George R.R. Martin once said that he kept the exact proportions of Westeros and Essos deliberately vague, as he didn’t want “obsessive fans with rulers measuring distances on the map and telling me Ned couldn’t get from X to Y in the time I say he did.” And yet, he also provided a way to calculate those distances: “The Wall is a hundred leagues long. A league is three miles. Go from there.”
And indeed, some fans have gone to the trouble of calculating the size of Westeros and Essos using this metric. Yesterday, Tech Insider put out this terrific map showing how the insane distances some characters have traveled during their time on the show. These people get around.
First, a note: Tech Insider is using HBO’s official version of the world map, the one in the header image, which is a bit different than the official map used for the A Song of Ice and Fire books. This makes sense, as the site is mapping the journeys made by characters on the show, not all of whom make the same journeys in the books. Still, the differences are interesting to consider.
Basically, there appears to be a whole lot more of Essos in the books than on the show, and the show looks to excise mysterious areas like Sothoryos.
With that out of the way, let’s turn to the distances the characters on Game of Thrones have traveled. From the top of the Wall all the way to Slaver’s Bay, Tyrion has clocked the most distance at 6,375 miles. At least he got to stop off in King’s Landing for a few seasons in between journeys. Having traveled all over Essos by land and sea, Daenerys comes in second with 4,850 miles traveled. If these two plan to head back to Westeros at some point (and recent leaks suggest that possibility), there seems little doubt that they’ll be the most well-traveled characters when all is said and done.
The journeys of Yara Greyjoy and Littlefinger are interesting, since they don’t happen in the books. Poor Yara sailed all the way around southernmost tip of Westeros and halfway up its Eastern coast in an attempt to rescue her brother Theon from Ramsay Bolton (Snow at the time), only to give up after the Bastard of Bolton threw a couple dogs at her…very slowly. And remember: word is that Yara will return for Season 6. She’s probably heading back to the Iron Islands to participate in the Kingsmoot from A Feast for Crows, which means she may have had to make a return journey by sea. She traveled 4,200 miles from Pyke to the Dreadfort. If she traveled another 4,200 back, that would put her 8,400, making her the most well-traveled character of them all!*
And then there’s Littlefinger, who’s traveled from King’s Landing to the Eyrie to Winterfell before traveling back to the capital (Season 2 excursion to Renly’s camp not pictured). His trip from Winterfell to King’s Landing in Season 5 took all of one episode (he left Winterfell in Episode 4, “Sons of the Harpy,” and arrived in the capital in Episode 6, “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”), which some fans pointed out was…well, ridiculous, since that means he covered 1,500 miles (roughly the equivalent of traveling from Maine to Florida) in a very short amount of time.
“Now where did I park the teleportation device?”
Was it ridiculous, though? Probably, but consider that Ned Stark made the same journey in the space of less than one episode back in Season 1 (he left Winterfell in Episode 2, “The Kingsroad,” and arrived in King’s Landing in Episode in Episode 3, “Lord Snow”). Of course, it’s probable that the spaces between scenes were much longer back in Season 1 than they were in Season 5, when more things were happening. Then again, Ned traveled south with a large party that included women, children, and a fat king who liked to take his time. He would have moved slowly, whereas Littlefinger probably made a beeline for the capital with only a small, fast-moving escort. Also, the episode that Littlefinger spent traveling—”Kill the Boy”—was a slow-burner. Who’s to say that lots of time didn’t pass between scenes?
Littlefinger’s quick journey still strains credulity, but I don’t think it’s as absurd as some fans make it out to be.
*However, if Yara cuts across Westeros for the return journey, it could cut down on that distance.
Next: Big spoilers are leaking from Riverrun, as filming continues in Corbet, Northern Ireland