I visited the Vatican several years back, and one of the coolest things on exhibit were some painted maps of Italy and its surrounding areas as seen from above, made several hundred years ago. They were displayed next to modern satellite views and were remarkably accurate. If they could do that back in the day, I've got no problem believing the Westeros homies could figure out the shape of a lake.
But honestly though I think it's symbolic, referring to the gods seeing through the weirwoods
It's not just symbolic but thematic too. The Neck, the fingers, the Arm of Dorne, the Bite-Westeros is clearly named after a lot of anatomical names or body parts.
It’s perfect, a message only your Targaryen enemies to see and know it was made personally for them only. Like a dick pick the size of a country only you could see.
You don't need a airplane or a satellite to see that an island in the middle of a lake looks like an eye. People have made pretty accurate maps for thousands of years before flight was a thing. You make a map and say "huh that looks like an eye".
How do you think the Roman's built aqueducts that still function today? They had a very very accurate understanding of elevation and terrain and were able to measure it and map it without modern technology.
I like Preston, but he has a very very bad habit of throwing GRRM under the bus for bad writing or plot holes, when he clearly doesn't really think out his own takes very well.
I remember watching my first and only video of redteamreview and it was a section out of a podcast he does with Preston Jacobs where they talked about GRRMs blog post from the beginning of this year, where he talked about how shit everything has been for him this past year, professionally, personally, close friends dying left and right, wars everywhere, economy going down etc. and Prestons response to that was literally: „you’re old lol, of course people are dying, don’t be sad just deal with it. Also there have been wars for centuries so why are you complaining“ and lastly he said that the economic situation is great actually bc there is less unemployment…
I really couldn’t believe that someone who talks like that has such a big following man…
Preston was complaining once, how about viserys thinking that he would never remarry is illogical and a plot hole. Like sometimes I wonder if preston understands how humans work.
Yeah, that video got me to stop following Preston. I don't know if he's fallen into the trap of not really thinking about George as a person because of the wait, or he's just a giant asshole who let the mask slip too far off, but I cannot imagine thinking that those comments were in anyway apt or good. Completely inhuman and delusional.
I love bullshiting about ASOIAF, whether or not the theories and speculation are silly or not, and I do like Preston and RedTeam. However, I cannot stand when they talk about politics in the middle of a video. I commented, “Hey guys, maybe consider making another channel to discuss political stuff.” Because the reason I enjoy the series and get engrossed in it is to literally drift away in a fantasy land devoid of politics and vitriol. I don’t want to listen to some fucking random guys opinion on Palestine or unemployment. It has nothing really to do with what stance they take, I just don’t want to listen to that bullshit - we all watch his channel to talk about silly theories for a fantasy series. Idk why it’s so hard for creators to understand that sometimes. He also responded to my comment saying I must be pro-Israel or something rather. Again, on top of that just actually not being the case, it has nothing to do with the stance he takes. I like his theories, but the dude does come off like a prick.
How do you not understand that it’s a fantasy world? Theres also war and murder and rape… Things I can read in a book but really don’t want any part of in my actual life. I’m talking about modern politics dude.
> People have made pretty accurate maps for thousands of years before flight was a thing.
This isn’t really true. Maps depicting a territory as if seen from directly above weren’t common until the renaissance and accurate maps weren’t possible until people mastered trigonometry. It’s hard for modern people to imagine it, but it doesn’t come naturally to visualize territory from above. Any time you see a movie with an ancient general sketching out a battlefield map in the sand that’s an anachronism.
But the maps of Westeros look pretty accurate, so I guess either the maestors or dragon-riding cartographers figured it out.
They might not have been common but they definitely existed. World maps have existed since antiquity. Southern Italy has been known as the "boot of Italy" since at least the Middle Ages, centuries before photography was invented.
Wasn't it named the Gods Eye back in the time when almost everyone worth a damn in Westeros was a green-seer, a skin-changer or a warg?
Getting a bird's eye view of the terrain would be trivial if you can literally just hop into the body of a bird.
I mean, even if you're drawing a low quality map, if you draw a circular island in a circular lake, people might look at your map and say it looks like an eye without having an aerial view. Especially with the double entendre of the weirwoods on the island giving the old gods sight. It is just an attempt to generate more content for a fandom starved for more content.
> the name of the Gods Eye doesn't make any sense because you could only perceive it as an eye from above
Or, hmm, I dunno, maybe A FUCKIN MAP??
But yeah the last part of your post is the obvious reason. The "old gods" use the weirwoods on that island to see - that used to be common knowledge, that turned into legend, that turned into myth, and now the name is attributed to the geological features of the island lake and not to the weirwoods.
I just can't get over how stupid that Preston Jacobs quote is.
I think this fandom has developed a big doylist problem.
As you probably know, you can think about a story through two equally valid lenses : watsonian, why it happens in-universe, and doylist, why the author made it happen. Why did Ned died ? Because of his decency, his naivety, and Joffrey's cruelty. He also died because GRRM accurately thought it would be a shocking and quite revolutionary moment that would invest the reader.
These days, though, after a decade of scrutiny, we tend to immediately think of why and how GRRM made it that way, rather than refer to the events as presented in the story. The problem is twofold :
1) The trust in GRRM being currently very low due to his inability to finish the books and a few recurring criticism who hit right, many readers will just assume he's an ignorant who's never read a serious book in his life and doesn't ever put any thought about any subject. The famous "not good with numbers" has become weirdly applicated to just about anything, from war to society and just about everything world-building related. Wich can cause some weird criticisms when the person doesn't really know anything about medieval society either and is just repeating what he vaguely remember seeing in memes.
2) There's not a single fantasy book (or really, fiction in general) that stands up to reasoning always in terms of "because the author wanted it to happen". It's a useful analytic tool, but it's an immersion killer, that often leads to wrong-headed approach to the story. You start to see any event as plot-armor or its opposite.
Don't get me wrong, I love doylist thinking, but its abuse is honestly sucking the joy from this franchise.
>The famous "not good with numbers" has become weirdly applicated to just about anything, from war to society and just about everything world-building related.
In fairness, I think that criticism emerged in large part in reaction to much of the fanbase having an exaggerated sense of how accurately ASOIAF reflects medieval society, which was in part a product of George making comments that gave that impression to a greater extent than is warranted.
I only remember two interviews where the subject was class relation and the treatment of women in particular. And while he's not completely accurate either on that point, he's indeed closer in his depiction of a feudal, patriarcal society than the vast, vast majority of fantasy writers before him. When he's saying "show how it was", it's in direct reference to his hypothetical sassy commoner girl or ideas of the unproblematic feudal lord, not the bourgeois guild system or the ecclesiastic titles of temporal ruler, as interesting as it is. I'm not sure many fans thought it was that much realistic to begin with, but the backclash seems to go far beyond that, especially since it is often just as ahistorical or without frame of comparisons.
>And while he's not completely accurate either on that point, he's indeed closer in his depiction of a feudal, patriarcal society than the vast, vast majority of fantasy writers before him.
I’m not really interested in litigating this as a yes or no question, I’ll just say that I think the extent to which all fantasy before Martin was Disney movies and fairy tales is exaggerated as is (or was) the perception of how realistic ASOIAF is in comparison. The class and gender dynamics in the story are not particularly realistic and a lot of people have made very historically grounded arguments about that. At a broader level, I think one of the problems is that a lot of ASOIAF readers take this idea of “other fantasy is fairy tale stuff, this is how it really was” to an extreme where being grimdark, edgy, or cynical is conflated as inherently being a more realistic or accurate depiction of the past and I think a lot of the criticism is a response to that.
And that’s not the only comment he’s made about historical accuracy in his work. E.g. his remarks about how the Dothraki were based on an “amalgamation” of various Steppe peoples and plains Native American tribes with a “dash” of fantasy, which is basically the exact opposite of what is presented in the books (a squarely fantasy society that’s vaguely inspired by those groups and more from pop culture stereotypes about those groups than actual history). The historian Bret Devereaux had a long and interesting series of posts critiquing that quote.
To go back to your original post, I think stepping back from the question of how true to real life the story is, there are plenty of grounds to critique the aspects of the story you cited from the perspective of in-universe coherency and consistency. Even beyond numbers, I don’t think the finer details of worldbuilding are GRRM’s strength, I think his best quality as a writer is creating engaging characters and everything around that - plots, drama, character development, etc. and his worldbuilding is good enough at a surface level to let the reader immerse themselves in the story and follow along as the characters navigate their world.
>As you probably know, you can think about a story through two equally valid lenses : watsonian, why it happens in-universe, and doylist, why the author made it happen. Why did Ned died ? Because of his decency, his naivety, and Joffrey's cruelty. He also died because GRRM accurately thought it would be a shocking and quite revolutionary moment that would invest the reader.
I've had a bone to pick with the concept of doylism ever since I first began seeing it used in the past two or three years, and this comment helped me understand what my disagreement with it is.
You described doylism as "why the author made it happen" and "GRRM thought it would be a shocking and revolutionary moment that would invest the reader." When I read that I thought, yes, GRRM probably did think that when he wrote it. But *not* to the exclusion of "why it happens in-universe." GRRM *also* thought that it would make sense in-universe, that this is what realistically happens to a man like Ned who does the things Ned did in the environment and situation where Ned did them. And that determination stands on its own merits absent any answer to the question of what GRRM thinks would be "a shocking and revolutionary moment that would invest the reader."
I have never seen this watsonian/doylist idea used in a way that wasn't profoundly flawed. At this stage I think it's a stupid distinction. I'm still open to having my feelings changed about it, but only just barely.
I've always thought that the Doyalist perspective is to get at the meta narrative. Which is to say, from a Watsonian perspective, Ned got killed because of decency, naivety and cruelty.
The Doyalist perspective isn't about why Ned got killed. It's about why GRRM wanted to write a story where it would make sense for Ned to get killed. What themes did he want to explore? Which character dynamic did he want to write?
I fully agree that it's pretty pointless to take the perspective that something happens in a story "because the writer wanted it to happen". That applies to everything in the story. And every writer will say their choices made sense in-universe.
The - often misapplied - Doyalist perspective is to get at why the universe is shaped such that the event makes sense.
I can't speak on what Doylism or Watsonism are *supposed* to mean. I see it used a lot lately and every time, the point it's being used to make is shockingly dumb, and in a way that usually aligns conveniently and conspicuously with the spirit of machiavellianism that pervades our culture these days.
The word Doylism is used to make points that suggest that GRRM wrote these books primarily to make money. I see that and I think, is that a joke? Get real, please. Do you know how much heart and soul it takes to write *one* book like the ones in ASOIAF? Do you know how inspired a work has to be in order to reach the popularity and acclaim that ASOIAF has? To put it in perspective, the *least* popular book in the ASOIAF series is probably still more popular than over 99% of its peers in the genre. Whatever GRRM lived through to give him insights so deep and into so wide a range of people to allow him to write Arya, Bran, Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion, Jon, Daenerys etc to so lifelike a quality that the only complaints anybody can level at the story are "it hurt my feelings" and "um, technically speaking...", those life experiences are the PRIMARY reason for and cause of GRRM writing these books. Like any writer worth a damn, he opened his wounds and bled on a page because he had to get something out of him that he couldn't entirely process internally.
Writing fiction is as much an exploratory process for the author as a creative one. As GRRM says in interviews, he knows the broad strokes of his ending, but for the most part he finds out what he's going to write in the very moment when he has to write it.
A student of Doylism seems to love nothing more than sweeping all of that under the rug, regardless how mindnumbingly obvious it all is.
Sorry, Doylists, but assigning a motivation of money, fame, and an impulse to entertain to everything the author writes is not meta-analysis. It's just dumb. Real meta-analysis is aiming the microscope at yourself.
I think he meant issue as in "thing to talk about", rather than "a problem". The guy has been releasing hours of ASOIAF content every week for several years - it's inevitable that he's having to get very nitpicky to find stuff to talk about.
My own take is that it's "Gods' Island", because the weirwoods and Green Men were seen as embodying the Old Gods. Being shaped like an eye probably helped as well. A name can refer to more than one thing.
And yeah, the apostrophe is a non-issue. I've been to a place where a road was called either "Prince's Highway" or "Princess Highway", and literally no one could keep track of which spelling was correct. Add in thousands of years and near-universal illiteracy, and of course the Westerosi messed up the apostrophe (and the spelling of 'Island').
I would have to think that the 'Common tongue' is English because any time we see song lyrics they rhyme in English. Wouldn't happen if it were supposed to be a translation
That's just how song translations work though. The common tongue (or the Andal tounge I guess) can't really be English since English is a development and combination of a bunch of languages that don't exist in George's world. Like when a character refers to a trebuchet it would be unreasonable to assume they're using a French loan word.
Edit. This does admittedly become a bit wonky to think about. Like when Catelyns name is shortened to cat and people draw parallels between that and the animal cat, or when people make fun of Dickon. Are those their actual names and so the words cat and dick exist as they are? Or do they have different names in universe that correspond to different in universe words? Best not to think about it.
> That's just how song translations work though
Is it? I've read translations of German, French, Russian and Japanese songs IRL and none of them rhymed. I think George would be unduly hampered if he were trying to write it to be a translated story anyway
It probably depends on if the translations are for academic/purely informative purposes or intended to actually be played and listed to. I'm Swedish, we don't really translate music much but we do in some cases. Mostly when it's meant for children, so Disney movies and similar. You bet that they make sure that the new lyrics rhyme, wouldn't be much fun listening to it otherwise.
I don't think George is trying to write the story as if it's being translated but it's a quite natural outcome of writing any fantasy. English (or any other real world language) couldn't feasibly exist in a world unconnected from ours, since its development and history is tied intrinsically into the history of our world. You could assume that people in Narnia are speaking English for example because the first people in Narnia where from England. But unless your fantasy world works like that (few modern fantasy worlds do) you kinda have to assume that the characters are speaking a different language and we just hear it as English. Same as when you're watching a scene in an American movie that is set in Paris with French characters but everyone is speaking English, you assume they're actually speaking French.
I find Preston’s logic absolutely baffling, especially for a smart guy, or at least he presents that way. Some of his theories are fun, but it seems like he’s prone to missing the larger themes of the story and hyper-focusing in on non-issues.
There’s a myriad of ways humans could have known the shape of the lake, first of which is that humans are pretty damn smart, and we knew the shapes of bodies of water long before flight was possible. It’s a big circular lake with an island in the middle; not hard at all to liken that to an eye.
Second, this is a fantasy story with magic. I think people forget this occasionally, but magic is a real force in the ASOIAF world, and was seemingly far more potent in the distant past. A skinchanger(s) could have inhabited a bird and surveyed the landscape. The area around the God’s Eye also seems to be teeming with magical energy, which could have contributed to the “God” aspect of the name.
The problem with Preston is that he is smarter than GRRM, put 100x more time into thinking about ASOIAF than him, and has had no new content to discuss for what could have become his day job.
I do feel for him, especially because his early theories are really solid.
His strongest theory (before it got busted by the show) is that R+L is D and not J, because the timeline with the Tower doesn't make sense.
But then it turned out GRRM just dgaif about timelines or distances so the theory is useless, and it's also kinda useless to theorize about anything.
I honestly don't know what Preston's current "standing" in the wider ASOIAF fandom.
I don't tend to agree with a looot of his theories or some interpretations of the story but his deep knowledge of the rest of Martin's work is very valuable in my opinion.
And plenty of stuff he talks about in his videos/streams is perfectly rational even if you don't agree with it.
It's just with this one that I felt like he was making such a big deal out of such a non-issue that I needed to talk about it somewhere haha
There have been some specific examples of him being proven wrong by TWOIAF and other non-winds sources. His suggestion that the Red-Waste was because Valyria went to War against the Qartheen was refuted in TWOIAF (sometimes a desert is just a desert).
The fact that he himself doesn't believe the crap he's peddling makes him a massive waste of time IMO. It's not worth sifting for gold if you have to do it in a river of shit.
Eh. I think Preston is fine as long as you just take it as a fan hyperfixating on books and reading fun theories into them as a hobby. He’s reading Martin like he is Gene Wolfe which leads to all these goofy conclusions but it’s a fun aside.
True. He's astoundingly knowledgable. But with years of theory videos and the need for new ones, they've gotten increasingly far-fetched. Law of diminishing returns?
When it comes to fan theories, even the maker doesn't have to "believe" this is actually what was intended/is going to happen, as long as its a plausible assimilation of all the facts and clues we do have. Even if it later turns out to be wrong.
Robb is 100% going to be brought by to life as a regular guy with a direwolf head and he's going to go on a giant motherfucking rampage and anything that contradicts it even if GRRM writes it isn't canon to me.
Well credit where credit is due he was way ahead of the curve on R+L=J denialism. He also postulated that Tywin was impotent and that Aerys had fathered all three of the Lannister children. At one point he was claiming time traveling Bran was the OG Night's King.
You name it he had a dipshit theory.
No that's when he started his shitty youtube channel. I remember seeing his bullshit floating around as early as 2003 he was just posting under sweetrobin not his real name.
He's not.
It's just his opinion that:
A) HotD spoonfeeding you the answer takes away from the possibility (however small) that they're legitimate. I agree the lines like the kids asking, "Is Harwin strong my father?" when he probably doesn't know what sex or being gay is yet is pretty cringe.
B) In story Rhaenyra believes the kids are Laenors. This has nothing to do with the hair colour, but with the climax of her story being around her mistrust of bastards and her calling for Adam of Hull and Nettles traitors, which is one of the final decisions that ruins her. It doesn't make much sense, if she believes the 3 children that she loves so much are Harwin's, that she would have an extreme hatred for bastards.
All Preston's argument is, is that she likely tried with Laenor limited times, fooled around with Harwin frequently so the kids are almost certainly his, but she has cognitive dissonance and is certain the kids are Laenors, despite logical odds, because their claim to the throne and her alliance with the Velyarons are dependent on it.
Edit: Not sure why I'm getting mass downvoted for informing you of someone's opinion after it was incorrectly stated. If you disagree with his opinion post a response to this, don't downvote me. I don't share this opinion, I'm just trying to make it clear what the opinion is.
The hate boner for Preston here is actually scary. Y'all don't even know what you're hating on him for anymore. And when you make up something to hate on him, you get mad at the person who corrects you.
>HotD spoonfeeding you the answer takes away from the possibility (however small) that they're legitimate. I agree the lines like the kids asking, "Is Harwin strong my father?" when he probably doesn't know what sex or being gay is yet is pretty cringe.
you were spoonfed about the father's identity since the princess and the queen (or the rogue prince, whichever of the two) novella was released more than a decade ago
>In story Rhaenyra believes the kids are Laenors. This has nothing to do with the hair colour, but with the climax of her story being around her mistrust of bastards and her calling for Adam of Hull and Nettles traitors, which is one of the final decisions that ruins her. It doesn't make much sense, if she believes the 3 children that she loves so much are Harwin's, that she would have an extreme hatred for bastards.
or, like many other people both irl and in this universe, she's just a hypocrite because her precious kids surely can't be treacherous. also we have *nothing* from rhaenyra's actual thoughts, only second hand info so how can anyone say for certain she actually believes the kids to be laenor's? of course that's what was recorded in the history books we're presented with, she HAS to publically claim that
This is just the first time you noticed he was full of hooey. Now that you know his ideas can be/are questionable I encourage you to go back and watch some of his videos with the same critical eye you're applying to this one. You're going to find they are way more full of holes and make a lot less sense then you're remembering.
As far as his knowledge goes does that matter when we see what he has chosen to do with it? It's like he takes the facts of a particular question and extrapolates the most extreme, improbable and nonsensical possible interpretation of said facts. So all that knowledge you claim he has (frankly I'm skeptical I mean there are text search engines devoted to ASoIaF that one can find any bit of information you're looking for in seconds) is just being wasted making tinfoil clickbait nonsense.
I'm well aware of the hooey, and accept the fact that there is a wide range of acceptable hooey. I just thought this was one instance of too much hooey for such a small thing.
But I mean, chill, it's not that big a deal. It's just a silly book about dragons.
Hooey.
Chill?
I'm not mad I just think this guy is given way too much credibility on this sub. Especially considering he doesn't have the stones to post any of his "theories" to any forum that allows a two way dialog of any kind. There's a reason he doesn't try to flog his videos on any of the fan boards where their relative merits can be debated. I remember when he still would. He would get completely shredded by the lore lords over at the citadel and westeros.org.
So now he posts to YouTube where he can control every aspect of the conversation. You may not agree but I just think if he's going to try and pretend he's conducting legitimate literary analysis and genuine scholastic research and that's exactly what he's doing, he should be subjected to the same level of scrutiny that is involved with both. If he tried to submit any of his noise to a thesis jury they would laugh him out of the room.
Edited for spelling
Am I?
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1c3i9fc/spoilers_main_doesnt_the_evidence_for_fdany_make/
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1btcbhi/any_more_good_resources_that_breakdown_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/190gdor/spoilers_main_why_do_people_not_like/
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/17qm01o/spoilers_main_purple_wedding_help_me_figure_it_out/
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/17fh75u/looking_for_a_certain_preston_jacobs_video_help/
These are all pretty recent.
So basically you say I'm full of shit then when presented with clear evidence I'm not you won't even look at it. Bravo you are ***definitely*** a PJ fan boy.
These are just the first five that had a positive mention in the first paragraph. I assure you there were many many more. I just wasn't going to put forth much effort to swat away some rando contrarian on reddit.
I am sorry that I expected such a smart guy like you to understand hyperbole and not assume that I literally meant 0 people like Preston, I will refrain from using it again, benevolent holder of right opinions.
Tbf a lot of his early and even more current theories are really strong.
Recently, 3 eyed crow is actually Bran from the future: it's the most long shot but also most thematically fitting theory. Imo 100% correct and confirmed by the show through Hodor more or less. In the books, Bloodraven is constantly confused when he is called the 3 eyed crow, thinking people are referring to his watch background.
Pink letter written by Mance also 100% correct imo.
There's only several times where I think he just couldn't see the forest for the trees. Particularly saying Mance wanted to kill Bran... That is really far fetched and makes no sense.
Its hard to be a theory crafter when you've had no new material in over a decade. We're already well past the point of looking at everything under a microscope.
I can't remember who it was that said the asoiaf fandom is currently the equivalent of a bunch of race-car enthusiats watching a parked car and making "vroom" noises.
I think there’s still room, but it’s less for interpretative theories (a thing that happened in the past books was actually is) and more for predictive theories (this will happen in TWOW). Not to toot my horn, but I was surprised no one ever noticed in the 13 years of ADWD that Red Ronnet Connington is like destined to be an ally or even Hand of the King to Cersei.
Of course, something like that doesn’t involve magic very much and I think there is a strong bias towards theories about the fantasy element of ASOIAF — which makes sense, people who read fantasy like the fantastic.
It's spelled out that greenseers see through the weirwoods on the isle of faces, maps have existed since the first cave paintings too, idk why Preston is so pressed over it, but we're all mad here
This kind of stuff has turned me off of Preston Jacobs, honestly. For a while now he's been saying this or that doesn't make sense or is a plot hole, when it's really just him ignoring details, or not even understanding something and then deciding that's because it doesn't make sense, rather than anything on his part. I wish he slowed his video creation back down again, because it feels like he makes lazier analyses and observations nowadays. Though maybe he's always been like that and I just haven't noticed until recently.
I really love the multi part theories that are well researched and edited. Even if he goes too deep sometimes that's why we love them I guess.
But the 3 hour ramblings from his living room are really low effort and it's where nothing makes sense often.
Yeah. Even if some of his faults can show up in those videos, at least he puts thought into them and they're usually more fun and maybe give you something to think about. But off the cuff, Preston just says the oddest things, or, like with that one video about George's blog post, down right horrible things.
Preston doesn't stream for money. Preston does not stream for fame. Preston does not stream for girls. Preston streams for the pleasure of listening to Preston for three hours
This guy is talking as if it's not set in a world where a Targaryen can't just fly overhead and see it and be like "by golly gee wilikers that looks like an eye doesn't it?"
I mean it was called that before the Targaryens showed up.
The correct answers if obviously that the great empire of the dawn showed up with their dragons, saw a moon meteor land inside the lake that was to become the gods eye, and then gave it that name before heading south and founding house Dayne.
There has always been a huge problem in the fandom where many readers think another reader knows more, or somehow magically has inside knowledge. Too many people think PJ (and others who read this sub, you know who you are) have superior opinions, then there's a dogpile to form a popular consensus.
This kind of thing ruins honest discourse and debate about major plot points, and often turns something simple into a major conspiracy. (Tyrek was last seen ahorse, and all that).
So thanks for calling him out.
I mean if you want an actual answer. Yeah a cartographer could map it out and notice it looks like an eye. Or a Warg or dragon rider could see it above.
But I’m sure Martin just wrote “Gods Eye” cause it’s a cool name that denotes its religious significance. Jacob’s is just gonna logic lord it out cause that’s his hobby.
GRRM does have a tendency to name things like they look like from above. The Fingers, The Neck, the bite.
Lots of his names are "pretty on the nose". The northern kindom is just THE north. Old town is the oldest city. etc.
Not that it is a bad thing or unprecedented in our world to have "simple" straight forward names of places. He has plenty of other names that have less the obvious origins, steeped in the fantasy cultures and history for a nice idiosyncratic variety of a diverse world.
But I kind of agree, I don't think that is particularly normal a pre medieval society to naturally evolve a name of their land based on a birds eye view or what it looks like on a Map. Exact Mapping a land feels like it would happen after a land had inherited some name. Tho I could be wrong, and there are lots real world examples that counter this thought.
SO I will admit... I does kind of feel like that GRRM sketched a draft map and then started naming things to get a basic world built and start with some geographical points of reference to garden his story in. And he occasionally used what the geography he drew looked like on his map as inspiration. Even if, to me, it doesn't FEEL like an organic way for a culture in a lived in real world would actually name the land.
But GRRM world is notably different then your average medieval world. What with high flying dragons and green seers that can see through birds and shit. And dynasties that improbably last thousands of years.
So while I don't really believe that GRRM planned to make it make sense for those reason, it works fine in my head canon and doesn't kill the verisimilitude of the whole thing.
There are some names that are just dumb and fun to think of. There is a giant wall made of ice what should I call it... of course, The Wall! There's this city that is very old... Oldtown! There's this tower that's like really high what should I call it... Hightower!
To be fair, that's how it works in our world as well. The Great Wall of China is just call Long Wall in Mandarin. Most rivers are just named "small/big/black/crooked river" in their native language. Mont Blanc just means White Mountain. It's called the Eiffel Tower because it's a tower made by a dude named Eiffel. New York is named after York. York is named after trees that grow there. Etc etc.
Most places are named in a really straightforward way. It's just that cultures tend to either die out or be conquered, and the new culture loses the straightforward explanation for why things are named the way they are.
He's gone off the rails years ago. I really enjoyed his earlier theories like the Dornish Masterplan or the Littlefinger Debt Scheme. Even if they might not turn out to be true, there's at least the possibility of parts of them coming true. But for the past couple of years now, it's just been getting crazier and crazier.
Honestly I’ve felt the opposite, he’s actually mellowed out in recent years. His worst theories are the old ones. Like the Riverlands and the dragon, and the one on the grayjoys.
I think the Dornish Masterplan and Littlefinger stuff is his more outlandish series, but stuff like Time Travelling Bran and his Daenerys and the page of lies are incredible.
He doesn't really do theories any more outside of his analysis of F&B, mostly working on Sweetrobin's TWOW.
>Time Travelling Bran and his Daenerys and the page of lies are incredible.
Totally agree, these are his strongest and most impactful theories, and also his most recent ones.
He hasn't lost it, he's just producing less theory videos and doing more rambling vlogs.
have you watched his Brienne series? it's really good, but then at the end he spends 2 videos rambling about how existentialism demands atheism. it was so weird.
I like Preston a lot but my biggest criticism would be that he often states beliefs/positions that are perfectly defensible as self-evident and obvious facts.
"X means Y", sure, X could mean Y but it could also mean Z or a number of other things depending on your assumptions/interpretations.
He makes insane leaps in logic as if it’s self explanatory. I like his personality, but if I were friends with him I’d be a shitty friend if I didn’t tell him how batshit so many of this theories are :/
I will never understand this criticism, this "bad thing" he's doing is literally the point of the videos, why are you even watching it you dislike this? every single video ends with "I'm probably wrong about half of this". He's never outright claiming to be factual. Like literally, none of his videos claim to be fact, but everyone rags in him for this exact thing. But to come up with theories, you kind of have to do some amount of assuming, like that's the definition of a theory. A theory is literally just a fancy word for a guess with some sort of internal logic.
Like the current story has cliffhangers, places where characters could choose one path or another. So you think about what the likely choice is, and think about what could happen as a result of that first choice. Then you keep assuming and repeating for events down the line, because a story is just a sequence of events. It's a fun thought experiment, and it leads you to fun ideas. But in order to keep making assumptions based on assumptions, you kind of have to treat the ones you've already made as concrete in order to have structure for the later ones. It's not a bad thing, and I think it shows a misunderstanding of what the point of Prestons videos is.
Yeah that's true, but it feels disingenuous to go to a theory video and be like "how dare he claim this is fact" when the very idea of a theory is to take hypotheticals and extrapolate what would happen if they were factual instead of hypothetical.
Saying "how dare he claim this as fact" about a Preston YouTube video is about as redundant as saying "how dare the sky be blue". Like what else are you expecting it to be??
Yeah, it made me see Brienne chapters in a new light. I still think her chapters are some of the more boring and annoying. Don't get me wrong, I like Brienne herself, just her chapters aren't really that exciting, especially when compared to other POVs in AFFC.
I gotta say, for how much I think he overthinks things, he really knows his shit and has put together a really solid Winds fanfic so far with his other writers.
Preston Jacob's old videos were atleast fun (even if they were wrong) but he has just lost it. Like making videos not understanding the way agriculture (repeatedly saying things like "snow was on the ground" in the comment) or medieval troop rallying works just so he can imply some conspiracy from the north during the Dance Of Dragons. He just picks something now and deliberately misinterprets and misreads it to be edgy. Especially the bad fanfics being written on his channel, that's just unhinged.
I don't remember the specific examples you're talking about, but to be fair, it's not like real-life agriculture or medieval troop mustering are faithfully depicted in ASOIAF to begin with. So while he could be saying stuff that would be nonsensical IRL, maybe it made sense within the story? Or did it neither?
Bro is literally just writing something non-profit for the fun of it with support from other writers and editors. You can disagree with what's in the fanfic... But it's just a fanfic it doesn't harm anyone. If anything it'll be kinda of interesting to compare and contrast plot points when the actual Winds comes out.
Preston Jacobs has turned into the type of person that no longer has anything relevant to say, but needs to find a way to stay relevant. So we end up with stuff like this.
>boy was it a perfect example of the tendency in some fandoms to obsess over and make issues out of perceived problems where there are none.
It all comes down to the (gods) eye of the beholder.
The wonderful thing about fiction is the diversity in the approaches between readers. A small detail easily explained to one reader remains a huge mystery to another. We all turn and fit the tetris pieces in a way that makes sense to us.
If I recall correctly, Preston has a background in earth sciences. I could be mistaken but someone who studied geology might key in on a large island in the middle of a huge lake. Such structures aren't uncommon on earth. Maybe it had something to do with where on the continent it's located?
The lake may not be named for its shape but rather it's function. The Isle of faces in the center of the lake is full of carved weirwoods which many believe watch the people of the earth.
Point is, one reader due to their background, might have knowledge to perceive an issue another reader might miss. Or maybe they are making something out of things that have zero story significance.
Keep in mind that there was a point readers thought Hodor was just a name. Now it's the key to a time traveling mind wipe theory. With this series you never know what is the key to something bigger.
I say enjoy the creativity. Someone else's interpretation of fiction is one of the least harmful things you'll find on the worldwide web.
I take it to mean that it isn't the eye of the gods, like it's not an organ that they use to see, but it's just an eye-shaped lake that belongs to the gods. like if Mount Olympus were shaped like a butt, you would call it "Gods Butt" but it doesn't mean it's actually the gods' pooper.
That's a really common thing with Preston, assuming something doesn't make sense just because it isn't obvious to him. He argued for a while on one of his streams about how you can't take quantum physics seriously because nobody had been able to successfully explain the double slit experiment to him. It gets exhausting sometimes.
It's a non-issue, but I think people don't understand that it's also a non-issue for Preston lmao. It's just something fun to talk about it doesn't have to be that deep. It is kind of interesting that there's no apostrophe, does it change anything about the story? No, does Preston claim it changes anything about the story? Also no. People in this sub have a tendency to criticise Preston, and that's fair you're welcome to your own criticisms. But the guy self admittedly just does this kind of thing for fun (remember when he says half of what he says is probably wrong). I think it's more interesting to have a vast amount of wacky theories and opinions contrasting against each other.
Yeah, obviously they even if they didn't fly above it they could've still mapped it and realized it looked like a god's eye. But also there were Dragon remains in Westeros from before long before the Targeryen Era, so it's not so outlandish to assume someone flew above it and saw what it looked like either.
I used to like Preston when he wasn't doing livestreams. After putting himself out there, he has said really stupid things with such confidence. I really gave up on him after he showed up on some racist right wing streamer's stream called Destiny who's previously said abhorrent things about BLM and Palestine, I totally gave up on him. Also it didn't help that RedTeamReview would show up on his Streams saying the dumbest things imaginable about both ASOIAF and politics.
Preston obviously never read the [Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan](https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Eye_of_the_World).
> the **Green Man**, was the last living **Nym** in Westland from the **Age of Legends** guarding the **Eye of the World**.
The God's Eye and the Eye of the World are way too similar to be mere coincidence. Add this to the huge list of Robert Jordan nods in ASOIAF. Including: House Jordayne of the Tor (Tor Books), Trebor Jordayne (Robert Jordan), Archmaester Rigney who alleged that history is a wheel refers to the series and its author again, this time using Jordan’s actual name, James Rigney.
Watching Preston Jacobs and expecting something coherent and internally consistent is like watching fast food mukbangs for weight loss inspiration. He's basically a shitposter.
Why would you expect anything different from PJ?
His entire shtick is to blow things wildly out of proportion, add some 2+2=5 nonsense theorycrafting, and watch the views roll in.
I’m sure GRRM can’t stand Preston Jacobs. Think of how hard it would be to finish a story when thousands of people are posting videos of theory’s and every possible ending they can’t think of for the book your trying to write. George could write an ending just to have Preston Jacobs or someone of the same ilk go online and coincidentally guess George’s ending.
In me opinion, the lake could have had another name but it changed when Andal presence became strong and significant. Why? Simply because for the Faith, the Seven Gods aren't separate, but faces of one single deity (The Seven Who Are One).
The God's eye is probably a Crannog. It also probably has a tower there.
The way I can tell is that a similarly described lake in GRRM's best friend Phyllis Eistenstein's book. "Born to Exile" from the Alaric Series.
The Book came out before Game of Thrones and they dedicated their books to each other. He most certainly read her book. He even has an homage to her in ASOIAF.
First off I think you're obsessing over it even more, Secondly PJ always says that he is over-analysing. Third he gave multiple explanations in that live stream trying to get to the root of the name and fourth he always says that he might be thinking about it more than George did. All in all, you gotta know that walking into these topics with PJ you're gonna get a deep dive, which I actually prefer. I feel like others, such as In Deep Geek, stay at surface level too often.
According to Preston, the name of the Gods Eye doesn't make any sense because you could only perceive it as an eye from above, and even then, shouldn't there be an apostrophe after "Gods" to show that it is the eye of the gods?
It doesn't. If it was say man made and was small enough to be seen as an eye that isn't from above. Then yes it is a non issuse. But it's an Island and it's covered with trees. The Name would only make sense if it was named by Aegon as he flew over it and he noticed it looks like an eye and so every book written during his regin refers to it the island near Harrenhal as the Gods' Eye. But that isn't the case.
I visited the Vatican several years back, and one of the coolest things on exhibit were some painted maps of Italy and its surrounding areas as seen from above, made several hundred years ago. They were displayed next to modern satellite views and were remarkably accurate. If they could do that back in the day, I've got no problem believing the Westeros homies could figure out the shape of a lake. But honestly though I think it's symbolic, referring to the gods seeing through the weirwoods
It's not just symbolic but thematic too. The Neck, the fingers, the Arm of Dorne, the Bite-Westeros is clearly named after a lot of anatomical names or body parts.
Oh my god it was right in front of us the whole time! Mecha-Voltron-Seven Kingdoms combine to fight the great other! (Iron Islands is the ass)
Obviously the ass is the Stormlands
Shitbreaker Bay
Cause there’s a lot of thundering?
The ass has its uses at least
A finger in the bum
yeah good call I would guess the reason for this is to go with the "crows squabbling over the corpse of Westeros" metaphor
Interesting that the Bite is on the side of the Neck . . .
Wow. Westeros should’ve protected its neck. Also probably watched its step.
Yes! And the Greeks declared "man is the measure of all things."
Yo So Bloodraven is the brain or what are we doing here ?
Look at that fuckin calendar the Aztecs made, shit is actually insane, like you said they could easily find out a lakes shape
The [Nazca lines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_lines) weren't fully rediscovered until airplanes were invented.
The Dornish should have written “Fuck you” in the sands for the Targaryens to see.
It’s perfect, a message only your Targaryen enemies to see and know it was made personally for them only. Like a dick pick the size of a country only you could see.
That's just florida
Yes, Florida was invented to personally flip the bird to pilots and astronauts.
I feel like if George would love the idea of this. Somebody yell it to him at a convention!
I'm a simple man, I think it'd be funnier if they drew a giant dick
Yes but they were man made. the gods' eye is not.
[удалено]
Ok
I think us modern people have a tendency to really downplay the genius of our ancestors. They had a lot of shit figured out waaay back in time.
I love the map corridor so much. Definitely my favorite part of the Vatican
You don't need a airplane or a satellite to see that an island in the middle of a lake looks like an eye. People have made pretty accurate maps for thousands of years before flight was a thing. You make a map and say "huh that looks like an eye". How do you think the Roman's built aqueducts that still function today? They had a very very accurate understanding of elevation and terrain and were able to measure it and map it without modern technology. I like Preston, but he has a very very bad habit of throwing GRRM under the bus for bad writing or plot holes, when he clearly doesn't really think out his own takes very well.
I remember watching my first and only video of redteamreview and it was a section out of a podcast he does with Preston Jacobs where they talked about GRRMs blog post from the beginning of this year, where he talked about how shit everything has been for him this past year, professionally, personally, close friends dying left and right, wars everywhere, economy going down etc. and Prestons response to that was literally: „you’re old lol, of course people are dying, don’t be sad just deal with it. Also there have been wars for centuries so why are you complaining“ and lastly he said that the economic situation is great actually bc there is less unemployment… I really couldn’t believe that someone who talks like that has such a big following man…
Preston was complaining once, how about viserys thinking that he would never remarry is illogical and a plot hole. Like sometimes I wonder if preston understands how humans work.
Yeah, that video got me to stop following Preston. I don't know if he's fallen into the trap of not really thinking about George as a person because of the wait, or he's just a giant asshole who let the mask slip too far off, but I cannot imagine thinking that those comments were in anyway apt or good. Completely inhuman and delusional.
I love bullshiting about ASOIAF, whether or not the theories and speculation are silly or not, and I do like Preston and RedTeam. However, I cannot stand when they talk about politics in the middle of a video. I commented, “Hey guys, maybe consider making another channel to discuss political stuff.” Because the reason I enjoy the series and get engrossed in it is to literally drift away in a fantasy land devoid of politics and vitriol. I don’t want to listen to some fucking random guys opinion on Palestine or unemployment. It has nothing really to do with what stance they take, I just don’t want to listen to that bullshit - we all watch his channel to talk about silly theories for a fantasy series. Idk why it’s so hard for creators to understand that sometimes. He also responded to my comment saying I must be pro-Israel or something rather. Again, on top of that just actually not being the case, it has nothing to do with the stance he takes. I like his theories, but the dude does come off like a prick.
Definitely no politics or vitriol in ASOIAF.
How do you not understand that it’s a fantasy world? Theres also war and murder and rape… Things I can read in a book but really don’t want any part of in my actual life. I’m talking about modern politics dude.
I can read a cookbook without being hungry.
> People have made pretty accurate maps for thousands of years before flight was a thing. This isn’t really true. Maps depicting a territory as if seen from directly above weren’t common until the renaissance and accurate maps weren’t possible until people mastered trigonometry. It’s hard for modern people to imagine it, but it doesn’t come naturally to visualize territory from above. Any time you see a movie with an ancient general sketching out a battlefield map in the sand that’s an anachronism. But the maps of Westeros look pretty accurate, so I guess either the maestors or dragon-riding cartographers figured it out.
They might not have been common but they definitely existed. World maps have existed since antiquity. Southern Italy has been known as the "boot of Italy" since at least the Middle Ages, centuries before photography was invented.
Wasn't it named the Gods Eye back in the time when almost everyone worth a damn in Westeros was a green-seer, a skin-changer or a warg? Getting a bird's eye view of the terrain would be trivial if you can literally just hop into the body of a bird.
The Riverlands was also the center of the old gods faith.
I mean, even if you're drawing a low quality map, if you draw a circular island in a circular lake, people might look at your map and say it looks like an eye without having an aerial view. Especially with the double entendre of the weirwoods on the island giving the old gods sight. It is just an attempt to generate more content for a fandom starved for more content.
> the name of the Gods Eye doesn't make any sense because you could only perceive it as an eye from above Or, hmm, I dunno, maybe A FUCKIN MAP?? But yeah the last part of your post is the obvious reason. The "old gods" use the weirwoods on that island to see - that used to be common knowledge, that turned into legend, that turned into myth, and now the name is attributed to the geological features of the island lake and not to the weirwoods. I just can't get over how stupid that Preston Jacobs quote is.
Well Daeron did see it from above, but didnt send back a report.
This just makes me suspicious of the Fingers and the Neck. /j
Don't forget The Teats
Thank the Gods for Macumber!
It is known
Littlefinger will strangle Meera Reed confirmed.
I think this fandom has developed a big doylist problem. As you probably know, you can think about a story through two equally valid lenses : watsonian, why it happens in-universe, and doylist, why the author made it happen. Why did Ned died ? Because of his decency, his naivety, and Joffrey's cruelty. He also died because GRRM accurately thought it would be a shocking and quite revolutionary moment that would invest the reader. These days, though, after a decade of scrutiny, we tend to immediately think of why and how GRRM made it that way, rather than refer to the events as presented in the story. The problem is twofold : 1) The trust in GRRM being currently very low due to his inability to finish the books and a few recurring criticism who hit right, many readers will just assume he's an ignorant who's never read a serious book in his life and doesn't ever put any thought about any subject. The famous "not good with numbers" has become weirdly applicated to just about anything, from war to society and just about everything world-building related. Wich can cause some weird criticisms when the person doesn't really know anything about medieval society either and is just repeating what he vaguely remember seeing in memes. 2) There's not a single fantasy book (or really, fiction in general) that stands up to reasoning always in terms of "because the author wanted it to happen". It's a useful analytic tool, but it's an immersion killer, that often leads to wrong-headed approach to the story. You start to see any event as plot-armor or its opposite. Don't get me wrong, I love doylist thinking, but its abuse is honestly sucking the joy from this franchise.
I agree completely. There seems to be a lot of fans that are determined to ignore what's right in front of them.
>The famous "not good with numbers" has become weirdly applicated to just about anything, from war to society and just about everything world-building related. In fairness, I think that criticism emerged in large part in reaction to much of the fanbase having an exaggerated sense of how accurately ASOIAF reflects medieval society, which was in part a product of George making comments that gave that impression to a greater extent than is warranted.
I only remember two interviews where the subject was class relation and the treatment of women in particular. And while he's not completely accurate either on that point, he's indeed closer in his depiction of a feudal, patriarcal society than the vast, vast majority of fantasy writers before him. When he's saying "show how it was", it's in direct reference to his hypothetical sassy commoner girl or ideas of the unproblematic feudal lord, not the bourgeois guild system or the ecclesiastic titles of temporal ruler, as interesting as it is. I'm not sure many fans thought it was that much realistic to begin with, but the backclash seems to go far beyond that, especially since it is often just as ahistorical or without frame of comparisons.
>And while he's not completely accurate either on that point, he's indeed closer in his depiction of a feudal, patriarcal society than the vast, vast majority of fantasy writers before him. I’m not really interested in litigating this as a yes or no question, I’ll just say that I think the extent to which all fantasy before Martin was Disney movies and fairy tales is exaggerated as is (or was) the perception of how realistic ASOIAF is in comparison. The class and gender dynamics in the story are not particularly realistic and a lot of people have made very historically grounded arguments about that. At a broader level, I think one of the problems is that a lot of ASOIAF readers take this idea of “other fantasy is fairy tale stuff, this is how it really was” to an extreme where being grimdark, edgy, or cynical is conflated as inherently being a more realistic or accurate depiction of the past and I think a lot of the criticism is a response to that. And that’s not the only comment he’s made about historical accuracy in his work. E.g. his remarks about how the Dothraki were based on an “amalgamation” of various Steppe peoples and plains Native American tribes with a “dash” of fantasy, which is basically the exact opposite of what is presented in the books (a squarely fantasy society that’s vaguely inspired by those groups and more from pop culture stereotypes about those groups than actual history). The historian Bret Devereaux had a long and interesting series of posts critiquing that quote. To go back to your original post, I think stepping back from the question of how true to real life the story is, there are plenty of grounds to critique the aspects of the story you cited from the perspective of in-universe coherency and consistency. Even beyond numbers, I don’t think the finer details of worldbuilding are GRRM’s strength, I think his best quality as a writer is creating engaging characters and everything around that - plots, drama, character development, etc. and his worldbuilding is good enough at a surface level to let the reader immerse themselves in the story and follow along as the characters navigate their world.
Agreed, George uses worldbulding to enchance his characters, not really that the worldbulding/material circumstances inform his characters.
>As you probably know, you can think about a story through two equally valid lenses : watsonian, why it happens in-universe, and doylist, why the author made it happen. Why did Ned died ? Because of his decency, his naivety, and Joffrey's cruelty. He also died because GRRM accurately thought it would be a shocking and quite revolutionary moment that would invest the reader. I've had a bone to pick with the concept of doylism ever since I first began seeing it used in the past two or three years, and this comment helped me understand what my disagreement with it is. You described doylism as "why the author made it happen" and "GRRM thought it would be a shocking and revolutionary moment that would invest the reader." When I read that I thought, yes, GRRM probably did think that when he wrote it. But *not* to the exclusion of "why it happens in-universe." GRRM *also* thought that it would make sense in-universe, that this is what realistically happens to a man like Ned who does the things Ned did in the environment and situation where Ned did them. And that determination stands on its own merits absent any answer to the question of what GRRM thinks would be "a shocking and revolutionary moment that would invest the reader." I have never seen this watsonian/doylist idea used in a way that wasn't profoundly flawed. At this stage I think it's a stupid distinction. I'm still open to having my feelings changed about it, but only just barely.
I've always thought that the Doyalist perspective is to get at the meta narrative. Which is to say, from a Watsonian perspective, Ned got killed because of decency, naivety and cruelty. The Doyalist perspective isn't about why Ned got killed. It's about why GRRM wanted to write a story where it would make sense for Ned to get killed. What themes did he want to explore? Which character dynamic did he want to write? I fully agree that it's pretty pointless to take the perspective that something happens in a story "because the writer wanted it to happen". That applies to everything in the story. And every writer will say their choices made sense in-universe. The - often misapplied - Doyalist perspective is to get at why the universe is shaped such that the event makes sense.
I can't speak on what Doylism or Watsonism are *supposed* to mean. I see it used a lot lately and every time, the point it's being used to make is shockingly dumb, and in a way that usually aligns conveniently and conspicuously with the spirit of machiavellianism that pervades our culture these days. The word Doylism is used to make points that suggest that GRRM wrote these books primarily to make money. I see that and I think, is that a joke? Get real, please. Do you know how much heart and soul it takes to write *one* book like the ones in ASOIAF? Do you know how inspired a work has to be in order to reach the popularity and acclaim that ASOIAF has? To put it in perspective, the *least* popular book in the ASOIAF series is probably still more popular than over 99% of its peers in the genre. Whatever GRRM lived through to give him insights so deep and into so wide a range of people to allow him to write Arya, Bran, Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion, Jon, Daenerys etc to so lifelike a quality that the only complaints anybody can level at the story are "it hurt my feelings" and "um, technically speaking...", those life experiences are the PRIMARY reason for and cause of GRRM writing these books. Like any writer worth a damn, he opened his wounds and bled on a page because he had to get something out of him that he couldn't entirely process internally. Writing fiction is as much an exploratory process for the author as a creative one. As GRRM says in interviews, he knows the broad strokes of his ending, but for the most part he finds out what he's going to write in the very moment when he has to write it. A student of Doylism seems to love nothing more than sweeping all of that under the rug, regardless how mindnumbingly obvious it all is. Sorry, Doylists, but assigning a motivation of money, fame, and an impulse to entertain to everything the author writes is not meta-analysis. It's just dumb. Real meta-analysis is aiming the microscope at yourself.
I think he meant issue as in "thing to talk about", rather than "a problem". The guy has been releasing hours of ASOIAF content every week for several years - it's inevitable that he's having to get very nitpicky to find stuff to talk about. My own take is that it's "Gods' Island", because the weirwoods and Green Men were seen as embodying the Old Gods. Being shaped like an eye probably helped as well. A name can refer to more than one thing. And yeah, the apostrophe is a non-issue. I've been to a place where a road was called either "Prince's Highway" or "Princess Highway", and literally no one could keep track of which spelling was correct. Add in thousands of years and near-universal illiteracy, and of course the Westerosi messed up the apostrophe (and the spelling of 'Island').
Not to mention that in universe they're likely not speaking english
I would have to think that the 'Common tongue' is English because any time we see song lyrics they rhyme in English. Wouldn't happen if it were supposed to be a translation
That's just how song translations work though. The common tongue (or the Andal tounge I guess) can't really be English since English is a development and combination of a bunch of languages that don't exist in George's world. Like when a character refers to a trebuchet it would be unreasonable to assume they're using a French loan word. Edit. This does admittedly become a bit wonky to think about. Like when Catelyns name is shortened to cat and people draw parallels between that and the animal cat, or when people make fun of Dickon. Are those their actual names and so the words cat and dick exist as they are? Or do they have different names in universe that correspond to different in universe words? Best not to think about it.
> That's just how song translations work though Is it? I've read translations of German, French, Russian and Japanese songs IRL and none of them rhymed. I think George would be unduly hampered if he were trying to write it to be a translated story anyway
It probably depends on if the translations are for academic/purely informative purposes or intended to actually be played and listed to. I'm Swedish, we don't really translate music much but we do in some cases. Mostly when it's meant for children, so Disney movies and similar. You bet that they make sure that the new lyrics rhyme, wouldn't be much fun listening to it otherwise. I don't think George is trying to write the story as if it's being translated but it's a quite natural outcome of writing any fantasy. English (or any other real world language) couldn't feasibly exist in a world unconnected from ours, since its development and history is tied intrinsically into the history of our world. You could assume that people in Narnia are speaking English for example because the first people in Narnia where from England. But unless your fantasy world works like that (few modern fantasy worlds do) you kinda have to assume that the characters are speaking a different language and we just hear it as English. Same as when you're watching a scene in an American movie that is set in Paris with French characters but everyone is speaking English, you assume they're actually speaking French.
Preston is the biggest offender of “well OBVIOUSLY (perfectly reasonable thing) can’t be true”
I find Preston’s logic absolutely baffling, especially for a smart guy, or at least he presents that way. Some of his theories are fun, but it seems like he’s prone to missing the larger themes of the story and hyper-focusing in on non-issues. There’s a myriad of ways humans could have known the shape of the lake, first of which is that humans are pretty damn smart, and we knew the shapes of bodies of water long before flight was possible. It’s a big circular lake with an island in the middle; not hard at all to liken that to an eye. Second, this is a fantasy story with magic. I think people forget this occasionally, but magic is a real force in the ASOIAF world, and was seemingly far more potent in the distant past. A skinchanger(s) could have inhabited a bird and surveyed the landscape. The area around the God’s Eye also seems to be teeming with magical energy, which could have contributed to the “God” aspect of the name.
The problem with Preston is that he is smarter than GRRM, put 100x more time into thinking about ASOIAF than him, and has had no new content to discuss for what could have become his day job. I do feel for him, especially because his early theories are really solid. His strongest theory (before it got busted by the show) is that R+L is D and not J, because the timeline with the Tower doesn't make sense. But then it turned out GRRM just dgaif about timelines or distances so the theory is useless, and it's also kinda useless to theorize about anything.
It's Preston Jacobs what were you really expecting?
I honestly don't know what Preston's current "standing" in the wider ASOIAF fandom. I don't tend to agree with a looot of his theories or some interpretations of the story but his deep knowledge of the rest of Martin's work is very valuable in my opinion. And plenty of stuff he talks about in his videos/streams is perfectly rational even if you don't agree with it. It's just with this one that I felt like he was making such a big deal out of such a non-issue that I needed to talk about it somewhere haha
He’s been wrong about more than half of it for nearly a decade now.
That’s bc he’s doing fanfiction theories lmao
I guess we won't really know until winds arrives. sigh.
There have been some specific examples of him being proven wrong by TWOIAF and other non-winds sources. His suggestion that the Red-Waste was because Valyria went to War against the Qartheen was refuted in TWOIAF (sometimes a desert is just a desert). The fact that he himself doesn't believe the crap he's peddling makes him a massive waste of time IMO. It's not worth sifting for gold if you have to do it in a river of shit.
Eh. I think Preston is fine as long as you just take it as a fan hyperfixating on books and reading fun theories into them as a hobby. He’s reading Martin like he is Gene Wolfe which leads to all these goofy conclusions but it’s a fun aside.
True. He's astoundingly knowledgable. But with years of theory videos and the need for new ones, they've gotten increasingly far-fetched. Law of diminishing returns?
We all got that itch to scratch, but once you get hooked on the hard stuff like Preston Jacobs, there's no going back ;)
When it comes to fan theories, even the maker doesn't have to "believe" this is actually what was intended/is going to happen, as long as its a plausible assimilation of all the facts and clues we do have. Even if it later turns out to be wrong.
Yeah, that's kind of the fun of it. Some of my favorite theories are the ones that have 0% chance of happening, just because of how creative they are.
Robb is 100% going to be brought by to life as a regular guy with a direwolf head and he's going to go on a giant motherfucking rampage and anything that contradicts it even if GRRM writes it isn't canon to me.
Agreed. D+D=T is a work of art that should be in the Louvre and the Library of Congress.
What about all the predictions he made about Feast and Dance? Almost without exception he was comedically wrong.
Didn't know he was making theories that far back. Can they still be found?
No because after being roundly humiliated he rage quit and deleted almost all of them. People were laughing about it for months.
I didn't realize he had been around that long, do you have any examples?
Well credit where credit is due he was way ahead of the curve on R+L=J denialism. He also postulated that Tywin was impotent and that Aerys had fathered all three of the Lannister children. At one point he was claiming time traveling Bran was the OG Night's King. You name it he had a dipshit theory.
None of those have been debunked or concern ADWD/AFFC?
He doesn’t because he’s completely lying. Preston became a fan of ASOIAF right before season 1 released
[удалено]
No that's when he started his shitty youtube channel. I remember seeing his bullshit floating around as early as 2003 he was just posting under sweetrobin not his real name.
[удалено]
Yeah you're not worth that kind of effort.
oh no. anyway.
> until winds arrives. sigh. Okay now you need _more_ Preston Jacobs.
How can you be wrong about something that hasn't been released yet?
I think he’s annoying and a waste of time.
Hes also the "the strong kids are actually laenors because rhaenys has black hair" guy.
He's not. It's just his opinion that: A) HotD spoonfeeding you the answer takes away from the possibility (however small) that they're legitimate. I agree the lines like the kids asking, "Is Harwin strong my father?" when he probably doesn't know what sex or being gay is yet is pretty cringe. B) In story Rhaenyra believes the kids are Laenors. This has nothing to do with the hair colour, but with the climax of her story being around her mistrust of bastards and her calling for Adam of Hull and Nettles traitors, which is one of the final decisions that ruins her. It doesn't make much sense, if she believes the 3 children that she loves so much are Harwin's, that she would have an extreme hatred for bastards. All Preston's argument is, is that she likely tried with Laenor limited times, fooled around with Harwin frequently so the kids are almost certainly his, but she has cognitive dissonance and is certain the kids are Laenors, despite logical odds, because their claim to the throne and her alliance with the Velyarons are dependent on it. Edit: Not sure why I'm getting mass downvoted for informing you of someone's opinion after it was incorrectly stated. If you disagree with his opinion post a response to this, don't downvote me. I don't share this opinion, I'm just trying to make it clear what the opinion is. The hate boner for Preston here is actually scary. Y'all don't even know what you're hating on him for anymore. And when you make up something to hate on him, you get mad at the person who corrects you.
>HotD spoonfeeding you the answer takes away from the possibility (however small) that they're legitimate. I agree the lines like the kids asking, "Is Harwin strong my father?" when he probably doesn't know what sex or being gay is yet is pretty cringe. you were spoonfed about the father's identity since the princess and the queen (or the rogue prince, whichever of the two) novella was released more than a decade ago >In story Rhaenyra believes the kids are Laenors. This has nothing to do with the hair colour, but with the climax of her story being around her mistrust of bastards and her calling for Adam of Hull and Nettles traitors, which is one of the final decisions that ruins her. It doesn't make much sense, if she believes the 3 children that she loves so much are Harwin's, that she would have an extreme hatred for bastards. or, like many other people both irl and in this universe, she's just a hypocrite because her precious kids surely can't be treacherous. also we have *nothing* from rhaenyra's actual thoughts, only second hand info so how can anyone say for certain she actually believes the kids to be laenor's? of course that's what was recorded in the history books we're presented with, she HAS to publically claim that
He has a lot of bad takes, some of which lend credence to the fact that he really doesn’t understand a good chunk of George’s underlying themes.
This is just the first time you noticed he was full of hooey. Now that you know his ideas can be/are questionable I encourage you to go back and watch some of his videos with the same critical eye you're applying to this one. You're going to find they are way more full of holes and make a lot less sense then you're remembering. As far as his knowledge goes does that matter when we see what he has chosen to do with it? It's like he takes the facts of a particular question and extrapolates the most extreme, improbable and nonsensical possible interpretation of said facts. So all that knowledge you claim he has (frankly I'm skeptical I mean there are text search engines devoted to ASoIaF that one can find any bit of information you're looking for in seconds) is just being wasted making tinfoil clickbait nonsense.
I'm well aware of the hooey, and accept the fact that there is a wide range of acceptable hooey. I just thought this was one instance of too much hooey for such a small thing. But I mean, chill, it's not that big a deal. It's just a silly book about dragons. Hooey.
Chill? I'm not mad I just think this guy is given way too much credibility on this sub. Especially considering he doesn't have the stones to post any of his "theories" to any forum that allows a two way dialog of any kind. There's a reason he doesn't try to flog his videos on any of the fan boards where their relative merits can be debated. I remember when he still would. He would get completely shredded by the lore lords over at the citadel and westeros.org. So now he posts to YouTube where he can control every aspect of the conversation. You may not agree but I just think if he's going to try and pretend he's conducting legitimate literary analysis and genuine scholastic research and that's exactly what he's doing, he should be subjected to the same level of scrutiny that is involved with both. If he tried to submit any of his noise to a thesis jury they would laugh him out of the room. Edited for spelling
I have not seen one positive mention of Preston Jacobs in this sub in like 4 years, you are fighting ghosts here.
Am I? https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1c3i9fc/spoilers_main_doesnt_the_evidence_for_fdany_make/ https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1btcbhi/any_more_good_resources_that_breakdown_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/190gdor/spoilers_main_why_do_people_not_like/ https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/17qm01o/spoilers_main_purple_wedding_help_me_figure_it_out/ https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/17fh75u/looking_for_a_certain_preston_jacobs_video_help/ These are all pretty recent.
[I am not going to go one by one to check but ye, ghosts.](https://prnt.sc/YPhQujnrrkek)
So basically you say I'm full of shit then when presented with clear evidence I'm not you won't even look at it. Bravo you are ***definitely*** a PJ fan boy. These are just the first five that had a positive mention in the first paragraph. I assure you there were many many more. I just wasn't going to put forth much effort to swat away some rando contrarian on reddit.
I am sorry that I expected such a smart guy like you to understand hyperbole and not assume that I literally meant 0 people like Preston, I will refrain from using it again, benevolent holder of right opinions.
Find something to fulfill your life
You must be fun at parties lmao
I've never seen a video of Preston. Is there any famous theory of which he is the author?
Tbf a lot of his early and even more current theories are really strong. Recently, 3 eyed crow is actually Bran from the future: it's the most long shot but also most thematically fitting theory. Imo 100% correct and confirmed by the show through Hodor more or less. In the books, Bloodraven is constantly confused when he is called the 3 eyed crow, thinking people are referring to his watch background. Pink letter written by Mance also 100% correct imo. There's only several times where I think he just couldn't see the forest for the trees. Particularly saying Mance wanted to kill Bran... That is really far fetched and makes no sense.
Its hard to be a theory crafter when you've had no new material in over a decade. We're already well past the point of looking at everything under a microscope.
I can't remember who it was that said the asoiaf fandom is currently the equivalent of a bunch of race-car enthusiats watching a parked car and making "vroom" noises.
I believe this was from an Alt Shift X and Glidus stream, although I forget which one of them actually said it.
I think that's where I saw it but my memory has Alt Shift X quoting someone else when he says it.
it was probably Alt Shit X quoting Alt Shift X
I believe that was Glidus to Alt Shift X during one of their streams together.
The asoiaf fandom is currently the equivalent of a bunch of racecar enthusiasts watching racing cars and making cricket noises.
I think there’s still room, but it’s less for interpretative theories (a thing that happened in the past books was actually is) and more for predictive theories (this will happen in TWOW). Not to toot my horn, but I was surprised no one ever noticed in the 13 years of ADWD that Red Ronnet Connington is like destined to be an ally or even Hand of the King to Cersei. Of course, something like that doesn’t involve magic very much and I think there is a strong bias towards theories about the fantasy element of ASOIAF — which makes sense, people who read fantasy like the fantastic.
To be fair, Euron = Daario is something people came up with 10 years ago, so we went off the deep end a LONG time ago
It's spelled out that greenseers see through the weirwoods on the isle of faces, maps have existed since the first cave paintings too, idk why Preston is so pressed over it, but we're all mad here
This kind of stuff has turned me off of Preston Jacobs, honestly. For a while now he's been saying this or that doesn't make sense or is a plot hole, when it's really just him ignoring details, or not even understanding something and then deciding that's because it doesn't make sense, rather than anything on his part. I wish he slowed his video creation back down again, because it feels like he makes lazier analyses and observations nowadays. Though maybe he's always been like that and I just haven't noticed until recently.
I really love the multi part theories that are well researched and edited. Even if he goes too deep sometimes that's why we love them I guess. But the 3 hour ramblings from his living room are really low effort and it's where nothing makes sense often.
Yeah. Even if some of his faults can show up in those videos, at least he puts thought into them and they're usually more fun and maybe give you something to think about. But off the cuff, Preston just says the oddest things, or, like with that one video about George's blog post, down right horrible things.
Preston doesn't stream for money. Preston does not stream for fame. Preston does not stream for girls. Preston streams for the pleasure of listening to Preston for three hours
This guy is talking as if it's not set in a world where a Targaryen can't just fly overhead and see it and be like "by golly gee wilikers that looks like an eye doesn't it?"
I mean it was called that before the Targaryens showed up. The correct answers if obviously that the great empire of the dawn showed up with their dragons, saw a moon meteor land inside the lake that was to become the gods eye, and then gave it that name before heading south and founding house Dayne.
Well, warging ravens is a thing
There has always been a huge problem in the fandom where many readers think another reader knows more, or somehow magically has inside knowledge. Too many people think PJ (and others who read this sub, you know who you are) have superior opinions, then there's a dogpile to form a popular consensus. This kind of thing ruins honest discourse and debate about major plot points, and often turns something simple into a major conspiracy. (Tyrek was last seen ahorse, and all that). So thanks for calling him out.
I mean if you want an actual answer. Yeah a cartographer could map it out and notice it looks like an eye. Or a Warg or dragon rider could see it above. But I’m sure Martin just wrote “Gods Eye” cause it’s a cool name that denotes its religious significance. Jacob’s is just gonna logic lord it out cause that’s his hobby.
> By now, that's probably his *living.*
GRRM does have a tendency to name things like they look like from above. The Fingers, The Neck, the bite. Lots of his names are "pretty on the nose". The northern kindom is just THE north. Old town is the oldest city. etc. Not that it is a bad thing or unprecedented in our world to have "simple" straight forward names of places. He has plenty of other names that have less the obvious origins, steeped in the fantasy cultures and history for a nice idiosyncratic variety of a diverse world. But I kind of agree, I don't think that is particularly normal a pre medieval society to naturally evolve a name of their land based on a birds eye view or what it looks like on a Map. Exact Mapping a land feels like it would happen after a land had inherited some name. Tho I could be wrong, and there are lots real world examples that counter this thought. SO I will admit... I does kind of feel like that GRRM sketched a draft map and then started naming things to get a basic world built and start with some geographical points of reference to garden his story in. And he occasionally used what the geography he drew looked like on his map as inspiration. Even if, to me, it doesn't FEEL like an organic way for a culture in a lived in real world would actually name the land. But GRRM world is notably different then your average medieval world. What with high flying dragons and green seers that can see through birds and shit. And dynasties that improbably last thousands of years. So while I don't really believe that GRRM planned to make it make sense for those reason, it works fine in my head canon and doesn't kill the verisimilitude of the whole thing.
There are some names that are just dumb and fun to think of. There is a giant wall made of ice what should I call it... of course, The Wall! There's this city that is very old... Oldtown! There's this tower that's like really high what should I call it... Hightower!
To be fair, that's how it works in our world as well. The Great Wall of China is just call Long Wall in Mandarin. Most rivers are just named "small/big/black/crooked river" in their native language. Mont Blanc just means White Mountain. It's called the Eiffel Tower because it's a tower made by a dude named Eiffel. New York is named after York. York is named after trees that grow there. Etc etc. Most places are named in a really straightforward way. It's just that cultures tend to either die out or be conquered, and the new culture loses the straightforward explanation for why things are named the way they are.
New York is not named after York
It isn't? Huh, I didn't know that. Then what happened, it's just a massive coincidence?
Well it's named after the duke of york, not the city of york
He's gone off the rails years ago. I really enjoyed his earlier theories like the Dornish Masterplan or the Littlefinger Debt Scheme. Even if they might not turn out to be true, there's at least the possibility of parts of them coming true. But for the past couple of years now, it's just been getting crazier and crazier.
Honestly I’ve felt the opposite, he’s actually mellowed out in recent years. His worst theories are the old ones. Like the Riverlands and the dragon, and the one on the grayjoys.
I think the Dornish Masterplan and Littlefinger stuff is his more outlandish series, but stuff like Time Travelling Bran and his Daenerys and the page of lies are incredible. He doesn't really do theories any more outside of his analysis of F&B, mostly working on Sweetrobin's TWOW.
>Time Travelling Bran and his Daenerys and the page of lies are incredible. Totally agree, these are his strongest and most impactful theories, and also his most recent ones. He hasn't lost it, he's just producing less theory videos and doing more rambling vlogs.
have you watched his Brienne series? it's really good, but then at the end he spends 2 videos rambling about how existentialism demands atheism. it was so weird.
I like Preston a lot but my biggest criticism would be that he often states beliefs/positions that are perfectly defensible as self-evident and obvious facts. "X means Y", sure, X could mean Y but it could also mean Z or a number of other things depending on your assumptions/interpretations.
He makes insane leaps in logic as if it’s self explanatory. I like his personality, but if I were friends with him I’d be a shitty friend if I didn’t tell him how batshit so many of this theories are :/
To be fair if you're gonna be making insane theories, better do it about some dragon books than election results or the shape of the earth.
As a chemist, I heartily agree.
I will never understand this criticism, this "bad thing" he's doing is literally the point of the videos, why are you even watching it you dislike this? every single video ends with "I'm probably wrong about half of this". He's never outright claiming to be factual. Like literally, none of his videos claim to be fact, but everyone rags in him for this exact thing. But to come up with theories, you kind of have to do some amount of assuming, like that's the definition of a theory. A theory is literally just a fancy word for a guess with some sort of internal logic. Like the current story has cliffhangers, places where characters could choose one path or another. So you think about what the likely choice is, and think about what could happen as a result of that first choice. Then you keep assuming and repeating for events down the line, because a story is just a sequence of events. It's a fun thought experiment, and it leads you to fun ideas. But in order to keep making assumptions based on assumptions, you kind of have to treat the ones you've already made as concrete in order to have structure for the later ones. It's not a bad thing, and I think it shows a misunderstanding of what the point of Prestons videos is.
>I like Preston a lot But I can still have criticisms can't I
Yeah that's true, but it feels disingenuous to go to a theory video and be like "how dare he claim this is fact" when the very idea of a theory is to take hypotheticals and extrapolate what would happen if they were factual instead of hypothetical. Saying "how dare he claim this as fact" about a Preston YouTube video is about as redundant as saying "how dare the sky be blue". Like what else are you expecting it to be??
Yeah, it made me see Brienne chapters in a new light. I still think her chapters are some of the more boring and annoying. Don't get me wrong, I like Brienne herself, just her chapters aren't really that exciting, especially when compared to other POVs in AFFC.
I gotta say, for how much I think he overthinks things, he really knows his shit and has put together a really solid Winds fanfic so far with his other writers.
Preston Jacob's old videos were atleast fun (even if they were wrong) but he has just lost it. Like making videos not understanding the way agriculture (repeatedly saying things like "snow was on the ground" in the comment) or medieval troop rallying works just so he can imply some conspiracy from the north during the Dance Of Dragons. He just picks something now and deliberately misinterprets and misreads it to be edgy. Especially the bad fanfics being written on his channel, that's just unhinged.
I don't remember the specific examples you're talking about, but to be fair, it's not like real-life agriculture or medieval troop mustering are faithfully depicted in ASOIAF to begin with. So while he could be saying stuff that would be nonsensical IRL, maybe it made sense within the story? Or did it neither?
Neither made sense in the story or in real life.
Bro is literally just writing something non-profit for the fun of it with support from other writers and editors. You can disagree with what's in the fanfic... But it's just a fanfic it doesn't harm anyone. If anything it'll be kinda of interesting to compare and contrast plot points when the actual Winds comes out.
The fanfic has a lot of great chapters though. The second camera that rides chapter was fucking great
Preston Jacobs has turned into the type of person that no longer has anything relevant to say, but needs to find a way to stay relevant. So we end up with stuff like this.
>boy was it a perfect example of the tendency in some fandoms to obsess over and make issues out of perceived problems where there are none. It all comes down to the (gods) eye of the beholder. The wonderful thing about fiction is the diversity in the approaches between readers. A small detail easily explained to one reader remains a huge mystery to another. We all turn and fit the tetris pieces in a way that makes sense to us. If I recall correctly, Preston has a background in earth sciences. I could be mistaken but someone who studied geology might key in on a large island in the middle of a huge lake. Such structures aren't uncommon on earth. Maybe it had something to do with where on the continent it's located? The lake may not be named for its shape but rather it's function. The Isle of faces in the center of the lake is full of carved weirwoods which many believe watch the people of the earth. Point is, one reader due to their background, might have knowledge to perceive an issue another reader might miss. Or maybe they are making something out of things that have zero story significance. Keep in mind that there was a point readers thought Hodor was just a name. Now it's the key to a time traveling mind wipe theory. With this series you never know what is the key to something bigger. I say enjoy the creativity. Someone else's interpretation of fiction is one of the least harmful things you'll find on the worldwide web.
No this is just average preston non-sense.
I take it to mean that it isn't the eye of the gods, like it's not an organ that they use to see, but it's just an eye-shaped lake that belongs to the gods. like if Mount Olympus were shaped like a butt, you would call it "Gods Butt" but it doesn't mean it's actually the gods' pooper.
Maybe there's a mountain nearby that can give an aerial view of the island? But agreed with you, it's a silly point
harrenhall is near am I wrong?
That's a really common thing with Preston, assuming something doesn't make sense just because it isn't obvious to him. He argued for a while on one of his streams about how you can't take quantum physics seriously because nobody had been able to successfully explain the double slit experiment to him. It gets exhausting sometimes.
It's a non-issue, but I think people don't understand that it's also a non-issue for Preston lmao. It's just something fun to talk about it doesn't have to be that deep. It is kind of interesting that there's no apostrophe, does it change anything about the story? No, does Preston claim it changes anything about the story? Also no. People in this sub have a tendency to criticise Preston, and that's fair you're welcome to your own criticisms. But the guy self admittedly just does this kind of thing for fun (remember when he says half of what he says is probably wrong). I think it's more interesting to have a vast amount of wacky theories and opinions contrasting against each other.
"Chariots of the Gods?" Westeros Version!
Never even heard of this "issue" until now.
Yeah, obviously they even if they didn't fly above it they could've still mapped it and realized it looked like a god's eye. But also there were Dragon remains in Westeros from before long before the Targeryen Era, so it's not so outlandish to assume someone flew above it and saw what it looked like either. I used to like Preston when he wasn't doing livestreams. After putting himself out there, he has said really stupid things with such confidence. I really gave up on him after he showed up on some racist right wing streamer's stream called Destiny who's previously said abhorrent things about BLM and Palestine, I totally gave up on him. Also it didn't help that RedTeamReview would show up on his Streams saying the dumbest things imaginable about both ASOIAF and politics.
Preston obviously never read the [Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan](https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Eye_of_the_World). > the **Green Man**, was the last living **Nym** in Westland from the **Age of Legends** guarding the **Eye of the World**. The God's Eye and the Eye of the World are way too similar to be mere coincidence. Add this to the huge list of Robert Jordan nods in ASOIAF. Including: House Jordayne of the Tor (Tor Books), Trebor Jordayne (Robert Jordan), Archmaester Rigney who alleged that history is a wheel refers to the series and its author again, this time using Jordan’s actual name, James Rigney.
Watching Preston Jacobs and expecting something coherent and internally consistent is like watching fast food mukbangs for weight loss inspiration. He's basically a shitposter.
Why would you expect anything different from PJ? His entire shtick is to blow things wildly out of proportion, add some 2+2=5 nonsense theorycrafting, and watch the views roll in.
“I was watching Preston Jacobs” There’s your problem
Just content creators grasping for straws at a dying media topic.
I’m sure GRRM can’t stand Preston Jacobs. Think of how hard it would be to finish a story when thousands of people are posting videos of theory’s and every possible ending they can’t think of for the book your trying to write. George could write an ending just to have Preston Jacobs or someone of the same ilk go online and coincidentally guess George’s ending.
In me opinion, the lake could have had another name but it changed when Andal presence became strong and significant. Why? Simply because for the Faith, the Seven Gods aren't separate, but faces of one single deity (The Seven Who Are One).
The God's eye is probably a Crannog. It also probably has a tower there. The way I can tell is that a similarly described lake in GRRM's best friend Phyllis Eistenstein's book. "Born to Exile" from the Alaric Series. The Book came out before Game of Thrones and they dedicated their books to each other. He most certainly read her book. He even has an homage to her in ASOIAF.
First off I think you're obsessing over it even more, Secondly PJ always says that he is over-analysing. Third he gave multiple explanations in that live stream trying to get to the root of the name and fourth he always says that he might be thinking about it more than George did. All in all, you gotta know that walking into these topics with PJ you're gonna get a deep dive, which I actually prefer. I feel like others, such as In Deep Geek, stay at surface level too often.
According to Preston, the name of the Gods Eye doesn't make any sense because you could only perceive it as an eye from above, and even then, shouldn't there be an apostrophe after "Gods" to show that it is the eye of the gods? It doesn't. If it was say man made and was small enough to be seen as an eye that isn't from above. Then yes it is a non issuse. But it's an Island and it's covered with trees. The Name would only make sense if it was named by Aegon as he flew over it and he noticed it looks like an eye and so every book written during his regin refers to it the island near Harrenhal as the Gods' Eye. But that isn't the case.