[Note: This transcript is provided by Deborah Beale, wife of fantasy author Tad Williams, whose "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series was a significant influence on GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire". The transcript was streamed by Ms. Beale over Williams's twitter account.]
Tad: I want to thank the folks responsible for tonight – whoah, slow down, what an enthusiastic bunch! First let me thank the very kind people from one of the world’s finest indie booksellers, and that’s Kepler’s Books. And also let me thank the management at the beautiful Fox Theatre.I’m acting as your agent, taking questions for our esteemed guest. He and I have known each other for some time laboring in the same fields. A few years ago we were talking at a convention and I was telling George how not thrilled I was about my comic-book company experiences – I was being treated like a brand-new writer -- OK I was whining. And when I told this to George he looked up and in that Jacobean way of his he said, "That’s outrageous, they should treat you like a visiting prince." But I know YOU folks know how to treat visiting royalty, right?
Ladies and gentlemen, applause please for our very own visiting royalty – Mr George R R Martin!
GRRM: Thank you. It’s great to be here. It’s quite a year for me -- it’s quite a week for me. This bookstore has been terrific for me and I take special pleasure in returning to Redwood City and Keplers. In 1996 when they sent me on my first tour for A Game of Thrones, I had been a prince in exile for a number of decades. I had been working in Hollywood and I wasn’t well known any more in the SF field and I did a number of signings where the turn-out was minimal, and in some cases hypothetical. But there were a few exceptions to that – Kentucky – and Keplers. Keplers sold more copies of >A Game of Thrones than any bookstore in the USA. It is great to return to the scene of the crime!
The format here is I’m going to say a few remarks and answer a few of the frequently asked questions, then turn it over to you before I begin debasing your books.
Tad’s fantasy series, The Dragonbone Chair and the rest of his famous four-book trilogy was one of the things that inspired me to write my own seven-book trilogy. I read Tad and was impressed by him, but the imitators that followed -- well, fantasy got a bad rep for being very formulaic and ritual. And I read >The Dragonbone Chair and said, "My god, they can do something with this form," and it’s Tad doing it. It’s one of my favorite fantasy series.
The FAQs – like, what the hell took me so damn long? That’s a heavy one and you know it’s complicated -- strange things going around the internet like I had the book finished but was hiding it. But in an excess of optimism I’d hit 1,500 pages for A Feast for Crows and my publisher was saying, when is this going to end? How many thousand more pages? And I said, I don’t know – maybe 5, maybe 6, maybe 800. I pulled out of it 500pp for A Dance with Dragons, leaving about 1,000 pages. So Feast came out and then I had those pages left over. I thought, I’ll write another 500pp, it’ll take a year and then I’ll have another book of comparable size and I made my infamous mistake. It goes down with famous last words, like that civil war cannon ball can’t possibly hit us. But when it was finally complete, the book was another 1,500 pages and in addition as I got into it I didn’t like those 500 pages that I had pulled. I would up rewriting a lot of them, so really only a couple of hundred got pulled from Feast and made it into Dance. That’s what took so long and I know some of you were a gleam in your father’s eye when I was starting, but eventually it will all be done and eventually it will all be good.
More FAQ - what do you think of the HBO series – well, I think the HBO series is great. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in the people I’ve been partnered with. The New York Times bestseller list, the books have been climbing since the first one just made the extended list at #13. And now we’re #1 for the second week in a row. Initially, Hollywood contact was screenwriters and studios, and I thought about that and there are temptations to say yes to something like that dumptruck of money. But fortunately I had no need and I could exercise a little thought. I couldn’t see that my book would make a 2.5 hour movie… What it needs is the sort of treatment Tolkien got, and nobody’s going to commit to how big it would be. I had the luxury of saying what is always always the sexiest word in Hollywood: No. But if you say it enough eventually you get an offer you can’t say no to, and the offer is right. I sat down with the showrunners and producers in the Palm restaurant in LA and we thought out the film.
I said, It can’t be network, they will take out all the sex and violence and put it in an 8 o’clock time slot, god help me. All around us, little by little people are leaving and we’re still drinking coffee, and then people started coming in for dinner and we were still talking. We got great stuff right there. Sean Bean for Ned Stark and Peter Dinklage for Tyrion came right there at that meeting. I had a little TV experience so I didn’t frighten them so much, since I knew the realities of budgets, shooting, the costs of sheds for the actors and their care and feeding. I write one script per season but I can’t write more unless you want the books even later than they are. I’m consulted and we talk frequently, and I see all the audition tapes. Sometimes they listen to me, sometimes not so much. It’s been a great process with Dan Weiss and David Benioff. We’ve had a fabulous casting director –- great actors –- some straight out of drama school, and the kids are incredible, kids who had only done school plays before they were canst and now they’re on HBO movies, that’s very exciting. So I am thrilled to be doing the HBO series and we started filming 3 days ago on the second season. Hopefully there’ll be a third and a fourth too.
Tad: A question from the audience -- what will happen if HBO catches up to you?
GRRM: I’m doing the best I can. I hope they won’t catch up with me!
Tad: Another question from the audience -- would you allow someone else to finish for you and who do you think could do the job well? [jokes] That was a suggestion from K J Anderson – thanks, Kevin, for the question!!!
GRRM: No one is going to finish for me. But if I’ll be dead…. No. I intend to finish this for myself.
Tad: There would be so many people out there following you around in case you tripped--
GRRM: One of the many good things about fans is, if I ever need a kidney – hey!
Tad: Question: Do you purposely start a character as bad so you can later kill them?
GRRM: No. What is bad? Bad is a label. We are human beings with heroism and self-interest and avarice in us and any human is capable of great good or great wrong. In Poland a couple of weeks ago I was reading about the history of Auschwitz – there were startling interviews with the people there. The guards had done unthinkable atrocities, but these were ordinary people. What allowed them to do this kind of evil? Then you read accounts of acts of outrageous heroism, yet the people are criminals or swindlers, one crime or another, but when forced to make a choice they make a heroic choice. This is what fascinated me about the human animal. A lot of fantasy turns on good and evil – but my take on it is that it’s fought within the human heart every day, and that’s the more interesting take. I don’t think life is that simple.
Tad: All of us work with multiple viewpoints – I hear this next question a lot: with story-driven plots, how do you decide which character viewpoint to write from – do you write several characters, taste them, then decide?
GRRM: No, not several, at least not intentionally. I had more choice early in the series, I frequently had situations where 2 or 3 were present at the same time. But as it’s progressed they have dispersed, so I need to be in the viewpoint of whoever’s there. There are some cases when I have a choice and in that case, I weigh which one. Without talking exactly about "The Mereenese Knot" – I’m not going to talk exactly about it, but but [there was a time when] a number of viewpoints were coming together in Mereen for a number of events, and I was wrestling with order and viewpoint. The different points-of-view had different sources of knowledge and I never could quite solve it. I was rewriting the same chapter over and over again – this, that, viewpoint? – spinning my wheels. It was one of the more troublesome thickets I encountered. There’s a resolution not to introduce new viewpoint characters, but the way I finally dealt with things was with Barristan, I introduced him as a viewpoint character as though he’d been there all along. That enabled me to clear away some of the brush.
Tad: Question: do you choose characters because they will provide you with a viewpoint or something characterful?
GRRM: Actually, no. I try to give each viewpoint character an arc of his own, and ideally I would like to think that you could pull the material out – in the early books I was able to pull out the Daenerys chapters and publish them separately as a novella, and I won a Hugo Award for that. It'd be great if I could pull out each [character-arc] and it would resemble a story. In some cases a character died and that was a very short story. My prologue and epilogue characters always die but even then I try to give them a story.
Tad: You say that like they’re the only ones. We know better, George! Tapping a vein of reader interest here – do present-day events factor into your writing, and how much do you have real-life political events in mind?
GRRM: I think there’s some of that going on, yeah, you know. But I’m not setting out to write a political allegory. Tolkien was often accused of that with ‘Rings,’ WW2 or WW1, I don’t feel quite sure of the point but there’s probably some influences, some critic could study it. But I hate it when they say stuff like Stannis is actually [some real-life source.]
Tad: question - do you mourn any of the characters you killed -- ps you’re a genius -- ?
GRRM: Actually I do mourn the characters I kill. You have live with that, become that, crawl inside its skin. Some of my characters are like me and some are very unlike me, but the emotional core is still me reaching inside, which all writers do I think. All inspiration becomes grist for the mill. The only person we really know down deep is ourselves -- the demons in the dark -- I am all these people in some sense, so I kill an aspect of myself and its difficult but I do it anyway.
Tad: I can see the bumper-sticker -- Authors don’t kill characters – Characters kill characters. You’ve been living with some of these characters for quite a long stretch now. How much of the idea of the story did you have when you started?
GRRM: Nothing. I had nothing, I was writing another novel that I’d started in ‘91, but I had a few months off before pitch season started so I began Avalon, an SF novel, and it was going reasonably well, 30 to 40 pages. Suddenly a first chapter came to me so vividly and it could not possibly be part of Avalon. It was so vivid I had to write it. I started and 50, 60 pages were there suddenly, then I drew a map, then I put it aside for 3 years because I sold a pilot and did some screenplays. But the characters were in my head, and when I returned to it in ‘94 it was like, 3 days had passed. Which was unusual for me, it hadn’t been like that, I have trouble switching from 1 character to another and if I’m away from something for too long, it pulled away from me. I have a famous unfinished novel, Black and White and Red All Over, but these characters wouldn’t leave me alone. And they’re insisting I still have a long way to go.
Tad: Will we ever see Asshai or the Shadow?
GRRM: You may hear about it and you may get flashback scenes from characters who have been there and you can puzzle it out on the internet. But I don’t know. I may return to write other stories set in this world. I want you to return to Osten Ard by the way.
Tad: Do you have any moment to share from all this where it was – Wow oh wow…
GRRM: There’s been a half dozen this past year. It was incredible last week at Comic Con on the ‘Game of Thrones’ panel -- Comic Con is a madhouse, there’s nothing like it on earth, 150,000 in one room -- we were 4,200 people [at that panel.] I was moderator and all these people were screaming and making that sound strange squealing sound when they see famous people--
Tad: Squee.
GRRM: It was startling. I could see the cast come out, but that one was about me. Ok! That was pretty cool. And a couple of months before that, being named one of the Time 100. Well, I’m now trying to use my immense influence for good. I’m going to settle this debt thing, and reform the Hugo rules and their ridiculous categories, and I’m going to solve the NFL, I told them so… It’ll be another great year for the Jets and we’re gonna kick the Raiders’ asses. [risible, mixed audience reaction re. local team]
I want to apologize for not personalizing people’s books. In Slovenia there was a thousand people in line, waiting, and four of the fainted. We can’t do posed photos, same reasons, we have to move the line along. I’m signing for four hours. Please don’t look at me all big puppy dogs – I can’t do that!!! I do want to meet all of you briefly – and if you have a question, well, say it quick, don’t ask me if you can ask a question because then you’ve just asked the question!
Tad: Thanks everyone, and now the signing can commence.
[Note: This is a very spoiler-filled interview. Beware.]
[Note: This is a very spoiler-filled interview. Beware.]
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/07/21/dance-with-dragons-shocking-twist-g/
I showed up to B&N a little before 4 and the seats had already filled up, so I took a seat on the floor in the standing room line. I was early enough that I was about 60 or 70 people back in line, which meant I still got through pretty quickly once the signing began and was out a little before 9. Big props to the B&N staff for keeping things organized and moving quickly.
George got a standing ovation when he came up the escalator and his first words on the microphone were, "Wow. See, I really was working on it!" He talked about how much bigger the crowds are now than when he was on the book tour for AGOT and told the story of how the four people at a signing in St. Louis got up and left as he was about to start ("Some writers talk about having no one show up to their signings, but I think I'm the only one who can claim a turnout of negative 4!").
George said he'd talk about the three questions he gets most often. Most people here know the answer to "What took you so long?" The second question was "When will the next one be out?", and he said "It will be done when it's done. I've learned my lesson not to make promises." He also said he hoped to have the ASOIAF World Book out next year. The third question was "What do you think of the TV show?", and his answer was "I love the TV show, I think it's amazing." He talked about the Emmy nominations (Peter Dinklage's nomination drew the biggest applause), mentioned that ADWD had the biggest first-day sales of any new novel published in 2011, and then opened the floor up for questions.
Quick summary of audience questions and GRRM's answers (the quoted parts are my notes filled out to the best of my memory):
Q: Is it possible the tale will grow in the telling again and we will see eight book?
A: "I would like to do it in 7," but he didn't want to make any promises.
Q: Do the many gods serve any other purpose?
A: George answered this by talking about what he sees as the two schools of readers: those interested mainly in plot and those who are interested in the entire experience. "My philosophy of fiction is not necessarily all about advancing the plot... I want to give my readers a vicarious experience. Ten years later, I don't want you to remember you read a book, I want you to remember you lived an experience."
Q: What new advice for young writers did you learn by writing Dance?
A: "Don't try to write something so gigantic! When I finish the series I'm never going to do it again," adding that he would write more short stories and standalones. His summary of advice to young writers is "write everyday," "read voraciously" in multiple genres, and "start with short stories."
Q: What is the last book you read that you thought was great?
A: Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. George admitted he was a bit biased as Corey is really his assistant Ty and his friend Daniel Abraham, but he did love the book.(Right after he said this, a B&N employee walked down the aisle I was standing in, grabbed a big stack of copies of Leviathan Wakes, and brought them out to a table by the top of the down escalator. I heard later that they sold all of them by the end of the night.)
Q: Is a certain POV character in ADWD gay?
A: "I can't answer without spoiling, but if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, then yes." George mentioned that there are gay characters in ASOIAF. He mentioned Loras & Renly, saying that he included "what I thought were subtle but clear hints. HBO was not subtle about it."
Q: Will you make a cameo in the HBO series?
A: "Probably, though you'll have to watch very carefully." He told the story of his cameo in the original pilot and the crazy hat he wore as a Tyroshi.
Q: How do you stay plugged into the story and keep track of the details?
A: "Most of the stuff is kepts in my head. I do have notes and charts, but not as many as I should." And he emails Ran with questions about character details. :) He said he gets upset with himself when he makes a mistake, because there are already intentional mistakes in what characters say. "Some inconsistencies are deliberate. There are unreliable narrators, especially when they are remembering things."
Q: Did you have to fight with your publisher to keep that huge thing that happens in the first book? (There was a no spoiler policy in effect for the Q&A.)
A: "No."
Q: How long should an aspiring writer stick with one idea?
A: "If an idea comes to you and demands to be written, you need to write it." (My apologies for not taking better notes on the answer.)
Q: Hodor hodor hodor, hodor hodor, hodor hodor hodor hodor?
A: "Definitely hodor."
And then he started signing books, and then we all ended up at Professor Thom's where the bar had made a sign for the "Game of Thrones Fan Party" on the second floor, and it was a good time.
[Note: This report refers to the question of Jeyne Westerlings hips, described by Catelyn as being "good" for the purposes of having children, and described by Jaime as "narrow". This seeming contradiction has sparked theories that the girl Jaime sees and is told is Jeyne is in fact an impostor.]
I actually asked GRRM about this at the union square signing. When he spoke he said some mismatched descriptions are him doing it on purpose, and some are mistakes. And the mistakes are really unfortunate because it detracts from when he does it on purpose.
When we approached the stage for signings we had the chance to ask a quick question, and he told me that that the hips were a mistake unfortunately.
George showed up, got big applause. Is currently explaining what took so long. The story we all know. Some on his writing process. Sometimes writes several of the same pov chapters in a row. Lots of people are recording this so more complete synopses will be available, doubtless. Comments that he knew it would annoy people to move his most popular characters out of A Feast for Crows but that he didn't realize just HOW annoyed people would get.
Made a quip about his bit at the end of AFFC about the next book being along in a year. "It took longer than I thought, but here we are in 2007 and dance is out!" References the chapbook with the first three Dany chapters from 2005 and that it offers insight as to how much the book has changed since then. Some jokes about football. Shouts of "Go Pats!" from some in the crowd, getting laughs. Oh, Boston. Actively not promising TWOW next year. Hopes it won't take as long as AFFC and ADWD. But "no promises" and "there are lots of other good books". Promotes Abraham, Lynch and Rothfuss.
A dude directly across from me looks like the undertaker's ugly brother. He never smiles. I'm saying right now that if something awful happens, he probably did it. George lauds Gwendolen Christie (Brienne). Says a half dozen other roles have been cast but he can't talk about them yet. They're going to start filming next season. As executive producer he writes one episode per season. Says he'd like to write more than one, but that we'd get to wait twenty years for The Winds of Winter rather than the six for A Dance with Dragons.
Still seven books and favorite character?
Favorite is Tyrion but he loves them all, even the slimeballs. Still aiming for seven books but no promises.
Any potential future for Syrio Forel?
Martin gives no comment.
Aging up of characters in the show?
The prime reason was Dany, since it was felt they couldn't show a thirteen year old girl going through what she goes through. Real medieval culture had no adolescence so he goes with that in the books. Modern society doesn't go with that, so while a married thirteen year old having sex is fine in a book, but moving to tv would necessitate either removal of sex scenes or aging her. In the UK an adult actor can't portray an underage character in sexual situations legally. So by upping her age they ended up upping other kids' ages.
The other factor being that casting child actors is harder than casting teenage and young adult actors. Kid actors recite words but don't act much or else try overact and overemote.
Jokes about why he never wrote a Rickon POV. "I have an inner child, but it's not that young."
What if HBO catches up?
They won't catch up! "I have a big head start."
Any pov characters in Casterly Rock?
Yes, maybe in TWOW.
The first two books were big and written fast, was that a creative spurt?
Parts of A Clash of Kings were ending up in A Gameo of Thrones, so he cut it off and when A Game of Thrones was published a lot of A Clash of Kings was written. He admits that A Storm of Swords was written quickly. Moved a Sansa chapter to The Winds of Winter because it was the beginning of a plot so worked better in a new book.
How are you dealing with the crush of fandom?
"Ask me at the end of this signing". 1500 people here, big but not as big as the 2000 in Slovenia. A Feast for Crows had the first really scary signings for him. Mentions his rules to keep the line moving. Four people in Slovenia fainted.
What's it like having your books translated to tv?
"it's been great for me!" since he worked in tv for so long he knows what to expect realistically from an adaption.
What would you name your direwolf?
Depends on personality. Has a cat named Asha.
[NOTE: Audio link at the top of the article.]
[NOTE: There are small spoilers for A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter in the interview.]
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/07/12/george-martin-talks-a-dance-with-dragons/
[NOTE: This interview took place on July 8, 2011, 4 days before the release of A Dance with Dragons.]
Congratulations on finishing the book! It must have felt like the longest marathon ever.
It's nice to have it done, no doubt about that. This one has been on my back for a long, long time.
Is it a relief to say it's done, or was there a part of you that wanted to hold onto it longer and work on it a bit more?
You know, there's always the question of when you let the bird leave the nest. My editors finally pried it out of my hands, or otherwise it might have been another year or so as I wrote more and fiddled with it. But at a certain point it also gets so long that you can't fit it all in one book. I'm pretty happy with the book, but of course the fans and readers are the ultimate judges of it and they'll decide how good it is. But I'm pretty satisfied with it.
When I've read across the series, when you look at A Game of Thrones, it feels really tightly written, quite plot heavy as it sets up everything. And then from there, atmosphere and character seems to come to the fore more. Was that always intended or is this a by-product of the increasing complexity of the story?
My goal in all my writing is always to provide the reader with a vicarious experience, and I think atmosphere is part of that. While I think the advancement of the plot is certainly important, it's not the single most important thing. If the advancement of the plot were the most important thing, we'd be reading Cliffs Notes and not the novels themselves. The plot is one factor that makes a successful novel, but not the only thing. So things like atmosphere, setting, and particularly character are equally crucial, if not more crucial. I think character is really the heart of fiction.
When I compare to your earlier work, the series certainly seems like a departure from what you did before.
A Game of Thrones and "A Song of Ice and Fire" was a departure for me in many ways. Not only the first major work of epic fantasy or high fantasy that I had attempted -- although there were some short stories and such before, but nothing on this scale -- but also definitely the most complicated plot, the largest cast of characters, the most epic kind of thing. Many of my stories before that had been relatively small and contained in scale, with largely personal stakes for the protagonist or the viewpoint character. Even something like Fevre Dream, the whole world is not being affected by what was happening to Abner Marsh and his steamboat line.
It was a departure, but then again I like departures. I've always tried to do different things in my career, and I hope to continue to do different things.
I wanted to ask about your process in creating the series, through a specific example from A Dance with Dragons. To dance around it a bit, lets say that we learn more about the story of the three-eyed crow, a figure first glimpsed in a very early Bran chapter. Were these details something you knew all along? Or was it a situation where you knew you'd need more information to go with this mystical figure, but figured you'd just come across those details organically later on in the series?
I wouldn't say I knew right from the start, but I've certainly known the details for a long, long time. From the very start, I didn't even really know what this story was. As I've said before, when the first chapter came to me, I was in the midst of writing a science fiction novel, Avalon, when I started writing this story about wolf pups being found in the snow. So, you know, some point very early on, before A Game of Thrones was published, I had started filling in these details. We're talking 1994 or 1995.
There was a point early on, relatively early in the writing of the series, where I stopped writing and did a spate of world building. I didn't do it before I started, like Tolkien, but I was writing the book and I was getting in and starting to refer to history. So I stopped and started to formalize it, drawing the maps, working out the genealogies, the list of the Targaryen rulers and the dates of their reigns, and so on. But of course, as you know -- because you're one of the ones that pointed it out back then -- it didn't all necessarily jive with what I wrote in "The Hedge Knight". But in any case, I was starting to think about all of these things as I did it, and I had little hints about their stories through the nicknames I gave the kings. So Maegor the Cruel, Jaehaerys the Conciliator, and the Young Dragon, and so on. So the seeds of a lot of the history were planted when I drew up that list.
There's been an interesting discussion on our forum concerning "orientalism" as it's expressed in your work, and one question it's led to among readers is whether you've ever considered a foreign point of view characters in Essos, to give a different window into events there.
No, this story is about Westeros. Those other lands are important only as they reflect on Westeros.
Part of the difficulty of this particular novel was what you called the "Meereenese Knot", trying to get everything to happen in just the right order, pulling various plot strands together in one place, and part of the solution was the addition of another point of view character. Was this something where you tried writing it from a number of different point of views before settling on a new one? Did you actively resist adding a new character?
The Meerenese Knot related to everyone reaching Dany. There's a series of events that have to occur in Meereen, things that are significant. She has various problems to deal with at the start: dealing with the slavers, threats of war, the Sons of the Harpy, and so on. At the same time, there's all of these characters trying to get to her. So the problem was to figure out who should reach her and in what order, and what events should happen by the time they've reached her. I kept coming up with different answers and I kept having to rewrite different versions and then not being satisfied with the dynamics until I found something that was satisfactory. I thought that solution worked well, but it was not my first choice.
There's a Dany scene in the book which is actually one of the oldest chapters in the book that goes back almost ten years now. When I was contemplating the five year gap [Martin laughs here, with some chagrin], that chapter was supposed to be the first Daenerys chapter in the book. Then it became the second chapter, and then the third chapter, and it kept getting pushed back as I inserted more things into it. I've rewritten that chapter so much that it ended in many different ways.
There's a certain time frame of the chronology where you can compare to A Feast for Crows and even A Storm of Swords and figure out when they would reach Meereen and the relative time frames of each departure and each arrival. But that doesn't necessarily lead to the most dramatic story. So you look at it and try and figure out how to do it. I also wanted to get across how difficult and dangerous it was to travel like this. There are many storms that will wreck your ship, there are dangerous lands in between where there are pirates and corsairs, and all that stuff. It's not like hopping on a 747, where you get on and then step off the plane a few hours later. So all of these considerations went into the Meereenese Knot.
Then there's showing things after [an important event], which proved to be very difficult. I tried it with one point of view character, but this was an outsider who could only guess at what was going on, and then I tried it with a different character and it was also difficult. The big solution was when I hit on adding a new point of view character who could give the perspective this part of the story needed.
I know that you've said that somewhere in the course of writing A Clash of Kings you put everything on hold to -- maybe not outline, but just rough out the major events you wanted to do. How much of that is still in play or has it changed a lot?
I've talked in general about the chronological changes, so for example I had wanted the kids to get older in the course of the books originally, but that wasn't working out the way the story was going. When that became obvious, I came up with the five year gap, and then I abandoned the five year gap. All of this impacted the chronology. That's the biggest change, other than that things are more or less on course the way I did them. But as you said, I'm a gardener, I'm not an architect. So my road-map is in very broad strokes... We're starting to mix our metaphors, with gardeners and architects and road-maps.
Just to wrap up, I don't know if you've had a chance to remark on the final episode of HBO's Game of Thrones. How did you like it and the final scene?
I loved the episode. I thought the final scene of the episode was magnificent.