Parts of the Series You Have Trouble Taking Seriously

[YOVMO]

8 minutes ago, HairGrowsBack said:

No worries, agree to disagree.

I'll only add in that Loras and Renly being lovers is canon in either medium, and I don't think it diminishes anything, and doesn't exclude your analysis .

Fair enough on Brienne. 

 

I do not thing that Loras and Renly being lovers would diminish a more in-depth psychological analysis of them as part of an awkward generation, but I do think that it is more than just canonical fact in the HBO series. I think GRRM handles it very nicely in the books, but HBO pretty much put their homosexuality so up front at the fore and did it to the exclusion of far more interesting things and in doing so makes mistakes both internally to the plot and externally to our culture..

Loras and to only a slightly less degree Renly are pretty much defined by their sexuality. Their is nothing about them in the show other than their love for pee pee. It is funny to me that for all the complaints of rape scenes and gratuitous violence that the show gets that no one points our that making being gay the sole character trait worthy of note in Renly and Loras is actually quite homophobic.

That said, I do think GRRM does it beautifully. I know the show has constraints and can't add everything but it makes some choices that I just never have been able to see especially wrt to that generation. Tyrion, despite already setting up the first wife story, is stripped of the very interesting "where do whores go" nihilism yet they, he and jamie,  have time to have a 5 minute discussion about their slow cousin who bashes beetles. Renly is never fleshed out as really being in an awkward psychological situation and Loras is never shown to be both the most gifted warrior yet looked down upon because he had no wars, but they had time for a shaving and blowjob scene. But that is HBO.

[Jasta11]

Brienne beating Jaime is completely acceptable to me. He's weak, malnourished, chained, hasn't practiced for a year and isn't wearing armor, yet he still gives her a hell of a time when she's, at worst, tired from her voyage. Brienne has a crushing situational advantage over him and still barely hangs on. It's quite clear he would have destroyed her if they both at full strength with fairly equal equipment.

[HairGrowsBack]

23 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

Fair enough on Brienne. 

 

I do not thing that Loras and Renly being lovers would diminish a more in-depth psychological analysis of them as part of an awkward generation, but I do think that it is more than just canonical fact in the HBO series. I think GRRM handles it very nicely in the books, but HBO pretty much put their homosexuality so up front at the fore and did it to the exclusion of far more interesting things and in doing so makes mistakes both internally to the plot and externally to our culture..

Loras and to only a slightly less degree Renly are pretty much defined by their sexuality. Their is nothing about them in the show other than their love for pee pee. It is funny to me that for all the complaints of rape scenes and gratuitous violence that the show gets that no one points our that making being gay the sole character trait worthy of note in Renly and Loras is actually quite homophobic.

That said, I do think GRRM does it beautifully. I know the show has constraints and can't add everything but it makes some choices that I just never have been able to see especially wrt to that generation. Tyrion, despite already setting up the first wife story, is stripped of the very interesting "where do whores go" nihilism yet they, he and jamie,  have time to have a 5 minute discussion about their slow cousin who bashes beetles. Renly is never fleshed out as really being in an awkward psychological situation and Loras is never shown to be both the most gifted warrior yet looked down upon because he had no wars, but they had time for a shaving and blowjob scene. But that is HBO.

Oh, completely agree with everything you said about the show. Loras and Renly are reduced to their sexuality, and mocked for it. Terrible writing all the way.

[YOVMO]

Just now, HairGrowsBack said:

Oh, completely agree with everything you said about the show. Loras and Renly are reduced to their sexuality, and mocked for it. Terrible writing all the way.

It is a particularly sad thing to me because not only is it terrible writing but the writers literally have the richest and most fertile source material to work from. I am sure we would all love to see the show go the way of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet where they just do the books word for word, but that is obviously impossible. Still, the writing has been just sad and getting worse and the choices they make are the literary equivalent of just shitting on a copy of the book. 

I guess GRRM either has no say or doesn't much care.

If he doesn't finish these books they will need to fit me for a straight jacket.

[Southron Knight]

The dubiously broad vocabulary exhibited by Mormont's raven.

[Sigella]

On 21 maj 2016 at 6:38 PM, NutBurz said:

You´re looking at it the opposite of how it happens. Cultures are created around genetic traits and fenotypes, and not the opposite. It was not the cult for a thin body that led people into being thin, it was the fact more and more important people became thin as diets became more balanced, and such effect led societies into believing thin was good.

And the effect of mass media on genetics needs some hundreds of years of study for any correlation to be measured.

And again, about the peacock, you´re looking at the opposite way. "Think about why a male peacock has such large and useless tail feathers. They certainly didn't evolve for survival." There´s no such thing as evolve for. Things evolve due to. If those feathers are there, it benefited them in some way that not having them wouldn´t. What it was is incredibly hard to distinguish - maybe they show females a correlation with immune system, maybe they look like owls and keep harmful insects away, who knows? Maybe someone does, but it´s certainly not the peacock´s genes. They don´t know anything. They just happen. They can´t choose to evolve into something more beautiful because that´s what females peacock want.

I think you both are looking at it wrong.

If food is scant for a long period of time people gets jealous of those who have food, thereby collectively shaping a culture where its cool to be fat. Culture is a response by people due to exposure. People who have extra fat-gaining-genetic make up will get some slight (I say slight because you won't get fat if you starve anyhow) advantage from this and thereby being a little likelier to get to further their genes. Again not because of culture but due to exposure. (to an environment lacking in food)

If lots of fatty foods are easily accessible for a long period of time all the fat people will get jealous of the people who aren't fat and thereby collectively shape a culture that makes it cool to be skinny. Again the arisen culture is due to exposure. This culture gives people with less fat gaining genetic make up some slight advantage and thereby will be a little likelier to further their genes. Not because of culture but due to exposure. (to an environment with lots of cheap good tasting food)

It goes the same with pale/tanned and muscular build/body modification (with this I mean ideals that are pretty much impossible without modification, like corsetry, odd hair shapes (  ) and stuffing.)

 

With peacocks their plumages aren't a result of culture, they are a tell that the bearer is good at surviving (which kind of applies to the stuff above, I think)  which is also due to exposure (to environment with frequent dangers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle 

[Southron Knight]

On 10/04/2016 at 3:42 PM, The Fattest Leech said:

My Scooby Doo "rooh" head tilting moment came when Sam encountered the Black Gate. Ya know, the talking ice gate that opens its mouth for you to walk through. 

This seemed to cross the streams from one type of fantasy story to another. 

http://m.westeros.org/index.php/Black_Gate#The_Black_Gate

I like to pretend that bit never happened.

[the trees have eyes]

4 hours ago, YOVMO said:

Fair enough on Brienne. 

 

I do not thing that Loras and Renly being lovers would diminish a more in-depth psychological analysis of them as part of an awkward generation, but I do think that it is more than just canonical fact in the HBO series. I think GRRM handles it very nicely in the books, but HBO pretty much put their homosexuality so up front at the fore and did it to the exclusion of far more interesting things and in doing so makes mistakes both internally to the plot and externally to our culture..

Loras and to only a slightly less degree Renly are pretty much defined by their sexuality. Their is nothing about them in the show other than their love for pee pee. It is funny to me that for all the complaints of rape scenes and gratuitous violence that the show gets that no one points our that making being gay the sole character trait worthy of note in Renly and Loras is actually quite homophobic.

That said, I do think GRRM does it beautifully. I know the show has constraints and can't add everything but it makes some choices that I just never have been able to see especially wrt to that generation. Tyrion, despite already setting up the first wife story, is stripped of the very interesting "where do whores go" nihilism yet they, he and jamie,  have time to have a 5 minute discussion about their slow cousin who bashes beetles. Renly is never fleshed out as really being in an awkward psychological situation and Loras is never shown to be both the most gifted warrior yet looked down upon because he had no wars, but they had time for a shaving and blowjob scene. But that is HBO.

This is the book forum though so happily enough you can have no problem taking GRRM's subtle portrayal of Renly and Loras's relationship seriously.

[NutBurz]

When talking about beauty standards it´s very hard to talk about genetics, I used the thin body talking about a fenotype.

I see you understand that by the quote - 

11 minutes ago, Sigella said:

People who have extra fat-gaining-genetic make up will get some slight (I say slight because you won't get fat if you starve anyhow) advantage from this and thereby being a little likelier to get to further their genes.

This is the kind of thing that makes the effect of culture on genetics very feeble.

Suppose that culture dictates that having 6 fingers on the left hand is the new hot for men. Even if 100% of women actively pursuited that chracteristics, just a tiny percentage would actually manage to "land" a 6 fingered man. Even considering extra-marital inheritance, the fact that this is such a rare mutation combined with the fact the other women will not stop reproducing would result in the mutation not increasing significantly in percentage.

It´s an exaggerated example to set a gradient between that and all the other characteristics that are certainly more likely to happen, but which still are heavily barred by the size of samples.

It doesn´t matter how much a Brazilian might "preffer" a blonde person due to culture, the chances of blonde people reproducing will no go up significantly because a) they are already at a maximum rate considering other more relevant factors like infant survivability and life expectancy, and b ) there is not a significant enough amount of blonde genes in the brazilian gene pool for statistics to change internally.

At the same time, cultures change much faster than genes. Population distribution change much faster genes. Food availability changes much faster genes.

Genes take a really really long time to change.

 

I´ll stop going off-topic regarding this.

[YOVMO]

100% I have no problems with how GRRM has handled it. Quite the contrary, I think it is brilliant and is one of the many reasons that I spend so much time obsessing over his writing. If anything to the contrary has shown through my comments it is my fault entirely. And yes, I am in the book forum and was commenting on the books, but the shows exist and seeped in.

[RoamingRonin]

1 hour ago, Southron Knight said:

I like to pretend that bit never happened.

 

On April 10, 2016 at 10:42 AM, The Fattest Leech said:

My Scooby Doo "rooh" head tilting moment came when Sam encountered the Black Gate. Ya know, the talking ice gate that opens its mouth for you to walk through. 

This seemed to cross the streams from one type of fantasy story to another. 

http://m.westeros.org/index.php/Black_Gate#The_Black_Gate

Why didn't you guys like the black gate? 

[Southron Knight]

3 minutes ago, RoamingRonin said:

 

Why didn't you guys like the black gate? 

I dunno man. It just felt like something out of Harry Potter or something.

[The Fattest Leech]

25 minutes ago, Southron Knight said:

I dunno man. It just felt like something out of Harry Potter or something.

Agreed. This is the only part of the story that really threw me back the most because it was like I crossed into another fantasy for just that page or two. 

[Sigella]

On 15 maj 2016 at 10:58 PM, NutBurz said:

I agree to a certain extent to every point made regarding how slow technological and economical progress is, because apparently they´ve been living like that for many thousands of years, which in our experience is enough to contain all our archeologically documented history.

But when you consider that a) Seasons are so irregular, and that civilizations possibly reach the brink of disappearance during long winters (I don´t know any material outside the series, like the book mentioned in the OP, so I don´t really know if this is even true, but it should be), b ) There have been cataclysmatic events like Valyria; and c) There are highly destructive creatures like dragons, it´s not hard to imagine that they´ve been "pulsing" inside the same level of knowledge between each semi-extinction event.

 

Maybe the story will see everyone dying and the White Walkers winning, like some say, then comes summer and they go back to the north and the planet is empty.

But maybe in a less extreme scenario, the fight consumes most of the living people and known characters, leaving only the most protected by plot armor - of those (say Jon, Arya, Sam, Dany, Sansa, Baelish, Tyrion), how many would be able to preserve and proceed with very advanced knowledge? How many maesters would survive a very very long winter? How many of the best blacksmiths? How many libraries must have been consumed by dragon fire in the history of Westeros.

And while all that also applies to the economy and capitalization of assets in terms of knowledge, in the "last pulse" that we observe in ASOIAF there´s the factor "Iron Bank". We might very well be watching the beginning of a capitalization of the world made by the Iron Bank, since everyone seems to owe them. But depending on what comes with winter, there might be nothing to pay them with, or even people to assume the debt.

I think it´s silly there´s only one big bank, but the thing is: killers like the Faceless Man are silly - if you accept them, the presence of this kind of manifestation of power and the effects it would have on dissuassion, you can very well accept they are the reason why there´s no "competition for credit".

Sorry if I'm quoting you way back... 

I like you're points but I'd put magic as the biggest reason, followed by the long seasons thing. Cataclysms like Valyria and destructive creatures though... Sorry but I have to disagree. Its like blaming it on wars, famines or fluxes. 

On 15 maj 2016 at 2:12 AM, Winter Rose Crown said:

Now tell me you're not a sexist. Lol.

Actually he is both right and wrong. Men and women have the same mean intelligence, but men are over-represented in the abnormally high and abnormally low parts of the IQ scale.

[Lion of the West]

Tyrion's physical feats, athletic in the start and then the fighting. I just can't see Tyrion actually do these things.

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

On 5/22/2016 at 11:34 PM, HairGrowsBack said:

Oh, completely agree with everything you said about the show. Loras and Renly are reduced to their sexuality, and mocked for it. Terrible writing all the way.

I also agree with this. Hollywood seems to be still stuck on a very stereotypical version of all gay men. I actually really wanted more of Renly in the books, and wished he could have lived a little bit longer. His relationship with Stannis and his sexuality both could have been interesting with more time to flesh him out as a character. On the note of the show, they couldn't handle Renly being exactly like Robert basically, just interested in a different gender (and perhaps more arrogant, but Robert was fairly arrogant himself). I would say that Renly was the first massive mistake the show made in writing. However, I don't even watch the show anymore because I stopped caring. I'm just waiting for Winds of Winter at this point. 

[Sourjapes]

On 5/21/2016 at 9:38 AM, NutBurz said:

You´re looking at it the opposite of how it happens. Cultures are created around genetic traits and fenotypes, and not the opposite. It was not the cult for a thin body that led people into being thin, it was the fact more and more important people became thin as diets became more balanced, and such effect led societies into believing thin was good.

And the effect of mass media on genetics needs some hundreds of years of study for any correlation to be measured.

And again, about the peacock, you´re looking at the opposite way. "Think about why a male peacock has such large and useless tail feathers. They certainly didn't evolve for survival." There´s no such thing as evolve for. Things evolve due to. If those feathers are there, it benefited them in some way that not having them wouldn´t. What it was is incredibly hard to distinguish - maybe they show females a correlation with immune system, maybe they look like owls and keep harmful insects away, who knows? Maybe someone does, but it´s certainly not the peacock´s genes. They don´t know anything. They just happen. They can´t choose to evolve into something more beautiful because that´s what females peacock want.

You are arguing semantics here, not an actual point. Genes come first, genes influence what the culture is, but culture can then also influence the genes, which will then influence the culture, and so on. The only benefit a male peacock's feathers serve is that they increase his odds to mate and pass on his genes. It can certainly be pondered how peacock culture got to this point, but it is the culture shaping the genes and thus shaping the culture to shape the genes. The feathers themselves have no real utility.

[Gregor'sBrainTumor]

Fifteen pages of posts and nobody has mentioned Samwell's fat pink mast?

[Lady_of_the_black]

On 3/26/2016 at 4:41 PM, King Merrett I Frey said:

I'm sure there's a lot of tellings in the world book that is taken from rumors about the east. Rumors of rumors. Places and cultures get a lot more erratic further east: Bone Town, cities of the bloodless men, K'Dath and even the Five Forts.

For me, Baelor Breakspear, a crowned prince, risking his life in a trial of seven for a dude that broke his nephew's arm was something bordering the absurd.

That scene horrified me.. It was pretty shocking, and it made me cringe. But I see why baelor did it, he was an honorable guy who knew his brother was a piece of work and was probably in the wrong. No one else was going to volunteer.. But ya, most people aren't so noble. It is a bit hard to believe.

On 4/10/2016 at 10:38 AM, redtree said:

8000 years and there seems to be so little of innovation in technology, health, social standing etc. 
 

And 5 years of winter, oh dear god! Even if people store grain properly they'd still have to survive without veggies and fruits. It's impossible to store those food for more than 6 months

You could ferment, that was a common practice before refrigeration, food can stay good for a long time like that.. And you could eat the animals, but what will they eat? They would all pretty much die without plants.. I think this is why the long night is so terrifying. There isn't much chance of survival. So if the others bring the long winter, then forcing them back behind the wall might end the winter. 

Oh, and you can't survive without veggie and fruits. At least, us humans can't. We need vit c. 

 

I agree with you about the thousands of years that have passed with little innovation, but I think the world has changed a lot. It seems like the non human creatures have disappeared so much, soon they will all be myths. That's the direction planetos has been headed, away from magic. And I think this is because magic needs blood, nobody wants to be sacrificed.

 

Some things that I found hard to believe..

~Winterfell and its walls with hot running water. Water doesn't just flow upward. You would need a pump of some kind.. Unless it gushed out with extreme force, but even then, to run pipes through a whole castle? It would work if winterfell was underground, or downhill from the hot spring. But it was built directly on top of the spring. It doesn't make sense. But it sure sounds like a great place.

~The mountain clansmen in the vale. Although I really like them, they are very silly. It's hard to believe the kingdom has allowed them to survive this long. The wildlings are killed when caught, right? Why do these guys get to steal and murder and no one just wipes them out? 

~ I find it so hard to believe that not one single person in these stories ever even considered that jon snow might be lyanna and rhaegars child. They all seem to know these main things about the rebellion: rhaegar crowned Lyanna at the tourney, rhaegar stole lyanna and raped her, the Starks go to the king to get her back, the king murders them, the rebellion starts, the trident occurs, kings landing is sacked, the tower of joy, lyanna dies and eddard brings home a baby.. come on, it's too obvious. Robert is an idiot. I guess this idea could be false.. But the blue rose growing out of a wall of ice gave it away for me, personally.