A Song of Ice and Fire takes place on the fictional continents Westeros and Essos. The point of view of each chapter in the story is a limited perspective of a range of characters growing from nine in the first novel, to 31 characters by the fifth novel. Three main stories interweave: a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, the rising threat of the supernatural Others in northernmost Westeros, and the ambition of the deposed king's exiled daughter to assume the Iron Throne.
The books have sold 90 million copies worldwide as of April 2019[update],[5] after having been translated into 47 languages as of January 2017[update].[6][7] The fourth and fifth volumes reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller lists upon their releases.[8] Among the many derived works are several prequel novellas, two TV series, a comic book adaptation, and several card, board, and video games.
The principal story chronicles the power struggle for the Iron Throne among the great Houses of Westeros following the death of King Robert in A Game of Thrones. Robert's heir apparent, the 13-year-old Joffrey, is immediately proclaimed king through the machinations of his mother, Queen Cersei Lannister. When Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark, Robert's closest friend and chief advisor, discovers that Joffrey and his siblings are the product of incest between Cersei and her twin brother Ser Jaime Lannister, Eddard attempts to unseat Joffrey, but is betrayed and executed for treason. In response, Robert's brothers Stannis and Renly both lay separate claims to the throne. During this period of instability, two of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros attempt to become independent from the Iron Throne: Eddard's eldest son Robb is proclaimed King in the North, while Lord Balon Greyjoy desires to recover the sovereignty of his region, the Iron Islands. The so-called "War of the Five Kings" is in full progress by the middle of the second book, A Clash of Kings.
The second part of the story takes place in the far north of Westeros, where an 8,000-year-old wall of ice, simply called "the Wall", defends the Seven Kingdoms from supernatural creatures known as the Others. The Wall's sentinels, the Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, also protect the realm from the incursions of the "wildlings" or "Free Folk", who are several human tribes living on the north side of the Wall. The Night's Watch story is told primarily through the point of view of Jon Snow, Lord Eddard Stark's bastard son.[9] Jon follows the footsteps of his uncle Benjen Stark and joins the Watch at a young age, rising quickly through the ranks. He eventually becomes Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. In the third volume, A Storm of Swords, the Night's Watch storyline becomes increasingly entangled with the War of the Five Kings.
The third storyline follows Daenerys Targaryen, daughter of Aerys II, the last Targaryen king. On the continent of Essos, east of Westeros across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys is married off by her elder brother Viserys Targaryen to a powerful warlord, but slowly becomes an independent and intelligent ruler in her own right. Her rise to power is aided by the historic birth of three dragons, hatched from eggs given to her as wedding gifts. The three dragons soon become not only a symbol of her bloodline and her claim to the throne, but also devastating weapons of war, which help her in the conquest of Slaver's Bay. The story follows her year-long conflict with the region's city states, in which she aims to consolidate power, disrupt the Essosi slave trade, and gather support for her ambitions to reclaim Westeros.
George R. R. Martin was already a successful fantasy and sci-fi author and TV writer before writing his A Song of Ice and Fire book series.[24] Martin had published his first short story in 1971 and his first novel in 1977.[25] By the mid-1990s, he had won three Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, and other awards for his short fiction.[26] Although his early books were well-received within the fantasy fiction community, his readership remained relatively small and Martin took on jobs as a writer in Hollywood in the mid-1980s.[26] He worked principally on the revival of The Twilight Zone throughout 1986 and on Beauty and the Beast until 1990, but he also developed his own TV pilots and wrote feature film scripts. He grew frustrated that his pilots and screenplays were not getting made[26] and that TV-related production limitations like budgets and episode lengths were forcing him to cut characters and trim battle scenes.[27] This pushed Martin back towards writing books, where he did not have to worry about compromising the size of his imagination.[26] Admiring the works of J. R. R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy, though he did not have any specific ideas.[28]
When Martin was between Hollywood projects in the summer of 1991, he started writing a new science fiction novel called Avalon. After three chapters, he had a vivid idea of a boy seeing a man's beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, which would eventually become the first non-prologue chapter of A Game of Thrones.[29] Putting Avalon aside, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and grew certain that it was part of a longer story. After a few more chapters, Martin perceived his new book as a fantasy story[30] and started making maps and genealogies.[24] However, the writing of this book was interrupted for a few years when Martin returned to Hollywood to produce his TV series Doorways that ABC had ordered but ultimately never aired.[27]
In 1994, Martin gave his agent, Kirby McCauley, the first 200 pages and a two-page story projection as part of a planned trilogy with the novels A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter intended to follow. When Martin had still not reached the novel's end at 1400 manuscript pages, he felt that the series needed to be four and eventually six books long,[27][32] which he imagined as two linked trilogies of one long story.[33] Martin chose A Song of Ice and Fire as the overall series title: Martin saw the struggle of the cold Others and the fiery dragons as one possible meaning for "Ice and Fire", whereas the word "song" had previously appeared in Martin's book titles A Song for Lya and Songs the Dead Men Sing, stemming from his obsessions with songs.[34] Martin also named Robert Frost's 1920 poem "Fire and Ice" and cultural associations such as passion versus betrayal as possible influences for the series' title.[35]
After A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords, Martin originally intended to write three more books.[26] The fourth book, tentatively titled A Dance with Dragons, was to focus on Daenerys Targaryen's return to Westeros and the associated conflicts.[33] Martin wanted to set this story five years after A Storm of Swords so that the younger characters could grow older and the dragons grow larger.[43] Agreeing with his publishers early on that the new book should be shorter than A Storm of Swords, Martin set out to write the novel closer in length to A Clash of Kings.[36] A long prologue was to establish what had happened in the meantime, initially just as one chapter of Aeron Damphair on the Iron Islands at the Kingsmoot. Since the events on the Iron Islands were to have an impact in the book and could not be told with existing POV characters, Martin eventually introduced three new viewpoints.[44]
In 2001, Martin was still optimistic that the fourth installment might be released in the last quarter of 2002.[34] However, the five-year gap did not work for all characters during writing. On one hand, Martin was unsatisfied with covering the events during the gap solely through flashbacks and internal retrospection. On the other hand, it was implausible to have nothing happen for five years.[43] After working on the book for about a year, Martin realized he needed an additional interim book, which he called A Feast for Crows.[43] The book would pick up the story immediately after the third book, and Martin scrapped the idea of a five-year gap.[34] The material of the written 250-page prologue was mixed in as new viewpoint characters from Dorne and the Iron Islands.[44] These expanded storylines and the resulting story interactions complicated the plot for Martin.[45]
The manuscript length of A Feast for Crows eventually surpassed A Storm of Swords.[43] Martin was reluctant to make the necessary deep cuts to get the book down to publishable length, as that would have compromised the story he had in mind. Printing the book in "microtype on onion skin paper and giving each reader a magnifying glass" was also not an option for him.[36] On the other hand, Martin rejected the publishers' idea of splitting the narrative chronologically into A Feast for Crows, Parts One and Two.[8] Being already late with the book, Martin had not even started writing all characters' stories,[46] and also objected to ending the first book without any resolution for its many viewpoint characters as in previous books.[43]
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