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If you dig and twist, Quentyn DOES have aspects of interest about him. He's a further examination of the toxic nature of medieval hegemony that GRRM has been attacking the whole series, because it gets romanticized in so many other fantasy novels: Quentyn gets sent on his mission because he's the firstborn son and there's been a pact signed, and even a supposedly brilliant man like Doran can't see that this is not something that holds power in and of itself, but only has as much power as people perceive it does, ignoring all the other issues like Quentyn's lack of attractiveness (though funnily, official art doesn't really depict him as such, which suggests the artist missed the point) and anything resembling charisma or a personality, which again means his mission is doomed to failure. Of course, the whole point of a story is to entertain, and Quentyn's 'interesting aspects' ensure he doesn't. Quentyn is basically if you ordered a pizza and when you got it it had no taste and was textured like solidified gelatin, and then someone said "But you can get some enjoyment out of it if you arrange the toppings just so." Most people will just not eat the pizza instead of going to the extra effort, and probably be mad at whoever served them the pizza in the first place. drat it, now I'M using food metaphors. The GRRM has infected me. I better check my genitals for excrement.
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Jun 12, 2014 07:12
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Yeah I actually don't think anything is pointless because of any character's eventual fate; again, journey mattering far much more than destination. Hell, by the same logic you could call Robb's entire arc and character development "pointless" just because he winds up dead. And at least on the show, they sure as hell made his entire storyline in season 3 feel pointless if you were a book reader because it sort of played like an inexorable slog to the Red Wedding. Also, I truly do not understand the pessimism regarding Bran's story. Out of practically ALL the different POV threads going on, his is by far the most interesting and intriguing to me. People writing him off as an "exposition-bot" now that he has "become a tree" makes me wonder if they're just trolling or if they even read fantasy genre fiction. Yeah, Bran is learning how to warg into weirwoods, which is really freaking cool and exactly what greenseers were always purported to do. Even more to the point, ever since Tolkien and the ents, trees and their like have basically been considered extremely wise and ancient and powerful. I always loved the concept of the weirwood and the tree itself as a place/object of worship, with the eerie faces carved into them and the eyes weeping sap. Utterly fantastic imagery. So anyway, to me Bran's story could go into a hundred different directions. He's no longer really limited by the same geographical considerations as others, and I suppose GRRM could use him as an "exposition-bot" if he chooses to have him carry messages back and forth between characters in disparate locations, but I highly doubt that's how GRRM will use him. The freaking greenseers are insanely, insanely powerful, remember - and having two alive and working together at once could be unprecedented for all we know. Supposedly greenseer[s] were the ones who crushed part of the Arm of Dorne and turned it from a land bridge from Essos to Westeros to The Stepstones - and then tried the same thing at The Neck to less effect, winding up flooding it and creating a swamp instead. It actually makes me wonder about the "magical blizzard" emanating from Winterfell and who is responsible for it. Given the precedence for greenseers to manipulate the weather, it's entirely possible it could be Bran behind the blizzard, especially since we haven't checked on him in a while and have no clue where he really quite is in the timeline in relation to everyone else, since we don't really know if they've been a month in those caves or half a dozen months by the time Winter officially begins and the white ravens get sent out, or how much of the time got covered in his scant three chapters in ADWD kaworu fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 08:59
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Tbh I don't see much potential for witty quips in Treebran. Also, being "powerful" (= huge mana cost in M:TG) does not automatically make for an interesting entity.
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Jun 12, 2014 09:20
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kaworu posted:Yeah I actually don't think anything is pointless because of any character's eventual fate; again, journey mattering far much more than destination. Hell, by the same logic you could call Robb's entire arc and character development "pointless" just because he winds up dead. And at least on the show, they sure as hell made his entire storyline in season 3 feel pointless if you were a book reader because it sort of played like an inexorable slog to the Red Wedding. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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Jun 12, 2014 09:27
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I just like this fantasy wankery. I always have, since I read A Wizard of Earthsea when I was like 8. And no, "powerful" does not make for interesting and well-written. More often than not, it makes for deus ex machina bullshit and really awful fanfiction-quality writing. I'll point back to Le Guin again; in her books, there is a character we follow who winds up being "Archmage of Earthsea" and "the most powerful wizard in all Earthsea" and we see him at that point from the POV of an initially awed boy at the cusp of manhood traveling with him. The boy is puzzled for the most part, as this supposedly powerful wizard seems hardly to cast any spells at all, and is miserly about employing his art, preferring to live and travel by practical means when possible. And he gives this great speech about the nature of power and knowledge, and the amount of experience and wisdom that typically comes with the acquisition of such power. Thus, very often the strongest, most powerful, and most wise wizards tend to be the ones who spend hours studying trees and sunlight and spiderwebs. Which brings me back to Martin's decision to make Bran a "tree". Rather than, say, some all-powerful entity capable of raining destruction down or causing a horrible deus ex machina to eliminate problematic characters and situations or god knows what.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:30
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The reason Oberyn was interesting and cool while Darkstar and Quentyn are mostly boring turds is that despite being a minor character that appears for less than a dozen chapters Oberyn's story is self contained, has a resolution and could have filled a novella all on its own. His story is rooted in the history of Robert's rebellion and interacts with characters that were featured prominently in ASOIAF, his motives are clear and the closure is some well written tragedy. Quentyn by contrast sets out on a quest sent by his father, he fails and dies, it simply lacks anything particularly interesting. Darkstar is just Westeros' version of Fonzy or something.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:56
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kaworu posted:Yeah I actually don't think anything is pointless because of any character's eventual fate; again, journey mattering far much more than destination. Hell, by the same logic you could call Robb's entire arc and character development "pointless" just because he winds up dead. And at least on the show, they sure as hell made his entire storyline in season 3 feel pointless if you were a book reader because it sort of played like an inexorable slog to the Red Wedding. See this all sounds cool except the fact that it isn't in the books. No, why talk about cool stuff like this when we have torture porn and food porn to fill pages with? I don't remember any of this from the books being mentioned so I am assuming you pulled this from other works? Bran's chapters were boring save for Coldhands but George would rather travel log Bran than build up cooler characters. I seriously feel like ADWD Bran bugged me for the fact that George shows too little about how awesome green seers are supposed to be because of his failure at a slow reveal turning into a crawl reveal. There is too little tension in the chapters to keep it even mildly interesting and the end game is a clear as mud. This leads many to say "who the gently caress cares?"
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Jun 12, 2014 12:23
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Junkenstein posted:The worst thing about Quentyn's chapters are how they retroactively make Feast's Dorne chapters poo poo. Even people who hated Feast always said ".....but Doran's 'fire and blood' speech was pretty cool I guess, I'm looking forward to what happens with that.....". This works much better read inline together than with a six year gap.
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Jun 12, 2014 12:30
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Also Bran still won't shut the gently caress up about how he wanted to be a knight and now he can't be a knight because his legs don't work. Jesus, Bran, why don't you make like a tree and - oh, never mind.
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Jun 12, 2014 15:19
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Quentyn works great as a side character and a plot device; his destination is fine, it's his journey that sucks. "Ugly Dornish prince who travels across the world to forge a powerful alliance, gets turned down by Dany, gets eaten by a dragon because he sucks" has huge ramifications for the plot and is top tier ASOIAF black comedy. If he had appeared in a few of Dany's chapters before apparently wandering off until a slave reports to Barristan that his corpse was found in the dragon pits, I think that would have been a fan favorite moment alongside Frey Pie or Cersei getting her fleet stolen. But making him a POV was a huge mistake.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:06
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Season Three Trip Report I thought the Red Wedding was shot...oddly. Some of the blocking was really weird. The best bit of it was the shot of all the Freys stabbing all the attendants because I felt they captured the crazed frenzy of it all. The rest of it just seemed weird, like Roose coming in stage left and exiting stage right after stabbing Robb. Talisa getting stabbed in the belly was a nice shock though. Arya almost freeing Grey Wind was a nice change, it really struck home how full of hope, anti-climactic and tragic the Stark rebellion was. And Walder Frey's actor is awesome chewing scenery the whole time.
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Jun 12, 2014 18:50
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Mike N Eich posted:Roose coming in stage left and exiting stage right after stabbing Robb. Cat's death was the worst about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Tnrah4eTY
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Jun 12, 2014 18:55
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Mike N Eich posted:And Walder Frey's actor is awesome chewing scenery the whole time. The face he pulls when they reveal Roslin Frey being cute is one of the best moments in the show by far. As is the scene in the next episode where he shoots the poo poo with Roose over the murder. My third favourite thing about the Red Wedding in the show is Grey Wind's head being at least 3x larger when stuck on Robb than it was on the CGI wolf running past in the episode before.
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Jun 12, 2014 19:10
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Quentyns story makes me think that him dying is going to cause some important shift in Dorne policy or actions (like someone mentioned earlier, possibly backing maybe-Aegon), and if it was just mentioned in passing or shortened up it'd be hard to understand. But then again a lot of poo poo is between the lines and hard to understand in these books so idk.
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Jun 12, 2014 19:28
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Intel&Sebastian posted:Quentyns story makes me think that him dying is going to cause some important shift in Dorne policy or actions (like someone mentioned earlier, possibly backing maybe-Aegon), and if it was just mentioned in passing or shortened up it'd be hard to understand. It would be easy to understand as long as you are told some basic facts about him. He is a prince of Dorne. He is scorned by Danny. He died trying to get the dragons. So he was indirectly killed by Danny scorning him. That is all you need to understand why Dorne would shift policy.
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Jun 12, 2014 19:39
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So if the Others can bring horses and other animals (undead sea creatures) back to serve them, can they do so with a dragon? I wanna see a Wight Dragon.
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Jun 12, 2014 19:46
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CharlestheHammer posted:It would be easy to understand as long as you are told some basic facts about him. But then all you have is another "and suddenly Aegon lands in Westeros" situation. I think the problem is that we already had a few other POV's of the same area, Quentyn's chapters could've been interesting (even with his main story being dull as rocks) if you could at least read into what he's seeing and what's happening around him and imply some of the craziness going on in Mereen. GRRM sort of does this since Quentyn and crew hang out in places that neither Barristan or Kelly C are going to be...but even that's just about some boring bullshit. Edit: Looking back on it I think the only time they really gave a unique perspective was when they were still with the Tattered Prince guys army, since that's when you get descriptions of the neato Yunkai army of eccentric assholes. Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 19:51
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Intel&Sebastian posted:Edit: Looking back on it I think the only time they really gave a unique perspective was when they were still with the Tattered Prince guys army, since that's when you get descriptions of the neato Yunkai army of eccentric assholes. I don't get or maybe don't remember why/how Dany doesn't just waste the Yunkishmen's horrifically terrible army. Does she have zero archers? Can you only solid-snake into Meereen and not out of it? Does she suddenly have a problem burning slavemasters? The more I remember and analyze the angrier I get
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Jun 12, 2014 20:07
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Were they anywhere near the city during those chapters where they rattled off all the different weirdo armies they had? I thought they only actually got into fighting range in the TWOW preview chapter where Victarion rolls on up.
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Jun 12, 2014 20:17
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I remember they were slinging corpses into the city to give people the bloody flux. I think they were using regular catapults though and not the AOE2 Trebs because Yunkai is way too lovely at war to have those. And since the city is presumably on high ground and she has Medieval Master Chiefs at her disposal, so yeah she should be able to murder them. Or, back when the blockade was an issue, she could've sacked their city and cut the Yunkish navy off of its command, or at least crate a safe supply line by land.
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Jun 12, 2014 21:52
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Apropos of nothing, here's a fun bit of copyright infringement that I passed by earlier today while running some errands: http://www.khaleesiskingdom.com/ It's like, a Chucky Cheese, but named after a character who rides dragons and shits herself. Bob Quixote fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 00:31
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Bob Quixote posted:Apropos of nothing, here's a fun bit of copyright infringement that I passed by earlier today while running some errands: No. loving. Lemoncakes.
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Jun 13, 2014 00:39
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visceril posted:I don't get or maybe don't remember why/how Dany doesn't just waste the Yunkishmen's horrifically terrible army. Does she have zero archers? Can you only solid-snake into Meereen and not out of it? Does she suddenly have a problem burning slavemasters? Her army is composed of unsullied(spearmen), mercenaries(almost entirely cavalry), and freedmen(who are barely trained). So... yeah, she doesn't really have any archers to speak of. Not like it would matter anyway, what kind of besieging army just sits conveniently in range of the besieged? edit: visceril posted:I remember they were slinging corpses into the city to give people the bloody flux. I think they were using regular catapults though and not the AOE2 Trebs because Yunkai is way too lovely at war to have those. And since the city is presumably on high ground and she has Medieval Master Chiefs at her disposal, so yeah she should be able to murder them. No, they were trebuchets. quote:The dry, scorched plains around Meereen were flat and bare and treeless for long leagues, but the Yunkish ships had brought lumber and hides up from the south, enough to raise six huge trebuchets. They were arrayed on three sides of the city, all but the river side, surrounded by piles of broken stone and casks of pitch and resin just waiting for a torch. Pong Daddy fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 01:27
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I find it weird that they didn't train the Unsullied in archery, but apparently they're only trained as infantry. I guess it makes sense since they're supposed to simply be the backbone of an army instead of Dany's army in a can.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:49
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Tender Bender posted:Quentyn works great as a side character and a plot device; his destination is fine, it's his journey that sucks. "Ugly Dornish prince who travels across the world to forge a powerful alliance, gets turned down by Dany, gets eaten by a dragon because he sucks" has huge ramifications for the plot and is top tier ASOIAF black comedy. If he had appeared in a few of Dany's chapters before apparently wandering off until a slave reports to Barristan that his corpse was found in the dragon pits, I think that would have been a fan favorite moment alongside Frey Pie or Cersei getting her fleet stolen. But making him a POV was a huge mistake. Yeah, I get that Quentyn's supposed to be a soft, bland guy, so why the gently caress would you use this kind of person to be a POV. It's just, like, dumb, you know? I don't need all the POVs to be charismatic superfolk, but they sure as gently caress shouldn't just be soft, bland guys who cannot even think interestingly and thereby provide some sort of fun passages. But who knows. Maybe the ramifications of Quentyn's whole dying will be awesome, but GRRM needs to write us a book for us to find out. So if the problem isn't Quentyn's lovely narrative then it's GRRM's lovely pacing/editing/work ethic.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:54
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nutranurse posted:Yeah, I get that Quentyn's supposed to be a soft, bland guy, so why the gently caress would you use this kind of person to be a POV. It's just, like, dumb, you know? I don't need all the POVs to be charismatic superfolk, but they sure as gently caress shouldn't just be soft, bland guys who cannot even think interestingly and thereby provide some sort of fun passages. Counterpoint: sansa
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Jun 13, 2014 02:11
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TK-42-1 posted:Counterpoint: sansa yeah her character's role until book 4 is "be around the people who do things"
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Jun 13, 2014 02:13
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nutranurse posted:Yeah, I get that Quentyn's supposed to be a soft, bland guy, so why the gently caress would you use this kind of person to be a POV. It's just, like, dumb, you know? I don't need all the POVs to be charismatic superfolk, but they sure as gently caress shouldn't just be soft, bland guys who cannot even think interestingly and thereby provide some sort of fun passages. I think Quentyn's a fine POV...for 1-2 chapters. Instead we got 4. Hell, I don't even remember what the third is. First one's in Volantis establishing his character and his party, the second's him in the Yunkish camp (possibly this could be the first of two), the final one is him stealing a dragon. What the gently caress is the third one?
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Jun 13, 2014 02:45
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whowhatwhere posted:I think Quentyn's a fine POV...for 1-2 chapters. Instead we got 4. Hell, I don't even remember what the third is. First one's in Volantis establishing his character and his party, the second's him in the Yunkish camp (possibly this could be the first of two), the final one is him stealing a dragon. What the gently caress is the third one? He wants to hire one of the merc companies but the leader will only do it if the leader gets Pentos. So, Quentyn decides to steal a dragon to help conquer Pentos.
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Jun 13, 2014 02:47
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Jeffrey posted:yeah her character's role until book 4 is "be around the people who do things" More like "survive an incredible hostage situation and not lose your head". Sansa can't run around doing whatever she wants 'cause she'll die if that's the case. Her chapters are more there to provide court intrigue and politics. Though you could say Tyrion does that as well. Crazy Joe Wilson fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 02:55
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:More like "survive an incredible hostage situation and not lose your head". Sansa can't run around doing whatever she wants 'cause she'll die if that's the case. Her chapters provide an interesting view into medieval court politics at any case. Didn't she basically narc out Ned? "Waaaah we can't leave King's Landing I must marry my beautiful prince/king!" I mean, it's a perfectly reasonable, understandable thing for a kid to do but iirc it inspired Skyler White levels of hate from the tviv. She was important to the plot, is what I mean.
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Jun 13, 2014 03:01
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:More like "survive an incredible hostage situation and not lose your head". Sansa can't run around doing whatever she wants 'cause she'll die if that's the case. Her chapters are more there to provide court intrigue and politics. Though you could say Tyrion does that as well. Yeah I'm not saying it's her fault she doesn't make dramatic moves. That's just her role in the narrative. The point of having her be a POV character is to be eyes in king's landing. (Her chapters are good at this, her perspective is different enough from Tyrion's that it is worthwhile.) Obviously she goes through horrible poo poo, I'm not criticizing for not acting more boldly.
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Jun 13, 2014 03:10
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Maybe Quentyn's real purpose was to allow the dragons to escape with a fairly good reason behind it? Probably becomes a major issue.
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Jun 13, 2014 03:40
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My real problem with Quentyn's story line is that it weakens Doran, and really Dorne as a whole, by making them seem inconsequential at best because the best they can do now is pull a sudden alliance with Aegon out of their asses. That doesn't take any sort of planning or genius, so why exactly does Dorne get as much attention as it does? World building I suppose, and in that GRRM did a good job, which only makes it worse that one his most interesting regions/cultures is wasted on a pretender that was introduced more than halfway through the series. And we all know Aegon is, more than likely, going to amount to jackshit. Edit: Contrast the Ironborn chapters. They're both more eventful and better at setting each new character into their positions for the events to come. Even if the Kingsmoot is a waste from the characters' perspective, it both "builds some world" and makes us really understand the new characters and what they're likely going to do. And then they invade the Reach! poo poo actually occurs! 
LaSalsaVerde fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 07:48
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Cornwind Evil posted:Quentyn is another sign of GRRM's main problem: he's overstimulated and probably often feels the need to take all sorts of classic fantasy trappings and 'play them straight'. In a typical story, Quentyn would be the ugly duckling who became a swan, or discovered he had some talent elsewhere despite being so average, or would win Dany or a substitute because of a good character and development and some luck (good writing), or because he was 'special inside'/because the plot wanted him to (bad writing). Basically, he'd succeed despite being average, or in spite of his averageness. But GRMM has probably seen and read thousands of stories with that kind of setup, so the GRRM goes off and goes 'Okay, what if I took this concept and DIDN'T hand him any special favors because of the plot/what people expect to see'? I'm one of the few who liked the Quentyn plot for those very reasons. I think it could work well in the show if you make him like-able enough. Like Oberyn, but for opposite reasons, Quentyn can make for a great tragic character on the show. Oberyn was like-able because he was confident, brave, experienced, and could back up his attitude with legit badassery. Quentyn was like-able because he was an average guy you could relate to put in a really difficult situation and faced with a really difficult decisions. He was in over his head but he gave it his all. He was the underdog you were really pulling for. He was Rocky in the first Rocky movie. He went the distance. But he got fried. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 10:02
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Gianthogweed posted:I'm one of the few who liked the Quentyn plot for those very reasons. I think it could work well in the show if you make him like-able enough. Like Oberyn, but for opposite reasons, Quentyn can make for a great tragic character on the show. Oberyn was like-able because he was confident, brave, experienced, and could back up his attitude with legit badassery. Quentyn was like-able because he was an average guy you could relate to put in a really difficult situation and faced with a really difficult decisions. He was in over his head but he gave it his all. He was the underdog you were really pulling for. He was Rocky in the first Rocky movie. He went the distance. But he got fried. I was ok with Beta Boy Quenten. He was irritating as poo poo, but was pretty funny when he got torched. I wish they had given us more of "dude should be back home reading books" set up for him, so it felt more like him really stretching and doing his best. You know - for all of old Gouty Prince's FIRE AND BLOOD - his inlaws and children are loving idiots.
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Jun 13, 2014 10:25
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syscall girl posted:Didn't she basically narc out Ned? She did in the book, but not in the HBO series. All that did though was get Cersei to act a little faster on her plot to get the Lannister men into the castle though, since Eddard by that point had already confronted her with the whole "I know your kids are bastards and I am going to arrest you all if you don't leave now" in the Godswood.
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Jun 13, 2014 11:09
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Pong Daddy posted:Her army is composed of unsullied(spearmen), mercenaries(almost entirely cavalry), and freedmen(who are barely trained). So... yeah, she doesn't really have any archers to speak of. Not like it would matter anyway, what kind of besieging army just sits conveniently in range of the besieged? Oh man, you're right. The mercenaries probably brought them with them, or they're getting help from their clients like Volantis. I guess Dany (or probably Selmy) doesn't want to waste a lot of men against the Tattered Prince and possibly get brought down by the harpies or waste even more time in slaver's bay, unable to muster an army to attack Westeros
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Jun 13, 2014 13:20
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After oby, the show watchers are gonna see quentyns horrible death coming if they get attached to him. Seems to similar. Likable dornishman who dies around episode 8-9
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Jun 13, 2014 16:55
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Quentyn was not likeable, he was a dithering tit.
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Jun 13, 2014 16:59
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