterranean.

[Phantom]

I think there'd be a lot of people who'd indicate something like .... "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Would Oberyn's spear have BMF carved onto it? Would it be purple?

ETA: Funnily enough, someone asked on the gallery about what Dorne would be like if King's Landing is Mediterranean. I said it'd probably be more like the Sahara or something, rather than North Africa.

I'm assuming King's Landing would be similar to Spain or Portugal whereas Dorne would be the middle east, maybe the equivalent of old baghdad or Damascus.

[Padraig]

That's really standard practice in movies and TV. Locations that are 20 feet apart in the story may be filmed 1000 miles apart, and vice versa.

I know. Its just an interesting combination of Malta and N Ireland. Such combinations wouldn't be normal. :)

And actually, nobody insisted that palms can only be found in tropical places. Mormont said "very hot climates". Like LA. Or the Meditterranean (which is also not tropical).

[Ah Man]

The Kingswood isn't a fucking jungle people, it's populated with boar, deer, and other temperate climate animals (or maybe the Targaryans imported them with the palm trees).

Neither of those is any more a temperate climate animal than a tropical climate one (the rainforests of Costa Rica have the exact same species of deer as Michigan, and boars are abundant in African savannas), and the notion of decade-long seasons pretty much throws out the idea of Earth-like distributions of wildlife or plants. The presence of palm-like trees has as much to do with soils, sunlight available, rainfall patterns, and groundwater as it does with temperature. I would expect the vegetative cover of an area with decade-long seasons to change with the seasons more than you might expect, and seeds which remain dormant until the weather conditions are right (which exist in our nature), as well as fast growing plants, would be strongly selected for in such an environment.

It's not what I pictured for King's Landing, but I don't think it goes against the book, and I think it makes enough sense.