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Game of Thrones

post #1 of 14
12/29/10 at 2:23pm
Thread Starter 
What's the deal with this? So much friggin hype over a ghetto looking Lord of the Rings (which I didn't like either).

Are the books THAT good? It IS fantasy after all heh....
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post #2 of 14
12/29/10 at 2:47pm
(There's a thread about this (show)). The books are pretty good, although they are fantasy. Not many fantasy novels I know have this much character development, while maintaining the excitement of a swords and dragons fantasy. That being said, I don't have high hopes for the show and am a bit afeared it's keeping Martin from his real job, you know, writing, and that he'll eventually do a Jordan on us.
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post #3 of 14
12/29/10 at 3:32pm
It's only fantasy in the strictest sense of the definition though. There is very little magic in the books and it's IMO a much better fantasy series than LoTR (cue the fanboys). I think the show looks cool and HBO has a great track-record, but we'll see.
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post #4 of 14
12/29/10 at 3:48pm
Thread Starter 
HBO has a track record of cancelling great shows after 1 or 2 seasons. I don't know if I want to even bother with this. May just read the books.
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post #5 of 14
12/29/10 at 4:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArteEtLabore14 View Post
It's only fantasy in the strictest sense of the definition though. There is very little magic in the books and it's IMO a much better fantasy series than LoTR (cue the fanboys). I think the show looks cool and HBO has a great track-record, but we'll see.

Lots of development but no resolution or conclusion, and I don't just mean ending the series. Martin just keeps piling crap on but it does not really connect in any meaningful way. He has a good idea of the overarching idea of the world but in many ways the pieces don't really connect. That and he just keeps adding characters and concepts. It's also written like a bodice ripper.

One thing that makes LoTR a great series is that all the pieces and mythology tie together and are meaningful to the particular story.
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post #6 of 14
12/29/10 at 7:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal View Post
Lots of development but no resolution or conclusion, and I don't just mean ending the series. Martin just keeps piling crap on but it does not really connect in any meaningful way. He has a good idea of the overarching idea of the world but in many ways the pieces don't really connect. That and he just keeps adding characters and concepts. It's also written like a bodice ripper.

One thing that makes LoTR a great series is that all the pieces and mythology tie together and are meaningful to the particular story.

I do agree with you in the sense that LoTR is more tightly plotted. But for my money, Martin is the better author and I think ASoIaF is far more entertaining than LoTR and I appreciate the lack of prophecies, fate, and all that claptrap.
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post #7 of 14
12/29/10 at 8:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal View Post
Lots of development but no resolution or conclusion, and I don't just mean ending the series. Martin just keeps piling crap on but it does not really connect in any meaningful way. He has a good idea of the overarching idea of the world but in many ways the pieces don't really connect. That and he just keeps adding characters and concepts. It's also written like a bodice ripper.

One thing that makes LoTR a great series is that all the pieces and mythology tie together and are meaningful to the particular story.

What? Everything is connected. All the plotlines, all the prophecies, all the characters, everything. You need to do a reread son. To properly understand just how well written and how connected ASOIF really is you have to reread the story from the first to the current. All the so called crap has a purpose in the story. You could name anything from the story and I can tell you how its connected in a meaningful way to something else. While he does have a crapload of characters, he also will axe a character off with little to no warning, and the characters that truly matter have the most amount of page time obviously. Bodice ripper? Really? smh.

Read LoTR if you want mind numbing descriptions of scenery and rote fantasy crap. Read ASOIF if you want a story that actually connects to real human actions and desires.
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post #8 of 14
12/30/10 at 6:31am
I was fooled by Amazon's release date for the fifth episode and recently read the first four volumes, only to finish just as the release date was extended another year... The books are thoroughly enjoyable, well plotted and with interesting characters. I agree with the bodice-ripping comment as the books are more similar to a historical than fantasy novel in feel (certain characters lifted straight from history - a very obvious Catherine of Aragon springs to mind). I would not compare it to Lord of the Rings. Martin is a talented and engaging writer, but not in the same league as Tolkien. Tolkien's world draws directly from the Anglo-Saxon and Norse tradition which he both instinctively and meticulously understood. Tolkien successfuly evokes a dreamy otherworld which is simultaneously completely solid and believable. Martin just lazily rearranges a map of Britain complete from Hadrian's Wall to C(D)ornwall.
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post #9 of 14
12/30/10 at 1:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackfyre View Post
Read LoTR if you want mind numbing descriptions of scenery and rote fantasy crap. Read ASOIF if you want a story that actually connects to real human actions and desires.
Hear hear! I haven't read ASOIF but LoTR is total crap IMO. Although, the only fantasy I can say I did like I've read are Terry Brooks' Shannara trilogy and David Eddings' Belgariad. Probably neither are well thought of these days, if they ever were.
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post #10 of 14
12/30/10 at 8:02pm
I wouldnt call LoTR crap, it just has too much fantasy for my taste. ASOIF is more about people, their struggles, their desires, their grasps for power. The fantasy elements of the story are more in the background, while the characters are what the story is really about.
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post #11 of 14
12/30/10 at 8:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackfyre View Post
Read LoTR if you want mind numbing descriptions of scenery and rote fantasy crap.

How can you call the original "rote fantasy crap"? Maybe everything that followed is "rote fantasy crap" but the the original is the original.
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post #12 of 14
12/31/10 at 1:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by 4Mica View Post
How can you call the original "rote fantasy crap"? Maybe everything that followed is "rote fantasy crap" but the the original is the original.

Just because something comes first doesn't mean it's good.
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post #13 of 14
12/31/10 at 10:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by javyn View Post
What's the deal with this? So much friggin hype over a ghetto looking Lord of the Rings (which I didn't like either). Are the books THAT good? It IS fantasy after all heh....
Yes the books are really that good and this show is not more hyped than anything else HBO does. Boardwalk Empire was more hyped than Thrones for sure. I usually do not read fantasy at all , my favorite authors being people like Dostoevsky, Kafka, Pynchon and such. Martin and Game of Thrones belongs up there with any top fictional literature. IMO Lord of the Rings is overrated garbage next to Game of Thrones. The characters in Thrones are so much more developed and realistic rather than being one dimensional and stereotypical "good" or "bad" archetypes. The plot is much more intricate and complex than "good guys go to drop ring in a mountain to save world from all powerful evil". Does Tolkien even have a half-way developed female character in 3 whole books? Nope. Almost no female characters at all in Lord of Rings except for shallow plot devices. Tolkien supporters seems to get a lot of mileage out of the whole "world building" argument but to me Tolkien's world is unrealistic, unbelievable and very black and white (love how Tolkien writes all the bad humans as dark and swarthy and the good humans as anglo-saxon in appearance <rolls eyes>) So in short, give Game of Thrones a chance. It is really not like other 'fantasy' novels and very , very different from Lord of Rings.
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post #14 of 14
12/31/10 at 3:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArteEtLabore14 View Post
Just because something comes first doesn't mean it's good.

True, but it can't be rote.
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