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Forums - General - Song of Ice and Fire?

Lafiel on 08 July 2012
non-gravity said:

haxxiy said:
 A Feast for Crows and a Dance with Dragons aren't quite in par with the previous two books but are still as good as the first one. It's main flaw lies on the needless points of view and threads of the story that go nowhere. 

*cough Brienne, Arya, Samwell, Brann cough*

I guess Jaime and Sansa have somewhat of a purpose

Arya together with Daenerys probably has the longest build up of all characters, so I do expect her to become important to the story at some point, although maybe not in short terms.



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NotStan on 08 July 2012
pezus said:

I like random funny things lol. Maybe I should check out Terry Pratchett?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is probably composed of the funniest text I have read

Definitely, british humor at it's finest. I've read "Going Postal" first and "making money" afterwards, now I am rereading the entire collection. The only one I didn't really like was "Nation".

Another of my favourites would be the Bartimaeus Trilogy, Jonathan Stroud is pretty good too.



Disconnect and self destruct, one bullet a time.

haxxiy on 08 July 2012
WereKitten said:
haxxiy said:
...

Yeah, very true. It has the potential to be the best one in pure fantasy so far, if Sanderson handles it right. That's what the genre needs I think - let's focus beyond our big egos for once and have less of pure human drama using magic as a backdrop and more of culture, ecology geography and societies that actually work

You should try China Mieville's "New Crobuzon" books: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, The Iron Council.

If you can endure Mieville's in-your-face ingenuity with language and can keep the pace, they are extremely interesting pieces of world smithing, with a very rich political background.

That's something you'll find in most of his books, actually, which is why Ursula K. Le Guin praised so much his Embassytown - and I can't think of much better recommendations I'd look for in an author.

Updated, note: they must be read in English. He's pretty much not translatable.

Thanks, I'll check it out Ursula K. Le Guin is one of my favorite authors by the way. 



 

 

 

 

 

MrBubbles on 08 July 2012
Funtime said:
MrBubbles said:
The books...they are not very good. you see the problems stem from mr martin being an unimaginative sick fuck.
you dont read much, so you may not find even realize the issues. plenty of people seem to like the books for some unfathomable reason that tends me towards an even worse view of humanity.

the only real plot development in the books comes from people dying. and sometimes there isnt a logical reason for them to die or he just gets tired of writing them...so he does things like having some bitch shit a shadow from her cunt to go off and kill people. you want some deaths of course in a book. it creates concern over the characters, because you are uncertain of whats going to happen to them. but in this case...you get to a point when you expect everyone to die. oftentimes for no reason at all.

almost all the characters in the books are very one dimensional. almost parodies even...


I'd have to respectfully disagree with most of what you said.

The characters that die always do so for the purpose of either moving the story forward or moving the development of another character forward. I won't go into a lot of detail because I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't read all 5 books yet, but the deaths of major characters is one of the things I really enjoy about these books. I love that no one is safe, regardless of how much the readers get attached to them. That sense of actual danger and supense for each and every character is what sets Martin's books apart from other fantasy books like LoTR where you feel no suspense at all because you know that everyone you like is going to live. Instead of the usual case where I'm waitng to see which characters are going to die at the end to create emotion, I'm anxious to see who is actually going to live.

And to say that the characters are one dimensional is a little absurd. Almost none of the characters are black or white. Everyone falls into a gray area where they do both things that you admire and despise.

At the end of the day I can understand why you feel the way you do regarding all of the deaths in the series, but I for one enjoy the fact that it breaks away from the fantasy norm where all of the good guys live except one or two. In fact, there really aren't many characters aside from 1 or 2 that could even actually be conidered "good guys". 

 

 


most characters can be described by a single word.  he takes the character and crafts them around a single idea.  everything they do falls into that very narrow area.  not surprising that he doesnt take the time to craft more fleshed out characters since they could be killed off at every moment.

 

and i dont see how you could feel any concern about characters that are obviously going to die.  and it should be obvious that they are all going to die.   its more of a surprise when someone doesnt die, but there is still plenty of opportunity to kill them off later....

 

and id seriously like to hear you argue that the shadow creature was not because martin found himself in a plot that he either was bored with or just didnt know what to do with it, so randomly came up with something two kill off those characters.



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

MrBubbles Review Threads: Bill Gates, Jak II, Kingdom Hearts II, The Strangers, Sly 2, Crackdown, Zohan, Quarantine, Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, MS@E3'08, WATCHMEN(movie), Shadow of the Colossus, The Saboteur

MrBubbles on 08 July 2012
Funtime said:
MrBubbles said:
The books...they are not very good. you see the problems stem from mr martin being an unimaginative sick fuck.
you dont read much, so you may not find even realize the issues. plenty of people seem to like the books for some unfathomable reason that tends me towards an even worse view of humanity.

the only real plot development in the books comes from people dying. and sometimes there isnt a logical reason for them to die or he just gets tired of writing them...so he does things like having some bitch shit a shadow from her cunt to go off and kill people. you want some deaths of course in a book. it creates concern over the characters, because you are uncertain of whats going to happen to them. but in this case...you get to a point when you expect everyone to die. oftentimes for no reason at all.

almost all the characters in the books are very one dimensional. almost parodies even...


I'd have to respectfully disagree with most of what you said.

The characters that die always do so for the purpose of either moving the story forward or moving the development of another character forward. I won't go into a lot of detail because I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't read all 5 books yet, but the deaths of major characters is one of the things I really enjoy about these books. I love that no one is safe, regardless of how much the readers get attached to them. That sense of actual danger and supense for each and every character is what sets Martin's books apart from other fantasy books like LoTR where you feel no suspense at all because you know that everyone you like is going to live. Instead of the usual case where I'm waitng to see which characters are going to die at the end to create emotion, I'm anxious to see who is actually going to live.

And to say that the characters are one dimensional is a little absurd. Almost none of the characters are black or white. Everyone falls into a gray area where they do both things that you admire and despise.

At the end of the day I can understand why you feel the way you do regarding all of the deaths in the series, but I for one enjoy the fact that it breaks away from the fantasy norm where all of the good guys live except one or two. In fact, there really aren't many characters aside from 1 or 2 that could even actually be conidered "good guys". 

 

 


or maybe you would like to tell me why it was needed for cersei to lick cum off her hands talking about it like its people.



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

MrBubbles Review Threads: Bill Gates, Jak II, Kingdom Hearts II, The Strangers, Sly 2, Crackdown, Zohan, Quarantine, Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, MS@E3'08, WATCHMEN(movie), Shadow of the Colossus, The Saboteur

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MrBubbles on 08 July 2012
Kantor said:
MrBubbles said:
ugh...i see now you are a pratchett fan...i shouldnt have wasted time warning you... just writing down the most random absurd thing you can think of, regardless that it doesnt even make sense in any way...is not funny.

sorry for wasting any time you took to read my previous post.

That's basically the central premise of British humour. I take it you don't like Douglas Adams or Monty Python either?


i think pratchett crosses the line from generally random to retarded.  (i enjoyed the first two hitchhiker books, they went progressively downhill, imo, so the first being great, second being good and the following books "meh" or lower.)



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

MrBubbles Review Threads: Bill Gates, Jak II, Kingdom Hearts II, The Strangers, Sly 2, Crackdown, Zohan, Quarantine, Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, MS@E3'08, WATCHMEN(movie), Shadow of the Colossus, The Saboteur