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

If you want to truly engage in a discussion about the series, you can't just say "this is my opinion and that's that." Try analyzing and typing more than 1 or 2 sentences about your opinion. It's really infuriating when you spout off short replies the way you do.

 

I have had lots of people tell me how I must or must not criticize something in this thread.

They all have ideas about that. I don't take it seriously because that's not really the issue. The real issue is that they are taking my opinion personally. Pax, guys. You have two other threads in the Amph alone where you can reinforce your own opinions to your heart's content.

Have at it.

 

it would just be nice to have a better understanding of why, than merely having the what stated. that's everyone's biggest problem. but you seem to have missed that, just like you've missed some of the glaringly obvious things you've questioned/complained about.

 

To readers like me, on the other hand, the concept of ASoIaF is riveting. An alternate-reality Middle Ages in which Britain is the size of South America; Hadrian's Wall has been transformed into a 700-foot-high tower of ice to keep out the horrors of the north; magic, dragons and intelligent wights exist in a kind of semi-veiled, rarely-glimpsed background; sex and violence are described in realistic detail; and the characters are flawed, human and one step away from death at every turn? Yes, please! This is the kind of fantasy I've been looking for my whole adult life, and never found until now.

I find the execution sublime. Reading through any randomly-chosen chapter or passage I can see nuanced, multi-layered characterization; subtly-hidden clues as to where the story is headed; ironic references to other characters and events; and the details of a world that feels real, threaded ingeniously throughout the narrative.

There is a great deal of material that is hidden or occluded from the reader in the first pass; much of the story, especially in the first book, plays like a simple adventure story, with only occasional flashes of more interesting developments to come. But on repeat readings, passages that initially seemed superfluous or even pointless -- the Tower of Joy, for example, and Ned's promise to Lyanna -- resonate electrically once one has begun to assemble the pieces of this sprawling, mastermind puzzle.

As to the characters, I find them all to be rich, human, flawed, unpredictable, and convincingly written even if I do not especially like this or that person and would "rather" be reading someone else's POV. I've never been a fan of Sansa, for example; for the first three books my feelings toward her rather resembled Nevermind's own disparaging opinion. But first and foremost, the events Sansa witnesses are essential to the narrative; secondly there are children in the world just as vapid and thoughtless as she is, so why shouldn't we get a glimpse inside the head of someone so immature and frankly stupid?; and third, later in the series she begins to mature and develop in a surprising and unexpected (to me at least) way. Taken as a whole, even the characters I dislike reading (Davos Seaworthy is another such, in Books 2 and 3) have something compelling to present, something not anticipated to add to the story, some jagged piece of the puzzle that could fit nowhere else. In short, even the annoying characters are awesome.

Regarding Martin's prose style, I rarely notice it, except when a specific passage moves me or strikes me as well-composed. Through all four of the books I've never once encountered a sentence, to my recollection, that struck me as "irritating", or florid, or clumsy. I've read a great deal of fantasy and am thoroughly familiar with the stylistic demands of the genre; to my ear, Tolkien's prose (esp. in The Silmarillion) has the most gorgeous ring to it, bordering on unrhymed poetry. By contrast Martin's style in ASoIaF is pragmatic, modernistic, even curt. In short I fail to see the problem.

I've read Nevermind's various accusations of "purple prose" (as if that were somehow a negative) with frank incredulity; how can the lovely phrase "...sweet and cold as a winter peach" offer offense? How can anyone who enjoys fantasy object to the evocative description "She was as gray as a winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke." To me, and certainly to my wife, such metaphors are the bread-and-butter of our literary tastes.

I can say the same for the dialogue. What the thread author derisively calls "speaking forsoothly" I name "righteous declaration". Real medieval literature -- of which I have also read a great deal -- is redolent with such stirring pronouncements. Phrases such as "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn.", "I cannot abide the wailing

 

Chapter Fourteen: Eddard

Summary: Eddard is given a lesson in power politics.

Some Thoughts: Robert is completely powerless with regard to the Lannisters.

For ye Fangirls: Sansa gets punished. It's a bit hard on her inoffensive wolf, however.

Where Have I Seen This Before? Dept: "Old Yeller"

Grammatical Errors: 1

Speaking Forsoothly: "I had not thought you so niggardly."

Bad dialogue: N/A

Purple Prose: "...tensions burned hot and heavy."

Le Mot injuste: "...a truth that neither Robert nor Ser Raymun had forgotten." What he means is 'fact'

As You Know, Captain: Not this time.

It's So Good I have to repeat it: We get a recap of the last chapter--twice.

The Department of Silly Names: Vayon Poole

Characterization: Both Robert and her brother have the same reaction to Cersei's demands: if they behave dishonourably or criminally because of her demands, it's *her* fault.

What we learn: Robert is as big a poltroon--it's catching!--as Jaime.

Not thinking it out: Eddard should take this as a sign of things to come, pack up both daughters and leave, but that would be logical.

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, 3 child murders, one wolf kill, one wolf attack, one wolf execution.

POVs to date: 8

Executes some poor working-class slob/Feels angtsy about executing some poor working-class slob/King Robert wants Eddard as his Hand/Robert gets Eddard as his Hand/Eddard executes a harmless wolf/

Rating: 2/5

 

Really, the same thing could be said to you. Why do you feel you need your own private Game of Thrones thread?

 

I was told to leave those threads by the people who posted there, which I did.

I have to say this thread has been an education in group-think.

 

Three things:

1. It's groupthink, no hyphen.

2. The antecedents for groupthink have not been fully met by the fans of ASOIAF on these boards

3. The characteristic behaviors resulting from groupthink have not been fully met by the fans of ASOIAF.

I find this thread, and your chapter reviews, quite entertaining, but do not presuppose that humorous critique on your part makes you the rugged individualist struggling against an insular, repressive community. Rather, it makes you "that guy particularly vocal about his disagreements." I am aware that you will counter that some of the fans have been particularly loud about their desire for you to stop. I preemptively counter that angry nerds are not indicative of groupthink.

These are quickly becoming the best parts of the chapter blurbs.

 

oh, please don't stop. i find them amusing, if somewhat... beyond my understanding in some instances. (see not getting why tyrion went to the wall for instance, as it's pretty much plain as day in both the show and the text).

 

I'm guessing that criticism of "Twilight" (if I don't happen to like it) will not be received in the same way, it being what might be described as an approved target.

The other big series is apparently "The Wheel of Time", the one where the usual bearded & bespectacled auteur keeled over after twelve (?) thirteen (?} books, and the series was unfinished. According to the 'net, it was originally planned as a trilogy. Hmmm.

 

I want to be clear here that I was not one of those people. In the "Book Club" thread, Nevermind posted fact-based assertions which proved on analysis to be false. Nevermind never minded that his claims were in error; he ignored his mistakes, and my pointing them out, and when called on them he fled to this thread to begin his one-man bash-fest.

I don't know who "told [him] to leave", but it was not I.

 

Well, if I know the story properly, the series kept getting dragged out until it got to the point where the author had to promise to wrap the whole thing up with the last book (Either 12 or 13, I forget which), but then, in the middle of writing that one, he died. So now some other author's come in to finish it based on his notes (This is the point where Dune fans get bad, Vietnam-esque flashbacks and go catatonic for a moment), and he's extended the last book out to three books. Whole thing's a trainwreck.

As for Twilight being an approved target... well yeah. Sparkly vampires.

 

i don't know how the wheel of time was ever even remotely planned as a trilogy, it's far, far too large. and there's a pretty good author they got to finish that one, and has all of robert jordan's notes to do so.

even though i may not like twilight, and will likely agree with most of the criticisms, i would still like to know WHY you think what you do, just like i do with this.

 

Well, that's okay, but when I'm asked why I don't find characters interesting, there's not much I can say about that. That's basically asking why you don't (or do) like tacos. It's a preference.

Re: The Wheel of Time...has anyone read that? Fourteen books is a lot of newspulp. The info that said it was originally a trilogy is from Wiki, so I suppose it might be a crock.

But doesn't that make fans of ASOIAF nervous? I note that the first three books were published 1996-2000; then the pace slowed to about one every five years, and the author is a not-very-healthy-looking 62. I wonder if HBO has a deal whereby they can write an ending if he doesn't.

 

You basically just described my roommate's recurring nightmare, so, yeah, I'd say we're a little worried about it.

 

No, it doesn't make me nervous. The series is definitely going to be 7 books. It's still basically a 3-act structure -- just each of the acts is too big for a single novel. So. There are many 7s in the series, and there will be seven books in it. Anyway, here's what I wrote a couple months ago about the reason for the delays, and why I'm not worried about delays on future books:

As best I can recall from interviews, the reason for the long wait is as follows: originally, Book 4 was going to jump five years after Book 3. And he wrote a significant chunk of that book, but found that it wasn't working -- he was relying on flashbacks too much, or something. So he started over, and set Book 4 right after Book 3. And he wrote most of that version of Book 4, when he and his publishers decided that it was going to be too long for a single book, and should be split in two. So the question became: does he just chop it at an arbitrary spot, mid-story, or does he "unbraid" it and feature all of Book 4 worth of some characters in one book, and all of Book 4 worth of the rest in the other? They decided on the latter course, so he had to not only unbraid the narrative, but reconfigure and rewrite to make that book work on its own. So while as readers we waited 5 years only to get one book, in that time Martin more or less wrote that book, plus most of another, plus a good chunk of what would be in Book 5. And then, IIRC, and I wish I had bookmarks to the various interviews I'm remembering, he had a similar process with Book 5 -- he had to take the unbraided chapters from what had been Book 4, and rework them so they worked without the King's Landing characters, and ultimately basically had to start from scratch on that one as well rather than trying to make a stripped half of a book read like a full book. So in those five or six years we've been waiting for one book, Martin has more or less written two. Plus, of course, all the time-consuming business that goes with being a celebrity, running the Wild Cards universe, selling the Game of Thrones show, etc. My guess is that, now that he's over the decade-long nightmare of the second act of A Song of Ice and Fire, we'll see Books 6 and 7 at roughly two-year intervals, the same pace he was writing the first three books.

Here's a more recent blog entry from Martin on why the most recent book took so long: http://grrm.livejournal.com/217066.html#cutid1

 

Those rotating POVs obviously make re-writing difficult.

Hope for your sakes that he's actually keeping notes. Though I believe he's already said what the ending is, hasn't he? I won't say what in case you don't want to be spoiled, though it's quite vague.

 

I almost hope he isn't keeping notes and they just let it end with no conclusion.

I have seen things. Terrible things. Also some mediocre but tolerable ones. And I'm just completely soured on the whole idea of other authors finishing a series.

 

Well, Kevin J. Anderson...yeah. The SW stuff he wrote was beyond terrible. There used to be a fantastic parody of it written by some locals in fanfic, but the exact name of it escapes me for the moment. The Great Big Planet-Murderer, or some such. It was quite brilliant in spots.

Is the author they chose for Jordan's epic a bad one?

EDIT: It was called "The Big Naughty Planet Murderer"

 

oh, hardly. brandon sanderson is... very intriguing in his own right, and honestly i can't think of anyone else who could really do what jordan was doing justice.

i've read most of the wheel of time, haven't read the most recent ones (didn't have the money, and then didn't have the time). it suffers from a few drag problems at times, but most of the characters are interesting and grow/change a lot over the course of it. some, like mat, are among my favorite characters of all time, of which ASOIAF can claim only one really in tyrion.

as to some more on sanderson, read some of his works. they are very, very good. elantris is a one shot that really and truly to me deserves another book as it ends with what to me seems like the beginning to a much larger story... which sanderson chose to leave up to the reader's imagination. he's done some other very interesting things, and his magic systems are far from conventional. one is metal oriented (the mistborn trilogy), one is sigil based (elantris. sigils written in the air, and there are... other types in that book as well), and then there's one that is colored/breath based (which i haven't had the chance to read yet, but that one is warborn). overall he tends to have interesting characters, and reasonably tight stories without going into what you'd call purple prose or speaking forsoothly.

on another note, the mistborn trilogy asks a question i've wondered about many a time... what if the legendary hero of prophecy failed? this series deals with the results of that, and while the second book is slower, my brother said that it sets up the third book so perfectly that it becomes far, far better once you get there (and he also said it was one of his favorite books of all time. he's also read the wheel of time like six times, as has my father, so these aren't precisely light readers here).

anyway, hope that gives you some info.

and i'm with mastidge, not terribly worried about ASOIAF because of the hell that martin went through with this last pair of books. and from what i've read it was more like he wrote three books and ended up only using the one, which is what took so long.


EDIT

oh, i realize liking/disliking characters is completely a matter of taste. it's more the other things that i'm curious about and would like expanded upon. believe me, i know explaining why you like a character can be a royal pain in the keister.


EDIT 2

jordan only made it through 11 books. sanderson is dealing with the last three, that was actually supposed to be one (but would have been a mega book much like martin's) but got divided into three.

 

I read somewhere that Jordan was saying that there would be only one more book 'even if it was 2000 pages'. That was when it was supposed to be only (!) ten books. They have apparently decided to divide it into 3 parts and so there will be twelve books. Talk about getting lost in your own fantasy. Since I have not read this series, I have no idea if 12 books were actually necessary to finish the story line, but it seems a bit excessive.

The way the range of characters increase in ASOIAF is tending in this direction, especially if people keep getting resurrected. Given Martin's accounts of the difficulty in keeping the plot straight, 12 books would probably kill him for sure. I can remember reading series in which the author did not remember what they had previously written, and blithely contradicted themselves. I don't think that's practical here, the fans would howl.

I checked "Dune" and see that Anderson has written no less than 13 additional "Dune" novels to the six originals, which seems like a lot/too many.

 

In defense of KJA (Not that he really deserves to be defended on such matters) it's pretty obvious the books are predominantly Brian Herbert. There's the occasional over-the-top KJA violence bit, but other than that they're noticeably different from his usual stuff.

But yeah, they're milking that sucker for all it's worth - "McDune" has become the traditional insult these days - to the point that I'm pretty sure they're exploring areas and histories of that universe Frank Herbert really didn't want explored. They also have a bad habit of contradicting the elder Herbert's canon, although again in their unwarranted defense he contradicted himself... once or twice. Basically Penny Arcade puts it best (language warning), but if you absolutely must know how the main plot ends, you've got very little recourse.

From what I've read about Sanderson, Robert Jordan's fans are in much better hands, lucky devils.

 

I've read all of the Wheel of Time series, and it does slow down a lot in books 7-10, but overall the series is really good. Brandon Sanderson is a worthy successor, and his style, while not a copy of Jordan's, is still similar enough not to notice the differences.

 

yea, it did get a bit slow and could have used a bit more editing in about 7-9 (heart of winter i'm looking at YOU), book ten for the most part picked up the pace again, as did 11. from what my brother and father said, the last two books that have been written by sanderson are amazing.

but really, i'm not sure that this is a story that could really be done justice to in fewer than about ten books, and that's cutting out a LOT. i mean, there are a lot of characters, but there also isn't a constant stream of additions like jordan's doing. there might be one or two more each book, but really, you have a fairly set number of perspectives with one being replaced as someone else dies, or if they start becoming particularly important you gain their perspective as well.

overall, i'd say it's a far better series than ASOIAF (which i do still greatly enjoy), and is a lot easier to read, even while being longer overall.

EDIT

oh, and no, it is very definitely 14 books plus one prequel.

0. New Spring
1. The Eye of the World
2. The Great Hunt
3. The Dragon Reborn
4. The Shadow Rising
5. The Fires of Heaven
6. Lord of Chaos
7. A Crown of Swords
8. The Path of Daggers
9. Winter's Heart
10. Crossroads of Twilight
11. Knife of Dreams
12. The Gathering Storm
13. Towers of Midnight
14. A Memory of Light

and honestly... due to the sheer scale of this, i have a LOT of trouble seeing how it could have been written in very many fewer books. 12 would have been a good number.

lot like the dresden files really, that was PLOTTED as 26 books, and butcher has the actual plot for each book figured out and is not going to be adding ot that. but seriously... a planned series that long is insane, but there really isn't any fat in it. every book has an interesting individual plot, and advances the whole of the series in a fairly equal fashion. looking back at the first book in that series i really can't believe how much things have changed, and it was in an extremely organic fashion at that.

 

Chapter Fifteen: Brandon Stark II

Summary: Brandon is tripping.

Some Thoughts: This chapter seems to combine a summary with a prophetic dream/vision.

For ye Fanboys: The 'you-must-live' prophecy.

Where Have I Seen This Before? Dept: "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater"

Grammatical Errors: 0

Speaking Forsoothly: N/A

Bad dialogue: "Say, got any corn?"

Purple Prose: "...the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool..."

Le Mot injuste: "I've noticed," said the three-eyed crow." This is one point where a little forsoothly-speaking would be an improvement.

As You Know, Captain: The whole chapter

It's So Good I have to repeat it: Winter is coming. Numerous variations of the word 'chilly'

The Department of Silly Names: N/A

Characterization: N/A

What we learn: Milk of the poppy has one hell of a kick.

Not thinking it out: N/A

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, 3 child murders, one wolf kill, one wolf attack, one wolf execution.

POVs to date: 8

Bran's character arc to date: Watches Execution of poor working-class slob/has career as high-level voyeur truncated/Gets flying lessons from mutated wildfowl/

Rating: 3.5/5