A Song Of Ice And Fire

The biggest problem with Feast is that the pacing slows down a great deal. The Brienne chapters, for example, are almost all her wandering around, which does a great deal to show us how badly the war tore up the country but aren't too exciting or interesting for the most part. I don't think the writing quality suffered, it just doesn't have as much action or development as the previous books.

I dropped A Clash Of Kings somewhere around the Cersei getting attacked by the townsfolk. Does the book pick up at all from there?

I just thought of a odd ending for the series.

What came to mind was a contemplative Jaime sitting on the Iron Throne for the sole purpose of seeing who would come to try and claim it. In the same way as he did back in Robert's Rebellion.

It probably won't happen. But that's alright.

edited 28th Apr '10 9:29:18 PM by Aldrec

I'd actually be surprised if Jaime lived to the conclusion of the books. I don't know why, but he's one of the characters I just know is going to die.

On that subject, why does the fandom excuse Jaime for all the things he did so easily? Is it all the good lines?

edited 29th Apr '10 5:49:09 AM by ccoa

I always mistake this book's title for one written by Tanya Huff.

He's the Draco in Leather Pants. Really.

He's witty, cynic, and well... Kind of understandable

Mainly because, when compared to most of the other villains in the series, his actions are relatively minor. Hell, people woobiefy fucking Littlefinger, and you're complaining about Jaime?

edited 29th Apr '10 9:39:28 AM by Taelor

Well, yeah. Littlefinger might have a fringe group of fans, but Jaime is well liked and defended by a majority of the fandom. And that is baffling to me.

He tried to murder an 8-year-old kid (and not to protect his own children, which he regards no more than "a squirt of seed in Cersei's cunt", but because he thought it might be what Cersei wanted), and did sit on his ass while Elia and her children were in mortal danger. He threatened to lob a newborn at a castle with a trebuchet, and in the same chapter he said he always keeps his word. He's an interesting, grey character, but he's not a good person and he's a long, long, long way from redeemed.

I think people appreciate the effort at redemption though. He's done things that are arguably worse than Littlefinger (depending on whether you measure by scale of damage or the sheer coldbloodedness needed to pull them off) but he's at least started to recognize that he did things that were wrong and attempt to reform himself.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I tend to forgive people, in real life and fiction, pretty easily if they make an effort to change and avoid doing similarly wrong things in future. Jaime now is more respectable than most of the characters in the cast, regardless of past actions.

Also, where have you been? I missed seeing you on the forums.

Dealing with real life, mostly. It's been a bad few months.

The newborn and the trebuchet was pretty recent, though. And although he did it to prevent a bloody assault on Riverrun (which was more for his own sake so he could keep his word rather than to save lives), he still made it abundantly clear in that very chapter that he would have followed up on it.

I'm not entirely sure being "better" than a cast that includes the likes of Tywin, Ser Gregor, Littlefinger, Cersei, etc. is actually that much of a distinction, either.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just an unforgiving bitch.

Ah, but you see, throwing a kid out a window happened very early in the first book. That's over 2000 pages ago; who cares anymore?

I have a few questions, and they might be spoiler-ish.

1 What is it about Sandor's kiss that Sansa "misremembers"? It's mentioned many times on the page, but I don't remember the inconsistency...

2 So, is the general consensus that Margaery Tyrell did, in fact, go to Pycelle for Moon Tea because she's just as slatternly as Cersei thinks she is, or not? I thought the whole thing was a trick to get Cersei in trouble, but Margaery seems to just in just as deep a kettle...

3 In the end of the fourth book, Jayne Westerling's mother cites an "understanding..." between... well, who exactly? The Westerlings and the Lannisters? If so, then why didn't Walder Frey know anything about it? What does it gain the Westerlings to send their family members into a trap that they knew about, and what does it gain the Lannisters to keep Frey in the dark? If the Westerlings feel vengeful about the events that the Red Wedding had on their kin, it seems to my that Tywin's just earning himself another whole headache. ...Okay, he's mostly immune to headaches now, but still.

EDIT: And apparently I can't set the spoiler tags correctly... le sigh.

Thanks, tropers!

edited 29th Apr '10 7:29:14 PM by TallJim

^^ He's still a ruthless bastard. But he's figured he might as well use it to do something constructive.

^ 1. Sandor never kissed Sansa. She remembers it as if he did.

Okay, thanks. Right, he never did get his kiss!

In other, less spoilerish news, I think that one of the shortcomings of the Brienne plot in Feast is that she's trying to solve a mystery (for the vast majority of her travels) which the reader already knows the solution to.

"Is she here?", wondered Brienne, for the billionth time.

"NO!" screamed the Reader, for the billionth time.

While it might be argued that we don't know, either, what's around the next corner, we're continuously reminded that we DO know it's not what she's looking for.

Has there been any "wild mass guessing" on what the "one word" might be?

2. General consensus is divided, with lots of crackpot theories about who the tea was for and why. As for me? I dunno.

3. Between (some of) the Westerlings and the Lannisters. The mother gave Robb's bride Moon Tea to make sure no heirs were conceived and some of the Westerlings (can't remember the names) participated in the Red Wedding. So Walder knew, he just didn't care. He wanted revenge and the Trident.

As to the final word, most people agree that it was probably "Sword." Catelyn told her to choose the noose or the sword, and Brienne wouldn't chose. But seeing Pod dying she decided that his life wasn't worth her honor or something.

Thanks for that.

I have two thoughts:

1 - how DO you do spoilers correctly?? I've looked at the source code, and also at the pages source, and also at the markup explanation pages...

2 - It has popped into my head to start writing in the vein of Martin, and I've actually written a bit, creating my own world but definitely in that style; people have agreed that it seems like it's at-least-not-astonishingly-poorly-written, but heading into "clone" territory, and my response keeps being "well, yeah, but HE won't do it, and I want to run around in that low-fantasy world, so why not?"

What say ye, forums? Would you be interested in reading such a derivative (set not at all in Westeros, but with the same flavor)?

http://codimension4.livejournal.com/146106.html#cutid1

_- Tall Jim -_

I think the trick to spoilers is not having carriage returns in there. One tag per paragraph.

I think I'd like to see more gritty, low fantasy out there, but I'd like to see something new done with it rather than a clone.

Personally, I'd like to see fantasy that utilizes more diverse settings. Medieval European fantasy and modern urban fantasy together account for the bulk of what's out there. How about a fantasy setting based on Classical Greece or Pre-Islam Middle East, or a fantasy analogue to the scientific revolutions of the early twentieth century?

I'd like to see the latter too. How would people with magic respond to an equivalent of a telephone? Or an engine? Or a computer?

Personally, while if you feel at the bottom of your heart that you should do something like Westeros, I'd say go for it. If not, I strongly suggest that you don't do it, as Medieval Fantasy's been pretty played out by now. Go for something vastly different, like say, Renaissance Italy or ancient China or Aboriginal Australia. There is so much to do that hasn't been done.

edited 30th Apr '10 1:05:43 AM by krrackknut

a fantasy analogue to the scientific revolutions of the early twentieth century?

Full Metal Alchemist?

As for the question 2 upthread, remember that the person claiming he gave Margaery Moon Tea is Pycelle, who has been in the pockets of the Lannisters since forever and would certainly lie for them.

And I really hope Brienne's story doesn't end up being a Shoot the Shaggy Dog tale.

I'd like to see a fantasy setting that doesn't immediately draw paralells to particular time/place on Earth. I want to see something much more out there. For example:

An entire civilization that lives on top of/inside a giant centipede (their buildings are mostly caverns dug into its exoskeleton). They get electricity by hooking up generators to its constantly moving legs. Their leaders/priests/magicians perform miraculous things by hooking their nerve endings into the centipede's central nervous system, giving them a limited amount of control over it.

or

A world where crops grow much, much faster, and much, much larger than on Earth. I'm talking about cornstalks larger than redwood trees, and growing so wildly that they form huge forests/jungles. The main duty of farmers isn't to make the plants grow; it's getting into the crop jungles, harvesting a few elephant sized tomatoes and what-not, and getting out before the giant buzz-saw beetles, locust-man armies, fire-breathing ants, and other beasties who feed on the crops kill them.

or

A world that takes overpopulation to the utmost extreme; we're talking literally trillions of people in an area the size of England. For 99.9999% of the population, there are no clothes, no houses, not even room to lie down on the dirt most of the time. The only thing that's keeping society alive is that sorcerors have imprisoned the great Bull God, which they keep constantly bleeding, and send its blood raining down from the heavens to feed people. To become a sorceror responsible for working this blood magic is the greatest ambition anyone can have, because it comes with the most extravagant luxuries: exotic foods like "bread," "fruit," and "meat," an actual bed to sleep in, and the almost undreamt of novelty: priavacy. It's so tempting that people line up by the millions to get magical training, even though said training is so dangerous that coming out of it alive (let alone a competent mage) is less likely than winning the lottery.

Not saying these are necessarily good ideas for fantasy worlds, but they're the sort of "outside the historical fiction box" ideas I'd like to see more authors try out.

That's pretty awesome.

Can I steal one of those? Specifically the middle one?

edited 30th Apr '10 3:56:19 AM by krrackknut

I don't really think you could steal it. If I ever tried to sue you for copyrigh infringement, you could just say you were also inspired by Honey I Shrunk The Kids.

So is that a yes?