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Your Opinions 5: Is GRRM a "bad writer?"


Jaenara Belarys

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17 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Show Sansa’s arc would be that of a villain in most tales, but I think it was bad writing.

Her efforts to destroy Daenerys could have easily handed victory to Cersei or the Others.

She held back information about the Vale knights from Jon, which Sophie Turner said was because she was seeking the credit for victory.  She lied about her aunt’s death, and willingly married the son of the man who murdered her father and brother.  She first wound Jon up about Rickon, before writing him off.  She came close to killing Arya.

But, I think the two D’s thought this was all evidence of growing political subtlety.  They saw Cersei and LF as people to emulate.

As far as coming close to killing Arya, Arya threatened her first.

In Littlefinger's case, GRRM hasn't exactly shown him as not somebody to emulate, given how he's risen to power and keeps gaining more (aside from the whole Jeyne Poole/fArya), making himself indispensable and strangely untouchable. We'll have to wait until the last two books to see his downfall... if we see his downfall.

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I know I'm nitpicking here, but this has been bugging me for a while:

From ASOS:

Quote
My lady is gracious to say so. When has she seen me ride?"
"At the Hand's tourney, don't you remember? You rode a white courser, and your armor was a hundred different kinds of flowers. You gave me a rose. A red rose. You threw white roses to the other girls that day." It made her flush to speak of it. "You said no victory was half as beautiful as me."
Ser Loras gave her a modest smile. "I spoke only a simple truth, that any man with eyes could see."
He doesn't remember, Sansa realized, startled. He is only being kind to me, he doesn't remember me or the rose or any of it.

From AFFC:

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She deserves death. I told Renly that a woman had no place in the Rainbow Guard. She won the mêlée with a trick." "I seem to recall another knight who was fond of tricks. He once rode a mare in heat against a foe mounted on a bad-tempered stallion. What sort of trickery did Brienne use?" Ser Loras flushed.

So Loras clearly remembers participating in the Hand's Tourney and pulling his trick against the Mountain, but doesn't remember giving Sansa the rose at that same tourney. Huh?

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Just now, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I know I'm nitpicking here, but this has been bugging me for a while:

From ASOS:

From AFFC:

So Loras clearly remembers participating in the Hand's Tourney and pulling his trick against the Mountain, but doesn't remember giving Sansa the rose at that very tourney. Huh?

It’s supposed to indicate that women aren’t very interesting to Loras. He takes his knighthood seriously and he’s attracted to men. Women are just kind of background noise.

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4 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

And then the show took the villainous Sansa idea and ran with it in the final season.

And people don't even realize it. Sansa was villainous, Bran evil, and Arya an arsehole. In S8. And I used to love them all (in the show).

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Sansa withholding info about the Vale army was 100% so that the show could try to reenact the Battle of Helm’s Deep (someone made a graphic after it aired showing how they recreated several scenes from the movie). Her saying Rickon was lost was supposed to show that she was accepting the hard truth that Ramsay would never let him live.

Sansa spent all of S7 and 8 trying to keep Jon on his throne. She didn’t protest his crowning despite him stealing her birthright (trueborn daughters come before bastard sons). She didn’t entertain any of the lords’ talk about crowning her instead in S7. When she confided in LF about Arya’s threat, she was worried that the lords would abandon Jon, not her. In the meantime, Jon spent months making googly eyes at Daenerys without so much as a letter, then relinquished the North’s independence without consulting any of the many people who would be affected by this decision. 

In S8, Sansa told Tyrion about Jon’s parentage because she wanted him on the Iron Throne. She also requested a full pardon for Jon after the North declared independence in the finale, indicating that she intended for Jon to resume as king of the North. 

Sansa was butchered by the writers, but I hate this idea that she was trying to undermine Jon. She spent three seasons doing everything she could to help him. 

As for Dany, this is one point I agree with Lindsay Ellis on: D&D were trying to show that Sansa was so smart that she could somehow sense Dany’s impending madness at first glance. They have no concept of subtlety. And when Sansa asked Dany “what about the North?” all Dany really had to do was promise to protect and provide for the northerners as she would the rest of Westeros. But apparently that was too hard. It was a manufactured conflict.

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15 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Sansa withholding info about the Vale army was 100% so that the show could try to reenact the Battle of Helm’s Deep (someone made a graphic after it aired showing how they recreated several scenes from the movie). Her saying Rickon was lost was supposed to show that she was accepting the hard truth that Ramsay would never let him live.

Sansa spent all of S7 and 8 trying to keep Jon on his throne. She didn’t protest his crowning despite him stealing her birthright (trueborn daughters come before bastard sons). She didn’t entertain any of the lords’ talk about crowning her instead in S7. When she confided in LF about Arya’s threat, she was worried that the lords would abandon Jon, not her. In the meantime, Jon spent months making googly eyes at Daenerys without so much as a letter, then relinquished the North’s independence without consulting any of the many people who would be affected by this decision. 

In S8, Sansa told Tyrion about Jon’s parentage because she wanted him on the Iron Throne. She also requested a full pardon for Jon after the North declared independence in the finale, indicating that she intended for Jon to resume as king of the North. 

Sansa was butchered by the writers, but I hate this idea that she was trying to undermine Jon. She spent three seasons doing everything she could to help him. 

As for Dany, this is one point I agree with Lindsay Ellis on: D&D were trying to show that Sansa was so smart that she could somehow sense Dany’s impending madness at first glance. They have no concept of subtlety. And when Sansa asked Dany “what about the North?” all Dany really had to do was promise to protect and provide for the northerners as she would the rest of Westeros. But apparently that was too hard. It was a manufactured conflict.

The problems with the parentage reveal are

(a) that Daenerys had to be killed, or imprisoned, in order to put Jon on the throne. (Imprisonment of a ruler means killing her subsequently).    Which I accept,  Sansa was entirely on board with, but Jon would not have been.   It was none of her business to try to force on Jon a position he did not want, over the corpse of the woman he loved,

(b) Jon might be the one killed in a power struggle.  Daenerys still had her dragon and a substantial army,

(c) once Daenerys was killed or overthrown, Cersei would be handed a huge military advantage.  They would lose the use of her dragon and her soldiers.  Which comes back to @Angel Eyespoint about Too Dumb to Live.

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21 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The problems with the parentage reveal are

(a) that Daenerys had to be killed, or imprisoned, in order to put Jon on the throne. (Imprisonment of a ruler means killing her subsequently).    Which I accept,  Sansa was entirely on board with, but Jon would not have been.   It was none of her business to try to force on Jon a position he did not want, over the corpse of the woman he loved,

Well, this goes back to the point about how Sansa was supposed to be able to sense that Dany was going to eventually go crazy and kill hundreds of thousands of people. It’s just more dumb writing. 

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Back to George as a writer, I don’t want to jump on the hate train, but he looks worse with every new spin-off show announcement. I’m sure he would have finished the books if he was able to, but in a way readers were conned. I do feel a bit foolish for thinking the books will still come out after 11 years.

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1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

As for Dany, this is one point I agree with Lindsay Ellis on: D&D were trying to show that Sansa was so smart that she could somehow sense Dany’s impending madness at first glance. They have no concept of subtlety. And when Sansa asked Dany “what about the North?” all Dany really had to do was promise to protect and provide for the northerners as she would the rest of Westeros. But apparently that was too hard. It was a manufactured conflict.

Or Sansa could have offered Arya assassinate Cersei to leave things open for Daenerys to take over in exchange for the North's independence.

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10 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Back to George as a writer, I don’t want to jump on the hate train, but he looks worse with every new spin-off show announcement. I’m sure he would have finished the books if he was able to, but in a way readers were conned. I do feel a bit foolish for thinking the books will still come out after 11 years.

Yes, I feel much the same way.  I got sucked into the books in 2011, but increasingly think “what was the point?”

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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

It’s supposed to indicate that women aren’t very interesting to Loras. He takes his knighthood seriously and he’s attracted to men. Women are just kind of background noise.

But Sansa is very highborn, her father was Hand at the time. Shouldn't Loras have recognized/remembered her based on that?

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@frenin

 

Quote

What if Bolton never had his sister? This wedding could well be just some ruse to lure Stannis into a trap. Eddard Stark had never had any reason to complain of the Lord of the Dreadfort, so far as Jon knew, but even so he had never trusted him, with his whispery voice and his pale, pale eyes.

Quote

It's certainly impossible to believe that Jon knew his father never trusted the man and therefore they shouldn't while both Robb and Cat were in the dark aout his father's issues with his most powerful vassal lol.

Word.

Not sure Roose was Neds most powerful vassal, nor do I find it impossible for Jon to have been taught something and Robb not, although it is a suspect for sure. (Also not sure why Cat wouldn't be in the dark, she only seemed to get back into politics when Ned left) 

But it's totally possible Robb knew his dad's theory but that was pretty overshadowed by Old Nan's theory 

Quote

"I thought he was going to kill me," Robb confessed. "Did you see the way he threw down Hal, like he was no bigger than Rickon? Gods, I was so scared. And the Greatjon's not the worst of them, only the loudest. Lord Roose never says a word, he only looks at me, and all I can think of is that room they have in the Dreadfort, where the Boltons hang the skins of their enemies."

"That's just one of Old Nan's stories," Bran said. A note of doubt crept into his voice. "Isn't it?"

"I don't know."

 

I don't understand this line of thinking anyway, Roose only reluctantly betrays Robb after his son conquered Robbs kingdom and his father in law guaranteed his death 

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Yes, I feel much the same way.  I got sucked into the books in 2011, but increasingly think “what was the point?”

I think I was also then (in between s1 and 2) 

Idk, I'm kinda frustrated that like, theyre milking the fuck outta this, sure I am!  I saw agot, I read those two encyclopedias, I plan on watching the new show where I already know the story just like I plan on watching the adventures of Jon Snow. I'm sure it'll be terrible, they all are.

But asoiaf is amazing (dunk and eggs ok), obviously it'll be better when it's finished and detrimental when it's not, but I don't think that should take away from what's already written. I mean it's difficult to tell, but I'd bet reading (and re,re, reading) asoiaf changed my life, I think the points already been made.

Although tbh I kinda think more and more what's the point about, well, here. Lol

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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

In S8, Sansa told Tyrion about Jon’s parentage because she wanted him on the Iron Throne. She also requested a full pardon for Jon after the North declared independence in the finale, indicating that she intended for Jon to resume as king of the North. 

I'm not sure why you're defending bad writing if you admit it is.But if u want to make sense of it, Sansa initially wanted complete independence from the 7K, and she ultimately achieved it. That she claimed total independence from Bran as well suggests that she would've wanted it from Jon as well, even more so, if anything, altough there wasnt anything to gain from it.

Sansa was one of my fav characters btw before s8, but she acted like a mother-in-law towards Daenerys. One that wanted his sweet only son not to have anything to do with her.

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2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Yes, I feel much the same way.  I got sucked into the books in 2011, but increasingly think “what was the point?”

Word, it doesn't help that he's still deluding himself into thinking he can finish the books and thus leaving juicier plots he could inish with ease because he doesn't wanna spoiler the books.

We'll never get F&B II

 

59 minutes ago, Hugorfonics said:

Not sure Roose was Neds most powerful vassal, nor do I find it impossible for Jon to have been taught something and Robb not, although it is a suspect for sure. (Also not sure why Cat wouldn't be in the dark, she only seemed to get back into politics when Ned left) 

He certainly seemed so, Jon isn't Ned's heir and future ruler, Jon shouldn't be privy to those sentiments, Robb should.

Cat and Ned shared everything but Jon's parentage ofc and Ned talked about everything with her.

 

 

1 hour ago, Hugorfonics said:

I don't understand this line of thinking anyway, Roose only reluctantly betrays Robb after his son conquered Robbs kingdom and his father in law guaranteed his death 

Eh, he's only ever in a position to do so because Robb's trusts him and gave him half of his army... 

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