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Stephen King directed Maximum Overdrive on such a major coke binge he can't even remember it. That may or may not prove your point.
Why haven't any of you doll fuckers started a Game of Thrones topic?
- Thread starter Castor Troy
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I miss that show
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"Battle Beyond the Wall" set. It was originally $20, but, you can probably get it for about $10 now if you look around, a lot of stores have had it on clearance for months. Well worth it. Since you asked, I'll share my review and some more photos in the toy thread.
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Flowers for Markernon
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SInce necrobumping is in fashion these days around here...
Recently, there's been quite a bit of talk about Martin alluding to the possibility that he won't finish the series after all.
I wonder if the world would even accept a concluson that hewed to the finale of the HBO series on many of its conceptual levels.
For example. Daenerys Targaryen being a villain at the end of things.
I don't think it's about the gay argument that to do that is misogynistic writing anymore. I thnk the door is closing on the era of 'woke', although it will never truly die. We're stuck with girlbosses and weird, infantilizing casting choices and romances that 95 percent of the world can't relate to.
What I'm talking about is the idea of Dany as an avenging angel come to set the scales aright.
With fire and blood.
These were never the tools of noble characters in fiction. Vengeance and retributive justice were not something audiences were meant to yearn for. Well, not on the level of societal change. A person is wronged, a person gets revenge. That's cathartic. But when a person is wronged by those who hold the levers of power in a given civilization and its rules, only a villain decides to take it out on civilization as a whole. Dany was always a cautionary tale. I could see that from the moment she got her dragons.
But I wonder if the world even cares about things like honor, humility and sacrifice. When I tell people Jon Snow is the only hero in this story and everyone else is either a villain or a survivor, they argue with me and say 'what about Dany?' When I remind them that she is burning and killing people that don't bend the knee, they say 'well, they deserved it'. These people don't possess media literacy and they project onto these characters despite not being blank slates for that intended purpose.
Fiction is not meant to be a simulation of real people. Real people are the sum of hundreds and thousands of experiences that they have throughout the course of their lives. There is verisimilitude, yes, and we have to be able to believe, or suspend our disbelief, enough to appreciate what the story is trying to say. But at the end of the day, it's a story. The characters are constructed to communicate specific ideas about the world through the author's eyes and this means that they can't serve a function or a purpose other than that for which they are intended.
In short, Dany can't be a hero or a good guy in that story. She was never supposed to be.
And I think our frustration with civilization and society and its rules and laws have been building more and more over the past 20 years, to a state of near liminality.
Jon Snow is the only man that deserves to be a ruler of any kind in this story because he's the Arthurian archetype: an orphaned boy destined for greatness, sent off into the world to experience it from all sides so that he can more effectively rule. Longclaw is a stand in for Excalibur, an heirloom he was always destined to own, given to him by an adoptive father whose respect he earned in a place of great desolation. He is befriended by beasts and those who call beasts friend alike. And in doing so, gains a greater wisdom and understanding of the world.
There is also some Perceval in there especially as it regards knowing when to break the rules and when to follow them. With experience, one discovers the wisdom that so much of humanity has forgotten, and once Jon is with the wildlings he comes to understand who they are and why they need to be protected and the oaths made to them must be kept. These are things that society and civilization don't understand, seeing them as pointless efforts since, for all their prayers to the Seven, may as well be the modern Catholic-looking the part but hardly acting like it. The men of the north worship the old gods, the old ways, that never failed them and never betrayed them so long as they remained True. The Seven were nothing more than an excuse men made up to seize power. And like Arthur, when Jon wages war it is against evil forces only, those bent on threatening the fragile order that exists so that men can be safe and live good lives.
People, perhaps, have always lacked the media literacy to see such deep cuts in the stories they love. But there was a time when they were willing to receive the wisdom of these kinds of stories. Wisdom today isn't earned. It's felt. That's a problem, and I don't know if the conclusion ot Martin's magnum opus will even resonate the same way. I have to imagine he feels very much like this, although I base that on nothing other than my own limited understanding of who he is as a person.
Who, he must wonder, is he even writing for anymore?
Recently, there's been quite a bit of talk about Martin alluding to the possibility that he won't finish the series after all.
I wonder if the world would even accept a concluson that hewed to the finale of the HBO series on many of its conceptual levels.
For example. Daenerys Targaryen being a villain at the end of things.
I don't think it's about the gay argument that to do that is misogynistic writing anymore. I thnk the door is closing on the era of 'woke', although it will never truly die. We're stuck with girlbosses and weird, infantilizing casting choices and romances that 95 percent of the world can't relate to.
What I'm talking about is the idea of Dany as an avenging angel come to set the scales aright.
With fire and blood.
These were never the tools of noble characters in fiction. Vengeance and retributive justice were not something audiences were meant to yearn for. Well, not on the level of societal change. A person is wronged, a person gets revenge. That's cathartic. But when a person is wronged by those who hold the levers of power in a given civilization and its rules, only a villain decides to take it out on civilization as a whole. Dany was always a cautionary tale. I could see that from the moment she got her dragons.
But I wonder if the world even cares about things like honor, humility and sacrifice. When I tell people Jon Snow is the only hero in this story and everyone else is either a villain or a survivor, they argue with me and say 'what about Dany?' When I remind them that she is burning and killing people that don't bend the knee, they say 'well, they deserved it'. These people don't possess media literacy and they project onto these characters despite not being blank slates for that intended purpose.
Fiction is not meant to be a simulation of real people. Real people are the sum of hundreds and thousands of experiences that they have throughout the course of their lives. There is verisimilitude, yes, and we have to be able to believe, or suspend our disbelief, enough to appreciate what the story is trying to say. But at the end of the day, it's a story. The characters are constructed to communicate specific ideas about the world through the author's eyes and this means that they can't serve a function or a purpose other than that for which they are intended.
In short, Dany can't be a hero or a good guy in that story. She was never supposed to be.
And I think our frustration with civilization and society and its rules and laws have been building more and more over the past 20 years, to a state of near liminality.
Jon Snow is the only man that deserves to be a ruler of any kind in this story because he's the Arthurian archetype: an orphaned boy destined for greatness, sent off into the world to experience it from all sides so that he can more effectively rule. Longclaw is a stand in for Excalibur, an heirloom he was always destined to own, given to him by an adoptive father whose respect he earned in a place of great desolation. He is befriended by beasts and those who call beasts friend alike. And in doing so, gains a greater wisdom and understanding of the world.
There is also some Perceval in there especially as it regards knowing when to break the rules and when to follow them. With experience, one discovers the wisdom that so much of humanity has forgotten, and once Jon is with the wildlings he comes to understand who they are and why they need to be protected and the oaths made to them must be kept. These are things that society and civilization don't understand, seeing them as pointless efforts since, for all their prayers to the Seven, may as well be the modern Catholic-looking the part but hardly acting like it. The men of the north worship the old gods, the old ways, that never failed them and never betrayed them so long as they remained True. The Seven were nothing more than an excuse men made up to seize power. And like Arthur, when Jon wages war it is against evil forces only, those bent on threatening the fragile order that exists so that men can be safe and live good lives.
People, perhaps, have always lacked the media literacy to see such deep cuts in the stories they love. But there was a time when they were willing to receive the wisdom of these kinds of stories. Wisdom today isn't earned. It's felt. That's a problem, and I don't know if the conclusion ot Martin's magnum opus will even resonate the same way. I have to imagine he feels very much like this, although I base that on nothing other than my own limited understanding of who he is as a person.
Who, he must wonder, is he even writing for anymore?
Last edited:
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Even if Martin wanted to complete GOT, as slow as he writes he would be dead long before it finishes. He's getting pretty old, and looks like he's on the verge of cardiac arrest.
Anyway, I sure Sanderson will be willing to swoop in and save the day PG-13 style
Anyway, I sure Sanderson will be willing to swoop in and save the day PG-13 style
Last edited:
Skokage
Zero's Secretary
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In all fairness he's looked like that for at least the past 25 years, and a massive blockage hasn't gotten him yet but being 76 isn't helping him out much.
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Sanderson would be a terrible choice for it and he's even said so himself.
My pick would have been Neil Gaiman but he's currently being cancelled so he'd be a bad choice as well.
I could probably plot it out for him but I couldn't write it. Maybe if I used AI and cleaned it up...
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I haven't paid much attention to anything GRRM related lately, but he seems to be ever-critical of the HotD HBO series while at the same time being endlessly non-committal about finishing the books. It almost seems spiteful in some ways and at best, he's conveniently distracted with other "projects." And to that end, did anything come of that side project with Maisie Williams he conveniently mentioned a month or so ago?
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We get it you're gay. No need to reaffirm it any further, Goobtimus Prime'n.
Teddy:
He seems to be very happy with the adaptation of The Hedge Knight so far. He goes out of his way to point out how 'faithful' it is (a dubious claim until I see it for myself) while at the same time taking subtle shots at House of the Dragon for the liberties it takes with the source material. I think his gripes with HotD are legitimate but he really can't complain about it for reasons that should be very obvious.
As for all of the spinoffs they keep talking about, he's asking for trouble if he lets them do anything with the characters from ASoIaF post season 8. The more and more he lets them bastardize them, the bigger the wall he builds for himself. When they were talking about developing that Jon Snow show, I was gritting my teeth. Just let it go. We don't need to know what Jon and Ghost are doing in the north. We don't need to know what ANY olf those characters are doing post A Dream of Spring.
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I'm fine with it. If he wanted to finish the story and died in the process, like Miura did with Berserk, I might be more conflicted about it. At this point, Martin's laziness exceeds the time Guts and the crew spent on that damn boat by years.
If I could say one thing to Martin, it would be that he shouldn't be content to let someone else end the story because look how that turned out. He should want to restore its reputation before he passes on but whatevs. If he doesn't care enough to find a way, why should I?
I always hoped that Hidetaka Miyazaki would have talked to Martin about Miura while the two of them were collaborating on Elden Ring. You know, something of a nudge to remind him that he is still alive and should finish his story before he doesn't have the chance to.
I also think Studio Gaga should have gone to Miyazaki for some guidance on Berserk's continuation since he understands the material very well. Maybe noit as the chief director of the project moving forward but maybe someone that can help with the tone, pace and themes of the story. Didn't happen, though. Miyazaki probably would have refused the offer, anyway.