It just shouldn't be the be-all-end-all of the genre.
Thing is, people like Martin or Rowling seem to write in order to do popular.
SoIaF was extremely popular long before the TV Series. So that is not it.On the D&D newest edition forums that has been raised as an example for random character deaths - and so many people refute it, saying all the characters in game of thrones who die (ie, the ones they think are important) all die really big, important deaths and have plot immunity until they die that way.
I guess what Martin did well was a) the shock-value aka killing characters, even protagonists, offhandedly and b) characterization and dialogue.
All that being said, I would still like to fist fight Martin.Thus is the TRUE mark of great fantasy!
All that being said, I would still like to fist fight Martin.Thus is the TRUE mark of great fantasy!
No matter how many you sell, if no one wants to punch you in the face over it, you were nothing...
SoIaF was extremely popular long before the TV Series. So that is not it.On the D&D newest edition forums that has been raised as an example for random character deaths - and so many people refute it, saying all the characters in game of thrones who die (ie, the ones they think are important) all die really big, important deaths and have plot immunity until they die that way.
I guess what Martin did well was a) the shock-value aka killing characters, even protagonists, offhandedly and b) characterization and dialogue.
It's interesting to both A: be on the off handedly side of the fence and B: to even see the off handed/'no wae it was a big, important death!' fence that divides both notions.
My question was an honest one ;) I just was not sure if you agree with me or not. And if you did not agree with me i wanted to add to my post. But i guess as you largely agree, i'm good ;DWell, if you have a just world fallacy about the real world...it's even easier to cast one around a fantasy world.
On a more serious note: If your theory about those people is true, i find it hilarious. Because SoIaF is definitely about the world NOT being just and "oh how nice"! If you need such a novel, read something else, right?! I mean, how can anyone not see that.
And lol...big public execution is now something important and big?Because it just haaaas to be?
Now i am curious how they explain their fuzzy-warm-feeling into scenes like the red wedding or the fact that both Stark girls have very harsh fates etc. etc. .They focus on Robb Stark's death (the red wedding was also referenced in the threads and described as some kind of epic moment)
Care to link me to the thread you mentioned on the other forum?I wish I could - it'd be good to show them directly, but I can't find the damn threads and google can't seem to find them. I'll see if I feel evil and actually bring up the topic in a new thread there at some point. If so, I'll link it!
Kellais, I've enjoyed your perspective immensely, insofar as you've shared. Cheers - glad you decided to add your writ to our proceedings.
Lots of twists and turns (no one can say it's predictable).
It's very clear that GRRM is extremely passionate about his work and, if anything, is willing to sacrifice popularity for his own idea of "getting it right". I mean this is the same guy that made his fans wait ten years...ten years...to find out what happened to the characters that are generally considered the "most popular". He doesn't really seem like the type of dude who gives a fuck what people think of his shit.
So then we come to characters, dialogue, and plot. I would never really call his characters truly "realistic". They're almost a dramatized version of a realistic portrayal. I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah. It's like he takes small details from certain characters (generally their flaws) and then amplifies them. In a weird way, he reminds of Quentin Tarantino. Excellent pacing. Lots of twists and turns (no one can say it's predictable). Colorful characters with amusing, gripping dialogue. Deliciously evil villains. It's like the typical "style over substance", except it's so incredibly stylized that there is legitimate substance to it.Sometimes I watch the TV version of Horrible Histories. And it gets me over and over again - how all the camping it up and going overboard - I keep just about rejecting it as simply hamming for attention. And then over and over, I realise that no matter how hammy and overboard they go, it's still a (if simplified/impressionistic version) of actual real world events. The perversity that no matter how hammy they get, how over excentuated they represent a character, that it's still relatively factual is really jarring!
It's very clear that GRRM is extremely passionate about his work and, if anything, is willing to sacrifice popularity for his own idea of "getting it right".I wonder if this long pause in writing is part of that - a deliberate shooting himself in the foot? Particularly given alot of people would not have followed him to begin with and yet are quite vocal about getting the new book?
Maybe he is, but I have a hard time believing that the HBO series wasn't simply for entertainment and money. Don't get me wrong, if I had the chance, I'd sure as hell take that contract too. Its basically free money. It just doesn't scream "artistic protagonism" lol.
Maybe GRRM is one of the last stands of artistic protagonism in a world drenched with entertainment - a last stand of the artist coming before.
Maybe GRRM is one of the last stands of artistic protagonism in a world drenched with entertainment - a last stand of the artist coming before.
Depends how much they violated the artwork - I haven't actually seen the series. How much did they change in the name of entertainment?Maybe he is, but I have a hard time believing that the HBO series wasn't simply for entertainment and money. Don't get me wrong, if I had the chance, I'd sure as hell take that contract too. Its basically free money. It just doesn't scream "artistic protagonism" lol.
Maybe GRRM is one of the last stands of artistic protagonism in a world drenched with entertainment - a last stand of the artist coming before.
Maybe GRRM is one of the last stands of artistic protagonism in a world drenched with entertainment - a last stand of the artist coming before.
I'm glad at least someone got what I was trying to say.
Maybe GRRM is one of the last stands of artistic protagonism in a world drenched with entertainment - a last stand of the artist coming before.
I'm glad at least someone got what I was trying to say.
Not sure if the rest of us didn't understand what you were trying to say...i think it was more of a "we do not agree".
And i am with Wilshire here on account of the series and why Martin said "yes" to that project. I totally understand that decision, don't get me wrong...and i am also not damning any author who sells his/her books for tv or cinema...just to be clear. I'd do it as well if i had a novel hollywood would want to buy from me.
But i laugh into the face of anyone who tries to convince me that such a step was taken so as to ensure or expand the artistic value/horizon/what-have-you of ones work and property.
But i laugh into the face of anyone who tries to convince me that such a step was taken so as to ensure or expand the artistic value/horizon/what-have-you of ones work and property.Just as much as the books are duplicated, the TV show just seems a duplication (that's why I ask about them changing things - to see if its not really a duplication)
So you're saying the books were originally written without a hope of recompense (though surely the latter books in this case would have had signs of sales?) but the TV series was definately going to be a paid thing?
If you read my last post closely, i said that if you write books, you cannot be sure you'll be paid for them.True, but this doesn't tell us what intent the author had in writing it. That the author might not get paid doesn't automatically mean they weren't writing with hope of financial recompense. But it is possible.
Hmm...It just takes 1 wearing a trinket though...
Many.
Achamian's strategy of just letting them encompass his wards (as per Eskeles and Sorweel) and then using the Compass of Noshainrau seems pretty devastating.
Replace her with an armed Javreh-like group of four or something.Awesome. Though they might need to be midget Javreh or children (genetic engineering or training from birth). Mimara was sitting/crouching to fit inside the wards... Maybe Kellhus developed new cants, that take a whole choir, that creates a large ward radius. I'm picturing the big shield generator things at the send of Star Wars Episode I.
Also, now I want to go through Game of Thrones and TSA for all instances of genitalia. South Park makes it clear that people see an over-representation of dick in GoT.
Lol - All the deaths in "A Song of Ice and Fire" sticky-noted [no spoilers] (http://imgur.com/X5JznsJ).I'll cop to the fact that what Ramsey does to fArya and Theon semi onscreen is far worse a grimdark violation than any thought-crime Kalbear et al has accused Bakker of for having his female characters all be whores (and the especial crime of being whores who sometimes think about their past life, is there no greater sin than this!?)
Now let's compare instances of rape across "grimdark" authors ;)...
Lol - All the deaths in "A Song of Ice and Fire" sticky-noted [no spoilers] (http://imgur.com/X5JznsJ).I'll cop to the fact that what Ramsey does to fArya and Theon semi onscreen is far worse a grimdark violation than any thought-crime Kalbear et al has accused Bakker of for having his female characters all be whores (and the especial crime of being whores who sometimes think about their past life, is there no greater sin than this!?)
Now let's compare instances of rape across "grimdark" authors ;)...(click to show/hide)
...
That being said. The Who are the dunyain epilogue is the most grim dark of grim darkness ever to grim a dark. Horrifying fucking awful awfulness. bone shuddering bad.
Hype is hype, right?Reminds me of the post about a review of Disciple Manning, where the reviewer said he had a flatulence problem. Scott said he only farts twice in the book.
I only want to do it because I think there would be very few (across either series) certainly fewer than people think. Like the 'dick bias' lockesnow proposed in the South Park thread, where our perceived experience of dick frequency is augmented by an order of... three, or something. And proportionate to your homophobia or misogyny (this is my adlib ;)).