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shadowkat1. Sci-fi Geek Co-worker is desperately trying to persuade me to watch the new Sy-fy series Defiance which he describes as being a lot like Firefly without the spaceship and Nathan Fillion. (And I'm guessing without Joss Whedon, Alan Tudyk, and Adam Baldwin which were basically the main reasons I watched Firefly, but why quibble?) In short he says it's part horse-opera and part sci-fi. (Co-worker is in his 60s, I feel the need to explain this in case of confusion. And yes, this is the same co-worker who skipped Storm of Swords in order to read Feast of Crows. Not to be confused with co-worker who talked me into giving Breaking Bad another try. I'm not certain these two co-workers have ever had a conversation.) At any rate.. I did DVR it. When and if I get around to it - which if he co-worker keeps pestering me, is going to be sooner than later. (I do question whether co-worker's taste sync well with mine - he's favorite shows after all are the cheesy Star Gates, Lost Girl, Warehouse 13, Eureka, Continnum, & Syfy's Being Human and he liked the Twilight book. OTOH he also liked Farscape and Buffy. BSG was too dark for him.)
2. Dance with Dragons update:
I'm about 20% in and admittedly skimming through a chunk of pointless description. You are wordy bastard, GRRM. I will give you that. One wonders if he is paid by the word?
He also likes to dump a lot of history on top of the reader, some of it seemingly nonsensical, I did read it - because he buries plot points in that history. One plot point - which is sort of dumped in there without any highlighting and off-the-cuff (so off the cuff that the Kindle didn't pick up on it) - is that Rhaegar's son who was just a baby may still be alive. We aren't told whose baby. It's just sort of thrown out there. And it's in yet another seemingly meaningless conversation between Davos and a bunch of islanders or seamen at the Sister Isles. They are also discussing Dany and who she is - although it takes them a while to get her name right. (Which if I didn't know better may be a parody of me attempting to get her name spelled right). Apparently, she's Rhaegar's sister, not daughter? It's admittedly confusing. So...there's a hint here of two things: 1) Rhaegar's son lived and they have no idea what happened to him (Probably is Jon Snow, since Jon Snow was clearly mentioned in the last chapter - and this is a definite pattern to GRRM's writing). 2) Dany is related to Jon Snow as his aunt, not sister, and would most likely not be the heir, Rhaegar's child would be??? Don't ask me, I re-read the thing twice and got a headache - granted to be fair, I was reading it in the doctor's office awaiting my steroid epidermal shot..and in incredible pain. So, there were extenuating factors.
Tyrion's chapter is also about the history of Westeros. This round it is about the Tigers and Elephants - a story being told to a young boy that Tyrion and two other men are teaching. The kid, Young Griff, is the son of the sellsword that Tyrion is journeying with and subordinate to. (Ironic that. Once again Tyrion's fate is in a sellswords hands).
I got a bit lost in this chapter, mainly because I was in pain while attempting to read it and take my mind off said pain. (I have a herniated disc.) Nothing like reading about other's pain...to make your own seem less of an issue. At any rate, near as I can figure - we learn that the battle of the Tigers and Elephants was resolved with dragons - that as Young Griff states: moral of story, if you want to win a war, bring dragons. Dragons seems to be a metaphor for nuclear weapons (not here, here dragons are literal. I meant in regards to our world.) The other two important bits - are 1) The legend of the Great Turtle - which marks the birth of Kings, (not sure what Tyrion meant by this - re-read it twice and still couldn't make sense of it - I obviously missed something), and 2) Tyrion's pain is derived from his guilt at allowing men to gang-rape his wife, because he thought she was just a whore. (This is important - Tyrion really doesn't respect women very much. He sees them as little more than sexual gratification or objects. It's repeated throughout the series. He has almost no relationship with them outside of sexual or confrontational. To Tyrion - almost all women are little more than whores. I catch it in the tv series as well. It's in part a projection of his own insecurities. He feels powerless, so he associates with whores who he sees as less than him, with less power. In this respect Tyrion and Littlefinger are reflections of each other - both manipulators, both have sharp wits, and both frequent whores - they also oddly both at one point or another become Sansa Stark's protector/husband/father. Seeing perhaps in Sansa - an innocent that they can't quite possess, can easily manipulate, and desire to protect as a means of redeeming themselves. The TV writers interestingly enough - only show the whores with Tyrion, Littlefinger and Theon. Three men who have no power, and are incredibly insecure. And the women are beautiful and yet attainable for gold. Deft way of getting across this same idea far quicker.)
Off to bed. Been up since 5:30 am. Am tired. I did write about Elementary but I dropped a tag and I hurt too badly to fix it. So it is gone. Frustrating, doesn't begin to cover my day. Oh well, time to go to bed, but first a hot shower.
2. Dance with Dragons update:
I'm about 20% in and admittedly skimming through a chunk of pointless description. You are wordy bastard, GRRM. I will give you that. One wonders if he is paid by the word?
He also likes to dump a lot of history on top of the reader, some of it seemingly nonsensical, I did read it - because he buries plot points in that history. One plot point - which is sort of dumped in there without any highlighting and off-the-cuff (so off the cuff that the Kindle didn't pick up on it) - is that Rhaegar's son who was just a baby may still be alive. We aren't told whose baby. It's just sort of thrown out there. And it's in yet another seemingly meaningless conversation between Davos and a bunch of islanders or seamen at the Sister Isles. They are also discussing Dany and who she is - although it takes them a while to get her name right. (Which if I didn't know better may be a parody of me attempting to get her name spelled right). Apparently, she's Rhaegar's sister, not daughter? It's admittedly confusing. So...there's a hint here of two things: 1) Rhaegar's son lived and they have no idea what happened to him (Probably is Jon Snow, since Jon Snow was clearly mentioned in the last chapter - and this is a definite pattern to GRRM's writing). 2) Dany is related to Jon Snow as his aunt, not sister, and would most likely not be the heir, Rhaegar's child would be??? Don't ask me, I re-read the thing twice and got a headache - granted to be fair, I was reading it in the doctor's office awaiting my steroid epidermal shot..and in incredible pain. So, there were extenuating factors.
Tyrion's chapter is also about the history of Westeros. This round it is about the Tigers and Elephants - a story being told to a young boy that Tyrion and two other men are teaching. The kid, Young Griff, is the son of the sellsword that Tyrion is journeying with and subordinate to. (Ironic that. Once again Tyrion's fate is in a sellswords hands).
I got a bit lost in this chapter, mainly because I was in pain while attempting to read it and take my mind off said pain. (I have a herniated disc.) Nothing like reading about other's pain...to make your own seem less of an issue. At any rate, near as I can figure - we learn that the battle of the Tigers and Elephants was resolved with dragons - that as Young Griff states: moral of story, if you want to win a war, bring dragons. Dragons seems to be a metaphor for nuclear weapons (not here, here dragons are literal. I meant in regards to our world.) The other two important bits - are 1) The legend of the Great Turtle - which marks the birth of Kings, (not sure what Tyrion meant by this - re-read it twice and still couldn't make sense of it - I obviously missed something), and 2) Tyrion's pain is derived from his guilt at allowing men to gang-rape his wife, because he thought she was just a whore. (This is important - Tyrion really doesn't respect women very much. He sees them as little more than sexual gratification or objects. It's repeated throughout the series. He has almost no relationship with them outside of sexual or confrontational. To Tyrion - almost all women are little more than whores. I catch it in the tv series as well. It's in part a projection of his own insecurities. He feels powerless, so he associates with whores who he sees as less than him, with less power. In this respect Tyrion and Littlefinger are reflections of each other - both manipulators, both have sharp wits, and both frequent whores - they also oddly both at one point or another become Sansa Stark's protector/husband/father. Seeing perhaps in Sansa - an innocent that they can't quite possess, can easily manipulate, and desire to protect as a means of redeeming themselves. The TV writers interestingly enough - only show the whores with Tyrion, Littlefinger and Theon. Three men who have no power, and are incredibly insecure. And the women are beautiful and yet attainable for gold. Deft way of getting across this same idea far quicker.)
Off to bed. Been up since 5:30 am. Am tired. I did write about Elementary but I dropped a tag and I hurt too badly to fix it. So it is gone. Frustrating, doesn't begin to cover my day. Oh well, time to go to bed, but first a hot shower.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 03:31 am (UTC)Rhaegar's son by his wife is definitely dead.
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Date: 2013-04-20 03:38 am (UTC)Don't tell me if that bit changes...also don't tell me if Tyrion survives. Right now he appears to be dead, although that could change, I honestly doubt GRRM will kill him off. Personally I find it highly annoying Martin kills people before they reach their destination or are united with their goal or the person they are looking for. It's gotten to the point that I want to tell the characters in his books - don't bother - stay put, fall on you sword, the writer won't let you reach it any way - it's hopeless.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 03:43 am (UTC)I think the part that totally brought that home was the Red Wedding! I was betting on Rob to win the who thing and then.....Aargh!
I've been a fan of the books for over a decade. The series is good, but the books have so much more. Edric isn't even in the series. And I can't for the life of me figure out how he's gonna bring in Dorn!