George R.R. Martin talks about the nature of heroism at Balticon

As he mentioned in his NotABlog, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin attended Balticon this weekend, and did a panel in front of thousands of eager fans, all of whom behaved themselves admirably, and did not ask when the next book was coming out.

This year, Balticon was, for the first time, held in Baltimore proper. Prior years have had it out in the suburbs in Hunt Valley, but this year the convention had grown to a size that it was held at the  Renaissance Harborplace Hotel—having Martin on hand probably had something to do with that, as fans turned out in droves to see him.

According to the Baltimore Sun, Martin took a bit of a deep dive into the story of how “the tale grew in the telling” from the original trilogy he pitched and sold in 1994. “[A Game of Thrones] hit 800 pages and I wasn’t close to the end,” he said. Then Thrones became “1,400 pages and there was no end in sight. At that point I kind of stopped and said, ‘This isn’t going to work.'”

As for the show’s darker aspects, where heroes always seem to be making terrible choices even as they try to do good, while evil characters always have a sense of pathos and sympathy to them (except maybe Ramsay Bolton), Martin says that growing up and living through the era of the Vietnam War was a huge influence for that.

We have the capacity for great heroism. We have the capacity for great selfishness and cowardice, many horrible acts. And sometimes at the same time. The same people can do something heroic on Tuesday and something horrible on Wednesday. Heroes commit atrocities. People who commit atrocities can be capable later of heroism. It’s the human condition, and I wanted to reflect all that in my work.

For those eager for anything on The Winds of Winter, George Martin did give us one small detail. Before he left for the convention, he was working on a Cersei chapter.

There are also reports that Martin said he was working on developing “several” TV projects as well, but no details were forthcoming.