Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell
I'm not even a native speaker and I did not have to check a dictionary while reading through the books.
Me neither, but I believe this is a case where a non-native got less problems than a native speaker.
Native speaker: what kind of word is this? (annoying sensation)
Non native: oh, a word i don't know. Well, the sense of the phrase is clear, let's move on. (expected unknown word)
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Great analysis KA. I second all things you said
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Great analysis KA, I second everything you said here.
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If I have a player using Paladin in the future I will direct them to this. Good job.
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THIS is proof that KA is amazing
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Killer Angel, you have an excellent taste in books
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Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
Or you're the kind of person who compulsively read anything with a knight on the cover as a kid and already knew what a garron was. But that would be crazy and I never did that.
“Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction or a curse,” I said, sounding calm, probably inaudible in the midst of the screaming. “Inevitable. Wasn’t that how she put it? I told them. Warned them.”
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Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
As a native English speaker, I did not have any difficulty understanding the vocabulary. The few words whose existence was previously unknown to me were surrounded in enough context as to make their meanings immediately apparent. Admittedly, I'm not overly concerned with the differences between garron, destrier, and courser (they may as well all just be horse as far as I'm concerned), though I'm pretty sure that I saw garron in some required reading back in high school. Probably another of those words invented by Shakespeare.
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This is Demon King Mangosta talking. Of course he's harsh.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
I'm sure all languages have varying expressions for horses (and other animals) if you get deep enough into the field and even native speakers would be troubled to figure out what exactly a word means if they never cared for it before...
Me not being a native English speaker I had quite a bit more trouble when it came to the food featured in ASOIAF mostly because... well, other works rarely discuss their dishes... at all.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
Funny thing with the food is I never thought Martin spent too much time on it. Yes, he mentioned specific dishes, which is far more than most authors do, but I never found it excessive as some people do.
That said, I read a fair bit of Brian Jacques when I was younger.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by TheSummoner
Funny thing with the food is I never thought Martin spent too much time on it. Yes, he mentioned specific dishes, which is far more than most authors do, but I never found it excessive as some people do.
That said, I read a fair bit of Brian Jacques when I was younger.
Dear god, the mice and their cheese...from milk from giant cows...
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Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
Other animals make milk besides cows - but considering many of those animals would also be sitting down at the dinner table, that just makes it even creepier.
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The Atlas is also goofy but it has that whole "Stay Puft Marshmallow Man" menacing smile thing going for it. The guy who drew that one up was obviously taken to the Nutcracker when he was a child... and he was screaming in terror the entire time.
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Glyphstone, out of all the playground I think you scare me the most...
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
I am sorry to say I cannot offer any real constructive crticism; I was so utterly bored with the first book that I never got past the first third of it.
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Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by Avilan the Grey
I am sorry to say I cannot offer any real constructive crticism; I was so utterly bored with the first book that I never got past the first third of it.
It's fine. Nothing can be in everybody's taste palate.
But just because you don't like something doesn't mean it cannot be a good book; you just don't like it. ASoIaF happens to be a very popular fantasy serie, there is something done right in there.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by Cikomyr
It's fine. Nothing can be in everybody's taste palate.
But just because you don't like something doesn't mean it cannot be a good book; you just don't like it. ASoIaF happens to be a very popular fantasy serie, there is something done right in there.
Twilight is popular, so let's not go crazy here. I love ASoIaF, but there you go.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by VanBuren
Twilight is popular, so let's not go crazy here. I love ASoIaF, but there you go.
Except that people who enjoys Twilight most rarely do so for the quality of the story, but the romantic escapism that they feel out of the writing. It's more about the feelings than story quality.
I don't think the quality of the story itself is what you can criticize mostly about ASoIaF. You can poke hole in the pacing, the unfairness you get to feel out of the universe, etc... But the story itself and the characters are usually solid.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by Cikomyr
I don't think the quality of the story itself is what you can criticize mostly about ASoIaF. You can poke hole in the pacing, the unfairness you get to feel out of the universe, etc... But the story itself and the characters are usually solid.
The characters are great. Martin excels on character creation. In the most recent books, I was struck by his creation of Penny the Dwarf who, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting characters of the series.
My major issue is Martin's cyncism. Although that may have been mitigated in the 5th book. For example, with the Mandeleys' position regarding the Starks.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
Yeah, I love what he's done with Manderly. No one takes him seriously. They all mock him and insult him right to his face, and yet he's probably one of the most dangerous men in the north right now.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
I don't see him as particularly dangerous. He's simply a man that hasn't made his true allegiance known. Basically, he's pre-wedding Roose Bolton, except not nearly as ruthless.
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Originally Posted by Recaiden
This is Demon King Mangosta talking. Of course he's harsh.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by mangosta71
I don't see him as particularly dangerous. He's simply a man that hasn't made his true allegiance known. Basically, he's pre-wedding Roose Bolton, except not nearly as ruthless.
Not as ruthless?
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The man killed two Freys, had them baked into pie, and served these to their relatives!!
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
Yes, as Cikomyr said, Manderly is quite ruthless. He's just limited by the fact that he has enemies on all sides. He plays up their perception of him. "Oh, he's just a lazy, cowardly, fat man. Entirely harmless." because the less threat they see him as, the more freedom he has to act against them. As for his allegiance...
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It should be pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that none of the Stark-supporting houses sincerely would bend their knees to the house that betrayed and slaughtered their King in the North. They all lost loved ones at the Red Wedding. Roose Bolton doesn't trust Manderly. He keeps him close specifically because he doesn't trust Manderly. He wants to keep his cold, dead eyes on Manderly to keep him (or any of the others for that matter) from acting against him. Manderly may be too fat to sit on a horse himself, but given half a chance, he'd send his men to give the Boltons the whole Castamere treatment that their new allies seem so fond of.
Also, I really love the bit with Manderly talking to Davos. His entire plan there was quite clever and I could really feel his rage when he was explaining his reasons for why he had to do what he was doing. The North remembers indeed..
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by VanBuren
Twilight is popular, so let's not go crazy here. I love ASoIaF, but there you go.
And that means it targets it's audience very well. That is a trait of a good writer, if I've ever seen one. I don't like Twilight, but people bash it for bashing's sake.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell
And that means it targets it's audience very well. That is a trait of a good writer, if I've ever seen one. I don't like Twilight, but people bash it for bashing's sake.
No, that is a trait of good marketing. Or perhaps a better way of saying it is a sign of knowing your target demographic. It has nothing to do with your skills as a writer.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by TheSummoner
No, that is a trait of good marketing. Or perhaps a better way of saying it is a sign of knowing your target demographic. It has nothing to do with your skills as a writer.
Correction. It has everything to do with your skills as a writer.
It has nothing to do with your skill as a storyteller. Meyer WRITES well. She clearly can inspire people's emotions, and that is a gift many cerebral people like to snub.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by Cikomyr
Correction. It has everything to do with your skills as a writer.
It has nothing to do with your skill as a storyteller. Meyer WRITES well. She clearly can inspire people's emotions, and that is a gift many cerebral people like to snub.
Well said, my friend, well said.
The Twilight haters irk me more than it's fans.
Last edited by ThiagoMartell : 10-31-2012 at 09:38 PM.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
I think I'll take being called cerebral as a compliment. To be perfectly frank, I don't think the reactions of hormonal, pubescent teenage girls are a very good metric to judge something's ability to inspire emotion. We could look at the reactions of any other demographic if you like, but very few of those reactions would say anything good about it.
I won't argue that there's a difference between being a good writer and a good storyteller, but there is far more to being a good writer than inspiring emotion and quite a bit of overlap between the two.
Internal consistency. Proper spelling and grammar. Avoiding purple prose and long passages of nothingness. Having your sentences "flow" well. To a degree, having interesting and/or relatable characters and avoiding deus ex machina (overlaps with storytelling). Those are all traits that a hypothetical good writer could have. Knowing your target demographic is not good writing, it is good marketing if anything, and even that isn't really an accurate way to describe it.
As for haters... Well, I wouldn't consider myself one. I much prefer to just avoid the things that I find annoying when possible. I think most "haters" are like that, with very few actually going out of their way to be one.
However, when something is around so very much that it becomes difficult to avoid... Well, that's when it gets irksome for me. For example, when a discussion about a good book series with deep, well-rounded characters and complex plotlines that I'm rather fond of gets derailed into a discussion about a series about a mary sue choosing between beastiality and necrophilia, filled with enough plot holes to drive a truck through, indirectly comparing the two series... Well, hopefully if nothing else that clarifies any "hater" bits from my perspective.
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by TheSummoner
I think I'll take being called cerebral as a compliment. To be perfectly frank, I don't think the reactions of hormonal, pubescent teenage girls are a very good metric to judge something's ability to inspire emotion. We could look at the reactions of any other demographic if you like, but very few of those reactions would say anything good about it.
You make two rather blunt assumptions in that sentence:
1- That the Twilight fandom only extend to hormonal, pubescent teenage girl. That is a rather strawman narrowing of one's audience, and a wrong one as that. I know plenty of 20s-30s women who love Twilight as well. Should we lump them into the hormonal group?
2- You imply anybody who can pick up a pen could inspire emotions into hormonal, prubescent teenage girls. That is rather dismissive of the competition already exists for that lucrative market. Point is: it is not that easy. Some people fail to event make a dent in that litterature genre, and then underplay their failure by underplaying other people's success.
It takes skill to success at writing, any kind of writing. Not any kind of writer can do any kind of writing, and there aren't one inherently superior to any other. There is only the one that YOU prefer.
Publishers seemed to have the same attitude following the Pottermania. "Meh, people like junior fantasy stuff, anybody can write that ****. Let's churn out books after books of that crap to sell."
You cannot dismiss an entire litterature genre as "easy".
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by VanBuren
Sorry, I'm still stuck at the part where "good writer" is defined as being able to evoke emotions. Not sure I'm on board with that.
It certainly is a good writer's quality. And for some litterature genre, that's about the most important strenght.
I personally cannot get my head around you not understanding the importance to connect and inspire your reader. They are not writing academic texts; they are writing escapism fantasy. What part of "your audience has to be invested" you don't understand?
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
While this is a good discussion, perhaps it migh be better off in a twilight related thread? Or you can turn it back on OP to Song of Ice and Fire. Either way. <3
Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
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Originally Posted by snoopy13a
My major issue is Martin's cyncism. Although that may have been mitigated in the 5th book. For example, with the Mandeleys' position regarding the Starks.
I never found it to be cynicism so much as "extreme realism." When I first started reading, I felt that it was a little over the top, but then I sat back and thought "you know, it's not so much cynical as it is a realistic appraisal of how people would react in such a situation absent comfortable modern, western morals and the consequences thereof." Yeah, there are some contrivances, but this is fiction, and some of them need to exist in order for their to be continuity of story and character.
Which is not to say you have to agree with me or that if you don't like it you're wrong and a bad person. Just my take on it and I like it because I get kind of sick of bad Tolkien knockoffs by people who don't actually understand Tolkien with sugar coated blather, or things trying so desperately to be "un-Tolkien" that it's just obnoxious.
Martin tells a darn good story. You might argue about the greyness of the morality, or the plodding pace, but to a good extent, that's a lot of personal preference. What's beyond argument, IMO, is that he's a very good writer technically and has made artistic choices for these novels that do not sit well with some readers.
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Re: What are the problems with the "A song of ice and fire" series?
