GRRM ruined a song of ice and fire by killing too many good characters

[juleska]

Boaz, I love your brain. If we ever happen to be in the same place, it would be my honor to share a few rounds with you.

Idealect, great post, lots to dissect....most of which Boaz has already done. I have a few comments myself, so I'll be back shortly.

 

[Boaz]

You love my brain?

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that... I still couldn't eat off of Taco Bell's Value Menu.

I've tried that line back in college. She didn't believe me 'cause I wasn't making eye contact. A foot higher and she might have.

I don't really travel anymore, but if you're in Denver... heck, even if you've got an hour or two layover at Denver International, let me know. I'm up for downing a beer.

 

[JoanDrake]

One of the problems I have is not with Martin killing people but with his bringing them back to life. His saving of Lady Catelyn is a really bad precedent, because it means that the dead aren't REALLY dead. Not if the author needs them alive. It doesn't matter that Catelyn isn't quite...herself...after dying. Resurrecting characters is a cliché in Fantasy, and a way for the author to cheat the reader out of the suspense he should feel knowing that any character can be removed at any time.

 

[Idealect]

Boaz, I love your brain. If we ever happen to be in the same place, it would be my honor to share a few rounds with you.

Idealect, great post, lots to dissect....most of which Boaz has already done. I have a few comments myself, so I'll be back shortly.

I'm still around and interested if you want to make those further comments. I just don't have much to say in reply to anything said so far. More matters of perspective than factuality.

 

[Boaz]

Idealect, perspective... absolutely. It's fiction... it's art. So beauty is int the eye of the beholder. I'm not about to say your perspective is wrong. All I can say is why this work resonates with me.

I do like a story that elicites strong feelings... admiration, frustration, sympathy, and revulsion. That's a lot better than ambivalence by everyone.

 

[Darth Angelus]

Looks like A Song of Fire and Ice is really meant to be realistic, so good characters get killed, like in real life. Probably that's GRRM's point after all.

That may be an exaggeration. Not only does the story contain magic, the wall of ice inexplicably remains standing (for millennia), despite bare green grass existing only a short distance south of it (at least according to the show, so correct me if I am wrong).

Please note that I am not targeting you, your post or your point specifically! I actually agree with the point you are most likely trying to make, that death is often meaningless, rather than heroic, and if you expose yourself to mortal danger, especially if it happens repeatedly, chances are you will bite the dust.
I am not even targeting George R.R. Martin's series. It is just that I think realism is applied selectively, when there is magic in a fictional world.

 

[Nerds_feather]

One of the problems I have is not with Martin killing people but with his bringing them back to life. His saving of Lady Catelyn is a really bad precedent, because it means that the dead aren't REALLY dead. Not if the author needs them alive. It doesn't matter that Catelyn isn't quite...herself...after dying. Resurrecting characters is a cliché in Fantasy, and a way for the author to cheat the reader out of the suspense he should feel knowing that any character can be removed at any time.

The idea, I think, is that all the "metaphysical activity," so to speak, means the dead don't stay dead anymore.

But as a literary device, I agree--it's getting old.

 

[Ashara]

The idea, I think, is that all the "metaphysical activity," so to speak, means the dead don't stay dead anymore.

But as a literary device, I agree--it's getting old.

I completely agree. Much to my chagrin, one of my favourite characters has now been (perhaps) killed off and there of course now is a way for him to come back...
But I dislike the thought of bringing back so very many in what seems like a very cliche way, IMO. I can't decide which I would detest more, him dying or him coming back!

(apologies if I have missed a conversation like this previously in the thread, I am new here, so am still learning)

 

[viZion]

I completely agree. Much to my chagrin, one of my favourite characters has now been (perhaps) killed off and there of course now is a way for him to come back...
But I dislike the thought of bringing back so very many in what seems like a very cliche way, IMO. I can't decide which I would detest more, him dying or him coming back!

(apologies if I have missed a conversation like this previously in the thread, I am new here, so am still learning)

I'm assuming you mean Jon? First, I totally agree about bringing characters back to life through magical means. It's something I've ranted about on these forums before. I'd read Malazan if I wanted my characters to always come back to life.

Anyway, I don't think Jon's dead. So what if he got stabbed a few times? We've seen plenty of people survive worse in this series. Brienne got her face bit off. Theon has more than a few pieces missing. Tyrion gets seriously maimed in every other chapter! I think (and hope!) that Jon survives without magical means. However, if he does get resurrected or some crap I will be seriously disappointed. I'd really consider giving up on the series at that point despite how much time I've spent reading and discussing it.

 

[Ashara]

I'm assuming you mean Jon? First, I totally agree about bringing characters back to life through magical means. It's something I've ranted about on these forums before. I'd read Malazan if I wanted my characters to always come back to life.

Anyway, I don't think Jon's dead. So what if he got stabbed a few times? We've seen plenty of people survive worse in this series. Brienne got her face bit off. Theon has more than a few pieces missing. Tyrion gets seriously maimed in every other chapter! I think (and hope!) that Jon survives without magical means. However, if he does get resurrected or some crap I will be seriously disappointed. I'd really consider giving up on the series at that point despite how much time I've spent reading and discussing it.

Yeah, I do mean Jon. I don't think he's dead either, because he is just so important to the story of the Wall and such that even GRRM couldn't kill him off...and like Arya that time the Hound hit her with the axe at the Red Wedding, he didn't actually technically die in that last paragraph (or perhaps he did and I'm remembering completely wrong) he just passed out or whatever. That's the impression I got anyway. I was just stating that if GRRM DID go the 'he's dead,but now he's UnJon' direction, then I would be very disappointed. I don't think I'd give up the series though! I'm with this until the very end, even if Rickon saves the day riding in on a unicorn

 

[Brian G Turner]

Welcome to chronicles, Ashara.

 

[Ashara]

Thank you I've been stalking these forums for quite awhile so I thought it was high time I joined in on the fun

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

I'm assuming you mean Jon? First, I totally agree about bringing characters back to life through magical means. It's something I've ranted about on these forums before. I'd read Malazan if I wanted my characters to always come back to life.

Anyway, I don't think Jon's dead. So what if he got stabbed a few times? We've seen plenty of people survive worse in this series. Brienne got her face bit off. Theon has more than a few pieces missing. Tyrion gets seriously maimed in every other chapter! I think (and hope!) that Jon survives without magical means. However, if he does get resurrected or some crap I will be seriously disappointed. I'd really consider giving up on the series at that point despite how much time I've spent reading and discussing it.

Right there with you Viz. I do NOT want Jon to come back by any magical means. I would be much happier if he is just wounded and cared for by Val, the "Wildling princess". That would give him something (else?) in common with Mance Rayder, who was injured and nursed back to health by a wildling woman. But I also don't want Jon to abandon his brothers in the Watch. I think breaking his oath at this point would be very out of character.

 

[Ursa major]

As many here know, a magical solution for Jon's survival that does not require resurrection as such has bee proposed. But as others have said, losing consciousness after being stabbed is not necessarily an indication of death.

 

[Devon.Q.Ly]

And the videogame "Mass Effect" had a plot that made millions of people buy the games and read the books, and its ending has immensely displeased 99% of the audience.

I was probably one of those 1% who was satisfied with the ending. Come on giant lasers beams sweeping around while you slowly move forward, I thought that was epic. Still haven't gone back to see the new ending that Bioware added.

As for GRRM, watch the TV show The Walking Dead and it will make his books seem like a fairytale.

 

[BAYLOR]

Hi all,

I read all 12 pages of this topic throughout my day at work. I finished the books last year and I have to tell you that in 2013 I read almost 50 books, in 2011/2012 I only read ASOIAF. This is not because I didn't like them but because of the so called padding that was talked about early in this post.
Looking back I enjoyed the killings... (sounds weird hum?) but as I was reading I had to mourn the characters, many of them who I liked it, I got so pissed of, I quit reading for months until I had the strength to start again.
I couldn't start anything more until I finished but a series that should have taken 1 month to read, took more than a year.
I really enjoy the characters and the personality GRRM ivens them, every each one of us have different opinions on them and want different people to stay alive/win the war.

I still can't understand why most od the time people can't accept different opinions and just speak their minds, instead of criticizing. Both my hubby and I read the books. He loves the way Martin writes, he reads the books quickly and finds the writing flow great, for me it's the contrary, I love the story but the way it's written... For my taste it should have less randomness, less description that I don't think it's needed to "be" in the story... Despite is love for GRRM writings, I'm the one who can't stop thinking/talking about it, I'm the one who watched every tv series episode...
So... Who likes it the most? I believe a person who doesn't like the writing can still love the story, though most of the times it makes as fell crappy

João... Quanto a ti... Dá um tempo, nem que seja um dois anos e quando te apetecer pega outra vez nos livros. Custa um bocado mas acho que vale a pena só pela novela que é não saber quem vai sair vivo ihihi

(for you people who don't understand portuguese...I said that we should make an effort to try an read the next books when he feels like it as I believe that it will be nice to know who will survive...ahahah)

Martin should have finished the book series before it was made into a tv series.

 

[laumaia]

Martin should have fined the series before it made in tie tv series.

Yes, I'm still a bit mad with Martin but what can we do?
I understand him actually, I couldn't handle the pressure either. I would just quit as he did but I would probably never work or get out of the house actually.
So I've come to forgive him, it's never good to hold grudges

 

[BAYLOR]

Yes, I'm still a bit mad with Martin but what can we do?
I understand him actually, I couldn't handle the pressure either. I would just quit as he did but I would probably never work or get out of the house actually.
So I've come to forgive him, it's never good to hold grudges

No point being mad about it .

Series you might want to check out

The Malazan series by Steven Erickson
Kagan the Damned by Jonathan Maberry
The First Laws Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

 

[Judderman]

If he waited to finish the books before agreeing the tv series he likely would not have seen much of the tv series. He has been able to enjoy the wealth and fame of it too. But I do think he should have tried not to write so many other books in the meantime.

Regarding the deaths there are so many characters a lot more can be killed off and still have plenty of POVs! How many of the characters were likeable anyway? Maybe Robb? We don’t read these books because the characters are likeable, other than Tyrion perhaps.

 

[paranoid marvin]

GoT in very similar in many respects to the Wars of the Roses (with a smattering of the Hundred Years War). Most of the main players in that series of conflicts were dead by the time they ended (which is how Henry VII with VERY tenuous links to the throne ended up as king).

In most civil wars, the sad fact is that many, many people die. So the deaths of so many of the protagonists in GoT makes it more realistic than in most fantasy novels, when the deaths of the majority of protagonists is left for the final chapters.

I agree that Martin should have finished GoT before embarking on other stories. I could have understood if he had be 'burnt out' or found himself unable to continue writing, but this is clearly not the case.

I do think that the negative backlash to the final couple of tv series must have had an influence, and I do suspect that his original vision for the ending of the book series closely matched that of the one we saw on tv. Which is why it's taken so long for it to come out. Either he's had to rewrite it, or he's been put off the idea altogether.

But it's been thirteen years since the release of the last book, and it's rare for there to be such a gap in any series, and for that to be a good thing.