Hear hear. So disappointed. I'm 400 pages in and all I'm getting is rehash rehash rehash. The Davos chapters were unbelievable. Why the hell did we need to be told everything again? Sheesh. Read the books!
I'm forcing myself to read it, and that's so not good.
The Davos chapters really WERE unreal, weren't they? Tons of explaining stuff that both Davos and Lord Manderly should blood well KNOW, and tons of recapping.
And Dany and Tyrion--two of the most active characters ever--seem to have been trapped by a web of inertia.
The fact that you have to force yourself to read it is the most telling. A book like this shouldn't be a chore.
Passivity is the key here. The only active characters are ones I don't give a hoot about, Roose Bolton for one. Even Quentyn so far isn't active, things are just happening to him. Before the characters made things happen, this time everyone just sits around and let things happen around them.
Yeah. Roose Bolton is actually doing something. So is his monstrous son, Ramsay Snow. But they're such thoroughly vile creatures that reading about them isn't anything approaching a pleasure
( ... )
Is this IC for their killer? It's...hard to tell. Last time, he seemed like a fairly reasonable and not at all showy man
Followed this back from lareinenoire's post -- agree with some of your points, disagree with others, but with this one I'd say it's very much in character.
Victarion Greyjoy is Khal Drogo on a ship -- he's basically a murderous bastard from a culture that holds murderous bastardy to be the ideal form of behaviour. As a member of said culture he embodies its ideas of honour and merit and is therefore arguably slightly better than some, but only in the sense that completely brutal and sort-of principled is slightly better than completely brutal and unprincipled.
Spoilers in comment. You have been warned.gehayiJuly 20 2011, 02:47:33 UTC
As a member of said culture he embodies its ideas of honour and merit and is therefore arguably slightly better than some, but only in the sense that completely brutal and sort-of principled is slightly better than completely brutal and unprincipled.Khal Drogo on a ship is a pretty good description. I never liked Victarion--anyone who would kill his wife because his brother raped her is seriously nuts. Not a likeable man, and one I'd happily send to his Drowned God, but he avoided a few fights that he knew he couldn't win; he wasn't an ultra-zealot like his brother the Damphair; he didn't tear out the tongues of captives like Euron
( ... )
Re: Spoilers in comment. You have been warned.snorkackcatcherJuly 20 2011, 21:58:24 UTC
As to that I think it's his culture talking ('top' = strong and manly, 'bottom' = weak and womanly, whatever the actual sex of the latter -- as with the Greeks, I understand). The treatment of the young maester is rather shocking in its brutality even for Victarion, but in-character as he's exactly the kind of person who would piss him off the most.
Regarding the sacrifices: presumably from Victarion's POV the Drowned God and/or R'hillor sent him a shipwrecked wizard all of his very own to heal the arm that was killing him, supply him with prophecy, and lead him on to glory, hence the sacrifices? The blackness of the arm seems (as far as I can tell) to be a indication that there was something unnatural about the healing, a mark of the spells used maybe. The red priest apparently has the same skin effect permanently (whatever it actually is).
Re: Spoilers in comment. You have been warned.gehayiJuly 21 2011, 02:21:39 UTC
I've gotten used to magical healing in fiction being far more complete than that, so until you made the above comment, I didn't even identify that as "healing" or even as magical.
You see, I've been thinking in terms of the red priest using fire to clean the pus out of the arm and then cauterize the wounds (both those made by the sword and those made by fire). I was envisioning an arm blackened by third-degree burns. And Vic being able to use his charcoal arm--I just figured that Martin had fucked up on the research. (As he fucked up on so much else in this book. Alas.) The idea of a sorcerer-priest actually doing anything useful never occurred to me for a minute
( ... )
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I'm forcing myself to read it, and that's so not good.
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And Dany and Tyrion--two of the most active characters ever--seem to have been trapped by a web of inertia.
The fact that you have to force yourself to read it is the most telling. A book like this shouldn't be a chore.
Reply
and eating.
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Followed this back from lareinenoire's post -- agree with some of your points, disagree with others, but with this one I'd say it's very much in character.
Victarion Greyjoy is Khal Drogo on a ship -- he's basically a murderous bastard from a culture that holds murderous bastardy to be the ideal form of behaviour. As a member of said culture he embodies its ideas of honour and merit and is therefore arguably slightly better than some, but only in the sense that completely brutal and sort-of principled is slightly better than completely brutal and unprincipled.
Reply
Reply
Regarding the sacrifices: presumably from Victarion's POV the Drowned God and/or R'hillor sent him a shipwrecked wizard all of his very own to heal the arm that was killing him, supply him with prophecy, and lead him on to glory, hence the sacrifices? The blackness of the arm seems (as far as I can tell) to be a indication that there was something unnatural about the healing, a mark of the spells used maybe. The red priest apparently has the same skin effect permanently (whatever it actually is).
Reply
You see, I've been thinking in terms of the red priest using fire to clean the pus out of the arm and then cauterize the wounds (both those made by the sword and those made by fire). I was envisioning an arm blackened by third-degree burns. And Vic being able to use his charcoal arm--I just figured that Martin had fucked up on the research. (As he fucked up on so much else in this book. Alas.) The idea of a sorcerer-priest actually doing anything useful never occurred to me for a minute ( ... )
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