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. Klaus

    Klaus Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I loved that story when I read it way back when, especially as it's such a mirror-universe version of one of the best sf stories ever written imho, "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon.

    I've thought of GRRM as "the guy who wrote 'Sandkings'" for years...
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2013
  2. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Grab Dreamsongs 1 and 2. While not everything is up there with A Song for Lya or Sandkings, there is plenty to make the occasional thuds worth reading through.
     
  3. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Great, he is pathetic. That misses the point of him entirely. Renly should have been the man we all wanted to be King. A stilled warrior, a charmer, all muscles and royal swagger. The picture of a fantasy king. Instead, by the time he confronts Stannis he just looks like a whiny kid and I couldn't wait for the shadow baby to do him in.
     
  4. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I actually think Renly was pretty well cast, but his character wasn't translated right to screen. I also hate how Stannis doesn't particularly care Renly is dead, whereas in the books he suffered horrible nightmares afterwards and regretted his decision.


    I plan on reading all of GRRM's work over the course of this year. I haven't been this obsessed with an author's work since I got hooked on Robert A Heinlein.
     
  5. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I didn't care for the casting of Robert or Renly myself, but Addy managed to pull off his character well enough at least.
     
  6. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    For all the many faults the show has, I think the majority of the casting decisions are superb. I hope we get the guy who played The Mountain in Season 1 for the Red Viper duel though, instead of the Season 2 guy. He didn't fit the role.
     
  7. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Conan Stevens was busy filming The Hobbit movies, so it is possible he will be back. He wasn't very memorable in his one or two scenes other than to strike me as considerably less imposing compared to Stevens and playing the part too. . . 'normal'. He could almost be retconned as a different character entirely if they didn't call him the Mountain.
     
  8. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    The point of Renly in the books is that he was all flash and no substance. Everyone just saw him as this charming guy because they didn't bother looking past the surface, whereas folks who DID see him past the surface (and weren't in love with him) saw him as more inadequate. IE, a lot like Robert actually.

    TV Renly was more human and sympathetic, instead of just being Robert 2.0 (which made him kind of pointless).

    Stannis did feel bad over Renly in the show, we saw how after Davos left the tent he looked sad (for Stannis) and later on he was horrified when he finally admitted "I murdered my brother!".

    Compared to Book Stannis, who is mentioned having some bad dreams and some musings over a peach.
     
  9. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    What? In the books, Stannis was deeply traumatised over Renly's death. He couldn't sleep.
     
  10. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    Bad dreams and some musings over a peach?

    One of the most haunting character moments in the series and way more powerful than just explicitly saying, "I killed my brother! That is sad."
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2013
  11. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Renly was the embodiment of the "Knights of Summer," but he was also clever and handsome and charming and not unskilled as a knight. He was playing at being Robert 2.0 because that is what the people wanted. That fantasy of a King. He wouldn't have been a good king (at least not soon enough to be of any good) because he wasn't prepared for the hard decisions, but they threw that layered approach away and just made him 'sympathetic'.
     
  12. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    That is some seriously brilliant writing. How anybody could write it off in favour of generic HBO shlock is beyond my comprehension.

    I suppose Loras and Renly's shaving scene was better written? :rolleyes:
     
  13. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Well, I guess I just never really saw it that way. I basically took Donal Noye's assessment of him to heart (Copper, flashy but worthless) and there really is no proof Renly was any good as a warrior.

    Granted, the show also made Stannis into this incredible warrior (which the books say nothing of).

    This is just Stannis evading his guilt, he refuses to accept he had anything to do with the Shadow monster and just excuses it as mere dreams he was having.

    For the life of me, I'll never get why folks hated the shaving scene so much. I suppose you hated that bit with Robert and Cersei as well where they both come off as 3-D humans in a loveless marriage laughing over the absurdity of it all?
     
  14. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Because instead of letting them develop as characters normally and then revealing that yes, they are also gay, they are instead just thrown at us with these very modern hollywood homosexual sensibilities. It emasculates them, makes Renly look weak and sulky and Loras look like a manipulative bitchy queen. Look at how they did Omar on The Wire almost a decade ago. There is no gay culture in Westeros, these men were raised amongst men, and masculine warriors at that. It is the only culture they know and they would reflect that culture no matter who they like to fuck. That is why the shaving scene is such bullshit, it redefined the characters with entirely different personalities and then placed them in their own little homosexual bubble.

    Omar, man.
     
  15. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I don't like it because it's a shallow attempt at cable TV titillation and edginess. The first season is absolutely full of exposition scenes set during a sex act.

    I'm a huge fan of Victarion Greyjoy and his weird red priest buddy Moqorro. Haven't been particularly enjoying the Meereen plot-arc chapters but Victarion's have been a joy. Hope he comes out on top in the next book, if there is a next book.
     
  16. CaptainCanada

    CaptainCanada Admiral Admiral

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    Renly was a capable tourney fighter in the books, we're told.
     
  17. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    All we really see of him at Tourneys is him losing and joking about it.
     
  18. Venardhi

    Venardhi Vice Admiral Admiral

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    No one ever said he was the best. Everyone has their off days.
     
  19. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    So, I finished A Dance With Dragons.

    The Good

    - Theon's story. Up there with the best of GRRM's writing.

    - Bran's chapters, I just wish we'd gotten a greater amount. More happened in his 3 chapters than in all 10 of Dany's or 12 of Tyrion's.

    - More Melisandre than before. I heart that red bitch so damn much, was great to get a POV.

    - Davos's chapters. Wonderfully atmospheric, wish he hadn't vanished from the second half of the book like Bran did.

    - Tormund's constant knob jokes.

    - Victarion Greyjoy is a slowly becoming a favourite POV of mine. Absolute psycho, in the most hilarious way. I hope he manages to bag himself a dragon and get his vengeance on Euron.

    - Quentyn Martell. I found it tragically funny and nihilistic that I had to read a virginal loser travelling all that way, just to get horrifically killed.

    - Moqorro was a great addition.

    - King's Landing stuff was all excellent.

    - Dany's final 2 chapters were far superior to her earlier ones and genuinely gripping.

    - Barristan Selmy was a great POV.

    The Bad

    - The pacing. A huge chunk of this book contains nothing of interest happening in Essos/Slaver's Bay, causing the storytelling momentum to completely die.

    - Everybody in Slaver's Bay acts the same and has a similar name. It makes the chapters an incredibly trying read.

    - George ran out of space for the two battles which the entire book had been leading up to because he gave us an insane amount of pointless chapters. It'd be like if in A Clash of Kings he had to cut the Battle of Blackwater because he'd given 10 POV chapters to Hot Pie. A ludicrous misjudgment of pacing and audience patience.

    - Too many fake deaths, to the point it became repetitive. Though the real death of Kevan was surprisingly powerful and classic GRRM melancholia.

    - Daario, go suck a dick.

    It was a well-written book for the most part, but the pacing makes it underwhelming compared to the more consistent first 4 books. With the Essos chapters condensed to a more sane length, I'd rank it as about equal to A Feast For Crows maybe but the sometimes excruciating tedium of Meereen means this ranks as the weakest ASOIAF has to offer. Though as this is probably my favourite series of books I've read, that isn't saying much. Still better than 90% of the stuff out there. Just hope GRRM's editor makes a better stand next time.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2013
  20. Brendan Moody

    Brendan Moody Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Seriously. It's easily the biggest structural flaw in the series to date. That Martin had to skip around the battle at Winterfell to get to the end of Jon's story really underlines what a mess the book is.
    That would be the opposite of what you should want. Martin wanted to spend more time polishing the book and include both big battles, but was convinced by his editor to stop writing and publish the book as it was. The cynic in me says she cared more about riding the wave of initial TV show publicity (mission accomplished there) than about releasing a coherent novel. And that's not going to change with subsequent books.
    Yeah. It's not exactly a fake death, but the one that sticks out to me is Strong Belwas surviving the poison. I mean, why? This is starting to undermine the series' reputation for boldness, especially since Jon is obviously not going to die either.