Amph ASOIAF: "A Clash of Kings" Chapter-by-Chapter: Chapter Thirty-Two: Sansa

What, you mean I have to wait? Haven't you read any of my criticisms of Martin's plodding prose? I am not a patient person!

 

Chapter Twelve: Catelyn

Summary: There is an assassination attempt on Brandon Stark II, and Catelyn does the math.

Some Thoughts: Eddard just goes off and leaves his stricken son and his wife, which is frankly pretty rank behaviour.

For ye Fanboys: Wolf kill.

Where Have I Seen This Before? Dept: N/A

Grammatical Errors: 3

Speaking Forsoothly: "Leave us now" which is Martinese for "Get out."

Bad dialogue: "Even the Kingslayer would flinch at the murder of an innocent child." But not of his king, apparently.

Purple Prose: "...something as stern and hard as the north." And it's cold, too.

Le Mot injuste: N/A

As You Know, Captain: Catelyn's rant does duty for the standard Bad Exposition.

It's So Good I have to repeat it: Rob's cheeks are red from the cold, because it's cold, you know.

The Department of Silly Names: Nothing this time.

Characterization: Catelyn is stronger than Eddard, but nearly as dumb. Going herself is a complete tip-off. Also: no need to tell Theon anything.

What we learn: The Lannisters are idiots, and the Starks are fools.

Not thinking it out: This is an important assassination, for obvious reasons, and the Lannisters hand it over to a rank simpleton? Give him money and a tell-tale blade? And wouldn't they move the kid first thing in case of fire, so what's the point?

Criminal Record: 2 murders, 1 execution, incest, treason, two attempted murders of a child, child endangerment by proxy, pimping, pedophilia, indecent exposure, 12 knifing deaths at a wedding reception, 2 child murders, one wolf kill.

POVs to date: 7

Catelyn's character arc to date: Complains about husband's bastard/Complains about husband's bastard/Foils assassination attempt on her son/

Rating: 3/5

 

As you read on, you will discover that the Lannisters didn't send the assassin after Bran. Joffrey overheard either Jaime or Robert (can't remember who) saying "It would be a mercy for the boy to die." Joffrey got the idea to kill off Bran, without knowing the reason why Bran was injured in the first place. Joffrey pilfered a blade and hired a sellsword to attack Bran. The fact that the blade belonged to Tyrion/Littlefinger is just a coincidence.

So the bungled assassination attempt was due to Joffrey being so overeager to do what his elders apparently wanted.

 

Oh, I see. It's arranged by a twelve-year-old.

 

Many of the large events of the coming books are arranged by said twelve-year-old. In fact, it is Joffrey's bloodlust that kicks off the whole plots of the other books.

 

What? Freaking spoilers, man!

Not to mention that twist... kind of sucks.

 

seriously... he went because of curiosity. pretty much specifically said.

 

Are you suggesting that the crown prince couldn't give some dodgy hanger-on a bag of gold to kill someone? It's not exactly a sophisticated plot.

What stretches credibility is that nobody in the King's party heard of it.

 

Being that Zaz is noting grammatical errors, it's pretty hilarious.

 

Chapter Thirteen: Sansa

Summary: Joffrey twirls his (imaginary) Snidely Whiplash mustache.

Some Thoughts: Yet another POV, bringing the total to eight (anticipating, perhaps, the upcoming reduction). It's about four too many. Just as you get interested in a plot-line, it switches to another one. Once you get back to the one you were interested in, you've forgotten why you were interested. Another problem is that Martin does not play fair. This episode is ostensibly seen from Sansa's POV, but it's seen from Arya's anyway.

For ye Fangirls: Sansa is portrayed as extremely superficial, unimaginative, snobby, and conventional; every cliche elder sister in chickflickdom encapsulated. Characterization is represented by lots and lots of italics.

Where Have I Seen This Before? Dept: "War and Peace", only there it's done well.

Grammatical Errors: 1

Speaking Forsoothly: "By his extreme youth, he can only be a prancing jackanapes, and so I name him." Martinese for "He's an idiot."

Bad dialogue: "While we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycah showed me a lizard-lion." Thirty-six? Is she sure? Maybe it was thirty-seven, or forty-two...

Purple Prose: "...branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus."

Le Mot injuste: "...in armour so fine and gorgeous." Gorgeous?

As You Know, Captain: The introductions of the Kingsguard.

It's So Good I have to repeat it: Arya has low tastes.

The Department of Silly Names: Ser Ilyn Payne, Ser Morgil.

Characterization: Joffrey is just another cardboard cut-out with a little sign above his head that flashes on and off saying: "Cowardly Effete Spoilt Brat Villain." There's not a bit of difference between him and Viserys; and there's not the slightest complexity in either of them.

What we learn: Arya wants to be a knight.

Not thinking it out: An eleven-year-old says to a young man: "By your extreme youth..." He wouldn't seem young to her.

Criminal Record: 2 murders, 1 execution, incest, treason, two attempted murders of a child, child endangerment by proxy, pimping, pedophilia, indecent exposure, 12 knifing deaths at a wedding reception, 2 child murders, one wolf kill, one wolf attack.

POVs to date: 8

Sansa's character arc to date: Watches fiancee humiliated/

Rating: 1/5

 

Considering that most young people don't have a wealth of experience or events to influence them at such a young age, is it not alright for a child character to begin simple and develop complexity later on? Because it seems to me that you're judging them based on the start of their character arc, and not their end.

 

Children can be very *complex* characters in fantasy.

 

After awhile, sure, but take Harry Potter for example. Harry, Ron and Hermione were quite simple for the first two or three books, but later books made them much more complex. I don't think we should expect Sansa to have any complexity after one chapter.

 

Most children do have characters, and even in the first book, Rowling establishes Hermoine's perfectionism and curiosity, Ron's jealousy and sibling rivalry, and Harry's anxiety and stoicism as keynotes of their characters. She writes for eleven-year-olds in the first book, so it's simply done, but it's there. Sansa is written as a dim-witted snob, while a little more skill could make her pretensions amusing or even touching. And in order to make her interesting, *something* is needed. Otherwise, why use her POV? If plot is unconnected to character, it quickly becomes melodrama. But so far Bran was injured so fast that no personality registered; Arya is a stereotypical tomboy, and Sansa is an equally stereotypical flouncing princess.

 

Yeah, and Hermione was the stereotypical good student, Harry was the stereotypical popular kid, and Ron was the stereotypical "kid you would punch in the face if not for various laws." What's your point?

 

The difference is: they're interesting, or none of us would have read farther. I have not the faintest interest in Bran, Arya nor Sansa.

 

You mean the difference is that they're interesting to you. Which isn't really a difference at all except for you. I did not personally find the characters all that captivating in Harry Potter 1, but the concept was intriguing enough to me that I kept reading until they became interesting to me. Which is more or less how it happened in AGOT for me, except I also had Jon and Tyrion to capture my attention.

 

Okay, the concept of this series and the execution is lacking to me. Most of the characters bore me. The style is terribly irritating. The dialogue is laughable. The only interesting part is its popularity.

(You must be catching italics from this chapter.)

 

No, it's just my preferred method of adding emphasis which I developed from writing lots and lots of RP posts because I find bold to be aesthetically unfulfilling for reasons which quickly become obvious.

 

OH dear why are people engaging in a childish thread of "I don't like this and I'm gonna ***** about it for a number of blah blah posts"?

ASOIAF may not be the greatest literary piece of all time, that much I would concede, but its a very thrilling piece of literature, for me in any case.

Why does a manager of these forums who is clearly trolling for personal gratification still get all these pages of a thread to be a whiny ***** and yet newer posters get one post and their outta here.

Pure hypocrisy IMHO.

Anyway I'll go back to re-reading AFFC now and await ADWD in July with baited breath.

 

But why don't you find them interesting? You can't just say "I don't find them interesting" and leave it at that. Merlin_Ambrosius69 wrote out a long post about what he likes about the books and the show, including specific examples. There's no reason why you can't do the same.

 

I'm not sure if I'm terribly keen on engaging in this discussion, but I do find it sort of entertaining that somebody who likes Harry Potter is apparently going on about Martin being 'derivative' and a 'bad copy'. That's pretty much how I felt about Harry Potter. Makes me giggle - especially when you go on about the names being good in one, bad in the other,

Anyway, continue on. You must have a lot of time though, I certainly wouldn't waste mine on reading a series I dislike unless I was getting payed for it.

 

The difference between this series and Harry Potter is that Rowling has wit. It's that simple.

Why don't I find AGOT interesting? Well, I'm glad you asked!