Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

[hyzmarca]

They're in the background. Perspective in art wasn't invented yet, so people in the background are just higher in the picture. The size of the person relates to their importance to the scene rather than their distance from anything.

The thing the trebuchet is throwing is in a cup at the end of those ropes at the left.

That's not nearly as cool as using a trecbuchet to launch troops over walls.

[tussock]

People did that quite a bit, but the folk being thrown were already dead and putrefied at the time. For the splash effect on landing, get enough rotting bits in the well and you win.

Much more effective when they splashed rotten horses, but those were more expensive and less common than all the people who were dying of various ills while camped outside an enemy fortress. Medieval warfare is cool in it's own special ways, especially if you like the rivers of blood running in the streets at the end of the siege, and don't mention all the rape.

[TOZ]

I played a con game in which enemy paratroopers were catapulted at the city and landed safely with tokens of featherfall. Was pretty boss.

[Maxus]

The premier trailer for the Preacher TV series.

It hurts to watch.

[Schleiermacher]

That doesn't look like it has anything to do with the comic? Unless that thing in the cornfield was supposed to be Genesis, but if so this was a really weird trailer.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think the thing in the cornfield is the car Tulip's having a fight inside of.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-pr ... 0-6438743/

[CapnTthePirateG]

Well it appears Oots is once again embracing filler.

I really need to stop reading and pretend that that comic is dead.

[CapnTthePirateG]

EDIT: Double post

[Prak]

Well it appears Oots is once again embracing filler.

I really need to stop reading and pretend that that comic is dead.

I haven't reached that point with OotS yet. Penny Arcade reached that point for me, and I can tell you, I honestly fucking forgot I followed it.

[SlyJohnny]

Not watching the new Game of Thrones. It's like Uwe Boll and Michael Bay got pen names and decided to direct a fantasy serial, and I just know that all the spoilerific stuff that's happening for seemingly dumb reasons (or for no reason at all) is probably going to be done so much better and with more intelligence in the books.

[phlapjackage]

That's mighty brave of you, to hold out hope for new books from GRRM. He might not "pull a Jordan", but he's definitely lost the will to put out a new book.

And really, the wait for the last book, coupled with the wait for this new book...I'm past caring about ASoIF. Sure I may pick his next book up at some far point in the future if it ever drops, but maybe not. I never read like the last 3 books of WoT either...

I just wondered, if this is possibly a plan of GRRM's. If he doesn't feel like writing on this series anymore, does he purposefully delay delay delay and let the TV show overtake his story, thus causing people to lose interest and stop caring if he ever produces new books?

[Kaelik]

That's mighty brave of you, to hold out hope for new books from GRRM. He might not "pull a Jordan", but he's definitely lost the will to put out a new book.

And really, the wait for the last book, coupled with the wait for this new book...I'm past caring about ASoIF. Sure I may pick his next book up at some far point in the future if it ever drops, but maybe not. I never read like the last 3 books of WoT either...

I just wondered, if this is possibly a plan of GRRM's. If he doesn't feel like writing on this series anymore, does he purposefully delay delay delay and let the TV show overtake his story, thus causing people to lose interest and stop caring if he ever produces new books?

Uh...

1) It is not really holding out, since watching GoT is basically shit.

2) Uhh... "he clearly has no interest in writing a book, as evidence I point to the fact that he released a book and then started writing the next book, and the wait still hasn't been as long as it was between Storm of Swords and Feast for Crows yet."

I mean look, he clearly is a slow writer, all things considered (or at least in later ASOIAF books) and he may be dedicating a fair amount of time to not writing because he doesn't enjoy it as much as he used to, but I think you might be a little impatient in your declaration that no future book is forthcoming.

[Username17]

Game of Thrones jumped the shark for me around the point of the Red Wedding in the books. I read on for a little bit, but my heart wasn't in it and eventually I just put the books down. It wasn't that the blood and guts were too over the top, although to be honest the whole thing of sewing dog heads onto human bodies was gross enough to almost qualify. It was that at that point we'd crossed a threshold of slaughtering too many point of view characters and made too many new ones. The story wasn't going anywhere.

I didn't really care all that much about Robb. Him dying didn't shock me or offend me. It just made me tired. I didn't want to read about the exploits of any new characters because they weren't going to matter either.

-Username17

[TOZ]

It's like character death in killer GM games. The players stop investing.

[SlyJohnny]

That's mighty brave of you, to hold out hope for new books from GRRM. He might not "pull a Jordan", but he's definitely lost the will to put out a new book.

The chapters he's released of the new book have led me to think that as an author, he's Still Got It. Writing fantasy epics takes a long time, I imagine, and writing the same thing for so long must be exhausting. I'd rather he took his time and aimed for writing classics instead of just shitting stuff out to satisfy his contract.

It was that at that point we'd crossed a threshold of slaughtering too many point of view characters and made too many new ones. The story wasn't going anywhere.

I didn't really care all that much about Robb. Him dying didn't shock me or offend me. It just made me tired. I didn't want to read about the exploits of any new characters because they weren't going to matter either.

-Username17

But the story was never about Ned or Robb. The story is about (at my guess) the seven kingdoms descending into civil war, so they're not in a position to respond swiftly or appropriately to the white walkers, and about how focused idealism isn't enough to get things done in a world of short-sighted tribalism and brutality. In a series with this many PoV characters, it's natural that most of them mean less. Having the geopolitical fate of the world decided by an evil overlord, a single hero and his wisecracking sidekick is just lazy writing.

I don't like some protagonists as much as others, I don't give a shit about the Iron Islanders and I'm only halfway there to giving a shit about Dorne, but that's probably unavoidable. Other people say they can't stand Daenarys or Sam chapters.

[Kaelik]

That's mighty brave of you, to hold out hope for new books from GRRM. He might not "pull a Jordan", but he's definitely lost the will to put out a new book.

The chapters he's released of the new book have led me to think that as an author, he's Still Got It. Writing fantasy epics takes a long time, I imagine, and writing the same thing for so long must be exhausting. I'd rather he took his time and aimed for writing classics instead of just shitting stuff out to satisfy his contract.

There are also like 7 sample chapters that I have read already. I mean, admittedly it has been 4 years, but if he released 7 sample chapters, chances are good that he's got at least 50 or so in something approaching final form. Certainly he might run into something that pisses him off and locks him up for 2 years, but it sure doesn't look like he has been doing nothing.

I don't like some protagonists as much as others, I don't give a shit about the Iron Islanders and I'm only halfway there to giving a shit about Dorne, but that's probably unavoidable. Other people say they can't stand Daenarys or Sam chapters.

I fucking hate danny so much, and all her chapters are garbage. But I like Dorne more than most things.

[Whipstitch]

In a series with this many PoV characters, it's natural that most of them mean less.

That's true, which is exactly why I think Martin should have reconsidered blowing the number of characters out that far. I personally bailed after a Feast for Crows because I realized that the last "new" POV characters I had any interest in were the Lannister twins. They're douchebags, but at least they had always been important douchebags.

[Username17]

But the story was never about Ned or Robb.

That excuse doesn't hold up. If a character is a point of view character, that means that the story is about them or the things that they see. It is about that by definition, because that is what the reader is actually getting. If a character's actions are ultimately meaningless and the things they see are ultimately meaningless, then every section where they were a POV character is a waste of the reader's fucking time.

The death of Ned as a POV character was jarring and effective because it pulled the rug out from under the reader's expectations. He was a POV character, so you expected his actions to be meaningful in climax, but he died part way through the first book. Instead, the convention being used is that the events leading to his death must instead be important events for the climax. But um... no. Instead that shit just sort of got forgotten, the rebellion his death inspires leads to nothing, and shit goes on. And you know what? That means that retroactively the death of Ned wasn't a clever inversion of reader expectations. It was just sloppy writing and a waste of my fucking time to read it in the first place.

Any POV chapter where the actions described in the POV chapter do not meaningfully add to the plot of the book are wastes of space. Game of Thrones is fucking full of that shit, and the way POV characters get killed and dropped left and right and plot threads buried and forgotten about means the number of pages dedicated to wasting the reader's time is going up over time.

Fuck those books. It's time I can't get back. The longer this shit goes on the more hacked off I am at the series. It's competently written page to page, but the plotting and story structure are a fucking dumpster fire.

-Username17

[SlyJohnny]

But the story was never about Ned or Robb.

That excuse doesn't hold up. If a character is a point of view character, that means that the story is about them or the things that they see. It is about that by definition, because that is what the reader is actually getting. If a character's actions are ultimately meaningless and the things they see are ultimately meaningless, then every section where they were a POV character is a waste of the reader's fucking time.

Remember that Robb actually never was a PoV chapter, we only saw him and the stuff he did through Catelyn's PoV chapters. I'm not nitpicking, the distinction matters. The "Robb" chapters were about Catelyn. It wasn't really about the war or Robb's military victories or his statesmanship, it was about her, her motherly pride and desire to see him excel and do great things, warring with her protectiveness and her desire to protect whatever's left of her dwindling family, both of which are sometimes conflicted with her desire to be detached so she could remain useful and give shrewd and impartial counsel to the King of the North.

All of which was necessary to ultimately bring us Lady Stoneheart, and maybe she's going to be super important later on, but I felt like her arc was a good story as it was. Not everything needs to feed directly into the final climax to be worth writing. I like stuff that helps to paint a broader picture of the world, or that's just good writing. Things aren't "meaningless" just because they aren't directly part of some Chekhovian setup.

[hyzmarca]

But the story was never about Ned or Robb.

That excuse doesn't hold up. If a character is a point of view character, that means that the story is about them or the things that they see. It is about that by definition, because that is what the reader is actually getting. If a character's actions are ultimately meaningless and the things they see are ultimately meaningless, then every section where they were a POV character is a waste of the reader's fucking time.

The death of Ned as a POV character was jarring and effective because it pulled the rug out from under the reader's expectations. He was a POV character, so you expected his actions to be meaningful in climax, but he died part way through the first book. Instead, the convention being used is that the events leading to his death must instead be important events for the climax. But um... no. Instead that shit just sort of got forgotten, the rebellion his death inspires leads to nothing, and shit goes on. And you know what? That means that retroactively the death of Ned wasn't a clever inversion of reader expectations. It was just sloppy writing and a waste of my fucking time to read it in the first place.

Any POV chapter where the actions described in the POV chapter do not meaningfully add to the plot of the book are wastes of space. Game of Thrones is fucking full of that shit, and the way POV characters get killed and dropped left and right and plot threads buried and forgotten about means the number of pages dedicated to wasting the reader's time is going up over time.

Fuck those books. It's time I can't get back. The longer this shit goes on the more hacked off I am at the series. It's competently written page to page, but the plotting and story structure are a fucking dumpster fire.

-Username17

The Rebellion that his death inspired led to most of his family dying, the rest being presumed dead, Roose Bolton controlling the North, Bran going beyond the Wall to learn magic and Arya going to Bravos to become a shapeshifting super-assassin.

The big problem with ASOIF is that Feast for Crows and Dance of Dragons weren't supposed to exist. You were supposed to just get a five year timeskip with Arya and Bran being the main characters. Then GRRM wrote so many flashback scenes that they could have filled a whole book, so he decided to just write a bridging book, and then that got split in half because it was too big.

[Username17]

Things aren't "meaningless" just because they aren't directly part of some Chekhovian setup.

They are meaningless to the story being told. Digressions into other stories that take place in the same world but are ultimately meaningless to the story being told. That makes them a waste of space. They could be perfectly fine as standalone stories, but if they are sitting in another story that they ultimately have nothing to do with, they represent the author shitting the bed.

An author who fails to cut irrelevant bullshit from a piece is not doing their job. An editor who fails to cut irrelevant bullshit from a piece is not doing their job. A reader who ends up reading irrelevant bullshit because the author and editor couldn't be fucked to do their fucking jobs properly should be pissed off because they have just been pissed on.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

The big problem with ASOIF is that Feast for Crows and Dance of Dragons weren't supposed to exist. You were supposed to just get a five year timeskip with Arya and Bran being the main characters. Then GRRM wrote some many flashback scenes that they could have filled a whole book, so he decided to just write a bridging book, and then that got split in half because it was too big.

This honestly probably would have been better.

Any POV chapter where the actions described in the POV chapter do not meaningfully add to the plot of the book are wastes of space. Game of Thrones is fucking full of that shit, and the way POV characters get killed and dropped left and right and plot threads buried and forgotten about means the number of pages dedicated to wasting the reader's time is going up over time.

They are meaningless to the story being told. Digressions into other stories that take place in the same world but are ultimately meaningless to the story being told. That makes them a waste of space. They could be perfectly fine as standalone stories, but if they are sitting in another story that they ultimately have nothing to do with, they represent the author shitting the bed.

I don't find "destination over journey" arguments very compelling. Even if I were prepared to concede that the failure of Rob's rebellion deprives Ned's death of narrative meaning (which I'm not particularly inclined to concede, what with the way it's scattered the remaining Stark children to various exotic plot advancing locations), it still wouldn't really matter - going forward I didn't know how Ned's struggle for succession would end (other than possibly poorly), and I didn't know how Rob's rebellion would end (other than almost certainly poorly). Those are story arcs which can be judged on their own merits, and their Bad Ends don't invalidate whatever enjoyment I got out of seeing them unravel. Whether or not those specific arcs set up future arcs by playing out the way that they did simply isn't the only factor in judging their worth.

I can understand why the Red Wedding would be a tipping point, though - I wasn't particularly invested in Robb to begin with, but it's even harder to give a shit about most of the characters who survived him. ASoIaF is hemorrhaging characters that are actually enjoyable to read about - when Tyrion dies I'll probably apathyquit.

[sendaz]

- when Tyrion dies I'll probably apathyquit.

How every day on the set starts off...

[MGuy]

That's where I am. I was invested in Snow but now Tyrion is the only character that I even care about.

[hyzmarca]

That's where I am. I was invested in Snow but now Tyrion is the only character that I even care about.

It's rather obvious that Snow isn't going to stay dead. They've telegraphed his resurrection for miles.

And, you know, they're not going to pay Kit Harington to play a corpse all season.