fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2259 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2259 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't mean in terms of quality, but lately I've been feeling like people think GRRM subverts fantasy tropes a lot more than he does. Yeah, there's a lot of rape, murder, incest, etc present in his world, but I don't know, I've never honestly felt surprised that a major character died. It always felt like he was obviously leading up to it, or sacrificed characters whose death made sense.

I only feel there are two characters that are meant for the end game: Dany and Jon. They're the two that get away with the most stuff, have the most disproportionate power building, etc.

It's just that I'm always hearing fans go "OMG GRRM kills ~everyone~ you love!" and I feel like I'm taking crazy pills since it seems so obvious who he was trying to kill. How could I ever be surprised Joffrey died? He had almost no relevance that couldn't be filled by another character. Renly looked like meat the second he declared himself king.

I'll admit I'm surprised by plot turns and whatnot

Okay, I am out of the loop. What does ASOIAF stand for?

A Song of Ice and Fire. That is, Game of Thrones.

The idea that Jon and Dany (+Tyrion) are endgame with everyone else open season was reasonably popular when I was still in fandom, which would be pre-Feast.

Which is to say you're right, he does perhaps get more credit then he's due, especially at this point, but going in at the very beginning and having Eddard snuff it - that was hugely shocking, and with the Red Wedding and such the 'idea' just kept momentum.

Yeah Jon and Dany and Tyrion are almost certainly endgame, unabashedly his favourites, and (at least Jon and Dany) are some of the most stereotypical fantasy protagonists.

Especially Jon. He is everything my fantasy-reading male friends from junior high wanted in a character, from the token angst yet being the awesomest at sword fighting, to being meant to lead in his ultrahonorable but maybe futile cause of FIGHTAN MONSTERS, right down to the spirited red-head fridged for his man feels and the (nonsensical) black clothing.

Dany, the purple-eyed magic princess, is only slightly better, really. Maybe worse with all of the blatant one-handed typing.

And ADWD pretty much ruins Tyrion, so... hurray. I'm totes super stoked about where the series is going.

...Brienne and Jamie for King and Queen?

Oh god, good, you see it to. That's exactly how I feel. I started getting annoyed that Jon just gets away with everything. It's almost like I'm reading a different book when I read Jon chapters. I mean, they're well done and all, but they feel so much more like classic fantasy than any other part.

Have you read ADWD? If not, what I have to say about Jon might go into spoiler territory, so...

...(SPOILERS)

There's no freaking way he's dead. I wasn't even worried. GRRM has been so unabashedly favouring him that it became readily apparent books ago that "kills the ones you love" didn't apply to Jon or Dany or Tyrion. They've gotten themselves into situations where other characters would surely have died and miraculously survived. Jon either lives through the stabbing, or comes back as a wolf/undead. I'd put cold hard cash on it.

I've read it, and, oh yeah. I'm 100% positive he's alive. It wasn't even a question for me--not just because of the favoritism, exactly, but also because there had yet to be any payoff for his arc. Every character either had build-up and pay-off before they died, or had no build-up at all.

Although it was nice seeing an actual (as far as I can tell) consequence for his upstart-ness.

I like the way you think. Brienne and Jamie it is.

The way Dany tends to throw her allies overboard over every slight, and how this hasn't bitten her in the ass yet, bothers me the most. Everyone else would have been stabbed in the back by now. I'm hoping that the dragons decide to make a meal out of any army she manages to gather.

Hasn't Dany already been stabbed in the back? Poisoned snack food that her tubby bodyguard whose name escapes me ending up eating (and just managing to survive)? And whatsherface...Mirri Maz Dur?, who Dany tried to get to save Drogo?

Spoilers

Don't forget Jon's most likely royal descent. And the distinct possibility that he's the reincarnation of a legendary hero, complete with a magic sword. He is basically every fantasy hero cliché ever. Not just some of them, all of them. I have some shred of hope that GRRM is setting him up to be a cliché only to somehow subvert it massively in the end, but I don't really believe that.

... Myrcella for Queen, Wyman Manderly eats everyone else.

looool Nope. I'm with you here. I was actually talking to someone about this just a couple of days ago. I'm only on AFFC right now, but so far this series has just been one massive foreshadow fest and hardly anything has been as "omg SHOCKING" as I was lead to believe before I got into the series.

It's pretty surprising if you're the kind of person who only reads the kind of books where main characters never die. Or if they do it's at the very end, and melodramatically.

...Which is, sadly, most of them.

Actually, at a certain point I was kind of surprised that so few major characters had died for a while (yeah, not quite through ADWD and I vaguely know there's stuff coming up). At least, none that actually stayed dead, whether due some last minute escape plot or zombiefication.

As for the "he kills everyone you love!" - sometimes I still love characters even though it's painfully obvious they are going to die. ;)

Two points here.

First, I think GRRM has been the victim of his own success. Fantasy as a genre is not the same today as it was when he started writing ASOIAF - nerd entertainment as a genre (& I think it's valid to consider it as a genre in this context) is not the same today as it was when he started writing ASOIAF. In particular, I think narratives are a lot more varied and less willing to follow convention. At the time, the idea of killing a character like Ned at the end of the first book of a multi-volume fantasy would be insane, let alone the Red Wedding. So I think the passage of time has dulled the impact of what once were legitimately shocking twists, and to some extent still are. You have to bear in mind the cultural context of ASOIAF in many ways is 1996, not 2013.

Second, I think that subverting fantasy tropes and having shocking twists are two distinctly different things, and I think GRRM does both. And whether or not the things he's doing surprise you, that doesn't speak to whether or not he's suverting fantasy tropes. And (this is just my opinion) I think he is arguing against fantasy tropes in certain identifiable and consistent ways, particularly in who he thinks of as a hero, what happens to them, how they change, and in general what is important to them. But that's still something he's doing whether you see it coming or not.

[ SECRET POST #2259 ]

ASOIAF maybe overestimated SPOILERS

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