You're GRRM's editor. He gives you his manuscript of A Feast for Crows. There's a red pen in your hand.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

 I don't mind GRRM's sex scenes (written by him, I mean!) because I think the point he wants to make is that sex is not romantic but messy and dirty, which it really is. In erotica, sex is told almost as a religious spiritual experience and with very poetic allusions. I have no problem with that either, but that's not what Martin wants. He's crude and realistic in pretty much every other scene and situation, why wouldn't he be the same about his sex scenes?

Of course, there have been a few that are a bit...

Like, I really have no idea what's his obsession with nipples being twisted.

[desire]

Draw the cover art and brag how I drew inside the lines

[ChillyPolly]

 I don't mind GRRM's sex scenes (written by him, I mean!) because I think the point he wants to make is that sex is not romantic but messy and dirty, which it really is. In erotica, sex is told almost as a religious spiritual experience and with very poetic allusions. I have no problem with that either, but that's not what Martin wants. He's crude and realistic in pretty much every other scene and situation, why wouldn't he be the same about his sex scenes?

Your comment, to the extent that I agree with it, only convinces me that my poo analogies are quite apt, and that sex passages and poo passages should be removed for similar reasons.

Saying that the scenes are degrading is no defense of them, IMHO.  Saying that some people enjoy them would be a better defense, IMHO.

[A spoon of knife and fork]

Your comment, to the extent that I agree with it, only convinces me that my poo analogies are quite apt, and that sex passages and poo passages should be removed for similar reasons.

Saying that the scenes are degrading is no defense of them, IMHO.  Saying that some people enjoy them would be a better defense, IMHO.

But she didn't say the scenes are degrading, nor are they.  They are for the most part messy, dirty, fumbling awkwardness.  Like a lot of sex is in actuality.  It's a bodily function that many people get VERY SERIOUS about, and that's why it's interesting, and comical.  It's great IMO that GRRM doesn't take sex so seriously or treat it like a taboo.  

On the same note, I also don't mind the occasional poo / piss scene (or eating scene) that GRRM gives us.  That's not degrading either, it's just life.

 

[ChillyPolly]

On the same note, I also don't mind the occasional poo / piss scene (or eating scene) that GRRM gives us.  That's not degrading either, it's just life.

Well then there's no point in discussing whether anything should be cut in the interests of narrative efficiency.  Anything George gives you is fine.  At the end of Volume 6, Dany will still not have reached Westeros, but you will have learned exactly what it is like to take a shit.  Which I'm sure is something you always wanted to learn more about.

A non-reader takes 10,000 shits, but a reader takes a few more.  Eh?

[Jamie Lannister]

I think I'd ice about half the Brienne chapters. I never felt that what we take away from her travelogue is insight any more or less valuable than Jaime's own little trip around the Riverlands. It bloated the book a bit and we as readers knew from the start that her quest was doomed to fail.

[ChillyPolly]

The text isnt comparing specific body parts to anything. The actual body part isn't the subject or point of the comparison. 

Right.  There is not just one way to find an excuse to make a sex comparison or sex reference.   There are a million.  And in the end, most of them are boring.  The only thing that ever made them slightly exciting was the taboo against them.

 You claiming that I am contributing to the decline of intelligence in "our culture" is a condescending, inaccurate (and frankly ignorant) overreaction imo. A smug, irrelevant assumption. Imo.

I never accused you of any such thing.  The fact that you are trying to pull the offense card on me suggests it is you who are having trouble disagreeing in a respectful manner.

[kimim]

Well then there's no point in discussing whether anything should be cut in the interests of narrative efficiency.  Anything George gives you is fine.  At the end of Volume 6, Dany will still not have reached Westeros, but you will have learned exactly what it is like to take a shit.  Which I'm sure is something you always wanted to learn more about.

If we can't cut out the sexy bits, we can't cut anything? This is not reasonable. Think about efficiency. You're doing very minor streamlining by cutting out the sex. You're doing major streamlining by cutting chapters from Brienne, as what does she accomplish in her fifth of the novel? What do you think will be needed in future novels?

So Brienne shows the plight of common men in Riverlands. GRRM did this already with Arya. We find out Crabby folk are pro Targ. Forgive me for not being impressed with that bit of info. We already knew Tarly was a bastard. Hyle is so forgettable, GRRM forgets him. Meribald is interesting, and we do get to find out Sandor lives, so keep the good septon and Quiet Isle, get Brienne captured, get her to LSH, and do not end things on a cliffhanger. btw I'm at a loss to express how uninterested I am in Brienne's brand new shield.

Then there's Sam's very long and pointless travels where the only thing of any import is Aemon's death. So shut Gilly up, kill Aemon, and get Sam the fuck to the Citadel. Shouldn't even take a chapter. If anyone thinks that Summer Island boat needed to be introduced in Feast to make sense later on, I have a bridge to sell them. Ditto for the radically meaningless NW singer, Sam's chance meet with Arya, and Sam's money issues at Braavos. otoh, get him to the Citadel and intro a few characters from the prologue in a way that makes sense, and you could end up with something resembling plot progression.

Then there's Dorne, Aeron's musings on his god.

Look, the novel doesn't just seem padded, it is padded, and with stuff that will not be useful later on. Had it been padded with good porn, it would at least have been of some use to me.

[ChillyPolly]

If we can't cut out the sexy bits, we can't cut anything?

I didn't say that.  But nobody is articulating any actual criterion for keeping the sexy bits (and/or poo scenes), except "Hey, why not".  And those standards will prevent removal of anything.   If you want to keep them because you like them, fair enough; but if you want to keep them because "Hey, why not", we might as well close the thread.

You're doing major streamlining by cutting chapters from Brienne, as what does she accomplish in her fifth of the novel? What do you think will be needed in future novels?

I dunno.  That's why I wouldn't remove them (though I might streamline them).  But I think GRRM is setting up something.

Then there's Sam's very long and pointless travels where the only thing of any import is Aemon's death.

I'm sure GRRM is setting up something here too, so I would not cut these either.  I might streamline them.  But if I cannot even trim the "fat pink mast" sequence because "Hey why not", then how can I ever consider cutting anything?

[ChillyPolly]

People keep complaining about Brienne's chapters.  Here's a sample of the sort of thing I would do with them.

 

Lord Randyll's men still prowled the docks, as thick as the flies had been on the heads of the three Bloody Mummers, but their serjeant knew Brienne by sight and let her pass. The local fisherfolk were tying up for the night and crying the day's catch, but her interest was in the larger ships that plied the stormy waters of the narrow sea. Half a dozen were in port, though one, a galleas called the Titan's Daughter, was casting off her lines to ride out on the evening tide. She and Podrick Payne made the rounds of the ships that remained. The master of the Gulltown Girl took Brienne for a whore and told them that his ship was not a bawdy house, and a harpooner on the Ibbenese whaler offered to buy her boy, but they had better fortune elsewhere. She purchased Podrick an orange on the Seastrider, a cog just in from Oldtown by way of Tyrosh, Pentos, and Duskendale. "Gulltown next," her captain told her, "thence around the Fingers to Sisterton and White Harbor, if the storms allow. She's a clean ship, 'Strider, not so many rats as most, and we'll have fresh eggs and new-churned butter aboard. Is m'lady seeking passage north?"

 

We don't know enough to cut things wholesale.  But we could make things shorter with minimal risk.

[Dofs]

Such streamlining may make the text dry and get rid of the differences between narratives of the POVs that George tries to include so that the chapters of separate characters would read differently.

[Lord Varys]

There is no need to cut any flavor out of George's prose, really. It is already cropped down very much, actually to the degree that you realize immediately that you jump on important details when you read stuff that is exceptionally detailed.

As to the topic at hand: I'd actually add stuff from ADwD to AFfC, most notably Tyrion's chapters up until his abduction by Jorah as well as 'The Lost Lord'. Aegon's whole existence would add a lot of tension and depth to the AFfC narrative, especially the whole KL plot of Cersei ruining things, and the planned invasion would serve as a very fine cliffhanger for the ending of AFfC.

Prose-wise AFfC is my favorite book, actually, so there is really nothing in there that I'd want to change.

[SeanF]

I mean, I'm pretty sure the raison d'être of Arys' POV was only so we could get a paragraph-long description of Arianne's body and her sentient nipples (those 2 are pretty much fully fleshed characters). God forbid we'd have it the other way around, with Arianne painstakingly describing Arys' body and saying "was it ever a penis this big and responsive?"

I rather enjoyed reading about Arianne's body.

[SeanF]

Well then there's no point in discussing whether anything should be cut in the interests of narrative efficiency. Anything George gives you is fine. At the end of Volume 6, Dany will still not have reached Westeros, but you will have learned exactly what it is like to take a shit. Which I'm sure is something you always wanted to learn more about.

A non-reader takes 10,000 shits, but a reader takes a few more. Eh?

We found out about Dany's bowel movements at the end of ADWD. I doubt if we'll get further descriptions in TWOW.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

I mean, I'm pretty sure the raison d'être of Arys' POV was only so we could get a paragraph-long description of Arianne's body and her sentient nipples (those 2 are pretty much fully fleshed characters). God forbid we'd have it the other way around, with Arianne painstakingly describing Arys' body and saying "was it ever a penis this big and responsive?"

Nah... women only (or mostly) do that in porn.

 

[JonCon's Red Beard]

 

Prose-wise AFfC is my favorite book, actually, so there is really nothing in there that I'd want to change.

Agree.

Also, I don't really get why is a problem to have chapters about many characters. Damn, the whole reason fanfic exists is because there is little information about characters and authors don't give them enough spotlight. In many way, AFFC is like a side-story for some of the characters, and I honestly have no problem with that. It's not like I am so busy or in a hurry to not take a few hours to read about characters I like

[Good Guy Garlan]

Nah... women only (or mostly) do that in porn.

 

Then why didn't I see that scene in the show? (Boom, first D&D diss of 2016!)

BTW, men don't do what Arys did either. Describing boobs like in a Keats poem, I mean. We just go "boobs!", and that's it, straight to the point(s).

 

[SeanF]

Then why didn't I see that scene in the show? (Boom, first D&D diss of 2016!)

BTW, men don't do what Arys did either. Describing boobs like in a Keats poem, I mean. We just go "boobs!", and that's it, straight to the point(s).

I dunno. The Song of Solomon compares breasts to pomegranates and bunches of grapes.

Not to mention the breasts of Helen of Troy, which were so perfect that Menelaus, who was about to kill her, forgave her immediately on seeing them.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Then why didn't I see that scene in the show? (Boom, first D&D diss of 2016!)

BTW, men don't do what Arys did either. Describing boobs like in a Keats poem, I mean. We just go "boobs!", and that's it, straight to the point(s).

 

That's because many women don't have the UBER (heh) AMAZING boobs Arianne have. They inspire poems and wars. And suicide missions. Like "oh, noes... I'm never going to have boobs like that! Kill me Aeroh!! Death is better!!!".

[FuzzyJAM]

People keep complaining about Brienne's chapters.  Here's a sample of the sort of thing I would do with them.

We don't know enough to cut things wholesale.  But we could make things shorter with minimal risk.

These are all supposed to show the way Brienne thinks.  The prose emphasises her slow, stolid style, whilst also showing that she jumps to the death of the Blood Mummers off of a totally unrelated thing because of how heavily it's pressing on her.  Each PoV is supposed to be written in a slightly different style to show their character.  If you contrast the writing of Brienne with Jaime (who have semi-similar chapters) it's more obvious - Jaime's PoV would be written in the way you seem to want.  But if all chapters were written in the style of Jaime, the books would lose a lot of their characterisation.

Again, I really think a lot of the criticisms people level at the style of the books are missing what's supposed to be going on.  It's fine if you still want to criticise them, but at least try to see what's being attempted first.