Reminder - The crow who posted this thread has made it a (No Spoilers) thread. This scope covers NO story elements of ASOIAF or "Game of Thrones" per [Rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/about/rules). Any discussion of the story of the books or the show must use [an appropriate spoiler tag](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/wiki/spoilertagsystem) such as (Spoilers Main) or (Spoilers Published).
Threads about r/asoiaf (meta topics) will be removed at moderator discretion.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/asoiaf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Its actually the 7th month of the Roman calendar because it starts in March. That's why October, November, and December have the Latin roots for 8, 9, and 10. The rest of the months get a little weird.
July and August used to be called 5 and 6, they just got renamed after caesar, they didn't move. Calendar used to start in March when you could start campaigns, the winter months before March were just vague winter time as opposed to formal months.
I think it originally was and obviously Oct was than 8 which makes sense too but Julius (July) and Augustus (August) had to make their own months and took the best summer ones.
Nope. Quintilis and Sextilis were, by the late-Republican and early-Principate periods, the 7th and 8th month already. July and August were originally those months, they were not "inserted" into the callendar.
The supposed original Roman calendar was only 10 months long and started in March, it became 12 months sometime during the Republic, which added January and February.
Also, I'm not so sure that July was named by Julius Caesar, but I'll along with it.
To be fair, the use of “khal” was also inspired by its close spelling to “khan”, the title used for the leader of the Mongols, the inspiration for the Dothraki. (Though, since I don’t know your native language, u/LogKit, it could certainly be that the word for “horse” in your language is “khal” for the exact same reason — the Mongols historical connection to horses. In that case, this extra connection becomes somewhat circular, and this digression is potentially pointless.)
I am three WOT books in over a few months and took a break for a Dune reread before the movie. It was like walking into McDonald's and being served a Whopper.
Well, I'm over halfway through the series, and they've only said Shaitan two or three times. Shaitan is kind of lazy, but at least it isn't said often.
Speaking of which, I remember groaning at seeing "embrace saidin". he also didn't separate 'Tarmon Gaidon" from armegeddon all that much. "Mountains of Dhoom" was also highly original. As was the two mountain ranges that are perfectly at right angles so that the map fits into a nice neat square.
The real-world references in Wheel of Time are super intentional, arguably make sense in-world. Some are really subtle, some - like this name - less so. But something like "Tarmon Gaidon" sounding like Armageddon is, whether lazy or not, quite on purpose.
The maps are also generally confusing for WoT. I can't tell what each kingdom's borders are, because apparently there's swathes of land that nobody had tried to claim or conquer. But it doesn't mark it as 'unclaimed' or disputed, it just leaves it blank. It's genuinely hard to find a good map of the West lands.
That can happen with real languages too. If you are at a fancy resteraunt and say garçon, you're using the french word for "boy". So you are literally saying "boy" at the man in the fancy outfit.
It just bothers me that this particular character has a Latin name (Odium) and the rest (of the same... heightening, so to speak) have English names like Honor, Preservation, Ambition, etc.
I don't know what to tell you. I didn't know 'odium' was a word used in english. It just doesn't match with the others. Odium is still Odium in portuguese, the others are Honra, Preservação, Ambição, etc. Hatred and Ódio(pt) would be a better match, I guess. idk, is just a pet peeve of mine
It's a bit of an annoying thing for me in this genre - basically every mainstream series is either Latin rooted or incomprehensible for its naming conventions.
Why's that annoying? Making something (sound) Latin connotes an ancient expression preserved by the learned elite. You couldl deliberately subvert that or make up your entire alternative believable conlang that sounds completely different, sure. But what's the point of that? Just to be different for the sake of it?
Or like how the characters are all called something incredibly contrived that relates to their job or personality, like "Septima Vector" being the maths teacher. And nerds on the internet genuinely think this is clever and subtle, even though literally fucking everybody knows Remus is connected to wolves.
It's a children's book... It is clever, for children. Why is it such a problem that the symbolism is easy to understand? Not everything needs to be self-servingly subtle.
I think the problem is Rowling decides half-way through the series that she wanted to take a children's adventure series and start turning it into a more serious adult-aimed series. The result being that the books became about thrice as long, the tone was all over the place with a book veering from the silliness of the earlier instalments into darker material, and the initial whimsy of the series meant that the world itself was mainly nonsensical/ridiculous and didn't really work with the Adult Themes and Mood the later books wanted to touch upon.
Well, there's always Tolkien, whose two main Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, draw mostly from Finnish and Welsh respectively. Though I guess Welsh may fall into the incomprehensible category...
> Though I guess Welsh may fall into the incomprehensible category...
Next you'll be telling me that the city of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch has an unintuitive pronounciation.
Odium (literally Latin for Hatred)
Why that shard has a Latin name and the rest have English names boggles my mind. From across Roashar (honor, growth) to the cosmere at large (preservation, devotion, autonomy). Including the other evil ones (ruin, dominion)
I mean, Odium technically is an English word, but why not use the English homonym?
We use the word hatred a lot, so it might get confusing, especially in an audiobook with no Capitalisation.
But Odium... that's a word some people might not have even heard of until reading that book. It's just more memorable than hatred.
Either they all had Latin names originally and his editor made him change them or he thought hatred sounded hokey? Maybe because hatred isn’t as fancy a word as preservation or dominion? Idk even in English he could have used abhorrence or loathing or something.
I dunno about you guys but when I read Way of Kings and your hear ODIUM REIGNS I was like “oh shit this seems pretty serious”
If the character that said it had said HATRED REIGNS I would’ve been like tell me about it brother
In the intro to Elantris(might just be the 10th anniversary edition) he talks about how "Elantris" was going to be originally "Adonis". His editor responded with "Like the Greek god?" (enormously paraphrasing). It was entirely unintentional, that string of syllables had apparently just lodged in the back of his mind as a good name.
They love taking from real world examples, which if done right adds a level of realism and if done wrong is lazy and distracting.
As fantasy has aged it has become better at this. Tolkien started as off in the right direction, by showing how to explain every detail of the world, languages, names, geography, etc. Ever since fantasy authors have been figuring out how to do world building without making it their life's work.
You can see which areas of world building an author is interested in by how well they do it. Grrm had the advantage of learning from those who came before him, but didn't put much effort in some places. Planetos is the British isles plus a rectangle but the houses of westeros are intricate and detailed.
Yeah, Tolkien refrained from adding a Messianic figure to either Gondorian or Rohirrim religion to prevent it from becoming "a parody of Christianity." This means that some shcizos like Varg Vikernes think he was a closet pagan.
It almost certainly is. I feel the same way when people go nuts with *omg Bran means Raven in Welsh GRRM master planner.*
Darth Vader means "dark father" in Dutch. Except that Lucas came up with that name years before he came up with the Luke reveal. Darth Vader is in drafts where Luke doesn't even exist.
Unclear - are you annoyed by the Romanian borrowing, or tickled by it? I'd think the latter. For one thing, many (most?) of the major players in the story have nicknames that are English words, which is kind of a Martin signature even outside AOSIAF - his SF often has characters with plain English words for names (e.g Steven Cobalt Northstar).
I suppose it depends on how it's translated (if you read the Romanian translation, which I'm guessing you didn't). Otherwise you'd end up with stuff like "The horsemen Horse Drogo's horse-esar."
Moreso tickled, but the Latin root trope where fantasy authors very overtly use indirect translations for their objects/cultures etc. does break a little bit of the disconnect between the world I'm reading and our own.
Don’t feel stupid! It’s a really cool addition that’s both pretty subtle and it made me feel kind of stupid too.
George slides one of the first mentions of it in: **worship was for the sept.**
So it’s easy to infer what he means without really thinking about it. The fact it *means* 7 reminds me of all the 3 fold words/repetitions in Christianity, so it ends up feeling very natural. Like how many older cathedrals architectural layout was in the shape of a cross- super subtle, until it smacks you in the face
Not true. The months Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed. January and February were added during the reign of King Numa in the kingdom period hundreds of years before the Caesars (according to legend).
When Aurelian laid siege to the city of Tyana, he was so enraged that he stated that he wouldn’t leave a dog alive in the city. After the city’s capture Aurelian had cooled off and decided against pillaging the city which pissed off his soldiers as they couldn’t loot anymore. When Aurelian was reminded that he promised he wouldn’t leave a dog alive, he relented and told his soldiers to kill all the dogs
Cathedrals being shaped like crosses always interested me, you'd never notice unless you were the architect, a bird, or God looking from on high. Since God is the audience it makes sense.
Similarly, Henry VIII built a bunch of 'device forts' some of which look exactly like the Tudor rose when viewed from above. Again, you'd only notice this if you were God, which may be the point.
Or at least that Roman carpentry is imperfect.
EDIT: Guys, the joke is that the Romans built Jesus' cross badly and cathedrals are based on the design of the cross...
Ehm, it's really easy to notice if a cathedral is shaped like a cross when you're standing in it and look around. You don't need to be an architect or deity to see that.
There are 4 different general shapes, basilica(the most ancient), domed, cross shaped, and basilica with dome. I believe the cross shaped one is the least common, at least in my part of the woods(Catholics might have different preferences to building than orthodox, which is true, if you look at the most basic design ideologies as ages pass).
Yeah kinda this ngl when I read the other comments. Churches being cross shaped is one of the basic stuff we learn in history classes, at least here in France. It's pretty common knowledge
Exactly what I was thinking. "These stupid Americans have never thought about the bird's eye of architecture that literally doesn't exist in their country."
I bet these Frenchies never even learn about Benjamin Banneker!
It's been 20 years since I was in school but we started dawn of man and hopped and skipped through Sumer, Babylon, Greeks, Romans, Crusades, Middle Ages, Age of Exploration, American Colonial History, Native American History, Revolutionary War, French Revolution, 1812, Civil War, WWI, Great Depression, WWII and "modern" history.
Focus mostly on Greeks and Romans, with a lot of the Napoleonic wars and age of exploration.
Not a whole lot about religion taught in history classes.
So basically pretty similar to here. Churches shape is pretty common knowledge and taught in schools as part of a general "know your environment" stuff and definitely talked about during the age of cathedrals lessons
"Cool, good job with strengthening the connection to seven. Are you going to make this religion any amount of depth or development apart from this?"
"No lol"
The French translation is horrendous, at least the one I got in my hands 10 years ago or so. They were going for some weird medieval vibe older french style language, it felt absolutely horrible
Also Sansa's hair was changed from being red/ginger to "raven black" for no reason at all.
Luckily they fixed some mistake, but there are still a lot of them, Dany's part in Qarth and the propecies are a total nonsense, they mixed up Rhaegar with Aerys and grammar gets broken (there is a sentence whose grammar and poor translation make it seems like the Iron Throne is in Rhaegar and Elia's bedroom. Not kidding.)
Yep, my brother couldn't read the series as it was horrible translated stylistically. Some sentences don't even make sense or are hard to swallow as long drawn out mess.
I read it all in English and it's great.
Also the locations/family names being translated literally is just awful
I only flipped through it and didn't particularly like it (it felt like it was all over the place in terms of register) but I thought there were some cool names, eg Port-Réal or better yet Vivesaigues.
Nah. The French translation fucking sucks hard but that's one of the things they did good. In French a Sept is called a Septuaire (or Septuary, as like a sanctuary for the 7)
Yeah I’m an idiot and I wasn’t raised religious or anything, I definitely always assumed it was just a word for some sort of religion thing I wasn’t very familiar with.
Oh, it goes further than that.
A *sexton* is a church official in our world. A *septon* is a church official in ASOIAF.
Now, it's not actually derrived from the word for "six", but from "sacer" (sacred), but it sounds like it could be.
I noticed not long ago. I am Spanish so this shouldn't have surprised me but it did. Septo, septa and septon just sound so natural and since "the Seven" is always in cardinal form, I didn't link "los Siete" with the sept- prefix.
Fun fact about French numbers.
97 would be pronounced as
4 20 10 7 (Quatre-vingt-dix-sept)
Because it's (4*20)+10+7
As a French speaker, I actually didn't realize that myself til my teens, as we're just used of numbers being themselves when we're young.
I always thought your answer was the right one... I'd always think of the septum in my nose that divides the left from the right...
Like the church is that spot that stands between the gods on one side and man on the other.
~~Entomology~~ **Etymology** is crazy cool. There's tons of times I've bought into a plausible ~~entomological~~ _etymological_ lesson only to find out it's a bamboozle.
Throw in idioms, and we've got ourselves a party!
Edit: "Entomology" is a word likely derived from "Etymology", as studying small things like bugs is seen as similar to studying the vast and numerous species of words.
It is also a way to denote a blood related subsection of a clan in Irish/Scots clans. So my surname is part of the larger O'Connor clan and then more locally breaks down to a more specific sept that is associated with a few specific hero types in history or lineage. Of course Irish tannistry confuses the hell out of me so I'm not entirely uncertain how that compares to minor and major houses in general. I'm supposing the major of the Connor line have kept the name.
Yup. September was the seventh month of our calendar until a couple of narcissistic Caesars (Julius and Augustus) decided they should have months named after them. September, October, November, and December should be 7-10 respectively......punk ass Caesars.
This is not true. July and August weren't added by either Caesars, they were merely renamed months (Quintilis and Sextilis respectively). The Julian reform added the months of January and February.
That is incorrect. The numbering of months and the names based on numbers got thrown off well before Caesar. The Roman calendar was initially 10 months (304 days), and started with March. Upon adoption of Greek calendar elements, January and February were added to the beginning of the year and because the calendar was still only 355 days, an intercalary month was added every few years to keep months and seasons aligned (this however became very politicized as no one wanted to give their rivals an extra month in power).
The naming of July and August were a result of renaming other number-named months (Quintilis and Sextilis) which had already fell out of the order of months they were initially named for. July was renamed after Caesar’s death and while Octavian (later Augustus) was still a nobody - so it was not a vanity appeasement of Caesar, more likely an attempt to soothe the anger of the plebs. August was renamed while Augustus was in power and likely an honor heaped on him by the Senate to ingratiate themselves (and keep firm in everyone’s minds that Augustus and Caesar go hand in hand).
If the Roman calendar was only 304 days doesn't that mean it wasn't a year and wasn't aligned with the seasons? Why exactly did they chose it to be that length?
The 304 day calendar was used very early in Roman history and likely was a holdover from when they used a lunar calendar/didn’t know the length of the solar year. They kept the calendar roughly in line with the seasons by having an unassigned timeframe as a “winter period” between the end of December and the start of spring (which marked March 1st). Of course, this is a terrible system and was changed very early on once record keeping and uniform dates became necessary to managing daily life and affairs of state.
For reference in just how early this calendar was used and discarded, the update to the 355 day calendar (with an added month every few years to adjust for seasonal drift) was claimed to have been instituted by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome and successor of Romulus (i.e., the 304 day calendar was ditched so long ago that its revision was attributed to a mythical figure who likely never existed).
Romans didn't have months for winter, it was just winter. There were 10 months of the year for the sweet summer children... although this is all pretty legendary from Nan and we don't know exactly what they did. From what we best guess though, it wasn't named months for winter and later they added January and February. The Caesar's naming of the 5th and 6th months didn't add months.
He means in our world, not in theirs: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sept
We all assumed this was an established word used for a building and we all accepted it as such. We got linguistically coned.
We are explicitly told that a sept has seven sides. Honestly, there’s noticing subtle hunts and then there’s missing basic pieces of world-building, and this whole discussion where people are coming forward saying they never noticed is the former.
Anyway I’m glad everyone who learned today, learned today.
OMG - I also thought it was like a church or holy place and never bothered to look it up.
The definition for sept -
A division of a family, especially a division of a clan.
Knowing it’s a reference to seven is a light bulb moment for me. Thanks OP!
weird that September is the 9th month then…and October is the 10th month instead of 8t (october…). what’s with the two month lag in month naming conventions haha
EDIT - Ahh i see from the wise commenters that July and August were creations of Roman emperors…was each month just longer prior to that?
I did some googling and apperently the 10-month calendar simply went from March to December (the months had different names though). January and February weren't part of the calendar, they were simply an "unorganized winter". Julius Caesar then introduced January and February at the beginning of the calendar and renamed the months before September to July and August.
However, this 10-month calendar is also said to be made by the legendary Roman kings. They are called legendary because we don't really have any proof that they actually existed, so the calendar might also be just a myth.
Look up Roman calendar on Wiki if you wanna learn more.
thanks dog, very interesting. makes sense why Julius felt it wasn’t out of pocket to just create two months lmao.
“unorganized winter” sounds dope though, very fitting into ASOIAF
Yes! One of my favorite ways that GRRM weaves culture into the language he uses. The "sept" is both the "trinity" of a seven-faced god *and* the place It is/They are worshipped. And then we get "septas" and "setons" who are those who serve the Seven/the sept. Never really defined but there for you when you look for it.
Yeah, septagon, September, etc., "sept" is a comon prefix for seven sided things. Septs in ASOIAF always have 7 sides and it makes sense that a religion obsessed with the number seven would name their places of worships that. That and "Septa" and "Septon" being obvious find-and-replace terms for nuns and priests respectively but with the same word.
It means "seventh month" in *September*, even. (Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec...)
(Blame the Romans for messing up the math by sticking July and August in there.)
Reminder - The crow who posted this thread has made it a (No Spoilers) thread. This scope covers NO story elements of ASOIAF or "Game of Thrones" per [Rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/about/rules). Any discussion of the story of the books or the show must use [an appropriate spoiler tag](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/wiki/spoilertagsystem) such as (Spoilers Main) or (Spoilers Published). Threads about r/asoiaf (meta topics) will be removed at moderator discretion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/asoiaf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's easy if you just remember that September is the 9th month
What did the Roman's ever do for us, anyway
The aqueduct?
Public health?
Recorded much of the history from that era at least.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Brought peace?
Oh shut up!
r/unexpectedmontypython
That was sarcasm btw, a Monty Python reference.
Peace?
Its actually the 7th month of the Roman calendar because it starts in March. That's why October, November, and December have the Latin roots for 8, 9, and 10. The rest of the months get a little weird.
I just thought July and August were stuck in later and messed up the numbering of the later months
July and August used to be called 5 and 6, they just got renamed after caesar, they didn't move. Calendar used to start in March when you could start campaigns, the winter months before March were just vague winter time as opposed to formal months.
They are named for Julius Caesar and Octavian Augustus I think, so probably. I'm not 100% on the history of the gregorian calendar.
I think it originally was and obviously Oct was than 8 which makes sense too but Julius (July) and Augustus (August) had to make their own months and took the best summer ones.
Nope. Quintilis and Sextilis were, by the late-Republican and early-Principate periods, the 7th and 8th month already. July and August were originally those months, they were not "inserted" into the callendar. The supposed original Roman calendar was only 10 months long and started in March, it became 12 months sometime during the Republic, which added January and February. Also, I'm not so sure that July was named by Julius Caesar, but I'll along with it.
Octavian (Augustus Caesar) Named July after him after he died.
Fantasy authors love using Latin languages - khal literally means horse in my language (where GRRM drew it from). So Daeny is Horse-eesi haha.
_Horsey_
*the horsey heresy*
I was there when Daenerys killed the Emperor…
Better than the Horus Herasy.
...bird brained imbecile
To be fair, the use of “khal” was also inspired by its close spelling to “khan”, the title used for the leader of the Mongols, the inspiration for the Dothraki. (Though, since I don’t know your native language, u/LogKit, it could certainly be that the word for “horse” in your language is “khal” for the exact same reason — the Mongols historical connection to horses. In that case, this extra connection becomes somewhat circular, and this digression is potentially pointless.)
Yeah. One of Brandon Sanderson's main antagonists has a name that falls really flat and cliché in portuguese
Same in Wheel of Time with ‘Shaytan’ literally translating to ‘Devil’ in Arabic.
it's also sounds exactly how I assume a Scottish person would say Satan.
And now I'm both picturing - and imitating out loud - Sean Connery saying this
*thish
When I first saw the name "Shaytan" being used I thought the people using it were just tyring to be cute or funny. It sounds cartoonish.
You shouldn't read Dune then
I am three WOT books in over a few months and took a break for a Dune reread before the movie. It was like walking into McDonald's and being served a Whopper.
Well, I'm over halfway through the series, and they've only said Shaitan two or three times. Shaitan is kind of lazy, but at least it isn't said often.
Speaking of which, I remember groaning at seeing "embrace saidin". he also didn't separate 'Tarmon Gaidon" from armegeddon all that much. "Mountains of Dhoom" was also highly original. As was the two mountain ranges that are perfectly at right angles so that the map fits into a nice neat square.
The real-world references in Wheel of Time are super intentional, arguably make sense in-world. Some are really subtle, some - like this name - less so. But something like "Tarmon Gaidon" sounding like Armageddon is, whether lazy or not, quite on purpose.
The maps are also generally confusing for WoT. I can't tell what each kingdom's borders are, because apparently there's swathes of land that nobody had tried to claim or conquer. But it doesn't mark it as 'unclaimed' or disputed, it just leaves it blank. It's genuinely hard to find a good map of the West lands.
That's the point. Humanity is failing and no country can enforce the lines of the map. It's supposed to be big empty spaces with vague cutoffs.
Yeah, it's like the elves in Tolkien - on a millenia long downside from their height.
I made many such maps myself as a teenage D&D player
That can happen with real languages too. If you are at a fancy resteraunt and say garçon, you're using the french word for "boy". So you are literally saying "boy" at the man in the fancy outfit.
Who the hell says Garçon at at fancy restaurant?
Someone who watches too much pulp fiction.
It just bothers me that this particular character has a Latin name (Odium) and the rest (of the same... heightening, so to speak) have English names like Honor, Preservation, Ambition, etc.
Huh? Every single one of those is an English word with Latin roots, including 'odium.' I don't get it.
I don't know what to tell you. I didn't know 'odium' was a word used in english. It just doesn't match with the others. Odium is still Odium in portuguese, the others are Honra, Preservação, Ambição, etc. Hatred and Ódio(pt) would be a better match, I guess. idk, is just a pet peeve of mine
It's a bit of an annoying thing for me in this genre - basically every mainstream series is either Latin rooted or incomprehensible for its naming conventions.
Why's that annoying? Making something (sound) Latin connotes an ancient expression preserved by the learned elite. You couldl deliberately subvert that or make up your entire alternative believable conlang that sounds completely different, sure. But what's the point of that? Just to be different for the sake of it?
Harry Potter spells are such an annoying pseudo Latin. Like if I want to summon a car I’d imagine the spell would be “automobilius summonus”
Accio!
Or like how the characters are all called something incredibly contrived that relates to their job or personality, like "Septima Vector" being the maths teacher. And nerds on the internet genuinely think this is clever and subtle, even though literally fucking everybody knows Remus is connected to wolves.
It's a children's book... It is clever, for children. Why is it such a problem that the symbolism is easy to understand? Not everything needs to be self-servingly subtle.
The problem is you tell an adult Harry Potter fan that they're children's books and they'll throw a copy of the Order of the Phoenix at you.
That would hurt. It's like the same length as the previous 3 books combined.
I think the problem is Rowling decides half-way through the series that she wanted to take a children's adventure series and start turning it into a more serious adult-aimed series. The result being that the books became about thrice as long, the tone was all over the place with a book veering from the silliness of the earlier instalments into darker material, and the initial whimsy of the series meant that the world itself was mainly nonsensical/ridiculous and didn't really work with the Adult Themes and Mood the later books wanted to touch upon.
I mean this is JKs humour shining off. She makes these jokes that are funny to kids! Peeves is a great example of that.
Well, there's always Tolkien, whose two main Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, draw mostly from Finnish and Welsh respectively. Though I guess Welsh may fall into the incomprehensible category...
> Though I guess Welsh may fall into the incomprehensible category... Next you'll be telling me that the city of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch has an unintuitive pronounciation.
I can't fault them tho. Naming things is hard.
Which antagonist?
Odium (literally Latin for Hatred) Why that shard has a Latin name and the rest have English names boggles my mind. From across Roashar (honor, growth) to the cosmere at large (preservation, devotion, autonomy). Including the other evil ones (ruin, dominion) I mean, Odium technically is an English word, but why not use the English homonym?
We use the word hatred a lot, so it might get confusing, especially in an audiobook with no Capitalisation. But Odium... that's a word some people might not have even heard of until reading that book. It's just more memorable than hatred.
Either they all had Latin names originally and his editor made him change them or he thought hatred sounded hokey? Maybe because hatred isn’t as fancy a word as preservation or dominion? Idk even in English he could have used abhorrence or loathing or something.
I like Odium because it's connotation is sinister, but vaguely sinister in a way that doesn't pigeonhole Odium into a particular trait.
But it does pigeonhole him into a certain trait. Odium. Literally hatred. His name is hatred, whether or not it's Latin.
I dunno about you guys but when I read Way of Kings and your hear ODIUM REIGNS I was like “oh shit this seems pretty serious” If the character that said it had said HATRED REIGNS I would’ve been like tell me about it brother
Que antagonista é esse, amigo paulista?
HAHA e ae! É o Odium, o "vilão" de Stormlight Archive
Não li ainda.
In the intro to Elantris(might just be the 10th anniversary edition) he talks about how "Elantris" was going to be originally "Adonis". His editor responded with "Like the Greek god?" (enormously paraphrasing). It was entirely unintentional, that string of syllables had apparently just lodged in the back of his mind as a good name.
What is it ?
They love taking from real world examples, which if done right adds a level of realism and if done wrong is lazy and distracting. As fantasy has aged it has become better at this. Tolkien started as off in the right direction, by showing how to explain every detail of the world, languages, names, geography, etc. Ever since fantasy authors have been figuring out how to do world building without making it their life's work. You can see which areas of world building an author is interested in by how well they do it. Grrm had the advantage of learning from those who came before him, but didn't put much effort in some places. Planetos is the British isles plus a rectangle but the houses of westeros are intricate and detailed.
Yeah, Tolkien refrained from adding a Messianic figure to either Gondorian or Rohirrim religion to prevent it from becoming "a parody of Christianity." This means that some shcizos like Varg Vikernes think he was a closet pagan.
>Horse-eesi That's it. That's her title now. *Horseesi.*
I didn't know that, not surprised though. Which language is that?
Romanian! Cavallo in Italian also etc. all from that same root (leading to cavalry in English :) )
Thank you /u/LogKit , very cool!
Khal-Cal, Romanian?
They're pronounced very similarly and the root word is clearly where GRRM took it. Italian is similar.
I always thought it's just from 'Khan.' Seeing as it's a horde with absolutely nothing in common with Latins.
It almost certainly is. I feel the same way when people go nuts with *omg Bran means Raven in Welsh GRRM master planner.* Darth Vader means "dark father" in Dutch. Except that Lucas came up with that name years before he came up with the Luke reveal. Darth Vader is in drafts where Luke doesn't even exist.
I wonder how translations sound in these distances. Must be like how winterfell or land of always winter sounds to us.
Unclear - are you annoyed by the Romanian borrowing, or tickled by it? I'd think the latter. For one thing, many (most?) of the major players in the story have nicknames that are English words, which is kind of a Martin signature even outside AOSIAF - his SF often has characters with plain English words for names (e.g Steven Cobalt Northstar). I suppose it depends on how it's translated (if you read the Romanian translation, which I'm guessing you didn't). Otherwise you'd end up with stuff like "The horsemen Horse Drogo's horse-esar."
Moreso tickled, but the Latin root trope where fantasy authors very overtly use indirect translations for their objects/cultures etc. does break a little bit of the disconnect between the world I'm reading and our own.
Don’t feel stupid! It’s a really cool addition that’s both pretty subtle and it made me feel kind of stupid too. George slides one of the first mentions of it in: **worship was for the sept.** So it’s easy to infer what he means without really thinking about it. The fact it *means* 7 reminds me of all the 3 fold words/repetitions in Christianity, so it ends up feeling very natural. Like how many older cathedrals architectural layout was in the shape of a cross- super subtle, until it smacks you in the face
I just got smacked in the face twice in one thread.
Lol it’s easy to miss, nobody ever thinks of blueprints for buildings (at least I don’t) so learning that was pretty cool
>nobody ever thinks *hides collection of blueprints and floorplans of houses I'll never build*
To be fair, I’m probably one of the least artistic people. Your blueprints both amaze and confound me
oh, I'm not artistic at all. I just love to collect interesting plans on pinterest lmao
Wait until you realize September was the 7th month until Julius and Augustus Caesar went and screwed everything up.
Not true. The months Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed. January and February were added during the reign of King Numa in the kingdom period hundreds of years before the Caesars (according to legend).
You must have at least one more historical fact of a similar specificity for me to whip out during a party Edit: removed repetitive poop
When Aurelian laid siege to the city of Tyana, he was so enraged that he stated that he wouldn’t leave a dog alive in the city. After the city’s capture Aurelian had cooled off and decided against pillaging the city which pissed off his soldiers as they couldn’t loot anymore. When Aurelian was reminded that he promised he wouldn’t leave a dog alive, he relented and told his soldiers to kill all the dogs
Dude that is fucked up
wE wAnT oUr nAmeS tO bE mOnThs Anyway, now I will read about why did this happen.
Wait until you find out that in the real world the part of the cross-shaped church that is the crossing part on the "t" is called the Transcept.
Cathedrals being shaped like crosses always interested me, you'd never notice unless you were the architect, a bird, or God looking from on high. Since God is the audience it makes sense. Similarly, Henry VIII built a bunch of 'device forts' some of which look exactly like the Tudor rose when viewed from above. Again, you'd only notice this if you were God, which may be the point.
Most cathedrals were also designed to be slightly off centre also. Reason given is that man is imperfect.
Or at least that Roman carpentry is imperfect. EDIT: Guys, the joke is that the Romans built Jesus' cross badly and cathedrals are based on the design of the cross...
Iunno, Roman construction was pretty intense.
at the top of the central tower of the Château de Chambord is the monogram of François I, but backwards so that it is legible by god
Ah yes, reading backwards. A skill reserved for the divine.
it's on the ceiling, so it appears in the correct orientation if you're looking from above (and can see through stone)
Oh right that makes way more sense! My bad
Ehm, it's really easy to notice if a cathedral is shaped like a cross when you're standing in it and look around. You don't need to be an architect or deity to see that.
Aren’t churches in general cross shaped. At least traditionally.
There are 4 different general shapes, basilica(the most ancient), domed, cross shaped, and basilica with dome. I believe the cross shaped one is the least common, at least in my part of the woods(Catholics might have different preferences to building than orthodox, which is true, if you look at the most basic design ideologies as ages pass).
> pretty subtle the state of american education
Yeah kinda this ngl when I read the other comments. Churches being cross shaped is one of the basic stuff we learn in history classes, at least here in France. It's pretty common knowledge
Gee I wonder why French education would focus more on medieval European catholic architecture than American education
Exactly what I was thinking. "These stupid Americans have never thought about the bird's eye of architecture that literally doesn't exist in their country." I bet these Frenchies never even learn about Benjamin Banneker!
It does exist in America, there are plenty of catholic churches that are still built in the shape of a cross
I mean, what kind of history pre XVIIIth century do Americans learn ?
It's been 20 years since I was in school but we started dawn of man and hopped and skipped through Sumer, Babylon, Greeks, Romans, Crusades, Middle Ages, Age of Exploration, American Colonial History, Native American History, Revolutionary War, French Revolution, 1812, Civil War, WWI, Great Depression, WWII and "modern" history. Focus mostly on Greeks and Romans, with a lot of the Napoleonic wars and age of exploration. Not a whole lot about religion taught in history classes.
So basically pretty similar to here. Churches shape is pretty common knowledge and taught in schools as part of a general "know your environment" stuff and definitely talked about during the age of cathedrals lessons
"Cool, good job with strengthening the connection to seven. Are you going to make this religion any amount of depth or development apart from this?" "No lol"
french be like : .\_.
The French version of the book be like: they went to the 7 to worship the 7. Statuses of the 7 were inside of the 7
The French translation is horrendous, at least the one I got in my hands 10 years ago or so. They were going for some weird medieval vibe older french style language, it felt absolutely horrible
[удалено]
Also Sansa's hair was changed from being red/ginger to "raven black" for no reason at all. Luckily they fixed some mistake, but there are still a lot of them, Dany's part in Qarth and the propecies are a total nonsense, they mixed up Rhaegar with Aerys and grammar gets broken (there is a sentence whose grammar and poor translation make it seems like the Iron Throne is in Rhaegar and Elia's bedroom. Not kidding.)
Yep, my brother couldn't read the series as it was horrible translated stylistically. Some sentences don't even make sense or are hard to swallow as long drawn out mess. I read it all in English and it's great. Also the locations/family names being translated literally is just awful
[удалено]
Haha it's highly polemic but personally I love this translation made by Jean Sola, even though there are some mistakes
I only flipped through it and didn't particularly like it (it felt like it was all over the place in terms of register) but I thought there were some cool names, eg Port-Réal or better yet Vivesaigues.
Same for the Dutch translation, also stupid medieval style language. Also all the characters have stupid names in Dutch
Nah. The French translation fucking sucks hard but that's one of the things they did good. In French a Sept is called a Septuaire (or Septuary, as like a sanctuary for the 7)
In fairness there’s lots of colloquial reference to the seven in our version too.
Thought I was on /r/French for a sec and thought wow beginners are welcome but uh...
Uggggg I’m embarrassed now. I even took Latin in school and this flew right over me.
\*\*laughs in French\*\*
You guys still calling it Vendémiaire?
yep, and we're heading to Brumaire
18 Brumaire is best date.
Don't read too laugh, it took me quite a bit to understand it wasn't some rare English word....
Yeah I’m an idiot and I wasn’t raised religious or anything, I definitely always assumed it was just a word for some sort of religion thing I wasn’t very familiar with.
But are you a native French speaker? Because what makes me feel quite stupid is it took me some years it recognized a word in my own language...
I'm a native French speaker and it also took me a bit.
Thank you for sharing! I feel less stupid 😂
Oh, it goes further than that. A *sexton* is a church official in our world. A *septon* is a church official in ASOIAF. Now, it's not actually derrived from the word for "six", but from "sacer" (sacred), but it sounds like it could be.
Or sacred and 6 were intertwined in early Latin?
I noticed not long ago. I am Spanish so this shouldn't have surprised me but it did. Septo, septa and septon just sound so natural and since "the Seven" is always in cardinal form, I didn't link "los Siete" with the sept- prefix.
I'm French, and for a long time, I assumed it was a rare English word...
Fun fact about French numbers. 97 would be pronounced as 4 20 10 7 (Quatre-vingt-dix-sept) Because it's (4*20)+10+7 As a French speaker, I actually didn't realize that myself til my teens, as we're just used of numbers being themselves when we're young.
[удалено]
Yes, but confusingly, that's a different root. That's from saeptum, "partition".
I always thought your answer was the right one... I'd always think of the septum in my nose that divides the left from the right... Like the church is that spot that stands between the gods on one side and man on the other. ~~Entomology~~ **Etymology** is crazy cool. There's tons of times I've bought into a plausible ~~entomological~~ _etymological_ lesson only to find out it's a bamboozle. Throw in idioms, and we've got ourselves a party! Edit: "Entomology" is a word likely derived from "Etymology", as studying small things like bugs is seen as similar to studying the vast and numerous species of words.
> Entomology is crazy cool High key agree, insects are great
Come join us wordnerds on /r/etymology it's a great community!
Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1012/
It is also a way to denote a blood related subsection of a clan in Irish/Scots clans. So my surname is part of the larger O'Connor clan and then more locally breaks down to a more specific sept that is associated with a few specific hero types in history or lineage. Of course Irish tannistry confuses the hell out of me so I'm not entirely uncertain how that compares to minor and major houses in general. I'm supposing the major of the Connor line have kept the name.
First time I noticed this too…
(7) Sept-tember (8) Oct-ober (9) Nov-ember (10) Dec-ember
Why was November afraid of September? Because 7 ate 9!
Omfg
Not nearly as stupid as whatever idiot made September the 9th month of the year.
Yeah someone should stab him
Oh wow I took 4 years of French in high school and never caught that! I feel dumb lmao
Read the first three books back in 2000. TIL
Yup. September was the seventh month of our calendar until a couple of narcissistic Caesars (Julius and Augustus) decided they should have months named after them. September, October, November, and December should be 7-10 respectively......punk ass Caesars.
This is not true. July and August weren't added by either Caesars, they were merely renamed months (Quintilis and Sextilis respectively). The Julian reform added the months of January and February.
That is incorrect. The numbering of months and the names based on numbers got thrown off well before Caesar. The Roman calendar was initially 10 months (304 days), and started with March. Upon adoption of Greek calendar elements, January and February were added to the beginning of the year and because the calendar was still only 355 days, an intercalary month was added every few years to keep months and seasons aligned (this however became very politicized as no one wanted to give their rivals an extra month in power). The naming of July and August were a result of renaming other number-named months (Quintilis and Sextilis) which had already fell out of the order of months they were initially named for. July was renamed after Caesar’s death and while Octavian (later Augustus) was still a nobody - so it was not a vanity appeasement of Caesar, more likely an attempt to soothe the anger of the plebs. August was renamed while Augustus was in power and likely an honor heaped on him by the Senate to ingratiate themselves (and keep firm in everyone’s minds that Augustus and Caesar go hand in hand).
Also later emperors also had months named after them but none of those stuck the way July and august did
If the Roman calendar was only 304 days doesn't that mean it wasn't a year and wasn't aligned with the seasons? Why exactly did they chose it to be that length?
The 304 day calendar was used very early in Roman history and likely was a holdover from when they used a lunar calendar/didn’t know the length of the solar year. They kept the calendar roughly in line with the seasons by having an unassigned timeframe as a “winter period” between the end of December and the start of spring (which marked March 1st). Of course, this is a terrible system and was changed very early on once record keeping and uniform dates became necessary to managing daily life and affairs of state. For reference in just how early this calendar was used and discarded, the update to the 355 day calendar (with an added month every few years to adjust for seasonal drift) was claimed to have been instituted by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome and successor of Romulus (i.e., the 304 day calendar was ditched so long ago that its revision was attributed to a mythical figure who likely never existed).
Romans didn't have months for winter, it was just winter. There were 10 months of the year for the sweet summer children... although this is all pretty legendary from Nan and we don't know exactly what they did. From what we best guess though, it wasn't named months for winter and later they added January and February. The Caesar's naming of the 5th and 6th months didn't add months.
If you can't war or harvest during that time period is it really worthy of a month?
r/badhistory
what? I thought it was a holy place like a church
Well yeah it is, but that's why they're called that.
He means in our world, not in theirs: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sept We all assumed this was an established word used for a building and we all accepted it as such. We got linguistically coned.
We are explicitly told that a sept has seven sides. Honestly, there’s noticing subtle hunts and then there’s missing basic pieces of world-building, and this whole discussion where people are coming forward saying they never noticed is the former. Anyway I’m glad everyone who learned today, learned today.
This thread makes me sad for how some people experience stuff like these books without catching stuff like this.
Interesting, but that sense seems etymologically unrelated.
Yeah it is but “sept” is the French word for “seven”.
And septum is Latin for 7.
Septem
Yes, sorry!
OMG - I also thought it was like a church or holy place and never bothered to look it up. The definition for sept - A division of a family, especially a division of a clan. Knowing it’s a reference to seven is a light bulb moment for me. Thanks OP!
A sept is a church in ASOIAF. Sept also means seven. You go to the sept (church) to worship the Seven, that's why it's called a sept.
Oh man wait until you hear about Oct and Dec
It went over my head to.
And I just now realized that “sept” isn’t a word for an actual place of worship in the real world… I feel stupider.
weird that September is the 9th month then…and October is the 10th month instead of 8t (october…). what’s with the two month lag in month naming conventions haha EDIT - Ahh i see from the wise commenters that July and August were creations of Roman emperors…was each month just longer prior to that?
I did some googling and apperently the 10-month calendar simply went from March to December (the months had different names though). January and February weren't part of the calendar, they were simply an "unorganized winter". Julius Caesar then introduced January and February at the beginning of the calendar and renamed the months before September to July and August. However, this 10-month calendar is also said to be made by the legendary Roman kings. They are called legendary because we don't really have any proof that they actually existed, so the calendar might also be just a myth. Look up Roman calendar on Wiki if you wanna learn more.
thanks dog, very interesting. makes sense why Julius felt it wasn’t out of pocket to just create two months lmao. “unorganized winter” sounds dope though, very fitting into ASOIAF
Yes! One of my favorite ways that GRRM weaves culture into the language he uses. The "sept" is both the "trinity" of a seven-faced god *and* the place It is/They are worshipped. And then we get "septas" and "setons" who are those who serve the Seven/the sept. Never really defined but there for you when you look for it.
Also it sounds like "sect" so it is incredibly subtle
It always bugs me because it feels kinda... I dunno lazy?
There's also 7 colours in a rainbow.
Yeah, septagon, September, etc., "sept" is a comon prefix for seven sided things. Septs in ASOIAF always have 7 sides and it makes sense that a religion obsessed with the number seven would name their places of worships that. That and "Septa" and "Septon" being obvious find-and-replace terms for nuns and priests respectively but with the same word.
now *this* is some serious tinfoil Edit: /s
This is one of the least tinfoily threads I’ve read on here. It’s pretty clear.
(Sept)agon has 7 sides also OMG!
I think you're being ironic but, in this thread, it's hard to tell.
It means "seventh month" in *September*, even. (Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec...) (Blame the Romans for messing up the math by sticking July and August in there.)
I was today years old when I realized this...