Through Mary, Comfort of the Affliected, I got kicked out of my favorite forum (not this one mind you), people think I'm a racist because I oppose Zionism yet because of ITS racism (please lets stay on topic here people) and Game of Thrones is just so depressing and I need to be comforted. Plus, I have depression which is giving me less and less energy. On Game of Thrones, I knew this book was suppsoed to be sad but it really is taking its toll on me. I care so much aobut these characters and to see them suffer so much just wrenches my heart. On the same topic, I hear that a Feast for Crows is not as good as the other three before it and while Dance with Dragons did get good reviews, one review in particular made me think whether this series is decaying in quality and if I sohuld continue reading it after Game of Thrones. Can anyone give me their opinions? I really like Eddard Stark and all of the Stark family really, including Jon obviously; I even like Catelyn who in my opinion, and from what I've read, is really not a bad lady at all. She just cares for her children and family. I also like Tyrion And without desrespecting other readers, I don't know how they can even like the likes of Petyr Baelish and Jaime Lannister. After what they did, they can never be likable to me. So any thoughts?
I haven't read the books but I saw the TV series, and to me it seems that in this story the "evil" is "good". Considering that usually evil is the one mostly suffering. "Good" as "evil" is slowly being killed away.
I don't play escapist RPG's. Hell, the only video game I play is tetris thats it. I do watch walkthrough of video games to see their story but only the good ones like L.A Noire, Eternal Darkness, Oblivion, Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Arkham Aslum and Arkham City, if only because they all have engaging stories with characters I like. They push video games into being art formms, no, they are PROOF that video games are art. But anyway, the Song of Ice and fire series really is depressing and wanted to share my thoughts.
well, whatever it is, it's still fantasy, not reality... so if it depresses you, all you have to do is stop reading it, or whatever... that's the point i was making...
Yeah, it's depressing. Personally I feel that A Song of Ice and Fire series is overrated... the books are bloated with endless description the noble houses and satellite characters that barely deserve a mention, and because there's so many POV's the plot moves at an insanely slow pace. Why not write several books, one from each viewpoint? At least then you'd get the whole story in the novel, instead of just a snapshot. I have no idea how he's going to wrap up the plot with another 2-3 books either. I enjoyed the first two books, but things seemed to get more irrelevant from then on.
I have only read the first book and yes, it is one of the best books I have ever read. I have decided not to read any others in the series until the series is complete. But if it is depressing you in that sort of way STOP reading them. It is supposed to be entertainment.
A book having depressing elements isn't necessarily a bad thing... After all, think about how much money bands like the Smashing Pumpkins made. On and to respond to the Petyr and Jaime comment, they both go through experiences or revelations that pull at your heart strings. To be honest I really like Jaime and I don't dislike Petyr, I don't wanat to explain why because it would be a spoiler, you just need to read and see.
Well I like Peter because he is such a fantastic villian. A very minor nobleman who has risen to the challenge and a great player in the Game of Thrones. As for Jaime Lannister, I forget which book he gets his first PoV... but in it you see him in a whole new light. While not a knight in shining armor he becomes a interesting character. Anyways I personally have enjoyed most of the books and they are really depressing, but over all great reads. Well it does get annoying with the endless descriptions and such and it does tend to move slowly... but overall I have enjoyed each of the books.
After reading the Wheel of Time series I ducked out of the fantasy genre for a long time. I picked up Game of Thrones a few months ago, read the first one and half of the second one, but after reading WoT there's something so generic and formulaic about fantasy novels that I just can't keep reading them. As for it depressing you, well, ask yourself if you want to be depressed. Ask yourself if you'd rather be depressed than feel nothing at all. If you feel better engaging in other activities, why not do those things instead? If they're unavailable perhaps read another book?
I find the discriptions are almost always cut and paste. Robert Jordan, the author of WoT, does it the most throughout his novels. Trollocs are described the same in almost every book, Myrdraal are described the same. Perhaps he uses the same words to evoke the same feelings, but that gets boring, fast. I mean, there's almost always a wolf of some sort, in WoT and Game of Thrones and Mistborn. There's always one huge almighty evil being or force who resides in the north, and there's almost always some exotic culture which lives faraway but will have a huge imact on the land where the series began. Perhaps I've been reading similar novels, but I'm not the only person to realize the congruencies: http://www.littleredrails.com/blog/2009/10/21/is-george-r-r-martin-pulling-a-robert-jordan/. Fantasy novels, because of their nature, at least as far as many of them have been written and imagined, require a lot of discription. It's not like Trollocs, Mydraal and Khaleesi and Dragons actually exist, and so, it makes sense that they will require alot of discription. However, if you're writing a series, I don't feel the need to repeat those discriptions over and over, unless you're writing under the assumption that 'someone might be reading it for the first time, everytime'. These books are extremely long, and when they're finished, you could probably summarize them into a few pages. After doing that you'd realize that only a few part of those few pages were actually interesting and told a story you liked. At least that was my experience. I suppose, fantasy novels are extremely immersive, they require the reader to come down to Mt. Doom or up Dragonmount, down into Moria or to the Pits of Hathsin, and so, they're very discriptive to be able to allow the reader to do that. I've made it make sense, I would appreciate other opinions, but I can't read fantasy anymore, the plots just drag too much and move too slow for my personal liking.
It's called "tropes" and they occur in all genres. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
That's way too broad of a characterization to make about any genre. I don't think you've read much fantasy. There is a subset of the genre (of the sort you appear to have read) that follows a lot of this, but as a whole the genre is diverse, as are writing styles, pacing, &c. within the genre.
I should clarify myself. I'm referring to three specific authors who have all been tagged as 'great fantasy authors', Robert Jordan, George Martin and Brandon Sanderson. Partially because that's what this thread is about (GoT) and also because I believe those three authors works together form what constitute a great portion of what is being read out of fantasy novels currently (by the general public). That being said, what I meant to say, was that these three authors, their 'tropes', are very similar, and being as most of the meat in these novels are 'tropes', at least to me, they're reptitive and eventually boring. I'm sure there are a lot of fantasy books which are interesting, with fast moving plots and short discriptions. I've read about fifteen fantasy novels, I don't know what constitutes "much", and I don't appear to of read them, I did, so I guess, for your sake, I'll rephrase my statement. The plots written by the afforementioned fantasy authors have a tendency to drag when weighted heavily with repetitve troping. For this reason, I no longer read fantasy novels. That is not to say I have condemned the fantasy genre or that I will not pick up another novel in the future, but simply that I will not read any further into those novels by authors already listed. I'm open to other novel suggestions, though.
i quit halfway through book three...over....written...but i will always herald the first as a good read....
Seems I once made a good choice not to buy and read Game of Thrones. In the future before I buy books I will make some googling just to make sure the books are worth my money. As mentioned 'great fantasy authors', I've read five Brandon Sanderson's books - three stories. They were fine until I noticed that the three stories were fundamentally the same - all had humans; religion (a boring part in every book I have read so far because it is exactly the same as is in our world, simply different names), and how people regard it and live with it, the same; each one's magic system was basically equal. An author whose new stories/books I will avoid buying.
I have to agree. Lots of Fantasy novels these days seem overlong and could've been edited down 200 or 300 pages. Sometimes I think authors fall in love with the world they create so much that they have to describe every irrelevant detail to the readers, when really it doesn't improve the story that much. Same thing with including dozens of POV characters that grind the plot development speed to a halt.
I would consider myself to be someone who reads a lot of (almost exclusively, actually) fantasy, and I have never heard of George Martin or Brandon Sanderson. I'm not saying you're wrong at all; it's just interesting to me, I guess, how different readers can associate different authors with a genre. I may not be a really good example, though. I've never read anything by Robert Jordan either. Or... a lot of "great fantasies" I guess. Anyway, I know what you mean about fantasy novels being a little formulaic, but I guess I've always attributed that to being "the bad ones," you know? There's some (or a lot) in every genre. It seems a terrible reason to stop reading them altogether, if you enjoy the genre otherwise. There are plenty of good ones out there that don't have any of those you mentioned.... Ah, anyway, sorry to ramble. I'm not big on the uh... traditional fantasy cliches or whatever either, so I pick a lot of books that don't have them. If you're interested in some recommendations, I can give it a shot. Try some of the Vlad Taltos novels by Steven Brust (I'd recommend starting with Taltos.) They're pretty much the opposite of that: they're short, they're written in first-person, they have only one viewpoint character, and Vlad never describes anything that's not either important or entertaining because the whole series is written like Vlad is talking to a contemporary. ("Most of my best jokes are never shared with anyone but Loiosh and you. I hope you appreciate them, because he never does.") ...Sorry, I know you weren't looking for recommendations. I couldn't resist.
Go workout it is proven to raise self-esteem and lower depression However if you feel strongly about the story and the characters i guess you could say the writer did its job haha
Yes, trytz, he did make the reader care about the characters. There is one character who, if he kills he off, I'll be showing up at his door with a pair of brass knuckles. Just kidding, George (but don't you hurt her!).
