On September 14 2012 04:47 RolleMcKnolle wrote: I am not sure whether I would actually follow your classification of characters. If we take for example Littlefinger, then you were saying that we actually don't know anything about this character's motivation but you suddenly want to place them into Tolstoy's worlds? I can't immediately recall any book where characters motivations are as obvious and openly discussed as in war and peace or anna karenina. But this just as an example.
I said we don't know anything about his motives but that he follows a rather stereotypical realist character pattern ( not sure what the term for the specific character is in English but its the one where the motives are simply " Money is power and power is money thus i will obtain both power and money at any cost and generally i will do it by screwing other people over" ).
The thing with most realistic novels is that a character has a very basic "motive", any character must have one, but it can be quite illogical in a "real" world. The thing that i said about the 3 guys on the council is that IN CASE THEY ARE NOT realist characters than there motives are quite vague.
Thus we can ether assume: - The 3 are realistic characters and there motives are obvious, but that makes them quite unfitting for a fantasy book - The 3 are not-realistic but in that case i fail to see there motives and thus once again am not found of there time on screen
( I am referring to European/French realism here, not "American" realism )
You connection to soap operas seems rather vague. realistic books = erotic books = soap operas? wtf?
Oky, so let me put it like this A realistic book is one which has limited and stagnant character types, unlike a modern novel in which characters "evolve" or a romantic novel where characters are strictly one dimensional in terms of traits/pov, a realist novel has characters with a little bit more "diverse" traits and even pov but generally there are only a few "motives" one such character can have.
Tho they are not a "trademark" of realism, the erotic motives are present in many realist novels, some times the "lovers" are modern character BUT if the "love story" ( or erotic story, if you want to use fancy Latin terms ) is presented in a context where all the other characters are realistic it makes it a realistic novel, and the love story makes it an erotic novel.
Hence you get an erotic realistic novel( one would assume). Most soap operas from my understanding have pretty "typical" characters and sometimes a few characters that actually show signs of evolution in terms of personality + soap operas have and are mostly based around a love story. Thus I assumed that a soap opera is the best TV equivalent of such book.
And let me ask you, why is the dissolving of the obnoxious fantasy scheme something bad? These books are the first time that I didn't have the feeling that fantasy books are there to assure people that the world they live in isn't as bad and destructive as it seems, because there can always be a hero... I love this story because it destroys the fantasy genre in a way that seems natural and realistic through still using the usual elements of a fantasy story.
Well i am not saying that is bad for a movie/book to exist the Tolkein boundaries of the fantasy genre but the way this book does it seem strange. You have for example movie/books such as Harry potter that very much exist some of the boundaries by having a shit ton of modern characters and "kill" characters that aren't "supposed" to die in a LOTR like book, it might not be that obvious since the book is aimed at kids/teenagers and thus its not a very "mature" or "bloody" story but the genre derivation is there. You can even have a fantasy movie/book in which the villain wins and the protagonist dies, where frodo doesn't manage to throw the ring in the volcano or where the ice lady kills that annoying little English twat. It will not be a very good one since it will leave readers with a "frustration" most likely but it can still be 99% in the boundaries of the genre established in mid 20th century.
The story of the book is not what bothers me, a story about a man living his daily boring life can be a very interesting story as long as presented well. And the presentation in a movie is trough characters and graphics, things such as lord of the rings are based on the graphic side of things a lot much more than this for example. But presenting the story trough characters and there dialogues like Game of Throne does is the way that a story "should be" told. However those characters ether need to be "typical" characters, the bad guy and the good guy, so i can connect to them... so i can care for them. Or unconventional characters, and the unconventional can be much better than the conventional if done well ( aka the Dwarf ) but also can be much worse ( aka the "council guys" ).
The movie doesn't deviate that much from the genre but it does it in such a way that the many deviation seem to be " involutions" rather than "innovations".
Oh well, atm I am to tired to even preview this/spell check :/ Alas "art" is a matter of taste when you come to the "like vs not like". I guess that if you enjoy this a lot good for you, its not like i didn't enjoy it I fucking watched it all in a few days and 90% of it sober. Compared to other bull shit that is spilling out of holywood recently this is a good show for me.
what's your complaint? that you don't understand the motives of the characters? I think the mystery is intriguing.
On September 14 2012 04:47 RolleMcKnolle wrote: I am not sure whether I would actually follow your classification of characters. If we take for example Littlefinger, then you were saying that we actually don't know anything about this character's motivation but you suddenly want to place them into Tolstoy's worlds? I can't immediately recall any book where characters motivations are as obvious and openly discussed as in war and peace or anna karenina. But this just as an example.
I said we don't know anything about his motives but that he follows a rather stereotypical realist character pattern ( not sure what the term for the specific character is in English but its the one where the motives are simply " Money is power and power is money thus i will obtain both power and money at any cost and generally i will do it by screwing other people over" ).
The thing with most realistic novels is that a character has a very basic "motive", any character must have one, but it can be quite illogical in a "real" world. The thing that i said about the 3 guys on the council is that IN CASE THEY ARE NOT realist characters than there motives are quite vague.
Thus we can ether assume: - The 3 are realistic characters and there motives are obvious, but that makes them quite unfitting for a fantasy book - The 3 are not-realistic but in that case i fail to see there motives and thus once again am not found of there time on screen
( I am referring to European/French realism here, not "American" realism )
You connection to soap operas seems rather vague. realistic books = erotic books = soap operas? wtf?
Oky, so let me put it like this A realistic book is one which has limited and stagnant character types, unlike a modern novel in which characters "evolve" or a romantic novel where characters are strictly one dimensional in terms of traits/pov, a realist novel has characters with a little bit more "diverse" traits and even pov but generally there are only a few "motives" one such character can have.
Tho they are not a "trademark" of realism, the erotic motives are present in many realist novels, some times the "lovers" are modern character BUT if the "love story" ( or erotic story, if you want to use fancy Latin terms ) is presented in a context where all the other characters are realistic it makes it a realistic novel, and the love story makes it an erotic novel.
Hence you get an erotic realistic novel( one would assume). Most soap operas from my understanding have pretty "typical" characters and sometimes a few characters that actually show signs of evolution in terms of personality + soap operas have and are mostly based around a love story. Thus I assumed that a soap opera is the best TV equivalent of such book.
And let me ask you, why is the dissolving of the obnoxious fantasy scheme something bad? These books are the first time that I didn't have the feeling that fantasy books are there to assure people that the world they live in isn't as bad and destructive as it seems, because there can always be a hero... I love this story because it destroys the fantasy genre in a way that seems natural and realistic through still using the usual elements of a fantasy story.
Well i am not saying that is bad for a movie/book to exist the Tolkein boundaries of the fantasy genre but the way this book does it seem strange. You have for example movie/books such as Harry potter that very much exist some of the boundaries by having a shit ton of modern characters and "kill" characters that aren't "supposed" to die in a LOTR like book, it might not be that obvious since the book is aimed at kids/teenagers and thus its not a very "mature" or "bloody" story but the genre derivation is there. You can even have a fantasy movie/book in which the villain wins and the protagonist dies, where frodo doesn't manage to throw the ring in the volcano or where the ice lady kills that annoying little English twat. It will not be a very good one since it will leave readers with a "frustration" most likely but it can still be 99% in the boundaries of the genre established in mid 20th century.
The story of the book is not what bothers me, a story about a man living his daily boring life can be a very interesting story as long as presented well. And the presentation in a movie is trough characters and graphics, things such as lord of the rings are based on the graphic side of things a lot much more than this for example. But presenting the story trough characters and there dialogues like Game of Throne does is the way that a story "should be" told. However those characters ether need to be "typical" characters, the bad guy and the good guy, so i can connect to them... so i can care for them. Or unconventional characters, and the unconventional can be much better than the conventional if done well ( aka the Dwarf ) but also can be much worse ( aka the "council guys" ).
The movie doesn't deviate that much from the genre but it does it in such a way that the many deviation seem to be " involutions" rather than "innovations".
Oh well, atm I am to tired to even preview this/spell check :/ Alas "art" is a matter of taste when you come to the "like vs not like". I guess that if you enjoy this a lot good for you, its not like i didn't enjoy it I fucking watched it all in a few days and 90% of it sober. Compared to other bull shit that is spilling out of holywood recently this is a good show for me.
"Ignoring" almost the whole upper part, which was an interesting and informative read, I think I still don't really get what you want to say, I'm gonna try nonetheless. For me and most other people it seems as if your main problem is that you don't have a lot of characters you can relate to. Now this is a completely valid opinion about a movie/book. You neither care about the vehicles nor the protagonists of the story(which both are the characters as you pointed out) so you can't see why everyone is so amazed about the whole thing. But what you are asking for is a good old fantasy book. There it doesn't matter all that much whether Frodo throws the ring in to the volcano or not, but it matters whether we think that Frodo should throw it in there. And this is exactly what happens in Harry Potter/LotR. We know who is bad/good and we all share the feeling of what should happen. So besides characters dieing or developing we still have a good gut feeling about the doings of our protagonists. As you can't build a proper story with only unconventional characters, you need those standard roles that are basically carrying the story. And for you(as I understood it) those are irrelevant as long as you can't definitely tell whether you should like them or not, whether they fight for your happy-feeling or not. This is as it has been in every fantasy book I read. But this is the charme in GoT as you can't really think of anyone as good or bad. But you can relate to a lot of different characters on completely different levels. Everyone has it's bad, moronic sites but in almost everyone there are positive and likeable features. So maybe we are just that different, but I actually built an emotional relationship to every single character, and I do care about each one of them. So it deviates extremely from your standard fantasy-genre book (including Harry Potter) and why you suddenly think that involutions took place just because people aren't black and white anymore is beyond me.(Probably I missunderstood you here, because the part where you actually talk about this is rather short).
And for the differences in telling the story about your´ unconventional characters aka "Tirion and the council guys" , couldn't it be that you perceive this difference in the quality of characters mainly because Tirion actually is a central character (in the book about every sixth chapter is exclusively telling his story) and the other guys aren't. So that maybe Martin just doesn't want you yet to know about the motivations and doings of these people, as they are just not main characters? Maybe you should really read the books. Besides painting the characters in a way more detailed (and interesting) light, the English of Martin is (even in my bad understanding) to drop to your knees.
On September 14 2012 02:56 Gene wrote: Do you feel good tv shows have only characters you can relate to? I think that sounds horrific. Your description of the show is ridiculous. Its like saying LOTR is about some pansy midget on a hike, devaluing anything you said and frankly making your post impossible to take seriously.
On September 14 2012 04:47 RolleMcKnolle wrote: I am not sure whether I would actually follow your classification of characters. If we take for example Littlefinger, then you were saying that we actually don't know anything about this character's motivation but you suddenly want to place them into Tolstoy's worlds? I can't immediately recall any book where characters motivations are as obvious and openly discussed as in war and peace or anna karenina. But this just as an example.
I said we don't know anything about his motives but that he follows a rather stereotypical realist character pattern ( not sure what the term for the specific character is in English but its the one where the motives are simply " Money is power and power is money thus i will obtain both power and money at any cost and generally i will do it by screwing other people over" ).
The thing with most realistic novels is that a character has a very basic "motive", any character must have one, but it can be quite illogical in a "real" world. The thing that i said about the 3 guys on the council is that IN CASE THEY ARE NOT realist characters than there motives are quite vague.
Thus we can ether assume: - The 3 are realistic characters and there motives are obvious, but that makes them quite unfitting for a fantasy book - The 3 are not-realistic but in that case i fail to see there motives and thus once again am not found of there time on screen
( I am referring to European/French realism here, not "American" realism )
You connection to soap operas seems rather vague. realistic books = erotic books = soap operas? wtf?
Oky, so let me put it like this A realistic book is one which has limited and stagnant character types, unlike a modern novel in which characters "evolve" or a romantic novel where characters are strictly one dimensional in terms of traits/pov, a realist novel has characters with a little bit more "diverse" traits and even pov but generally there are only a few "motives" one such character can have.
Tho they are not a "trademark" of realism, the erotic motives are present in many realist novels, some times the "lovers" are modern character BUT if the "love story" ( or erotic story, if you want to use fancy Latin terms ) is presented in a context where all the other characters are realistic it makes it a realistic novel, and the love story makes it an erotic novel.
Hence you get an erotic realistic novel( one would assume). Most soap operas from my understanding have pretty "typical" characters and sometimes a few characters that actually show signs of evolution in terms of personality + soap operas have and are mostly based around a love story. Thus I assumed that a soap opera is the best TV equivalent of such book.
And let me ask you, why is the dissolving of the obnoxious fantasy scheme something bad? These books are the first time that I didn't have the feeling that fantasy books are there to assure people that the world they live in isn't as bad and destructive as it seems, because there can always be a hero... I love this story because it destroys the fantasy genre in a way that seems natural and realistic through still using the usual elements of a fantasy story.
Well i am not saying that is bad for a movie/book to exist the Tolkein boundaries of the fantasy genre but the way this book does it seem strange. You have for example movie/books such as Harry potter that very much exist some of the boundaries by having a shit ton of modern characters and "kill" characters that aren't "supposed" to die in a LOTR like book, it might not be that obvious since the book is aimed at kids/teenagers and thus its not a very "mature" or "bloody" story but the genre derivation is there. You can even have a fantasy movie/book in which the villain wins and the protagonist dies, where frodo doesn't manage to throw the ring in the volcano or where the ice lady kills that annoying little English twat. It will not be a very good one since it will leave readers with a "frustration" most likely but it can still be 99% in the boundaries of the genre established in mid 20th century.
The story of the book is not what bothers me, a story about a man living his daily boring life can be a very interesting story as long as presented well. And the presentation in a movie is trough characters and graphics, things such as lord of the rings are based on the graphic side of things a lot much more than this for example. But presenting the story trough characters and there dialogues like Game of Throne does is the way that a story "should be" told. However those characters ether need to be "typical" characters, the bad guy and the good guy, so i can connect to them... so i can care for them. Or unconventional characters, and the unconventional can be much better than the conventional if done well ( aka the Dwarf ) but also can be much worse ( aka the "council guys" ).
The movie doesn't deviate that much from the genre but it does it in such a way that the many deviation seem to be " involutions" rather than "innovations".
Oh well, atm I am to tired to even preview this/spell check :/ Alas "art" is a matter of taste when you come to the "like vs not like". I guess that if you enjoy this a lot good for you, its not like i didn't enjoy it I fucking watched it all in a few days and 90% of it sober. Compared to other bull shit that is spilling out of holywood recently this is a good show for me.
"Ignoring" almost the whole upper part, which was an interesting and informative read, I think I still don't really get what you want to say, I'm gonna try nonetheless. For me and most other people it seems as if your main problem is that you don't have a lot of characters you can relate to. Now this is a completely valid opinion about a movie/book. You neither care about the vehicles nor the protagonists of the story(which both are the characters as you pointed out) so you can't see why everyone is so amazed about the whole thing. But what you are asking for is a good old fantasy book. There it doesn't matter all that much whether Frodo throws the ring in to the volcano or not, but it matters whether we think that Frodo should throw it in there. And this is exactly what happens in Harry Potter/LotR. We know who is bad/good and we all share the feeling of what should happen. So besides characters dieing or developing we still have a good gut feeling about the doings of our protagonists. As you can't build a proper story with only unconventional characters, you need those standard roles that are basically carrying the story. And for you(as I understood it) those are irrelevant as long as you can't definitely tell whether you should like them or not, whether they fight for your happy-feeling or not. This is as it has been in every fantasy book I read. But this is the charme in GoT as you can't really think of anyone as good or bad. But you can relate to a lot of different characters on completely different levels. Everyone has it's bad, moronic sites but in almost everyone there are positive and likeable features. So maybe we are just that different, but I actually built an emotional relationship to every single character, and I do care about each one of them. So it deviates extremely from your standard fantasy-genre book (including Harry Potter) and why you suddenly think that involutions took place just because people aren't black and white anymore is beyond me.(Probably I missunderstood you here, because the part where you actually talk about this is rather short).
And for the differences in telling the story about your´ unconventional characters aka "Tirion and the council guys" , couldn't it be that you perceive this difference in the quality of characters mainly because Tirion actually is a central character (in the book about every sixth chapter is exclusively telling his story) and the other guys aren't. So that maybe Martin just doesn't want you yet to know about the motivations and doings of these people, as they are just not main characters? Maybe you should really read the books. Besides painting the characters in a way more detailed (and interesting) light, the English of Martin is (even in my bad understanding) to drop to your knees.
Ok, i will address your last paragraph first: Maybe in the book that would be fine, but the show is 20 hour long interpretation of the first book in which those 3 guys are in about 30% of all the plot advancing scene and about 25% those scenes are centered around them. In a 4-8 hours read i am oky with 30 minutes of " Why the fuck am I reading about this guy " scenes that are there in order to advance the plot. In a 20 hours movie i am not oky with 5 hours of those guys even if the reason is the same... they are only there to advance the plot. I don't know... that's just me maybe.
To address the rest:
To a point I think you kind got what i wanted to say. However i am not saying that you need to "know" if someone is good or bad BUT rather that you need to have a reason to care about that character and being good/bad is an easy reason. A fantasy book/movie is about exploring the world, about the epic, about the bizarre, about the magic... etc
That is why we have bad/good character in them, because we don't really care about the sexual relationships and genital condition of Gandalf and Saruman we care about them being epic wizards that fight each other. The fact that one is good and one is bad is the reason of the fight between them inn the first movie.
Could the reason of the fight be that they both love the same women ? That they have different political views ? Well... it could, is there a reason to do so ? Not really as long as its " 2 epic wizards fighting" because that is the main reason why you like the fight.
Game of thrones ( the movie ) doesn't seem to me like a " We present a lord of the ring fantasy world but with non standard characters" but rather a " We didn't have money to create 20 hours of this epic fantasy world but we wanted a 20 hours show thus we made 90% of it dialogue and since dialogue between good and bad character is pretty stale we made them more diverse ".
Fantasy characters are good and bad characters since good and bad is a thing that can be easily "ported" into imaginary races and cultures. A naturalist character... not so much. And if you have characters that are not "outer-worldly" and the actual "outer-worldly" elements of the movie are about 20% of the whole movie why is this movie fantasy with a twist ?
In its current state the movie ( or show, whatever you call it )fells to me like its a drama with a fantasy twist not the other way around.
I didn't realize this fully myself last night but i think that is the actual "flaw" that the movie has, not the fact that the characters are worse than lord of the rings but rather that fact that the movie in its own its not really fantasy, the fantastic elements are lacking. And good characters like the dwarf "mask" this but characters like the council who fell like they are simply "filler" make this flaw more obvious.
On September 14 2012 04:47 RolleMcKnolle wrote: I am not sure whether I would actually follow your classification of characters. If we take for example Littlefinger, then you were saying that we actually don't know anything about this character's motivation but you suddenly want to place them into Tolstoy's worlds? I can't immediately recall any book where characters motivations are as obvious and openly discussed as in war and peace or anna karenina. But this just as an example.
I said we don't know anything about his motives but that he follows a rather stereotypical realist character pattern ( not sure what the term for the specific character is in English but its the one where the motives are simply " Money is power and power is money thus i will obtain both power and money at any cost and generally i will do it by screwing other people over" ).
The thing with most realistic novels is that a character has a very basic "motive", any character must have one, but it can be quite illogical in a "real" world. The thing that i said about the 3 guys on the council is that IN CASE THEY ARE NOT realist characters than there motives are quite vague.
Thus we can ether assume: - The 3 are realistic characters and there motives are obvious, but that makes them quite unfitting for a fantasy book - The 3 are not-realistic but in that case i fail to see there motives and thus once again am not found of there time on screen
( I am referring to European/French realism here, not "American" realism )
You connection to soap operas seems rather vague. realistic books = erotic books = soap operas? wtf?
Oky, so let me put it like this A realistic book is one which has limited and stagnant character types, unlike a modern novel in which characters "evolve" or a romantic novel where characters are strictly one dimensional in terms of traits/pov, a realist novel has characters with a little bit more "diverse" traits and even pov but generally there are only a few "motives" one such character can have.
Tho they are not a "trademark" of realism, the erotic motives are present in many realist novels, some times the "lovers" are modern character BUT if the "love story" ( or erotic story, if you want to use fancy Latin terms ) is presented in a context where all the other characters are realistic it makes it a realistic novel, and the love story makes it an erotic novel.
Hence you get an erotic realistic novel( one would assume). Most soap operas from my understanding have pretty "typical" characters and sometimes a few characters that actually show signs of evolution in terms of personality + soap operas have and are mostly based around a love story. Thus I assumed that a soap opera is the best TV equivalent of such book.
And let me ask you, why is the dissolving of the obnoxious fantasy scheme something bad? These books are the first time that I didn't have the feeling that fantasy books are there to assure people that the world they live in isn't as bad and destructive as it seems, because there can always be a hero... I love this story because it destroys the fantasy genre in a way that seems natural and realistic through still using the usual elements of a fantasy story.
Well i am not saying that is bad for a movie/book to exist the Tolkein boundaries of the fantasy genre but the way this book does it seem strange. You have for example movie/books such as Harry potter that very much exist some of the boundaries by having a shit ton of modern characters and "kill" characters that aren't "supposed" to die in a LOTR like book, it might not be that obvious since the book is aimed at kids/teenagers and thus its not a very "mature" or "bloody" story but the genre derivation is there. You can even have a fantasy movie/book in which the villain wins and the protagonist dies, where frodo doesn't manage to throw the ring in the volcano or where the ice lady kills that annoying little English twat. It will not be a very good one since it will leave readers with a "frustration" most likely but it can still be 99% in the boundaries of the genre established in mid 20th century.
The story of the book is not what bothers me, a story about a man living his daily boring life can be a very interesting story as long as presented well. And the presentation in a movie is trough characters and graphics, things such as lord of the rings are based on the graphic side of things a lot much more than this for example. But presenting the story trough characters and there dialogues like Game of Throne does is the way that a story "should be" told. However those characters ether need to be "typical" characters, the bad guy and the good guy, so i can connect to them... so i can care for them. Or unconventional characters, and the unconventional can be much better than the conventional if done well ( aka the Dwarf ) but also can be much worse ( aka the "council guys" ).
The movie doesn't deviate that much from the genre but it does it in such a way that the many deviation seem to be " involutions" rather than "innovations".
Oh well, atm I am to tired to even preview this/spell check :/ Alas "art" is a matter of taste when you come to the "like vs not like". I guess that if you enjoy this a lot good for you, its not like i didn't enjoy it I fucking watched it all in a few days and 90% of it sober. Compared to other bull shit that is spilling out of holywood recently this is a good show for me.
"Ignoring" almost the whole upper part, which was an interesting and informative read, I think I still don't really get what you want to say, I'm gonna try nonetheless. For me and most other people it seems as if your main problem is that you don't have a lot of characters you can relate to. Now this is a completely valid opinion about a movie/book. You neither care about the vehicles nor the protagonists of the story(which both are the characters as you pointed out) so you can't see why everyone is so amazed about the whole thing. But what you are asking for is a good old fantasy book. There it doesn't matter all that much whether Frodo throws the ring in to the volcano or not, but it matters whether we think that Frodo should throw it in there. And this is exactly what happens in Harry Potter/LotR. We know who is bad/good and we all share the feeling of what should happen. So besides characters dieing or developing we still have a good gut feeling about the doings of our protagonists. As you can't build a proper story with only unconventional characters, you need those standard roles that are basically carrying the story. And for you(as I understood it) those are irrelevant as long as you can't definitely tell whether you should like them or not, whether they fight for your happy-feeling or not. This is as it has been in every fantasy book I read. But this is the charme in GoT as you can't really think of anyone as good or bad. But you can relate to a lot of different characters on completely different levels. Everyone has it's bad, moronic sites but in almost everyone there are positive and likeable features. So maybe we are just that different, but I actually built an emotional relationship to every single character, and I do care about each one of them. So it deviates extremely from your standard fantasy-genre book (including Harry Potter) and why you suddenly think that involutions took place just because people aren't black and white anymore is beyond me.(Probably I missunderstood you here, because the part where you actually talk about this is rather short).
And for the differences in telling the story about your´ unconventional characters aka "Tirion and the council guys" , couldn't it be that you perceive this difference in the quality of characters mainly because Tirion actually is a central character (in the book about every sixth chapter is exclusively telling his story) and the other guys aren't. So that maybe Martin just doesn't want you yet to know about the motivations and doings of these people, as they are just not main characters? Maybe you should really read the books. Besides painting the characters in a way more detailed (and interesting) light, the English of Martin is (even in my bad understanding) to drop to your knees.
Ok, i will address your last paragraph first: Maybe in the book that would be fine, but the show is 20 hour long interpretation of the first book in which those 3 guys are in about 30% of all the plot advancing scene and about 25% those scenes are centered around them. In a 4-8 hours read i am oky with 30 minutes of " Why the fuck am I reading about this guy " scenes that are there in order to advance the plot. In a 20 hours movie i am not oky with 5 hours of those guys even if the reason is the same... they are only there to advance the plot. I don't know... that's just me maybe.
To address the rest:
To a point I think you kind got what i wanted to say. However i am not saying that you need to "know" if someone is good or bad BUT rather that you need to have a reason to care about that character and being good/bad is an easy reason. A fantasy book/movie is about exploring the world, about the epic, about the bizarre, about the magic... etc
That is why we have bad/good character in them, because we don't really care about the sexual relationships and genital condition of Gandalf and Saruman we care about them being epic wizards that fight each other. The fact that one is good and one is bad is the reason of the fight between them inn the first movie.
Could the reason of the fight be that they both love the same women ? That they have different political views ? Well... it could, is there a reason to do so ? Not really as long as its " 2 epic wizards fighting" because that is the main reason why you like the fight.
Game of thrones ( the movie ) doesn't seem to me like a " We present a lord of the ring fantasy world but with non standard characters" but rather a " We didn't have money to create 20 hours of this epic fantasy world but we wanted a 20 hours show thus we made 90% of it dialogue and since dialogue between good and bad character is pretty stale we made them more diverse ".
Fantasy characters are good and bad characters since good and bad is a thing that can be easily "ported" into imaginary races and cultures. A naturalist character... not so much. And if you have characters that are not "outer-worldly" and the actual "outer-worldly" elements of the movie are about 20% of the whole movie why is this movie fantasy with a twist ?
In its current state the movie ( or show, whatever you call it )fells to me like its a drama with a fantasy twist not the other way around.
I didn't realize this fully myself last night but i think that is the actual "flaw" that the movie has, not the fact that the characters are worse than lord of the rings but rather that fact that the movie in its own its not really fantasy, the fantastic elements are lacking. And good characters like the dwarf "mask" this but characters like the council who fell like they are simply "filler" make this flaw more obvious.
It just follows the books (spoiler alert, there are in fact books which the show is based on). IMDB lists it as 'Adventure, Drama, Fantasy. It's not Lord of the Rings. It never was, it never will be. Fact of the matter is that it's actually interesting and intriguing on a new level, which is not something you often see out of American shows or films in general, or the ones that reach Europe at least. Personally I care a whole lot more about Starks than I ever did about Frodo. Why? Because Frodo along with the rest of the fellowship save Boromir could never ever ever do anything bad or evil. They're one dimensional, bland and suited for children under 15. They're like listening to porn on the radio. The thing with GoT is that there's a high amount of realism in it (important, 'good' characters die for one) that actually makes me care more about the characters and get excited to continue watching. Why? Because in his next mission, superman might actually kill and innocent dude, get trialed for murder and killed in the electric chair. And then he's out. Forever. There's so much more tension to it than pretty much anything else on air where important characters only die when the show can't afford the actors any more.
On September 14 2012 04:47 RolleMcKnolle wrote: I am not sure whether I would actually follow your classification of characters. If we take for example Littlefinger, then you were saying that we actually don't know anything about this character's motivation but you suddenly want to place them into Tolstoy's worlds? I can't immediately recall any book where characters motivations are as obvious and openly discussed as in war and peace or anna karenina. But this just as an example.
I said we don't know anything about his motives but that he follows a rather stereotypical realist character pattern ( not sure what the term for the specific character is in English but its the one where the motives are simply " Money is power and power is money thus i will obtain both power and money at any cost and generally i will do it by screwing other people over" ).
The thing with most realistic novels is that a character has a very basic "motive", any character must have one, but it can be quite illogical in a "real" world. The thing that i said about the 3 guys on the council is that IN CASE THEY ARE NOT realist characters than there motives are quite vague.
Thus we can ether assume: - The 3 are realistic characters and there motives are obvious, but that makes them quite unfitting for a fantasy book - The 3 are not-realistic but in that case i fail to see there motives and thus once again am not found of there time on screen
( I am referring to European/French realism here, not "American" realism )
You connection to soap operas seems rather vague. realistic books = erotic books = soap operas? wtf?
Oky, so let me put it like this A realistic book is one which has limited and stagnant character types, unlike a modern novel in which characters "evolve" or a romantic novel where characters are strictly one dimensional in terms of traits/pov, a realist novel has characters with a little bit more "diverse" traits and even pov but generally there are only a few "motives" one such character can have.
Tho they are not a "trademark" of realism, the erotic motives are present in many realist novels, some times the "lovers" are modern character BUT if the "love story" ( or erotic story, if you want to use fancy Latin terms ) is presented in a context where all the other characters are realistic it makes it a realistic novel, and the love story makes it an erotic novel.
Hence you get an erotic realistic novel( one would assume). Most soap operas from my understanding have pretty "typical" characters and sometimes a few characters that actually show signs of evolution in terms of personality + soap operas have and are mostly based around a love story. Thus I assumed that a soap opera is the best TV equivalent of such book.
And let me ask you, why is the dissolving of the obnoxious fantasy scheme something bad? These books are the first time that I didn't have the feeling that fantasy books are there to assure people that the world they live in isn't as bad and destructive as it seems, because there can always be a hero... I love this story because it destroys the fantasy genre in a way that seems natural and realistic through still using the usual elements of a fantasy story.
Well i am not saying that is bad for a movie/book to exist the Tolkein boundaries of the fantasy genre but the way this book does it seem strange. You have for example movie/books such as Harry potter that very much exist some of the boundaries by having a shit ton of modern characters and "kill" characters that aren't "supposed" to die in a LOTR like book, it might not be that obvious since the book is aimed at kids/teenagers and thus its not a very "mature" or "bloody" story but the genre derivation is there. You can even have a fantasy movie/book in which the villain wins and the protagonist dies, where frodo doesn't manage to throw the ring in the volcano or where the ice lady kills that annoying little English twat. It will not be a very good one since it will leave readers with a "frustration" most likely but it can still be 99% in the boundaries of the genre established in mid 20th century.
The story of the book is not what bothers me, a story about a man living his daily boring life can be a very interesting story as long as presented well. And the presentation in a movie is trough characters and graphics, things such as lord of the rings are based on the graphic side of things a lot much more than this for example. But presenting the story trough characters and there dialogues like Game of Throne does is the way that a story "should be" told. However those characters ether need to be "typical" characters, the bad guy and the good guy, so i can connect to them... so i can care for them. Or unconventional characters, and the unconventional can be much better than the conventional if done well ( aka the Dwarf ) but also can be much worse ( aka the "council guys" ).
The movie doesn't deviate that much from the genre but it does it in such a way that the many deviation seem to be " involutions" rather than "innovations".
Oh well, atm I am to tired to even preview this/spell check :/ Alas "art" is a matter of taste when you come to the "like vs not like". I guess that if you enjoy this a lot good for you, its not like i didn't enjoy it I fucking watched it all in a few days and 90% of it sober. Compared to other bull shit that is spilling out of holywood recently this is a good show for me.
"Ignoring" almost the whole upper part, which was an interesting and informative read, I think I still don't really get what you want to say, I'm gonna try nonetheless. For me and most other people it seems as if your main problem is that you don't have a lot of characters you can relate to. Now this is a completely valid opinion about a movie/book. You neither care about the vehicles nor the protagonists of the story(which both are the characters as you pointed out) so you can't see why everyone is so amazed about the whole thing. But what you are asking for is a good old fantasy book. There it doesn't matter all that much whether Frodo throws the ring in to the volcano or not, but it matters whether we think that Frodo should throw it in there. And this is exactly what happens in Harry Potter/LotR. We know who is bad/good and we all share the feeling of what should happen. So besides characters dieing or developing we still have a good gut feeling about the doings of our protagonists. As you can't build a proper story with only unconventional characters, you need those standard roles that are basically carrying the story. And for you(as I understood it) those are irrelevant as long as you can't definitely tell whether you should like them or not, whether they fight for your happy-feeling or not. This is as it has been in every fantasy book I read. But this is the charme in GoT as you can't really think of anyone as good or bad. But you can relate to a lot of different characters on completely different levels. Everyone has it's bad, moronic sites but in almost everyone there are positive and likeable features. So maybe we are just that different, but I actually built an emotional relationship to every single character, and I do care about each one of them. So it deviates extremely from your standard fantasy-genre book (including Harry Potter) and why you suddenly think that involutions took place just because people aren't black and white anymore is beyond me.(Probably I missunderstood you here, because the part where you actually talk about this is rather short).
And for the differences in telling the story about your´ unconventional characters aka "Tirion and the council guys" , couldn't it be that you perceive this difference in the quality of characters mainly because Tirion actually is a central character (in the book about every sixth chapter is exclusively telling his story) and the other guys aren't. So that maybe Martin just doesn't want you yet to know about the motivations and doings of these people, as they are just not main characters? Maybe you should really read the books. Besides painting the characters in a way more detailed (and interesting) light, the English of Martin is (even in my bad understanding) to drop to your knees.
Ok, i will address your last paragraph first: Maybe in the book that would be fine, but the show is 20 hour long interpretation of the first book in which those 3 guys are in about 30% of all the plot advancing scene and about 25% those scenes are centered around them. In a 4-8 hours read i am oky with 30 minutes of " Why the fuck am I reading about this guy " scenes that are there in order to advance the plot. In a 20 hours movie i am not oky with 5 hours of those guys even if the reason is the same... they are only there to advance the plot. I don't know... that's just me maybe.
To address the rest:
To a point I think you kind got what i wanted to say. However i am not saying that you need to "know" if someone is good or bad BUT rather that you need to have a reason to care about that character and being good/bad is an easy reason. A fantasy book/movie is about exploring the world, about the epic, about the bizarre, about the magic... etc
That is why we have bad/good character in them, because we don't really care about the sexual relationships and genital condition of Gandalf and Saruman we care about them being epic wizards that fight each other. The fact that one is good and one is bad is the reason of the fight between them inn the first movie.
Could the reason of the fight be that they both love the same women ? That they have different political views ? Well... it could, is there a reason to do so ? Not really as long as its " 2 epic wizards fighting" because that is the main reason why you like the fight.
Game of thrones ( the movie ) doesn't seem to me like a " We present a lord of the ring fantasy world but with non standard characters" but rather a " We didn't have money to create 20 hours of this epic fantasy world but we wanted a 20 hours show thus we made 90% of it dialogue and since dialogue between good and bad character is pretty stale we made them more diverse ".
Fantasy characters are good and bad characters since good and bad is a thing that can be easily "ported" into imaginary races and cultures. A naturalist character... not so much. And if you have characters that are not "outer-worldly" and the actual "outer-worldly" elements of the movie are about 20% of the whole movie why is this movie fantasy with a twist ?
In its current state the movie ( or show, whatever you call it )fells to me like its a drama with a fantasy twist not the other way around.
I didn't realize this fully myself last night but i think that is the actual "flaw" that the movie has, not the fact that the characters are worse than lord of the rings but rather that fact that the movie in its own its not really fantasy, the fantastic elements are lacking. And good characters like the dwarf "mask" this but characters like the council who fell like they are simply "filler" make this flaw more obvious.
It just follows the books (spoiler alert, there are in fact books which the show is based on). IMDB lists it as 'Adventure, Drama, Fantasy. It's not Lord of the Rings. It never was, it never will be. Fact of the matter is that it's actually interesting and intriguing on a new level, which is not something you often see out of American shows or films in general, or the ones that reach Europe at least. Personally I care a whole lot more about Starks than I ever did about Frodo. Why? Because Frodo along with the rest of the fellowship save Boromir could never ever ever do anything bad or evil. They're one dimensional, bland and suited for children under 15. They're like listening to porn on the radio. The thing with GoT is that there's a high amount of realism in it (important, 'good' characters die for one) that actually makes me care more about the characters and get excited to continue watching. Why? Because in his next mission, superman might actually kill and innocent dude, get trialed for murder and killed in the electric chair. And then he's out. Forever. There's so much more tension to it than pretty much anything else on air where important characters only die when the show can't afford the actors any more.
Meh, as i said, i don't mind the series being that way if people like it. I liked it as well, but it somehow manged to be marketed to me as "20 hours of LOTR/Starwars/whatever" and the fact that it was not what i expected might have unconsciously put me off a little.
Also i never liked realistic character ( i liked the ones from american realism a lot more but mind you the kind of characters in got are mostly french realism if not naturalism for the most part ). I fell like i can like modern characters since even if they are not like a real person they try to be like one and manage for most part. I like romantic character since they are 1 dimensional and thus easy to understand.
Realist characters, quite frankly, seem to me like they are very long way from actually seeming real. ( realist character with the meaning of character based around the realist current not in the sense of "character that seems real" )
As i said, i think it comes down to personal preference .
On September 14 2012 04:47 RolleMcKnolle wrote: I am not sure whether I would actually follow your classification of characters. If we take for example Littlefinger, then you were saying that we actually don't know anything about this character's motivation but you suddenly want to place them into Tolstoy's worlds? I can't immediately recall any book where characters motivations are as obvious and openly discussed as in war and peace or anna karenina. But this just as an example.
I said we don't know anything about his motives but that he follows a rather stereotypical realist character pattern ( not sure what the term for the specific character is in English but its the one where the motives are simply " Money is power and power is money thus i will obtain both power and money at any cost and generally i will do it by screwing other people over" ).
The thing with most realistic novels is that a character has a very basic "motive", any character must have one, but it can be quite illogical in a "real" world. The thing that i said about the 3 guys on the council is that IN CASE THEY ARE NOT realist characters than there motives are quite vague.
Thus we can ether assume: - The 3 are realistic characters and there motives are obvious, but that makes them quite unfitting for a fantasy book - The 3 are not-realistic but in that case i fail to see there motives and thus once again am not found of there time on screen
( I am referring to European/French realism here, not "American" realism )
You connection to soap operas seems rather vague. realistic books = erotic books = soap operas? wtf?
Oky, so let me put it like this A realistic book is one which has limited and stagnant character types, unlike a modern novel in which characters "evolve" or a romantic novel where characters are strictly one dimensional in terms of traits/pov, a realist novel has characters with a little bit more "diverse" traits and even pov but generally there are only a few "motives" one such character can have.
Tho they are not a "trademark" of realism, the erotic motives are present in many realist novels, some times the "lovers" are modern character BUT if the "love story" ( or erotic story, if you want to use fancy Latin terms ) is presented in a context where all the other characters are realistic it makes it a realistic novel, and the love story makes it an erotic novel.
Hence you get an erotic realistic novel( one would assume). Most soap operas from my understanding have pretty "typical" characters and sometimes a few characters that actually show signs of evolution in terms of personality + soap operas have and are mostly based around a love story. Thus I assumed that a soap opera is the best TV equivalent of such book.
And let me ask you, why is the dissolving of the obnoxious fantasy scheme something bad? These books are the first time that I didn't have the feeling that fantasy books are there to assure people that the world they live in isn't as bad and destructive as it seems, because there can always be a hero... I love this story because it destroys the fantasy genre in a way that seems natural and realistic through still using the usual elements of a fantasy story.
Well i am not saying that is bad for a movie/book to exist the Tolkein boundaries of the fantasy genre but the way this book does it seem strange. You have for example movie/books such as Harry potter that very much exist some of the boundaries by having a shit ton of modern characters and "kill" characters that aren't "supposed" to die in a LOTR like book, it might not be that obvious since the book is aimed at kids/teenagers and thus its not a very "mature" or "bloody" story but the genre derivation is there. You can even have a fantasy movie/book in which the villain wins and the protagonist dies, where frodo doesn't manage to throw the ring in the volcano or where the ice lady kills that annoying little English twat. It will not be a very good one since it will leave readers with a "frustration" most likely but it can still be 99% in the boundaries of the genre established in mid 20th century.
The story of the book is not what bothers me, a story about a man living his daily boring life can be a very interesting story as long as presented well. And the presentation in a movie is trough characters and graphics, things such as lord of the rings are based on the graphic side of things a lot much more than this for example. But presenting the story trough characters and there dialogues like Game of Throne does is the way that a story "should be" told. However those characters ether need to be "typical" characters, the bad guy and the good guy, so i can connect to them... so i can care for them. Or unconventional characters, and the unconventional can be much better than the conventional if done well ( aka the Dwarf ) but also can be much worse ( aka the "council guys" ).
The movie doesn't deviate that much from the genre but it does it in such a way that the many deviation seem to be " involutions" rather than "innovations".
Oh well, atm I am to tired to even preview this/spell check :/ Alas "art" is a matter of taste when you come to the "like vs not like". I guess that if you enjoy this a lot good for you, its not like i didn't enjoy it I fucking watched it all in a few days and 90% of it sober. Compared to other bull shit that is spilling out of holywood recently this is a good show for me.
"Ignoring" almost the whole upper part, which was an interesting and informative read, I think I still don't really get what you want to say, I'm gonna try nonetheless. For me and most other people it seems as if your main problem is that you don't have a lot of characters you can relate to. Now this is a completely valid opinion about a movie/book. You neither care about the vehicles nor the protagonists of the story(which both are the characters as you pointed out) so you can't see why everyone is so amazed about the whole thing. But what you are asking for is a good old fantasy book. There it doesn't matter all that much whether Frodo throws the ring in to the volcano or not, but it matters whether we think that Frodo should throw it in there. And this is exactly what happens in Harry Potter/LotR. We know who is bad/good and we all share the feeling of what should happen. So besides characters dieing or developing we still have a good gut feeling about the doings of our protagonists. As you can't build a proper story with only unconventional characters, you need those standard roles that are basically carrying the story. And for you(as I understood it) those are irrelevant as long as you can't definitely tell whether you should like them or not, whether they fight for your happy-feeling or not. This is as it has been in every fantasy book I read. But this is the charme in GoT as you can't really think of anyone as good or bad. But you can relate to a lot of different characters on completely different levels. Everyone has it's bad, moronic sites but in almost everyone there are positive and likeable features. So maybe we are just that different, but I actually built an emotional relationship to every single character, and I do care about each one of them. So it deviates extremely from your standard fantasy-genre book (including Harry Potter) and why you suddenly think that involutions took place just because people aren't black and white anymore is beyond me.(Probably I missunderstood you here, because the part where you actually talk about this is rather short).
And for the differences in telling the story about your´ unconventional characters aka "Tirion and the council guys" , couldn't it be that you perceive this difference in the quality of characters mainly because Tirion actually is a central character (in the book about every sixth chapter is exclusively telling his story) and the other guys aren't. So that maybe Martin just doesn't want you yet to know about the motivations and doings of these people, as they are just not main characters? Maybe you should really read the books. Besides painting the characters in a way more detailed (and interesting) light, the English of Martin is (even in my bad understanding) to drop to your knees.
Ok, i will address your last paragraph first: Maybe in the book that would be fine, but the show is 20 hour long interpretation of the first book in which those 3 guys are in about 30% of all the plot advancing scene and about 25% those scenes are centered around them. In a 4-8 hours read i am oky with 30 minutes of " Why the fuck am I reading about this guy " scenes that are there in order to advance the plot. In a 20 hours movie i am not oky with 5 hours of those guys even if the reason is the same... they are only there to advance the plot. I don't know... that's just me maybe.
To address the rest:
To a point I think you kind got what i wanted to say. However i am not saying that you need to "know" if someone is good or bad BUT rather that you need to have a reason to care about that character and being good/bad is an easy reason. A fantasy book/movie is about exploring the world, about the epic, about the bizarre, about the magic... etc
That is why we have bad/good character in them, because we don't really care about the sexual relationships and genital condition of Gandalf and Saruman we care about them being epic wizards that fight each other. The fact that one is good and one is bad is the reason of the fight between them inn the first movie.
Could the reason of the fight be that they both love the same women ? That they have different political views ? Well... it could, is there a reason to do so ? Not really as long as its " 2 epic wizards fighting" because that is the main reason why you like the fight.
Game of thrones ( the movie ) doesn't seem to me like a " We present a lord of the ring fantasy world but with non standard characters" but rather a " We didn't have money to create 20 hours of this epic fantasy world but we wanted a 20 hours show thus we made 90% of it dialogue and since dialogue between good and bad character is pretty stale we made them more diverse ".
Fantasy characters are good and bad characters since good and bad is a thing that can be easily "ported" into imaginary races and cultures. A naturalist character... not so much. And if you have characters that are not "outer-worldly" and the actual "outer-worldly" elements of the movie are about 20% of the whole movie why is this movie fantasy with a twist ?
In its current state the movie ( or show, whatever you call it )fells to me like its a drama with a fantasy twist not the other way around.
I didn't realize this fully myself last night but i think that is the actual "flaw" that the movie has, not the fact that the characters are worse than lord of the rings but rather that fact that the movie in its own its not really fantasy, the fantastic elements are lacking. And good characters like the dwarf "mask" this but characters like the council who fell like they are simply "filler" make this flaw more obvious.
It just follows the books (spoiler alert, there are in fact books which the show is based on). IMDB lists it as 'Adventure, Drama, Fantasy. It's not Lord of the Rings. It never was, it never will be. Fact of the matter is that it's actually interesting and intriguing on a new level, which is not something you often see out of American shows or films in general, or the ones that reach Europe at least. Personally I care a whole lot more about Starks than I ever did about Frodo. Why? Because Frodo along with the rest of the fellowship save Boromir could never ever ever do anything bad or evil. They're one dimensional, bland and suited for children under 15. They're like listening to porn on the radio. The thing with GoT is that there's a high amount of realism in it (important, 'good' characters die for one) that actually makes me care more about the characters and get excited to continue watching. Why? Because in his next mission, superman might actually kill and innocent dude, get trialed for murder and killed in the electric chair. And then he's out. Forever. There's so much more tension to it than pretty much anything else on air where important characters only die when the show can't afford the actors any more.
Meh, as i said, i don't mind the series being that way if people like it. I liked it as well, but it somehow manged to be marketed to me as "20 hours of LOTR/Starwars/whatever" and the fact that it was not what i expected might have unconsciously put me off a little.
Also i never liked realistic character ( i liked the ones from american realism a lot more but mind you the kind of characters in got are mostly french realism if not naturalism for the most part ). I fell like i can like modern characters since even if they are not like a real person they try to be like one and manage for most part. I like romantic character since they are 1 dimensional and thus easy to understand.
Realist characters, quite frankly, seem to me like they are very long way from actually seeming real. ( realist character with the meaning of character based around the realist current not in the sense of "character that seems real" )
As i said, i think it comes down to personal preference .
Well I see where you're coming from. I had no idea about the books and all that, and after watching the first episode I thought it would be about some kind of medieval zombie invasion with the white walkers as they take so much time in the first episode. After rewatching it though it's become my favourite show by far. I don't see a point in why you would watch it if you prefer films such as teenage mutant ninja turtles and the green lantern, or why you're talking about its marketing when it's clearly listed as a fantasy/drama.
You seem to be getting the entire genre of GoT wrong. It is NOT a fantasy story in structure or character development, it is only in a fantasy setting. The structure of GoT is that of an historical epic, in which the main things to advance the plot are the interactions and development of the people who influence empires and literally change the world with their actions. As such, political intrigue and character relationships are key. Other important goals are to give you a sense of the world at that time, the different moralities and oddities compared to what we know, and the thought process of people at the time. LotR had basically none of these, because it is the definition of a standard fantasy movie (basically, that is the main criticism fans of the books have against the movies).
Now, let's go by HBO's record of television. Their best shows are about the characters and their interactions through which you get a feel for the roles in a complex world with which we are not familiar with; The Wire about police and crime in Baltimore, Deadwood about the old west town of the same name, The Sopranos about the mob, and so on. None of these are the classic interpretations of their "genre"; The Wire is not about cops busting criminals, Deadwood isn't about gunslinging cowboys, The Sopranos isn't even close to things like The Godfather or Scarface. Expecting them to make it about epic battles of good vs. evil goes against every bit of HBO's record of giving a whole lot of grey area and complexity. I personally find it refreshing when a TV series doesn't start with the assumption that I'm an idiot and can't handle that.
You don't like the characters, don't like the "soap opera" plot, and so on... well, you are watching the wrong show for you. Also, your analysis of the characters is snobbish and not grounded in fact. Not liking an entire type of character shows you care for form and not function, it is the equivalent of someone who doesn't eat ice-cream because he doesn't find milk tasty. Your criticism that this isn't a wham-bam combination of fireballs and swordfights because of a lack of budget is missing the entire point of the show (and for the record, the show has a MASSIVE budget). Game of Thrones does not attempt to be that type of film/series. It goes for depth instead of the "wow factor". If that doesn't work for you, don't blame the show for it.
tl;dr: GoT is not a fantasy series, it is far more ambitious in attempting a completely fictional historical epic, that as a bonus has dragons, wizards, undead, wars, magical assassins and barbarian hordes. Don't expect it to be LotR, and enjoy it for what it is.
It's odd, cos the 'westeros' part of the story is all intrigue, politics and ''soad oprea'' stuff, but the 'north of the wall' and the 'Danny and her dragons' parts are exactly classic fantasy, goodies and baddies killing each other with magic and dragons.
What makes GoT interesting IMO, is the fact that it's presented quite realistically in terms of politics and the dealings of nobles. It's all quite realistic but there are small hints of fantasy scattered around, and this is what I think makes GoT awesome.
Perhaps eventually it will turn over into full blown fantasy style, we keep hearing about bunch of stuff from across The Wall. And sooner or later the dragons are gonna grow up.
In short, you can't buy maple pecan fudge bourbon ripple ice cream and expect it to taste like plain vanilla when you bite into it. You're at your own fault for every point you're trying to argue.
These last two pages kind of remind me of Sansa and her naivety. Her mind is filled with fantastical tales of knights and their chivalrous ventures and it turns out that the real world isn't like that at all. Woops!
On September 16 2012 06:03 LoLAdriankat wrote: In short, you can't buy maple pecan fudge bourbon ripple ice cream and expect it to taste like plain vanilla when you bite into it. You're at your own fault for every point you're trying to argue.
These last two pages kind of remind me of Sansa and her naivety. Her mind is filled with fantastical tales of knights and their chivalrous ventures and it turns out that the real world isn't like that at all. Woops!
J.R.R. Tolkien grew up reading ancient myths and appropriated those into his fantasy. George Martin read medeivel histories. The Lord of the Rings is based on Celtic, Scandinavian, and other assorted world myths. A Song of Ice and Fire is based off of The War of the Roses and other real-life narratives. It's a different bent, to be sure, and perhaps the PR about the show was mischaracterized, but it is still a great story.
The show does have good and evil though. Ned Stark is pretty much purely good. Joffrey Baratheon is pretty much purely evil. Everyone else is a gradient between those two. Or, if you want to get beyond simple labels of good and evil, think of everyone as being motivated by self interest.
In LOTR, Gondor is on the side of good. Yet, it is led by Denethor, a man who was motivated by self interest. He wanted to save his realm and his people, to be sure, but he also wanted to preserve his status as ruler of Gondor. Grima Wormtounge, is on the side of evil, yet it is he who stabs Saruman in the back and ends his life having done good, though it was motivated by selfishness.
Think of the land of Westeros as being filled with Denethors and Grimas.
Characters in Game of Thrones that fit your model of "classic" fantasy characters include "Jon Snow (the intrepid youth who seeks adventure and chivalry), Samwell Tarly (honest, humble, and loyal. In short, the perfect friend. Kinda reminds me of another Sam in a different fantasy, hmm) Brienne of Tarth (extremely noble and a near match in character to Eowyn of Rohan), Arya, Hot Pie, Lemmy, and Gendry (young and naive, though small, their travels teach them the value of courage. And though they face many hardships in the world of the Big Folk, they keep their humor and their decency) Sandor Clegane (the classic anti-hero, has lived a rough and brutal life, yet clings to his own finely honed sense of honor), Davos Seaworth (the former bad guy who has turned good, more noble than most who were born into nobility). Cercei Lannister (The Wicked Queen), Jaime Lannister (The Wicked Queen's henchman) Joffrey Lannister (the tyrannical prince, sociopathic with a huge sense of entitlement. . .Like Prince John from Robin Hood)
On September 16 2012 23:47 Quexana wrote: J.R.R. Tolkien grew up reading ancient myths and appropriated those into his fantasy. George Martin read medeivel histories. The Lord of the Rings is based on Celtic, Scandinavian, and other assorted world myths. A Song of Ice and Fire is based off of The War of the Roses and other real-life narratives. It's a different bent, to be sure, and perhaps the PR about the show was mischaracterized, but it is still a great story.
The show does have good and evil though. Ned Stark is pretty much purely good. Joffrey Baratheon is pretty much purely evil. Everyone else is a gradient between those two. Or, if you want to get beyond simple labels of good and evil, think of everyone as being motivated by self interest.
In LOTR, Gondor is on the side of good. Yet, it is led by Denethor, a man who was motivated by self interest. He wanted to save his realm and his people, to be sure, but he also wanted to preserve his status as ruler of Gondor. Grima Wormtounge, is on the side of evil, yet it is he who stabs Saruman in the back and ends his life having done good, though it was motivated by selfishness.
Think of the land of Westeros as being filled with Denethors and Grimas.
Characters in Game of Thrones that fit your model of "classic" fantasy characters include "Jon Snow (the intrepid youth who seeks adventure and chivalry), Samwell Tarly (honest, humble, and loyal. In short, the perfect friend. Kinda reminds me of another Sam in a different fantasy, hmm) Brienne of Tarth (extremely noble and a near match in character to Eowyn of Rohan), Arya, Hot Pie, Lemmy, and Gendry (young and naive, though small, their travels teach them the value of courage. And though they face many hardships in the world of the Big Folk, they keep their humor and their decency) Sandor Clegane (the classic anti-hero, has lived a rough and brutal life, yet clings to his own finely honed sense of honor), Davos Seaworth (the former bad guy who has turned good, more noble than most who were born into nobility). Cercei Lannister (The Wicked Queen), Jaime Lannister (The Wicked Queen's henchman, who comes to see the Queen for what she is and may one day turn good and betray her. . .think Grima Wormtounge, or the Huntsman from Snow White). Joffrey Lannister (the tyrannical prince, sociopathic with a huge sense of entitlement. . .Like Prince John from Robin Hood)
On September 16 2012 23:47 Quexana wrote: J.R.R. Tolkien grew up reading ancient myths and appropriated those into his fantasy. George Martin read medeivel histories. The Lord of the Rings is based on Celtic, Scandinavian, and other assorted world myths. A Song of Ice and Fire is based off of The War of the Roses and other real-life narratives. It's a different bent, to be sure, and perhaps the PR about the show was mischaracterized, but it is still a great story.
The show does have good and evil though. Ned Stark is pretty much purely good. Joffrey Baratheon is pretty much purely evil. Everyone else is a gradient between those two. Or, if you want to get beyond simple labels of good and evil, think of everyone as being motivated by self interest.
In LOTR, Gondor is on the side of good. Yet, it is led by Denethor, a man who was motivated by self interest. He wanted to save his realm and his people, to be sure, but he also wanted to preserve his status as ruler of Gondor. Grima Wormtounge, is on the side of evil, yet it is he who stabs Saruman in the back and ends his life having done good, though it was motivated by selfishness.
Think of the land of Westeros as being filled with Denethors and Grimas.
Characters in Game of Thrones that fit your model of "classic" fantasy characters include "Jon Snow (the intrepid youth who seeks adventure and chivalry), Samwell Tarly (honest, humble, and loyal. In short, the perfect friend. Kinda reminds me of another Sam in a different fantasy, hmm) Brienne of Tarth (extremely noble and a near match in character to Eowyn of Rohan), Arya, Hot Pie, Lemmy, and Gendry (young and naive, though small, their travels teach them the value of courage. And though they face many hardships in the world of the Big Folk, they keep their humor and their decency) Sandor Clegane (the classic anti-hero, has lived a rough and brutal life, yet clings to his own finely honed sense of honor), Davos Seaworth (the former bad guy who has turned good, more noble than most who were born into nobility). Cercei Lannister (The Wicked Queen), Jaime Lannister (The Wicked Queen's henchman) Joffrey Lannister (the tyrannical prince, sociopathic with a huge sense of entitlement. . .Like Prince John from Robin Hood)
This has spoilers in it brother
I tried to make sure to keep everything based on what happened on the show thus far and I . . . oh, wait. I see now, one of those descriptions is minorly spoilery. . .apologies. Fixed it for you.
On September 16 2012 23:47 Quexana wrote: J.R.R. Tolkien grew up reading ancient myths and appropriated those into his fantasy. George Martin read medeivel histories. The Lord of the Rings is based on Celtic, Scandinavian, and other assorted world myths. A Song of Ice and Fire is based off of The War of the Roses and other real-life narratives. It's a different bent, to be sure, and perhaps the PR about the show was mischaracterized, but it is still a great story.
The show does have good and evil though. Ned Stark is pretty much purely good. Joffrey Baratheon is pretty much purely evil. Everyone else is a gradient between those two. Or, if you want to get beyond simple labels of good and evil, think of everyone as being motivated by self interest.
In LOTR, Gondor is on the side of good. Yet, it is led by Denethor, a man who was motivated by self interest. He wanted to save his realm and his people, to be sure, but he also wanted to preserve his status as ruler of Gondor. Grima Wormtounge, is on the side of evil, yet it is he who stabs Saruman in the back and ends his life having done good, though it was motivated by selfishness.
Think of the land of Westeros as being filled with Denethors and Grimas.
Characters in Game of Thrones that fit your model of "classic" fantasy characters include "Jon Snow (the intrepid youth who seeks adventure and chivalry), Samwell Tarly (honest, humble, and loyal. In short, the perfect friend. Kinda reminds me of another Sam in a different fantasy, hmm) Brienne of Tarth (extremely noble and a near match in character to Eowyn of Rohan), Arya, Hot Pie, Lemmy, and Gendry (young and naive, though small, their travels teach them the value of courage. And though they face many hardships in the world of the Big Folk, they keep their humor and their decency) Sandor Clegane (the classic anti-hero, has lived a rough and brutal life, yet clings to his own finely honed sense of honor), Davos Seaworth (the former bad guy who has turned good, more noble than most who were born into nobility). Cercei Lannister (The Wicked Queen), Jaime Lannister (The Wicked Queen's henchman) Joffrey Lannister (the tyrannical prince, sociopathic with a huge sense of entitlement. . .Like Prince John from Robin Hood)
This has spoilers in it brother
I tried to make sure to keep everything based on what happened on the show thus far and I . . . oh, wait. I see now, one of those descriptions is minorly spoilery. . .apologies. Fixed it for you.
On September 15 2012 20:13 drift0ut wrote: It's odd, cos the 'westeros' part of the story is all intrigue, politics and ''soad oprea'' stuff, but the 'north of the wall' and the 'Danny and her dragons' parts are exactly classic fantasy, goodies and baddies killing each other with magic and dragons.
I kinda wish they'd cut all of that stuff out.
Isn't that the entire point though? Fantasy in the story adds an entirely new element in the setting because Game of Thrones general idea is about viewing people's journeys to obtain power. Fantasy adds to the story by either obstructing or helping characters reach certain goals the fantasy element also adds the idea of uncontrollable events which allow the story to become more interesting as nothing is predictable. I don't think you can easily predict Game of Thrones with the fantasy element being present I think it just adds more to the complexity of the story. Viewers are able to see 2 completely different sides problems and see how they deal with it rather then just seeing wars after wars.
EPT
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it's very cool, about the CGI etc.
