George put his name on the front of the book and undoubtedly wrote at least some of it and had the final editorial say so IMO it is all on him.
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*UNMARKED SPOILERS ALL BOOKS* Game of Thrones |OT| - Season 6
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George put his name on the front of the book and undoubtedly wrote at least some of it and had the final editorial say so IMO it is all on him.
Blue Ninja
Member
Except that they're not black. The Brindled Men have a very different complexion, it's described in the book as well.
Brindled means brown. To assume Martin didn't make his comparison with Africans is being wilfully ignorant.
The Brindled Men feel like a weird workaround because he wanted to include that sort of pulpy notion of "darkest Africa" with cannibal tribes or whatever, but didn't want to to be THAT racist, so he moved the black people off to the Summer Isles and then created weird, speckled, half-animal men in his fake Africa. Which ends up being kind of even more racist.
Also, I'm enjoying reading the non-book reader thread complaining about Arya's plot and how it feels like she should have disappeared for a bit and skipped forward a few years, and realizing how hard the lack of a five-year gap in the books really hit her character that it's even infecting the show.
radios shipping overview
Member
Makes me think he's mentally checked out and really doesn't care too much about the series about this point.
The 6 years between books didn't already tell you that?
Did he have 20 good men with him?
She wargs in Bravos?
No but he did rather offhandedly murder the hosts
Sickboy007
Member
I don't know where you get that they're fake Africans, the way they're described makes it pretty clear that they're fantasy analogues to Neanderthals.
elrechazado
Banned
Umm brindled indicates the striping effect. Tigers stripes are the classic example of brindling. Martin is clearly making them some other species of animal men. If it's a racist charicature, explain the summer isles - a much more exact analogue for African humans, and one of the most interesting and honorable cultures in the books. Shrug - you can see whatever you want in these books. Sothoryos felt like a combination of King kong's iskand, Jurassic park, and yes some elements of Africa. Are all other continents ok to take elements from except that one?
Yeah into a cat when she is blinded and she 'dreams' of leading a pack of wolves in the riverlands which is obviously her warging.
elrechazado
Banned
It's how she realized it's the kindly man who is beating her regularly. Cat in the rafters.
Beaten - and this. Multiple dire wolf warging with nymeria while in braavos.
Liquidsnake
Banned
Im glad they acknowledged Little Finger really putting Sansa in a bad postilion up North. i was wondering all of last season, why the F would he do this to her, and where is he?
Do keep in mind that World of Ice and Fire is meant to be a fictional book written from the perspective of a Westerosi Maester.
Are the Summer Isles more African to you because the characters are explicitly black?
And George can take whatever he wants from the world but when he decides to take typical eurocentric tropes about Africa of animal men, broad nosed, savage cannibals who are barely human. Then has those people sold into slavery by coastal tribes it is hitting a bit too close to reality.
It would even be fine for this kind of trope to appear in the world book if there were characters in the main novels that contradicted or challenged these tropes. But nope there is nothing. All the racist parallels are made without any purpose.
And in this fictional book about this fictional world he didn't need to include any sort of racism and certainly not typical trope based racism.
Ok, I'm on holidays but still watching. So, is it safe to assume that Jorah is taking Victarion's role? At least in my mind he is xD
Hodor stuff was cool, I'll miss him. I'm thinking this particular plot in the books will end up the same. I'm super intrigued with Bran's part, I thought it was going to be terrible but no, it's interesting.
Speaking of terrible, Iron islands. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. This is Dorne 2.0 in badness levels, my god.
Puppy Jaime is horrible, please kill the character if he's going to be Cersei with a dick.
I have a lot of stuff to say but fuck writing in mobile.
Hodor stuff was cool, I'll miss him. I'm thinking this particular plot in the books will end up the same. I'm super intrigued with Bran's part, I thought it was going to be terrible but no, it's interesting.
Speaking of terrible, Iron islands. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. This is Dorne 2.0 in badness levels, my god.
Puppy Jaime is horrible, please kill the character if he's going to be Cersei with a dick.
I have a lot of stuff to say but fuck writing in mobile.
At least they're sort of staying true to the overall Iron Islands plot, though obviously with major differences. Though I'll admit the cuts are glaring, the pacing is poor and the acting has been questionable.
With Dorne they just tossed the whole thing in the garbage and piece-mealed a story together from the characters in the show who didn't have anything to do.
Racism is a decently big part of the story though, so I feel its representation is relevant. I don't want to appear I'm defending these obviously slightly questionable decisions, but I'm a big fan of TWOIAF and feel it does an amazing job at balancing revealing parts of the world while still keeping things vague and having the very popular "unreliable narrator" part of the series still be present.
Hmm I didn't remember the Nymera warging while in Braavos. I really have forgotten a lot about the books. Maybe I should reread them.
(but it seems like such a pain to do that)
Didn't he write 100,000 words for World of Ice and Fire? People just make up stuff about George. It's crazy. I don't get where any of this stuff is coming from. He's a slow writer but that doesn't mean he's mentally checked out at all.
Sickboy007
Member
Here be Dragons is racist. Jesus Christ
Everyone seems to be getting chunks of Victarion's storyline.
Euron, Yara & Theon are on their way with the fleet. Kinvara has replaced Moqorro. Jorah's getting his lava arm. Ellaria's probably going to role up out of the blue with Dragon controlling horn soon.
Huh.
You do realize that the book is written from the perspective of a maester right? And that he has no personal experience of these far off lands that no one really ventures to? Everything he's written regarding Sothyros is essentially rumors/hearsay. This was done intentionally, given the context.
The time period they're in, comparative to our world - the maester's behavior and prejudices line up with our western world's view of africa in that similar era. So the "banal, generic tropes" are done 100% intentionally. It's cartoonish because the maester's understanding of the ASOIAF Africans is cartoonish.
It's only racist if you're one of those people who reads/watches GOT and thinks "this is advocating rape!" just because it depicts it as it was understood at the time. The whole thing is intended to be a mirror of our world (minus the magic), people are awful and brutal actions, ideas, and details aren't spared.
Yeah you're right lol
Kinvara was cool.
Also, the WW reveal was weak, and their origin is an old trope which I don't particularly like. And this one is another which I think will end up in the books as well.
Oh well, on to the bastard and Clegane bowls!
Yeah the showrunners said that the show is super divergent from the books, though the critical beats are essentially the same the story plays out differently.
I'm looking forward to a lot of things, especially how Aegon's and Dorne's plotlines play out. And the extended background of the white walkers and the Night's King that we didn't get in the show.
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
As an artist, creator, contributor, editor ... this is so fucking offensive. It's his life's work.
CornBurrito
Member
I mean.... that works for literally every twist ever?
It's an easy and lazy criticism of work that takes a long time or that has changed in a way you don't like.
Jack Scofield
Member
I don't think there's anything necessary wrong with GRRM not being interested in finishing the books anymore. If he doesn't have the drive or passion, why force himself to do it? If I was in his position, it would be hard to put my nose to the grindstone if I wasn't 100% invested in my work anymore, especially considering all the opportunities and events he could be doing instead.
He's just slow as shit. He's always been slow. And the older he gets, the slower he writes.
HowardRoark
Member
I do think there's something wrong with people saying Martin isn't interested in his series anymore.
They had the chance to just outright answer a fan criticism and explain why the story makes sense but of course there is no answer so Littlefinger didn't even respond to it. I wonder why even draw attention to the plot hole then.
Why? It's the truth. What explanation do you think there is for why he wrote Storm of Swords in 2 years and now he's taking 6+ years for not even completed books?
He's writing a long and complicated story?
because the books are exponentially more complicated now. there's more POVs from more parts of the world. ASOS was comparatively simple. we can debate whether or not he should shoulder blame for that, but remember that ADWD took as long as it did chiefly because of a thing called the "Meereenese knot", a puzzle in which he had to make several key events and POVs line up in Meereen with good timing without it feeling contrived - and part of the solution of that was two MORE brand new POVs (Quentyn and Barristan). He's also just generally a perfectionist and once again that makes stuff takes longer as the books are more complex.
edit: also see post below
I'm pretty sure he had a much clearer vision for the first three books (they were supposed to be just one book), which made them a lot easier to write. He didn't have that with the later books. His planned 5 year jump with Feast didn't work so he had to rewrite that book from scratch. Dance was originally supposed to focus on Dany's return to Westeros before he fucked up the Meereen storyline every which way. It all just became a big mess. A big fat mess.
elrechazado
Banned
Unless you have a glass candle over there, please stfu.
Moff
Member
he seems unusually passionate about his character, much more than other actors. I like him now
Let's go murder them!
also, I don't know the slightes thing about filming because I have no idea how it can take 10 hours standing in the rain to shoot those 2 minutes he had with balon
Liquidsnake
Banned
He has more money now than he knows what to do with. Perhaps the motivation just isn't there.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
It's like you completely missed that Bran warged into future Hodor whilst in the vision and that Meera's words to Bran and Future Hodor also fucked him up while Bran was staring at him in the past. Bran basically warged into future Hodor and then sacrificed him to hold the door. I paused it right at the second Bran took control and Hodor stopped shaking and crying and got up and took the sleigh down the hall.
Basically.
Bran warged into Hodor through Wilas while he was in the greensight.
Therefore Bran was connected to present Hodor through his younger self, Wilas.
When Meera screams "HOLD THE DOOR!", young Wilas heard it. He then looked at Bran, when this happened Bran ALSO warged into Wilas.
This connected young Wilas to Hodor simultaneously, effectively warging Wilas into Hodor. Wilas immediately experienced everything Hodor was experiencing. The imperative in his older self to hold the door to protect Bran, being mauled to death by wights, and hearing "Hold the door" over and over (through both Hodor's ears and Bran's) caused significant emotional and psychological trauma.
The repetition of that phrase being the only thing he experienced that wasn't extreme pain, burned into his brain by the trauma.
Hodor.
Actually according to Kristian thats not what happened. Bran warged into Willas but not into present Hodor. He should have come out of the dream first. His hearing Meera yell hold the door transferred into young Willas but not older Hodor. Hodor was hodoring of his own free will
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/arts/television/game-of-thrones-hodor-feels-your-pain.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/arts/television/game-of-thrones-hodor-feels-your-pain.html?_r=0
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