Post 473: A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin. ISBN: 9780553897852 (eBook).

You guys, my blogging schedule is all sorts of messed up. I was working on a post for Holding Our Worlds Together when I realized that I need to post that in February and not January because the publisher asked me to hold review until publication date. D'oh. And so I'm not quite finished with this book, but since it's a big long epically epic ...epic, I am going to be pretty general anyway... or at last try to. So, warning, if you are overly sensitive about anything even remotely spoilery, I will be talking about things that happened in the previous book in as generic terms as possible.

So at the beginning of the book there is lots of discussion about this big red comet that has appeared in the sky and what it means. At this point the realms has dissolved into chaos for... reasons I can't tell you, but let's just say that a situation has arisen in which Who Is The Leader has been thrown into question. So all of these potential leaders see this comet and say to themselves, "Oh look, it's a sign." Which is bad pretty much anytime your leader relies on signs and whatnots to tell them what to do.

Now, I'm not totally against taking signs into consideration. Certainly it's no worse than flipping a coin to determine what you're going to do if it's between two more or less equal choices. But uprooting an entire people and dragging them across a continent or picking a fight with another country because God Told You To really only works out in the Bible (or similar texts), and that still usually only works well for the people in power.

Fighting wars has always been at the discretion of people with money power money. Someone with money who really wants to take advantage of a certain kind of market will create that market, and nothing is more certain than needing a whole shitload of stuff to go hurt other people in other places. That's why people with money and/or power who believe in signs on top of wanting to manipulate the market/other people/anything are so scary. Not only are they willing to do whatever is necessary to carry out the perceived will of the wind switching directions, but they are actually capable of doing so and fucking the rest of us in the process.

I have always found the idea of god communicating through signs to be somewhat questionable to begin with. Signs are easily interpreted in a variety of different ways by many different people (such as Martin's red comet for instance). If we have a few too many such people in high positions relying on signs who also have influence, they could very well bring about the end of the world just by proclaiming that they see the signs for it. But it seems to me that if god were truly to communicate through signs, at the very least he would want us to interpret them in the way that would be best for everyone and not our own benefit. Which raises the question of the usefulness of signs to begin with.

You know what, you don't need a link to a review, because there are so damned many of them. So far I like the series and would recommend it to most everyone.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.
So, uh, I totally wrote this at 11:15PM the night before, it's probably going live unedited. I apologize in advance.

Post 426: A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. ISBN: 9780553897845 (eBook).

Spoiler...ish? Alert: I will be talking in vague terms about what happens to various characters, in the sense of, "unnamed bad things happened to Specific Character." Some people have weird ideas about what constitutes a spoiler, so just in case here's your damned alert.

The characters in this book are awesome and rat bastards and/or whiners. Which I have to admit is something that most novels, especially fantasy novels, seem to lack. The entire book is composed of grey area characterizations. There are characters we are pretty obviously supposed to like even though they are annoying, and characters we probably shouldn't like but do anyway, or at least we can understand their motivations and their behavior.

For instance, I like Jon Snow and Arya Stark. They are just about the same character, really. Not in a bad way; they are more like companion characters rather than exact duplicates, they share many of the same issues and by reading about one character we can easily learn more about the psyche of the other. Maybe this sounds like sloppy writing, but in a supposedly 7-book series in which each book is 800 pages (or more), having characters who have similar backgrounds and personalities, who are also related to each other is as much a blessing to the audience as it is to the author. And though they start the story from similar places (black sheep in an otherwise uptight vanilla family), they end up in completely different places. The same is true for their opposite siblings (Robb and Sansa), who are also paired in the sense that they are "perfect" children who adhere to their assigned roles. Sansa is ever the lady that Arya cannot possibly be, and Robb is lord of the manor and the legitimate son that Jon can't be, no matter how good of a son he is, since he is a bastard. Meanwhile Sansa ends up in a less than desirable state due to her obedience to social norms, mostly because she was not mindful about her obedience.

On the other hand we have Catelyn Stark and Eddard Stark, the parents of the Stark children, who also echo Sansa and Robb, but in the opposite manner. Eddard ends up in a not so great situation, whereas Catleyn fairs relatively well. Catelyn is your typical dutiful mother and wife, but she also understands what she has given up to be that. Meanwhile Eddard turns a blind eye to what his king and friend has become and makes poor decisions about who he trusts because he trusts who he feels he's supposed to trust based on duty.

Meanwhile we have the "villians" who, while villainous, also have some fairly understandable motives. Let's look at the biggest asshole of the bunch, Viserys. There are pretty much no redeeming qualities to Viserys: he is whiny, a bully, and has entitlement issues, but who among us wouldn't have a deep seething rage if our home, family, and promised future was taken from us? The fact that Viserys takes it out on his sister and has a laughable catchphrase only makes him a douchebag, which in some ways makes him even more pitiable. Because in the end we feel he deserves his fate, and that in itself is somewhat sad.

Even conniving bitch Queen Ceresi has understandable reasons for being a conniving bitch. Let's face it, how many of us would be happy in a marriage to someone who has a great deal of influence, has become fat, drunk, and frittered away most of his responsibilities, whores around, and still carries a torch for a woman who's been dead for 20 years? If I were stuck in that marriage, I might try to weasel my way into a better position and then off my husband too. Granted... my way wouldn't involve some of the dirty, dirty things Ceresi did, but Martin seems to have a thing for the whole brother/sister pairing. Which is fine, because there is totally precedent with the Ptolemys, but I have been raised with the social taboo and a brother I greatly dislike.

I could go on with the character analysis, but let's be honest, if you aren't interested in reading the book by now, you aren't going to continue to read this blog post. And if you are interested in reading the book, chances are you have already left this page so you can find a copy.

One of my favorite bloggers, Trish over at eclectic/eccentric has been tracking her thoughts through the book, she's only half way through, but here are her updates: one, two, three. A fairly good review is over at the wonderfully named Stainless Steel Droppings.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.