Hey guys, I’m Dev and I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going to happen in season 7 of ‘Game of Thrones.’
Like a lot of you, I’ve been glued to the subreddit for weeks, poring over fan theories and reading every scrap of analysis.
Personally, I think that characters like Littlefinger and Varys are going to come out from behind the curtain and finally show what they’ve been scheming since day one.
But who knows what’s in store for the last two seasons of my favorite show?
Or what George R.R. Martin has planned for the final two books in the series?
I don’t think I blink when watch Game of thrones, but I still miss things.
So I don’t know where I’d be without the super obsessive theorycrafters of the Ice and Fire fandom.
But, they’re just a small segment of the huge, passionate community that’s sprung up around this epic fantasy series.
So we spoke to some of the saga’s biggest fans to find out what makes them tick, and to learn more about the origins and the future of
A Community of Ice and Fire
And yes, we also asked them to weigh in on what we can expect in Season 7.
Winter is here.
Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsonn first bonded over their love for J.R.R. Tolkien, but in 1996 Linda introduced Elio to a book that would change both their lives forever.
Linda was the one who discovered the book first, and I fell in love with it as she did.
Blown away by ‘A Game of Thrones,’ they found a place online where they could discuss the first novel with other early fans.
Dragstone was a little forum hosted in Australia. A few dozen people had found this little forum, and were talking intensely about aspects of the book.
Around that time, Elio and Linda started to work on their own RPG, set in the world of Westeros.
When we got in contact with George and asked permission to do the games, we also mentioned that we'd started doing the pictures of heraldy.
We cobbled them together and he thought it was really cool. He sent us more lists of heraldry that wasn't in the books yet.
We'd send them the latest batch and he'd send back notes, and it was a very active collaboration for a while.
They created a website to host all their research and serve as a resource for players.
It turned out that George's editor thought "This could be an interesting document for us to reference. Could you send it to us?
Visiting the set during the first season with him, we were driving to where they filmed Castle Black.
And George pointed to the wall, and asked me "how tall do you think that thing is?"
He said "I made the wall too tall!" Because he didn't realize how tall 800 feet would be.
95 percent of the facts come straight from George, the other five were things where we asked "could we make that assumption here?"
George is not a subject matter expert. He doesn't have a PHD in midieval studies. He's an enthusaist. Which he has admitted.
Elio and Linda have become sort of fact-checkers for Martin himself. That's huge. Like if I was a fan and the creator came to me and said "is this right?"
He consults them about world and continuity details, and collaborated with the couple on ‘The World of Ice and Fire,’ their very own compendium of Westerosi lore.
There's all sorts of ideas about how much we've done with that book. The fact is we wrote most of that book based on what George had given us.
When the show started coming out, we were not prepared at all. After the first episode something like 8,000 people that night signed up for accounts.
But Elio and Linda aren’t the only well-known superfans.
Over the years, the series has inspired hundreds of community members to create their own content, and many of them have earned their own following.
Like YouTuber Preston Jacobs. I was watching his shit last night, his episode breakdowns are amazing. It's really f---ing helpful.
My obsession really kind of hit when I finished the fifth book. It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Before Jon gets stabbed in the book he gets this letter from Ramsay.
And then he tries to rally troops to go attack Ramsay, then he's stabbed. It's a big mystery on why he's stabbed, but you also get this feeling that perhaps the letter is a counterfeit.
So I went online to see if other people felt the same way, if they had any theories, and BOOM.
You might know him as the guy who theorized that ‘Game of Thrones’ is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
And some even call him the “Alex Jones” of ‘Game of Thrones,’ a label Jacobs is definitely not a fan of.
I DON'T LIKE THEM PUTTING CHEMICALS IN THE WATER THAT TURNS THE FROGS GAY!
I think Alex Jones is very angry, and just insane Furious. There's no anger in anything I say, and I try to put a quote backing up everything.
But when you watch his insightful, well-researched and pretty damn entertaining videos, even his wildest theories can make total sense.
There are theories I actually believe. They make sense to me. Y'know, he's written a lot of post-apocalyptic stuff.
Jacobs’ all-in approach to theorizing goes beyond the Ice and Fire saga to include Martin’s early science fiction work.
He's a genius, but he repeats himself. Shakespeare repeated himself. "Winter is coming?" "The night is dark and full of terrors?" That's not from 'Ice and Fire,' he wrote that before.
He also keeps Martin’s politics in mind.
George R.R. Martin is actually the biggest hippie you'd ever come across. It's an anti-war story, it's a feminist story, it's a story about free will... It's a very complicated story.
If videos aren’t your thing, you can always check out some of the great Ice and Fire podcasts out there, like Radio Westeros.
Me and Lady Gwyn wanted to get more serious about our studies. We really enjoyed studying the books together.
And one day, I said to Lady Gwyn off the cuff, why don't we start a podcast? Then we can ramble on as long as we want.
Thanks to her literature background, Lady Gwyn has her own unique approach to Game of Thrones analysis. She’s particularly interested in comparing the saga to Arthurian legends.
The Arthurian stuff is my background, my roots in History and Literature. You read something like A Song of Ice and
Fire and you start to see those tropes and repeated themes over centuries and millenia of humans creating stories.
Now, if you’re more into in-person meetups, Game of Thrones has a huge convention presence.
But if you don’t feel like dealing with long lines and insane crowds, you should no doubt check out Ice and Fire Con.
Its so awesome to meet all these fans from all across the world and all across the Internet. Everybody's nice.
Tara and her friends founded the convention in 2012.
My friends and I got together and had some little activities in our hotel
room, there was a photo shoot for cosplayers that I was a part of...
And my friends and I were like... There's something to this!
Five years later, it’s grown beyond Tara’s wildest expectations.
I hate using the word proud, but I am proud of it!
It’s not the glitziest convention, and you probably won’t see any cast members there.
But there’s plenty of cosplay, community panels and awesome activities.
Crushing your skull like I did the Red Viper!
We have a costume contest, a tournament (that's basically like LARPing), late-night gaming, our Saturday night dance party...
Just so many great people, I can't say that enough.
It’s a smaller, more intimate gathering that’s more party than press conference.
In a way, it’s closer to the cons of the ‘70s and ‘80s where Martin cut his teeth as a fan and built the friendships that served him throughout his career.
For these folks, A Song of Ice and Fire has become more than just a fantasy saga.
But even these megafans who’ve spent hundreds of hours poring over every line of the books still have their favorite characters:
Catelynn Stark is my favorite character. She felt like a normal woman in a tough situation.
Our favorite at this time is Brienne of Tarth. She's really a fascinating character. She embodies true knighthood on the one hand.
And on the other, she has this element to her character that's very similar to Sansa start. They have the same dreamer-like qualities right through their core.
Sansa's one of my favorite character. I'm really hoping to see her and Arya reuinite and possibly kill Littlefinger, which is one of the rumors I've been following.
And of course, they’ve got predictions for the upcoming season:
You're gonna see a lot of characters that you forgot about like Beric Dondarrion just die. They're gonna bring 'em back and then they're gonna die.
Jon Snow has to go north of the Wall to catch a wight.
I thnk you'll see a zombie dragon.
And that's basically it. I just spoiled the whole season for you.
With the TV series coming to an end and the last two books way beyond the wall, we asked where they see the community in the years and decades to come:
I think George has created a lot of stuff that's going to last. It's being taught in college courses. It will be a permanent part of popular culture.
Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings. And A Song of Ice and Fire.
You've still got the two books, a lot of the novella to be done...
Today we know the whole world, there are no secret little nooks and crannies where there are mysteries awaiting the explorers any longer.
George wants his world to be full of those.
We don’t know where Game of Thrones is going, or whether Martin will ever properly finish the saga.
We may never get all of the answers, but for fans like us, that's part of what makes A Song of Ice and Fire so special.