/lit/ - Literature

>>9587296

>GRRM barely did anything those pages.

I'm not going to pretend they weren't soft on plot-pushing, but it could be that they're just a setup for what's to come. I choose to remain optimistic. Martin started off with a trilogy when ASoIaF began and then changed his mind. Whatever turn-around he has planned is big enough that he needed a lot of bullshit established in order to set it up properly. I mean, the show pretty much did away with all of this stuff altogether. It either omitted characters outright or just killed them.

So, yeah, I guess it's a matter of how you want to see it. If you're a pessimist and you think he's a hapless moron that got himself too bogged down to come out of it and he's only waiting to die, then the last two books are just a slog and you're better off waiting for the show to draw a conclusion. But if you have faith that the man can deliver (or could, at least in theory) then I don't think they're all that bad.I used to hate them until Preston Jacobs opened my eyes and showed me that there's too much elaborate stuff in there for it all to be mindless fuckery (though I don't subscribe to all his mad theories).

I think the main reason people hate these books so much is because Martin has change as a person since the original trilogy. I think he's matured (presumably a bit too late?), and that can clearly be seen from the tone he takes in many of these later chapters. Jaime's chapters and Theon's are definitely not the fucking tone for fantasy. So trying to weave that into what is essentially a simple fantasy tale can't be easy. Chances are it's going to be an epic disaster (if he ever finishes).

But we can continue this conversation tomorrow. It's past midnight here and I need to sleep.