Why I think that "A Song of Ice and Fire" is poorly written. *Warning, spoilers likely*
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I'm not sure if you are mistaken, or attempting a veiled insult, but the notion that these books are YA is actually kind of hilarious.GreatTeacherCAW said:
@ Sober Thal: That's a pretty oversimplified complaint, I tend to look down on people who say things such as that. it sounds like you just copied a complaint of the series you heard elsewhere without ever actually trying it.
I'm well aware that few people, if any, view themselves as evil.Generic Gamer said:
What i mean is that Sansa never ever seems to have a moment of insight, or for that matter do anything other than whine. Davos acts almost completely out of loyalty to stannis. He occasionally seems concerned about his family, but even when he feels in his gut that the battle is not going to end well, he never suggests that his sons stay behind. he doesn't find a reason to send the son who serves on his boat away, like delivering a message to his wife. He just mentally complains that his whole family is in danger for like 3 lines and then moves on because he must serve Stannis. When he discovers that a son survived the battle, he doesn't even delay his plans to save Stannis from the Red Woman even long enough to go give him a hug. He spends all of one line considering that it's no longer worth his life, if that. This is true of a disturbingly high number of characters. People have much more complex motivations than that, and many cowards will act bravely once, or a hero will suffer a moment of overwhelming fear. characters have conflicting emotions and motivations and suffer moments of doubt, like Jon did when he heard about Rob going to war. He had conflicting loyalties and agonized over the decision, but that is literally the only time I can recall a character do that. They often agonize over which solution will work best, but almost never have conflicting motivations. At least that I can recall.
Honestly, I have an easier time figuring out what Jagang does in his spare time than Jaime, or Tywin, or Cersei.
That's not that indicative. What does Robb do with his spare time? What's Robb's hobby? What's His worst fear? Did he have any childhood sweethearts? Martin switches characters so often(at least I assume this is the reason) that even the main character's are left almost completely unknown elements. Kahlan hates cheeze because when she was a kid and got sick, and they fed her cheeze constantly and now she can't stand it. And she used to hang out in the kitchens and with the marble-workers who repaired the castle when she was a child. Richard passed messages back and forth with his father using a vase because George Cypher was always traveling. Richard used to stick-dual with his brother, who was bigger and stronger, and would make Richard give a "loser's salute." Richard's brother sold one of the artifacts that their father found by lying and then the father never let him near another artifact again. What similar small details do we know about the main characters of Ice and Fire? I can't think of any.
They're not young adult. Very not young adult.GreatTeacherCAW said:
Like, so far from young adult that you'd need the Hubble telescope to see it from young adult.
OT: You made some good points, and I guess it's just a matter of taste, but I quite like A Game of Thrones so far. I agree that the plot moves along glacially occasionally, it's all excellently written. Your point about battles is a little strange, IMO, since the book isn't really about battles and such, but more about the intricacies of the plot, and the characters themselves.
Just my thoughts.
He's won a Hugo or two, but that's a Science Fiction and Fantasy genre award. Borders is very bad with putting their books in the correct place, so it may be their mistake. The only thing written by GRRM that is even close to YA is "The Ice Dragon", which is a well received children's book. I don't know if it won anything, but maybe it did. That's another possible source for your mistake.GreatTeacherCAW said:
I never said it was inconsistant for him to do both. I specifically said It's a good thing. I said it doesn't make sense for him to have been making a majority of villainous choices seemingly as long as he has been alive, and then to suddenly, over a matter of months, start making primarily heroic choices, especially when they do so for no apparent reason. However, that isn't even what I was talking about originally. What I was talking about is how Martin will portray a character as villainous for half a book or more, and then suddenly jump into that character's POV and start trying to portray that same character as a misunderstood hero, or a villain of circumstance. yes, this is a very realistic thing and good if it happens rarely, butDejanus said:
in what I've read, Martin has done this for Tyrion, and seems to be beginning the same process with Jaime. He also did the exact opposite with Lysa and Stannis, initially painting them as being allies of the Starks, and then suddenly having them isolate themselves and become irrational, in the case of Lysa, and Stannis showed a complete disregard for both reality, and the lives of his subordinates, and goes to war despite having almost no forces. Worse, he seems to be driven by nothing but the sullen jealousy of a child for his cooler brothers. Renly betrayed his older brother for what? because he's a jealous brother who must have everything his older brother had? Seems a bit petty for a successful lord, even more so for a lord actually capable of convincing lords to follow him in open rebellion.
once again this type of character change is intriguing and good for a story, but it happens far too often in the series. People can change, but grown individuals only do so very rarely, in the presence of exceptional pressure.
I don't mind morally ambiguous characters, I just don't like it when characters seem to change their overall defining characteristics for seemingly no reason. As I mentioned, the deeper motivations of most of the characters in the series are almost entirely unexplored, which is part of the problem. I also dislike the way he portrays a character one way, and then flips a 180 in their POV, not just from their view of themselves, but from their actions. This happens a lot, far too often for my liking. It just creates confusion. i can see why he did it, I just think it happens too much, and really only causes unnecessary confusion without really making the world any less black and white. It's still house vs. house, with the battle lines clearly drawn. Just because those lines aren't good vs evil, doesn't make the line any less clear or make the world any more real, it just confuses the reader. IMO, in order to make a character truly morally ambiguous, we need to understand their motivations, and we don't understand the motivations of many of the characters that do this.
Tyrion. Tyrion is clearly very different in beliefs from his fellow Lannisters and almost all of them hate him, yet he seems determined to help them. Why? Without a good reason, that action is irrational. He is being denied any meaningful inheritance, so pretty much the only reason that has even been hinted at is loyalty to his brother, yet he never so much as considers alternatives, and never has any moral ambiguity within himself, for us to understand his motivations. As it stands(at the point I'm at) he is a character that acts based on the principle: i am a Lannister so I must help the house of Lannister, despite hating the entire house except my brother, and I will try to undermine the authority of the two most powerful Lannisters other than myself because I disagree with pretty much everything house Lannister stands for. That's an irrational character, not because,he's acting irrationally, but because what we know about his actions are so often in diametric conflict.
I don't really think I'm describing my point well, but I can't really think of a better way to describe it.
That about covers it.Generic Gamer said:
Goodkind writes dark fairy tales. Characters in fairy tales, especially villains, are usually one-dimensional. Take the witch from Snow White. All I can picture her doing is perching on a black throne, scowling, seething with empty rage. She's not a person. She has only one note, and it is jealousy.
I couldn't read any more Sword of Truth after the third (fourth?). I find all the characters completely devoid of interest, Richard and Jagang foremost. The books are less like a human drama and more like a conflict between D&D deities. Jagang is the god of pain, the personification of sadism. He does nothing but hurt people, all the time. He doesn't even seem to enjoy it all that much. He just....does it. It's all he is, there's nothing else to him. Richard, on the other hand, is the god of courage. He is endless resolve, endless strength, endless moralizing. There is no limit to his endurance, no point at which he simply collapses, not a single drop of weakness anywhere in him.
The only interesting thing about these characters is that neither of them is the least bit interesting. I can't like them for the same reason I can't hate them. They aren't characters so much as walking, talking alignments.
Even a minor Ice and Fire character like Thoros of Myr is more interesting. He's basically a drunken charlatan with a flaming sword who is kept around purely for his amusement value. He knows that's all he is. After certain events occur, he reexamines himself, becoming stronger. This minor character is more self-aware, passes through a greater arc, than any of Goodkind's cardboard cutouts.
Yeah, the battles was a horrible example. I was trying to say that the vast majority of the book seems to be devoted, not to what happens, but to the characters thinking and plotting and scheming. I like a good scheme as much as the next guy, but I think that the actual even deserves more pages than the planning of it.smearyllama said:
You are correct, I meant enemy as the reader is clearly supposed to sympathize with the Stark family.TheKasp said:
Thanks, and sorry, didn't realize it was case sensitive.Glademaster said:
Sorry, stuff obviously happens. I was referring to the fact that it seems like the actual stuff that's occurring in the book gets many fewer pages than the planning leading up to it, and I think that is a bad idea. I think the event should receive more pages than the planning leading up to the event, and the examination of all the possible ways to turn it to the POV character's advantage. Hope that clears up what I was trying to say.voetballeeuw said:
I never claimed that Tyrion was a bad guy, I said that Martin spends half a book convincing you that he is just to end up that he isn't. Also, he seems pretty loyal to the Lannisters so far, although he does what he can to protect the innocent and help his friends.
I never said Theon is stupid, I said that it almost seems like the character wants to portray him as stupid in that portion of the books.
I wasn't looking for a book full of battles, that was just a poor choice of words.
Okay, I actually see your issue now. Its perspective. You were misled about Stannis and Lysa because you had only heard about them from POVs which had either never seen them or had not in a long while. Recall that the POVs did not know that Lysa was paranoid or that Stanniss was plotting, so their mental image of them did not meet up with reality. GRRM did not change their characters, you were simply given better perspectives on them from new POVs. Same thing with the Lannisters, they are not inconsistent, the way they are portrayed is naturally colored by what lens we are seeing them through.spartan231490 said:
I don't see your reasoning about Tyrion, his backstory leads to his character pretty well in my opinion. Yeah he's loyal to his family. That's natural, perhaps rational, but not everyone operates purely on logic at all times. Personally I hate my father, I'll still be celebrating his birthday tomorrow out of obligation. I suppose that makes me a poorly written character.
As for the Baratheons, are you claiming lords cannot be petty? They still have familial disputes, theirs are simply much more destructive. If you wont real life historical examples, look no further then the War of the Roses or any war of the Austrian Succession.
The more you clarify, the more it becomes apparent to me that you don't seem to be able to work with GRRM's style of writing and characterization. That's not his fault, or yours, but it's not a flaw in his work by any means.
I didn't read the thread, and I actually haven't read the books, either, but several of your points are very weak.
1: Having multiple points of view for a story is in no way bad or cheap. Having multiple points of view further deepens both the plot and the characters, allowing the reader to witness the characters' actions and the events in the story from multiple different angles. It also lets you get into the minds of certain characters, giving you further insight into their motivations and feelings, which can set up comedy, drama, or tragedy. Even if pulled off badly, it is a very useful technique because it further fleshes out nearly every aspect of the story.
2: Criticizing the book because 'nothing happens' is avoiding a completely different issue: the author genuinely sucks at writing and can't keep his audience with him unless people are dying, or you have the attention span of a squirrel. A good writer can keep most people interested in the events of the book without having much happen in it, but there are always those few people who just don't care about things like literary techniques and character development and would rather read 'and then he died' over and over. Speaking as someone who knows neither the book nor you, I can't say which one is the problem here.
3: Having characters be black and white would just make the book worse. Again, I haven't read the books, but "A character will undoubtedly be a bad-guy for half a book, and then suddenly we are reading chapters from that character's POV and Martin tries to make us like that character, after having spent the last half of a book trying to make us hate them," implies that you don't care about how complex a character is - you just want a clear villain. Martin isn't 'trying' to make you like anyone - he's just telling the story from that person's point of view. If the character was just evil and killed people just because he's evil, he would be a boring character. It is much more satisfying to see 'evil' characters with strong motivations in something other than just being evil.
I can't speak on the rest of your arguments, having not read the book, but my criticisms of your above points still stand.
1: Having multiple points of view for a story is in no way bad or cheap. Having multiple points of view further deepens both the plot and the characters, allowing the reader to witness the characters' actions and the events in the story from multiple different angles. It also lets you get into the minds of certain characters, giving you further insight into their motivations and feelings, which can set up comedy, drama, or tragedy. Even if pulled off badly, it is a very useful technique because it further fleshes out nearly every aspect of the story.
2: Criticizing the book because 'nothing happens' is avoiding a completely different issue: the author genuinely sucks at writing and can't keep his audience with him unless people are dying, or you have the attention span of a squirrel. A good writer can keep most people interested in the events of the book without having much happen in it, but there are always those few people who just don't care about things like literary techniques and character development and would rather read 'and then he died' over and over. Speaking as someone who knows neither the book nor you, I can't say which one is the problem here.
3: Having characters be black and white would just make the book worse. Again, I haven't read the books, but "A character will undoubtedly be a bad-guy for half a book, and then suddenly we are reading chapters from that character's POV and Martin tries to make us like that character, after having spent the last half of a book trying to make us hate them," implies that you don't care about how complex a character is - you just want a clear villain. Martin isn't 'trying' to make you like anyone - he's just telling the story from that person's point of view. If the character was just evil and killed people just because he's evil, he would be a boring character. It is much more satisfying to see 'evil' characters with strong motivations in something other than just being evil.
I can't speak on the rest of your arguments, having not read the book, but my criticisms of your above points still stand.
Yes perspective. It's cool when an author misleads me about a couple characters, but when one gives me incorrect information about half-a-dozen important characters in the first half of the first book, I think that is setting a pretty poor precedent. Also, I was relatively aware that Stannis was plotting, I just don't know why he would send his forces to war when he was so pathetically out-matched. It's a suicide mission not just for him, but also for most of his subordinates. He himself says that he doesn't really have faith in the Red Woman in the beginning, but that he will take any help he can get, so he didn't expect her to save him, so why march? It's highly irrational.Dejanus said:
I just don't understand why he seems loyal to his family, but tries to undermine their authority so often
when he was the hand, almost everything he did was to restrict the power of Cersei and Joffrey
but his father actually put him in the group of soldiers that were supposed to die during battle, and showed absolutely no gratitude towards him for controlling Cersei and Joffrey, none at all. His father refused to give him his inheritance, and has openly admitting to wishing he was dead. Cersei hates him, treats him like an animal, and not even a very useful one, despite the fact that she has given birth to 3 incestuous bastards. I really don't see blood carrying loyalty that far. If my family treated me like that, I would most definitely not support them, in fact I would leverage everything in my power to see them fall. Especially since he seems to care about the innocent, and House Lannister tramples the innocent like blades of grass in a stampede.
You're forgetting about Jaime, who all other Lannisters considered has a generally loving and normal relationship with his brother Tryion. You also get the sense that Tryion enjoys being a Lannister. He likes what the infamy and wealth affords him. Tryion's relationship with his family develops in some interesting ways as you keep going.spartan231490 said:
Also you repeatedly bring up character behaving irrationally, but baring comedic or plot hole sized levels, people don't actually behave rationally all the time. Ned Stark could have rationally helped make Westeros a better kingdom for everyone and likely saved his own hide in the process, but instead he decided to stick to his honor. From the readers perspective, yes he's behaving irrationally, but to the character he doesn't believe he is.
ass in a stampede.
2) I like the judgement you make of me. I don't need to have something happening to be interesting, I dislike the fact that the author spends more time describing what might happen and why than explaining what does happen and the result. Just fyi, one of my favorite books is "The Scarlet Letter." I also like "Speak," and "To Kill A Mockingbird." In fact, "Fellowship of the Ring" was my favorite book of the LoTR series, and it's definitely the slowest of the 4(counting hobbit). I just think that the events of the book deserve more time and attention than the musings of the characters, especially when most of those musings are dull and repetitive. I admit, that this point was very poorly worded as well, and I'm sorry for misunderstandings that arose.
3) This was also my bad. I wrote that section very poorly, but in my defense it was 2 AM. What I meant is that, the author misleads you about characters with an alarming frequency. It's a good tactic a time or two in a series, but if half-a-dozen characters or more end up to be the complete opposite of what you were told, it creates a level of mistrust between the author and the reader. I also just think there are better ways to show us that a character is misunderstood than by
I also meant to say that most of the characters are acting for unspecified motives, which makes their actions appear erratic or even contradictory. Even main characters are very poorly explored and don't really have much depth.(I believe this is because there are way too many POV characters too far apart for Martin to really explore any of them in depth.
1) Multiple Points of view is cheap and weak. It delays the resolution of the events that create drama in order to make that drama last longer. In exchange, it limits your conection to the main character, and makes it more difficult to characterize and explore the character, because they have less POV time. Now, if you use a small number of POV, the good outweighs the bad. it allows you to explore multiple characters from multiple angles, giving a better understanding, just like you said, assuming that you don't have so many POVs that you no longer have the page time necessary to give the character depth, and that you don't spend too many pages rehashing the very end of the last section where that character was POV. I love multiple POV, so long as it's within reason. Ice and Fire has well over 20 POV characters and changes POV every single chapter. That makes the story hard to follow and also continually breaks your immersion in the story and your attachment to the character, every single chapter.Eli Newberg said:
2) I like the judgement you make of me. I don't need to have something happening to be interesting, I dislike the fact that the author spends more time describing what might happen and why than explaining what does happen and the result. Just fyi, one of my favorite books is "The Scarlet Letter." I also like "Speak," and "To Kill A Mockingbird." In fact, "Fellowship of the Ring" was my favorite book of the LoTR series, and it's definitely the slowest of the 4(counting hobbit). I just think that the events of the book deserve more time and attention than the musings of the characters, especially when most of those musings are dull and repetitive. I admit, that this point was very poorly worded as well, and I'm sorry for misunderstandings that arose.
3) This was also my bad. I wrote that section very poorly, but in my defense it was 2 AM. What I meant is that, the author misleads you about characters with an alarming frequency. It's a good tactic a time or two in a series, but if half-a-dozen characters or more end up to be the complete opposite of what you were told, it creates a level of mistrust between the author and the reader. I also just think there are better ways to show us that a character is misunderstood than by
having him accused of trying to assassinate an 8 year old boy and then saying that he didn't do it half-a-book later. ect.
That's not what I meant by acting irrationally. What I meant by acting irrationally is how a character will act against his normal motives for no apparent reason. A person will always act according to their situation, the world around them may not fully understand that situation, but I'm talking abou when POV characters act in a way that is counter to how they normally act, and no reason is given. They don't even have any kind of internal battle between their opposing motivations, they just act. A good example that comes to mind is when Ned doesn't tell Robbert that "his" children weren't his children, in order to let him have peace before death. This is a dishonorable act, born of compassion. But he never compromises his honor. If he was prone to forgoing honor for compassion, he would have never tried to support Stannis, who he knew would be brutal and strict and even a little cruel. He would have never forced Catelyn to see Jon being treated like a true-born son either. And he just did it. It was His POV, but we don't see any internal conflict about it. If his love and compassion for his friend was that strong, he should have had one hell of internal battle to convince himself to compromise his honor, especially considering he intended to tell him just 5 minutes before choosing not to.[/spoiler] That is just one of many examples.Slycne said:
I'm not forgetting Jaime. I understand why Tyrion likes his brother, I don't know why he supports house Lannister. As a member of the kingsguard, Jaime doesn't really gain from the success of House Lannister, why doesn't Tyrion abandon house Lannister to their well-earned fate and just help and support Jaime? There is absolutely no gain for him or Jaime when House Lannister gains more power. The wealth thing is plausable, but why doesn't he ever consider the possibilities. How come he never once considered turning against his house in exchange for Jaime's safety and continued position on the kingsguard? really, he never had one quiet fantasy about throwing his abusive family to the lions? Not once? There is a motivation, or the author would have never considered having him do it, but the readers were never made aware of it, despite how much time the reader spends in Tyrion's head. I'm pretty sure characters even ask him why he does it, and he doesn't even think of a satisfactory answer.Slycne said:
I consider that bad characterization. It's ignoring the greatest advantage books have over other media, the ability to be completely and fully 100% in the head of the main character.
Once again you have an issue with perspective. What you ask is impossible because there is no main character, the first book established that well enough. Frankly your points are beginning to make less and less logical sense, I and others like me have thoroughly put to bed all of your complaints, so I'll just let what we've said stand. You don't like or can't get into the series and that's fine. But it is simply erroneous to claim it's poorly written because it doesn't conform to what you view as a well constructed story.spartan231490 said:
The points you've raised most recently don't survive even a cursory examination, and it's getting useless to counter them as you bring up more with less basis.