The A Song of Ice and Fire fandom is an international and informal community of people drawn together by George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the HBO television series Game of Thrones, and the related merchandise.
History
During his years in television, Martin's novels slowly earned him a reputation in fiction circles, although he said to only receive a few fans letters a year in the pre-internet days. The publication of A Game of Thrones caused Martin's following to grow, with fan sites springing up and a Trekkie-like society of followers evolving that meet regularly. By 2005, Martin received tons of fan e-mails and was about 2000 letters behind that may go unanswered for years.
Ice and Fire Con
Ice and Fire Con (also known as A Con of Ice and Fire and A Convention of Ice and Fire) is a North American convention held annually in Mount Sterling, Ohio that celebrates George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy book series, as well as HBO's Game of Thrones television adaptation.
Programming and traditions
The convention's programming has included a Tourney of Champions since 2013, featuring "LARP"-based duels, melees, jousts, and archery contests. Other annual activities include a weekend-long live action Assassin-style game themed after the series' Faceless Men characters, a board game tournament, and a "Flea Bottom Fete" dance party, among others. A mock election has been held each year since 2013 allowing attendees to campaign for and vote for characters from A Song of Ice and Fire. A donation-based voting format was incorporated beginning in 2017, with all proceeds going to Santa Fe's Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, a favorite charity of Martin.
Awards and honors
In 2016, FanSided named Ice and Fire Con as one of the top ten nerdiest vacation destinations.
In 2017, NowThis News praised Ice and Fire Con in its "Game of Thrones - A Community of Ice and Fire" coverage for the event's "more intimate gathering that's more party than press conference", favorably comparing the Ice and Fire Con to the fan conventions Martin himself attended in the 1970s and 1980s as a fan and built the friendships that served him throughout his career.
Westeros.org
Sweden-based fans Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson run one of the main Ice and Fire fansites, Westeros.org, which they established in 1999. The site had about 17 thousand registered members in 2012. Martin himself has checked with García (whom The New Yorker dubbed a "superfan" with encyclopedic knowledge of Martin's works) to confirm details of his own series, and has referred HBO researchers to García as well.
The very first fan website and messageboard (as recounted by García, Antonsson, and Martin) was a site called "Dragonstone", which only lasted for about one year between the release of the first novel in 1996, and the site crashed in 1997, never to be rebuilt. The creator of "Dragonstone" moved on; however, several of the earliest online fans who had met on the site (Elio García among them) coalesced again to create Westeros.org.
Though his work at Westeros.org is voluntary, García has been a paid consultant for licensed tie-in merchandise. García and Antonsson are Martin's coauthors of a companion book to the series, The World of Ice & Fire (2014). Martin had approached the pair about the project in 2008.
Brotherhood Without Banners
The Brotherhood Without Banners is an unofficial fan club operating globally. George R. R. Martin attends their gatherings on his travels and counts their founders and other longtime members among his good friends.
Game of Thrones
Since the creation of the television series in 2011 there has been a proliferation in the number of fansites dedicated to the show and novel series. These include 'ToweroftheHand.com', which organizes communal readings of the novels, and 'Fleabottom.net', an online discussion forum. In addition to these there is further discussion on more general sites, such as Reddit, and tumblr, where there are many fan-created blogs.
Moreover, there are also many podcasts covering the series. These podcasts, such as 'Game of Owns', and 'A Podcast of Ice and Fire' provide discussions of each book chapters, and each episode in the television series, as well as discussing the current theories in the fandom.