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Heresy 227 and the Great Turtle


Black Crow

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10 hours ago, JNR said:

In other words, first he planned in 2011 to spoil ASOIAF in a D&E story... then months later, he realized he didn't want to spoil ASOIAF... so in 2012 he decided D&D were definitely going to beat him to the end of ASOIAF... and then for years after that, he blatantly and repeatedly lied to the public, claiming that he was stiill going to beat D&D, even though he knew he couldn't possibly beat them.

Yeah, I've got my doubts.

Ah, I see, we basically agree. I think he really wants to finish ASOIAF (is seriously interested in being finished) but is in some sort of denial about his power to do so based on current trends.

But he isn't serious about execution of his plan. His decisions don't lead to that outcome by anything resembling a seriously logical path.

Yes. I'm sure he wants to finish, he just doesn't act like it. At all.

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1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I think the reason why it’s taking GRRM so long to complete Winds is because of the way he’s writing it.

Beginning with Feast he started inserting titled chapters, which I believe tell two stories with one hidden among parallels, metaphors, and symbolism. And apparently it’s a feature that he intends to continue if The Foresaken is any indication. It must be insanely difficult to write this way! Ironic too, because deciphering the chapters is similar to interpreting flames! You may see a young girl fleeing a marriage on a dying horse, but is she Jon’s sister? Oh wait, she isn’t the sister he was expecting, but she’s still a relative and also fleeing a forced marriage... 

The provided example was of course Melisandre’s vision and it materialized when Alys Karstark arrived at the Wall. There are multiple prophets in the story - not just Melisandre - there’s Patchface and the woods witch too, but GRRM has provided the means for the reader to also become a prophet should you decide to study the titled chapters.

You can, of course, read and enjoy the series without interpreting the hidden story, but you’re missing out on a fuller explanation of historic events and how it applies to the current story, as well as a fuller understanding of what Bloodraven has been up to, and what he’s training Bran to do.

The repetitive nature of history is the mechanism that demonstrates that “time” is being manipulated to “undo” past “wrongs”. The knowledge that history repeats and having the foresight to capitalize on that fact, is in itself a kind of power. Mankind has the tendency to repeat the same mistakes generation after generation. It’s truly the definition of insanity to keep doing the same things and then to expect a different outcome.

What Bloodraven has done was to make a slight correction in alignment so that the historic events happen to different people. Did he know that Dany would still hatch her dragon eggs thereby breaking the wheel, and send history careening into reverse? I think he did. Leaf’s words to Bran indicate that they know what the future holds.

His biggest reason for delay is the fact that he has spent the vast majority of these 8 1/2 years not writing anything at all...and when he has sat down to write it's often been something other than TWOW. I bet he hasn't spent more than 18 months (out of over 100 months) actually in front of his ancient computer writing TWOW. 

Oddly it's been over 2 years since his publishers wanted him to split Winds. Which most likely means he had enough material to publish over 2 years ago...what in the world is the delay now? It's taken over 2 years to edit it down? If so he would have been better off publishing it as two books and moving on to writing ADOS.

I don't agree with how you interpret the books, therefore I don't agree that is the delay. He hasn't spent enough time writing TWOW to flesh out all these complexities we know exist, gardener style meaning nearly every change means at least a minor rewrite of several chapters, to also be secretly filling in every chapter with stuff like "Well this line in an Arya Braavos chapter means Robert truly did love Lyanna."

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34 minutes ago, Lord Aegon The Compromiser said:

"Well this line in an Arya Braavos chapter means Robert truly did love Lyanna."

Actually, the parallels, metaphors, and symbolism suggest that Robert was a smiling, bloody horror, but I won’t waste my breath rehashing something that I’ve already pointed out several times before.

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1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Actually, the parallels, metaphors, and symbolism suggest that Robert was a smiling, bloody horror, but I won’t waste my breath rehashing something that I’ve already pointed out several times before.

Regardless, I think what I listed better explains the delay. Especially the part where he has spent a severe minority of the 8 1/2 years actually sitting down and writing TWOW. 

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On 11/8/2019 at 6:55 PM, JNR said:

Maybe, but here's why I think not:

1. GRRM was planning to do another Dunk and Egg novella -- "She-Wolves of Winterfell" -- in 2011 for an anthology called Dangerous Women.

Then all of a sudden... he dropped it completely.   And instead Dangerous Women featured.... wait for it... fake Targ history (PatQ). He's never written "She-Wolves" in the eight years since then, either.

That's a pretty blatant shift from canon to non-canon, and it happened around 2012-2013, which is also when the show was clearly doing pretty well.

2. Fire and Blood, like the novellas, is not canon. It's just a maester writing what GRRM calls "fake history."   The maester wasn't there and hence is not a POV, such as we find in the actual canon.

HBO can use the two volumes as a rough guide to do a Targy show, but it isn't really written in literal dialogue and Hollywoodian scenes that involve different perspectives, as the true canon is.  

That makes it an even uglier transition to HBO than the canon.  The writers will have to fill in even more blanks, guess even more often, and they are bound to get it obviously and ludicrously wrong even more than D&D did.  (I just have to laugh at that concept.)

3. Finally, GRRM doing two volumes of Fire and Blood is just... crazy. 

I can't think of any plausible explanation for him to generate so much intensely boring content, at the direct expense of time he might have spent writing ASOIAF and D&E, except to cut deals with HBO.

It's almost as if the author, unable to finish his magnum opus, is making bloody sure no one else is going to be able to construct a cohesive narrative or provide a satisfying ending either!  It's the revenge of the 'death of the author', acting 'beyond the grave'...

"Those are the Stones of the Silent God, and there the entrance to the Patternmaker's Maze. Only those who learn to walk it properly will ever find their way to wisdom, the priests of the Pattern say."

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13 hours ago, Lord Aegon The Compromiser said:

Yes. I'm sure he wants to finish, he just doesn't act like it. At all.

With the obvious caveat: We just don't know what he's really done, because his output is sitting on a hard drive only he can access.

He is still, despite all the blown deadlines, a remarkably skillful writer who's spent 8+ years on this thing, and while that's excessive, there do also seem to be signs that he's nearing the finish line. 

I really wouldn't be shocked to find myself having read TWOW by this time next year... which if true, would mean he has been acting at least somewhat serious about finishing ASOIAF.  We just couldn't watch that process and didn't know.

But if we are told at any point that he needs eight books, that will be... a bad sign.  He clearly wants all these books to be gigantic, that's been the plan since before he finished AGOT, and we can all do the math.

9 hours ago, alienarea said:

Why can't you accept that GRRM is more interested in making money and getting adored at conventions than finishing a story that is out of control?

Is he still adored at conventions if ten more years float by and no new ASOIAF novels come out? 

Or is the fan perception... not exactly positive? Because instead, all that came out were crappy HBO prequels he could have shut down, and Fire and Blood volume II, which is best known for its soporific properties? 

I think he cares a great deal about his legacy, and believes he can finish, and very much wants to finish.  I'm just not sure it will happen.

He's like a NFL coach who sees things have not worked out well in the first half, and badly needs to make adjustments to do better in the second half. Coaches who fail to see the need or point of such adjustments and just shrug at halfime, instead of getting busy, are not well regarded by serious football fans (such as GRRM).

If he makes the right adjustments, he can still win, but if he keeps saying things like "I'm just not that kind of writer," well...

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2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

It's almost as if the author, unable to finish his magnum opus, is making bloody sure no one else is going to be able to construct a cohesive narrative or provide a satisfying ending either!

Well, that's always been his position, in fact. Either he finishes or we're screwed.

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

"Those are the Stones of the Silent God, and there the entrance to the Patternmaker's Maze. Only those who learn to walk it properly will ever find their way to wisdom, the priests of the Pattern say."

This is a very apt ASOIAF quote because it's an homage to Roger Zelazny's Amber series... which was unfortunately continued after Roger died, against his explicit and known wishes.

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For a bit of light relief have a chuckle over this nonsense - which is quite typical of the stuff thrown up by Google News

https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1202397/Game-of-Thrones-Jon-Snow-dead-Winds-of-Winter-Stark-George-RR-Martin-direwolf-interview

For the Ribbit [sorry Reddit] crowd GRRM's quoting Lord Eddard's advice that the lone wolf dies but the pack survives has been completely turned on its head to look for clues about which Stark dies next, rather than GRRM telling us that the currently scattered family is going to survive and perhaps even prosper only by coming together again

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9 hours ago, JNR said:

With the obvious caveat: We just don't know what he's really done, because his output is sitting on a hard drive only he can access.

He is still, despite all the blown deadlines, a remarkably skillful writer who's spent 8+ years on this thing, and while that's excessive, there do also seem to be signs that he's nearing the finish line. 

I really wouldn't be shocked to find myself having read TWOW by this time next year... which if true, would mean he has been acting at least somewhat serious about finishing ASOIAF.  We just couldn't watch that process and didn't know.

But if we are told at any point that he needs eight books, that will be... a bad sign.  He clearly wants all these books to be gigantic, that's been the plan since before he finished AGOT, and we can all do the math.

Is he still adored at conventions if ten more years float by and no new ASOIAF novels come out? 

Or is the fan perception... not exactly positive? Because instead, all that came out were crappy HBO prequels he could have shut down, and Fire and Blood volume II, which is best known for its soporific properties? 

I think he cares a great deal about his legacy, and believes he can finish, and very much wants to finish.  I'm just not sure it will happen.

He's like a NFL coach who sees things have not worked out well in the first half, and badly needs to make adjustments to do better in the second half. Coaches who fail to see the need or point of such adjustments and just shrug at halfime, instead of getting busy, are not well regarded by serious football fans (such as GRRM).

If he makes the right adjustments, he can still win, but if he keeps saying things like "I'm just not that kind of writer," well...

True. We don't know how much he has written, yet hasn't released yet. But we do know pretty much how much time of the 8 1/2 years he could have spent on writing TWOW. Because we know when he travels and that he doesn't write while traveling. We know he didn't write at all for the first 12-18 months after delivering ADWD. We know he didn't write at all this October. I'm not sure how much time it actually is when added up, but that time would also include things like his theatre, editing Wild Cards and writing other things other than TWOW. It doesn't leave much time to have actually been writing TWOW. 

GRRM is an incredibly talented writer. I only agree he doesn't finish an 8-9 book series because it will likely take him 15+ years to finish because he refuses to just sit down and write. He prefers to travel and do other things. If he'd actually sit down and write, he absolutely could still finish even if it goes to 8-9 books because he can get back to finishing them in 2-3 years instead of ever increasing gaps. 5 years, 6 years and now 8 1/2+ years.

I do believe him that we will be reading TWOW by the Summer. But to finish ASOIAF he needs to get more serious than a book every 5-9 years. Because I don't agree he can finish in 7 books.

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23 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

For a bit of light relief have a chuckle over this nonsense - which is quite typical of the stuff thrown up by Google News

https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1202397/Game-of-Thrones-Jon-Snow-dead-Winds-of-Winter-Stark-George-RR-Martin-direwolf-interview

For the Ribbit [sorry Reddit] crowd GRRM's quoting Lord Eddard's advice that the lone wolf dies but the pack survives has been completely turned on its head to look for clues about which Stark dies next, rather than GRRM telling us that the currently scattered family is going to survive and perhaps even prosper only by coming together again

The clickbait articles can be good for the LOLz once in awhile.

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11 hours ago, JNR said:

With the obvious caveat: We just don't know what he's really done, because his output is sitting on a hard drive only he can access.

Quote

All work and no play makes George a dull boy... All work and no play makes George a dull boy... All work and no play makes George a dull boy...

 

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13 hours ago, Black Crow said:

For a bit of light relief have a chuckle over this nonsense - which is quite typical of the stuff thrown up by Google News

https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1202397/Game-of-Thrones-Jon-Snow-dead-Winds-of-Winter-Stark-George-RR-Martin-direwolf-interview

For the Ribbit [sorry Reddit] crowd GRRM's quoting Lord Eddard's advice that the lone wolf dies but the pack survives has been completely turned on its head to look for clues about which Stark dies next, rather than GRRM telling us that the currently scattered family is going to survive and perhaps even prosper only by coming together again

I so hate that rag.

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I came across a curious reference to the story of the Rat Cook in Roman literature.  It seems that this story is inspired by the old roman story by Seneca about the brothers King Thyestes and King Atreus.  Thyestes kills Atreus sons,  has them baked into a pie and served to their father.  Shakespeare uses the story in Titus Andronicus:

Quote

Titus' revenge may also have been influenced by Seneca's play Thyestes, written in the first century AD. In the mythology of Thyestes, which is the basis for Seneca's play, Thyestes, son of Pelops, King of Pisa, who, along with his brother Atreus, was exiled by Pelops for the murder of their half-brother, Chrysippus. They take up refuge in Mycenae and soon ascend to co-inhabit the throne. However, each becomes jealous of the other, and Thyestes tricks Atreus into electing him as the sole king. Determined to re-attain the throne, Atreus enlists the aid of Zeus and Hermes, and has Thyestes banished from Mycenae. Atreus subsequently discovers that his wife, Aerope, had been having an affair with Thyestes, and he vows revenge. He asks Thyestes to return to Mycenae with his family, telling him that all past animosities are forgotten. However, when Thyestes returns, Atreus secretly kills Thyestes' sons, Pelopia and Aegisthus. He cuts off their hands and heads, and cooks the rest of their bodies in a pie. At a reconciliatory feast, Atreus serves Thyestes the pie in which his sons have been baked. As Thyestes finishes his meal, Atreus produces the hands and heads, revealing to the horrified Thyestes what he has done.[12]   

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

The crime of kinslaying is a repeat of the original sin of their ancestor. Their house is cursed by the furies:

http://sites.middlebury.edu/feastsandfestivals/files/2015/09/seneca-thyestes.pdf

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19 hours ago, Black Crow said:

have a chuckle over this nonsense

Yeah, it's wacky stuff -- in particular this:

Quote

fans are still sharing various theories about the show’s ending and whether author George RR Martin is going to change many plot points when he releases his next book Winds of Winter in the A Song of Ice and Fire series

It's not GRRM changing things.  He's just doing the same things he always planned.

It was D&D not even knowing things, and guessing, and doing an exceptionally poor job of it. 

Media people almost invariably get this wrong... the most notorious instance being that hilarious Vox piece that interviewed the admins of various fan sites when "the show confirmed" Jon's parentage.  The confident assumption being that of course GRRM told D&D everything, answered all their questions, because he's just such an open sort of guy who loves to share his plans for future books.

I got such a laugh out of that -- it was so bad, I wonder if they'll delete it later, to save face.

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On 9/16/2019 at 10:53 AM, Black Crow said:

In looking at the influences acting on GRRM, I still hold that the single most important factor is that he is a child of the Cold War; of a seemingly endless struggle between light and darkness, of mutual assured destruction and above all the Wall.

Its difficult 30 years on to convey the centrality of “The Wall”, especially to those of us who actually watched on the Wall, or at least dug in and waited for the Others to come bursting through.

In the end of course there was no Apocalypse Now and the Others never came crashing through the Wall. Tellingly perhaps the Others officially designated the Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier, but in reality, far from protecting their realms of men it was a structure of great evil and its fall wasn’t the disaster so direly predicted, but on the contrary the fall of the Wall heralded the land once again becoming one.

This is why I have argued and still hold that exactly the same thing is going to happen with GRRM’s Wall and that the conflicts are going to be resolved not by mythical heroes drawing burning swords from stones and slaying monsters, but by the fall of the Wall.

How, specifically, do you see this playing out in Book? 

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