George RR Martin, his fanboys, and former fanbase

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

As for GRRM and & ASOIAF in general, this thread really made me realize how much I was blinded to the "greatness" of how much I thought this series was great. How much the "Gritty realism" was merely shallow and it either misguided ones believing into a good product in the best case or a bunch of hacks in the worst case.

The realism in ASOIAF seems to start and stop at "wow the Middle Ages were a shitty place where people no matter who they were could die at any time."

 

[Terfmaster9000]

The Targs are niggers in the shows now. Like any of this matters anymore. GRRM and his HBO team are so embarrassing. We go from painstaking investigations of hair color over Joffrey's birth. To full on retcons of practically every lineage and genealogy in the entire series in the span of a decade. They can retcon and rewrite practically all of the lore as they want it and most fans will not care anymore.

I don't take shows as canon, nor do I think they are meant to be taken as such. I think the Valeryons are black in the show to help the short attention span audiences differentiate between them and the Targs. Look at you, you got them confused and they are literally played by black people, kek.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Well, they go from "ACKSHUALLY it is the hair colour, see!?!?!", but have the cheek to make the Velarions and niggers instead. The Velarions are described as beautiful akin to the Targeryens, not as niggers or race mixed in what the show did to them.

It's because they both are Valyrian. It's like saying Celtic or Nordic. They are not all related, but they have the same phenotypes. For Valyrian, is white, purple eyes, silver hair. If you being two typical families from Sweden, they're very likely are looking white and blonde and won't look like Slavs.

In the books, there is a Velaryon guy called Aurane. He looks so much like Rhaegar Targaryen that Cersei absolute loses her marbles over him and does something very stupid.

This is how his ancestor, according to the Unseen Westeros exhibition looks like, Corlys the Sea Snake:

We got this:

The actor is good and all, but come on!

 

[Lazy Printer]

It could be worse, they could have made some random targs black with no explanation.

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

It's because they both are Valyrian. It's like saying Celtic or Nordic. They are not all related, but they have the same phenotypes. For Valyrian, is white, purple eyes, silver hair. If you being two typical families from Sweden, they're very likely are looking white and blonde and won't look like Slavs.

In the books, there is a Velaryon guy called Aurane. He looks so much like Rhaegar Targaryen that Cersei absolute loses her marbles over him and does something very stupid.
View attachment 5858260
This is how his ancestor, according to the Unseen Westeros exhibition looks like, Corlys the Sea Snake:
View attachment 5858279
We got this:
View attachment 5858280
The actor is good and all, but come on!

I agree with you, I didn't mean to stirr up trouble. When I said that the "Valyrians are their own race", I meant to say that the creators of the show stated that, in order to shove diversity crap on it. Every fan art of the Velaryons before the House of The Dragon included them as silver haired and fair skinned. The creators were just incredibly cheeky or malicious to include the "silver haired" part and "forgot" the skin colour part.

As for the actor, sure I heard he is trying to do his part. Yet this causes a lot of trouble - Aegon I Targaryen's mother was Valaena Velaryon, and thus the Targaryens should be race-mixed or "mystery meat" if that's the case, not pale skinned. Yet this happened around only (canonically) when there was the marriage into Dorne with Daeron II Targaryen, with some Targaryens being Dornish/Rhyonar of appearence, and others of Valyrian in appearence. Maybe they will claim genetics work differently - that if some Summer Islander marries a Lannister, and eventually this branch of Lannisters continue to breed within Westerosi or Essosi, they'll eventually become White again. Yet Dorne is a clear example against this, leading to more confusion. Dorne spent years in the hands of the First Men, before being ethnically cleansed by the Rhyonar under Nymeria, except the "Stony Dornish".

Everything else I agree with what others voiced here. My woe is not with the characters only, it's with some distances and the like. I'll admit I did like the concept of a fantast where things looked more "realistic" especially with the language employed in the books ("wench", "fucking") while being "not Europe & not Asia" (especially the Free Cities of Norvos and Braavos, they have a certain interesting aspects to it that I'd like to see explored. Even Qohor). It's a disappointment, but a good one to see it picked apart to see where he could have done better.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Maybe they will claim genetics work differently - that if some Summer Islander marries a Lannister, and eventually this branch of Lannisters continue to breed within Westerosi or Essosi, they'll eventually become White again

This is actually true though. The average Boer in South Africa has a black ancestor or two, but they look very white. Alexander Pushkin's great grandfather was Abram Gannibal, a black slave abducted by Turks whom the Tsar liked enough to make a general. Pushkin didn't look very black, and neither do his descendents.

Everything else I agree with what others voiced here. My woe is not with the characters only, it's with some distances and the like. I'll admit I did like the concept of a fantast where things looked more "realistic" especially with the language employed in the books ("wench", "fucking") while being "not Europe & not Asia" (especially the Free Cities of Norvos and Braavos, they have a certain interesting aspects to it that I'd like to see explored. Even Qohor). It's a disappointment, but a good one to see it picked apart to see where he could have done better.

At least some of the peoples and countries in Essos are GRRM's tribute to other fantasy writers, especially Michael Moorcock. That's why it has the same mysterious and otherworldly feel that you get from the descriptions of far off lands in the Elric books.

I can't really criticize it, because at its core the concept of a woman who is really pissed at everything that's happened to her along with her close followers rampaging across that sort of landscape with dragons and intrigue is a pretty cool one, and arguably better than Westeros's hackneyed version of the War of the Roses mashed in with other episodes from the Middle Ages in a landscape where none of it should work.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Ironically the books could have had Westeros be multi racial considering it's retardedly large. However it stuck to European archetypes because actually exploring such a society is hard, and it's easier to just spread in niggers around and have them randomly be dissed (but not with any actual racial language!) to make it clear that the child murdering person is really evil.

 

[Mukhrani]

For most authors, except for Tolkien and Lovecraft on account of their legendary works and based worldview, I refuse to use their "author initials" and just call them by their first name and surname.
J.K. Rowling? Fuck you, cunt. It's Joanne Rowling — mostly just Joanne.

To be fair to Rowling, I don't think she even really wanted the name. Iirc, her agent or publisher asked her to use it because they (correctly, imo) surmised that there would be some boys who wouldn't want to be seen reading a female author. By initializing it they made her gender completely ambiguous unless you dug further. I remember when the novels first came out it was a thing at one point to go 'wow, I had no idea they were written by a woman!' I doubt she cares if people call her that nowadays.

Otherwise I mostly agree that it belongs in the 20th century and that using it nowadays is kind of pretentious.

 

[Lazy Printer]

Ironically the books could have had Westeros be multi racial considering it's retardedly large. However it stuck to European archetypes because actually exploring such a society is hard, and it's easier to just spread in niggers around and have them randomly be dissed (but not with any actual racial language!) to make it clear that the child murdering person is really evil.

Westeros feels like a giant overstretched fantasy version of bongland, not even Europe, at least in the series. The only places where they try to do anything different are the north,iron island, and dorne. The north is just different because it's cold and full of snow, the iron island had some interesting concepts like their weird religion but it's barely show and don't look that much different from the rest visually and dorne is the worst. And somehow according to Martin, westeros is supposed to be the same size of south America, is he retardad? South America has Jungles,deserts,savanas,flatlands, mountains, tempereted climate similar to europe's down the south and even tundras ( I think that in his head south America is just a jungle ). This is so retard, the not bongland should had way more variations.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Westeros feels like a giant overstretched fantasy version of bongland, not even Europe, at least in the series. The only places where they try to do anything different are the north,iron island, and dorne. The north is just different because it's cold and full of snow, the iron island had some interesting concepts like their weird religion but it's barely show and don't look that much different from the rest visually and dorne is the worst. And somehow according to Martin, westeros is supposed to be the same size of south America, is he retardad? Jungles,deserts,savanas,flatlands, mountains, tempereted climate similar to europe's down the south and even tundras ( I think that in his head south America is just a jungle ). This is so retard, the not bongland should had way more variations.

It works when you have teleporting armies and magical teleporting crows.

 

[Merry]

I think people do in fact like the attempts at "realism" in the books, it makes fantasy more grounded, more immersive. What they do not like is Martin's pervasive Nihilism and Postmodern deconstructionism. Yeah Ned was naive and stupid because of his honour, and got shanked because of it. But it's not done to make light of how too much honour can backfire, it's made to discredit honour in the first place because Martin can't see the value in any values besides prostrating yourself to the great idol of progressivism.

Personally I think that Martin’s sudden inability to finish Winds for over a decade is less from frustration with the show, edgy fan reviews, the Ukraine war, or the backlash against Season 8’s ending.

And more simply due to losing his assistant Ty Frank, who left Martin’s employ in 2010 to go write The Expanse books with his writing partner, finishing the series before Martin finished another book.

It’s pretty obvious from Frank’s old interviews that he was something of a guiding hand to keep Martin actually focused on writing instead of endlessly rewriting. He’s probably responsible for Feast/Dance getting published at all.

The Expanse series is incredible and evokes a lot of the same scale and worldbuilding without the problems of Martin's work. It's extremely optimistic for humanity despite the odds posed against us, unlike Martin's constant "life doesn't matter man" hippy bullshit. Highly recommend

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Dude, it will never come out. Your best bet now is if GRRM dies and he gets a greedy estate that handpicks a successor even if it's the Winds of Winter has to start from scratch again.

Looking back I may had been a little harsh here but my point still stands that GRRM is doing everything he can to not finish his last two books in his lifetime.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Preston Jacobs, one time GRRM cheerleader: "All the stuff that happens in [A Feast for Crows] and [A Dance with Dragons] is... forgettable and not really useful. Think about how much was cut by D&D and they still had an end game.... Everybody's looking for the sequel to [A Storm of Swords.]"

Ouch.

 

[Absolutego]

Preston Jacobs, one time GRRM cheerleader: "All the stuff that happens in [A Feast for Crows] and [A Dance with Dragons] is... forgettable and not really useful. Think about how much was cut by D&D and they still had an end game.... Everybody's looking for the sequel to [A Storm of Swords.]"

Ouch.

I'm glad after, what a decade now? of making ASOIAF videos, Preston has caught up to where the fanbase was in 2011, after AFFC was literally nothing but side quest worldbuilding material that didn't include the three main characters, and ADWD ended on a double cliffhanger.
No shit he was procrastinating. It's why GRRM musing in interviews right before COVID that he might need an 8th book to wrap things up was a red flag to longtime fans that nothing of substance is likely going to happen in Winds of Winter in the fantasy world where that book is ever published pre-humously.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

I'm glad after, what a decade now? of making ASOIAF videos, Preston has caught up to where the fanbase was in 2011, after AFFC was literally nothing but side quest worldbuilding material that didn't include the three main characters, and ADWD ended on a double cliffhanger.
No shit he was procrastinating. It's why GRRM musing in interviews right before COVID that he might need an 8th book to wrap things up was a red flag to longtime fans that nothing of substance is likely going to happen in Winds of Winter in the fantasy world where that book is ever published pre-humously.

It's his brand and he's desperate to maintain it.

This video went up yesterday and has 27K views. His non-GOT videos get nothing. His Loki videos get under 5K views. Ashoka, Mandalorian, and WoT videos get 7-8K. Meanwhile, Alt Shift X gets almost as many views reading random YouTube comments on his alt channel.

It's why he's doing this fanfic project which is pointless because (a) plot wise, there's so much consensus on the story beats (Night Lamp, Stannis dying somehow to the Others, Danny vs Aegon, plus story beats the show told us about like KL going boom and King Bran) that there's no point in watching hours of videos when someone could summarize it in a few paragraphs, and (b) GRRM can write some good sentences when he's feeling motivated and PJ can't write.

Maybe he doesn't want to face the fact that he's spent, and continues to spend, thousands of hours of his life on something that is effectively a dead IP.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Maybe he doesn't want to face the fact that he's spent, and continues to spend, thousands of hours of his life on something that is effectively a dead IP.

He's definitely wasted his life. But dead IP? House of the Dragon is probably the biggest show on television. Game of Thrones still is one of the most streamed shows as well. When Dunk and Egg starts airing they will be showing ASOIAF material nonstop year round. This series basically prints free money. Posters, toys, games, all big sellers. It's probably the main reason GRRM never writes. He just collects $20 million a year while HBO does everything.

At this point publishers and authors are just salivating at the idea of GRRM dying and them being able to feast on his corpse as artistic vultures. People didn't care when Tolkien's or Frank Herbert's estates were ravaged to make degenerate slop for the masses. There are probably a good percentage of fans rooting for GRRM to pass on so that someone can finally write the rest of the books.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

He's a moron. One reason the show sucked was because so many loose plots or characters missing theirs.

 

[Dr J]

Looking back I may had been a little harsh here but my point still stands that GRRM is doing everything he can to not finish his last two books in his lifetime.

Make no mistake, Brandon Sanderson will be finishing those

 

[Vecr]

Make no mistake, Brandon Sanderson will be finishing those

At this point I'm not sure there's enough money in the world to get Sanderson to write something like that. He has pretty much zero non-necessary free time and he really does not want to be involved in something that I'm sure he thinks is quite far on the way to obscene. Writing the remaining books in his normal tone would piss off fans and I don't think he wants to do that either.

 

[Ishtar]

The Dragon demands is still denying reality. (He’s the guy that goes on hysterical rants about how bad D&D are).

But yeah, Preston saying this when he’s talked so much about “Quentyn isn’t dead” before is quite the concession.

I think the best we can hope for is Martin releases some sort of outline-such and such characters live, die, overall fates. I doubt it though.