Raff the Sweetling Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Your right, heaven forbid an author take some liberties with arrow distance in a fantasy novel. And if your "getting annoyed" that people say "its a fantasy novel-what do you expect" than your reading the wrong genre. I guess I just dont understand why these trivial issues bother people. Magic is acceptable, dragons are acceptable, shapeshifting, greendreams, the living dead, mammoths, giants, wights, others, and a girl that stands in fire to hatch dragon eggs, but shooting an arrow, or the size of a building, or how far someones voice carries is unacceptable. Whatever guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_BlauerDragon Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Very funny, shooting 600 feet across flat land is not quite the same as shooting 600 feet upwards. Shooting 600 feet upwards would require a exit velocity of 6270 feet per second. That is pretty fast. (By comparison, the muzzle velocity of the AK-47 is barely a third of that) Wow, I guess it's a good thing that they weren't using AK-47s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lee1026 Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 By far the easiest answer that I can give you for that is that we want for the sizes to actually mean something as opposed to a simple really, really big. For example, by the way that people interact with it, it would be reasonable for the wall to be about 50-100 ft tall (tops). (they regularly shoot arrows up it, they can actually climb up and down it, and the such. (800 feet is roughly the height of a very tall sky scraper. Anyone who can so much as walk up the thing in a few hours deserves a medal) By throwing around numbers and then not following though with them, Martin have effectively made them meaningless. A writer who makes part of his writing meaningless is making a mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerold Hightower Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 800 feet is roughly the height of a very tall sky scraper. Anyone who can so much as walk up the thing in a few hours deserves a medal) Everybody in halfway decent shape can do it. A kilometre still isn't a big deal. People do it all the time. Normal people, no special training. The Wall is impossibly high. Martin has admitted it. He took artistic license there. A structure of ice that high would melt at its base under the pressure of its own weight. The arrow shooting has been discussed before. I think it's not utterly unrealistic at least. The "it's all fake, who cares" attitude is why 99 percent of Fantasy is such junk. An author can take liberties, but they have to do it sparingly or the story just isn't credible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lee1026 Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Where in the world did they find the kilometer tall building to climb? After all, climbing up the wall would be about as pleasant as climbing up a modern skyscaper using stairs. Not a very fun exercise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazzlebane Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 People are climbing this every single summer day. 1000 feet, vertical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lee1026 Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 However, each participant would be very tired by the end of the climb, and they would be in very weak shape to actually fight when they are up there. Of course, the people climbing El Capitan usually are not bringing very heavy loads of gravel with them either. (I know that they lift it up with wrenches, but it will still require a massive expansion of energy, and by extension, manpower, and the night's watch seems short of all of these things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerold Hightower Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Obviously there's no 1 km high building, but there are mountain ranges and people hike there. Not climbing stairs but the height difference is there all the same and the locals go up there for picknick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lee1026 Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 is there a one KM difference bewteen the base and the top? Because if there is, we are talking mount everest scaled mountains here. (the actual mount everest only sits about 2 to 3 KM taller then its base) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HP Loveshaft Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 I usually do the Grouse Grind twice a year, and that's 2800 feet. People can do it pretty quickly too, the record is 26 minutes or so. Length of Grouse Grind: 2.9 km (1.8 miles) Grouse Grind elevation gain: 853 metres (2,800 feet) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 s far as the language thing, how many people use Nuncle other than Asha or Greyjoys for that matter who are only featured in AFFC.That would be all the Lannisters. Well, it's basically anyone in AFFC who has an uncle. It's quite annoying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerold Hightower Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 I have done some hiking in the Black Forest. It's not as steep there as the Grouse Grind. The distance you walk is about ten times the height difference as the path zig-zags up the slope. That way 1km height difference (it really is that much) takes two hours without breathing hard. It's the conditions, not the height difference, that makes the Mt. Everest hard to climb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimmer Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 As far as the language thing, how many people use Nuncle other than Asha or Greyjoys for that matter who are only featured in AFFC. Someone posted it a couple of pages back; there were characters from the first three books who suddenly started saying it too, like Jaime. Your right, heaven forbid an author take some liberties with arrow distance in a fantasy novel. And if your "getting annoyed" that people say "its a fantasy novel-what do you expect" than your reading the wrong genre. I guess I just dont understand why these trivial issues bother people. Well he was just refuting the facts that you brought out first, the horizontal vs. vertical distance. You can't use real-life physics for your side of the argument then get all huffy when he tells you your facts are wrong We're all obviously huge fans of the series or we wouldn't be here; this thread's just about small things that bother us slightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerold Hightower Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Very funny, shooting 600 feet across flat land is not quite the same as shooting 600 feet upwards. Shooting 600 feet upwards would require a exit velocity of 6270 feet per second. That is pretty fast. (By comparison, the muzzle velocity of the AK-47 is barely a third of that) To reach a distance of 600 ft the arrow would have to reach a considerable height, too. Your exit velocity seems way too large, BTW. I get 63 m/s for a vertical shot reaching 200m, not counting aerodynamic drag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Someone posted it a couple of pages back; there were characters from the first three books who suddenly started saying it too, like Jaime. I'm not sure Jaime 'suddenly' starts saying it - I don't remember him referring to his uncle at all in the first three books. You'd need to find an example of him using the two different words in a similar context for this to be true. Generally, 'nuncle' seems to be used in AFFC as a rather ironic indication of supposed familial affection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Jon Snow Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 That would be all the Lannisters. Well, it's basically anyone in AFFC who has an uncle. It's quite annoying. The people who use nuncle are all from the Westerlands and the Iron Isles (which is also in the West) No one who used nuncle in AFFC had used uncle prior to AFFC and the people we have seen prior to AFFC that used uncle didn't suddenly change. The change in term has more to do with the change in focus of the books. As the focus has shifted away from the north, new dialects have crept in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Other-in-law Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 On the heads on spikes on tall walls, it's been done at the Red Keep which is described as having a 70-80 foot drop_to the inside_ (thus, possibly a bit more to the outside, since the castle is at the top of a hill), and Harrenhal, which is at least in the 150' range, half again as high as Winterfell and Storm's End. However there's no indication that anyone can recognise these heads, since they've been dipped in tar in both cases. Sansa can't even recognise Ned's head from the short distance that she view's it from the top of traitor's walk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fionwe1987 Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 I love Martin and aSoIaF, but he is far from perfect. What I find the worst is the lack of happy moments in the books. I hate it when books arfe all googy goody and happy-endingy, but Martin takes it to the other extreme. I know, a civil war is on, people are dying, etc, etc. That doesn't mean there won't be at least some happiness. Another complaint is that I find the world-building lack-lusture. Sure, its adequate, but you don't have the thrill of entering a new world. Its way too similar to our world, magic being the only major difference. The Wall is great, though. The so called "grit and reality". I never really got this. Grit and reality can be present in a book without overdone descriptions of violence, rape, incest, etc. Tell us a person was raped, rather than making us read through the sordid details of it. Not describing the event in detail is hardly going to reduce the sympathy for the victim. While the dialogue and introspection are brilliant, its odd that some very young children think so deeply and have such an advanced vocabulary. Prophecy: I don't mind prophecy, and I don't mind saviors of the world. But I find it really objectionable that the savior (Dany) has no clue that she is supposed to save the world, but still does a lot of stuff that is necessary to this end. Its like the savior being given the crucial weapon to kill the enemy and then being told its his job to kill the enemy. I don't like it. Magic: I loved it when there was very little magic in the first books, it was great. But the sudden increase in the amount of magic is irritating and also quite cheap. Martin can now introduce any bit of magic he likes and no one can claim it is unbelievable. While I hope he won't do this, there is a good chance he will. And do we need to know how Cersei used to lick off Robert's semen?? Or a lot of gross things mentioned in the books? But all these fade when I read the books, which is Martin's greatest strength. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guarneri Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Do we need to know how she licked off his semen? No. It's called character development, and strengthens the tone of sex that is rather strong in her character. These 'gross' details also add reality, since, guess what: sex is a huge part of society and life. That's not a flaw on Martin's part, it's just that you overreact to things you haven't accepted as a natural part of life. People lick sperm, deal with it. People get raped, and hurt. Bad shit happens in life, if you exclude that from writing you exclude a huge part of reality. It's the 'gross' things in SoIF that make it so real. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lee1026 Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 To reach a distance of 600 ft the arrow would have to reach a considerable height, too. Your exit velocity seems way too large, BTW. I get 63 m/s for a vertical shot reaching 200m, not counting aerodynamic drag. Probably made a mistake in the calculations somewhere. Lets see: y=1/2*g*t^2 y=600 600=1/2*g*t^2 1200=g*t^2 37.2=t^2 t=6.123 v=t*g v=195 ft/s Yeah, I made a pretty bad mistake there. I think I multiplied somewhere when I should have divided. However, if you are shooting horizentally and you can get that kind of speed, then you should be able to shoot v^2/g feet, or about 1188 feet, which is completely out of the scope of the medival bowmen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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