Mr. Martin Himself was on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me this weekend. Click here for a listen.
They went over the usual things you’ve heard (turtles, friends becoming characters in the books). It was pretty funny though, especially this part:
P. J. O’ROURKE: George, this is P. J. I have a question. Did this proceed from a personal fantasy of your own?
MARTIN: Well, you know, if you go back to my childhood again…
O’ROURKE: Yeah, that’s what I actually meant, from a childhood fantasy.
MARTIN: The only pets that I could have were turtles. And I had this castle, this toy castle made of tin. And it was just big enough for two of those turtle bowls that you bought in…
O’ROURKE: Yeah, in the five and dime, yeah.
MARTIN: …Woolworth’s store. And so I kept all my turtles inside the castle. And since they lived in a castle, I decided they were all knights and kings and I started making up stories where they betrayed each other.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: And they would die.
O’ROURKE: Wonderful.
MARTIN: You know, these knights were turtles, like die if you looked if you look at them crooked.
O’ROURKE: Right, yeah, I remember.
SAGAL: Wait a minute. Are you telling me that the original model for the warring houses of Stark and Lannister were two turtles?
MARTIN: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: So Turtle Castle, that was the root of the whole thing, yes.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Well let me ask one question here, because what I’m hearing is that there’s a lot of sex in this and I’m not sure…
PIERCE: How did you get there from turtles?
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Yeah, the turtles didn’t have sex.
ROBERTS: No, no, no, but…
MARTIN: I was not into turtle sex.
ROBERTS: But is there more sex in your world than in other fantasies? I’m the impression that there’s this whole…
PIERCE: It is a fantasy, Roxanne.
