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She drank the water in Mexico
George RR Martin, his fanboys, and former fanbase
- Thread starter IAmNotAlpharius
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She drank the water in Mexico
Stab You in the Back
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She's a subversion of the exiled prince/princess archetype.
I like ASoIaF as much as anyone, but you can define most characters by the archetype they're designed to subvert.
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I do think it's a good idea on paper, presenting Dany as a heroic return to the old dynasty only to reveal her to be a zealot sliding down the slippery slope in regards to “punishing wickedness” before becoming just as bad as her father out of a self-righteous belief in Targaryen perfection making everything she does justified. Unfortunately, Dumb & Dumber refused to make her show any signs of becoming more radical and instead insisted that she just snapped from loneliness and losing a dragon, and I don't think George could fix it either if he ever got off his fat ass and finished the series.
But yes, it is actually rather painful how obvious each character archetype is when GRRM sets them up for subversion.
Mega Black
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This is another pretty damning knock against him. At first George's insistence on killing characters might seem subversive and compelling, but you very swiftly realize that death is just his get out of jail free card. Spend chapters building up a new and intriguing bit of the plot with far reaching consequences... then the character dies and that storyline is effectively kaput.
TheHarbinger
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Once you identify a character that has the GRRM trait of "tough childhood" you can assume that they have extreme levels of plot armor. Jon is a bastard and then gets sent to the Wall despite not being a criminal. Dany is in exile and poor with an abusive brother (and husband). Tyrion is a freak of nature and ugly midget. Bran is a cripple and his family is wiped out. Yet all four of them come from massively powerful houses yet eventually are treated like trash by those around them. They come from arguably the three strongest houses measured over the last couple of decades even. Jon and Dany are heirs to the throne and denied. Tyrion is heir to Casterly Rock and denied.
These characters become the ones where GRRM focuses on their stories into extreme details no matter how pointless or meandering. Because even though GRRM is a 'gardener' style of writer, deep down inside he knows who will survive until the end. So he has some things planned out for the end of the story. Jon, Bran, and Tyrion will live until the end and beyond. Dany will likely die in the last chapters just like the HBO show. So they have plot armor against everything. So he really tries hard not to write those characters into corners or plot holes. Or he will, in the case of Dany, do everything he can to not advance her story for fear of messing up the timeline or making plot holes or contrivances. So Dany just treads water for five straight books while GRRM tries to figure out how to grow her dragons into a threatening size. Because those characters do not have the 'get out of jail free' card of death if GRRM writes them into a corner......he has to make a real effort with their chapters. If he writes Dany into a corner or plot hole he cannot 'garden' himself out of there by just killing her. Because he has a clear outline of who lives until the end and will not change it no matter what.
Any other character? They can die at any point because they are not alive at the end of the last book or at the end of the story. Stannis burning his daughter and losing his army? Why not? Jaimie saying he hates the peasants and dying with his sister? Why not? Sandor Clegane having some goofy anime level fan service fight with brother? Ned offering his head to Cersei practically instead of arresting her? Robert getting killed by a wild pig? Littlefinger and Varys losing their minds? Oberyn goofing around during a fight to the death against the deadliest warrior alive? They are just built up and killed for shock value at this point. And some of their stories are entirely inconsequential to the threat of the Others. The Other supposedly being the main antagonists of the entire ASOIAF world history.
You can also show how 'hardcore' and 'edgy' you are as a writer by killing everyone including in spectacular ways. Even though if you read the books enough you will see that the real main characters have invincible armor. You can just pay a PR company to promote how you are the next Tolkien and talk about killing Ned was this revolutionary writing moment. And how "no one is invincible" in ASOIAF and Game of Thrones. Even though Tyrion, Bran, and Jon might as well have been invincible. And to an extent Arya as well in the later seasons with her surviving like 400 stab wounds and killing the Night's King by herself.
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It's a huge mess
Isn't there a story about how he planned for a five year time gap after the third book, but then he thought it wouldn't work with Jons story as well as like Dorne not giving a fuck about Oberyns death? So from there he just started winging it (or "gardening" or whatever?)
Like this guy can't stick to a fucking plan to save his life.
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Coming to think of it ASOIAF/GoT kinda sprung the shitty "muh subversion" trope to live.
"The most likeable characters in the story? They' all need to die now because of subversion"
"See this shining hero? He is bad now because epic subverting twist" "OMG I just did the opposite I am a brilliant writer"
>author is a fat childless fuck
>if a person isn't succesful in live, that means they must good
>if a person gets rewarded easily and is very successful as well they must be bad and reckless schemers
Always the same shit with those whiny authors
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He was always highly acclaimed since even if people weren't calling him American Tolkien, he'd at the very least get mentioned in discussions on upper tier modern fantasy writers. I wasn't really active in any specific community devoted to discussing his stuff in the late 00s, but if someone said "hey I like LOTR, can you give me some cool books I'd also like?" then ASOIAF would always show up alongside Wheel of Time.
People find it complex because it's easy to think it's going incredible places based on what arcs GRRM does manage to tie up (i.e. parts of A Storm of Swords). In reality, this is all in your head because it isn't actually finished and you have better odds of winning the lottery than GRRM has of writing a satisfying ending.
It's a similar phenomena to how people praised The Last Jedi as some sort of deep and subversive masterpiece because the movie is such a mess that audiences can fill in the blanks and imagine it being far better than it is. TLJ ends ambiguously, so it gets a pass, but Game of Thrones has a clear ending meaning it lifts the blinders from the audience's eyes and they can realize that "actually, it's shit." The same thing would happen if GRRM ever finished the books.
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TLJ didn't even stick to it's own message. "Kill the past" but then it immediately reverts back to the same old Jedi vs Sith/Rebels vs Empire in the very same movie.
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This is right on the nose. It’s subversive because his series goes for the opposite of popular story telling tropes. I’d argue GoT is less anti-Tolkien as it is anti-sword and sorcery and anti-popular fiction: The masculine heroes die all the time and aren’t heroic or are fucked up in some way; the story is focused on a particular area that’s not all that exotic; the pace is slower; there’s a large revolving cast; the main characters are crippled, outcasts, or have disturbing secrets, etc; the fat character self insert has plot armor and gets laid; etc. He still guns for Tolkien out of a sense of autistic one-ups-manship, but he seems to have a deep hatred towards pop fiction.Coming to think of it ASOIAF/GoT kinda sprung the shitty "muh subversion" trope to live.
"The most likeable characters in the story? They' all need to die now because of subversion"
"See this shining hero? He is bad now because epic subverting twist" "OMG I just did the opposite I am a brilliant writer"
>author is a fat childless fuck
>if a person isn't succesful in live, that means they must good
>if a person gets rewarded easily and is very successful as well they must be bad and reckless schemers
Always the same shit with those whiny authors
I also find it funny how his series is lauded for realism, but if you think about it he doesn’t like realism if it gets in the way of his fap sessions. Realistically, Tyrion should have dozens of STDs by now. Yet despite banging whores throughout all of Planetos he doesn’t seem to have contracted anything. Furthermore, the Targaryens should’ve ended up like this:
Of course if Dany looked like a retard it would probably kill George’s
This medium article here (archive) goes over how retarded GoT is when it comes to realism, it’s focusing on geography and demography, two fields that are not popular with certain elements of the progressive left (there are lots of progressives in both fields, but they aren’t as liked by their fellows).
It’s ironic how he hates fan fiction but people theorizing how it would end is largely why his series was so popular.
That’s what I was going for. I corrected it. Thanks for pointing that out, I’d rather people correct me when I mess up.
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For me it's ridiculous to claim that the Others are main antagonists. They barely appeared in the books and we have 5 massive books already. And not only that, 95% of the story has nothing to do with them. Like the best and most popular aspects of the book are something completely different. So none of that actually matters? Real story is about Others???
So 95% of the story is just pointless filler?
Structure of ASOIAF is a mess.
So 95% of the story is just pointless filler?
Structure of ASOIAF is a mess.
AnyballLecter
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Thread needs more about Martins Fanboys and Fangirls.
Pretty cool people. Bet you've never been photographed on a roof looking epic and fantastic?
Her and her pet Mexican, Elio Garcia run the Westeros.org site, and they have co-authored books with GRRM. Her views fit in with Kiwi Farms on a lot of issues, but not with the Twitter crowd.
That is where the potential drama could come from - they have a book coming out in October 2022.
There was a largely ignored petition to shame her in 2012.
Article calls her disgusting:
She doesn't like forced diversity in the new show 'House of the Dragon.' A reddit /r/ASOIAF moderator and Linda have a brief Dance of the Dragons on Twitter.
Prod her and you will get a spicy response:
"The Rise of the Dragon is an upcoming book by George R. R. Martin, Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson describing the history of House Targaryen from Aegon Targaryen's conquest of Westeros to the civil war. "
It's like Fire & Blood but a coffee table book summary of the events rather than a novel. She says GRRM didn't write it:
Linda Antonsson of Westeros.org
Pretty cool people. Bet you've never been photographed on a roof looking epic and fantastic?
Her and her pet Mexican, Elio Garcia run the Westeros.org site, and they have co-authored books with GRRM. Her views fit in with Kiwi Farms on a lot of issues, but not with the Twitter crowd.
That is where the potential drama could come from - they have a book coming out in October 2022.
There was a largely ignored petition to shame her in 2012.
Article calls her disgusting:
"GEORGE R.R. MARTIN, COME GET YOUR PEOPLE"
Linda rejects gender ideology:She doesn't like forced diversity in the new show 'House of the Dragon.' A reddit /r/ASOIAF moderator and Linda have a brief Dance of the Dragons on Twitter.
Prod her and you will get a spicy response:
Will drama accompany their book?
They have a new book:"The Rise of the Dragon is an upcoming book by George R. R. Martin, Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson describing the history of House Targaryen from Aegon Targaryen's conquest of Westeros to the civil war. "
It's like Fire & Blood but a coffee table book summary of the events rather than a novel. She says GRRM didn't write it:
Archive 1 Archive 2
So ... will the hype about the new show and the new book (not really by GRRM) be derailed by outrage about her views?
Mega Black
kiwifarms.net
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They'll certainly try I'm sure but it more than likely won't stop the book from getting made. It's nice to see somebody just telling SJWs to sit and spin.
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She seems like a cool woman but she also likes Second Life. That's a red flag. Second Life players are fucked.
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- Oct 21, 2019
That article denouncing her has 0 comments and the 10(!) year old petition calling her out has a whopping 250 signers, so I'd say she survived that canceling.
The bigger issue might be admitting that Martin didn't write the book that has his name on it. That might actually hurt sales, you know. Might also be breaking her contract, or at least Martins feelings.
AnyballLecter
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Her second life stuff is kinky A.F. but I'm not sure where that stuff is documented now that IsWinterComing.com died.
There's the rub. She needs SJWs to tell to sit and spin. Bonus: If there is a backlash against the book over this, it'll force GRRM to get off the fence.
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Seems like a bit of an oddball but not the worst kind of cow all things told. As far as Game of Thrones cows are concerned I'm sure that it's hard for a lot of them to emerge from the shadow of GRRM's humongous gunt.
Speaking of that r/ASOIAF reddit janny, what's the reddit community for ASOIAF like? I'm sure it's probably super autistic (a given for reddit) but is there anything uniquely spergy about it?
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Linda's ok, as for the rare occasions in which I've interacted with her. Elio is a bit more PC.
Secret Asshole
Expert in things that never, ever happened
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True & Honest Fan
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The thing is GRRM likes 'realism' except when he doesn't and hates 'magic' except when he doesn't. Because no one wants to read a fantasy story without magic unless its cool low magic like Conan and shit. Then it becomes really shitty alt-history for like the 5 people who like detailed medieval history. And then 4 of them are just on Crusader Kings making it themselves. He wants to be subversive but he's basically just an old school grognard who lucked into rich and fame. He's a grumpy old faggot who will never finish his writing and learned the hard way what happens when you become an edgy boi author that kills your characters: Some character's you can't fucking kill because you won't have a story and if you kill too many characters the story becomes unrecognizable and you loose readers because you have to make up new characters for the characters you kill.
I've observed a lot of edgy authors who kill characters and learned a VERY important lesson: If you're planning on writing more than one or two books, this is a VERY bad idea. There are plenty of straight narratives where nearly every character bites it, but in longer running series this becomes untenable because every character you kill is a character that has a lot of history and time invested, and that's lost every time they bite it. And its VERY difficult to replace that. And like @TheHarbinger said, you very quickly find out who the main characters are, because they can't die. Basically, if the story would grind to a halt if they were killed, you know they can't die. The 'gardening' style of writing is just a meme. You can't write by roll of the dice or just pruning. Great, the entire Stark Dynasty just failed its saving vs. throw. Danerys contacted diphtheria and shit herself to death in the desert. Now your most built up character is fucking Hot-Pie. GOOD LUCK! *thumbs up*
Every character needs to serve a purpose. In the beginning you could tell that Ned's death served a purpose, but as things went on, he just killed them when he ran into corners, needed something to happen or a character just got in the way. In the show, it was done for shock value as they rapidly ran out of material and D&D ran out of interest (I can't blame them, they were hired to adapt a series, not write one from scratch).
In reality, no story can be 'ultra realistic' and in no story is everyone disposable. Yes, in real life the protagonist could be walking down the street and then just get randomly run over by a drunk wine mom. But there are plenty of stories in history where people survived insane shit that wouldn't fly in fiction. If you try to write one of these stories, I'll just laugh at you, because if everyone is disposable in your story, then your story is pointless. In the end, GoT just became a 'Shaggy Dog' story: Long, meandering and ultimately pointless.
Honestly, I'm coming to hate this edgy-boi fiction that GRRM espouses. Its fake and gay, it tries to be unique, but its completely fucking transparent. It tries to shake convention, but it runs right back to them when they need it. Fucking garbage.
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Honestly surprised they don't have a thread of their own. I knew of these people back when she was threatening to sue forums for having up a copy of her description in a text-based video game. Also the whole SecondLife sex thing.
Part of the reason GRRM doesn't like fanfiction because they basically sucked his cock when the first book came out and got permission from him to be the ONLY text-based online roleplaying, and it was the only official one. (The description came from there as well.)