The Citadel

The Archive of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Lore

So Spake Martin

Archon Meeting (October 5-7)

[Note: Edited for brevity,]

... Then my partner and I went to get a bite, thinking we'll make it to the Opening ceremony in time. Wrong. We got back after Martin had spoken. Apparently, Jordan made a short speech when he was introduced. You all should ask Trebla or Gareth to report it, since I wasn't there. But it's funny.....

.... Next morning, grabbed the complimentary breakfast at the hotel. Went to Martin's reading and met Hauberk (already with Trebla and Gareth) in the hallway. There were roughly 30 people, I think. Was in heaven for an hour. The room was reserved for anohter function (very minor and unimportant, not worthy of mentioning) so we had to vacate after Martin was done reading. Martin held court in the hallway answering questions while the child-care room right next door was doing sing-along with The Lion Sleeps Tonight and American Pie. People asked questions for about half hour.

... Off we went to dinner. Had to wait 5 minutes for large table. Took pictures outside of restaurant while waiting. Then we had a barbecue dinner. Good stuff.

Dinner conversation highlights:

1. Martin lamented that this group has no pretty ladies.

2. Trebla (?) mentioned that some board members would really love to see more of Bronze Royce, and Martin commented on the preculiarity on how some readers will become attached to a character who had so little screen time and pratically no dialogue. He related a story from the Wild Card, where he had to kill a supporting character that has been in 5 scenes and had one line of dialogue "Where's the food?" He received quite a few angry fanmails about the death of that character.

3. Martin mentioned that he had a SF show written and the pilot shot, but the plot was stolen (unproven, of course) by Sliders. Basically, his concept was a multiple universe setting like the one Sliders' has, "except that the show is intelligent," said Martin.

4. Martin said that he can't see the books being adapted to a movie. A TV miniseries, maybe, but even then it's unlikely. But perhaps short stories like Hedge Knight can be made into a movie that can stand on its own.

5. Two new books in the Wild Card series will be coming out. One novel and one anthology, I believe.

6. A short discussion on Stannis' slaying of Renly. Martin just sat and listened. I made the point that killing someone on the battlefield is different from assasinating someone in their sleep, and Martin asked "Is it really? Are you saying that you would not have participating in the attempted bombing of Hitler? Instead, you'd prefer to kill him in battle where he'd have a fair chance in fighting?"

7. Short discussion on the significance of the wolf to the Stark kids. Martin made a rather assertative comment about the significance of Lady's absence in Sansa's life. Though I can't recall the exact wording.

8. Martin said he'll be attending Wis Con. Woohoo!

9. Martin recalled a near-death (okay, not THAT near) experience in Wisconsin when he was attending Wis Con in the late 70s.

10. Seems like ArchCon is Martin's regular stomping ground. He was their first Guest of Honor 25 years ago. He's been to all but last year's.

... Oh, I forgot who, but someone asked me to ask Martin about Bronn (Amryc?), whether he'll live till the end of the series. Martin said he can't answer a question like that. Sorry!

.... The interview was held at 2pm on Saturday. We went to that one after lunch. Martin introduced Jordan, and he repaid Jordan for his quip during the oepning ceremony. I'll post both parts since Trebla hasn't come on to post yet.

In the Opening Ceremony, Jordan got up and he started saying that his mother had had some mental illness issues with manic depressive disorder. He went on to say that he had inherited her depressive mood swings and that he's been fighting it on and off for years now. Once in a while, when he's in the depressed mood, he'll write and later on, publish the work under the pseudonym of George R R Martin (because his real name is actually George B B Martin, of course). Hah.

So in the interview session, Martin got up and said that it's true that he didn't write the Song of Ice and Fire, that it was actually Jordan who wrote it. That's why Jordan didn't have time to actually write the WoT, and instead, the WoT was written by David Eddings. Muwahahahahah.

Okay, so the interview went on. The interview was about Jordan. I mean, it was all him. Very little Martin. So I don't think I'll repeat the majority of it. The pertinent part is that Jordan said he had planned the WoT series to be 5 books (I did a good job not to scoff), but the story has its own mind and can't be contained (again, I didn't laugh). Martin said that he had the same problem. He had originally planned that GoT and CoK to be one book.

Other than that, it was about Jordan. Not even mostly about his series. Just himself. The highlight is that he served in the Vietnam war and he was, apparently, quite an efficient soldier. It did a job on his psyche, it seems. One thing he mentioned was that there was a picture that his friend took of him, where he was sitting on a log eating his ration, with 3 or 4 dead bodies around him. One of them was a guy with half his brain blown off by a grenade or something. Quite gruesome.

At the end, Jordan said there's a poll on Motley Fool (not sure if he's making it up or not) asking:

Which event will take place first?

1. Robert Jordan finishes WoT series

2. GRRM finishes SoIaF series

3. Obscure reference I didn't catch

4. Heat death of the universe

and the poll has #4 leading 5:1 to all other choices.

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