A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Spoiler-Filled Discussion

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Out Of My Vulcan Mind, Apr 21, 2011.

  1. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Well, book Daxos and show Daxos have absolutely nothing in common apart from the name. One is a gaunt, pale, white, homosexual that ends his time in A Clash of Kings somewhat amicably with Dany... and one is a big black guy that loves fucking chicks, openly wears villainous intentions, and is presumably killed by Dany.

    Oh, Season 2.
     
  2. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    It's not like Dany really HAD a story in S2. She just wanders around Qarth not accomplishing much of anything.

    Wouldn't work for TV. Neither would her visions in the House of the Undying.
     
  3. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Do you think everything in the show is better? The Qarth plot wasn't even adapted for television beyond the names of things.

    I jumped ship from the Avers A Game of Thrones audiobook as the sound quality was so poor, so now I've switched teams to Roy Dotrice.

    His Tyrion is fucking brilliant. A much closer voice to the one I'd always imagined, and pretty much the opposite of Peter Dinklage's posh accent. Tyrion should talk like somebody the characters would underestimate, like Claudius in I, Claudius. His other voices are odd though, Arya sounds like an old lady.

    Also, after Book 5, this book seems to have somewhat lightning pacing. I'm 150 pages in and a ton of things have happened, with every chapter advancing or developing the plot.
     
  4. Lapis Exilis

    Lapis Exilis Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I've listened to all of them on audio books and I found Dotrice's interpretation in ADwD to be pretty odd - he suddenly gives Dany a somewhat Scottish/ cockney accent which seems very off and which I don't remember from the earlier books.

    And I had the opposite impression of AFfC and ADwD as everybody else. I thought DwD dragged and not much happened, whereas I was very engaged with FfC.

    Having finally finished all the books, I've been poking around at Westeros.org and have been shocked to discover much Dany hate, and much Stannis love. Am I just in my own little ASoIaF world, 'cause that's not even close to the way I feel about those characters?? Dany is flawed for sure - but who isn't in this story? At least she seems to be actively learning, which is why I like her. And the number of people advocating for Stannis as the best ruler Westeros could hope for just blows my mind. Yeah, I want the guy being led around by the nose by the mad religious zealot...
     
  5. Rowan Sjet

    Rowan Sjet Commodore Commodore

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    Heh, expect to find a lot of people disagree with you on that.
     
  6. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    The Dany hatred has nothing to do with her in-universe character flaws, and almost entirely stems from her writing in ADWD, where she acts nothing like she did in the previous books, and is given an excruciatingly tedious stay at Meereen. She easily ranks as the least liked major character by fans after the last book.

    I count the troika of Stannis/Melisandre/Davos as one of my favourite things about ASOIAF. Dunno how anybody couldn't love 'em. However, on Westeros there are a lot of Stannis fans that act like retarded meatheads. They white-wash the character to a ridiculous extent, claiming him as a "hero to all men" and all sorts of other nonsense. I love Stannis because he's complicated and well-written. His black-and-white sense of justice is obviously not a desired means of government however, and the comedy of errors he had with the wildlings was hilarious. I love how he considers Val to be a princess.

    The only king I'd follow in real life would be Mance Rayder. He's somebody that became a leader through skill and respect, not a family bloodline.
     
  7. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think a lot of people forget when reading ADWD that Dany is a teenage girl, one who was given far too much burden and too much power at a far too young age. She went through the wringer, lost everything she ever knew twice and now, finally, is given a moment to linger on who it is she is becoming and what she actually wants out of life. So really, I can't bring myself to judge her too harshly for her behavior or her change in character.
     
  8. Ayelbourne

    Ayelbourne Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Good thing Victarion is on his way with a huge fleet.
    She just needs to get rid of the faux vikings once they've killed her enemies for her.
     
  9. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Ack, but Victarion's POV chapters were so much more interesting than Dany's.
     
  10. Lapis Exilis

    Lapis Exilis Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I agree that the whole Meereen stay was painful, but I think that's because Dany's initiation has always been painful. It was no more tedious than the trek through the Red Waste and it's all towards forging her as a great (maybe) leader. But folks were complaining just as much about her behavior in regards to Astapor and Yunkai as Meereen. Granted she is stumbling about a lot, but, as she herself frequently acknowledges, she doesn't know what she's doing.

    I find Melisandre and Davos really interesting. Stannis is a boring stick in the mud who can't seem to think for himself. Bleah. Even as scary as Melisandre is, I'd pick her as a leader before Stannis. At least she has her own plan and isn't all - hey, my brother stole the throne and now it's mine. Why? 'Cause law is law is law is law is...zzzzz...

    See that's why I like Dany. She's got the bloodline, but she's pretty clear on the fact that it doesn't mean she knows how to rule and she needs to learn how to be a good queen.
     
  11. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Disagree, I think Dany is one of the most deluded, entitled characters in the series. She has no first hand memories or experience of Westeros, yet wishes to rule. She claims to be anti-slavery, yet plans to conquer Westeros by force and have everybody bend the knee to her. She "trains" to become a good queen by using brown people as guinea pigs.

    She's full of shit and I can't wait for reality to hit her in the face. That's what makes her a good character for me.
     
  12. Brendan Moody

    Brendan Moody Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Dany is certainly going to get to Westeros eventually. Martin has said so on more than one occasion, even confirming that there'll be a second Dance of the Dragons (Targaryen civil war), presumably between her and "Aegon." I don't think she was ever going to get there very early in the overall story, though; from the way he describes the outline of the series as a trilogy, it sounds like she wouldn't have reached Westeros until the end of book two, and when the series was six books she wasn't going to get there until sometime in book five.

    There's disproportionate fan hate for all the major female characters, except Brienne and Arya, who are close enough to traditional male heroism that fanboy sexism doesn't come into play.
     
  13. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Judging by the Westeros forums.. fans hate every character? I've seen huge hate-wagons for Bran, Jon, Catelyn, Ned, Jaime, Sansa, Arya, Robb, Tyrion...

    Everybody.

    Loads of fans hate Sansa but she's one of my favourites, I think some of George's best writing is found in her chapters. Especially the Eyrie stuff. Really melancholic.

    Loads of people on Westeros don't seem to get the series. They'll hate characters for doing bad things, and only like the characters they whitewash in to being "good guys". I'm currently banned for a week due to finally snapping at a Stannis fanboy called E-Ro.

    And I love Stannis. I just don't feel the need to whitewash him so much he doesn't even resemble the character of Stannis Baratheon. He's obviously not a "good guy". He's a character who's moral absolutism frequently tip him between making likable and unlikable decisions. He's not some flawless 2-dimensional paragon of good.
     
  14. Brendan Moody

    Brendan Moody Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, one of the things that baffles me about Westeros.org is how fans of a series that's consciously intended to be as morally ambiguous as possible will bend over backwards to whitewash their favorites and demonize their least favorites. The Catelyn and Sansa hate is possibly the most baffling, but the blind love for Tyrion, Jon, and Dany is up there too. I once saw a Dany fan accuse those who criticized the character's actions of "defending slavery." Ah, no.
     
  15. Shurik

    Shurik Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Don't judge those things by the reaction of Westeros.org people.

    After all, it's a forum run by a guy whose reviews of the TV show can be summarized by "such and such is not verbatim from the books, therefore it's bad. OMG GRRM IS A GENIUS" and whose significant other, to put it very very mildly, doesn't know how to behave on the Internet and didn't read the last 1/3 of ASOS until recently because apparently she's very squeamish about violence or something like that.

    IMO, this topic is a much better place to discuss ASOIAF than Westeros.org. Also, there are other places to do it.
     
  16. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I actually like that Westeros is more critically minded and literarily purist about the populist TV show than say.. this forum and its gushing attitude towards the JJ Abrams Star Trek films, at the expense of bashing old Trek.

    Elio totally sucks GRRM's cock though.

    It's just a strange way of viewing fiction. I don't love Jaime Lannister because he's the kinda guy I'd wanna hang out with. I love reading his chapters because he's a fascinating character. Dany is probably nicer but.. she's nowhere near as interesting. I hate that people evaluate the worth of fictional characters by how nice they are. It's so weird.

    I'm not a big Dany fan, but she's fascinating in Book 1. Shame is that her entire character arc for the series seemingly finishes in the final chapter of that book. She's never remotely as interesting again.
     
  17. Lapis Exilis

    Lapis Exilis Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Interesting - and a very defendable position, I think. I agree that she has a healthy dose of "I'm a queen by birth, and will rule people, one way or another." But that is also the general culture of the whole world - some folks are rulers and everyone else is ruled. Stannis is likewise looking to conquer Westeros by force and have everyone bend the knee. The Lannisters are already there on that score -though less by force than by cunning since Cersei knows quite well that her children aren't the rightful rulers by any law or custom.

    However, Dany's nearly the only character vying for the throne that we've seen give consideration to what justice actually is and how to mete it out. Stannis believes he already knows what justice is and that confidence, while I can see its appeal, reads to me as dangerous.

    As for her "using brown people as guinea pigs" - the whole series suffers from a healthy dose of Orientalist racism. That's more an issue with Martin than any of his characters. I think Dany is working with who she has to hand. She thinks constantly of the former slaves as her children. Granted that's paternalism (or rather maternalism) reminiscent of the slave culture of the American South, but it's not like she's thinking of the Essosi as any more inferior than the small folk of Westeros. That is, she's an equal opportunity classist.


    I'm just dipping my toes into the ASoIaF fan culture since I only just finished the books - so this is an interesting observation. One of the things I really like about Martin's work is that he manages to create fully realized female characters who are true to the limitations placed on women in a warrior culture and who are completely as interesting as the male characters and I would imagine this is part of the appeal of the books across the board. I know it has certainly been a big thing for all the female fantasy fans I know who are into the books or HBO series.
    Eh, it always seems that way because part of the fun of geeking out on a forum is to be wildly passionate about your opinions.

    I agree - while I find her naivete tiresome at times, that is her limitation, just like every other character has theirs.


    Good point, though I still find him much less interesting than the cast of characters surrounding him. His moral absolutism reminds me of my dad, which is probably why he can rub me the wrong way sometimes!
     
  18. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Wow, I'd forgotten how imaginative and beautiful Bran's first dream was in the book.

    Dull as fuck in the show. He just.. walks towards a raven?
     
  19. CaptainCanada

    CaptainCanada Admiral Admiral

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    Stannis on the TV show, sure, but book Stannis is perfectly capable of thinking for himself. That's the big difference between them -- Stannis in the books is aware that Mel has her own agenda and is openly skeptical of her power, whereas Stannis in the show just does whatever she says.
     
  20. Shurik

    Shurik Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Well, I'm not a purist and I like the TV show, so I would probably get banned from there in about 10 seconds for saying that show's versions of some events were very good and not destroyed the books or something.