Episodes 010: The Book That Never Was

Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire

In early 2015, Harper Collins UK in conjunction with Waterstones, a British Book Retailer, released pictures of a letter that George RR Martin wrote to his agent Ralph Vicinanza in 1993 outlining his idea for this brand new book that he was writing entitled A Game of Thrones, the first book in an exciting new trilogy that George RR Martin was calling A Song of Ice and Fire. This early letter provided insights to George’s agent on how he could promote this new series as well as provided a plot diagram for where GRRM thought that A Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire were going.

In Episode 10: The Book That Never Was, we do a detailed analysis of this letter and the book that could have been had GRRM written A Song of Ice and Fire to follow his initial diagram. We cover the topics of:

• The History of ASOIAF: How it came to be and where we are now
• GRRM’s original idea of plot, counterplot and murder centered on dynastic struggle
• Daenerys Targaryen: Dothraki Conqueror
• The, um, interesting love triangle GRRM had in mind
• Similarities and differences to the material that was published
• The foreshadowings that never were: leftover lines intended to foreshadow plot points that never came to be.
• Our take on the blacked out text and what it could mean for the future of A Song of Ice and Fire