A Maester's Query

[MizasterJ]

So I've been thinking a whole lot about ASOIAF lately, lol probably too much but I've been really thinking of the big picture and how it all relates to each other. This is going to be a long post so please bear with me, and I'm sorry if it seems like I'm rambling but I swear I will come to a point. Feel free to skip ahead.

What does each character's story arc represent and how will it effect the overall message GRRM hopefully is trying to portray? As a writer myself and an educated journalist, this has been plaguing me for a long time.

I really truly hope he does have an overall thesis in the grand epic and I hate to doubt him but I've had complaints. I'm just not sold he can tie it in together in a satisfying way. Never the less I'm excited to go along for the ride.

My first theory was that this whole story is basically a conflict of 2 opposing forces: that being of corse ice and fire. But not just the conflict but how they relate to each other.

My other theory is that this is a story of the 7 aspects of the faith of 7 with each character taking on the role of 1 of the 7 but in the end who will represent the 7? So this is all 1 big process of elimination till we eventually find our 7 players and we see how their lives effect the universe.

But of corse it could all be just 1 big ball of random people and events: a story about nothing in particular. That would be the least satisfying conclusion for me. So I can't help but feel frustrated by the lack of crossover or link between characters.

GRRM is really taking his sweet time tieing up loose ends while creating more and more loose ends. I know GRRM probably doesnt even have all the answers himself and is somewhat making it up as he goes along, trolling us here and there, keeping us confused and aloof. Reading our predictions and then steering the opposite way.

There have been many disappointments thus far in the narrative; such as the fact that it strays from the Stark vs Lannister aspect and seemingly ruins any enthusiasm you may have had about Dragons returning to the realm by keeping them relatively small and insignificant to the plot. Things pick up a bit in ADWDs but you can't help but feel the under utilization at play.

As much as I respect GRRM I can't help but criticize him.
It's just hard dealing with the disappointment and anticlimax in so much of this series, so many misleads and lost opportunities. Seems like he thrives on denying us small satisfying resolutions. You can't help but want it all to add up to something significant and logical but it's almost impossible to extract that from the text.

This story can really get a bit mind numbing. How do you reconcile it ?

Do you compare it to something else or just let it exist on its own?

It's not as simple as "You either like it or you don't. "

GRRM gives us reasons to want to love it such as epic dragons and inspiring heroes but either smashes those all to bits or worse..lets them just sit on the shelf and ferment, while he draws on about mundane politics and half truths.

It's almost as if he doesn't recognize his audience or what his audience wants.Or rather he writes the story simply for himself. How can you truly get behind an author like that?

Dont get me wrong this isn't a hate message, quite the contrary, I love the swords , the sorcery, the jokes, the landscapes and witty amusing characters he writes but what does it all boil down to?

[Dorian Martell]

This story has been brewing in his brain pan since the 1970's. Ideas that he put together for the book published in 1996 may have been less than optimal for a story continuity almost two decades later.
As to what it boils down to, an epic fantasy story spanning hundreds of years, several continents with magic, dragons and rudimentary science that is not black or white, but gray. It is not fire or ice, but water and steam

[Ser Not Appearing]

The beauty is in the absence of convention - his ability to take a finely organized sequence of events and use it to bring about an intentional, desired outcome... but to do so while making it all seem like random and varying viewpoints with unexpected consequences.

You apparently want him to be an artist. He's not. This is no great painting, it's a magic show.

No, not wizard magic... 21st century magician/illusionist magic in literary form. He gets you to think he's doing Y but while you watch him do that, upon reveal it's actually X. Misdirect with the plot in such a way that it didn't feel like misdirection. The misdirect is that it feels random and deconstructed... it feels realer than most narratives... but in reality it's even more intentional than most plots.