hahaha we're never getting it
I've been thinking--the summary for Arya's TWoW chapters is about her time as Mercy, but the woman in the novel is Lady Stork. And I realized why they changed her name to Lady Crane: some gormless Americans would hear the accent as "Lady Stark" and start theorizing that Catelyn wasn't really dead (lol) and was wearing a face, or she was actually Lyanna Stark, or some distant Stark cousin and that she sent Jaqen H'ghar to recruit her to Faceless Men. Something stupid. You just know it.
I mean, they didn't think audiences could handle Asha Greyjoy or Robert Arryn, so...
Something the show didn't get right with Arya (in early seasons, I'm not even going to touch on the troutshow that was Arya in later seasons): I don't think they did a good job of showing her vulnerability. Yes, even from the get-go, she was tough and fierce. But most of it is pretend; she's just a little girl, often put in situations that terrifies her. There wasn't much character growth in the show vs. in the books. I like fear cuts deeper than swords Arya, and how much she's fighting.
They did it with Dany too, and Cersei. D&D are really troutty at writing female characters. The bad ass moments are more bad ass when you know much they're giving to be there. A [person] can only be brave when they're afraid.
I agree. Arya started off as one of the best characters, as when she's ducking her way through King's Landing she's scared out of her mind and she's pushing herself. And then when the Night's Watch recruits are attacked by Amory Lorch again she pushes herself to take charge and lead these scared boys as best she can.
Once they ran out of book material for her in the show I think they really struggled to know what to do with her and instead just use her as a killing tool for plot lines that were going nowhere. Oh hey we didn't finish off that Frey loose end as we have no Lady Stoneheart, make Arya do it. Oh, right, Littlefinger is still alive, let's, uh, have her sort him out too. Oh smurf it I don't really know what we're doing with this Night King trout, let's have Arya kill him. There's no challenge or growth or anything worthwhile to her in the last two seasons.
As always I think they tried to pander to the fans because "Oh yeah, they like Arya as she's a BADASS, let's make her a BADASS!" but like, even the casual fans of the show at my workplace had enough of her by the end. Although the casual fans at my work had also had enough of the show in general by the end, so.
The part where she's sneaking around the Red Keep, and she has to force herself to walk across the yard knowing she might be scene is pretty intense, honestly. But that's my point--she's a strong bad ass BECAUSE she's scared. Being fearless doesn't make someone cool; confronting your fears (in various ways) is what makes someone cool.
Book 1 Jon: "Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold back graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering."
Season 8 Jon: "The crypts are the safest place in Winterfell."
The whole series is kind of disappointing in retrospect, but I just him my first real disappointment wall:
The scene where Jon and Sam swear themselves to the Night's Watch, and Ghost finds the (then unknown to the Brothers) wight corpses. It's TERRIFYING. The Brothers are all unsettled, talk about how the corpses didn't used to have blue eyes...maybe? Animals won't even go near them. And while I don't think the AAAH ZOMBIE reveal is really a reveal, I do think this chapter is written in such a way to make you feel real dread, and it's a shame knowing that none of it smurfing means anything, ahahahahha.
smurf GRRM's a good writer tho
I cannot see the book storyline for the Others being the same as the show's. I've said it before in this thread, but I'm convinced the concept of killing a White Walker killing its wights and the character of the Night King were invented purely for the show. If you can kill the Others just by killing one dude, what made them leave thousands of years ago? Clearly not killing the NK! I do think the Wall is coming down, although not via Viserion - who I think Daenerys will lose to either Euron or Aegon.
I mean, they're still not going to win, but that victory will cost more than a Jorah and a Theon.
I agree that GRRM is excellent at writing horror though. The opening chapter is bonechillingly good. You feel hunted by this otherworldly presence, just the way they feel cold. I also like the idea of them having more intelligence than their mute show counterparts by having their language that "sounds like the cracking of ice" and mocking Waymar Royce.
You know, not that i'm an amazing writer, but now that i've finished a coherent novel myself that comes out to be 578 pages in paperback form in just about 6 weeks.... I'm really wondering wtf GRRM has been doing for the past few years. I mean 1500 pages, that'd be 18 weeks if I stayed at the same speed, which is really not even that fast. It's about 2000 words a day. But he pecks when he types doesn't he? And on an old school computer. So okay let's pad this out and give him double the time I would do it because of his slow typing and he's a bit more casual about writing. That's 36 weeks. So that's 9 months? That's still less than a year. Let's be like "okay he really has to edit as he goes cause it's just so incredibly massive and detailed of a story." Let's double it again. So 72 weeks. So that's still only 18 months. So a year and a half.
And he's at what 7 years or so now? Like wtf are you doing man? Have you re-wrote the entire thing 5 times now?
I know he's said he's a "gardener" as an author. Where he just plants seeds and he just waters it as he goes to see what it turned into. To me that sounds like what writers call "pantsing", or writing by the seat of your pants, basically he's just making trout up as he goes. He may have a few plots and ideas he has that he wants to hit but he wanders a bit when he is actually writing. This explains a lot about the show. He probably gave them his ideas but with how he writes, it could be wildly different on how we get there.
I think he procrastinates with the world building things he's put out. He doesn't know where those random plots he started are going so he procrastinates with history. Which is also a big thing with authors lmao. Have you ever met someone who is "writing" a story and they can tell you all the backstory about the whole world but when you ask them about the actual book and if you can read it or where they're at, they go "uhhhhhh about... that"
I have nothing to base this on really, but I personally think he got burnt out by ASoIaF. I haven’t really researched his writing methods outside of the fact that he’s a gardener/pantser; so I suppose it could also just be a problem of chronic rewriting and never being satisfied with what he has, but I don’t think that would make it take 9 years for the book. I also feel that after writing so many books that if he were still into the series, he would get faster at writing each book of comparable length.
That’s not to say he doesn’t like his series. I think if he fully stopped liking the story, he’d just churn out an unsatisfying conclusion and be done with it. I just don’t think he enjoys actually writing it anymore which ruins the motivation for trying to keep all of the different threads straight and to find ways to write himself out of the corners he has created. I could be wrong though.
I bet the fandom of the show really hit him too. Because people are liking things that aren't exactly what he did or aren't exact. The crazy fervor probably helped burn him out.