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What you don't like about ASoIaF


rayarts

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This might be a tough one, but I actually asked myself what

are things that you do not like about the book series?

(Aside from it taking forever to finish).

 

If you could tell GRRM what you wish he would have changed or didn't do,

what would that be? 

It can be something regarding characters, plotline, writing style, logical aspects etc.

 

Personally, right now, I can only think of changing Cat's character which annoyed

me to no end during the first books, I just think she's a bad concept.

 

What would you have done differently?

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I love the books, there are a few things that I don't like.

 

  • I couldn't agree more about Cat. 
  • The ages of the children. It is a lot easier for me to imagine Robb, Dany, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran a few years older than they actually are. Besides even GRRM originally planned a five year gap between SOS and FFC to  explain the maturity of the characters. 
  • FFC takes place during the event described in the first part of DWD. I would have preferred if the events of FFC preceded DWD.
  • Doran Martel has no POV, instead we have the POVs of Arianne, Areo and Arys, three characters who know nothing and of the three, only Arianne is important. A shame, because the importance of Dorne is wasted on characters and situations that hardly advance the plot.
  • The pace in certain storylines after SOS. I would have preferred if the battle of Merreen had started and finished in DWD and Tyrion's journey could have been shorter.
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I love the books, there are a few things that I don't like.

 

  • I couldn't agree more about Cat. 
  • The ages of the children. It is a lot easier for me to imagine Robb, Dany, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran a few years older than they actually are. Besides even GRRM originally planned a five year gap between SOS and FFC to  explain the maturity of the characters. 
  • FFC takes place during the event described in the first part of DWD. I would have preferred if the events of FFC preceded DWD.
  • Doran Martel has no POV, instead we have the POVs of Arianne, Areo and Arys, three characters who know nothing and of the three, only Arianne is important. A shame, because the importance of Dorne is wasted on characters and situations that hardly advance the plot.
  • The pace in certain storylines after SOS. I would have preferred if the battle of Merreen had started and finished in DWD and Tyrion's journey could have been shorter.

 

 

:agree:

 

The ages always bothered me.  I just find it incredibly hard that an 9 year old Arya could go around stabbing people.  I think GRRM had trouble with this, because in his mind, his characters where supposed to be 5 years older.  But even though he scrapped the time-jump, he still stuck with his original thoughts/actions for his characters, and it made it all seem very unrealistic.  Arya is written as if she is 15-16, and not 9-10.

 

My biggest complaint is whatever the hell happened between ASOS and AFFC.  There was a giant paradigm shift in how the story was written, the pacing, the characters etc and all the momentum ASOS had came to a screeching halt.  I'm not saying AFFC was a bad novel, but there was obviously a major change in the series approach with it. 

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He does so many things right it almost makes me feel guilty to dislike some things, but there are things to dislike.

I wish he had more self-control when it comes to pacing and adding to the story. Guy Gavriel Kay shows us that you can have excellent world-building, deep characters and well-plotted storylines all tied together by beautiful prose and still have it be just around 500 pages. Martin has the talent and the ability to do that, and I think it was almost a mistake to expand this past a trilogy. I just wish he had more focus.

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There's only one thing that really bothers me - how did all of this happen in such little time?
Dany was 14 when she got pregnant with Rhaego, and is now fifteen. Is it just me, or would it be impossible to do all that traveling in such short time?

:agree:
 
The ages always bothered me.  I just find it incredibly hard that an 9 year old Arya could go around stabbing people.  I think GRRM had trouble with this, because in his mind, his characters where supposed to be 5 years older.  But even though he scrapped the time-jump, he still stuck with his original thoughts/actions for his characters, and it made it all seem very unrealistic.  Arya is written as if she is 15-16, and not 9-10.
 
My biggest complaint is whatever the hell happened between ASOS and AFFC.  There was a giant paradigm shift in how the story was written, the pacing, the characters etc and all the momentum ASOS had came to a screeching halt.  I'm not saying AFFC was a bad novel, but there was obviously a major change in the series approach with it.

Thats the thing with Arya, it's meant to be hard to read. An 9 year old girl having a kill list and killing people is meant to be disturbing, it's not written so people can go "you go Arya". And she's written as if she is older, because how can she still be thinking and acting like a child after witnessing all that she has.
And, AFFC isn't about advancing the plot (well not all of it). That isn't the way it's meant to be read. It's asking the readers to really look all the grief and destruction the plot has caused - which is why it's my favourite ASOIAF book (that and because it has some beautiful passages).
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Yeah, the age-spectrum is hard to imagine. But I automatically picture them older.

And maybe a halt when it comes to new characters. Introducing more and more and more

characters just to tie the plot together gets rather exhausting at some point, it just should stop about now.

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I agree with the OP about Catelyn and with the rest of the posters about the sex scenes, character ages and watered-down storylines. 

 

I would have liked a Sandor POV, although that's just a fancy of mine and him not having one does not qualify as bad writing.

 

Sex scenes. When I read that Asha could not distinguish between cunt and cock I stopped reading for 3 days.

It happens, although it shouldn't have been pointed out... 

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A Sandor POV would of been ace. and just ONE Rob one, just the one :(

 

Tbf that is a beef i have with it, there are others I'd of liked to see a POV off too. King Robert fighting the bore maybe aha!

Turmond(?) POV would of rocked.

erm..... who else. cant think but other peoples too, im sure there is a topic on here about whos POVs would you have liked to have seen, if anyone knows of it please share :D

 

 

 

What about the over use of much and more, little and less. Words are wind. Fucking moonboy for all i know. etc etc.

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Not enough Catelyn. She was his best character.

 

Too much focus on "bad things happen to good people!" to the point where it's not sad or surprising, it's just repetitive and boring.

 

And agree with Rickyhunt. It's unnecessary, even though it's not nearly as bad as some *ahem* show I forget the name of.

 

The Ironborn seem very poorly thought out.

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There are very few things that I actually dislike. I'm not bothered by a lot, and I tend not to nitpick the small stuff if the story's entertaining and engaging, so the only thing that comes to mind is - as mentioned above - the characters' ages. It's not that big a deal, but I like the show's idea of aging up some of the characters. Just makes it a bit more believable.

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