Why don't people like AFFC?

[Northernmonkey]

What is people's problem with world building and travelogues? As an ASOIAF fanatic I can't get enough of it, I want to read as much about ASOIAF as possible. Why did people buy TWOIAF if they don't like world-building?

Considering we're all obsessed enough to spend hours on here talking about the series I don't see what the problem is with reading about Brienne wandering around Westeros.

[Maid So Fair]

What is people's problem with world building and travelogues? As an ASOIAF fanatic I can't get enough of it, I want to read as much about ASOIAF as possible. Why did people buy TWOIAF if they don't like world-building?

Considering we're all obsessed enough to spend hours on here talking about the series I don't see what the problem is with reading about Brienne wandering around Westeros.

I bought TWOIAF knowing it was a world-building book, and was perfectly happy with that (even if the best parts are narrative-centered, like Aegon's Conquest), but I bought AFFC as a novel expecting plot progression. There's no real conflict as such in AFFC, because the protagonists are either absent or defeated so it's mostly just a lot of character studies and setting the scene for later books.

[Hangover of the Morning]

A filler is text included to simply give more pages to book, or to complete 25 episodes for a season. It helps little to the plot, it can be ignored making a difference or feeling we've miss anything, and it's mostly of the times, resolved in the same chapter/episode.

A filler would be, for instance, a chapter in which Brienne goes to Maidenpool and decides to buy a dress. Then she tries it, she feels that's not what she really is, she learns her lesson and Hyle Hunt tells her that she should learn to love herself. They laugh and move on... In next chapters, they NEVER talk about the dress again.

That's not Brienne's case. During her trip, we see things that will be later important: the Mad Mouse, the High Sparrow, and the Hound.

You can say you don't like the chapters, but they are not fillers.

How can you say that the story with the dress wouldn't be important for Brienne's personal development or wouldn't come up again in some way? If the author put it there, it must be important. :-) Maybe she discovered that green really doesn't suit her complexion or maybe she'll meet the shopkeeper at some point again.

With that logic, you can justify anything. We needed a one page description of Tyrion eating breakfast, because hungry and grumpy Tyrion makes terrible decisions so it was important that we saw that he was well fed throughout that day.

Brienne's chapters and most of the other in AFfC are a definition of filler. Brienne is a fantastic secondary character, who IMHO works best at that. She's relatively young so hasn't been involved in RR, grew up on an isolated island, has zero connection or history to any of the other characters or houses and has a very naive and one-dimensional view of things. Now, she is thrusted into the world to carry her own doomed storyline purely on her own with the only support of tertiary characters, who will die few chapters after she meets them.

I loved Brienne's character in ASoS and still like her but she's just not cut out to be the centre of the story. In the same way the last two books kinda "ruined" for me Dorne, Iron Islands, Cersei, Arya, Sam, Danny, Melisandre and somewhat Tyrion. Sometimes knowing less is more.

People often argue that there might be super important things happening in these filler chapters that will play an important role later and make up all kinds of crazy theories based on one reference. George is not that cryptic. He doesn't just give one-sentence or one paragraph reference to something that will play a bigger role in the future. He beats your head with it.

On my reread of AGoT, I was so surprised how many important things were mentioned in some of the very first chapters, that I have completely missed, such as Mance Ryder, the Unsullied or Ashara Dayne. I probably missed dozen other references to Mance Ryder before I registered him but the point is that once we were to meet him, I was quite familiar with him and knew what to expect.

Brienne meets the sparrows during her wandering but even if you dozed off during the chapter, that doesn't mean that you won't be able to comprehend the Faith Militant movement once it forms in King's Landing.

[Annara Snow]

:bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:

Again, if the character gets some actions and development, even if such development is not liked by the reader, is NOT a filler.

This forum's definition of "filler" = "things I'm not interested in".

[Red Tiger]

Cersei Lannister - 10 chapters 5/10 for me
Brienne of Tarth - 8 chapters 1/8, I liked the chapter where she talks to Randyll Tarly
Jaime Lannister - 7 chapters 7/7
Samwell Tarly - 5 chapters 1/5 (Egg, I dreamed I was old)
Arya Stark - 3 chapters 0/3 I quit enjoying her chapters some time ago
Sansa Stark - 3 chapters 3/3
Aeron Greyjoy - 2 chapters 0/2
Victarion Greyjoy - 2 chapters 0/2
Arianne Martell - 2 chapters 2/2
Asha Greyjoy - 1 chapter 1/1
Areo Hotah - 1 chapter 1/1 (but ONLY because it's focused on the Martells)
Arys Oakheart - 1 chapter 1/1 (same as Hotah)
Pate - 1 chapter (Prologue) 0/1

So adding it up, I like 22 of this book's chapters, less than half

[Chebyshov]

I think on a first read-through of any book, we're all anxious about the plot and where the story goes, and that becomes our focus. I think once we know what's going to happen and can settle down, rereads offer us a chance to look more closely at the themes at play and the character moments/journeys. I know that this happened to me with the last Harry Potter book, for instance. I thought it was slow and dragged and was let down at the end. Then I reread it.

I think AFFC benefits the most from a reread. To me, it's actually the best constructed book in terms of pacing, writing, and cohesiveness. The character arcs were absolutely fabulous.

[Annara Snow]

@Red Tiger: So you didn't like Brienne killing the former Bloody Mummers; meeting Septon Meribald, running across the Gravedigger and learning about Sandon from the Elder Brother; or even meeting Gendry and the orphans, fighting with Rorge and Biter, getting captured by the Brotherhood and meeting Lady Stoneheart? None of that was interesting? Really?

And how is Jaqen infiltrating the Citadel (where we also have Sam, a Sand Snake, and a mysterious unconventional maester who researches magic and used to hang out with Mirri Maaz Duur) not interesting?

[Northernmonkey]

Aeron Greyjoy - 2 chapters 0/2

You didn't like the Kingsmoot?

[Red Tiger]

@Red Tiger: So you didn't like Brienne killing the former Bloody Mummers; meeting Septon Meribald, running across the Gravedigger and learning about Sandon from the Elder Brother; or even meeting Gendry and the orphans, fighting with Rorge and Biter, getting captured by the Brotherhood and meeting Lady Stoneheart? None of that was interesting? Really? No and I also think LS is one of the lamest ideas in the series, right next to 'Young Griff'.

And how is Jaqen infiltrating the Citadel (where we also have Sam, a Sand Snake, and a mysterious unconventional maester who researches magic and used to hang out with Mirri Maaz Duur) not interesting? Cause I don't find the citadel interesting, never liked the magic aspect of this series and im just waiting for Euron to attack it?

You didn't like the Kingsmoot? I'll give you that chapter

[Mithras]

@Red Tiger: So you didn't like Brienne killing the former Bloody Mummers; meeting Septon Meribald, running across the Gravedigger and learning about Sandon from the Elder Brother; or even meeting Gendry and the orphans, fighting with Rorge and Biter, getting captured by the Brotherhood and meeting Lady Stoneheart? None of that was interesting? Really?

And how is Jaqen infiltrating the Citadel (where we also have Sam, a Sand Snake, and a mysterious unconventional maester who researches magic and used to hang out with Mirri Maaz Duur) not interesting?

In addition to these, we see Euron fecking Greyjoy in the Ironborn chapters.

[Red Tiger]

In addition to these, we see Euron fecking Greyjoy in the Ironborn chapters.

Euron is awesome, can't even lie about that.

[Cas Stark]

I think on a first read-through of any book, we're all anxious about the plot and where the story goes, and that becomes our focus. I think once we know what's going to happen and can settle down, rereads offer us a chance to look more closely at the themes at play and the character moments/journeys. I know that this happened to me with the last Harry Potter book, for instance. I thought it was slow and dragged and was let down at the end. Then I reread it.

I think AFFC benefits the most from a reread. To me, it's actually the best constructed book in terms of pacing, writing, and cohesiveness. The character arcs were absolutely fabulous.

Other than Cersei and Jamie, whose character even has an arc in the book? Best structured in terms of pacing and cohesiveness? How is it possible to think this when half of the characters have only 1 or 2 chapters? There is no "arc" in Vic, Asha, Aeron, Hota, Arys, Arianne. For that matter, there isn't much of an arc to Arya or Sansa. The entire book other than Cersei, Jamie and Brienne might as well have been the author pulling POV names out of a hat. And Brienne gets nowhere, accomplishes nothing, changes in no way, progresses in no way. I really don't get how a person can read that book and feel it was well structured or well paced.

[sj4iy]

AFFC should have been recombined with ADWD and cut down by about half...which I think could have been easily done without losing anything important. It was badly constructed, badly paced and full of characters in which we have little to no emotional investment. You don't start 'world building' after your climax- it would be like having a three act play, building everything up in act two and then leaving out a bunch of the characters you know in the third act while introducing an entirely new set of characters.

[Red Tiger]

AFFC should have been recombined with ADWD and cut down by about half...which I think could have been easily done without losing anything important. It was badly constructed, badly paced and full of characters in which we have little to no emotional investment. You don't start 'world building' after your climax- it would be like having a three act play, building everything up in act two and then leaving out a bunch of the characters you know in the third act while introducing an entirely new set of characters.

:agree:

[sifth]

AFFC should have been recombined with ADWD and cut down by about half...which I think could have been easily done without losing anything important. It was badly constructed, badly paced and full of characters in which we have little to no emotional investment. You don't start 'world building' after your climax- it would be like having a three act play, building everything up in act two and then leaving out a bunch of the characters you know in the third act while introducing an entirely new set of characters.

I couldn't agree with you more.

[Hangover of the Morning]

AFFC should have been recombined with ADWD and cut down by about half...which I think could have been easily done without losing anything important. It was badly constructed, badly paced and full of characters in which we have little to no emotional investment. You don't start 'world building' after your climax- it would be like having a three act play, building everything up in act two and then leaving out a bunch of the characters you know in the third act while introducing an entirely new set of characters.

... which would leave space to include most of the climatic events, instead of leaving off everyone on cliffhangers.

The first half of TWoW will probably be just tying up loose end and resolving events that were originally supposed to be in the book 4/5 anyways.

[Cas Stark]

... which would leave space to include most of the climatic events, instead of leaving off everyone on cliffhangers.

The first half of TWoW will probably be just tying up loose end and resolving events that were originally supposed to be in the book 4/5 anyways.

Yep. Which is why I don't think he can finish the series in 2 more books. When books 4 and 5 accomplished so little, and if you look at the original vision of the trilogy, where Dany would land in Westeros in the second book, it seems even more unlikely.

[Lord Sapna]

I didn't have to wait as I read the books only recently, but I can't imagine the frustration of people who waited years to find out what would become of Tyrion? would Dany finally invade Westeros? How Jon would do as Lord commander? Then found out that these characters would not be appearing in the story in favour of.

A Priest

The Captain of Oberyn's Brothers Guards

An interchangeable member of Tommen's Kings guard.

Former minor character Brienne of Tarth

Oberyn's Nephew

Theon's Uncle

Theon's Sister

Sams Erection

Read about the adventures of Brienne as she kills off some characters from two books ago, meets some minor characters that we probably won't see again, but may well be POV's by book 9. Then just as she meets Stoneheart and the 8 chapter build up is finally about to pay off be infuriated by a cliffhanger, that doesn't even resolve in the next book.

Watch the madness of Cersei as she angers her uncle, the faith, her allies, her brother, her uncle again, the faith again and again and again. Until she is imprisoned and left on a cliffhanger which has moved forward slightly but is also still unresolved.

After chapters and chapters investing yourselves in the Starks the Red Wedding made you cry. Theon's betrayal angered you. Now prepare to feel absolutely numb to The Queenmaker. After spending one whole chapter preparing for Arianne's plan to crown Myrcella. Prepare not to care or be surprised when it fails 5 mins after it starts. Fear the most dangerous man in Dorne, who can't even kill an 11 year old girl.

Watch a new plot rise with Maesters and faceless men start at the citadel. Just start though, don't expect it to move on. (Still don't know whats happening there)

Witness the rise of new villain Euron Greyjoy. Enjoy the excitement of the best chapter in the book the kingsmoot. As he tells the ironborn of his plan to take Westeros by stealing dragons. Then feel let down when he disappears into obscurity one chapter later.

I actually liked the book, but it didn't really have a plot, it was just an assortment of chapters, and since many of those characters were new and barely mentioned I didn't end up caring for any of them.

[Hangover of the Morning]

I didn't have to wait as I read the books only recently, but I can't imagine the frustration of people who waited years to find out what would become of Tyrion? would Dany finally invade Westeros? How Jon would do as Lord commander? Then found out that these characters would not be appearing in the story in favour of.

A Priest

The Captain of Oberyn's Brothers Guards

An interchangeable member of Tommen's Kings guard.

Former minor character Brienne of Tarth

Oberyn's Nephew

Theon's Uncle

Theon's Sister

Sams Erection

Read about the adventures of Brienne as she kills off some characters from two books ago, meets some minor characters that we probably won't see again, but may well be POV's by book 9. Then just as she meets Stoneheart and the 8 chapter build up is finally about to pay off be infuriated by a cliffhanger, that doesn't even resolve in the next book.

Watch the madness of Cersei as she angers her uncle, the faith, her allies, her brother, her uncle again, the faith again and again and again. Until she is imprisoned and left on a cliffhanger which has moved forward slightly but is also still unresolved.

After chapters and chapters investing yourselves in the Starks the Red Wedding made you cry. Theon's betrayal angered you. Now prepare to feel absolutely numb to The Queenmaker. After spending one whole chapter preparing for Arianne's plan to crown Myrcella. Prepare not to care or be surprised when it fails 5 mins after it starts. Fear the most dangerous man in Dorne, who can't even kill an 11 year old girl.

Watch a new plot rise with Maesters and faceless men start at the citadel. Just start though, don't expect it to move on. (Still don't know whats happening there)

Witness the rise of new villain Euron Greyjoy. Enjoy the excitement of the best chapter in the book the kingsmoot. As he tells the ironborn of his plan to take Westeros by stealing dragons. Then feel let down when he disappears into obscurity one chapter later.

I actually liked the book, but it didn't really have a plot, it was just an assortment of chapters, and since many of those characters were new and barely mentioned I didn't end up caring for any of them.

LOL. So true and made me laugh so hard.

[Red Tiger]

I didn't have to wait as I read the books only recently, but I can't imagine the frustration of people who waited years to find out what would become of Tyrion? would Dany finally invade Westeros? How Jon would do as Lord commander? Then found out that these characters would not be appearing in the story in favour of.

A Priest

The Captain of Oberyn's Brothers Guards

An interchangeable member of Tommen's Kings guard.

Former minor character Brienne of Tarth

Oberyn's Nephew

Theon's Uncle

Theon's Sister

Sams Erection

Read about the adventures of Brienne as she kills off some characters from two books ago, meets some minor characters that we probably won't see again, but may well be POV's by book 9. Then just as she meets Stoneheart and the 8 chapter build up is finally about to pay off be infuriated by a cliffhanger, that doesn't even resolve in the next book.

Watch the madness of Cersei as she angers her uncle, the faith, her allies, her brother, her uncle again, the faith again and again and again. Until she is imprisoned and left on a cliffhanger which has moved forward slightly but is also still unresolved.

After chapters and chapters investing yourselves in the Starks the Red Wedding made you cry. Theon's betrayal angered you. Now prepare to feel absolutely numb to The Queenmaker. After spending one whole chapter preparing for Arianne's plan to crown Myrcella. Prepare not to care or be surprised when it fails 5 mins after it starts. Fear the most dangerous man in Dorne, who can't even kill an 11 year old girl.

Watch a new plot rise with Maesters and faceless men start at the citadel. Just start though, don't expect it to move on. (Still don't know whats happening there)

Witness the rise of new villain Euron Greyjoy. Enjoy the excitement of the best chapter in the book the kingsmoot. As he tells the ironborn of his plan to take Westeros by stealing dragons. Then feel let down when he disappears into obscurity one chapter later.

I actually liked the book, but it didn't really have a plot, it was just an assortment of chapters, and since many of those characters were new and barely mentioned I didn't end up caring for any of them.

If I could, I would sig this. This post is fucking beautiful :lol:.