document_title: A Song of Ice and Fire

question_text: what is the second book in the game of thrones

question_tokens: what is the second book in the game of thrones

text: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Plot synopsis[edit]

text: A Song of Ice and Fire takes place in a fictional world in which seasons last for years and end unpredictably. Nearly three centuries before the events of the first novel (see backstory), the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros were united under the Targaryen dynasty by Aegon I and his sisters Visenya and Rhaenys, with Aegon Targaryen becoming the first king of the whole of the continent of Westeros, save for the southerly Dorne. At the beginning of A Game of Thrones, 15 peaceful years have passed since the rebellion led by Lord Robert Baratheon deposed and killed the last Targaryen king, Aerys II "the Mad King", and proclaimed Robert king of the Seven Kingdoms, with a nine year long summer coming to an end.

text: The principal story chronicles the power struggle for the Iron Throne among the great Houses of Westeros following the death of King Robert in A Game of Thrones. Robert's heir apparent, the 13-year old Joffrey, is immediately proclaimed king through the machinations of his mother, Queen Cersei Lannister. When Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark, Robert's closest friend and chief advisor, discovers that Joffrey and his siblings are the product of incest between Cersei and her twin brother Jaime "The Kingslayer" Lannister, Eddard attempts to unseat Joffrey but is betrayed and executed for treason. In response, Robert's brothers Stannis and Renly both lay separate claims to the throne. During this period of instability, two of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros attempt to become independent from the Iron Throne: Eddard's eldest son Robb is proclaimed King in the North, while Lord Balon Greyjoy desires to recover the sovereignty of his region, the Iron Islands. The so-called "War of the Five Kings" is in full progress by the middle of the second book, A Clash of Kings.

text: The second story takes place in the far north of Westeros, where an 8,000-year-old wall of ice, simply called "the Wall", defends the Seven Kingdoms from the Others. The Wall's sentinels, the Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, also protect the realm from the incursions of the "wildlings" or "Free Folk", who are humans living north of the Wall. The Night's Watch story is told primarily through the point of view of Jon Snow, Eddard's bastard son.[8] Jon follows the footsteps of his uncle Benjen Stark and joins the Watch at a young age, rising quickly through the ranks, eventually becoming Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. In the third volume, A Storm of Swords, the Night's Watch storyline becomes increasingly entangled with the War of the Five Kings.

text: The third story follows Daenerys Targaryen, daughter of Aerys, the last Targaryen king. On the continent of Essos, east of Westeros across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys is married off by her elder brother Viserys Targaryen to a powerful warlord, but slowly becomes an independent and intelligent ruler in her own right. Her rise to power is aided by the historic birth of three dragons, hatched from eggs given to her as wedding gifts. The three dragons soon become not only a symbol of her bloodline and her legitimate claim to the throne, but also devastating weapons of war.

text: Publishing history[edit]

text: Overview[edit]

text: Books in the Ice and Fire series are first published in hardcover and are later re-released as paperback editions. In the UK, Harper Voyager publishes special slipcased editions.[9] The series has also been translated into more than 30 languages.[10] All page totals given below are for the US first editions.[why?]

text:
#
Title
Pages
Chapters
Words
Audio
US release

1
A Game of Thrones
694[11]
73
292,727[12]
33h 53m
August 1996[11]

2
A Clash of Kings
768[13]
70
318,903[14]
37h 17m
February 1999[13]

3
A Storm of Swords
973[15]
82
414,604[16]
47h 37m
November 2000[15]

4
A Feast for Crows
753[17]
46
295,032[18]
31h 10m
November 2005[17]

5
A Dance with Dragons
1040[19]
73
414,788[20]
48h 56m
July 2011[19]

6
The Winds of Winter
Forthcoming[21]

7
A Dream of Spring
Forthcoming[22]

Total
4,228
344
1,736,054
198h 53m

text: First three novels (1991–2000) [edit]

text: George R. R. Martin was already a successful fantasy and sci-fi author and TV writer before writing his A Song of Ice and Fire book series.[23] Martin had published his first short story in 1971 and his first novel in 1977.[24] By the mid-1990s, he had won three Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, and other awards for his short fiction.[25] Although his early books were well received within the fantasy fiction community, his readership remained relatively small and Martin took on jobs as a writer in Hollywood in the mid-1980s.[25] He worked principally on the revival of The Twilight Zone throughout 1986 and on Beauty and the Beast until 1990, but he also developed his own TV pilots and wrote feature film scripts. He grew frustrated that his pilots and screenplays were not getting made[25] and that TV-related production limitations like budgets and episode lengths were forcing him to cut characters and trim battle scenes.[26] This pushed Martin back towards writing books, where he did not have to worry about compromising the size of his imagination.[25] Admiring the works of J. R. R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy, though he did not have any specific ideas.[27]

text: When Martin was between Hollywood projects in the summer of 1991, he started writing a new science fiction novel called Avalon. After three chapters, he had a vivid idea of a boy seeing a man's beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, which would eventually become the first non-prologue chapter of A Game of Thrones.[28] Putting Avalon aside, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and grew certain that it was part of a longer story.[29] After a few more chapters, Martin perceived his new book as a fantasy story[29] and started making maps and genealogies.[23] However, the writing of this book was interrupted for a few years when Martin returned to Hollywood to produce his TV series Doorways that ABC had ordered but ultimately never aired.[26]

text:
"The first scene...chapter one of the first book, the chapter where they find the direwolf pups...just came to me out of nowhere. I was...at work on a different novel, and suddenly I saw that scene. It didn't belong in the novel I was writing, but it came to me so vividly that I had to sit down and write it, and by the time I did, it led to a second chapter, and the second chapter was the Catelyn chapter where Ned has just come back."

—George R. R. Martin in 2014[30]

tag: div

text: In 1994, Martin gave to his agent, Kirby McCauley, the first 200 pages and a two-page story projection as part of a planned trilogy with the novels A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter intended to follow. When Martin had still not reached the novel's end at 1400 manuscript pages, he felt that the series needed to be four and eventually six books long,[26][31] which he imagined as two linked trilogies of one long story.[32] Martin chose A Song of Ice and Fire as the overall series title: Martin saw the struggle of the cold Others and the fiery dragons as one possible meaning for "Ice and Fire", whereas the word "song" had previously appeared in Martin's book titles A Song for Lya and Songs the Dead Men Sing, stemming from his obsessions with songs.[33] Martin also named Robert Frost's 1920 poem "Fire and Ice" and cultural associations such as passion versus betrayal as possible influences for the series' title.[34]

text: The revised finished manuscript for A Game of Thrones was 1088 pages long (without the appendices),[35] with the publication following in August 1996.[11] Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan had written a short endorsement for the cover that was influential in ensuring the book's and hence series' early success with fantasy readers.[36] Blood of the Dragon, a pre-release sample novella drawn from Daenerys's chapters, went on to win the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.[37]

text: The 300 pages removed from the A Game of Thrones manuscript served as the opening of the second book, entitled A Clash of Kings.[31] It was released in February 1999 in the United States,[13] with a manuscript length (without appendices) of 1184 pages.[35] A Clash of Kings was the first book of the Ice and Fire series to make the best-seller lists,[26] reaching 13 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 1999.[38] After the success of The Lord of the Rings films, Martin received his first inquiries to the rights of the Ice and Fire series from various producers and filmmakers.[26]

text: Martin was several months late turning in the third book, A Storm of Swords.[25] The last chapter he had written was about the "Red Wedding", a pivotal scene notable for its violence (see Themes: Violence and death).[39] A Storm of Swords was 1521 pages in manuscript (without appendices),[35] causing problems for many of Martin's publishers around the world. Bantam Books published A Storm of Swords in a single volume in the United States in November 2000,[15] whereas some other-language editions were divided into two, three, or even four volumes.[35] A Storm of Swords debuted at number 12 in the New York Times bestseller list.[37][40]

text: Bridging the timeline gap (2000–2011) [edit]

text: After A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords, Martin originally intended to write three more books.[25] The fourth book, tentatively titled A Dance with Dragons, was to focus on Daenerys Targaryen's return to Westeros and the associated conflicts.[32] Martin wanted to set this story five years after A Storm of Swords so that the younger characters could grow older and the dragons grow larger.[41] Agreeing with his publishers early on that the new book should be shorter than A Storm of Swords, Martin set out to write the novel closer in length to A Clash of Kings.[35] A long prologue was to establish what had happened in the meantime, initially just as one chapter of Aeron Damphair on the Iron Islands at the Kingsmoot. Since the events on the Iron Islands were to have an impact in the book and could not be told with existing POV characters, Martin eventually introduced three new viewpoints.[42]

text: In 2001, Martin was still optimistic that the fourth installment might be released in the last quarter of 2002.[33] However, the five-year gap did not work for all characters during writing. On one hand, Martin was unsatisfied with covering the events during the gap solely through flashbacks and internal retrospection. On the other hand, it was implausible to have nothing happen for five years.[41] After working on the book for about a year, Martin realized he needed an additional interim book, which he called A Feast for Crows.[41] The book would pick up the story immediately after the third book, and Martin scrapped the idea of a five-year gap.[33] The material of the written 250-page prologue was mixed in as new viewpoint characters from Dorne and the Iron Islands.[42] These expanded storylines and the resulting story interactions complicated the plot for Martin.[43]

text: The manuscript length of A Feast for Crows eventually surpassed A Storm of Swords.[41] Martin was reluctant to make the necessary deep cuts to get the book down to publishable length, as that would have compromised the story he had in mind. Printing the book in "microtype on onion skin paper and giving each reader a magnifying glass" was also not an option for him.[35] On the other hand, Martin rejected the publishers' idea of splitting the narrative chronologically into A Feast for Crows, Parts One and Two.[7] Being already late with the book, Martin had not even started writing all characters' stories[44] and also objected to ending the first book without any resolution for its many viewpoint characters as in previous books.[41]

text: With the characters spread out across the world,[21] a friend suggested that Martin divide the story geographically into two volumes, of which A Feast for Crows would be the first.[7] This approach would give Martin the room to complete his commenced story arcs as he had originally intended,[35] which he still felt was the best approach years later.[21] Martin moved the unfinished characters' stories set in the east (Essos) and north (Winterfell and the Wall) into the next book, A Dance with Dragons,[45] and left A Feast for Crows to cover the events on Westeros, King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands.[35] Both books begin immediately after the end of A Storm of Swords,[21] running in parallel instead of sequentially, and involve different casts of characters with only little overlap.[35] Martin split Arya's chapters into both books after having already moved the three other most popular characters (Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Daenerys) into A Dance with Dragons.[45]

text: Upon its release in October 2005 in the UK[46] and November 2005 in the US,[17] A Feast for Crows went straight to the top of The New York Times bestseller list.[47] Among the positive reviewers was Lev Grossman of Time, who dubbed Martin "the American Tolkien".[48] However, fans and critics alike were disappointed with the story split that left the fates of several popular characters unresolved after A Storm of Swords' cliffhanger ending.[49][50] With A Dance with Dragons said to be half-finished,[49] Martin mentioned in the epilogue of A Feast for Crows that the next volume would be released by the next year.[51] However, planned release dates were repeatedly pushed back. Meanwhile, HBO acquired the rights to turn Ice and Fire into a dramatic series in 2007[52] and aired the first of ten episodes covering A Game of Thrones in April 2011.[53]

text: With around 1600 pages in manuscript length,[1] A Dance with Dragons was eventually published in July 2011 after six years of writing,[26] longer in page count and writing time than any of the preceding four novels.[23][49] The story of A Dance with Dragons catches up and goes beyond A Feast for Crows around two-thirds into the book,[44] but nevertheless covers less story than Martin had intended, omitting at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliff-hangers.[23] Martin attributed the delay mainly to his untangling "the Meereenese knot", which the interviewer understood as "making the chronology and characters mesh up as various threads converged on [Daenerys]".[50] Martin also acknowledged spending too much time on rewriting and perfecting the story, but soundly rejected the theories of some of his critics that he had lost interest in the series or would bide his time to make more money.[49]

text: Planned novels and future[edit]

text: Martin believes the last two volumes of the series will be big books of 1500 manuscript pages each.[54] The sixth book will be called The Winds of Winter,[55] taking the title of the last book of the originally planned trilogy.[21] Displeased with the provisional title A Time for Wolves for the final volume, Martin ultimately announced A Dream of Spring as the title for the seventh book in 2006.[22] Martin said in March 2012 that the final two novels will take readers farther north than any of the previous books, and that the Others will appear in the book.[56]

text: The Winds of Winter[edit]

text: The Winds of Winter will resolve the Dance with Dragons cliffhangers early on and "will open with the two big battles that [the fifth book] was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle [...] of Slaver's Bay. And then take it from there."[56] By the middle of 2010, Martin had already finished five chapters of The Winds of Winter from the viewpoints of Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Arianne Martell, and Aeron Greyjoy, accumulating to around 100 completed pages.[55][57] After the publication of A Dance with Dragons in 2011, Martin announced he would return to writing in January 2012.[23] He spent the meantime on book tours, conventions, and continued working on his The World of Ice & Fire companion guide and a new Tales of Dunk and Egg novella.[58][59]

text: In December 2011, Martin posted a chapter from The Winds of Winter from the viewpoint of Theon Greyjoy;[60] several other chapters have been made public since. Four hundred pages of the sixth novel have been written as of October 2012, although Martin considers only 200 as "really finished"; the rest needs revising.[34] In 2011, Martin gave three years as a realistic estimate for finishing the sixth book at a good pace,[1] but said ultimately the book "will be done when it's done",[21] acknowledging that his publication estimates had been too optimistic in the past.[23] Martin did not intend to separate the characters geographically again.[27]

text: In 2015 there were indications that the book would be published before the sixth season of the HBO show[61][62][63][64][65][66] but in early January 2016 Martin confirmed that he had not met an end-of-year deadline that he had established with his publisher for release of the book before the sixth season. He added that there was "a lot still left to write" and that completion of the book was "months away still...if the writing goes well." Martin also revealed there had been a previous deadline of October 2015 that he had considered achievable in May 2015, and that in September 2015 he had still considered the end-of-year deadline achievable. He further confirmed that some of the plot of the book might be revealed in the upcoming season of Game of Thrones.[67] In February 2016, Martin stated that he dropped all his editing projects except for Wild Cards, and that he would not be writing any teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions or forewords before delivering The Winds of Winter.[68]

text: During the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico in early December 2016, Martin offered the following hint as to the tone of this book:

text: There are a lot of dark chapters right now ... I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places.[69]

text: A Dream of Spring[edit]

text: Martin is firm about ending the series with the seventh novel "until I decide not to be firm".[23] With his stated goal of telling the story from beginning to end, he will not truncate the story to fit into an arbitrary number of volumes.[39] He knows the ending in broad strokes as well as the future of the main characters,[27] and will finish the series with bittersweet elements where not everyone will live happily ever after.[37] Martin hopes to write an ending similar to The Lord of the Rings that he felt gave the story a satisfying depth and resonance. On the other hand, Martin noted the challenge to avoid a situation like the finale of the TV series Lost, which left some fans disappointed by deviating too far from their own theories and desires.[21] In 2015, Martin said that he was not writing A Dream of Spring together with The Winds of Winter,[70] and in early 2016, he said he did not believe A Dream of Spring would be published before the last season of the HBO show.[71]

text: Martin offered the following hint as to how the series would conclude during a Q&A at the Guadalajara International Book Fair. "I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to end my book, but I suspect the overall flavor is going to be as much bittersweet as it is happy."[69]

text: TV series and other writings[edit]

text: Early during the development of the TV series, Martin told major plot points to producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss.[27] (The New York Times reported in 2011 that, at age 62, Martin was by all accounts in robust health.)[72] Martin was confident he would have published at least The Winds of Winter before the TV series overtook him.[27] Nevertheless, there was general concern about whether Martin would be able to stay ahead of the show.[73] As a result, head writers Benioff and Weiss learned more future plot points from Martin in 2013 to help them set up the show's new possible seasons. This included the end stories for all the core characters. Deviations from the books' storylines are also being considered, but a two-year show hiatus to wait for new books is not an option for them as the child actors continue to grow and the show's popularity would wane.[74] Martin indicated he would not permit another writer to finish the book series.[49] On January 2, 2016, Martin confirmed that the sixth volume would not be published before the start of the sixth season of the HBO series.[75]

text: Regarding A Song of Ice and Fire as his magnum opus, Martin is certain never to write anything on this scale again and would only return to this fictional universe in the context of stand-alone novels.[42] He prefers to write stories about characters from other Ice and Fire periods of history such as his Tales of Dunk and Egg project, instead of continuing the series directly.[42][76] A possible future side project is a prequel set during Aegon's conquest of Westeros.[77] Martin said he would love to return to writing short stories, novellas, novelettes, and stand-alone novels from diverse genres such as science fiction, horror, fantasy, or even a murder mystery. However, he will see if his audience follows him after publishing his next project.[29][36]

text: Inspiration and writing[edit]

text: Genre[edit]

text: George R. R. Martin believes the most profound influences to be the ones experienced in childhood.[78] Having read H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Robert A. Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Andre Norton,[29] Isaac Asimov,[33] Fritz Leiber, and Mervyn Peake[79] in his youth, Martin never categorized these authors' literature into science fiction, fantasy, or horror and will write from any genre as a result.[78] Martin classified A Song of Ice and Fire as "epic fantasy",[1] and specifically named Tad Williams as very influential for the writing of the series.[33][79] One of his favorite authors is Jack Vance,[33] although Martin considered the series not particularly Vancean.[32]

text:
"[Martin's Ice and Fire series] was groundbreaking (at least for me) in all kinds of ways. Above all, the books were extremely unpredictable, especially in a genre where readers have come to expect the intensely predictable. [...] A Game of Thrones was profoundly shocking when I first read it, and fundamentally changed my notions about what could be done with epic fantasy."

—Fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie in 2008[80]

text: The medieval setting has been the traditional background for epic fantasy. However, where historical fiction leaves versed readers knowing the historical outcome,[79] original characters may increase suspense and empathy for the readers.[78] Yet Martin felt historical fiction, particularly when set during the Middle Ages, had an excitement, grittiness, and a realness to it that was absent in fantasy with a similar backdrop.[81] Thus, he wanted to combine the realism of historical fiction with the magic appeal of the best fantasies,[82] subduing magic in favor of battles and political intrigue.[25] He also decided to avoid the conventional good versus evil setting typical for the genre, using the fight between Achilles and Hector in Homer's Iliad, where no one stands out as either a hero or a villain, as an example of what he wants to achieve with his books.[83]

text: Martin is widely credited with broadening the fantasy fiction genre for adult content, including incest, paedophilia, and adultery.[49] For The Washington Post's Writing for The Atlantic, Amber Taylor assessed the novels as hard fantasy with vulnerable characters to which readers become emotionally attached.[84] CNN found in 2000 that Martin's mature descriptions were "far more frank than those found in the works of other fantasy authors",[85] although Martin assessed the fantasy genre to have become rougher-edged a decade later and that some writers' work was going beyond the mature themes of his novels.[39] Adam Roberts called Martin's series the most successful and popular example of the emerging subgenre of grimdark fantasy,[86] influencing other writers associated with that style, such as Joe Abercrombie.

text: Writing process[edit]

text: Setting out to write something on an epic scale,[85] Martin projected to write three books of 800 manuscript pages in the very early stages of the series.[79] His original 1990s contract specified one-year deadlines for his previous literary works, but Martin only realized later that his new books were longer and hence required more writing time.[41] In 2000, Martin planned to take 18 months to two years for each volume and projected the last of the planned six books to be released five or six years later.[37] However, with the Ice and Fire series evolving into the biggest and most ambitious story he has ever attempted writing,[45] he still has two more books to write as of 2016. Martin said he needed to be in his own office in Santa Fe, New Mexico to immerse himself in the fictional world and write.[25] As of 2011, Martin was still typing his fiction on a DOS computer with WordStar 4.0 software.[87] He begins each day at 10 am with rewriting and polishing the previous day's work,[78] and may write all day or struggle to write anything.[25] Excised material and previous old versions are saved to be possibly re-inserted at a later time.[45]

text: Martin set the Ice and Fire story in a secondary world inspired by Tolkien's writing.[27] Unlike Tolkien, who created entire languages, mythologies, and histories for Middle-earth long before writing The Lord of the Rings, Martin usually starts with a rough sketch of an imaginary world that he improvises into a workable fictional setting along the way.[49] He described his writing as coming from a subconscious level in "almost a daydreaming process",[88] and his stories, which have a mythic rather than a scientific core, draw from emotion instead of rationality.[29] Martin employs maps[25] and a cast list topping 60 pages in the fourth volume,[7] but keeps most information in his mind.[1] His imagined backstory remains subject to change until published, and only the novels count as canon.[45] Martin does not intend to publish his private notes after the series is finished.[25]

text: Martin drew much inspiration from actual history for the series,[78] having several bookcases filled with medieval history for research[89] and visiting historic European landmarks.[43] For an American who speaks only English, the history of England proved the easiest source of medieval history for him, giving the series a British rather than a German or Spanish historic flavor.[90] For example, Ned and Robb Stark resemble Richard, 3rd Duke of York and his son Edward IV, and Queen Cersei resembles both Margaret of Anjou[91] and Elizabeth Woodville.[92] Martin immersed himself in many diverse medieval topics such as clothing, food, feasting, and tournaments, to have the facts at hand if needed during writing.[37] The series was in particular influenced by the Hundred Years' War, the Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade, and the Wars of the Roses,[78][89] although Martin refrained from making any direct adaptations.[78] Martin was also inspired by the French historical novels The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon, which are about the French monarchy in the 13th and 14th centuries.[2][3]

text: The story is written to follow principal landmarks with an ultimate destination, but leaves Martin room for improvisation. On occasion, improvised details significantly affected the planned story.[93] By the fourth book, Martin kept more private notes than ever before to keep track of the many subplots,[33] which became so detailed and sprawling by the fifth book as to be unwieldy.[23] Martin's editors, copy editors, and readers monitor for accidental mistakes,[33] although some errors have slipped into publication. For instance, Martin has inconsistently referred to certain characters' eye colors, and has described a horse as being of one sex and then another.[49]

text: Narrative structure[edit]

text:
Number of chapters per point-of-view character

[hide]POV character
Game
Clash
Storm
Feast
Dance
(Winds)
Sum

Bran Stark
7
7
4
–
3

21

Catelyn Stark
11
7
7
–
–

25

Daenerys Targaryen
10
5
6
–
10

31

Eddard Stark
15
–
–
–
–

15

Jon Snow
9
8
12
–
13

42

Arya Stark
5
10
13
3
2
≥1[55]
33

Tyrion Lannister
9
15
11
–
12
≥2[94]
47

Sansa Stark
6
8
7
3
–
≥1[55]
24

Davos Seaworth
–
3
6
–
4

13

Theon Greyjoy
–
6
–
–
7
≥1[60]
13

Jaime Lannister
–
–
9
7
1

17

Samwell Tarly
–
–
5
5
–

10

Cersei Lannister
–
–
–
10
2

12

Brienne of Tarth
–
–
–
8
–

8

Aeron Greyjoy
–
–
–
2
–
≥1[57]
2

Areo Hotah
–
–
–
1
1
≥1[95]
2

Asha Greyjoy
–
–
–
1
3

4

Arys Oakheart
–
–
–
1
–

1

Victarion Greyjoy
–
–
–
2
2
≥1[94]
4

Arianne Martell
–
–
–
2
–
≥2[55]
2

Quentyn Martell
–
–
–
–
4

4

Jon Connington
–
–
–
–
2

2

Melisandre
–
–
–
–
1

1

Barristan Selmy
–
–
–
–
4
≥2[96][97]
4

Prologue/Epilogue
1/–
1/–
1/1
1/–
1/1
1/
7

Total (characters)
73 (9)
70 (10)
82 (12)
46 (13)
73 (18)
TBD
344 (31)

text: The books are divided into chapters, each one narrated in the third person limited through the eyes of a point of view character,[49] an approach Martin learned himself as a young journalism student.[98] Beginning with nine POV characters in A Game of Thrones, the number of POV characters grows to a total of 31 in A Dance with Dragons (see table). The short-lived one-time POV characters are mostly restricted to the prologue and epilogue.[37] David Orr of The New York Times noted the story importance of "the Starks (good guys), the Targaryens (at least one good guy, or girl), the Lannisters (conniving), the Greyjoys (mostly conniving), the Baratheons (mixed bag), the Tyrells (unclear) and the Martells (ditto), most of whom are feverishly endeavoring to advance their ambitions and ruin their enemies, preferably unto death".[99] However, as Time's Lev Grossman noted, readers "experience the struggle for Westeros from all sides at once", such that "every fight is both triumph and tragedy [...] and everybody is both hero and villain at the same time".[100]

text: Modeled on The Lord of the Rings, the Ice and Fire story begins with a tight focus on a small group (with everyone in Winterfell, except Daenerys) and then splits into separate stories. The storylines are to converge again, but finding the turning point in this complex series has been difficult for Martin and has slowed down his writing.[21] Depending on the interview, Martin is said to have reached the turning point in A Dance with Dragons,[21] or to not quite have reached it yet in the books.[101] The series' structure of multiple POVs and interwoven storylines was inspired by Wild Cards, a multi-authored shared universe book series edited by Martin since 1985.[102] As the sole author, Martin begins each new book with an outline of the chapter order and may write a few successive chapters from a single character's viewpoint instead of working chronologically. The chapters are later rearranged to optimize character intercutting, chronology, and suspense.[37]

text: Influenced by his television and film scripting background, Martin tries to keep readers engrossed by ending each Ice and Fire chapter with a tense or revelational moment, a twist or a cliffhanger, similar to a TV act break.[103] Scriptwriting has also taught him the technique of "cutting out the fat and leaving the muscle", which is the final stage of completing a book, a technique that brought the page count in A Dance with Dragons down almost eighty pages.[104] Dividing the continuous Ice and Fire story into books is much harder for Martin. Each book shall represent a phase of the journey that ends in closure for most characters. A smaller portion of characters is left with clear-cut cliffhangers to make sure readers come back for the next installment, although A Dance with Dragons had more cliffhangers than Martin originally intended.[27][37] Both one-time and regular POV characters are designed to have full character arcs ending in tragedy or triumph,[37] and are written to hold the readers' interest and not be skipped in reading.[79] Main characters are killed off so that the reader will not rely on the hero to come through unscathed and will instead feel the character's fear with each page turn.[36]

text: The unresolved larger narrative arc encourages speculation about future story events.[49] According to Martin, much of the key to Ice and Fire's future lies over a dozen years in the fictional past, of which each volume reveals more.[25] Events planned from the beginning are foreshadowed, although Martin is careful not to make the story predictable.[101] The viewpoint characters, who serve as unreliable narrators,[21] may clarify or provide different perspectives on past events.[105] Therefore, what the readers believe to be true may not necessarily be true.[25]

text: Character development[edit]

text: Regarding the characters as the heart of the story,[106] Martin planned the epic Ice and Fire fantasy to have a large cast of characters and many different settings from the beginning.[21] A Feast for Crows has a 63-page list of characters,[7] with many of the thousands of characters mentioned only in passing[49] or disappearing from view for long stretches.[107] When Martin adds a new family to the ever-growing number of genealogies in the appendices, he devises a secret about the personality or fate of the family members. However, their backstory remains subject to change until written down in the story.[45] Martin drew most character inspiration from history (without directly translating historical figures)[25] and his own experiences, but also from the manners of his friends, acquaintances, and people of public interest.[33] Martin aims to "make my characters real and to make them human, characters who have good and bad, noble and selfish well-mixed in their natures".[37] Jeff VanderMeer of the Los Angeles Times remarked that "Martin's devotion to fully inhabiting his characters, for better or worse, creates the unstoppable momentum in his novels and contains an implied criticism of Tolkien's moral simplicity"[108] (see Themes: Moral ambiguity).

text: Martin deliberately ignored the writing rule of never giving two characters names starting with the same letter.[45] Instead, character names reflect the naming systems in various European family histories, where particular names were associated with specific royal houses and where even the secondary families assigned the same names repeatedly.[45] The Ice and Fire story therefore has children called "Robert" in honor of King Robert of House Baratheon, a "Brandon" in every other generation of the Starks in commemoration of Brandon the Builder (of the Wall), and the syllable "Ty" commonly occurring in given names of House Lannister.[31] Confident that readers would pay attention, Martin distinguished people sharing a given name[45] by adding numbers or locations to their given names (e.g. Henry V of England).[31] The family names were designed in association with ethnic groups (see backstory): the First Men in the North of Westeros had very simply descriptive names like Stark and Strong, whereas the descendants of the Andal invaders in the South have more elaborate, undescriptive house names like Lannister or Arryn, and the Targaryens and Valyrians from the Eastern continent have the most exotic names with the letter Y.[31]

text: All characters are designed to speak with their own internal voices to capture their views of the world.[37] The Atlantic pondered whether Martin ultimately intended the readers to sympathize with characters on both sides of the Lannister–Stark feud long before plot developments force them to make their emotional choices.[109] Contrary to most conventional epic fantasies, the Ice and Fire characters are vulnerable so that, according to The Atlantic, the reader "cannot be sure that good shall triumph, which makes those instances where it does all the more exulting."[84] Martin gets emotionally involved in the characters' lives during writing, which makes the chapters with dreadful events sometimes very difficult to write.[37] Seeing the world through the characters' eyes requires a certain amount of empathy with them, including the villains,[78] all of whom he has said he loves as if they were his own children.[79][106] Martin found that some characters had minds of their own and took his writing in different directions. He returns to the intended story if it does not work out, but these detours sometimes prove more rewarding for him.[45]

text: Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, and Daenerys Targaryen generate the most feedback from readers.[110] Martin has stated that Tyrion is his personal favorite, as the grayest of the gray characters, with his cunning and wit making him the most fun to write.[79] Martin has also said that Bran Stark is the hardest character to write. As the character most deeply involved in magic, Bran's story needs to be handled carefully within the supernatural aspects of the books. Bran is also the youngest viewpoint character,[37] and has to deal with the series' adult themes like grief, loneliness, and anger.[103] Martin set out to have the young characters grow up faster between chapters, but, as it was implausible for a character to take two months to respond, a finished book represents very little time passed. Martin hoped the planned five-year break would ease the situation and age the children to almost adults in terms of the Seven Kingdoms, but he later dropped the five-year gap (see section Bridging the timeline gap).[27][37]

text: Themes[edit]

text: Although modern fantasy may often embrace strangeness, the Ice and Fire series is generally praised for what is perceived as a sort of medieval realism.[99] Believing that magic should be used moderately in the epic fantasy genre,[26] Martin set out to make the story feel more like historical fiction than contemporary fantasy, with less emphasis on magic and sorcery and more on battles, political intrigue, and the characters.[25] Though the amount of magic has gradually increased throughout the story, the series is still to end with less overt magic than most contemporary fantasies.[37] In Martin's eyes, literary effective magic needs to represent strange and dangerous forces beyond human comprehension,[59] not advanced alien technologies or formulaic spells.[111] As such, the characters understand only the natural aspects of their world, but not the magical elements like the Others.[99]

text: Since Martin drew on historical sources to build the Ice and Fire world,[78] Damien G. Walter of The Guardian saw a strong resemblance between Westeros and England in the period of the Wars of the Roses.[112] The Atlantic's Adam Serwer regarded A Song of Ice and Fire as "more a story of politics than one of heroism, a story about humanity wrestling with its baser obsessions than fulfilling its glorious potential", where the emergent power struggle stems from the feudal system's repression and not from the fight between good and evil.[109] Martin not only wanted to reflect the frictions of the medieval class structures in the novels, but also explore the consequences of the leaders' decisions, as general goodness does not automatically make competent leaders and vice versa.[82]

text: A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil,[82] which Martin rejects for not mirroring the real world.[32] Attracted to gray characters,[113] Martin instead endorses William Faulkner's view that only the human heart in conflict with itself was worth writing about.[82] Martin explores the questions of redemption and character change in the Ice and Fire series.[114] The multiple viewpoint structure allows characters to be explored from many sides, such that the supposed villains can provide their viewpoint.[85][42]

text: Although fantasy comes from an imaginative realm, Martin sees an honest necessity to reflect the real world where people die sometimes ugly deaths, even beloved people.[37] Main characters are killed off so that the reader will not expect the supposed hero to survive, and instead will feel the same tension and fear that the characters might.[36] The novels also reflect the substantial death rates in war.[79] The deaths of supernumerary extras or orcs have no major effect on readers, whereas a friend's death has much more emotional impact.[101] Martin prefers a hero's sacrifice to say something profound about human nature.[27]

text: According to Martin, the fantasy genre rarely focuses on sex and sexuality,[37] instead often treating sexuality in a juvenile way or neglecting it completely.[78] Martin, however, considers sexuality an important driving force in human life that should not be excluded from the narrative.[114] Providing sensory detail for an immersive experience is more important than plot advancement for Martin,[21] who aims to let the readers experience the novels' sex scenes, "whether it's a great transcendent, exciting, mind blowing sex, or whether it's disturbing, twisted, dark sex, or disappointing perfunctory sex."[114] Martin was fascinated by medieval contrasts where knights venerated their ladies with poems and wore their favors in tournaments while their armies mindlessly raped women in wartime.[37] The non-existent concept of adolescence in the Middle Ages served as a model for Daenerys' sexual activity at the age of 13 in the books.[103] The novels also allude to the incestuous practices in the Ptolemaic dynasty of Ancient Egypt to keep their bloodlines pure.[115]

text: Martin provides a variety of female characters to explore the place of women in a patriarchal society.[101] Writing all characters as human beings with the same basic needs, dreams, and influences,[24] his female characters are to cover the same wide spectrum of human traits as the males.[101][24]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: Science Fiction Weekly stated in 2000 that "few would dispute that Martin's most monumental achievement to date has been the groundbreaking A Song of Ice and Fire historical fantasy series",[37] for which reviews have been "orders of magnitude better" than for his previous works, as Martin described to The New Yorker.[49] In 2007, Weird Tales magazine described the series as a "superb fantasy saga" that "raised Martin to a whole new level of success".[29] Shortly before the release of A Dance with Dragons in 2011, Bill Sheehan of The Washington Post was sure that "no work of fantasy has generated such anticipation since Harry Potter's final duel with Voldemort",[107] and Ethan Sacks of Daily News saw the series turning Martin into a darling of literary critics as well as mainstream readers, which was "rare for a fantasy genre that's often dismissed as garbage not fit to line the bottom of a dragon's cage".[60] Salon.com's Andrew Leonard stated:

text: The success is all the more remarkable because [the series debuted] without mass market publicity or any kind of buzz in the fantasy/SF scene. George R. R. Martin earned his following the hard way, by word of mouth, by hooking his characters into the psyche of his readers to an extent that most writers of fantasy only dream of.[116]

text: Publishers Weekly noted in 2000 that "Martin may not rival Tolkien or Robert Jordan, but he ranks with such accomplished medievalists of fantasy as Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson."[15] After the fourth volume came out in 2005, Time's Lev Grossman considered Martin a "major force for evolution in fantasy" and proclaimed him "the American Tolkien", explaining that, although Martin was "[not] the best known of America's straight-up fantasy writers" at the time and would "never win a Pulitzer or a National Book Award ... his skill as a crafter of narrative exceeds that of almost any literary novelist writing today".[48] As Grossman said in 2011, the phrase American Tolkien "has stuck to [Martin], as it was meant to",[100] being picked up by the media including The New York Times ("He's much better than that"),[117] the New Yorker,[49] Entertainment Weekly ("an acclaim that borders on fantasy blasphemy"),[23] The Globe and Mail,[51] and USA Today.[113] Time magazine named Martin one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011,[51] and USA Today named George R.R. Martin their Author of the Year 2011.[118]

text: According to The Globe and Mail's John Barber, Martin manages simultaneously to master and transcend the genre so that "Critics applaud the depth of his characterizations and lack of cliché in books that are nonetheless replete with dwarves and dragons".[51] Publishers Weekly gave favorable reviews to the first three Ice and Fire novels at their points of release, saying that A Game of Thrones had "superbly developed characters, accomplished prose and sheer bloody-mindedness",[11] that A Clash of Kings was "notable particularly for the lived-in quality of [their fictional world and] for the comparatively modest role of magic",[13] and that A Storm of Swords was one "of the more rewarding examples of gigantism in contemporary fantasy".[15] However, they found that A Feast For Crows as the fourth installment "sorely misses its other half. The slim pickings here are tasty, but in no way satisfying."[17] Their review for A Dance with Dragons repeated points of criticism for the fourth volume, and said that, although "The new volume has a similar feel to Feast", "Martin keeps it fresh by focusing on popular characters [who were] notably absent from the previous book."[19]

text: According to the Los Angeles Times, "Martin's brilliance in evoking atmosphere through description is an enduring hallmark of his fiction, the settings much more than just props on a painted stage", and the novels captivate readers with "complex storylines, fascinating characters, great dialogue, perfect pacing, and the willingness to kill off even his major characters".[108] CNN remarked that "the story weaves through differing points of view in a skillful mix of observation, narration and well-crafted dialogue that illuminates both character and plot with fascinating style",[85] and David Orr of The New York Times found that "All of his hundreds of characters have grace notes of history and personality that advance a plot line. Every town has an elaborately recalled series of triumphs and troubles."[99] Salon.com's Andrew Leonard "couldn't stop reading Martin because my desire to know what was going to happen combined with my absolute inability to guess what would happen and left me helpless before his sorcery. At the end, I felt shaken and exhausted."[119] The Christian Science Monitor advised reading the novels with an A Song of Ice and Fire encyclopedia at hand to "catch all the layered, subtle hints and details that [Martin] leaves throughout his books. If you pay attention, you will be rewarded and questions will be answered."[120]

text: Among the most critical voices were Sam Jordison and Michael Hann, both of The Guardian. Jordison detailed his misgivings about A Game of Thrones in a 2009 review and summarized "It's daft. It's unsophisticated. It's cartoonish. And yet, I couldn't stop reading .... Archaic absurdity aside, Martin's writing is excellent. His dialogue is snappy and frequently funny. His descriptive prose is immediate and atmospheric, especially when it comes to building a sense of deliciously dark foreboding [of the long impending winter]."[121] Hann did not consider the novels to stand out from the general fantasy genre, despite Martin's alterations to fantasy convention, although he rediscovered his childhood's views:

text: That when things are, on the whole, pretty crappy [in the real world], it's a deep joy to dive headfirst into something so completely immersive, something from which there is no need to surface from hours at a time. And if that immersion involves dragons, magic, wraiths from beyond death, shapeshifting wolves and banished princes, so be it.[122]

text: Sales[edit]

text: The reported overall sales figures of the A Song of Ice and Fire series vary. The New Yorker said in April 2011 (before the publication of A Dance with Dragons) that more than 15 million Ice and Fire books had been sold worldwide,[49] a figure repeated by The Globe and Mail in July 2011.[51] Reuters reported in September 2013 that the books including print, digital and audio versions have sold more than 24 million copies in North America.[124] The Wall Street Journal reported more than six million sold copies in North America by May 2011.[125] USA Today reported 8.5 million copies in print and digital overall in July 2011,[126] and over 12 million sold copies in print in December 2011.[118] The series has been translated into more than 20 languages;[10] USA Today reported the fifth book to be translated into over 40 languages.[113] Forbes estimated that Martin was the 12th highest-earning author worldwide in 2011 at $15 million.[127]

text: Martin's publishers initially expected A Game of Thrones to be a best-seller,[23] but the first installment did not even reach any lower positions in bestseller list.[58] This left Martin unsurprised, as it is "a fool's game to think anything is going to be successful or to count on it".[106] However, the book slowly won the passionate advocacy of independent booksellers and the book's popularity grew by word of mouth.[49] The series' popularity skyrocketed in subsequent volumes,[23] with the second and third volume making The New York Times Best Seller lists in 1999[38] and 2000,[40] respectively. The series gained Martin's old writings new attention, and Martin's American publisher Bantam Spectra was to reprint his out-of-print solo novels.[37]

text: The fourth installment, A Feast for Crows, was an immediate best-seller at its 2005 release,[23] hitting number one on "The New York Times" hardcover fiction bestseller list November 27, 2005, which for a fantasy novel suggested that Martin's books were attracting mainstream readers.[1] The paperback edition of A Game of Thrones reached its 34th printing in 2010, surpassing the one million mark.[128] Before it even premiered, the TV series had boosted sales of the book series, with Ice and Fire approaching triple-digit growth in year-on-year sales. Bantam was looking forward to seeing the tie-ins boost sales further,[53] and Martin's British publisher Harper Voyager expected readers to rediscover their other epic fantasy literature.[129] With a reported 4.5 million copies of the first four volumes in print in early 2011,[53] the four volumes re-appeared on the paperback fiction bestseller lists in the second quarter of 2011.[123][130]

text: At its point of publication in July 2011, A Dance with Dragons was in its sixth print with more than 650,000 hardbacks in print.[131] It also had the highest single and first-day sales of any new fiction title published in 2011 at that point, with 170,000 hardcovers, 110,000 e-books, and 18,000 audio books reportedly sold on the first day.[126] A Dance with Dragons reached the top of The New York Times bestseller list on July 31, 2011.[7] Unlike most other big titles, the fifth volume sold more physical than digital copies early on,[72] but nevertheless, Martin became the tenth author to sell 1 million Amazon Kindle e-books.[132] All five volumes and the four-volume boxed set were among the top 100 best-selling books in the United States in 2011 and 2012.[133]

text: The TV series has contributed significantly boosting sales of both the books and collectibles like box-sets, merchandise, and other items. The TV series also contributed in increasing the geographic coverage of the books, introducing new customers in emerging countries like India and Brazil to the book series. All this has significantly increased the overall book sales.

text: Fandom[edit]

text: During the 1980s and early 1990s, Martin's novels had slowly earned him a reputation in science fiction circles,[134] although he said to only have received a few fans' letters a year in the pre-internet days.[78] The publication of A Game of Thrones caused Martin's following to grow, with fan sites springing up and a Trekkie-like society of followers evolving that meet regularly.[134] Westeros.org, one of the main Ice and Fire fansites with about seventeen thousand registered members as of 2011, was established in 1999 by a Swedish-based fan of Cuban-American descent, Elio M. García, Jr., and his girlfriend; their involvement with Martin's work has now become semi-professional.[49] The Brotherhood Without Banners, an unofficial fan club operating globally, was formed in 2001. Their founders and other longtime members are among Martin's good friends.[49]

text: Martin runs an official website[7] and administers a lively blog with the assistance of Ty Franck.[49] He also interacts with fandom by answering emails and letters, although he stated in 2005 that their sheer numbers might leave them unanswered for years.[78] Since there are different types of conventions nowadays, he tends to go to three or four science-fiction conventions a year simply to go back to his roots and meet friends.[135] He does not read message boards anymore, so that his writing will not be influenced by fans foreseeing twists and interpreting characters differently from what he intended.[135]

text:
"After all, as some of you like to point out in your emails, I am sixty years old and fat, and you don't want me to 'pull a Robert Jordan' on you and deny you your book. Okay, I've got the message. You don't want me doing anything except A Song of Ice and Fire. Ever. (Well, maybe it's okay if I take a leak once in a while?)"

—George R. R. Martin on his blog in 2009[136]

text: While Martin calls the majority of his fans "great", and enjoys interacting with them,[27] some of them turned against him because of the six years it took to release A Dance with Dragons.[49] A movement of disaffected fans called GRRuMblers formed in 2009, creating sites such as Finish the Book, George and Is Winter Coming?.[49][51] When fans' vocal impatience for A Dance with Dragons peaked shortly after, Martin issued a statement called "To My Detractors"[136] on his blog that received media attention.[49][121][137] The New York Times noted that it was not uncommon for Martin to be mobbed at book signings either.[134] The New Yorker called this "an astonishing amount of effort to devote to denouncing the author of books one professes to love. Few contemporary authors can claim to have inspired such passion."[49]

text: Awards and nominations[edit]

text:
A Game of Thrones (1996) – Locus Award winner,[138] World Fantasy Award[139] and Nebula Award nominee, 1997[140]
A Clash of Kings (1998) – Locus Award winner,[138] Nebula Award nominee, 1999[140]
A Storm of Swords (2000) – Locus Award winner,[138] Hugo Award[141] and Nebula Awards nominee, 2001[142]
A Feast for Crows (2005) – Hugo,[143] Locus,[138] and British Fantasy Awards nominee, 2006[144]
A Dance with Dragons (2011) – Locus Award winner,[145] Hugo Award[146] and World Fantasy Award nominee, 2012[147]

tag: ul

text: Derived works[edit]

text: Novellas[edit]

text: Martin has written several prequel novellas. The Tales of Dunk and Egg series, three novellas set ninety years before the events of the novel series, feature the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire "Egg", the later King Aegon V Targaryen. The stories have no direct connection to the plot of A Song of Ice and Fire, although both characters are mentioned in A Storm of Swords and A Feast For Crows, respectively. The first installment, The Hedge Knight, was published in the 1998 anthology Legends. The Sworn Sword followed in 2003, published in Legends II.[42] Both were later adapted into graphic novels.[148] The third novella, titled The Mystery Knight, was first published in the 2010 anthology Warriors,[149] and is planned to be adapted as a graphic novel as well.[150] Martin planned to release the first three novellas as one collection in 2014.[151] Up to eight further Dunk and Egg installments are planned.[39]

text: The novella The Princess and the Queen or, the Blacks and the Greens appeared in Tor Books's 2013 anthology Dangerous Women, and explains some of the Targaryen backstory two centuries before the events of the novels.[152][153] The Rogue Prince, or, the King's Brother, published in the 2014 anthology Rogues, is itself a prequel to the events of The Princess and the Queen.[154]

text: Chapter sets from the novels were also compiled into three novellas that were released between 1996 and 2003 by Asimov's Science Fiction and Dragon:

text:
Blood of the Dragon (July 1996),[155] taken from the Daenerys chapters in A Game of Thrones.
Path of the Dragon (December 2000),[156] taken from the Daenerys chapters in A Storm of Swords.
Arms of the Kraken (March 2003),[157] based on the Iron Islands chapters from A Feast for Crows.

text: TV series[edit]

text: With the popularity of the series growing, HBO optioned A Song of Ice and Fire for a television adaptation in 2007.[52] A pilot episode was produced in late 2009, and a series commitment for nine further episodes was made in March 2010.[158] The series, titled Game of Thrones, premiered in April 2011 to great acclaim and ratings (see Game of Thrones: Reception). The network picked up the show for a second season covering A Clash of Kings two days later.[159] Shortly after the conclusion of the first season, the show received 13 Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, winning Outstanding Main Title Design and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Peter Dinklage's portrayal of Tyrion Lannister.[160] HBO announced a renewal for a third season in April 2012, ten days after the season 2 premiere.[161] Due to the length of the corresponding book, the third season only covered roughly the first half of A Storm of Swords.[162]

text: Shortly after the season 3 premiere in March 2013, the network announced that Game of Thrones would be returning for a fourth season, which would cover the second half of A Storm of Swords along with the beginnings of A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons.[163] Game of Thrones was nominated for 15 Emmy Awards for season 3.[164] Two days after the fourth season premiered in April 2014, HBO renewed Game of Thrones for a fifth and sixth season.[165] Season 5 premiered on April 12, 2015 and set a Guinness World Records for winning the highest number of Emmy Awards for a series in a single season and year, winning 12 out of 24 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series.[166][167] These episodes were watched by 8 million viewers, setting a record number for the series.[168] The sixth season premiered on April 24, 2016.[169] These episodes received the most nominations for the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards with 23, winning 12, including the award for Outstanding Drama Series.[170]

text: Other works[edit]

text: A Song of Ice and Fire spawned an industry of spin-off products. Fantasy Flight Games released a collectible card game, a board game, and two collections of artwork inspired by the Ice and Fire series.[171][172] Various roleplaying game products were released by Guardians of Order and Green Ronin.[173][174] Dynamite Entertainment adapted A Game of Thrones into a same-titled monthly comic in 2011.[175] Several video games are available or in production, including A Game of Thrones: Genesis (2011) and Game of Thrones (2012) by Cyanide;[176][177] both received mediocre ratings from critics.[178] A social network game titled Game of Thrones Ascent (2013) by Disruptor Beam allows players to live the life of a noble during the series' period setting.[179] Random House released an official map book called The Lands of Ice and Fire, which includes old and new maps of the Ice and Fire world.[180] The companion book The World of Ice & Fire by Martin and the Westeros.org owners Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson was published in October 2014.[49] Other licensed products include full-sized weapon reproductions,[181] a range of collectable figures,[182][183] Westeros coinage reproductions,[184] and a large number of gift and collectible items based on the HBO television series.[185] The popularity of the HBO series has made its version of the Iron Throne an icon of the entire media franchise.[186][187][188][189]


document_title: The Ren & Stimpy Show

question_text: who wrote the happy happy joy joy song

question_tokens: who wrote the happy happy joy joy song

root

text: The Ren & Stimpy Show

text: Premise[edit]

text: The series centers on Ren Höek (voiced by John Kricfalusi in seasons 1–2; Billy West in seasons 3–5), a short-tempered, "asthma-hound" Chihuahua,[3] and Stimpson J. "Stimpy" Cat (also voiced by Billy West), a 3-year-old[4] dimwitted and happy-go-lucky cat.[3] The duo fill various roles from episode to episode, including outer-space explorers, Old West horse thieves, and nature-show hosts,[5] and are usually at odds with each other in these situations. While the show was sometimes set in the present day, the show's crew tended to avoid "contemporary" jokes about current events.[6] The show extensively features off-color[7] and absurdist humor, and slapstick.[8]

tag: p

text: The show features a host of supporting characters. Some appear only in one episode, while others recur and occasionally appear in different roles (like Powdered Toast Man). They may either be part of the storyline, or make cameo appearances with little bearing on the plot. Some, such as Mr. Horse, are exclusively cameo-based, spontaneously appearing as a running gag.[9]

text: Development and history[edit]

text: Conception[edit]

text: According to animator William Wray, John Kricfalusi created the characters Ren and Stimpy in 1978 for "personal amusement" while studying at Sheridan College in his native Canada.[6] He was inspired to create Ren by an Elliott Erwitt photograph, printed on a postcard, called "New York City, 1946", showing a sweatered chihuahua at a woman's feet. Stimpy's design was inspired by a Tweety Bird cartoon called A Gruesome Twosome where the cats in the animation had big noses.[10]

text: When Nickelodeon approached Kricfalusi, he presented three shows, among them a variety show titled Your Gang[11] or Our Gang[6] with a live action host presenting different cartoons, each cartoon parodying a different genre. Ren and Stimpy were pets of one of the children in Your Gang, serving as a parody of the "cat and dog genre". The network's Vice President of Animation Production Vanessa Coffey was dissatisfied with the other projects but did like Ren and Stimpy, singling them out for their own series.[6][11] Production of the series' pilot episode began in 1989 after Kricfalusi pitched and sold The Ren & Stimpy Show to Nickelodeon.[12] The pilot was produced by Kricfalusi's Los Angeles-based animation company, Spümcø, and screened at film festivals for several months before the show was announced in Nickelodeon's 1991 cartoons line-up.[13]

text: Spümcø (1991–1993)[edit]

text: The series premiered on August 11, 1991 alongside Doug and Rugrats. Spümcø continued to produce the show for the next two years while encountering issues with Nickelodeon's Standards and Practices.[6] The show was known for its lack of early merchandising;[14] According to Wray, the initial lack of merchandise was "the unique and radical thing" about The Ren & Stimpy Show, as no toy company planned ahead for any merchandise for the show, and Nickelodeon did not want to use "over-exploitive" merchandising.[6]

text: Kricfalusi described his early period with Nickelodeon as being "simple", as he got along with Coffey, the sole executive of the program. When another executive was added, he wanted to alter or discard some of the Ren & Stimpy episodes, but Kricfalusi says the episodes stayed intact since he did a "trade" with Coffey: he would have some "really crazy" episodes in exchange for some "heart-warming" episodes.[15] Kricfalusi also said that the program was the "safest project [he] ever worked on" while explaining the meaning of "safe" as "spend a third of what they spend now per picture, hire proven creative talent, and let them entertain." He estimated Spümcø's run of The Ren & Stimpy Show cost around $6,000,000 to produce.[16]

text: The relationship between Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon deteriorated to the point where Kricfalusi would communicate with Nickelodeon only through his lawyer.[17] Several of the series' staff and news outlets ascribe the tension to episodes not being delivered in a timely manner.[18][19][20][21][22] Author Andy Mangels, writing for Wizard magazine, commented that "Kricfalusi's lax treatment of deadlines pissed off not only the networks, but his loyal viewers as well."[23] However, some of the delays were attributed to Nickelodeon's prolonged approval process[17] and withdrawal of approval from scenes and episodes that had been previously approved.[6][23][24] Another point of contention was the direction of the series. Nickelodeon later asked the new studio to make it lighter and less frightening.[6] Kricfalusi cites the episode "Man's Best Friend" as the primary reason for his dismissal;[25] the episode features a violent climax where Ren brutally assaults the character George Liquor with an oar as well as jokes involving fecal matter.

text: Games Animation (1993–95)[edit]

text: Nickelodeon terminated Kricfalusi's contract in late September 1992[22] and offered him the position of consultant for Ren & Stimpy, but he refused to "sell out".[24] The network moved production from Spümcø to its newly founded animation studio, Games Animation, which later became Nickelodeon Animation Studios.[26] Bob Camp replaced Kricfalusi as director,[27] while West, having refused Kricfalusi's request to leave along with him,[19] voiced Ren in addition to Stimpy.[6][21][28][29]

text: Fans and critics felt this was a turning point in the show, with the new episodes being a considerable step down from the standard of those that preceded them.[26][30] Ted Drozdowski, resident critic of The Boston Phoenix, stated that "the bloom faded on Ren & Stimpy."[31] Animation historian Michael Barrier writes that while the creators of the Games episodes used bathroom humor jokes that were similar to those used by Kricfalusi, they did not "find the material particularly funny; they were merely doing what was expected."[7]

text: The series ended its original run on December 16, 1995 with "A Scooter for Yaksmas", although one episode from the final season, "Sammy and Me/The Last Temptation", remained unaired.[32] Almost a year later, the episode aired on Nickelodeon's sister network, MTV, on October 20, 1996.[2]

text: Production[edit]

text: Process[edit]

text: The animation production methods used in The Ren & Stimpy Show were similar to those found in Golden Age cartoons of the early 20th century, where a director supervised the entire process.[9][33][34] These methods are in contrast to animation production methods in the 1980s, where there was one director for animation and a different director for voice actors, and the cartoons were created with a "top-down" approach to tie in with toy production.[12][35]

text: Animator Vincent Waller compared working on Ren & Stimpy and SpongeBob SquarePants in an interview: "Working on Ren and Stimpy and SpongeBob was very similar. They're both storyboard-driven shows, which means they give us an outline from a premise after the premise has been approved. We take the outline and expand on it, writing the dialogue and gags. That was very familiar."[36] According to Kricfalusi, Ren & Stimpy reintroduced the layouts stage, and reemphasized the storyboard stage.[37][38][39] Eventually, the production staff drew larger storyboard panels, which allowed for the stories to be easily changed according to reactions from pitch meetings, and for new ideas to be integrated.[40]

text: Animation[edit]

text: The show's aesthetics draw on Golden Age cartoons,[9][41][42] particularly those of animator Bob Clampett from the 1940s in the way the characters' emotions powerfully distort their bodies.[7] The show's style emphasizes unique expressions, intense and specific acting, and strong character poses.[11][43] One of the show's most notable visual trademarks is the detailed paintings of gruesome close-ups,[11] along with the blotchy ink stains that on occasion replace the standard backgrounds, "reminiscent of holes in reality or the vision of a person in a deep state of dementia".[44] This style was developed from Clampett's Baby Bottleneck, which features several scenes with color-cards for backgrounds.[25] The show incorporated norms from "the old system in TV and radio" where the animation would feature sponsored products to tie in with the cartoon, however in lieu of real advertisements, it featured fake commercial breaks advertising nonexistent products, most notably Log.[45]

text: Carbunkle Cartoons, an animation studio headed by Bob Jaques and Kelly Armstrong, is cited by Kricfalusi for animating the show's best episodes beautifully, improving the acting with subtle nuances and wild animation that could not be done with overseas animation studios.[43][46] Some of the show's earlier episodes were rough to the point that Kricfalusi felt the need to patch up the animation with sound effects and "music bandaids", helping the segments "play better, even though much of the animation and timing weren't working on their own."[47] KJ Dell'Antonia of Common Sense Media describes the show's style as changing "from intentionally rough to much more polished and plushie-toy ready."[48]

text: Voice acting[edit]

text: Kricfalusi originally voiced Ren, styled as a demented Peter Lorre.[11][12] When Nickelodeon terminated Kricfalusi's contract, Billy West, already the voice of Stimpy, took the role using a combination of Burl Ives, Kirk Douglas and a slight "south of the border accent" for the rest of the Nickelodeon run.[27] West voiced Stimpy for the Spümcø and Games Animation episodes, basing the voice on an "amped-up" Larry Fine.[11] Some notable artists and performers who voiced incidental characters on the show are Cheryl Chase, Frank Zappa, Randy Quaid, Gilbert Gottfried, Rosie O'Donnell, Dom DeLuise, Phil Hartman, Mark Hamill, Alan Young, Frank Gorshin and Tommy Davidson.[49]

text: Music[edit]

text: The Ren & Stimpy Show features a wide variety of music, spanning rockabilly, folk, pop, jazz, classical music, jingles, and more. The opening and closing themes are performed by a group of Spümcø employees under the name "Die Screaming Leiderhôsens".[50][51] Three Ren & Stimpy albums have been released: Crock O' Christmas, You Eediot!, and Radio Daze. In addition to music written specifically for the show, a number of episodes used existing works by composers such as jazz musician Raymond Scott, Claude Debussy, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Ludwig van Beethoven, Alexander Borodin, Antonín Dvořák, Gioachino Rossini (particularly The Thieving Magpie), and selections from production music libraries such as APM Music, which fans later compiled into several albums.[52][53] In 1993 a compilation album, "You Eediot!", was released as a soundtrack album. The album's front cover is a parody of The Beatles' 11th studio album Abbey Road.

text: Stimpy's rousing anthem titled "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" was composed by Christopher Reccardi[9] and written by Charlie Brissette and John Kricfalusi. A cover of this song, performed by Wax, is included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall for MCA Records. The line "happy, happy, joy, joy" is first used in episode three of the series; the song is first played in episode six. It is sung by a character introduced as "Stinky Whizzleteats",[54] who is named in the episode's script as Burl Ives, an American folk singer and actor.[55] The song liberally quotes numerous lyrics and lines of dialogue from Ives's films and records, creating a series of non sequiturs.

text: Controversy and censorship[edit]

text: Kricfalusi did not want to create an "educational" series, a stance which bothered Nickelodeon.[6] Parents groups decried the series.[56][57] Some segments of the show were altered to exclude references to religion, politics, and alcohol. The episode "Powdered Toast Man" had a cross removed from the Pope's hat and the credits changed to "the man with the pointy hat". The same episode had a segment featuring the burning of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights which was removed, while in "Dog Show" the last name of the character George Liquor was removed. Several episodes had violent, gruesome, or suggestive scenes shortened or removed, including a sequence involving a severed head, a close-up of Ren's face being grated by a man's stubble, and a scene where Ren receives multiple punches to the stomach from an angry baby. One episode, "Man's Best Friend", was shelved by Nickelodeon for its violent content. The show's spin-off, Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", debuted with this "banned" episode.[25][58][59][60][61]

text: Episodes[edit]

text:
Season
Episodes[b]
Originally aired

First aired
Last aired

1
6
August 11, 1991 (1991-08-11)
February 23, 1992 (1992-02-23)

2
12
August 15, 1992 (1992-08-15)
May 23, 1993 (1993-05-23)

3
10
November 20, 1993 (1993-11-20)
July 30, 1994 (1994-07-30)

4
14
October 1, 1994 (1994-10-01)
April 1, 1995 (1995-04-01)

5
10
June 3, 1995 (1995-06-03)
December 16, 1995 (1995-12-16)

tag: table

text: The series ran for five seasons, spanning 52 episodes.[1] The show was produced by Kricfalusi's animation studio Spümcø for the first two seasons. Beginning with season three (1993–94), the show was produced by Nickelodeon's Games Animation. The episode "Man's Best Friend" was produced for season two, but the episode was shelved and debuted with the show's adult spin-off. Another episode, "Sammy and Me / The Last Temptation", aired on MTV on October 20, 1996, almost a year after the original Nickelodeon run ended.[2]

text: Reception[edit]

text: The Ren & Stimpy Show received widespread critical acclaim.[41] Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, praised the show for its outrageousness.[62] Terry Thoren, former CEO and president of Klasky Csupo, said that Kricfalusi "tapped into an audience that was a lot hipper than anybody thought. He went where no man wanted to go before – the caca, booger humor".[63] Jonathan Valania of The Morning Call called it "high voltage yuks and industrial-strength weirdness",[17] John Lyttle of The Independent described it as "a gooey media meltdown, absolutely grotesque and instantly recognisable" and did not consider it a children's cartoon.[64] The show came to garner high ratings for Nickelodeon,[12][17][18][41][65] averaging three times the viewership of the other Nickelodeon cartoons[66] and becoming for its first year the most popular cable TV show in the United States.[67] The show quickly developed a cult following in college campuses.[23][64][66]

text: Legacy and influence[edit]

text: The immediate influence of the show was the spawning of two "clones": Hanna-Barbera's 2 Stupid Dogs, in which Spümcø employees including Kricfalusi had some limited involvement after their departure from Ren & Stimpy; and Disney's The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show.[3] However, the show had a wider influence on the future of animation.[11][44] Mike Judge credits MTV's willingness to commission Beavis and Butt-head to the success of Ren & Stimpy on the network.[68] Writer Larry Brody credits Ren & Stimpy for leading a new golden age of animation, as other networks followed Nickelodeon and invested in new cartoons, opening the way for more adult-oriented satirical shows like Beavis and Butt-head and South Park.[69] Writer/animator Allan Neuwirth writes that Ren & Stimpy "broke the mold" and started several trends in TV animation, chiefly the revival of credits at the beginning of each episode, the use of grotesque close-ups, and a shift in cartoon color palettes to richer, more harmonious colors.[11] A direct influence can be seen in the series SpongeBob SquarePants with sexual innuendos, the use of the same music pieces, and physically extreme drawings that contrast with the characters' usual appearance, the "grotesque close-ups".[70]

text: The characters are featured and parodied in numerous works.[71] Ren & Stimpy placed 31st in TV Guide's list of "Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" in 2002.[72] The cover story of the October 2001 issue of Wizard, a magazine for comic book fans, listed the 100 Greatest Toons ever as selected by their readers, with Ren & Stimpy ranked at number 12.[73] Other entertainment journals similarly hold Ren & Stimpy as one of the best cartoons of the '90s and cartoons for adults.[74][75][76][77]

text: Revivals[edit]

text: Adult Party Cartoon (2003)[edit]

text: In 2003, Kricfalusi relaunched the series as Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". The new version was aired during a late night programming block on Spike TV and was rated TV-MA. The series, as the title implies, explores more adult themes, including an explicitly homosexual relationship between the main characters,[78] and an episode filled with female nudity.[79] Billy West declined to participate in the show, saying that the show was "not funny" and that joining it would have damaged his career.[80] Eric Bauza voiced Stimpy, while Kricfalusi reprised the role of Ren. The show began with the "banned" Nickelodeon episode "Man's Best Friend" before debuting new episodes. Fans and critics alike were polarized by the show from the first episode,[13] which featured the consumption of bodily fluids such as nasal mucus, saliva and vomit.[78] Only three of the ordered nine episodes were produced on time. After three episodes, Spike's entire animation block was removed from its programming schedule.[81]

text: Exclusion from further revivals[edit]

text: In February 2016, Deadline.com reported that Ren & Stimpy was scheduled to appear in an upcoming Nicktoons film reboot.[82] Three months later, Variety reported that Nickelodeon was in negotiations with Kricfalusi about a revival of the characters.[83] Bob Camp and William Wray stated in an April 2016 panel discussion that Kricfalusi was developing a Ren & Stimpy short that would screen along with the third SpongeBob SquarePants film. They later said that they were "not invited to that party" and would not be involved with the production.[84] However, Kricfalusi denied reports that he was making such a cartoon on Twitter.[85] At the Wizard World Cleveland convention in March 2017, Camp said that Paramount Pictures rejected a pitch for a Ren & Stimpy feature film; Paramount did not want "anything to do" with Ren & Stimpy and they would consequently not be rebooted, primarily because of the overwhelmingly negative reception of Adult Party Cartoon.[86]

text: Home releases[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: VHS, LaserDisc, UMD[edit]

text: Sony Wonder initially distributed collections of episodes of The Ren & Stimpy Show on VHS, which were not grouped by air dates or season.[87] Eventually, the rights for Nickelodeon's programming on home video transferred from Sony to Paramount Home Video. Paramount only released one video of The Ren & Stimpy Show, "Have Yourself a Stinky Little Christmas", which was actually a rerelease of a Sony video from several years earlier.[original research?]

text: During the mid and late 1990s, a themed selection of The Ren & Stimpy Show episodes were released in a number of VHS releases in Australia by Nickelodeon and Paramount Home Entertainment. Most of the videos were G-classified due to some scenes that were cut but other certain videos were classified PG. The Ren & Stimpy Show was also released on LaserDisc in the United States by Sony Wonder. There was only one release, "Ren and Stimpy: The Essential Collection", which featured the same episodes as the VHS release.[citation needed] On September 25, 2005, a compilation titled The Ren & Stimpy Show: Volume 1 was released in the U.S. on UMD, the proprietary media for the PlayStation Portable.[citation needed]

text: DVD[edit]

text: United States[edit]

text: Time–Life released several episodes of The Ren & Stimpy Show in a "Best of" set in September 2003.[88] This set is now out of print.[89] On October 12, 2004, Paramount Home Entertainment released the first two complete seasons in a three-disc box set. Although the cover art and press materials said the episodes were "uncut", a handful of episodes were, in fact, edited, due to the use of Spike TV masters.[90] One of the episodes from the second season, "Svën Höek", did have footage reinserted from a work-in-progress VHS tape, but with an editing machine timecode visible on-screen; the scene was later restored by fans. Three other episodes ("Powdered Toast Man", "Dog Show", and "Big House Blues") contain extra footage that wasn't originally broadcast on Nickelodeon.[91] The DVD set even includes the banned episode "Man's Best Friend" as a bonus feature. A set for "Seasons Three and a Half-ish", containing all of season three and the first half of season four up to "It's a Dog's Life/Egg Yölkeo", followed on June 28, 2005.[30][92] Season Five and Some More of Four completed the DVD release of the Nickelodeon series on July 20.[93] Like the previous DVDs, some scenes were removed in these releases.[citation needed]

text: A two-disc set dubbed The Lost Episodes was released on July 17, 2006, featuring both the aired and unaired episodes from "Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon", as well as clips from unfinished cartoons.[94]

text: Paramount was scheduled to release "The Mostly Complete Collection", a 9-disc set that combines the individual season discs into a single package, on February 6, 2018.[95]

text: Europe[edit]

text: The original series was released entirely as a 9-disc set in Germany on October 4, 2013. After people said that two episodes on the second disc were not completely uncensored, Turbine Classics offered to send everybody with proof of purchase an uncensored disc.[96] The set comprises a mix of the known US airings and the German TV airings which included some exclusive scenes of various episodes. Since the set is the first to include all scenes ever broadcast worldwide, it is considered the first truly uncensored DVD release of the series.[97][98]

text: Other media[edit]

text: Video games[edit]

text: Several Ren & Stimpy-themed games have been produced. Most of the games were produced by THQ.

text:
Title
Platform
Year

Ren and Stimpy: Space Cadet Adventures
Game Boy
1992

The Ren & Stimpy Show: Buckaroo$!
NES and Super NES
1993

The Ren & Stimpy Show: Veediots!
Super NES and Game Boy
1993

Ren Hoek and Stimpy: Quest for the Shaven Yak
Sega Game Gear and Sega Master System
1993, 1995

Ren & Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention
Sega Genesis
1993

Ren & Stimpy Show Part II: Fire Dogs
Super NES
1994

Ren & Stimpy Show Part III: Time Warp
Super NES
1994

Nicktoons Racing
PC, PlayStation, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance
2000, 2001

Ren & Stimpy Pinball
Mobile
2004

Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots
Wii and PlayStation 2
2007

Nicktoons MLB
Nintendo DS, Wii, and Xbox 360
2011

text: Software[edit]

text: Ren and Stimpy were included in several Nickelodeon-themed activity and crafts software for computers. Ren and Stimpy were also created in full 3D for Microsoft's Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker.

text: Comic books[edit]

text: Marvel Comics optioned the rights to produce comic books based on Nickelodeon properties in 1992. The initial plan was to have an anthology comic featuring several Nicktoons properties. Marvel produced 44 issues of the ongoing series, along with several specials under the Marvel Absurd imprint. Most of these were written by comic scribe Dan Slott. One Ren & Stimpy special #3, Masters of Time and Space, was set up as a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' and with a time travel plot, took Slott six months to plot out in his spare time. It was designed so that it was possible to choose a path that would eventually be 20 pages longer than the comic itself. Issue #6 of the series starred Spider-Man battling Powdered Toast Man. The editors named the "Letters to the Editor" section "Ask Dr. Stupid", and at least one letter in every column would be a direct question for Dr. Stupid to answer.[99]

text: Issues

text:
[show]Issue #
Caption
Release date

1
THE REN & STIMPY SHOW
December 1992

2

January 1993

3
MAKE WAY FOR EL SUPREMO REN!
February 1993

4
CRASH DUMMIES
March 1993

5
IN SPACE
April 1993

6
THE AMAZING SPIDER MAN VS. POWDERED TOAST MAN
May 1993

7
KID STIMPY
June 1993

8
THE MALTESE STIMPY!
July 1993

9
NATIVE SON
August 1993

10
BUBBLE BATH?
September 1993

11

October 1993

12
I SCREAM CLONES!
November 1993

13
HOKEY HALLOWEEN HORROR!
December 1993

14
WANTED BRAIN DEAD OR ALIVE
January 1994

15

February 1994

16
RETURN TO SENDER
March 1994

17

April 1994

18
WAR IS HECK
May 1994

19

June 1994

20
HERE'S MUDDY!
July 1994

21
I'M THE CAT
August 1994

22
BADTIME STORIES
September 1994

23
MADCAP RASSLIN' ISSUE!
October 1994

24
BOX TOPS!
November 1994

25

December 1994

26

January 1995

27
RAIDERS OF THE LOST YAK
February 1995

28
REN AND STIMPY MATCH WITS WITH AN APE...GUESS WHO WON?
March 1995

29
DEFECTIVE DETECTIVE ISSUE STARRING SHERLOCK HOEK
April 1995

30
REN'S BIRTHDAY
May 1995

31
WEINER BARONS
June 1995

32
CIRCUS SMIRKUS
July 1995

33

August 1995

34
I'M FEELTHY RICH!
September 1995

35

October 1995

36
CRABBY CABBIES
November 1995

37
ALIENS ABDUCT
December 1995

38
TOILET TROUBLE
January 1996

39
IMPERSONAL HYGIENE!
February 1996

40

March 1996

41

April 1996

42

May 1996

43

June 1996

44
LAST ISSUE (as seen on TV)
July 1996

text: Nick–Fox film deal[edit]

text: Nickelodeon and 20th Century Fox signed a two-year production deal in May 1993 for the development and production of animated and live-action family films, based on new or existing properties. Ren & Stimpy was mentioned as a possible property for development, along with Rugrats and Doug; however, the show's "cynical and gross humor" was a poor fit for a conventional, "warm and fuzzy" family film.[100][101] The deal expired with no movies produced. Nickelodeon would later start its own film studio after parent company Viacom purchased Paramount Pictures.


document_title: State of Origin

question_text: when was the first game of state of origin played

text: State of Origin

text: History[edit]

text: The first recorded call for 'state of origin' selection rules for interstate football was made in 1900. A journalist known as "The Cynic" writing for a rugby football periodical called The Referee, suggested that Stephen Spragg, who had moved to Queensland, should be able to play for his state of birth, New South Wales.[1] The change did not eventuate, with residential selection rules prevailing both before and after the split into rugby league and rugby union until the concept was later resurrected for league. However, in rugby union the concept has never been used, as the Queensland and New South Wales teams ceased to be representative, instead becoming more like clubs.

text: The Australia rugby union[2] first came up with the concept and at the same time the Blue and Maroon Jersey was born back in 1899, it was then when the first Rugby Union test match was played. The opponent at the time were actually the touring British Isles team and a three tests series was played — two in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Because there was no national jersey, the team wore the jersey of the state in which they were playing, but with the Australian Coat of Arms in place of the state emblem or logo.

text: Therefore, for the first and third tests in Sydney, the jersey was blue with the coat of arms and for the second test in Brisbane the jersey was maroon. This was also an indication of the makeup of the team which was dominated by New South Wales for the tests played in Sydney and by Queensland players for the tests played in Brisbane.

text: Rugby league (Australia)[edit]

text: Traditionally, the basis for selecting players in representative international sides (i.e. their country of origin) did not extend to interstate sides in Australian rugby league. Instead players represented the state in which they played their club football as per the 'residency rule', in which they played for the club which represented the district they lived in. This gave a significant advantage to New South Wales as the movement of players south was far greater than the movement north.

text: Former Queensland captain and Australian vice-captain Jack Reardon, who had later become a journalist, was the first to suggest that Sydney-based Queenslanders should be available for selection to represent their state.[3] This would not eventuate until decades later however, when New South Wales and Queensland played their first "state of origin" match on 8 July 1980. The Australian rules experience was echoed, with Queenslanders showing enormous interest in the game at Lang Park, Brisbane, although NSW-based players and journalists described it as "the non-event of the century". Queensland defeated New South Wales in that match, and State of Origin has grown into Australia's greatest sporting rivalry.

text: The popularity of State of Origin matches since then has not waned and they remain one of Australia's (and indeed the region's) biggest sporting events. A record crowd of 88,336 attended a game at Stadium Australia in 1999. The record for the annual three game series was set in 2004, when a total of 203,309 people attended. The 2005 series saw an attendance record for a series with two matches in Queensland, with 187,374.[4] The record television audience was set during game 1 of the 2009 series and stands at 3.48 million.[5] Queensland has won 18 series from 1982–2013, and NSW has won 13, with 2 drawn. Queensland have won the most series in a row. (8 Series 2006–2013).

text: Australian international teams are often selected based on performance in the State of Origin series.

text: New South Wales play in sky blue jerseys and are known as "the Blues", a term dating from 1974 when a journalist used the name in an article. The Blues won that series, leading coach Jack Gibson to comment "I thought they went pretty well for a bunch of cockroaches". The Queensland team plays in a maroon jersey, and are called "the Maroons". Both teams also have unbecoming nicknames — New South Wales: "the Cockroaches"; Queensland: "the Cane Toads".

text: Australian football[edit]

text: The first 'state of origin' game was an Australian Football game between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Oval in Perth on 8 October 1977.[6] Leon Larkin, marketing manager of the Subiaco Football Club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL), negotiated with the VFL for two years, before arrangements for the game were finalised.[6] In the words of football historian John Devaney:

text: A Western Australian team comprised entirely of home-based players had, on 25 June, taken on a Victorian team containing many of the same players who would return to Perth ... for the state of origin clash. The respective scores of the two matches offered a persuasive argument, if such were needed, of the extent to which the VFL had denuded the WAFL of its elite talent:

text:
On 25 June 1977 Victoria 23.16 (154) defeated Western Australia 13.13 (91) — a margin of 63 points
On 8 October 1977 Western Australia 23.13 (151) defeated Victoria 8.9 (57) — a margin of 94 points, representing an overall turn around of 157 points

text: Games involving each of the other states soon followed. In 1989, a crowd of 91,960 people — a record for interstate games in Australian rules — attended a game between Victoria and South Australia at the MCG.[7]

text: However, attendance and interest declined during the 1990s, due to a variety of factors, such as the VFL's ongoing conversion into a national club competition,[8] the Australian Football League (AFL). The last official state of origin game involving AFL players was held in 1999.[9] However, an annual veterans' game is still held.

text: A one-off AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match between a Victorian state of origin side and the Dream Team representing the other states, was staged on 10 May 2008 to celebrate 150 years of Australian Football.

text: Rugby league (England)[edit]

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: The success of the State of Origin series in Australian rugby league resulted in the revival of England's inter-county games in 2001, under the name Origin Series. However, the revival was scrapped in 2003 amid increasing fixture congestion and general apathy from league supporters.

text: The International Origin Match, held from 2011 to 2013, was more of an all-star game, as it pitted the England national team against Australian and New Zealand stars in the largely English-based Super League.

text: Other State of Origin events[edit]

text: Due to the success of the larger State of Origin events, many sporting clubs and or association have started their own annual State of Origin series across Australia and New Zealand. Rivalry is high in sports and its proven to be a great concept. Predominantly the sporting organization or associations adopt their Team Colours as uniforms, its team building and holds significant passion for there event.

text: In Australia, sprint car racing often uses a State of Origin format in registering car numbers. Each driver's car number is preceded in official results sheets by their home state. Foreign drivers are also designated in the State of Origin format. In some instances, a team's state of origin will be used instead of a driver.

text:
A1 – Current national sprint car champion.
ACT – Australian Capital Territory (Canberra, et al.)
NSW (or N) – New South Wales
NQ – North Queensland
NT – Northern Territory
Q (or QLD) – Queensland
S (or SA) – South Australia
T – Tasmania
V – Victoria
W – Western Australia

text: Foreign drivers are also given a State of Origin code:

text:
NZ – New Zealand
US – United States

text: In addition, during the 2016–17 season, Valvoline Raceway in Clyde, NSW, on January 12, will institute the inaugural State of Origin for sprint car racing. The State of Origin contest will also feature a "guest" foreign team of drivers, as it is held in January.[10]