Tropes Used by GRRM

[Corvo the Crow]

6 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

IIRC aDoS hasn't been published yet.

Would not be the only one he didn't invert I'd think.

[SeanF]

Tropes are the tricks of the trade.  You can't write a novel without tropes.

[Craving Peaches]

I really don't like subverting tropes just for the sake of it. I don't see anything wrong with not subverting tropes. I think if they are subverted there should be a reason beyond being 'different'. The books usually do this well but there are some moments where I think maybe tropes are just being subverted too much for the sake of it.

[Angel Eyes]

2 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I really don't like subverting tropes just for the sake of it. I don't see anything wrong with not subverting tropes. I think if they are subverted there should be a reason beyond being 'different'. The books usually do this well but there are some moments where I think maybe tropes are just being subverted too much for the sake of it.

Well, Quentyn's story is one long subversion of The Hero's Journey for example.

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, Angel Eyes said:

Well, Quentyn's story is one long subversion of The Hero's Journey for example.

I'm waiting to see the full purpose of that one but if it was subversion just for the sake of it then I think it is a waste of pages.

[sweetsunray]

33 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I'm waiting to see the full purpose of that one but if it was subversion just for the sake of it then I think it is a waste of pages.

It was an effective use to show us the aftermath of Astapor.

[the trees have eyes]

On 3/11/2023 at 8:55 PM, Nevets said:

I myself am not even sure exactly what a trope is or how it differs from traditional storytelling techniques or simply common practices.

And much of what I mentioned is either subverted or necessary.  The hidden prince is hidden not only from the characters, but from most readers as well.  The highborn maiden is tired of being marriage bait and is forging her own path.  Which might be a trope itself, though if so, then practically anything is.

And things like characters from the elite are necessary for a story about political maneuvering and the struggle for power.  And if you are modelling your setting on medieval Europe, feudalism is probably a requirement.  Plus, it helps add conflict.

The fact is, there's only so many stories you can tell.  It's how you tell them that matters.

Yeah, I remember reading the Mary Sue / Gary Stu discussions on this forum with regards to Dany / Jon a few years ago and thinking both how tenuous and misplaced it was but also how "tropes" is so vague that it really just says to the reader if you recognise this as a writing technique, character development or plot arc that is similar to anything you have read before then it's a trope.  People occasionally pop up to say that ASOIAF is inspired by / a rip off of fantasy series "X" precisely because of these similarities and "tropes".

At best all I could see was standard writing techniques that are common to story telling coupled with some fantasy genre-specific elements (heroes and villains, magic and monsters, princes and peasants) woven by the author into the story he wanted to tell.

He certainly plays with these ideas but without them you don't really have a story of any kind.  GRRM's two characteristics for me are

1) his praise for Faulkner and comment about the human heart in conflict being the only thing worth writing about which gives us his signature themes of love vs duty, honour vs obligation, explored in detail in the situations characters find themselves in; and

2) the gotcha moment or rug pull, which is all about setting up an expectation and then subverting it and which he most notably referenced by saying in interview that he set Ned up to look like he would save Robert / The Kingdom so he knew he had to kill him and that he then set Robb up to look like he would avenge Ned so he knew he had to kill him too.

Often you think you know where the story or a character is going only to find you were wrong.  How well it's done and where it leads to is what matters, not whether we can stick a label on the plot or the story as a way of criticising or diminishing the writing which seems what the OP is fishing for.

[Angel Eyes]

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Yeah, I remember reading the Mary Sue / Gary Stu discussions on this forum with regards to Dany / Jon a few years ago and thinking both how tenuous and misplaced it was but also how "tropes" is so vague that it really just says to the reader if you recognise this as a writing technique, character development or plot arc that is similar to anything you have read before then it's a trope.  People occasionally pop up to say that ASOIAF is inspired by / a rip off of fantasy series "X" precisely because of these similarities and "tropes".

At best all I could see was standard writing techniques that are common to story telling coupled with some fantasy genre-specific elements (heroes and villains, magic and monsters, princes and peasants) woven by the author into the story he wanted to tell.

Granted, some of GRRM's plot points are because he takes issue with how they're portrayed in other works, namely Gandalf's death and resurrection which is why you have all these characters coming back but not themselves (Beric, Lady Stoneheart, wights).

[Seams]

On 3/11/2023 at 1:39 PM, Corvo the Crow said:

GRRM seems to be using a whole lot of tropes. What are some you have noticed?

Not sure this is what you are looking for, but I like to notice and to imagine what will happen with the original archetypes GRRM has created for his world; how they have/will come into play for characters in the current generation:

• The Butcher King
• The Shrouded Lord
• The Rat Cook
• milk brothers
• wet nurses
• murderous twins (Erryk and Arryk Cargill, for instance)
• the kingmaker
• fireball (someone already questioned the purpose of Quentyn Martell's arc, above. I recommend reading up on Quentyn Ball and his "son," Glendon Flowers). 
• The Maiden Made of Light
• The Titan of Braavos
• The Sea Lord
• The Bear and the Maiden Fair (credit to @sweetsunray for teaching me about this one)
• The Dornishman's Wife
• mummers
• cutpurses
• stable boys
• millers
• cooks
• maimed singers
• The King's Justice
• handmaidens
• Alchemists / Wisdoms
• fool knights
• the grieving mother
• the innkeeper's family
• hedge knights
• mystery knights
• The Weeper
• vanished uncles
• children as monsters or abominations
• Black Pearl of Braavos
• eunuchs
• the legitimized bastard
• Mountain Clans
• woods witches
• second sons
• champions (in trial-by-combat)
• tourney winners
• Clarence Crabb
• people who die in trees
• people who eat eggs

There are many more, of course. And I'm looking at characters, primarily, not at things such as the Iron Throne, the Sea Stone Chair or trebuchets, lanterns, lemon trees, red doors, burning (or otherwise damaged and lost) books, rusted armor, specific foods and sigils.

Some strike me as completely original, others are borrowed from literature or pop culture but are used in original ways. For instance, he has said that he was influenced by the novel Ivanhoe, in which a king is disguised as a mystery knight. That doesn't seem like a trope, to me, because it's not a metaphor. It is a literary figure or type, perhaps, that GRRM borrows and makes his own. 

Some I haven't figured out yet. I'll give you a figurative groat if you can fully explain the function and meaning of stable boys to me. Why did Dunk mistake Egg for a stable boy on their first meeting? Why was Arya's first kill a stable boy? Why does a stable boy leer at Sansa's too-small dress just before she is outfitted for a new one for her surprise wedding? Is Mya Stone a stable boy? Hodor is a stable boy and the catspaw hides in the stable at Winterfell.

GRRM has also taken pieces from world history or mythology and done some original things. Instead of one Isis, Osiris and Horus, what if there are several? Instead of a Celtic person being reborn in a person from his own family line, what if a person could be reborn in other ways? Instead of the warrior hero receiving a sword from the Lady of the Lake, what if the hero and the lady are both in the lake (or bath) and both receive swords?

I find GRRM's storytelling endlessly fascinating. No shortcomings, as far as I am concerned. I'm glad there are thousands of other readers, critics and viewers who agree with me. 

[sifth]

On 3/12/2023 at 9:26 AM, sweetsunray said:

It was an effective use to show us the aftermath of Astapor.

Yea, but did we need to see it?

[Sandy Clegg]

On 3/16/2023 at 8:36 PM, Seams said:

Why did Dunk mistake Egg for a stable boy on their first meeting? Why was Arya's first kill a stable boy?

Sometimes you  have to go with your gut with these things.

The most obvious reference to stables = horses

The most obvious connection to horses = Dothraki

The  most obvious combination of this: Dothraki + boy + egg = Rhaego symbolism

[Seams]

On 4/5/2023 at 5:21 AM, Sandy Clegg said:

Sometimes you  have to go with your gut with these things.

The most obvious reference to stables = horses

The most obvious connection to horses = Dothraki

The  most obvious combination of this: Dothraki + boy + egg = Rhaego symbolism

It's possible.

But I would question the assumption that the Dothraki are the most obvious connection to horses.

Ned, Arya and Jon are supposed to have horse faces. Lyanna also. And uncle Brandon and Lyanna were "half horse," according to Barbrey Dustin. The sigil of her family (Ryswell) is a horse head and she gives horses to people. So you could build a case that these horse-like or horse-connected people are part of the equation.

We would also need to determine whether the stable boys are aspects of the horse symbolism, or in opposition to it: do they somehow confine horses, or do they nurture and empower horses.

At some point, I think this forum discussed the pattern of major characters ingesting horse flesh at turning points in their stories: the direwolf Summer eats horse flesh just before Bran emerges from the Winterfell crypt; Jon Snow eats oats with horse blood before Qhorin takes him through the mountain tunnel; Dany eats the horse heart to impress the Dosh Khaleen. 

Or there could be wordplay at work in the stable boy code:

"Where do whores go?" could be wordplay on "horse."

There could be rhyming wordplay on stable and table. We know that tables are important: look at Moon Boy and Butterbumps climbing onto tables and Tyrion going under a table at Joffrey's wedding feast; or look at Stannis at the table map of Westeros; Jaime at the shield-shaped table in the White Sword Tower; etc.

But the name Bael is super important in ASOIAF and GRRM hides it in various characters. We are pretty sure we know that the singer named Abel is really Mance Rayder. The alias helps us to understand that he is acting in a Bael capacity at Winterfell. Prince Baelor of the Dunk & Egg era and Petyr Baelish are probably also part of the Bael symbolism. But then there are characters such as Alebelly (a guard assigned to Bran) and possible Bella, one of Robert's daughters, as well as numerous others with hidden Bael possibilities. Could the "stable boy" characters be part of the Bael motif? 

If "stable" and "table" are part of the Bael motif, do they also relate to "sable" fur that is worn by key characters?

And this doesn't even begin to examine other wordplay possibilities for "stable boy" as an anagram. 

Now that I've written this, I think I'd lean toward the Bael possibility. A stable boy leers at Sansa's maturing female form but Arya's first kill is a stable boy. Neither Stark sister has a positive association with stable boys, if these two momentary contacts are any indication. But their interactions are very different, and that seems consistent with the complexity of the Bael the Bard legend; perhaps even indicative of the different endings in the tale as it is told beyond the wall or south of the wall. Sometimes you kill a stable boy; sometimes you get a new dress that better covers your cleavage. 

[Aebram]

I'm another one who is somewhat unclear about the definition of a trope. So I looked up a few online -- definitions, that is, not tropes. There was some diversity, but the one at MichelleHazenBooks.com seemed to best fit this discussion:

"A trope is a tried and true story element that people like, and nearly every story has one or several. A cliché just means something has been used too much. It’s often just a line or a way of saying things, and isn’t necessarily a story type. The only thing they share is they are both commonly used in fiction. An expertly-applied trope can strengthen any story, whereas clichés only weaken anything."

This is somewhat subjective; who decides when a story element has crossed the line between popular and overused?  But with that in mind, here are a few story elements that I think qualify.

• The entire story arc: ultimate battle of Good versus Evil, ancient prophecies of a hero, fate of the world hanging in the balance.
•  John and Sam as the Hero and the Scapegoat. The hero protects the scapegoat, who becomes his sidekick and supporter, and eventually rises to do some heroic deed of his own.  
•  Sansa and Arya as the Quarreling Sisers. One is "good" and obedient, but somewhat passive in her approach to life. The other is "bad" and rebellious, but has a much more interesting story line .... But if we ever read a chapter where they are thrown into some common peril, and they must overcome their differences and work together to escape, then I might think it had crossed the line to become a cliché.

[Sandy Clegg]

7 hours ago, Seams said:

There could be rhyming wordplay on stable and table.

You often find great wordplay gems @Seams - in fact I have a post inspired by your Pennytree / Neep entry idea. But connections like this seem a little too ‘loose’ if you get my meaning? Too many things rhyme with ‘able’ in English so using it as a basis for connections is fraught with danger.   I think the stable boy stuff has to be around horses or horse-keepers so I agree with the horse flesh ideas being relevant. Problem is horses are kind of everywhere in these books so they probably serve a multitude of symbolic purposes.