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Late Night Open Thread

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So, I watched GoT again, and it really happened. All the people who read the books are now snickering.

If George R.R. Martin had written Star Wars, Leia would have taken a blaster shot and kicked in the opening scene, C-3-PO and R2-D2 would have been demolished by the jawas, Han would have kicked it in the cantina, and Luke would have been shot up by the Sand People. The only thing going into the Empire Strikes Back would be the ghost of Obi Wan.

But then again, even that wouldn’t have sucked as much as the prequels.

Indiana Jones, of course, would be half crushed by a large round boulder after he tripped and then poisoned by a snake he landed on.

I’m sure you can come up with your own George R.R. Martin plot twists to your own favorite movies.

Reader Interactions

167Comments

  1. 1.

    Redshirt

    See? Prior trolling. Judgement: Guilty.

    Twas a nice day for a, Red Wedding.

    Long have I waited for this evening.

    Still on Team Robb.

  4. 4.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    Hollis Mulwray has a fatal heart attack right in front of him the second J.J. Gittes first lays eyes on Mulwray.

  6. 6.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    If George R.R. Martin had written Star Wars, Leia would have taken a blaster shot and kicked in the opening scene, C-3-PO and R2-D2 would have been demolished by the jawas, Han would have kicked it in the cantina, and Luke would have been shot up by the Sand People. The only thing going into the Empire Strikes Back would be the ghost of Obi Wan.

    Bullshit. You have to become attached to the characters before Martin kills them.

  12. 12.

    RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual

    Solid Snake’s cable would have snapped before getting on the ship in MGS2.

  13. 13.

    TheMightyTrowel

    Also, Some shrink ca 1982 would have gotten Fox Mulder hopped up on anti-psychotics and he would have shuffled round the UFO conventions muttering to himself for the next 20 years.

  20. 20.

    Redshift

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):

    Bullshit. You have to become attached to the characters before Martin kills them.

    Exactly. He doesn’t just randomly kill important characters in ways that traditional fantasy stories would consider far to early and not meaningful or heroic enough. He develops them deeply enough to make you really care about them, and then randomly kills them in ways that traditional fantasy stories would consider far to early and not meaningful or heroic enough.

  21. 21.

    piratedan

    christ, certain SF/F authors have been killing off key characters for decades now, sheesh, grow up people, you think this is fantasyland? oh wait….

  23. 23.

    mouse tolliver

    The only thing going into the Empire Strikes Back would be the ghost of Obi Wan.

    Um, isn’t this kinda sorta what will happen next season on GoT? If GRR Martin had written Star Wars, the rumored title of the third movie, “Revenge of the Jedi,” would’ve been the actual title.

  25. 25.

    jon

    A late-middle-aged Forrest Gump would have been run over by Paul Ryan driving a Weinermobile.

    Each Ringwraith would have an 800-page book written about what he did with the One Ring after Frodo was killed under some tree roots just outside of the Shire. Torment, mutilation, a loss of humanity, and cruel reigns of terror would have lots of poems and songs in Elvish and Numenorean to commemorate the lineage of those whose bodies are torn as the books progress.

    Reservoir Dogs would have the cop lose both ears, his tongue would be split so each side would be tied to a nipple, his eyes would be plucked but not with severing of the optic nerves, and then he’d be castrated and fed his own penis. And then everyone would shoot Tim Roth’s character for that stupid story. Chris Penn would weep.

    Everyone in the Matrix would develop infections in their brain stem. Then die an agonizing death in a drowning pool of greenish goo stuff.

    Charles Foster Kane would be beaten to death with a sled.

  28. 28.

    Mike Lamb

    The stabbing to the baby maker was a bit much.

    The red wedding was when I learned that if you didn’t have chapter from your POV for a while, you were fucked.

  34. 34.

    mouse tolliver

    @sfinny:

    Ripley killed by the alien in the escape pod.

    Um, isn’t this pretty much a truncated version of what actually happened in David Fincher’s franchise-killing sequel?

  35. 35.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @Redshirt- Really? It seems like GRRM deaths tend to be at the hands of others and usually as some act of politics or vengeance. There haven’t been too many just plain, dumb-luck deaths, at least on the tv series (I haven’t read the books.)

  36. 36.

    Elias

    The Evil Dead ends 2 minutes after the incantation.

    Who is Jon Snow’s mother?

    If any of you book readers are upset with how long the 6th book is taking, go read Ned’s parts in book 1. He’s not that subtle about it. You’ll end up rereading all the books if you figure it out. The answer to one question creates a hundred more.

    Martin is long-winded but his scenes aren’t meaningless. If it doesn’t seem to have a point at first you’re missing what it connects to.

  39. 39.

    DPS

    Thorwald catches and kills Lisa and Jeff, hacks them up, sends the parts off in parcels, and gets away with it,

    Marge Gunderson goes in the woodchipper.

    The alien queen blows Ripley out of the airlock and then dismembers Newt.

    Phil never learns anything, never becomes able to step outside of himself, and ends up blowing his own brains out in despair every day for eternity.

  42. 42.

    Jon

    IMHO, he needs to kill off about a dozen more characters. I know some more are coming up, but beyond that even.

  43. 43.

    Redshift

    @Mike Lamb:

    The red wedding was when I learned that if you didn’t have chapter from your POV for a while, you were fucked.

    Have you read A Dance With Dragons? No one is safe.

  45. 45.

    Jon

    @Elias: @Elias:

    Yes, if you take the numerical value of the first six letters of each chapter of GoT you get the winning lotto numbers for the next ten years

  46. 46.

    Redshift

    @Elias:

    Martin is long-winded but his scenes aren’t meaningless. If it doesn’t seem to have a point at first you’re missing what it connects to.

    Oh, I don’t mean there’s no reason for the deaths. But part of what he’s doing is explicitly a reaction against the longstanding fantasy trope where characters are only killed if they’re “unimportant” or if they’re sacrificing themselves heroically.

  50. 50.

    lol

    There’s really nothing “random” about any of the deaths in Game of Thrones. They’re the logical conclusion of the paths that the characters set forth on. It just feels random because we’ve been raised with genre expectations that main characters can do whatever they want and suffer no consequences, that they’ll always be rescued at the last minute. But when you look at their entire narrative arc, there’s very few characters who die with loose ends. And one of the nice things the show has done has been to tidy up what few loose ends GRRM left behind.

    The beauty of Ned Stark is that he’s set up as the Luke Skywalker of the story but really he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. He has to die so that the younger characters can flourish. Ned gave Cersei a headsup he was coming after her, he turns down Renly’s help and then trust Littlefinger to make the arrangements. And thematically, there was something about the execution of the night’s watch deserter that made me certain he was going to be executed himself before the season was done. When you look back, you realize it was crazy for him to actually survive the mess he got into.

    His son, Robb, makes many of the same mistakes Nedd did. He’s brilliant on the battlefield but is dumb at the political maneuvering, steadily alienating allies until he becomes desperate enough to go to the Freys for help. Except now they, and the Boltons, got a better offer. The fearsome Tywin Lannister has done very little fighting all season. He’s written letter after letter. Now we know who he was writing them to. Robb Stark was invincible on the battlefield but Tywin was better at winning every other kind of battle.

    But what purpose does it serve? It ends one chapter in the war of five kings… and it ensures that the Lannisters, or anyone that helped them, will never ever ever hold the North. Before the North was grumpy about a foreign queen and a drawn out war. Now, they have a martyr.

    Like Pepperidge Farms, the North remembers.

  51. 51.

    mouse tolliver

    @sfinny: Me too! As far as I’m concerned Alien Cubed never happened. There’s only two movies in the Alien franchise. This also completely ignores Prometheus, which I’m still trying to come to terms with.

  56. 56.

    sfinny

    @mouse tolliver: Verizon gave me free HBO for a month because competition from Optimum is fierce in my building. So the first movie I see is Prometheus. Not sure I am seeing a benefit from this offer.

  58. 58.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Lt. John Dunbar is killed and eaten by a rogue wolf. No one ever knows what happened to him.

  62. 62.

    mclaren

    What, no hate for Joss Whedon? Isn’t Whedon the master of killing off characters you’ve grown to love?

  63. 63.

    mouse tolliver

    If GRR Martin had written the movie version of Little Shop of Horrors, it would’ve ended exactly like the play.

    River says, Spoilers!

    Audrey is mortally wounded after Audrey II tries to eat her. Her dying wish is that Seymore should send her “somewhere that’s green” by feeding her to the plant so they can always be together. Then Seymore tries to kill Audrey II, but loses the battle and gets eaten. An oppurtinistic businessman sells cutting of Audrey II to every household in America.

    And then a Godzilla-sized Audrey II and his spawn literally eat New York, Cleveland, Des Moines and Peoria.

  64. 64.

    Joseph Nobles

    @DPS: Actually, Steve Buscemi shooting Papa Gustafson and then going in the woodchipper is textbook GRRM.

  65. 65.

    lol

    @Redshift:

    That said, when you look back at the chapter cliffhangers over the entire series, GRRM does the “did this POV character just die?” trick CONSTANTLY. And frankly, it’s a foregone conclusion that the “death” you’re referring to is one of those.

    Case in point is the chapter cliffhanger where Arya apparently gets killed at the Red Wedding.

  67. 67.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    The Postman goes postal, kills everyone before turning the gun on himself.

  68. 68.

    Suffern ACE

    So this is JR actually shown dying of a gunshot wound and uttering “damn you, Kristin” with his dying breath.

  70. 70.

    mouse tolliver

    @mclaren:

    What, no hate for Joss Whedon? Isn’t Whedon the master of killing off characters you’ve grown to love?

    Yeah, the Tara backlash went completely down the memory hole. I can only just vaguely recall when every GLBT person and GLBT ally was mad at Joss for going all Celluloid Closet on us by murdering the lesbian love interest.

  72. 72.

    Joseph Nobles

    Some wag on the Twitters wants someone to overlay credit music for tonight’s episode: specifically the theme music for Curb Your Enthusiasm.

  74. 74.

    carolinadave

    After being chased by Alabama bullies, Forest Gump is beaten to death, but only after being tortured and begging to have his legs and fingers cut off. Oh, and Bubba was WHITE in the book. Changes everything?!?

  77. 77.

    mouse tolliver

    If GRR Martin had written Back to the Future, after concluding Marty kisses like her brother, Lorraine would slip him a Mickey while they’re parked in the car, creating a perverse time paradox that resolves the main conflict. Marty is his own father. No need for additional time travel.

  79. 79.

    Arclite

    Okay, give me a break. GRRM does NOT kill every character. Every season a few characters die, but most live on. Given the vastly greater number of characters in GoT, it would be equiv to one major char dying in each original Star Wars movie. Obi Wan dies in the first as originally scripted, then say Luke dies in the second (loses head instead of hand), and Lando or someone dying in the third.

    I vastly prefer GoT. No one is safe, and it adds a tension and sense of mystery that you have no idea who is safe and who is not. In GoT, everyone is a Redshirt.

  85. 85.

    Arclite

    @Mike Lamb:

    The red wedding was when I learned that if you didn’t have chapter from your POV for a while, you were fucked.

    In the books, one of the chars dies DURING her PoV chapter. At the Red Wedding.

  86. 86.

    Joseph Nobles

    But as someone else pointed out on Twitter, now we have a great candidate for the new Doctor.

  88. 88.

    TriassicSands

    Jesus would have died of whooping cough while still in the manger in Passion of Christ / The Last Temptation of Christ / The Greatest Story Ever Told / and every other film in which Jeebus appears.

    Months earlier, cuckolded Papa Joe would have exercised his future 2nd Amendment rights and killed himself (with the same kind of gun earlier humans had used to dinosaurs), while Mary would succumb to tertiary syphilis, which she contracted while practicing unsafe sex with one (or all) of the Wise Men.

    (Of course this wouldn’t end any of the films, since the Baby J could rise from the dead at will….)

  91. 91.

    brashieel

    I’d been kind of looking forward to this. He just kept making political mistake after massive political mistake. History has quite a few leaders that didn’t do too well on the battlefield but won through diplomacy and/or political skills. Not so many good battlefield commanders that were able to ignore internal politics and diplomacy and still win. Also, I’d read the books, so I just couldn’t get too involved in the early wins.

    That said… the episode was still a gut punch.

  93. 93.

    Arclite

    @sfinny:

    Ripley killed by the alien in the escape pod.

    This franchise is a bad example. More chars die during Alien and Aliens than in GoT.

  94. 94.

    Narcissus

    @sfinny:

    Verizon gave me free HBO for a month because competition from Optimum is fierce in my building.

    Geez. How big is your building?

  96. 96.

    daveNYC

    “If George R.R. Martin had written Star Wars, Leia would have taken a blaster shot and kicked in the opening scene, C-3-PO and R2-D2 would have been demolished by the jawas, Han would have kicked it in the cantina, and Luke would have been shot up by the Sand People. The only thing going into the Empire Strikes Back would be the ghost of Obi Wan.”

    Totally stealing this as a sig.

  97. 97.

    Narcissus

    @TriassicSands: The 12 disciples, shipwrecked, are slowly picked off by sharks and fail to deliver the A-bomb. World War II stretches into 1946 and claims three million more lives, one a young JFK. Nixon wins the preisdency in 1960 and nukes Russia during the Bay of Pigs.

  99. 99.

    kdaug

    Indiana Jones, of course, would be half crushed by a large round boulder after he tripped and then poisoned by a snake he landed on.

    “I will not, under any circumstances, crawl into a refrigerator.”

  100. 100.

    Michael G

    I’m pretty sure in George R.R. Martin’s Star Wars, Luke and Leia get it on.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    Great conjectures.

    Never read or watched GoT, so careful w any spoilers.

    Insomniac. Drinking a gin and tonic and listening to it rain.

  104. 104.

    Doc Enola

    In Martin’s The Green Mile, Percy Wetmore escapes from the mental hospital and murders Paul and Brutal immediately after John Coffey’s execution.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Sadly, no. Though I feel your pain (program holds exactly zero interest for me).

    Still have the season finale next week.

  112. 112.

    MC Simon Milligan

    Pfft. Luke wouldn’t die in the first movie if it was by GRRM, who be left to trudge aimlessly through the bogs of Dagoba for first 107 minutes of the next movie? Which also would not have Leia or Han in it.

  114. 114.

    Omnes Omnibus

    GRRM used the War of the Roses as inspiration. This kind of thing is to be expected.

  116. 116.

    Jay Ackroyd

    @Redshift: Not random. Saying more than that treads near spoiler territory.

    I’ve read the books. Mrs Jay hasn’t. It’s fun to watch her watch. (I DON’T snicker.)

    #OnNetflixDelay

  118. 118.

    Jay Ackroyd

    Oh, and I’m reading Susan Cooper’s (The Dark is Rising) new book, Ghost Hawk. Just hit a twist that the Railroad himself would be proud of, in so many ways.

  119. 119.

    Tokyokie

    The raft capsizes, Huckleberry Finn drowns, and Jim is returned to his master, who promptly has him beaten to death to set an example.

  120. 120.

    sherparick

    In Psycho, Kim Novak’s character would be killed half-way through the movie and dumped in lake. Wait a second, that did happen in Psycho!! Hitchcock and Rod Sterling (not a lot of happy endings in the Twilight Zone and Night Gallery) are big influences on G.R.R. Martin.

    The “Red Wedding” is at least in part inspired by Kriemheld’s slaughter of her brothers and the Burgundians in “The Ring,” but at least she was revenging Siegfried’s murder, and not carrying out a Machiavellian plot of Boltons, Freys, and Lannisters.

    Reading Martin reminds me of some of the Elizabethan and Jacobean “blood tragedies,” I have read and seen perform. Not just Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Othello, Lear, or MacBeth (the scene in Act IV where MacDuff’s family is slaughtered, in particular, is pretty hard to endure, much like the Red Wedding). See also Webster’s “Duchess of Malfi” (a play where marrying the wrong person and thereby injuring aristocratic pride leads to slaughter).

  122. 122.

    danielx

    The Nazis would have machine gunned everybody in Rick’s Cafe while they were singing the Marseillaise.

  123. 123.

    Mike Lamb

    @Arclite: I didn’t think that was a Catelynn chapter. Not that I cared, her chapters were insufferable.

    And I know having a POV doesn’t help later, but you’re still fucked if you don’t have one.

  126. 126.

    sherparick

    By the way, Maise Williams as Aarya Stark is really an amazing actress. What she does in communicating emotions wither eyes is amazing. Aarya is now beyond “happy endings.” She knows she will never have a happy ending. She actually knew it before the Twins, in that brilliant little scene with Clegane, their verbal combat about their fears, which ends with her stating in a rather matter of fact way that one day she is going to “put a sword through his eye and out the back of his head,” which is something for 80 pound 12-year old girl to say to six foot four warrior.

    By the way, all the people claiming there is to much dialogue, that is how you learn about these characters and start caring for them. That is why we find ourselves shattered by Talisa’s, Robb’s, and Catelyn’s deaths (I think Talisa, who was such a brave, beautiful, intelligent character being so brutally murdered (Walder Frey’ laid the ground work for in his verbal reduction of her to just a broodmare when welcoming the Stark party to the Twins is a fine example of misogyny, both Westerosi and 21st Century America), was to give a extra twist of the “knife” for those of us who have read the books since she is a departure from the books.)

  128. 128.

    Unsympathetic

    Westley dies in the Pit of Despair and Buttercup becomes Humperdinck’s queen. Inigo Montoya does kill the 6-fingered man with Fezzik’s help. Peter Falk finishes the story by throwing the book at Fred Savage, who decides he likes to hear about the pain and suffering of others.

  129. 129.

    Bump on a Log

    Flower and Thumper connive to lure Bambi’s mother into the hunter’s path.

    Richie and Joanie Cunningham become very, very, very close. (Chuck remains upstairs.)

    Meathead, Edith, and Gloria poison Archie’s beer.

    Hawkeye is revealed to have been doing experiments on patients. The 4077th’s 97% survival rate turns out to have been merely a fortunate byproduct. Also, we learn that BJ has an unfortunate propensity to remove nipples.

  130. 130.

    quannlace

    Crap. Not getting all ‘Goodbye Cruel World” but really debating whether I’m gonna tune in next week. It’s just that it’s so relentlessly grim and violent. How many slit throats, blood spurts, arrows and swords through chests…etc. can a person take? The only thing missing was another ten minute stretch of Theon torture porn.
    PLUS THEY KILLED THE WOLF!

  131. 131.

    TheronWare

    I thought it odd when they closed the doors during the celebration! Oh gods, what a killjoy of an episode!

  132. 132.

    Applejinx

    Got to experiment as FYWP seems to be auto-nuking any posts where I actually put in my damn URL where it says to. I feel as persecuted as a… whatever these guys are. ‘Cos I don’t watch this show. I watch a different show. It has more onscreen deaths, but they’re changelings :)

    And—posted. Okay, what’s the secret rule for putting a URL? Lack of cartoon ponies?

  135. 135.

    John

    @lol:

    I don’t see how Ned Stark is set up as Luke Skywalker at all. The fact that we have POVs from four of his kids already suggests that they, and not he, are going to be more important in the larger narrative. The classic sci-fi/fantasy character he most clearly reminded me of, in fact, was Leto Atreides, who fulfills a very similar role in the first third or so of Dune. I’m really not sure why everyone thinks Ned’s death is such a shocking turnabout.

  136. 136.

    kindness

    OK, I have one. It’s George RR Martin’s version of ‘The Bible’.

    Scene 1 – Adam & Eve are just meeting in the garden.

    Adam – Wow, hey hi. I’m Adam. What is your name?
    Eve – Why I’m Eve. Wow! It sure is hot here. How about if I take off all my clothes and lounge around some?
    Adam – Derrrrrrrrp. Uhhh, sure. Want a bite if this red fruit? Some guy told me not to eat it but what the hell. This big snake says it’s great.
    Eve – Oh yea sure. (takes a bite & swallows) Good. Here.
    Adam – (takes a bite & swallows) Yea. Good.
    Snake – lunges and bites and kills both Adam & Eve. Snake is then picked off and eaten by The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Oh the noodley goodness.

    The End.

  137. 137.

    mapaghimagsik

    Redwall would have been comparable to Watership Down, and certainly more educational to younger readers.

  139. 139.

    debit

    @quannlace: Well. I read the books and realized midway through the most recent that I was done. It was never going to get better, no one was ever going to be happy (assuming they survived), the wicked would never be punished, but every good deed would be, that there was no point in caring for anyone because they would die horribly but only after having their worst nightmares come true.

    Some people like that. I don’t mind grim, but there has to be some light, some hope for me to want to invest my time and emotions. There is none in this universe, and so I am done.

  140. 140.

    Bump on a Log

    @quannlace: Assuming they stick to the storyline of the books, it gets even grimmer, so you probably will be happier if you stop now.

  141. 141.

    Eric S

    @debit: Actually my problem with Book #4 and #5 is that the story does not perceptively move forward. I hope that changes going forward.

    Many years ago I read that GRRM planned on jumping forward 5 or 10 years after SoS. However, he supposedly found himself writing so many flash backs that he decided he had to write a book between SoS and the originally planned next book. That interim book got to be so long that he had to split it into two.

    In theory, the book he currently working on, Winds of Winter, will get back on track with the original plan.

  142. 142.

    gopher2b

    @Eric S:

    Oh, that would have been better. Even if he split WoW into two books, it would have been better than FoC and DoD.

  146. 146.

    DaddyJ

    I’m gonna have to step on previous GRRM versions of LOTR with one of my own. Apologies:

    Farmer Maggot leads Frodo, Sam and Pippin to his farmyard, and then sics Fang, Grip and Wolf on them as the Black Riders appear from behind the farmhouse. Pippin is torn to pieces by the dogs. The Nazgul snatch Frodo up, thank Farmer Maggot and throw him a bag of silver, then ride off to Mordor. Farmer Maggot, knowing Sam’s reputation as a gardener, cuts Sam’s hairy feet off, chains him up in his basement and forces Sam to tend to his mushroom crop in the dark.

  147. 147.

    Mike Lamb

    @Eric S: According to the epilogue of FoC, he simply lost control of the timeline and was having to work on bringing everyone together time wise. As a result, FoC was too long and it had to be divided into two books. I also think that his editorial team lost control of him as well. FoC was interminably long and borderline worthless in terms of plot development. I actually liked DwD, but that could’ve been because FoC was so bad.

    Right now, he’s claiming the series will have two more books, but that they are going to be massive manuscripts of like 1500 pages each. That scares the bejesus out of me, because it would be a shame if the series petered out.

  148. 148.

    Eric S

    @Bump on a Log: Do you have the first book? Read the chapter where Ned is having fever dreams after being stabbed in the fight with Jaime Lanister.

    For further evidence read the chapter in Clash of Kings where Dany is in the House of the Undying and pay attention to what she sees behind the doors in the long hallway.

    I think it is a big point left out of the TV show.

  150. 150.

    Ed Drone

    Little Ricky Nelson pricks his finger on a guitar string-end, develops blood-poisoning, and dies.

    Meanwhile, Sgt. Joe Friday tries to shake down a “connected” strip-joint owner and is never heard from again.

    The Captain of the “Minnow” fires a flare when the boat gets in trouble, and the whole crew and passengers are rescued within hours. Each of the crew and passengers goes on about his life.

    Jeannie blinks unexpectedly (from sneezing powder) and the entire cast, crew and set are projected to 14th Century Baghdad. Amazingly enough, history is not changed one iota.

    And, years and years and years (/end Carl Sagan Voice) ago, “Lucy” is barren. End of Story.

    Ed

  151. 151.

    sherparick

    @Omnes Omnibus: Westeros is actually a little worse in someways than the War of Roses and Tudors. Not much, but a little.

    I expect some really serious editing and some changes from the books in seasons 4-6, as FoC and DwD both have to much real dead time in both books. The plot starts meandering all over the place, with lots of eddies (Martin could use a much stronger editor since SoS) and he should have been able to learn a little bit from Tolkein about how to telescope 30 years into a half-chapter of book – See Chapter 1, Fellowship of the Ring).

  152. 152.

    FairEconomist

    >According to the epilogue of FoC, he simply lost control of the timeline and was having to work on bringing everyone together time wise.

    It’s a little stronger than that. His original plan was for a 5-year gap after the events of the third book, but when he started writing that he decided it didn’t make any sense and threw it out. But throwing out the gap also meant throwing out most of his plotlines. In-character, there are a couple of characters who have complained that they are having to change their plans because things have sped up. So now he’s got a dozen complicated interacting plotlines and something like a hundred characters and no plan. It’s not really a surprise he took over 10 years to write the past two books. He’s floundering.

    In terms of editing, it’s worse than a weak editor. Supposedly his editor pushed him to keep some major events out of Book 5 and hold them back for Book 6. Just what Book 5 needed – fewer significant events per page.

    What I’m curious about is how they handle the TV series in a few years. I think it’s virtually certain Book 6 won’t be out in two years. It would be awkward for the pacing if they slow down now, and stretch books 4 and 5 (which already have less substantive action) into 3 years. Martin might be about to take another 10 years to write the last two books (although he’s old enough there’s a chance they won’t be) but the series actors can’t take 5 years off because the children will be too old for the parts. Will Martin let the series scoop the books by writing the last two series from his notes and plans? Will they just go off on their own? Or will the series terminate prematurely and leave us with an indefinite cliffhanger, never to be properly resolved due to the aging issues?

  153. 153.

    mds

    @Joseph Nobles:

    But as someone else pointed out on Twitter, now we have a great candidate for the new Doctor.

    Jenna-Louise Coleman’s current boyfriend? I suppose it could be considered something of an homage to Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.

    (Michelle Fairley might be considered a great candidate, but she’ll still have a job after the wedding, right?)

  154. 154.

    Desert Rat

    My rules of A Song of Ice and Fire (the actual name of the novel series the TV series is based on):

    1. Your favorite character will die. Chances are, it won’t be a heroic death either.

    2. That character you love to hate. They’ll die.

    3. That character you don’t give a damn about, but seems to occupy a lot of scenes? They’ll die.

    4. When in doubt, see rules 1-3.

    There are no sacred cows in this one. It’s why it’s as good as it is. I haven’t seen Season 3 yet, but I know what happened, and I can tell you, GRRM is just getting the party started as far as bumping off big characters go.

  155. 155.

    Bill D. Berger

    Hamlet would have decide that it’s better not to be and killed himself.

  156. 156.

    Jay C

    The wandering sailor Ishmael, bored with life in the merchant service, decides to try his hand at a whaling voyage. After encountering the Polynesian harpooneer Queequeg in an inn in New Bedford, the two new friends travel to Nantucket and sign on as hands on the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain, the fearsome Ahab, is consumed by a burning, existential desire for revenge on Moby Dick, the great White Whale, who took off Ahab’s leg on a previous voyage, and whose obsessive quest will put the entire ship and its crew in danger.

    The Pequod sets sail from Nantucket for the South Pacific, but hits a reef and sinks with all hands just out of sight of land.

    The End.

  157. 157.

    FFrank

    Read some of GRRM stories. “Tuf Voyaging” about Sci fi Merchant Trader and “Fevere Dream” about Vampires on the Mississippi. Both very enjoyable books. He’s done lots of good stuff.

  158. 158.

    FridayNext

    As I keep reminding people who have watched the show but haven’t read the books: The unofficial motto of the story is Valar Marguhlis. All Must Men Die. Knowing that, how can you be shocked at anyone’s death?

    But then, “That which is dead, may never die.” So there is that to hang your hat on.

  159. 159.

    RevRick

    Early hominids are cat food for hundreds of thousands of years…
    Fiction’s got nuthin’ on reality b#@$*%s!
    BTW, how’s Tunch?
    And Stannis wins!

  160. 160.

    Mike Lamb

    @FairEconomist: I definitely felt like the one thing that made the series interesting–a unique POV for every chapter–also caused him to lose direction. With a few notable exceptions in SoS and once in either FoC/DwD, the characters aren’t overlapping (well, aside from folks in King’s Landing). It’s damn near impossible to get a feel for the passage of time, and I think that extends not just to the reader, but to GRRM himself. Rather than continuing to add new characters/POV’s, he needs to start bringing things together. Hell, I still can’t say I’m 100% confident in the direction of the overarching story–as in what the overarching story actually is (i.e. the political infighting in Westeros vs. the supernatural elements of the White Walkers).

  162. 162.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    I’ve long thought about the lack of realism in many adventure movies, where so many things have to go *just right* for the movie to continue. And since I know math, I know that the odds of a person surviving three independent one-in-a-hundred shots is one in a million. So for a time, I got disgusted with most action movies.

    (Interestingly, one of the things that bugged me worst was Toy Story – the escape/catching up seemed excruciatingly long to me. This probably says something horrible about my psyche. However, in my defense, I did not express this opinion to any kids (nor any adults who enjoyed the movie).)

    Then I decided that the story is about provoking the feeling of the participants. So, in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Upon seeing the movie, Indy laughs and says “yeah, the mine car didn’t actually jump like that. But we did nearly derail at one point because the tracks had dropped. It *felt* like we were in the air for several seconds, but it was probably only really a half second. So, yeah, it *felt* like that… but face it, you know that was just the movie makers taking liberty with what really happened.”

    (Because, after all, we need realism in a world where a person’s heart can be removed and the person continue to survive while their heart is still visibly beating. I mean, *that* seems perfectly normal. But a jumping mine car?)

    Don’t ask me why I feel I need to defend works of fiction like this. It probably just proves that I need more hobbies.

    Anyway: that description of how many ways Star Wars could have ended early triggered this trip down memory lane.

  163. 163.

    Elias

    @Eric S:

    Yep. You know who Jon Snow’s mother is.

    I don’t know if it’s a spoiler to tell people that they missed something important in Book 1, but it’s a big plot twist. Maybe huge. Not sure where Martin is going with this though.

  164. 164.

    David Brooks (not that one)

    @SiubhanDuinne: said “Scarlett O’Hara would have starved to death”.

    You beat me to it! But if she had been living during the Depression, of course, she would have never gone hungry.

  165. 165.

    Eric S

    @Elias: I certainly didn’t get it the first time through the books. Maybe not even the second. I needed a nudge in the right direction before I reached the conclusion. If correct, it has political meaning for Westeros.

  166. 166.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    In GRRM’s version of the Terminator, the robot starts working his way UP the list of Sarah Connors, with the pretty waitress being the second killed.

    In his version of “Up”, the little boy and the gruff old man fight it out to see who eats whom after they land in the water, 500 miles off the coast of South America.

    In his version of “Back to the Future”, the Libyans finish old Doc Brown off with a headshot. Body armor that, bitch.

    In his version of “The Princess Bride”, the Dread Pirate Roberts is as advertised. Buttercup is raped and ends up as a sex slave in Guilder.

    In his version of “The Hunt for Red October”, the titular submarine is sunk twenty five minutes into the film.

    In his version of “Finding Nemo”, Nemo is captured not by a scuba diving dentist but by a Japanese fishing trawler. Nemo’s Dad spends the rest of the movie looking for him before being eaten by a seagull.

    In his version of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, well, she isn’t Snow White. And the Dwarfs are all played by Peter Dinklage.

  167. 167.

    Stentor

    Lara Croft would have been gang-fucked by a tribe of native men before the women took her, butchered her, cut up her body, cooked her with some vegetables & served her to the rest of the tribe for dinner.

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