Jump to content

Things you would have changed in the books?


Daenerysthegreat

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

I didn't change anything. Just switched some chapters. Replaced some with some. But the story is the same one Mr Martin wrote. I made zero changes to the plot. 

I wasn't referring to your comment specifically.

2 minutes ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

I agree though I did it with jon instead of these two. The reason are his storyline not setting up any battle. Mel's importance as a character. 

But Jon's storyline is more important than either of the others. Not only is he the guy in charge of defending Westeros from the Others - the biggest and most important threat in the entire series - but he's also overseeing the mass-migration of the wildlings south of the Wall, as well as interfering in Northern politics to try and create a new political order. And all of this is in only one book. It's absolute madness to remove Jon's chapters, and can't be seen as anything else except your own biased personal dislike of the character. Melisandre does nothing of relevance in Dance except replace Mance as Rattleshirt. Jon ignores most of which she says, and even her own interpretations of her visions are wrong. Just because she's a woman doesn't mean she's more important than Jon.

8 minutes ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

I don't agree about the climax thing though. I'm on my re read. I read the sacrifice chapters and it seems like a really good ending to their arcs. Reek becomes theon and leaves his prison. Asha finds her brother. An climax doesn't necessarily require a big bad battle.

Those two specific PoV storylines have a proper conclusion for their book character-arcs, yes, but there are larger and more important things going on than Theon and Asha's personal journeys. The showdown between Stannis and the Boltons is the most important thing to happen in the North thus far in the series, and most of the book was building up to it. It's straight-up bad writing to leave it on a cliffhanger. Martin had never done that before - the first three books all ended with the main conflicts of that specific book being resolved in some way. It's not the battle itself that's important, but the changing political situation that results from it that is.

Despite being extremely long, Dance is simply an unfinished book, as even Martin himself admits. He was not happy about not being able to include the two battles.

13 minutes ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

I removed her chapters after the red wedding. 

I don't have a problem with her Feast and Dance chapters, since there's only five of them, and they contain actually new and interesting things in them that we haven't seen in other PoVs. The same cannot be said for her Clash and Storm chapters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

But Jon's storyline is more important than either of the others. Not only is he the guy in charge of defending Westeros from the Others - the biggest and most important threat in the entire series - but he's also overseeing the mass-migration of the wildlings south of the Wall, as well as interfering in Northern politics to try and create a new political order.

I simply don’t agree with it.His storyline is not important than any others.The others related storyline is centered around bran.His in charge job ends with his death.All of his decisions can be told within 3 pages.His interference in northern politics can also be told from mel’s pov even more efficiently since she has a more personal position with Stannis. Her 1 chapter had more magic than Jon’s entire arc. And stop playing the gender card.
 

 

30 minutes ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

Those two specific PoV storylines have a proper conclusion for their book character-arcs, yes, but there are larger and more important things going on than Theon and Asha's personal journeys. The showdown between Stannis and the Boltons is the most important thing to happen in the North thus far in the series, and most of the book was building up to it. It's straight-up bad writing to leave it on a cliffhanger. Martin had never done that before - the first three books all ended with the main conflicts of that specific book being resolved in some way. It's not the battle itself that's important, but the changing political situation that results from it that is.

Their personal journeys can be read without the battle.The last two books are extremely character driven.The battle is just a background thing for Asha and theon not their main purpose.The battle of Meereen can be argued as the ending but the author realised this and gave the characters endings of their arcs. Barristan arc ends with his deposing hizdahr and becoming hand mand Quentyn arc ends with his death.If the arcs didn’t had an ending the book wouldn’t have been approved .

 

36 minutes ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

I don't have a problem with her Feast and Dance chapters, since there's only five of them, and they contain actually new and interesting things in them that we haven't seen in other PoVs. The same cannot be said for her Clash and Storm chapters.

I was talking about her remaining ASOS chapters as well as the rest.The reason is that it creates a sense of mystery and people would appreciate brienne’s pov more.Also makes the books smaller,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Kinola said:

 

  • Theon’s message from Robb spreads across the Iron Islands and divides them in two. Some families still hate the North and want to seek revenge, while others are tired of the Old Ways and want to improve their lives by joining up with him. 

I LOVE THIS.. we see the Reader and Blacktyde against Baelon's actions but they never did anything about it until the Kingsmoot ! I wonder where Asha and Theon were in such a situation... they both wanted to prove themselves to their father in a way , but her personal vision for Iron Islands is completely different from Baelon and a part of him still wanted to be loyal to Robb..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

The reason are his storyline not setting up any battle.

Nonsense.

The Battle of Winterfell will happen thanks to him: he knows the North better than any PoV of the region and he told Stannis to not trust the Karstarks and go with the Mountain Clans, who are loyal to the Starks and ready to die for their sake. Without him, Stannis' campaign in the North would have ended at Dreadfort.

He is in charge of the Night's Watch, organising the settlement of the Wildings with whom he has spent time, allowed us to discover more deeply the lands beyond the Wall, the Wildlings' societies and more infos about the skinchangers' abilities. You know, many elements of worldbuilding you denied he brought on this post. And of course he is preparing the Night's Watch and Wildlings to face the Others.

Just say you don't like Jon and be done with it, stop messing around with these crappy arguments, you are embarrassing yourself and lead this discussion to be a laughable joke. For the gender card part, this is most likely a reference to your previous posts on other topics, like this one, that one and that other one (non-exhaustive list). Knowing your pattern we can clearly suspect that you are playing that card for your pov's replacements, who happen to be surprisingly women, you are hypocrisy made in flesh and bones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

I simply don’t agree with it.His storyline is not important than any others.The others related storyline is centered around bran.His in charge job ends with his death.All of his decisions can be told within 3 pages.His interference in northern politics can also be told from mel’s pov even more efficiently since she has a more personal position with Stannis. Her 1 chapter had more magic than Jon’s entire arc. And stop playing the gender card.
 

 

Their personal journeys can be read without the battle.The last two books are extremely character driven.The battle is just a background thing for Asha and theon not their main purpose.The battle of Meereen can be argued as the ending but the author realised this and gave the characters endings of their arcs. Barristan arc ends with his deposing hizdahr and becoming hand mand Quentyn arc ends with his death.If the arcs didn’t had an ending the book wouldn’t have been approved .

 

I was talking about her remaining ASOS chapters as well as the rest.The reason is that it creates a sense of mystery and people would appreciate brienne’s pov more.Also makes the books smaller,

I disagree with every single thing you said, and there's really no point arguing around in circles about it, so we'll just leave it at that. We obviously have very different understandings of the books and Martin's intentions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, EggBlue said:

I LOVE THIS.. we see the Reader and Blacktyde against Baelon's actions but they never did anything about it until the Kingsmoot ! I wonder where Asha and Theon were in such a situation... they both wanted to prove themselves to their father in a way , but her personal vision for Iron Islands is completely different from Baelon and a part of him still wanted to be loyal to Robb..

True and add the fact that some of the Lords will want to attack the reach as well and you get a very interesting story. 

As for @William Stark I will not sink down to your level. I would please request you to maintain a civil tone.You are consistently attacking me in every post. I don't like it. 

And @WhatAnArtist!This thread is not about me it's about other things. First of all I never played the gender it's you who thinks I did. And what's my personal preferences to you? 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I want better and more historically grounded Dothraki and Unsullied, a shortened timeline, shrink Westeros but make the Iron Islands larger and give them some damn forests. No Mad Queen, it can be plausible with GRRM's exemplary writing, but I've never liked it. We also need a larger Stark family (not just Starks, though. Practically every house should look like the Tyrells or Lannisters), you can kill the male cousins off and marry the female members off to get rid of them (medieval families were massive, just look at all the Plantagenet descendants). The dynasties lasting thousands of years are implausible and not consistent with real life.....etc. Those are my suggestions. 

49 minutes ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

As for @William Stark I will not sink down to your level. I would please request you to maintain a civil tone.You are consistently attacking me in every post. I don't like it. 

 

He's being blunt with his opinion, he's not jumping on the Personal Insult Train, and I do note that he isn't resorting to calling people immature. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

I want better and more historically grounded Dothraki and Unsullied, a shortened timeline, shrink Westeros but make the Iron Islands larger and give them some damn forests. No Mad Queen, it can be plausible with GRRM's exemplary writing, but I've never liked it. We also need a larger Stark family (not just Starks, though. Practically every house should look like the Tyrells or Lannisters), you can kill the male cousins off and marry the female members off to get rid of them (medieval families were massive, just look at all the Plantagenet descendants). The dynasties lasting thousands of years are implausible and not consistent with real life.....etc. Those are my suggestions. 

I agree with all of your suggestions.the starks should be max 1100 years old

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

The showdown between Stannis and the Boltons is the most important thing to happen in the North thus far in the series, and most of the book was building up to it. It's straight-up bad writing to leave it on a cliffhanger. Martin had never done that before - the first three books all ended with the main conflicts of that specific book being resolved in some way. It's not the battle itself that's important, but the changing political situation that results from it that is.

Despite being extremely long, Dance is simply an unfinished book, as even Martin himself admits. He was not happy about not being able to include the two battles.

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think that the story will ultimately be stronger from Martin's unconventional placement of these battles in his books.

At this point, we've already seen plenty of battles, and we've also seen their consequences. Obviously there will be some excitement for any battle, but it's also in the author's interest to shift the tone on these things, particularly given his story's framing conceit and central themes.

In that respect, I think it's smart to open Act 3 with some big battles that mostly go in the favor of the people we're rooting for, and then the story can shift to the fallout from those battles, and unforeseen factors, which lead us inexorably toward the more pressing cataclysms of the story: the next Dance of the Dragons, the fall of Winter/a second Long Night, and the threat of the Others coming into effect. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Odej said:

Yeah, it wouldn't be a big problem at all.

I would start the first book in 300AC, so Robb and Jon would be 16-17, Dany 15-16, Sansa 13-14, Arya 11-12, Bran 9-10, Rickon 5-6. I would change Joffrey birthdate to 286AC so he and Sansa would be the same age, but I would keep Myrcella and Tommem original birthdate and they would be 9-10 and 8-9 years old respectively.

I also could slow Arya and Sansa's flowering. The age at which girl had her first menstrual period varies.

Ooh that’s a great idea, keeping most of the dates the same, just having the events of AGOT start later. Much easier than my idea about changing all the ages. 
 

We need a hashtag or something. Like I said before, now that we live in a world where the Snyder Cut is real, I no longer believe these things are impossible.

It occurred to me that Sarella was still able to pass as a boy even though she’s well into her teens, so with that in mind, Arya disguising herself as a boy could still work even if she were older.

 I’m wondering now if the ages are part of what’s holding up TWOW. Maybe George is trying to stretch the timeline out more. If Bran ends up in the same place that he did in the show, then it would be really silly if he was still a preteen. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/15/2021 at 3:50 AM, Daenerysthegreat said:

So what does everyone think about my changes to the plot. 

I don't like it.

Well, moving the Jaime and Cersei chapters from Dance into Feast works.

I'm not sure that moving Bran's three chapters from Dance into Storm is a good idea. It just doesn't fit thematically. His first two Dance work well in Feast but that last one works better for Dance

On the note of, removing the POVs of Sansa and Arya....I understand what you are trying to accomplish by removing Sansa and Arya as POV characters.

You want to add to the mystery of the missing Stark girls which would make Brienne's story in A Feast for Crows that much more riveting. It's not a bad idea at all (it's actually a stroke of genius in regards to Arya) and you can pull it off but only if you reinstate them as POVs in the next book--which would be A Dance with Dragons. And once you reincorporate them, you'd have to go back and explain what had happened since the Red Wedding (for Arya) and the Purple Wedding (for Sansa).

Does Arya have too many chapters? In Clash, yes. In Storm, no. Are they repetitive? Yes; I think they would've been better received if Arya wasn't in the same area of the Riverlands the whole time. If they had made it into the Vale (like they did in the TV show) and we had different scenery and different characters then yes...it would've been better.

But you can't kick them out of the story. Their stories are finally taking off.

Removing Jon's story is pure insanity. It's the ice in "A Song of Ice and Fire." It's like trying to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly. I know you don't like him but gosh...

Removing Sam as a POV is also dumb.

I don't see the point in removing him as a POV. POVs don't just tell story, they have their own character development arcs and their chapters/storylines have their own themes that play into the larger story and themes.

On 11/15/2021 at 8:52 AM, EggBlue said:

5- this is what I think Martin should have done with Dorne:

he should have started bringing Dorne to the story when Arys Oakheart and Myrcella moved to Dorne.

Arys would have given us a good view on Dorne through a foreigner's eyes and we could get to know dornish characters and their potential conflicts as early as Clash or SoS. we could see Oberyn and Arianne early on and connect with them in a way that Dorne's feast chapters don't inspire.   

Areo could be a good POV as well, given there was more to him than a camera and he had more than 1-2 chapters. his character could be better developed and as the only former slave POV , his chapters could be extremely interesting to read . it seems he has stayed with Doran instead of going back to Norvos on his own choice so I think we could see who Doran really is through his eyes and why he seems so loyal to Doran. moreover , we could peak through Doran and Oberyn's relationship.

The reason why the Ironborn theater of the story is so much more substantive, popular and connected than the Dornish theater of the story is because we had an established character (Theon was well established in the previous book in the POVs of Bran, Tyrion, Ned and Cat) go to the Iron Islands and interact with a whole new set of characters there BEFORE both that established character and the new set of characters began interacting with the larger plot of Westeros.

Granted, things felt weird by the time we got to A Feast for Crows because we went an entire book (and almost ten years!) without an Ironborn perspective or plotline. But the Iron Islands still felt like a part of Westeros.

But Dorne?

Dorne is very different from the rest of Westeros (more different than the Iron Islands and even the lands beyond the Wall) and there's this strong vibe of separateness that Dorne has from the rest of Westeros. Although the plot and the background history does a good job of explaining why Dorne and its people are so different and isolated, Dorne honestly feels like a completely different country on a completely different continent.

Frankly, Dorne has more in common with the Free Cities and Meereen (!!!)

Spending so much time in Dorne out of nowhere was jarring. Oberyn Martell and all things Dornish were seen and introduced exclusively through the eyes of Tyrion. And as Tyrion had always been more concerned with all things Lannister and King's Landing (not to mention how out-of-the-loop he was in Storm), we didn't get a complete view of Dorne. Additionally, once we met Prince Oberyn, a lot of the stuff he did and the characters he interacted occurred "offscreen."

That's one thing that the TV show did much, much better than the books. The TV show made Oberyn a main character in a big way (both independent of the Lannisters as his own character and as a important addition to the King's Landing cast). This introduced and set up the Dornish plotlines PERFECTLY...too bad it ended disastrously.

Instead of having Oberyn and Ellaria thunder their way onto the scene like they did in the show, in the books we were introduced to Dorne by way of a very forgettable, background character (Arys Oakheart) and a completely new character who, at best, needs a personality transplant (Areo Hotah). And Areo Hotah isn't even from Dorne.

If you wanted to stay with the foreigner POV for the Dornish story (which is as meaningful as it is productive), then I would introduce Areo Hotah as a POV in Storm. As he is a former slave who appeared to enjoy it so much that he stayed with his former mistress' family in a foreign country, his POV would harmonize nicely with the anti-slavery plot found in Dany's POV and the loyalty vs. freedom theme in Jon's POV (we also see that an overabundance of vows and the high expectations that come with that is akin to slavery in Jaime's POV). It also allows us to see Oberyn Martell at home interacting with his family and the Dornish court before we see him interacting with the King's Landing setpieces and characters in Tyrion's POV (another foreigner). We'd also see these things play out in real-time:

  1. Myrcella's arrival in Sunspear and her relationship with Trystane
  2. Arianne's relationships with Arys Oakheart, her father and Quentyn

With Areo Hotah establishing a stronger introduction for Dorne, there's no need for a Arys Oakheart POV. After Prince Doran returns to Sunspear to reestablish order, we could just jump straight in with Arianne.

One thing that I would do differently though about Dorne is keep Quentyn around for the queenmaker plot. I would probably add another layer to it by making it some sort of pissing contest between Quentyn and Arianne. Quentyn would feel that much more unworthy which makes his desperation in the final parts of Dance that much more believable. Because I never understand Quentyn's desperation to take a dragon back to Dorne.

13 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:
  • Have Jon spend more time with the wildlings, ideally before they march on the Wall. Jon's strong sense of sympathy towards them, and the whole faux-conflict of "Oh no, maybe I really am a wildling at heart!" didn't feel particularly earned in the series as it is, since he's only with them for six chapters, half of which are about them preparing to mount an attack on the Wall. I'd even go so far as to say that he should have spent most of the book with them, to really flesh out the wildling society, their culture, and how it changes Jon's attitudes and gets him to question his role in life. Storm of Swords is a very long book, but Jon's storyline feels extremely rushed, especially on rereads. 

Good points.

@Roswell Yeah, I think there was more than enough time for Dany to meet people from the far east (Yi-Ti, Leng, Asshai) when she was in Qarth. I actually dont think Leng is far away from Qarth actually.

There should definitely be more Tullys and Starks though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's too late to try and unpick things and get things back on a slimmer and more direct track but

1. Not split the character arcs in half in AFFC & ADWD.  That would have forced him to focus on his main characters and moving the story forwards not sideways and would have also necessitated

2. Leaving out the new Ironborn / Dornish povs from AFFC onwards altogether, in turn making 1 feasible.  Oberyn comes to KL, no need for Aryanne, Areo Hotah (and his most interesting axe) or Arys; Dany / Barristan can cover Quentyn / Victarion / Aeron in Meereen; Theon can cover Asha too.

3. Remove Tirion's travels through Essos and ship him straight from KL to Meereen.

4. Remove Brienne's fruitless quest in search of Arya

If you do all that

5. You fit the battles of Ice and Fire into ADWD as always intended

Ofc a lot of those chapters and povs are beautifully written and atmospheric if grim (Brienne's rather than Tyrion's journey) but that's the problem: the author wrote some fabulous scenes or had some wonderful characters and backstorys in mind and couldn't bear to leave them out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is very little I would have changed to the books, except maybe add some scenes in the first seasons of the show such as Ned and Jon's farewell, Tywin's discussion with Jaime while he's skinning the stag, Ned seeing Arya and saying Baelor to Yoren to indicate him to get Arya, Theon's scenes where he's really torn up with him writing a letter to Robb to warn him about his father going to backstab him only to burn the letter, Bran asking him if he hated them (the Starks) the whole time and his reaction and his discussion with maester Luwin. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

There is very little I would have changed to the books, except maybe add some scenes in the first seasons of the show such as Ned and Jon's farewell, Tywin's discussion with Jaime while he's skinning the stag, Ned seeing Arya and saying Baelor to Yoren to indicate him to get Arya, Theon's scenes where he's really torn up with him writing a letter to Robb to warn him about his father going to backstab him only to burn the letter, Bran asking him if he hated them (the Starks) the whole time and his reaction and his discussion with maester Luwin. 

I agree with all of this. Takes me back to a time when the writers on the show invented actually good original material that fit in seamlessly with Martin's writing. Although a couple of those examples wouldn't work with the POV structure that Martin uses - like Jaime wasn't a POV in the first book, and it'd be weird to give him only one just for that scene, and Ned's execution was from Arya's POV so we wouldn't see or hear him saying that to Yoren. But yeah other than that these are all very good examples.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

It's too late to try and unpick things and get things back on a slimmer and more direct track but

1. Not split the character arcs in half in AFFC & ADWD.  That would have forced him to focus on his main characters and moving the story forwards not sideways and would have also necessitated

2. Leaving out the new Ironborn / Dornish povs from AFFC onwards altogether, in turn making 1 feasible.  Oberyn comes to KL, no need for Aryanne, Areo Hotah (and his most interesting axe) or Arys; Dany / Barristan can cover Quentyn / Victarion / Aeron in Meereen; Theon can cover Asha too.

3. Remove Tirion's travels through Essos and ship him straight from KL to Meereen.

4. Remove Brienne's fruitless quest in search of Arya

If you do all that

5. You fit the battles of Ice and Fire into ADWD as always intended

Ofc a lot of those chapters and povs are beautifully written and atmospheric if grim (Brienne's rather than Tyrion's journey) but that's the problem: the author wrote some fabulous scenes or had some wonderful characters and backstorys in mind and couldn't bear to leave them out.

I don't know, these are some extreme changes! 

Personally, I don't think it's fair to say that a given plot element serves no purpose when the series is not yet finished. Perhaps GRRM has in fact lost the thread, and by the end, we'll see for sure that a lot of Act Two consisted of padding and pointless cul de sacs. But conversely, those scenes could be set ups for later payoff that we haven't yet seen.

GRRM is certainly someone who likes his big dramatic moments to feel earned rather than simply because the genre demands it. I would argue that Brienne's AFFC chapters are quite important thematically, because they help to establish the author's existentialist attitude about heroism (Regardless of knightly vows, or her purported quest, or even her own self-image, Brienne is a knight because she bravely walks into risk for the sake of those who cannot). But even so, I can imagine those chapters being quite important for informing her later approach to Lady Stoneheart. 

Not to mention quite important for Sansa and Arya's chapters, as Brienne unknowingly walks both of their narrative paths in AFFC. We'll see more of the Mad Mouse and the Gravedigger in the story, yet it was Brienne's chapters that introduced them.

tldr: maybe you're right, and this stuff serves no larger purpose. But we can't really say until the full structure of the story is revealed. It's all in the execution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

It's too late to try and unpick things and get things back on a slimmer and more direct track but

1. Not split the character arcs in half in AFFC & ADWD.  That would have forced him to focus on his main characters and moving the story forwards not sideways and would have also necessitated

2. Leaving out the new Ironborn / Dornish povs from AFFC onwards altogether, in turn making 1 feasible.  Oberyn comes to KL, no need for Aryanne, Areo Hotah (and his most interesting axe) or Arys; Dany / Barristan can cover Quentyn / Victarion / Aeron in Meereen; Theon can cover Asha too.

3. Remove Tirion's travels through Essos and ship him straight from KL to Meereen.

4. Remove Brienne's fruitless quest in search of Arya

If you do all that

5. You fit the battles of Ice and Fire into ADWD as always intended

Ofc a lot of those chapters and povs are beautifully written and atmospheric if grim (Brienne's rather than Tyrion's journey) but that's the problem: the author wrote some fabulous scenes or had some wonderful characters and backstorys in mind and couldn't bear to leave them out.

  1. I would have rather seen the stories get split in half rather than see the characters be split. It was also an incomplete split as characters in Feast had their stories continue and come to a conclusion in Dance whereas the characters exclusive to Dance don't really get the same thing.
  2. I strongly disagree with you on this point. Oberyn dies and is always meant to die. You will need -- at the very least -- Arianne as a POV. Theon is also far removed from the Ironborn story. How is he supposed to cover for Asha and Aeron at the Kingsmoot and in the North with Stannis when he is a prisoner of the Boltons? Theon's story is and always has been about the North.
  3. Not a terrible idea but it's not great writing either. People had a problem with Aegon as it stands. People have a problem with Dorne and the Iron Islands stories even though they are literally a part of the same continent and country as the North, the Riverlands and King's Landing. Having Aegon pop up out of literally nowhere and start wreaking shit would go over very bad. Even if you put Tyrion on a boat headed straight for Meereen, you'd still need chapters written from his POV. He's a major character and a lot happens to him over the course of Dance. His entire personality changes. Plus, we get a better introduction to the Free Cities which will come in handy in the last two books.
  4. What do you do with Brienne? Does she not become a POV? Does Jaime get roped in with Lady Stoneheart by having Brienne just randomly walk up to him and ask him to follow her. That could work but...again, a lot of worldbuilding necessary for the final books is lost. Unless, you just dump it all in Jaime's POV.
  5. Not necessarily. If you put all of the characters and all their stories all in the same book, you don't get both the Battles of Ice and Fire in the same book. There's no way. Unless you want a book that is the same size as the King James Bible.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, BlackLightning said:
  1. I would have rather seen the stories get split in half rather than see the characters be split. It was also an incomplete split as characters in Feast had their stories continue and come to a conclusion in Dance whereas the characters exclusive to Dance don't really get the same thing.
  2. I strongly disagree with you on this point. Oberyn dies and is always meant to die. You will need -- at the very least -- Arianne as a POV. Theon is also far removed from the Ironborn story. How is he supposed to cover for Asha and Aeron at the Kingsmoot and in the North with Stannis when he is a prisoner of the Boltons? Theon's story is and always has been about the North.
  3. Not a terrible idea but it's not great writing either. People had a problem with Aegon as it stands. People have a problem with Dorne and the Iron Islands stories even though they are literally a part of the same continent and country as the North, the Riverlands and King's Landing. Having Aegon pop up out of literally nowhere and start wreaking shit would go over very bad. Even if you put Tyrion on a boat headed straight for Meereen, you'd still need chapters written from his POV. He's a major character and a lot happens to him over the course of Dance. His entire personality changes. Plus, we get a better introduction to the Free Cities which will come in handy in the last two books.
  4. What do you do with Brienne? Does she not become a POV? Does Jaime get roped in with Lady Stoneheart by having Brienne just randomly walk up to him and ask him to follow her. That could work but...again, a lot of worldbuilding necessary for the final books is lost. Unless, you just dump it all in Jaime's POV.
  5. Not necessarily. If you put all of the characters and all their stories all in the same book, you don't get both the Battles of Ice and Fire in the same book. There's no way. Unless you want a book that is the same size as the King James Bible.

 

 

I think the problem is that a lot of people read these books solely for the surface-level plot; the twists, the action, the scheming, etc. They don't have much interest in the slow, subtle worldbuilding and character development. But for me it's those last two things that are the sole reasons why this series is so good. It's what makes it rise above just being an edgy grimdark fantasy series where everyone kills each other. Martin didn't just want to make a fantasy version of the War of the Roses, he wanted to create his own world down to the smallest detail, and he wanted to delve deeply into the pysches of his characters. Martin doesn't approach the series with the mindset of "Okay how do I get from this plot point to that plot point in the most direct, no-nonsense way possible?" If he did, his series would suck. It'd just read like a Wikipedia summary rather than actual literature, and literature is not the same as a screenplay; it's not meant to boil itself down to the bare essentials that are relevant for plot progression. A lot of the time, worldbuilding and character development is the entire raison d'etre for literature, and plot is secondary in importance. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...