Talk:Wars in A Song of Ice and Fire

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Contents 1 War of the Five Kings 2 Spoilers, etc. 3 Daenerys Targaryen 4 War North of the Wall 5 Other Wars 6 Changes to format 7 Timeline? 8 Tower of Joy Capitalization

[edit] War of the Five Kings

As promised/threatened, I've begun a section on the War of the Five Kings. More will follow shortly. Brendan 03:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm back at work on this after a longer-than-expected hiatus. I'm just trying to lay down groundwork here; I imagine what I've produced is confusing and uneven, and I encourage anyone who wants to to add/subtract/revise as necessary. Brendan 00:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

And an even longer hiatus this time. I'm not good with military history and tactics, so someone should look over the Battle of the Blackwater material and make sure it's right. I'll try to add another section soon, but no promises. I think one more discussing what happens to Robb in Clash and Storm, and then a general one on Stannis, Balon, and Joffrey/Tommen, should bring it up to the "present." Then I can work on making it actually, you know, good. Brendan Moody 21:15, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spoilers, etc.

Some of this should be enclosed in spoiler warnings, mainly the part about Aerys' plan to blow up King's Landing and Jaime thwarting it. This isn't revealed until midway through A Storm of Swords, and is an important revelation I don't think the reader should be aware of during the first two books.

Also, the part on Robert's Rebellion should cover Ned Stark and Howland Reed's battle against the remaining loyal members of the Kingsguard.

TJSwoboda 05:13, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead, do it. As for spoiler warnings, I find them absurd in an encyclopaedia. But by all means, let's put them in. Arbor 08:07, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I've added Stark and Reed's battle against the White Bull and the Sword of the Morning. Would it be appropriate to mention that Eddard's memories of the battle form the core of the evidence for two theories about Jon Snow's parentage? Eddard met Ashara Dayne after this battle and she is often rumoured to be Jon's mother (in the novel's world, at least). Also, it was not uncommon for a woman to die in labour, or die of fever afterwards (see Childbirth, the section on complications). --Someone Who's Read the Novels Too Bloody Often

No. Speculation has no place on Wikipedia. (In fact, I don't think a skirmish between 10 people could be called a battle anyway...) Arbor 19:56, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

It might have been only a small skirmish, but it is still important to the history of the Seven Kingdoms. It was the end of Aerys's Kingsguard and Lyanna Stark, who was in some ways the cause of the war (*cough*Helen*cough*). Lyanna's death and the promise she extracted from her brother seem to be tied up in some secret Lord Stark took to the grave, one that troubled him for years.

[edit] Daenerys Targaryen

I've added some information on her campaign along Slaver's Bay. The conquest of three major cities, with the sacking of one, counts as a war, I should think. Everything is drawn from the Daenerys chapters of Storm of Swords. I added the information on the Unsullied because they were the core of her army and I don't think they merit their own article.

--Someone Who's Read the Novels Too Bloody Often

It certainly does count as a war, although it should be remembered that Yunkai was not actually captured, it merely released its slaves at Daenerys' order. The ending of ASoS and spoiler chapters for ADWD reveal that Yunkai is one of the prime movers of discontent against Dany's rule of Meereen and Astapor.--Werthead 18:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] War North of the Wall

I think the on going Campaigns of the Night's Watch against the Wildlings and the Others should be covered in this article esp the Battle at the Fist of the First Men and the Battle at Castle Black. I'm not sure everyone would consider this a "War" but they are important enough battles to warrant their inclusion here, I think. Thoughts? NeoFreak 17:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. At the very least Mance's attack of the Wall should be listed.Captain Crawdad 21:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other Wars

I've added information on other important wars from the history of the Seven Kingdoms, at the request of several users on asoiaf.westeros.org. Technically these are wars in the history to the books, rather than wars in the books themselves (although the Blackfyre Rebellion would qualify as it forms the backdrop to The Sworn Sword), but they are all important and related to the plot of the story itself. I've stopped with the post-Conquest conflicts just to check reaction before adding pre-Conquest conflicts (the War against the Night's King, the Andal Invasion, the War for the Dawn against the Others etc). Feedback appreciated! --Werthead 19:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

After a lengthy discussion with Ran and others on Westeros.org, I decided that I'd added too much of my own speculation to the War of Conquest section. I'd assumed the order of events was pretty much cut-and-dried but discussion with others convinced me otherwise. Thus I've merely described the beats of the war and not the order they took place in.--Werthead 22:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. We should be trying for as accurate of a timeline as possible to steer more towards an encyclopedic tone than one that is bascily a polt summary. I know that alot of the tone of the books being mostly first person POV that anything prior to the first book or outside the Dunk and Egg stories is really conjecture so it can be hard. Has Ran shown shown any intrest in Wikipedia or are his hands full with Westeros.org and the new "world book"? NeoFreak 15:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

And a full-time job as well. Yeah, I think that Ran would probably feel that contributing to Wiki would be too much with running the site and writing the new book. And my thought was that if he's not contributing here, he's writing the world book, the world book comes out faster, and we can raid it for stuff for the Wiki. So, in that convoluted and corny way, Ran is already contributing to the Wiki ;) --Werthead 19:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to format

I'm not so sure the drastic changes to the format esp of the War of the Five Kings section is constructive. IMO it adds too many subsections, makes things too clunky and is too confusing. I also don't like the heading changes. Still, there is alot of good formating and great information in the actual body of the articles and I want to keep alot of that as its good stuff and the editor obviously put alot of work into it. Can I get some opinions from the other editors/readers before I make any changes or reverts?

I'm all for big edits (I do it all the time) but some discussion about big changes to other people's work in the Talk section is polite and could avoid unnecessary additional edits. This is something I'm guily of myself in the past so I know by experience that it makes things smoother for everyone.NeoFreak 18:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there are too many subsections. 5-8 would be more reasonable, one for each major phase of the conflict. Every single battle doesn't need a subsection, especially when there's almost nothing to say about some of them. The content looks good, though of course it needs a little proofreading. Brendan Moody 21:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. The content needs some reorganization.Captain Crawdad 21:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

If this is the general consensus then I'll go ahead and makes the reverts. The only problem is that there has been so much done I'm not sure I can fix it with out some pretty big reverts in which case we'll lose alot of that material mentioned. Any ideas how to go about this?NeoFreak 01:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

How about this:

Early Phases, describing the Ser Gregor's ravaging of the riverlands and Lord Eddard's dispatching Beric Dondarrion. Add the battle under the Golden Tooth and the siege of Riverrun. I think this section can include events up to the Whispering Wood and the coronation of King Robb, King Stannis, and King Renly. After this, the material can be broken down by 'theater': the riverlands and the west, Storm's End, King's Landing, and Winterfell. I think the assault on Dragonstone should be reckoned as the end of the war. --24.178.78.179 02:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The previous setup is one that the others and I think worked best, you can check it out for yourself in the history logs prior to Cybroleach's edits. My inclination is a total revert to the old format as this one is, pardon my stong language, terrible and bascily has zero redeeming qualities in its present form. The only problem is that a total revert to the old format will cause the loss of alot of info that doesn't deserve the ax and I'm not yet ready for the headache of manually combing for, digging out and then putting back in all that info.

As for your suggestion of format I think that's not a bad idea, it's pretty much what we had before but I wouldn't say that the War of the Five Kings has ended yet and information on the actual results from Dragonstone are sparse and secondhand. Without more concrete info on this (supposed) battle I don't think it can be included yet. Maybe in a "intial reports from Dragonstone indicate" type format. I also can't really justify saying the War is over, just that some faction have already been knocked out. With current events we might see an expansion of the War or even a reclassification of the entire conflict so to declare it "over" is, in my mind, premature. NeoFreak 02:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I don't think new pages should be created willy-nilly, perhaps the overload of information would possibly justify giving the War of the Five Kings its own page? On the one hand, this may be redundant. The course of the war is basically the principle storyline of the first four books in the series, so could be covered by entries on the novel entries themselves. OTOH, there are lots of minor skirmishes and engagements in the WotFK that wouldn't warrant much of a mention in a synopsis (Ashemark and Oxcross, for example). Also, my previous plan to include the ancient wars of Westeros (the war of the First Men and the Children, the War for the Dawn, the War of the Night's King, the Andal Invasion, the Rhoynar Invasion etc) might make this page too large if the War of the Five Kings stays as it is.--Werthead 12:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say that is an option that should be seriously considered, yes. We would have to standardize the way in which we construct and then organize individual "War" pages and then figure out how to deal with the inevidable "misc War" page. I don't think we are quite there yet but maybe a pre and post Conquest "Wars" page? Eiter way the change to the War of the Five Kings section has to go and I'm not going to wait much longer for others to weight in befire I just revert it. Your stuff on the asoiaf.westeros message boards on the Wars looks just great and I can't wait until we can wiki it. NeoFreak 12:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Currently, the level of granularity is wrong. There is too much plot summary. That's not what we need. We do need the hard and fast information (who killed whom, who was wounded where, how many weeks did this siege last, how many men attacked that castle according to which maester). That's good, verifiable, but difficult-to-assemble-yourself, encyclopaedic information. But we don't need plot summaries (for example, we don't need motivations, explanations, colourful descriptions). So I encourage you/us/anybody to edit the current page and make it a lot shorter. Leave facts, remove descriptions. Write meaty body texts and lists, don't write headlines and stubby paragraphs. Arbor 13:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

That was simlar to my line of thinking however i can see now how making so many manute sub-sub heading ruined where i was going with it as ièm quite new at this but have devoted vast amouts of time to ASOIAF and thought i could contribute some of it here. As you say the current summary is about the story rather than the War also there are unnoticed errors that are not consistent with the books.--Cybroleach 20:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)cybroleach

Actually, I meant just having a page on The War of the Five Kings (possibly including events in the North and Slaver's Bay) and possibly, once George has released more information about it, The War of the Usurper. I don't think any of the other wars warrant individual pages at this time, although the recently-announced Companion book [1] may expand on Aegon's War of Conquest and may warrant that war getting its own page eventually.--Werthead 15:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I think both the War of the Usurper and the War of the Five Kings are more than long enough to have their own page. Cut those two out of this page, and the length of this page becomes a whole lot more manageable again. Thoughts? Paul Willocx 18:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Ya i think a split of the information would go nicely, however i think a split between the historical wars (pre AGOT) and the ones we read about in the books (post AGOT) would be better served as the point to split it that way anyone wanting to look at the wars of the past in Martinworld but have yet to read or finish the series woln't spoil it for them. --Cybroleach 20:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

We now have a War of the Five Kings and a The War of the Usurper page. Erm, how do you change titles? I put 'THE' by accident in the War of the Usurper page and it's kind of lame. Cheers.--Werthead 14:14, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. (Answer: the "move" tab.) Arbor 18:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Cheers :-) --Werthead 20:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline?

If someone could be bothered to make a timeline of the War of the Five Kings, it would be useful, I think. I particularly have my doubts about the Blackwater being dubbed "late 299", when the Red Wedding is also supposedly "late 299". After all, the former is the climax of book 2, while the latter doesn't occur until the second half of SoS. Is there so little time between the two? --Paul Willocx 12:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

From my own calculations, the Blackwater is around 8 October 299, and the Red Wedding is on 16 November. But we cannot have a timeline here because of WP:NOR. The "late 299" information is already stretching it. Arbor 12:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. There is not enough hard information for a proper timeline. In the entire series, we are only given one firm date, namely that Joffrey and Margaery marry on the first day of 300 AL. GRRM has said that AGoT begins in 298 and careful reading of AFFC reveals it takes place across a period of around 5-6 months, possibly less, but other than that we do not have enough firm information. Due to the unnatural seasons, we can't even make educated guesses (which have basically been all that has provided the various and detailed Wheel of Time timelines).--Werthead 19:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, we have much more information than that because of Dany's and Lolly's pregnancies. But we need to assume normal gestation periods and other things. (To be precise, we have to assume 9 month pregnancies and 12 month years.) That all works out and is great fun. But it's original research and relies on (educated) guesses, so it has no place on Wikipedia. Arbor 09:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Well we don't need to assume 12 months is a year, GRRM has confirmed this before that their time cycle is equal to our own. However assuming gestation periods is just trouble and is far from the hard date Werthead gives us. To answer your question without have any real dates I'd say theirs about 2 months between the Blackwater and Red Wedding which is maybe a week before Joffery's wedding in the new year.Cybroleach 18:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tower of Joy Capitalization

This is a minor point, but is it confirmed that the "tower of joy" is not capitalized in the books? The name is capitalized almost everywhere on the net, including letters by Martin himself: http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Month/2002/01/, so the issue is bugging me. I'm having a hard time locating the term in the books, however, so can anyone confirm that it should in fact be uncapitalized? -Captain Crawdad 18:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe the term has actually been used only once in the books, in the Eddard chapter from A Game of Thrones where he relives the events there in a fever dream; the chapter is on pages 424-430 of the American mass market paperback edition. From page 427: "It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory." If the term occurs elsewhere in the series, I'm unaware of it. Brendan Moody 19:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Terms like 'tower of joy', 'narrow sea' and 'children of the forest' are uncapitalised by Martin, but capitalised by everyone else due to their importance. I think GRRM's argument is that these aren't official names, just simple descriptions within the world of Westeros. I'm in favour of capitalising them just to highlight their importance.--Werthead 19:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I never noticed that. Alrighty then. I'm not sure we should be capitalizing them if they aren't capitalized in the books, but that might get confusing if some vague terms like "narrow sea" aren't capitalized. At any rate, they should still be capitalized in titles of articles and subheadings and the like. -Captain Crawdad 18:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. Thank you, Werthead. I think WP policy is clear on this matter: we must adopt the book spelling, including capitalisations. My bad for thinking it was Narrow Sea, for example. Also, according to WP:MoS, headings are not capitalised. Arbor 18:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

A slight point though: Martin does not capitalise them in the novels because the people of Westeros just think of the sea as 'the narrow sea'. However, Martin DOES capitalise them when discussing them in interviews (by email, when he types it out himself). In other words, he doesn't use capitals when talking about them within the story, but does capitalise them when talking about them from outside the story. Since we are talking about them as well from outside the story (as a neutral POV), I would suggest continuing to capitalise them.--Werthead 19:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)