Re: recent videogame chat, have you dug into Crusader Kings 2 or its ASOIAF mod at all? It suffers from the dehumanization of smallfolk in the way most largescale strategy games do, but otherwise seems strangely custom-built for the ASOIAF fandom. Never thought I’d find something where negotiating marriages to manipulate claims or facing an assassination plot from my treacherous son would be possible!

I’ve played it, I’m bad at CK2, but it’s a remarkable mod.

Speaking of the Witcher 3, how was your ending? Were the Northern kingdoms ruled by Nilfgaard, Radovid or Djikistra?

Haven’t played it, because my comp is not good enough to run it well. Instead, I’ve watched a bunch of Let’s Plays. Don’t remember if they got to the end.

Hi there I really want to hear your thoughts on dany saying about the dragons “we weren’t extraordinary without them” and Jon’s answer. Do you think Dany thinks herself extraordinary because of her dragons?

I mean, you’d kind of have to, given what she’s experienced.

Hi good sir, amazing work, thank you for all the good reads. Question: Do you expect anything out of Edric Dayne or Dawn? Or are those references/presences just GRRM keeping that young magic-sword-loving fan inside of some us fed and happy?

Sort of? I think this is one of those things that got hammered by the cutting of the five-year-gap, because that would give time for Edric to grow up, inherit the sword, and be somewhere else.

But instead I think there’s going to be something around Darkstar trying to steal the sword and being hunted down by Balon Swann, Areo Hotah, and Obara, and the revelation of R+L=J and the truth of what happened between Ned and Ashara.

I’ve been wondering about lifespans in Westeros/AWOIAF. In general, the reason why the average lifespan was so short in the Middle Ages was simply because so many people died in infancy or early childhood. It’s further dragged down by the deaths of young men in battle and women in childbirth, and of course any Medieval lifespan average also has to take into account intermittent but devastating epidemics of various diseases. Although we see all of these things in AWOIAF, we also see people

(Lifespans in AWOIAF, cont.) like Bloodraven or Old Nan, both of whom are evidently in their 120s by the time the ASOIAF books are taking place. In the Harry Potter franchise, JK Rowling has specifically said that the wizarding world generally has longer lifespans, so that people like Dumbledore, who was something like 117 when he died, was not at all uncommon. I haven’t seen GRRM making any similar clarifications in this regard.

Yeah, this is something that bugs me. GRRM falls into it a little in weird ways – everyone gets married super-young, Ned Stark is only a few years older than I am when the series starts and is a parent of six children which I would in no ways be ready for, etc.

The super old age thing I think is meant to be magical in nature – Bloodraven is basically being kept in suspended animation by the weirwood tree, and I think we’ll find out about Old Nan’s source of longevity whenever “She-Wolves of Winterfell” comes out.

I listened to your podcast with bores, gore & swords (great stuff) and wanted to be clear on the bet you made. Did you bet that the Eldritch Apocalypse will happen? Who was it with? And what other wagers have you made re ASOIAF?

Let me see:

I bet BryndenBFish $20 that Euron wasn’t going to defeat the Redwyne Fleet.
I bet @boiledleather $20 that Tyrion wasn’t a secret Targaryen.

And I might have more wagers out there I’ve forgotten, which is a slightly worrying thought.

I was reading through your ideas for a WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE video game set during the “Age of Seven Crowns” and it struck me that the Great Southern War begun by King Gyles the Third might make a perfect skeleton upon which to build a bigger story (for we know enough to pique our interest, yet enough is left obscure for creativity to be uninhibited) : may I please ask if you think this seems reasonable?

Depends on the genre.

That might work for a Hero-style RTS, where you can tell a story around the tactical combat, small group management, resource management, etc.

I don’t think it works as well for an RPG, because you generally want the player to feel like their character/party is the protagonist of the story who the plot is going to revolve around.

But if you want to do an RPG during a war, you could do worse than the way Witcher 3 did it, where you’re operating on the fringes essentially as a secret agent or dealing with issues like the Wild Hunt which are orthogonal to the conflict between Radovid and Emryr.

Were real-life noble houses as obsessed with their coat of arms as westerosi?

Yes, but usually less in a symbolism sense and more in a practical sense – heraldry was vitally important in terms of knowing who someone was on or off a battlefield: what their nationality was, what their rank was, who they were related to, and so on and so forth.

Do you think D&D understand why rebellion happened? I think the way they used R+L and that cheesy line of Bran suggest they have no idea of feudal contract. I heard there are 4 spin-off project for GoT and one of them is surely rebellion. I wish they have nothing to do with it because they down-played prince that was promised prophecy, Rhaegar,Aerys,Lyanna,dead Stark men and arryn heir very badly with a single line. For me “rebellion was built on a lie”=” you want a good girl but need a p*ssy”

Not in the slightest.

And AFAIK, they’ve ruled out Robert’s Rebellion, and every other logical choice.

Could Jon Connington have actually ended the war by burning stony sept to ensure Robert’s death, or would that have just hardened the Vale/North/Riverlands against Aerys even more?

The latter. JonCon is fooling himself.