George R. R. Martin
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50 free George R. R. Martin trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
George R. R. Martin is quoted almost as often as he is read. Lines from A Song of Ice and Fire turn up on mugs, in memes and as episode titles, and his own remarks about how stories should be written, why beloved characters must be in real danger, and what fantasy owes to history are passed around by writers and readers alike. This quiz is built around those words. It asks which characters deliver the best-known lines in the novels, where the house mottoes and book titles come from, and what Martin himself has said about plotting, endings, his influences and his critics. Each question describes a line or saying and asks who said it, where it comes from or what lies behind it. The rest follows the man: a New Jersey childhood, odd jobs and early science fiction and horror, years writing for Hollywood, and the long road to Westeros and its screen adaptations. It is written for fans of the books, of Game of Thrones and of House of the Dragon, and for anyone who has seen one of his sayings shared and wondered about the story behind it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pets, dying in a toy castle, inspired young George R. R. Martin's tales of sinister plots?
Turtles
Turtles kept dying in the toy castle, so the boy decided they were killing each other off and wrote stories about their mythical kingdom. He also sold monster tales to neighbourhood children for pennies.
Q 02Which game's weekend tournaments did George R. R. Martin direct in the 1970s to fund his writing?
Chess
Chess paid Martin's bills from 1973 to 1976, after Bobby Fischer's world title win set off an American craze. Tournaments ran only at weekends, leaving five days a week for stories.
Q 03Which Marvel writer did George R. R. Martin call maybe a bigger influence on him than Shakespeare?
Stan Lee
Stan Lee's superheroes hooked Martin in high school, and a fan letter he sent to Marvel was printed in 1963. He went on to write prose superhero stories for fanzines.
Q 04Time critic Lev Grossman called George R. R. Martin the American version of which fantasy author?
J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien is a writer Martin greatly admires, but the label fits loosely: Martin doubts that a good man automatically makes a good king, and writes rulers who fail despite fine intentions.
Q 05Which event in A Storm of Swords did George R. R. Martin call the hardest thing he ever wrote?
The Red Wedding
The Red Wedding was so painful that Martin finished every other chapter of the book before he could face writing it. A Storm of Swords went on to win the Locus Award.
Q 06Which British landmark did George R. R. Martin visit, inspiring the giant ice barrier in his novels?
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall set Martin wondering what a Roman soldier from the Mediterranean felt, facing unknown threats from the north. His version is built of ice and guards the Seven Kingdoms from the Others.
Q 07For which FromSoftware game did George R. R. Martin write the backstory of the Lands Between?
Elden Ring
Elden Ring gave Martin free rein over events before the game begins, while director Hidetaka Miyazaki wrote the story players see. It won several Game of the Year awards.
Q 08Which kind of vacant building did George R. R. Martin help the art collective Meow Wolf take over?
A bowling alley
A bowling alley called Silva Lanes became the House of Eternal Return, a walk-through art world that opened in 2016. Martin pledged $2.7 million to renovate and lease the building.
Q 09What did George R. R. Martin offer $20,000 charity donors in a future Ice and Fire novel?
A character's death
A character's death was the prize in 2014: big donors could have a character named after them and killed off in a coming novel. The drive raised over $500,000 for a wolf sanctuary and a New Mexico food bank.
Q 10Whose name origin did George R. R. Martin tell the showrunners years before the episode The Door aired?
Hodor
Hodor's name was the most shocking thing Martin told David Benioff and D. B. Weiss in a hotel-room meeting about his plans. The reveal reached the screen in the sixth season of Game of Thrones.
Q 11To which New Mexico city did George R. R. Martin move in 1979, living alone for nearly three years?
Santa Fe
Santa Fe became home after Martin quit a college teaching job in Iowa to write full time, and he called his first solitary years there tremendously productive.
Q 12Which extinct animals did Colossal, a firm advised by George R. R. Martin, claim to revive in 2025?
Dire wolves
Dire wolves run through Martin's novels, and Colossal named one of its three gene-edited pups Khaleesi. Outside experts call the animals modified grey wolves, not a revived species.
Q 13In which disaster franchise's third film is George R. R. Martin killed while watching a movie?
Sharknado
Q 21Which kind of writing has George R. R. Martin called a harmful exercise for aspiring authors?
Fan fiction
Fan fiction, in Martin's view, lets new writers skip the hard work of building their own worlds and characters. He also asks not to be shown fan works because of the copyright risks.
Q 22Which creatures stalk the Mississippi steamboats of George R. R. Martin's novel Fevre Dream?
Vampires
Vampires in Fevre Dream are a separate species shaped by evolution, not supernatural beings. Martin drew on his years in Dubuque, Iowa, where river steamboats were once built.
Q 23Which revived CBS anthology series gave George R. R. Martin his first Hollywood writing job?
The Twilight Zone
Sharknado 3 gave Martin a cameo as a doomed moviegoer. He has also played a zombie version of himself, still signing copies of his new novel, in the series Z Nation.
Q 14Which character's sayings fill a 2013 illustrated book of quotes from George R. R. Martin's novels?
Tyrion
Tyrion's one-liners fill The Wit & Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister, published because the character had become so popular. Martin has named him as his own favourite in the series.
Q 15Which character's warning to Ned gives George R. R. Martin's novel A Game of Thrones its title?
Cersei
Cersei tells him that players of the game of thrones either win or die, with no middle ground. The scene also names a first-season episode of the TV adaptation, You Win or You Die.
Q 16Which family's motto, a warning of cold to come, is the title of the first Game of Thrones episode?
The Starks
The Starks' words are spoken several times in that episode and throughout the series. HBO reshot about 90 percent of the pilot before it aired, with a new director.
Q 17Which riddle did George R. R. Martin make David Benioff and D. B. Weiss answer before trusting them?
Jon Snow's mother
Jon Snow's mother was the test: Martin asked the pair who she might be and was satisfied with their answer. A few weeks later they pitched the show to HBO, which took it.
Q 18Which sixth Ice and Fire novel was George R. R. Martin still writing fifteen years after the fifth?
The Winds of Winter
The Winds of Winter began with a large amount of material cut from the previous volume, A Dance with Dragons. In January 2026 Martin reported about 1,100 pages complete.
Q 19Which word does George R. R. Martin use for the ending he plans for A Song of Ice and Fire?
Bittersweet
Bittersweet is his promise: Martin says he knows the ending in broad strokes, and that not everyone will live happily ever after.
Q 20George R. R. Martin sorts writers into architects, who plan everything, and which looser type?
Gardeners
Gardeners, in Martin's scheme, have a general sense of where a story will end but follow no rigid outline. He counts himself as one, while architects meticulously plan ahead.
The Twilight Zone hired Martin after producer Philip DeGuere tried and failed to film one of his novels. He rose from staff writer to executive story consultant before CBS cancelled it.
Q 24Which duo star in the George R. R. Martin novellas adapted as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms?
Dunk and Egg
Dunk and Egg are a hedge knight and his squire, who is secretly a prince and a future king. Their adventures are set some 90 years before the main novels.
Q 25Which George R. R. Martin book, written as a scholar's history, inspired House of the Dragon?
Fire & Blood
Fire & Blood is told by a fictional archmaester whose sources contradict one another, so readers must judge who is lying. The HBO prequel adapts its account of a Targaryen civil war.
Q 26Which English power struggle did George R. R. Martin name beside Ivanhoe as inspiring his saga?
The Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses shaped the saga's feuding noble houses, though Martin avoided any direct adaptation. The Crusades and the Hundred Years' War fed into it too.
Q 27George R. R. Martin bought the first ticket to a pioneering 1964 New York convention for fans of what?
Comic books
Comic books drew Martin in through their letters pages: fans who read his published letters wrote to him, pulling him into early fandom. A year later he won a fan award for a superhero story.
Q 28Which vintage word processor has George R. R. Martin long written on, using an offline DOS computer?
WordStar
WordStar runs on Martin's MS-DOS machine because he dislikes having his work spell-checked and wants no internet distractions. He keeps a separate computer for everything online.
Q 29Which 1980s TV drama that George R. R. Martin wrote for gave its name to his bookshop?
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast employed Martin as a writer-producer, and he scripted 14 of its episodes. His shop, Beastly Books, opened in 2019 next door to his cinema.
Q 30Which superhero book series, edited by George R. R. Martin, grew out of a role-playing campaign?
Wild Cards
Wild Cards began as a two-year Superworld campaign that Martin ran for fellow science fiction writers, many of whom became its first authors. An alien virus gives its heroes their powers.