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All book discussion in this thread is now allowed. |
On April 25 2019 05:31 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 05:12 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 05:02 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 04:48 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 03:22 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 03:11 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 02:19 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 01:53 Plansix wrote:
The red wedding seemed pretty out of the blue at the time. I would also argue that it does happen for a bit of shock value and may be one of the weakest aspects of the books because of how saps the story of a lot of momentum. The show manages to keep it going, mostly by tamping down on a lot of GRRM's need to add more characters. "Some" shock value is fine I think, and great, I think the point is more about the extreme. Doing something just for shock value is the big difference there. I think of it like a "fall off a horse" test? At any point in time we could just have any character fall of a horse and die, and it'd be shocking especially in the middle of a chapter, but that's very different from the type of deaths we get in AGoT for major characters. Not really. Carl Drogo cut himself at his wedding to prove what a badass he is and then it got infected and he died. Khal Drogo dying literally defines and sets in motion 50% of the plot of the book while also dramatically shaping Dany's character. That's about as far from a random shock death as you can get? It shapes her character, but so would the story that would happen if he didn’t die. The stuff that happened after happened after but that does not mean it could only have been preceded by Carl’s death. I mean that's not... relevant? Like there's infinite stories being told so the fact that things could happen anyways isn't really like the target point here. It's about if the story being told does make importance out of it. Your point was that his death there defines the book, I disagree. The story that was told required his death but you could do a pretty similar story with the army refusing to board his ships and cross the ocean due to superstition and scheming and subsequently burning the ships with Dany + Carl on them. Just an example. The manner and timing of Carl’s death have absolutely no bearing on the overall story being told. The details may change but the arcs wouldn’t. Sudden tetanus is completely arbitrary. This idea that GRRM doesn’t randomly kill characters whose stories are incomplete is wrong. Carl did, essentially, fall off the horse and break his neck. All you actually need for the story is a delay that stops Dany from showing up while Robert is still alive. Hell, the dragons could have been born earlier or later. Logistical difficulties would have served the needs of the story at that point with a completely separate dragon magic subplot in Qarth. That's not the story told. This could also be a story about flying around space in a rocket ship and Dany wouldn't need to worry about Westeroes at all. Or she could have been given a high power artillery instead of dragons. So what? There's infinite stories to be told. We're talking about the merits of the story that was told, not the merits of the infinite stories that weren't. The point is the story as written puts importance and meaning into the death of the characters, including Khal Drogo, that makes the death more than just inflicting pain on the audience. The show/book could, and many other shows do, just let the characters die without purpose to inflict pain, but that doesn't happen. (hi American Horror Story). Notably shocking, and meaningless deaths aren't all the same things here, though meaningless and "random" are probably pretty similar. The deaths can be shocking, but important and impactful (Ned's execution?). Deaths can be meaningless but not shocking (say someone like Septa Mordane or Shireen could arguably be in this camp, but Septa is hardly a notable character and Shireen had some purpose but was otherwise a pretty terrible way to deal with the character). Like I think a fair question is, "Was this character's death just for the purpose of inflicting pain?" and that's again true of some shows (hi again American Horror Story), but it's really not for Game of Thrones. The deaths are woven into the narrative so they're able to add to the other characters and stories and do more than just be a dramatic event. When the creator himself says its for inflicting pain you dont believe it but rather want to imagine some higher purpose? You need some help dude
That's a huge misinterpretation of what both GRRM has said and what I am saying.
You can set out to have a shocking death, as GRRM did with Ned and has said he intended to do. But that doesn't mean he skipped the leg work of writing a story around that where Ned's death was meaningful and impactful.
Ned's death is so far from being just about inflicting pain, it drives the entire Westereos side of the story for 3+ book/seasons and is a critical event in shaping Sansa and Arya as people. Even Jon Snow's lineage is basically created/setup to be something that's interesting entirely for a story that kills Ned Stark which from that the entire backstory (Robert's Rebellion, Lyanna Stark + Rheagar, etc.) is framed to work from the death of Ned Stark. We get massive amounts of intrigue, speculation, excitement and hopefulness out of the death of Ned Stark. GRRM set out to kill Ned Stark and wrote an entire set of books that would make that a very worthwhile thing to do. That seems as far as humanly possible from a random meaningless death as you can get.
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United States42695 Posts
On April 25 2019 05:12 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 05:02 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 04:48 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 03:22 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 03:11 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 02:19 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 01:53 Plansix wrote:
The red wedding seemed pretty out of the blue at the time. I would also argue that it does happen for a bit of shock value and may be one of the weakest aspects of the books because of how saps the story of a lot of momentum. The show manages to keep it going, mostly by tamping down on a lot of GRRM's need to add more characters. "Some" shock value is fine I think, and great, I think the point is more about the extreme. Doing something just for shock value is the big difference there. I think of it like a "fall off a horse" test? At any point in time we could just have any character fall of a horse and die, and it'd be shocking especially in the middle of a chapter, but that's very different from the type of deaths we get in AGoT for major characters. Not really. Carl Drogo cut himself at his wedding to prove what a badass he is and then it got infected and he died. Khal Drogo dying literally defines and sets in motion 50% of the plot of the book while also dramatically shaping Dany's character. That's about as far from a random shock death as you can get? It shapes her character, but so would the story that would happen if he didn’t die. The stuff that happened after happened after but that does not mean it could only have been preceded by Carl’s death. I mean that's not... relevant? Like there's infinite stories being told so the fact that things could happen anyways isn't really like the target point here. It's about if the story being told does make importance out of it. Your point was that his death there defines the book, I disagree. The story that was told required his death but you could do a pretty similar story with the army refusing to board his ships and cross the ocean due to superstition and scheming and subsequently burning the ships with Dany + Carl on them. Just an example. The manner and timing of Carl’s death have absolutely no bearing on the overall story being told. The details may change but the arcs wouldn’t. Sudden tetanus is completely arbitrary. This idea that GRRM doesn’t randomly kill characters whose stories are incomplete is wrong. Carl did, essentially, fall off the horse and break his neck. All you actually need for the story is a delay that stops Dany from showing up while Robert is still alive. Hell, the dragons could have been born earlier or later. Logistical difficulties would have served the needs of the story at that point with a completely separate dragon magic subplot in Qarth. That's not the story told. This could also be a story about flying around space in a rocket ship and Dany wouldn't need to worry about Westeroes at all. Or she could have been given a high power artillery instead of dragons. So what? There's infinite stories to be told. We're talking about the merits of the story that was told, not the merits of the infinite stories that weren't. The point is the story as written puts importance and meaning into the death of the characters, including Khal Drogo, that makes the death more than just inflicting pain on the audience. The show/book could, and many other shows do, just let the characters die without purpose to inflict pain, but that doesn't happen. (hi American Horror Story).
Had Ned died of dysentery in King’s Landing before finding out about the incest that would have still led to all sorts of character development and growth for those left behind, and it still would have been arbitrary. You claim that there are no arbitrary deaths, giving the example of a main character falling off a horse, but then when presented with one you insist that because other characters responded to it it is no longer arbitrary. But that would apply to any death, no matter how pointless.
Your argument just doesn’t work.
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On April 25 2019 06:24 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 05:12 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 05:02 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 04:48 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 03:22 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 03:11 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 02:19 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 01:53 Plansix wrote:
The red wedding seemed pretty out of the blue at the time. I would also argue that it does happen for a bit of shock value and may be one of the weakest aspects of the books because of how saps the story of a lot of momentum. The show manages to keep it going, mostly by tamping down on a lot of GRRM's need to add more characters. "Some" shock value is fine I think, and great, I think the point is more about the extreme. Doing something just for shock value is the big difference there. I think of it like a "fall off a horse" test? At any point in time we could just have any character fall of a horse and die, and it'd be shocking especially in the middle of a chapter, but that's very different from the type of deaths we get in AGoT for major characters. Not really. Carl Drogo cut himself at his wedding to prove what a badass he is and then it got infected and he died. Khal Drogo dying literally defines and sets in motion 50% of the plot of the book while also dramatically shaping Dany's character. That's about as far from a random shock death as you can get? It shapes her character, but so would the story that would happen if he didn’t die. The stuff that happened after happened after but that does not mean it could only have been preceded by Carl’s death. I mean that's not... relevant? Like there's infinite stories being told so the fact that things could happen anyways isn't really like the target point here. It's about if the story being told does make importance out of it. Your point was that his death there defines the book, I disagree. The story that was told required his death but you could do a pretty similar story with the army refusing to board his ships and cross the ocean due to superstition and scheming and subsequently burning the ships with Dany + Carl on them. Just an example. The manner and timing of Carl’s death have absolutely no bearing on the overall story being told. The details may change but the arcs wouldn’t. Sudden tetanus is completely arbitrary. This idea that GRRM doesn’t randomly kill characters whose stories are incomplete is wrong. Carl did, essentially, fall off the horse and break his neck. All you actually need for the story is a delay that stops Dany from showing up while Robert is still alive. Hell, the dragons could have been born earlier or later. Logistical difficulties would have served the needs of the story at that point with a completely separate dragon magic subplot in Qarth. That's not the story told. This could also be a story about flying around space in a rocket ship and Dany wouldn't need to worry about Westeroes at all. Or she could have been given a high power artillery instead of dragons. So what? There's infinite stories to be told. We're talking about the merits of the story that was told, not the merits of the infinite stories that weren't. The point is the story as written puts importance and meaning into the death of the characters, including Khal Drogo, that makes the death more than just inflicting pain on the audience. The show/book could, and many other shows do, just let the characters die without purpose to inflict pain, but that doesn't happen. (hi American Horror Story). Had Ned died of dysentery in King’s Landing before finding out about the incest that would have still led to all sorts of character development and growth for those left behind, and it still would have been arbitrary. You claim that there are no arbitrary deaths, giving the example of a main character falling off a horse, but then when presented with one you insist that because other characters responded to it it is no longer arbitrary. But that would apply to any death, no matter how pointless. Your argument just doesn’t work.
You've presented nothing of the sort. You try to claim deaths are arbitrary when they're not (both before and after). You're just flat out not grasping any subtlety in how stories play out.
I mean I don't even know what you're thinking you've accomplished here, you're arguing the manner of Ned's death can be arbitrarily chosen which is somehow simultaneously not true (it's vitally important that Ned takes actions leading to his own death) and an incredibly pointless critique (yeah if you build and entire story around a character dying having them die in different way that doesn't obliterate the work you have done to make that character's death impactful and important).
And no that doesn't apply to any death no matter how pointless. Like I've alluded to American Horror Story doing this several times, they kill off major characters with no plot ramifications just because they can. GoT even kills off characters somewhat arbitrarily (like Ros dying is highly irrelevant to the plot so that's pretty arbitrary), but it knows enough to do that with lesser characters.
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Best twist they could do now is have NK fly to King's Landing, murder everyone there and raise them as undead led by Undead Cersei 
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On April 25 2019 04:53 sharkie wrote:
Man some things "fans" think of martin or his books is just so funny to read. He literally says the stark deaths were for for shock but his followers claim to see one bigger picture that doesnt exist xD
That must be how the bible got such a cult following
On April 25 2019 05:31 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 05:12 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 05:02 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 04:48 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 03:22 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 03:11 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 02:19 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 01:53 Plansix wrote:
The red wedding seemed pretty out of the blue at the time. I would also argue that it does happen for a bit of shock value and may be one of the weakest aspects of the books because of how saps the story of a lot of momentum. The show manages to keep it going, mostly by tamping down on a lot of GRRM's need to add more characters. "Some" shock value is fine I think, and great, I think the point is more about the extreme. Doing something just for shock value is the big difference there. I think of it like a "fall off a horse" test? At any point in time we could just have any character fall of a horse and die, and it'd be shocking especially in the middle of a chapter, but that's very different from the type of deaths we get in AGoT for major characters. Not really. Carl Drogo cut himself at his wedding to prove what a badass he is and then it got infected and he died. Khal Drogo dying literally defines and sets in motion 50% of the plot of the book while also dramatically shaping Dany's character. That's about as far from a random shock death as you can get? It shapes her character, but so would the story that would happen if he didn’t die. The stuff that happened after happened after but that does not mean it could only have been preceded by Carl’s death. I mean that's not... relevant? Like there's infinite stories being told so the fact that things could happen anyways isn't really like the target point here. It's about if the story being told does make importance out of it. Your point was that his death there defines the book, I disagree. The story that was told required his death but you could do a pretty similar story with the army refusing to board his ships and cross the ocean due to superstition and scheming and subsequently burning the ships with Dany + Carl on them. Just an example. The manner and timing of Carl’s death have absolutely no bearing on the overall story being told. The details may change but the arcs wouldn’t. Sudden tetanus is completely arbitrary. This idea that GRRM doesn’t randomly kill characters whose stories are incomplete is wrong. Carl did, essentially, fall off the horse and break his neck. All you actually need for the story is a delay that stops Dany from showing up while Robert is still alive. Hell, the dragons could have been born earlier or later. Logistical difficulties would have served the needs of the story at that point with a completely separate dragon magic subplot in Qarth. That's not the story told. This could also be a story about flying around space in a rocket ship and Dany wouldn't need to worry about Westeroes at all. Or she could have been given a high power artillery instead of dragons. So what? There's infinite stories to be told. We're talking about the merits of the story that was told, not the merits of the infinite stories that weren't. The point is the story as written puts importance and meaning into the death of the characters, including Khal Drogo, that makes the death more than just inflicting pain on the audience. The show/book could, and many other shows do, just let the characters die without purpose to inflict pain, but that doesn't happen. (hi American Horror Story). Notably shocking, and meaningless deaths aren't all the same things here, though meaningless and "random" are probably pretty similar. The deaths can be shocking, but important and impactful (Ned's execution?). Deaths can be meaningless but not shocking (say someone like Septa Mordane or Shireen could arguably be in this camp, but Septa is hardly a notable character and Shireen had some purpose but was otherwise a pretty terrible way to deal with the character). Like I think a fair question is, "Was this character's death just for the purpose of inflicting pain?" and that's again true of some shows (hi again American Horror Story), but it's really not for Game of Thrones. The deaths are woven into the narrative so they're able to add to the other characters and stories and do more than just be a dramatic event. When the creator himself says its for inflicting pain you dont believe it but rather want to imagine some higher purpose? You need some help dude
You make the dumbest comments in this thread by a long way. You mentioned what GRRM wanted to achieve for the reader with these deaths, ofc it is sadness and pain, what else would it be? That is what the ultimate end has to do, get people sad. The difference is that these deaths are woven in a way which makes the overall story work a lot better, it is not for pure shock value on that narrative lvl. How fucking hard is that to understand, honestly.
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Northern Ireland25372 Posts
Yeah I don’t really get that. Red Wedding was both a gut punch as well as a real pivotal moment in the overall plot
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The story wrote itself into a jam with the power creep of the night king, didn't it?
I've been thinking about this battle and there is just no way to win. That ice dragon destroyed the fucking WALL, wouldn't a mild sneeze in the direction of Winterfell send the whole keep to the ground?
The army itself must also be massive, all the dead between where ever the Night King is from in the North down to Winterfell are risen, and as Jon's army suffers casualties, the Night King army grows.
I don't see how there is a foreseeable outcome other than Winterfell getting smoked. It feels like the writers themselves know this, which is why there were almost no meaningful scenes of them discussing strategy. The one scene we got was 2 minutes with Bran dropping knowledge and nobody really giving a shit but ends with an agreement for THEON of all people to guard Bran so he's not alone. Great plan everybody, sounds about as believable as the following unanimous agreement between all former enemies of various perspective and life experience who can barely speak to each other without being bitchy on just about any other topic.
Also the 'safety in the crypts' has to be one of the most forced gaffes ever. The audience is expected to believe that the entire Winterfell leadership is so unprepared, naive, or irresponsible to forget they're fighting a enemy whose literal shtick is raising the dead to fight and they think the crypts are safe? These people aren't fit to rule the 7 kingdoms once this is over with if they're that stupid. That's not likely the case though, it's more likely just a forced problem from the writers because they think the shot/scene will look cool despite it making no sense whatsoever that the entire leadership had this massive oversight.
I was initially happy the show is back (and still am to a degree) but I get more pessimistic the more I think about it.
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lol
I hope everyone dies/becomes undead.
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They've written an easy get out of jail free card with the night king talking to brand and that buying time for someone with a vaylayrian weapon to suicide themselves to kill him and with him the entire white walker horde.
I can't buy the NK going to kings landing theory. It just seems really weak and lame to sweep under the rug any kind of ending with characters in return for the idea of the NK to be the end boss.
Just end the war at winterfell and then have the end game in the capital. IDK really whats going to happen but I'm still worried that we're going to get a continuation of the last season in quality.
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The main issue I have with them winning at Winterfell is that it seems odd to fight off the hordes of the undead including giants and a zombie dragon in episode 3...and then have what I can only assume would be 70+ minutes of interactions in episode 4 followed by a battle against regular dudes (don't even have elephants!) in episode 5. Even though the heroes explicitly said "we don't have enough of an army to beat them even if we don't lose anyone at Winterfell," it just seems like it will feel anticlimactic.
That said, stranger things have happened in fiction, and it might make for some alright falling action, especially if the final battle is well directed and isn't a "oh the Iron Bank was fucking with Cersei all along" style copout.
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On April 25 2019 08:18 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 04:53 sharkie wrote:
Man some things "fans" think of martin or his books is just so funny to read. He literally says the stark deaths were for for shock but his followers claim to see one bigger picture that doesnt exist xD
That must be how the bible got such a cult following Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 05:31 sharkie wrote:On April 25 2019 05:12 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 05:02 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 04:48 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 03:22 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 03:11 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 02:19 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 01:53 Plansix wrote:
The red wedding seemed pretty out of the blue at the time. I would also argue that it does happen for a bit of shock value and may be one of the weakest aspects of the books because of how saps the story of a lot of momentum. The show manages to keep it going, mostly by tamping down on a lot of GRRM's need to add more characters. "Some" shock value is fine I think, and great, I think the point is more about the extreme. Doing something just for shock value is the big difference there. I think of it like a "fall off a horse" test? At any point in time we could just have any character fall of a horse and die, and it'd be shocking especially in the middle of a chapter, but that's very different from the type of deaths we get in AGoT for major characters. Not really. Carl Drogo cut himself at his wedding to prove what a badass he is and then it got infected and he died. Khal Drogo dying literally defines and sets in motion 50% of the plot of the book while also dramatically shaping Dany's character. That's about as far from a random shock death as you can get? It shapes her character, but so would the story that would happen if he didn’t die. The stuff that happened after happened after but that does not mean it could only have been preceded by Carl’s death. I mean that's not... relevant? Like there's infinite stories being told so the fact that things could happen anyways isn't really like the target point here. It's about if the story being told does make importance out of it. Your point was that his death there defines the book, I disagree. The story that was told required his death but you could do a pretty similar story with the army refusing to board his ships and cross the ocean due to superstition and scheming and subsequently burning the ships with Dany + Carl on them. Just an example. The manner and timing of Carl’s death have absolutely no bearing on the overall story being told. The details may change but the arcs wouldn’t. Sudden tetanus is completely arbitrary. This idea that GRRM doesn’t randomly kill characters whose stories are incomplete is wrong. Carl did, essentially, fall off the horse and break his neck. All you actually need for the story is a delay that stops Dany from showing up while Robert is still alive. Hell, the dragons could have been born earlier or later. Logistical difficulties would have served the needs of the story at that point with a completely separate dragon magic subplot in Qarth. That's not the story told. This could also be a story about flying around space in a rocket ship and Dany wouldn't need to worry about Westeroes at all. Or she could have been given a high power artillery instead of dragons. So what? There's infinite stories to be told. We're talking about the merits of the story that was told, not the merits of the infinite stories that weren't. The point is the story as written puts importance and meaning into the death of the characters, including Khal Drogo, that makes the death more than just inflicting pain on the audience. The show/book could, and many other shows do, just let the characters die without purpose to inflict pain, but that doesn't happen. (hi American Horror Story). Notably shocking, and meaningless deaths aren't all the same things here, though meaningless and "random" are probably pretty similar. The deaths can be shocking, but important and impactful (Ned's execution?). Deaths can be meaningless but not shocking (say someone like Septa Mordane or Shireen could arguably be in this camp, but Septa is hardly a notable character and Shireen had some purpose but was otherwise a pretty terrible way to deal with the character). Like I think a fair question is, "Was this character's death just for the purpose of inflicting pain?" and that's again true of some shows (hi again American Horror Story), but it's really not for Game of Thrones. The deaths are woven into the narrative so they're able to add to the other characters and stories and do more than just be a dramatic event. When the creator himself says its for inflicting pain you dont believe it but rather want to imagine some higher purpose? You need some help dude You make the dumbest comments in this thread by a long way. You mentioned what GRRM wanted to achieve for the reader with these deaths, ofc it is sadness and pain, what else would it be? That is what the ultimate end has to do, get people sad. The difference is that these deaths are woven in a way which makes the overall story work a lot better, it is not for pure shock value on that narrative lvl. How fucking hard is that to understand, honestly.
I make the dumbest comments because I take martins comments and interviews at face value instead of trying to make him the author of the next bible? You need to unserstand that most of the things happening in the books were not planned. They just turned out to be that way.
He has no idea how he is going to do the hard work. Branching off stories and characters into god knows where is easy... Now putting all those branches together to get a good meaninful coherent conclusion? Thats where most authors fail in the end and thats where he will fail because he has no fucking clue what to do with most of his characters except to kill them off.
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On April 25 2019 06:48 -Archangel- wrote:Best twist they could do now is have NK fly to King's Landing, murder everyone there and raise them as undead led by Undead Cersei
I was hoping that was the case since we haven't seen the Night King since the wall came down, but...
+ Show Spoiler +
I believe that was him in the ep 3 preview ontop the dragon in the North
also they seem to be setting him up for a collision course with Bran
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On April 25 2019 11:27 TheTenthDoc wrote:
The main issue I have with them winning at Winterfell is that it seems odd to fight off the hordes of the undead including giants and a zombie dragon in episode 3...and then have what I can only assume would be 70+ minutes of interactions in episode 4 followed by a battle against regular dudes (don't even have elephants!) in episode 5. Even though the heroes explicitly said "we don't have enough of an army to beat them even if we don't lose anyone at Winterfell," it just seems like it will feel anticlimactic.
That said, stranger things have happened in fiction, and it might make for some alright falling action, especially if the final battle is well directed and isn't a "oh the Iron Bank was fucking with Cersei all along" style copout.
I also have an issue of ending a threat from season 1 ep1 in one big battle in the middle of last season.
This should be left for ep 5 or 6.
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The NK could just be staying behind a bit and nobody but Jon or Dani on dragons could get to him. But since the NK can shot down dragons, not even that is an option.
One way out might be a last minute arrival of the whole red brotherhood magicians lord of light kinda people who can burn whole chunks of the NK's army to the ground (and stop the dead dragon to just lay waste to winterfell)
I really hope no walkers wake up in the crypt. At this point it would probably be more suprising if nothing happens in the crypt lol.
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On April 25 2019 17:01 -Archangel- wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 11:27 TheTenthDoc wrote:
The main issue I have with them winning at Winterfell is that it seems odd to fight off the hordes of the undead including giants and a zombie dragon in episode 3...and then have what I can only assume would be 70+ minutes of interactions in episode 4 followed by a battle against regular dudes (don't even have elephants!) in episode 5. Even though the heroes explicitly said "we don't have enough of an army to beat them even if we don't lose anyone at Winterfell," it just seems like it will feel anticlimactic.
That said, stranger things have happened in fiction, and it might make for some alright falling action, especially if the final battle is well directed and isn't a "oh the Iron Bank was fucking with Cersei all along" style copout. I also have an issue of ending a threat from season 1 ep1 in one big battle in the middle of last season. This should be left for ep 5 or 6.
Can be worse: they "defeat" the Night King in episode 3 or 4, spend the rest of the season fighting cersei and then the night king shows up again in the season finale, laughing evilly while twirling his newly grown supervillain moustache.
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On April 25 2019 08:30 crms wrote:
That ice dragon destroyed the fucking WALL, wouldn't a mild sneeze in the direction of Winterfell send the whole keep to the ground?
The ice wall could only be destroyed by magic, pretty sure an undead dragon raised by the night king breathes magical fire.. It's a nuance that I don't necessarily have an issue with. Would be cool if his breath instantly turns people into undead though.
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On April 25 2019 14:49 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 06:48 -Archangel- wrote:Best twist they could do now is have NK fly to King's Landing, murder everyone there and raise them as undead led by Undead Cersei I was hoping that was the case since we haven't seen the Night King since the wall came down, but... + Show Spoiler +
I believe that was him in the ep 3 preview ontop the dragon in the North
also they seem to be setting him up for a collision course with Bran
+ Show Spoiler +Apparently it's Daenerys on Drogon in a blizzard. Youtube analytic guys seem to suggest the dragon shown doesn't fit with the icey one.
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On April 25 2019 14:37 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 08:18 The_Red_Viper wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 sharkie wrote:
Man some things "fans" think of martin or his books is just so funny to read. He literally says the stark deaths were for for shock but his followers claim to see one bigger picture that doesnt exist xD
That must be how the bible got such a cult following On April 25 2019 05:31 sharkie wrote:On April 25 2019 05:12 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 05:02 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 04:48 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 03:22 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 03:11 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 02:19 Logo wrote:
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"Some" shock value is fine I think, and great, I think the point is more about the extreme. Doing something just for shock value is the big difference there.
I think of it like a "fall off a horse" test? At any point in time we could just have any character fall of a horse and die, and it'd be shocking especially in the middle of a chapter, but that's very different from the type of deaths we get in AGoT for major characters. Not really. Carl Drogo cut himself at his wedding to prove what a badass he is and then it got infected and he died. Khal Drogo dying literally defines and sets in motion 50% of the plot of the book while also dramatically shaping Dany's character. That's about as far from a random shock death as you can get? It shapes her character, but so would the story that would happen if he didn’t die. The stuff that happened after happened after but that does not mean it could only have been preceded by Carl’s death. I mean that's not... relevant? Like there's infinite stories being told so the fact that things could happen anyways isn't really like the target point here. It's about if the story being told does make importance out of it. Your point was that his death there defines the book, I disagree. The story that was told required his death but you could do a pretty similar story with the army refusing to board his ships and cross the ocean due to superstition and scheming and subsequently burning the ships with Dany + Carl on them. Just an example. The manner and timing of Carl’s death have absolutely no bearing on the overall story being told. The details may change but the arcs wouldn’t. Sudden tetanus is completely arbitrary. This idea that GRRM doesn’t randomly kill characters whose stories are incomplete is wrong. Carl did, essentially, fall off the horse and break his neck. All you actually need for the story is a delay that stops Dany from showing up while Robert is still alive. Hell, the dragons could have been born earlier or later. Logistical difficulties would have served the needs of the story at that point with a completely separate dragon magic subplot in Qarth. That's not the story told. This could also be a story about flying around space in a rocket ship and Dany wouldn't need to worry about Westeroes at all. Or she could have been given a high power artillery instead of dragons. So what? There's infinite stories to be told. We're talking about the merits of the story that was told, not the merits of the infinite stories that weren't. The point is the story as written puts importance and meaning into the death of the characters, including Khal Drogo, that makes the death more than just inflicting pain on the audience. The show/book could, and many other shows do, just let the characters die without purpose to inflict pain, but that doesn't happen. (hi American Horror Story). Notably shocking, and meaningless deaths aren't all the same things here, though meaningless and "random" are probably pretty similar. The deaths can be shocking, but important and impactful (Ned's execution?). Deaths can be meaningless but not shocking (say someone like Septa Mordane or Shireen could arguably be in this camp, but Septa is hardly a notable character and Shireen had some purpose but was otherwise a pretty terrible way to deal with the character). Like I think a fair question is, "Was this character's death just for the purpose of inflicting pain?" and that's again true of some shows (hi again American Horror Story), but it's really not for Game of Thrones. The deaths are woven into the narrative so they're able to add to the other characters and stories and do more than just be a dramatic event. When the creator himself says its for inflicting pain you dont believe it but rather want to imagine some higher purpose? You need some help dude You make the dumbest comments in this thread by a long way. You mentioned what GRRM wanted to achieve for the reader with these deaths, ofc it is sadness and pain, what else would it be? That is what the ultimate end has to do, get people sad. The difference is that these deaths are woven in a way which makes the overall story work a lot better, it is not for pure shock value on that narrative lvl. How fucking hard is that to understand, honestly. I make the dumbest comments because I take martins comments and interviews at face value instead of trying to make him the author of the next bible? You need to unserstand that most of the things happening in the books were not planned. They just turned out to be that way. He has no idea how he is going to do the hard work. Branching off stories and characters into god knows where is easy... Now putting all those branches together to get a good meaninful coherent conclusion? Thats where most authors fail in the end and thats where he will fail because he has no fucking clue what to do with most of his characters except to kill them off.
Yes you make the dumbest comments because you talk about religious zealotry when this is extremely far away from anything one could describe as brainless following. In fact you follow GRRM's statement about something brainlessly without trying to understand the context/ different levels of planning which goes into writing a novel. (trying to get a reaction from the reader, for example being shocked doesn't contradict setting up future plot points and character developments through that same death, these are two different levels)
Just because he says he is more on "the gardener side" of things doesn't mean that there is no planning and more importantly figuring things out when he gets a new idea for a new plotpoint. It is not arbitrary, one doesn't just sit in one's chair and write ANYTHING without trying to make sure the plot follows the character motivation's, recent plot developments, etc.
So yeah, you make little sense so far which is especially annoying because the user "logo" for example made some great posts about this topic, it's not rocket science.
edit: Obviously GRRM isn't without flaws either, i definitely agree that it will be really hard for him to bring everything together, the books are way more complex than the show and even the show had to do some ridiculous shortcuts to make it somewhat work, that is probably the reason why the new book takes as long as it does, it doesn't help that his style of writing is literally writing out ideas completely for multiple povs until he isn't content with it anymore and has to basically redo all of that work he did. The storylines in the books also are not perfect, there is always some lvl of suspension of disbelief one has to apply to a work of fiction, considering how big asoiaf is he did a fantastic job so far overall though imo, even though there are some retcons and some not 100% satisfying conclusions to established mysteries/storylines (bran's assassination attempt is a good example)
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On April 25 2019 06:44 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 06:24 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 05:12 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 05:02 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 04:53 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 04:48 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 03:22 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 03:11 KwarK wrote:On April 25 2019 02:19 Logo wrote:On April 25 2019 01:53 Plansix wrote:
The red wedding seemed pretty out of the blue at the time. I would also argue that it does happen for a bit of shock value and may be one of the weakest aspects of the books because of how saps the story of a lot of momentum. The show manages to keep it going, mostly by tamping down on a lot of GRRM's need to add more characters. "Some" shock value is fine I think, and great, I think the point is more about the extreme. Doing something just for shock value is the big difference there. I think of it like a "fall off a horse" test? At any point in time we could just have any character fall of a horse and die, and it'd be shocking especially in the middle of a chapter, but that's very different from the type of deaths we get in AGoT for major characters. Not really. Carl Drogo cut himself at his wedding to prove what a badass he is and then it got infected and he died. Khal Drogo dying literally defines and sets in motion 50% of the plot of the book while also dramatically shaping Dany's character. That's about as far from a random shock death as you can get? It shapes her character, but so would the story that would happen if he didn’t die. The stuff that happened after happened after but that does not mean it could only have been preceded by Carl’s death. I mean that's not... relevant? Like there's infinite stories being told so the fact that things could happen anyways isn't really like the target point here. It's about if the story being told does make importance out of it. Your point was that his death there defines the book, I disagree. The story that was told required his death but you could do a pretty similar story with the army refusing to board his ships and cross the ocean due to superstition and scheming and subsequently burning the ships with Dany + Carl on them. Just an example. The manner and timing of Carl’s death have absolutely no bearing on the overall story being told. The details may change but the arcs wouldn’t. Sudden tetanus is completely arbitrary. This idea that GRRM doesn’t randomly kill characters whose stories are incomplete is wrong. Carl did, essentially, fall off the horse and break his neck. All you actually need for the story is a delay that stops Dany from showing up while Robert is still alive. Hell, the dragons could have been born earlier or later. Logistical difficulties would have served the needs of the story at that point with a completely separate dragon magic subplot in Qarth. That's not the story told. This could also be a story about flying around space in a rocket ship and Dany wouldn't need to worry about Westeroes at all. Or she could have been given a high power artillery instead of dragons. So what? There's infinite stories to be told. We're talking about the merits of the story that was told, not the merits of the infinite stories that weren't. The point is the story as written puts importance and meaning into the death of the characters, including Khal Drogo, that makes the death more than just inflicting pain on the audience. The show/book could, and many other shows do, just let the characters die without purpose to inflict pain, but that doesn't happen. (hi American Horror Story). Had Ned died of dysentery in King’s Landing before finding out about the incest that would have still led to all sorts of character development and growth for those left behind, and it still would have been arbitrary. You claim that there are no arbitrary deaths, giving the example of a main character falling off a horse, but then when presented with one you insist that because other characters responded to it it is no longer arbitrary. But that would apply to any death, no matter how pointless. Your argument just doesn’t work. You've presented nothing of the sort. You try to claim deaths are arbitrary when they're not (both before and after). You're just flat out not grasping any subtlety in how stories play out. I mean I don't even know what you're thinking you've accomplished here, you're arguing the manner of Ned's death can be arbitrarily chosen which is somehow simultaneously not true (it's vitally important that Ned takes actions leading to his own death) and an incredibly pointless critique (yeah if you build and entire story around a character dying having them die in different way that doesn't obliterate the work you have done to make that character's death impactful and important). And no that doesn't apply to any death no matter how pointless. Like I've alluded to American Horror Story doing this several times, they kill off major characters with no plot ramifications just because they can. GoT even kills off characters somewhat arbitrarily (like Ros dying is highly irrelevant to the plot so that's pretty arbitrary), but it knows enough to do that with lesser characters.
It's fiction. There is no such thing as "arbitrary" in fiction. The author clearly wrote it with a point in mind, and the quality of the author defines whether that point works or doesn't. So in that sense, someone falling off his horse and dying is also not arbitrary, as the author at some point had to decide that someone would fall off his horse and die in the middle of his story arc. That in turn would change the story arc of those around him, etc. etc. and whether the author pulls that off convincingly or not is then evaluated by the readers.
So in that sense, there will *never* be an arbitrary death in fiction. There are better or worse elaborated plots. That said, Khal Drogo's death is about as arbitrary as they get. He was set up to be a hero, marries a pov character and eventually makes her fall in love with him (after first raping her). Then he gets a minor cut that gets infected and dies before doing any of the things he was prophesied to do! Was it arbitrary? No. GRRM clearly had somewhere to go with the plot, and it didn't need Khal Drogo to live, and did need dragon magic. So he wrote Khal Drogo's death.
But as a citizen of Essos at the time, Khal Drogo died an arbitrary, ignominous death. Unlike Robb Stark or Jeor Mormont, who died to betrayal, Tywin to patricide, the reicide of Joffrey or Oberyn Martell who died as a hero trying to avenge his family. All of those could be seen as "shocking" deaths to both a reader and a citizen of Westeros: they were high profile people dying shocking and sudden deaths at the hands of others. Drogo just died to the general cussedness of things, which may still have been shocking to a reader because it subverts expectations of heroic characters dying to heroic stuff, rather than an infection (or falling off a horse), but as a random someone in the world, it is basically just what happens in life.
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On April 25 2019 14:49 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 06:48 -Archangel- wrote:Best twist they could do now is have NK fly to King's Landing, murder everyone there and raise them as undead led by Undead Cersei I was hoping that was the case since we haven't seen the Night King since the wall came down, but... + Show Spoiler +
I believe that was him in the ep 3 preview ontop the dragon in the North
also they seem to be setting him up for a collision course with Bran
That would be dumb. But the NK and his army of the dead crushing winterfell, but losing something (the ability to raise more dead? the frost wyrm?) that gives the living a chance as long as they find a place to make a renewed stand would be fairly interesting. Then the survivors flee south and there is a confrontation with cersei that is completed before the final confrontation between ice and fire is resolved. That seems about the only way the two completely separate enmities can be resolved without either a "meanwhile in the shire" feeling, or silly antics with the NK flying south without his army.
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EPT
