Why do people hate essos?

[Lord Lannister]

This seems more akin to "why don't people like what I like?!"

[Lord Lannister]

...

[Phylum of Alexandria]

I for one really like the Essos chapters, and would like more!

I do sometimes wonder, though, if GRRM simply made his story far too ambitious by including so much geographic reach.

I understand that he wants to tackle the notion of global extinction, and thus needs a drama that can span the globe.

Still, it makes the final act so much harder for him to land! So many moving pieces that need to converge, so many arcs and themes to tie up.

[skullscarf]

I don't agree that many people hate Essos. I think a lot of people are very critical of the worldbuilding in Essos. Westeros just feels more richly developed in comparison, so a lot of people are much more invested in the Westerosi characters and plots. More importantly though, a lot of the writing for Essos depends on orientalist stereotypes, particularly the Dothraki. For some people, this can detract from enjoyment of the story...

[BlackLightning]

I think that if Essos had another POV character not named Dany from the very beginning (or at the latest, from the third book) that was independent of Dany and told an engaging story, people would be more open to Essos.

I think Essos feels one-dimensional and one-sided (meaning that we only have had one consistent POV and that's Dany) to most people while Westeros is multidimensional with many different POVs who coexist and play off each other

[WTFSalamiWTF]

Slaver's Bay? Kinda Gay.

[Adam Targaryen]

I hate/don't like the Essos storyline because most things about Essos are super random, chaotic, pointless and/or irrelevant to the story.

Even if everything in Essos was as structured and clear as it is in Westeros, the main story is in Westeros, even for most characters that are currently in Essos. Thus Westeros is intrinsically more important for the story than Essos. Essos is mostly a random, somewhat exciting extra/bonus world, with some fun (or in some cases boring) extra material and events. And it is not as structured as in Westeros either way.

...

Most importantly:

The thing is that Essos largely consists of city states and other political entities instead of kingdoms, and with most city states we don't have a POV of a character belonging to a house/family/political entity in power, and thus the books aren't really that much about who stays in power in Essos. We don't know that much about the royal/lordly/mercantile houses of Essos, and there aren't for example lists of the noble houses, like there is for Westeros. Thus we don't have a good idea of the structure of Essos at all, and just have some random partial glimpses of information from for example Daenerys when she's in Meereen and so forth.

So yeah, if there were like 2 or 3 Essosi POV characters from powerful lordly houses or political parties or mercantile families in Essos, it would be more relevant for the story and we would probably care a bit more. As it is now, Essos seems chaotic, more complex in political structure than Westeros, and in general hard to understand due to lack of information and relevance to the main story. And so forth and so forth...

(We also know that for example the White walkers most likely won't affect Essos, and since we don't really have any POV characters that are actually Essosi and permanently living in Essos, we don't really care about who has power over which Free City either way, unless it's a huge thing like for example Valyrians taking control over the Valyrian Freehold again or the Dothraki conquering even more territories or something like that. So in general, it's kind of like what happens in Essos doesn't really matter that much, and in general, Essos seems like a sort of exciting playing ground for Westerosi exiles, sellswords and general mysterious characters with secret identities to roam about in, whereas the Essosi people themselves live their ordinary lives and just go on like they always have.)

And also: I just realized something very important: We don't have the POV/experience of a normal, somewhat influential Essosi family's life. Almost all the characters in Essos that we encounter are somewhat "sterile" or rootless people: sellswords, whores, random poor people and slaves, political and religious leaders, and so forth. Essos lacks the family life and love which we have in the Stark family from the very beginning of "A Game of Thrones", which makes one care about the story in the first place. Sure, one could care about other things too, but I do think that this is a very important aspect which makes Essos not seem like a real place, and just like either a war zone or a huge market place; not an actual world where families and dynasties grow up and live, like for example with House Stark and the other families in Westeros.

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Thus, if one were to make Essos a greater and more relevant/interesting/emotional part of the story, I would suggest one would for example:

Have ca 2 - 3 or more Essosi POV characters that are powerful political leaders and/or lords/princes/princesses/something from powerful Essosi families, just like the Westeros lords and ladies' POVs. Make us see and understand the Essosi politics from the inside, with the traditions and religions and family structure and scheming and everything like that, just like in Westeros.

Make some commoner Essosi characters like Yandry and Ysilla POV characters and then show both their simple family life and also the great political events they happen to witness while trying to live their daily lives, more in-depth lore about the land and for example Rhoynish culture and customs and prophecies, which would make one care more about them, and so forth and so forth.

[Lucia Targaryen]

I don't think people hate Essos it's just that they want Daenerys to get to Westeros. Remember that the first book was published in 1996 so that's 26 years of her saying that she's going to take back the Iron Throne and... she hasn't even left yet...

[Jaenara Belarys]

4 hours ago, Lucia Targaryen said:

I don't think people hate Essos it's just that they want Daenerys to get to Westeros. Remember that the first book was published in 1996 so that's 26 years of her saying that she's going to take back the Iron Throne and... she hasn't even left yet...

Plus, the characters in Essos simply are not as interesting as those in Westeros. It's in Westeros (probably) that the fight against the Others will take place, and if anything, it feels like Dany will spend most of TWOW in Essos, since GRRM needs to tie up the threads and character arcs....which seems like it'll take a lot of time, Dothraki and slavery and all. 

[Rondo]

On 10/26/2021 at 6:52 AM, Daenerysthegreat said:

I really don't understand why people hate essos and it's plotlines, especially meereen. They are well developed and created. All of the meereenese are complex characters.

People seem to have a problem with their names. I agree that the names sound strange but so do names like Jaime, bran, robb etc. 

People love Essos.  The Dany chapters are my favorites in the series.  I love the Dothraki, the dragons, and ofcourse, Dany.  The people of Slaver's Bay are as evil as humans can get but I suppose that adds to the atmosphere.  

[Mithras]

Because it's a mess.

[Moiraine Sedai]

On 10/26/2021 at 11:59 AM, Moiraine Sedai said:

We love the eastern plot lines. You are assuming things that are simply not true. The best POVs are in Essos. Daenerys and her dragons are in Essos. Those are the POVs that I look forward to reading. I suffer Sansa’s and Jon’s chapters to get to the next Daenerys chapter.  

Let me repost my past reply.

The events in Essos and everything around Daenerys are favorite parts of the novels for me.  I started to like Tyrion after he left the seven kingdoms. 

[Hoffa]

I love the essos chapters. Seeing Dany  descend in to the Mad Queen is glorious!

[Falcon2909]

I love Essos. Dany's journey from the free cities -> Dothraki Sea -> Qarth -> Astapor was amazing. But Yunkai and Mereen bored me. I think cus she stayed too long there

[Son of Man]

I love the stories in Essos.  Except for Arya's. 

Dany, Barristan, Missandei, Skahaz, (even Quentin) are all good point of view chapters for me.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Apoplexy]

I like reading about Essos. But I can see why people don't like it. It seems like world building for the sake of world building, without it having much to do with the story because Dany will eventually leave Essos. Also, its Dany centric. If someone don't like Dany, there isn't much to like about Essos for them.

[Aldarion]

On 10/26/2021 at 12:52 PM, Daenerysthegreat said:

I really don't understand why people hate essos and it's plotlines, especially meereen. They are well developed and created. All of the meereenese are complex characters.

People seem to have a problem with their names. I agree that the names sound strange but so do names like Jaime, bran, robb etc. 

Because the entire thing reads like a carricature. Unlike his characters, Martin's worldbuilding was never very realistic. But Westeros you can at least pretend that it makes sense. Essos? No way in hell. The entire thing, especially the Slaver's Bay, is worse than modernist art. Slaver Bay's societies are completely unsustainable, and exist entirely to be Daenerys' punching bag.

And this is true from the storytelling perspective. Again, Essos is there simply to be Daenerys' punching bag before she lands in Westeros out of literal nowhere. Main story always was in Westeros; the only thing of interest in Essos is Daenerys herself (and I for one didn't find her very interesting until Barristan arrived). Essos has less relevance than Walder Frey's pinky finger.

It is an afterthought, and it shows.

[Raven Princling]

Personally, I love the Essos, but I think it suffers from a lock of POV so we end up meeting the cultures only from Dany's point of view (others as well, but that comes later).

What ends up happening is that the Eastern cultures become very shallow. Especially Slaver's Bay. Astapor in aSoS was almost like a caricature- comically evil without any moral grayness to it (compared to Westeros at least). Sometimes Essos just feels like a plot device for Daenerys' conquest, I guess. And if that is the reason why people dislike it, I completely understand. Plus there is also the fact that many just want Daenerys to finally set sail to Westeros.

I almost wish Daenerys had a POV companion/adviser from Essos who also knows it's cultures.  Such insight could have provided more depth.

[Damsel in Distress]

On 10/26/2021 at 6:52 AM, Daenerysthegreat said:

I really don't understand why people hate essos and it's plotlines, especially meereen. They are well developed and created. All of the meereenese are complex characters.

People seem to have a problem with their names. I agree that the names sound strange but so do names like Jaime, bran, robb etc. 

The people you refer to are probably do not like Dany.  We all have different tastes, I suppose.  I hate the plotlines in the North because I don't like Jon.  I prefer the plotlines in Essos over those in Westeros because Dany is my favorite of the characters.  Wherever she goes is the center of the story for me and it is the parts of the books which will get most of my attention. 

[Lissasalayaya]

The fans have always preferred Westeros to Essos. It's partly by design. I mean, the story does begin in Westeros, after all, and it spends most of its time there. And the story is written by a western man for a majorly western audience. The continents themselves, like most fantasy worlds, heavily draw from the shape of continents in the real world. There are two giant landmasses east and west, separated by a bunch of water in the middle. As in the real world, that configuration explains much of the cultural differences seen between eastern and western countries. The geological distance reduces cross-cultural interactions by making them more difficult, coslty, and, for most of history, impossible.

More strange to me is the expectation that a majorly western audience of a western story by a western author would be as interested in the happenings of Essos as in those of Westeros. GRRM seems to be using that tendency in us to great effect. See how easy we label an entire region of people as evil beyond redemption or understanding based on cultural differences? It's a stark contrast to the individualist and context-sensitive way we tend to approach matters of right and wrong for Westerosi characters in Westeros.