#my weird memory

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

I can't tell you how many times I've been reading someone's meta or the comments after when you pop up with your asoiaf encyclopedia brain and correct whatever mistakes they've made with obscure, yet always well-cited corrections. How do you do it? I can't remember anything and I'm hoping you have some tips and it's not just magic. Thanks Butterfly!! 🦋

Thanks so much! (BTW FTR I’m not trying to correct to “catch” people, but to fill in for other people, just in case it’s needed.) How do I do it? Um, because I have a weird brain that doesn’t forget things I’ve read. Especially if I’ve reread them a lot, which after 6 years meta-ing is almost all of ASOIAF a dozen times over, lol. I’m also very good with search engines – I have keyword and context search for the Wiki of Ice and Fire and Search of Ice and Fire, so if I need to check a character/thing to be sure or if I can only remember half a phrase, those are godsends. (Before the Search site was around, I had my ebook copies of the books to search, but the website is a billion times faster.)

So yeah, if you don’t have a weird brain, I recommend:

re-reading the books,

the wiki,

the search.

If you don’t want to re-read all of the books (though believe me they get even better and you catch more cool things when you do), you can use the wiki or the search to find particular chapters for particular things or characters you might be interested in. Remember that the wiki is fan-edited, though, and there have been uncaught errors in the past (typos, fanon) and probably there are still errors on it now. So the books are always the way to go to be absolutely sure. Hope that helps! :)

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

I really admire your extensive knowledge of the books and world. This may be a kind of pedantic question, but what are your methods of note-taking in the books, eg, underlining, symbols, how you mark pages, characters, themes etc ?

Thanks so much! And I… don’t. Um. Highlight or underline or mark pages or anything. The most I do, when, say, reading a new TWOW preview chapter or TWOIAF or one of the novellas, is take notes on a piece of paper or in a notepad file, but that’s only if I’m sharing with other people. Maybe I’ll stick a torn-tissue bookmark in a book to mark a particularly favorite quote, or dog-ear a page, but usually I only use bookmarks to remember where I’ve left off. Otherwise I just work with my memory.

(I was a terrible student. Well, no, actually I was an excellent student – I test extremely well – but my study skills were godawful and I just depended on my memory and lecture notes 95% of the time. Which was fine in high school, but led to a spectacular implosion in college, as many gifted kids do. But really, I’d buy highlighters and post-it flags and never ever use them. (Pre-owned textbooks with highlighted passages were usually just distracting.) And people use highlighters for fiction? I mean, they must, Kindle wouldn’t have the option if they didn’t, but to me that’s just like… wow, why, no.)

I plan on doing another major reread of ASOIAF when TWOW’s release date is announced, and I’ll probably take notes to share (since people seem to like it when I do that), but I still don’t expect to use any highlighters or anything. (Highlighting? a book? one of my books? a fiction book? ugh ugh ugh.) Even the combo AFFC/ADWD I’m putting together (I bought two used paperbacks, I’m going to cut them apart and put them back together in the combination reading order, because I am a great big nerd), I still can’t imagine doing anything else to. And TWOW itself will be read as fast as I can (which is pretty darn fast), and any notes there will be from memory, most likely…

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

I have to ask, how do you manage to keep all this information in your head? I'm constantly amazed at your ability to answer even the most obscure question about a character that only appeared once. It's genuinely incredible (not to mention your ability to write amazingly deep and informative answers)

I don’t know, I just do? It’s this weird memory of mine, not photographic but… I just don’t forget things. I mean, I’m best with my favorite characters, where I basically have entire chapters memorized, but yeah, a lot of general characters I just remember. Always been able to do it, I can give you the Complete Summers Family Tree without looking anything up, and in ASOIAF I can get quite a bit of the Targaryen one too, though the recent additions via the DoD stories or TWIOAF I’m imperfect on. (FWIW I can do it equally well with my own very extended family… although with important historical families like the Tudors or whatever I would have to care far more before I got any good.)

Though there are minor characters who totally slip my mind of course — Gerrick Kingsblood, say, I utterly forgot about him or that he had any lines. Probably because he bored me, and also I need to reread a lot of Jon’s ADWD chapters, I went through them rather quickly and haven’t reread them nearly as much as, say, Bran’s. But that’s what my searchable PDFs are for, they fill in everything my memory doesn’t. Which helps me find things like 

Someone had already told the Thunderfist about Gerrick Kingsblood and his new style. “King o’ the Wildlings?” Tormund roared. “Har! King o’ My Hairy Butt Crack, more like.”

which I should have remembered because it’s awesome, and so I will probably not forget in the future. :) 

Also, if you like, check my tags, I’ve got more of my process in previous replies to questions like this.

[awolfstudio]

Memory

Watching HTTYD with my mom. Every now and again I quote along with the movie.

Mom: Are there any movies you don't know from memory?"

Me: Um..... new ones that I haven't seen I don't know from memory.

We both went back to knitting and watching the movie.

[taxi-to-221b]

I was watching old pictures when my dad walked in and we started to talk about my sisters face, the picture was from 2007. My dad thought she had a sour candy in her mouth. "Nope it's a candy called napoleon and she was looking at a green car at the parking lot... WHY DO I KNOW THIS!?" My memory is weird, seriously. 

[locktobre]

I'm usually pretty good with names

they're one of those factoids that tend to stick in my head, like random trivia or what have you

but sometimes I get really terrified I'll get it wrong

so I may go on anon and ask you your name to be sure

maybe three or four times

I'm sorry okay sometimes I don't trust myself