yea, the people in practical armor are the ones still around....
Spoiler
the honor lord got killed for being inflexible in said honor....so did his son....the people actually adapting to the situation despite the dark things they have to do are the ones still around.....there is a power struggle after a king dies and when the succession is thrown into doubt.....and I can't really see it as high fantasy....I mean sure you can say that it is....but I can't really believe it, to me its very realistic and very low fantasy, thats my opinion, I'm sticking it to it.
I know this is from a few pages back, but in regards to the Moon Door is anyone else wondering...
Spoiler
...how in the world are they going to do the scene with Lysa and Sansa and Petyr and her falling through it with that big winch being way on the other side of the room like that?
Spoiler
I'm thinking they'll find some excuse for it to be open already.
Also, the heroes in jewel encrusted armor tend to die, a lot
Not really. I'm well over a thousand pages in and barely about 10 warrior hero type characters have been killed. To put this in perpective I'm fairly sure Moorcock killed off gods at a faster rate than that.
To back up my point while trying to avoid spoilers: In the first book we have a scene where an over 7 foot tall super-soldier fights a knight wearing a cape of flowers, and these are minor characters. There are barbarian tribesmen who burn off body-parts in their coming of age ritual. There's even a gigantic castle built on top of a mountain, and it's not even the most impressive castle in the series. A preist runs around with a flaming sword and he isn't important enough to appear on screen. there's a 700 foot tall man-made wall of ice. In the backstory Robert doesn't become king because of his great strategies, he does so because he smashes Rhaegar's ruby encrusted armour with a warhammer.
Now if it were just one or two isolated cases but it the consistently the rule for the series. All the castles are huge, multi-tiered superfortresses. All the knights are superhuman warriors. All the priests worship strange and terrible gods. There are plenty of exceptions yes but the books overflow with larger than life, mythic figures.
To back up my point while trying to avoid spoilers: In the first book we have a scene where an over 7 foot tall super-soldier fights a knight wearing a cape of flowers, and these are minor characters. There are barbarian tribesmen who burn off body-parts in their coming of age ritual. There's even a gigantic castle built on top of a mountain, and it's not even the most impressive castle in the series. A preist runs around with a flaming sword and he isn't important enough to appear on screen. there's a 700 foot tall man-made wall of ice. In the backstory Robert doesn't become king because of his great strategies, he does so because he smashes Rhaegar's ruby encrusted armour with a warhammer.
Now if it were just one or two isolated cases but it the consistently the rule for the series. All the castles are huge, multi-tiered superfortresses. All the knights are superhuman warriors. All the priests worship strange and terrible gods. There are plenty of exceptions yes but the books overflow with larger than life, mythic figures.
I'd have to disagree here. The "seven-foot tall supersoldier" (actually almost 8 ft, IIRC) is a freak of nature, which is commented on by pretty much everyone who sees him. The knight of flowers is a son of probably the second richest lord in the realm, in a society where the fanciness of your armor denotes status; they burn money like crazy on stuff like that. The barbarians have ... barbaric customs, the like of which most certainly has been seen before in many cultures in real life. The Eyrie is actually a very small castle (in the books, at least; the show did make it rather large) and most certainly is the most impregnable castle in the series; the others are "multi-tiered superfortresses" because the ones we see are the seats of power for regions which cover hundreds of miles, and they've been around for centuries at the least (King's Landing is relatively new compared to the other castles). The priest who runs around with a flaming sword is a drunk using cheap parlor tricks, which is again commented on by several characters.
Spoilered, although it's backstory that's mostly known towards the beginning:
Spoiler
Robert won the kingdom because Aerys was widely known to be mad and so at least half the realm rose with him; add to that the fact that the Lannisters stayed out of it until the very end (who are almost certainly the most militarily powerful house and should have been Aerys' best allies), and Robert's capable commanders in Stannis, Jon Arryn and Ned, and Robert had a very good chance of winning. Killing Rhaegar was merely what cemented it, as it destroyed the last big Targaryen army as well as the last Targaryen who was actually widely loved. These reason are delved into extensively in the course of the series; Robert muses that he "won the kingdom with his hammer," but the truth is far more complicated than that.
I'll grant you the Wall, the Others, the dragons and the slowly returning magic in the world, but saying that every knight is a supersoldier is simply not true.
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Amazing Masked Rakshasa avatar by licoot
Death comes sweepin' down the hallway, like a lady's dress
Death comes drivin' down the highway, in its Sunday best
I'm thinking they'll find some excuse for it to be open already.
Spoiler
Well, Lysa is already planning to threaten/kill Alayne via the Moon Door, so I can easily see it as already having been opened for that purpose.
Regarding the books, I agree with you, Axolotl, on many counts. One of my bigger unvoiced gripes is the fact that there are so many plots and counterplots going on that hardly anyone can get anything done without tripping over 3 betrayals. I am on record as disliking the books (check back 2 pages for a long rant about why), but I'll give GRRM credit where it's due.
1) The fact that Robert doesn't become king due to his strategies is actually kinda important to his character. He relied on others, namely Ned Stark and Jon Arryn, for that purpose. That he was the one to be king, and thus sucked at being one, is kinda the point.
2) If you start wanting to quit partway through books 2 and 3: keep going, if only for the Jamie and Tyrion chapters. They make the rest worth getting through.
Last edited by Sinfonian : 05-29-2011 at 09:38 PM.
You fellas have a point. I had forgotten her intent. It's been a while since I read the book. Hopefully I can get to it before A Dance with Dragons comes out. Doubtful, since I'm not finished rereading A Game of Thrones. Thanks for the reminder, though.
And speaking of Ser Loras and his armor... I had something far more elaborate envisioned in my head than what we got on screen. he was a guy in nice armor there, not the Knight of Flowers. And I really wanted to see Renly's armor on the Kingsroad.
To back up my point while trying to avoid spoilers: In the first book we have a scene where an over 7 foot tall super-soldier fights a knight wearing a cape of flowers, and these are minor characters.
Gregor is a freak, and honestly he's not inhuman in size based on what humans can actually grow to.
The Knight of Flowers armor, while pretty is also not impossible or even too far out of the norm of some full plate designs.
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There are barbarian tribesmen who burn off body-parts in their coming of age ritual.
Honestly, read up on what some barbaric cultures did to themselves. Burning a body part isn't all that high fantasy.
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There's even a gigantic castle built on top of a mountain, and it's not even the most impressive castle in the series.
There are many castles or other structures built on top of mountains in the real world. They were considered more defensible positions, some monasteries are enormous and in the most remote places. There's nothing really fantastic about this. Impractical sure, but not magical. And judging by the size to scale down made necessary to make the castle it stands to reason it wouldn't be the most impressive castle around.
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A preist runs around with a flaming sword and he isn't important enough to appear on screen. there's a 700 foot tall man-made wall of ice.
Admitted fantastic elements. Notably low fantasy does not mean there is no magic. The priest in question uses some chemical that burns through the sword eventually, and the Wall is one of the most magical things about the series.
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In the backstory Robert doesn't become king because of his great strategies, he does so because he smashes Rhaegar's ruby encrusted armour with a warhammer.
Ned was the strategist, Robert was the tactician and face everyone loved. And generally to win a throne it does mean getting rid of the guy in front of you. I'm not exactly sure what point this is trying to make. There are quite a few commanders who won who honestly weren't all that good as commanders.
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Now if it were just one or two isolated cases but it the consistently the rule for the series. All the castles are huge, multi-tiered superfortresses.
That is what a castle is. Admittedly they seem to be embellishments of late Renaissance fortresses in a land without gunpowder. But quite a lot in the books seems to fit that time period anyway.
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All the knights are superhuman warriors.
One is. I don't remember any superhuman actions except for GRRMs complete misunderstanding on how armor works.
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All the priests worship strange and terrible gods.
Who else would they pray to? The old Gods and the Seven don't seem so terrible, just different.
Now you do have some points, and I for one don't consider it low fantasy after book four. But some of your examples are just weird.
If you start wanting to quit partway through books 2 and 3: keep going, if only for the Jamie and Tyrion chapters. They make the rest worth getting through.
The internet and I have very different tastes, considering how much I loved book 2, was nearly destroyed by book 3 and am only keeping up with the series in the hopes of new character developments. Or possibly something epic from Danaerys.
Jaime is alright, but I'm a bit sick of the Lannister politik spectrum and Tyrion just starts to annoy me as the series wears on. One of the few things I agree with Lord Tywin on is that Tyrion is nowhere near as cunning as he likes to think.
I don't know exactly what is considered high fantasy vs low fantasy, but to me ASoFaI was a fairly common "there used to be supernatural and fantastical things going on but its been forgot about by the general population because it hasn't been happening much and people are too busy worrying about their own politics" sort of world. Its obviously a very grim world, but at least as I see it, being grim and brutal doesn't really have much of an impact on if its high or low fantasy. It seems like a medium fantasy setting, with currently the world having ebbed into a low fantasy point and getting ready to swing up into more high fantasy type stuff.
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Steampunk Farseer thanks to The Randomizer
A Song of Ice and Fire is High Fantasy because it relies too much on playing with its genre. You can have deconstructions that highlight the obsurdity of a genre by changing the environment, but SoIaF doesn't do so that drastically.
SoIaF sets itself apart from its genre more in tone and plot than it does in setting.
Martin is an admitted Lord of the Rings fan (which means little more than when musicians from diverse metal subgenres all name the same proto-metal groups as their influences) and with the "end of an age" style of both works ASoIaF feels like it could just be middle earth progressed a few hundred years.
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"that nighted, penguin-fringed abyss" - At The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
When a man decides another's future behind his back, it is a conspiracy. When a god does it, it's destiny.
Last edited by Closet_Skeleton : 05-30-2011 at 01:20 PM.
A not fully precise but general way of telling High Fantasy from Low Fantasy:
High Fantasy
Spoiler
Setting - A world other than ours. It may have a nominal connection with present day Earth, such as being our remote past or future, but this plays no role in the plot. Mythopoeia is often put into play to define the very metaphysics of the world. Nevertheless it often resembles medieval Europe, and is often peopled by People Of Hair Color.
Scale - Epic. Power politics, wars, the death of nations, gods walking the earth, and the real threat of The End of the World as We Know It. This is what distinguishes High Fantasy from Heroic Fantasy.
Great evil - An enemy which is near enough Evil incarnate or fundamentally abhorrent
Methods - Victory is not achieved through force of arms, the main feature distinguishing High Fantasy from Heroic Fantasy. If Aragorn had killed Sauron in hand-to-hand combat, that would have been Heroic Fantasy. In short, The Aragorn or the Reluctant Hero will be offered up instead of the rough-hewn barbarian of, say, Conan or Beowulf.
Low Fantasy
Spoiler
Mundane settings: Urban, historical, After The End, or otherwise subdued and only sparsely supernatural. A clear contrast to High Fantasy's wildly superpowered setting.
Cynicism: Low fantasy is famous for its gray morality (or in nastier cases, Black and Gray Morality), while high fantasy is famous for its Black And White Morality.
Human dominance: worlds which are populated mostly (or even exclusively) by human beings rather than the usual Tolkienesque mix of elves, dwarves and other humanoids.
Plot scope: Tends to focus more on the survival and tribulations of one or a few individuals rather than the whole world. A villainous king who steals a magical artifact is less likely to be trying to bring back the Infernal Legions of Hell and conquer the world.
Heroism: High fantasy heroes are usually all-around nice guys who stand up for the little guy and fight the bad guy. Low fantasy heroes tend to be bitter cynics desperately clinging to their broken moral compass or devil-may-care anti-heroes who save the woman from the evil sorcerer just for the sex.
Methods: Victories achieved through physical combat, not magical battles or moral superiority - the defining feature of Heroic Fantasy.
Tone: Tends to be darker or more comedic than your average high-fantasy world.
Sorcerers: In high fantasy, they're kindly old men who sling fireballs in the name of justice, with the exception of the villain. Magic also tends to be treated as a wondrous force that binds the world together. Low fantasy treats sorcerers as freakishly evil, and quite often insane people who would sacrifice a thousand virgins to some hideous monstrosity from another dimension just to increase their power a tiny bit. Magic is well within Things Man Was Not Meant To Know territory and is often thought of as the evil corrupting force that entices innocent people into doing anything for power. And this all assumes, of course, that magic exists at all - there are examples where magic is essentially non-existent.
War: In high fantasy a clear "Good vs. Evil" smackdown between civilized races and the Always Chaotic Evil races. In low fantasy, a useless war between two empires to make their lands marginally bigger.
If you take anything from that list it should be that there's more to the distinction than the level of magic, but rather that the big difference is in the tone and on the emphasis.
As for ASoIaF, it's become a bit borderline. The scope has slowly but surely been drifting to an epic one, something that should have been obvious from the prologue of A Game of Thrones. That said, I would still sooner consider it Low Fantasy than High.
The Kingslayer is named Jaime. He is not intended to sound like a gender-ambiguous product of the twentieth century.
Also, it's Daenerys. Dany for short, not Dani.
That is all. Carry on.
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Under key and in disgrace from her costly caper -
That's where old Ms. Wenceslas read the daily paper.
Though she never said a word, she felt sick at bottom:
Those brushstrokes she had seen before. She knew them when she saw them.
(But who knows. She has had audience with the King, and the oobleck has to be cleared up somehow.)
Ah. Haven't been watching the show, so I wouldn't know.
Suddenly, though, I really don't want to know how they'd handle "Xaro Xhoan Daxos".
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Under key and in disgrace from her costly caper -
That's where old Ms. Wenceslas read the daily paper.
Though she never said a word, she felt sick at bottom:
Those brushstrokes she had seen before. She knew them when she saw them.
(But who knows. She has had audience with the King, and the oobleck has to be cleared up somehow.)
Ah. Haven't been watching the show, so I wouldn't know.
Suddenly, though, I really don't want to know how they'd handle "Xaro Xhoan Daxos".
The biggest offenders I've gathered from the webs are Sansa (San-suh as opposed to the popular fan-rendition Sahn-sa) and Arya (Ar-ya instead of the popular "aria").
I haven't noticed a problem thus far, and they've got Dany's down.
The biggest offenders I've gathered from the webs are Sansa (San-suh as opposed to the popular fan-rendition Sahn-sa) and Arya (Ar-ya instead of the popular "aria").
I haven't noticed a problem thus far, and they've got Dany's down.
I've always said "Ar-ya". "San-suh" with a short A doesn't take much more getting used to than "Drack-oh"/"Dray-co" did. I was a little thrown by a video of Martin pronouncing Daenerys "da-NAIR-iss"; I've always said "DAY-na-ris", which makes more sense with the nickname Dany, but the "official" pronunciation (I hear Martin doesn't think his pronunciations are set in stone) calls back to Queen Naerys, so that's cool.
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Under key and in disgrace from her costly caper -
That's where old Ms. Wenceslas read the daily paper.
Though she never said a word, she felt sick at bottom:
Those brushstrokes she had seen before. She knew them when she saw them.
(But who knows. She has had audience with the King, and the oobleck has to be cleared up somehow.)
I've always said "Ar-ya". "San-suh" with a short A doesn't take much more getting used to than "Drack-oh"/"Dray-co" did. I was a little thrown by a video of Martin pronouncing Daenerys "da-NAIR-iss"; I've always said "DAY-na-ris", which makes more sense with the nickname Dany, but the "official" pronunciation (I hear Martin doesn't think his pronunciations are set in stone) calls back to Queen Naerys, so that's cool.
Daenerys Targaryen is the only one he's been firm on, and that's the pronunciation the show uses. For the most part, I haven't had any troubles. Again though, we haven't had any of the tough ones pronounced yet.
Daenerys Targaryen is the only one he's been firm on, and that's the pronunciation the show uses. For the most part, I haven't had any troubles. Again though, we haven't had any of the tough ones pronounced yet.
That's weird. I wonder if it's somehow a plot point?
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Under key and in disgrace from her costly caper -
That's where old Ms. Wenceslas read the daily paper.
Though she never said a word, she felt sick at bottom:
Those brushstrokes she had seen before. She knew them when she saw them.
(But who knows. She has had audience with the King, and the oobleck has to be cleared up somehow.)
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A beholder’s favorite foods include small live mammals, exotic mushrooms and other fungi, gnomes, beef, pork, colorful leafy vegetables, leaves, flower petals, insects, and birds.
Managed to watch Episode 7 last night. Quite good rendition of events, I'd say. Not sure that I truly care for the deer butchering scene, but it's not terrible. Tywin's actor (can't recall his name at the moment, so sue me) is really quite excellent. Hoping to see more of him as the character gets his legs in the next season or two.
Man, being one of Ned Stark's guards is almost as dangerous as wearing a red shirt in origional Star Trek...even having a name isn't likely to keep you safe past 1-2 episodes.
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A beholder’s favorite foods include small live mammals, exotic mushrooms and other fungi, gnomes, beef, pork, colorful leafy vegetables, leaves, flower petals, insects, and birds.
Managed to watch Episode 7 last night. Quite good rendition of events, I'd say. Not sure that I truly care for the deer butchering scene, but it's not terrible. Tywin's actor (can't recall his name at the moment, so sue me) is really quite excellent. Hoping to see more of him as the character gets his legs in the next season or two.
I didn't mind the Deer Butchering, it's some nice symbolism (what with the stag being the symbol of house baratheon), it prevents talking head syndrome by providing some visuals, and it shows the type of man Tywin Lannister is, ruthless, intelligent, and willing to get his hands dirty.
What I didn't like was
Spoiler
Littlefinger's scene, which was a concentrated dose of the problem with HBO.
I picture the writing room, it goes something like this
Writer One: So, we need to establish Littlefinger's character a little more. There is a lot to keep track of in this show, and we need to make sure the audience understands him.
Writer Two: But won't that mean rehashing some things that have already been covered?
Writer One: Yeah, but it's important they know what type of person he is, we'll give it to them in one go, rather than counting on them having put all the pieces together, and remembering what those pieces are.
Then, as they start working, a third writer bursts into the room.
Writer Three: Hey guys! I just remembered, this is HBO! WE CAN SHOW NAUGHTY BITS!
And then all three writers started giggling and scribbling "Boobies" all over the script.
This is the problem with lots of HBO stuff, they take intelligent programming, and then feel a need to include this sort of lowest common denominator sillyness. I'm less offended than insulted that their opinion of their audience is so low that they feel they must include gratuitous sex and nudity in order to keep our attention. You have a brilliant cast, an amazing script, and a captivating plot. You are making quality television, you don't need to muddle that with an endless parade of T&A.
Earlier sex scenes tended to be crucial, either to the plot or to character development. But at some point they picked up the idea of having characters deliver exposition to naked ladies. I understand you want to avoid talking heads, but there are ways to do that besides random nudity.
Note: The following spoiler is only for those that read the books. Seriously, I really mean it.
Spoiler
So, early on when I heard about the show, I was worried how they were going to do a second season. I was worried that Sean Bean would become the focus of the show, and then when he gets killed, they lose the main draw.
But they've done a great job of getting us invested in the other characters. They used Sean Bean to draw in audiences, but didn't make the show a Sean Bean vehicle. Now that you've got people invested in the show, they will keep coming back, even after the famous guy is gone.
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So, Astronaut, War Hero, or hideous Mantis Man, hop to it! The future of humanity is in your capable hands and or terrifying organic scythes.
Man, being one of Ned Stark's guards is almost as dangerous as wearing a red shirt in origional Star Trek...even having a name isn't likely to keep you safe past 1-2 episodes.
Well, it is GRRM, and there having a name is likely to get you killed. Your best bet for survival is being a nameless extra in some random scene, where you've got maybe a 50/50 chance of making it out alive and then you'll never be seen again.
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Ned was the strategist, Robert was the tactician and face everyone loved. And generally to win a throne it does mean getting rid of the guy in front of you. I'm not exactly sure what point this is trying to make. There are quite a few commanders who won who honestly weren't all that good as commanders.
My point was that it's a setting where when a lord tries to become king he does so by leading an army from the front and beating his rivals with a large hammer. Now I'm sure some kings in the middle ages did do this but in ASoIaF it's considered the norm to the point where it's considered noteworthy when people like Stannis lead from the back.
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That is what a castle is. Admittedly they seem to be embellishments of late Renaissance fortresses in a land without gunpowder. But quite a lot in the books seems to fit that time period anyway.
I live in a town with a medieval castle in it. A relatively large one as well because it's in a stratiguic postition. But it's nowhere near the size of even The Eyrie let alone the other castle the series has.
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Who else would they pray to? The old Gods and the Seven don't seem so terrible, just different.
But the thing is. I'm fairly sure no characters are preists of those gods. A few septons get names I think but none get more than a handful of lines. The gods who do get preists who are major characters are The Drowned God and the Lord of Light, who are pretty weird gods.
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Now you do have some points, and I for one don't consider it low fantasy after book four. But some of your examples are just weird.
My point was that even without the explicitly supernatural elements it's not a rigerously realistic setting. Now while I think any of my examples could have existed in real life they're all exceptional and legendary things. For example Ser Gregor, yes big people do exist and I'm sure in the equivalent time period someone of Gregor's size, birth and temprement would be a legendary knight, but in ASoIaF he's surrounded by other legendary figures from heroic kinghts to machiavellian tricksters.
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