Song of Ice and Fire Question...

[Sirius_Black]

One of the people mentioned in your list becomes one of my favorite characters in the story by the end of book 3

Which one?

 

[Storminator]

Really? I seem to remember the Hound being involved in the death of a young farmboy who did nothing wrong in the first half of the first book. I could be remembering wrong though.

Well, to paraphrase the Hound, "Knights are for killing things, the rest is just bull****."

Just doing his job...

PS

 

[JacktheRabbit]

As far as the Hound knew the farmboy has attacked a Royal Prince, so what he did was perfectly legitimate. This isn't the case, but that's not the Hound's fault, the blame lies with Sansa, Ned, Joffrey, Cersei etc.

True and false. He did think the boy attacked a royal. BUT it was being screamed straight to his face by a royal princess that the boy had been fighting ONLY in self defense. The Hound completely knew this and intentionally ignored it.

The Hound may improve with time but at that point he is utter scum. I don't know what was worse. The fact that he commited cold blooded murder or that he was so proud of his victory over a defenseless boy.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

You seem very upset about it. I think a lot of people have this response, they like Martin's writing and world, but dislike the ambiguity of some of the characters. There are plenty of sympathetic characters in the books, though in some instances the sympathetic side is buried very deep. I don't know how much more you've read, but there are characters who get the chance to do the right thing later on.

There may be one or two who if they saved the world could redeem themselves. Almost all of them though in my opinion are far enough down the scum meter that I couldn't be made to care about them no matter what happens later.

As for the writing itself, I found nothing particularly sophisticated about it. He knows the english language and doesnt forget his punctuation but big deal. The meat of the story is still characters I don't care about.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Well, to paraphrase the Hound, "Knights are for killing things, the rest is just bull****."

Just doing his job...

PS

Nice excuse he gives since he commits cold blooded murder and knows he did.

 

[nikolai]

True and false. He did think the boy attacked a royal. BUT it was being screamed straight to his face by a royal princess that the boy had been fighting ONLY in self defense. The Hound completely knew this and intentionally ignored it.

I don't think this is true. I may be wrong, but which royal princess screamed it in his face? If you're thinking of Arya, she's not a royal princess. She said her piece in front of court (where her behaviour would have lead people to believe Joffrey was telling the truth) after Mycah was killed - not before. And the Hound wasn't there. All he knew was the lies told by Joffrey and Sansa.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

As for the writing itself, I found nothing particularly sophisticated about it. He knows the english language and doesnt forget his punctuation but big deal. The meat of the story is still characters I don't care about.

yeah, its ok, but not all that. For a while there I got emotionaly invested in the characters, but once that was beaten out of me I pretty much skimmed the rest of the last book and won't be reading any more... Part of it was obviously the red wedding, but the more silly little plot turns and "ooh, ohh, the bad guy is winning, what a smart guy" I got to, the less point there was in continuing.

I honestly don't care what happens to any of the characters, because the whole story has come to feel very contrived and arbitrary - When I enjoy a story, I can suspend my disbelief and feel that I am finding out what happens to people. But when one too many "I'm so edgy and non traditional" plot twists happens, I become very aware of the writer as just that. Some guy at his keyboard, whose work has ceased to interest me. What will happen to Arya? Nothing. Arya doesn't actually exist, she's a fictional construct whose personality or abilities may change on a dime if the writer feels like it. What will happen to Sanya? Who cares, poor writing has turned her into the most passive first person character ever to waste page space. How will the war end? Stupidly, with a suspension of disbelief breakingly effective betrayal, what a cop out...

And I wouldn't care if so many people weren't addicted to the guy and constantly waiting on his next churned out pages. (and if I hadn't wasted time on the first couple of books that could have been spent on something worthwile...)

Kahuna burger

 

[jdavis]

Nice excuse he gives since he commits cold blooded murder and knows he did.

Well since this is a fantasy setting and not a modern setting these things happen, lets face it the vast majority of real knights were probably pompus jerks and most were just cold blooded murderers but they seem to be portrayed in modern times as having all sorts of benevolent and superior traits and ideas. Yea many of these characters are unlikable (especially if you just read half of one book) but that is partly because the book doesn't cater to fantasy book misconceptions as to how people in a middle ages type setting would of really had to live. Of course being as you only read half of the first book you really can't comment on books two or three (or one for that matter as you didn't even finish it). No book is liked by everybody, sorry you didn't like it, now back to the actual topic of the thread.

 

[jdavis]

Which one?

Jaime Lannister, I'm a sucker for a good redemption story

 

[TiQuinn]

You seem very upset about it. I think a lot of people have this response, they like Martin's writing and world, but dislike the ambiguity of some of the characters. There are plenty of sympathetic characters in the books, though in some instances the sympathetic side is buried very deep. I don't know how much more you've read, but there are characters who get the chance to do the right thing later on.

I would say that most of the characters have their turn in the sympathetic chair with the exception of a few. Whether they actually take the opportunity to do the right thing is not always obvious. That's why I like Martin's books. The villains aren't always so villanous, and the heroes aren't always so heroic. Jaime Lannister went from the #2 character who I wanted to see get eviscerated to one of my favorites.