Skip to main content

game of thrones - Is there any official mention of the show changing the dates in the show to AL from AC?


While researching my answer to this question Do we know when Daenerys Targaryen was born? I came across a slight oddity in how the Game of Thrones wikia shows the dates. Dates for the show appears to be given in BAL and AL meaning (Before) Aegon's Landing.



The dating system is based on Aegon the Conqueror's first landing on Westeros which started the Targaryen Conquest. Thus all dates are "AL" for Aegon's Landing or "BAL" for "Before Aegon's Landing".
Game of Thrones wikia, Timeline




However, dates in the books are given in BC and AC meaning "Before the Conquest" and "After the Conquest" respectively.



The maesters of the Citadel who keep the histories of Westeros have used Aegon's Conquest as their touchstone for the past three hundred years. Births, deaths, battles, and other events are dated either AC (After the Conquest) or BC (Before the Conquest).
The World of Ice and Fire, The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest



I had a look around and found an explicit quote from GRRM on the reasoning of the change of dates in the show compared to the books, basically to keep the sex and nudity.



There was a fair amount of explicit sex in the series and some fans of the books were taken aback.
One of the reasons I wanted to do this with HBO is that I wanted to keep the sex. We had some real problems because Dany is only 13 in the books, and that’s based on medieval history. They didn’t have this concept of adolescence or the teenage years. You were a child or you were an adult. And the onset of sexual maturity meant you were an adult. So I reflected that in the books. But then when you go to film it you run into people going crazy about child pornography and there’s actual laws about how you can’t depict a 13 year old having sex even if you have an 18 year old acting the part — it’s illegal in the United Kingdom. So we ended up with a 22 year old portraying an 18 year old, instead of an 18 year old portraying a 13 year old. If we decided to lose the sex we could have kept the original ages. And once you change the age of one character you have to change the ages of all the characters, and change the date of the war [that dethroned the Mad King]. The fact we made all these changes indicates how important we thought sex was.

Entertainment Weekly, A Dance With Dragons Interview



This makes sense as with age changes, other dates need to be changed too so the story still lines up correctly. As such it makes sense that they've changed the year system in the show.


However, I've yet to find any official, or canon, mention of the shows year system as AL. All I've found so far is wikia just using the dates but no mention of where they got it from.


Is there any official mention of the show changing the dates in the show to AL from AC?



Answer



After asking the question I decided to tweet Elio and Linda, the co-authors of The World of Ice and Fire. They've come back saying that GRRM only confirmed BC and AC for TWoIaF and so the writers of the show, and hence wikia, had already committed to BAL and AL. Though they have only speculated on this, this is the best information I can find so far.



@westerosorg The show uses the year system BAL and AL and the books use BC and AC. I can understand the reasoning in the change but I can't find it having been commented on except the wikia. Do you have more insight into this?


Fans assumed "AL" for a long time, until GRRM established BC/AC for TWoIaF. But TWoIaF came after the show, so the writers had already commited to BL/AL I suppose, and that's what a wiki solely dedicated to the TV show reflects

Twitter, @westerosorg



The tweet


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...