Things You Don't Like In Asoiaf

[HiddenTarg No.679]

Cercei's prophecy ruined AFFC for me. For most of the books she was a medieval queen version of the good looking rich bitchy High School girl who was awful to everyone but had no true friends. Instead with this prophecy, it tries to make it sound like her being so awful to Tyrion and in general was because of what some old woman said 20 years ago. I don't understand why GRRM did this, is it to make us feeel sorry for her? sympathy mayhaps? Instead I still hate the character, but feel more indifferent, its just too annoying that alot of important characters have prophecys which seem to drive them on, ie stannis, dany, cercei. It would be so much better if like old griff says, they just acted out of personal motivation. In The Winds of Winter, im half expecting Ramsay to have a propecy where unless he starved a wife to death, flayed everyone that disobeyed him, and was generally an evil character, the world would end, and hes actually the biggest Anti-hero going.

[Shrave]

Hmm where do I start?

1. "Where do whores go? Wherever they go" -- UGH enough already with that line!!

2. "You know nothing, Jon Snow." -- Refer to above

3. "Winter is coming." -- Yes, finally, after 5 books, it's finally here! My friends who haven't read the books keep asking, so when is winter actually coming? I tell them, you'll find out in 6 years when 5th book's HBO season is out.

3. Magic, some weird crap, man. -- Warging, shadow babies, Bran listening to the trees, magical people in the haunted forest that live in a cave that can't be entered by the Others, people posing as others (Mance<-> rattleshirt), some guy called coldhands who peopel think is benjen stark but is actually dead but is a wight or other, but is not evil, and in fact is good and helping the good guys...

4. I agree with the OP - the "Others," AA, PTWP, etc... sounds too much like a typical Harry Potter, chosen one, the one ring, LOTR, fairy tale to me. But again, these are just prophecies, so all this might not come out to be true. We have no idea if the "Others" are truly an evil race trying to wipe out the world or just mindless killers spreading around.

5. Too many POVs introduced = sense of nothing is moving foward.

6. In line with #5. Too many plot twists and "shocking" deaths. I put shocking in quotes because it's not so shocking anymore. I didn't care that Snow died, don't care if he remains dead or magically comes back to life. It's happened too much: Tyrion drowning (thought he was dead initially), Brienne being hanged, Stoneheart coming back to life, Beric coming back to life 1000 times, Mance Rayder not dead, Aegon still alive, etc.

I think that's about it. Still love the books though! And I find myself on these boards 5 times in a day or more.

[Seamus1602]

Hmm where do I start?

1. "Where do whores go? Wherever they go" -- UGH enough already with that line!!

2. "You know nothing, Jon Snow." -- Refer to above

3. "Winter is coming." -- Yes, finally, after 5 books, it's finally here! My friends who haven't read the books keep asking, so when is winter actually coming? I tell them, you'll find out in 6 years when 5th book's HBO season is out.

3. Magic, some weird crap, man. -- Warging, shadow babies, Bran listening to the trees, magical people in the haunted forest that live in a cave that can't be entered by the Others, people posing as others (Mance<-> rattleshirt), some guy called coldhands who peopel think is benjen stark but is actually dead but is a wight or other, but is not evil, and in fact is good and helping the good guys...

4. I agree with the OP - the "Others," AA, PTWP, etc... sounds too much like a typical Harry Potter, chosen one, the one ring, LOTR, fairy tale to me. But again, these are just prophecies, so all this might not come out to be true. We have no idea if the "Others" are truly an evil race trying to wipe out the world or just mindless killers spreading around.

5. Too many POVs introduced = sense of nothing is moving foward.

6. In line with #5. Too many plot twists and "shocking" deaths. I put shocking in quotes because it's not so shocking anymore. I didn't care that Snow died, don't care if he remains dead or magically comes back to life. It's happened too much: Tyrion drowning (thought he was dead initially), Brienne being hanged, Stoneheart coming back to life, Beric coming back to life 1000 times, Mance Rayder not dead, Aegon still alive, etc.

I think that's about it. Still love the books though! And I find myself on these boards 5 times in a day or more.

Have to respond only because most of your list are things I love! I love everything you list 1-4. I frankly thought that 'Winter is coming' needed to be used more, because the Starks seemed to forget about it for a few books in favor of southland war.

I do agree with #5, but only after AFfC. I hated the introduction of non-major POV chapters. You can add new characters, but just give them named chapters and stick with one person for each area. We don't need Aeron and Asha and Theon and Victarion. We don't need Arianne and Arys and whoever else in Dorne.

For #6, I agree, as well, for slightly different reasons. I loved when you had the feeling that GRRM could and would kill off any character at any time (this feeling peaked with SoS with the Red Wedding and offing Joffrey). His decision to replace that feeling with the standard cliff-hanger to deus-ex really weakened the drama for me. I thought the story would have been stronger if Brienne actually had been hanged. And now, I don't believe in any way that Jon will stay dead. However, I'm not bugged by Lady Stoneheart only because her differences from Catelyn make her a terribly interesting character.

One last thing I hate: Deus ex machina throughout aDwD to insure that Dany didn't have dragons for a book. Every time she starts in with her plans for war or marriage for peace all I could hear in my head was, 'You have fu***** DRAGONS! Stop this nonsense!"

[Yellow Dog]

As for the others - to me they have a different role than the cliche baddies. They stand for "the things that you should be worried about, the stuff that really matters." So many character are in effect running around in circles to meet their own ambitions and to fulfill their own desires, and others get caught up in damage limitation trying to deal with the results of this. They've been too caught up in things that don't realy matter, and are ignoring the real danger. Yeah, this may also be a cliche but that's becuase it is so true ... such a strong theme in human history.

I like this interpretation a lot, though I also think the Others will turn out not to be one-dimensional bad guys. As proposed in a thread on the Others and the Wall, the Others could turn out to be protecting themselves from the Menace South of the Wall - like the prophesied (sorry!) Endless Summer that would destroy the Others' world.

[Yellow Dog]

Too many zombies.

The wights are cool, and Beric Dondarrion I could accept, but Lady Stoneheart jumped the shark and Robert Strong is just effing ludicrous.

The only thing I dread more than a certain witch saving a certain bastard's life is said bastard returning as a zombie.

[Mimbles]

1. Dany. Sorry cant stand her.

2. "Where do whores go?" I liked Tyrion before, now he seems so whiny.

3. Dead people need to stay dead. Seriously, I don't even care when someone in the series dies anymore because there's a good chance they'll be up and walking around again real soon.

[sunworshipper]

I like the way some prohecies become self fulfilling. The prophecy given to Cersei about the younger queen has made her paranoid and power grabbing.

Cersei is such a moron. She is told this horrible prophecy which she fights to avoid all her life. But the first thing she does that day is to murder her best friend, thus fulfilling the first part of it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that none of the prophecy would ever have occurred if Cersei had been just, "La la la, prophecy, schmophecy."

[David Selig]

The cliffhangers at the end of he books. When you have to wait years to find what happen next, cliffhangers are terrible.

Resurrections and prophesies. Doesn't really fit the style of the series IMO.

[jobey3149]

I enjoy the plot twists and think they are epic. One the other hand I hate them because there's no telling when the next book will finally come out. I'm hoping the HBO series prompts GRRM to capitalize on a growing fan base and publish the last books in a more regular time frame.

[apt54]

Joffrey dying an easy death - I really hoped it would be as long and painful as Mountain's was.

Robb dumping 4000 Freys and strategic advantages of possessing Twins in favor of some 50 westerlings... what a stupid idiot.

Stannis hype failure - by all the build up fron the first book I honestly thought that the clash of kings would be about unbeatable 'mazafaka' Stannis and his huge host of his lords bannermen, foreign sellswords and wizards (Cersei mentioned 'shadowbinder from Asshai', obviously some sorcerer) reducing King's Landing to a wasteland, beating the shit out of Tywin Lannister and pulverizing insolent kids like Robb and Renly... fail.

[The Girl in Winterfell]

Dead people who don't stay dead. I hate that.

[Fournaridis]

Like numerous other people have stated already- the dead characters who don't stay dead. It's getting old.

[AlphA]

A minor point but I hate how tall the wall is supposed to be. It's 700 to 1000 feet?!? And wildlings can shoot arrows to the top and people at the top can hear yelling down below - clear enough to understand the language? George needs to go back to NY and stand on the observation tower on the Empire State Building (1,050 ft) and get a feel for how tall the wall really is.

[Timur Khal]

I do sometimes think there is a bit too much religion - and too many religious orders - in George's world. I was never very keen on Mel and all that jazz, but then the whole thing with the shadow babies and how she killed Renly....I HATED it. And now the religious weirdos have got Arya :stillsick:

while I agree that I'm a little annoyed at Rhollor's apparent godliness (it is a little odd, and I pray GRRM doesn't try to say any which religion is true), I feel that the addition of religion as a factor is actually interesting and realistic. Religious differences have been a very powerful and violent conflict, and a powerful motivator for those left purposeless (and, in a medieval setting, purposeless is very accurate for 99% of peasantry and most other people). During the Dark Ages, on which Westeros is based, religious conflict was massive, and many religious orders sprung up, although not all of them were exactly religious in practice (Knights Tuetonic, anyone?), and I feel that it adds depth to the world of ASoIaF. After all, in a miserable, technologically backwards world, especially one with small traces of magic, people would cling to religion like glue in vain hopes of being saved. And, whenever 2 faiths collide, it is accurate to depict the following conflict. It all fits into the realistic world he has made, and if he didn't add religion, I would argue that it would be lacking for such a major factor and a likely factor (if you were a peasant who saw the powers of greenseeing, dragons, ect, would it not make sense to worship something that has actually demonstrated it's power?).

.

[MarieSophie]

Way too much rape/threat of rape going on.

Related: Lollis' gang rape and the way it is written off as something almost comical irks me to no end.

[MinotaurWarrior]

1. All the things George clearly just didn't think through: how Dothraki survive winter, how any animals survive winter, how the seasons should effect the forms of all life, how Westeros managed to squander so many harvests, and even some things that have nothing to do with winter!

2. Rectangular Westeros.

3. Westeros having a king, and not an Emperor, and the bizzare apparent lack of wars between Essos and Westeros.

4. This being "Westeros's story." I feel like Essos should have started off as a part of this story.

5. This is a love/hate thing, and overall I think it adds depth, but I do have a lot of dislike for GRRMs tendency to write horrible people as being likable. Its true to life, but it rubs me the wrong way sometimes. Especially with Tyrion having raped Tysha and killed Shae. Now, as I said, this is true to life, and the series is better for it, but that doesn't change the fact that I dislike it only slightly less than I appreciate it.

[lion and dragon]

1. Endless cliffhangers, it's becoming less about building suspense and more about screwing with readers' expectations.

2. Cersei. There's a lot of sexism in how that character is portrayed/treated in the story.

[blackseer]

3. Westeros having a king, and not an Emperor, and the bizzare apparent lack of wars between Essos and Westeros.

I don't think it matters if it's a king or an emperor in the 7 kingdoms. In the middle ages, they were basically the same thing, just another word. And why would there be war between Essos and westeros? None of them win anything by doing it. The free cities prefer to trade and westeros doesn't have the naval power to conquer them.

About people comnig back to life, I like to believe that Martin is building it up as the great "evil" by the end of the books, so we can't judge right now. And they've happened since the first book, so it's not like it's unfit of the style of the series.

The one thing I don't like in soiaf is dany's arc, from ACoK onwards. I don't care about her and the only chapter I enjoyed reading was the House of Th Undying one, because I like prophecies.

[seanbean4lyfe]

Dany. Her whole story. I mean, if she actually manages to get to Westeros I would be ok with it...sort of...if she was unsuccessful.

I just felt like she was so disjointed from the other POV's (until Dance) all out thar in the world. It always make me groan when I would see that fateful name...

DAENERYS. :bawl: <---my face.

It ruined the flow for me. If Jorah hadn't been in her chapters, I would skip them, but he is, so I don't....

[nedfart]

I hate how all the starks got separated so long ago and have no been reunited since. Particularly with Arya and Bran, I don't understand why Bran wouldn't want his brother to know he is alive.