A Song of Ice and Fire

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Fandom
Name: A Song of Ice and Fire
Abbreviation(s): ASOIAF, ASoIaF
Creator: George R.R. Martin
Date(s): 1996-
Medium: book
Country of Origin: USA
External Links: Author's Website, Westeros.org
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A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantasy series written by George R.R. Martin and set primarily in the fictional kingdom of Westeros. It focuses on a war for supremacy between a number of different noble families, including House Stark, House Lannister, House Targaryen, House Baratheon, and more.

In January 2007, HBO optioned the rights to the series,[1] Game of Thrones. On November 11, 2008, Martin announced on his blog that the network had ordered a pilot episode of the series, to be written and produced by David Benioff and DB Weiss. The series aired from 2011 to 2019.

The Books

  1. A Game of Thrones
  2. A Clash of Kings
  3. A Storm of Swords
  4. A Feast for Crows
  5. A Dance With Dragons
  6. The Winds of Winter (publication date TBC, although there are various excerpts floating around online)
  7. A Dream of Spring (publication date TBC)

Fandom

Fanfiction used to be relatively rare in the ASOIAF fandom, because Martin disapproves of it.[2] However, there are a number of popular fanartists. Before the show aired, the Archive of Our Own hosted 217 A Song of Ice and Fire works on April 8, 2011. As of September 2017, there are now over 21,000 works, thanks in no small part to the popularity of the TV adaptation Game of Thrones. A significant proportion of fic authors, however, choose only to associate their works with the book series. A fan, lodessa, shares their experience in early ASOIAF LiveJournal fandom:

Back in the Livejournal/pre-show adaptation days, the fandom community (especially those willing to go against the wishes of GRRM and do fanfic) was a pretty small circle, so there weren’t ship specific communities, we were all in one (locked) community called “notafanficcommunity” together, tolerating one another’s shipping preferences (even if internally or privately side-eyeing). It is difficult to explain how it was at the time, everyone excited to have an outlet for all their ASOIAF thoughts and feelings, other than their own head.

[3]

For the most part, the book series fandom shares its popular ships with the TV series fandom (see Game of Thrones#Pairings). Typically, the most prevalent ships in the book fandom have been het pairings, notably Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark, Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister and Arya Stark/Gendry Waters. In recent years, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark has become incredibly popular, overtaking Jaime/Brienne by a small amount to become the most prevalent ASOIAF ship on Archive of Our Own. There is comparatively less slash in the fandom, with the most popular being Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark and the femslash ship Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell. The series' only canonical slash ship, Renly Baratheon/Loras Tyrell, is less prevalent.

Common tropes in fanfiction include canon divergence, modern AUs, and, given that the book series remains unfinished, series continuation. Due to the large ensemble cast, many fics, especially AUs, focus on multiple characters and ships with various storylines and points of view, as in the source material.

Websites, Blogs, and Journals Specific to the Book Fandom

Tags

Fanworks

Tropes

  • Tech Uplift - crossover character from a technologically advanced society finds themselves in Westeros.

Fanfiction

Meta

Podcasts

Challenges

Zines

References

  1. ^ "HBO Options A Song of Ice and Fire". Archived from the original on 2013-02-18.
  2. ^ "The Citadel". Archived from the original on 2014-07-19.
  3. ^ "Jan 26, 2020 Tumblr Post". Archived from the original on 2020-01-26.
  4. ^ Debut post explaining the #valyrianscrolls tag
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