Discussion Literature / ASongofIceAndFire

Recap of the books is really long, unwieldy cumbersome...or as Stannis would say, all the more reason to do it.

The point is that the books are really intricately plotted. Stuff that happens in one POV (Jaime and Brienne meeting Roose at Harrenhal) pays off in another (Catelyn at Red Wedding in ASOS).

I suggest we follow the action, by plotline. We mention the POV characters in Bold* We avoid going too much into the internal stuff unless its absolutely germane to the on-screen action (like say Tower of Joy). Then we can keep it short and managable.

I have finished the synopsis of aGoT. It can be seen here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Synopsis/AGameOfThrones

I ended up going chapter-by-chapter because I felt like going "by plotline" was not granular enough. With one exception, I managed to condense every chapter into one paragraph (though I did cheat by occasionally interspersing a quotation into the middle of it). The resulting document was still 42 pages long in Google Docs.

For those interested in this project, there are a couple of things I would ask for:

1) Your opinion on the chapter-by-chapter format vs. the plotline-by-plotline stuff. These synopses, in my mind, serve two masters — fans of the show and want some familiarity with the source material; and complete newbies who want a taste of it before committing to hundreds of hours of books and TV — and as such they need to have enough detail to satisfy the hardcore but simultaneously not be intimidating enough to scare off the curious. I'm still not convinced that chapter-by-chapter is the correct format.

2) One of the things I did specifically was try to make sure every paragraph had at least one wick or pothole. At this, I failed. If you can find any (relevant ;)) ones to stick into those paragraphs, I'd be grateful.

I just clicked on the link and it said that this page doesn't exist.

Would The Sons of the Dragon be able to go under "Prequels and Companion Media" with the novellas and Gyldayn and Yandal's books? I know this is a different piece from the novellas and previously available history books (though I haven't looked at this particular book yet because I still need to get it) so this is tricky.

I like the idea of a Fire and Blood super-page but my only concern is that this content still falls under the umbrella of A Song of Ice and Fire so a separate super-page may separate the two too much. However, I could be wrong and would love to see opinions on this!

Those are my thoughts :)

I believe the proposed ‘’Blood and Fire’’ superpage would be on the same level and section as Archmaester Gyldayn’s Histories and Yandel’s book.

It is only a superpage in the same sense as Archmaester Gyldayn’s Histories is a superpage. The later includes both novellas ‘’The Princess and the Queen’’ and ‘’The Rogue Prince’’. The proposal as I understand it is to put all the Fire and Blood material in one page, with subdivisions for each volume.

If that’s the case, I agree.

Thank-you for clarifying this, Azure Owl! I apologize for my misunderstanding. Yes, in this case, I agree with this proposal as well :)

I think we should actually just sit back and wait for Fire and Blood, Vol. 1 which GRRM guarantees for 2018.

From what I gather, Sons of the Dragon is an early draft of the full version whose excerpts were published in TWOIAF. The TWOIAF is the full-edited version, so this is more or less like a published excerpt.

So creating a new page for what is apparently very repetitive and redundant stuff is unnecessary. Most of the Maegor-Aenys stuff was in TWOAIF with illustrations bells and whistles. So it's already covered.

Fire and Blood, Vol. 1 is out and it presents some problems. The sections on the Conquest and the reigns of Aegon I, Aenys I and Maegor mostly cover the same territory as in The World of Ice and Fire and Sons of the Dragon, while providing some additional detail.

But starting with the reign of Jaehaery I it is a wealth of new information. I'm still in this part so I can't tell yet how the sections on the Dance of the Dragons and the lead-up to them differ from the novellas.

So I propose that the Archmaester Gyldayn's Histories page be reworked to incorporate Sons of the Dragon and both volumes of Fire and Blood, as they are all the work of Archmaester Gyldayn In-Universe.

This will also allow us to avoid repetition, by putting the tropes in the section corresponding to the earliest work of Gyldayn's that they appeared in, as well as all the tropes relating to Gyldayn's writing style and biases.

Do that. Make that page the new one...and just say sections were once published separately...

I agree that it's really long and should be cut down but the integrity of the books separate from the TV should be maintained. So it shouldn't be the same as the TV Show. Furthermore the TV show summary says the "plot focuses on the Stark family" when that's not really true of the books come the fourth and fifth book, or even earlier than that. It makes no mention of the Night's Watch and also spoils the first book by claiming that the last scion is claiming "her throne". This summary has the advantage of being non-spoiler and clarifying all the different factions and parallel plots. So any summary should maintain that.

We already do have warnings for that. And the fact that show and book pages are marked separate and different proves that. Don't see anything more we can do.

This is just one poster and editor, we didn't have many last year with Stannis after all.

And yes, the events of the show are not considered "canon" because in a work like ASOIAF context is all.

I wrote a lot of the Recaps for the first two seasons, but that doesn't necessarily make me the person you're thinking of.

Yep, that is seriously bad. I don't have time or the knowledge to put up a description, though, so you'll probably have to ask here in the forums for a rewrite.

I mean, I could throw something up. Normally I would just go ahead and do it but this page is a lot more active than the ones I usually contribute to, so I didn't want to step on any toes...

Another option would be to drop the list of works down and the description of the works up. Most other pages start with a description, then with the worklist.

Isn't there a way to make lists collapsible, as well? Via folders I think? I don't know what other people would think of that, but I just hate how much vertical space those lists waste.

Had some free time and decide to go ahead and rearrange/reword the intro significantly (after only a couple months from when I first considered it :P). Hopefully I didn't step on any toes or piss anyone off. But I do think it's better now. There's probably more I could do but maybe I'll get to that in another few months :)

If there is enough material to make a page from them, sure.

There is a thread in the Long Term Projects forum to discuss additions to Complete Monster pages. All examples need to be cleared with it.

Thanks, mate.

I don't know why there would be (nothing is out of the ordinary on the history page), and none are showing up on my end. Can you point to a specific one that you see?

Sorry, I may have the wrong discussion page, but there seems to be an asterisk overload on the character pages. Some of them are clickable and do have useful information, but they seem to have been added for every character, and most of them are empty.

Yeah, there is a definite surplus. Just zap 'em as you come across them.

None of the above? I don't think there's any significance to this. Prosthetic limbs are a thing and Lannisters have an association with gold.

Their house symbol is a lion on a field of red. Basically, they symbolize wealth and blood. Pretty good symbolism, considering most in the family are ridiculously rich and go around causing death and bloodshed. It shows off how they are like lions, perhaps more so then like humans, as well as their misuse of wealth.

Ostentatious conspicuous consumption isn't necessarily a "misuse" of wealth, but that's a matter of some fairly heavy duty economic theory.

Anyway, if you're in a medieval setting and you need a prosthetic, your best options are probably either the Berserk approach or something ostentatious. That's why I'd say it's both coincidence and a reference to Tywin's fondness for showing off his old money.

Could we have both? I think Cersei's quote exemplifies the series in many ways.

The point of a page quote is not to provide a title drop for the sake of it. The "game of thrones" quote actually exemplifies the series, it just happens to namedrop one of the books as well. The "song of ice and fire" quote is a title drop for its own sake — it doesn't tell you anything meaningful about the series.

If you wanted to go for duality, an ice-themed quote about the Others and a fire-themed quote about the war would be the way to go. For example;

Actually, why not use "Valar Morghulis" and "Valar Dohaeris" as quotes? They both sum up the series pretty well. "All Men Must Die" covers the backstabbing "you win or you lose" aspect of the books and "All Men Must Serve" covers the Myth Arc part. (All men must serve to fight the Others or something.)

It's not listed as such on the trope page.

For the Five Bad Band, Id replace Daven with the Gregor Clegane. Also, I think Tywin only wishes that Jaime would act as his Dragon but Jaime is to unpredictable. Cersei wants to be the Dragon but she lacks the Brains/Brawns/Judgement so Tywin ignores her. Tyrion is the most qualified Lannister to be the Dragon, but because of his Dwarfism his father discounts him. That leaves Kevan the dragon by default.

The Five Bad Band for the Lannister regime eventually becomes Cersei (Big Bad), Kevan (The Dragon, and Only Sane Man), Franken-Gregor (The Brute), Qyburn (Evil Genius) and Pycelle (The Dark Chick).

The recruits of the Night's Watch fit perfectly though. Jon (The Hero), Ghost (The Lancer and Team Pet), Pyp (The Smart Guy), Grenn (The Big Guy), and Sam (The Chick).

During the rebellion, the major players from houses Baratheon, Lannister and Stark made a Power Trio against the Targaryens as well. Boisterous Bruiser Robert was the emotional revenge-driven id, hidebound Ned the superego and self-interested Jaime the ego.

I still think it's a stretch. In the first two instances there are many more people on those 'teams' you're ignoring because they don't happen to fit in the band roles. Where does Littlefinger fit? Or is he no longer part of the team after he leaves for the Vale? How about Mace Tyrell, who's still at least nominally on the Lannisters' side? At the wall, I'd say Sam would be at least as good as The Smart Guy, and Small Paul a better The Big Guy. On top of that, both of these 'bands' shift repeatedly throughout the course of the series. As I'm sure you know, Kevan and Robert Strong are only present simultaneously for a brief time, and Sam hasn't been anywhere near the wall for some time.

As for the Power Trio example, Jaime switches sides very late in the rebellion and does so for different reasons than the others. Hoster Tullly and Jon Arryn both have a more central role in the rebellion, and since neither of them get to have flashbacks to it, it's tricky to characterize their motivations.

In summary, I just don't think these 'hero team' and 'villain team' tropes are useful to describe characters in this series for a number of reasons.

Hmmm. Robbing from the rich and giving to the poor is a central part of the Just Like Robin Hood trope, though. In fact, the trope admits that early Robin Hood is a poor example of the trope.

From what I've seen, Bloodraven comes off as more conflicted than heroic in the prequels.

That might be a good idea. The page is getting rather long, and this is better than to folderize it.

Splitting this page into separate book pages would make it too fractured. Lots of tropes apply to many books, and to the setting itself. That's a lot of repetition and redundancy. Also, tropes develop as the books go on, which would lead to a constant influx of spoilers. It's a bad idea to read a trope page if you don't want to be spoiled. Discussing what happens is the whole point.

I think, maybe, if there's time/energy for a massive overhaul, we have a general page, then a page for each of the books. They're pretty expanisve, and there'd definitely be enough to fill each.

We could do like with Avatar The Last Airbender or Order Of The Stick and sort the tropes alphabetically?

I don't think so. They never messed around with the civilizations that came after them. They were just an empire that collapsed. And the Free Cities aren't named because they necessarily feel they've cast off the shackles of evil overlords. They're simply independent and self-ruled cities.

Noted, thanks for the input.

They might turn out to be more abusive if some dangerous magic turns up later though. If the Doom was caused by something, whatever it was might still be lying around, for instance.

It might not be the best idea in a cold environment, but Martin never claims it is, so is not the the trope. You might file this under Artistic License, but for Did Not Do The Research, there would have to be something there that directly contradicts a real life fact.

Thanks, I think I got it.

He's the lord of the smallest of the peninsulas known as "The Fingers" - hence, Littlefinger.

Ah, sense is made. Thxmuch.

There's a thread to debate that on the forums where the people in charge will actually see it.

Oh right...I thought that this was a one-off movement...