AFFC/ADWD Hate?

[total1402]

Oh I know. I mean it reminds me of a really old book I read called Fire Warrior where we get a POV who lists all the campaigns he was in, his backstory, all neatly described, right before the main character shoots him in the back on the next page...

[King in the North Carolina]

I agree that the pacing has slowed, as well it should. It's just a necessary part of storytelling.

I used to wrestle professionally, and one of the most common mistakes inexperienced colleagues would make would be to just race through all their coolest-looking moves rapid-fire. It'd be a nonstop barrage of acrobatic flips and whatnot for the first five minutes of the match, and the audience would somehow be bored. The better veteran performers might tease the audience with a little cool stuff early, then slow things way down. The pace doesn't pick back up until the audience is desperate for it to do so.

GRRM knows his craft. Slowing things down is essential after the roller coaster that is ASOS.

[A Man Has Said]

ADWD was easily the most frustrating book of the series for me. I'm still a bit disappointed by AFFC, but I definitely wouldn't mind re-reading it. It has it's moments. What's really frustrating about ADWD is that Theon and Jon's chapters show that GRRM still has it in him to write utterly compelling character arcs, but this potential remains wasted in ADWD. Rather than focusing on plot and character development, we get unwanted backstories of characters like the Tattered Prince and overly excessive descriptions of food and clothing.

As someone else remarked, ADwD often reads like a travelogue. And the two books together approach 2,000 pages in hardcover without there really being an ending.

The one thing I really liked about the two books taken together was the prologue and epilogue of AFfC, with the Alchemist, Marwyn, Sam and the whole Oldtown/Citadel thing being introduced. I was SO immensely disappointed that that line wasn't taken up in ADwD!!

But as I said before, and I want to say as strongly as I possibly can - my disappointment wasn't with either the writing or the content in either book or the two of them as one big extended volume - it was what wasn't there. By which I mean my favourite characters and the development of situations that were still hanging at the end of ASoS.

[total1402]

I agree that the pacing has slowed, as well it should. It's just a necessary part of storytelling.

I used to wrestle professionally, and one of the most common mistakes inexperienced colleagues would make would be to just race through all their coolest-looking moves rapid-fire. It'd be a nonstop barrage of acrobatic flips and whatnot for the first five minutes of the match, and the audience would somehow be bored. The better veteran performers might tease the audience with a little cool stuff early, then slow things way down. The pace doesn't pick back up until the audience is desperate for it to do so.

GRRM knows his craft. Slowing things down is essential after the roller coaster that is ASOS.

You don't spend 14-17 years to slow things down (5 for AFFC, 6 for ADWD, likely the same for WoW). Nor dedicate two whole books which amount to a third of your series. AGOT and ACOK had things happen even though they led up to ASOS. The plot doesn't just slow down, there simply isn't a plot in ADWD for most of the novel; nothing happens until close to the very end.

Not only that, but if this is about balance, hes only going to end up doing exactly what you said about too much stuff going on in the dance routine because the man claims he can do three seperate battles and all the resolutions for ADWD in the first few chapters. Then he needs to hurry up building up whatever he has in store as the finale to WoW. IMO this is a set up to be anti-climactic.

[Jasta11]

I agree that the pacing has slowed, as well it should. It's just a necessary part of storytelling.

I used to wrestle professionally, and one of the most common mistakes inexperienced colleagues would make would be to just race through all their coolest-looking moves rapid-fire. It'd be a nonstop barrage of acrobatic flips and whatnot for the first five minutes of the match, and the audience would somehow be bored. The better veteran performers might tease the audience with a little cool stuff early, then slow things way down. The pace doesn't pick back up until the audience is desperate for it to do so.

GRRM knows his craft. Slowing things down is essential after the roller coaster that is ASOS.

Maybe, but quitting the fifth book just as the proverbial rollercoaster is finally, finally picking up speed is just cruel. I'm OK with leaving some plotlines with cliffhangers (Stannis, Jon, King's Landing) but Dance should definitely have untied the Mereenese Knot. As of now we'll be lucky if that plotline is anywhere near resolved by Winds, since he still has all those Tyrion POVs to jam in now.

He could really have cut one or two other Dany chapters and not make Quentyn/Victarion POVs (seriously, these two are wastes of space as far as I'm concerned) and he would have had 4-5 chapters free, more than enough to resolve the battles.

[Angmar]

The two books are hit and miss. AFFC is slow, but it offers you new insight into new parts of Westeros that we hadn't seen previously (Dorne and the Iron Islands- aside from Theon's chapters on Pyke in ACOK), and when compared to ASOS, it has a very slow, calm pacing? After all the emotional rollercoaster that was ASOS it was like the series needed a pause.

ADWD is one where I feel more new events are forming and will end by the book 6, they're slowly rising (the Meereen war, the North, fake Aegon...)

Okay- many main characters and players of the game died, the war stopped, Westeros is slowly recovering from all that happened in Clash and Storm.

I do agree many parts were tedious though (Brienne's journey, Cersei's schemes, Tyrion's attempts to get near Daenerys), but other parts are fantastic. Theon's story, Arya's, the Wall...

[Toxspecific]

Well, neither did ASoS and that book rocks.

It had plenty other stuff to make up for the lack.

[Toxspecific]

And buzzkill is a sin.

We lose loads of major characters in ASOS, and the void their absence makes simply cannot be filled by the likes of Aeron Damphair, Arianna, Areo Hotah, Quentyn and Brienne and co.

[Lord of Long Lake]

We lose Catelyn, Robb, and a few of his officers (some are still alive).

We lose Sandor but for his cameo in affc.

So only Catelyns POV

In ADWD everyone else is there. Plus new characters like Victarion (who is awesome), Reek etc.

We lose a few main characters in Affc - I didn't mind because of Arya being in it, but I can understand the sentiment - and the pace settles but did anyone expect the pace of asos to continue? And with adwd occurring simultaneously with affc for the first half or so, did anyone think the pace was going to jump forward suddenly for 600 odd pages?

Both books were post-destruction of asos and set up everything that will happen in the next two books.

Mereen Battle, WInterfell Battle, The Wall + wildlings + others, Victarion's imminent arrival, Dorne coming to KL, Theon, Samwell and the Citadel, Alayne Stone and the heir, Arya becoming a fm, Tyrion and Jorah meeting Dany, Bran warging with br (he finally got to the crow guys! After 5 books! And people complain about Dany not moving quick enough), Davos and Rickon, Jaime and Bitch-Cat, seige of Storms End by Aegon(?), Cersei vs Margaery on trial. There's probably some I've forgotten.

Yes, we didn't get 2 big battles, but Mereen's battle will need Victarion showing up and he needed to be introduced. I never thought WInterfell's battle would be part of adwd. It would have been rushed after Theon not having been there long and already there being a battle on outside.

[Toxspecific]

Forget battles, in AFFC I think Martin pushes the whole mental dialogues thing too much. Cersei's the sort of character you should use sparingly, but her gives us too many Cersei chapters. Too much paranoia, makes her seem like a cartoon villain at times.

And Brienne should be used like Davos; nothing spectacular about the character, but they oversee important events so makes their chapters a fun read. He succeeds with Davos in this but fails with Brienne.

[Errant Bard]

Martin made problems for himself, this wasn't some unassailable literary obstacle. Its three guys try to get to Dany by boat.

Except his biggest problem with Dany in ADWD is not the guys coming to meet her, it is how he could switch her personality from one who plants and protects olive trees to one who burns olive trees... before she meets any of the westerosi. He screwed up with the whole Essosi setting, but in this he reached his goal, and it was not the simplest thing in the world to do, even if he could probably have done it in less chapters and also skipped the Barristan chapters.

ETA: Everything is "the simplest thing in the world" when summing it up in one sentence. "The Red Wedding is just some guys getting killed at a wedding, it's the simplest thing in the world to do", heh? Even if anyone can write "three guys arrive in a boat", I don't think it's as easy to translate it into good writing as you make it to be.

[Joyful Union]

Good point.The whole of the first book could be summed as "Ned fucks shit up in King's Landing, then dies". Doesn't mean nothing happened. Though the Mereen situation should have been finished up in the first half of the book. As soon as Daenarys flew away on Drogon, I started to groan, cos I knew we'd still have Mereen for the rest of the book.

[total1402]

Except his biggest problem with Dany in ADWD is not the guys coming to meet her, it is how he could switch her personality from one who plants and protects olive trees to one who burns olive trees... before she meets any of the westerosi. He screwed up with the whole Essosi setting, but in this he reached his goal, and it was not the simplest thing in the world to do, even if he could probably have done it in less chapters and also skipped the Barristan chapters.

ETA: Everything is "the simplest thing in the world" when summing it up in one sentence. "The Red Wedding is just some guys getting killed at a wedding, it's the simplest thing in the world to do", heh? Even if anyone can write "three guys arrive in a boat", I don't think it's as easy to translate it into good writing as you make it to be.

Yes, but the way he built up those storylines and had them all inter-connect only made problems for himself that he clearly didn't resolve because only one character meets Dany. For instance, we have Vic meet Moqorro after that character met Tyrion and his role is portrayed as freeing Vic from Eurons influence. This completely ignores the fact that Vic had already vowed at the end of AFFC to steal Eurons dragon queen; but that seems to have almost been retconned so we have 3 chapters on him to decide to do this again. Tyrion has to introduce JC, Aegon, reintroduce us to Illyrio and all the Volantis menagerie; his main role in part 1 of ADWD. We then need a situation where JC is infected by greyscale and an extremely forced reveal of Aegon to make it dramatic. Then you have Quentyn and the tattered prince. Even though Dany already has two other mercenary captains whose names we're burdened with its still deemed neccesary to have these guys introduced so they can play a role in the battle. This is despite the fact Brown Ben and the Second Sons are already filling this niche. Then we have the biggest waste in which rather than have Tyrion escape earlier he is placed in the pit to joust in front of Dany. What was the point of that scene except to piss people off by putting him that close? Tyrion doesn't even acknowledge that Dany spared his life and is unlikely to find out anyway; nor would Dany believe him if he did, nor could he learn she had gave the order. So the whole scene is redundant and just something for Tyrion to do. If the plague had killed his master earlier he could have escaped earlier and met Brown Ben; but nooo the man had to add insult to injury.

Again, he weaves a unnecessarily complex weave to describe a simple tale of three guys on boats going to Dany before a battle. Everything has to come in sequences so the whole thing just gets bogged down and acts like its being clever; when really its only convoluted filler which will largely be forgotten about when WoW comes out anyway. Even I can't remember who all those people were in Volantis and how they were important; but apparently introducing them in ADWD was so essential that not putting a conclusion in the book was deemed neccesary.

[total1402]

Good point.The whole of the first book could be summed as "Ned fucks shit up in King's Landing, then dies". Doesn't mean nothing happened. Though the Mereen situation should have been finished up in the first half of the book. As soon as Daenarys flew away on Drogon, I started to groan, cos I knew we'd still have Mereen for the rest of the book.

We get to see Ned fuck shit up though and what he does is important. This is TRAVEL, nothing more. It is purely to move character from point A to point B. Elaborating and dwelling on that for a 1500 pages is unbelievable. These characters do nothing of relevance except give me more names and back-stories to remember and decide to do what they already decided to do in previous books. I know Dany is at war with different cities and cannot leave due to the Demon Road from ASOS; why are you spending a chapter on Qarths offer/ declaration of war? Do they send a massive army? No, Volantis is. You are just repeating a description of her situation, not moving the plot forward. I knwo Vic is going to betray Euron and take Dany for himself; why are you acting like he needs Moqorro to snap him out of this servile attitude? Much less spend 3 chapters doing it. I will be pissed if Vic goes the same way as Quentyn and is just so Martin can kill off another POV. Then I will know that he just invented Q + V as cannon-fodder to cover his five year gap.

[kephv]

when really its only convoluted filler which will largely be forgotten about when WoW comes out anyway.

Possibly. However, it's more likely he spent time on Tyrion's journey to flesh some of them most important aspects of Essos so it'll make sense in WoW. Things like the fire priests declaring Dany a god; meeting the Widow, who might be important later; and the city itself.

Even I can't remember who all those people were in Volantis and how they were important; but apparently introducing them in ADWD was so essential that not putting a conclusion in the book was deemed neccesary.

I suppose you mean satisfying conclusion. It definitely felt like more of a sudden stop than this previous books but it concluded all the same.

Do they send a massive army? No, Volantis is.

They might. Usually when a city declares war it means they're sending troops of some sort.

why are you acting like he needs Moqorro to snap him out of this servile attitude? Much less spend 3 chapters doing it. I will be pissed if Vic goes the same way as Quentyn and is just so Martin can kill off another POV. Then I will know that he just invented Q + V as cannon-fodder to cover his five year gap.

You're assuming you know exactly what the functions of these characters are. Moqorro, for instance, obviously has more relevance than snapping Vic out of his attitude (he was actually hesitant because of his hand and the fact that he was waiting for his ships). Remember that reaching Dany is the main goal for both.

[total1402]

Possibly. However, it's more likely he spent time on Tyrion's journey to flesh some of them most important aspects of Essos so it'll make sense in WoW. Things like the fire priests declaring Dany a god; meeting the Widow, who might be important later; and the city itself.

I suppose you mean satisfying conclusion. It definitely felt like more of a sudden stop than this previous books but it concluded all the same.

They might. Usually when a city declares war it means they're sending troops of some sort.

You're assuming you know exactly what the functions of these characters are. Moqorro, for instance, obviously has more relevance than snapping Vic out of his attitude (he was actually hesitant because of his hand and the fact that he was waiting for his ships). Remember that reaching Dany is the main goal for both.

They said she was AA, not the God-Empress of Man; different things. Besides important later is the main sticking point. It will be quite late in WoW when our POV characters get to Volantis. Introducing it so early in such depth when hes just going to have to go over this again in WoW seems very unnecessary. Much less when we get 3 separate POVs in Volantis.

I think its mentioned that some Qartheen galleys are in the bay among far larger Ghiscari fleets. I also remember on a thread somebody mentioned a force of camal cavalry from Qarth being mentioned in passing. But these pale into insignificance compared to the numbers and amount of times the Yunkish, New Ghis, Tolosi and especially Volantine forces are mentioned in the text. We're told its Volantis whose army and fleet is bearing down with immense force; not Qarths. If it was an ambassador from Volantis it could perhaps be justified. But that chapter was filler, Qarths declaration has little to no bearing, they don't give enough ships and it only re-establishes what we already learned in ASOS about Dany being penned in by the demon road.

Moqorro may have a bigger role to play later on with the horn. But those 3 chapters were only about him pushing Vic to do what he already avowed to do. As you say, if his hand was better he might never have had those doubts. So what was actually achieved in those chapters was incredibly limited and unnecessary given how much material is devoted to it. A single chapter would have sufficed. Aside from that all it does is bang the war drum and build up to a battle which never happens; ergo rendering it even more pointless to the book.

It did not have a conclusion. Pure and simple the book was not finished. Hence why Martin and his editors ended up taking out material they had already written and shoe-horning it ungracefully into the next book.

[Lord Freypie]

I agree that the main reason people may dislike the two last books are probably the road movie aspects.

Basically in books 1-3 there is just one road movie character (mostly there to travel in circles, and show us the situation, being sent back and forth by random encounters), Arya. Most of the other chapters are about the King Landing's or Riverrun's politics, or meaningful non repetitive travels like the NIghtswatch expedition.

Then we get Brienne of Tarth repeating two times again the "travel in ravaged Westeros" road movie + Tyrion having his own in Essos (which is especially frustrating considering the reader could expect since 2 books to see him meet Daenerys and he didn't even end talking to her) + Samwell and his whole chapters on some boat problem + all the people travelling to Mereen (while their travels do advance the story they are a bit repetitive) + Bran trip (as well not meaningless but spending lot of time describing us *again* the forest north of the wall already seen in Samwell and Jon POVs) + Sansa (climbing up and down the Eyrie, with long descriptions of things already shown in Cat first visit) + etc... etc... looks like a big third of the characters are lost in random areas, just there to spend lots of pages describing us parts of the world (and often already visited ones), and the end of ADwD add the threat to see Davos and Dany having their own road movie chapters in the next book.

Now I don't hate these books because I like the added depth to the world, and appreciate some characters evolution many find "disturbing" (I very well understand the new darker Tyrion most people seem to hate for example, with all the things which happened to him I wouldn't have expected him to stay the cool M.Good Jokes of the first books). Also actually some of my favorite chapters of the whole serie (Jaime PoVs and Reek's ones) are in these books.

But sure for people prefering the Accursed Kings aspects of the serie (KL politics especially) to the adventures and world tour ones the books 1-3 may only be more interesting.

[Jarlix]

Nope you pretty much ruined the element of surprise for yourself. Mad as hell decision, to get spoilers of your own will. lol

??? It was physically impossible to avoid spoilers. Ned head jokes everywhere in YT comments. And I never really find myself affected by points of divergence, character death, not even in some stories I've enjoyed on par with this one. Part of this is because I find the biggest joy in interpreting fiction more than the flow of events the first time and this series is really fun to do that with. I don't see why you're being autistic about this. I didn't spoil it for you or anything.

Almost done with ASOS. I hope AFFC isn't as terrible as everyone's making out, maybe I should stop reading there unless TWOW turns things around? I'll try five chapters of it first probably, my free time is getting more and more scarce...

[kephv]

They said she was AA, not the God-Empress of Man; different things.

AA is like their Jesus: their god made flesh. Essentially, they worship her as a savior while condemning Volantis and those who defy her.

Besides important later is the main sticking point. It will be quite late in WoW when our POV characters get to Volantis. Introducing it so early in such depth when hes just going to have to go over this again in WoW seems very unnecessary. Much less when we get 3 separate POVs in Volantis.

I don't know what you mean by doing it over. We have Volantis set up, how the city works and who's in charge , etc. He really only needs to mention it in passing if wants to set the scene.

I think its mentioned that some Qartheen galleys are in the bay among far larger Ghiscari fleets. I also remember on a thread somebody mentioned a force of camal cavalry from Qarth being mentioned in passing. But these pale into insignificance compared to the numbers and amount of times the Yunkish, New Ghis, Tolosi and especially Volantine forces are mentioned in the text. We're told its Volantis whose army and fleet is bearing down with immense force; not Qarths. If it was an ambassador from Volantis it could perhaps be justified. But that chapter was filler, Qarths declaration has little to no bearing, they don't give enough ships and it only re-establishes what we already learned in ASOS about Dany being penned in by the demon road.

As the Quartheen forces and Volantis forces have not yet arrived, I think it's a little early to be saying they have no bearing.

Moqorro may have a bigger role to play later on with the horn.

He already has. Specifically, he's told him how it works -- or maybe not.

A single chapter would have sufficed.

Perhaps. I'm not denying he could've been a bit more concise. By the way, he had two chapters in Dance, hardly over much.

It did not have a conclusion. Pure and simple the book was not finished. Hence why Martin and his editors ended up taking out material they had already written and shoe-horning it ungracefully into the next book.

The books don't follow the typical format. Technically, the only book that could be said to solidly conclude anything was the third one, which finished off the first act. Also, while he definitely left a bunch of cliffhangers, there was a conclusion; it just felt a bit tacked on. Unsatisifying perhaps, but one nonetheless.

And it's doutful that the battles will be shoe horned in. In fact, judging from the SSMs and interviews, it seems he's more or less back on track with the original outline for the books after Storm.

[the trees have eyes]

It's mostly about expectations and secondarily about the pacing of the writing and the overuse of cliff hanger endings. ASOIAF has three major strands to it:1. ice) the battle against the Others, primarily the focus of Jon and Bran; 2. fire) Dany, her dragons and her plan to reclaim the Iron Throne and 3. The War of the Five Kings) seen primarily through Tyrion, Catelyn and Sansa. At least for AGOT through ASOS that is. ASOS is a brilliant book and it leaves things poised wonderfully: 1. ice) Jon has become Lord Commander, the threat of the Others is in the open after the Fist of the First Men, forces are congregating at the Wall (the NW, the Wildlings, Stannis) and the Others are just beyond it, Bran has finally crossed into the lands of Always Winter looking for the three eyed crow; 2. fire) Dany has journeyed from timid girl sold to Khal Drogo into the Mother of Dragons, with an army of Unsullied at her back, mercenary companies aligning with her, and ruling over the city state of Meereen - she is ready to make her play; 3. The War of the five kings) the abominable Red Wedding, the shocking events of the purple wedding, Tywin Lannister trip to the privy and Lysa Arryn's tumble from the Eyrie have settled the fighting resoundingly in favour of the Lannisters, opened our eyes to a much deeper game and started to undermine the Lannisters in the very hour of their victory. Now fast forward ten years and two large books and have those three plot strands advances appreciably? Some of the writing is astonishingly good and evocative (Theon as Reek, Brienne's journey, Tyrion on the Rhoyne with the grey men) but the story treads water. Personally I don't enjoy the Ironborn or Dornish chapters as I feel this is where GRRM starts to lose control of the story and is world building rather than telling the tale he started to. At the end of ADWD the Lannisters are still in power, Dany is still in Meereen and neither Bran nor Jon have confronted or even started to deal with the Others - about whom we still know next to nothing. TL/DR: GRRM does not move he story forward enough - leaving the resolution of the battles for Winterfell and Meereen and Margaery's trial to TWOW is not what I hoped for: ADWD would be immeasurably stronger if he advance d the story and not left it hanging over multiple cliffs. He was a screen writer and this is an old trick to keep your audience coming back for the next instalment - he has said so himself - but I'm not sure it works for literature with a five year turna round time rather than a series with a one week or even one year break. Certainly it leaves me feeling the book or "episode" is incomplete rather than a finished article.