The hips do not lie!

GRRM has NEVER addressed the hips when he speaks on the topic of errors in the books. In his first appearance on Conan he talked about how he's screwed up on eye colors and a horse's gender and there was something else, but he avoided mentioning what appears to be the single biggest inconsistency in character descriptions throughout the entire series: Jeyne's hips. This lends so much legitimacy to there actually being something to the rumors, because otherwise he would just as casually lump it in with the other minor errors he's made, and yet we have only silence on the matter.

EDIT: That aside, did anybody else have playback issues around 29:29? Both iTunes and Winamp quit playing at that point, and I had to scrub ahead to about 30:18 to get it to resume playing.

Yeah, everything I've read about him saying that it was a mistake is secondhand and no concrete sources to back it up.

Honor Potion!

Also I loved Bina's comparison of the Westerlings to the Boleyns (strange that the real-life family has the 'Y' here). Only 20 minutes in, but this is definitely one of my favorite APOIAFs in a while.

Also it was super clear that Zach really wanted to talk about how he got into the books. I can tell how irked he was that you skipped it last time.

Yep. I'm always seeing people saying things like "I think he said" or "I heard" but not one of them ever gives a single source for it. I've searched through the SSM archive at Westeros for 'Jeyne' and 'hips' and there's just nothing anywhere. I think the closest we've gotten to an official comment was actually Elio on this podcast (summer of 2013 I think, don't have the episode number in front of me) saying he "thought" it was a mistake, but he made no definitive statement on the matter.

I like this alternate history where Ned and Ashara hooked up (which did not actually happen) where at the morning after, Ned is like, "And now I must marry you to save your honor" and Ashara's like "Bitch what are you talking about? I'll text you later".

You read me like a book, Greg.

So much fun guys! Loved the ent wives discussion and the Tolkien spiral that brought on. AND ASHLEY IS BACK

Ned as feckless Mr. Bennet is really amusing to me though I would hope his marriage is better than Mr. Bennet's, womp womp.

A feudal army is not a modern national military organization.
Edmure is the acting Lord of Riverrun. These are HIS lands and their defense is HIS responsibility and prerogative.
He would have been in the wrong not to defend his lands from an invader.

I believe that Robb is clever and highly manipulative - see EP42.

As to the advance reader copy discussion in the aftershow. As far as I know there usually are not ARCs produced for huge releases like this. There may be very few printed and given to specific reviewers that were pre-selected but they wouldn't be included in normal ARC packages that are given to bookstores by the publishers.

Most bookstores would get the book anywhere from one day to a week before the release date so they can have them on sale for the actual release day. As Ashley said we're not supposed to open the boxes, but 99% of the time we do so we can have them in stacks and accessible for shelving.

For super huge releases such as "Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee we actually had to sign an affidavit with Harper Collins the publisher that we wouldn't open the boxes. But the penalty for doing so isn't legal action as it's not an actual crime. The penalty would be that we would lose our privileges to get copies early for future releases and possibly to carry Harper Collins titles.

FYI stores such as Target and Walmart are notorious for ignoring on sale dates because they are not used to them in their normal business (I assume). There were issues with TWOIAF where some people got them a week early since they just put them out when they received them.

There are also finished copy ARCs where a publisher will just send a finished hardcover edition of a book to a reviewer or bookseller if they know they would like it or have requested it. I would assume this won't be happening with TWOW though due to the demand, but for example our Simon & Schuster rep always sends us a finished copy of the new Stephen King book a few weeks early so we can share it among us.

Hope this helps.

Exactly.

Even if it Edmure was a mid-level modern military commander he is not solely bound to such romantic ideals as military discipline and following orders. He also has a war to fight and commanders in his position are supposed to show the initiative to take the fight to the enemy.

It is nice, romantic, and naive to say that a commander should blindly follow his orders to the line. Edmure may not be the smartest one out there but he displayed the initiative and tactical understanding of the battlespace that all commanders must have to be successful.

Remind me to never fight a war with any of you in my army.

I see it as Robb's fault. There was no reason for him to withhold his plan from Edmure and it was disrespectful of him to do so. And it put Edmure in an impossible position. In another world, Robb could have been pissed at him for letting Tywin's army march past and take him in the rear (lol). Without knowing Robb's plans, Edmure had no way to know which course of action was the stupid one.

what the frack is that?!

When I tend to think of myself leading people into battle (which I do a surprising amount), I think of myself as Christopher Plummer playing The Duke of Wellington in the Rod Steiger Waterloo film.

Lord Raglan/Gielgud as Robb and their high vantage points.
David Hemmings/Edmure the Noble Six Hundred.
The Riverlands are of course the Valley of Death.

God I love Deep Space 9. I'm in the middle of a rewatch right now. That show doesn't get enough love at all and it really holds up.

What were Robb's orders to Edmure exactly?

As near as I can tell -

Quote:

“You were commanded to hold Riverrun, Edmure, no more.” – ASOS, Chapter 14, Catelyn II

https://bryndenbfish.wordpress.com/2013 ... commander/

Ashley's reasoning was why there are no page numbers on the spreadsheet; different editions all over the place and I originally never intended to publish it to the internet but was encouraged by Jeff Hartline from Wars of I&F as I was helping with one of his projects. Also, why would I lie? A Search of Ice & Fire can be scanned aswell if you need to check my work.

I've read the books 5 times over since 2011 and each time is slower as I take more and more notes. The original document was just to let fans know where living characters are for easy searching when Winds drops this year . But I get requests to add in additional information all the time so it is gradually growing since I have the information available somewhere on my computer.

I also got a "Great work!" retweet from Elio&Linda so if GRRM was going to be passed on the document, there is the avenue!

If Edmure had been thinking with his head and not with his ego, he would have realised that Tywin taking his army out of the riverlands is the best thing for the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, the only reason all the riverlords were backing him is because they are all still butthurt from being defeated by Jaimie and wanted to win something. That said, it was Robb's duty to understand Edmure's fragile Ego and respond accordingly.

There is absolutely no reason NOT to tell him the plan - the f'n "King of the Riverlands" was a mistake all along anyway,
Edmure is Lord of Riverrun, he has a right to fight invaders - I'd seen that as part of my duty as well,
if that gets overruled by a master plan - well, than let people know, especially if it's THEIR land / their responsibility...
I see the Blackfish maybe even more at fault than Rob, but both their treatment of Edmure (before they went of) was a mistake -
after their return and Rob's betrayal of the Freys, it was just a tactic to coerce Edmure into marrying a Frey, I agree...

I absolutely LOVE this series - it's the best Star Trek series by far imho - I'd re-watched it over and over,
before I got deeper into ASOIAF, but I also have to re-watch it soon...

The only part of the podcast that annoyed me was the page number nit pick. I was like DID YOU SEE THE DOCUMENT?!

No reason to lie, people make mistakes though particularly in large documents. Not that it matters to me but if I were relying on it as an author then I would like to see page numbers.

Thanks for all your podcasts. I've been listening to you guys for a year now and finally listened to them all. it's been a great year.

Mance Rayder: It was mentioned that he has been mustering the Wildings for a long time. this thought raised some interesting questions in my mind. Did he actually leave the Night's Watch to gather the Wildings? If so, what did he know? Did he learn something while he was a Brother of the Watch, that we don't know yet? Did he realize the Watch had lost its true reason for existence? Does he have an end game that we don't know yet?