Breaking with editorial tradition, we decided to make the point of the post easy: place names may not be what you expect.
München is one of Germany's biggest cities, but you may know it only as Munich.
上海 is a huge city in China, and you and me call it Shanghai.
Königsmund (of "king" and "mouth") is a fictional city in the kingdom of Westeros in the series now known as Game of Thrones. You did guess it is the German translation of Kings Landing, right?
The editors and translators who were given the first book of the series A Song of Fire and Ice had to make the decision about keeping the names of places and people unchanged or adapt them to the new language.
Not every work of fiction requires this decision, some even take their appeal from leaving much of the cultural context unchanged.
Changing names of places, people, rituals, or customs ideally makes for much smoother reading, and it has been a common practice in all kinds of fiction since the days of the first printing press.
Actual results may vary. For example, Scots get off easy in the German translation of Disney's duck dynasty character Scrooge McDuck - in the German version, the character is simply Dagobert Duck.
The German translators of Game of Thrones follow in the footsteps of Tolkien in creating a complete, consistent world.
On the flip side, this requires more effort to maintain consistency, and there is a possibility of future hiccups if the story takes a turn which renders some previous translation choices awkward or even "wrong" in the new context.
Some choices are better than others, and we would put Königsmund into the "others" category.
Translators of the Game of Thrones series do have two allies in their quest, one being computers, the other being the combined efforts and enthusiasm of fans who contribute to wikis like the German http://de.eisundfeuer.wikia.com/wiki/Welt.
It's fun to explore fictional cultures, isn't that what attracted you to Game of Thrones in the first place?
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