Kill Your Darlings

[LaoJim]

I have never seen anyone kill off main characters with the casual indifference of George R. R. Martin. Although not my favorite author, I enjoy his visceral writing style. It's not surprising when one considers the fact that the Martin, a medieval historian, takes great inspiration from the English War of the Roses. Life was cheap in the middle ages--and still is--and lords and legends were killed off just as quickly as they emerged.

Also, having read 4 of his books, I didn't really think that he could "shock" me anymore, boy was I wrong--those who have read the book know what I am talking about.

Spoiler: Click at your own peril!

Jon Snow bites the dust

Yes but

Spoiler: spoilers

Death's not what it once was.

 

[taciturnCandid]

This is pretty much what happens every few months in homestuck. That comic could be summed up as Everyone Dies: the comic.

Also I did actually quit a few books because a character I liked died. Song of Fire and Ice I just lost interest in.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

If anything the Red Wedding made me even more determined to follow the show just to see how the heck this is all going to resolve itself. Although that might be a bit too over-optimistic of me.

Funny how the Red Wedding and the end of Season 3 was what made me want to start reading the books. Haven't caught up with the show yet, but honestly that twist made me not want to wait to see what happens next.

 

[Pyrian]

I have never seen anyone kill off main characters with the casual indifference of George R. R. Martin.

Haven't read much Black Company by Glen Cook, I imagine? Soldier's Live must've been titled ironically.

 

[lucky_sharm]

I hate when people say that half of the cast was killed off when only two major characters were killed.

Spoiler

And to say nothing of the fact that Catelyn was brought back from the dead...

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

-snip-

Spoiler: Click at your own peril, too

Actually, the last we see is Jon Snow being stabbed by his fellow Nights Watch members for the sake of the Nights Watch. There is no definitive proof he is dead yet until GRRM writes the next one. it may sound like wishful thinking, but with the way GRRM is in his writing, don't write the possibility out until more definitive stuff comes to be.

Spoiler

I'd actually say, looking at the way GRRM tends to write, that's it's far more likely Jon is still alive by some description. When an important character dies, GRRM tends not to fuck about. BAM! There, you just saw him/her get brutally murdered right in front of you. When he cuts away at a crucial moment, it's usually because something else happens that he doesn't want shown until later, like with Brienne. Her death was looking fairly certain in A Feast for Crows, but then she shows up again in A Dance With Dragons.

 

[Kargathia]

Also, having read 4 of his books, I didn't really think that he could "shock" me anymore, boy was I wrong--those who have read the book know what I am talking about.

Spoiler: Click at your own peril!

Jon Snow bites the dust

I'd argue it's a bit vague, and, considering certain other things going on, I don't think we can say that's certainly the case until the next book.

That's true, but it's set up to the point that it seems only magic can prevent it...

Spoiler: More spoilers

But there are after death options, undead and wolf possession. He can die and still be in the story ,like a certain female character.

Spoiler

If there's one terrible habit Martin got into since... well, basically since the end of the first book, it's setting up scenarios where it appears certain that a character is dead, and then revealing they're still alive. In contrary to the suspense supposedly created by his willingness to kill off any of the characters, it actually appears more like he's just teasing people with the threat of death and gets on my nerves. Unless a character is killed off explicitly in full view "on screen", so to speak, I'm going to be sitting and waiting for Martin to try and do yet another of his umpteen "gotcha" revelations where he reveals, to absolutely no surprise anymore, that the character he implied was dead was not actually dead.

What I'm saying is that there is so much precedence of Martin doing exactly this kind of thing and the characters surviving that it seems highly unlikely that he'll have killed off Snow.

Spoiler: This is starting to look like a top Secret document with all the spoiler blackouts. Seriously though, HUGE Spoilers.

Those 'oops, not really dead' reveals never got me because they never set up well enough that those characters were in danger. The deaths at that time would also have been a pointless waist of characters and the end of the story line would have been just too abrupt. Snow is different. He's taken a serious wound, he's unlikely to get assistance in time, even if he does get assistance there's no healing magic, and there's no looming story line only he can continue. Bran, on the other hand, wont die until Martin finishes enough of the Weirwood plot line that his death won't feel like a dangling plot thread.

Spoiler: Yes, this really is top secret. I mean: who knows who could be reading this?

So far all of the main characters in GoT dying did so whenever their death was best placed to act as a catalyst for a whole new magnitude of clusterfuck.

Jon's death creates a character and power vacuum at the wall, just when he was pretty much the only one preventing an all-out clash between the wildlings, the watch, and Stannis' retinue - white walkers thrown in for additional southbound shit flavour.

Personally I wouldn't be surprised by a miraculous revive, but one thing is certain: a shitstorm is brewing up there, and it's gonna be big.

 

[PunkRex]

Given that last week was about FREE! I thought she was talking about Attack on Titan for a second there...

I swear if Sasha gets it i'm gonna kick off!

Still, I don't get as mad as I used to when characters die... is that maturity kicking in or is life just slowly beating down?...

I gotta go cry for abit, excuse me...

 

[Fox12]

I'm not gonna lie, I don't see the attraction to Game of Thrones. I had to stop reading once I realized the story wasn't going anywhere and Martin basically admitted he just makes it up as he goes along. I don't know, it's alright, just not excellent.

The only thing I don't understand is why people celebrate him as gritty and realistic just because he kills off tons of people. Some of the things that happen feel random and decidedly unrealistic. Like when Dani sleeps with her hand maiden. Martin never suggested she was bisexual, it's almost never brought up again, and he doesn't use it to speculate on homosexuality in the middle ages, which actually would be interesting character development. It was just fanservice. Fanservice that involved a fourteen year old girl. I think my breaking point was following Brianne through two books on a wild goose chase, only to have her turn around and go back to the guy who sent her on her quest in the first place. He could cut out that entire section, and it wouldn't hurt the books at all.

 

[cricket chirps]

._. so I see this joke come up a lot around the internet "I quit" after watching the season finale.
I don't get why everyone is joking about it.

The whole season they were ramping up excitement about attacking Casterly Rock to get at Tywin Lannister. I genuinely wanted to see that and was interested in what it would do for the plot for all the characters.

Then they did what they did, and basically just destroyed a perfect bell curve of excitement. I'm not quitting the show but I can completely understand why someone would. I am not going to care about anything that happens between those two families now :/ because to me, it won't be more interesting than seeing a strong villain role character get his home taken right from under his nose.

I felt that what happened actually was bad writing/story telling, because it easily stopped some of its audience from caring about a large portion of the story's plot.

Am I really in the minority there?

 

[Requia]

I have never seen anyone kill off main characters with the casual indifference of George R. R. Martin.

Haven't read much Black Company by Glen Cook, I imagine? Soldier's Live must've been titled ironically.

Eh, I'm 4 books in and its not been too bad. The people who die are mostly people who are well established as important to the characters/political scene, but almost never characters with a lot of screen time,

Spoiler

I can only think of three that can be considered main characters, that one innkeeper from book 2 whose name escapes me, Raven, and Old Man Fish (who I'm stretching with).

It's actually pretty masterful at having a ton of death without alienating audiences.

 

[shiajun]

Disclaimer: I have never read or watched any Game of Thrones material. My opinions are referenced to abstract concepts. I don't I will get ino GoT either, since people not shutting up about it have just made me distance myself out of spite. Just like that top-of-the-chart song that plays everywhere you go until it's carved ino your ears.

Anyway. I have never understand this argument that killing of characters is good writing by itself. Good writing doesn't actually have to have an deaths at all. If fact, if the deaths serve no allegorical or deep literary recourse the death is merely shock value, and it swings all the way opposite from good writing. Proper authors know that every single word, grammatical structure or event in the plot must carry weight, even if it's not apparent at first hand an only as a part of a unifying theme or purpose. For TV shows, Lost killed of a lot of main characters, but only the first few deaths had any meaning and greater relevance. All there rest seemed just for the LOLs and it's part of the ever diminishing quality that happened in that show.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I have never seen anyone kill off main characters with the casual indifference of George R. R. Martin. Although not my favorite author, I enjoy his visceral writing style. It's not surprising when one considers the fact that the Martin, a medieval historian, takes great inspiration from the English War of the Roses. Life was cheap in the middle ages--and still is--and lords and legends were killed off just as quickly as they emerged.

Also, having read 4 of his books, I didn't really think that he could "shock" me anymore, boy was I wrong--those who have read the book know what I am talking about.

Spoiler: Click at your own peril!

Jon Snow bites the dust

Eh, I'll believe it when I see it. The text never actually confirms the death.

 

[Ukomba]

Also, having read 4 of his books, I didn't really think that he could "shock" me anymore, boy was I wrong--those who have read the book know what I am talking about.

Spoiler: Click at your own peril!

Jon Snow bites the dust

I'd argue it's a bit vague, and, considering certain other things going on, I don't think we can say that's certainly the case until the next book.

That's true, but it's set up to the point that it seems only magic can prevent it...

Spoiler: More spoilers

But there are after death options, undead and wolf possession. He can die and still be in the story ,like a certain female character.

Spoiler

If there's one terrible habit Martin got into since... well, basically since the end of the first book, it's setting up scenarios where it appears certain that a character is dead, and then revealing they're still alive. In contrary to the suspense supposedly created by his willingness to kill off any of the characters, it actually appears more like he's just teasing people with the threat of death and gets on my nerves. Unless a character is killed off explicitly in full view "on screen", so to speak, I'm going to be sitting and waiting for Martin to try and do yet another of his umpteen "gotcha" revelations where he reveals, to absolutely no surprise anymore, that the character he implied was dead was not actually dead.

What I'm saying is that there is so much precedence of Martin doing exactly this kind of thing and the characters surviving that it seems highly unlikely that he'll have killed off Snow.

Spoiler: This is starting to look like a top Secret document with all the spoiler blackouts. Seriously though, HUGE Spoilers.

Those 'oops, not really dead' reveals never got me because they never set up well enough that those characters were in danger. The deaths at that time would also have been a pointless waist of characters and the end of the story line would have been just too abrupt. Snow is different. He's taken a serious wound, he's unlikely to get assistance in time, even if he does get assistance there's no healing magic, and there's no looming story line only he can continue. Bran, on the other hand, wont die until Martin finishes enough of the Weirwood plot line that his death won't feel like a dangling plot thread.

Spoiler: Yes, this really is top secret. I mean: who knows who could be reading this?

So far all of the main characters in GoT dying did so whenever their death was best placed to act as a catalyst for a whole new magnitude of clusterfuck.

Jon's death creates a character and power vacuum at the wall, just when he was pretty much the only one preventing an all-out clash between the wildlings, the watch, and Stannis' retinue - white walkers thrown in for additional southbound shit flavour.

Personally I wouldn't be surprised by a miraculous revive, but one thing is certain: a shitstorm is brewing up there, and it's gonna be big.

I thought that was going to be THE WHOLE POINT of the book series, but only now is anything happening there. It would be like if you follow Harry Potter to hogwarts, finding out he's a wizard, about the school, and about Voldemort then following Dudley, Serious, and Lucious around for the next three books, with only the occasional chapter for what Harry's up to. Martin's pacing is terrible. He keeps switching to characters I don't care about, doing things I don't care about.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Given that last week was about FREE! I thought she was talking about Attack on Titan for a second there...

I swear if Sasha gets it i'm gonna kick off!

Still, I don't get as mad as I used to when characters die... is that maturity kicking in or is life just slowly beating down?...

I gotta go cry for abit, excuse me...

I see I'm not the only one who saw the ANIME tag underneath to day's strip, and not a GAME OF THRONES tag. I was wondering what show they were talking about, and Attack on Titan is a likely choice. As for Game of Thrones, all the talk I've read about it (that aren't hiding in the increasingly funny spoiler warnings) points out how there's no point in liking a character who has any morality at all if you just know they're going to eat it soon. I know just the trope for this: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarknessInducedAudienceApathy

I apologize in advance if I now ruined your productivity today.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

...Is she still watching Free?

 

[theyellowmeteor]

(comment removed)

 

[Robot Number V]

I have never seen anyone kill off main characters with the casual indifference of George R. R. Martin. Although not my favorite author, I enjoy his visceral writing style. It's not surprising when one considers the fact that the Martin, a medieval historian, takes great inspiration from the English War of the Roses. Life was cheap in the middle ages--and still is--and lords and legends were killed off just as quickly as they emerged.

Also, having read 4 of his books, I didn't really think that he could "shock" me anymore, boy was I wrong--those who have read the book know what I am talking about.

Spoiler: Click at your own peril!

Jon Snow bites the dust

Well, speaking of the FIFTH BOOK WHICH CONTAINS PLOT DETAILS PROBABLY ABOUT 3 SEASONS AHEAD OF WHERE THE SHOW IS.....
*ahem*

Spoiler: Nah.

I don't think he did. Well, maybe he did, but he'll still be back. I don't have any real evidence other then the fact that no character has ever (permanently) died in their own chapter. Personally, I think he'll either live through it, or Mellisandre (Millisandre?) will bring him back...Thus leaving him free to ignore his vows. This would fit with Jon's story running in parallel with Dany's, seeing as they would both leave their respective "kingdoms" behind.

Also, you only mentioned 4 books in your post, even though the spoiler is from the fifth one. So people who have actually read only the first 4 will be kind of screwed over. Please edit your post.

 

[Silvanus]

Spoiler: Click at your own peril!

Jon Snow bites the dust

Spoiler

That's very debatable! He's at the wall with both a Woods Witch (Morna White Mask) and a Red Priestess, after all.

 

[nyysjan]

Disclaimer: I have never read or watched any Game of Thrones material. My opinions are referenced to abstract concepts. I don't I will get ino GoT either, since people not shutting up about it have just made me distance myself out of spite. Just like that top-of-the-chart song that plays everywhere you go until it's carved ino your ears.

Anyway. I have never understand this argument that killing of characters is good writing by itself. Good writing doesn't actually have to have an deaths at all. If fact, if the deaths serve no allegorical or deep literary recourse the death is merely shock value, and it swings all the way opposite from good writing. Proper authors know that every single word, grammatical structure or event in the plot must carry weight, even if it's not apparent at first hand an only as a part of a unifying theme or purpose. For TV shows, Lost killed of a lot of main characters, but only the first few deaths had any meaning and greater relevance. All there rest seemed just for the LOLs and it's part of the ever diminishing quality that happened in that show.

So with you, nothing wrong with dying characters, and i do love a good tragedy, but the death needs to serve a purpose.
I have tried to read one of the books, did not get far because i just could not get interested with the characters (might try again sometime during winter if i got time), so i can't say how well GRRM does character deaths, but if he uses lots of "fake" deaths, i can't say i'm going to be very optimistic about them when i start trying to read the series again.

Plus i tend to hate the several plotlines going on at same time thing, it almost never really works because you are constantly thrown of one way or the other and never get to really into the characters, or are forced to read about people you could not care less about, just so you have a clue what is going on while reading about those you do care (are interested) about.