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Working my way through Book 1 for the first time. I haven’t seen season 1 since the year it came out and it is unbelievable how much the show nailed it. I don’t think I’ll have the stamina to finish the series (like our fat author himself), especially knowing how the show ended. Catelyn was blah in the show but what a nasty woman she is to Jon in the book. Total miserab’
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Apr 30, 2024 01:16
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Pepe Arnold posted:Working my way through Book 1 for the first time. I haven’t seen season 1 since the year it came out and it is unbelievable how much the show nailed it. I don’t think I’ll have the stamina to finish the series (like our fat author himself), especially knowing how the show ended. Catelyn was blah in the show but what a nasty woman she is to Jon in the book. Total miserab’ The show outstripped the books and made up a lot of the bad poo poo, and didn’t know how to use the notes GRRM gave them. You can get a lot from being in the characters’ POV, and there are some POV characters you aren’t expecting. Cersei has a bunch in A Feast for Crows for instance, and while she’s still the worst she’s much more interesting than wine-at-window-scowling. Plus there are a million world-building details if you’re into that. You do you, of course, I’m not telling you what to do. But as a weirdo hate-gremlin for this series who was annoyed at the long wait back when Bush Jr. was president, even I still think they’re pretty solid. Reading is fun, they’re pretty good books. Yeah, you should probably read them. PS Ned dies
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Apr 30, 2024 02:48
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The biggest bellend in the first books/series unexpectedly ends up being the best POV for my money. Jaime
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Apr 30, 2024 08:02
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Pepe Arnold posted:Working my way through Book 1 for the first time. I haven’t seen season 1 since the year it came out and it is unbelievable how much the show nailed it. I don’t think I’ll have the stamina to finish the series (like our fat author himself), especially knowing how the show ended. Catelyn was blah in the show but what a nasty woman she is to Jon in the book. Total miserab’ Too late to back out now. You need to suffer like the rest of us
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Apr 30, 2024 09:32
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Pepe Arnold posted:I don’t think I’ll have the stamina to finish the series (like our fat author himself), especially knowing how the show ended. Don't worry, you can read all five existing books and won't be anywhere close to finished with the series 
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Apr 30, 2024 10:57
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Kylaer posted:Don't worry, you can read all five existing books and won't be anywhere close to finished with the series
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Apr 30, 2024 11:40
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Guy A. Person posted:Manderly kicks some rear end while the dumbass Frey’s and Bolton are slowly loving up the rule of Winterfell in the latest books to be fair. A recurring theme of the series just seems to be that ruling is pretty hard and it’s easy to make giant dumb gently caress mistakes Just think how chill Westeros would have been had Catelyn and Cercei not existed.
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Apr 30, 2024 13:02
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Josuke Higashikata posted:The biggest bellend in the first books/series unexpectedly ends up being the best POV for my money. I'm enjoying his stuff. It's like gurm watched a bunch of 80s teen comedies and tried to perfect the voice of the rich rear end in a top hat blonde haired villain in each of them. Think James Spader in Pretty in Pink. It's pretty funny, actually.
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Apr 30, 2024 15:38
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Kuiperdolin posted:Best chapter was the death march to Winterfell. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned's little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks.
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Apr 30, 2024 17:16
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Yeah there was this tone in aDwD that made it very obvious that the most horrifying thing GRRM can think of is starvation  Also the scene where a guy gets burned alive, and doesn't scream as his legs are burning but starts screaming when the flames reach his balls make me think GRRM really is a bit off.
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Apr 30, 2024 18:10
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Hasselblad posted:Just think how chill Westeros would have been had Catelyn and Cercei not existed. Even just Cersei. If Bobby B had married anyone else then we wouldn't have had homicidal incest bastards in line for the throne and Ned would still be alive and Bran wouldn't have been shoved out of the tower window. No War of Five Kings, and maybe instead of loving about committing warcrimes in the Riverlands, everybody looks north and thinks "poo poo, that's a lot of wildlings pushing south, wonder what's happening?". Hell, Robert would have had the time of his life commanding the United Army of Westeros against the legions of the frozen dead. He'd have probably hailed Dany and her dragons as jolly good wing commanders at that point and tried to requisition one for his own (he had a Targarean grandmother, didn't he, I'll bet he could have rode one. God, Bob Baratheon atop a dragon with his war hammer, that's an image to put the fear of god into anyone, alive or dead).
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Apr 30, 2024 19:01
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Speaking of the watch. They let people know what was up and were ignored which is just stupid. Everyone knows why they are there. Everyone accepts that the others "were" a thing. So now the watch are getting ignored. It's such a bad inconsistency. I mean, if they never contacted anyone that's one thing. But AFAIK, they let EVERYONE EVERYWHERE know what was going on. And everyone was like LOL, naw. Books are trash. Belgariad is better by leaps and bounds. It might not be as 'mature" but it's more fun and not nearly as full of abject stupidity. C'mon Eddings family, find a loophole to get those books made. I'll happily take 10 years worth of mini series to do it right.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:06
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Waltzing Along posted:Speaking of the watch. They let people know what was up and were ignored which is just stupid. Everyone knows why they are there. Everyone accepts that the others "were" a thing. So now the watch are getting ignored. It's such a bad inconsistency. ???? You should work on your reading comprehension, because they emphatically do not all accept that the Others were a thing. They are regarded as scary stories for children. Multiple characters have whole diatribes on the topic. I sincerely don't know how you are reading the books and coming away with this. They're not subtle. It's a major theme of an airplane book for dumb nerds.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:09
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I must have missed that. My take was that it was accepted that things like magic and dragons and that sort of thing did exist but had all gone away. I mean, they have proof of the dragons. And they also seem to accept that the forest children were real, as well. Perhaps it is my bias in that I know that in the books these things are/were real. It really seems to me that they just deny that any of that stuff could come back.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:16
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Waltzing Along posted:I must have missed that. My take was that it was accepted that things like magic and dragons and that sort of thing did exist but had all gone away. I mean, they have proof of the dragons. And they also seem to accept that the forest children were real, as well. Seriously every time the Watch sends a message down south there is a scene of them reading it where they laugh it off. Or whenever anyone talks about the Watch. Are you reading a copy that's 200 pages shorter what the gently caress.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:23
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I'm just reading random pages. I've read 4 so far.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:28
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Xiahou Dun posted:Seriously every time the Watch sends a message down south there is a scene of them reading it where they laugh it off. Or whenever anyone talks about the Watch. Settle down Beavis. The books do have several scenes of people explicitly ignoring warnings from the Watch, but yeah, it's weird because there's objective proof of supernatural stuff (dragonbone and skulls most obvious). Yet another GRRMism.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:52
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Kylaer posted:Settle down Beavis. Otoh global warming vs Fox News viewers
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Apr 30, 2024 22:05
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In the first three books, “the Others take” is used liberally as a curse. It cuts across kingdom and class.AGoT Eddard I posted:"The Others take my wife," Robert muttered sourly, but he started back the way they had come, his footsteps falling heavily. "And if I hear 'Your Grace' once more, I'll have your head on a spike. We are more to each other than that." AGoT Arya V posted:Arya tapped her wooden sword against the side of her boot. "I'll trade you a fat pigeon," she said. ACoK Davos I posted:Stannis snorted. "Celtigar pronounced it admirable. If I showed him the contents of my privy, he would declare that admirable as well. The others bobbed their heads up and down like a flock of geese, all but Velaryon, who said that steel would decide the matter, not words on parchment. As if I had never suspected. The Others take my lords, I'll hear your views." ASoS Jaime I posted:For the good part of an hour they played peek-and-seek with the pursuers, sweeping around bends and between small wooded isles. Just when they were starting to hope that somehow they might have left behind the pursuit, the distant sail became visible again. Ser Cleos paused in his stroke. "The Others take them." He wiped sweat from his brow. ASoS Catelyn IV posted:A narrow miss, no more than a handspan, and yet a miss. "The Others take it!" her brother swore. The boat was almost out of range, drifting in and out among the river mists. Wordless, Edmure thrust the bow at his uncle. And twenty‐two more times, plus one each in AFfC, ADwD, and the sample chapters of TWoW. Maybe this is just like a bunch of atheists saying “god dammit’, but I still think that it’s weird.
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Apr 30, 2024 22:34
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Platystemon posted:In the first three books, “the Others take” is used liberally as a curse. It cuts across kingdom and class. gently caress, man. Words are wind. I dunno
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May 1, 2024 03:45
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Cavelcade posted:Otoh global warming vs Fox News viewers Even better, people are starting to not get vaccinated against Polio even though there are still lots of people alive who remember it regularly killing or paralyzing others.
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May 1, 2024 07:14
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Waltzing Along posted:I'm getting kinda annoyed at gurms: the north constantly makes mistakes but the "bad guys" never do. Isn't his whole thing supposed to be that he doesn't know what is going to happen and he just writes and things happen. Or something like that? Yeah, one can argue that the "bad" guys just tend to make mistakes that take longe rto bite them in the rear end. Tywin may have been a brilliant feudal bastard ruler, but he also basically hosed his House in the long-term by being such a terrible hypocrite of a father, for instance. And it got him shot in the loo, so there's that. I'm with on on the 'good' guys beng oddly unaware of their own world, especially the North, and from early on. "Yeah, I've lost 3/4ths my family to southron and royal politics and my beloved mentor was just murdered down there, but this plain-spoken honest lord is going down there to sort things down!" Ned having to be -schooled- by Littlefinger and Varys that having allies is important at court was legit embarrassing.
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May 1, 2024 16:00
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Waltzing Along posted:Belgariad is better by leaps and bounds. It might not be as 'mature" but it's more fun and not nearly as full of abject stupidity. If the money goes to those children that were abused, sure. Belgariad is good, I enjoyed them growing up. The rest were either more of the same or really weird. I soured on his stuff with a) the sameness of it and b) child goddesses who love cuddles and kisses from the gruff male protagonist, also spending lots of page time wriggling around in their laps "getting comfortable." Also protag/ward relationship in elenium came off as wrong when I read it.
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May 1, 2024 16:25
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It's been a long while since I read them, so I am maybe misremembering. Maybe a lot of the almost childish presentation of familial relationships was their attempt to apologise for having done monstrous things? I'm almost tempted to find an audiobook of them now.
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May 1, 2024 16:57
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Platystemon posted:In the first three books, “the Others take” is used liberally as a curse. It cuts across kingdom and class. Yeah it’s like people referencing the devil or whatever in common sayings, but nobody in their right mind is listening to ranting preachers talking about the literal devil trying to tempt children or whatever. We don’t have major government money going into researching how to travel to hell to fight the devil. Also saying “well they have supernatural stuff like dragons” only makes sense from our point of view because dragons are supernatural to us, not them. Like people ITT mock Preston Jacob’s theories about the moon being a mind control device for wargs or whatever the gently caress but that’s also fantastical, we as the viewer are just the ones with the direct confirmation from the first chapter of the books that the Others are real.
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May 2, 2024 14:52
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Irisi posted:Even just Cersei. If Bobby B had married anyone else then we wouldn't have had homicidal incest bastards in line for the throne and Ned would still be alive and Bran wouldn't have been shoved out of the tower window. No War of Five Kings, and maybe instead of loving about committing warcrimes in the Riverlands, everybody looks north and thinks "poo poo, that's a lot of wildlings pushing south, wonder what's happening?". Cat is solely responsible for starting the war. And purely because she is a huge idiot bigot.
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May 4, 2024 17:34
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Irisi posted:Even just Cersei. If Bobby B had married anyone else then we wouldn't have had homicidal incest bastards in line for the throne and Ned would still be alive and Bran wouldn't have been shoved out of the tower window. No War of Five Kings, and maybe instead of loving about committing warcrimes in the Riverlands, everybody looks north and thinks "poo poo, that's a lot of wildlings pushing south, wonder what's happening?". I would totally read that alternate "reality" version. ESPECIALLY with knowing how badly things go in the existing books as contrast.
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May 4, 2024 19:35
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I wanna read the version where Jon Snow knows everything.
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May 4, 2024 20:09
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soviet elsa posted:Cat is solely responsible for starting the war. And purely because she is a huge idiot bigot. Cat fucks up big by citizen's arresting Tyrion but she was basically just like a small child bumping into a table with a house of cards teetering near the edge; something was eventually going to knock that poo poo over. Like let's assume Ned chooses common sense and his family's safety over stupid honor and refuses the hand of the king position. While Jon Arryn's death temporarily halted the investigation into Cersei's illegitimate children, we know that Stannis was aware and presumably Little Finger and likely others, if Cersei catches wind of any of this (or if LF's goal was to have her bump off Robert he could just have the fact that Stannis knows leak to her) she still kills Bobby, Stannis declares war, probably Renly too, the key thing is that the Starks stay out of the direct center of the initial shitstorm and mainly all survive although Ned would probably end up declaring for Stannis before too long I guess. Maybe best case scenario for the realm is that Stannis takes his info to Robert quicker than LF can further agitate and Ned, Robert and Stannis are able to somehow navigate a successful removal of the Lannisters from court (probably Robert ends up marrying Margaery Tyrell to shut out Tywin from making too much trouble?) but man that is a big loving "if" with those dunderheads and with LF and Varys and Tywin all maneuvering against them. More likely scenario is all the initial stuff happens but then Cat thinks better of taking Tyrion away from the North and maybe just ends up sending a raven to Ned and sulking back home. Cersei was still going to bump of Robert at this point, Ned was still going to try and go public with the bastard news, Cersei would never take Ned's offer and instead do everything in her power to undermine that and outplay him (and I mean, Ned was so loving bad at this that he got outplayed by Cersei -- Cersei!!! -- in the first book already). I guess maybe the key thing in this scenario is that Tyrion doesn't recruit Bronn or the mountain clans, Cat presumably starts back in the North but then does go with Robb if he has to declare war to get his father freed, Jaime and Ned don't get in their earlier scuffle which takes Ned out for a bit and kills some of his key men. So maybe there's like a 10% chance that in the different flavored shitstorm that would happen within King's landing after Robert's death that Ned would able to actually fight his way out or temporarily gain the upper hand and have his own men/some people he has swayed to his side arrest Cersei and her kids, but then it's kind of largely the same with Tywin declaring war from outside, maybe tho with Ned in control of KL he can get Stannis and Renly to work together and help him tho who knows. I think Fair Play Ned eventually just gets shanked in the back by someone the Lannisters hired and we end up in largely the same situation we did at the end of GoT going into Clash no matter what at that point. I have an extremely hard time thinking that Tyrion would have just come back to KL and the hosed situation would have resolved itself more favorably in some nebulous way.
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May 4, 2024 21:47
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the idea that the cosmically insane and paranoid cersei could keep a lid on anything for long are more fantastical than the dragons.
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May 4, 2024 22:48
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ItohRespectArmy posted:the idea that the cosmically insane and paranoid cersei could keep a lid on anything for long are more fantastical than the dragons. she got that way after Joffrey died and Jaime was maimed.
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May 4, 2024 23:11
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Even if Ned never fights Jaime and therefore doesn't get shanked in the leg, there's no way ~100 Stark guards fight their way around thousands of Gold cloaks, Lannister mooks, and Baratheon foot soldiers plus whatever loyalist Kingsguard pulled duty that day. Renly, dumb as he was, even recognized that and got the hell out of dodge as soon as Cersei tipped her hand. Only way for Ned to live in an alternate telling is to never go south in the first place, except to clean house with all the Northerners he could muster
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May 5, 2024 04:23
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Mat Cauthon posted:Even if Ned never fights Jaime and therefore doesn't get shanked in the leg, there's no way ~100 Stark guards fight their way around thousands of Gold cloaks, Lannister mooks, and Baratheon foot soldiers plus whatever loyalist Kingsguard pulled duty that day. Renly, dumb as he was, even recognized that and got the hell out of dodge as soon as Cersei tipped her hand. Ned could also probably do good for himself arresting Cersei and outing her instead of giving her the opportunity to run away with her incest babies, but that's the one bit of his trauma it's pretty understandable he couldn't overcome.
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May 5, 2024 04:32
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Mat Cauthon posted:Even if Ned never fights Jaime and therefore doesn't get shanked in the leg, there's no way ~100 Stark guards fight their way around thousands of Gold cloaks, Lannister mooks, and Baratheon foot soldiers plus whatever loyalist Kingsguard pulled duty that day. Renly, dumb as he was, even recognized that and got the hell out of dodge as soon as Cersei tipped her hand. A hundred (your number) competently trained, armed and well-armored dudes who happen to already be in the middle of your capital city, inside your keep, is nothing to sneeze at. A lot of those dudes are definitely going to die, but there are a bunch of hinky ways this hypothetical could go down. If 90 of them make a stand while Ned flees? Or if they even just try to bum-rush Cersei? It doesn’t matter how many Goldcloaks there are outside the walls if the Kingsguard gets overwhelmed. You think Ser Merryn Trant is going to bravely give his life for King Joffrey after cutting down his 14-15 Northman share of the zergrush towards the royal chambers? 100 dudes who really don’t like you with swords in the middle of your castle isn’t a problem you can just dismiss.
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May 5, 2024 05:00
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Ned could have said nothing to cersei and done all his other poo poo.
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May 5, 2024 05:26
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Renly straight up offers Ned 100 of his own men to go and get Joffrey under their power when Robert dies. If he took that, Cersei would be way more careful/limited on loving with him.
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May 5, 2024 05:45
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Yep, and when Ned shows just how stupid he is, Renly peaces out.
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May 5, 2024 05:53
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jsoh posted:she got that way after Joffrey died and Jaime was maimed. I may be being influenced by the show special Cersei/Robert scene, but I am sympathetic to her. Robert was by all accounts a drunken rear end in a top hat lout, even back when he was hot and cool. If she had had a loving relationship, or even married a triumphant Rhaegar? Who knows. She comes off as someone who could just agree to put on airs with a dude like Rhaegar, while they know they aren’t in love. Her insanity comes from being forced into queenship at like 17. And then knowing that her kids are threatened by anyone who challenges the throne. Win or die, etc. What little we know of young Cersei she seems more like Sansa than the evil paranoia bitch queen. I forget when she got the hots for Jaime, but she does say she did like both Rhaegar, and briefly, young Robert. Maybe she would not even become an incest queen in a better world.
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May 5, 2024 16:23
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Xiahou Dun posted:A hundred (your number) competently trained, armed and well-armored dudes who happen to already be in the middle of your capital city, inside your keep, is nothing to sneeze at. A lot of those dudes are definitely going to die, but there are a bunch of hinky ways this hypothetical could go down. If 90 of them make a stand while Ned flees? Or if they even just try to bum-rush Cersei? It doesn’t matter how many Goldcloaks there are outside the walls if the Kingsguard gets overwhelmed. You think Ser Merryn Trant is going to bravely give his life for King Joffrey after cutting down his 14-15 Northman share of the zergrush towards the royal chambers? Scallop Eyes posted:Renly straight up offers Ned 100 of his own men to go and get Joffrey under their power when Robert dies. If he took that, Cersei would be way more careful/limited on loving with him. Yeah this is why I am saying there is a small chance, and I am not even necessarily factoring in Ned's wounded leg making him less able to fight, but moreso the time lost where he could have been making other arrangements and rallying more people in King's Landing to his side. But even if everything goes right and Ned successfully arrests Cersei then like I said Tywin probably marches immediately, Jaime either tries to cut his way to Ned or cuts his way out of the city to join the Lannister army, then while Ned is basically in siege mode all it takes is for one Lannister loyal to trick his dumb and honorable rear end into turning his back for one second to be shanked. There would definitely be a different kind of chaos but not just the Starks winning because Cat didn't screw up. soviet elsa posted:I may be being influenced by the show special Cersei/Robert scene, but I am sympathetic to her. Robert was by all accounts a drunken rear end in a top hat lout, even back when he was hot and cool. If she had had a loving relationship, or even married a triumphant Rhaegar? Who knows. She comes off as someone who could just agree to put on airs with a dude like Rhaegar, while they know they aren’t in love. Her insanity comes from being forced into queenship at like 17. And then knowing that her kids are threatened by anyone who challenges the throne. Win or die, etc. What little we know of young Cersei she seems more like Sansa than the evil paranoia bitch queen. She and Jaime start having sex in their early teens, it's a big part of the reason why he joins the kingsguard because they both think the plan is for her to marry Rhaegar and he wants to stay close to her. Also it's strongly hinted that she pushed her friend down a well when she was young so that she wouldn't tell anyone about Maggy the Frog's prophecy. She is definitely more sympathetic when you read her POV and think about her life but she was early on shaped by her father's ruthlessness as well as her jealousy/resentment that her younger twin brother gets to be the Lord of Casterly Rock while she is destined to get married off as a pawn for political alliances.
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May 5, 2024 17:10
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I read, in a Jaime chapter, that their mother caught them doing "stuff" when they were fairly young.
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May 5, 2024 17:44
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