Bookish dragon with a pen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookish_dragon) wrote2012-08-08 04:23 pm
bookish_dragon) wrote2012-08-08 04:23 pm
ASoIaF, some thoughts on the first two books
I'll give them this: they're written in a smooth, easy style that keeps you reading. It's when you step back and think about what you've read that it makes you uncomfortable. And by you I mean me, of course.
It's a very bleak world, especially now with the clash of kings going on. Even before that, I doubt it's a good place for women to live in, because very few people seem to give a shit if you're raped. It's all women are for: sex and children. [/cynicism] The world feels so misogynistic.
The bad guys don't get that much definition in the books, making it hard to hate them. Jaime Kingslayer doesn't get his own POV until Book 3. In the first two he gets talked about, and he spends most of them in battle or imprisoned. There's what he does to Bran Stark, an act that made me dislike Jaime instantly (go on, ask me about my thoughts on Theon Greyjoy), but it's hard to hate a villain with no dimensions. Compare him to Tyrion, who has had POV since Book 1. He's also not a sympathetic character, but you get a better feel for what drives him than Jaime or Cersei. She at least gets some definition through her interactions with Tyrion and Sansa, but she needs her own POV.
Would it kill the books to have some kind of timeline printed somewhere? Minor peeve on my part, because I can't tell how much time has passed since Ned Stark agreed to become Robert's Hand, and the beginning of Book 3.
I would, and am, keep reading this series, because there's enough characters I care about and I want to know what happens to them. I just won't read the series straight through, or I am liable to hurt someone if Bran gets killed for real.
It's a very bleak world, especially now with the clash of kings going on. Even before that, I doubt it's a good place for women to live in, because very few people seem to give a shit if you're raped. It's all women are for: sex and children. [/cynicism] The world feels so misogynistic.
The bad guys don't get that much definition in the books, making it hard to hate them. Jaime Kingslayer doesn't get his own POV until Book 3. In the first two he gets talked about, and he spends most of them in battle or imprisoned. There's what he does to Bran Stark, an act that made me dislike Jaime instantly (go on, ask me about my thoughts on Theon Greyjoy), but it's hard to hate a villain with no dimensions. Compare him to Tyrion, who has had POV since Book 1. He's also not a sympathetic character, but you get a better feel for what drives him than Jaime or Cersei. She at least gets some definition through her interactions with Tyrion and Sansa, but she needs her own POV.
Would it kill the books to have some kind of timeline printed somewhere? Minor peeve on my part, because I can't tell how much time has passed since Ned Stark agreed to become Robert's Hand, and the beginning of Book 3.
I would, and am, keep reading this series, because there's enough characters I care about and I want to know what happens to them. I just won't read the series straight through, or I am liable to hurt someone if Bran gets killed for real.