A Song of Ice and Fire [2]

Forest Shepherd wrote:I do not currently have the pleasure of understanding you good sir! Please reiterate your points in a manner more conducive to my muddled understanding. 

I think Blue covered it.

No news on Winds of winter.

(Although, I guess that's anything Game of thrones related out of my life until there is. (There's always a silver lining..) )

Are you going to be skipping season 6 then? I know I had considered doing that but I think my curiosity will win out.

Oh, definitely. And not only because of potential spoilers. Not really because of spilers at all. Mostly because, however much I disliked season 5 at the time, the more i think of it the more it stands out as an appalling piece of television. When I don't think it outright bad, I tend to find it either ethically problematic or offensive. In hindsight I think I disagree with every major storytelling decision they made. Like.. you can almost go storyline for storyline..

Dorne: They reduced Dorne to a collection of stereotypes of otherness and foreignness for Jamie and Bronn to have a bro-trip to an exotic location to. Dornish women are all sex crazy, and Dornish men are snakes. (It's good they bought into all the stereotypes of the books, not realizing you are actually meant to see past them to the realities.) Add that to removing the prominent, female, protagonist of the storyline, for.. I don't even know. It was.. offensive. Both quality and morals wise.

Winterfell: Another storyline from the books they apparently loved, and couldn't wait to get on screen. Which seems odd, because the only aspect of the book storyline was.. the rape. So, one has to assume that was the part of it they loved. Also they made very sure to push home the rape with, despite lacking any semblance of logic, transplanting another main character from her own storyline, just to serve as a foil for the Winterfell characters. (They actually made Sansa's rape about Theons reaction..) It was.. disgusting. Truly a horrible piece of writing. I'm actually sorry I saw as much of it as i did.

Tyrion: A purgatory like voyage of self discovery is turned into a slightly moping trip across  Essos. The writer also makes sure we are very aware we know just how a good pur protagonist is. Remember in this storyline he only killed his ex-lover who had betrayed him in self defense. It was all very justified. We have Varys telling him how amazing he is at every turn. Just to hammer it home. We have sex slaves offering I'm free sex, which he refuses because he's just such a good guy. He is treated as the proverbial gift at his arrival in Mereen, and taken straight into Daenerys confidence. Never mind any.. logic. Oh, and he has a big penis! (They made sure to tell us that.. a couple of times.)

Mereen: Daenerys is made a passenger in her own storyline, and a damsel in distress at the pivotal moment in Daznak's Pit. (Rather than have Daenerys climb into the Pit get on Drogons back and fly off, she has to be saved by some men first, and then bundled on the dragons back for her own safety.) Never mind her being the protagonist of it all in the book.

In King's Landing Cersei is Tywins son, in every meaning of the word. Political maneuverer par excellence, except when she makes uncalled for blunders, like arming the faith out of nowhere, who only cares deeply for her family. She is just so unfairly put upon by all the horrible people around her.

Olly..

Oh, i can't go on (although I could). Other than to say I'm sorry i watched season 5, and I'll definitely not be inflicting season 6 on myself, not even for it's train wreck quality, knowing the kind of writing these guys can come up with when they are on their own with regards to subject matter from the original story. (Although it is good to recall that writing behind lines like "You want the good girl, but you need the bad pussy." is Emmy award winning now.)

I'm not quite as negative on season five as you are, but I don't think I could really say I enjoyed watching it.  I'm still curious to see where it goes and part of me wonders if they will get even a little better.  Plus I'm invested in the world ... so basically the same reasons I kept watching The Legend of Korra after Book 2.

Wait, was I talking about why I should watch S6?

{{{Real talk: much as I disliked a lot of stuff about Korra, I'd still rate every season of it higher than GOT S5. Well, maybe not Book 2, but otherwise yeah.}}}

Yeah, I definitely don't mean to rain on the parade of anyone wanting to keep watching. I just don't think I am after season 5. To be honest season 5 was a real chore in hindsight. Not only was I falling out of love with a show I used to love, (season 4 showed a lot of signs of what was to come, but I was still hopeful) I also got to discover it was now one of the worst written shows on television and just what sort of people had been writing it from the get go.

So, good luck for anyone who'll decide to keep watching. Myself, i'm kind of relieved that I don't have to.

(Yeah, I never really warmed to LoK either. It was never as well written as Avatar, and it's issues really followed it throughout. I don't know, there's probably to many reasons for that to get into here, but I don't think it ever trawled the depths of the "We loved this storyline/rape" Game of Thrones season 5.)

George R.R. Martin in 1981 wrote:If I were really cynical I would start some medieval sword and sorcery thing, say it's a trilogy, then keep writing it for the rest of my life.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/3hjekh/no_spoilers_grrm_to_dan_simmons_in_1981_if_i_were/



So yeah, GRRM officially announced last night that he won't have finished TWOW before S6. I was already expecting it to be published in 2017 at the earliest so I can't say I'm surprised. He talks about it pretty frankly here:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/465247.html

And I think his complain about the "no pages" report was a reference to this piece on Deadspin, which has the following epic quote:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/grrm-has-no-pages-1750057530

this dude [Martin] has put out one unfinished book since the Clinton presidency

Martin could take another 10 years to write the final 2 books. I think its time we realised the tv show is going to be a completely separate entity to the books from now on.

I don't believe that there are only going to be two more books, even. But yeah, 5-6 years is the bare minimum I can see each one taking.

Cripes. Get a flippin' move on.

I think he has a storyline arc that even he can't stretch out over another book. We'll see Dany making her move at the end of the next book, and it will play out in the final book.

Martin has said that he doesn't really outline and has only a general sense of how the story is going to wrap up. But if you like at the original concept of ASOIAF as a trilogy, we're still not to the end of the second part. The first book ended up being three, and AFFC/ADWD were basically one book split into two, but even then, the actual conclusion got lopped off (hence the "Martin has published part of one book in the past 15 years). He was still introducing new characters and major plot points in Dance, and I'm not convinced he'll stop doing that, but even if he does I don't see him possibly covering all the ground he has left in a mere two volumes.

It's a shame, but no big surprise really. The decisions that lead us here were made two, three, four years ago. When Game of Thrones blew up and became the biggest show on television George travelled the world on the back of it. Wining, dining, being celebrated. I don't think anyone can begrudge him that really. Something like that happens once in a lifetime.. to just about no one. But that's where the time went. That's the reason we have had to wait another five years, and will probably have to wait even longer for the next installment. As far as his book series was concerned, it was probably resting on your laurels too soon. But who can blame him for enjoying his success. At the end of the day, he owes his readers nothing. He owes no one anything. If anything setting these last minute deadlines seem to have done nothing to hinder him in his writing.

If anything I feel it's a shame because I can't wait to get on with the story. I just went through those early chapters from Dance and Feast and they are just amazing. The Captain of the Guards, Tyrion I, Cersei I, Jon I. Really stunning chapters. And I can't wait for the rest of the story. But I'll rather have it in Georges own time, to be honest. Than to have him rush it out.

he seems to have moved on from ASOIAF anyway. doesn't he have a new vampire story coming out.

Moved on? Meh. That seems going far too far for me. Read the blog post. His heart is definitely still in it, and no one is more let down the book won't be out before season 6 than him.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/465247.html

That he has other projects is neither something new, or surprising. He's always had other projects, but his involvement in those are far less than aSoIaF. (He is a producer on several projects, for instance.) I think it's pretty clear that will be his main endeavor in 2016.

Blog post on his other projects:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/464984.html

Btw, George interestingly used the fan made cover for tWoW for his blog post about it.

Oh, and..

Spoiler:

Something I found interesting while going trough the first Bran chapter in.. aFfCs or aDwDs.. is that Coldhands signifies the Night Watch men that follows Brans party as enemies. Now, we do know the Children are no friends of the Others. But still I found it strange that he would call them enemies. They would certainly have been a danger to Bran (probably being people who had fled Crasters Keep(?)), but enemies?

Maybe that does hint at some ambiguity in the Childrens role in the larger conflict?

I do really like that fan-made cover, it'll take a bit of adjusting when the actual one is revealed.

I took that bit with Coldhands as being mainly about the Night's Watch men being deserters, but I think a running theme in those chapters is the alienation between all humans and the various supernatural creatures on the far side of the Wall. Bran's journey isn't just covering physical distance but is taking him deeper into that non-human realm, what with the cannibalism and everything. I guess you could argue that it doesn't count since Bran was warged into summer (all but confirmed Jojenpaste notwithstanding), but I don't really buy that.

I'm planning on skipping all Bran chapters once he gets his ass north off the wall this time around - he's alot more endurable in the books, even interesting, but I never cared much for that particular storyline.

Hm, I'm not sure I remember too well what happens in those Bran chapters.

Spoiler:

So, I'm not sure I'd skip them myself.

(I must admit I'm skipping the Brienne chapters in my readthrough of Feast/Dance this time around though. )

Oh, the north of the Wall ones.

Well, yeah, the traveling part is a bit..

but I always thought it got really interesting when they actually arrived . (Although, the really interesting stuff will be in future books, I guess.)

Also, I've always loved those little glimpses of Bran you get in the other  storylines through the weirwood trees. A few moments start to crop up towards the end of what's currently released.  

"And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.
The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper,  “Theon.”
The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. “Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son ... a son of Pyke, of the islands.”
A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. “...Bran,” the tree murmured."
A ghost in Winterfell - A Dance of Dragons

"Except in dreams. She took a breath to quiet the howling in her heart, trying to remember more of what she’d dreamt, but most of it had gone already. There had been blood in it, though, and a full moon overhead, and a tree that watched her as she ran."
Mercy

Eldorion wrote:I do really like that fan-made cover, it'll take a bit of adjusting when the actual one is revealed.

Well, seeing as George likes it so much he's actually using it himself he could always slap down the money and say "Hey, kid. You're hired!" to whoever made it and actually use it.

Eldorion wrote:I took that bit with Coldhands as being mainly about the Night's Watch men being deserters, but I think a running theme in those chapters is the alienation between all humans and the various supernatural creatures on the far side of the Wall.  Bran's journey isn't just covering physical distance but is taking him deeper into that non-human realm, what with the cannibalism and everything.  I guess you could argue that it doesn't count since Bran was warged into summer (all but confirmed Jojenpaste notwithstanding), but I don't really buy that.

I guess that's as natural a reading of it, but I think it could still hint at the position of the Children isn't necessarily the one of the straight forward ally as it might seem from a surface reading of what's released. That they gave their own agenda.

As now. The elk stopped suddenly, and the ranger vaulted lightly from his back to land in knee-deep snow. Summer growled at him, his fur bristling. The direwolf did not like the way that Coldhands smelled. Dead meat, dry blood, a faint whiff of rot. And cold. Cold over all.
“What is it?” Meera wanted to know.
“Behind us,” Coldhands announced, his voice muffled by the black wool scarf across his nose and mouth.
“Wolves?” Bran asked. They had known for days that they were being followed. Every night they heard the mournful howling of the pack, and every night the wolves seemed a little closer. Hunters, and hungry. They can smell how weak we are. Often Bran woke shivering hours before the dawn, listening to the sound of them calling to one another in the distance as he waited for the sun to rise. If there are wolves, there must be prey, he used to think, until it came to him that they were the prey.
The ranger shook his head. “Men. The wolves still keep their distance. These men are not so shy.”
Meera Reed pushed back her hood. The wet snow that had covered it tumbled to the ground with a soft thump. “How many men? Who are they?”
“Foes. I’ll deal with them.”

Foes does seem a bit broad a term.

R+L=J fans, read it and weep.

Lord Godric rubbed his chin. “Still ... in this world only winter is certain. Ned Stark told my father that, here in this very hall.”
“Ned Stark was here?”
“At the dawn of Robert’s Rebellion. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark’s head, but Jon Arryn sent him
back defiance. Gulltown stayed loyal to the throne, though. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught them on the way. The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn.

Weren't there a bunch of people in Dorne who were equally convinced that Jon Snow's mother was Dornish?  Plus there was that guy on one of the Sisters.