#bran Stark

[georgescitadel]

George R.R. Martin on the process of creating A Game Of Thrones (1/3)

You hold in your hands the second volume of A Song of Ice and Fire… but not the second volume as originally intended. Although I wrote the opening of A Game of Thrones back in the summer of 1991, as related in my introduction to the Meisha Merlin edition of that volume, it was not until October of 1993 that I drew up a proposal for my agents to take to publishers. There is no mention of any book titled A Clash of Kings in that proposal. In 1993, I was under the impression that I was writing a trilogy.

Trilogies had been the dominant form in epic fantasy ever since J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings had been broken apart by publishers and released in three volumes. And the story that I wanted to tell divided quite naturally into three parts; much more so, in fact, than The Lord of the Rings, which is actually one fairly seamless narrative, and not a trilogy at all. I planned to title the books A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, and The Winds of Winter. I knew right from the start that they would all be large books. Huge books, even. But there were to be only three of them, and…and none were to be called A Clash of Kings. Sometimes the author is the last to know.

As I write this, I am halfway through the writing of A Feast for Crows, the fourth volume of my ‘trilogy.’ There is no mention of that title in my 1993 proposal either. These days, when pressed, I confidently assert that A Song of Ice and Fire will ultimately run to six books… but behind my back I know my lady Parris is smiling knowingly and holding up seven fingers. She may be right. Though I may dream of six books, plan for six books, work toward six books, the only thing that truly matters is the story. And the story needs to be as long as the story needs to be.

In Hollywood, the suits will tell you how long that is. A television show has to fit within its allotted time slot, of course, and you cannot beg, borrow, or steal an extra minute, no matter how much the story needs it. Running times are somewhat more flexible for films, though not as much as one might think. For the most part, the studios still want movies to run about two hours, so they look for screenplays of 120 pages or less, and demand cuts in any scripts that come in longer. My own screenplays and teleplays were almost always too long and too expensive in first draft, so in my later drafts, along with addressing the inevitable notes from studio, network, and producers, I was constantly trimming. In the end, I would deliver a shooting script that was the right length and under budget, but it was never a happy process… and I often went away feeling that the earlier drafts were the better ones.

The size of A Song of Ice and Fire was in no small part a reaction to ten years of trimming. I wanted to do something epic in scale, something at once grand and sprawling and complex and subtle, with a cast of thousands, huge battles, mighty castles, gorgeous costume, lavish feast, great rivers, towering mountains, vast fields… all the things I could not do in television. In short. I wanted to make a world. And for that you need a bit of room.

In my original proposal, I estimated that each volume of the trilogy might run as long as 800 pages in manuscript. The novels that I had written during the 70's and 80's, before Hollywood, had generally come in at 400 or 500 pages or thereabouts, so an 800 pages book seemed very lengthy indeed. The three books of the trilogy would be structured around the long, slow seasons of Westeros. A Game of Thrones would be summer’s book, A Dance with Dragons would take us through autumn, and The Winds of Winter… well, the title says it all. Even in the Seven Kingdoms, where a season can last for years, 800 pages ought to give me enough room to reach the end of summer and conclude the part of my tale, I reasoned.

‘Twas a lovely plan of battle… but no plan of battle ever survives contact with the enemy, it has been said. Writers know the truth of that as well as any general, though our wars are fought on blank white sheets of paper and empty computer screens. For the map is not the territory, the blueprint is not the house, the recipe is not the dinner… and the outline is never ever the book.

- George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings Limited Edition Introduction (2002)

#Ned Stark #Catelyn Stark #Sansa Stark #Arya Stark #Bran Stark #Jon Snow #Tyrion Lannister #Daenerys Targaryen #The Outline #A Game Of Thrones #George R.R. Martin #ValyrianScrolls #ASOIAF

[fleurdeliet]

1/6 of my Tumblr 6 fanarts

#If you want you can still send me requests for 6 fanarts! #3 more? #It would be cool #children are hard to draw #It was hard but interesting #art #asoiaf #my art #asoif/got #digital art #house stark #bran stark #starklings #a song of ice and fire #I love starklings but Bran is not my favorite (Robb and Sansa are) so it was first try to draw him #And I'm a little bit nervous 😅😅😅

[kudriaken]

House Stark. New fanart family portrait from ASOIAF. My favorite cute beans.

#artists on tumblr #fantasy art #illustrators on tumblr #illustration #fanart #house stark #asoif/got #asoif fanart #asoiaf #game of thrones #sansa stark #arya stark #john snow #robb stark #bran stark #rickon stark #ned stark #catelyn stark

[reneewalkersknives]

one egregious thing the game of thrones show misses out on is that the stark kids are CONSTANTLY thinking abt each other!! there isn’t like a single POV chapter from any of them where they don’t long for their siblings!! Jon wants to have a son and name him Robb!! Bran wants to be a bird so him and his siblings can live in a nest together!! Sansa prays for her siblings every night and makes the Winterfell castle and then gets upset bc there’s no one to throw snow at!! Needle IS Jon!! Arya’s list is her own prayer for her siblings, she doesn’t care that Joffrey is dead bc Robb is too!! Every single one of them believes that their big brother will come to save them!! there’s sm love and tenderness there and GOT missed out on lots of it bc it tries too hard for the grimdark angle without realising that the center of the stark’s story is their love for each other. anyways.

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #game of thrones #anti game of thrones #starklings #robb stark #jon snow #sansa stark #arya stark #bran stark #sorry Robb and rickon Ik ur love ur siblings too but I only did ones with POV chapters😭 #stark family

[emprcaesar]

im a jory cassel girl to my last breath!

HE LOVED THE STARK KIDS!!!

#jory cassel #asoiaf #asoiaf books #game of thrones #house stark #sansa stark #arya stark #bran stark #ned stark #eddard stark #book quotes #winterfell #northern houses #starklings

[laurellerual]

I'm in a redesign mood lately, so here some Stark crests!

Here the old ones: Eddard, Catelyn, Jon, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon.

#asoiaf #house stark #asoiaf fanart #arya stark #jon snow #sansa stark #bran stark #robb stark #rickon stark #eddard stark #catelyn stark #Which one do you prefer? #Maybe I should do stikers of them

[nedseii]

📷!

#asoiaf #sansa stark #theon greyjoy #arya stark #bran stark #myart #I guess I'll tag this as: #modern au

[melrosing]

starks + theon DONE

more here

#catelyn stark #eddard stark #rickon stark #theon greyjoy #robb stark #jon snow #sansa stark #bran stark #arya stark #asoiaf #the ones I definitely want to do are the Lannisters + Dany and if I’m not bored by then I’ll do more #but not gonna turn it into a video until I feel done lol #anyway this was fun lol idk why im making it my mission to revive 2008 cringe in 2024 asoiaf fandom tho #melrosing art #asoiaf caramelldansen thing

[wraithwen]

starklings (sans rickon)

finally started reading the books after a long time of being a wiki lurker :")

#as a northerner (sakha) i had to project my culture onto them hehe #also this is circa early agot #art #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #jon snow #robb stark #sansa stark #arya stark #bran stark

[sansaisms]

Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he had … yet she could always make Jon smile. He would give anything to be with her now, to muss up her hair once more and watch her make a face, to hear her finish a sentence with him. — Jon Snow III, A Game of Thrones.

#jon snow #asoiafedit #book jon snow #valyrianscrolls #arya stark #sansa stark #rickon stark #robb stark #bran stark #house stark #bookhousestark #thenorthsource #valyriansource #rachel hurd wood #asoiafcanonjonsnow #jonsource #one day i'll remake this gifset. today is not the day lol ☠️ #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #*mine

[kaellecappuccino]

#asoiaf #catelyn stark #lysa tully #renly baratheon #stannis baratheon #sandor clegane #gregor clegane #arya stark #sansa stark #jaime lannister #cersei lannister #tyrion lannister #jon snow #robb stark #theon greyjoy #asha greyjoy #bran stark #daenerys targaryen #rhaegar targaryen

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

If there is one line I like to over-analyze in the ASoIAF books it is a rather famous thought that goes inside Cat's head before her death. As the steel is close to her throat Cat thinks "No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair." And this line and her entire inner monologue is absolutely heart-breaking but one thing I fixate on is the actual sentence itself.

"Ned loves my hair."

Anyone who has read the books knows that Cat holds contempt for the fact that except for Arya, she has failed to give Ned children who look like him. It is also one of the reasons she dislikes Jon so much, because the mother of Jon (who she assumes to be Ned's bastard son) has managed to give Ned a child that looks just like him while she, his lawfully wedded wife gave birth to five of his children only for four of them to come out looking exactly like her. Red hair, blue eyes. Unlike Jon (and Arya) who share Ned's dark hair and dark eyes.

And knowing that it is so interesting to me that Cat's last thought about Ned (and her last thought ever) was that Ned loves her hair.

Because Ned loved her, he loved her hair, he loved her the way she was. And every time he looked at Robb, Sansa, Bran and Rickon he saw the reflection of the woman he loved, while Cat was so upset that they weren't all reflections of the man she loved.

Every time Ned ran his fingers through their hair, he ran his fingers through the hair of the woman he loved. He never resented Cat for the fact that four of his children didn't look like him, he loved that they looked like their mother, again, the woman he loved so much. He loved that they had the same hair he loved on Cat, and judging by it being her last thought Cat also knew that Ned loved her hair (and the way she looked), whether she ever came to the realization that Ned was perfectly happy with the way their children looked at all, or if she realized after he was dead and it was too late, it is unclear. But all those years she beat herself up over nothing.

Ned loved her the way she was, Ned loved his children the way they were, when they looked like him and when they didn't. Because when they didn't look like him, they looked like the love of his life, his darling wife.

And if the books decide to go with R+L=J it also adds another layer to Cat and Ned's relationship. Because Jon's mother was always a woman she didn't know but was still competing with in her mind for Ned's love for all these years. Turns out she didn't even exist. Turns out she didn't need to feel inferior to the woman Ned loved enough to not even talk about with her, no need to feel bad about the fact that she was able to give Ned a child that looked like him while Cat "failed".

At the end of the day, all the voices in her head making her feel insecure in her marriage never needed to be there, because everything she thought of as a problem with her were not problems at all for Ned. He was perfectly happy with her and their children.

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf meta #got #game of thrones #eddard stark #ned stark #catelyn stark #cat stark #catelyn tully #jon snow #robb stark #sansa stark #arya stark #bran stark #rickon stark #nedcat

[themoonofblueside]

Even without the shitty last seasons and character developments, asoiaf books take the W for the simple fact that the obvious young hero of the first book is like. 15. Like even in the pjo or hp series where there are fated young heroes haunted with tragedy something about robb stark just makes me want to sob.

He's 15 and his beard is just starting to grow, one day he's playing with his siblings and friends and the next day he learns that his father will leave for king's landing, and then his little brother falls from a tower and he is crippled. his father leaves his home and his men to his mother and him, but his mother does not leave his brother's side, doesn't eat, doesn't sleep. the whole castle and the region depends on him to function, he listens to everyone but it's not enough and he begs his mother for help, then he begs his mother so that she rests a little. His mother gets better but still leaves him, and now he functions fully as the heir of winterfell. he dislikes killing even the wildlings, but he recognizes the duty but he still sighs in relief when he's advised not to kill. He takes care of everyone and then he cries with his brother at night, his voice shakes when he defends his brother but his sword doesn't, even the ones he trusts the most does not run for his brother like he does. He's scared all the time but he keeps going and he keeps listening and he keeps caring and it's just not enough.

His father dies. he's the lord of winterfell now, and then king of the north. he's fifteen. no matter what he does, he's fifteen.

#robb stark #asoiaf #catelyn stark #ned stark #agot #bran stark #no one served the tragic chosen one like he did tbh #i still can't shake that catelyn chapter where he begged catelyn to help him.

[eimear99]

House stark!

#sansa stark #arya stark #robb stark #jon snow #bran stark #rickon stark #asoiaf #asoiaf fanart #asoiaf art #art #my art #game of thrones #a game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #house stark #house stark fanart

[emprcaesar]

#RAAAHHHH #LETSSS GOOO #asoiaf #asoiaf books #game of thrones #house stark #robb stark #jon snow #sansa stark #arya stark #bran stark #rickon stark #ned stark #catelyn stark #a time for wolves #winter is coming #valyrianscrolls #web weaving #book quotes #the avett brothers

[laurellerual]

Sansa as the fair Jonquil, Jeyne as Jonquil's sister, Theon as the Grey King, Rickon as a direwolf, Robb as King Daeron the Young Dragon, Bran as Ser Barristan the Bold, Arya as Nymeria of the Rhoyne, Jon as the ghost of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight.

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby!” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

#asoiaf #asoiaf fanart #house stark #arya stark #jon snow #sansa stark #bran stark #robb stark #rickon stark #theon greyjoy #jeyne poole #winter is coming #happy halloweeeeeeen #a bit late