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Yeah, not to dogpile, but George is kind of on the mark with his names. I actually roll my eyes when I read fantasy books where a nation is called "Haaktonurth'kabi" which translates to "Land Upon Which Our Ancestors Lightly Jumped From Tree to Tree", meanwhile most real-world nations basically translate to a hundred different forms of "Man Place" or a specific family's land. The most powerful nations on the planet, America and China, comically translate to "land of an Italian Dad" and "land of and old ruling Family" respectively.
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Oct 31, 2021 18:58
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Yeah, Martin actually gets toponymy right. And, again, I can't fault him for not being a polymath. It's neither reasonable nor necessary to expect every author to be a linguist and a cartographer. I know that for some people Tolkien's conlangs are part of his appeal, but I daresay that the enduring legacy and popularity of his Legendarium has much less to do with his use of fictional languages - languages that aren't terribly explained or expounded upon in the actual texts most people are familiar with - and much more to do with his skills as a storyteller. That Martin cribbed the UK for Westeros is fine. That Martin never actually created a fictional language for High Valyrian or Dothraki is fine. What's not fine is that some things - like the location and size of Oldtown - make no sense in universe and are clearly the result of laziness and a lack of consideration, rather than merely cribbing to fill in gaps he doesn't know. What's not fine is that he hasn't written in a book in over a decade.
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Oct 31, 2021 19:06
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I think it’s the opposite. He doesn’t get help on Essos from the two Scandinavian white supremacists, he farms everything not involving the Valryians out to them because thats literally all he cares about regarding that continent. So in the lore book everything East of Slavers Bay like Yiti and the Shadow Lands and City of Skulls and Ashai and all that poo poo is just those two writing fanfic that he signs off on as he’s pouring over a new Wild Cards draft.  It's absolutely this.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:03
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Alright, I concede the point, although it still smacks of the utmost laziest approach, and if there's anything GRRM can be relied upon for, it's to be utterly lazy.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:18
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Kylaer posted:Alright, I concede the point, although it still smacks of the utmost laziest approach, and if there's anything GRRM can be relied upon for, it's to be utterly lazy. It is kind of lazy tbh - it's a work of fiction. Just because it's somewhat more realistic to the "real world". It would be most realistic if it was like west "something" in another language that means land. Like the toponomy itself isn't so bad, but the very fact they have a name for a continent is in and of itself pretty ahistorical. And everyone calls things by the same names, which is also pretty lazy. Most people (in essos) would probably refer to "westeros" as the seven kingdoms, or Dragonlandia, or something like that. Also Westeros name isn't itself so bad, but Essos is fairly stupid. East of what? Virtually everyone always considers themselves the center of everything, China calls itself the Middle Kingdom really. If Civilization spread from some central point, then that point probably wouldn't be named "east". like Centeros would be more realistic with his naming scheme, though that sounds so stupid I don't even think GRRM could stomach it. So I feel like Martin doesn't get much credit here, in reality. Like yes, Westeros is kind of defensible, but I doubt it's that way because he researched it and made a choice. He did something stupid and lazy that turned out to be alright.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:34
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pseudanonymous posted:If you actually look at the etymology of a lot of place names it's pretty bad. Eng-land, ply-mouth, there's a hill in England that is hill-hill-hill-hill-hill-hill-hill in 7 languages, all the continents start with A (Europe isn't really a continent - though what exactly is a continent). There is no hill named in torpenhowe. So it's just hill-hill-hill. Also pronounced trepenna.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:39
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Kylaer posted:Alright, I concede the point, although it still smacks of the utmost laziest approach, and if there's anything GRRM can be relied upon for, it's to be utterly lazy. To me, it's kind of the opposite of lazy. It shows that he tries to understand the history of this kind of thing more than other kinds of authors. I'll still say he's become self-indulgent with Ice and Fire, but considering how he'll hammer out a lengthy lore book like nothing along with getting other projects of his in addition to helping out other aspiring writers, I wouldn't say he's lazy at all, especially since he's in his '70s. He's just a dick for lying about not working as hard on the books as he claims, inevitably leaving them unfinished.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:54
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pseudanonymous posted:Like the toponomy itself isn't so bad, but the very fact they have a name for a continent is in and of itself pretty ahistorical. it isn't at all. the historical europeans named europe, asia, and africa long before they knew the full extent of any of those continents. given that people live in every corner of westeros as part of a unified society it would be very strange if they didn't have a name for their continent
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Oct 31, 2021 21:08
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:To me, it's kind of the opposite of lazy. It shows that he tries to understand the history of this kind of thing more than other kinds of authors. I'll still say he's become self-indulgent with Ice and Fire, but considering how he'll hammer out a lengthy lore book like nothing along with getting other projects of his in addition to helping out other aspiring writers, I wouldn't say he's lazy at all, especially since he's in his '70s. He's just a dick for lying about not working as hard on the books as he claims, inevitably leaving them unfinished. Oh honey you still think he's actually doing those things and not his various underlings...
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Oct 31, 2021 21:30
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mind the walrus posted:Oh honey you still think he's actually doing those things and not his various underlings... Enh, I can't imagine he's just staring at the ceiling like one of his Dance characters.
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Oct 31, 2021 21:34
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Jazerus posted:it isn't at all. the historical europeans named europe, asia, and africa long before they knew the full extent of any of those continents. given that people live in every corner of westeros as part of a unified society it would be very strange if they didn't have a name for their continent But they didn't refer to the entire continent, they basically had to do with sailors and the Mediterranean sea. People didn't think of Scandinavia as part of Europe at that time, so while the name existed, the usage of it was not really linked to continents in the same sense. Also, it wasn't Europeans who named it that.
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Oct 31, 2021 22:02
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:Enh, I can't imagine he's just staring at the ceiling like one of his Dance characters. No, he's feverishly watching and blogging about football. Also if he rolls onto his back to look at the ceiling he won't be able to get up without help, so he's definitely not doing that.
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Oct 31, 2021 22:03
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pseudanonymous posted:But they didn't refer to the entire continent, they basically had to do with sailors and the Mediterranean sea. People didn't think of Scandinavia as part of Europe at that time, so while the name existed, the usage of it was not really linked to continents in the same sense. Wasn't Europe invented by some jerk in Charlemagne's court?
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Oct 31, 2021 22:08
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pseudanonymous posted:But they didn't refer to the entire continent, they basically had to do with sailors and the Mediterranean sea. People didn't think of Scandinavia as part of Europe at that time, so while the name existed, the usage of it was not really linked to continents in the same sense. okay look, this "at that time" stuff doesn't make sense. "the past" is a very long period of time. you have legs to stand on during antiquity, the romans especially used "asia" to mean "anatolia/iraq" and "africa" to mean "libya/tunisia" - but even then, the modern borders between europe, asia, and africa had more or less been decided already by the greeks, and were of such ancientness to herodotus that he basically says "hey nobody really knows why we divide the land up this way, we just do". also europe is referred to as europe by herodotus and it's equally clear that the greeks had been referring to europe as, well, europe for a long time already. it's true that northern europe and the exact boundaries of eastern europe along the steppe were a later addition since the greek conception of the world was rather small, but since europe isn't actually a continent in the way that westeros is, i don't see the relevance furthermore, asoiaf doesn't take place during antiquity (that's the valyrian era of course), it's set in an analogue of the mid-1400s at the earliest - by which time europeans were intimately familiar with every corner of europe, had a reasonable handle on the extent of asia, and were only a few decades away from sailing down africa's coast. it would be absolutely blatantly silly for the westerosi to not have a name for their own continent - the first men probably had a name for it before the andals even invaded! genericnick posted:Wasn't Europe invented by some jerk in Charlemagne's court? no e: actually yes in the sense that the charlemagne courtier is where the idea of europe takes hold as a commonplace idea that everyone knows about, but he was definitely drawing on previous ideas from the romans and greeks, not just making it up out of nowhere Jazerus fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Oct 31, 2021 |
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Oct 31, 2021 22:37
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Jazerus posted:also europe is referred to as europe by herodotus and it's equally clear that the greeks had been referring to europe as, well, europe for a long time already. Well poo poo, now we have to question whether Europe has ever actually existed. Everything written by Herodotus is absolute truth and archaeologists keep finding new things that validate his writings, most recently they found the remains of some Egyptian boat he described perfectly that had never been documented anywhere else
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Nov 1, 2021 01:59
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Kylaer posted:Well poo poo, now we have to question whether Europe has ever actually existed. funnily enough that particular section of herodotus also includes a description of the phoenicians sailing around africa from gibraltar to the red sea, which includes a description of the sun moving the opposite direction across the sky for part of the voyage; a characteristic marker of being in the southern hemisphere. herodotus says he thinks they made the voyage but that they're full of poo poo about the whole "opposite sun" thing, when of course their tale about that phenomenon is actually very strong evidence that the story is true
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Nov 1, 2021 02:23
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mind the walrus posted:Oh honey you still think he's actually doing those things and not his various underlings... i thought part of the problem was he lost the underling (ty franck) who used to get him to do stuff sometimes
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Nov 1, 2021 05:48
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Jazerus posted:funnily enough that particular section of herodotus also includes a description of the phoenicians sailing around africa from gibraltar to the red sea, which includes a description of the sun moving the opposite direction across the sky for part of the voyage; a characteristic marker of being in the southern hemisphere. herodotus says he thinks they made the voyage but that they're full of poo poo about the whole "opposite sun" thing, when of course their tale about that phenomenon is actually very strong evidence that the story is true They knew the Earth was a spheroid at that point didn't they? Curious if he would have known that but just didn't think it all the way through (or thought the whole of Africa was in the Northern Hemisphere I guess)
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Nov 1, 2021 07:42
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I think it’s the opposite. He doesn’t get help on Essos from the two Scandinavian white supremacists, he farms everything not involving the Valryians out to them because thats literally all he cares about regarding that continent. So in the lore book everything East of Slavers Bay like Yiti and the Shadow Lands and City of Skulls and Ashai and all that poo poo is just those two writing fanfic that he signs off on as he’s pouring over a new Wild Cards draft. Still weirds me out that GRRM regularly works with a pair of Scandinavian Nazis. Even weirder is that I somehow know of three Scandinavian Nazis between these two dips and The Golden One.
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Nov 1, 2021 10:14
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PupsOfWar posted:i thought part of the problem was he lost the underling (ty franck) who used to get him to do stuff sometimes Context baby. OP said that GRRM actually bothered to write a lore book and not just sign off on the notes of the literal white supremacist superfans who run a GRRM wiki.
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Nov 1, 2021 11:26
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:Yeah, not to dogpile, but George is kind of on the mark with his names. I actually roll my eyes when I read fantasy books where a nation is called "Haaktonurth'kabi" which translates to "Land Upon Which Our Ancestors Lightly Jumped From Tree to Tree", meanwhile most real-world nations basically translate to a hundred different forms of "Man Place" or a specific family's land. The most powerful nations on the planet, America and China, comically translate to "land of an Italian Dad" and "land of and old ruling Family" respectively. "Deutsch" means people or tribe. "Slav" means people who speak the same language. The slavic word for germans is variants of "nemets" which means "mute." It's dumb names all the way down baby, the one constant George fails at is that neighbours give their neighbours names like "them idiots fuckers over there."
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Nov 1, 2021 15:35
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We kind of get it with the wildlings/free folk vs the kneelers. Also the Lamb People. There could be more, to be sure.
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Nov 1, 2021 16:01
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:Yeah, not to dogpile, but George is kind of on the mark with his names. I actually roll my eyes when I read fantasy books where a nation is called "Haaktonurth'kabi" which translates to "Land Upon Which Our Ancestors Lightly Jumped From Tree to Tree", meanwhile most real-world nations basically translate to a hundred different forms of "Man Place" or a specific family's land. The most powerful nations on the planet, America and China, comically translate to "land of an Italian Dad" and "land of and old ruling Family" respectively. I thought China just meant "middle kingdom" as in "we're the center of the world because we're the best" and not that it tied any specific ruling family. Kylaer posted:Well poo poo, now we have to question whether Europe has ever actually existed. I'm not sure if you're serious or not given the thread we're in, but what section are you referring to? I haven't looked at any of Herodotus's work in a while.
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Nov 1, 2021 20:11
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Evil Fluffy posted:I thought China just meant "middle kingdom" as in "we're the center of the world because we're the best" and not that it tied any specific ruling family. quote:
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Nov 1, 2021 20:18
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Evil Fluffy posted:I thought China just meant "middle kingdom" as in "we're the center of the world because we're the best" and not that it tied any specific ruling family. Maybe it's named after the Middle family? Like that sitcom with the mom from Everybody Loves Raymond and the janitor from Scrubs.
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Nov 1, 2021 20:22
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Evil Fluffy posted:I thought China just meant "middle kingdom" as in "we're the center of the world because we're the best" and not that it tied any specific ruling family. china goes back to the qin as hieronymous said. china refers to itself as zhongguo, which means "central states" really - middle kingdom is maybe a bit more grandiose than the term is meant to imply. it was originally a term for the core chinese provinces in antiquity and has nothing to do with superiority or anything like that - it was created as a term long before china became a large power.
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Nov 1, 2021 20:28
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Jazerus posted:china goes back to the qin as hieronymous said. china refers to itself as zhongguo, which means "central states" really - middle kingdom is maybe a bit more grandiose than the term is meant to imply. it was originally a term for the core chinese provinces in antiquity and has nothing to do with superiority or anything like that - it was created as a term long before china became a large power. Yes, exactly, though I wouldn't go too far in saying imperial China didn't have a grandiose self-image. After all, other commonly used names include "tianxia", meaning "what is under the sky", and "tianchao" meaning heavenly kingdom. GRRM does pick that up a bit in the grandiose kingly titles he gives everyone.
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Nov 2, 2021 11:01
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I can't believe I did I not connect the dots on Qin -> Chin -> China. 
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Nov 2, 2021 18:26
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Read Pear-shaped man for the first time today. It's certainly something. I wonder if Cheez Doodles would agree to be a sponsor HBO does it next.
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Nov 2, 2021 20:27
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Have been binge watching izombie (an awesome show), and today saw them include digs at gurm for not writing.
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Nov 4, 2021 02:59
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Kuiperdolin posted:Read Pear-shaped man for the first time today. now that you've become the new grrm, would you mind finishing the series
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Nov 4, 2021 08:23
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ChubbyChecker posted:now that you've become the new grrm, would you mind finishing the series OK boss. EPILOGUE Kelly C woke up unpleasantly. Her throat was parched, her eyes were bleary, her mind was both. What a strange dream! I was a princess and a dragonrider. A destroyer of empires… Last night she had drunk much and more, and with the morning regrets came on the stale winds of headache. But then I lost my way. I lost my children. Mostly she had eaten too much stewed beef and beans and rice with a dash of fiery Southern peppers, served in the intricately folded trenchers the Mexicans called little asses. Which speaking of which, her beautiful well-rounded alabaster pert little teenage nubile buttocks felt befouled with something gross and sticky and burning. I was lost in the Dothraki grasslands… And that smell… “Oh no!” She flung the bedsheets away but she already knew what was underneath. And her expectations were not subverted.
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Nov 4, 2021 20:13
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One of my least favorite grrm things is how the mysterious character Quaithe is encountered in the city of Qarth Spread your Q names out, buster!
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Nov 4, 2021 23:24
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PupsOfWar posted:One of my least favorite grrm things is how the mysterious character Quaithe is encountered in the city of Qarth That's probably one of the things he did right, if only by accident. The Qarth language probably uses the Q/Qu sound at the beginning of words a lot more than the Westerosi language. If this was Tolkien there'd be a dictionary somewhere outlining all the linguistic patterns and stuff that Qarth words tend to use so that the new location feels unique and foreign, but this is grrm so it's just a one-off. Cmon man, you can think of way better things about grrm to be your least favorite. For instance, I really hate his dumb little hat. Phenotype fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Nov 4, 2021 |
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Nov 4, 2021 23:51
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Yeah. I mean, like I said; I don't fault him for not being a polymath. I do not believe it is unreasonable for him to not be able or willing to develop a fictional language - let alone a multitude of them. And as far as fictional non-languages go, I'd say that a fair few of the foreign languages in the series - although funny enough not whatever the Westerosi are speaking - seem to have a good enough and relatively plausible sense of verisimilitude to them despite being just random nonsense rather than actual developed conlangs. Especially if you buy into his fallacious excuse for some of the racism in the series that we're seeing things from a medieval European POV. Remember that 'barbarian' is basically the ancient Greek version of using 'ching chong' as a slur for Chinese people; the Greeks thought that the language of foreigners sounded like someone going 'ber ber' over and over. Presumably the Valyrians would have called the Qartheen the Ququ.
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Nov 5, 2021 00:18
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I guess if you buy any of the tinfoil that Quaithe is secretly +insert mysteriously-vanishrd woman from westerns backstory+ that makes sense as a dumb alias a non-native would come up with Like if I were in disguise in Bordeaux I'd probably be like "yes 'ello my name is Pierre du Franc"
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Nov 5, 2021 04:54
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The show versions of valyrian and dothraki were designed by a linguist, weren't they?
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Nov 5, 2021 15:36
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Phenotype posted:For instance, I really hate his dumb little hat. Would be be better or worse if he wore a fedora?
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Nov 5, 2021 18:55
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Evil Fluffy posted:Would be be better or worse if he wore a fedora? It would be more honest
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Nov 5, 2021 21:58
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From the MCU TV Thread:Bust Rodd posted:When my brother got out of jail, where he spent the last 20 years, the first thing he wanted to do was watch Game of Thrones. He had read the books literally hundreds of times, and had multiple GoT prison tattoos, like he was covered in crows and wolves and dragons. He begged me to download it and watch it with me.
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Nov 6, 2021 15:37
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