Are new(post storm) major characters a waste of time?

[Drekinn]

I had a good time reading their chapters so I wouldn't call it a waste of time.

[Jasta11]

Ok, being serious. This is the thing about Storm. Storm is the favourite of many because a lot of things happened there, and these things are events that are decisive for the things to come. To simply treat these events like there is no consequence would be terrible writing. Feast and Dance are the consequences.

 

I think that, putting aside the Red Wedding, the most important event happening in Storms is the death of the King. And that not only in the story because it affects the characters:

 

Tyrion is accused. He's imprisoned.

Oberyn fights for him. Loses.

Tyrion is rescued by Jaime. They fight.

Tyrion returns to kill his father. He then escapes to Essos.

 

From these occurrences, maybe the most important is Tywin's death. He's the one whose actions keep the Realm whole. Now he's gone, everybody will have one piece of it, and this is what is happening. Hence, the Ironborn rebelling.

 

Oberyn's death also causes the entrance of the one Realm missing: Dorne. Dorne is more important than people believe it to be, but let's not forget that when the Rebellion killed the Targaryens, a Targaryen Prince had also Martell blood. There is absolutely no way that Dorne should have been kept apart so far. That's why we have Arianne, as she's a main player but she doesn't pull the strings (that's Doran). Whether you like Arys or not, he's gone already. And Hotah has been sent now to Dayne. Quentyn is the one catalysing Dorne's eventual decision about who support. And can ppl please stop commenting how boring he was? he's dead :dunno:

 

In the same way, Tyrion was sent to Essos, to finally discover what Varys was up to all of these years. Varys had Essos link, so we needed to see someone important there. Hence, Aegon. Aegon exists because he's Varys's most kept secret. But Aegon is, imo, not as important as Jon. Jon first serves to antagonise Tyrion, to be the father figure he hates and cannot shake off despite he actually got to kill Tywin. Once Tyrion was off, he was given a PoV that not only gives us a view of Aegon's campaign but will provide us, FINALLY, insight to the most mysterious character: Rhaegar. He knew him and for what AWOIAF implies, he knew a lot of the politics of KL and what he was about. He already said that Rhaegar was told Elia wouldn't have more children. That's quite THE HINT about the origins of Jon Snow.

 

So, everybody has and had a role to play. By the next book, those roles will be important because we will have more action in the story. They are now positioning on their respective places.

 

 

The difference to me is that I enjoyed reading AGOT and ACOK as they set the pieces in place for the big ASOS payoff. The first two books also had major events (the Nedless, Bob's death, birth of Dragons, the Shadowbaby, sack of Winterfell, the Blackwater) and important foreshadowing (most of the R + L = J fodder comes from the first book).

 

By comparison, the last two books have a pretty significant lack of major events. Many plots go nowhere or have underwhelming payoffs (Dorne, Brienne, Sansa, Arya, Quentyn being the worst offenders), when we're not just smacked with cliffhanger after cliffhanger in a series that takes 5 years between iterations. Sure, they have some standout moments such as Daznak's Pit and Cercei's comedy of errors, but they are few and far between to break up the monotony. People tell us ''just wait for it, the sixth book is going to have big payoffs for all that!'' and that may (or may not) be, but my beef is that the journey to said payoff just wasn't as interesting as last time around.

 

I feel that previously, Martin managed to have both tight plotting and world building in his books. The voyage of Ned, Robert and family from Winterfell to King's Landing takes months in universe, but takes up, what, 4-5 chapters total? During which pretty significant events happen and we get a lot of exposition done really well via Robert and Ned's conversations. If the same trip was in AFFC it would likely take up the entire book and regale us with tales of the food Robert ate at every single pit stop along the way. Now, Martin focuses so much on world building that he seems to have let tight plotting fall along the wayside. And that's not a good thing. I read this series for the story and characters. I'd go read Moby Dick if I wanted to have massive amounts of pointless exposition dumped at me every other chapter.

 

To clarify, I don't hate the last 2 books. I just feel they are inferior to the first 3.

[Stannis broatheon]

Euron is interesting and is planning something big. And Aegon and Arienne are
not a waste of time for sure

[Sage of Westeros]

Building plot and showing us various pieces of a large world is not a waste of time. Honestly though, I like Quentyn but if he showed up in SB purely from Dany's point of view I don't think we would have been angry. Same with Arys, his scenes could have been done purely through Arianne's point of view. So only Arys and Quentyn because they stay around 2-3 other povs.

[Shierak Qiya]

I don't think Marwyn is a waste of time.  Bloodraven is not a waste of time.  Quentyn was not a waste of time. 

[White Ravens]

I'm not saying they don't count, i'm only asking if introducing too many new POV characters may detract from the overall story arc.

 

True.  You are not saying that they don't count.  You're saying that they are a waste of time.

 

 

Agreed. People just need to enjoy the characters rather than determining their worth. Each character brings something to the story and it's easier to just sit back and enjoy, instead of questioning everything GRRM writes.

 

GRRM leaves his readers little choice but to analyze his characters to determine their worth when there are such long waits between books.  I first read Storm in 2003.  Fortunately the books are dense and filled with clues and foreshadowing, so re-reading is an enjoyable process.

[falcotron]

Agreed. People just need to enjoy the characters rather than determining their worth.

The problem is that there are many readers who still think the series is about figuring out who they're supposed to root for since Ned died, and any character who obviously can't be the new protagonist-hero is pointless. They don't care about themes, or about world-building, or about parallels between different characters or between characters and the stock archetypes, because none of that gets us any closer to figuring out who's supposed to win and how they're going to do so. Which is why they write things like "What is revealed in those four Quentyn chapters that was of vital importance to the plot?" as if that were the only thing that mattered.

I honestly don't understand why people who only care about who wins the central plot are reading a 10000-page story where 9500 pages are irrelevant to that and where the author has said that isn't important. But clearly they do care, and they enjoy the books, so it's not my place to say they shouldn't. (And, really, they're contributing to the word of mouth that popularizes the series so more people can experience it, so much the better for everyone.) So, if they want to skip Quentyn's chapters on a reread to get to the next part of Dany's/Stannis's/Tyrion's/Sansa's/Jon's plot, let them.

[Winter's Cold]

The problem is that there are many readers who still think the series is about figuring out who they're supposed to root for since Ned died, and any character who obviously can't be the new protagonist-hero is pointless. They don't care about themes, or about world-building, or about parallels between different characters or between characters and the stock archetypes, because none of that gets us any closer to figuring out who's supposed to win and how they're going to do so. Which is why they write things like "What is revealed in those four Quentyn chapters that was of vital importance to the plot?" as if that were the only thing that mattered.

I honestly don't understand why people who only care about who wins the central plot are reading a 10000-page story where 9500 pages are irrelevant to that and where the author has said that isn't important. But clearly they do care, and they enjoy the books, so it's not my place to say they shouldn't. (And, really, they're contributing to the word of mouth that popularizes the series so more people can experience it, so much the better for everyone.) So, if they want to skip Quentyn's chapters on a reread to get to the next part of Dany's/Stannis's/Tyrion's/Sansa's/Jon's plot, let them.

 

Is world building acceptable if it slows down the pace of the plot significantly? Is it worth it if this leads to the adaptation being finished before the source? Did the first three books not have themes and world building? What do you think causes there to be far more complaints about the latter two books than the first three? 

[falcotron]

Is world building acceptable if it slows down the pace of the plot significantly? Is it worth it if this leads to the adaptation being finished before the source? Did the first three books not have themes and world building? What do you think causes there to be far more complaints about the latter two books than the first three?

Forgive me in advance for what's almost certainly going to be a long answer, but I think there are some good questions there that deserve good answers.

First, I do think GRRM has some problems with pacing, and trying to do more in the later books has exacerbated those problems, but I don't think they're fatal problems.

Meanwhile, I'm agreeing with you that Quentyn's chapters aren't of vital importance to the plot. I said that in my first message in this thread: you could replace the first three chapters with one third-hand mention earlier in the book that he's on the quest, and the last chapter with two scenes from the POVs of, say, Dany and Barry, and you'd get all of the relevant plot developments. Where we're in disagreement is whether that's the sole criterion for whether something is useful in a novel.

So, why are there more complaints about the latter two books? Now we're not asking something objective about the books, but about the readership.

First, there's a much larger and much more communicative fandom now than there was in 1996 (which now includes people who were drawn in by the TV show who wouldn't normally have even picked up the series). That's a good thing, of course, not a problem, but it does mean that there are going to be more vocal complaints, whether they're deserved or not.

Meanwhile, something that's not a good thing is that the books are so far apart that those who haven't joined recently are obviously going to be unhappy. And they're going to look for reasons to justify that unhappiness. Personally, I often think that he should have realized the scope of his story earlier on--if he wants to write by "gardening, not architecture", he should have brought along the heavy-duty landscaping tools, not just a bucket and spade. And I can understand why other people think he should have just not tried to cram so much "stuff" into the series. I can even understand the people who think he's spending too much time editing anthologies and going to conventions and coming up with new spinoff stories when he could be writing ASoIaF. (Although I think they're probably wrong--working on X is how you let your subconscious get through its work on Y--I can still understand why they'd think that.)

I think everyone on these forums believes that ASoIaF is at least 80% of the way to being a truly great series, so the last 1-20% is more frustrating. Nobody really cares what Joe Bumblefuck is doing wrong in a series that doesn't keep us reading past page 20, but once you get invested in something, the ways it falls even a little short of perfection feel a lot more important. And anyone still arguing about ADwD this long after its release is clearly pretty invested in ASoIaF.

Finally, given that there are some readers who don't care about world building, thematic explorations, or drawing parallels between characters, and only want to know who they're supposed to root for and whether they're going to win, of course they're not going to like ADwD as much. And, worse, to such a person, I could see how the series almost feels like a con, like GRRM tricked you into reading his series by pretending it was a different kind of work at the start. (And, for those who were drawn to the books by the show, which presents an even more streamlined story, that would only be more true.) I don't think there's anything I can say that would make those readers happy, but it's not my job to do so. Any more than it's your job to try to convince me that what I like about ADwD (and what I assume GRRM likes about ADwD, even though I can't really know that) is all useless and therefore I shouldn't like it.

We have different ideas on what a novel is supposed to accomplish, but we have a lot of overlap (which probably peaked during ACoK or the first half of ASoS), which is why we're enjoying the same series; ignoring that and emphasizing the differences so we can find something to fight about doesn't do anyone any good.

[Danelle]

Arys and Areo might have been interesting since both of them represent two different types of guards, but Arys' sole purpose was to emphasize the importance of Arianne and I believe that Areo is a POV only because GRRM cannot give Doran POV chapters since he probably where the bodies are buried...

 

Aeron, Asha and Vic were all introduced in COK, became POVs in FFC and of the three Asha is simply amazing(and in a perfect world she will be the one to fight and kill Ramsay), Aeron is tedious(although in rereads the prose is wonderful and GRRM implied that in WOW his story will be fascinating) and Vic is lethal, lonely and laughable.

 

 

I am not certain whether Quentyn's purpose is really necessary. There is already Trystane and I am certain that GRRM could have find another excuse for Doran to turn against Dany(her father did mistreat Elia and Rhaenys) and the plot to release the dragons could have easily been given to Hizdahr or any other silly but ambitious Ghiscari.

 

As for JonCon and Aegon, well we finally get a glimpse of what Arya overheard at the dungeons when she saw Varys and Illyrio(gotta love the irony that two men who became powerful by using children to spy on others were spied by a child). Along with Arianne, Jon and Aegon will definitely play a major role in WOW.

 

I think what makes those characters problematic is the slow pace. When other characters were introduced, usually by their second or third pov chapter I had made up my mind whether I dislike them or not.

 

For example, I liked Sansa the moment she comforted Sandor when he confessed to her how he got his scars.

 

I liked Jaime when he admitted his crimes to Cat and I liked Davos from his first chapter when he compared Marya to Nissa Nissa

 

A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost... When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay.

 

Most of the characters introduced in FFC and DWD or who became POVs is that they are not given that many great lines and it takes too long to like them.

 

As for the Sand Snakes, they are by far the most annoying, obnoxious, irritating asoiaf characters. Even Robert Arryn seems nicer than them...

[BrentMeister General]

Quentyn and Arianne are pretty useless imo, don't add much to the plot and neither are very onteresting. Euron, Vic, fAegon and JonCon may not be big players in the outcome of who ends up on the throne but they are all interesting characters and I'm intrigued to know how all of them end up at the conclusion of the novels.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

My beef isn't with new characters per se. It's with the story getting too big for its own good. For me, "Storm" wasn't the best book in the series; "Game" was. The plot of that book was already epic, yet compared with the latter ones, it was so wonderfully compact. Now it's sprawling out of control. That's the reason why every now and then, someone will ask "can he seriously finish it in just seven books? can he finish it at all?". Maybe, maybe not. George says he's a "gardener" kind of a writer. Well, it looks to me as if he waters and plants and maybe even fertilizes, but doesn't bother with pruning, mowing or weeding. And what comes of it looks... well, shit, it pretty much looks like my actual garden, most of the time.

 

So yeah, I do mind new locations and characters and subplots. Most of them, I don't give a rat's ass for.

[syrioforelseesforreal]

My beef isn't with new characters per se. It's with the story getting too big for its own good. For me, "Storm" wasn't the best book in the series; "Game" was. The plot of that book was already epic, yet compared with the latter ones, it was so wonderfully compact. Now it's sprawling out of control. That's the reason why every now and then, someone will ask "can he seriously finish it in just seven books? can he finish it at all?". Maybe, maybe not. George says he's a "gardener" kind of a writer. Well, it looks to me as if he waters and plants and maybe even fertilizes, but doesn't bother with pruning, mowing or weeding. And what comes of it looks... well, shit, it pretty much looks like my actual garden, most of the time.
 
So yeah, I do mind new locations and characters and subplots. Most of them, I don't give a rat's ass for.

[Nevets]

My beef isn't with new characters per se. It's with the story getting too big for its own good. For me, "Storm" wasn't the best book in the series; "Game" was. The plot of that book was already epic, yet compared with the latter ones, it was so wonderfully compact. Now it's sprawling out of control. That's the reason why every now and then, someone will ask "can he seriously finish it in just seven books? can he finish it at all?". Maybe, maybe not. George says he's a "gardener" kind of a writer. Well, it looks to me as if he waters and plants and maybe even fertilizes, but doesn't bother with pruning, mowing or weeding. And what comes of it looks... well, shit, it pretty much looks like my actual garden, most of the time.

 

So yeah, I do mind new locations and characters and subplots. Most of them, I don't give a rat's ass for.

 

The new characters are a symptom of a story that is starting to get out of control.  There are over a dozen separate storylines, each of which needs a POV to tell it.  It has gotten so complex that it is difficult to keep track of sometimes.  Also, coordination becomes a problem if you try to consolidate storylines ("Meereenese Knot", anyone?).

 

Another problem with additional plots and subplots and that there is a finite amount of space.  If you add storylines, you are unable to give existing storylines the depth you would otherwise be able to give them.  If those storylines are no longer as important so be it.  But you risk shortchanging stories and characters that readers are already heavily invested in.

 

Also, some of the new subplots didn't need to be so extensive.  While I love Brienne's journey through the Riverlands, it could have been done in 5 instead of 8 chapters.  And did we need 12 chapters of Cersei?  And I felt there was more about the Dornish and Iron Islanders than I really needed to know.

 

Yes, it may be important, but it is also a possible sign of a story spinning out of control.  No wonder it is taking so long to write, if he is juggling this many plots.  He needs to do a better job of tending the garden, and decide which stories are truly important, or it is never going to get finished

[JonCon's Red Beard]

 

The new characters are a symptom of a story that is starting to get out of control.  There are over a dozen separate storylines, each of which needs a POV to tell it.  It has gotten so complex that it is difficult to keep track of sometimes.  Also, coordination becomes a problem if you try to consolidate storylines ("Meereenese Knot", anyone?).

 

Another problem with additional plots and subplots and that there is a finite amount of space.  If you add storylines, you are unable to give existing storylines the depth you would otherwise be able to give them.  If those storylines are no longer as important so be it.  But you risk shortchanging stories and characters that readers are already heavily invested in.

 

Also, some of the new subplots didn't need to be so extensive.  While I love Brienne's journey through the Riverlands, it could have been done in 5 instead of 8 chapters.  And did we need 12 chapters of Cersei?  And I felt there was more about the Dornish and Iron Islanders than I really needed to know.

 

Yes, it may be important, but it is also a possible sign of a story spinning out of control.  No wonder it is taking so long to write, if he is juggling this many plots.  He needs to do a better job of tending the garden, and decide which stories are truly important, or it is never going to get finished

 

What are the dozens of storylines? Also, how you know they won't eventually intersect? That's pretty much what Martin said will happen.

 

Arianne is going to meet Aegon and Griff, they are involved directly in the politics of KL, as well as the Sand Snakes.

 

Darkstar is heading to a place too close for the ToJ, the biggest mystery of the books.

 

Victarion is going to Dany, an already existing plot.

 

Brienne and Jaime are heading to Stoneheart, another already existing plot and character. The riverlands were also prominent in Storm.

 

Arys and Quentyn are dead. Their personal plots are over.

 

Euron is attacking the Reach, which ties with the fact the Tyrells are in KL for Margaery's trial.

 

Except the Dornish, pretty much every other character is linked to an already existing plot.

[The Dragons Hand]

I'm not talking Howland Reed here, as he's been talked about at length since the beginning

I mean the Jon Cons, young Griffs, Arianne Martell, QUENTYN, and so on. I know we need some new

characters to keep things interesting, but I feel like introducing new players this late in the game when we are already so

invested in so many characters just detracts from the core story.           Thoughts?

I like the bolded quite a bit.

Quentyn? Quentyn feels like as much of a point as a person. "Here's how a regular fellow would react."

[Light a wight tonight]

Of course, just like how anyone you meet in real life after you're 20 doesn't actually count as a person.

Bad simile: at age 20 you've barely gotten started in life. In terms of plot, the books are into middle age. It's time to start killing characters off, not bringing new ones in.  

[Eiko Dragonhorn]

Bad simile: at age 20 you've barely gotten started in life. In terms of plot, the books are into middle age. It's time to start killing characters off, not bringing new ones in.  

 

Start of Act 2 is middle age?

 

What's the start of Act 3? Funeral?

[ShelbySmythe]

 

Is world building acceptable if it slows down the pace of the plot significantly? Is it worth it if this leads to the adaptation being finished before the source? Did the first three books not have themes and world building? What do you think causes there to be far more complaints about the latter two books than the first three? 

 

The only reason people consider AFfC and ADwD to be 'slow paced' is because how they were split. I'm sure that if they were in chronological order, there would be no complaints towards the pacing. 

 

The problem is that there are many readers who still think the series is about figuring out who they're supposed to root for since Ned died, and any character who obviously can't be the new protagonist-hero is pointless. They don't care about themes, or about world-building, or about parallels between different characters or between characters and the stock archetypes, because none of that gets us any closer to figuring out who's supposed to win and how they're going to do so. Which is why they write things like "What is revealed in those four Quentyn chapters that was of vital importance to the plot?" as if that were the only thing that mattered.

I honestly don't understand why people who only care about who wins the central plot are reading a 10000-page story where 9500 pages are irrelevant to that and where the author has said that isn't important. But clearly they do care, and they enjoy the books, so it's not my place to say they shouldn't. (And, really, they're contributing to the word of mouth that popularizes the series so more people can experience it, so much the better for everyone.) So, if they want to skip Quentyn's chapters on a reread to get to the next part of Dany's/Stannis's/Tyrion's/Sansa's/Jon's plot, let them.

 

Exactly this. Sometimes it's not all about the main plot. Sometimes it's about the relationships of characters and how certain events affect their lives and whatnot. And I don't see why people can't enjoy several characters instead of trying to pinpoint one who they consider the hero. Tyrion is by far my favourite character, but at the same time I like Theon Greyjoy, who is the opposite side of Tyrion, both in political matters as well as personal. People just need to chill, enjoy the characters they are given, instead of pointing how who and what doesn't matter.

[SevasTra82]

GRRM, IMO, made a huge blunder after ASOS.

 

As I understand it, he wrote ADWD as one giant volume, which ended up being too large for print, meaning he had to split it up.  He decided to do it geographically, but when he did, he realized instead of having 1 giant book...he ended up now with 2 half-sized books.

 

So to fill in the gaps and make AFFC & ADWD back to full-sized books, he needed filler material.  So this is why, IMO, we saw the emergence of so many new POV's in AFFC and ADWD.  It was all filler material to get the books back up to size after the split.  (This is also why AFFC seemed to drag-on story wise, as only half of it was actually intended to be part of the main story prior to GRRM splitting the original ADWD book).

 

Just see Briennes chapters in AFFC and Quentyn's in ADWD's for a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Both of these POV's could be cut out of each book and the plot of the story would not be effected much, if at all.

 

If GRRM had to split the book...fine, no issues with that.  But he should have never done it geographically, and instead found a good split-off point in the original manuscript to stop what became AFFC and the start of ADWD.  I think things would have, in the long run, kept on better pace with the first 3 books then creating this huge web of POV's and plot points that did not originally exist.