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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1062223" data-attributes="member: 151">I think part of some folks dissatisfaction with "Song of Ice and Fire", like Kahuna Burger, is one of expectation (though I couldn't claim to speak for her, or know her mind).  If you enter into the series with the expectation of certain tropes being present, such as eventual noble hero appearing, or even a flawed central character stepping to the fore...you will be disappointed.It is an ensemble cast, with NO central character, other than Westeros itself.  It has more in common with, say, "E/R" than it does with "the Green Knight".  Many facets of the books serve that end.  Several times we are fed characters who seem like they will fill that role, and then they are shuffled off-stage by events.  Ned and Robb Stark both appear to be central characters...or at least focal point characters, who will drive the story.  The Red Wedding was upsetting not just for it's events, but for the knowledge that there is no certainty, no handy pattern to follow, and no character who will eventually rise from the others to become the one to follow.  It tells us that, overall, the land of Westeros is bleak, harsh and unforgiving.  That can be a very unpleasant thing to read, and is, in many ways, the exact antithesis of what some readers came looking for.If I can use KB as an example, here:The last quote, I think, illustrates what I'm trying to say.  Some folks are coming to the series, hoping for one thing, and getting another.  That doesn't make the series bad, it doesn't mean the reader has poor taste or can't appreciate the work...just that they don't like it.  Readers like KB are looking to warp themselves up in a story and be swept away...something that one could 'Song' doesn't do.  It doesn't take me to a place I'd want to go, but I place I (personally) enjoy seeing.  It is not an idealized or romanticized version of the middle ages...it's fairly spot on in many points.  In all it's unpleasant ugliness, at points.I know many folks who don't like Eddings work on exactly the opposite grounds.  And AFAIC, those folks are no more or less correct in their assertions.  There is no single work that everyone can point to and say that everyone likes.  Which is a good thing, most likely.</blockquote>

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