The North, the Iron Islands, Riverlands and the Vale: The Supreme Kingdom of the North!
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The North, the Iron Islands, Riverlands and the Vale: The Supreme Kingdom of the North!
This is just my opinion but:
Danys: Danys is actually sixteen or seventeen by the time Storm of Swords is over. And remember, in medieval times (which the series is kind of based off of), you were eligible to be married as early as 12 or 13. And sure, she's got plot armor, but she also has been making some pretty good choices when it comes to surviving. At the same time, she makes some decisions that are incredibly, ah, stupid to say the least (like staying in Meereen), but she's also still only like 16 and making choices like she's 16.
the Red Wedding: what makes the Red Wedding so shocking is that it goes completely against not just Westeros custom but also the custom of every single human culture that I can think of: the guest right. It's an incredibly dishonorable and cowardly way to end a war for the Lannisters: they didn't win a battle against Robb, so they decide to murder him. For the Freys, they've brought incredible dishonor on the House, and it wouldn't surprise me if it eventually caused their fall. I personally do not believe that it is a cheap tactic (but everyone's entitled to their own opinion on the matter). I think the fact that it is so shocking is what makes it so effective. Also, look up the Black Dinner. The Red Wedding is not entirely GRRM's idea.
Littlefinger: I don't think many people realize it, but he's one of the biggest players in the game of thrones in the Seven Kingdoms. He's got a plan to increase his own power, and it's (very) slowly taking shape, but for the most part GRRM hasn't made it known at all.
lastly, good ole' Varys: I don't want to say much because of potential spoilers, but: I. He's got a HUGE and effective spynetwork, centering on King's Landing. Then again, information is the only line of work he's ever known, he's bound to become good at it. II. I've never trusted him from the first time Ned Stark talked to him in book 1. I felt like he wasn't doing who he said he was. At the moment, he's the real power behind the throne, and has been since before the Sack of King's Landing in Robert's Rebellion.
EDIT: I think Jaime Lannister is the third most honorable man in Westeros in all the books, following Ned and Robb Stark. Nobody knows it yet because they all see him as Kingslayer. It's the best-kept secret in Westeros.
Danys: Danys is actually sixteen or seventeen by the time Storm of Swords is over. And remember, in medieval times (which the series is kind of based off of), you were eligible to be married as early as 12 or 13. And sure, she's got plot armor, but she also has been making some pretty good choices when it comes to surviving. At the same time, she makes some decisions that are incredibly, ah, stupid to say the least (like staying in Meereen), but she's also still only like 16 and making choices like she's 16.
the Red Wedding: what makes the Red Wedding so shocking is that it goes completely against not just Westeros custom but also the custom of every single human culture that I can think of: the guest right. It's an incredibly dishonorable and cowardly way to end a war for the Lannisters: they didn't win a battle against Robb, so they decide to murder him. For the Freys, they've brought incredible dishonor on the House, and it wouldn't surprise me if it eventually caused their fall. I personally do not believe that it is a cheap tactic (but everyone's entitled to their own opinion on the matter). I think the fact that it is so shocking is what makes it so effective. Also, look up the Black Dinner. The Red Wedding is not entirely GRRM's idea.
Littlefinger: I don't think many people realize it, but he's one of the biggest players in the game of thrones in the Seven Kingdoms. He's got a plan to increase his own power, and it's (very) slowly taking shape, but for the most part GRRM hasn't made it known at all.
lastly, good ole' Varys: I don't want to say much because of potential spoilers, but: I. He's got a HUGE and effective spynetwork, centering on King's Landing. Then again, information is the only line of work he's ever known, he's bound to become good at it. II. I've never trusted him from the first time Ned Stark talked to him in book 1. I felt like he wasn't doing who he said he was. At the moment, he's the real power behind the throne, and has been since before the Sack of King's Landing in Robert's Rebellion.
EDIT: I think Jaime Lannister is the third most honorable man in Westeros in all the books, following Ned and Robb Stark. Nobody knows it yet because they all see him as Kingslayer. It's the best-kept secret in Westeros.
I just don't agree, though that might be because I'm not a fan of most fiction stories (I prefer historical stories and tales of contemporary politics). My father is heavily involved with high-status politics, and I've gotten used to hearing bizarre endings to good stories. I guess I enjoy my fantasy like I enjoy my personal reality. Different strokes, right?
We agree on these points though.
My two cents here.
Starks:
Honor can only take that far, you know, and it is widely overestimated in general public. Good ruler is almost always a dishonorable one (Machiavelli).
I generally disliked Starks(Eddard, then Sansa, then Rob, and now Jon...) from the book 1 onward for two reasons: their "holier then thou" attitude is neither realistic for any person with any ammount of power, nor compelling for me personally (mainly because it is so boring...). They made so many mistakes I cannot even name them all. Starting before the timeline of the books, and following every single step of them(If anyone is interested - we can discuss this privately or in another thread.). Basically it was only their downfall was only the matter of time. They pissed off a great to many of people, while having quite too few powerful friends. The Red Wedding actually improved the Stark family chances of survival, because now they are perceived as martyrs and "Good Kings of Old Times", instead of honor-crazed lunatics they actually were. If Rickon is ever to be found - he will now most likely be supported by most of northern dynasties in his claim on Winterfell and the North. If Red Wedding did not happen - Starks would most probably be deposed for good. Irrelevant of actual war outcome.
Arya and Catelyn are quite nice, but Catelyn became a collateral casualty for associating with other Starks, and Arya, quite expectedly survived. Young Starks are not quite fleshed out yet, so they may one day become good rulers.
Danaerys:
Her "Plot armour" comes not from her personal characteristics, but from the fact that she had pretty much nothing at the start of the story and she still does not have pretty much anything. Also her companions are pretty good, and are in position where they MUST rely on her, for having very little choice otherwise.
She managed to lose her fertility, strong husband, child, initially friendly Quartz, her dragons(well, she may recover them, but it is still a chancy business), her ships(safe passage to Illyrio), in the procss of losing her foothold in slaver's bay.
The way she is going - she will have an unfortunate incident happened to her pretty soon in the story
.
Littlefinger:
He has an enormous intellect, exceptionally so. He is likely quite rich by now, I would assume he managed to divert a great hoard into the bank accounts of free cities. He has a lot of friends everywhere, and he has no sworn enemies whatsoever. He is very likely to be one of the few victors of the series. Smart political moves, careful diplomacy and swift management of threats is his "plot armor". Also he is not really at odds with Varys. Their "rivalry" only for the show. I will not be shocked to know that they are a part of the same conspiracy.
Varys:
He has an immense amount of money in his disposal(both from essos friend and westeros lords), as well as knowledge in the espionage. Having the greatest spy network and faking complete neutrality/loyalty he is pretty much out of scope of anyone who would like to and had means to discredit/plot against someone. He, like Petyr, has no enemies until late, and now his enemies are on the brink of destruction (because of enormous amounts of errors they have made. Those errors are on-par with Stark errors, but were done in a shorter period of time.)
I am pretty sure his network works pretty much like modern spy networks, where every bit of information is verified by several channels. Also his position gives him an advantage of actually participating in everything that is going on as a double agent, brokering information for both sides in every conflict.
Freys(as well as Boltons):
Dishonorable or not, but they are quite vulnerable right now. They will have to either rule harshly or perish quickly. In either way Red Wedding will haunt them for quite some time. But Freys are still in better position, for not having an army freezing at their gates.
Edit:
Oh, forgot Jaime.
He is honorable alright. He was honorable all along. He killed his king, but the king was mad and wanted to die anyway, along with whole city. He loves his sister, but such is love. You cannot blame a man for falling in love. He threw Bran out of the window. Wouldn't you do the same to protect your own children? He was honorable all along, but latest events made him think of how he is perceived by others, and he was forced to work on his image.
The only reason his reputation is so tarnished is because he is associated with Lannister family, and at least two mad kings(I would say three, but honestly Robert was more incompetent then outright mad.)
Starks:
Honor can only take that far, you know, and it is widely overestimated in general public. Good ruler is almost always a dishonorable one (Machiavelli).
I generally disliked Starks(Eddard, then Sansa, then Rob, and now Jon...) from the book 1 onward for two reasons: their "holier then thou" attitude is neither realistic for any person with any ammount of power, nor compelling for me personally (mainly because it is so boring...). They made so many mistakes I cannot even name them all. Starting before the timeline of the books, and following every single step of them(If anyone is interested - we can discuss this privately or in another thread.). Basically it was only their downfall was only the matter of time. They pissed off a great to many of people, while having quite too few powerful friends. The Red Wedding actually improved the Stark family chances of survival, because now they are perceived as martyrs and "Good Kings of Old Times", instead of honor-crazed lunatics they actually were. If Rickon is ever to be found - he will now most likely be supported by most of northern dynasties in his claim on Winterfell and the North. If Red Wedding did not happen - Starks would most probably be deposed for good. Irrelevant of actual war outcome.
Arya and Catelyn are quite nice, but Catelyn became a collateral casualty for associating with other Starks, and Arya, quite expectedly survived. Young Starks are not quite fleshed out yet, so they may one day become good rulers.
Danaerys:
Her "Plot armour" comes not from her personal characteristics, but from the fact that she had pretty much nothing at the start of the story and she still does not have pretty much anything. Also her companions are pretty good, and are in position where they MUST rely on her, for having very little choice otherwise.
She managed to lose her fertility, strong husband, child, initially friendly Quartz, her dragons(well, she may recover them, but it is still a chancy business), her ships(safe passage to Illyrio), in the procss of losing her foothold in slaver's bay.
The way she is going - she will have an unfortunate incident happened to her pretty soon in the story
.Littlefinger:
He has an enormous intellect, exceptionally so. He is likely quite rich by now, I would assume he managed to divert a great hoard into the bank accounts of free cities. He has a lot of friends everywhere, and he has no sworn enemies whatsoever. He is very likely to be one of the few victors of the series. Smart political moves, careful diplomacy and swift management of threats is his "plot armor". Also he is not really at odds with Varys. Their "rivalry" only for the show. I will not be shocked to know that they are a part of the same conspiracy.
Varys:
He has an immense amount of money in his disposal(both from essos friend and westeros lords), as well as knowledge in the espionage. Having the greatest spy network and faking complete neutrality/loyalty he is pretty much out of scope of anyone who would like to and had means to discredit/plot against someone. He, like Petyr, has no enemies until late, and now his enemies are on the brink of destruction (because of enormous amounts of errors they have made. Those errors are on-par with Stark errors, but were done in a shorter period of time.)
I am pretty sure his network works pretty much like modern spy networks, where every bit of information is verified by several channels. Also his position gives him an advantage of actually participating in everything that is going on as a double agent, brokering information for both sides in every conflict.
Freys(as well as Boltons):
Dishonorable or not, but they are quite vulnerable right now. They will have to either rule harshly or perish quickly. In either way Red Wedding will haunt them for quite some time. But Freys are still in better position, for not having an army freezing at their gates.
Edit:
Oh, forgot Jaime.
He is honorable alright. He was honorable all along. He killed his king, but the king was mad and wanted to die anyway, along with whole city. He loves his sister, but such is love. You cannot blame a man for falling in love. He threw Bran out of the window. Wouldn't you do the same to protect your own children? He was honorable all along, but latest events made him think of how he is perceived by others, and he was forced to work on his image.
The only reason his reputation is so tarnished is because he is associated with Lannister family, and at least two mad kings(I would say three, but honestly Robert was more incompetent then outright mad.)
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It doesn't really excuse the fact that there are rather..detailed sex scenes involving her. Which is really bloody creepy.
This. People tend to bring up the "it is historical" and "back then it went like that" argument, but even so, this doesn't mean you have to write explicit sex scenes involving children. I always considered these tendencies to be a major flaw of the books. Creepy indeed.
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Really? I think if anything it makes the books much better, since the author is writing his world how he believes it should be in a most realistic fashion, without censoring himself to conformto modern sensibilities.
There is a difference between not conforming to modern sensibilities and writing explicit sex scenes involving a 13 year old character. Not to mention that Martin's writing at such parts is usually awful.
Fat Pink Mast? Myrish Swamp? Really?
Yeah, tossing children down from towers and commiting incest while cuckolding your king and forsaking your Kingsguard vows and killing countless men in less than honorable ways (remember how he slaughters Eddard's men in the first book?) are certainly honorable things to do
I have to disagree with this. The Red Wedding is very obviously foreshadowed from (arguably) as early as the first book, and in A Clash of Kings it's foreshadowed very transparently. And, as others before me have pointed out, it's an event that makes perfect sense when looked at in universe. And as I'm sure you are aware, constructing a narrative via the characters' desires, motivations, and individual psychologies is a pretty classic "norm and standard" of competent literature.
well not everybody's perfect. and besides, IMO I feel this is all a result of Cersei: he falls in love with the wrong person, and tossingBran from the tower to protect that love, cuckolding the king and forsaking his vows are all a result of this love. Killing Eddard's men in the first book, that was IMO a result of Cersei's influence on him. But once he was "free" from Cersei, he slowly became the person he truly was. Nobody would expect Jaime to go looking for Sansa to keep her safe, and yet he does (even going AWOL at Brienne's request). He's disgusted at the Red Wedding for being dishonorable, keeps his vow to Catelyn to not shed the blood of another Stark or Tully (and in fact saves countless lives by ending sieges peacefully). He keeps to his word, and that's a trait that's rarely seen in Westeros at the time. And even as the Kingslayer, I fully support him in his action and feel he did the right thing.
BTW, having a mistress as a Kingsguard isn't rare. Jaime mentions serving with one that did, and who doesn't remember the guy who died protectiong Myrcella. They just keep it very low key.
I absolutely agree. I think people look at it from a view of "it's so spectacular he's just looking for attention and trying to make up for something else". Only a combination of Walder Frey, Tywin Lannister, and Roose Bolton could have made the Red Wedding possible (and make complete sense) but it does.
In older times, once you begin to menstruate, you are considered a woman. Due to nutrition issues, most girls in the past reach this at 14-16. Besides, there was no such thing as "childhood" in the past. Children were considered little adults, and were thought different due to their physical size alone.
I think the point he was trying to get across was that there was a sex scene involving someone who we (and the author) consider a child, not that the people in-universe consider her a child.
Oh please, so I am a fanboy because I disagree with you? So youre going to state your opinion then say anyone who disagrees with you is a fanboy, well guess Im a fanboy then/ Just because good writing and story telling has norms doesnt mean there cant be other things done with telling a story otherwise itd just get boring and predictable. I really dont see how its a cheap trick... he basically destroyed his years and years of work in building these charecters, really itd be lazy if he let everyone live just so he could keep their storylines alive. giving everyone plot armour is more of a cheap trick
The Red Wedding was not deus ex machina. If Dany had shown up with fully grown dragons to save Rob during the slaughter, that would have been deus ex machina. Even having Sandor show up a bit earlier and saving everyone might have been considered deus ex machina. Bringing a particular plotline to an unexpected, but foreshadowed, conclusion is not deus ex machina.
As for the underage sex, while some people do not like it, Martin is hardly the only author to write such scenes either in literary fiction or popular fiction. See Nabokov and Anne Rice for an example of each. An author's job is to tell his or her story within the confines of the created fictional universe, not pull punches because some might be offended by certain elements of that universe. In Martin's particular case, he could have left the scenes completely offstage, but that would have seemed out of place considering all of the other things that are on stage in the books. It would also mean leaving important moments in the development of Dany's character offstage. That would have been bad writing.
As for the underage sex, while some people do not like it, Martin is hardly the only author to write such scenes either in literary fiction or popular fiction. See Nabokov and Anne Rice for an example of each. An author's job is to tell his or her story within the confines of the created fictional universe, not pull punches because some might be offended by certain elements of that universe. In Martin's particular case, he could have left the scenes completely offstage, but that would have seemed out of place considering all of the other things that are on stage in the books. It would also mean leaving important moments in the development of Dany's character offstage. That would have been bad writing.
Let's make a comparison with CK2 and the book series of a Song of Ice and Fire.
When does a playthrough of CK2 boring? That's right, when it becomes too easy and cheesy. It becomes boring as hell when you've conquered before the end date (for me at least). As for the books, it would become boring as hell if Ned Stark survived, Robb would succeed in his rebellion, Carsei and Joffry would die at the hands of Robb or Stannis in the first book, etc etc and everyone would live happy after. That's a fairytale.
The books give us a story of people who are driven by there beliefs on what can and can't. The Starks have there honour, good at first, but it becomes fatal in the polical scheming of the south. The Lannisters do whatever it takes to get what they want. Tywin is the shiny example of that. He sees the oppertunities, what other houses or people would never think of.
The point is that GRRM has done a great job in keeping us interested by set backs in the plotline. Otherwise it would be a very very boring plotline, because the good guys have an easy time, while the bad guys perish easily. And everyone, yes everyone would live happy ever after.
As for the child sex: people were ready to marry in the middle ages when they were able to produce childeren http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/society/sex/sex-spouses.php. For girls this was at the age of 12 and for boys 14, because girls reached puberty earlier than boys. An example is Isabella of Hainault http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_of_Hainaut. She was 10 when she was married to the 15 year old Philip II of France. At the age of 17 she produced an heir and at the age of 20 she died in childbirth, giving birth to twin boys who died shortly after.
When does a playthrough of CK2 boring? That's right, when it becomes too easy and cheesy. It becomes boring as hell when you've conquered before the end date (for me at least). As for the books, it would become boring as hell if Ned Stark survived, Robb would succeed in his rebellion, Carsei and Joffry would die at the hands of Robb or Stannis in the first book, etc etc and everyone would live happy after. That's a fairytale.
The books give us a story of people who are driven by there beliefs on what can and can't. The Starks have there honour, good at first, but it becomes fatal in the polical scheming of the south. The Lannisters do whatever it takes to get what they want. Tywin is the shiny example of that. He sees the oppertunities, what other houses or people would never think of.
The point is that GRRM has done a great job in keeping us interested by set backs in the plotline. Otherwise it would be a very very boring plotline, because the good guys have an easy time, while the bad guys perish easily. And everyone, yes everyone would live happy ever after.
As for the child sex: people were ready to marry in the middle ages when they were able to produce childeren http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/society/sex/sex-spouses.php. For girls this was at the age of 12 and for boys 14, because girls reached puberty earlier than boys. An example is Isabella of Hainault http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_of_Hainaut. She was 10 when she was married to the 15 year old Philip II of France. At the age of 17 she produced an heir and at the age of 20 she died in childbirth, giving birth to twin boys who died shortly after.
To be fair,the Lannister keeping the Iron Throne for so long is the same. It would have been much more interesting to see Stannis win Blackwater, and then Stannis and Robb fight - who would the readers support, who is in the right, etc.