GRRM ruined a song of ice and fire by killing too many good characters

[Brian G Turner]

Hi all

Welcome to chrons, laumaia.

I just got a little carried away

No one dismissed your opinions. Just because someone has a different opinion doesn't mean you need feel defensive.

As for ASoFaI - it's always been a story of extremes. Incest, child murder, The Hound, The Mountain, Joffrey, Winter is coming, Others, etc etc. There is realism in the setting, but the characters and events are very much exaggerated from life.

 

[Darth Angelus]

LightBringer, I guess I should welcome you to the forum! It is, for the most part, a friendly place, believe it or not.


Anyway, I think both sides of this argument raise good points.

First of all, about Jaime's kingslaying, it may or may not be worse than the Red Wedding in Westeros. Personally, I would say it is much less bad, but of course as you say, Gumboot, the modern person's perspective is not all that relevant.

Even so, it looks like the guest right is "sacred" in Westeros. I think I read somewhere that the faith of Westeros had very serious issues with what had transpired at the Red Wedding.
As for the treason part, Frey's liegelord was under Robb Stark, at that point.

Really, though, there are a couple of factors which I believe enabled Jaime to get away with the Kingslaying.
- Firstly (and this is the most obvious point), I think Robert needed Lannister support in establishing himself on the Iron Throne.
- Secondly, I think it would have been difficult for Robert to charge Jaime with betraying his king without calling into question his own right to take up arms against Aerys Targaryen. Robert's own stance was that Aerys needed to be removed from the throne because he was mad and had ordered several atrocities, and hence he had started the Rebellion.
Sure, Jaime's vows of loyalty to his king may have been more sacred than Robert's, but even so, Robert himself (and anyone who had rebelled with him) had technically commited high treason.
Jaime may have dealt the killing blow, but others had set in motion events that led to that point.

I will admit it is somewhat surprising that Jaime got to retain his job, though, although that is probably Lannister influence.

Still, Jaime didn't completely get away with it. He may not have been officially punished for it, but he did get a bad name. Most people who are remotely hostile to the Lannisters seem to call him Kingslayer at some point, even years after, which says a great deal about how it is viewed.

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

Lastly, those of you who says it would save a lot of lives because it ends the war earlier. Are you serious? Arranging a massacre like this cannot be excused, I don't care what kind of logic you use. On a battlefield, everyone knows that they can be killed, it's expected and accepted. When you are someone's guest (or they are yours), it's an entirely different matter. There's a certain level of trust, and there are certain rules that apply, and the breaking of those are inexcusable. I'm not sure if my point is being made clearly enough, but I don't know any better way to express it. Doing something for the "greater good" does not make it acceptable. The greater good can be defined by anyone according to how they see the world, and then used to justify any means they make use of to achieve it. This is wrong in my opinion. The nazis also believed they were doing what they did for some "greater good".

I find it interesting that you are saying it is unrealistic that nobody who was involved in the planning and execution (pardon the pun) of the red wedding went against it, and then reference Nazis. there were many many MANY more nazis than there were participants of the red wedding. Also, in the books, there were a number of Freys who were off in the field, likely because they wanted to have no part of what was going to go down. Lastly, the number of Frey and Bolton soldiers who took part was never really stated explicitly, however, it is assumed (i know, when you assume...) that there were far fewer. Most of the northmen were killed by having the big drinking tents pulled down and set on fire and you wouldn't need that many men to do that.

Of course cruelty can be committed, especially by soldiers during a war...
... You, however seem set on believing that the world is a terrible place and that humans are inherently evil. THAT is what I disagree with. As I've said before, there are bad people in the world (in varying degrees, some are slightly more bad than good, others, though I believe these are rare, are almost pure evil), but the majority of humans are not cruel and malevolent.

3 million highschool students wish to present a different opinion.

Obviously we are not talking about the same level of cruelty, but I think most people, if not all, are capable of being cruel and malevolent, but more than that, I think most people can be corrupted by corrpt leaders, as you Nazi example shows.

 

[LightBringer]

LightBringer, I guess I should welcome you to the forum! It is, for the most part, a friendly place, believe it or not.

Thanks! That's good to know.

No one dismissed your opinions. Just because someone has a different opinion doesn't mean you need feel defensive.

Perhaps I did take it a little more seriously than I should have. What I was referring to was his saying that my argument was nonsense. He can disagree all he want, of course I accept opinions that differ from my own. However, I didn't appreciate the wording. Saying something is nonsense (when I had given valid reasons earlier) is dismissing it and it belongs in the comment section of youtube. In an objective debate, we use facts to support our views, and when we interprete a certain fact differently, well, then there's nothing left to do but agree to disagree. And that's perfectly okay, being able to disagree without starting a fistfight is after all one of the perks of living in a civilized society. But I'll try to be a little more coolheaded the next time.

As for ASoFaI - it's always been a story of extremes. Incest, child murder, The Hound, The Mountain, Joffrey, Winter is coming, Others, etc etc. There is realism in the setting, but the characters and events are very much exaggerated from life.

Absolutely. Well said.

I find it interesting that you are saying it is unrealistic that nobody who was involved in the planning and execution (pardon the pun) of the red wedding went against it, and then reference Nazis. there were many many MANY more nazis than there were participants of the red wedding. Also, in the books, there were a number of Freys who were off in the field, likely because they wanted to have no part of what was going to go down. Lastly, the number of Frey and Bolton soldiers who took part was never really stated explicitly, however, it is assumed (i know, when you assume...) that there were far fewer. Most of the northmen were killed by having the big drinking tents pulled down and set on fire and you wouldn't need that many men to do that.

Yes, there were a lot more nazis, but do you truly believe everyone of these agreed that attempting to exterminate the Jews was the right thing to do? The thing is that being part of a system that does horrible acts makes it much easier to rationalize the blame over on someone else compared to when you do the killing yourself. As long as you're not the one who releases the lethal gas in the gas chambers, it's easy to tell yourself that you're not the one who is ultimately responsible for the deaths.

Technology makes killing easier because instead of putting a sword through someone, you pull a trigger, push a button to release a bomb or gas. The extermination itself was most likely (admittedly I don't know all the details, I base this on what I've read about it) committed primarily by a limited number of soldiers and it was also, as far as I can deduce, hushed up. This was probably not common knowledge to every German (both soldiers and civilians). I mean, do you truly believe that the Germans all were evil? That most of them had no objections to the fact that their government killed millions of people? I find this hard to believe. But if you do believe this, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Also, in the books, there were a number of Freys who were off in the field, likely because they wanted to have no part of what was going to go down. Lastly, the number of Frey and Bolton soldiers who took part was never really stated explicitly, however, it is assumed (i know, when you assume...) that there were far fewer. Most of the northmen were killed by having the big drinking tents pulled down and set on fire and you wouldn't need that many men to do that.

Olyvar, Perwyn and Alesander Frey were absent because they were thought to be sympathetic towards Robb Stark. Still, this is three men. I would believe more would have issues with arranging a massacre like this in real life. I read that the number of Frey and Bolton soldiers that were killed were about fifty, which means that a great deal more took part because they lost so few (they would have lost many more if the Northerners had gotten time to brace themselves, which means that the Frey soldiers had to strike everywhere in the camp at about the same time, and this indicates a large number of men) compared to the Northerners they were slaughtering. And remember, the Red Wedding hasn't actually happened. The Massacre of Glencoe - which I have mentioned more than once - was similar in terms of the violation of guest right (or murder under trust as it was called in Scottish law), but much fewer people were killed. Soldiers refused to take part in it. That, among other things, is what I base my evaluation of the Red Wedding as unrealistic on.

3 million highschool students wish to present a different opinion.

Are you referring to bullying? If so, that is on a completely different level than what I was talking about. However, I do agree that many people can be part of bullying, likely many are by silently standing there without interfering, and I also agree that bullying is cruel. Children (and teenagers) are known to be cruel at times. And while this is not acceptable, it's not anywhere near as bad as cold-blooded murder.

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

Yes, there were a lot more nazis, but do you truly believe everyone of these agreed that attempting to exterminate the Jews was the right thing to do? The thing is that being part of a system that does horrible acts makes it much easier to rationalize the blame over on someone else compared to when you do the killing yourself. As long as you're not the one who releases the lethal gas in the gas chambers, it's easy to tell yourself that you're not the one who is ultimately responsible for the deaths..

I personally think that it was just as easy for the frey bannermen and bolton bannermen to justify their actions. Some of them probably only lit the torches or pulled the ropes to drop the tent canvas. I don't think every german soldier agreed with hitler, but they all followed him. even the soldiers who weren't working at the camps were still responsible for rounding up jews. of course there were soldiers who disagreed, some even tried to sabotoge the nazis.

Technology makes killing easier because instead of putting a sword through someone, you pull a trigger, push a button to release a bomb or gas. The extermination itself was most likely (admittedly I don't know all the details, I base this on what I've read about it) committed primarily by a limited number of soldiers and it was also, as far as I can deduce, hushed up. This was probably not common knowledge to every German (both soldiers and civilians). I mean, do you truly believe that the Germans all were evil? That most of them had no objections to the fact that their government killed millions of people? I find this hard to believe. But if you do believe this, we'll have to agree to disagree. .

Yes modern technology makes it far easier for someone to steel themselves agains killing someone, it becomes alot less personal when you can't feel their blood gushing out onto your hands, but not all modern attrocities are committed with guns, bombs and gas. The Genocide in Rwanda was committed in the most part by Militia armed mainly with machetes because guns were too expensive. They killed somewhere around 500,000 (some counts say up to 1,000,000) people in approximately 100 days. That's 5,000+ people a day and apparently, when the mass slaughter started taking place, many civilians joined in as well.

I do not in any way think all germans are evil. Ive been to germany and some of the nicest people i have ever met were German. My girlfriend's whole family is german. I wasn't trying to say that all the nazis were evil, I was trying to say that the freys and boltons who participated in the Red Wedding were not, strictly speaking, evil. Evil, as it is portrayed in books and movies, doesn't really exist in the real world.

Olyvar, Perwyn and Alesander Frey were absent because they were thought to be sympathetic towards Robb Stark. Still, this is three men. I would believe more would have issues with arranging a massacre like this in real life. I read that the number of Frey and Bolton soldiers that were killed were about fifty, which means that a great deal more took part because they lost so few (they would have lost many more if the Northerners had gotten time to brace themselves, which means that the Frey soldiers had to strike everywhere in the camp at about the same time, and this indicates a large number of men) compared to the Northerners they were slaughtering. And remember, the Red Wedding hasn't actually happened. The Massacre of Glencoe - which I have mentioned more than once - was similar in terms of the violation of guest right (or murder under trust as it was called in Scottish law), but much fewer people were killed. Soldiers refused to take part in it. That, among other things, is what I base my evaluation of the Red Wedding as unrealistic on..

Three men and their knights, squires and infantry...

I honestly don't find it unrealistic that they could find even 600 men (though I still think it was fewer) who would take part in something like that.

Are you referring to bullying? If so, that is on a completely different level than what I was talking about. However, I do agree that many people can be part of bullying, likely many are by silently standing there without interfering, and I also agree that bullying is cruel. Children (and teenagers) are known to be cruel at times. And while this is not acceptable, it's not anywhere near as bad as cold-blooded murder.

I did say we were talking about a different level of cruelty, I just wanted to point out that most people, as far as I can tell, are capable of cruelty and in extreme cases, would probably be capable of extreme cruelty.

I do respect your opinion, and I don't expect everyone to love GRRMs writing. I know a few people who don't enjoy reading his books or watching the show. There is nothing wrong with that, if it's not your cup of tea, that's fine.

also, I know you didn't start this thread, but the title of this thread makes absolutely no sense. How can GRRM ruin something he created? based on the critical acclaim he has recieved, I think he is probably pretty pleased with his work and I would imagine it turned out just as he wanted it to (if a little longer than he intended). He is writing for the people who enjoy his writing, which I am sure he knows will not be everyone.

 

[Koopa]

@Whitebeard, i agree with most of what you said but an author can ruin his own works.
Some probably done it on purpose too.

 

[JoanDrake]

(clip)

Absolutely. Well said.

Yes, there were a lot more nazis, but do you truly believe everyone of these agreed that attempting to exterminate the Jews was the right thing to do? The thing is that being part of a system that does horrible acts makes it much easier to rationalize the blame over on someone else compared to when you do the killing yourself. As long as you're not the one who releases the lethal gas in the gas chambers, it's easy to tell yourself that you're not the one who is ultimately responsible for the deaths.

Technology makes killing easier because instead of putting a sword through someone, you pull a trigger, push a button to release a bomb or gas. The extermination itself was most likely (admittedly I don't know all the details, I base this on what I've read about it) committed primarily by a limited number of soldiers and it was also, as far as I can deduce, hushed up. This was probably not common knowledge to every German (both soldiers and civilians). I mean, do you truly believe that the Germans all were evil? That most of them had no objections to the fact that their government killed millions of people? I find this hard to believe. But if you do believe this, we'll have to agree to disagree.

(clip)

You need to read a book called Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Goldhagen, and to understand that it was very well and fairly researched and is authoritatively cited according to most sources. It is now accepted by most historians AFAIK. Not really strangely, older Germans are not among it's staunchest supporters but younger Germans met the the book with cheers and praise back in the 1990's.

It IS a fact, and quite possibly a very salient one, that most Germans of the time regarded their government as much more powerful than it really was and simultaneously saw it as "a snake, and a very dangerous one, which would kill you instantly if it even thought you meant to cross it, and sometimes even when it knew you didn't, just to keep up the fear level."

It is also a human maxim, and has been far before the Romans, that Homo Homine Lupus

In any case, incidents like the Red Wedding are a commonplace staple in just about any nation's history. (Even the US did it to the First Nations in colonial times) They are also far different than Genocides. The common people, one character said in the first book "..take little notice of their rulers playing the Game of Thrones, as long as they are left alone, which they never are."

 

[ZombieWife]

Robb won some battles, began losing the war, made a promise, broke it, made some stupid mistakes and boom.

He certainly wasn't the last main character to be punished for his mistakes, especially in A Dance with Dragons.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Robb. I hated the Red Wedding. I don't think I was supposed to like it. But, I'd rather have a world and story that keeps me on the edge of my seat because nobody is safe rather than having everything spoon-fed on a formulaic level here.

On the other hand, if Martin proceeds to systematically kill off every single character by the end of the series, that is just as bad as letting everyone live happily ever after chasing rainbows and kittens.

I know people who stopped reading after the Red Wedding. Omg Robb! Omg! Omg!

Again, Robb was never A HERO in the story (if we are speaking about main protagonists). He isn't supposed to have a splendid heroic arc here. Bran, on the other hand? Absolutely. Arya? Yes. Jon Snow, yes. Dany, yes. Tyrion? Remains to be seen. Same with Jaime.

I think Martin did a great job at showing us who the movers/shakers were from the start. Ed was not one of them. Robb wasn't one or he might have gotten his own POV. Heck, the Hound seems to have more heroic potential than Robb, imho.

We'll just have to see what happens. If they go and off Tyrion, I'll probably change my tune. But, that hasn't happened. Yet.

In the end, we all react to material in a certain way. I can appreciate why someone would really not enjoy the series after the Red Wedding and want to just hang it up. But many of us don't feel that way. Maybe those of us who are okay with it are just big ole masochists. (grin)

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

@Whitebeard, i agree with most of what you said but an author can ruin his own works.
Some probably done it on purpose too.

I see your point and I can think of a few examples where a book or move is seriously affected by some plot twist or surprise at the end that totally goes against the rest of the work and makes it far less enjoyable. but the way I see it, the author is telling the story and it is their story. if stephen king wants to turn pennywise into a giant spider-beast in the last act, that's his decision. sure, its rediculous and unexpected but did he ruin the story? no, he just told a different story from what you were expecting. to quote Willy Wonka (quoting a poem) "[they] are the music makers, and [they] are the dreamers of dreams"

I can't imagine a situation where an author thinks to him/herself "I have a great story going, now how can I totally ruin it so it doesn't sell and I have to pay back my advance?". but I will admit that it is a possibility. Otherwise, i stand by my assertion.

 

[Ursa major]

Not ruining it, exactly, but authors have tried to kill a series by offing the main character. A famous example - a famously unsuccessful one - had a Swiss setting for the "final" deed.


(And as a consequence of that literary attempted murder, some of us are waiting to see how the character's latest incarnation survived his modern-day, London-based faked demise.)

 

[chongjasmine]

Obviously, there are MAJOR SPOILERS ahead! Be careful if you haven't read book 3!

I just finished book 3. Disappointment took me over.

Here is my view on the big picture: GRRM is a gifted writer, no doubt... problem is, he is simply incapable of keeping up with the fantastic world he gave us in the first two books. And I think he knows that, given the sudden shift in focus the series took.

From the first page, I loved A Song of Ice and Fire. I was fooled into imagining it would be about Ned Stark and his fight to mend the broken kingdom. Then he died. I was sad, pissed off, but I understood it had to happen, so the central plot could move on to the Starks heirs and their strugle to find some justice.

Again, I was wrong. GRRM managed to kill Jory, Ser Rodrick, Maester Luwin, destroyed Winterfell, killed too many of the direwolves, killed Robb, Grey Wind and Catelyn, pulverized what remained of the northmen army and any chance the north had with it. Now, we are left with the Stark children and Jon for the rest of the series, if we still want to root for the Starks. And honestly, even if they win in the end, what of it? What will be left for them?

So there you have it. No reason to keep reading.

I think it is obvious that science fiction series depend on regular dramatic events to remain interisting. One way to go is unexpectedly killing an important character. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as it serves the story. Boromir's death in LOTR is a good example. Ned's death too.

But that is just one card. And it is one GRRM has abused over and over, to the point where a Song of Ice and Fire just... lost its appeal. He killed too many of the good guys for me to care about what is going to happen next.

Of course that may just be me. But it got me thinking...

Imagine it is 1977. You just watched Star Wars - A New Hope. You loved it. Come Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas kills Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, Han Solo and R2D2, and the Death Star has destroyed every world populated with a likeable race, and the Rebel Alliance is over. Would you still care? Would Star Wars still be so great?

Or let's say you just read LORTR - Fellowship of the Ring. You loved it. On the second book, Frodo dies, Aragorn dies, Legolas dies, Gimly dies, the shrine is destroyed and invaded by orcs. You're left to root for Sam and those other two hobbits. Would you keep reading? Would LOTR still be so great?

But i digress. My point: GRRM has strayed from the path that made a Song of Ice and Fire so appealing: the Starks hard fight to find revenge and justice. They have been too damaged to have any kind of satisfaction from any sort of victory they eventually have from this point forward.

Well, this is just my opinion. It is funny, I think that creating a wonderful saga and botching its ending seems to be a doom of modern writers. "Harry Potter" was a huge let down (also plagued by pointless deaths of major characters, by the way). The tv series "Lost" had a tremendous disappoing twist in its final seasons. And the videogame "Mass Effect" had a plot that made millions of people buy the games and read the books, and its ending has immensely displeased 99% of the audience.

Oh well.

I agree with you. I do not like the fact that many of my beloved characters got killed off, early in the series. Yet, that did not stop me from continuing to read the song of ice and fire. I do not like the song of ice and fire as much as I like the wheel of time series or the robin hobb's assassin's series. Still, I continue to read it. One of the thing I do not like about song of ice and fire is the wait between each book. It can take gerorge's five years to publish the next book.

 

[LightBringer]

Yes modern technology makes it far easier for someone to steel themselves agains killing someone, it becomes alot less personal when you can't feel their blood gushing out onto your hands, but not all modern attrocities are committed with guns, bombs and gas. The Genocide in Rwanda was committed in the most part by Militia armed mainly with machetes because guns were too expensive. They killed somewhere around 500,000 (some counts say up to 1,000,000) people in approximately 100 days. That's 5,000+ people a day and apparently, when the mass slaughter started taking place, many civilians joined in as well.

I don't know much about the details of the genocide of Rwanda, so this will be mostly speculation. Let me first say that it's terrible. That many people killed is absolutely atrocious. I don't know how something of this magnitude happens, but if I've undestood it correctly it was a culmination of something that been building up for a long time. There was (and probably is) a lot of bad blood between the Tutsis and Hutus. I think you'll agree with me, however, that something like this is unthinkable in the western world today. It will not happen. So, with the risk of sounding like Rudyard Kipling, perhaps these barbaric actions are more likely to happen in some countries because of how unstable they are. When there's constant civil war people become less civilized and actions like these become more probable. That being said, I still have problems comprehending how so many people can take part in something this heinous.

It IS a fact, and quite possibly a very salient one, that most Germans of the time regarded their government as much more powerful than it really was and simultaneously saw it as "a snake, and a very dangerous one, which would kill you instantly if it even thought you meant to cross it, and sometimes even when it knew you didn't, just to keep up the fear level.

I haven't said anything against this. What I said was simply that I find it hard to believe that most Germans took part willingly in the (attempted) extermination of the Jews.

incidents like the Red Wedding are a commonplace staple in just about any nation's history

That is a very dubious statement in my opinion. Of course I know that there have been plenty of war crimes during the course of history, and I do not make excuses for any of them. But the point I was making about the Red Wedding was that compared to similar real life events (in the Middle Ages), it does not seem realistic to me. The special circumstances (the breaking of guest right which is similar to something called murder under trust in Scottish law) makes it something else than an ordinary wartime massacre and that's why I have mentioned the Massacre of Glencoe several times. Again, I don't deny that atrocious acts have been committed – some systems seem to bring out the absolute worst in humans – but I question how realistic this particular fictitious event is.

also, I know you didn't start this thread, but the title of this thread makes absolutely no sense. How can GRRM ruin something he created? based on the critical acclaim he has recieved, I think he is probably pretty pleased with his work and I would imagine it turned out just as he wanted it to (if a little longer than he intended). He is writing for the people who enjoy his writing, which I am sure he knows will not be everyone.

I would say that whether the author ruined the book or not is up to each reader to decide for himself. For the person starting the thread the author ruined the story and the same is true for myself. This is subjective. The story just lost most of its appeal to me. So I'm not saying the books suddenly have become rubbish or are badly written. The books are very well written. It has to do with the turn of events, and that (in my humble opinion) Martin is toying with his readers. More objective criticism could say that the last two books have a lot of irrelevant events, that the scope is too wide and that things happen way too slowly (this is especially true for A Dance With Dragons). However, that is an entirely different discussion.

 

[Koopa]

Well most people willingly took part in the jewhunt to expedite them from their country.
to what extent they knew(in the back of their heads) what happened to those people we can only guess.

 

[chongjasmine]

Robb won some battles, began losing the war, made a promise, broke it, made some stupid mistakes and boom.

He certainly wasn't the last main character to be punished for his mistakes, especially in A Dance with Dragons.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Robb. I hated the Red Wedding. I don't think I was supposed to like it. But, I'd rather have a world and story that keeps me on the edge of my seat because nobody is safe rather than having everything spoon-fed on a formulaic level here.

On the other hand, if Martin proceeds to systematically kill off every single character by the end of the series, that is just as bad as letting everyone live happily ever after chasing rainbows and kittens.

I know people who stopped reading after the Red Wedding. Omg Robb! Omg! Omg!

Again, Robb was never A HERO in the story (if we are speaking about main protagonists). He isn't supposed to have a splendid heroic arc here. Bran, on the other hand? Absolutely. Arya? Yes. Jon Snow, yes. Dany, yes. Tyrion? Remains to be seen. Same with Jaime.

I think Martin did a great job at showing us who the movers/shakers were from the start. Ed was not one of them. Robb wasn't one or he might have gotten his own POV. Heck, the Hound seems to have more heroic potential than Robb, imho.

We'll just have to see what happens. If they go and off Tyrion, I'll probably change my tune. But, that hasn't happened. Yet.

In the end, we all react to material in a certain way. I can appreciate why someone would really not enjoy the series after the Red Wedding and want to just hang it up. But many of us don't feel that way. Maybe those of us who are okay with it are just big ole masochists. (grin)

I am still reading the series even after Robb's death, even though I really like him as a character. I don't really like Tyrion, though, so I will not mind if he is killed off. Love Jon and Arya and don't want anything bad to happen to them.

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

I don't know much about the details of the genocide of Rwanda, so this will be mostly speculation. Let me first say that it's terrible. That many people killed is absolutely atrocious. I don't know how something of this magnitude happens, but if I've undestood it correctly it was a culmination of something that been building up for a long time. There was (and probably is) a lot of bad blood between the Tutsis and Hutus. I think you'll agree with me, however, that something like this is unthinkable in the western world today. It will not happen. So, with the risk of sounding like Rudyard Kipling, perhaps these barbaric actions are more likely to happen in some countries because of how unstable they are. When there's constant civil war people become less civilized and actions like these become more probable. That being said, I still have problems comprehending how so many people can take part in something this heinous.

Yes it is disgusting that something like this could happen. The point I was trying to make was that relatively ordinary people are capable of doing terrible things, in the case of the genocide in Rwanda, many Hutu civilians took part in the slaughter of Tutsis because the militia was also killing any Hutus who were "tutsi sympathizers". basically, it was kill or be killed. Events like this are why I have no problem with the realism of the Red Wedding, but maybe I just have less faith in humanity than you.

the fact that nothing exactly like the Red Wedding has happened in our own past during the medieval era does not lessen the reality, in my eyes, because clearly the same circumstances never existed.

I would say that whether the author ruined the book or not is up to each reader to decide for himself. For the person starting the thread the author ruined the story and the same is true for myself. This is subjective. The story just lost most of its appeal to me. So I'm not saying the books suddenly have become rubbish or are badly written. The books are very well written. It has to do with the turn of events, and that (in my humble opinion) Martin is toying with his readers. More objective criticism could say that the last two books have a lot of irrelevant events, that the scope is too wide and that things happen way too slowly (this is especially true for A Dance With Dragons). However, that is an entirely different discussion.

i see what you mean and I was really just making an irrelevant point. to my mind, no author can truley ruin their own story. I am not a writer, but I can't imagine that any author starts writing a story and assumes or expects that every living person will like it. they write the story as they imagine it and they hope that they find their audience. you and joaomadeira didn't enjoy the story martin wrote, even though you liked the original concept and his writing style, you found fault with the direction of the plot. That is not your faul nor is it martins. the red wedding was integral to the story that Martin wanted to write.

again though, this is just my opinion and isn't really relative. you obviously feel cheated that Martin killed off a few great characters, but i feel cheated when every hero in a story narrowly escapes death at every turn.

 

[Nerds_feather]

There were plenty of horrific massacres in Western Europe during the medieval period. For example, large-scale massacres of Jews in London (1189) and York (1190).

I think it's possible to say that the red wedding is gratuitous or splatterpornographic, but I really don't see the case for it being "unrealistic."

 

[Bick]

Blimey this thread has got the hackles up on a fair few people it seems. I can't (being totally honest) be bothered to read the whole thread, but for my tuppence:

I think that, at the end of the day, an author ought to fulfill the expectations of his readers without wrong-footing them too much if he wants those readers to love his or her book. In the case of Agatha Christie, you expect to be surprised at the end of the book, so in that case its fine, you look forward to it. However, if she told you the butler did it half-way through, that wouldn't be okay. Its called meeting expectations. With GRRM's ASoIaF, I got that they were full of grittiness, and I understood there were some surprise deaths, and twists and turns in the plot, but I nonetheless thought I had the measure of his world, and what I might expect. Grand fantasy needs to wrap me in its world and give me the impression I understand it, for all its wierdness. You can't just trample on readers expectations for kicks. Unfortunately, when it came to the Red Wedding, it was revealed to me that GRRM and I were on completely different pages (so to speak). I didn't like the disappointment of those characters dying, I didn't think it was big and clever to unhorse me like that. Frankly it just pi#@ed me off, and for the first time in many years I wanted to hurl a book at the wall. So, yeah, I agree with he vocal minority: I think GRRM ruined it (regardless of whether its realistic or not, which I think is a complete red herring), and I'm not bothering to read beyond book 3. And I understand lots of other readers vehemently disagree with that, but that's subjectivity for you.

 

[JoanDrake]

Massacres that violate the rules of war are certainly not unheard of in actual history and are a well known trope in fiction. There's certainly nothing really surprising or even that original here IMO.

GRRM, in this series, is trying to present a 20th century view of Medievalism. I can understand people having a problem with that if you think that Fantasy is properly the refuge of the 19th century view and you may very well be right. I think it depends on the Fantasy.

My problem with GRRM, and the whole grimdark phenomena, is that it more than often (like most of the 20th century view of medievalism) goes the other way. Medieval times were tough, no question, but the idea that everything was filthy, disease ridden and miserable is also something of a myth.

As Literature, the whole idea of ASoIaF is that it's a series, one story told episodically, is that right? So whose story will it be if none of the original characters, nor their descendants, survive the entire series?

 

[Ursa major]

Medieval times were tough, no question, but the idea that everything was filthy, disease ridden and miserable is also something of a myth.

No-one is saying that everything was filthy, disease ridden and miserable, but there were times and places where it was worse than that being portrayed in ASoIaF, central Europe during the Thirty Years War, for instance, where:

estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 25% to 40%.Some regions were affected much more than others. For example, Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war. In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died. The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half.

Perhaps the coming of Winter will prove as devastating as this entirely human- (and disease-)driven tragedy, but we're nowhere near this level of suffering.

As Literature, the whole idea of ASoIaF is that it's a series, one story told episodically, is that right? So whose story will it be if none of the original characters, nor their descendants, survive the entire series?

Plenty of the original characters are about, including the PoV character of the first true chapter (i.e. not the prologue) of the first book. In fact, the survival rate of the Stark children is quite high, all things considered.

.

 

[JoanDrake]

No-one is saying that everything was filthy, disease ridden and miserable, but there were times and places where it was worse than that being portrayed in ASoIaF, central Europe during the Thirty Years War, for instance, where:

Perhaps the coming of Winter will prove as devastating as this entirely human- (and disease-)driven tragedy, but we're nowhere near this level of suffering.

Plenty of the original characters are about, including the PoV character of the first true chapter (i.e. not the prologue) of the first book. In fact, the survival rate of the Stark children is quite high, all things considered.

.

True enough, the Black Death was not exactly a pleasant time either. I sort of wonder when Martin will get around to that.