game of thrones - Where does the background story in A Song of Ice and Fire come from?

As I can read, the author of the series created several books in the series starting with the book A Game of Thrones. I'm watching the series on TV (I haven't read the books).

When I watched something in the show that I do not fully understand or want to brush up on, I go search the web and usually find the information in Wikipedia. Often I also find a full timeline from before the first book, and I wonder where does this information come from? Whoever wrote this must have this information from somewhere - I just don't seem to understand where, since the first book starts around the same time the first episode of the first series in the TV show?

Answer

There's a lot more history (both ancient and recent) discussed in the books than on the TV series, since if you're adapting close to 10,000 pages of novels (including the as-yet unpublished ones) to maybe 70 hours of TV you obviously have to leave a lot out. While the action starts in the same place, the characters spend a lot longer talking about the history that has got them to this point. There's also a series of novellas by George R R Martin (the "Dunk and Egg" stories) that's set in Westeros around 90 years before the beginning of A Game of Thrones and fills in a lot of historical background from that period.

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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...

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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.

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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...

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