A Song Of Ice And Fire

First, I saw elsewhere that Roy Dotrice passed away. Sad, I never listened to the audiobooks (and have heard mixed things) but sad he didn't get to finish the series. Also, I'm interested in reading more about it, but evidently he was a hero during World War II.

Regarding Quentyn, I quite like his arc, predictable as it is. My quibble is that I'm iffy on the decision to have that happen in a different book than Arianne's. Because as I've mentioned previously, AFFC kind of feels to me like a book about how women can't be leaders. Because you basically have Cersei and Arianne screwing up nonstop in somewhat similar ways and IMO differing mostly in terms of the former being a psychopath and the latter being comparably moral. But quite similar emphasis on their use of sex and having an inflated sense of their own competence leading to an inevitable embarrassing downfall. And while I don't consider Arya and Sansa's chapters in that light, you also have Brienne's heroic but doomed to failure quest and Asha's shaggy dog story of losing the Queensmoot because she's female.

So, with that preface, I think that implication would have been blunted if we saw Quentyn's issues at the same time as Arianne. I think especially because it would make an interesting compliment to her resentment of him. Ditto having (some of) Tyrion's ADWD chapters in the same book as Cersei's.

Granted, I guess there's something in the idea of Arianne and Cersei's AFFC chapters giving the impression of Quentyn and Tyrion as successful and then subverting that in ADWD, and of course, that's probably way too many chapters to put in one book. Especially because you kind of need to have Dany, Quentyn, Tyrion, and Barristan's chapters in the same book. So yeah. Mereenese knot I guess...

Edit- My opinion might change on reread, but I'm not at all a fan of Euron. I don't find the eldritch apocalypse interesting because he doesn't feel like a real person to me. Like as a contrast, Varamyr Sixskins is a "realistic" depiction of how someone who is a fantasy novel Chosen One would horrifically misuse their powers, but I don't buy that a human being would exist who for all intents and purposes is Nylarhotep.

Also, and I guess somewhat counter-intuitively, because "The Forsaken" confirmed the eldritch apocalypse, but that chapter was the first time I had any interest in Aeron. Previously, my issue was that he was sold as this formerly jovial and friendly guy, but all we see of him is a humorless prick. And while it's quite clear that his childhood sexual abuse ties into both the former and current Aeron, my issue was that unlike with Thoros, we don't get any sense of the remnants of the pre-Heel–Faith Turn person in the current version.

So, what I liked with "The Forsaken" is that he shows genuine kindness and sympathy to Falla Flowers. Like this is the first time that I could believe that this is someone who besides a crazy party-lover was someone who would be thought of as "a nice guy".

edited 16th Oct '17 2:08:04 PM by Hodor2

Digressing for a bit but also kind a speaking of Euron, he along with Melisandre are actually the basis behind a bunch of short stories that I want to write for fun. The genre would be horror-adventure. The premise would be a family of sailors going island to island collecting artifacts, building a fleet, conquering places to take control of and fighting several horrors that would call to mind Lovecraft and Stephen King. But....none of the horrors they face is as terrifying as the one on their boat in the form of their leader and mother(think a Melisandre-Euron hybrid). Most of her family thinks she's just a charming but beautiful sorceress(at first) that is somehow off but they can't quite place it. But the truth is only known to a few of the eldest and the ones that come out looking more like her true form.

She isn't actually human at all but more like a long-lived human-eating hermaphroditic Squisher-Worm thing that disguises her true form with magic and captures men and women to breed with before she rips their heads off. She has no compassion for her own family and uses them like disposable pawns to create her own realm of horror that makes the monsters that they've fought look like cuddly teddy bears.

I guess it'd be Duck Tales + One Piece + Lovecraft + Stephen King with Lady Euron as the main villain.

What if your own mother was actually the scariest thing in the world?

edited 16th Oct '17 3:57:44 PM by MadSkillz

@Mad Skillz- That idea sounds interesting. Actually, and this is totally off-topic, it reminds me of this story in this anthology by Paula Guran, Swords Against Darkness titled "The Swords of her Heart" by John Balestra. I can't remember if she talks or not (which is an important point), but these two adventurers aid this beautiful princess and when she greets them, it's revealed that she's some kind of Lovecraftian monster and her human appearance is a lure along the lines of an angler fish. What initially seem like Hartman Hips with a dress on conceal all these tentacles, etc. Freud would probably have a field day. Also, you might be interested in this other anthology Swords vs. Cthulhu which has a bunch of stories that combine fantastic adventure with Lovecraftian stuff.

You kind of allude to my problem with Euron though. Barring future revelations, although he has greensight, he's just a (very evil) guy and not a Humanoid Abomination, so it breaks my immersion that he thinks like one.

That's mostly because GRRM put most of his female PO Vs in AFFC and since his characters frequently fail and people are used to an overabundance of male characters, it feels strange when half the PO Vs are women and you notice these things more as a result.

Your idea would definitely have worked if GRRM had stayed true to the 200 page Ironborn and Dornish prologue. Then Quentyn can come in afterwards during the fourth book. There just needs to be some reorganization and a bit of cutting.

Take out the first 3-4 chapters of Brienne's sorry in AFFC, move Arya and Sansa's chapters to ADWD, condense a chapter or two of Cersei's story then transfer Quentyn's story along with Tyrion's story and Daenerys' story to AFFC.

Barristan's POV chapters can start midway through ADWD once the book catches up with AFFC's timeline.

The result would be a huge AFFC book on par with ASOS but there's also more space for the Battle of Fire now I'm ADWD.

And ADWD can really focus more on the North too and potentially finish the Battle of Ice as well.

Varamyr also gets a POV to humanize him.

Euron's core character is basically Ironborn Littlefinger with magic. This is basically what I think is going on:

Kid Euron is touched by god-> god realizes he's a psycho-> god leaves kid Euron -> Kid Euron starts to break every taboo possible in order for god aka the Three Eyed Crow to pay attention to him again (notice me, senpai)-> Only hears silence from god-> -grumble grumble- stupid god -grumble grumble—> names his ship the Silence (The silence of the gods)-> decides he'll spread misery around the world and if that doesn't work he'll find a way to break heaven's gates until he's let in -> become god to meet god -> maybe kill god too for rejecting his application to be the main character of the story

Like imagine if Dumbledore had told Tom Riddle was a wizard then noped out after he realized that he was a budding serial killer instead of taking him to Hogwarts. Voldemort would've thrown an epic tantrum. That's basically what I'm seeing and is also what I mean when I say his core is similar to Littlefinger's.

Euron and LF even overreact when they get outwitted by Rodrik Harlaw and Tyrion. They're sore losers to the core and they can't handle rejection.

edited 16th Oct '17 4:26:22 PM by MadSkillz

Ooooh, I'll check this out. I love this stuff. Hartman Hips being tentacles is actually a good idea. Maybe I'll riff off of that since I've been thinking about giving my character an obviously inhuman physical trait that she keeps hidden.

And yes, the whole mother angle is because I wanted to give put some creepy Freudian elements there. And I've wrestled with her breeding with some of her sons (right before she eats them).

Yes, I can see your point. I guess one way that could've been solved is if GRRM had toned down Euron a bit and instead turned him into the current Euron after he's done some mass blood sacrifice to turn himself into a chimera-like being. (Like in Aeron's vision, he sees Euron's face as a mass of tentacles so it might still happen in the books)

So like we've talked about how Jon is getting some wolf-like elements when he's resurrected. Put Euron through a similar event but make the corresponding animal a kraken instead of a wolf.

edited 16th Oct '17 5:06:35 PM by MadSkillz

Alright, what's this about Euron being Nyarlatothep? Might have been the PT-BR translation but I didn't get that vibe out of him.

If anything, he seems like the kind of person who vastly overestimates his own capabilities, hell, he started losing his grip on the Ironborn as soon as he got it.

Have you read the Forsaken chapter yet? I'll link it to anyone who wants to read it.

It's the imagery that GRRM uses for him combined with his goals. He's a classic horror character.

His face is described as looking like a mass of tentacles in the magical realm.

That might be Euron's symbolic face but it's also his true face. In some interpretations of Nyarlotothep, one of his forms is a giant tentacle with a mouth and limbs.

There's also Euron Freddy Kruegering Daenerys and raping her in her dreams:

Moquorra describing him as some eldricht kraken:

Then there are his goals:

So he wants to take over the world, create woe, slay the gods and be worshipped as a god and become the god.

Anyways, Euron's pretending to be a vicious pirate and using the eyepatch to mask his true self and it's working. Aeron's the only one aware of what's in front of the ironborn.

Aeron's the character in the horror movie that tries to warn everyone but no one listens.

So Euron isn't Nyarlotothep yet. He just wants to be and is progressing there.

edited 16th Oct '17 7:24:28 PM by MadSkillz

I heard the joke that Euron was a anime villain doing his way into a realistic setting, Euron is just so over the top that I am actually interesed on him becoming the Big Bad or at least, a really dangerous Big Bad Wannabe.

Saying this, I just have one single doubt for now.

There other fandom as obsessed with the source material, like, doing theories all the time, long essays about the story and the themes, I like the ASOIAF essays, and heck, even if I dont follow the show, the musical analysis of Jordi Maquiavelo (a spanish youtuber) are just godly.

I something think that I like this series more for the essays that it started than for itself, because I love reading internet essays.

edited 16th Oct '17 8:18:33 PM by KazuyaProta

Euron will never be the Big Bad because he'd overshadow the Others.

It's be the equivalent of "Aegon" beating Daenerys to perma-sit the Iron Throne or Stannis being the actual AA and Jon staying dead.

I'd kind of love this story swerve but it would piss off like 80 % of the fans.

edited 16th Oct '17 9:06:28 PM by MadSkillz

Maybe a Big Bad Duumvirate? Dunno.

I just enjoy how over the top is Euron.

Stannis, Aegon and Euron over Jon, Daenerys and the Others? Where do I sign up?

I am so-so on Euron because I feel the narrative bends itself a bit backwards to hammer on how cool he is. He's this (implicitly) ageless badass lovecraftian pirate warlock master politician and lover. Compared to most other more functional characters, he can feel to me like a D&D villain who somehow wandered into Westeros.

Damphair's relevancy is limited because he shows up, calls the Kingsmoot, all of his plans fail and then he's sacrificed to Cthulhu, so really, his job is basically to prop up other plotlines then get cast aside. It's a neat little arc for him, but it bums me because he's the only out of the Victarion, Euron, Asha, Aeron quartet that I truly give a shit about, so now I have no horse in that plotline.

That reminds me, I do agree with the analysis that Euron is kind of a "story disrupting villain" in the same way that Aegon is a "story disrupting hero". Besides the question of whether that is a good narrative choice, which is YMMV, where I'd see the difference is that while from a Doylist perspective, Aegon is stealing the thunder of Jon and Dany (and granted, he is a challenger to Dany in-universe too), Aegon isn't consciously disrupting the story the way Euron does. Because yeah, Euron feels like a character from another story that found his way into Westeros. Also, while the Aegon "reveal" is often criticized, pretenders to the throne are a real thing, so his character makes a lot more sense than it seems at face value.

Besides the obvious parallels to Lambert Sinnel and Perkin Warbeck, I also see some potential inspiration from how supporters of William of Orange/William III claimed that James II's son James Edward Stewart- later known as the "Old Pretender"- was stillborn and that the corpse was switched out with a similar looking baby via a warming pan. I've thought that this incident is also an inspiration for Renly and Stannis' (accurate, although Renly didn't care either way) propaganda campaign against Joffrey's legitimacy and the counter-campaign by the Lannisters and Renly against Stannis in terms of Shireen's legitimacy. But it makes sense that it would be an inspiration for Aegon, since the Blackfyres are sort of inspired by the Jacobites, in terms of being more dashing and "romantic" than their opponents and coming back every couple of years with a new rebellion.

Back on topic though, I was also thinking it's kind of weird how Euron is framed as Saruman to The Others' Sauron, because Saruman ends up as a very human villain and at this death has lost most of his powers, if none of his malice. Which is like the polar opposite of where Euron's arc seems to be going.

edited 17th Oct '17 8:38:05 AM by Hodor2

In a side-comment: Your story sounds quite nice, Mad Skillz. I'd love to read it someday.

@Gaon Thanks.

The Euron plotline is expanding outside those 4 characters. Sam is going to be the epicenter of the Euron plotline soon after Aeron is dead. So hopefully you care about Sam and maybe the characters around him.

All this probably means that Euron's menace will be more from afar than up close and personal. Because I can't see Euron capturing Sam and letting him live.

I've always seen Aegon as a mix of Henry Tudor and Perkin Warbeck. Especially the assumed Blackfyre lineage which means he comes a legitimized bastard but disinherited line like Henry did plus Jon Con= Jasper Tudor, their connections to Dorne/Wales and landing in their mentor's lands Stormlands/Wales.

I dunno if GRRM had more than one inspiration for it but I'm very sure that GRRM partially derived the idea of the baby switch from Accursed Kings where baby John I is switched with his nursemaid's baby right before he's poisoned. Fake baby John I dies and the real John I is raised by an Italian banker named Guccio Baglioni who he believes to be his father.

This is played much more straight when Jon switches Mance and Gilly's baby which means Gilly's baby is probably going to die.

Maybe Euron is going to lose most of his powers in the end too. I read a comment that went something like "Euron wants to obtain godhood because he does not want to be like everyone else, while Bran wants to be like everyone else, and instead he actually will transcend to godhood."

I could see a scenario where Euron completely fails in his plan and has all his magic stripped from him, runs out of that warlock wine that he's been gulping down and hides away to the Iron Islands right before Asha comes to take back her home and finds he's become a broken man going through drug-withdrawals and mercy-kills him at that point.

edited 17th Oct '17 10:06:24 AM by MadSkillz

Chech me in for the "loved the idea, Mad Skillz" train. It sounds lovely!

Also, anyone here knows a good (non-fiction) book about the War of the Roses? 'Cause I just noticed two of my favorite pieces of media are based on it and I don't know jack shit about it.

edited 17th Oct '17 10:11:49 AM by HailMuffins

I actually developed some fondness for Aegon for the same reason of why I developed a fondness for Stannis.

Those guys dont have any type of fate or prophecy at their side.

Plus, Aegon is, in a sense, the phrase of "The power resides where men believe it does" as a person.

I am still a firm No More Targs / Targaryen Genocide supporter. But I like Aegon

I like this series a lot, but heck, this is the absolute truth.

I was reading the old posts on this thread about the racism via Orientalist tropes from GRRM, and honestly, I dont really disagree with it, George wrote Essos as basically, a combination of tropes of Non White cultures, either Positive stereotypes (The Mary Suetopia Sex Paradise status of the Summer Islands) or negative stereotypes (the absolute shithole of the Slaver cities).

Honestly, I think who my biggest issues with Daenerys come from those tropes, because her entire setting is not only distant from Westeros, but is also filled with racist stereotypes.

Jon just need half on one book to make us understand that Wildings are Orcs and who they are as humans as the Westerossi.

Dany have three dothrakis as her bodyguards, and had befriended her handmaidens from Book One. But they are basically drones or whights animated for the Dothraki Horse God who use them as its Mindhive (a situation that honestly, would make them more interesting). We know more of Barristan Selmy (a literal while old men) from her POV from one book that of her brown servants for like, Four books.

Non White people dont have a good time on fantasy

edited 19th Oct '17 10:08:05 AM by KazuyaProta

Well not in this series anyway,

"The Mary Suetopia Sex Paradise status of the Summer Islands)"

Sometimes I wonder of the summer islands is george overcompensating about black steriotypes.

They are brutish and sexuality agresive? here they are more sex positive of all(which consider the rest are regresive in some way of another).

Black are violent and un cut? here they have a ritualized combat that avoid the brutality of war of five king or dotharki perpetual war way of living.

I dont know, i find is way to fight racism but by doing it it show waaaaaay more.

Eh, that's not really fair. Barristan is a legendary swordsman known around all of Westeros and is talked about in most PO Vs and then gets his own POV.

He's a significant character even in the backstory of Westeros. Like... this guy saved King Aerys and slew Maelys Blackfyre and did a bunch of other great deeds. There are better comparisons to be made.

I agree that GRRM's writing suffers from just being uninterested in the Dothraki in comparison to the Wildlings who he humanizes.

Although, I think he does a much better job with the people of Slaver's Bay. At least they have personalities asides from standard Dothraki Male.

edited 19th Oct '17 12:51:46 PM by MadSkillz

If by personality, you mean over the top evil.

Slaver bay and Meeren suffer than the entire culture is unpleasent, almost make to disgust the reader with dany(im sure that is the idea), making everyone just waiting dany to blast the damn thing.

There are plenty of cultures that seem very unpleasant to a Western view.

I mean even Wildling culture is completely disgusting. All the men ,even Tormund, are a pack of rapists.

In fairness most Europeans think that about my country.

From where are you? Just interesed. I am a Peruvian, a latino. We have the stereotype of being three countries in one. Which is honestly right.

Of course that those old cultures would be unpleasant to a Modern view. The thing is, we know of the virtues of both the Westerossi Feudalism and the Wildings/Free Folk , and who they are varied individuals with their own goals and subcultures (The different tribes of the Free Folk and the Northerner/Southerner/Dorne of Westeros). There is no virtue to anything on Mereen and Salver Bay.

Honestly, the Free Folk/Westeros constrast is the only case where George have actually make actual grayness and equality of cultures. They both have virtues and vices, albeit if you ask me, George hadnt show any real proofs of the biggest issues of the Free Folk, albeit given that we meet them when they were already united for Mance, that is justified.

Because seriously, I honestly can do a ranking of cultures of the setting, the Summer Islands and Braavos win without any contest. With the Ghiscari and other slavists at the very bottom.

By the way, given the Rhillorist revolt on Volantis, I wouldnt lie. I find that way more interesting that what is Mereen or Ghis. It even had close ties to The Red Priests, it really would help even to the characterization of Melisandre, Thoros and other Rhillor followers.