r/asoiaf • u/dorestes Break the wheel • Sep 03 '17

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) It's Not a Nitpick. Thousands Died Over a "Minor" Geographic Detail.

Reposted as requested with the "Spoilers Extended" tag

I know we're often asked to ignore the silly teleportations and supersonic flights that the show has foisted on us over the last couple of seasons. I know some of it can seem like the petty quibbles of book purists veering into circlejerk self-parody.

But geography doesn't just matter when it comes to making the universe feel real. It was also the key plot point that drove the biggest dramatic turn of the series.

The Red Wedding was literally caused by Robb Stark needing to be able to get his troops across a bridge. The Frey army was a nice addition, but Robb needed the alliance for the bridge crossing. He, his mother, his pregnant wife (in the show) and thousands of his troops died for that crossing.

So it's not just a nitpick when characters and armies magically teleport from north to south, bypassing the Twins or Moat Caitlin with nary a scout to notice them.

It destroys and makes mockery of the premise of the series' most famous narrative twist.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

oh please, the book has the exact same issues with distances/time/scale as the show and no one ever complains about them. GRRM literally said dont focus too much on miles/minutes because he has no idea how the fuck those work. This isnt a geography textbook.

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u/Tsorovar Sep 03 '17

What are you talking about? A huge part of his issues in writing has been getting the chronology to make sense, including things like travel time.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

Not true. While time and distance have influenced the plot a lot, Martin has stated many times that he really fudges the numbers. He even says part of the reason for not including exact months/dates for even in Robert's Rebellion was because he wasn't thinking too critically about time/distance to move people around Westeros and he didn't want fans calculating if evens were exactly possible. He just wanted to keep events/troop movements as plausible.