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Hannibal Rex posted:And at the rate he's moving the plot forward in Dance, there's no way in hell he'll finish in two more books. I think most people pretty much assumed that without ever even seeing the new book
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Jul 4, 2011 17:48
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Kindle says I'm about 25% through, and not impressed so far. We finally get some Bran chapters again, but woops, for everyone bran chapter where he's adventuring in the unknown and there's actually danger and dramatic tension it's a bunch more boring loving bullshit travelogues interspersed with Dany being inert and awful in some awful Iraq analogue. Enjoyable stuff fat man, thanks
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Jul 15, 2011 06:14
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Also I never thought I'd want to see a Sansa chapter but now that she's actually reaching the zenith of her arc over the course of 4 books it might actually be interesting compared to an interior monologue of "hmm should I be a decisive leader who makes hard choices or a spoiled indolent child who lays around having sex all day?? time to tie up my dragons in a hole, brb"
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Jul 16, 2011 03:50
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finished it today. Entertaining in some parts, boring in others. Really inefficient and needlessly sprawling narrative, overuse of cliffhangers. Finding it increasingly difficult to care about most of the book's characters. Better than AFFC, worse than the others edit: Honestly, now that I think of it, basically every PoV ended on a cliffhanger or question mark of a sort. Jaime - Goes off with Brienne, Sansa has been taken by the hound? Except probably not? Bran - Starting to train? Safe, maybe not? His friends probably going to die in the snow? Summer possibly going to be murdered by a warg ghost? Davos - Going off somewhere? Who knows? Jon - Dead possibly? Melisandre going to breathe life into him, or going to live out his life as Ghost? Cersei - Going to seize power again? Maybe not? Stannis / Asha / Theon - Dead and in pieces in the snow somewhere? Maybe not? Dany - going to feed a khalasar to her dragon? hopefully going to get shot with an arrow before Drogon can react? Manse - dead? probably not? who knows? Barristan - probably going to die when a plague corpse lands on him? Basically the only characters we know about to any degree of certainty are Aegon, Victarion, Varys, and Arya. Someone ought to notify the fat man that "WHAT HAPPEN TO OUR HERO?? TUNE IN SAME BAT TIME, SAME BAT CHANNEL" loses its effect when it's the only way you know to build dramatic tension. ALso when you use the same gimmick for five thousand-page books. literallyincredible posted:That said, I will agree with Martin on one thing... If he was a better storyteller a lot of this stuff could easily be in a gap. Some of it deserves narrative focus, but a lot of it could be related indirectly through dialogue and inference. Of course, that would leave a lot less page space for the details of guys warging out to get hosed by wolves, rape and torture porn, travelogues, and Dany's indecisive waffling and whining, so I guess it's just not possible hypocrite lecteur fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jul 17, 2011 |
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Jul 17, 2011 03:17
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theblackw0lf posted:True, I can't think of another fantasy writer who can write snappy dialog and has the world-building aspect that Martin does. I don't know if you guys are trolling or serious when you say stuff like this. Is your position honestly that GRRM tells stories in a way that stands head & shoulders above other writing and that if he died no one could take his place
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Jul 17, 2011 05:17
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Scoobi posted:Am I the only one optimistic that now that he is past his little knot that the books are going to come out much faster? He no longer has to worry about mereen and hbo is gonna be on his rear end and he put out SOS and ACOK pretty fast. No not really? Mereen is basically a tacit admission that he's making it all up as he goes along and isn't thinking particularly hard about the consequences of various narrative choices. I don't have any faith that the plot will be finished in a satisfying or efficient way or that, looking forward, the series will be better managed than it has to this point. If you do, well, good for you
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Jul 18, 2011 02:42
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EC posted:Isn't it implied that the Iron Bank has resources to make princes and kings disappear? I still can't believe Cersei told that dude to gently caress off back to the Free Cities. Cersei defaulting on the Iron Bank loans, arming the priesthood, and alienating the Tyrells are three facially obvious "she's going to regret this" mistakes, and she makes them at full speed
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Jul 18, 2011 18:02
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Xander77 posted:A) A better prose writer than Tolkien isn't even praise to be damned with. No poo poo. I don't know the answer to "man this guy's writing could use some polish" is "well, he's better than most fantasy writers!" Hey great, he's better than the guys who write dime store check out stuff with dragons and busty maidens on the front. He's also probably better than (most? all?) fan fic writers. Xander77 posted:
Barristan and the leader (Shazkakakha? or whatever?) sent their own guys to secure the dragons as a part of the coup, and they knew that Quentyn and his group weren't a part of the plan
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Jul 18, 2011 18:10
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The clock is ticking on the Freys. No way they make it out alive. Big fat soft Manderly hates them so much he turned them into food. And they have the Greatjon imprisoned. They either: let him out (and he kills them) or kill him (and the Umbers don't leave a stone standing on top of another stone where the Twins used to be). Littlefinger has cause to hate them, their allies the Lannisters are on their way out and I'm not sure where the Freys stand w/r/t the Tyrells. They're propped up by the Boltons right now, who are also surrounded by as many enemies as they are friends with the winter on its way. They're toast edit: There's a fair amount of talk throughout the books about the Umbers being a fairly strong force in the north. The Freys made an explicit point of making sure that the Greatjon was captured during the Red Wedding to ensure their loyalty, from which it seems a fair inference that the Freys are cautious or afraid of the Umbers. Also, if Jon got his way / Stannis listens to him, they'll be given Winterfell if it's retaken hypocrite lecteur fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jul 18, 2011 |
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Jul 18, 2011 19:24
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Also, when Stannis talks about marching south, Jon tells him not to march through the Umber's lands without making friends with them first or he won't make it. I don't think they're a huge power, but they're not a minor house edit: someone mentioned earlier in the thread that Stannis knew, or had been alerted to, the karstarks being treacherous. Is that the case? I don't remember anything along those lines
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Jul 18, 2011 19:49
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I don't think there were any mentions of Loras in ADWD. I didn't really think that his injuries were faked -- him having a deathwish and recklessly storming the keep seems pretty plausible, I think he's still pretty wrecked over Renly's death. It's possible it was a lie to take him off the board for a bit, though.
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Jul 18, 2011 19:58
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showbiz_liz posted:
In fairness, there's like 0 evidence in the show to point to who it could be, Littlefinger or Cersei or pretty much whoever you'd want to name are just as good a guesses as Joffrey hhhmmm posted:The events leading up to Jon's death didn't make much sense though. Suddenly there is a plot-issue where GRRM wants Jon dead, and so Jon takes a sudden lapse into retardness. In ways he has previously been shown to be quite capable. 2nd Stark in a row to get taken down by ignoring his wolf. "Hm, my big magical wolf has suddenly stopped trusting the people around me. God, you stupid animal, go sit in a locked room while I go off with my friends! Stop growling and barking what's wrong with you oh god the stabbing aaa"
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Jul 18, 2011 20:57
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VaultAggie posted:Speaking of dragons, do we have any idea how big they are at this point? There's a lot of talk about how they don't really stop growing as long as they have room and food, and about the black dragon back in the day putting armies in shadow with his wingspan who knows though
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Jul 18, 2011 23:13
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What he has planned for the hostages is explicitly spelled out in one of the PoVs. He makes a promise to one of the merc companies that if they infiltrate & get the hostages back he'll give them a reward. This was before the plague corpses thing, the hostages are probably toast, but who knows? GRRM is a bad writer and the only method of dramatic tension he knows is the cliffhanger so we'll literally get to wait 6 years to find out
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Jul 19, 2011 03:43
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Why does Tyrion keep telling people he killed joffrey? Just because he doesn't care and it's going to be laid at his feet anyways? The evidence points to the Tyrells otherwise doesn't it
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Jul 19, 2011 20:28
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I still don't understand even a little bit about how Mereen was difficult to write or resolve at all.
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Jul 22, 2011 19:27
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So what? Dany doesn't get mentioned for the first 3/4 of the book, we hear whispers about how the Saviour of The Slaves is dead and her dragons went nuts and ate a bunch of people, and she shows up in Westeros suddenly with a ragged group of followers and three wild dragons being like "whoo I flew all the way here boy my arms are tired!!" Knot solved. GRRM does that exact same kind of poo poo all the time to move the plot along. The way it was actually (kind of) resolved wasn't anymore satisfying -- she literally just flies on out, peace yall. are you serious? it's not even like just skipping the whole thing would effect tyrion or quentyn or victarian's arcs at all. he was happy enough to send Brienne around on a multi-chapter hunt for Sansa when we know that she's not going to find her
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Jul 22, 2011 19:37
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NihilCredo posted:I'm going to break a lance in defence of Dany's decision to dismiss Jorah. First, he was useful but no longer irreplaceable: she had plenty of sword arms at that point, and Ser Barristan was going to be a much better advisor on all things Westerosi. Secondly, go and reread his dismissal scene: he behaves with pretty much the opposite of Barristan's sincerity and humility, it would have been hard for Dany to forgive him without looking weak and inciting more treachery (Though, I believe that that is also a good example of why discipline is best served in private - in public your hand is easily forced). And thirdly, he's got a solid curriculum of doing foolish things for love, how could Dany knew that he wouldn't one day make some more? Had he stuck around, I could totally see him attempting to murder both Daario and Hizdahr, which as a reader would certainly have pleased me incomparably, but which is decidedly not what Dany wants. Counter-point; in a series where loyalty is a very rare and precious trait, and in Dany's case, where she's got a superstar thing going on and really can't trust the people around her, she got rid of a guy who saved her from an assassin, saved her dragon's eggs, protected her when Drogo was dying, and was absolutely, unswervingly loyal to her, like she was scraping a bit of poo poo off of her shoe edit: I mean, really. He could have let her dumb rear end die and gone home pardoned, which is all he wants, and he didn't. He put her life over his own interests. How often does that happen in the series. and she's like "hurr burr you're not my handsome foreign mercenary I no like you  "
hypocrite lecteur fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jul 22, 2011 |
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Jul 22, 2011 20:08
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Well here's hoping she gets murdered at her own personal Red Wedding that could have been avoided if she hadn't split idiot hairs about "ugh he saved me from that assassin but he LIED about why!!" and I don't have to read her boring rear end povs anymore
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Jul 22, 2011 22:49
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Limp Wristed Limey posted:Maybe he should plunge the sword into his daughter instead, she does sound a bit of a mong. Nice, lil bit of the ol' casual racism to spice things up.
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Jul 23, 2011 19:30
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I for one hope that little nig Tyrion gets what's coming to him. What? Racism? Me?
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Jul 23, 2011 20:06
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Limp Wristed Limey posted:Haha sorry to break it to you but sometimes words have different meanings in different countries. You will have to take off your Captain Anti-Racist costume now Heh. Sorry you found that offensive thing I said about a disabled character offensive. Try being European, mayhaps??
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Jul 23, 2011 20:39
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The Aberrant posted:Jesus Christ this book's ending was disappointing. Just as things are starting to ramp up, welp sorry dudes gotta wait another 6 years for any closure. We've got Stannis who may or may not be dead, Jon who may or may not be dead, Dany who's just been located, Tyrion who's started cooking up some scheme, and those are just a few amongst the many plot threads which he couldn't be bothered to tie up. He's a bad writer and incapable of building dramatic tension other than "IS YOUR FAVOURITE CHARACTER DEAD? BUY MY NEXT BOOK AND FIND OUT!" if you don't like it at this point pull the cord on the series bro
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Jul 25, 2011 02:56
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There's been five books leading up to winter, each purporting to build a sense of dread and fear about what a harrowing and trying thing winters are for Westeros, in many places it's been hinted that this will be an especially dark and long one can't wait to see how that's handled within the course of one book. dany isn't even in westeros yet. grrm has no idea what he's doing in the series.
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Jul 25, 2011 04:20
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Chainsawdomy posted:Oh I have no problem with Roose(well, he's a terrible person, but I mean as a character). I'm perfectly in favor of him as an extended villain over the course of several books. Ramsay on the other hand, just makes me roll my eyes. There's more cliffhangers than there are definite or knowable storylines right now and it's because he doesn't know how to build dramatic tension otherwise. It's been a problem throughout the series and is getting worse. Also no one could criticize you if you DID have hesitations about there being another two books or whatever because there's no loving way that the series will finish in two books at anything even close to the current rate Rapey Joe Stalin posted:
yeah it's not that they're out of place anachronisms in a book mostly written in common day vernacular it's just that people are so "dumb" that they haven't seen the word "whilst" before. you are the one who is smart. you are smarter than all of us. Guys why are you complaining about him using forsooth and fortnight? They're real words!! *links relevant wikipedia page, leans way back in chair, eats a lil bit of glue* "whilst" loving sticks out because it sounds like something a person decrying "the stupids" on an internet messageboard would pride himself on using and not something an actual professional writer who worries about things like "rhythm" and "sound" and "meaning" would use. complaining about it isn't contrived or stupid at all sorry (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 5, 2011 06:52
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If the tales coming up the kingsroad could be believed, the King's Hand had been murdered by his dwarf son whilst sitting on a privy. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry. use of language, pretty much a wash. grrm, master of English and of "whilst"
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Aug 5, 2011 07:10
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