Okay. Let's talk about some shit that the writers and GRRM both need to let the fuck go of.
I do not give a shit about Theon Greyjoy.
He was, at best, a side dish of introduction to the Iron Isles, the Greyjoys, and their factions, and a treatise on the aspect of their society that involves raising the children of nobles who one has effectively conquered in one's household- and the confusing and destructive web of cross-purpose loyalties that may result. Theon's story in the book could have ended neatly, shortly after his taking of- and then abandonment of- Winterfell. Or shortly after his capture by "The Bastard" Ramsay Bolton, wherein the character of Ramsay is established as a devious psychopath. Who I also do not give a fuck about.
But no. In the books we return waaaaaaaaay too often to Theon and Ramsay, wherein it is established again and again in drawn out and stomach-churning detail how horrible a monster Ramsay is. Seriously, easily 100 pages in the last book went into this.
The last episode of GoT again spent way too much time on this story.
So listen, writers, and listen GRRM: I get it. Ramsay is evil. He does evil things. A lot. For a long time. But I give not one shit as to the fate of Ramsay. I give even less to the fate of Theon. They are both despicable people, only now one tortures the other. Why am I supposed to have any interest in this? Do you think I haven't figured this out? Why do you repeat this message so many times? Shut the fuck up already and give me more of Tyrion, Arya, Daenerys Targaryen, or seriously any other fucking story.
If either Ramsay or Theon are supposed to be central to some issue to be resolved in the very slow Saga of Fire and Ice, then dammit, touch on them briefly. But this seems like torture porn, horror porn, and insulting and degrading to the watching and reading public. You all can do better.
I think a lot of the complaints in this thread are evidence that Martin's writing is working exactly as intended.
Obviously Westeros is a horrifyingly violent and misogynistic place, to a degree that seems excessive and shocking to us living relatively sheltered lives in the First World. Obviously, too, Martin can choose to put whatever he wants to put in his books and they don't necessarily have to reflect the real world and history. Martin, however, has consciously made the choice of writing his books both as a reflection of history and as a response to previous fantasy works that had been written. There are other fantasy writers who have made different choices: Scott Lynch certainly doesn't shy away from depicting dark themes, but he's also written a world in which women are on significantly more equal footing with men. But Martin's choice was to make the series gritty and mostly realistic (dragons, magic, and bizarre weather patterns aside).
You've got to remember that he started writing this in the early nineties. At that point, the most prominent example of a fantasy series was The Wheel of Time, where the villains were (literally, in many cases) inhuman monsters, the heroes were at worst jerks, and the violence rarely touched anyone who wasn't directly involved in combat and didn't kill any of the central heroes until the final volume, released this year. It may not be typical of fantasy today, with people like Abercrombie and Lynch and Weeks and others writing far grittier series than anything that was on the market in the early nineties, but Martin's series was the first at the time; most fantasy series at the time handled violence the way Wheel of Time does, with little carnage and little risk. None of these battles, needless to say, were at all reflective of actual history. Martin clearly made the choice to rebut those works by writing a series which took things to the opposite extreme. A case could be made that he has carried it too far, but the fact that it's shocking to people is proof that his writing is working exactly as intended. And, honestly, the level of rape and torture and gore in the series seems on par with what occurred in actual medieval wars, from what I've read. If you weren't a noble, you had no rights.
Since people often single out rape in this series (although honestly, other horrifying forms of violence like torture and murder seem to me to be similarly widespread), it's worth pointing out that the only example of a rape being depicted onscreen in fantasy literature before SoIaF that I can think of was in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and it is highly problematic, since it is depicted as a one-off event the protagonist commits because he believes the world he is in is not real. Large numbers of readers, myself included, have found ourselves unable to care about the protagonist or the story after that point in the series, which is pretty close to the beginning. (Wheel of Time eventually depicted a particularly horrifying rape occurring, to a terrible female villain on whose behalf we're clearly supposed to be appalled no less, but that wasn't until the tenth volume, which was released in 2003. Then again, it also depicted a rape of a central male character that was handled horribly).
Is the violence in Martin's writing excessive? Of course. That's the whole point, that the violence in real history is excessive too. A strong case could be made that, by whitewashing the gore, brutality, rape, and torture that are so widespread in war, most fantasy writers are doing a grave disservice to the experiences of actual combat veterans. The vast majority of characters in SoIaF are horribly dysfunctional, and when you figure what they've been through, it's no wonder. It's even quite possible that Martin is attempting to make a point about the present day with this: The huge number of veterans with untreated PTSD, Gulf War Syndrome and other terrifying conditions is clear evidence that the horrors of war are underrecognised in our society.
Moreover, as I've already alluded to above, the violence and sexism in Martin's books are often drawn from actual history as well. For example, the scene in DWD where
Cersei is paraded naked through King's Landing
attracted complaints, but it is based on actual punishments of actual female nobles in history (I believe Martin mentioned which ones in an interview, but I can't find it now and can't remember their names; my google-fu is coming up mostly with discussions and reviews of the series rather than with actual interviews with Martin, and none of the interviews I'm coming up with have him discussing that scene). The fact that there are so many differing interpretations of who is heroic and who is villainous in actual history is also reflected in Martin's characters, who are interpreted differently by different readers.
Martin has expressed many of these sentiments in interviews. Here, for example, is a quote from him about war:
Quote:
War is so central to fantasy... and yet it's these bloodless wars where the heroes are killing unending Orcs, and the heroes are not being killed... I think that if you're going to write about war and violence then show the cost - show how ugly it is, show both sides of it. There's also the other side (which sometimes gets me in trouble with the opposite side of the political spectrum): the glory of war. Those of us who are opposed to war tend to try to pretend it doesn't exist, but if you read the ancient historical sources... people are always talking about the banners that 'stirred the heart'... I think that if you're going to write about that period then you should reflect honestly what it's about and capture both sides of it.
You could certainly interpret it that way. I don't presume to say I'm making a statement of this type or that type. But it is certainly a patriarchal society, I am trying to explore some of the ramifications of that. I try to write women as people, just as I try to write any other characters. Strong and weak, and brave and cowardly, and noble and selfish. It has been very gratifying to me how many women read my work and how much they like at least some of my female characters.
And honestly, Martin's violence seems pretty tasteful compared to that of certain other fantasy authors. Terry Goodkind is an example of an author who is pretty clearly putting rape and torture in his books just because he can, and not because it adds anything to the value or realism of the work. (Of course, those are far from the only problems with Goodkind. I've never actually managed to bring myself to finish one of his books and I could still write a long rant on all the flaws with his books, if I cared enough).
Regarding Theon: Obviously he was a terrible character in season two, to a point where a lot of readers would consider him unredeemable. But (I am not sure how much of DWD you have finished, chunks, so I am going to spoiler the rest of my discussion of him; read, or not, at your own discretion):
Martin is pretty clearly using his character arc to explore themes of villainy and redemption, matters of punishment and repentance.
Theon performs a complete 180° in DWD. By the end of DWD he helps rescue Ramsay's abused wife, who (although we do not have access to her internal monologue) clearly has even more severe PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome than he does, at great risk to himself and for no clear potential gain (even if he harbours romantic or sexual feelings for her, which is a position for which there is no clear textual evidence, he is strongly implied to have been gelded and thus left unable to consummate the relationship). His internal monologue, moreover, makes it plain that he is not rescuing her for personal gain, but simply because she is in danger and will suffer if no one does anything. This is something we could not possibly have pictured him doing in the second volume of the series, and it is pretty clearly intended as evidence that Theon is a completely changed person.
Martin seems to be intending to imply that Theon's heinous actions in the second book were a direct consequence of his being a thoroughly spoiled brat who had never suffered in any meaningful way and was therefore completely unable to empathise with others. Clearly, the events Theon is going through in the present of the show, and through most of DWD, change this to a radical degree. He has now suffered more than the vast majority of other characters in the series.
And so the questions being raised are to what extent punishment and suffering change people, and to what extent they are necessary. Obviously the torture to which he has been subjected is a fate to which no civilised person would subject anyone else, no matter how heinous the actions that person had performed in the past, and yet he has not been punished in any official capacity by any agent of the law.
So one question hanging over this arc is whether punishing him officially for his crimes at this stage would serve any socially beneficial purpose whatsoever. Obviously he is not the same person he was before Ramsay's torture. Law and order extremists would demand he be locked up regardless, but there is the converse position that he has suffered enough already and is unlikely to be a repeat offender. This doesn't seem like the sort of question to which Martin is likely to give us a direct answer, given the writing in the series thus far, but it certainly hangs over Theon's arc in DWD, and it is quite possible Martin will ask it more directly in future volumes.
Anyway, because of all of this I found Theon's story overall to be one of the most compelling in DWD, even though I hated him before it. I'm not going to say it's as flawlessly executed as Jaime's gradual redemption over the last few books, but it's still quite interesting.
Anyway, some of this long post was no doubt tangential to what other people were arguing but at the least it should provide plenty of interesting material to think about and/or discuss.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
I've read all the series to date. And I can certainly see that others get something very different out of it then I do; I just do not see Theon's arc as interesting past the second novel. I thought GRRM could have been explicitly clear as to the behavior of Ramsay and his treatment of Jeyne Poole in about 75 less pages of exposition about psychological and physical torture. And I think he writes his female characters from a male gaze- not the worst sin by any means; but sadly it is amplified in the show.
Goodkind's series does have a lot of problems that we can agree on most likely and skip here; I could never get past the first 50 pages of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series because the writing was absolute boilerplate shit.
I like GRRM generally, I think he often writes compelling stories and characters, and I recommend his Sci-Fi work Tuf Voyaging. I think the author takes some risks and develops some characters that do not easily fit in the hero/ antihero / protagonist/ antagonist molds. But I think Theon's descent into madness and his attempt to save himself and Jeyne is not an act of redemption. I can feel compassion for his suffering, I don't have to forgive or explain his past crimes and internal conflicts, any more than I have to see the story arc of Jaime and think there is some redemption for pushing Bran Stark out a tower window in an attempted murder.
And not to complain too much about this- other authors fail here as well- GRRM can write as fast or slow as he wants, but we're what, 4,000 pages in and have gotten all of 10 months of time having passed in that world, tops? The winter is supposed to last four years. He will die before half the characters will have achieved much of anything, unless he jumps ahead. Or kills them all off, which he may well do.
And then I found out that that scene is what sold those HBO guys on green-lighting this whole series. Yes, two seasons ago those guys were salivating to bring The Red Wedding to the screen.
I liked how the show made sure that there was something new and different to horrify book readers. They actually managed to make The Red Wedding more horribad.
I still have a third of dance with dragons left, it is weird, don't want to get into the waiting period, ughhhh ... what to do!!!!
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. ... The origin of myths is explained in this way.
So now I'm finally all caught up on GoT, ready to start the new season when it premieres ...
... but then discover my cable service is jacking up our HBO subscription fee. We cancelled it in disgust.
I look forward to next YEAR, when the 4th season will be available on DVD.
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"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
The history nerds on the forum will either love this or take issue with some of its comparisons. However, I think this is one of the best summations I've seen of the series' appeal. Warning: Spoilers for the first season (but if you don't want spoilers, what are you doing even reading this thread in the first place?).
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Re: Winter is Coming
Re: Winter is Coming
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Linear Mode
