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Topic: Game of Thrones [SPOILERS] (Read 1116833 times)
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Merusk
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What, you mean like almost this entire last season?
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Sir T
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Pretty much.
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Hic sunt dracones.
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Riggswolfe
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This series is the first that I can remember where I liked the adaption better than the book series. Usually, a lot is lost in that process but what is lost here is nothing but useless filler than never goes anywhere. I'd say the worst parts of the show have always been the worst parts of the books too. (Dorne!)
I guess that's a long winded way to say that if he finishes the last two books I'll still buy and read them but if he doesn't I won't cry.
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"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
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HaemishM
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I actually think that the first 3 books were better than the TV adaptation, but the seasons after that have all been better than the last two books. That's because the last two books were aimless, plodding bits of fuckawful.
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Rendakor
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Yep. He should've just skipped forward 5 years and got to the zombies vs dragons.
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Riggswolfe
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I actually think that the first 3 books were better than the TV adaptation, but the seasons after that have all been better than the last two books. That's because the last two books were aimless, plodding bits of fuckawful.
That's fair. The first 3 books are great but 4 and 5 just wander aimlessly and don't seem to get much done. They made me feel like I'd found another series by Robert Jordan and that's not a good thing.
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"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
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Slayerik
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I remember the first 3 in WoT being good...but its been decades. I think I made it through 5.
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"I have more qualifications than Jesus and earn more than this whole board put together. My ego is huge and my modesty non-existant." -Ironwood
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Rasix
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I remember the first 3 in WoT being good...but its been decades. I think I made it through 5.
Completely off topic, they're good until the fallout from Dumai's Wells (end of 6). By that time Rand is going bonkers, Perrin is back into the fold of things (and getting progressively more useless), and they just start to stall out a lot of major plot points. 7 is OK. 8-10 are complete and total garbage. They're long, they meander, and they just don't resolve anything in any decent time frame. This is where you start seeing 60 pages of uninterrupted nothing regularly. 11 seems like Jordan was starting to turn it back around. From then on, it's Sanderson and they're pretty decent in light of what came before. I'm doing a current reread, and I've just finished Dumai's Wells. This is where rereads go to die. I've only made it through the 8+ once and that's when I finished due to Sanderson completing it. I suppose I could just read summaries, but that feels like cheating, and you miss anything worthwhile interactions and nuance along the way (sparse as it is).
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-Rasix
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Merusk
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I never finished 8-11, I skimmed them even on the first read. I'd go to characters I wanted to read, run through their chapters then back-fill if there was a particular, "WTF are they talking about?" moment.
I think after 6 the only one I read fully was the very last one. Even then it was only because I found I was backfilling so much that I should read the whole thing.
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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jgsugden
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I read WoT through book 8 and regretted it. At some point I'll fill in the rest of the story via Wikipedia.
GoT, however, is no where near as off track as WoT was. Got was designed as a trilogy and they expanded it by replacing a time gap with a few extra books. WoT was a trilogy that was expanded pointlessly by 8 additional books that added nothing but repetition. Nothing but repetition. But you should ask Mat about that... he always knows what to say to the girls.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Cyrrex
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It got good again once Sanderson took over, but I will admit that I still have not read the final book...something about Jordan's widow charging 40 bucks for both paper and electronic versions when it came out, so I voted with my wallet. I can see now that book 14 has a more sane price, but I think I would want to re-read it all before reading the last one and I don't think I have the stamina to get through all that again.
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Merusk
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You can alway do used too, and continue to deny her a share.
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Rendakor
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I read WoT through book 8 and regretted it. At some point I'll fill in the rest of the story via Wikipedia.
GoT, however, is no where near as off track as WoT was. Got was designed as a trilogy and they expanded it by replacing a time gap with a few extra books. WoT was a trilogy that was expanded pointlessly by 8 additional books that added nothing but repetition. Nothing but repetition. But you should ask Mat about that... he always knows what to say to the girls.
That's only because the TV show forced (or, will force) GRRM to end the books in a timely manner. If there hadn't been a show (or it had flopped after 1 season or whatever) who knows if he would ever have gotten back on track?
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eldaec
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GRRM has only published one book since GoT aired. 2 months after the first season.
And half of that book was written 6 years earlier.
Whatever GoT has done, it certainly hasn't accelerated ASoIaF.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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IainC
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Yeah, if anything the show has given him the excuse to never finish it. He can point at season 7/7.5 and say, "There you go!" Then go back to eating deep-fried cheeseburgers at the VIP lounges of the fantasy convention circuit forever.
Annoyingly, he seems to have passed that particular trait on to Patrick Rothfuss who also needs to learn to say no to Guest of Honour invites so that he can finish the Name of the Wind series.
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Khaldun
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I think it's the same problem. People keep interpreting it as a work-discipline thing but it's not. It's that great writers can set a story in motion and have some 'rules' for unfolding it where they get themselves into a SERIOUS trap that they know can't be resolve satisfactorily. Rothfuss cannot satisfy everyone (or probably himself) if he collapses the uncertainty wave-front and tells us whether Kvothe is fully unreliable or not. If he's absolutely not, then all sorts of shit becomes deeply confusing--who is present Kvothe, why is he in the inn, who is Bast *really*, etc. If he's totally reliable or mostly so, then Kvothe is really Mary Sue. If it's split down the middle, what's the principle of his unreliability? It can't be random.
I honestly think Rothfuss didn't have this all thought through, just like I think Martin didn't know what the "middle" of GoT was. He knew the shocking shit that happened in the rising action and he knew what the end result of the falling action was. He had no idea I think what the genuine no-fooling climax was and what the falling action looked like in plot terms. Plus both of them have gotten way way distracted by the fan reaction to their writing, which makes it way worse. (Saladin Ahmed is a thousand times worse still.) The days when authors could safely hear about sales and reactions from editors and then suddenly hear at the occasional convention from actual readers are long gone, and it's hurt guys like this the most. You need to either have enormous discipline about not reading stuff while you're writing or you need to have an iron will/iron ego that lets you override what you're hearing.
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eldaec
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Also he refuses to let things go unseen.
I have no problem with Feast and Dance, but completely accept that most of it could be skipped and the reader left to fill in the gaps.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Threash
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If they had released on the same schedule as the first three books there would be like 1/10th the bitching about the last two.
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eldaec
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Also true, I'm fairly certain that a big part of why I enjpyed the last two books is that I was able to read them immeadiately after the first three.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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kaid
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Yeah, if anything the show has given him the excuse to never finish it. He can point at season 7/7.5 and say, "There you go!" Then go back to eating deep-fried cheeseburgers at the VIP lounges of the fantasy convention circuit forever.
Annoyingly, he seems to have passed that particular trait on to Patrick Rothfuss who also needs to learn to say no to Guest of Honour invites so that he can finish the Name of the Wind series.
I think it is a combination of he wrote himself into a hole he pretty much needs to just time jump his way out of at some point which the TV show basically did and he is enjoying running all over being a celebrity he just does not care if he finishes it any more. People will get an ending he gets his money and fame no real downside.
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Merusk
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Yeah, that's my take, too. I didn't see anyone near as happy as Martin to be marching down that aisle last night. They were all happy, yes, but he was the giggling school-girl as they crowded the stage.
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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jgsugden
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If you've read his not a blog, you should know that he cares very deeply about the books and the delays are his struggles to get it right. He has a plan. He is a perfectionist. He was not happy about that last book (or the response to the last book), so he is working hard to make sure the current book meets his expectations. He also has a lot of other works on his plate.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Rendakor
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It's certainly easier to whine about writing a book on a blog than it is to write one. I'm not sure why he would begin/take on other projects either, when he's clearly having a rough time finishing this one.
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"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
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eldaec
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I'd guess just because the other projects are fun and much easier.
In his place I suspect I'd be the same.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Merusk
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Creative people are bored easily once they work-out the itch that motivated them in the first place. You might want to revisit the idea down the line to refine it, but you don't want to make it the focus of all your endeavors. He's been working on this for 20 years now, having to go back to the well constantly at other people's schedules. He's probably really over it.
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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jgsugden
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... and some of these other projects are things that he has been doing *longer* than GoT. And things where he is part of a team of artists working on it and he *must* complete steps on schedule or he disrupts a lot of people.
Regardless, it'll be done when it is done, and there is a good chance HBO will show the final episode before we see the next book, no matter how much we wish we had it.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Tale
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pants
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They have to do Arya and The Hound, Murdering Across Westeros.
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schild
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or don't do any because the idea is stupid
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HaemishM
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A prequel might make sense. I don't think I want it, but it might make sense. Anything else is just... meh.
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Threash
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There's already prequels, the Dunk and Egg stories and the Dance of Dragons. Both would make amazing series. Part of the beauty of the world GRRM created is that the stuff that happened before his main story was just as or more interesting than the main story.
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Samwise
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Velorath
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There's already prequels, the Dunk and Egg stories and the Dance of Dragons. Both would make amazing series. Part of the beauty of the world GRRM created is that the stuff that happened before his main story was just as or more interesting than the main story.
Yeah, even in the main books there's a ton of world-building and backstory that wouldn't really fit into the Game of Thrones. I don't need four spin-off shows, although I get the impression they just want to have a bunch of different options to choose from rather than wanting to make all four.
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HaemishM
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I loved the books (well, the first 3 anyway). And while the world building is neat, it doesn't always make a compelling story to tell, much less base 4 series on. See the expanded bits of the Hobbit movies for proof.
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Khaldun
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Dunk and Egg will be fine, though I'm not sure fans of the series would accept the relatively softer or more gentle tone it needs to work. Still bad stuff going on there, but it's pushed back several levels and has to be for Dunk to work as a character.
I actually think they could do a pretty great series if they wanted to that was centered in Asshai and the Shadow Lands and Sothoyros--essentially places so far off the map that they can make up anything they want. Melisandre is from the Shadow Lands...I suppose you could do the Fire part of the Song, e.g., let's assume Westeros is left standing and Sam finds the McGuffin and somehow the White Walkers get killed and then some Westerosi survive the Winter. Well, maybe the next Summer is the sequel to it all and whatever thing people have going in the Summer Lands and Sothoyros will be threatened by fire and dragons etc.
I know the one thing I don't want to see is Robert's Rebellion. There's nothing interesting in that story that we haven't already seen.
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