He is a man of the Night's Watch, She thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. Arya Stark (page 514)
George R. R. MartinA lot of fantasy names are too much. Theyโre too difficult to pronounce. I wanted the flavour of medieval England. I took actual names we still use today, like โRobertโ, and in some case I tweaked them a little bit. I made โEdwardโ into โEddardโ. If you look back at medieval times, no one knew how to spell their own names. There are a lot of variations that weโve lost.
George R. R. MartinFrom where I sit, battles are hard. Iโve written my share. Sometimes I employ the privateโs viewpoint, very up close and personal, dropping the reader right into the middle of the carnage. Thatโs vivid and visceral, but of necessity chaotic, and it is easy to lose all sense of the battle as a whole. Sometimes I go with the generalโs point of view instead, looking down from on high, seeing lines and flanks and reserves. That gives a great sense of the tactics, of how the battle is won or lost, but can easily slide into abstraction.
George R. R. Martin