Then I thought “Or maybe seasons are just like Earth’s, but there are one or more
orbiting bodies large enough to obscure the sun, with cl0se-to-heliosynchornous orbits, but affecting each others’ orbits enough to make them erratic, like the moons of Saturn. Or some kind of atmospheric behavior, like a cyclical ozone layer, or cascading cloud cover changes, or…”

Then I thought “…or magic. Glowing-eyed undead WERE in the very first scene, after all. Maybe magic flux-lines are affecting the planet’s orbital path; or magic is locally affecting the passage of time on the planet while still keeping it constant WRT the orbit; or magic is affecting the planet’s mass WRT the sun without affecting its local gravity; or magic is affecting the sun’s own gravity.”

Then I… got bored and went back to watching.

Then I thought “Or maybe seasons are just like Earth’s, but there are one or more
orbiting bodies large enough to obscure the sun, with cl0se-to-heliosynchornous orbits, but affecting each others’ orbits enough to make them erratic, like the moons of Saturn. Or some kind of atmospheric behavior, like a cyclical ozone layer, or cascading cloud cover changes, or…”

Then I thought “…or magic. Glowing-eyed undead WERE in the very first scene, after all. Maybe magic flux-lines are affecting the planet’s orbital path; or magic is locally affecting the passage of time on the planet while still keeping it constant WRT the orbit; or magic is affecting the planet’s mass WRT the sun without affecting its local gravity; or magic is affecting the sun’s own gravity.”

Then I… got bored and went back to watching.

And yea, I think it’s silly when fantasy novels do that. I understand why of course, but it still makes me go ‘argh!’

Anyway, it’s not that important.  I’m even more conflicted about the dubbing and translation of this work. On one hand, the whole thing is clearly a take on the British islands (complete with Germanic and Norman invasions) and the War of the Roses, on the other hand it is a fantasy world with no relation to Earth. 

There are nearly religious wars on how to translate names  - is is Jon Snow or Jon Schnee ? 

Thanksfully, I can read and watch it in English. :-) 

Edit: Added ‘don’t’ to my text. See
@SummerSeale’s post below.

Digital copy – find/replace ; )

Nah, couldn’t bring myself to do that.  Too much like the edition of Huckleberry Finn that removed all instances of the N-word.

I can live with it as is.

So I didn’t really see a reason for Martin to subtly alter the spelling of those two words by themselves, when nearly every other non-proper noun in his books seems to be modern American English.

Asking questions about potential scientific explanations is about engaging the material in another way because it is ALSO fun.  I don’t know why people freak out when someone is thinking about a book or film “too much.”  It’s like they’re demanding everyone just receive the world uncritically because otherwise they must be joyless pedants.  What total nonsense.  Sputtering “B-but!! MAGIC! DRAGONS!!!!” sounds like another way of saying, “THIS ISN’T HOW I ENJOY THINGS SO SHUT UP!”

Not everyone feels so threatened by a little curiosity. 

Of course, we only have ourselves to compare them to, but if they display the least bit of intelligence and innovative thinking as we earth humans do, then it doesn’t make any sense. They’d have discovered more “modern” technology by now.

The fact that they’re a society based on many different types of people, gathered together over large areas of land, sort of necessitates changes over time – again, if they’re even remotely like us. Very few societies made absolutely no changes in the last few thousand years on earth after reaching a certain level of technology and trade (medieval, in this respect). Certain natural observations would have been made over and over again to the point that they would have become common knowledge and people would have acted upon that information with other observations.

It’s just a nitpick, I know. But it’s something which always bothered me about fantasy stories. Eventually, you’re going to get people who will notice things, create things, or invent things to make other things better. It’s a natural course of evolution. It’s a little hard to see how they could have reached the art of making a sword and plate mail, with all that innovation and technology required to create such things, and then completely and utterly abandon everything which led up to that point in their evolving brains. I think it would actually take a willful and concerted effort on the part of all of the societies to accept that no more changes should ever be made and life should stay exactly the same as it is forever more. And, even that would fail. I mean, in some respects…the Church and “Powers that be” during the Middle Ages held that view (in different places, mind you) – the order of societies; never being able to move outside of your birth rank; never challenging the precepts of “holy writ”; and on and on. And still, with an entire set of rules, dogma, and society itself hammering down on everyone’s head, including the threat of Hell itself on a daily basis, they couldn’t hold back innovation for more than a couple of hundred years.

Change is basically inevitable. We know it is at least on our planet. And I submit that a planet that discovers their level of technology over the years would continue developing and not stop in the same way that we didn’t stop either.

Sorry for the dissertation, but it’s something I always wanted to rant about. =)

That being said, I’m still a fan. =)

Another more likely theroy is that they are stupid superstitious uneducated people, with poor records, and a penchant for exaggeration.

Which makes me wonder if  GRRM’s treatment of the Maesters is not a commentary on how some “truth seekers” can be just as dogmatic and arrogant as “people of faith” and thus ultimately stifling any productive growth of knowledge.  The books certainly seem to, at least to me, imply that Maesters have ulterior motives.  Which I guess we’ll see more of as the books continue with that particular storyline.

In any case, I think it is telling that any time a book is mentioned, which is written by a Maester, it is always some ridiculously boring sounding, pedantic examination of an insignificant king or event which all the characters in the book seem to roll their eyes about. 

Regarding Plagues & Seasons: Doesn’t one of the short stories (maybe the third one) mention a devastating plague in a “spring” after a long winter? Mind you, it didn’t sound like the Maesters were much help during it (at least based on my memory of the short story in question).

and yet they produce nearly no new knowledge.

Neither did the scholars at the library of Alexandria FWIW.

fantasy is Dionysian, unbounded, imaginative, orgiastic.

Little of it is orgiastic or Dionysian; most of it’s rather stuffy.  Tolkein is about as stuffy as I can imagine, and obviously he’s the granddaddy.  I’ve only read a few bits of fantasy that were really explicit about anything sexy.  Nerds are often rather inhibited people. 

Fantasy is never unbounded or imaginative.  It’s genre fiction.  it’s bounded by genre conventions and the imagination only comes in when those conventions are broken, i.e. when the work straddles the line between fantasy and not.

I’m a little aggravated that you would count the Alice books as fantasy.  Note the distinct lack of juvenile male wish fulfillment in them.

Definitely has a lot going on, and took me a reread to understand what the plan is.

It’s true what you’re saying about the other continents. I’m mostly going off of what Marwyn says to Sam about the maesters killing the dragons two hundred years ago.  The theory has been thrown around the boards on westeros.org for awhile, it’s really fascinating. There’s also quite a few about the Faceless Men. 

Do you have a link for  the chapters?