Blue Mythril
Stronger than steel...
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2004
- Messages
- 280
Haha, you've just managed to pick up on one of the most debated theories amongst my friends and I
George R R Martin: A Game of Thrones (Book Club)
- Thread starter Brian G Turner
- Start date
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- Tags
- george r r martin
Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
Knivesout no more
This book is certainly helping me to define what I look for in fantasy and therefore, why. While I see the strengths of this work, and am moved by certain scenes and characters, I find myself unwilling to engage, to really immerse myself the way many of you are.
Why not? The first thing that is alienating me is the very Middle-Ages Europe setting. I'm so tired of fantasy worlds created from a strongly Western or Eurocentric perspective. I just can't care anymore. If I were to magically step into this world I would just be that strange dark foreign man that Sansa's companion looks at and is unnerved by at the tourney.
The second thing is the lack of overt fantastic elements. I realise this makes it seem that I only read fantasy for the cheap thrills, but that isn't quite it. I think.
Ultimately, if there's a reason I read fantasy - it's to visit strange new places, to experience unusual and bizarre cultures, and so on. To glimpse high strangeness in all its weird glory. Not much of that here. It seems I read more for the 'where' than the 'who', and if the setting doesn't engage me, the core storytelling values mean little. Why then did I like Tim Powers' Last Call, set squarely in the real world and the West at that? Because it had that sense of vast cosmic forces aligned in the background, of the numinous manifesting in everyday life. There's a bit of that in this book, maybe, but not a lot.
It is well written and wonderfuly crafted though. No doubt about that at all.
Why not? The first thing that is alienating me is the very Middle-Ages Europe setting. I'm so tired of fantasy worlds created from a strongly Western or Eurocentric perspective. I just can't care anymore. If I were to magically step into this world I would just be that strange dark foreign man that Sansa's companion looks at and is unnerved by at the tourney.
The second thing is the lack of overt fantastic elements. I realise this makes it seem that I only read fantasy for the cheap thrills, but that isn't quite it. I think.
Ultimately, if there's a reason I read fantasy - it's to visit strange new places, to experience unusual and bizarre cultures, and so on. To glimpse high strangeness in all its weird glory. Not much of that here. It seems I read more for the 'where' than the 'who', and if the setting doesn't engage me, the core storytelling values mean little. Why then did I like Tim Powers' Last Call, set squarely in the real world and the West at that? Because it had that sense of vast cosmic forces aligned in the background, of the numinous manifesting in everyday life. There's a bit of that in this book, maybe, but not a lot.
It is well written and wonderfuly crafted though. No doubt about that at all.
Blue Mythril
Stronger than steel...
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2004
- Messages
- 280
thats a very key critcism there. i must admit, it gets very boring these days, and frustrating. Problem is, that most people who try to break away from the western culture element in fantasy are usually westerners who have "studied" another culture or whatever. Point is, its still a western perception on a noin-western viewpoint, and is very hard to pull off.
It'd be great if we could really break through such boundaries, like the ethos of fantasy implies.
you know what got me? I was talking about something similar with my four unit English mentour (basically the extension english course, all you do is work on a major compositional piece amd hand it, and ots accompanying journal to markers). I got a bit dissillusioned when it was basically implied that I should 'experiment' later on.
Not happy Jan.
Thoug, in regards to George r R Martin, I didn't like the medi eval setting just cos I found it boring. (medieval is about as modern as my true passion in history goes, the rest is just interest
)But, I found that the characters more than made up for it.
Its a very fine balance between moderating fantastic elements and overdoing the fantastic stereotypes. Is very difficult to create a true fantasy that avoids cliches.
George R R Martin isn't my usual fantasy preference, but he is that damn good he is still one of my favourite authors. I love his work.
Oh, though admittedly it does get more "fantastic" later on...
Silk
As smooth as...
I keep thinking about this too but I just can't shake the feeling that Jon Snow isn't Ned's son at all but the child of his sister; who we know was captured and raped by some member of Danenerys' family.I said:
to me thats the only reason that makes sense why Ned would so fearsly guard the identity of Jon's mother (to protect the reputation and memory of his sister who he dearly loved and was going to marry the new king) and why he would take the child back to Winterfell and raise him as one of his own(remember Lyannas words promise me, promise me that still haunt Ned)
Anyway I'm sure I'll be proved wrong, my wild theroies usually are
That's a very good suggestion, Silk.
I'm not sure what role Jon Snow is being set up for - but the title of the trilogy itself is "A Song of Fire and Ice". Daenerys and the dragons are almost certainly the fire, and The Others are the ice. It's a classic pair of opposites, set up to cancel one another. And the Starks appear to be being set up as the pivot upon which it all turns.
As for the book so far...after the tournament things have split up a little - and I can suddenly see how Jordan perhaps gets distracted into subplots. If Martin doesn't connect the characters more quickly soon then I may find it hard to keep such a strong interest.
As for the complaint about midde-ages - there's quite a general mix in there with Martin - and to be honest, to myself he's got something of an untidy cultural mess. It's superficially Western Europe in Mediaeval times, but aside from some great use of period terminology, the cultural development doesn't seem particularly strong. For example, the concept and application of religion doesn't seem particularly well developed. Still, Martin seems to cover a lot of areas as much as he needs to and it's not distracting from the story.
Personally, I think the main suggested problem isn't that there's something of a mediaeval Europe setting - as much as the fact there's no variation in it - crossing from the north of the world to the south of the world is about as culturally different as travelling from Cumbria to Kent - from one end of England to the other. Which perhaps is the accessibility issue for you, JP?
If we had a wider and more global experience then that might help - the Dothrak are obviously analogues of the Mongols. But there's little cultural variation overall. So I figure that's what grates most, and that something towards greater cultural accessibilityby touching upon a wider range of cultures would help. Just my exploring the issue, though.
As for the writing itself - I'm pretty impressed with the writing - sometimes with just a few words Martin describes something I would need pages to achieve.
For example, the following is one of my favourite descriptions so far - in just two lines, he manages to convey a day of jousting:
I'm not sure what role Jon Snow is being set up for - but the title of the trilogy itself is "A Song of Fire and Ice". Daenerys and the dragons are almost certainly the fire, and The Others are the ice. It's a classic pair of opposites, set up to cancel one another. And the Starks appear to be being set up as the pivot upon which it all turns.
As for the book so far...after the tournament things have split up a little - and I can suddenly see how Jordan perhaps gets distracted into subplots. If Martin doesn't connect the characters more quickly soon then I may find it hard to keep such a strong interest.
As for the complaint about midde-ages - there's quite a general mix in there with Martin - and to be honest, to myself he's got something of an untidy cultural mess. It's superficially Western Europe in Mediaeval times, but aside from some great use of period terminology, the cultural development doesn't seem particularly strong. For example, the concept and application of religion doesn't seem particularly well developed. Still, Martin seems to cover a lot of areas as much as he needs to and it's not distracting from the story.
Personally, I think the main suggested problem isn't that there's something of a mediaeval Europe setting - as much as the fact there's no variation in it - crossing from the north of the world to the south of the world is about as culturally different as travelling from Cumbria to Kent - from one end of England to the other. Which perhaps is the accessibility issue for you, JP?
If we had a wider and more global experience then that might help - the Dothrak are obviously analogues of the Mongols. But there's little cultural variation overall. So I figure that's what grates most, and that something towards greater cultural accessibilityby touching upon a wider range of cultures would help. Just my exploring the issue, though.
As for the writing itself - I'm pretty impressed with the writing - sometimes with just a few words Martin describes something I would need pages to achieve.
For example, the following is one of my favourite descriptions so far - in just two lines, he manages to convey a day of jousting:
Also, King Robert is proving to be a superb villain - an irresponsible coward to the worst degree. Yet - he's very humanised and his struggle with responsibility vs self-indulgence works very well to myself. Humanised villains work well.G R R Martin said:
Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
Knivesout no more
Brian, I suppose you're right in a way - the sort of default cultural melieu is probably something I'm not too thrilled with. But I suspect its more than that, and probably more subjective than anything else. I think my tastes in fantasy are more influenced by the dark fantastic, by writers like Poe, Lovecraft and Smith, usually seen as horror authors, than by the thread of epic fantasy.
I'd like to reiterate that it's amply clear that Martin is a most skilfull storyteller, since I am quite determined to finish this book, regardless of misgivings.
I'd like to reiterate that it's amply clear that Martin is a most skilfull storyteller, since I am quite determined to finish this book, regardless of misgivings.
I'm finally seeing something more of "The Others" and it's creating a sense of dread - not because it instills character fear, but simply because mindless hordes equals mindless horror, and it bores me completely. Although it's been coming for a while, it's not a device I particularly care for. But...I guess if I have to sit and read through it's development then at least I hope it all one day culminates in Daenerys and her dragons and horders sweeping through the Seven Kingdoms while, the last remnants of lords and knights are holed up in siege...then maybe that's a string of scenes worth reading. But mindless hordes of horror? I can only hope it's a serving dished out reservedly, otherwise it's going to leave a very sour taste for myself.
A Game Of Thrones
Well, I finally read it all – it started slow, built up to a moment of excitement, but then fell away to anti-climax and pointlessness. It was painful reading the last few chapters because I’d already given up on the book by then.
1. Daenerys – it was this plotline that really killed the book for myself. Everything was fine up to the ceremonies regarding the unborn child. Then everything after made this entire area of the story utterly irrelevant.
We were suddenly thrust into the taking of the shepherd town without any kind of explanation whatsoever, either during the events or after. It was just a way of rushing into destroying the entire Daenerys plot element.
Martin had spent ages building up the Drogo character, as if giving him some kind of meaning. But suddenly Drogo is treated as a meaningless character with a meaningless death (or series of deaths).
The healing woman was also utterly meaningless – the cliché of the unborn child to save the life of Drogo went from bad to worse with her giving birth to a “malformed creature”. The entire role of the healing woman served no purpose excepting to destroy the Daenerys sub-plot.
The finish of that with her suckling the dragons did nothing in the slightest to salvage the fact that the Daenerys subplot was completely meaningless to the overall story.
2. So, Bran goes climbing and is pushed out from a high window by Queen Cersei. Great – Bran serves as a device for bringing justice – or, at least, the truth of the matter – in the story.
Or so it seems at first.
But then Martin seems to forget as completely as Bran does, and the whole event also becomes pointless. Somehow – and without the reader ever being told – Eddard Stark figures out that the children of Cersei are to Jaime, and not to Robert.
Therefore the whole Bran subplot became meaningless.
Bran was pretty well written, – it was a convincing child’s point of view. But you could tear out every single one of his scenes and not at all impact the story.
When that is the case, you have an example of bad over-writing and focus on irrelevance.
3. Catelyn – so what does she do? She abandons her homeland on a whimsy – that proving the ownership of the knife will therefore bring down the royal family. That in itself was something of a pointless plot device to get her out of Winterfell.
Arresting Tyrion was fine – but everything Catelyn does after is irrelevant – the Eyrie and its events are again, completely pointless – Catelyn has Tyrion, so no longer has Tyrion, and Lysa serves no purpose as a character in the book, nor does the Vale. So – rip all those scenes out of the book.
After leaving Eyrie she doesn’t do much – other than help to illustrate how weak the character of Robb is – along with all the other Northern Lords – by the fact that we never get to see their Point of View or their experience of leading the army south. That we’re forced to see all that from Catelyn’s perspective – even the attack on Jaime’s forces at Riverun – cheapens the experience and makes it seem pretty shallow.
What is pretty astonishing, really, is why there’s no really focus on developing Robb as a point of view character when he’s riding with the army. Instead we get to see the events from two characters who are otherwise irrelevant to the plot unfolding – Bran watching the armies mass at Winterfell, and then Catelyn seeing them move south. Where is the sense in that?
4. Tyrion – a great character – someone who survives on his wits is always going to be fun to read. Yet if Tyrion survived entirely on wits, and his skirmish with Catelyn against the mountain clans was his first ever battle, then why was it that the only mass battle scene in the book is through Tyrion suddenly turning to brawn as a lord in armour leading part of an army? Or did I mis-read the complete incongruity of that?
That Martin should chose Tyrion as the focus of the battle sequence almost seems to be mocking not simply Tyrion as a character, but battle in general – just as Lord Tywain’s comments on the ridiculous nature of Joffery’s decisions seems to be like the mocking of Martin’s own decisions as a writer.
4. Arya – Eddard’s wayward daughter who thinks nothing of violently attacking the heir apparent to the throne when she’s in a bad mood. Gripes about that aside, she again became an entirely meaningless character – remember when she first found the dragon skulls in the darkness, crept out to the well, and then overheard the two men plotting? There was the meaning in that scene – but then Martin casually tosses away the characters – and the plot-thread of the threat to Eddard by spells. More surprisingly, Eddard never seems to notice the fact that a lot of the information that Arya gave him was true, and instead he goes off into mocking her for the benefit of the modern reader (wizards as wearing pointy hats with stars on them). So even more pointlessness.
Issues:
1. Irrelevancy
The big flaw in this book is irrelevancy – most of the book is actually irrelevant. Many characters, point of view, and scenes, are entirely irrelevant to the story. They serve only as padding, and dilute the actual story itself. All irrelevant content needs to be ripped out at the editorial stage to present a properly lean reader experience.
For example, Bran serves no role as a Point of View character, other than to take away from the importance of his more active brothers. So why Martin thinks a tale of court intrigue and political plotting therefore requires the inclusion of a sub-story about a prince who is crippled but rides a horse again, makes little sense (in this book at least).
And the entire Daenerys plotline seemed to be building up to something – but then, at the last moment, Martin destroyed what he’d written and decided to go in a completely different direction. Which means that you could safely remove the entire Daenerys experience from the book and covered the events as 2 page recap when she was finally introduced as a meaningful character.
2. Gore
And that brings us onto the issue of “Gore” – every time someone gets hit, there are splashes of blood everywhere. In normal life, someone hit with a stick get a sore bruise – in Martin’s world, there has to be splatter.
The whole use of splatter and gore in the book is over-used and pointless – and quite unreal. It is an apparent fact of forensic science that if you slash someone, there will be no splatter – the blood wells up. The splatter comes up by slashing again where the blood is welled, and therefore it splatters out. Is that so difficult for Martin to write, instead of his fixation of blodding everything that involves hard contact at every opportunity?
Overall
Overall – the book was fairly good to the point of Cersei’s counterstrike for the throne. Everything so far in the book had been building up to that moment. But, afterwards, there was nothing to continue with, and everything that followed lacked the sense of tension and excitement that had already been building up earlier.
Even Ned Stark’s death was disappointing – although shocking in terms of the story – the reader was held well beyond arm’s length from that event, despite that Ned Stark had otherwise been a major Point of View character throughout the book so far.
It was as if George Martin – once the throne was claimed – suddenly ended up having to rush everything. In fact, I was tempted to think that the entire last third of the book had been mostly – and hastily – re-written, without any real guiding thought excepting to accomodate a few extra sequels.
Don’t get me wrong – George Martin is a very talented writer: his use of dialogue and character, and his counter strokes in the court intrigue are, are of an excellent standard.
The problem is that the book is overly padded with irrelevance and often plot unfolds in a pointless manner at key moments. This should really have been stripped down to it’s essentials, instead of trying to cover such a wide-range of characters – when many were not essential to the story, and even sometimes took away from it.
Anyway…
I enjoyed the book up to a point. But I felt immensely let down towards the end and had to push myself through the last chapters just to say I’d finished the book. And although I cared for a lot of the characters, I won’t be chasing down any of the sequels – I can’t stand the idea of reading a 800 page novel which contains a lot of chaffe.
Overall, my feeling was that “A Game of Thrones” was exciting to a point, but ended like bad sex – no climax, awkward, and feeling self-conscious.
Just my personal opinion, though.
Well, I finally read it all – it started slow, built up to a moment of excitement, but then fell away to anti-climax and pointlessness. It was painful reading the last few chapters because I’d already given up on the book by then.
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W A R N I N G : S P O I L E R S
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W A R N I N G : S P O I L E R S
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1. Daenerys – it was this plotline that really killed the book for myself. Everything was fine up to the ceremonies regarding the unborn child. Then everything after made this entire area of the story utterly irrelevant.
We were suddenly thrust into the taking of the shepherd town without any kind of explanation whatsoever, either during the events or after. It was just a way of rushing into destroying the entire Daenerys plot element.
Martin had spent ages building up the Drogo character, as if giving him some kind of meaning. But suddenly Drogo is treated as a meaningless character with a meaningless death (or series of deaths).
The healing woman was also utterly meaningless – the cliché of the unborn child to save the life of Drogo went from bad to worse with her giving birth to a “malformed creature”. The entire role of the healing woman served no purpose excepting to destroy the Daenerys sub-plot.
The finish of that with her suckling the dragons did nothing in the slightest to salvage the fact that the Daenerys subplot was completely meaningless to the overall story.
2. So, Bran goes climbing and is pushed out from a high window by Queen Cersei. Great – Bran serves as a device for bringing justice – or, at least, the truth of the matter – in the story.
Or so it seems at first.
But then Martin seems to forget as completely as Bran does, and the whole event also becomes pointless. Somehow – and without the reader ever being told – Eddard Stark figures out that the children of Cersei are to Jaime, and not to Robert.
Therefore the whole Bran subplot became meaningless.
Bran was pretty well written, – it was a convincing child’s point of view. But you could tear out every single one of his scenes and not at all impact the story.
When that is the case, you have an example of bad over-writing and focus on irrelevance.
3. Catelyn – so what does she do? She abandons her homeland on a whimsy – that proving the ownership of the knife will therefore bring down the royal family. That in itself was something of a pointless plot device to get her out of Winterfell.
Arresting Tyrion was fine – but everything Catelyn does after is irrelevant – the Eyrie and its events are again, completely pointless – Catelyn has Tyrion, so no longer has Tyrion, and Lysa serves no purpose as a character in the book, nor does the Vale. So – rip all those scenes out of the book.
After leaving Eyrie she doesn’t do much – other than help to illustrate how weak the character of Robb is – along with all the other Northern Lords – by the fact that we never get to see their Point of View or their experience of leading the army south. That we’re forced to see all that from Catelyn’s perspective – even the attack on Jaime’s forces at Riverun – cheapens the experience and makes it seem pretty shallow.
What is pretty astonishing, really, is why there’s no really focus on developing Robb as a point of view character when he’s riding with the army. Instead we get to see the events from two characters who are otherwise irrelevant to the plot unfolding – Bran watching the armies mass at Winterfell, and then Catelyn seeing them move south. Where is the sense in that?
4. Tyrion – a great character – someone who survives on his wits is always going to be fun to read. Yet if Tyrion survived entirely on wits, and his skirmish with Catelyn against the mountain clans was his first ever battle, then why was it that the only mass battle scene in the book is through Tyrion suddenly turning to brawn as a lord in armour leading part of an army? Or did I mis-read the complete incongruity of that?
That Martin should chose Tyrion as the focus of the battle sequence almost seems to be mocking not simply Tyrion as a character, but battle in general – just as Lord Tywain’s comments on the ridiculous nature of Joffery’s decisions seems to be like the mocking of Martin’s own decisions as a writer.
4. Arya – Eddard’s wayward daughter who thinks nothing of violently attacking the heir apparent to the throne when she’s in a bad mood. Gripes about that aside, she again became an entirely meaningless character – remember when she first found the dragon skulls in the darkness, crept out to the well, and then overheard the two men plotting? There was the meaning in that scene – but then Martin casually tosses away the characters – and the plot-thread of the threat to Eddard by spells. More surprisingly, Eddard never seems to notice the fact that a lot of the information that Arya gave him was true, and instead he goes off into mocking her for the benefit of the modern reader (wizards as wearing pointy hats with stars on them). So even more pointlessness.
Issues:
1. Irrelevancy
The big flaw in this book is irrelevancy – most of the book is actually irrelevant. Many characters, point of view, and scenes, are entirely irrelevant to the story. They serve only as padding, and dilute the actual story itself. All irrelevant content needs to be ripped out at the editorial stage to present a properly lean reader experience.
For example, Bran serves no role as a Point of View character, other than to take away from the importance of his more active brothers. So why Martin thinks a tale of court intrigue and political plotting therefore requires the inclusion of a sub-story about a prince who is crippled but rides a horse again, makes little sense (in this book at least).
And the entire Daenerys plotline seemed to be building up to something – but then, at the last moment, Martin destroyed what he’d written and decided to go in a completely different direction. Which means that you could safely remove the entire Daenerys experience from the book and covered the events as 2 page recap when she was finally introduced as a meaningful character.
2. Gore
And that brings us onto the issue of “Gore” – every time someone gets hit, there are splashes of blood everywhere. In normal life, someone hit with a stick get a sore bruise – in Martin’s world, there has to be splatter.
The whole use of splatter and gore in the book is over-used and pointless – and quite unreal. It is an apparent fact of forensic science that if you slash someone, there will be no splatter – the blood wells up. The splatter comes up by slashing again where the blood is welled, and therefore it splatters out. Is that so difficult for Martin to write, instead of his fixation of blodding everything that involves hard contact at every opportunity?
Overall
Overall – the book was fairly good to the point of Cersei’s counterstrike for the throne. Everything so far in the book had been building up to that moment. But, afterwards, there was nothing to continue with, and everything that followed lacked the sense of tension and excitement that had already been building up earlier.
Even Ned Stark’s death was disappointing – although shocking in terms of the story – the reader was held well beyond arm’s length from that event, despite that Ned Stark had otherwise been a major Point of View character throughout the book so far.
It was as if George Martin – once the throne was claimed – suddenly ended up having to rush everything. In fact, I was tempted to think that the entire last third of the book had been mostly – and hastily – re-written, without any real guiding thought excepting to accomodate a few extra sequels.
Don’t get me wrong – George Martin is a very talented writer: his use of dialogue and character, and his counter strokes in the court intrigue are, are of an excellent standard.
The problem is that the book is overly padded with irrelevance and often plot unfolds in a pointless manner at key moments. This should really have been stripped down to it’s essentials, instead of trying to cover such a wide-range of characters – when many were not essential to the story, and even sometimes took away from it.
Anyway…
I enjoyed the book up to a point. But I felt immensely let down towards the end and had to push myself through the last chapters just to say I’d finished the book. And although I cared for a lot of the characters, I won’t be chasing down any of the sequels – I can’t stand the idea of reading a 800 page novel which contains a lot of chaffe.
Overall, my feeling was that “A Game of Thrones” was exciting to a point, but ended like bad sex – no climax, awkward, and feeling self-conscious.
Just my personal opinion, though.
I'm going to try and argue some points with you Brian...bear with me cause I'm not very good at this.
***SPOILERS***
1. Daenerys - I don't believe her losing the child was irrelevant. Nor do I believe Drogo was "built up". He is a pretty silent character, we don't ever know what he is thinking. She had to lose the child and Drogo to "give birth" to her dragons. If Dany hadn't saved Mirri Maz Dur the dragons would never have been born, because Dany wouldn't have sent for her to take care of Drogo. I think she also had to lose Drogo because seh is going to be queen...and Drogo would have been to powerful a character to sit back and let her rule.
2. Bran - Slight correction here...Jaime throws Bran out the window, not Cersei. Like many people who suffer great trauma, he can't remember why he fell. Or what happened immediatley before.
And let me quote a few lines that explain how Eddard knows who fathered the queen's children:
It was queer how sometimes a child's innocent eyes can see things that grown men are blind to. Someday, when Sansa was grown, he would have to tell her how she had made it all come lear for him. He's not the least bit like that old drunken king, she had declared, angry and unknowing, and the simple truthof it had twisted inside him, cold as death.
The seed is strong, Jon Arryn had cried on his death bed, and so it was. All those bastards, all with hair as black as night. Grand Maester Malleon recorded the last mating between stag and lion, some ninety years ago as...a large and lusty lad born with a full head of black hair...thirty years before that a male Lannister had taken a Baratheon maid to wife. She had given him three daughters and a son, each black-haired. No matter how far back Ned had searched...always he found the gold yielding before the coal.
3. Catelyn - I don't see how her leaving the Eyrie makes Robb a weak character.
4. Tyrion - He is thrust into battle because Tywin sends Tyrion's mountain men out, but they won't go without Tyrion. And since it is his POV we are reading, that's how we get to see it. "We will ride with you, lion lord," Chella daughter of Cheyk agreed, "but only if your halfman son goes with us."
5. Arya - She didn't attack Joff because of a "bad mood". Joff placed the point of his blade at the butcher boys throat. He would have badly hurt the boy too, if no one had stopped him. And if Sansa hadn't lied to everyone they wouldn't have lost their wolves either.
Ned doesn't pay attention to Arya when she is telling him about the two men she overheard because she is babbling and not making any sense. "She tried to remember the rest. She hadn't quite understood everything she'd heard, and now it was all mixed up in her head."
You have to remember that this is an ongoing series. I started this series with the second book, and I was completely hooked. His characters are so untypical, they aren't all good or all bad (except possibly Gregor Clegane, who seems to have no morals). I didn't go to college, and I'm not a writer...all I know is if I like the book or not. Feel free to argue any of these points with me.
***SPOILERS***
1. Daenerys - I don't believe her losing the child was irrelevant. Nor do I believe Drogo was "built up". He is a pretty silent character, we don't ever know what he is thinking. She had to lose the child and Drogo to "give birth" to her dragons. If Dany hadn't saved Mirri Maz Dur the dragons would never have been born, because Dany wouldn't have sent for her to take care of Drogo. I think she also had to lose Drogo because seh is going to be queen...and Drogo would have been to powerful a character to sit back and let her rule.
2. Bran - Slight correction here...Jaime throws Bran out the window, not Cersei.
Like many people who suffer great trauma, he can't remember why he fell. Or what happened immediatley before. And let me quote a few lines that explain how Eddard knows who fathered the queen's children:
It was queer how sometimes a child's innocent eyes can see things that grown men are blind to. Someday, when Sansa was grown, he would have to tell her how she had made it all come lear for him. He's not the least bit like that old drunken king, she had declared, angry and unknowing, and the simple truthof it had twisted inside him, cold as death.
The seed is strong, Jon Arryn had cried on his death bed, and so it was. All those bastards, all with hair as black as night. Grand Maester Malleon recorded the last mating between stag and lion, some ninety years ago as...a large and lusty lad born with a full head of black hair...thirty years before that a male Lannister had taken a Baratheon maid to wife. She had given him three daughters and a son, each black-haired. No matter how far back Ned had searched...always he found the gold yielding before the coal.
3. Catelyn - I don't see how her leaving the Eyrie makes Robb a weak character.
I'm not sure I understand this...When Tyrion was taken captive it set into motion the battles that you are complaining about. His father takes great offense at that and starts attacking Catelyn's family holdings. Not out in public, but everyone knows who is behind it.
4. Tyrion - He is thrust into battle because Tywin sends Tyrion's mountain men out, but they won't go without Tyrion. And since it is his POV we are reading, that's how we get to see it. "We will ride with you, lion lord," Chella daughter of Cheyk agreed, "but only if your halfman son goes with us."
5. Arya - She didn't attack Joff because of a "bad mood". Joff placed the point of his blade at the butcher boys throat. He would have badly hurt the boy too, if no one had stopped him. And if Sansa hadn't lied to everyone they wouldn't have lost their wolves either.
Ned doesn't pay attention to Arya when she is telling him about the two men she overheard because she is babbling and not making any sense. "She tried to remember the rest. She hadn't quite understood everything she'd heard, and now it was all mixed up in her head."
You have to remember that this is an ongoing series. I started this series with the second book, and I was completely hooked. His characters are so untypical, they aren't all good or all bad (except possibly Gregor Clegane, who seems to have no morals). I didn't go to college, and I'm not a writer...all I know is if I like the book or not.
Feel free to argue any of these points with me.
No problem - and thank you for offering discussion/erickad71 said:I'm going to try and argue some points with you Brian...bear with me cause I'm not very good at this.
I really enjoyed a lot of the book - the characters were - and are still very much - in my mind. I simply felt very disappointed towards the end the way things were suddenly turning.
***SPOILERS***
I can certainly see the reasoning - but if Daenerys is to be a Queen - as she has obviously been set up as from the beginning, then because she's now lost the Dothraki she's practically at step 1 again. At least if Drogo died outright while she had the dragons it would have possibly been a smoother transistion of power.erickad71 said:
True, the Dothraki ways might not have allowed well to be ruled by a Dragon Queen - unless, perhaps, she were riding one. But I figure we're going to see that anyway. It means that we're now possibly going to see her rise above the Dothraki again - but it's somewhere she's already been, so if she does, then as a reader I find that frustrating that we'll have to see her get there again.
And I liked Drogo.
Quiet, maybe - but enigmatic. And the son being called Rhaegar, the stallion that would stride the world, was such powerful symbolism. By wiping all that out with the sudden arrival of the healing woman, it felt like Martin was simply mocking the Dothraki, and any reader who actually thought the Dothraki experience meant anything real in those terms.
I'm not at all used to writers creating strong symbolism, only to dismiss it so easily.
Again, I guess I'm maybe just disappointed there.
Indeed, my bad - thanks for the correction.erickad71 said:2. Bran - Slight correction here...Jaime throws Bran out the window, not Cersei.
But doesn't the crow say that he has to remember, but put it away first until he has need to (or words to that effect)?
Indeed, and thanks for searching for the passage.erickad71 said:
I guess what I wanted to see Ned not simply read it, but reach the conclusion for the reader. But he doesn't - yet he dares to accuse his own Queen of an incestuous relationship with a respected Lord, her brother, simply on the grounds that the children of such couplings are usually dark-haired!
But...even still, the fact that Bran could have remembered and told was a plotline waiting to be threaded into the story. The fact that Ned had to second guess it and suddenly make such daring accusations without any evidence to really push the issue just seemed like such an opportunity lost.
It's more that Robb has to build a great northern army and lead them into victorious battle - but the only character view we get of Robb is via Bran at Winterfell, and Catelyn at the army. That makes Robb a character very distant to the reader. I figure that means Robb is being set up for death while Bran and Catelyn outlive him - but even still, if Robb does die without the reader being given suitable character Point of View, it's going to be death at a distance - as with Lord Stark - the reader dissociated from the immediacy of it all.erickad71 said:
Indeed, quite right. I just felt that perhaps there could have been a cleaner way to do it, without travelling to the Eyrie.erickad71 said:
Catelyn reaching the Eyrie itself - it introduced characters, no doubt especially important for what follows in the sequels. But it all felt a bit gratuitous at the time - from what I hear of Jordan, he would have based half a novel on that part of the story alone, so perhaps I should be grateful?
Again, I guess it's because we didn't see Tyrion mentally fretting about the battle, considering that it was first, that it meant missed a lot of the sense of tension.erickad71 said:
Okay, touche.erickad71 said:
I'm a man - that means I need telling everything twice for it to sink in. And that doesn't necessarily happen here.erickad71 said:You have to remember that this is an ongoing series. I started this series with the second book, and I was completely hooked. His characters are so untypical, they aren't all good or all bad (except possibly Gregor Clegane, who seems to have no morals). I didn't go to college, and I'm not a writer...all I know is if I like the book or not.
I guess a big part is the sense of expectation - that was most especially the case with the Daenerys storyline - I was so expecting her to be strong and powerful at the end, commanding the Dothraki - not what suddenly happened.
But there was also the sense that a lot of important character viewpoint was being lost from the story. Maybe Martin is doing that specifically because he's thinking upon who he heeds to focus on throughout the series - but sometimes it did feel that he was overlooking some of the important characters and events in the first novel, by looking too much at the entire series.
2c.
dwndrgn
Fierce Vowelless One
I'm not really entering into the discussion here as I read the darned thing so long ago and can't currently find a copy. But I did want to make a point:
Brian, you said:
. And you can blame JP for putting me in a debating mood!
Brian, you said:
I would think that when stories unpredictable they are at their best - keep the reader interested and on their toes and they will be entertained. If everything happened as you expected it would, it wouldn't be too interesting. Of course, that's just me
. And you can blame JP for putting me in a debating mood! !!!spoilers!!!
I'm glad you didn't take anything I said the wrong way Brian. I know that can be easy to do sometimes, especially when you can't see or hear the person you are "talking" to. I'm just glad that you could make sense of what I was trying to say. I must admit I was disappointed that Dany lost her son too. And I will go back and look up what the crow told Bran.
That is exactly what I was thinking, and why I love this series so much. Nothing happens the way it does in a conventional fantasy story.dwndrgn said:
I'm glad you didn't take anything I said the wrong way Brian. I know that can be easy to do sometimes, especially when you can't see or hear the person you are "talking" to.
I'm just glad that you could make sense of what I was trying to say. I must admit I was disappointed that Dany lost her son too. And I will go back and look up what the crow told Bran.
Silk
As smooth as...
not fair, Have been trying to avoid the spoilers in this thread all evening and thought I had succeeded untill I just read your post ericka - I should have just stayed away
Going to crawl under my duvet and finish the book right now!
Going to crawl under my duvet and finish the book right now!
I've added a spoiler warning to the above.
And no worries, Ericka - I appreciate the discussion - and I don't at all mind being disagreed with.
And no worries, Ericka - I appreciate the discussion - and I don't at all mind being disagreed with.
littlemissattitude
Super Moderator
Well, it didn't take long to get through all these posts...since I scrolled right past all the spoilers. I've gotten a bit behind as I've been a bit busy the past few days. I am enjoying it so far, although there are a few characters I'd like to kick, and at least one I wouldn't mind doing even worse mayhem to. But that's a good thing; I'm reacting to them, at least.
Silk
As smooth as...
I've finished now so going to go back and read all the spoiler posts!
Silk
As smooth as...
***SPOILERS***
I said:
I said:
For me this whole point of this first book is to begin the characterization that will follow through the next 4 and in terms of the whole series I think the development of Daenerys will be the most important.
The first time we meet her she is so frightened and over powered by her brother that she has absolutely no idea of her own potential or even her own personality.
After she accepts her marriage to Drogo she begins to develop not
only as a character but as a person and although using Drogo and her son as the back bone of her efforts to return to the seven kingdoms would have been really good reading, as Martin so doggedly reminded us through out the whole book, she is blood of the dragon and therefore she can't just sit back and let it all be done for her.
By loosing both her husband and her son she finally understands what it is she has to do which is basically go it alone and gather her own army.
You said she has already been to the top of the Dothraki, but has she?
As a race of people the Dothraki have absolutely no respect for women, she was never at the top she was just their leaders ride it was only because of the kind of man Drogo was that she didn't get to ride half his kalhasar as well!
Now that she’s on her own she'll have to work her way to the top and be the kind of dragon that the House of Targaryen would be proud of.
And in terms of characterization for the continuing story, could you read about whatever it is Daenerys is going to do in the other books without knowing what it took to get her there? I couldn't she'd just be another faceless baddy I expect.
Could I just add that I was quite repulsed by the fact they had her dragons suckling from her own breast! Gross!!
I said:
This kind of relates back to what I said earlier that this book all about introducing you to the characters and also the situation.
So far the only two people who knew about Cersei's secret are dead and considering the gravity of what that secret actually is; it would be ridiculous if it were just casually thrown by the wayside.
Therefore the only possible way it could get found out is when Bran finally gets his memory back.
Overall I really enjoyed the book but I also feel a bit cheated that the ending was so flat but at the same time I can sort of see why its been done the way it has and its not put me off reading the rest of the series.
!!!SPOILERS!!!
Quite true about the Daenerys plot - I think it really probably is a case of my own sense of expection there.
As for Bran - good point - they think the secert is safe.
Although Bran is a pretty pointless Point of View character in this first book, he seems to be being set up to be a major character in the later books. I guess Martin simply wants to delay the delivery of Bran's truth until a more reasonable moment - Ned was obviously doomed the moment he rode with Robert to Kings Landing, so I guess there would've been less impact if the Bran issue was brought out so soon.
Quite true about the Daenerys plot - I think it really probably is a case of my own sense of expection there.
As for Bran - good point - they think the secert is safe.
Although Bran is a pretty pointless Point of View character in this first book, he seems to be being set up to be a major character in the later books. I guess Martin simply wants to delay the delivery of Bran's truth until a more reasonable moment - Ned was obviously doomed the moment he rode with Robert to Kings Landing, so I guess there would've been less impact if the Bran issue was brought out so soon.
Silk said:not fair, Have been trying to avoid the spoilers in this thread all evening and thought I had succeeded untill I just read your post ericka - I should have just stayed away
Going to crawl under my duvet and finish the book right now!
OOOPS!!! I'm so sorry!
I forgot to put the spoiler heading in there...
Silk
As smooth as...
no worrys it was my own stupid fault for reading posts after Brians first spoiler warning!!
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