400 replies to this topic

[Fraggle]

I don't think it really counts as an inconsistency or a plot hole, but the battles really bother me. Far, far too many of them are decided by things that either make no sense or are bordering on deus ex machina. To list a few:
Renly's death by shadowbaby.
Theon taking Winterfell - really? Rodrik Cassel, a man who's been fighting for decades, doesn't leave a couple of hundred men to hold Winterfell? Really?
Ramsay Bolton being able to beat 5 to 1 odds by taking his opponents slightly by surprise (let's be charitable and say that the Bolton men managed to line themselves up such that every single one of them managed to get steel out and kill two men before the others could respond. That still makes it 3 to 1 and them's poor odds by any means)
The Blackwater - the wildfire (at least that was foreshadowed, but for me wildfire is one of the most annoying creations of the series.) and Tywin being 3000 miles south of where we thought.
Green Fork - a single, blind charge by disorganised troops (many of whom have no experience of a pitched battle) into a defensive position breaks the Northern army. All the more annoying because Tywin's plan working would have been a much more satisfying way for this battle to pan out. This one wouldn't be that bad on its own, it's more in the context of the others that it frustrates me.
Robb not explaining his plan to Edmure. On no planet does that make sense, not now, not ever. And given the Blackfish was involved you can't claim it's Robb being inexperienced, or some other 'in character' explanation. The Northerners just needed to be holding the idiot ball for a while for plot reasons.

What really annoys me about all this is that all the most implausible situations are entirely of Martin's own making - there's no NEED for the Boltons to be outnumbered 5 to 1, or for us not to know that Tywin is on the way (you could argue that knowing he's on the way would make the situation even tenser and more dramatic - will Stannis take KL in time, etc, etc.), or for Renly's military and political position to be so good that only magic can derail it.

Oh, while we're on the subject, Melisandre and Mance Rayder. 1) The fact that any time Mel needs to have a new power, she could suddenly always do it. Oh, so she can magically disguise people, huh? That's...convenient for you, George. 2) If Mel wants Rayder alive, why did they bother burning Rattleshirt? All Mel has to say is 'oh, he's no true king, burning him will achieve nothing' and Stannis will happily opt for beheading (he's not so far gone as to enjoy the burning yet, in my estimation). If anything, burning Rattleshirt as a decoy weakens Mel's position - if it has to be king's blood, the burning will have no tangible benefit, and will seem to provide proof that she and her magic are fallible. Terrible call on her part.

Oh, and that reminds me - why does anyone follow the Seven, rather than R'hllor? The seven seem to be a fairly typical real-world religion - their power is based on their political and cultural influence and the faith of their followers. Compare that to R'hllor, who is demonstrably performing enormous miracles everywhere you look (Thoros, Mel, Moqorro). If I had to bet on a faith, I know where my money's going. And yet we're supposed to think Davos and the King's men are sensible for resisting Mel's religion. Crazy.

[Faceless Sam]

you didnt like much of the books, did you?

[Magdelaine Snow]

Fraggle, on 29 April 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

Oh, and that reminds me - why does anyone follow the Seven, rather than R'hllor? The seven seem to be a fairly typical real-world religion - their power is based on their political and cultural influence and the faith of their followers. Compare that to R'hllor, who is demonstrably performing enormous miracles everywhere you look (Thoros, Mel, Moqorro). If I had to bet on a faith, I know where my money's going. And yet we're supposed to think Davos and the King's men are sensible for resisting Mel's religion. Crazy.

Because R'hllor is an evil demonic force. I'm not at all convinced that this story is about Good (R'hllor-Fire) against Evil (The Unnamed One - Cold) so much as it is about Evil vs. Evil with men and old gods caught between.

I guess you could say it's the same reason all of us aren't witches and demon worshipers.

[Jaehaerys Sand]

JKeats, on 27 April 2012 - 09:15 PM, said:

Inconsistency #1:  Is cannibalism a monstrous crime or not?  Come ADWD we learn that it is, but back in ACoK, it is treated quite casually.

I'm pretty sure it's considered monstrous unless your only other option is starvation. That's why Stannis isn't considered a monster for  considering it but the Skagosi are.

Side note about ADWD, the reason Stannis burned them was because he didn't say they had reached the point of desperation where they could eat their dead. That and it wasn't certain whether the men who were eaten died of natural causes.

Ser Gatsby of the West Egg, on 31 March 2012 - 07:52 PM, said:

I've searched the forums for an answer to this but haven't been able to find one as of yet.  Here's an inconsistancy that I dont understand:

It is generally understood that the alchemist is Jaqen and that Jaqen is a faceless man.  He has killed Pate for the Archmaester's key and now he has assumed Pate's face. However, When Arya is training with the faceless men she is reprimanded for killing the Night watch deserter (darion?) because the faceless men cannot choose who they give the gift to.

Soooo..... How is it that Jaqen was allowed to kill Pate?  I think it unlikely that someone would order Pate's death so where does he get the right to kill him?

Perhaps we don't know enough about the faceless me to answer?

I get the feeling from his actions that JH is fulfilling some kind of prophecy or sacrifice for numerous, unnamed kills. That's why he made a big deal out of Pate being a thief before he killed him.

[Menos Grande]

I think we should value the "price of war" no one really want to bend and knee, but the ones who did it are dead for ages... and now they were living in peace with the seven kingdoms for ages.. why japordise this? Even if one person wanted the throne, if he wasn't powerful enough to win himself he dificutaly whould find help to do it, at same time if you were powerfull enough to take the throne, maybe you would setle in marying a Targaryan (must be a great honror, they are like the elfs of Lord of the rings in George's world)

[The Last Martell]

I know this has been discussed before, but the biggest thing for me is easily LF lying about the dagger.  Other than GRRM planning Cat/Tyrion's altercation at the Crossroads, I don't see what purpose the lie serves.  If either Catelyn or Ned go right to Robert, Ned's best friend, then LF is screwed.  Or if anyone, really, hears about the lie it could come back to bite LF in the behind.  I see this as a big possibility as Varys was in the room when at the time, and I don't think LF is stupid enough to risk revealing all of his cards to Varys of all people.

[Queen of Spades]

GreenHand, on 29 February 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

The stealth of Wex in face of Shaggydog

I think this is a very valid consideration. Wex couldn't straggle to far behind and simply ask after them - he couldn't speak.
That is why I don't think he was stealth at all. I think he openly joined up with them on the road and openly traveled with them. There would have been no reason not to assume he was simply a refugee from Winterfell after the slaughter and burning. Osha was not familiar with the Winterfell staff. As a mute Wex is unable to speak and reveal any possible Iron born accent. He was just a boy and didn't actually have any direct ill intent toward Rickon for Shaggydog to pick up on. In the short time that Theon ruled Wex could easily have kept a low profile, working mostly in Theon's quarters while Osha was in the Kitchens. We find Wex in the Godswood at the end, not near the fighting.

I have to disagree with that...

• Osha has been in Winterfell for a while, with freedom of the castle, and she works in the kitchens. She knows the Winterfell staff !
  
• When Theon takes Winterfell, she leaves the kitchens and swears an oath to him. She would have noticed the mute guy always at his side, don't you think ?

I still think that he openly traveled with them, but she had to recognize him. Maybe she is the one who sent him to Manderly...
I guess we cannot call it plothole since we don't know exactly what happened.

[Fraggle]

Magdelaine Snow, on 29 April 2012 - 08:29 AM, said:

Because R'hllor is an evil demonic force. I'm not at all convinced that this story is about Good (R'hllor-Fire) against Evil (The Unnamed One - Cold) so much as it is about Evil vs. Evil with men and old gods caught between.

I guess you could say it's the same reason all of us aren't witches and demon worshipers.

That's certainly the most plausible explanation. I'd argue that it's not so much a case of evil v evil (since most people still aren't really aware of the Others kicking around) as a case of demonstrable power v no power. As in, when you've got a sorceress clearly able to work magic and predict the future, you have to ask where she's getting the power from. 'Demons' is certainly a plausible answer - especially for Davos, who's close enough to see what she's doing to Stannis and get a look at the shadowbaby (which sounds pretty freaky, to be fair). But I do still wonder why people slightly further removed aren't wondering why the seven seem incapable of similar displays of tangible power to R'hllor. Although I will happily concede that Mel's 'public' magic has been less impressive that Thoros' - and all the BwB have converted - so maybe there's just a bit more plausible deniability.

Faceless Sam, on 29 April 2012 - 07:22 AM, said:

you didnt like much of the books, did you?

Warning: Off topic
It seems worse than it is because I like complaining.   I think that by any standards GoT is an excellent book, and SoS is very good indeed. However AFFC and ADwD have a number of key failings - they're far too long for what happens in them, and too much time is devoted to storylines that don't go anywhere - and I'm really not a fan of CoK. I would say that, as a whole, the series has a lot of strengths - the level and depth of Martin's vision is incredible, most of the characters are very well drawn and are surprisingly nuanced and the politics and scheming is done exceptionally well. The degree of planning and foreshadowing that's in there is almost unbelievable at times as well.

However, I don't think he has any particular talent for writing battles (the unchangeable first-person perspective, and the characters he's chosen, don't really help him here - for a battle you'd want a Jaime or Robb, someone who gets involved in the fighting but also retains a sense of the grand scheme in a way that Tyrion doesn't - Davos though works quite well in this regard), and while he seems to want to tell a grand tale of the history defining an entire continent, he gets far too bogged down in individuals and petty details for it to work as well as it could - key examples of this are the amount of time spent with Arya in the temple, which ultimately won't affect anyone but her and could be trimmed down an awful lot without harming the story (and bear in mind that I like Arya, she's one of my favourite characters) and the fact that in CoK more text is spent describing what Sansa is wearing than describing Robb's battles. The other thing that irks me slightly is that the books aside from GoT aren't really stories in and of themselves, and too often the ending seems fairly arbitrary. That works fine so long as the speed of production is reasonably fast, but once you start getting to >5 years between books it starts to falls apart.

/off topic

[mcb]

Ser Gatsby of the West Egg, on 31 March 2012 - 07:52 PM, said:

Soooo..... How is it that Jaqen was allowed to kill Pate?  I think it unlikely that someone would order Pate's death so where does he get the right to kill him?

Perhaps we don't know enough about the faceless me to answer?

My theory about the FM: they're nihilists, and their precious ideology/religion is just BS. That certainly was my impression after Kindly Man's lectures about "gift of death" (with a price tag attached). They assassinate, they get paid for it, randomly killing a lot of people draws unwanted attention, makes waves and is generally bad for business. However, if one unlucky dude stands in the way, too bad for him.

JKeats, on 27 April 2012 - 09:15 PM, said:

Inconsistency #1:  Is cannibalism a monstrous crime or not?  Come ADWD we learn that it is, but back in ACoK, it is treated quite casually.

I think it's just squicky, but not one of those great crimes against gods, like killing one's guests or close kin. Certainly Wyman works under that assumption.

[Ragnorak]

alienarea, on 19 February 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

- Eddard having faced the slaughter of his guard by Jaime telling Cersei he knows about the incest

If you believe R+L=J this makes much more sense.  Ned may have a very personal interest in seeing that Robert does not kill any more children for the crimes of a parent.

[Ororo727 Jon Snow Fangirl]

When Tyrion and Jorah were in Volantis, Tyrion noticed a green iced drink that smelled of mint. How do they have ice in a hot and humid land like Volantis?

[Yukle]

Fraggle, on 29 April 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

Theon taking Winterfell - really? Rodrik Cassel, a man who's been fighting for decades, doesn't leave a couple of hundred men to hold Winterfell? Really?
Ramsay Bolton being able to beat 5 to 1 odds by taking his opponents slightly by surprise (let's be charitable and say that the Bolton men managed to line themselves up such that every single one of them managed to get steel out and kill two men before the others could respond. That still makes it 3 to 1 and them's poor odds by any means)

Both of these quite annoyed me. In particular, the fact that it was all too neat how the Starks were deposed from power. It turns out all the bannermen were traitors or useless and this was just a little bit infuriating because after a while I found myself wondering how it could be that a Great House could have thousands of years of power and yet not a single useful vassal.

[MotherAnduin]

In addition to what other posters have said, No one had the idea of simply taking the dragons from Dany.

Dragons surviving underground while constantly breathing fire. Where do they get oxygen from?

Rickon going to Skaagos instead of Cerwyn castle which is half day ride away.

Illyrio claims that it takes two years for a ship to reach Asshai and return back to Pentos. If we assume Qarth is roughly the midpoint of the journey (it is much farther away), how did Jorah send the letter about the birth of dragons from Qarth, Illyrio recieve it in Pentos, send Barristan Selmy to Dany in the given time frame? It doesn't make sense. It should take atleast one year for this to happen.

Dany finding a lost ruined city in middle of a desert is extremely improbable.

Valyrian empire lasted for thousands of years but has not conquered anything. They left a few colonies and nothing else?

Nymeria's escape with ten thousand ships to Dorne on the Rhyone is impossible because Volantis sits on the mouth of the river and it should have dragons because Valyria and Nymeria were at war. It is also mentioned over and over how treacherous the Dornish coast is. How did Nymeria land so many ships? Sunspear could never support so many people because it is a desert. Either Nymeria's numbers are vastly inflated or it just a plot hole to destroy Dany's army during her landing.

Dany had 8000 fully trained Unsullied and a few thousand semitrained ones. She also had a vast horde of freed slaves. Why did the Second Sons and Stormcrows not switch over to her? Victory was impossible. Come to think of it, most of Dany's arc since Drogo's death makes little to no sense.

Theon's wounds not festering.

Selmy being able to talk with any Meereenese.

Rise of Braavos to it's present status of most powerful city in four hundred years is unbelievable.

Why on earth are Lys and Braavos fighting on the Rhoynar?

Why did Valyria not settle Ny Sar? If they didn't want it, why go to war?

[Blood of the Flagon]

I suppose its fantasy and its more of a suspension of disbelief issue but dynasties lasting thousands of years is just bunk.  And the night's watch and free folk dynamic over thousands of years, I could go on for a while on that one.

Edited by Blood of the Flagon, 16 February 2013 - 03:43 AM.

[Blood of the Flagon]

MotherAnduin, on 16 February 2013 - 03:01 AM, said:

Why did Valyria not settle Ny Sar? If they didn't want it, why go to war?

for slaves

[Pinkie Baelish]

Littlefinger having nothing to do with Bran's assassination attempt. It's always seemed like a big contrivance to me that someone would try to kill Bran so soon after he made Lysa write the letter to Catelyn, and he was never involved in it.

Also want to add his motives for poisoning Joffrey. I don't really buy the whole "let's shake things up" excuse. Littlefinger is the kind of guy that does things only for his own personal gain. Was Joffrey killed just so that Sansa could escape? Because there must have been an easier way to smuggle her out of King's Landing. And how would it benefit him if Tommen was King or not Joffrey, even if Tommen was easier to control? He was supposed to be in the Vale anyways, so there's no way he would be able to influence Tommen.

Edited by Pinkie Baelish, 16 February 2013 - 03:29 AM.

[MotherAnduin]

Blood of the Flagon, on 16 February 2013 - 03:18 AM, said:

for slaves

Then why did they kill 250,000 potential slaves in Chroyane?

[MotherAnduin]

Pinkie Baelish, on 16 February 2013 - 03:21 AM, said:

Littlefinger having nothing to do with Bran's assassination attempt. It's always seemed like a big contrivance to me that someone would try to kill Bran so soon after he made Lysa write the letter to Catelyn, and he was never involved in it.

Also want to add his motives for poisoning Joffrey. I don't really buy the whole "let's shake things up" excuse. Littlefinger is the kind of guy that does things only for his own personal gain. Was Joffrey killed just so that Sansa could escape? Because there must have been an easier way to smuggle her out of King's Landing. And how would it benefit him if Tommen was King or not Joffrey, even if Tommen was easier to control? He was supposed to be in the Vale anyways, so there's no way he would be able to influence Tommen.

He wanted Sansa to be held guilty of murdering Joffrey so that Sansa would be completely depended on him for survival. He lied to Sansa.

[Danelle]

Not certain if this is a plothole or inconsistency but I always wondered about the Starks and the Tullys.
After RR, Ned and Cat went to Wintefell, Hoster and Edmure stayed at Riverrun and Lysa followed Jon to KL while also spending time at Eyrie. Blackfish also spent a lot of time with his younger niece. At the beginning of GOT, Robert Arryn is close to Bran and Arya's age yet he hasn't met his first cousins. And they were the only cousins Robert got, apart from Harry the Heir. Ned also considered Jon to be a father figure to him, Cat loved Lysa and Edmure and at times she was homesick. Yet all those years they hadn't met. When Arya contemplates her fate, she thinks of her uncle that she hadn't met. Sansa met Lysa for the first time when she fled KL. I understand that there is the matter of distance but it seems strange that despite their love and devotion, Starks and Tullys had minimum interaction all those years. On the other hand, I suppose it serves the plot: had the Stark kids visisted Eyrie or met Robert Arryn, then it would be very difficult for LF to re-introduce Sansa as Alayne. Bronze Yohn almost recognised her and had met Sansa once, a long time ago. Also if Arya had visited the Riverlands with her family before the war, then she would likely have made friends there and people might recognise her as Ned Stark's little girl.

[GarthKITN]

Apple Martini, on 19 February 2012 - 12:30 PM, said:

I also think it's kind of illogical that the Targaryens lasted so long after their dragons died out. If they didn't have dragons, they wouldn't have conquered Westeros to begin with. As it turns out, when just half of the noble houses banded together, it was enough to boot the Targs out of power. Surprised that no one tried it after the Dance of the Dragons, or at least that it didn't occur to anyone. I can see if it had been several hundreds or thousands of years since the Conquest, but 150? That's nothing.

Well, there was the Blackfyre Rebellion (which I suppose could be considered more of a Targaryn civil war) that split the realm, and the Targaryn's won decisively. Going from what's provided in Dunk and Egg, it sounds like Bloodraven kept a pretty tight leash on the realm after that (although, granted, that is just one example).