House of the Dragon

[SensEye]

I guess this is what Brandon Sanderson is for....

I like to believe that GRRM has all the things done, and just pushes back the release day by three days for every question, complaint, or request to hurry up and release the books. I wonder how many bookies are taking bets on when the next book drops.

1) I don't get the Brandon Sanderson reference and need clarity. Is he the guy who finished Wheel of Tedium after another laggard author (Robert Jordan) procrastinated until he died? PS> I loved the karma of that. And WOT turned to shit after the original trilogy anyhow, so I had abandoned the series and didn't care in the least if it ever got finished.
2) Yeah, I sensed GRRM is a bit of an ass who just likes to piss people off. I'll read the last book and then I am done with him. And based on the significant drop off in quality of book 5, I think it is safe to say his creative juices have dried up with age anyway. He can probably squeeze a bit more out of GoT popularity with some quick and dirty knock offs, but I doubt he'll write anything new that's any good, especially at his one book per decade pace.

 

[The Cat]

He writes fairly prolifically apart from ASoI&F I think he likes his Wildcards series better.

 

[ceecee]

How gross was the thing with the maggots? Apparently, this is a thing people have actually done. I'd do more research but I'm about to eat.

I mean they have used that method on wounds for a millennia and apparently it's making a comeback.

 

[The Cat]

Napoleon's armies really kept it alive for a time too. maggots only eat dead flesh. Fascinating as long as you're not eating rice with a young Keifer Southerland in California in the 80's

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Napoleon's armies really kept it alive for a time too. maggots only eat dead flesh. Fascinating as long as you're not eating rice with a young Keifer Southerland in California in the 80's

And you just listened to the concert of a sax chad.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I found this article which explains how the VA was looking into it for diabetic ulcers:

Maggots in medicine: Ancient therapy making comeback as wound-healing option

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I mean they have used that method on wounds for a millennia and apparently it's making a comeback.

I found this article which explains how the VA was looking into it for diabetic ulcers:

Maggots in medicine: Ancient therapy making comeback as wound-healing option

Apparently, these guys love their biofilms.

 

[Totenkindly]

He writes fairly prolifically apart from ASoI&F I think he likes his Wildcards series better.

I haven't read Wildcards for a few decades but I had the available books at the time when I was a teen / 20's. I forget whether he wrote any of those or was just the editor selecting stories to publish / organizing the effort.

 

[Totenkindly]

1) I don't get the Brandon Sanderson reference and need clarity. Is he the guy who finished Wheel of Tedium after another laggard author (Robert Jordan) procrastinated until he died? PS> I loved the karma of that. And WOT turned to shit after the original trilogy anyhow, so I had abandoned the series and didn't care in the least if it ever got finished.

Yeah, I was being a smart ass. Sanderson is pretty prolific and is constantly pumping out his own books, and he notoriously did finish Jordan's sprawling monstrosity when he kicked off the mortal coil at book 11 or something (and Sanderson wrapped it up at 14). Each of those damn WoT books is large enough to beat an elephant to death with as it is.

So I'm only half-joking. I wouldn't be surprised if he WAS asked after GRRM kicks off.

2) Yeah, I sensed GRRM is a bit of an ass who just likes to piss people off. I'll read the last book and then I am done with him. And based on the significant drop off in quality of book 5, I think it is safe to say his creative juices have dried up with age anyway. He can probably squeeze a bit more out of GoT popularity with some quick and dirty knock offs, but I doubt he'll write anything new that's any good, especially at his one book per decade pace.

He's a bit curmudgeonly from my impression, seems to HATE to be told what to do or put in a box, and he seems pretty particular and kind of wrote himself into a spaghetti mess of unresolved and ever-expanding plot threads (?) A less logic-bound author might just bail on a number of the threads or close them off clumsily in order to achieve the goal of FINISHING the story (and maybe sometimes that would be preferable?), but he seems to get hung up and puzzled himself into a corner and can't bring himself to do that. Logistics in writing big stories with multiple characters can be difficult, I really understand that, but some of his plot threads seem to just be for flavor rather than necessary (?).

Plus, yeah, the impetus has slowed now that D&D revealed a lot of his big card plays in the last seasons of GoT and so the book series won't have the fanfare it should have had. But this is mostly his own fault since he sat on this last book, what, 11 years? I don't recall.

 

[The Cat]

Yeah, I was being a smart ass. Sanderson is pretty prolific and is constantly pumping out his own books, and he notoriously did finish Jordan's sprawling monstrosity when he kicked off the mortal coil at book 11 or something (and Sanderson wrapped it up at 14). Each of those damn WoT books is large enough to beat an elephant to death with as it is.

So I'm only half-joking. I wouldn't be surprised if he WAS asked after GRRM kicks off.


He's a bit curmudgeonly from my impression, seems to HATE to be told what to do or put in a box, and he seems pretty particular and kind of wrote himself into a spaghetti mess of unresolved and ever-expanding plot threads (?) A less logic-bound author might just bail on a number of the threads or close them off clumsily in order to achieve the goal of FINISHING the story (and maybe sometimes that would be preferable?), but he seems to get hung up and puzzled himself into a corner and can't bring himself to do that. Logistics in writing big stories with multiple characters can be difficult.

Plus, yeah, the impetus has slowed now that D&D revealed a lot of his big card plays in the last seasons of GoT and it won't have the fanfare it should have had. But this is mostly his own fault since he sat on this last book, what, 11 years? I don't recall.

Storm of swords came out in 2001, Feast for Crows 2004, and I'm just not gonna buy anymore till he finishes the series or dies. geez. My entire legal adult life ive been trying to finish this series.

 

[The Cat]

All though. I wanted to get into a series without elves, halflings, dwarves, and lots of horror, incest and intrigue, so all things condidered. I'm quite happy with the series. MY favorite part of the series was liking characters I spent the previous book hating. It really taught me the value of perspective when it comes to characterization and plot.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I would like to see what Martin does with Iron Islands in the endgame since what they did with it in the show was so awful. What they did with Euron Greyjoy was the worst thing about the entire series for me. I can't imagine Martin coming up with something worse than that. That poor actor thought he was playing the book version* of Euron judging by his comments.

That being said, I don't expect it to ever happen.

I want to fuck the Queen.

"Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air... I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy... protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence." He laughed. "Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray."

There's also a dumb but violent Greyjoy uncle who is getting played by Euron, and another uncle, Aeron, who is a religious fanatic.

Dorne probably has something to do with a subplot the show cut out about another Targaryen claimaint/pretender, which may have been a good idea. Martin probably can't figure out how to make this plot intersect with the Danerys plot. It's introduced in the last book released and probably shouldn't have been included.

 

[SensEye]

He's a bit curmudgeonly from my impression, seems to HATE to be told what to do or put in a box, and he seems pretty particular and kind of wrote himself into a spaghetti mess of unresolved and ever-expanding plot threads (?) A less logic-bound author might just bail on a number of the threads or close them off clumsily in order to achieve the goal of FINISHING the story (and maybe sometimes that would be preferable?), but he seems to get hung up and puzzled himself into a corner and can't bring himself to do that. Logistics in writing big stories with multiple characters can be difficult, I really understand that, but some of his plot threads seem to just be for flavor rather than necessary (?).

Plus, yeah, the impetus has slowed now that D&D revealed a lot of his big card plays in the last seasons of GoT and so the book series won't have the fanfare it should have had. But this is mostly his own fault since he sat on this last book, what, 11 years? I don't recall.

Yeah, I read his excuses about why book 5 took so long to come out after book 4 (six years later). Book five came out in 2011 so little did we know how bad things would get. Taking 14 years and counting isn't a complicated plot thread issue, it's a lazy author issue who seems to have lost interest in his own project. In any event, after 14 years I can't really care much anymore.

GRRM is on my sh*t list now due to it. And I'll never read anything by him ever again (this is not a knock on his talent, SOI&F was a great series, and I read a few of his earlier novels too, they were good but much shorter and stand alone). None of which matters. When an artist disrespects his audience the way Martin has, that artist should be ignored by said audience. Regardless of field.

I'll watch House of the Dragon despite my issues with Martin though. At least HBO won't let the tv show can't go on a multi-year hiatus for no good reason.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'll watch House of the Dragon despite my issues with Martin though. At least HBO won't let the tv show can't go on a multi-year hiatus for no good reason.

Yup, and the story is already complete so that's not an issue either this time, thank goodness.

 

[ceecee]

 

[Totenkindly]

S2E2 -- a Shakespearean tragedy in the making.

• Rhaenys doesn't get a lot of time in this episode, but she's still the boss. While Rhaenerys' council is floundering under how to respond to the beheading of the young heir and trying to figure out who orchestrated it, Rhaenys just looks right over and considers Daemon. She knows who he is.
• Which dragon did Daemon ride off on? And wasn't there another larger dragon (if this wasn't it?) he was befriending last season?
• Aegon isn't necessarily evil. He is basically just a boy with an inadequate upbringing, who has taken/been granted a position that is beyond his abilities. It's refreshing at least that he is direct about what he intends, rather than being duplicitous, but he's incapable of balancing the needs of the kingdom against his own. And again, the entire family is fubar -- Alicent withdraws from him when she finds him crying over his son's crib/belongings, whether out of leaving him some dignity or just being unsure of what to do (but I think he really needed consolation that time). Which leads us to Otto...
• ... the now-fired Hand of the King, which we saw coming since Larys began whispering in Aegon's ear last episode. Otto is crafty but also too presumptuous to realize his position was precarious. And no one feels bad for Otto because this whole war is kind of his fault, he's been plotting for years for his line to take the throne.... and the coldness he exudes and just using family as tools to achieve political aims is reflected down through his bloodline. Alicent goes to him to bare her heart ("I have sinned") and he says he doesn't want to hear it. Then Alicent fails to console Aegon. And the entire web of family is like that. All stemming from Otto's bad fathering, even if he succeeds at achieving some of his political aims.
• Okay, moving to the big one -- I want to call Criston the WOAT (Worst of All Time) but I can't claim he's worse than Jeoffrey or Ramsey. Those guys were monsters. Still, he's just a terrible human being. Here, because he was fucking around with Alicent when he should have been making sure the heir was protected (leading to heir's death), so to deal with his self-anger he directs it outward and picks a fight with Arryk and basically sends him to his death with the hail mary of "pretend to be your brother and murder the Black Queen." It was a great fight because we're not even sure who is who, and the ending is just as tragic because as soon as the fight began they were as good as dead. The winner commits suicide -- if it was Arryk, because he just murdered his own brother who he dearly loved, and if it was Erryk, it was because he knew no one would be able to trust him [because they didn't know whether he was his brother or not] + killed his own brother and thus made sure his Queen could sleep easy + assuage his guilt. Fucking Criston.... He's spent a lifetime blaming other people for his own critical errors and inability to uphold his own vows. edit: I read that the showrunner says Erryk won, so...doubly sad. The only way he could provide his loyalty was to end his life.
• I don't know what is going on with Hugh but I have a feeling it will be important.
• I am not really a fan of Sonoya Mizuno in this series. I do feel like she has been working on her french accent at least -- she sounds much better, even if a bit off -- but her acting ability just isn't on par with the rest of the cast and her scenes fall flat. (She's a great performance/body artist, but she's still learning how to act.)
• Emma D'Arcy is just wonderful in a few scenes, even with not a ton to do. I love how they walk and move around, like a Queen -- back straight, posture perfect -- and speak unapologetically and directly, like to Mysaria. They have such a regal and authoritative bearing -- open but intimidating just by their presence.

 

[Totenkindly]

what was Criston's first fault? Was it when Rhaenerys and he made out (mistakes happen at least the first time), but this tarnishes his vow -- so then he can't live with it, pursues her to the end, she rejects him, and then he spends his entire life venting his self-hatred at her and others around him? What a POS.

 

[SensEye]

Criston is definitely going to be the guy people love to hate. Alicent is going to go down with him due to 'sleaze by association'. She probably deserves it though, as she already seems knows his true colors, but to borrow the expression generally associated with men, she's thinking with the wrong head.

 

[Totenkindly]

Criston is definitely going to be the guy people love to hate. Alicent is going to go down with him due to 'sleaze by association'. She probably deserves it though, as she already seems knows his true colors, but to borrow the expression generally associated with men, she's thinking with the wrong head.

Yeah, that's all true -- but she's definitely being portrayed as strongly ambivalent, and pretty much what does she have without her affair with Criston? Nothing, really. She doesn't matter anymore politically, really; her kids are off the rails and she can't help them; she can't prevent the war from coming; her former best friend hates her and too much crap has gone down to ever be friends again.

It's like she knows it's totally bad, but it's like doing a drug to escape the crappy reality of her unhappiness.
Oh the miserable lot of the rich and powerful... doh.

 

[Totenkindly]

Oh good god