What do you think caused Martin to loose his grip on the material?

[Cas Stark]

4 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I've never heard this. Was this in an interview?

On the topic of the texts as a whole, by and large, the best, most longstanding, frequently revered literary works are works that can be read with multiple lenses.  There is the view of the narrative story - the plot, counterplot, climax, and resolution.  But then there are the symbolic, thematic plots. So, what may seem unnecessary to the narrative story - not bad necessarily, but like "I would much rather you cut this out and I would have got the story two years sooner!" unnecessary - are vital to the overall thematic or symbolic plot that the author has in mind.  GRRM's views are war are not secret and I think that is what he is showing in some of the "slow" or "unnecessary" arcs in the story.  Slaver's Bay seems to be a tale in conquering people of whose traditions and customs you know nothing of (years ago, I heard it mentioned that the first Gulf War and then the Iraq war influenced the arc of Slaver's Bay, and I can see how that would apply) The overall theme in the Bay seems to be that there were grave humanitarian injustices that were occurring but was it Dany's place to fix it?
I think the same arc is happening in Dorne with Arianne and Aegon and the set up for Dance of Dragons Part II, Areo and Doran and the overripe blood oranges.  Doran has been so fixated on carefully planned justice and revenge but also saving innocent lives of children.  I, sadly, think that the theme for the Dorne plot is that innocent people suffer and die in war.
And the Others?  They are the mindless warriors that fight without any idea what they are fighting for.
This whole series is sad and somber. The worst part is I have a theory that by the end, the whole series will end with the note of pointlessness - this was all for nothing.  I think it will be revealed that in someway, the Others will eventually return, and I think it is possible for Dany to have a child with another Targaryen (maybe Jon?) and for it to end with the child having the madness.  All of the fighting, all of the deaths, everything everyone fought and gave up and died for...was for nothing.  That is the pointlessness of war in GRRM's view, I think. 

I'm sorry, I kinda went out a rant here.  But I think everyone gets where I was going.  Two plots - narrative and thematic and what seems cool but unnecessary to one is vital to the other.

Yes, but they have to work on all those levels.  A novel, first and foremost, has to work as a novel.  It has to have internal integrity, so, handwaving away the random, meandering bloating that has gone on, because it's relevant to the author's theme, is not something I can agree with.  

This  is O/T, but I hate this plot point with the heat of a thousand suns.  This was just about when I threw up my hands and said to myself "The author has lost it"  Doran has literally done nothing.  Nothing.  He sat on his ass while Vicerys went nuts due to stress and poverty.  He did nothing to undermine Tywin Lannister.  He does nothing at all until he comes up with the hairbrained idea to send his son to marry Dany.  I have to believe that this whole thing is a retcon, and a poor one at that.  Doran Martell is useless.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, Lady Rhodes said:

Hmmm interesting. I will have to review.

Or not quite. Here he says that he wrote five Jon chapters before splitting Feast/Dance, wasn't happy with them and rewrote them.

https://grrm.livejournal.com/3797.html

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Yes, but they have to work on all those levels.  A novel, first and foremost, has to work as a novel.  It has to have internal integrity, so, handwaving away the random, meandering bloating that has gone on, because it's relevant to the author's theme, is not something I can agree with.  

 

Agreed. This is why for example I found Brienne's chapters in AFFC to be mostly unnecessarily.  They aren't badly written, but the people who defend it always bring up  "But it shows the devastation of the Riverlands and the true horrors of war" as a defense.  

My response has always been that we already got that from Arya's chapters in ACOK.  We didn't need another 5 chapters of it.  You can't just meander and ignore plot progression for the sake of "theme", your themes has to work within the confines of you plot and your characters.  Only the last Brienne chapter involved any real plot progression, everything else should have been left on the cutting room floor.

[Cas Stark]

29 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

Agreed. This is why for example I found Brienne's chapters in AFFC to be mostly unnecessarily.  They aren't badly written, but the people who defend it always bring up  "But it shows the devastation of the Riverlands and the true horrors of war" as a defense.  

My response has always been that we already got that from Arya's chapters in ACOK.  We didn't need another 5 chapters of it.  You can't just meander and ignore plot progression for the sake of "theme", your themes has to work within the confines of you plot and your characters.  Only the last Brienne chapter involved any real plot progression, everything else should have been left on the cutting room floor.

I actually don't think the filler is related to Martin's themes.  It's filler.  As you say, Brienne's chapters, 80% didn't tell us anything we didn't know or couldn't have learned elsewhere.  Same with Quentyn.  Arys Oakheart had a single chapter.  Not necessary to any theme or plot whatsoever.  Although I dislike the Dorne stuff, I would hold my judgement on Aegon until we see more, to determine if that particular dead end was worth it or not.  But, in general, the filler is a result of the author...losing control of his material....and either stalling his story to age up the Starks, even though he over stalled there and they aren't even still aged up enough, or because he became bored and disinterested in the main plot or because he hadn't yet decided on how or where the main story was going, or he had a whole new idea on how to expand the story, but lost his mojo, and is now stuck with what he did in the Dance of the Feasting Crows and Dragons, so more running in place, or some other reason. 

[divica]

16 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I actually don't think the filler is related to Martin's themes.  It's filler.  As you say, Brienne's chapters, 80% didn't tell us anything we didn't know or couldn't have learned elsewhere.  Same with Quentyn.  Arys Oakheart had a single chapter.  Not necessary to any theme or plot whatsoever.  Although I dislike the Dorne stuff, I would hold my judgement on Aegon until we see more, to determine if that particular dead end was worth it or not.  But, in general, the filler is a result of the author...losing control of his material....and either stalling his story to age up the Starks, even though he over stalled there and they aren't even still aged up enough, or because he became bored and disinterested in the main plot or because he hadn't yet decided on how or where the main story was going, or he had a whole new idea on how to expand the story, but lost his mojo, and is now stuck with what he did in the Dance of the Feasting Crows and Dragons, so more running in place, or some other reason. 

If you go there nearly the whole books were filler.

If we look north without the chapters about the battle stannis basically did nothing the entire book. He has a whole kingdom to conquer and 1 Wall to fortify and in the whole book he wasn t even able to march to winterfell… Jon is another example. Although in the second half of his chapters a lot of things happened, he basically let the wildlings pass and started to prepare the watch for the others. However he learned nothing about the others, he learned nothing about warging, he learned nothing about wildling history like who the true Giants are, he learned nothing about how to get weapons to fight the others and the watch is still threatned by the weeper!

Then we have danny. What did she do until her penultimate chapter? it could easily be summed in 2 or 3 chapters...

 

When I look at the last 2 books I think george put a pause about progressing the story and wanted to show us how jon, danny, cersei, euron, stannis and doran ruled their domains (mainly the first four). So instead of developing the story he choose to show us diferent styles of ruling and how they affect the regions and how people react to each ruler. And if we pay atention there are several similarities about the problems that the first 4 face in the books.

 

[Cas Stark]

17 hours ago, divica said:

If you go there nearly the whole books were filler.

If we look north without the chapters about the battle stannis basically did nothing the entire book. He has a whole kingdom to conquer and 1 Wall to fortify and in the whole book he wasn t even able to march to winterfell… Jon is another example. Although in the second half of his chapters a lot of things happened, he basically let the wildlings pass and started to prepare the watch for the others. However he learned nothing about the others, he learned nothing about warging, he learned nothing about wildling history like who the true Giants are, he learned nothing about how to get weapons to fight the others and the watch is still threatned by the weeper!

Then we have danny. What did she do until her penultimate chapter? it could easily be summed in 2 or 3 chapters...

 

When I look at the last 2 books I think george put a pause about progressing the story and wanted to show us how jon, danny, cersei, euron, stannis and doran ruled their domains (mainly the first four). So instead of developing the story he choose to show us diferent styles of ruling and how they affect the regions and how people react to each ruler. And if we pay atention there are several similarities about the problems that the first 4 face in the books.

 

I'd say about 30% is total filler, yes. If the filler was cut, Feast and Dance not only would have been the single book they should have been, but there would have been space to end the novel in a better, more coherent manner.

I don't really think the 'pause' is about showing us how those characters rule, it may be about showing us how Jon and Dany rule, but that could have been done in 1/3 less chapters with the same result.  We've known Cersei was bat shit and evil since she had Lady killed, so we don't need to 'see' her rule, although I enjoyed her chapters very much.  Stannis is a dead man walking, so his 'rule' seems a bit beside the point.  I think the Martells are a retcon because there is no way that the Doran Martell who Tywin thought was a worthy adversary would put such a 'plan' as he did into play.  Euron, a cartoon villain, so I don't see any message there really.

The story got away from him for whatever reasons, he brought too many side characters and side plots to the forefront, spent too much time with the main characters stuck in neutral and thus, after 18 years since Storm of Swords, his story has barely moved forward and all the problems he created are not solved, elsewise we would have had Winds out years ago.

 

[Morte]

On 12/17/2018 at 5:49 PM, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

Yes, the problem isn't that Quentyn's chapters or Victarions or Brienne's chapter's are bad.  I think they'd have made interest reads as separate novellas on their own.  But they don't form a coherent narrative arc with the other chapters and all they do is damaging the pacing of the main storyline.. 

I kind of disagree on Brienne here: her and Jaime's travelogues are what made AFFC one of my favourite books in the series. Brienne's journey through the Riverlands is not what makes AFFC/ADWD so problematic, she and Jaime would have worked perfectly fine (and do so, by themselfes), we already have had such "slow" and quite chapters in the past. What was missing in AFFC/ADWD were the dynamic chapters between the quite and slow once - because freaking everybody is waiting for time to pass and other people to do something.

So basically: It's the five year gap again and again.

[sifth]

4 hours ago, Morte said:

I kind of disagree on Brienne here: her and Jaime's travelogues are what made AFFC one of my favourite books in the series. Brienne's journey through the Riverlands is not what makes AFFC/ADWD so problematic, she and Jaime would have worked perfectly fine (and do so, by themselfes), we already have had such "slow" and quite chapters in the past. What was missing in AFFC/ADWD were the dynamic chapters between the quite and slow once - because freaking everybody is waiting for time to pass and other people to do something.

So basically: It's the five year gap again and again.

See I think Brienne and Jamie work very well together, but are both much weaker characters on their own. I honestly love both characters, but unless they're together they both sort of feel like supporting characters. When they travel together it's just magic though and ironically Jamie's trip home is one of my favorite parts of ASOS.

[divica]

4 minutes ago, sifth said:

See I think Brienne and Jamie work very well together, but are both much weaker characters on their own. I honestly love both characters, but unless they're together they both sort of feel like supporting characters. When they travel together it's just magic though and ironically Jamie's trip home is one of my favorite parts of ASOS.

I think jamie can work alone. He has enough conections to the story to make him interesting. On the other hand, brienne is like someone completly neutral without any great ambition of afiliation (besides finding cat's daughters). It sounds completly like a side character! 

[Morte]

12 hours ago, sifth said:

See I think Brienne and Jamie work very well together, but are both much weaker characters on their own. I honestly love both characters, but unless they're together they both sort of feel like supporting characters. When they travel together it's just magic though and ironically Jamie's trip home is one of my favorite parts of ASOS.

Here we have to agree to disagree, I think.

While I do agree that they work even better together then alone, I think their POVs showing the horrors of war just perfectly. Okay, one could argue that there is potential for streamlining in Brienne's arc, say one or two chapters less would be a better pacing (here I blame the editors, that's what they are for, sorry), but Jaime's arc is nicely paced and could not be shortened without losing edge. All IMHO of course.

But maybe we can agree that the two of them are not the mayor problem with AFFC/ADWD, and while not all readers would find them interesting, they would work well alongside more explicit plot-moving chapters. What do you think?

[sifth]

2 hours ago, Morte said:

Here we have to agree to disagree, I think.

While I do agree that they work even better together then alone, I think their POVs showing the horrors of war just perfectly. Okay, one could argue that there is potential for streamlining in Brienne's arc, say one or two chapters less would be a better pacing (here I blame the editors, that's what they are for, sorry), but Jaime's arc is nicely paced and could not be shortened without losing edge. All IMHO of course.

But maybe we can agree that the two of them are not the mayor problem with AFFC/ADWD, and while not all readers would find them interesting, they would work well alongside more explicit plot-moving chapters. What do you think?

See out of the two, Jamie works better alone, I will agree. That being said even Jamie's arc has fat that could have been trimmed. Sure once he reaches Riverrun it becomes interesting, but can you honestly name anything important that Jamie does before getting there? All I can remember him really doing is spinning wheels, about if he should stay loyal to Cirsie or now, occasionally training, revisiting places we've already been to on his way to Riverrun. That's about it. Ohh, and feeling guilty about freeing Tyrion, he certainly does that a lot as well.

[HexMachina]

I love Brienne’s chapters personally but I’ve come round to the fact there were probably too many for the purposes of feast. I think she was necessary as a POV and will be even more so in Winds, but probably a lot of condensing could have been done to tell that story. 

But only if her full journey got a novella of it’s own  I think it was maybe Wert who said something about GRRM and short stories as a medium and imo Brienne’s RL journey makes a great novella. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 12/19/2018 at 10:29 PM, Cas Stark said:

Arys Oakheart had a single chapter.

GRRM said that he considered giving that chapter to Arianne, but didn't want to reveal the Queenmaker plot too early.

[Cas Stark]

12 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

GRRM said that he considered giving that chapter to Arianne, but didn't want to reveal the Queenmaker plot too early.

It's decisions like this that show he lost control of the material and lost perspective....rewriting the Meereen stuff over and over again, when it doens't really matter, I will never be convinced that the sequence of who arrives when in Meereen was worth all that time and stress; and yet, including a random single chapter POV, which just totally throws all pacing and rhythm off., was a decision he stuck with.

[sifth]

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It's decisions like this that show he lost control of the material and lost perspective....rewriting the Meereen stuff over and over again, when it doens't really matter, I will never be convinced that the sequence of who arrives when in Meereen was worth all that time and stress; and yet, including a random single chapter POV, which just totally throws all pacing and rhythm off., was a decision he stuck with.

He's such a weird character to give a POV to as well. Aside from maybe one Sansa chapter in the second book, where he's nice to her and naturally the Tyrion chapter where he's sent to Dorne, I honestly can't remember him doing anything to stand out from the other kingsguard members.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

I've just recently learned that GRRM wrote several versions of the AFFC prologue with different POV's, including Mollander and even Rosey (!). That's just how he writes. So, I don't think the "filler" is meant to be filler.

[Morte]

On 12/22/2018 at 1:25 PM, sifth said:

See out of the two, Jamie works better alone, I will agree. That being said even Jamie's arc has fat that could have been trimmed. Sure once he reaches Riverrun it becomes interesting, but can you honestly name anything important that Jamie does before getting there? All I can remember him really doing is spinning wheels, about if he should stay loyal to Cirsie or now, occasionally training, revisiting places we've already been to on his way to Riverrun. That's about it. Ohh, and feeling guilty about freeing Tyrion, he certainly does that a lot as well.

Coming back to the discussion of filler, because I just read through the first three books again and now am moving through AFFC (again): It's just as  @Cas Stark , you and in fact we all have stated since almost the beginning of this threat: Yes, there is a lot of "filler" in the first three books, including for example a lot of Jaime's and Brienne's travel, but:

1) There are still other plotlines in which things _are_ happening; this does make the more slow movements smoothing and gives them the potential ability to make the passing of time visible. Best examples are Dany's chapters in AGOT and especially ACOK. They give us a feeling for how much time is passing between all the action in the other chapters.

2) This they do because they are quite rare: This is what I realised while reading the books again: The Travelogues are so tiresome now, because there are so many chapters in this style in AFFC and ADWD: Almost all chapters are travelogues now, and the few which aren't also don't lead the plot anywhere, because they are waiting for the people on their way.

So I will stay by my opinion that the now missing five-year-gap made us all witness the characters waiting for GRRM to write things he did only scratch out very poorly while still working with the gap; now without the gap he struggles with all the thing that should have happened offscreen in this five years we are now not jumping forward.

Still like AFFC, but sure would have liked the version with the gap better, me thinks.

[Lady Rhodes]

@Morte Excellent thoughts above.  In an unrelated thread a while back, I said about how the travelogues (great term!) bored me to death (both in the show and in the books) the first go around. I was impatient - get where you are going already!

But in retrospect (and I noticed this more after the pretty abysmal last season of the show, but it applies to the story in both mediums as a whole), those travelogues are where the characters are really formed, where they really grow, where the authentic growth and alliances are formed.  I don't think we would feel as strongly about Jaime and Brienne without their travels throughout Storm (travels that I think were essential to Jaime's transformation!) or Arya's mental space in Feast and Dance without her trials during her travels in Storm.  Through Brienne in Feast, we are seeing the desolation of war that has torn Westeros apart. 

In short, if those scenes were rushed, I don't think the story would feel as authentic and have as much emotional resonance.

Show spoiler below, but one that effectively show my point:

Spoiler

I use Jaime and Brienne because I think the show portrayal is fairly close (not perfect, but fairly close) to that of the book portrayal of their journey.  Their journey is an authentic banter that you see growth in both characters, challenging their biases, and both becoming better people for their time spent with one another. That kind of change cannot be rushed.

Compare that to last season's Jon and Daenerys being thrown together.  I do think they will eventually become allies in the books, but there was absolutely nothing that made the relationship growth seem authentic.  Oh, sure, there were rushed scenes that showed meetings on the outdoor stairs overlooking the ocean, a couple of walks on the beach. Overall, it fell flat.  Scenes I would have liked to have seen: 1. a dinner or meal between them, 2. Her visiting his quarters to see how he was settling in, 3. a discussion about the things that they have lost along the road to where they are now, 4. a discussion about their feelings of war, 5. Dany observing Jon from afar, maybe seeing him write a letter to Sansa, 6. Jon observing Dany from afar, perhaps watching her execute some form of justice.

Just my opinion, but those scenes would have made the season a shit ton better.

 

[Morte]

46 minutes ago, Lady Rhodes said:

But in retrospect (and I noticed this more after the pretty abysmal last season of the show, but it applies to the story in both mediums as a whole), those travelogues are where the characters are really formed, where they really grow, where the authentic growth and alliances are formed.  I don't think we would feel as strongly about Jaime and Brienne without their travels throughout Storm (travels that I think were essential to Jaime's transformation!) or Arya's mental space in Feast and Dance without her trials during her travels in Storm.  Through Brienne in Feast, we are seeing the desolation of war that has torn Westeros apart. 

In short, if those scenes were rushed, I don't think the story would feel as authentic and have as much emotional resonance.

Show spoiler below, but one that effectively show my point:

  Reveal hidden contents

I use Jaime and Brienne because I think the show portrayal is fairly close (not perfect, but fairly close) to that of the book portrayal of their journey.  Their journey is an authentic banter that you see growth in both characters, challenging their biases, and both becoming better people for their time spent with one another. That kind of change cannot be rushed.

Compare that to last season's Jon and Daenerys being thrown together.  I do think they will eventually become allies in the books, but there was absolutely nothing that made the relationship growth seem authentic.  Oh, sure, there were rushed scenes that showed meetings on the outdoor stairs overlooking the ocean, a couple of walks on the beach. Overall, it fell flat.  Scenes I would have liked to have seen: 1. a dinner or meal between them, 2. Her visiting his quarters to see how he was settling in, 3. a discussion about the things that they have lost along the road to where they are now, 4. a discussion about their feelings of war, 5. Dany observing Jon from afar, maybe seeing him write a letter to Sansa, 6. Jon observing Dany from afar, perhaps watching her execute some form of justice.

Just my opinion, but those scenes would have made the season a shit ton better.

 

Exactly! That's why I still do like the Brienne and Jaime chapters in AFFC, just as I like Sam on his journey to and from Bravos, they show how the characters "tick" and their inner growing (Just thinking about the scene Brienne has with the Elder brother, it breaks my heart every time I read it, and (in Spoilers because offtopic):

Spoiler

I know that the chances are good for both of them to die, but if Jaime doesn't at least get his heroic entry in the White Book by the hand of Barristan and a vigil over his corpes, and/or Brienne doesn't get a white cloak I will scream "unfair!"

.

That's why I still think that the problem aren't the travelogues, but more the hold of everything else.

On the Show:
 

Spoiler

 

Yes, you are 100% right. I don't follow the show anymore (not since the second season), but look up some scenes and plots people are talking about. Jon and Dany coming together was completely artificial, no chemistry and no natural growing together as we have seen it in the travels of Brienne and Jaime.

And it does show your point very well, because without the inner thought of all the travelling people their changes wouldn't feel natural, they would feel forced just like the relationship of Jon and Dany in the Show does.

 

 

[sifth]

53 minutes ago, Morte said:

Exactly! That's why I still do like the Brienne and Jaime chapters in AFFC, just as I like Sam on his journey to and from Bravos, they show how the characters "tick" and their inner growing (Just thinking about the scene Brienne has with the Elder brother, it breaks my heart every time I read it, and (in Spoilers because offtopic):

  Hide contents

I know that the chances are good for both of them to die, but if Jaime doesn't at least get his heroic entry in the White Book by the hand of Barristan and a vigil over his corpes, and/or Brienne doesn't get a white cloak I will scream "unfair!"

.

That's why I still think that the problem aren't the travelogues, but more the hold of everything else.

On the Show:
 

  Hide contents

 

Yes, you are 100% right. I don't follow the show anymore (not since the second season), but look up some scenes and plots people are talking about. Jon and Dany coming together was completely artificial, no chemistry and no natural growing together as we have seen it in the travels of Brienne and Jaime.

And it does show your point very well, because without the inner thought of all the travelling people their changes wouldn't feel natural, they would feel forced just like the relationship of Jon and Dany in the Show does.

 

 

I'd say it works better for some characters, than it does for others. I agree with both of you that Jamie and Brienne's travels together are great and you really get to both know and care about both characters as they travel together.

 

All that being said, I wouldn't say Tyrion and Jorah bonded even half as well during their time together. I felt no sense of growth in their relationship at all, aside from the fact that neither one wants the other dead or to suffer. I also have a hard time seeing any growth with Bran and the Reeds. They were good friends with Bran in the second book and the remain good friends in all of the books since. Never once is their friendship tested or made to be more complicated, aside from maaaaaybe Bran's final ADWD character, but that's an if and a maybe at best.