After getting hooked on the TV series Game of Thrones, I decided to supplement my watching material as well as my own writing through picking up George RR Martin’s novels. Part of the decision was to get a better view of his world and delve into the details that the TV show might be missing. Another part was to get ahead in some ways and find out the aspects of the TV show that critics who are huge book fans decry constantly. And the last part was to enter into the verbal world because I, too, am working on my own fantasy novel and, as my writing instructors at UCI once said, “Read while you write.”
The first book Game of Thrones seemed to have the most faithful adherence when it came to the TV series. There’s a few bits missing, but most of it was the inner thoughts of the viewpoint characters. As the story progressed, the divergence grew wider, especially in arriving at A Storm of Swords. The first major issue I realized was how the Gendry story in the book really was two stories with Edric Storm being the other half. In the TV show, Gendry is shown being taken away in chains by Melisandre whereas in the book he stays as a blacksmith helping out the Brotherhood without Banners. Without the last two books being completed, I feel that the TV adaptation could head into trouble since they essentially combined these characters into a single entity. Also, in some ways the TV show provides implied spoilers in suggesting what could be either character’s major destiny. I don’t know how they’ll resolve it in the end though.
That situation happened as well in A Clash of Kings where Bronn’s character was divided with another but consolidated in the TV version. In truth, the TV version ended up doing a reasonable job in keeping the character to a single person as the other one (I forget his name) didn’t really have as big of a role. Also, Bronn’s character had more depth by putting the two together.
Now, where things got murky was A Feast of Crows. I think the biggest issue with this book was the introduction of far too many characters. Some of which in all honesty really didn’t do anything for the story outside of providing an extraneous viewpoint. I’ve read some criticisms with this book and my guess is that most people felt the same problem in how the rhythm suddenly shifts unexpectedly with all the new characters. Your investment in the previous characters lose out as you wait for someone like Tyrion or Jon Snow to have their viewpoint chapter make a return. Instead, you have to wait for A Dance with Dragons. Even in the end, George RR Martin admits the bizarre sudden change in structure compared to the other books.
I think the Sansa Stark, Cersei and Reek chapters were the only parts that worked out for me in that novel. The parts with the Martells fell short. Like the small useless chapters with the captain guarding Myrcella. I felt as though those parts could’ve been easily explained with a paragraph saying that the captain died defending the girl. Similarly, all the chapters involving the Greyjoys (outside of Asha and Reek/Theon) honestly bored me. Perhaps, the main reason is that none of those characters were greatly developed for me to put any reasonable amount of emotion into them. Instead, I kept going waiting for something to happen (in between the endless enumerations of meals, outfits and meaningless names that are dropped which fill up far too much space in these books).
Funny thing is that I read that most of the scenes involving the Greyjoys (except Yara/Asha) ended up on the cutting board for the TV series. In truth, that’s not half that bad considering how frustratingly boring those parts are. The only real developments to them are 1) Theon’s father dying; 2) Euron Greyjoy announcing he has a horn that can control dragons. Victorian Greyjoy simply does nothing for me and I have no issue with him not being part of the show (at least from what has been advertised thus far).
If anything A Feast for Crows felt like it could’ve been written as a short story because it was one massive digression. Perhaps, the only chapters I really looked forward in reading were Cersei’s because I love Lena Headey and the way she portrays her. That said, the Cersei from A Feast for Crows feels too experimental and really one dimensional compared to Lena Headey’s performance. Lena Headey is often times (from what I’ve heard) as giving the character too much humanization. However, I argue that George RR Martin displays her as just being a manipulative cunt. She has a single direction and doesn’t veer from it. On the other hand, Lena Headey, who is a mother, adds far more emotion and female power that I love about the character. Her motivations come from protecting her family and name, despite the slights in her life. I think Lena Headey as a woman is able to capture more of the essence of the character than what George RR Martin has written about thus far.
A Dance of Dragons, as others have pointed out, felt better overall. Perhaps, the main reason is that most of the focus returned to the main characters as the main story lines reunited. There are some awkward divergent moments such as the occasional switching to a few characters from A Feast for Crows. But since the majority of the story is being told about Bran, Dany, Tyrion, Reek/Theon and Jon Snow, it feels more familiar and the pacing is better.
Now with the upcoming series 5 for TV, I did spot some differences immediately such as Jamie wearing Dornish attire, Tyrion sitting with Dany’s group and a few missing characters from Dorne (like Arienne). This time around it will feel weird having this knowledge as a book reader in advance of what the series ought to be. Truthfully, the TV writers have a lot cut out for them as they need to figure out how to string all these plots together while cutting out key characters and subplots. I’m wondering with Jamie appearing in Dorne, if some future book spoilers are occurring.
At any rate, I’m very glad that I’ve managed to complete all this before the next book comes out and before the new season starts. As a writer myself, I was happy to become engaged in the verbal world of A Fire and Ice because I saw issues that I hoped to avoid myself. For instance, the whole food thing just nagged on for me. It felt as though George RR Martin was really hungry while writing these things and described every meal he had as he plopped words down. Also, there’s just so many useless names in the story. And most are similar to each other. After a while, the name dropping desensitizes you and you end up forgetting everyone beyond most of the main characters. There’s a few spots where you’re supposed to remember a key character making a comeback. However, with all the names and similar names with the hundreds of pages or even a few books back, you simply cannot remember why that surprise person has any importance. The impact immediately is lost upon you and you don’t have any easy way to navigate backwards without using something like Wikipedia to fill you, taking notes or resorting to trying to find the names from previous chapters or books.
Also, I mentioned a lot of useless viewpoint characters. I felt that some of these characters served absolutely no purpose outside of filling pages up. A good example is Quentyn Martel. The second I saw him open up the door to the dragons I wanted to slap myself on the head really hard. What was the point of his character? I know George RR Martin has become infamous for writing about characters that we’re supposed to care about and later killing them off. But I never cared about Quentyn in the first place. I don’t know why I was supposed to care about him. I never was given a solid reason to like the guy. He had no noticeable qualities to make me want to invest any of my feelings into him. So when he died I was swiftly reminded of Red Shirt Star Trek guys as well as some high school jock who snorted too much coke and was dared by his stoner friends to try harder drugs and failed in the attempt. Is there some sort of in joke thing about Martells ending up with horrible fates? Maybe I’m missing something entirely here.
In addition regarding numerous characters, many people say that these characters are complex and flushed out. I have to respectfully disagree here. Some characters are pretty well written but I find that many of the characters feel like archetypes with some back story but still remain archetypes or stereotypes to some degree. Many have interesting personality quirks that Martin likes to play with in terms of offsetting standard medieval fantasy types. But the real complexities that explain motives behind character’s actions feel missing. Ironically, in many cases the TV show does do a far better job bringing to life these characters (like Robb Stark).
So for me I didn’t have any emotional distress when certain characters would die. Take the infamous Red Wedding scene. Although I came into that scene knowing what to expect because of the TV series, the lead up to that point still didn’t give me enough to really miss Catelyn Stark. As a matter of fact, I found her character to be really annoying and stupid to a huge degree. One of the biggest plot holes in the book for me was how she released Jamie even after he admitted to having incest with his sister. If that’s not your checkmate in a war, I don’t know what is. Right then and there Catelyn had the best hostage for the North with a confession and a witness (Brienne). Why the fuck would you let someone go like that? Why not just coerce him into admitting in front of everyone else that the Joffrey had no true claim to the Iron Throne and they would only release Jamie if the entire Lannister family stepped down, bent the knee to the North and were forced into exile (with Joffrey being beheaded as compensation for Ned Stark)?
I think the thing for me is that I couldn’t figure out a motive for her actions in releasing Jamie. You could argue that she wanted her daughters back. But she had everything in the palm of her hands. By the time the Red Wedding scene occurs, you essentially lost all sympathy for the Stark’s cause and just looked at them as bumbling fools who retain some ancient, misguided notion of honor. So is that supposed to be the intent at the end of the day?
Quite frankly, the way I envision Martin “develops” these characters is using a massive diagram using the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons alignment system where each character sits in a square. If you look closely at each character, they pretty much fall into one of the alignments from AD&D. But falling into a strict alignment system does not make a character complex. Instead, it feels that the character is incapable of growth. Outside of Dany and Jon Snow and perhaps Reek, you don’t really get a sense of growth from characters. Many remain steadfastly dumb and stagnant. I guess you could contend that people were in the medieval ages in such a setting. Yet you would think that some people are capable of learning. Maybe “You know nothing Jon Snow” really is an irony that makes a blanket statement about everyone else in the books.
Stylistically, things become repetitive after a while. It was one of the things I was on the hunt for after reading one of the criticisms for A Feast for Crows. I wanted to give George RR Martin the benefit of the doubt because I know that many authors end up repeating themselves or falling into the trap of using certain favorite vocabulary words or sentence structures that they become accustomed to. That’s part of developing one’s voice. Even people who have massive arsenals of diction like Stephen R Donaldson end up repeating themselves.
In the case of George RR Martin, the thing that drove me the craziest was the endless list. Not just list but useless list. I mentioned the food and name dropping as a huge detractor. One of my little secrets in getting through 100-200 pages/day was skipping sections with long lists that I knew adding nothing to the story. I get that he wants to have the world come alive by providing as much description as possible. But I don’t feel faceless names, details on each item for every meal and material worn for everyone’s attire as necessary all the time. Sometimes I just wanted to hear something like, “Jon Snow ate with his brothers.” More concise especially if the real point might get missed with all the excess words. A friend of mine joked that maybe Martin gets paid by the word. Not sure about that but it shouldn’t be the only motive.
Truthfully, the only time the writing felt like it mattered was the final few paragraphs of each chapter. Everything else read like filler, clogging up the primary points. My personal feeling as a writer is that if all the filler is skipped out, Martin could probably complete the next two books before Season 5 premiers.
At any rate, I am anticipating the upcoming books. I think I do have a lot more insight into the world after reading these books. You do miss out on some critical detail, namely the historical aspects and characters’ inner thoughts. Those parts are good reasons for anyone who is a fan of the TV series to check out the books. I don’t think the books come off as epic as people want to describe it. There are things that set it apart from other fantasy writing but the standard in fantasy generally has been set pretty low compared to the vast majority of literature so that really isn’t a fair comparison (TSR anyone????) I think the series is fair but most of the popularity imo really comes from the TV series as the writing feels a lot tighter there. Anyway, can’t wait for the next books and in the meantime I’ll continue to work on my own.
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