Death and killing off characters, especially main ones, in a story is one of those double edged swords. Used well it can make for gripping twists and shock the reader, but on the other hand its also killing off all that characters growth and potential for later. And when done en masse it's even more dangerous because unless the writer can give suitable replacements then readers are left with characters they have no investment in and may stop caring about the series entirely. If you want to see how to do it wrong just look at the comic book industry.
I just bothers me when an engaging character is killed before there's any meaningful conclusion to their arc. I get that it's "realistic" because real life doesn't wait for character arcs to finish either, but if I wanted real life I would go outside and/or talk to people, which frankly sounds like a nightmare.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You might want to adjust your preconception about the books slightly. The Harry Potter books tell a contained story, and finish when the story is done. Writing additional books after the seventh would diminish the story, as everything is neatly tied up.
A better comparison would be a few of the more detailed chronicles of the Middle Ages. It has their roots in older civilisations (the Roman empire vs. the Targaryen dynasty), constant strife and conflict, and inevitably will evolve beyond swords and spears as primary methods of conflict resolution, without there ever being a shortage of conflicts in need of resolution.
Harry Potter has a protagonist. The closest thing Game of Thrones has to a protagonist is the Land of Westeros.
Of course, it's entirely conceivable you just want an ending, or even an happy ending. Personally I just love the sense of reading history in motion, as it continually flows from one conflict to another.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You might want to adjust your preconception about the books slightly. The Harry Potter books tell a contained story, and finish when the story is done. Writing additional books after the seventh would diminish the story, as everything is neatly tied up.
A better comparison would be a few of the more detailed chronicles of the Middle Ages. It has their roots in older civilisations (the Roman empire vs. the Targaryen dynasty), constant strife and conflict, and inevitably will evolve beyond swords and spears as primary methods of conflict resolution, without there ever being a shortage of conflicts in need of resolution.
Harry Potter has a protagonist. The closest thing Game of Thrones has to a protagonist is the Land of Westeros.
Of course, it's entirely conceivable you just want an ending, or even an happy ending. Personally I just love the sense of reading history in motion, as it continually flows from one conflict to another.
Not at all. I had no problem following and waiting on the Wheel of Time books. What I want, is a little more focus and better pacing. (Insert Wheel of Time Pacing comment here e_e) 'A Feast for Crows' could have been cut way back and fitted into A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons. I chose Harry Potter as an example because it's well known, perhaps 'The Blade It's Self' would have been a better example, or 'Gardens of the Moon'.
The problem with Westeros being the protagonist is I just don't care about the land. It does feel a little like history in that the real story seems to be happening some time in the future and what we're going through is the back story for that. I know lots of people like it, but I don't hold it in any where near as high regards. I've read a lot of books, and it just seem a middling 'eh'. I really don't get the appeal, I've just read several more entertaining books.
It's all about subverting expectations. Fantasy genre, good guys always win. With Martin, there aren't "good" guys. The better people usually lose or do something that cocks things up more than the "evil" option would have.
Falseprophet said:
Giest4life said:
I have never seen anyone kill off main characters with the casual indifference of George R. R. Martin.
I don't really consider the man who had to write the Red Wedding chapter last because he was too emotionally distraught, then cried over the characters he'd just killed, "casually indifferent".
It might be painful personally but it certainly doesn't show through his writing. Most of the deaths are horrible, but there's just a certain somewhat casual tone about how he announces their fates.
Yeah, it was. I don't read/watch it either, but people seemed to get pretty emotional. I wonder of the people who said it really did stop watching/reading.
Yeah, it was. I don't read/watch it either, but people seemed to get pretty emotional. I wonder of the people who said it really did stop watching/reading.
Death of a maincharacter or several can be good for a story, if its done well. In fact death in general can be a useful plot-device in itself for the story, for example anything with zombies in it, you know as a reader that the moment anybody dies, especially someone close to the protagonist, or it being the protagonist (its a case of "false protagonist"), that this story might just get nasty, it also serves the characters itself, i.e. they take the problem very seriously.
The problem with GRRM and his ideal of "anyone can die" approach to use Game of Thrones, though plenty other authors do this, is that he actually can not kill all of them. Well he can but the problem is he has written himself into a corner as to what he can do from now on. Think about the Red Wedding, just in general, why does it happen now? Why not later? or earlier? Because the dead characters have fulfilled their role in the story GRRM wrote, he basicly has no further use for them being alive.
Every character serves a function, to explain the story and the world to the audience, once that function is fulfilled, you can write them out, usually this is done simply by "dropping them", they just disappear without any real closure to them, which in turn is useful in case you actually might need them again later. Character who are killed off, for real, in detail, "on screen" so to speak, are dead, finished. Their plots are over and their death is the only closure you get. They fulfilled their role and are no longer required or in some cases, their living would actually hamper the story.
Hell in my own story, all characters are this, they are vehicles to the story being told. Except i only have one POV character and even that one is not exempt from being killed, although exempt from actually staying dead. The first arc (30 A4 Pages) deals solely with explaining the whole concept of how the POV character, i.e. the main character is "immortal" and the rules for it, as well as setting up the world and future plot points. Death is rather integral to the resolution of that particular plotpoint though. The rest of the "cast" is either dropped when their part is over or killed when their function is fulfilled.
The only characters in Game of Thrones that are by this point essentially contractually immortal and cant be killed off are Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister and Victarion Greyjoy. The rest are still in a potential line for the chopping block, such as Euron Greyjoy, Stannis Baratheon and Cercei Lannister, which are only still alive because their part isnt done yet.
I don't watch TV at all, so I have no idea what series this is referring to, but if a comic or game kills off half the cast, I usually stop at that point too, because I lose the will to give a shit about a cast where anyone could die at any time. That's probably why The Walking Dead game did nothing for me.
I didn't see any benefits in Red Wedding for the story. Deyeneris line gets more and more stupid, all the new characters introduced in Book IV are not interesting. I don't know where will it lead, but in the end of the saga, I'm afraid, I won't care.
I didn't see any benefits in Red Wedding for the story. Deyeneris line gets more and more stupid, all the new characters introduced in Book IV are not interesting. I don't know where will it lead, but in the end of the saga, I'm afraid, I won't care.
It shows that any hope of the Starks coming back to power as completely and hopelessly crushed. It is hope dying at that very moment, it is justice dying at that very moment. It is like Serah's death in FFXIII-2, all hope in Westero has died with the Red Wedding and now the only ones left are the tyrants fighting for the iron throne.
Thing is with GoT, nothing good has happened to the only House in Westeros who aren't immoral dickheads. Red Wedding was a Giant Mallet in the already staked heart of those who want the "good guys" to win.
This isn't like Madoka or TGGL where there is some consolation of hope, the Red Wedding is Winston being walked into Room 101.
The Great JT said:
That's how you play the game of thrones: you win or you die.
Indeed, and if a Stark Wins, you can bet any hope and idealism they have in the world will be so shattered that it will change the code Starks abides by forever to prevent something like the Freys and Boltons from ever happening again
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
