Editing Namesake (section)

==Behind the Scenes==
[[George R. R. Martin]] has explained in interviews that he made it a point to include characters with the same name in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' as part of his overall reaction to the limits imposed on his storytelling when he was working in the television industry. Networks were concerned that audiences would get confused by characters with the same name, but Martin felt this was unrealistic - not only because there would probably be more than one character named "Robert" in an entire country, but because names tend to repeat in real-life royal dynasties. In Martin's own words:

{{Quote|'''Martin''': I wrote these books, never dreaming they would be filmed or made. It was almost a reaction to my tenure in Hollywood. 'I'm just going to do this as big as I want.' But I broke a lot of rules in writing these books, that you're taught as a writer, that I certainly was taught. But at certain point I thought, 'To hell with those rules'.<br>
'''Interviewer''': What rules?<br>
'''Martin''': Well, having so many characters, for one. Having similar names. Stuff like that. I remember as a little baby writer I was taught never have two characters whose names begin with the same letter because people will get them confused. And I realized I was going to have more than 26 characters, so that would have to go out the window. - And also I was reading a lot of history. [People said], 'Never have two characters with the same letter? Certainly never have two characters with the same name.' But then I'm saying, 'That's so unrealistic'. I mean, English history is entirely composed of Henrys and Edwards. There's endless Henrys and Edwards, and you know, not only kings, who at least get numbers, but the guys who never become king. They're princes, and then they die. They're not even distinguished by numbers and it's very hard to keep all these guys straight. But that's the way history actually was. Families using the same name over again. And I like that element of verisimilitude, [so] I adopted that.<ref>Anders, Charlie Jane. [http://observationdeck.io9.com/george-r-r-martin-the-complete-unedited-interview-886117845 "George R.R. Martin: The Complete Unedited Interview."] ''Observation Deck.'' 23 Jul 2013.</ref>}}