ServantOnIce Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Now Jon is favourite character and love his POV chapters but assuming his survival from the 'Ides of Marsh', how does his character not become the cliché of this series. By that I mean he's likely a secret Targaryen Prince/King while also having a few little things go his way through the series. Now is it that because of how unorthodox this series has become that we expect it to not have clichéd characters or is that It's just what needs to happen for the story to be given a resolute ending eg: Hero riding in and slaying the bad guys.Yes, let his death stay authentic. He's dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggs Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 @butterbumps: Are there really so many stock characters? Jon is pretty much a stock fantasy lead but i cant think of any more major characters who are as cookie cutter except maybe the lannisters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggs Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 sorry, my bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordBloodraven Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Every character is a cliché and so is Jon. Let him be the cliché and rule over Westeros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Tippy Wolfsbane Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Personally, I prefer to read a fantasy with a 'traditional' fantasy character, especially when that fantasy can be as depressing as ASOIAF. Jon is the light in the darkness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic 8 Ball Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Or... Jon comes back and succumbs to Targ madness, and becomes the Night's King, while Stannis, everybody's favorite candidate for NK has to take him out. Then Stannis succumbs in a suicidal battle with The Others "come and git me ya bastards" (ok, so everybody saw that one coming) - then Mance emerges from the ensuing power vacuum to sit the Iron Throne, albeit in a near-pyrrhic victory.... but perhaps he's just become a puppet of other forces (Other?) - with no concrete answers.That would work. I guess there are still more potential endings than the "Bad Tatto Ending", with Dany flying in wearing bikini armor on the back of fire breathing dragon to save the day. Maybe she could be Princess Lea to Mance's Jabba the Hutt.OK, that was just misogynist and wrong, I apologize. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkantos Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 To be honest, Christ himself is a stereotype, he was made that way to appeal to people from all walks of life. He's so much like other ancient gods/heroes/demigods that it's a joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic 8 Ball Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 To be honest, Christ himself is a stereotype, he was made that way to appeal to people from all walks of life. He's so much like other ancient gods/heroes/demigods that it's a joke.So why throw Jon onto the Mithras/Dionysus pile as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theda Baratheon Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I think it's all very well and good to chuck around words like cliche, but what really is cliche? Someone could call any possible ending of any character cliche in the end and at the end of the day you've just got to go along with the fiction, respect its internal logic and not be afraid to appreciate a character arc similar to something you've read before because most stories (especially fantasy) adhere to certain stereotypes and cliches, but what GRRM does is he bends these and moulds these into something not-quite-cliche and whatever he does with Jon I'm sure he'll make it worthy of his character and worthy of the series as a whole. Goodness knows how long GRRM has had these characters lying around in his head, they must be like old friends; he will (hopefully) give every character an ending that makes sense for who they are (even if it was completely unexpected). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winds of Winter blow cold Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 What isn't a cliche really? You will find something done any way with any character somewhere else in some form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterbumps! Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 @butterbumps: Are there really so many stock characters? Jon is pretty much a stock fantasy lead but i cant think of any more major characters who are as cookie cutter except maybe the lannisters.Not really; I tried explaining how Jon's arc doesn't quite follow the structure of previous iterations of the same vague trope or stock.Calling Jon a "cliche" for his arc fitting roughly into structures that have already been used is sort of like calling a skyscraper "cliche" because the basic structure has already been done. The thing about Martin's work, to me, isn't about subverting tropes or cliches. It's about telling a new story with new characters, made fresh by the incredible amount of development and detail in the story. Yes, there are structural parallels in all of these character's arcs to previous myths and stories, but Martin is getting very in depth at telling their tales. All of these details and developments make these characters so much more than a cursory designation of "stock" or "cliche" can do justice to. All of this development and character building makes them something new, and abstracting them holistically as tropes or cliches rather misses the richness of what's actually going on in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic 8 Ball Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Jon warging Hodor and swimming to the Summer Islands, saying "screw these losers, I'm going somewhere hot and getting my freak on" while the Others ransack Westeros, before it is revealed that Ned got Jon upon a fishwife, while Dany dies of an infection resulting from impacted wisdom teeth, and Stannis renounces violence to go to Asshai and become a mystical hermit, while Aegon is revealed to be the real deal but an ineffectual leader..Now there is a non-cliche ending. Not really a good one though..It's a great one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggs Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 The hero always has to struggle to come out on type. I think the only thing really groundbreaking that grrm has done is the massive scale of the setbacks he gives them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggs Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 how do you delete posts? >.> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theda Baratheon Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I agree with butterbumps! It is very unfair to discredit all the time and effort GRRM has put into this finely weaved wonderful masterpiece of a world. Each character is well developed and each character makes sense. They may grow and develop just as human beings do in real life but none of the characters have really done anything that doesn't make sense to me as a reader. These do not feel like words on paper to me, these feel like human beings that I know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkantos Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 So why throw Jon onto the Mithras/Dionysus pile as well?Why not? These stories are a part of humanity, you can't just toss them aside because they first appeared a few thousand years ago.Every story with humans is unoriginal, it's all happened in real life, you can throw in magic & monsters, but they're just replacing technology and dick heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theda Baratheon Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Why not? These stories are a part of humanity, you can't just toss them aside because they first appeared a few thousand years ago.Every story with humans is unoriginal, it's all happened in real life, you can throw in magic & monsters, but their just replacing technology and dick heads.I definitely agree; ancient mythology says a lot to me about humanity in general and what we value and what we forsake, ect, ect. Those stories were created for reasons and whatever has come before and come first will be followed by other words it has inspired. I hope this makes sense, it's 2 in the morning here and I'm a bit blehgh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggs Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 @butterbumps: i dont actually think Jon's story is all that cliche. I agree that the plot and world of ASOIAF are too damn big and well developed to pick out one thread and say 'Ive seen this before'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naathi Prince Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Jon is a bastard tho, which will prevent him from ever becoming a full on hero hero. Because of his bastardy, men will always resent him, just like bloodraven. Some men, smart men, know that Bloodraven ruled the realm and did it well. Other men, foolish men or those educated by such think he's an evil wizard. Jon, even if he becomes King of the Wildlings, King in the North, King of Winter, and Emperor of Westeros will still be slandered and hated by the multitude of Ser Alliser Thorne's, Janos Slynt's, and even the non-evil basically good Catelyn Tullys. An isn't that the point? Very few heroes get universal love and acclaim, like Aragorn. Real world heroes are often hated and despised for their heroic actions, like the Lord Hightower who was ripped to shreds by the mob in Oldtown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Djinn Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Well, there's a cliche to pretty much anything, so how can he avoid it? Of all the traits that Jon got during the story, the one that bothers the more is, oddly, Longclaw(it's House Mormont valyrian steel sword, but Jeor just gives it to a non-Mormont?). If only Tywin had know that the Mormonts don't value that sword as much as the other Houses, he could have replaced Brightroar years ago.Let's see: the girl(ygritte) is a average wilding girl he hooks up while undercover, the rank(LC of NW) is gained by a lack of sutible candidates, the ancestry(half-Targ, half-Stark) add a certain intrige to Ned's actions, the magical pet(Ghost) it's a given for all Starks of his generation. He a good warrior but far from the best, he slightly above average looking but no sex-symbol, not wealthy, common skillset for the context(highborn bastard), smart without being genius, good morals but capable of faults.All in all, he has a above the average traits without being among the best in any(still, the sword thing annoys me). Compared to Bloodraven, Jon is pretty non-cliche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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