fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5630 ]

06. https://i.postimg.cc/HxSLsdZB/grrmgot.png

I'd rather have the epicness and magical mysticism of a Tolkien knock off, personally speaking. Where my elves at?

I like both types of fantasy. All types really. But if a Tolkien knockoff is well done or at least interesting, I'm very down for it. It is just that a lot of times they end up really flat and boring and missing the things that make Tolkien actually good.

But that can be said of a lot of dark fantasy too. Everyone wants to copy the popular of the moments. There are lots of ASOIAF copies that are really bad too.

oh god no. I'm part of a Tolkien LARP group that has been around since the 80s and some of them have extremely large collections of Tolkien knock-off books. They're ALL TERRIBLE. Just having elves and dwarves does not make a good story, if anything it absolutely detracts because someone was trying to push all the Tolkien buttons hoping it would work and it literally never does.

(I know because said group members kept loaning me books/reccing books in that vein and holy shit I'm still angry about it 15 years after the last one I threw across the room)

Oh, the trashier the better for me. Leave no cliche unused, and I'll be happy.

I've always been under the impression a lot of the criticism is more squarely aimed at the show than the book series. I also feel like there is a lot of room to give GRRM the chance to improve on/respond to the criticisms his series have received since ASOIAF isn't complete yet.

It is never going to be complete. The very last thing that happens in the universe, just before the last sub atomic particle decays and eternal night kicks in, will be a press release saying that GRRM is working hard on the next book which will come out any day now. That is my criticism with the series.

NAYRT

I genuinely don't understand why he doesn't just say it's not coming out.

da

I mean, even with best intentions, self-denial is a strong thing. He says he's working on it. Maybe he really is. Maybe some part of him even believes he'll finish before he dies. As a reader, I've just decided not to expect any more books and move on to other things. If by some miracle, he does finish, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

He just enjoys being a troll. Plus, I think he really does mean it when he says he intends to finish it. Just he means it like my uncle means it when he says he is gonna fix up that old car he has in the garage. He genuinely means it, but that old Trans Am is never gonna run again and we all know it. He's gonna get around to it, any day now.

Yep, this.

DA

That’s not really a criticism with the series, though. That’s a criticism of GRRM. And I don’t really agree with that criticism, personally.

Sure, I want the series to be complete. But creators leave things incomplete all the time, and it is what it is. Nobody is owed the the next book(s)(and I’m not saying you’re being entitled, I’m directing this part at other fans I’ve seen), or the rest of the series. As understandable as it still is to be upset about being left hanging with no resolution. It’s GRRM’s decision as the author and creator as to how the series progresses, and his right to do what he wants with it, including leaving it hanging. It’s not ideal, and I don’t like it. But what can you do.

And I agree with another anon in thinking that he really does believe he’ll complete the series one day. He may be a troll in some ways, but he has nothing to gain and a lot to lose by merely pretending to intend to finish his books. So I don’t believe at all that that’s what he’s doing, or that he’s lying for any reason. At least not that he’s lying to anyone but himself about finishing his series.

Sadly, I have definitely noticed a backlash against the books, not just the show. People saying the books are too dark and depressing, the sex scenes too squicky and male gaze-y/just GRRM's personal fetishes, the "heroic" characters are stupid and impossible to root for, etc. The second criticism is fair. It was written in the 90s, and it shows its age. The first is a mix of fair and unfair. The books ARE dark and depressing especially compared to typical fantasy fare and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but there's a lot going on in the book other than just grimdark, and I worry some people are attributing the ethos of the show to the ethos of the books and I don't think that's quite fair. But the third... I mean, when you've been spoiled about what happens to Ned and Robb, I guess they look "stupid" in hindsight, but this criticism still bugs the heck out of me. You ARE meant to root for them. That's why their deaths hurt so much. Again, I think people are attributing too much grimdark to the books and assuming it is so cynical that it either makes all the characters terrible and completely unsympathetic, or it purposely punishes people for the "mistake" of rooting for the goodie-goodie characters. But I don't think it does. The characters are just meant to be complex (not wholly good or bad) and there are sympathetic ones like Arya, Bran, Sansa, Daenerys, Jon, Brienne, even Tyrion, Jaime, etc. that you're supposed to root for and they get wins even as they aren't great people all the time.

Just wanted to let you know, anon, that this comment really lifted my spirits. Speaking as a pre-show fan, I sometimes find myself feeling embarrassed and ashamed when I identify myself as a book fan. I don't want to feel that way, but the backlash IS real and it does have the power to drag a person down.

But I loved these books, and I still love these books, and sometimes it really helps to be reminded why those feelings exist in the first place.

Thank you secret maker as well, of course! Thank you, fandom le secrets ;_;

I just want to know what happens to the Tyrells, man

I feel like a sad drug addict just begging someone for that final hit.

It’s been a while since I read the books but honestly I don’t remember that stuff being as bad in the books as it was the show. Some things were far worse, like more shockingly OTT sexually violent but it never seemed like a constant. It did in the show, though.

I know he’s never gonna finish but I look forward to the days when the shows fades into a distant memory and new fans find the books and we get an influx of ASOIAF fics. I want all the possible endings for everyone, all the ships, all the loose ends tied up and every house’s fate decided.

I think part of my wish (ok, probably 90% of it) is motivated by wanting to see more ASOIAF Jaime and Brienne fic. The GOT fic is fun and good and I’m glad we got so much fix-it fic (because we really needed it!) but I’m greedy and want the book characters now.

Same anon. But for me, the show and the way they fucked up the ending has completely ruined it for me. There's unlikely to be a 7th book, but if there ever is I'm expecting it to not fit at all with the rest of them, and for GRRM to have been heavily influenced by the approach the show took (endless sex and sexual violence just for gratification) - and also be trying to distance himself from the disastrous ending.

I read the first three books and frankly, was just exhausted. My interest had waned completely and I just...didn't care anymore. So the show never attracted me. But eh...I'm so tired of sexist bullshite in media. Just really done with it.

You do you, OP - enjoy what you like. It's just too much for me.

I do think the hate is more of a conflation with the show [finale], but I guess in opposition to you I think the show has obscured some things that are critique-able about the books in a weird way? Like Drogo/Dany shippers will say that the show ruins the ship because of the wedding night rape, but the book's good wedding night doesn't change the relationships substantially! Or people will complain about the "added" Jaime/Cersei rape scene, which reads as rape both in book and in show to me. Or they'll be mad about Sansa being tortured by Ramsey, as if that's more egregious than anything about Ramsey in the books?

Like yes, I think D&D are creeps but, I don't know, it feels like the show let GRRM off the hook, until people realized that he intended some version of the show's end and got mad.

Anyway, it does bother me, but it's such a common writing style for GRRM's generation, and I read all of those, that the GOOD female characters he brings to it make it a fave.

Oh I have strong opinions about the Dany/Drogo thing! I agree that the show does not at all change the objective disturbing power dynamics of the Dany/Drogo relationship, but I disagree with the claim that changing the wedding night scene didn't actually change the Dany/Drogo relationship significantly. While all the issues with rape, age difference, power difference, and Dany's inability to consent are the same, Dany's *subjective* experiences in that marriage are so important to Dany's character arc -- it is key to so many aspects of her character that she significantly culture-mixes with/assimilates into Dothraki culture and has her Westerosi upbringing intermingle significantly with that culture, and her relationship with Drogo is key to that process happening, and the wedding night is key to laying the foundation of her positive relationship with Drogo. Regardless of whether Dany actually "can" "consent" to sex/marriage, regardless of how meaningless that so-called "consent" would actually be when evaluating the morality of such a relationship, for her character, it absolutely does make a difference that she comes to respect a man who she initially thought would be cruel and uncaring; it's important that they find a way to communicate past a language barrier; it's important to her character arc that the first time she has sex is experienced by her as a sexual awakening and not a violent rape. The show changes all these things, which has knock-on effects not only to Dany's later characterization but also to the way in which Dothraki culture is depicted (whether it is lionized or demonized by the text -- Dany's subjective experiences, which are of course fallible, do add a positive nuance to a culture that also features quite a lot of orientalist elements and could otherwise be a flat stereotypical depiction of the "barbarism" of brown-skinned people, if not for the way Daenerys genuinely comes to respect, value, and identify with it).

I am not saying that people should take away the message "Ah, I see! So it's okay to have sex with/arrange marriages for 13 year olds, as long as they 'CONSENT'! Cool!" But nevertheless, from a *fictional* point of view, how Dany personally felt in that scene absolutely DOES change the nature of that relationship, and therefore is important for understanding her life experience, personality, characterization, etc. going forward, even as all the disturbing power dynamics remain intact in both versions.

(Just so you know, your interpretation of the Dany/Drogo relationship as inherently abusive and disturbing, and the positive wedding night just serving to obscure that rather than alter it, and her "consent" making it MORE, not less, disturbing -- all of that is the majority opinion among book fans. So you're absolutely not alone in your assessment here. My take is the non-standard one. But I have very strong opinions and have been arguing with other book fans on this point for decades...)

I think you mistake completely what my problems with shippers are (and I think you are reading into what I think about it things I never said). Ironically you are actually presenting my problems with it, in this defense.

The sequence of events in the books is this: Dany and Drogo have a great wedding night. Dany feels a lot of hope that she will be better treated than she was with her brother. This is immediately disabused. Every night for months (I'm not certain how long, but the book gives the sense of unceasing time), she is effectively raped by Drogo. She is miserable, she is confused, she has zero idea of why he is treating her this way, she is in constant pain from this sex. He is increasingly contemptuous of her, and the implication is that Dany is not living up to her promise (there's a great detail that part of Drogo's problem is that the Dothraki live publicly and that she is therefore embarrassing him with her inability to bear up). It gets to the point where she's suicidal. Her narration is telling us that she wants to die. Then she has dragon dream! And that changes everything. It is not Drogo, it's not Drogo being understanding, it is not Dany respecting him, it's not him adapting in any way to her. It's that Dany comes into her Targ. And that Targ-ness means that she can adapt into Dothraki culture admirably, and that she takes control of her life in a way she never believed she could before. Consequently, Drogo respects her, and then they develop a romantic relationship.

Dany/Drogo shippers using the wedding night as something fundamental about their relationship is completely belied by what happens next. Making the wedding night fulfilling for Dany or making it painful does not change the fact that Dany is almost destroyed by Drogo and and has to save herself. I'm with you in that I like the fact that Dany has a good wedding night, not a little in part because I think it gives Drogo depth that is absent from the rest of his time in the books. But it is absent, and on a relationship level, that wedding night does nothing for it. Changing it to have Drogo be more consistent therefore, does not ruin it.

You saying her subject experiences give a positive slant to the culture or is foundational to her relationship is exactly my point. Her subjective experience is actually VERY NEGATIVE, her relationship is actually VERY ISOLATING and it is literally magic that changes that, and it's very telling that that one positive experience has people straight up ignoring what follows until her dragon dream rights the train (which again, has NOTHING to do with Drogo).

That's really not how I read that post-marriage sequence at all. The writing/language of that part is meant to evoke the image of rape, but if you actually read it, the main reason why Dany is miserable and confused to the point of being suicidal isn't the sex at all -- it's the pain from her saddle sores (which flares up during sex but is always there even when she's just sleeping; she cannot escape this pain) and general shock from suddenly living a horseback nomadic lifestyle, which she is 0% prepared for. Drogo is distant but I mean, they are newlyweds who don't share a language, are traveling all day, and Drogo has returned to his duties following the wedding ceremony. There is a limit to how intimate their relationship is going to be during this time. He is certainly not supporting her/helping her get through her trials, but he isn't the source of those trials either.

Notably, the first thing that happens after Dany's empowering dragon dream is that her blisters heal into callouses. This is really important moment because it marks that the worst of her trials is over -- not the sex, which was never the worst part of the lifestyle, but the acclimatization to a life on horseback. And, following acquiring that basic cultural necessity/skill, she gains the respect of/incorporation into the Dothraki group, because the ability to ride is so important to them. And since things are no longer all miserable pain and alienation, she actually has space to enjoy her life and deepen the connections she has with the people around her. All things her brother never manages to accomplish.

Drogo doesn't nearly destroy Dany -- living a Dothraki lifestyle nearly does. If her relationship with Drogo were more intimate, it's possible he could have supported her better through this transition. But even then, that's not the Dothraki way. He and she were both aware that it was 100% on Dany regarding whether she had the physical and mental fortitude to bear up under the trial in a way that Dothraki culture acknowledges and expects, and she did. There is no cruelty here; she is being treated like any other member of the khalasar. Like, I agree with you on one point which is that Dany saved herself. But Drogo barely enters the picture here at all on either the "hurting" or "helping" side, aside from the fact that they are having sex every night (presumably to conceive a child), which is only a small part of Dany's misery.

Subjectively speaking, as far as I recall, Dany never views the sex as violating and unwanted, just painful and something she cries her way through (there might even be something cathartic about having the privacy to cry because she can't do it in public), just like she bears all the (necessary) horse-riding even though it is a form of torture and it makes her want to die. And like, I acknowledge that there are all these very icky power dynamics to their sex all throughout including here, where Dany, who is very young and has a very different understanding of sex and expectations around it, is "consenting" (she absolutely cannot consent) to painful sex -- like, it's clearly rape. That is what we would call it. And the language of the passage where this is happening 100% reads like a rapekink porn scene (as someone who has written many such scenes...), so all of that complicates the analysis here.

But, ultimately, I do not think this sequence at all shows that Dany subjectively experiences her early relationship with Drogo as rape, or views him as cruel or abusive or trying to break her, nor is it fair to say that Drogo nearly destroyed Dany and she had to save herself from cracking beneath his horrible treatment. I think this scene still coheres with the "great wedding night" depiction of Dany and Drogo's relationship, much better than it coheres with the violent rape of the TV show, even while it is clearly painful and upsetting for her.

Finally got the chance to read it over, and you're absolutely right, it does come off more as being new to horse country. Mea Culpa to all the Dany/Drogo stans I complained about! D&D are gross for that then.

[ SECRET POST #5630 ]

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