MARTIN’S POV & PRONOUN ERRORS in AGoT “PROLOGUE”

[evita mgfs]

How does disagreeing with assertions of fact constitute "flaming" or being "mean-spirited"?

That's not at all what I said. What I said was "I thought that was all common knowledge among anyone who'd ever heard of Perkins." In other words, although most people don't know who Perkins is (and have no reason to, and that's fine), those who do surely know him because of his backing of Hemingway, his drastic editing of Wolfe, etc.

I appreciate that you put a lot of work into this, but that doesn't mean that you have to, or should, take any challenge to any piece of it as a personal attack.

More importantly, I also appreciate that, as a teacher of freshman and AP English, you have a responsibility to teach people by the prescriptivist rules, whether they're correct or not. And, as I said before, I think that's a useful and necessary way to teach people. Understanding how English grammar really works is something that's taken hundreds of linguists decades of work to get wrong, so you obviously can't teach the actual rules to your students, and you need to teach something. And, more importantly, making your students learn to conform to relatively simple and rigid rules teaches them to be careful writers, and to think about their phrasing.

In short, without teachers like you, we'd have few if any decent English-language writers. But at some point, professional writers have to get beyond the rules they learned in freshman composition class and gain a feel for the language as it's really used. In real English, you can split infinitives, end sentences with prepositions, start sentences with conjunctions, use various forms of fronting, use discourse anaphor, and so on. Nobody will ever learn the rules for all of those things (well, maybe the Chomskyites will get it right after another 60 years of trying, hitting a dead end, and rebooting every couple decades...). But having learned a set of rules and gained the skill to look at language critically is necessary for writers to get a good feel for how to use the real language appropriately. If being one of those teachers makes it hard for you to read many writers without constantly reaching for a red pen, that's a sad thing--but I think for society as a whole, it's still better to have people like you around. (Yes, I'm so generous I'm willing to sacrifice your enjoyment for the good of everyone else...)

I was doing a close reading - in my title I said this. Deconstructing George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones:

A Collection of Close Readings Inspired by Passages from the “Prologue” and POVs in the First Novel of A Song of Ice and Fire Series

“Close reading describes, in literary criticism, the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the single particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_reading

1. Read with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text.

"Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases—anything that strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions—as well as making notes in the margins. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence—the first step in moving from reader to writer.

http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-do-close-reading

Imagine my excitement when I noticed the pronoun shifts? I had previously read AGoT five times and never even noticed these things.

My discoveries were a result of closely attending to the text - and hunting for information and ideas to expand and develop.

I love Martin because of the depth of his work. I wrongly asserted that maybe he is/was using POV to a purpose.

In no way have you sacrificed my enjoyment for the sake of others. But I applaud that you are willing to make such sacrifices.

[Kingmonkey]

Have you ever read the out-of-publication Annotated AM?

The Martin Gardner one? I haven't. It includes the Gustav Dore illustrations though, worth getting for those alone.

I read your Marc Antony. You'll probably get a kick out of this. Link to a quoted post because the original unaccountably vanished.

[Marten]

In "You could taste it," isn't this just the generic you? He's not actually changing the POV. "One could taste it" doesn't work stylistically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you

I thought og this as well. English is not my first language, but it doesn't really seem like they break the POV with the use of "you". It is replacable by "one", but RR Martin doesn't seem to write that way. But he know's what he's doing, and would mess it up like that.

[three-eyed monkey]

This isn't the only time he does this, IIRC he does it when Dany thinks back to how crappy she felt when she saw Viserys smiling as he was getting ready to be crowned. It's an interesting construction, but those are the only times I can think of when he does this.

Ah, I didn't realise that. Can you quote the passage?

[evita mgfs]

The Martin Gardner one? I haven't. It includes the Gustav Dore illustrations though, worth getting for those alone.

I read your Marc Antony. You'll probably get a kick out of this. Link to a quoted post because the original unaccountably vanished.

Yes. That is the book. I do not own it – I can’t afford it. But I often borrow it from our local library through a loan system with PSU.

I’d like to own lots of books, but they are too costly.

My mother’s research lead us to Scottie Fitzgerald before Scottie died. – I age myself! My mother worked with Dr. Richard Kopley, a Poe authority, and I worked with Dr. Edward Kopper, Joycean. Ed wrote the Cliff Notes for Ulysses and Finnigan’s Wake. He died recently – sad day for me!

My years of studying Joyce trained me to examine word placement, but when I apply it to Martin, it’s hit or miss.

However, I do not read all novels with an eye to detail and a red pen (I never used a red pen – I used a pencil – less intimidating). I enjoy classics – and popular fiction.

My parodies of musical theatre are archived here:

http://ladyevyta.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/text

I loved your parody! There used to be a popular thread called “Songs of Ice and Fire”. I spent most of my time there when I first came to westeros because we had so much fun, and the posters were amazingly clever, like you!

Most of the work we did was moved to Tumblr under “Shards of Bards”. Dracarya does a good job setting it up with the Broadway performance linked to youtube and the lyrics beneath.

I found two of my Broadway show tunes on Shards: Sweeny Todd and Les Miserables:

http://shardsofbards.tumblr.com/post/33017434861/lyannas-death-scene-come-to-me-lyanna-is

http://shardsofbards.tumblr.com/post/33066082061/lyanna-i-love-you-lyanna-i-feel-you-i-was-half

I earned my avatar – rewriting lyrics to the popular Broadway plays!

[evita mgfs]

I thought og this as well. English is not my first language, but it doesn't really seem like they break the POV with the use of "you". It is replacable by "one", but RR Martin doesn't seem to write that way. But he know's what he's doing, and would mess it up like that.

In my essay, I revised using "he could" or "they could" taste it - not "one".

I have been blasted on this forum, with others telling me that Martin's shift is informal and he has no meaning whatsoever in the scope of his IaF novels thus far.

I was wrong to even point out that he alters point-of-view to a purpose.

Silly me! I tried to find something original and share it here. I won't do that again.

[evita mgfs]

Dear Posters:

Please make comments sharing other Martin uses of point-of-view - rather than continuing to argue about informal "you".

Either way, when we use "you", we are referring to the reader.

Discuss my analytical "thought" and evidences rather than whether "you" is informal.

Imagine that Martin may be addressing readers with intent.

I never intended this thread to be a grammar or style debate.

I wanted others to assess my analytical commentary and the work as a whole. No one has addressed any of my findings - just that I pointed out that Martin shifts from third-person to you, whether informal or not.

Thanks!

[evita mgfs]

For your convenience, I am reprinting my analysis of how you might mean more than an informal event.

EVIDENCE #1:

“YOU COULD TASTE IT [FEAR].”

“Gared had spent forty years in the Night’s Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of. But it was more than that. Under the wounded pride, Will could sense something else in the older man. You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear” (AGoT 2).

Martin addresses the readers when he shifts from third-person-point-of-view narration to the second-person:

“You could taste it”.

To avoid shifting point-of-view, the “you” needs to be replaced with an appropriate third-person pronoun:

Better: “He could taste it.” OR “They could taste it.”

Regardless, the sentence “You could taste it” is worth scrutiny, especially if Martin intends to communicate with his readers.

As if to draw attention to the second-person shift, Martin places it at the beginning of a sentence that is within a passage narrated from the third person point of view. The incorrect personal pronoun YOU, functioning in the subjective case, is capitalized.

These crafty particulars inspire the readers to consider Martin’s purposes.

The verb phrase “could taste” contains an auxiliary verb “could” and a main verb “taste”, which is the operative word naming one of the five senses intrinsic to humans. In order to evaluate flavors, the characters sample the “dish”, thereby stimulating the sensory receptors located in their “mouths”.

“You could taste it”. By addressing readers as “you”, Martin assigns them the unsavory task of imagining a taste befitting fear. Readers’ notions involve them personally in the story and encourage them to play the “game” of thrones in an unobtrusive way.

Will not only “tastes” fear, but later in the “Prologue”, he ingests it as well:

“Fear filled his [Will’s] gut like a meal he could not digest” (AGoT 8).

The intangible is tangible, but fear is not an appetizing option.

The fear “filling” Will’s “gut” correlates to the cold inside Gared, which he calls the real enemy. Since Gared “had the cold” in him, he wears the disfigurements of “frostbite” as visible proof of the consequences of the cold. Gared removes his hood to show Royce “the stumps where his ears had been” (4). Gared also lost three toes and a little finger.

The “frostbite”, an agent of the cold, has metaphorical teeth with which to “bite”. Likewise, Gared claims that the Cold enters his brother who subsequently freezes to death while on his watch; however, he dies with a smile on his lips. Fear and cold access the body through the mouth, literally and/or figuratively. For example, when Will tries to call out a warning to Ser Royce, Will loses his voice: “. . . the words seemed to freeze in his [Will’s] throat” (8). Either the cold or his fear, or both, account for Will’s silence.

Also, Will finds comfort in “the taste of cold iron in his mouth” (). As Will ascends the sentinel tree, “He [Will] whispered a prayer to the nameless gods of the wood, and slipped his dirk free of its sheath. He put it between his teeth . . . The taste of cold iron in his mouth gave him comfort”. Blood causes a metallic taste in the mouth due to its iron content. Will’s mouth is the instrument of prayer just as it is the instrument of taste. Martin’s connection insinuates a relationship among the old gods, prayer, iron, and blood. Ironically, it is the taste of “cold iron” [blood, symbolically] that is the source of comfort for Will, not his prayer.

Thus, Martin enlists “the mouth”, the fundamental human facial feature, as a multi-dimensional symbol with numerous meanings, and this literal and figurative symbol, its attributes, its purposes - will knot the threads of numerous complex motifs that start in the “Prologue” of A Game of Thrones and continue through the novels thus far.

Taste is a sensory perception, one of five traditionally recognized senses, including smell, sight, sound, and touch. They collaborate to enable the mind to better understand its surroundings.

Because the readers trust and identify with the prologue narrator Will and because Gared’s unease is so palpable, Martin projects fear onto the readers.

Gared, Will, and the readers could taste fear in the “Prologue”; however, in the first POV after Will’s “Prologue”, Martin “shows” fear mirrored in the eyes of another. Jon Snow’s perceptivity allows him to SEE the fear of his seven-year-old foster brother Bran Stark.

Just that morning, Bran was deemed old enough to witness the king’s justice, so Bran must watch the execution of a Night’s Watch deserter. Bran will need to find the courage to control his own feelings of dread. He has never before seen a man beheaded, much less beheaded by his own lord father.

Jon Snow gives Bran well-meaning encouragement:

“‘Keep the pony well in hand," he whispered. ‘And don't look away. Father will know if you do’" (Bran I).

“Bran kept his pony well in hand, and did not look away”.

Bran fulfills his duty and receives kudos for his bravery. As a matter of fact, Martin says that Bran “could not take his eyes off the blood”. Will, on the contrary, cannot watch Royce’s end: “It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes” (10).

Bran’s attendance to the blood illustrates his future proclivity for such through his direwolf Summer. Moreover, Bran has the scrutiny of an audience and the threat of his father’s omniscience to pressure him to perform as expected, all of which Will does not. Will, on the other hand, suffers Royce dropping to his knees, but he cannot witness the White Walkers’ abuse of Royce’s corpse.

Even though Bran watches Gared’s execution, his child’s eyes do not see as much as his older brothers do. Bran overhears Robb and Jon at odds about whether or not the headless man died bravely. Robb says to Jon,

"The deserter died bravely . . . He had courage, at the least."

"No," Jon Snow said quietly. "It was not courage. This one was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark."

The verbal exchange between the brothers reveals that Jon Snow is more perceptive than Robb Stark in the study of human nature. Because the readers are aware of what happens in the “Prologue”, they know that Will and Ser Royce encounter misfortunes and chances are that Gared does not escape unscathed. Therefore, readers can determine that Jon’s assessment of Gared’s fear is more accurate than Robb’s assertion that Gared “had courage”.

Martin uses hyperbole in Jon Snow’s response: “This one was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark”. Gared’s eyes are “dead of fear”, an expression that insinuates his eyes have lost the luster of the living and instead reflect the flat, unresponsive attribute of the dead. Whatever Gared sees or saw affects his countenance. Dramatic irony enforces that readers know what the characters do not: Gared obviously witnesses “something” of the events that transpire in the “Prologue” between Ser Waymar Royce and the White Walkers and between Royce and Will.

Jon Snow assumes the deserter of the Night’s Watch fears his fate while readers suspect that so much more causes Gared’s fear than of imminent death. Gared tastes fear in the “Prologue”, and this leads him to forsake forty-four years of brotherhood on the Wall for a future as a deserter who the king’s justice marks for death, an end Gared may welcome after what he experiences in the haunted forest. Interestingly, and even more ironically, is that Gared’s fear does lead him to his death.

When Bran overhears Robb and Jon’s exchange, he commences to stew on the paradox of bravery only existing when a man faces fear. Bran’s consternation brings sagacious Lord Eddard Stark to his side with fatherly advice that affirms that the only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid.

Even though taste is not featured in the same way, Martin does employ language indicative of “tasting” to describe the blood:

“Blood sprayed out across the snow, as red as surnmerwine . . . The snows around the stump drank it eagerly, reddening as he [bran] watched” ().

Summerwine is a popular alcoholic beverage enjoyed seasonally, and coincidentally Lord Eddard serves it to feast King Robert on his visit to Winterfell. The mention of summerwine in association with blood shows that Bran conceives that the blood is drinkable. In this moment, Bran could not predict that one day in the future he will taste the blood of a beheaded captive through the roots of Winterfell’s heart tree 1000’s of years in the past.

Martin describes the snow as drinking the blood, which infers a great deal for the future of certain Stark children. Snow as a symbol links the Starks of the past with the Starks of the present, and Martin tells readers early on that the Starks will taste “human” blood, both literally and symbolically.

Martin’s themes in Will’s “Prologue” bind them to narratives that follow, starting in Bran’s first POV. Although Bran’s setting is far from beyond the Wall, at a holdfast near Winterfell, and the narrator is not Ranger Will with his band of brothers but the child Bran with his bastard brother and his real brother, Martin connects Will and Bran through their fear, their courage, their duties, and more. Even the five senses are threads Martin feeds into his loom for the weaving of his fantasy at the start of AGoT.

EVIDENCE #2:

“YOUR COMMANDER”

“Will wanted nothing so much as to ride hellbent for the safety of the Wall, but that was not a feeling to share with your commander.
“Especially not a commander like this one” (2).

The second time the author shifts from third-person pronouns to second-person your is when Will divulges that he cannot share his feelings with “your commander”. “Your” is the possessive case in second-person narration, and it functions as a pronominal adjective modifying commander.

Note Martin’s errors are corrected below:

“. . . but that was not a feeling to share with your commander”.

BETTER

“. . . but that was not a feeling to share with his or their commander”.

Will does not claim that Royce is “his” or “their” commander. Quite the reverse, he distinguishes readers with the dubious honor of YOUR commander. In this way, Will distances himself from Royce’s command. Martin intends that his readers share Gared’s and Will’s frustration and helplessness in their attempts to reason with the knight determined to prove himself at the expense of the well-being of others.

“Commander” is a respectful title that acknowledges Royce’s position as the leader responsible for decision-making among the ranks assigned to the ranging mission. The sarcastic tone of “your commander” is a jeer at Ser Royce’s ineptitude as a leader. Furthermore, Royce owns another title as well, “SER”, an honor that proclaims he has been knighted. Martin strategically gives Ser Waymar Royce titles, a first name, and a house name to illustrate that Will and Gared’s surnames are of no consequence because they have no titles or family connections.

Moreover, Will emphasizes that Royce is one among commanders: “Especially not a commander like this one”. The “this” does not define “what” exactly sets Royce apart from the general and singles him out in the specific for the readers. However, both author Martin and narrator Will trust that the readers will know what Will means by “like this one”.

Royce’s folly is ordering his men to find the dead wildlings instead of marching for home. However, the forces at work in the haunted forest are seemingly aware of Royce’s lack of respect for the dangerous environment and his attitude of superiority after his men warn him of their concerns.

As a matter-of-fact, the White Walker that Royce combats systematically ruins his trappings of wealth, slashing his ringmail, bloodying his moleskin gloves, shattering his castle-forged blade, and bringing him to his knees. The White Walkers in the company slice to ribbons the oft-mentioned sable skin cloak.

Disfiguring Royce’s once handsome face is a statement as well. The White Walkers leave no indignity out. “Your commander” falls from grace, but he rises as a hideous monster.

EVIDENCE 3

“YOU LAUGHED AT IN YOUR CUPS”

“His [Royce’s] cloak was his crowning glory; sable, thick and black and soft as sin. ‘Bet he killed them all himself, he did,’ Gared told the barracks over wine, ‘twisted their little heads off, our mighty warrior.’ They [sworn Brothers of the Night’s Watch] all shared the laugh. It is hard to take orders from a man you laughed at in your cups . . .” (3).

This is the third example of Martin shifting from third-person to second-person in the “Prologue”:

“It is hard to take orders from a man you laughed at in your cups . . .”

Better: “It is hard to take orders from a man they laughed at in their cups . . .”

Martin chooses second-person “you” instead of maintaining third-person pronouns as a way to involve the readers in the unfavorable impression Ser Waymar Royce makes on his fellow brothers of the Night’s Watch who resent Royce’s appointment as commanding ranger, especially when they compare Gared and Will’s combined forty-four years of service on the Wall with Royce’s barely half year of service.

Royce’s trappings of wealth further agitate his brothers because his wardrobe takes precedence over his preparedness for ranging beyond the Wall. By involving the readers in the Sworn Brothers’ disrespect for and mockery of Royce, Martin makes them a part of the inequities of advancement among the ranks. The readers become confidants who share a laugh and drinks with the veterans of the Watch.

While drinking with his circle of brothers, Gared makes fun of Royce’s sable cloak, but he is safely out of Royce’s earshot. Gared evokes an image of Royce twisting the tiny necks of 101 furry martens to build his ranging cloak.

After his reanimation, Royce twists Will’s neck, an allusion to the martens, or a method of death that cuts off Will’s breathing and his voice. Royce called out to Will three times, and three times Will did not answer “Our mighty warrior”.

EVIDENCE 4

“ROCKS AND HIDDEN ROOTS TO TRIP YOU UP”

“Will threaded their way through a thicket, then started up the slope to the low ridge where he had found his vantage point under a sentinel tree. Under the thin crust of snow, the ground was damp and muddy, slick footing, with rocks and hidden roots to trip you up. Will made no sound as he climbed” (7).

Ser Waymar Royce orders Will to “Lead on”, to guide him to the location of the fallen wildlings. As Royce follows Will, so do the readers, albeit figuratively.

The conditions are treacherous, “Under the crust of snow, the ground was damp and muddy, slick footing with rocks and hidden roots to trip YOU up” (7).

Martin once again shifts from third person pronouns to the ubiquitous “YOU”, and he warns the audience of poor footholds and hidden perils that will “trip them up” if they are not paying attention. Martin is a master of metaphor, and beneath the “crust” of pages and words, is the subtext where Martin buries his remarkable treasure trove of literary conventions, allusions, language patterns, sensory details, and so much more.

Martin focuses on “rocks and hidden roots” as the pitfalls that cause the walkers to “stumble”; just so, readers may stumble as well, over the words, the characters, the themes, the deaths. However, more likely the rocks and roots symbolize misinformation, unreliable narrators, a skewed timeline, unofficial deaths, red-herrings, riddles, and similar ways Martin ‘trips up’ his readers. He hides clues in plain sight, like the rocks on a footpath.

The “roots” have more profound significance because Martin says they are “hidden”. He challenges readers to find – to “root out” –what he artfully nests between his lines. The “roots” and “rocks” also symbolize the old gods of the north. The roots of the Stark heart tree grow deep, and a future greenseer will use these and other roots to a purpose. Martin significantly repeats the base word “root” in Bran 1.

Ned speaks with unconscious irony here:

“Come, let us see what mischief my sons have rooted out now”

The verb “rooted” is apt because Martin connects the direwolf pups with the forces of the old gods, who gift the Stark progeny their direwolves.

EVIDENCE 5

“YOU SAW HOW YOUNG HE WAS”

Pronoun Shift, Dangling Modifier, and Skewed Logic

The final illustration of Martin’s shifting from third- to second-person-point-of-view appears in a sentence that he opens with a dangling modifier. The usually perspicuous Martin composes a confusing, illogical passage wherein pronoun usage errors are the compelling offenses.

Martin writes:

“Royce’s body lay face down in the snow, one arm out flung. The thick sable cloak had been slashed in a dozen places. Lying dead like that, you saw how young he was. A boy” (10).

The introductory participial phrase “lying dead like that” functions as an adjective and technically should modify the subject of the main clause [YOU saw how young he was], which is YOU. Martin’s poor wording in modification is an oversight an editor should have caught; that is, unless Martin means more in his subtext.

“YOU”, or the reader(s), is/are NOT “lying dead”. Ser Royce is the unfortunate chap lying dead. The error could have been corrected easily with a little wordsmithing as follows:

“Lying dead like that, he looked young, like a boy”.

The next issue with the same sentence is the pronoun THAT in “Lying dead like that”. The antecedent of “that” is unclear. Martin narrows the scope with a few options:

“Royce’s body lay face down in the snow, one arm out flung”.
“The thick sable cloak had been slashed in a dozen places”.
Both A and B

With Royce’s face down, Will cannot feasibly assess Royce’s countenance to determine that he “looked young, like a boy”. After all, the face is the aspect people usually scrutinize when gauging the age of another. So, if not Will’s face, the pronoun that may refer to Royce’s final repose and/or to Royce’s shredded sable cloak. However, neither of these options communicate that Royce “looked young, like a boy” when “lying dead”.

Will might mean that Royce’s spent corpse beneath his shredded cloak makes Royce look “young, like a boy” in contrast to Royce’s formidable stature astride his warhorse, where he towers over Will and Gared. With his arm out flung and with his face down, Royce appears helpless and smaller in stature “like a boy”. Royce reaches out in death for a weapon, for help, or for the unattainable dreams he had in life. Thus, the once intensely driven ranging commander succumbs to the great leveler of all men, death.

However, Will mentions Royce’s youth frequently in the “Prologue”. For example, Will refers to Royce as a “young knight” (4) and lordling, a term for a young, minor lord: “Down below, the lordling called out suddenly, “Who goes there?” Will heard uncertainty in the challenge”. Perhaps Will hears fear in Royce’s uncertain challenge, or perhaps the advent of the White Walkers affects Royce’s voice.

Next, as Royce looks upon his foe, his breath leaves him in a hiss, which causes his voice to crack “like a boy’s”:
“‘Come no farther,’ the lordling warned. His voice cracked like a boy’s”. Royce’s voice returns him to puberty. Royce has finally “felt them”, and their presence and his fear takes away his breath. A dry mouth accounts for his poor vocal quality.

Royce graduates from a boy to a “man” of the Night’s Watch as he dances with the White Walker: “His hands trembled from the weight of it [sword], or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch”. The “that” modifying “moment” limits greatly the length of time Will sees Royce achieve his “manhood” as a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch. After a short interval of time, Royce returns to looking young and like a boy.

Despite his name, his expensive wardrobe, his castle-forged longsword, his moleskin gloves, his ring mail, and his impressive warhorse, the antagonistic, vain, insensitive, and unreasonable Royce is laid low by an enemy he hardly challenges in combat. Readers sometimes forget, so Martin reminds them, just as he reminds Will of “the boy” in Royce.

If Martin’s pronoun shift, dangling modifier, and skewed logic serve higher purposes, then perhaps the author wants “the readers” to note the “boy” who once wears the handsome features of Ser “Way More” Royce. In this way, Martin aspires to “shock” his readers along with Will when Royce rises as a wight to reveal his disfigured face.

To emphasize Royce’s cyclopean views, Martin writes: “A shard from his [Royce’s] sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye” (11). Royce’s narrow mindedness is evident as the commander is “blind” to reason; he belittles seasoned rangers and ridicules their wise counsel, yet he is a boy, a youth whose faults cannot be excused. Martin creates characters just as, and even more flawed, than Royce, young people whose circumstances empower them before they have been adequately prepared to make good judgements, to lead others, and to respect fear.

[evita mgfs]

Below, I have repeated how I corrected Martin's errors using third person point of view pronouns that fit with the narrative. Everyone keeps trying to put in ONE.

“Lying dead like that, HE looked young, like a boy”.

“Under the crust of snow, the ground was damp and muddy, slick footing with rocks and hidden roots to trip THEM up” (7).

“It is hard to take orders from a man THEY laughed at in their cups . . .”

“. . . but that was not a feeling to share with HIS or THEIR commander”.

[Dofs]

The crew reported hearing the sounds of wild laughter coming from the captain's cabin. They are not reporting to Victarion because he is in the captain's cabin and when the crew tried the door, they found it barred.

You did not really disprove my main argument. To whom they are reporting? To the reader? To the omniscient narrator? I am sorry but Vactrion narrating in retrospective makes much more sense to me. Either way it's kinda break from the usual pattern and narration in retrospective is less radical change then omniscient narration.

[three-eyed monkey]

You did not really disprove my main argument. To whom they are reporting? To the reader? To the omniscient narrator? I am sorry but Vactrion narrating in retrospective makes much more sense to me. Either way it's kinda break from the usual pattern and narration in retrospective is less radical change then omniscient narration.

That's what I'm saying, it reads like an omniscient narrator, hence a switch from third-person limited. Narration in retrospect without appropriate clarification is just sloppy because all third-person limited should be told from the character's present moment, even if it is backfilling the story. The use of "had been" instead of "was" would signify this shift, which is not the case here. For example; Jaime was thinking about Rhaegar. The Prince had been armoured in black. This lets the reader know that Jaime's thoughts are in a separate time frame. If it proceeded at length about Rhaegar then "was" might come back into it because "had been" is a bit clunky and "was" helps put the reader more firmly in Rhaegar's timeframe for the duration of Jaime's thought.

It's just my opinion that the passage is written in third-person omniscient. I'm not trying to disprove you or anything.

[chambraigne]

In short, without teachers like you, we'd have few if any decent English-language writers. But at some point, professional writers have to get beyond the rules they learned in freshman composition class and gain a feel for the language as it's really used. In real English, you can split infinitives, end sentences with prepositions, start sentences with conjunctions, use various forms of fronting, use discourse anaphor, and so on. Nobody will ever learn the rules for all of those things (well, maybe the Chomskyites will get it right after another 60 years of trying, hitting a dead end, and rebooting every couple decades...). But having learned a set of rules and gained the skill to look at language critically is necessary for writers to get a good feel for how to use the real language appropriately. If being one of those teachers makes it hard for you to read many writers without constantly reaching for a red pen, that's a sad thing--but I think for society as a whole, it's still better to have people like you around. (Yes, I'm so generous I'm willing to sacrifice your enjoyment for the good of everyone else...)

Actually, many composition scholars have found that a focus on spelling, grammar, syntax, and usage actually HURTS budding writers. It's an attempt to fix a fluid concept (language) by assigning it arbitrary rules. Grammatically correct writing does not make for interesting writing. It's quite possibly the laziest way to teach your English class, because it allows you to simply hunt for errors instead of engaging rhetorically with the content that your students produce. It breeds resentment in your students when you invariably make a written or verbal mistake in class, and your students actually don't learn anything. Compound that with the fact that the students aren't able to take anything from the class for use in a practical world, because their bosses generally don't give two shits about the grammar you wasted fifteen weeks of their life trying to teach them. But other than that, yeah! It's a great way to "teach" English.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

George Orwell had his own set of rules regarding good (in his eyes) writing. And the last one of them was: "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous". A character in Sir Pterry's book would frame a similar thought a little differently: "Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em". By the way, the latter quote in itself is far from grammatically perfect, isn't it?

I share this sentiment. I believe there's no esthetic value in following a given set of rules with discipline of a deterministic automaton. Successful communication - of thoughts, events, emotions, what have you - from the writer to the reader is what's important here. And, as we can see, the reader understands just fine. I'm not baffled by the usage of generic "you". Nobody is. If the editor sinned, it was not by allowing the author use informal language.

[three-eyed monkey]

I agree with FVR, that successful communication is what is important. The writer has to clearly convey his thoughts to the reader through the words on the page. Clarity is all important because if you lose clarity then you lose impact, and eventually you lose the reader.

I'm all for bending and even breaking the rules, especially in the arts, but having complete disregard for the rules is a futile exercise if you're a writer. The rules are not just rules for the sake of it. They have a purpose and that purpose is to help clarify what is being expressed. Spelling can change the meaning of a word, like there or their. Punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence. So a sentence with misspelled words or incorrect punctuation will not accurately convey what you mean. And while it is true that grammatically correct writing does not always make for interesting reading, grammatically incorrect writing rarely makes for interesting reading.

The same applies to point of view. The rules of storytelling were not just made up by some bunch of stuffy guys in bowler hats, they have evolved over the course of human history and are tried and tested. And they work. If you are writing in third-person omniscient and you head hop from one character to another too much, it just becomes a confusing mess and it doesn't flow. As a writer, this flow is the goal. You want to draw the reader into the story, immerse them in the world and characters you've created. You want them to get lost in the book. That is a hard task in itself, but having the reader constantly jolted out of the flow because of speed bumps like poor spelling, grammar, narrative structure, failing to suspend disbelief, or whatever, will not help your cause one bit.

[evita mgfs]

If I revise my thesis, I hope I can please readers while still using my evidences and analytical commentary from the original.

Feel welcome to edit my thesis and revise where necessary to accommodate the circumstances and improve upon them.

Thesis revision

Martin employs informal second person you in his AGoT “Prologue” on five occasions. Perhaps Martin wishes to convey Will’s lack of formal education. Whatever his reasons, Will’s narrative addresses the readers five times, and if Martin’s informal you is intentional, maybe he invites the readers to look more closely in these passages for symbolic meaning.

[AN / When I discovered Martin’s Ice and Fire novels three years ago, they saved me in so many ways. They provided me with an escape because no violence, bloody spectacle, hearts of darkness, death, or any other horrors of which he writes can compare to my horrors – what I experienced. After having a student I did not even know train a gun between my eyes . . . I won’t go there. I was lucky. I survived. But subsequent PTSD disorder resulting from the event forced me to retire early. I sincerely apologize if I come across as defensive – it is a part of the illness I struggle with.]

[Dofs]

That's what I'm saying, it reads like an omniscient narrator, hence a switch from third-person limited. Narration in retrospect without appropriate clarification is just sloppy because all third-person limited should be told from the character's present moment, even if it is backfilling the story. The use of "had been" instead of "was" would signify this shift, which is not the case here. For example; Jaime was thinking about Rhaegar. The Prince had been armoured in black. This lets the reader know that Jaime's thoughts are in a separate time frame. If it proceeded at length about Rhaegar then "was" might come back into it because "had been" is a bit clunky and "was" helps put the reader more firmly in Rhaegar's timeframe for the duration of Jaime's thought.

It's just my opinion that the passage is written in third-person omniscient. I'm not trying to disprove you or anything.

This case with Victarion is different from the case with Jaime because Martin wanted to show what was happening in a place where Victarion was not present. It wasn't possible for him to do it with his POV structure so imo, he decided to write it 'in retrospect', Martin described the moment from Vactarion's POV before Victarion actually acquired that information. I can agree that the paragraph reads as an omniscient narration, but if it is one, than the sentence makes no sense unless you are claiming that the omniscient narrator got the report from Victarion's crew and read it. That's how I see it. But I guess we can agree to disagree here.

[Ser Walton]

Well said. It's a bizarre transition that surely indicates something. Perhaps Victarion was dead for a while there.

Isn't Victorian cruising around on his ship made of weirwood? Could this shift be from an Old God (Bran or BR) narrating ? The ship is painted red to hide the spilled blood on his decks (blood sacrifices on weirwood).

A lot of people think the last chapter will be Bran showing where everyone ended up or how things turned out - what if Bran is actually the narrator in every chapter? So, that one weird paragraph could be Bran's addition to the story (to hide what is happening in there). This could explain the shift in POV in the prologue, Bran *IS* narrating, and could possibly be hiding something or is unreliable, and that was a way to clue in the reader. It only took a strict, professor-level English and grammar expert 6 reads to find (before the first chapter even)

Martin has made a point to address unreliable narrators.

This scene also reminds me of the scene in which Dany stands out side the tent and hears Mirri Maz Durr doing her thing....which is also similar to Moqorro's thing. :)

[Ser Walton]

My immediate impression upon reading it was that Victarion was having an out-of-body experience, or something like that. It's probably the source of a lot of UnVic theories. But then I read that GRRM had said he wrote the strange rewind scene with Tyrion at the Bridge of Sorrows just to unhinge the reader and enhance the mood, and that there was no in-universe explanation. So maybe he was trying to achieve something similar in the Iron Captain chapter. I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's not a mistake.

It is my opinion that Martin HAS to say stuff like that in order to hide the truth from us for the time being. Of course it has a meaning....does he often write things out of the blue? He does give red herrings (or Tully's)(see what I did there? Out of the blue red herring is a Tully. He kills tropes, this he slayed a Tully) but they usually feel natural and do have in-universe meaning. He's gotta keep some secrets from for the final books and with his proclivity to foreshadow, he is either setting it up (the secret) or misdirecting the few of us that read the forums and SSMs . Did any Theon theory even come.remotely close to the Reek reveal? Martin still has TONS of those type of surprises that will shock us all, even if you've (general you...) read the series 20 times and all the internet theories.

Could the rewind possibly be an analogy to how the modern story is basically a rewind of the past legends? ( considering LML excellent astronomy theory) Nearly every single chapter from all POVS contain those analogies and 2nd meanings (and 3rd and 4th) (makes me more OK with the 5 year gaps because it will take me at least that long to figure it all out....)

One trope the is hated by most is the It Was All A Dream ending. Could Bran narrating the entire series as he watches it unfold (while also experiencing) be a nice flip of that? The trope is disliked because it leaves a feeling of " why did I invest my time in this?". This flip could be a more satisfying way to subvert it (Martin doing his thing)

[three-eyed monkey]

This case with Victarion is different from the case with Jaime because Martin wanted to show what was happening in a place where Victarion was not present. It wasn't possible for him to do it with his POV structure so imo, he decided to write it 'in retrospect', Martin described the moment from Vactarion's POV before Victarion actually acquired that information. I can agree that the paragraph reads as an omniscient narration, but if it is one, than the sentence makes no sense unless you are claiming that the omniscient narrator got the report from Victarion's crew and read it. That's how I see it. But I guess we can agree to disagree here.

Well then, with your agreement, I would like to disagree.

In third-person-limited you cannot use information before the character has acquired that information. That is why it is "limited." If you do, then you are writing in third-person-omniscient. It is one or the other. There is no middle ground, as they say.

Jumping ahead between paragraphs and then backfilling the gap in the paragraph you just jumped ahead would only serve to put a needless wrinkle in the narrative. GRRM is not structurally deficient like that.

The omniscient narrator is not a character, it is the writer, or someone outside the story, who knows every detail of the story, so no, the omniscient narrator doesn't have to get the report from Vic's crew and read it.

The example I used of Jaime and Rhaegar is made up, not a quote from the book. But there are countless examples like it in the books because when GRRM shifts the timeframe from the character's present moment to some time past, then he makes it clear, like the good writer he is, but this is not the case with the Iron Captain passage. So I don't think it is backfilling.

There are really only three options here as far as I can see. 1. GRRM purposefully wrote the paragraph in omniscient POV. 2. GRRM thought he was writing in limited POV and made a bunch of amateur mistakes that his agent, proof readers, and his publisher's editorial staff all missed. 3. The paragraph is in limited POV, but it is very poorly written from a technical stand point, and therefore lacks clarity.

I go for option one, but as you said, we can agree to disagree.

[three-eyed monkey]

It is my opinion that Martin HAS to say stuff like that in order to hide the truth from us for the time being. Of course it has a meaning....does he often write things out of the blue? He does give red herrings (or Tully's) but they usually feel natural and do have in-universe meaning. He's gotta keep some secrets from for the final books and with his proclivity to foreshadow, he is either setting it up (the secret) or misdirecting the few of us that read the forums and SSMs.

Could the rewind possibly be an analogy to how the modern story is basically a rewind of the past legends? ( considering LML excellent astronomy theory) Nearly every single chapter from all POVS contain those analogies and 2nd meanings (and 3rd and 4th) (makes me more OK with the 5 year gaps because it will take me at least that long to figure it all out....)

I don't know what the story with the rewind is. It could be anything, and there was a good thread on in-universe explanations recently, (sorry, can't remember who started it but it was called, surprisingly, "Trying to explain the weird rewind at the bridge of sorrows.") Or something to that effect. There were some cool ideas, but I don't know. Lots to figure out alright.