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elizabitch 's review for:
Fire & Blood
by George R.R. Martin
I'm sorry that this had to come to an end, it felt like it was never going to.
It's hard to critique the book because Martin hides behind a fictional author and several sources in its telling and thus any faults are intentional and pinned on them. I think the lack of any in depth treatment of any female character is striking - almost all meet horrible ends and are not well loved by history and Westeros' patriarchy. I think the show is taking the right direction to give the Queens much more depth and humanity than they are given here. We get insight into the emotions and thoughts of many men but never any of the women. Alysanne is the closest we get. I got SO TIRED of women dying in childbirth, getting raped, forced into protestution, multilated, and murdered, however. Martin needs to do better for women.
I am glad the show chose to portray the Velaryons as Black and I think it's ingenious; Westeros is so stupidly white and it is hard to tell Velaryons apart from Valyrians and Targaryens while reading. Keeping with the Black depiction in my head, it made it much easier to tell everyone apart as bloodlines merged and diverged.
Mushroom is really fucking annoying. I get what Martin is doing, he wants readers to question everything critically and uses Mushroom's over the top stories to emphasize that. But goddamn he and his stupid stories don't need to be present in 75% of the book to make the point strike home.
Corlys Velaryon and his family are honestly the true heroes of the Dance, having lived through, what, 5 or 6 kings/queens? I'd love to read more on their family. And the Starks are constantly keeping the shitty kingdom together and holding people responsible. I think having Aegon III have PTSD, hate dragons, and be emotionally empty after watching his family destroy itself is smart. Too many fantasy stories end in unrealistic happy ever afters. I like that this expands on the Westeros lore but leaves so many holes and untold stories for my imagination to fill and have fun with. Questions are answered....but many new ones are asked.
Reading this ahead of the show's end may have ruined some of the emotional surprises for me but the show runners have changed so much and have so much wiggle room with this text that there will still be many surprises in store for me and how they decide to tell this story.
It's hard to critique the book because Martin hides behind a fictional author and several sources in its telling and thus any faults are intentional and pinned on them. I think the lack of any in depth treatment of any female character is striking - almost all meet horrible ends and are not well loved by history and Westeros' patriarchy. I think the show is taking the right direction to give the Queens much more depth and humanity than they are given here. We get insight into the emotions and thoughts of many men but never any of the women. Alysanne is the closest we get. I got SO TIRED of women dying in childbirth, getting raped, forced into protestution, multilated, and murdered, however. Martin needs to do better for women.
I am glad the show chose to portray the Velaryons as Black and I think it's ingenious; Westeros is so stupidly white and it is hard to tell Velaryons apart from Valyrians and Targaryens while reading. Keeping with the Black depiction in my head, it made it much easier to tell everyone apart as bloodlines merged and diverged.
Mushroom is really fucking annoying. I get what Martin is doing, he wants readers to question everything critically and uses Mushroom's over the top stories to emphasize that. But goddamn he and his stupid stories don't need to be present in 75% of the book to make the point strike home.
Corlys Velaryon and his family are honestly the true heroes of the Dance, having lived through, what, 5 or 6 kings/queens? I'd love to read more on their family. And the Starks are constantly keeping the shitty kingdom together and holding people responsible. I think having Aegon III have PTSD, hate dragons, and be emotionally empty after watching his family destroy itself is smart. Too many fantasy stories end in unrealistic happy ever afters. I like that this expands on the Westeros lore but leaves so many holes and untold stories for my imagination to fill and have fun with. Questions are answered....but many new ones are asked.
Reading this ahead of the show's end may have ruined some of the emotional surprises for me but the show runners have changed so much and have so much wiggle room with this text that there will still be many surprises in store for me and how they decide to tell this story.