Critics of ASOIAF

[Jon of the Dead]

I think he was referring to people that presume to know the end already and think that 4/5ths of what has been written is worthless to get to that end, IMO. You can obsess over it and acknowledge it's imperfections. It's why we have so many characters, chapters, and entire books that we love and hate. If it wasn't flawed somewhat we'd have nothing to discuss :)

Oh, yeah, I don't understand the whole "the Game is useless, it's all about the Others" argument either. The Game rules.

[Jon of the Dead]

You seem to somewhat misunderstood my post, which is probably my fault. Sorry for that, and allow me to explain myself a little better. I wasn't thinking of you, nor anyone else who criticize the novels with a sincere and honest take on it. I was alluding to those who go like this: "Let's not pretend ASOIAF is high-literature". If I recall correctly, you never stated anything to that effect, in this nor in any other debate you and I were in, so it applies to you in no way.

Of course I don't think GRRM is beyond reproach or critique. If I thought otherwise, I surely wouldn't debate with you or anyone else who criticizes this or that from the series. I myself have some issues with ASOIAF - rather insignificant, compared to everything that the series rewarded me with, but some issues are there. And you're right, the site would be extremely boring if we'd all think the same. (There's a quote, I think it's Einstein's, but I'm not sure: "Where everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks anything". I memorized the quote, but not who said it. If anyone can help me with a source, I'd be grateful.) I just make a distinction between, for example, your criticism, and the criticism of guys like Keely. And what puzzles me is how many 'Keelies' there are on this site. That's all I wanted to say.

Oh, ok, cheers, I don't think you were directing it at me either, just wanted to comment on it :cheers:

[total1402]

Its entertaining. Martin could have made that the entirety of the series. He chose not to and thus everything he does with that arc is pointless. The Others and Dany and Winter will have a colossal impact on the Game. I don't even see how Martin could maintain the Game during Winter at all but lets assume he decides to be unrealistic and has armies wandering about with people in contact with one another while there is famine n 100ft snowfall (Stannis march on Winterfell case in point; it was dumb) . It still leaves any resolution in the Game uncertain and it doesn't help that characters keep telling us that these political games don't matter whilst Dany n Jons arcs are left floating about.

[Nacht en Ontij]

The amount of people thinking solely in tropes is too damn high.

[total1402]

You are aware that people have written about political intrigue and war before right? Long before the first high fantasy. Its a trope in of itself. We have very little reason to assume that Martin has stressed Winter is Coming and the Others as this great threat for no reason as a red herring. The problem is we have a lot of drum banging about how much of a threat they are for 5 books and a refusal to have them do anything in the plot. Its tiresome and silly when you're constantly wondering in ADWD "Okay the Others have to show up now the wall is ripe for an attack." Then chapter after chapter of Jon waddling about preparing for an attack which has been imminent for five books already.... It is a huge problem that Martin endlessly puts off advancing the plot even though we've been waiting for thr Others to do something for 5 books after all the hype around them.

[Burdette]

I only have one issue with the Ice and Fire series. Let me first say, it is not at all a big deal, and there are not more than a handful of these issues, and my issue is more a pet peeve.

Some of the information from book to book. Like eye color of characters and travel time.

Again, not a big deal, and this is the only thing I can think of.

[The Broke Howard Hughes]

I always laugh when people say something is pointlessly long. Since when did your personal preference become a valid criticism?

[Veltigar]

What's wrong with that? Martin is a lot softer than his reputation states he is. There is a subtle optimism,a romance that belies the "gritty, heartbreaking massacre of the good" rep ASoIaF has. It's what allows o believe that Sansa will kill LF, that the Starks will reunite and so on.

I agree that Martin is a lot softer than his reputation. However I think that the critic is really talking bullshit here. I enjoy reading a Joe Abercrombie novel but it’s nowhere near ASOIAF, because it’s so damn predictable. With GRRM you always wonder what’s going to happen next but with Abercrombie and his followers you know that the worst thing possible is going to happen to his characters. That makes it even harder to care about them. To give an example: When Jaime lost his hand it was a total shock. I didn’t see that one coming when they were first captured. If it was an Abercrombie novel than I would have been counting the pages up until Jaime was horribly mangled/killed after he and Brienne got captured.

[Nacht en Ontij]

You are aware that people have written about political intrigue and war before right? Long before the first high fantasy. Its a trope in of itself. We have very little reason to assume that Martin has stressed Winter is Coming and the Others as this great threat for no reason as a red herring. The problem is we have a lot of drum banging about how much of a threat they are for 5 books and a refusal to have them do anything in the plot. Its tiresome and silly when you're constantly wondering in ADWD "Okay the Others have to show up now the wall is ripe for an attack." Then chapter after chapter of Jon waddling about preparing for an attack which has been imminent for five books already.... It is a huge problem that Martin endlessly puts off advancing the plot even though we've been waiting for thr Others to do something for 5 books after all the hype around them.

Perhaps that's just you being impatient.

For all I care mr. Martin writes another 6 books without D. Stormborn ever landing in Westeros or with mr. Snow dying and staying dead. And you know why? Because I like his prose. I like his take on things, surprising me and after spending 16 years within this fucked-up world of his I'm cool with anything he cares to come up with as long as it isn't too tropy. And he's very capable of that.

[Elaena Targaryen]

Crows and Dragons are still worse. Why does everyone keep assuming that Dany is gonna turn into a villain and the Others are the goodguys. Twenty years is long to time to make a bad joke. There is no foreshadowing to suggest the others are good, we see them commit genocide and every character we have met attests to them being bad. Danys dragons are shown as no more evil or violent than the Starks direwolves. It is major speculation and would require a quantum shift in the final 2 books for that sort of change to happen. Nothing in the 5 books suggests anything other than that the Others will invade and bring the apocalypse. A good writer would foreshadow things like the Others being good. Dany has yet to even meet a rhollor worshipper. It is reasonable to assume that the Others will invade and start the War for Dawn because we've been told this for five books. You are the one making major speculation that things might change abruptly as Martin finally starts talking about these things.

I think that could be what you are missing about these books and it could improve your enjoyment if you looked at things in a different way sometimes. There absolutely is foreshadowing the White Walkers are good but it's subtle and questionable, but it's there all the same. Martin could write the Others as good if he wanted, I'm not sure that he would but it has been discussed in interviews as possible. If you want the proof you will have to figure it out and hunt it down yourself because that's one of the reasons I love his story - he makes me work for it. :)

[Brother Walfrid]

The others were always going to wait till winter until they made their move.

Well, winter only arrived in the final chapter of the last book,,,after a relatively short autumn.

I know the Innuit apparently have 143 words for snow, but I don't think 4 books set in the depths of the winter would make good reading

[Miodrag]

For all I care mr. Martin writes another 6 books without D. Stormborn ever landing in Westeros or with mr. Snow dying and staying dead. And you know why? Because I like his prose. I like his take on things, surprising me and after spending 16 years within this fucked-up world of his I'm cool with anything he cares to come up with as long as it isn't too tropy. And he's very capable of that.

Perfectly said!

And, if you don't mind, may I ask you what kind of steel your nerves are made of? If you're with ASOIAF from the beginning, and your profile says you registered here some eight years ago, the fact that you posted less than 60 times is a fascinating one. (If you don't reply, I'll just take it as a practical demonstration of the strength of your patience and nerves.)

[Nacht en Ontij]

Perfectly said!

And, if you don't mind, may I ask you what kind of steel your nerves are made of? If you're with ASOIAF from the beginning, and your profile says you registered here some eight years ago, the fact that you posted less than 60 times is a fascinating one. (If you don't reply, I'll just take it as a practical demonstration of the strength of your patience and nerves.)

Haha. I think my story is not too dissimilar from that of others. After a while one has read all there is to know about the books, especially shortly after AFoC was out. People start arguing for the sake of argument. Not that interesting.

Recently I found my way back because of the ASoIaF maps and, well, nothing has changed at all. More complaining, more whining, with significantly more pedantic fandumb. And THAT is fun to read. :D

[FuriousGeorge]

Since when was a speculative and misguided blog post considered literary criticism?

[Elaena Targaryen]

This review has a particular critique in it that has always bothered me, it's a small thing really, but I'm happy to finally have a place to complain. :)

Martin, I feel, gets the balance between the two [Exposition and World Building] roughly right. He can write a scene well – and while not every element of every scene can be thought of as a deliberate note in a symphony of meaning – you just can’t apply those sorts of standards to this sort of writing. Nevertheless a lot of the writing could do with tightening. Take this passage describing the character Sansa on her wedding night:

Her hands trembled as she began fumbling at her clothes. She had ten thumbs instead of fingers, and all of them were broken. Yet somehow she managed the laces and the buttons, and her cloak and gown and girdle and undersilk slid to the floor, until finally she was stepping out of her smallclothes. Gooseprickles covered her arms and legs. She kept her eyes on the floor, too shy to look at him, but when she was done she glanced up and found him staring. There was hunger in his green eye, it seemed to her, and fury in the black. Sansa did not know which scared her more.

It gets the job done. And we get an adequate sense of the apprehension appropriate to the event. Here’s how I would probably edit this:

Her hands trembled as she took of her clothes. Gooseprickles covered her arms and legs. Her eyes were locked to the floor, but when she was naked she found the strength to look. He was staring at her. There was hunger in his green eye and fury in the black. Both were terrifying.

We don’t need all that information about every single piece of clothing that she removes. If she gets naked in the end – then obviously they are removed. We’re told earlier in the scene what she is wearing because the process of putting on the clothes is described in as much detail as when they are removed. I don’t need to know this twice! What Martin wants to do here is just get across her nervousness, shyness, and the intense dynamic between the two. All the exposition here is just getting in the way.

But this is what fantasy authors do. They like building worlds in every single little detail. And so when it comes to fantasy I often find it pretty hard to do my job as a critic. Because to my taste, the fantasy genre is too often devoted to enormous projects of world building that just aren’t necessary to the story being told. Yet, this is almost one of the explicit aims of many fantasy writers. And I don’t doubt that many fans of the genre find that it is necessary for their immersion and escapist intentions. Each to their own.

I feel it's just Sansa's pov at work here. Sansa would think about all of that detail with her clothing where another character may not. Tyrion can cause me to eat more with his thoughts describing food. Jon obsesses about being a bastard and being a man of the NW. Daeny it's 'blood of the dragon' stuff but she can be pretty descriptive with her clothing as well. Anyway you get my point that I don't think it's an editing issue. Thoughts?

[Carey Snow]

We'll see. I just fail to see how any of this game of thrones stuff is relevant to the end game and the ice apocalypse.

That is why you will need to read the books. My guess is that Martin will tie it together. No doubt that the War of the Five Kings, and now the brewing war of the Queens will leave Westeros vulnerable. That does not mean that the wars and intrigue had no point, and will not have a point in future events.

[sillent]

I feel it's just Sansa's pov at work here. Sansa would think about all of that detail with her clothing where another character may not. Tyrion can cause me to eat more with his thoughts describing food. Jon obsesses about being a bastard and being a man of the NW. Daeny it's 'blood of the dragon' stuff but she can be pretty descriptive with her clothing as well. Anyway you get my point that I don't think it's an editing issue. Thoughts?

I can see both angles. The problem with your argument I think is that you can really give each character his own quip. Tyrion will talk about tits and wine, Sansa about clothes and ideals, Jon about the cold and so on. On its own the "fluff" isn't too bad since its key to the character but when you accumulate all of them together you just have way too much world building as a whole being done which could be over shadowing some of the finer parts of whats happening.

We get Sansa's nervousness by her trying to stall her process. Taking each thing off slowly is really showing us how much she doesn't want this. It wouldn't have been as effective as just saying she took off her clothes -- however there is diminishing returns to words and quality and I think sometimes Martin takes one step too many in describing some of the more 'trivial' things.

In the end something like this would surely come down to taste, and since I love the books I can say I am very happy with the current iteration. Having said that, I know plenty of people who find it hard to get into the books initially since the pacing is slower, and being a slow reader myself I too found myself getting frustrated some times. Though, because of the excess detail in everything, you do tend to miss some of the intricacies which you only catch on rereads when you aren't glossing over the details but really paying attention to every little thing.

[Miodrag]

This review...

Thanks for the link. I just read an entire review and I find it to be one of the precious few that are thorough and deep and at least trying (and succeeding, in large part) to do justice to ASOIAF. I share your disagreement with him about GRRM's writing style, and at the time of the writing he was obviously under the influence of the show (as almost everyone was after the first season), which lead to him being overwhelmingly focused on the conflict between Starks and Lannisters. However, his review does go into many important, but often overlooked, aspects and themes of ASOIAF, and he connects the dots meticulously. While I couldn't agree with everything he says, I did agree with a lot of it, and I really enjoyed his take on ASOIAF. Had other scholars cared to go this deep into Martin's saga, instead of dismissing it without giving it a fair chance (which is the case more often than not), I guess ASOIAF would enjoy much higher reputation, and justly so.

In case anyone has hard time finding the second and third part of the review/essay (which both me and the author himself find more important than the first part), here are the links:

http://reviewsindepth.com/2011/09/honour-in-george-r-r-martins-a-song-of-ice-and-fire/

http://reviewsindepth.com/2011/10/the-dilemma-of-honour-and-realpolitik-in-george-r-r-martins-a-song-of-ice-and-fire/

[Jamie Lannister]

http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/26/enter-ye-myne-mystic-world-of-gayng-raype-what-the-r-stands-for-in-george-r-r-martin/

[Miodrag]

http://tigerbeatdown...rge-r-r-martin/

Read it while ago. Didn't impress me at all. It's a poor "I take pride in disagreeing with you all" attempt at analysis.