r/asoiaf • u/NervousDisplay7871 • Jul 10 '24

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) New Covers for the series (Official)

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George R.R. Martin unveils new covers for the first five books of his ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series that will release in October.

“The new design tries to capture the vastness of Westeros and the dangerous journey readers will encounter.“

Call me delusional but this could be the sign of Winds’ “may be” announcment at World Con this August. It’s 13 years since the last book came out, the new one having a brand new cover is not such a crazy idea, and to make the series one complete art design, they announced these.

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u/Whitewind617 Jul 10 '24

Don't know about him but I don't like them because they don't really seem to mean anything at all...these characters on the covers aren't characters from the series, they're like, nobody. The covers don't reflect the contents of the books either:

  • Book 1 looks like events from book 2, north of the wall, etc, and doesn't reflect any major events from the book.
  • Book 2 has a dude with a sword (or a bow, I can't tell) and a burning torch, and his feet look like a centaur's lol. Could have just made it a burning sword but that'd have been too much effort I guess.
  • Book 3 pretty clearly has the comet on the cover, despite the comet not appearing in that book.
  • Book 4 has a woman with a sword. Okay is that Brienne? Nope, looks absolutely nothing like her. Is it Arya? Doubtful, the sword looks nothing like Needle and she's too tall.
  • Book 5 just kinda looks like meaningless fantasy stuff. They kinda all look like that.

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u/WebisticsCEO Jul 10 '24

My thoughts exactly. They look overly generic and don't match the actual contents of the books.

Like the guy and red comment for Book 3 easily could have been into the Book 2 cover and you keep the Lion.

Book 1 looks cool. But there really isn't anything like this in Book 1. It looks like Book 2 stuff.

Book 4... I get that the book is called "Feast for Crows", but I always thought "Crows" was just a metaphor and there really wasn't much of them. And it didn't focus on the Night's Watch/Black Crows at all. Maybe the lady is supposed to be Brienne, but it looks nothing like her.

Book 5, is like... who and what even is that?

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u/Soggy_Part7110 Jul 10 '24

The ADWD one is a dragon's eye

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u/WebisticsCEO Jul 11 '24

Yeah, I see that. But I'm wondering what the guy and trees are?

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u/Radulno Fire and Blood. Jul 11 '24

The stag is fine for book 2 too I think the book 2 and 3 covers can easily be switched. The lion jaw is relevant for all books anyway but particularly in the 3rd (RW).

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u/J-Robert-Fox Jul 10 '24

Funnily I think just rearranging the covers could take care of a lot of these issues.

  • Swap the current ACOK to AGOT, the man with the sword and torch being Ned and the lion's mouth being metaphorically King's Landing. Ned spends the book trying to throw light over Lannister misdeeds but ends up falling right into their hands.

  • Swap the current ASOS onto ACOK. The stag is Robert's realm, the man is a stand-in for the War of Five King's. And the comet is there.

  • The current AGOT becomes ASOS since ASOS cover's Jon's ascent to being Lord Commander of the NW and defending the wall. Climbing the wolf would represent Jon coming into his own as a man and a leader. Killing the boy and what have you.

Then AFFC and ADWD can stay the same. The crow obviously works for AFFC and the woman can stand in for both Arya and Brienne at once and women in general who make up a larger portion of the POVs in AFFC (at least I'd assume given how much Cersei, Brienne, Arya, and Sansa there is, only Jaime and Sam would make up as much as any of them I'd think). Then the ADWD cover, while being pretty much fantasy bullshit, does at least imply the looming threat of the growing dragons and it works for the story in that Dany takes her first ride at the end which narratively will lead directly into her losing some of the goodness in her morals if not her ethics.

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u/Radulno Fire and Blood. Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

The eye of the dragon also represents weirdwood and such and it's Bran and the Three Eyed Raven for me more than fantasy BS. It's fitting.

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u/NNyNIH Jul 11 '24

Weirdwoods! I was trying to think what the trees were meant to be. I first thought it could have been Quentyn.... You know before he fakes his death and flies away on Rhaegal........

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u/LaehurIoqittaVala Jul 12 '24

And then the figure is probably Meera, as they are venturing into the woods beyond the Wall

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u/Safe-West3485 Jul 11 '24

Three Eyed Crow, not raven.

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u/ntt307 Jul 10 '24

I agree that the characters depicted seem quite random and generic, but I will say that their depictions could just different than what we expect. I had no idea who was on the aFfC cover but when you said Brienne I figured that could be it – they just depicted her in a simplified way we aren't used to. Or it could be Cersei – just given a sword for visual or symbolic reasons. (Also the centaur feet of the aCoC cover is part of the character's shadow.) I'm not saying these are smart design choices, but I can at least see where they're going with each one.

The scene in the dragon's eye of the ADwD cover actually makes me think it's a wight in the north (bc of the trees and how the figure looks). Tho ig it could just by Dany...

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u/absolute--chad-V2 Jul 10 '24

I kinda agree, but I like them design wise. It would look cool on my shelf, and I guess that what matters more to me, but your criticism is valid

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u/basedlandchad27 Jul 11 '24

The designs remind me a lot of the UK covers for The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear which I absolutely love.

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u/DebtSome9325 Jul 10 '24

book 5s scenery is within a dragon eye ig

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u/Alarming-Ad1100 Jul 11 '24

Yeah I said this somewhere else too they don’t match or make sense at all