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Sophia posted:That is incorrect. I am willing to concede some of the earlier books - though knowing where it's going, it's easy to look back and see the wheels coming off the wagon after Game of Thrones, sort of like how you can look back at the behavior of a boyfriend who's just gone completely off his rocker and think "oh yeah, that should have been a warning sign" - but ADWD was practically unreadable by published book standards. No semblance of a plot, or forward movement, or character growth, or interest, or cohesive storytelling. Just deconstruction after deconstruction, and how much more nihilism can I shove in there, and what can I do to these characters that will really be shocking. If he has a goal for the series as a whole, it was not apparent in what I read of that book. For me it feels like GRRM's character driven narrative and his commitment to trying to have the characters act in an organic and well 'in-character' manner sort of veered the story to off-course, but I personally enjoyed both AFFC and ADWD, probably cause I marathoned through the entire series so I never really paused to judge each book individually. One example of this is Dany's adventures in Meereen and her decision to stay there, while it can feel like a burdensome unnecessary addition to the story that draws Dany further away from the main events at Westeros it is however a pretty organic and in-chracter decision for Dany to make, furthermore that she considers ruling to be more than just her birthright but that she also has certain obligations to her subjects.
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Aug 16, 2012 16:36
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whowhatwhere posted:What do you mean was "beyond repair"? It was doing perfectly well (on its own terms) when it was one of the critical cogs in the slave trade. Sure, it was horribly evil, but it was functional, which is far more than you can say for Dany's Meereen. I don't think that's fair, GRRM doesn't really do 'moral relativism', by which I mean that while it's clear that some characters live by their own codes and act amorally we are expected to look down upon those characters. At the end of the day the 'good' characters are very liberal and appeal to 20th century moral values. While some characters point out to Dany that some of the freed slaves are so desperate they seek to sell themselves to slavery again at no point we're supposed to interpret Dany's decisions in her conquest of slaver's bay as immoral, if anything she makes moral decisions which work against her overall goals just because she feels obligated to them. Meereen, Yunkai and Astapor are evil places, they were spreading evil to the world for 5,000 years, a brief period of political instability and warfare cannot be viewed as too high a price for what Dany was trying to achieve.
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Aug 17, 2012 12:32
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I actually think that at the end of the day there are pretty clear 'categories' within the GRRMverse, some characters of course change over time but it's pretty clear at any given point whether a character's motivations are primarily moral, immoral or otherwise amoral. If an arbitrary listing is really necessary, good characters certainly include: Robb, Jon, Ned, Brienne, Catelyn, Jaime post-hand-severing, Dany (she stopped at the place to feed her huge freed-man horde, she had plenty provisions to march only her fighting men), Davos and of course Sam (and most of the non-treasonous nightwatch members).
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Aug 17, 2012 12:53
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Honestly I did feel that everything past ASOS will make a very poor TV adaptation, I don't think that the show-runners really expect to get past season 4 (or even 3). Charles Dance making GBS threads himself to death will probably be the last event on the TV show. They already ignored GRRM when he told them they shouldn't kill Mago cause he will reoccur in book 6.
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Aug 17, 2012 13:03
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Rape Jake. posted:They're cutting him. He always lets them cut him once.
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Aug 22, 2012 00:33
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TequilaJesus posted:Has the series ever made reference to the days being longer/shorter during the summer/winter, or does the temperature just change? It has, very specifically. The citadel measures the length of the days and when the days start getting shorter it officially declares the beginning of autumn and sends out the white ravens. Edit: Also, as far as we know the 'long night' was a one time event involving magic forces, in fact it is alluded to have been rather similar to what the events in the series are currently gearing for and it occured 4,000-8,000 years before the events of the series, humanity survived using magic and the help of the children of the forest. So there's really no reason to presume it's a semi regular event or that it is naturally occuring in any way, the last time it was night for years was the last time the white walkers marched openly against humanity, the children and the giants and as we know "they only come out in the dark & cold or else it gets dark & cold when they come out" so it's implied heavily that these events are linked. ... okay. emanresu tnuocca fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Aug 30, 2012 |
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Aug 30, 2012 00:03
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Cirofren posted:The wall is straight up a magic wall. It seems to have some wight/other blocking capability along with the ability to melt in every slightly warm day but still be around thousands of years later. Not really though, Inuits have survived conditions much harsher than that, there are actual glaciers where those dudes live, there are sub-arctic forests which should be pretty similar to the Also, the wildling population is pretty sparse and they were all pretty freaked out about the coming long winter, we should assume a great many of them die whenever there's a long winter. emanresu tnuocca fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Aug 30, 2012 |
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Aug 30, 2012 00:14
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Fatkraken posted:
I don't really remember all the specifics (nor do I find it implausible that GRRM pulled some poo poo out of his rear end) but it's not really described as perma snowing, and the characters do comment about it getting colder as the summer draws to an end even in the AGOT prologue.
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Aug 30, 2012 00:57
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Uhm, regarding the wall not all melting away, you guys do realize it's a huge loving glacier that might 'sweat' sometimes during the summer days (which are usually not 10 years long) but it also re-freezes during the night, moreover, a full one third of the Night Watch's power is dedicated to maintaining wall the and the castles. It's not that inconceivable for a douche bag like Brutus Marsh to pour a bucket of water on the top of the wall when it gets really cold. And yes it also has some magic, "Coldhands" couldn't get past it, if you guys recall.
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Aug 30, 2012 10:07
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Thulsa Doom posted:Oh, right, fratricide. Well, that was by proxy, it's not like he did it himself. He kinda did, it was 'his shadow' and he was probably warging it himself (although somewhat unconsciously).
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Aug 30, 2012 14:09
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Brianne and Arya also ruined poo poo for people, I resent the notion that GRRM considers women to be redeemable. Arya had three free kills from a faceless man, normally each worth about as much as Winterfell or something and she completely and utterly failed to do anything worthwhile with them that might save Robb.
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Aug 30, 2012 20:18
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What of TheWorldOfWesteros is a lot smaller than Earth but orbits closer to the sun which is smaller and fainter so the climatic differences between north and south aren't as drastic.  And we do know for certain that GRRM world has no axial tilt. And Magic. Personally I think that the world GRRM created is engaging and very interesting, even if it's just a climatically unrealistic ripoff of Europe tilted sideways.
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Aug 31, 2012 10:16
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The battle at the fist being omitted really sucks, the night watch dudes just marching in an organized fashion catching up with Sam who should be what... 500 meters from where the fighting took place? In the book they're completely loving destroyed by the walkers and the wights and barely manage to make it out of there. I guess we'll get some dialog giving more details on the events at the fist when they're at Castors but really just getting the screams in the background when we're still unclear as to why the wights ignored Sam in the first place was disappointing.
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Apr 1, 2013 12:15
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There are about a hundred references to Theon "no longer being a man", Ramsey flayed his dick and then had Theon beg him to chop it off, it's pretty blatant.
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Apr 16, 2013 22:10
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The Riddle of Feel posted:Why does everyone make a big deal about Stanni's sword giving off no heat? It's lightbringer, not heatbringer. Because of Melisandre's 'Glimmer' magic, she can create visual illusions and manipulate light, it's not the real lightbringer.
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Apr 24, 2013 05:05
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I don't recall anyone in the books using "All men must die" as a greeting. Seems kind of stupid.
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May 6, 2013 15:58
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:That's a lot more radfem than just "all men die", man. Is Arya training to burn bras and demand the execution of all cock-havers? It's never translated as "All men die" in the books, it's always "All men must die" and Valar Dohaeris is always translated as "All men must serve". 
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May 6, 2013 21:43
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I just want to point out that Sam never says "I don't know what it is" re: dragonglass , Gilly asks him "What does it do?" and he says "I'm not sure it does anything". Him suffocating the fire was uncharacteristically stupid though.
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May 7, 2013 16:45
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Kavak posted:So this thing just showed up on my YouTube feed. All it's missing is a GRRM head. Why did they gently caress the melody so bad I don't get it. emanresu tnuocca fucked around with this message at 07:50 on May 20, 2013 |
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May 20, 2013 07:46
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Where was the purple veined mushroom shaped dick I ask?
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May 22, 2013 05:36
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He's from Norvos for fucks sake.
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May 22, 2013 12:46
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Not to mention that GRRM specifically said that the variation resulted from him messing up and forgetting how he previously described Jeyne. That theory is long dead. edit: yeah whatever.
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Jun 3, 2013 05:19
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Howland and the Crannogmen are known for using poisoned weapons, I don't really know why Howland had to Warg into people rather than just poison the poo poo out of them.
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Jun 4, 2013 12:23
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He knows a cat when he sees one.
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Jun 4, 2013 16:00
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Strife posted:One of the children of the forest, the one that has an actual name, says that Coldhands is very old. Benjen would only have been dead for a short period at this point. Nope, Leaf says "They killed him long ago", that's all she says, in response to Bran being concerned about the wights killing Coldhands.
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Jun 5, 2013 23:24
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Odds on Jaime dying in the beginning of TWOW? It seems inevitable with Brienne dragging him along to catch up with Catelyn.
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Jun 6, 2013 17:08
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God Emperor is the best dune novel. Wraps up the series pretty well.
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Jun 7, 2013 17:45
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If the Freys told the baby threaders that Robb and his army shapeshifted into wolves and attacked Walder at Edmure's wedding they'd totally buy it.
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Jun 7, 2013 22:01
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He's in the books and show Orell is actually more similar to Styr the Magnar than he is to Varamyr.
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Jun 9, 2013 08:42
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Beardless Riker posted:On the heels of the mod posts re: book discussion, can we just make it nice and simple and have an automatic probation for anyone who uses the phrase 'book reader' or any allusion to anything of the sort in this thread? I don't even care if they're spoiling something or not, it's getting really old with the 'oh I just have to let everyone know I read the books' stuff. Guess what - no one gives a poo poo and if you're not going to talk about the TV show and only the TV show you shouldn't be in this thread. If you know what happens, don't post anything speculative or eyebrow waggy at all. Just talk about what's happening right now or what has happened in the past, discuss character or plot development, how terrible the set was for that Yunkai fight, stuff like that. Post gifs of Hodor. Don't even say the B word. Shut it down.
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Jun 9, 2013 16:15
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Pfft, haven't you heard that reading the books would spoil the show? Why would you do that to yourself?
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Jun 10, 2013 03:40
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I think that the first season is on par or possibly better than the first book but the second one and particularly the third one really can't compare. All the idiots in the babby thread going "The prose is bad  , might as well enjoy a botched version of the story without all the BAD PROSE" are mental children.
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Jun 10, 2013 04:03
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Particularly that the post in question was literally this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdA6lQ6ymhU level of idiotic speculation
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Jun 11, 2013 05:12
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AFFC is a pretty good book aside from myrish swamp and fat pink mast.
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Jun 11, 2013 19:02
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GRRM, first of his name, subverter of tropes, breacher of contracts.
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Jun 11, 2013 19:20
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The Unsatiable, The Unkempt, Lord Paramount of Dungcock.
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Jun 11, 2013 19:43
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The seventh book being a 'meanwhile in sothoros' concurrent to the events of the AGOT could be the ultimate trope subversion.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:22
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As the gurm writes, but he was no gurm.
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Jun 12, 2013 04:00
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This thread must needs be forsaken lest its pages shall number seven and sixty and six hundred.
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Jun 12, 2013 04:24
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Dear Ser: I have been requested by the Summer Isle Obsidian Company to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. The Summer Isle Obsidian Company has recently concluded a large number of contracts for dragonglass exploration in the sub-Sothoros region. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equaling two million westerosi golden dragons. The Summer Isle Obsidian Company is desirous of dragonglass exploration in other parts of the world, however, because of certain decree of the summer islander tribal elder, it is unable to move these funds to another region. You assistance is requested as a non-summer isles resident to assist the Summer Isle Obsidian Company, in moving these funds out of the Summer Isles. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your iron bank account, then you can forward the funds as directed by the Summer Isle Obsidian Company. In exchange for your accommodating services, the Summer Isle Obsidian Company would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or two hundred thousand golden dragons of this amount. However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to Summer isle law, you must presently be a depositor of at least one hundred thousand golden dragons in a Summer isle bank which is regulated by the Central Bank of the Summer isles. If it will be possible for you to assist us, we would be most grateful. We suggest that you meet with us in person in Lotus Port, and that during your visit I introduce you to the representatives of the Summer Isle Obsidian Company, as well as with certain officials of the Central Bank of the Summer Isles. Yours truly, Prince Jalabhar Xho
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Jun 12, 2013 05:54
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