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RIP Pretty Pig
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Sep 9, 2017 18:11
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Max posted:It was poorly executed. Of loving course it was. It's textbook of why writers should have strong editors to call them on their bullshit. I feel like the defining thing between thinking the last two books are good or not is thinking the plot/arcs are good despite the writing or not being able to get past the writing itself. Neither of which are wrong.
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Sep 9, 2017 18:25
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TK-42-1 posted:I think it was more of him having to come to grips with what he really is in society rather than his superficial understanding from his heightened status. The whole trip is his worldview being decimated and rebuilt. This girl wants to be with him because that's what's expected. He had higher hopes previous but now that's the best he's got. It was written with twice as many words as needed but it's not an illogical character arc. Lords being brought low to face the common folk on their terms is a pretty common theme in the latter books.  Also, Penny's brother was murdered because of Cercei's dwarf hunt. It's another insight into real life in Westeros and how the childish games our "heroes" play among themselves gently caress up all the real people in horrifying ways and create unimaginable suffering. And it contrasts nicely with Tyrion's whiny, annoying mid-life crisis poo poo. People born without his massive privileges go through much worse stuff and keep their poo poo together.
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Sep 9, 2017 18:33
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This is the same justification you can give to Brienne's arc, which was also boring. Like the guy said, I get the overarching meaning and reference, but apparently GRRM cannot write smallfolk. It's the gardening thing, right? He wanted to garden beyond the great houses. He wanted to grow some nice rose bushes but he should have stuck with the
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Sep 9, 2017 19:00
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Alternatively: "So he came up to us and asked, what about Cersei's witch hunt against the dwarves? Wouldn't it make sense for Tyrion to meet a victimized dwarf family out in Essos? Yes, we thought, that would make sense. "This year, George R R Martin is a writer on the show."
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Sep 9, 2017 19:08
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I can't remember why she's with them at all. Why is she constantly tagging along?
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Sep 9, 2017 21:00
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Lycus posted:I can't remember why she's with them at all. Why is she constantly tagging along? I think Tyrion feels guilty over her and brings her with? That book was bad, and I'd forgotten about most of these plot points.
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Sep 9, 2017 21:03
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Propaganda Machine posted:Alternatively: The Penny stuff goes much further. She is a person who seems to have genuinly fallen in love with Tyrion, which he is unable to accept because he is traumatized by Shae, who he had fallen in love with but was played by her. It's also an interesting contrast to Tyrion's perceived reality, where he thinks that no one could ever love him and the world hates him. Here is a very detailed write up on the themes of their relationship: https://meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/paying-his-debts-part-iii-tyrion-and-penny/
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Sep 9, 2017 21:18
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:It's almost like there are objective criteria on which you can evaluate the quality of a piece of creative writing or any other product of human labor. But by those standards, GRRM is bad, not good. He's objectively a bad prose writer.
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Sep 9, 2017 21:38
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His prose is fine. I've read much, much worse. In Fantasy novels, especially.
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Sep 9, 2017 22:31
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precision posted:But by those standards, GRRM is bad, not good. He's objectively a bad prose writer. yeah i tried to get into the series and i could only make it a couple of pages. what i don't get is when authors write so much boring side stuff. i'd want to write the good stuff that gets things going not side garbage that goes nowhere.
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Sep 9, 2017 23:10
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Tyrion's completely pointless sightseeing of Essos was pointless, but it was fun world building. The Sorrows, the culture of the Rhoyne and Volantis are all good places. I do agree that the Penny stuff was a slog to read through, though at least my mind kept me amused by replacing the fat slaver that died shiting buckets with Jabba the Hutt. It's the little things 
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Sep 10, 2017 00:55
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So I started book 1 last night and its mindblowing how accurate the show beginning is to the book beginning Imagine the show we'd have right now if the fat man still wrote books 
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Sep 10, 2017 02:42
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Constant posted:So I started book 1 last night and its mindblowing how accurate the show beginning is to the book beginning I'm at work so pretend I inserted the "the more she ate the more she shat" or "fat pink mast" quotes here.
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Sep 10, 2017 03:02
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lezard_valeth posted:I'm at work so pretend I inserted the "the more she ate the more she shat" or "fat pink mast" quotes here. not that far yet but the only thing missing i've seen is khal drogos mansion oh also the 8 white walkers and taunting thing and the old guy being the deserter rather than the younger
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Sep 10, 2017 03:42
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The biggest difference between season 1 and book 1 is that the former has a broader selection of point-of-view characters, leading to show-only scenes like Varys and Littlefinger sparring, Cersei and Robert talking about their marriage and the impending invasion, and Robert, Jaime and Selmy talking about their first kills. You also get things like more referenced to Stannis and the Tower of Joy scene, which lead people to predict R+L=J from a very early stage.
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Sep 10, 2017 04:02
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precision posted:Well I meant more the people who say "The books are bad, but I enjoy the show". And then people fly off the handle because they don't understand that it's possible to dislike a book for being poorly-written no matter how kickin' rad the plot in said book is. Swanwick is special though and in a class of genre writers way above most, most fantasy can't sustain itself without a driving plot that dictates what the characters are currently doing and what they are going to do next. Fwiw I think GRRM is a very good storyteller and the ASOIAF books are reasonably complex works with some depth and nuance and occasionally clever writing, and they do pull off the 'actually the real story is hidden in the text' thing reasonably well, if in a lazy way. Let's hope the last four books hold to that and keep the plot moving forward.
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Sep 10, 2017 04:28
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Groovelord Neato posted:yeah i tried to get into the series and i could only make it a couple of pages. Grrm got way more interested in the world he built than the main story. It's why he wrote dunk and egg instead of twow. He just loves the world and hates the story. But that's why I like the last two books. It fleshed out this cool world and it's super loving boring but still interesting when viewed through that lens.
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Sep 10, 2017 04:48
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GRRM won't live long enough to write 4 more books. If he does, 2 of them will be wildcards and 1 will be a history of the valyrian empire. I just want him to wrap up TWOW in the next year or two and then get ADOS out even if it means going through plot bullet-points like the show.
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Sep 10, 2017 05:07
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I take it that he fully liked the story until he couldn't make the five year gap work. That messed up his vision and he got bored.
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Sep 10, 2017 05:15
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Lycus posted:I take it that he fully liked the story until he couldn't make the five year gap work. That messed up his vision and he got bored. No, it was when the kids in his sex scenes started to get older.
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Sep 10, 2017 05:20
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"What was I thinking breaking up the twins? Aunt/nephew stuff is boring."
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Sep 10, 2017 06:28
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There's always room for more scenes where Cersei reminisces about her and her 7 year old twin brother discovering their sexuality.
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Sep 10, 2017 07:01
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precision posted:But by those standards, GRRM is bad, not good. He's objectively a bad prose writer. Compared to whom? Nabokov? Absolutely. Tom Clancy? Lol, no. It's all a spectrum and GRRM is worse than some, but better than most. Certainly he could ace a decent creative writing class and the bar for un-lovely writing is much lower than that. Seriously, there are some REALLY bad writers out there. Truly bad stuff. Like, it's been a while since I read ADWD, so I googled some quotes and it seems like decent stuff. I'm sure there are some stinkers here and there, but it's mostly solid quote:"Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born." The old man felt Jon's face. "You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born.” also quote:Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was making GBS threads brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water.
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Sep 10, 2017 12:40
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:Tom Clancy? Lol, no. It's all a spectrum and GRRM is worse than some, but better than most. Please don't insult the best modern writer - thanks. You only need to read the books that other authors publish with his name on it to appreciate the magic of Rainbow Six, Executive Order or Hunt for Red October. Which is one of the chief reasons I want GRRM to finish ASOIAF himself.
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Sep 10, 2017 12:47
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GaussianCopula posted:the best modern writer 
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Sep 10, 2017 13:12
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GaussianCopula posted:Which is one of the chief reasons I want GRRM to finish ASOIAF himself. You know NFL season is just around the corner.
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Sep 10, 2017 15:01
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lol it owns that grrm put a dig about the patriots' 18-1 season into the books. (he roots for a terrible team in the same division.)
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Sep 10, 2017 15:05
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Groovelord Neato posted:lol it owns that grrm put a dig about the patriots' 18-1 season into the books. (he roots for a terrible team in the same division.) Where?
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Sep 10, 2017 15:40
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etalian posted:Where? The story about a Archon named Belichick who won every battle until he was killed by a Giant.
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Sep 10, 2017 15:44
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etalian posted:Where? Belicho was a renowned Volantene patriot whose famous exploits are recorded in the series The Life of the Triarch Belicho. His unbroken succession of conquests and triumphs ended rather abruptly when he was eaten by giants.
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Sep 10, 2017 15:49
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precision posted:I can't think of any other piece of media that so many goons insist "is" good as some kind of objective truth like they do with GRRM's books. It's a weird hill to die on. In most threads, when people say "I don't like thing", everyone knows that's a personal preference. Any time someone says "The books are bad" there's a mad rush to post "actually, they're good". It's bizarre. Close thread.
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Sep 10, 2017 17:29
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The "sunset found her..." passage we always quote is actually pretty decent writing insofar as it paints a vivid picture of Dany's disgusting, crippling dysentery along with the frustration she must be feeling.
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Sep 10, 2017 19:10
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I wondered what you guys were kvetching about GURM's writing style (I'm on the second book, chewing threw them) and I came across this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1k6s3j/spoilers_all_on_fat_pink_masts_or_why_a_certain/ Some point of view characters are just "worse" than others, I guess, and are harder to identify with for one reason or another.
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Sep 10, 2017 19:21
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you could argue most poor writing away that way. his first comment underneath is kinda silly he seems to think it's young inexperienced readers mocking grrm's writing. i would bet most of the people mocking those passages are far more well read than he. at least grrm isn't stephen king. i can't think of an author that does sex scenes well off the top of my head tho. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Sep 10, 2017 |
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Sep 10, 2017 19:37
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Morrissey writes fantastic sex scenes.
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Sep 10, 2017 19:43
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:I wondered what you guys were kvetching about GURM's writing style (I'm on the second book, chewing threw them) and I came across this topic: That's pretty good apologia for why Sam's sex scene is gross and awkward, but it doesn't address why every other sex scene is also gross and awkward.
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Sep 10, 2017 20:35
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Is the brandy-flavored breast milk realistic by the way? I have to admit I've never sucked a nursing woman's titties after she'd been drinking.
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Sep 10, 2017 20:44
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Groovelord Neato posted:you could argue most poor writing away that way. his first comment underneath is kinda silly he seems to think it's young inexperienced readers mocking grrm's writing. i would bet most of the people mocking those passages are far more well read than he. at least grrm isn't stephen king. Being well-read and being a writer are wildly different things Stephen King is an amazing writer lol goons
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Sep 10, 2017 21:02
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nobody writes actual hot sex scenes like that is just not a thing you can do in prose the ~literary writers who are usually cited as references on How To Write Sex, like Updike or Franzen, mostly go in for disarming earthy realism. which is to say they make things sorta gross and weird on the theory that sex is always a weird thing except when you're the person having it. the point is exploring vulnerability, not eros. personally. I enjoy toni morrison sex scenes, but that's because they're usually so abstract and introspective that you can't tell there is physical sex happening. tl;dr it's true, nobody writes good sex scenes, if by "good" we mean hot or sexy. most people outside of like Urban Fantasy writers won't even try to do so. CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:I wondered what you guys were kvetching about GURM's writing style (I'm on the second book, chewing threw them) and I came across this topic: There's a lot of PoV variation, sure. For instance, a lot of the worst and most cringe-worthy stuff in Dorne is the uncomfortably fetishistic, orientalist descriptions of things, a disproportionate amount of which come from Arys's PoV. This makes sense since Arys is sorta the equivalent of a mormon kid who went on Mission after learning everything he knows about the world from his Fox News parents like he thinks hot peppers turn Arianne horny because it's something his racist grandma muttered over the dinner table once. that said, I do think there's been some mild deterioration of grrm's already...workmanlike prose, over the past two books, as seen in returning PoVs from the first three.
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Sep 10, 2017 21:18
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