This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Chappy: At the end of book three, does either Xanatos Funeral or My Death Is Just the Beginning apply to Tyrion? (although possibly subverted, since he didn't actually die.)
Chappy:Okay. Adding Xanatos Funeral to him.
Re: Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp", the types of horses described in the books are all real (or were at one time).
Lina: I put a lot of thought and head-scratching and hair-pulling into this, but I finally listed Arya and Sandor as examples of antiheroes and Jaime and Littlefinger as examples of anti-villains. I know, I know, it's crazy to do that when none of them are clear-cut villains or heroes. But if you actually read the trope definitions, I think it fits very well.
- Geofferic: Could you elaborate on how you find Arya to be an antihero?
- Lina: The questionable shade of gray between good and evil, an anti hero is a rather dark, edgy character who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. I would say Arya is definitely dark and edgy and has gray morality. She is really not a typical hero, and yet she is portrayed as one of the protagonists of the story from the beginning.
- Geofferic: Ok, by that definition I think it is unquestionable that she is not an anti-hero! How is she either dark or edgy? A child doing what it's told and what's necessary to survive is not automatically dark or edgy simply because some of her actions are not full of flowers and perfumes. She is decidedly not dark, no question. What are her dark actions?
- Lina: Um... killing people? Not exactly a typical pastime for ten-year-olds. Arya is a child soldier. That strikes me as pretty dark and edgy.
- Geofferic: Could you elaborate on how you find Arya to be an antihero?
Kana: Personally I would have considered Sandor an Anti-Villain. He never has Po V, and is typically an obstruction to the protagonists, at least on the face of things. Jaime is pretty much cursed to be an Anti-Villain and knows it, so I agree with that one. And if Arya's not an Anti-Hero yet, she's sure making a determined push for it. I know we all like her, but she creeps the hell out of the few normal people she ever meets and while initially she was forced into violence, she has an increasing preoccupation with it. After all she murdered a guy, took his boots, and then tossed him in the canals, just because she found out he broke his oath.
Ouroboros Shouldn't Littlefinger be affably evil rather than an anti-villain? Unlike Jaime he has no redeeming qualities save his amiable manner and has done more than anyone else to screw with the Starks and everyone else around him. The only good thing he has done is rescue Sansa and I'm pretty sure he only did that for very selfish and very perverted reasons.
Lina: Affably Evil is a sub-type of Anti-Villain. I have LF listed under the former as well.
Charred Knight: No it isn't, affably Evil is when an evil person is naturally charming which Littlefinger is. Anti-Villain is when a villain has a ton of good qualities. Littlefinger does not have a ton of good qualities.
Lina: Seriously, take a look at the page for Anti-Villain. Affably Evil is listed right there as a sub-type.
Ouroboros It isn't a subtrope, its a related trope. They're similar, but not always intersecting. For instance Johan from Monster is affably evil, but definitely not an anti-villain.
- Just checked, that index needs an overview, Affably evil, and a hell of a lot of those other subtropes, do not belong there.
Greyjoy: Beginning work on Character Sheets.
Lina: Under Brother–Sister Incest:
- And Craster's "family". (Sheesh.) Though that's specifically father-daughter incest.
Lina: I took on the extremely risky task of adding an Ensemble Dark Horse and a Scrappy. It's impossible to get fan consensus on anything in these books, but I think the examples I gave come close. So if you don't like them, please at least go to the respective articles and read the explanations before you delete them.
LordTywin: Do you guys think Sandor Clegane qualifies for ThePesci? The guy's rather touchy and ends ranting about knights all the time.
Lina: Hmm, I don't think it quite fits... Sandor's not really into twisting people's words around. He just hates it when people talk shit, which happens a lot.
TheBumperCar So, who deleted The Kimberly: Sansa Stark in this? She exemplifies the trope, I think, for being far too idealistic for her world and setting, and she repeatedly becomes the pawn and plaything in the various schemes of Cersei and Petyr and Olenna and Tyrion, and she doesn't do anything pro-actively to advance the plot (in my opinion). Anything that happens to her is the result of other characters doing things to her. It's a wonder she isn't dead yet.
Lord Tywin: I deleted Sansa from The Kimberly. It's my understanding that The Kimberly is a character who is "too stupid to live." I therefore would like you to tell us all the stupid things that Sansa has done before you put her back on that list. She told the Queen that her father was sending her home in the first book when she was eleven years old. What else has she done that's so stupid?
Lina: Seconded. The fact that Sansa's still alive shows her skill adapting to whatever situation she's stuck in. And she most certainly doesn't get Trapped by Mountain Lions, as The Kimberly is prone to doing. (Sansa's always right in the midst of the action in the South.)
Greyjoy: Is "hedge knight" an actual historical term? I've heard that GRRM confirmed this.
Etrangere: Removed :"Readers beware that the books are doorstoppers comparable to the Wheel Of Time, but, unlike Jordan, they actually deliver." Sure, it's true. But that kind of grundge comment doesn't belong there.
Greyjoy: I'll drop the jab at Jordan. I'm planning to make an entry for a Doorstopper.
Etrangere: Good idea! We need more literature related trope around here :). As long as you're at it, weigh in the ykttw on the trope about doing evil things for the sake of love to be named The Things I Do For Love.
Greyjoy: Most will probably think it's from Courage The Cowardly Dog.
Greyjoy: Also, is there a trope for a character who gets killed in the opening? Every prologue and epilogue POV character in the series dies, after all.
Etrangere: We Hardly Knew Ye and Sacrificial Lamb are the closest things. I think in the case of the prologue characters, it's closest to acrificialLamb, it serves to set up mood and the Anyone Can Die atmosphere.
Etrangere: Hey, Greyjoy, can you explain how Colour-Coded for Your Convenience is subverted? Otherwise, brought back the Shout-Out expanations, I don't see why you'd removed it.
Greyjoy: Well, the trope entry details how red and gold are "good guy" colours, and of course, the Lannisters are not really the good guys. I elaborated on it in the entry.
Etrangere: Ah, okay. Thanks. I'm not sure it was a very big subversions (the Lannisters aren't really the villains either, after all...), but I guess that's enough.
- Geofferic: Reading the list of colors and their associated 'good-' and 'bad-' ness ... I think every single one of these are subverted. That's a pretty big subversion, if you ask me!
Etrangere: You're supposed to justify yourself when you remove stuff, Greyjoy. In the case of "valar morghulis", I think telling the translation is useful, especially given that it shows up as often as the Valyrian version. Also Arya's hardly the only character using the line.
Greyjoy: Now that you mention it, I dropped the quote all together. I think that a Catchphrase should be limited to one person.
Etrangere: True enough. It's closer to a Leitmotif for the whole series.
Etrangere: Removed the Witty Banter entry. It's a news trope, nothing at all to do with ASOIAF.
Etrangere: I wouldn't say the Hand's Tourney constitues a Tournament Arc : it's not an arc in itself, and none of the characters we follow take part in it. However the tourney in the Hedge Knight is exactly that, changing the explanation here and in Tournament Arc.
Etrangere: Please, stop removing content without any reason. It's okay for an explanation to be both here and at the trope page itself.
Greyjoy: Well, my apologies, but I think that the longer explanations should be at trope pages.
Etrangere: Why not both?
Greyjoy: It's redundant.
Etrangere: So, what? This is a wiki. Do you expect people who visit this page to click on every tropes to see the explanations? Cause that would be a bother.
Who exactly is the Badass in the story? I'd have to say Sandor Clegane, but I would feel better if it was a group decision.
Etrangere: Sandor's one. Not the only one. It's not like there's a lack of Badasses in this book.
Grey Wolf: Added the Zombie Apocalypse trope to the list, although that one is still in potentia. New to this wiki, so not sure if I should make a note about it.
Bugmaster: I have spoiler-ized Arya Stark as an example of Enfante Terrible . Actually, I doubt she even fits. The Enfante Terrible is supposed to be cute and huggable (on the outside), but Arya is everything but.
Grey Wolf: The explanation provided in the trope page is:
- Arya Stark is a rare protagonist example from A Song Of Ice And Fire, albeit in an ensemble cast. Originally she is only a tomboy, but the harsh reality of a civil war and fugitive life corrode her inhibitions and lead her to first kill in self-defense and then commit cold-blooded murder, ultimately joining a priesthood devoted to death and assassination. Who are actually quite nice, by the way.
- I've removed it from both here and the trope page, because the more I think about it the less Arya fits the Enfant Terrible trope. Hopefully this won't degenerate into an edit war
Grey Wolf: Modified Chekovs Gun - we won't know if it was subverted or not until the books end (subverted: the Others do not invade). The third act of the books would be Winter coming, after all. If we're lucky, it may happen in the next book (I ain't crossing my fingers, though)
Ronfar: Yes, after four long books, Winter has finally arrived. Still, four books is a long time to keep the proverbial gun on the wall.
Greyjoy: I thought of adding Chekhovs Gunman to the list, but I couldn't really think of any good examples. Any suggestions?
Grey Wolf: At the start of the first book, three characters get introduced to Sansa at the Trident on their way South. One is the king's brother, another is Barristan, and the last guy, IIRC, is the one that eventually kills her father (Payne?). That may count. Other than that, I'm thinking the Bull - asuming, of course, he ever manages to become important beyond being the royal bastard. At any rate, anything Chekhov is difficult to identify while the books have yet to finish, unless the author is being particularly obvious, and that is one failing GRRM doesn't have (being longwinded, on the other hand...). Grey Wolf: Re: Ronfar: 4 books is long anywhere but in fantasy. If GRRM manages to stop at 7 books, 4 is right in the middle. A Chekhov in the 5th is hardly "3rd act", which would be ending of the 6th or anywhere in the 7th. Hell, Eddings is still stretching out the first act in a fourth book :D
Ouroboros: The three people Sansa meets are The Hound, Ilyn Payne and Renly Baratheon.
Grey Wolf: fleb has reintroduced the Enfante Terrible trope, after I deleted it. Now, I don't want this to become an edit war, so hopefully fleb (or anyone else) will come here to explain his point of view. To start out the discussion, I will express my point by commenting after concept of the trope. According to the trope page, an Enfante Terrible is:
- "The Enfante Terrible is an adorable child. An angel, one might say, with a cherubic face."
- Not even close. Arya is consistently described as tomboyish at best, and boyish at worst. While technically she may become a beautiful woman like her mother, that has not yet happened, and by the time it does she will still not fit, at that point because of age.
- "One just wants to pick them up and hug them."
- Arya is so dirty and abrasive that most characters won't even touch her with a ten-foot pole. He is neither naturally cute, nor works at bieng ingratiating or adorable.
- "Pity they're psychopaths."
- Arya is definetely not a psycopath ("A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse."). She's had a bad couple of years, but she does have a suffering inner girl that frequently wants to cry at the world's inherent unfairness, and does have remorse about killing, which she doesn't do lightly (she can't even bring herself to kill the Hound)
- "An Enfante Terrible knows people think they're cute, and will use that to their advantage."
- Arya does not want to make others think she is cute. Hates being crammed into pretty dresses and finds them restrictive and stupid, and (almost?) never tries to use the fact that she is a girl to her advantage
- "When one person finds out, said hero usually has a hard time convincing others, who will turn on them for even suggesting such a thing about the poor, poor child."
- Hasn't happened yet. Noone thinks that Arya is a psychopathic killer with an angel's face. Most don't even realise she is a girl!
- "An Enfante Terrible may be supernatural, or simply a child born without a conscience."
- No and no.
Geofferic: I'll bite! First, thinking Arya is the Enfante Terrible is the mistake. (However, let me point out that more than one character makes it very clear that Arya is not unattractive and in fact looks just like another woman (aunt?) who was very, very attractive. I really wish people would stop describing her as unattractive in this Wiki. She is simply dirty with a bad hair cut and tomboyish - this is not the same thing as unattractive, folks. She is not a beautiful woman like her mother because she is a beautiful young woman like her aunt. Different look, still good looking. That said, she ain't angelic at all, ever.) The Enfante Terrible is Joffrey. He fits every category to a 't', IMO. If my comment isn't addressed in a few days, I will add the entry with the Joffrey example.
ccoa: She fits some of those but not most. Although she doesn't believe herself to be pretty, she's described as looking exactly like her deceased aunt Lyanna, who was described as very beautiful. Like Geofferic said, she might not be as conventionally pretty as her mother and sister, but she's definitely not ugly! Arya is also pretty unarguably a sociopath at this point, probably due to post-traumatic stress. She has little to no reaction to killing people these days and her first thought upon being cheated out of her horse was that she should kill the woman cheating her. Although she didn't kill The Hound, what she did do to him is arguably worse. She left him to suffer and die after he saved her life and tried to get her home. Don't get me wrong, I love the character, but she's an anti-hero at best.
ccoa: Removed the natter:
- "All the evil that happens in the series" does not describe Littlefinger at all. Martin's series has no singular Big Bad (at least not yet), because it's all shades of gray.
- You'll notice that I simply said what he caused, because he did cause, directly or indirectly, almost all of the bad events that happen during the series- and you might also notice that a Big Bad is not the evilest character in a work (if it was, Gregor Clegane would be the Big Bad). Just because Littlefinger doesn't sit on his throne in the dark tower of Mordor ordering his minions to attack Robb Stark and help the Others doesn't mean that his more subtle machinations don't make him the Big Bad.
I actually agree that Littlefinger is not THE Big Bad, but rather one of many antagonists. The story does not have a Big Bad, in my opinion - no one person fits the description given in the Big Bad trope: "A Big Bad is a jeopardy, usually a character with evil designs (though it may also be a situation, such as a comet heading towards the Earth), that is behind all of the other bad happenings" (emphasis mine). Personally, I think we should remove Big Bad altogether because the books have no clear example of this trope. Particularly since, in Littlefinger's case, we only have his word for him being behind anything at all and not just being an opportunist and liar.
Ouroroboros: Cut big bad all together. While Littlefinger may fit, it can't be definitively proven that he's behind everything or the ultimate villain until the series is over. Put it in then, because until then, it still doesn't quite work and is a little misleading.
Narvi: I rather think the Others count, with all the buildup so far. "Winter is coming".
ccoa: They might be in the future, but as of now they're only a minor antagonist. So far, Tywin Lannister was responsible for more evil than all the Others put together. I think it's building to the War for the Dawn, but Martin himself did say there was more to the Others than meets the eye.
ccoa: Removed:
- (And very, very likely: Lyanna).
Belongs on WMG.
Nornagest: Cut —
- ** **Lampshaded at least once. Jaime doesn't bother giving his horse some kind of heroic name, because they always end up dying anyway.)
It seems like this was a casualty of a poorly thought out edit, and now it doesn't make sense. Cutting it until someone can point out some actual examples of the trope (I can't think of any off the top of my head, and can think of a few aversions; however, I'm not ruling it out).
ccoa: I'd say Automaton Horses is mostly if not entirely averted by the books. Jon runs his horse into foundering when he flees the Wildlings, several horses die on Cat's journey to the Eyrie, including Tyrion's, and horses are generally cared for with about as much detail as most mundane things in the series.
Also, Daenerys and Drogo are pretty darn fond of their respective horses, as is Sandor Clegane of his horse Stranger. Stranger is also given a great deal of personality.
ccoa: I went ahead and replaced the parens with colons for the following reasons:
- People were unsure if they should use them on nested bullets, making things inconsistent and ugly.
- It caused some ugly problems with nesting parens.
- People occasionally forgot the closing paren.
Hope that's okay with everyone, it was kind of driving me crazy.
Killer Clowns: As long as it's consistent, fine by me.
Taelor: Why was Gregor removed from Ax-Crazy? To quote the trope description: "an 'ax crazy' character is someone who is psychologically unstable and presents a clear danger to others. Ax crazies are capable of extreme violence, whether carried out with a Slasher Smile, a Creepy Monotone, or out and out murderous rage, and they're not too picky about their victims, which makes them extremely frightening to deal with. This mainly differentiates them from other eccentric characters who may themselves be obsessive, weird or seemingly crazy, but use this condition hand in hand with doing good, or at least not being in the way." This fits Gregor to a T.
Nornagest: We never see Gregor in much detail — the closest we get is his duel with Oberyn (inconclusive as far as this question goes), a childhood story of the Hound's (where he looks pretty Ax-Crazy, but which may be unreliable), and a few glimpses in Arya's chapters. Mainly we know him through the results of his actions. That's enough to tell us that he's a Complete Monster, but it's not enough to show us that he has the Ax-Crazy personality.
Also cut this:
- * Possession Implies Mastery: A minor incident, but: Arya Stark is given some words in a foreign language (valar morghulis) to memorize without having them translated; she doesn't learn their meaning ("all men must die") for another 1000 pages or so. Despite this, she starts using them, correctly, within 200 pages.
...for seeming shoehorned. This series is Trope Overdosed enough already.
Taelor: Additionally, she does speak High Valyrian, which is similar to Braavosi, so she probably had at least a vague idea what those words meant, especially considering the person who taught them to her.
Grimace: Hey all, quick query about the upcoming TV Series - why did they go for "A Game of Thrones" for the title instead of "Song"? Is it a marketing thing? Rights? Just curious, ultimately.
Taelor: I object to the entirety of House Lannister being labeled Anti Villains. As defined in the main article, an Anti-Villain is "a villain with heroic goals, personality traits, and even virtues." Now, I'm not asserting that none of the Lannisters qualify as Anti Villains (Jaime most certainly does, as does Tyrion, though in his case it's questionable if he's even a villain), but I don't think Cercei or Tywin qualify. This isn't to say that they don't have some positive traits, but — as the Anti-Villain article states: "even a Card-Carrying Villain needs at least some good qualities in order to be effective, believable and (ironically enough) threatening as an antagonist." I just don't think either of them have nearly enough positive traits, and the ones they do have are canceled out by the sheer quantity of their kick the dog moments. Sure, Cersei does have her desire to protect her children as part of her motivation, but her desire for personal power is just a s big a motivation, and neither excuse murdering Robert's illegitimate children. As for Tywin, while his desire to end the civil war does push him partly into Well-Intentioned Extremist territory, he also has a number of actions that this does not even begin to excuse; chief among them being his treatment of Tysha.
This statement is early in the article:
The series is set in the world of Westeros
This is blatantly incorrect. Westeros is a continent, and in fact does not even cover all of the story; plenty of events, including Dany's entire subplot thus far, occur on Essos and other locations that are "across the narrow sea." I don't know how to revise this without making it sound clunky (I gave it a shot and gave up after a few minutes), but it should definitely be fixed.
Captain Crawdad: I removed this:
- Playing Against Type: Lena Heady, AKA Sarah Connor, as Cercei.
because Heady's two biggest roles, Sarah Connor and Queen Gorgo, are both tough, iron-willed mothers like Cersei. If Cersei were some goofy shrinking violet, that would be against type.
ccoa: I am a bit uncomfortable with having the character alignment tropes on the page. The characters are really too complex to be summed up with D&D alignments, and there seems to be quite a bit of adding and reverting going on concerning which characters are which, although not nearly to edit war proportions. Suggest we remove them.
- Highwind: Seconding. It's getting annoying, and unnecessary. D&D alignments suck anyways.
- Nornagest: Thirded. Do it.
- Captain Crawdad: I agree. Done.
