Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
Hey, that reminds me!

I remember a GRRM interview where he promised to explain the screwy winter thing going on in his world.

Did anyone ever bother to actually do that?
LOL. 'They forgot.' Seemed to explain a lot of their editorial decisions when the book material ran out.

About factotum's point, I'd argue it does matter, if length of day had anything to do with the plot. They're far enough north, near enough to the time of the Solstice, that I'm surprised they have any daylight at all. There are authors, a lot of them in the hard sci-fi realm, that famously stress a lot about world-creation questions like those. Then again, for many of them, their settings are better fleshed out and have better developed characterization than their actual characters...

For the Giant, OTOH, he doesn't need the setting to tell the story, and so I think factotum's interpretation is more likely.

I had thought Stickworld and its New Year mirrored our world, and thus we could get a clue about how long Belkar has left, but you all have thoroughly explained already that Azure City's, and therefore the Oracle's, New Year, has nothing to do with the North's Winter Solstice. Which gives the Giant a bit of wiggle room concerning when he kills him.