|
Evil Fluffy posted:The lack of progress would require active repression of creativity on a global scale or some massive regression-inflicting events on a regular basis. like, say, three year long winters?
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 18:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 19:29 |
|
|
Evil Fluffy posted:You're comparing drastically different stages of humanity. Humanity was also still progressing in those periods but it's hard to gauge to what extent because of how few things can survive thousands of years. In ASOIAF they understand astronomy and other sciences well enough and managed to do so and stagnate for thousands of years while the closest analogy for humanity involves comparing it to the earliest human civilizations when Westeros is far beyond that. If you have magic, creativity just floods into making magic spells instead, since that's far easier. Hell, even those dumb wizard vikings' swords were magic, so there was probably lots of progress, just all related to magic. And since the Doom of Valyria (I hope I got the name right this time), magic keeps disappearing and re-appearing, which must gently caress over everyone trying to make sense of the universe, stifling all sciences very badly. So you could say that yes, there's some serious active repression going on, but it was caused by Wizard Vikings in the Far West blowing up fantasy nukes, not political organizations or something. Anyway, without this huge gently caress-up, magic would be stable and all progress would presumably make the world of Westeros more and more unlike our own as time passes. So they still wouldn't have steam engines or whatever, instead all their tech would be magic based bullshit we IRL-people couldn't begin to comprehend. Since magic doesn't work here. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 18:34
|
|
|
Evil Fluffy posted:
lol
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 18:52
|
|
|
Im rewatching the series now and theres more well acted scenes in the first episode than the entire last 2 seasons combined.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 18:59
|
|
|
Libluini posted:If you have magic, creativity just floods into making magic spells instead, since that's far easier. Hell, even those dumb wizard vikings' swords were magic, so there was probably lots of progress, just all related to magic. And since the Doom of Valyria (I hope I got the name right this time), magic keeps disappearing and re-appearing, which must gently caress over everyone trying to make sense of the universe, stifling all sciences very badly. People want to make their lives better. Farmers and poo poo. They invent stuff. Some farmer who wants to grow better crops is gonna try this and that, he's not going to say "well I want more turnips so I'm going to wizard school" he can't go to wizard school. This is also driven by the idea that magic is just strange physics and works according to natural laws which can be reasoned and understood and then it provides a force of motive working power, essentially an energy source, that can be used for everyday practical things. It's not impossible but I don't see much evidence of that in GoT. Nobody has any records of people with magical plows or magical windmills or magical hot tubs. Would you expect progress to be slower in a world with magic? Maybe. But they aren't doing anything practical with magic in Game of Thrones that I can recall. Most inventions and discoveries are driven by practicality.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 19:01
|
|
|
Aren't the cooking techniques described in ASOIAF like, pretty advanced and modern? I doubt even royalty really ate like that until 2-3 hundred years ago.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 19:43
|
|
|
emanresu tnuocca posted:Aren't the cooking techniques described in ASOIAF like, pretty advanced and modern? I doubt even royalty really ate like that until 2-3 hundred years ago. I'd wager two capons you're correct.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 20:43
|
|
|
RCarr posted:Im rewatching the series now and theres more well acted scenes in the first episode than the entire last 2 seasons combined. Makes sense. They had to roll the dice with child actors and none of them that were teenagers when the show started turned out to be very good. I think Alfie Allen was the only "Stark" kid that turned out to be a good actor.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 20:54
|
|
|
jsoh posted:like, say, three year long winters? Isn't Dorne only mildly affected by winter? Looking at those maps, there's a lot of land even further south than Dorne so while winter would be an issue for lots of people, it's not going to be a "progress to the middle ages and then stop for 6000+ years" kind of issue. RCarr posted:Im rewatching the series now and theres more well acted scenes in the first episode than the entire last 2 seasons combined. That hadn't killed off their best actors yet.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 20:54
|
|
|
The first episode is great, I think that other than the description of the white walkers the episode is a much better introduction than the first few chapters of AGOT, it's not as stiff and it instantly establishes the relationships between many different characters. It's really amazing D&D pulled that one off.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 21:04
|
|
|
The whole first season is pretty good, despite a few dumb sexposition scenes
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 21:05
|
|
|
Elias_Maluco posted:The whole first season is pretty good, despite a few dumb sexposition scenes Play wif her arse!
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 21:11
|
|
|
emanresu tnuocca posted:Aren't the cooking techniques described in ASOIAF like, pretty advanced and modern? I doubt even royalty really ate like that until 2-3 hundred years ago. I'm having trouble thinking of something that stands out as advanced or modern.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 21:19
|
|
|
No Pants posted:I'm having trouble thinking of something that stands out as advanced or modern. Yeah, there's no dishes in any Game of Thrones book I can remember that can top anything in, say, the chapter on feasts from Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th century". Royalty back then ate like absolute depraved motherfuckers. "Gilded whole calf stuffed with trout" is one of the ones that always stayed with me.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 23:22
|
|
|
One one hand its the 10th anniversary of the show. On the other hand well, hope springs eternal. https://twitter.com/GameOfThrones/status/1382390104124239874
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 00:55
|
|
|
pseudanonymous posted:People want to make their lives better. Farmers and poo poo. They invent stuff. Some farmer who wants to grow better crops is gonna try this and that, he's not going to say "well I want more turnips so I'm going to wizard school" he can't go to wizard school. I think you mean "I want to grow more and better neeps, nuncle."
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 16:36
|
|
|
I don't like neeps, they make me pass words.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 16:47
|
|
|
pseudanonymous posted:People want to make their lives better. Farmers and poo poo. They invent stuff. Some farmer who wants to grow better crops is gonna try this and that, he's not going to say "well I want more turnips so I'm going to wizard school" he can't go to wizard school. I'll stop you right there, Mr. Potter. Why do you think you need magic school to use magic? Magic is a natural force in the background. Just look at our world: Tons of shamans, parapsychologists and other weirdos, and magic does not work here. If a Farmer wants to grow better crops in a world filled with magic, well they don't need to go to school to learn how to experiment, they can go ruin their own crops perfectly fine on their own. Besides, where do you think magic schools came from in the first place, if not from people experimenting? You're so wrong it hurts! Also, you can't use GoT as source of evidence since we're wildly speculating about stuff GRRM never told us about. We never saw the world unfucked by magic vikings! We're both just walking on clouds right now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 16:53
|
|
|
There are plenty of fantasy settings that follow the principle of "Any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from technology." And that's totally fine, but GRRM didn't want SoIaF magic to work that way, so it doesn't.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 17:37
|
|
|
Doesnt the GRRM expanded universe bullshit heavily imply that Not-China in the mysterious Far East is way more technologically advanced?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 18:43
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Doesn’t the GRRM expanded universe bullshit heavily imply that Not-China in the mysterious Far East is way more technologically advanced? GRRM China is just haunted by Lovecraft monsters
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 20:16
|
|
|
A HORNY SWEARENGEN posted:GRRM China is just haunted by Lovecraft monsters No thats further east of not-China.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 21:27
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Doesn’t the GRRM expanded universe bullshit heavily imply that Not-China in the mysterious Far East is way more technologically advanced? I think so but also they're like eternally cursed or some poo poo so all their advances go to staving off horrible deaths IIRC. Meanwhile the Summer Isles are better archers and sailors and shipbuilders than anybody else but mostly use their advances to protect their island paradise.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 21:29
|
|
|
Its impossible to say how much of the stupid as poo poo extended world building is GRRM or his two super fans he lets write canon fan fiction.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 21:32
|
|
|
It's just so half-assed compared to Tolkein, or hell, Robert Jordan. Even with the latter, you had a sense of politics and power struggles that weren't just based on base stereotypes. Oh yes, the decadent lands of the East....uh that's all I got, also slaves.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 21:47
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Its impossible to say how much of the stupid as poo poo extended world building is GRRM or his two super fans he lets write canon fan fiction. That said, everything written about the Five Forts sounds really badass.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 22:25
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:No that’s further east of not-China. You're saying Japan is full of tentacle monsters?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 22:45
|
|
|
the lore about far away places is all in universe poo poo right. it's prester john not necessarily reflecting reality just what some dumb bastard wrote down, about the mysterious nothere
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 22:52
|
|
|
nine-gear crow posted:That said, everything written about the Five Forts sounds really badass. Holy gently caress GRRM really never has bothered to research even the littlest bit about proper scale.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 23:08
|
|
|
jsoh posted:the lore about far away places is all in universe poo poo right. it's prester john not necessarily reflecting reality just what some dumb bastard wrote down, about the mysterious nothere Yeah, there's scant poo poo about Yi-Ti, Asshai, and Sothoryos in the actual books. All the stuff that's "known" about them has come from things like The World of Ice and Fire and The Lands of Ice and Fire.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 23:18
|
|
|
I do not for a second buy or accept that argument. For one thing, nothing we are told about the Mysterious Orient of the World of Ice ad Fire is even half as outrageous or exotic compared to actual, historical, orientalism. Folks in *early modern* Western Europe had more ridiculous notions of the wacky poo poo that went on in East Asia and even at times India than *anything* we are told goes on in the Far East of GRRMworld. Additionally, while real life orientalism and other examples of Here There Be Dragons pseudohistory is based on the aforementioned exoticism and fantastic exaggeration, nothing about the Far East we are told seems at all that unusual or outlandish compared to what we know goes on in Westeros and Essos. The Far East and Sothoryos do not read like what medieval 'scholars' would write about exotic foreign lands they know little to nothing about. They read like what a modern, casually racist, fantasy author uninterested in putting forth terribly much effort would write about exotic foreign lands. EDIT: To clarify, the Five Forts might be outrageous and belong in the Ind of Prester John, yes. IRL, that is. In a world where the Wall is a thing that exists, the Five Forts are by no means exotic or outlandish. Westeros is already something out of a Prester John fever dream, and so if we are to be told that Yi Ti and Sothoryos are the Westerosi equivalents of the Great Khan and Prester John, then they are going to have to up the ante considerably. They do not.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 23:30
|
|
|
RoboChrist 9000 posted:The Far East and Sothoryos do not read like what medieval 'scholars' would write about exotic foreign lands they know little to nothing about. They read like what a modern, casually racist, fantasy author uninterested in putting forth terribly much effort would write about exotic foreign lands.  I will never loving get over the interview around the 1-2 year mark of the show where GRRM admits "I've only written five words in High Valyrian" after relaying a story about fans wanting to officiate their weddings in that fictional language. Like GRRM isn't on the hook to do Tolkien levels of worldbuilding, but holy gently caress for something so huge you think at some point he'd have hired an assistant whole sole job was to help make it all hang together better. Like he would have no shortage of people including from this thread who would do it for next-to-nothing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 23:44
|
|
|
mind the walrus posted:
Well he has his two personal lore sycophants to do that. They just suck at it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 01:20
|
|
|
One of the continents has Jurassic Park raptors running around, that's a tidbit from the actual books. I've never read the expanded universe stuff so I don't know if they go into details.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 01:22
|
|
|
mind the walrus posted:
To be fair managing people is work.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 01:42
|
|
|
The same could be said for ghostwriting the books he pretends to write.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 02:16
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 02:18
|
|
|
The best thing that can happen now in terms of my sick amusement is that WoW comes out in some form and its just a huge disappointment. Yeah Im sure itll be initially well received just because of the hype but once people actually take a step back and look harder at it theyll just feel empty. Or maybe its fantastic and lives up to everyones dream but turns out that the overall plot wasnt able to advance that much and the series will now have to go to 8 books. That would also be really funny.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 06:33
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:turns out that the overall plot wasnt able to advance that much and the series will now have to go to 8 books. That would also be really funny. See n+1 for 8.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 07:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 19:29 |
|
|
got a bone to pick here. 1) Tyrion as a secret Targ should be much higher. 2) I'm not seeing Varys Mermen Shimrra Jamaane posted:Well he has his two personal lore sycophants to do that. They just suck at it. Does no one remember loyal Ty?
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2021 00:10
|
|
