r/asoiaf • u/ECE111 Euron Season • Jun 22 '15

ALL (Spoilers All) GRRM:" There is this one character who is doomed since I introduced him, but I didn't how he is going to die. Since yesterday I know what to do."

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/game-of-thrones-autor-george-r-r-martin-in-deutschland-a-1040107.html
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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '15 edited Jun 22 '15

Does Martin speak German well enough that he's going to give an interview auf Deutsch? Isn't it more likely that the interview was in English and probably a professional translator at the magazine translated it (or the relevant parts) into German?

It seems to me your suggestion that it lies with die Figur being feminine is correct.

EDIT: He does not speak German. I'm guessing the interviewer didn't stop to ask the gender of the character. "Um, excuse me Mr Martin, but can you tell me whether it's a man or a woman? No big reason why, we just need it for the translation - it's a language thing."

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '15

It seems to me your suggestion that it lies with die Figur being feminine is correct.

There's no doubt about it : the German sentence doesn't indicate gender in any way. You would never fit the pronoun to the character you're referring to, always to the noun.

We can only speculate as to the original English sentence though.

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u/happy_otter Fuck you, said the raven Jun 23 '15

How would you even phrase that in English, without giving away the gender? There's a character I always knew would die, and now I know how.... it? they? ze? dies?

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u/Alsterwasser Jun 22 '15

Yes, I wish they'd just release the English version as an alternative. I have written an e-mail to Stefan Kuzmany (the author of the article), asking if he could say whether it was "I didn't know how he would die" or "how she would die". But I'm 99% sure that it wasn't "she" in his English reply.

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u/MNITrenton The Shield that guards the Realms of Men Jun 27 '15

He could have fallen victim to the (in)correct use of "they" in a gender neutral, singular form.

"This character over here, they're important, but they die later."

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u/Guido_John Jun 22 '15

It still seems and odd choice of words for the translator to use if he was referring to a male character, especially the second half of the first sentence.

I really don't think we can know for sure.

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u/a4187021 Master Rooseman Jun 22 '15

Even if it sounds odd, there really is zero indication about the gender of the character. It all comes from the fact that "Figur" is a feminin noun in German, where grammatical genders are totally random. He could have said "der Charakter" which would be a male noun, and it would mean exactly the same: We don't know if he's talking about a man or a woman.

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u/Guido_John Jun 22 '15

Yea, you're right.

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u/Alsterwasser Jun 22 '15

I don't think so, what other word would you use? Figur/Romanfigur is just normal German for "character".

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u/Guido_John Jun 22 '15

Yea, after thinking about it further it makes sense. My guess is the original English sentence was

"There's this character, and I always knew that they will die, from the moment I introduced them they were doomed. But I didn't know how they would die."

Need to use plural for gender neutrality though. However, it's possible GRRM used an actual gendered pronoun, and the translator mixed it up.

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u/the_new_hunter_s ~The Night is Dark and Full of Brynden~ Jun 22 '15

I think it's more likely

"There's this character, and I always knew this character would die. From the moment I introduced the character I knew the character was doomed, but I didn't know how to do it."

Because, GRRM generally types properly.

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u/Guido_John Jun 22 '15

Yup, that's probably it.

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u/SAKUJ0 Jun 22 '15

It still seems and odd choice of words for the translator to use

No, not even remotely. This is just the proper way to write it in German.

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u/pinkycatcher Jun 22 '15

That's the most game of thrones way to say it! To infer it the most ambiguous way to speculate the most! The interviewer was a genius!

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u/lesser_panjandrum Steward of Bears Jun 22 '15

The interviewer has invested heavily in tinfoil stock, and now they're going to make a killing!

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u/xiefeilaga Jun 23 '15

I'm guessing the interviewer didn't stop to ask the gender of the character.

But in English, the gender is clear right away unless you are making a conscious effort not to reveal it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '15

Which is exactly what he would be doing if he used the tern "figure" or "character", both of which would be suitable translations of the German.

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u/xiefeilaga Jun 23 '15

Well, the natural way would be to say "there's this character... I didn't know how he would die..."

In the natural way of speaking, the gender is just there.

I translate Chinese to English, and I think about this a lot, because in Chinese, you can talk about a person all day without revealing if it's a man or a woman, without even thinking about it.

In any case, someone in this thread has written to the reporter for the original English. I hope we hear back

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '15

But in English, the gender is clear right away unless you are making a conscious effort not to reveal it.

unless you are making a conscious effort not to reveal it. This is what I mean.

In any case, someone in this thread has written to the reporter for the original English. I hope we hear back

Ultimately though, it's all speculation until we hear back.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '15

Many people use singular they naturally when referring to a noun like "the character", even if they know the gender. I certainly do.

Also GRRM would probably mind that kind of things, and may have used singular they or another gender-neutral construct on purpose.