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Argali posted:The Cersei chapter, with its emphasis on how crappy she looks now naked and with her oval office shaved, was hysterical. I guess the only cool thing that came out of that, besides stretch marks and shaved box, is Zombie Mountain, but we'll have to wait for the next book to see what becomes of that, and the next book is never coming out. What? The whole point of the walk of shame has nothing to do with her "looking crappy". It's to shame and demean her in the eyes of the common folk. He talks about it at length in the chapter.
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Aug 8, 2011 16:30
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We don't know that Quentyn's thread was just about freeing the dragons. I mean he has a father and sister back in Dorne and his death might strongly sway which Targ they want to support if it comes down to that. I don't know... grasping at straws here.
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Aug 8, 2011 16:33
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Argali posted:Literally no one cares about Quentyn, and obviously GRRM didn't either. The whole point of him traveling to Mereen was to free the two smaller dragons? Oh and he gets fried to a crisp in the process? Gimme a break. There wasn't anything more interesting to do with him as a character? I liked Quentyn.  Hopefully, now that he's dead, it'll mean Dorne tells dany to go gently caress herself and support Aegon instead.
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Aug 8, 2011 16:36
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VaultAggie posted:I liked Quentyn. I did too. After his first chapter, I was like "Oh awesome; a decent human being, and a Martell to boot. I'm gonna root for this underdog." And then 300 pages later, when he got his next chapter, I was like "Hmm... Martin doesn't seem to be spending a lot of time on this guy. Oh well, he's cool- totally ok with pretending to be a servant to avoid suspicion, not tipping his hand." By his third chapter I realized he was a goner and by his fourth chapter I didn't really care. Also, I'm not sure how much there is to bear it out, but I love the idea of Theon snapping into a disassociative state and fuge-murdering people.
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Aug 8, 2011 16:55
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Chainsawdomy posted:Also, I'm not sure how much there is to bear it out, but I love the idea of Theon snapping into a disassociative state and fuge-murdering people. In one of Theon's chapters, Theon starts walking and breakfast is being served. When he arrives a paragraph later with no mention of time passing, lunch is being served. Theon is experiencing missing time.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:05
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Crackbone posted:What? The whole point of the walk of shame has nothing to do with her "looking crappy". It's to shame and demean her in the eyes of the common folk. He talks about it at length in the chapter. Um, Cersei noticing she is getting older and what you say here are not mutually exclusive things?
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Aug 8, 2011 17:14
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DirtyRobot posted:Um, Cersei noticing she is getting older and what you say here are not mutually exclusive things? "Cersei notices her tits are sagging" does not equal "she looks like poo poo", and isn't remotely the point of that chapter anyway.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:16
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SmugDogMillionaire posted:In one of Theon's chapters, Theon starts walking and breakfast is being served. When he arrives a paragraph later with no mention of time passing, lunch is being served. Yessssss. Does this come right before another dead person shows up?
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Aug 8, 2011 17:19
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Quentyn's plot is a complete story with a cohesive beginning and end. It serves the themes of the book well and provides several good dramatic points. Quentyn's arc could almost stand alone as a short story. It was a good addition to the book.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:23
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So, how obvious is it that Bran is going to end up warging into a dragon? It would sure as hell beat being a raven.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:57
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SmugDogMillionaire posted:He also killed Little Walder. The missing time theory is interesting but it was my theory that Big Walder killed Little Walder, probably due to some Ramsay Bolton level bullying. Early in the book, Theon mentions how Little Walder had become Ramsay's best boy and was becoming more and more like him, making sure to mention that Big Walder wasn't. Big Walder then helps Theon with the horses and seems a lot meeker. When the body of Little Walder is discovered, he is under a snow drift and his blood has frozen around him like "pink armor" but Big Walder is still covered in blood. Then when questioned the boy basically pulls one of these "Umm, he was supposed to meet some man who owed him money," awkward pause, "I think it was one of Manderly's men!" We know Theon didn't kill any of the others because the spear wives cop to that but didn't kill the boy. Walder is kind of a dick to Theon at a few points but he is definitely not bad enough for Theon to black out and kill him, especially anymore than any of the "Bastard's Boys". If there were more unexplained deaths that the spear wives denied then I would be more convinced, but unless I am missing some key scene between Little Walder and Theon I like my theory better.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:57
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oogyboogs posted:I only linked to this because I remember a few pages back someone posted about how Ramsay seemed too cartoonishly evil. Well, Uday makes Ramsay seem like a pretty mild dude. This was me. Let me see if I can more clearly explain the distinction as I see it. Incoming  Uday's atrocious actions, while clearly psychotic, are fairly straight-forward. He murders people who disrespect him, rapes women, and tortures those who defy him in any way or who do not 'live up to his standards'. For the most part, his crimes are direct and brutal. In this, he seems much more like Gregir, a character with whom I have no problem. Ramsay's dementation, on the other hand, is far more across the map. He murders his half-brother, who raised him from peasantry. He stages elaborate double-blind hunts whereafter he rapes and tortures the subjects for trying to escape. Those who give him sport he immortalizes as the names of dogs. He methodically tortures and mutilates his prisoners but also inculcates in them a stockholm-esque dependence. He sends sections of skin to people in his letters. He delights in not just rape but sexual humiliation, apparently extending to forced beastiality. That's not even a complete list. From one perspective, there is a unifying quality to these crimes in that they all come from a desire to wield power over others. However, it's the highly complex, inovolved nature of the crimes which dispells my disbelief. Plenty of attention is given to the intense esoteric details of Ramsay's torments, but very little else about him. As such, we are expected to judge him purely by these qualities. Without a stronger framework of justification and character, he collapses under the weight of his myriad deprevations. Uday Hussein seems to have acted largely out of a bizarre reverence for his mother. fears of being disinherited as heir, and a belief that as a Hussein, his will was absolute and inviolate. Comparatively, we're given very little to flesh out Ramsay's psyche. Instead of focusing on his non-sadistic traits which might make him more of a round character and even serve to explain some of his psychosis, we get a lot of dire hand-waving like "he's just plain evil" and "I won't even leech him because he'd kill the leeches". Long story short, I don't buy it. Part of the reason truly epic psychopaths are so compelling, people like Richard Chase and Jeffrey Dahmer, is because they were real. The mind boggles at the idea that these things actually happened, that someone was capable of them, and it fascinates us. In fiction however, we can just make up whatever horrible violations we want, and there's no more difficulty involved than putting the words to paper. The challenge lies in couching these acts within a character who seems otherwise real, who fits into the world in such a way that he triggers that shocked disbelief in readers. But Ramsay has much more in common with Terry Goodkind's eeeeeeevil wizards, or some eighth-graders hardcore D&D character than he does with Martin's other, more interesting villains. That was a probably a little rambling, but maybe I did a better job of conveying why I feel Ramsay stands out as incongruous with the rest of the books.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:58
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Crackbone posted:"Cersei notices her tits are sagging" does not equal "she looks like poo poo", and isn't remotely the point of that chapter anyway. I feel weird arguing about this, since the guy you were responding to initially was being a misogynistic jerk, but he didn't say anything about the "point" of the chapter, he just said there was an emphasis on Cersei's aging (though he said it in a really jerky manner). But there was such an emphasis, and it's possible to notice that without necessarily missing the "point" of the chapter. EDIT: And I'm pretty sure she did look pretty bad because of 1) aging (with the exception of supermodels, naked people doing mundane things is really unflattering, generally) and 2) being locked up and mentally hosed with by the septons (lack of sleep, etc.) DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 17:58
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She also did nothing but drink and scheme poorly for the entire 3rd and 4th books.
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Aug 8, 2011 18:22
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DirtyRobot posted:I feel weird arguing about this, since the guy you were responding to initially was being a misogynistic jerk, but he didn't say anything about the "point" of the chapter, he just said there was an emphasis on Cersei's aging (though he said it in a really jerky manner). But there was such an emphasis, and it's possible to notice that without necessarily missing the "point" of the chapter. I don't disagree, just pointing out that guy's post was essentially not seeing the forest for the trees. That and I agree finding it hilarious is pretty creepy.
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Aug 8, 2011 18:31
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Crackbone posted:What? The whole point of the walk of shame has nothing to do with her "looking crappy". It's to shame and demean her in the eyes of the common folk. He talks about it at length in the chapter. That's what I'm sure GRRM intended, in his heart of hearts. But he turned something that could have been very dramatic and meaningful into something very cheesy, and I think part of that was on the over-emphasis of describing the effects of age on Cersei. I kept expecting that the crowd was going to try and tear her apart or something. Yes she was shamed and demeaned, so what? I don't think it changed anything for her. All it does really is set the stage for a bloodbath in book eight when some force gets revenge and flays the septas to death.
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Aug 8, 2011 18:54
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GRRM interview at Google, he actually says "much and more" jesus christ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTTW8M_etko&t=510s
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Aug 8, 2011 19:04
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Argali posted:That's what I'm sure GRRM intended, in his heart of hearts. But he turned something that could have been very dramatic and meaningful into something very cheesy, and I think part of that was on the over-emphasis of describing the effects of age on Cersei. What the hell? It's literally one paragraph in that entire chapter, and it's when she finally breaks down during her walk of atonement. And it's symbolic as well - as she starts she's strong and confident in her beauty, but by the end she's been broken and now noticing the flaws of her body. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 19:05
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Just finished the ADWD but Ramsay's letter is obviously bullshit. He claims to have smashed and killed Stannis and his entire host. He also demands his Reek back who was part of Stannis's host, no way Theon is surviving on his own in winter(No way Ashas story ends like that either). Also wasn't Karhold or Umber supposed to betray Stannis at/near Winterfell? The book is missing an ending, too one many questions for claiming a cliffhanger imo. I am finally starting to enjoy the Iron Islands story can't wait for Victarion to loving destroy the slavers. If it ever makes it too print and then TV, a Pirate with a burning arm, Morqorro and his crazy face paint rolling through the freaks of the yunkish armies would be pretty badass. My top 5 scenes I want to see on HBO: 1. Oberyn/Gregor Fight 2. Fist of the First Men/Wight overrun 3. Battle of Blackwater 4. Sandor/Beric Fight 5. Joffrey choking to death Also any chance of the a character ending up in Asshai or Sothoryos? 
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Aug 8, 2011 19:10
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Argali posted:That's what I'm sure GRRM intended, in his heart of hearts. But he turned something that could have been very dramatic and meaningful into something very cheesy, and I think part of that was on the over-emphasis of describing the effects of age on Cersei. I kept expecting that the crowd was going to try and tear her apart or something. Yes she was shamed and demeaned, so what? I don't think it changed anything for her. All it does really is set the stage for a bloodbath in book eight when some force gets revenge and flays the septas to death. Maybe it's just because I re-read recently but I remember that Littlefinger tells Sansa in AFFC that Cersei's a piece not a player and that she has three things going for her - beauty, wealth and her name. He points out that only the first is really hers and it's going to start fading pretty soon; the walk of shame keeps that theme going and emphasises that a big part of her power is her image which is ruined by walking naked through the streets. Obviously it comes right at the end of ADWD and we don't see Cersei much afterwards but I can imagine that having that happen might have some kind of major effect on her later.
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Aug 8, 2011 19:17
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texaholic posted:
Christ, I hope not, he's only got two books to resolve all the poo poo that's going on now. It'd be two books before a character made it to Sothoryos.
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Aug 8, 2011 19:17
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hhhmmm posted:Because the last two books are poorly edited. Because editing doesn't sell. Would ADWD have sold more copies if GRRM and his editors had spent another six or nine months sending drafts back and forth and tightening up the prose? I doubt it. Plus, every month spent editing a finished manuscript is a month that the author is not working on his next mega-hit novel. What incentive do the publishers/authors/editors have for slowing down production at the money-making factory that is George R.R. Martin or J.K. Rowling? Spell check it, print it, ship it, and get to work on the next book before the audience disperses and moves on to something else. This goes double for something like ADWD, which was already years and years late. Besides, once an author reaches mega-hit status, he can fire editors who give him too much negative feedback. If Steven King's editor sends back a book saying "I'm sorry Steve, this still needs a lot of work, perhaps a complete ground-up rewrite", then King will get on the phone to the publisher and he'll have a new editor in five minutes and his old editor will be standing in line at the unemployment office. Finally, I think publishers like big fat overstuffed books because they can charge a higher price for them. Editing a 1050 page ADWD down to 700 pages would make it harder to slap a $35.00 price tag on it.
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Aug 8, 2011 19:30
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So has there been any indication of what "The Shadow" of Asshai-by-the-Shadow even is? I haven't seen anything about it but I haven't read any of the short stories so idk.
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Aug 8, 2011 19:47
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So I was just re-reading a little of Game, and a thought occured to me. If Ned Stark is 35 at the beginning of Game, and Robert's Rebellion happened 13 before Game, why exactly was Jon Arryn fostering two 22 year old men? Shouldn't they have been out doing lord things? Also, are Dany's dragons all male or is it possible for them to breed with each other and make a bigger army?
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Aug 8, 2011 20:04
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A Typical Goon posted:So I was just re-reading a little of Game, and a thought occured to me. If Ned Stark is 35 at the beginning of Game, and Robert's Rebellion happened 13 before Game, why exactly was Jon Arryn fostering two 22 year old men? Shouldn't they have been out doing lord things? Robert and Ned were fostered long before Robert's rebellion... Why did you think otherwise?
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Aug 8, 2011 20:10
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Linguica posted:GRRM interview at Google, he actually says "much and more" jesus christ No he doesn't.
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Aug 8, 2011 20:16
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A Typical Goon posted:Also, are Dany's dragons all male or is it possible for them to breed with each other and make a bigger army? I recall Maester Aemon saying that dragons are genderless in his monologue to Sam of realizing that Dany is the focus of the prophecy. So, I suppose they reproduce like asexual frogs?
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Aug 8, 2011 20:17
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new home, old colors, same Arsenal
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Corrode posted:Maybe it's just because I re-read recently but I remember that Littlefinger tells Sansa in AFFC that Cersei's a piece not a player and that she has three things going for her - beauty, wealth and her name. He points out that only the first is really hers and it's going to start fading pretty soon; the walk of shame keeps that theme going and emphasises that a big part of her power is her image which is ruined by walking naked through the streets. Obviously it comes right at the end of ADWD and we don't see Cersei much afterwards but I can imagine that having that happen might have some kind of major effect on her later. I think Littlefinger is underestimating her. I suspect that Cersei has been fairly broken over a number of events - losing Jamie, losing Joffrey, losing her position of power in King's Landing, then the Shaven Walk of Shame - but she is also a person capable of harboring and harnessing tremendous amounts of hatred. She's been drinking deep for some time now. I don't think she's going to slink off into the shadows now because she's been shown to be a saggy middle-aged woman underneath all the finery. What does any of that matter? She still has more cunning and more balls than half the men playing the Game of Thrones. Argali fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 20:20
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Argali posted:I think Littlefinger is underestimating her. I suspect that Cersei has been fairly broken over a number of events - losing Jamie, losing Joffrey, losing her position of power in King's Landing, then then Shaven Walk of Shame - but she is also a person capable of harboring and harnessing tremendous amounts of hatred. She's been drinking deep for some time now. I don't think she's going to slink off into the shadows now because she's been shown to be a saggy middle-aged woman underneath all the finery. What does any of that matter? She still has more cunning and more balls than half the men playing the Game of Thrones. Balls - yes. Cunning - no. She certainly enjoys executing sneaky plots but over and over again they just end up being terrible, terrible ideas based on crippling paranoia.
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Aug 8, 2011 20:24
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FMguru posted:Bad editing is endemic to mega-hit series authors. See how the Harry Potter books more than doubled in size after they became international best-sellers, or how Tom Clancy's books after his first two could have a third of their text pruned away without losing anything. My wife was a senior editor at HarperCollins and everything you've described here is pretty much how it goes down, according to her. Actual content editing of books is something that has decreased dramatically over time. ADWD was years overdue and GRRM is of a status that no one was going to tell him to make dramatic changes that could stall the publishing date by months, even another year. The heaviest content editing I've heard about from my wife stemmed from legal issues - stuff like Slash's book, which went through many rounds of editing once the lawyers got their hands on it.
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Aug 8, 2011 20:29
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A Typical Goon posted:So I was just re-reading a little of Game, and a thought occured to me. If Ned Stark is 35 at the beginning of Game, and Robert's Rebellion happened 13 before Game, why exactly was Jon Arryn fostering two 22 year old men? Shouldn't they have been out doing lord things? The timeline here has the events leading to the rebellion and the rebellion itself happening when Ned and Robert were 18/19. They were probably just chilling in the Vale with their foster dad shooting the breeze up until then. They did do lord stuff like attend the tourney at Harrenhal.
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Aug 8, 2011 20:29
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Eggnogium posted:Robert and Ned were fostered long before Robert's rebellion... Why did you think otherwise? They were in the Vale when the Rebellion began. Aerys wanted their heads, and Jon Arryn was the first Lord to rebel. Maybe they were his squires or something.
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Aug 8, 2011 20:32
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Argali posted:I think Littlefinger is underestimating her. I suspect that Cersei has been fairly broken over a number of events - losing Jamie, losing Joffrey, losing her position of power in King's Landing, then the Shaven Walk of Shame - but she is also a person capable of harboring and harnessing tremendous amounts of hatred. She's been drinking deep for some time now. I don't think she's going to slink off into the shadows now because she's been shown to be a saggy middle-aged woman underneath all the finery. What does any of that matter? She still has more cunning and more balls than half the men playing the Game of Thrones. She isn't very good at it though - her chapters in AFFC consist mostly of her completely loving up everything she touches from a mix of paranoia and incompetence. Having her image tarnished is just one more thing that makes her look less like a powerful, regal figure and more like any other woman.
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Aug 8, 2011 20:32
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Argali posted:I think Littlefinger is underestimating her. I suspect that Cersei has been fairly broken over a number of events - losing Jamie, losing Joffrey, losing her position of power in King's Landing, then the Shaven Walk of Shame - but she is also a person capable of harboring and harnessing tremendous amounts of hatred. She's been drinking deep for some time now. I don't think she's going to slink off into the shadows now because she's been shown to be a saggy middle-aged woman underneath all the finery. What does any of that matter? She still has more cunning and more balls than half the men playing the Game of Thrones. The point of her walk of shame is for her to feel rescued and safe when she sees Zombie Gregor. Countdown til the Robert Strong/Cersei sex scene started.
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Aug 8, 2011 20:33
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Argali posted:My wife was a senior editor at HarperCollins and everything you've described here is pretty much how it goes down, according to her. Actual content editing of books is something that has decreased dramatically over time. ADWD was years overdue and GRRM is of a status that no one was going to tell him to make dramatic changes that could stall the publishing date by months, even another year. I'm also puzzled by people complaining about how GRRM's editor was praising the book. What did they expect her to say? "It's a half-baked turd that really should have had a third of its text chopped out, but I was told to ship whatever was sent to me as quickly as possible"?
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Aug 8, 2011 20:50
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Varys killed Kevan with the intention of Cersei becoming regent again and loving everything up and dividing the kingdom or does the regency fall to someone else?
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Aug 8, 2011 20:51
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Considering that they charged more for the ebook version of Dance than they did for the hardback, it is really badly converted. Hyphens appearing in the middle of words all over the place, and dialogue formatting is utterly hosed. "Merrymet mi-ne own nuncle, a nonce." "A nonce needs must neep" he said. "Ho-dor."
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Aug 8, 2011 20:56
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:Considering that they charged more for the ebook version of Dance than they did for the hardback, it is really badly converted. I read the whole book from Google Books, and I had none of these problems. Kindle?
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Aug 8, 2011 20:59
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Yeah, I should have specified.
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Aug 8, 2011 21:01
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:No he doesn't. He really does.
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