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Are new(post storm) major characters a waste of time?


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No, I love Dance and most of Feast. Especially the Dornish plotting. It will only be a mistake if he can't wrap it up convincingly. I do think there were about twice as many Brienne chapters as there needed to be and the geographic split was a little awkward, but only a little. It did also allow some clever touches like making the reader think Davos was dead and seeing Jon and Sams parting from different perspectives.

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The five year gap was one of the worst ideas George has come up with, I'm incredibly glad he scrapped it.

But the gap was intended to solve a real problem. He originally intended the story to take place over most of a decade, but as he was writing it, he didn't even manage to cover 2 years in the first three books. This means Arya the assassin is still a preteen, and so on for all the other children. It means there's no time for Dany to get experience as a ruler and still arrive in time to make a difference. It means Westeros isn't ravaged by an Anarchy-like (or, in-universe, Dance-like) decade of hellish war, just by a year of it. And so on. So, I can see why he thought a 5-year gap would solve the problem.

I'm glad he changed his mind on that... but I'm curious how he's going to solve it, because he still needs to. (Are we going to see a 5-year-old King Rickon the Great saving the day at the end of the story?) Maybe he can slow down the pace of the last two books, or split the gap up into a lot of little gaps. Maybe he can shift some of the characters' stories off to other people. Maybe the story will end up so different in many details that the lsat sentence won't even be relevant. Probably it'll be a combination of these three strategies and others. At any rate, I'm optimistic that there's a good chance he'll pull it off.
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There is literally no other word to describe most of Brienne's or Sam's Feast chapters than filler. GRRM has them walking in circles before reaching their destinations because he still needs other pieces to be in place.
 

 

So basically the same as Arya in books 2 and 3, and a lot of Jaime's stuff in book 3, after all, he didn't really need to go to Harrenhal and meet Roose, he could have just showed up at King's Landing with Brienne.

 

Oh, and those Catelyn chapters that aren't super important battle scenes or death scene or people getting crowned, those are all useless to, why do we need half a dozen scenes of Hoster dying, surely Martin could have streamlined the whole thing is Hoster died before the books.

 

And why do we need to know how often Robb is shagging Jeyne? He's going to die anyway, hell why event bother introducing the Westerlings? None of them are particularly deeply developed, and I'm sure the Freys could betray Robb for some other reason. Hell why do we even need the Freys in the first place? It's just a pointless excuse for him to add 100+ characters, come up with a load of silly names and call 5 people Walder Frey, the whole series could be more enjoyable and less longwinded if the Green fork wasn't there and Robb didn't need them, then he could just die by falling off of his horse.

 

Hell, why not just have everyone stay the fuck at home?

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So basically the same as Arya in books 2 and 3, and a lot of Jaime's stuff in book 3, after all, he didn't really need to go to Harrenhal and meet Roose, he could have just showed up at King's Landing with Brienne.
 
Oh, and those Catelyn chapters that aren't super important battle scenes or death scene or people getting crowned, those are all useless to, why do we need half a dozen scenes of Hoster dying, surely Martin could have streamlined the whole thing is Hoster died before the books.
 
And why do we need to know how often Robb is shagging Jeyne? He's going to die anyway, hell why event bother introducing the Westerlings? None of them are particularly deeply developed, and I'm sure the Freys could betray Robb for some other reason. Hell why do we even need the Freys in the first place? It's just a pointless excuse for him to add 100+ characters, come up with a load of silly names and call 5 people Walder Frey, the whole series could be more enjoyable and less longwinded if the Green fork wasn't there and Robb didn't need them, then he could just die by falling off of his horse.
 
Hell, why not just have everyone stay the fuck at home?


Right. Fauly analogy. Because Jaime meeting Roose and basically setting the RW in motion, or Arya meeting Jaqen and setting her most important path of the story, or the Freys (?) are obviously just as important as Brienne meeting the shield painter or Ser Creighton or even Nimble Dick, or Sam metting Kojja Mo, or Jaime talking to Gatehouse Ami.

If you really think that the Cinnamon Wind or whatever the fuck that ship was called, is an essential part of Sam's storyline, then I don't know what to say.

Like, I honestly think it really is quite clear that when GRRM made the questionable decision of splitting the books as he did, he found out Feast would've been super short for Brienne, Sam, and Jaime, in particular, so he had to include some bizarre side quests and throwaway characters to crank up the page count.
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I think the real problem is plot creep.  We are approaching the end of the series and it is getting even more complicated than it already was. (And it is probably the most complicated series I have ever read already).  At some point, you reach the point of diminishing returns.  There is a reason so many readers fear he will not be able to complete the series in two books (or in their lifetime).  I'm all for character and nuance.  (Yes, really)  But he really has to decide what elements are truly necessary for the telling of the story, or it is never going to end. 

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I enjoyed the add in of Cersei and Jaime. 

 

I couldn't really get into the ironborn story, but I'm willing to see where it goes.

 

Adding Cersei as a POV character was probably GRRM's wisest move. Despite her personality, she is one of the most enjoyable characters to read, and her adventures in King's Landing are absolutely brilliant.

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So basically the same as Arya in books 2 and 3, and a lot of Jaime's stuff in book 3, after all, he didn't really need to go to Harrenhal and meet Roose, he could have just showed up at King's Landing with Brienne.

 

Oh, and those Catelyn chapters that aren't super important battle scenes or death scene or people getting crowned, those are all useless to, why do we need half a dozen scenes of Hoster dying, surely Martin could have streamlined the whole thing is Hoster died before the books.

 

And why do we need to know how often Robb is shagging Jeyne? He's going to die anyway, hell why event bother introducing the Westerlings? None of them are particularly deeply developed, and I'm sure the Freys could betray Robb for some other reason. Hell why do we even need the Freys in the first place? It's just a pointless excuse for him to add 100+ characters, come up with a load of silly names and call 5 people Walder Frey, the whole series could be more enjoyable and less longwinded if the Green fork wasn't there and Robb didn't need them, then he could just die by falling off of his horse.

 

Hell, why not just have everyone stay the fuck at home?

 

You. I like you.

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Adding Cersei as a POV character was probably GRRM's wisest move. Despite her personality, she is one of the most enjoyable characters to read, and her adventures in King's Landing are absolutely brilliant.

 

The best about Cersei's povs are that Jaime's complement them.

 

Cersei chapter: "I rule the Realm and I'm a genius!"

Jaime chapter: "Gods, help us: she's ruling the Realm!"

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The best about Cersei's povs are that Jaime's complement them.

 

Cersei chapter: "I rule the Realm and I'm a genius!"

Jaime chapter: "Gods, help us: she's ruling the Realm!"

 

Indeed, her genius plans leading herself to destruction will be enjoyable to read.

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The best about Cersei's povs are that Jaime's complement them.

 

Cersei chapter: "I rule the Realm and I'm a genius!"

Jaime chapter: "Gods, help us: she's ruling the Realm!"

 

As well, if you read the chapters in boiledleather's chronologically combined format, you'll read a Cersei chapter where she's thinking, "Tyrion is in the walls! He's going to kill my son!", then the next chapter will be Tyrion drunk aboard a ship, not giving two shits about anything.

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I think that newly introduced characters can be very important, yes. Robb appeared in three books before dying and he became very well loved. WHo's to say Aegon and other introduced in Feast/Dance can't do the same+ I mean, there are two big books left (maybe even three). Plenty of time to establish their characters.

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I think people care too much about the plotlines and core story to actually enjoy the chapters... I, personally enjoy reading and interesting chapter, I don't care about the repercussions for the core story.
I really enjoyed the Ironborn and dornish chapters, and all the chapters regarding Aegon and JonCon much more than most Catelyn chapters, or Jon's or Sam's in ADWD. It's all about enjoying what you read, really. There's no such thing as a waste of time
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But the gap was intended to solve a real problem. He originally intended the story to take place over most of a decade, but as he was writing it, he didn't even manage to cover 2 years in the first three books. This means Arya the assassin is still a preteen, and so on for all the other children. It means there's no time for Dany to get experience as a ruler and still arrive in time to make a difference. It means Westeros isn't ravaged by an Anarchy-like (or, in-universe, Dance-like) decade of hellish war, just by a year of it. And so on. So, I can see why he thought a 5-year gap would solve the problem.

I'm glad he changed his mind on that... but I'm curious how he's going to solve it, because he still needs to. (Are we going to see a 5-year-old King Rickon the Great saving the day at the end of the story?) Maybe he can slow down the pace of the last two books, or split the gap up into a lot of little gaps. Maybe he can shift some of the characters' stories off to other people. Maybe the story will end up so different in many details that the lsat sentence won't even be relevant. Probably it'll be a combination of these three strategies and others. At any rate, I'm optimistic that there's a good chance he'll pull it off.

 

He has admitted the problem was he made them too young to start with (though I doubt Rickon will be doing that much regardless, even with the gap he would only be 10 and would be even more feral).

 

The problem is I can't think of any series in which one book follows on directly from another that gives a detailed account of everything that happens in that timespan. IIRC the Lord of the Rings takes place over 6 months or so, so it's a bit much for Martin to think he can cover 10 or 12 times as much time with more characters in only 7 or 8 books.

 

The problem with frequent time skips is that it ruins the tension and lowers the engagement of the readers, there is also the whole problem of the continuous interactions and conversations; if you want a continuation of the discussions and interactions of the last chapter, then the next chapter can't really be set more than a few weeks afterwards, otherwise the interaction makes less sense.

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Right. Fauly analogy. Because Jaime meeting Roose and basically setting the RW in motion, or Arya meeting Jaqen and setting her most important path of the story, or the Freys (?) are obviously just as important as Brienne meeting the shield painter or Ser Creighton or even Nimble Dick, or Sam metting Kojja Mo, or Jaime talking to Gatehouse Ami.

If you really think that the Cinnamon Wind or whatever the fuck that ship was called, is an essential part of Sam's storyline, then I don't know what to say.

Like, I honestly think it really is quite clear that when GRRM made the questionable decision of splitting the books as he did, he found out Feast would've been super short for Brienne, Sam, and Jaime, in particular, so he had to include some bizarre side quests and throwaway characters to crank up the page count.

 

It wasn't so much an analogy as taking your ideas to their logical conclusion, though I do think Jaime meeting Roose was technically unnecessary; there was already foreshadowing from Arya's chapters that Roose had betrayed Robb, if anything all Jaime meeting him did was destroy a lot of the surprise at the Red Wedding.

 

Less important than Ned dealing with Hugh of the Vale? Or Tyrion getting to know all the whores who's names I can't spell? Gatehouse Ami is a peculiar example because she actually was rather important to all of what was going on in the Riverlands, far more than a lot of Arya's ASOS chapters.

 

Cinnamon wind is also a strange example, since it lasts a single chapter and AEMOM TARGARYEN FUCKING DIES IN IT! So yes, a rather essential part of the story, it would be contrary to the entire way the series is written if Sam, Gilly, Mance's baby and Aemon get on some anonymous ship, Aemon dies, and they get off, we get descriptions of ships and their crews since Catelyn in book 1. Of course we don't get a whole chapter on Cat's ship because unlike the Cinnamon Wind nothing happens there.

 

What exactly is your criticism of Jaime's arc? That he shouldn't want to visit his cousin?

 

I agree that some of Feast's arcs could have been cut down, Sam and Brienne especially, but that doesn't mean that the whole arcs are useless. Furthermore even if Martin did cut out a lot of that stuff and a lot of the stuff you don't like from Dance it still wouldn't fit into one book, so we'd just get 2 shorter books. Whilst I might not have minded that in my first read through, looking back I can say that I'm glad he didn't cut any of that stuff, because ultimately I'm just getting less book for my money.

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He has admitted the problem was he made them too young to start with (though I doubt Rickon will be doing that much regardless, even with the gap he would only be 10 and would be even more feral).
 
The problem is I can't think of any series in which one book follows on directly from another that gives a detailed account of everything that happens in that timespan. IIRC the Lord of the Rings takes place over 6 months or so, so it's a bit much for Martin to think he can cover 10 or 12 times as much time with more characters in only 7 or 8 books.
 
The problem with frequent time skips is that it ruins the tension and lowers the engagement of the readers, there is also the whole problem of the continuous interactions and conversations; if you want a continuation of the discussions and interactions of the last chapter, then the next chapter can't really be set more than a few weeks afterwards, otherwise the interaction makes less sense.

Rickon maybe 10 but he has been through hell,and has been living in an island full of unicorns and cannibals, he may be way more mature than we could expect.
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I think the problem has less to do with timing and more to do with the actual enjoyability of reading about said characters. Example: The Wire introduced four new characters in S4, and practically made them the main characters. The season is widely considered by many (including yours truly) to be the show's best, and it came 60 % into the show's chronology, compared to AFFC and ADWD, which is like 50 %.

 

I was excited to read about Dorne, thinking I was going to get something alike Oberyn Martell. What I got was nothing nearly that interesting. Also, Theon is one of my favorite characters, but reading through the Iron Islands plot was a chore. Then again, the characters introduced earlier were only marginally more interesting, so... I dunno.

 

In theory, it should work, but I don't think the execution was anything to write home about.

 

I will, however, praise George for at least establishing the of existence these characters beforehand (even if it was just briefly), instead of pulling them out of thin hair. He'd been building the Dorne plot ever since Tyrion sent Myrcella there, maybe even from when the Mountain killed Elia.

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I'm not so sure that Quentyn's arc will turn out to be more important. I think they both equally meant to be catalyst for future development and nothing else. I mean, what Oberyn did in KL for the narrative except dying and causing Dorne to enter finally the war? The only difference is that Oberyn was more charismatic.

 

I beg to differ.

 

Quentyn has already done for more for the plot than Oberyn did. He's freed the dragons on Meeren.

 

Dorne did not enter the war because Oberyn died. In fact they still haven't and all their plans (Arianne to Aegon, Quentyn to Dany) all go through even without Oberyn's death. Remove Oberyn from the 3rd book and nothing changes. Jaime still frees Tyrion and Tywin still dies. He killed one person who's been resurrected anyway so even that hasn't made a difference. From a plot perspective, Oberyn is the very definition of useless.

 

If people want to remove all the emotion from reading the books and focus solely on the plot, then Quentyn > Oberyn. People moaning about Sam or Brienne must have been reading the first 3 books with their eyes closed. There are plenty of chapters from the likes of Arya/Bran/Catelyn/Sansa/Tyrion where absolutely nothing happens and there is zero progression of plot. The irony being, most people moaning about the something not impacting the 'plot' have no idea where the plot is actually going. Even with that, you'd have to be daft to think Sam's chapters have nothing to with the plot.

 

 

Of course, that's not how it works. Oberyn was a fantastic character and regardless of whether he influenced the plot or not and the books would have been poorer for him not being in it. I don't like Quentyn as much but his chapters are still enjoyable. In fact there are a lot parallels with Oberyn come to think of it. He's the ant-Oberyn in many ways and yet they both have deep underlying issues and both die trying to do their duty.

 

 

The Jaime chapters in the Feast are some of the best written chapters in the series. I feel sorry for people who read through them and then have a moan about how it didn't impact the plot.

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