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First Fantasy Cartography
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What I find particularly interesting about the RR Martin maps is how much they are carried by the story, since they in and of themselves are very unremarkable and kind of clunky. As opposed to book maps which help carry the story in some way. In other words readers be perfectly happy without the Martin maps because the story is soo strong, but where would The Hobbit be without its map? Then again the Hobbit was a story realy constructed completely around a map, but it's interesting to see how it can be central to the book where the book would be much less without it, or really only matter because the book makes one care about it, as in Martin's case.
