An authors betrayal

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

It wasn't inside the story itself, unless I missed something incredibly subltle but...

[sub]I take it as non-canon. Not that I'm a homophobe, its just that I never read him that way.[/sub]

Other than that one, no author has really given me too much of a gut punch yet.

 

[Stew Coard]

Ever read the Iliad (and the accompanying Epic Cycle)? All the coolest characters (with the exception of Aias, Diomedes and Odysseus) end up dead an the craven and weak characters survive.

I always felt that was a bit odd seeing as the book was like some 'Bible of Heroes' for the Ancient Greeks, just goes to show Authors have been pulling this shit off for years.

Eh understandable but at least Odysseus survives for a sequel (he really was the coolest) but actually Aias did die

 

[The Reverend]

Someone's never read any of George RR Martian's A Song of Ice and Fire series... Its so bad that some created this

Spoiler: What GRRM actually looks like, if you're curious

They're still the best series of books I've read.

Yeah this. So this. It's like he actively dislikes all the characters that you like. And wants the characters that you hate to be okay. If Jamie Lannister lives through the end of the series I will find his house and vomit Jamies name in his yard.

I dunno, Jaime lannister has become one of my favorite characters. His character development has gone through so much, telling you why he was such a dick after the rebellion due to how people treated him, when in fact he was basically a hero, and he martyred his reputation for a good cause. But im sure he's gonna die too. And its gonna make me feel sad, not betrayed.
The only time i'll feel betrayed by an author is if they dont bother to finish their series (Robert Jordan gets let off, on account of his untimely passing) or they sell themselves short. I cant think of many books which I've read that made me think "That was a bad ending, wtf" but I suppose the short and veiny is its their book, their work, their time thats gone into it, so I cant really dictate how I want them to finish a book. To quote Niel Gaiman, "George RR Martin is not your *****" (replace GRRM with an author you like/feel betrayed by)

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

The only book series that ever made me completely rage was the Animorphs, it ended up being one of those oh look let's just start randomly killing people left and right, yea that's done...uhhh gotta find a way to this series, throw a bunch of random crap together....done!

To be fair, the ***** didn't kill that many of the characters I spent 50 books reading about.

But 50 fucking books! Good books! I really wish they were bad just so that I wouldn't been that disappointed. And this is the ending we get? Ok the bit with the all-powerful whats his name when rachel died was pretty good, but nowhere near good enough to excuse a fucking cliff hanger!

I literally threw the book out of a third story window.

 

[Lieju]

Well, there's a reason why the most adaptations of Crime and Punishment (all I've seen anyway)leave out the epilogue.

Dostojevski, dude, I know what you want to say with it, and you're still one of my favourite authors, but it's way stronger work with a more open ending.

I remember reading it as a kid, and going WTF at that, and thinking the epilogue was added later.

 

[Rednog]

The only book series that ever made me completely rage was the Animorphs, it ended up being one of those oh look let's just start randomly killing people left and right, yea that's done...uhhh gotta find a way to this series, throw a bunch of random crap together....done!

To be fair, the ***** didn't kill that many of the characters I spent 50 books reading about.

But 50 fucking books! Good books! I really wish they were bad just so that I wouldn't been that disappointed. And this is the ending we get? Ok the bit with the all-powerful whats his name when rachel died was pretty good, but nowhere near good enough to excuse a fucking cliff hanger!

I literally threw the book out of a third story window.

I dunno man, like all those crippled kids that the original team recruited dropped like flies, it was like oh thanks for making me spend like 2 books reading about them and they all get wiped out in a chapter.

 

[MightyRabbit]

They're not "betraying" you. Writers kill off characters for many reasons. You sound really paranoid, like it's some kind of personal attack on you.

P.S. If you don't like characters dying, stay away from everything by Joss Whedon...

 

[Deacon Cole]

So what about you guys? You ever hit a spot in a beloved series or book where you felt like the author just spat right at your face? If so when? What book? Details are fine as long as your prepare potential readers for spoilers.

One instance I can think of is in Bag of Bones by Stephen King where he kills off a supporting character is a rather brutal way. However, near the end he added a few lines of the protagonist making sense out of that death, but also not liking it as much as I. So he managed to make me appreciate the character death instead of it just being a cheap method to raise the stakes and body count.

I'm kind of surprised that King was able to manage this, honestly. He writes a lot, but he also writes a lot of crap. I don't know if he'd planned this or if it was an accident. But either way, kudos for him. It's rare for an author to have an event occur that the reader doesn't like yet manage to convince them that things could not have happened any other way.

 

[Gincairn]

Douglas Adams with the Dirk Gently novels and Life the universe and everything.

Robert Rankin with the Toymenator and the other of his toys books.

Other than that not really, I guess to a certain extent after reading the time machine and then seeing the god awful film with Guy Pearce, but I can't blame the author for that.

 

[WaysideMaze]

The only books I've ever read as an adult are the Discworld series, and they've stayed fantastic. Really need to read more.

 

[AperioContra]

I was always in the minority with the end of Mostly Harmless, because I thought if felt like a good end. That, in the end, everything that was done to that point was entirely meaningless, which really drove home the point of the book. The books are about bureaucracy and

Spoiler

the fact that at the end of the series your left with a small scene where the vorgon just leaves ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha after destroying earth, again, your left with the feeling that none of this could have been altered. The Vorgon were going to do what their small bureaucratic minds were ordered to do, and all attempts to stop them were ultimately meaningless.

And, I remember reading Ayn Rand's work and found it hard to be disappointing because the philosophy was for complete twats. Give the corporations more power? That's exactly what we need, I mean they wouldn't want to try to screw us over in any way, for anything like money, would they?

I guess where I was most disappointed in a book was Sandworms of Dune.

Spoiler

Ok, you spend the better part of four books in this cronology watching them drift in space on a noship, trying to find the big bad ancient enemy they're going to raise war on. You find out that it's the Thinking Machines from the Butlarian Jihad, and in some twenty pages they confront Omnious, destroy him, and are in the middle of teabagging his corpse, Erasmus reveals that he is not as violent as the rest of them and wants peace.

This seemed just too cleanly sewed. Maybe I missed something because I refuse to read Paul of Dune (14 books is enough thank you), but I think that a betrayal from Erasmus would have made sense. Erasmus was known to lie, cheat and kill, and would have been a more formidable opponent than Omnious because of his innate human nature.

 

[Woodsey]

It wasn't inside the story itself, unless I missed something incredibly subltle but...

[sub]I take it as non-canon. Not that I'm a homophobe, its just that I never read him that way.[/sub]

Well, it is now Word of God.

And subtle? I seem to remember half of the seventh book revolving around him, another man and their wands.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

It wasn't inside the story itself, unless I missed something incredibly subltle but...

[sub]I take it as non-canon. Not that I'm a homophobe, its just that I never read him that way.[/sub]

Well, it is now Word of God.

And subtle? I seem to remember half of the seventh book revolving around him, another man and their wands.

I take your Word of God and counter with Death of the Author. Although in this case, there is actually subtext to support it.

Anyways, I've had books by authors I like that I didn't enjoy. but actually betrayed? That's only happened once, and that was when I realized that the most annoying character in "Catcher in the Rye" was the main character, wasn't going to get dragged into an alleyway and beaten up, and was supposed to be sympathized with. Fuck you, J. D. Salinger.

 

[Woodsey]

It wasn't inside the story itself, unless I missed something incredibly subltle but...

[sub]I take it as non-canon. Not that I'm a homophobe, its just that I never read him that way.[/sub]

Well, it is now Word of God.

And subtle? I seem to remember half of the seventh book revolving around him, another man and their wands.

I take your Word of God and counter with Death of the Author. Although in this case, there is actually subtext to support it.

I would think that only applies to stuff that's more thematic/symbolic, not to foot-notes (cliff-notes?) on a character.

 

[darkfire613]

Someone's never read any of George RR Martian's A Song of Ice and Fire series... Its so bad that some created this

Spoiler: What GRRM actually looks like, if you're curious

They're still the best series of books I've read.

Surprised it took three whole posts before someone mentioned SOIaF. There were a few major scenes that really were painful as a reader. I still haven't finished the fourth book despite having started it back in July, simply because after what happens near the end of book 3 demoralized me. I will finish some day though.

 

[Rylot]

Stephen King, Stephen King, Stephen King. Christ the Dark Tower series' end pissed me off. To make it worse he admits that it was just a fuck you to readers who like to skip to the end of stories. What about the rest of us that endured seven goddamn books of increasingly meandering and tangential bullshit? Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and read the three books he's written since I started reading this thread.

After the whole thing with douglas adams and the hitch-hikers guide I though I wouldn't recover.

The whole 'trilogy' started with earth blowing up and all but two humans dying, what part of he's a pessimist didn't you get? There really wasn't any other way to end that series.

 

[Loop Stricken]

The only books I've ever read as an adult are the Discworld series, and they've stayed fantastic. Really need to read more.

Yes, yes you do. Especially what with Terry Pratchett's condition forcing him to stop sooner rather than later. :<

 

[Loop Stricken]

Stephen King, Stephen King, Stephen King. Christ the Dark Tower series' end pissed me off. To make it worse he admits that it was just a fuck you to readers who like to skip to the end of stories. What about the rest of us that endured seven goddamn books of increasingly meandering and tangential bullshit? Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and read the three books he's written since I started reading this thread.

I think I'm the only person I know who liked the ending. Not too keen on how much of a ***** death Flagg suffered though.