ASOIAF LIVE READING: AFFC END (SPOILERS)

(find an updated version here: My ASOIAF Live Reviews)

(Written on Feb 2.) Still not sleeping, so um, finished AFFC, and um. Bad stuff first. Great storytelling in individual scenes, but horrible structure, and insufferable emotional manipulation of the reader, so much that I stopped caring. Not about the series; I've just started re-reading AGOT and I'm perusing the boards for stuff I hadn't understood (usually discovering nobody else understands them). Not even about the characters, at least my favourites. But my emotional commitment dropped so much that I don't really care about the supposedly upcoming A Dance with Dragons. When and if we get it, I don't trust Martin giving us more than sloppy structure, cheaper and cheaper thrills, and the occasional gem, for which he is still worth reading for me. Another thing: too many POVs, as I've said here. Too many Greyjoys, too many Martells, and the utterly useless Arys Oakheart. Maybe they would make sense in a wider picture, mixed up with other characters (scrap Arys, please), but like this they are just boring. What I call emotional manipulation is twofold. It's being TOLD to care about characters just because, and then not receiving a satisfying conclusion. Notorious example, the Lupin-Tonks debacle in HP. We are TOLD we're supposed to care for them because this somehow has an impact on Harry, we are TOLD they fall in love, marry, have a child, die. Worse, we get morsels thrown to us after the deed, such as "oh yeah, btw, Bellatrix killed Tonks". No. Just no. At least keep your trap shut and let us draw our own conclusions. In our case, let's take Davos Seaworth. (SPOILERS) I'm not crazy about him, he's OK, bit boring, like Jon. Still he has his own POV and his function. All of a sudden we're TOLD he's been executed, and his head and hands are on display somewhere. Charming. Now Martin might have something in store, since after all we only hear a biased report, and Davos is a survivor (if he's alive, he might hook up with the Greyjoys), but if we take AFFC in itself, it's a terrible anticlimax. We're not supposed to be forced to wait for another book or explanations from the author to make sense of the book we have in our hands NOW. That's also why I hate the trend of DVD "extended versions", starting with Peter Jackson's LOTR (or Ridley Scott's Blade Runner). If you have something to say, say it and be done. Organize your material so that the theatre version is the version you want. If external reasons prevent you from doing this, explain them in the DVD, maybe even offer the "Director's Cut" as an extra, but let the original movie alone. It's too easy to say "Oh, I can't fit this scene in the theatrical release, I'll put it in the DVD". If it's important, shorten other scenes and put it in. If it's not, get rid of it, dammit. Don't tease us. Imagine if novelists did the same. "Oh, I didn't put this scene in two years ago because of time constraints, so I'm issuing a new edition, and yeah, buy it!" Well, Stephen King did it with "The Stand", but it's a peculiar and fairly unique case, as far as I know. The second aspect of emotional manipulation is that you get desensitized. OK, it's a dangerous world. OK, bad things happens to good people. OK, the head is the easiest target. (SPOILERS) But after the THIRD disfigurement I hadn't been spoiled about (Myrcella, Loras and lastly Brienne literally being eaten alive, not to count Arya going blind) I stopped caring, as I said above. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can see GRRM rubbing his hands and thinking "Well, how can I top the last gruesome scene?" Sorry, but at this point he has lost me. And I love Stephen King, whose books are chock-full with gruesome scenes. Yes, but he resolves them all into one book, he doesn't leave you hanging (literally) about the fate of one of your favourite character. Brienne is dying? OK, I stop caring about Brienne. It's that simple. It's a defense mechanism, George, you can't do this to your readers more than a DOZEN times, and then complain because people are pissed. I especially hated the little groveling postscript at the end. "Dear reader, the book was too long, so I split it, but not halfway: here is a bunch of characters, next time you'll have the others. You still like me, right, even though there's no Dany? Hihihihi." I'm not a GRRM hater, but it would have been so much more in character and more respectful of his readers to say: "Yo biotches, here's half the characters, deal with it, otherwise the Others take you." Moreover, this device will make ADWD just like a long installment of LOST. Suppose Davos does die. When we start reading ADWD, he will be ALREADY DEAD in the past, even though he's talking to us just now! (he's supposed to be a POV). My head explodes. The good stuff. Despite what I've said, I'll never be a GRRM hater and I won't really care if he never finishes ADWD or if it sucks, because he's already given me enough. I'll never forget the winter I spent with the Hound and the Blackfish, and for this, thanks, George. Same as JKR: the fact that I didn't like Half-Blood Prince because I found it predictable, and that I hated Deathly Hallows, will never take away from me the summer I read Order of the Phoenix, fell in love twice and wrote Black Legacy, and for that, thanks, Joanne. Therefore, I found a lot to like even in AFFC. More stuff will come to mind as I re-read it, but one scene shines above the others: Blackfish vs. Jaime. Two of my favourite characters going at each other - with words, not swords. Discovering that Jaime idolizes Brynden and Brynden despises Jaime. Seeing Bryn laugh and cut Jaime into slices with his bitter rejoinders, and getting the last word. So totally Clint Eastwood that I was even hearing his voice. Jaime: "Are you calling me a coward?" Bryn: "No. I am calling you a cripple." Orgasmic. I may be lucky because I got so late to ASOIAF and so I did not have to wait for years between books. But be sure that I'll have much to occupy the time before ADWD comes out, and that you'll hear all about it.