In conversation: George R. R. Martin with John Hodgman FULL EVENT

[Music] [Music] [Applause] ladies and gentlemen George RR martin i know i know we went my name is john hodgman I don't matter I know we went through a bit of housekeeping I have just a little bit of housekeeping as well that was not mentioned in addition to the exits and all the fire precautions Bret and Henry were wonderful right if they were to come out again and play a song called rains of castamere these exits will be bolted at that moment please go there there are crossbowmen and the mezzanine please don't interfere with their very vital work thank you very much and they they told them that the balcony was closed that's where the cross woman will appear plots within plots that's right it's actually an appropriate term for the writings of george RR martin well first of all here we are in this beep in this beautiful movie theater in new jersey your home state welcome home George it is it is pretty amazing to to be here as as I did was born and raised in Bayonne and Lowe's Theater was an important part of my childhood and and my my youth I love movies when I was when I was growing up I still love movies but most of the time I saw movies of course was in Bayonne but to my grief all of the the theatres of my youth in Bayonne one by one were demolished the Lyceum the plaza down on 16th Street the old victory which had been the the Opera House and of course the DeWitt which was probably my favorite theater in Bayonne an amazing amazing beautiful theater and self and a big theater and was replaced by McDonald's but for you know really big movies or special occasions we would we would take the bus to Journal Square where there were you know these three magnificent 1930s movie palaces the the Stanley which still stands across the street although it's now a Jehovah's Witness temple but it is beautiful if you ever tour the Stanley and the state which was right around the corner and sadly the state was demolished that that too was a gorgeous theater at one time and they unfortunately mutilated it and turned it into a six Plex and then demolished it entirely and the Lowe's one of one of the five great Lowe's wonder theaters as they called that built in the late 20s and I think I saw Ben Hur here and various other various other movies in this theater and of course at a certain point this too was kind of mutilated and turned into a triplex I think and then they were going to tear it down but thank God the Friends of Lowe's came forward and saved this magnificent space and I hope they continue their work [Applause] some people don't we don't have the balcony yet they need more money to restore the balcony and then the next time I come come back here we can fit in a thousand extra people sure you love movies you love movie theaters some people here may know that you live in Santa Fe New Mexico where you saved a local art house movie theater called the Jean Cocteau cinema and I've had the pleasure to perform a couple of times and I spent my birthday there one one time and then I was in Santa Fe and I spent your birthday there was a lot of fun would you like to buy another movie theater I think this one would probably be a little more expensive than the Jean Cocteau it is a little bigger than John Cocteau has 130 seats this one has a slightly more but you know if you ever visit Santa Fe be sure to visit the Jean Cocteau we do have the best popcorn in the state with real butter in it and hatch chili pizza can be brought in I noticed which is really delicious but here we are in New Jersey land of your birth we're gonna have a conversation for a little while then I'm gonna turn to these questions that were submitted by the audience these are really good questions better than mine so we'll get them as quickly as possible but I have to open with one question just to get it out of the way clear the air I'm sure you know George that in the year 133 after the conquest of Westeros by Aegon the Conqueror and his two sisters rainism and seniya how is that right how do I pronounce those names is it Aegon or Egon Aegon okay good that's it that's the question I want that I know and Rhaenys and Visenya Rhaenys and Visenya yes won the Year 133 a sea after conquest Lord Allen valerian lord of the tides and master of drift mark was sent by the crown to unseat the taro she adventurer Rakhal EO Rendon Rendon that's right a colorful figure where he where he was occupying one of the steps own islands bloodstone I believe it was that's right you're these are spoilers people haven't read the book at no this is a matter of history like your whole book well that is good that is true this is one half of the of the history of the Targaryen dynasty and out and Alan valerian went was sent to unseat him did not accomplish that task but drove his ship the Queen Rainey's a midship into a Braavosi ship of war called I believe the grant defiance sinking it and earning Alan valerian the upjumped bastard son of corliss valerian the sea snake a new nickname which is oaken fist from that adventure he brought back from the from the routing the Braavosi fleet countless hostages treasure gold ships and one single elephant that was destined to be in the menagerie of the Sealord of Braavos himself everyone knows this this is nourish the curse that's yes he brought the elephant back to King's Landing as outlined in your grand history of the Targaryen dynasty part 1 fire and blood available now thereafter the elephant is not discussed at all well if you've read the novels that began the series you know there there's a discussion of the dragon skulls that were at one point decorated the throne room these are in the novel's yes no I haven't read those are they good and and one dragon is described as being so big that he could swallow an elephant whole how do you think they arrived at that measurement you are a detailed little mother aren't you detail oriented I do my best would that have been balerion the black dread was that the dragon that could have eaten the elephant hole yeah I think so either valerian or veigar I'd have to go back those were the two biggest those are the two big ones as you'll learn as you read the book but you're my two biggest anyway of course you know I'm constantly getting fantasy fans who are asking me questions about well how would Dany's dragons do against Smaug sure something I and you know to which I'm very competitive and I would like my my dragons to win but you know smog can like talk so he's probably a little smarter than yeah and he's my frog is the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch right I mean that's right he can sweet-talk drogon pretty good have you ever wanted to be a the voice of a dragon and a fantasy yeah believe me I'm in wardrobe I'm ready to go of course I would be do any of your dragons talk maybe you should change it up a little bit but no not yet no I've been forgive some elocution lessons well I brought up elephants because I want to talk about the elephant in the room [Laughter] you're just gonna ask this house winds of winter going just to get it out of the way respectfully then no one will be think well it's it's this may shock some of you to hear but it's it's late I was supposed to finish it a few years ago but you know they keep distracting me with things but I'm I'm working on it I you know when I try not to look at the big picture ever on all of the things because it then it becomes incredibly intimidating I I try to say I'm gonna get up today and I'm gonna write a couple pages that's let's see you know one page at a time one sentence at a time one word at a time that's oh you can look beyond if you look at oh god I have thousands of more pages to write and they have to be great or everybody's gonna be mad at me then it becomes very intimidating but you know when some winter is is still there you know it's got one point I was having a huge pressure on myself to try to keep ahead of the show and I failed and when I recognized that I had lost that battle I don't know so yeah now the show well I'm sure what's going on and the show was gonna wind up where it is and we're developing five new shows and meanwhile I'm gonna finish winds of winter and then after that dream of spring just as I intended to do and I don't want to dwell on this because we're here to talk about fire and blood which is an incredible creation but I just like what you've described of having your work be outpaced by the medium that's adapting it to film or television while the author is still with us and vibrant and an incredible good elf by the way I've I parted with him on his birthday some of you may have seen my on my Instagram account when I was partying with george RR martin on his birthday he's got a bottle a special bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey called white Walker which she did not open for me anyway but it's kind of unprecedented I think in creative endeavors and it must I don't I I mean it must be a very complex set of feelings to have the story go on and yet have to finish it yourself I mean as someone who has struggled to write four books of about 200 pages each I can't imagine what it is and I would think to myself it must be so difficult for him to sit down I course it's gonna take extra time and then I learned always got another book coming out about the prehistory of Westeros and it's 800 pages okay and I thought well in in I mean I wouldn't say any writing is easy I mean I've struggled you know throughout my life going back to you know when I was a high school kid writing superhero stories for coming with fanzines of to the short stories that I wrote in the 70s my first novels all writing has its challenges it's never easy but some things are easier than others you know fire and blood which is not a traditional novel but is a imaginary history despite the fact that it covers like 150 years and literally has a cast of thousands is relatively straightforward I mean it's it's one story and it's okay here's what happened in the year 97 and then here's what happened in the year 98 and here's what happened in the Year 99 that the novels are much more complicated in in essence they're really not they're like 8 9 10 novels that are woven together I mean at this point each of my main viewpoint characters is on a different continent surrounded by a different supporting cast of people and you know that timelines all have to be woven together that to be number one logically consistent to the passage of time but also for dramatic for you know certain things should follow other things and it's it's a it's a more complex task and therefore it takes longer but you know in the words of the immortal super chicken I knew the job was dangerous when I took it so you know there I am and one page at a time and fire and blood so tells the so this begins 300 years right before a game of Thrones more or less in that timeline right right and it's that's it's the chronicle of the Targaryen Kings the first half of it I will have to write fire in blood part 2 at some point to bring the story more fire more blood right 4 or perhaps blood and fire that's been suppressed as an alternative but yes this this volume is the imaginary history that starts with a guns conquest and goes up to the rain the the minority of the boy king aegon the third so that's about a hundred and fifty years roughly and in the next volume when I get to that we'll go from a gun a third up to Robert's rebellion which of course is where Game of Thrones takes off so you know people who are not writers and even people who are and tend to forget how terrifying sitting down to write is how much how much it's planning and outlining and how much of it is just improvisation at that moment that you're confronting the blank page so may I ask when you started work on a game of Thrones how much of this history did you know already and and and when did you develop all of this history that fills these pages in the book that we have today I knew absolutely none of this history you know I've I began Game of Thrones in 1991 and the summer of 1991 I was that was right in the middle of what I think of as my Holly would decade roughly from the mid 80s through the mid 90s I was working primarily in television and film I was spending a large part of a year out in Hollywood working on Twilight Zone and then Beauty and the Beast and then I had what they call a development deal where I was pitching my own pilots and writing movies but in 1991 for whatever reason as the summer started I I didn't have any immediate Hollywood assignment although my agents were trying to get me some so I said well I haven't written a novel in a few years let me let me start this novel and I had a science fiction novel that was part of my thousand world series of science fiction books called Avalon that I've been thinking for some time and I started writing Avalon and I was you know like three four chapters in and suddenly the first chapter Game of Thrones came to me the chapter where they find the dire wolf pups and in the summer snows I always knew it was the summer snows I don't know why that phrase just stuck in my head but that chapter came to me so vividly and it wasn't part of Avalon and no was part of I put it so I put Avalon aside I just had to write that and I wrote that chapter and then I wrote the next chapter and then chapter after that and I just sort of gotten a flow and I wound up working on that all through 1991 I never returned to Avalon but then I got another Hollywood assignment so I put it aside and for you know the second half of 91 and all of 92 and part of 93 I was working on a television pilot that we thought was gonna be a television series ultimately it did not go which is of course there's the fate of many things in Hollywood so around the middle of 1993-94 I returned to Game of Thrones and picked it up and who might surprise and delight it was like I instead of setting it down two years ago it was like I'd set it down two days ago away the characters were all still very alive I just got immediately back into it and I started working on it and one thing led to another but when I begin it I didn't the point is this stuff takes time years and years just relax I didn't I didn't know you know at first I thought it might be a short story this chapter that came and then at a certain point I said no it's it's it's a fantasy and it's gonna be a trilogy it'll be a trilogy everybody was doing trilogies back then Tolkien's that the template so I said all right I'll I'll do a trilogy and we sold it on basis my my agent Kirby McCauley at the time and his sister Kay who is here in the audience a fantastic agent they went out and sold the trilogy and you know I had written other novels I'd written Armageddon rag fever dream dying at a light and they all took me about a year to write so I had Kirby and Kay draw up the contract at three books in three years so immediately I was like two years late in the first book and I was just writing and writing and writing and pretty soon it was too long to be published in one book so I said did I say three books no no no no before those four books so we changed it and made it four books and then I kept writing and they started coming out and at certain point I said mmm six books six books like I skip right over five I never thought it would be five I thought it and four years I said it's gonna be six books and my wife Paris who's sitting right there I would I would get up on a stage like this I would pound my fist and I would say it's gonna be six books and she would hold up seven fingers behind me and at a certain point I gave in and said it's gonna be seven books how did you know she said she pointed to her forehead and said I'm a witch so I'm still holding the line of seven books by the way but of course fire and blood is not one of those seven you know the history the history sort of developed parallel you know at a certain point while I was writing that first book I said you know I'm occasionally mentioning these previous kings I better draw up a list so I don't contradict myself so I I made a list of all the Targaryen Kings with their dates which was just you know me making up names and dates okay Fred Fred he was king from 100 to 112 and and his son Bob Bob Lonnie I'm glad you decided to workshop those names Allu yeah but his end and then I drew a map you know you're know you're doomed in fantasy when you draw the map but you have to draw the map at some point the names actually we're sort of interesting because I had a big debate on the on the names when when you when you're you little young writer and you're you're reading all the books about how to write and little helpful hints you know one of the rules that you read is never have two characters of a story whose names begin with the same letter because your readers will get them confused and I followed that for many years with my short stories but when I begin this I said you know I'm gonna have more than 26 characters so I'm kind of screwed there but if I may as someone named John I have learned that there are many people named John in the world and one of the things that lends your work such verisimilitude and and and real is that characters have the same names it happens that kind of confusion of oh is this the older a GaN or the younger a GaN which is the one that came before and that is that that that adds a layer of realness to your world I think that makes it so immersive yes I I did that deliberately cuz I you know when I'm debating this naming thing I went back to history of course I'm right and and I looked at history and you know if you read English history it's all Henry's in Edwards Henry Edward Edward Henry Henry another Henry and then Henry and occasionally a Richard sneaks in there was only one John they didn't like him much so they never used that one again he was a really shitty King and then you go over to France and it's the same thing but now it's Louise and Philips there's is Philip here's another Philip is Louie here's another Louie and then another Louie and his son Bowie and then Louie so I said you know if real historians can keep all these guys straight they should be able to keep my names straight too so I just assumed of my audience was you know intelligent enough to tell one a gun from another and I guess they have been so so after you made that initial list of Bob's and friends and decided needs to be a little bit how did you develop this this history the Targaryen history concurrently as you were going along because this book Cole you know collects a lot of lore that you've been developing over time it's not like you just sat down and said one day a couple you know you're it said all right let's get this out of my system it has its it's growing parallel to the to the main story you know cuz people would make references to something that happened 50 years ago or 100 years ago or to the law that some king and promulgated you know just like in real life I mean people you know we we got here by driving on John F Kennedy Boulevard well who's John F Kennedy well you know you can find out I have no I disagree well I've been yes sadly a lot of people don't it actually I've read things that more people know who the Starks and Lannister's are than who know the York's and Lancaster's who of course I I stole it from so more people know my fake history than the real history that's that's kind of scary I don't I don't know but it must be fun to build out a world and its prehistory or its history I should say not prehistory necessarily as well I mean how much fun do you have doing it well fire and blood was a tremendous amount of fun I read I mean I read I read a lot I always have read a lot my my real middle names and call it in Isaac as a kid were not are are but nose in a book I was George nose in a book Martin and I read science fiction and fantasy and horror but I also read a lot of historical fiction and I read history a his real history is great it's full of most amazing stories and you know stuff I still read history and Paris gets most of it because I you can't make this stuff up I say to where and I read some particularly choice bit from history which I then steel and fire lost of numbers and change a few things and stick it in my books I don't add a dragon and a dragon you have to add dragon that's how they that's how they can't see you if you steal from history and add a dragon they can't see you okay I'm working off my own you know karma here cuz I'm George and what's he known for he killed the dragon you know come on come on I was almost abolished at one point when the Catholic Church was reviewing all the Saints I was terrified that George would be abolished because they abolished a lot of fiction I said George is only known for killing a Drake and how can they keep him in but they did so that was good I'm glad you stayed anointed that's right it's fun one of the things that's so fun about this book is the that there are dragons and I mean one of the amazing things about the Song of Ice and Fire is that you're entering a fantasy world in which fantasy has receded to a large degree magic and Dragons and everything is in the background such that most of the characters kind of think maybe it didn't happen and then spoilers that magic and the Dragons start to reassert in the world but you're really waiting for a long time for them to do their stuff in this book there's dragon fire right at the top and they're burning up armies like crazy and I say I wonder how much you thought about what it would be what it was like in in a very you know the the I've often thought that what makes your book so interesting as fantasy books is that you would never actually fantasize about living in that world because it's so brutal and so rooted in the brutality of medieval life including very realistic depictions of hand-to-hand warfare and and horse warfare but now you have an Air Force in this world do you have to rethink what warfare would be like well I'd certainly to some extent I still made dragons relatively rare even in fire and blood we're at one point there they're I think 17 living dragons and Westeros I don't have hundreds or thousands of dragons which would dramatically change the very nature of life any I mean I think fantasy they must contain magic magic sorcery whatever you want to call it but it has to be handled very very carefully I mean it's like salt in a stool you know or you add a little salt and mix your stew or whatever it tastes better you had too much salt and that's all you can taste is the salt and it overwhelms yes thanks [Laughter] so magic is it's the hardest thing to write in some ways the Dragons and and the other things the spells I try to handle those very carefully and dance around them even with a character like Melisandre you know is she really doing magic where is she bluffing in some senses or what's going on I try to give a little subtlety and ambiguity there I think there's a lot of fantasy out there that overdoes the magic and they don't really think about the effect of magic would have on a society as a whole because if you really do have wizards who can wipe out an entire army of a hundred thousand people by reciting a spell and waving your wand why would that world even why would the lords assemble an army of a hundred thousand people it seems stupid if one wizard can just go boogity boogity boo and everybody is dead so you know you have to you have to be pretty pretty careful about these things and even the way that you deal with magic in the books the the it is almost as a medieval quality because the magic is often very blunt and brutal Melisandre's magic is bloody and weird and and and kind of very constrained and one of the things I love about this book is again the dragons are magical creatures but they're very physical creatures they live a long time but as you point out they're very they're very few of them and they're for the Targaryens they're a very precious resource that they almost tragically take for granted at a certain point in the book and I won't say any more about that well you can you'll find all about them if you if you read the read the book so I did have to track the Dragons to you then name them all and say whoa k who wrote this drag and then who wrote him next in what years of just you know cuz my my readers I mean if you think I'm crazy obsessive about this stuff I have readers out there who will write me letters at the drop of a hat and you know even in the original novels I have you know I have a horse that changes sex between the first book and the second book hundreds of people have picked up on that although I miss it I'm terrible remembering people's eye color you know people have blue eyes and one and green eyes in the next book and then in the third book I said he had blue green eyes that seemed to change color according to the light I thought that was a graceful save so it's all it's a little a little tricky here interesting thing about I mean I've had people say well the real Middle Ages had no magic in my books at magic which is only partially true because it actually went back in a time machine to the Middle Ages and you asked the people who were living then they thought they had magic - they believed in all this stuff they thought there were dragons they just didn't happen to be in their County but the next County had dragons and and there were certainly sorcerers let's not talk about the next county there there were witches and you know they they would crush them with stones or burn them or get rid of them they obviously thought they were real so people the Middle Ages believed in magic they thought it was pretty pretty real well one of the ways that you get around remembering I color precisely in this book well you say it's not a novel but it has narrative and it like your books it is told in a sense from different points of view because it is the narrator of this book is an unnamed scholar who is drawing these stories from different invented historical sources so there's a chronicle that is told by a Septon a chronicle that's told by a maester and a chronicle told by a fool and you and you play with how well we believe that this that this historical person said X Y Z but mushroom the fool says he said Y Z X and his pants are down what mushroom always loves TV ad the most so scandalous and gossipy and and twisted need generate versions of story right then and I had a lot of fun doing that and and that of course derives from my reading real history and because we're we all look back at you know we're reading about the Middle Ages we're reading about the Rome and all that and there are different versions none of us were there we don't have time machines we don't know what happened we're dependent on the people who wrote about them some of the more of course we look at back um in wealth it happened 2,000 years ago but the guy was actually writing the event was twenty two hundred years ago the guy was still writing two hundred years after the event but we look at them as a primary source and if you look at the people who actually they're there things don't agree and of course respectable historians I'm all respect to respectable historians but they're not as much fun as then as the dis respectable historian you know the many of you who read the books know the red wedding that I use of course my inspiration for that was an actual event in Scottish history called the black dinner and in in in the black dinner supposedly the Earl of Douglas who was giving trouble to the king he was a teenager he was like nineteen years old and his younger brother who was only 16 they they were invited to have dinner with the king so they they came to the Royal Castle and they had a nice dinner with the king and then at the end the band began to play this very ominous dirge like song and the servants came in with a big covered platter and under that was a black Boar's Head which was a symbol of death and when they saw that the two Douglass's knew that they were going to be killed and they were taken out and their heads were immediately chopped off it's a great part of Scottish history well if your name isn't Douglas it's a great part and it's a great story and of course a lot of modern historians say it's all it didn't happen that way yes they were executed but there was no dirge like so long and there was no fancy dinner and there was no black Boar's Head on a covered plate some storyteller added all that later but you know the storyteller was right it's a better story with all that stuff in it so I wanted in in my fictional history I wanted to do the same thing so I have like well here's the official thing in the court records and here's what the religious guy said and he made everything you know the gods were responsible when he cleaned it all up and made it good and here's what the fool said and the fool was putting in all the gossip and the sex and the really twisted betrayals so I'm able to have my cake and eat it too and in this fictional history I don't have to decide I can present all three items some somebody said this horse was a male horse somebody said this horse was a female horse we'll never know and I'm going like you know you wrote it you Girard you know the answer but that that it's incredibly playful the way you do that because it is it creates tension and then the characters are a little bit beyond knowing so you don't know exactly what they're gonna do when big decision points come to them and it's a really remarkable narrative device that I haven't really experienced at this scope before so good job well thank you you're welcome and it was a lot of fun to do it that way anthem it I didn't have to I didn't have to decide between the between the three versions I could present all of them and I could be a little playful with the whole idea of history and recording history and what we think is is the truth and I don't know how bad I know there's a lot of younger people in the audience and I think teaching methods are different these days I mean when I was going to school in the public schools of Bayonne New Jersey we were taught like in second grade and third grade all these wonderful colorful stories about history and then later we learned none of true you know I mean I know about like George Washington cherry tree Marceline's they teach you that and then they tell you when you get older or not there was no cherry tree he never did that I can never tell why but it's a great story and it's also George Washington was never a child he was born 45 years old and and with those wooden teeth that's right exactly yeah yeah he was a witch [Laughter] did I interrupt you were you gonna no no no rails with my dumb job that was my main point here well this is also an illustrated book and we're seeing some of the incredible illustrations behind us including a much Douglas Wheatley is the illustrator you already see a much bigger and spiky er iron throne than those who know the TV show no this is how you always imagined it to be right this it is yes they the I mean the TV shows Iron Throne has become iconic and but it doesn't really fit the description in the books way I mean my iron throne is much much bigger and it's uglier it doesn't have any symmetry because it was not designed by a furniture maker was designed by a bunch of blacksmiths who were just taking a bunch of swords and hammering them together a bunch of offended blacksmiths they're walking out of the theater right now I mean I can build a chair come on George jeez so yeah so but yeah I loved illustrated books again I'm I guess channeling my own childhood when I had things like the Robin Hood and Knights at a round table you know illustrated by great illustrators of the past like Howard Pyle and NC Wyeth god those were beautiful books and they set in my mind you know what Robin Hood looks like and what the people in those days look like so I I keep trying to get my publishers to put illustrations in the books and I think we've had some beautiful ones this one the Gary Johnnie illustrated book night of Seven Kingdoms that Duncan eight stories that's a gorgeous one too and the anniversary edition of Game of Thrones we I love all of those and sometimes the illustrations don't match each other up in terms of styles and the visual of the characters and everything else are you comfortable with that do you have a very distinct idea of what the characters look like in your own end because readers will always take their own the way of my home world I do have ideas and what characters look like in my own head but I'm perfectly willing to let the artist do different interpretations at this point you know check out deviantART they're definitely doing that yes I mean the world has been around and you know let let different artists present their different interpretations of it I'm fine with that it's not photography so I love the idea of you know letting letting people use their own creativity within limits of course but I love some of the work many of the work I've bought original is hanging on you know my own walls so if you were to take a look at at some of these illustrations can you do you do you know what thereof that's oh that's not from that's not from this book that's from night fliers right I think that must be yes that's which is an a novella that's being made into a TV show for December 2nd sci-fi channel night fliers check it out it's a 10 episode based on a novella I wrote in 1980 and was made into a movie in 1987 which I assigned a movie deal in 1984 took him three years to get it get it going and the movie came and went very quickly I don't know if it played here at the Loews but no I think by 1987 this was already a 6th Lex or something but uh and then I kind of forgot about it for 30 years until like two years ago when I had a told me sci-fi channel is developing a new series based on night fliers wait a minute I said can they do that I haven't sold them any rights how could they do that without consulting me and then I took out my contract from 1984 Oh television rights yeah I gave them television rights in 1984 in perpetuity on all known universes and alternate dimensions forever but I contacted them and you know we we did it and I've the novella I don't know if it has anyone here read nine players my novella yet a few of you Paris is raising her name in the novella like eight scientists get on a starship to explore a strange alien race and horrible things start to happen and most of them are dead by the end of the thing and I said this would be a very short series because like everybody dies but that's they've they've gone beyond that now and hopefully we'll be running for many series we have a much larger cast so there's more people to kill horribly and it's science fiction horror it's you know more like aliens than Star Trek days but hopefully it'll be cool and they're gonna roll it out in a very cool way on I mean 10 episodes the first episode will be on December 2nd and then the next episode will be the next night and there so you can it's not quite streaming like Netflix and Hulu are doing but you can watch the whole thing in like 10 days and then hopefully we'll get a renewal for a run the second season and we'll have another show when speaking of illustrations these movies and and/or these television shows adaptations of your work there are kind of moving illustrations visual representations of your work you've got more TV coming from Westeros right those are the developing we are we're developing as many of you know the forthcoming season of Game of Thrones will be the last so we will wrap that up in the spring but HBO is developing at this point five successor series as I'm calling them they're all prequels they're said before Game of Thrones some of them will be said only a few hundred years before Game of Thrones what was that all and some of them will be set like five to ten thousand years before Game of Thrones so they'll be a very different world one only one of them has been greenlit right now but they're they're gearing up to shoot that in in Ireland Jane Goldman brought the script wonderful wonderful writer she did several of the x-men movies she did kick-ass she did the two Kingsman movies so terrific writer and got a star Naomi Watts where does the first casting announced for it so those who can deserves pretty cool and do you do you have input and and and oversight as to how your history is developed will this be a parallel history to the one that you've laid out and say fire and blood are you well in James particular case of course it's it's said like five to ten thousand years in the past I'm I've been calling it the long night because sort of that's what it's about it's that during the period is referred to in the books just a long night HBO has told me stop calling it the long night because we haven't titled yet so the untitled series that may be called the long night is set during the long night and it's Jane and I've met several times and had that in and she came to Santa Fe and we had some meetings there and I've met with her in Los Angeles and communicating with her you know by text and email and so forth so I'm involved to that extent and I've met with all of the other writers of the other four pilots too same same premise they they come to Santa Fe we meet for a few days we discuss ideas but I'm not involved with them to the extent that I was involved with Game of Thrones when we when we first began mainly it's not that I don't want to be I would love to be involved in more of these more of these but there's just so many hours in the day and I do have this winds of winter to finish and we have some of you not all of you many of you look like kind and gentle people but there are some people out there who look kind of grouchy about it so we have their questions from the audience I'll get to that grouches in a moment but if I made since we're talking Evie just a little look I didn't mean to pitch a show to you but I'm gonna just have you ever thought about a show that has set hundreds of years into the future Westeros where Westeros reaches it's sort of Edwardian period so you do kind of like a Downton Abbey in Westeros because I definitely would want to write and star in it it you have a urgency to wear West waistcoats and a lot of lace I I have always had an urgency to wear waist Koston lace just just a thought John and I have a competition by the way to see who can die most often in film even though he you know works as an actor all the time I think I'm running even to him on on deaths here how many times have you died on on screen twice twice on on Game of Thrones no no I have never died on Game of Thrones I had my head bitten off in sharknado 3 and in znation I was a I was a zombie I had actually died before the show but there was a zombie me that you know was rotting by and I was being kept chained but I would still sign a book if you put it in front of me without muscle memory I think we are tie-dyed on a TV show called blind spot which is a big hit success and then I died of the season finale of Delocated the series finale of to locate with John Glaser well no then you're ahead good she died in a Nick that's true I died off-screen in the Nick right right which was also a big hit show my rule when I when I get hired to a show I just ask them when are you gonna kill me and if they say oh we don't have any plans I said maybe you should plan on it because typically in my history if I don't die the show dies but now in Game of Thrones I I did do cameo but I was cut out I was left on the cutting room floor it was Wow I was a guy is a mean head game they played on you I was a guest at Danny's wedding and I had an enormous hat and a necklace made of enormous balls and I stood around that at Danny's wedding as pentoshi no woman number six or something like that but that was in the original pilot and then some of you may know we we cast several roles including the role of Danny and so they cut out the entire wedding Andrey filmed it and I wasn't able to make that I did want a lot of people don't know I was the original Daenerys mother of dragons they're like something about this doesn't work I did want to be a severed head you know in in a scene in the scene where with Joffrey makes Sansa look at her father's severed heads on the walls you know they've killed that his household too and they around Sean Bean severed head there's a number of other severed heads and I proposed to David Benioff and Dan Weiss the showrunners at all three of us be severed heads mounted on the walls and they were very gung-ho on the idea until they found out how much it cost to make one of those severed heads it's an expensive process they have to do a life mask and make it the same and so our budget was smaller in those days so we I was gonna say yeah it's a pretty stingy show that Game of Thrones we were enabled is that George we really don't have the money to afford to to do me as a severed head because I wanted to you know keep it afterwards and bring it home and there's nothing like having your own severed head in your house I'm sure Paris would have loved it to be on our mantel and all that well Paris like they're coming and I know someone who could make it if you wanted they they couldn't afford that so instead to save money they went out and they bought a big box of used heads that some other show would had made so we we got these secondhand heads that we used heads to Mountain it of course we had Sean beans head but then the heads around him there was septum or day and she was an actual actress in the show too and then there were a bunch of these used recycled severed heads which was cheaper but got us in trouble because one of the severed heads was george w bush and when we actually broadcast that no one noticed at first and we were good until we did the the blu-ray and the DVDs with the commentary and then the director said oh look did you notice george w bush's everything thank you and you know people like rush limbaugh and those loonies got ahold of it and suddenly there was a huge controversy about we were killing george w bush you know when it was just a box of heads we didn't especially order his head it's i don't know where they killed him or in what show but we were just recycling it's good to recycle right i just wanted to know what what show it was that had a box of heads available with a george w bush in there to do that is that was the previous show that was i don't know i should find that out but it's there you can i don't know if they've cut it out now but if you find the original you know had DVDs or blu-rays and you squint you can see that shot less all of you know three seconds but there it is there should have been my they should have made a head for you Adam Savage will do it for you alright we have some questions from the audience lovely audience members sent in these questions and if I ask your question say that's me so we can recognize you Mary are you there yeah as a public school teacher do you recognize it now okay that's you Mary all right as a public school teacher in the city of Bayonne I've shared your there are a lot of applause lines in this question I've shared okay as about school teacher in the city of Bayonne I have shared your background and success with my students in order to inspire them the question my students have for you is how did growing up in Bayonne shape your future well number one I went to a public school I went to Mary Jane Dunning school on on Fifth Street and I got a good education there it was you know I had great teachers and it was amazing so I have nothing but respect for public school teachers they have a they have a hell of a job that they're doing and thank them for and this dovetails think be I mean I spent all of my childhood in Bayonne we didn't have much money we we lived in the housing projects down on First Street and MJ MJ d the school was on Fifth Street and I walk to school every day and that was my world from first Street to fifth Street you know occasionally if I had 15 cents I could go to the movies and you know the plaza was on 16th Street and and the DeWitt was on 25th Street so I would I would go up there despite the fact that New York City is so close we only got into New York City once a year we would always come in for for Christmas and we would I would see the we would be taking a scene Santa Claus at Macy's Bayonne had its own Santa Claus at Woolworth's but even as a kid I knew that he wasn't the real Santa the war of Santa was was not the real cent that a real cent that was the Macy's Santa so I would go in and we would see the Macy's Santa and we would see the Christmas show at the Radio City Music Hall and we would eat a lavish meal in a horn and Hardart automat but that was about the only time that that I got into New York and we didn't have a car so like richer friends would like go to the mountains or go to the beach in the summer we just stayed right where we were during the summers but first Street the apartment that we lived in was right in the water that kill Vaughn call was right across the street and that's the deep water channel it connects Newark Bay and New York Bay and across on the other side to kill ven call visible from my living room windows was the the lights of Staten Island where we never went so Staten Island assumed mythical proportions to me they distant lights gleaming the distance who knows what wonders and terrors lurked there if only I could go to Staten Island and of course the killin colors also deep water channel so I saw these ships going by every day and that would look them up they'd be flying the flags of China and Liberia and Sweden and I would look up the flags and my encyclopedia and you know fantasize about where all these ships were going so I lived a very active fantasy life reading books and comic books and dreaming about middle-earth and about other planets and and wondering if you know there were any elves and Staten Island this dovetails into Russ's question about you know growing up they owned were there any locations or experiences that provided inspiration or a seaton of idea that made its way into the game of Thrones books I presume the great Santa Wars were the model for disputed pray for the Roberts war or something like that right but I mean the mystical island of Staten Island perhaps was the seed for that I I don't think it was a direct you know correlation in that sense but when I look back on my childhood I in some ways I can see where daenerys targaryen z-- history came from because we were my mother her mid name was Brady and the Brady's had been a very successful family in Bayonne they had come over from Ireland during the potato famine and they'd settled in Bayonne that there was a like a Brady's tavern that was very successful for a while I had a cousin who looked all this stuff up and did this amazing history of the Bradys family all that and my great grandfather James Brady had a very successful construction materials business James Brady & Sons and my grandfather Thomas Brady my mother's father was part of that he was one of the sons the business was so successful that he built his own dock on First Street Brady's dock which was where the ships would come and deliver them material and he lived in a house between 3rd Street and 4th Street on Lourdes Avenue that my mother was born in she was the youngest of 11 children so she was part of this great Brady dynasty all this of course was long before I was born and during the Great Depression it all went bust that the company went bankrupt you know James Brady died as my grandfather Thomas died I never knew any of them the family lost all its money the family lost the house the family lost Brady's dock which became was taken over by the city became City dock and so I'm growing up in the projects on First Street across the street from Brady's dock and every day when I walked to Mary Jane Dunning you up Lord Avenue an interesting name I would pass the house that my mother was born in which of course I had never been inside it wasn't our house anymore other people lived in that house so from my mother's stories I always had this kind of sense that I was like disinherited royalty you know here was this dock that my great-grandfather had built wasn't ours anymore it was this house that my mother had been born in we didn't own this house anymore we don't own any house we had an apartment you know so it was like oh I came from greatness like Danny and I will take back what is mine with fire and blood so I think on some level that must have that must have you know save your movie theater money George because it turns out I actually have a dock to sell you you want to make a small investment I'm pleased to say they did renamed it Brady stock after years of being called City doctors no sinus that is Brady stock again but it's still not mine I have occasionally thought of finding homes that house on Ward Avenue and we buying it but I don't know I think I have a nicer house in Santa Fe well that question was from Russ Russ are you out there yeah he's there good job Russ good question Chris asks the meals and westeros who described in great detail throughout your Game of Thrones series given that it is close to Thanksgiving if you were to sat down if you were to sit down on the feast and westeros of some friends what would your meal consists of for Thanksgiving well I you know they don't actually have turkeys in Westeros so we're screwed here but I am coming back and I'm gonna have this Thanksgiving with my family for the first time in many years and I presume it will involve a turkey despite that not being and of course I am counting on turnips we're gonna have turnips right early good we always had turnips and Thanksgiving and you know Paris is the love of my life and but we lived together for many years before we got married and she always said if I married her I would have to marry her to get turnips or thanks giving and then I married her and I still don't get turnips she lied to me where are my turnips the smallest smallest request all I want is turnips and a fabrication of my own severed head so turkey for Thanksgiving you guys but in honor of George and the books stuffing with lampreys that's what I said ah lamprey no no lampreys please Chris that was a good question where are you good job Dave and Mary Ellen asked who's your favorite Targaryen King well it probably has to be Joe Harris Joe Harris the first Joe Harris the conciliator he was the best King you know reign for 55 years the old king but oddly enough when I first started writing this book you know a lot of this was initially written for a book that came in a few years ago the world of Ice and Fire which was supposed to be an illustrated book some of you may have gotten it it's a gorgeous Illustrated little coffee table book and we put together all the histories that were in the book which I in the novels which I expanded on a little and then I was supposed to write some sidebars to give a little more detail on some of the things that I knew but I hadn't put in the novels and I started writing the sidebars and I wrote like three hundred and fifty thousand words of sidebars and my editor who's out here somewhere you know had a heart attack and said this is not the book you gave me it said we don't know we've sort of spent the entire art budget we can't fit in all these siper so I took them out and and I saved them for this book which really called the grim early on but I skipped over to Herot there's very little about Joe Harris in the world of Ice and Fire because you know he was the good king he were in for 55 years of peace and presto prosperity what's duller than peace and prosperity but when I was doing firing blood I said well I can't just have a three sentence chapter that said Joe Harris reigned for 55 years of peace and prosperity I got to invent some stuff that happened there so I got into that and I wound up writing another you know hundred thousand words just about Joe Harris and yeah there was sort of peace and prosperity but it was also you know a few murders and dragon fights and conspiracies and you know cool stuff I had a lot of fun writing about you Harris and his wife Alison and who was his queen and I think you'll enjoy reading it's actually one of my favorite parts because I kind of feel like oh he's given these people a break finally I just get to rest and relax and get roads he builds all the roads and so forth but but they have a lot of trouble with their kids they have 13 kids and yeah not all of them turn out well Michael Don and Tom all had similar questions which is you know can you reflect a little bit on what Stanley meant to you well yeah I just posted a thing about Stan Lee's death I can't claim to have been a friend of Stan I I met him like a half dozen times but he never remembered me from one meeting to the next so it was always like I was meeting him for the first time but he was always very genial and generous and funny so you know I didn't mind meeting him for the first time over and over again but that's in some sense that's where one of the big things that begin for me was the first words of I never published was a letter in Fantastic Four number 20 dear Stan and Jack I was talking about Fantastic Four number 17 and how much I loved it and was great I compared Stan to Shakespeare you know I Soter said Shakespeare move over Stanley has arrived can't imagine why he would choose to that letter and then I published a number of other letters in other Marvel Comics Fantastic Four spider-man Avengers if you go back to the comics of the early mid 60s you'll find these letters there and in those days when when you they published a letter no letter column they published your entire address so people there comic-book fans started writing me saying they'd seen my letter and they they would send me a copy in a fanzine which was these you know ditto to a mimeograph amateur publications with amateur stories in them and I started writing amateur stories for these fanzines and people like them and they you know would write letters of comment about oh I really liked that George Martin story and get more from him and it was over encouraging to you know someone who was basically a shy high school kid and suddenly people were liking this thing I doing and so I continued to write more and more stories if Stan had not published my letters and I would not have gotten those fan scenes if I didn't get the fans means to start writing for them what I've gotten the confidence and all that to to go into writing and to dream of possibly making a career from writing I I don't know who knows where where a different path would have led and it all it all began from that you know relatively simple beginning but I I was a huge Marvel fan I mean I had of course I had read comic books before that you know been primarily to DC superheroes but by then I was you know I was in high school I was largely growing out of high school growing out of comic books at one point I actually gave my comic books away which I regret now because they really valuable but then I started all over again when Marvel so I collected and read all of those things and it it really did change my life there was one downside to that letter that I published in in Fantastic Four number 20 which at some point while comparing Stan to Shakespeare I used a phrase by gumbo this was not a wise choice of phrase someone another kid from my high school found it somewhat and in the rest of the next year I was tormented by my classmates who would come up to me and say by gumbo at every we had no gumbo and Bayonne I didn't even taste gumbo so I got to New Orleans many years later but but it was like sorry like saying by gum you did a good job like my gumbo is a creation you were building an authorial persona I was I have to credit Michael Don and Tom also with this element of it you know Marvel Universe was an interconnected universe across many titles with a history that it tried to honor that things happened in the universe and they stayed you know Wednesday's he died and for a period of time stayed dead so forth what what does any anything about universe and world building that you that you think Stanley innovated that you learned from yes I mean dating exactly what you say there I mean things at least in the early sixties things actually happened in the Marvel Universe I mean the the DC Universe of the 50s if you if you read like Superman or Batman or anything nothing ever changed the stories were completely circular you know Superman would have some adventure or Batman would fight a villain and he would defeat him in the context of the issue and at the end you would be exactly where you would start it and nothing would ever change no one would ever die no one would ever have a fight the villains were villains the heroes were heroic you know yeah DC started the Justice League of America which was like eight of their heroes all of whom had exactly the same personality and they all got along wonderfully and they'd say by gumbo and you couldn't tell them apart except for their you know one of metal red costume with a lightning bolt and the other one had a green costume with a lantern on it so but the Marvel characters were all they had real personalities and they were flawed and things actually happened you know I went to high school with Peter Parker we were both in high school and then we both graduated high school I pretty much the same time we were in sync I went to college Peter went to college and we had you know he had new roommates and it was a different environment for him and he got a new girlfriend and her friend never changed his girlfriend it was like Lois Lane and never went anywhere which is years past spider-man went through girlfriends you know like a real teenager would you had lizallen and then he had Betty Brant and then I had when Stacy and of course Mary Jane showed up and that you know it was it seemed so much more real and it seemed like things were actually happening now admittedly at some point spider-man and I got into sync somehow I'm now old enough for Social Security and Peter is still in high school I I don't know how he got back in high school when he had graduated and gotten married and all that but we did get out of sync which is a pity but I always loved the fact I mean a story where character should should change you know the events that happen changes you know people who who you know get married or get divorced or have have a love affair or they go off to war and have experiences these things change them they change who they are and I always feel the same should be true for fictional characters or comic-book characters if something is going to happen it should change you and affect you and make you different that's to my mind the art of good storytelling and it was Stan Lee who really brought that at least for a few years to comic books well unfortunately we're short on time so I'm just gonna read Eric Eric's non question here and then we'll wrap it on question I don't have a question rather a statement of support for George in the age of online harassment but I would like for him to hear I want to apologize for the toxic fandom you encounter online in regards to the release of winds I think I speak for all the true fans when I say that we're know you're taking your time to make the book the best it can possibly be which is all anyone can ask for as far as I'm concerned anything you decide to give us as a gift so thank you well thank you Eric and I will also say thank you and John I don't wanna talk over your applause yeah I'll also say thank you George because you know events change us and so do books and I've been changed by your books and some time ago we had the pleasure of meeting and I've been changed by knowing you and I am grateful for that as well and I'm grateful that we all got to spend this time together this is the only event that George is doing for this book in the world so thank you all for coming and thank you george RR martin also also thank you for coming here George it wouldn't be the same without you try that and and John thank you for coming in and hosting this and and by the way for I think we have copies of your book for sale there vacation land if so some of you can get signed copies of that if you want it's it's full of stuff about these frightening and amazing fantasy lands called Maine and Massachusetts yeah where people eat giant insects and burn raccoon feces and it's a real horse show you guys it is just terrifying and I mean in my world building I even drew maps so check it out that's all the time we have thank you very much george RR martin fire and blood thank you now night fires out December 2nd [Music]

Channel: Penguin Random House

Views: 443,794

Keywords: book, author, write, George RR Martin, John Hodgman, Game of Thrones, interview, publishing, A Song of Ice and Fire

Id: fjreiP50DG8

Length: 73min 25sec (4405 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 21 2018