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What's the thread consensus of how the books rate? For me, the second book is my least favorite, and I actually love love love AFFC and Slam Dancing w Dragons.
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May 1, 2019 19:12
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Elman posted:The writers and show watchers probably don't remember what the Iron Bank is. One of my favorite things from last season is the idea that somehow when the Lannister supply line carrying back everything from highgarden gets absolutely destroyed by dragonfire but the gold manages to not melt and Cersei just pays off all of the royal debt in one swoop with what they found there.
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May 1, 2019 19:16
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PupsOfWar posted:why would you give bronn the Twins the joke is cersei would only give him one castle but the twins is two so he's getting paid double
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May 1, 2019 19:18
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chaosapiant posted:What's the thread consensus of how the books rate? For me, the second book is my least favorite, and I actually love love love AFFC and Slam Dancing w Dragons. Book 2 is good in that it sets up book 3. Book 4 is “huh is this going somewhere?” And dance is “nope it sure isn’t”
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May 1, 2019 19:22
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While I'm at it, does anyone else love the Witcher novels as much as these books? I do, but I think i'm one of the few.
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May 1, 2019 19:25
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Book 1 is very good Book 2 is very good but not as obviously good as 1&3 Book 3 is very good Book 4 part 1 is not great Book 4 part 2 is very very bad and in fact makes part 1 worse The only two curiosities left if the next books improbably ever come out are 1) can this get worse? 2) what HBO-spite fueled changes has this absolute fucker made to his books just to claim there's any reason to read them. Edit: also a quick reminder that despite taking like an entire decade to finish book 4 parts 1&2 he moved the actual climax of that book, the battle of the bastards, into the next book for some unfathomable reason.
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May 1, 2019 19:27
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chaosapiant posted:
Victarion in the series would likely just be The Mountain with a squid theme. I kinda liked him in the books because he is an undeniable terror, but also because it's one of the rare first-person depictions of a guy who is a genuine _oaf_. Sees people laughing all around and only later realizes they were laughing at him, gets played by anyone who can conceivably influence him, passes on a good alliance with his niece because it might give him cooties, and manages to miss his pet firepriest pretty much spelling out that he's going to be burned to death as soon as he reaches Meereen.
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May 1, 2019 19:28
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I have to credit ASOIAF for the phonetic character names. If someone is named Jaime it's loving Jaime and not Jyaímie. Tyrion is Tyrion and not Taeryion etc. It's very noteworthy for fantasy works. The worst names are probably the Targaryen's but at least they're no Nynaeve al'Meara.
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May 1, 2019 19:28
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chaosapiant posted:What's the thread consensus of how the books rate? For me, the second book is my least favorite, and I actually love love love AFFC and Slam Dancing w Dragons. Nobody here has given a poo poo about the books in like five years.
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May 1, 2019 19:29
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i forgive ADWD of a lot of things for the sake of its Northern arc, which across all PoVs is pretty great hard to think of anything positive to say about the meereen bits, though the rest is take it or leave it
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May 1, 2019 19:29
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I figured I was in the minority, but I really liked books 4 and 5. I like how I get to see what's happening to the common folk in book 4, and book 5 has lots of cool mini-stories and adventures with Tyrion and Jon. Also, both books have lots of Jaime Lannister being a bad rear end and decent tactician. Jaime has always been my favorite character, as he's the first literary character I went from hating to loving in any work of fiction. Granted, I haven't read a lot of fantasy, but that's my take.
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May 1, 2019 19:31
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I like AFFC also cersei politicking is always enjoyable in the sense that watching stunt blooper reels is enjoyable you get Jaime redemption arc which i think most people like a lot of slower, atmospheric work which might frustrate people in a "nothing's happening" sense, but which i think is worthwhile im, i would say, more dorne-positive than most people here like I think the actual plot of the dorne sections is good and could go a lot of interesting places moving forward i get the sense that when people say "dorne sucks", often what they mean is that they don't like arianne, arys or hotah as PoVs, which is fair enough I suppose
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May 1, 2019 19:35
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Intel&Sebastian posted:
It's the Battle of Winterfell and I'm pretty sure Stannis will win it, thank you very much 
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May 1, 2019 19:38
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I liked a lot of Dorne and was really hoping that the Dornish head dude (I forget his name, Oberyn's brother) would turn out to be a cool scheming bad rear end. But I also like the sand snakes.
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May 1, 2019 19:39
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The last books are interesting and each little bit is more or less fun to read for what it gives you. The problem is that it doesn't loving go anywhere or resolve loving anything and just meanders aimlessly for hundreds of pages. Having sex is fun and all but it'll get pretty drat frustrating and chafe at you if you never get to nut.
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May 1, 2019 19:40
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Jon taking the Night Watch to settle his personal family score in the books is kind of jarring and when he gets stabbed to death for it my thought was "yeah that's fair I guess"
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May 1, 2019 19:40
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chaosapiant posted:I also like the sand snakes. 
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May 1, 2019 19:41
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PupsOfWar posted:im, i would say, more dorne-positive than most people here Men call me Darkstar and I am of the night
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May 1, 2019 19:43
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Katt posted:Jon taking the Night Watch to settle his personal family score in the books is kind of jarring and when he gets stabbed to death for it my thought was "yeah that's fair I guess" It's been a few years, but I was pretty sure Jon got stabbed because of the whole "lets wildlings south of the wall" thing. I thought the Arya mission was just a cherry on the pie. I was super impressed by how competent he was as a Lord Commander, overall though.
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May 1, 2019 19:43
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Elman posted:It's the Battle of Winterfell and I'm pretty sure Stannis will win it, thank you very much oh wait you're right it wasn't even that battle lmfao Stannis the Mannis staying alive would get me to keep reading the books
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May 1, 2019 19:44
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chaosapiant posted:I liked a lot of Dorne and was really hoping that the Dornish head dude (I forget his name, Oberyn's brother) would turn out to be a cool scheming bad rear end. But I also like the sand snakes. its weird how the show made the snakes so...interchangeable aside from the broader structural issues with the shows abortive dorne adaptation, that was a bad decision the cool thing about em in the books is they're all really distinctive and have their own gimmick, so even if they (probably) have the same agenda, they have such wildly different ideas of how to go about it that they cannot meaningfully collaborate its fun give tyene her poisons and septa's robes, cowards hobbesmaster posted:Men call me Darkstar and I am of the night look, im sure every region has their own edgy hot topic guy who tries way too hard,
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May 1, 2019 19:48
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Darkstar is just het Lyn Corbraychaosapiant posted:It's been a few years, but I was pretty sure Jon got stabbed because of the whole "lets wildlings south of the wall" thing. I thought the Arya mission was just a cherry on the pie. I was super impressed by how competent he was as a Lord Commander, overall though. his response to the pink letter was definitely the match that set things off whether because he decided involve the Watch in the affairs of the kingdom (which, tbf, Ramsay had already broken down that norm) or because the letter indicated the loss of Stannis as patron and ally the wildling integration had been going...about as well as could be expected up to that point, though probably there was already a coup at least being mulled PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 19:51 on May 1, 2019 |
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May 1, 2019 19:48
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Katt posted:The worst names are probably the Targaryen's but at least they're no Nynaeve al'Meara. Why are you so made at the legend of Nyneve and Merlin?
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May 1, 2019 19:49
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Intel&Sebastian posted:oh wait you're right it wasn't even that battle lmfao Stanny B is my boy and I'd be fairly content to drop the books if he is legit dead and the letter Ramsey sent to the wall is legitimate. He's the only person claiming the Throne to actually give a gently caress about people, even if he's a hard man and not personable.
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May 1, 2019 20:03
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chaosapiant posted:It's been a few years, but I was pretty sure Jon got stabbed because of the whole "lets wildlings south of the wall" thing. I thought the Arya mission was just a cherry on the pie. I was super impressed by how competent he was as a Lord Commander, overall though. That was part of it but then he makes a big "hoora! speech about deploying the watch south of the wall to fight his personal family feud and that to me was the great crossing of the line. He had done some crazy stuff but all in service of the watch and his oath but this was straight up betraying the watch and its mission. The books make a point of some historical commander who sat with some 20.000 troops at the wall while his brothers entire house got wiped out nearby because he was following his oath.
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May 1, 2019 20:04
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He was pretty content to do that until Arya was there. He probably would have let the other starks get butchered but not her. Of course it was Sansa/Rickon in the show which makes way less sense but hey FWOOSH DRAGOHN FLAME RAWR $$$
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May 1, 2019 20:06
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My point is that the watch might have grumbled when he started recruiting wildlings but they tolerated it and followed his orders but when he was about to take the entire watch and abandon their watch to do his personal business then they were all well within their right to kill him on the spot. He was going to send them from the wall. It was an enormous betrayal of his oath and his duty as lord commander.
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May 1, 2019 20:09
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imo the boltons had already indicated they were gonna gently caress with the Watch, so, while it got him killed, that probably wasn't the worst move or even a particularly bad move by stark standards society is collapsing all around, the apocalypse is coming, who knows what norms remain valid like it was inevitable that jon had to respond, and also inevitable that the watch would revolt over it the whole point of these Stark dilemmas is not "wow, look at how bad the dumb guy hosed up" but that they're no-win scenarios that naturally occur when you're trying to act like a protagonist
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May 1, 2019 20:10
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Sephyr posted:Sees people laughing all around and only later realizes they were laughing at him, gets played by anyone who can conceivably influence him, passes on a good alliance with his niece because it might give him cooties, and manages to miss his pet firepriest pretty much spelling out that he's going to be burned to death as soon as he reaches Meereen. I think GRRM might have intended to write him as on the spectrum.
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May 1, 2019 20:32
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PupsOfWar posted:
But that's the point, acting like a protagonist is a dumb thing to do and it means you hosed up. Every Stark dilemma is a Stark doing something extremely stupid that usually indicates heroism and valor in fake stories but gets you killed in these ones. Which one was a no-win situation? Robb could have won if he just figured out how to keep a side piece like every other Lord besides his dad. Or just remembered that the war is more important than marrying someone RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW and either dropping her or telling her we'll have to figure it out later. Ned could have achieved everything he possibly could at the time if he thought about what challenging Joffrey and the Lannisters would mean for two seconds, realized there was no chance to stop the coronation (or that depending on Littlefinger to attempt it was an extremely dumb idea) and got him and his family out of KL before doing it. Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 20:40 on May 1, 2019 |
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May 1, 2019 20:34
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MrFlibble posted:https://youtu.be/DQAuI015FbE?t=1032 Holy poo poo. I have never watched any of the show, but I may go back and watch all of this guy's videos.
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May 1, 2019 20:39
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Hasselblad posted:Holy poo poo. I have never watched any of the show, but I may go back and watch all of this guy's videos. https://youtu.be/g-94RDwiVFs Watch this first. It’s a handy primer on PJakes.
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May 1, 2019 20:42
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Intel&Sebastian posted:But that's the point, acting like a protagonist is a dumb thing to do and it means you hosed up. Every Stark dilemma is a Stark doing something extremely stupid that usually indicates heroism and valor in fake stories but gets you killed in these ones. It's also very significant that Roberts dying words is declaring Joffrey his heir and Ned changes it to "My heir" to be able to put Stannis on the throne. The very definition of Roberts rule is that "blood does not mean poo poo when it comes to kings" Ned accepted that when he rebelled but he would betray his oldest friend for the sake of blind obedience to blood.
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May 1, 2019 20:43
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Ned shouldn't have even agreed to be hand in the first place. That was an incredibly dumb idea, he's singularly ill-equipped for the job and he goes along with it because The Rules say you can't say no to the king even though he's maybe the only person in the entire world who could tell Robert no and get away with it.
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May 1, 2019 20:43
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Katt posted:I have to credit ASOIAF for the phonetic character names. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXlpJce1k8g
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May 1, 2019 20:46
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The Unnamed One posted:See, you’re falling in the trap of “thinking too much about it”, and that’s a big no-no regarding the later seasons of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Yeah there's no subtlety at all now. Everything that happens is exactly what it appears to be and there is no more than surface level thought going into every big decision. Like Arya literally killed the Night King because heheheh that would be cool and unexpected even though narratively it made little sense.
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May 1, 2019 20:48
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Katt posted:Dagon Targaryan
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May 1, 2019 20:48
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Katt posted:It's also very significant that Roberts dying words is declaring Joffrey his heir and Ned changes it to "My heir" to be able to put Stannis on the throne. I think it's less blind obedience to blood than the idea that he thinks if he had time to convince Robert that Joff was Cersei and Jaime's that Robert wouldn't have passed the crown to Joffrey anyway. He also thinks John Arryn dying is part of a conspiracy to hide all this and he wants to thwart it. Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 20:53 on May 1, 2019 |
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May 1, 2019 20:50
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I always think Eddard absolutely got what was coming to him. He was WAY too honest and straightforward and I have no idea how he made it that far in the world as it is. Robb, however, is a different story. I absolutely do not believe that the Freys wouldn't have betrayed him if he'd kept his promise. The Freys aligned with the house they thought would win the war, and used Robb's dumb marriage as a pretext.
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May 1, 2019 20:53
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Yeah, but that just sort of shifts the "dumb move" pin to "trusting them in the first place" rather than "thinking they're really totally ok with this compromise marriage"
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May 1, 2019 21:03
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