Alexandra Leaving

I am in procrastinating mood today (the weather has been very gloomy lately), so I want to post about "Liking a fictional character". These are just my thoughts, the way things work for me, and all your thoughts are welcome!

The questions are:

Can a person like a fictional character that is NOT Good?

Does liking a "not good" character say something about the moral qualities of the person (the answer is no, methinks :D)?

What does "I like a fictional character" mean? I think this might have different meanings for different people..

For me - liking a fictional character doesn't equal liking a person in RL. When I say "I like a fictional character" I mean "I find her/him interesting" and in no way this is related to their virtues or the lack of thereof. Strangely enough, really good characters, as well as complete monsters, are almost never very interesting. There are exceptions to the rule, but in general, this is the case.

So when I say "I like her/him" I don't mean I condone throwing little kids out of the windows. I mean that there are interesting traits, or some interesting character development, or an interesting idea that this character represents. Some of the characters I like are just purely interesting to discuss, or sometimes they touch on some geeky ideas I have (for example, I love tournaments - Jaime, dogs - Sandor, and Joan of Arc - Brienne).

I never like characters "for the cause". I am a feminist and a stand-for-the-rights-of-all-oppressed person, but I don't like agenda in fiction, even "good" agenda". Agenda-driven books never rise above mediocrity, I feel, because the author's focus is not in "creating".
As far as characters go, I don't feel I "have to" only like female characters (because I am a feminist) or I "have to" only be interested in male characters that share my ideas. Because - WHY???? What does this have to do with their ability to be interesting? Like one Russian saying goes - "it is not as if we are going to be drinking buddies!". I find both these characters fascinating because I am interested in "dark recesses of human soul", but of course I don't think they are "good people"! :D

I also very rarely side with a character or a group of characters, maybe because they are not real people, but sort of fictional ideas for me? I mean - I will not dislike the character X just because they have done something bad to the character Y whom I happen to love.

The third part of the book was the best , most likely because all the characters are back !



( My thoughts, on the third part of a Dance with Dragons )

"They'll prune you when you least expect it."


I am finally getting somewhere with the proper read of ADWD. I have done a spoilery read-though already but this is not the same. Actually, I cheated bit. I found my several attempts to get through the first 1/10 of the book to be a bit hard going, so I acquired an audio version for my Scotland travels and the audio version worked very well (now I know how all the names are supposed to be pronounced!). I am through the first 1/3!!!! Woo-hoo!

First, the unspoilery part:
I think Martin needs a strict editor or someone else to tell him “NO”. In the first third only, we had so much unnecessary stuff. I have roughly counted how many times chamber pots and people relieving themselves were mentioned, and the number is over 20. Martin seems to be drawn to certain things again and again, like already mentioned toilet habits of various people (especially Tyrion), and the same phrases seem to pop up again and again. But this is not the main problem. Martin seems to like to list things and people, to the point of new information overload. We are given lists of everyone: wildlings, people in White Harbor (Wyman Manderly court), people asking for Dany’s counsel at the court in Meereen (exacerbated by strange names) , etc, etc. The problem is that there are two options here: either Martin is going to provide future storylines for all these people (please, no!), or why do we have to be given the names and descriptions of people we will never meet again?

But, this all said, A Dance with Dragons might even become one of my favourite books in A Song of Ice and Fire series, because there is so much mind-blowing good things there too.



( The spoilery part,combined by POV chapters: )

I am processing the book in quickly-find-the-facts manner, and am dying to discuss

( Discussions, added as I am going through the book. Spoilers galore )

This is cross-posted, for keeping


I love Game of Thrones and I love Queen. It is one of my favourite bands and Freddy Mercury is the best singer ever as far as I am concerned. Here are sone of game of Thrones Characters are "Their" songs from Queen.



( Youtube links and the rest of craracters )

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE QUEEN SONGS FOR YOUR FAVOURITE GAME OF THRONES CHARACTERS?

This is something that always puzzled me : why is everyone , literally everyone hates Jaime for what he did to king Aerys II? I have just re-read some Brienne's chapters where she meets some ordinary people and they say things like: "Jaime Lannister is an evil Kingslayer". Doesn't this seem to be a little unfair? I mean, killing the Mad King that was about to burn up the city was a good thing to do?



However, the cause-effect chain is quite interesting, and I think the answer for the universtal hate of Jaime is actually in the way the events unfolded.( Spoilers for A Feast for Crows )

I have made a "Your favourite everything , season 1 of Game of Thrones" poll in game_thrones community. I am cross-posting the results so that I can keep track of this.
This is the second poll of this kind, the results of the previous run (created after the episode 5 of the season 1) can be found here.

Sub-poll 1: The character(s) you love the most

There aren't too many surprises in this category. There are few changes in comparison with the previous run, though. Tyrion has moved to the first place, placing Arya as the second. Dany has moved to the third place, placing Jon as the fourth. There is much less love for Jaime : he gave way to Sansa and Robb who share the fifth place.

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Tyrion Lannister	1	79	58
Arya Stark	2	68	50
Danerys Targaryen	3	55	40

Sub-poll 2: Character you love to hate

Few people asked for clarification of the "love to hate" term. This is the explanation I found scouting the Internets (Wordreference.com), which corresponds with my understanding of the term: "The term was most famously applied to Erich von Stroheim, a German actor of the silent and early sound period, who made a career of playing villainous Prussian noblemen. His portrayals were so strong that the audience would enjoy the feelings of animosity he engendered. Therefore, he was the man you love to hate."

The way I see it - the character you love to hate is the character you hate, but at the same time she/he engenders strong feelings from you and is important to the story. It is not an easy thing to write a bad character that is not cartoonish and will feel real enough to hate strongly. Someone you can channel your pent-up rage towards. My apologies for the late explanation.

There are some major changes in this sub-poll in comparison with the previous run. Joffrey seems to engender the universal hate and loathing, with as much as 67% of the voters naming him as their most hated character.

Also, as far as loathing goes, Petyr Baelish has moved up.

One surprising result for me personally: Catelyn is still hated more than Gregor Clegane, Walder Frey, Alliser Thorne and the rest. Although, looking on the positive side - Catelyn hate decreased from the previous run.

But no-one hates Ned Stark!!!!!

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Joffrey Baratheon	1	92	67
Cersei Lannister	2	74	54
Petyr Baelish	3	43	31

Sub-poll 3: The best casting

Tyrion is leading - 61% of voters list him are one of their favourite castings!

And YAY! Bronn received three votes (one of them mine)!

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Tyrion Lannister	1	84	61
Arya Stark	2	65	47
Ned Stark	3	57	42

Sub-poll 4: Your favourite pairing

Shipping! The results are very interesting. I have heard some worrying reports from here and there that large numbers of folks don't like Ned and Cat.

Do not fear! Ned/Cat as OTP triumphs everything! Yes to the great love and partnership! Dany/Drogo came second, although I am personally not very sure about this ship. Sansa/Sandor came third - the story of the Beauty and The Beast will never die!

The honorable mentions go to : Loras/Renly and Arya/Gendry (fourth and fifth).

There is also an amazing number of inventive ships! "Ros/Another Show" is my personal favourite, but there are also many other great ones, like "Jon Snow's hair/The wind".

( The full list )

Ship	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Ned Stark/Catelyn Stark	1	48	35
Daenerys Targaryen/Khal Drogo	2	43	31
Sansa Stark/Sandor Clegane	3	35	26

Plsease feel free to discuss the results and bond over the shared favourites.

This is cross-posted: I have made this post for an ASOIF community.

Martin uses fairytales quite extensively, right? I don't want to mention the most obvious ones (like for example, how many times the Beauty and the Beast story crops up in the series? 3? More?) or the ones that I have already seen mentioned somewhere else (Jaime and Prince Charming from Shrek are long-lost twins), here are just a few:



( More fairytales )

What do you think? Do you know any fairytale stories that you think might have influenced A Song of Ice and Fire series?

The series have completely overtaken my brain.

Game of Thrones fandom has been amazing so far. I only had one little glitch in one of the Game of Thrones communities. I commented that I think that Renly/Loras sex scene is heavily into stereotypes. For some reason I had a person commenting to my comment and implying that I don't like people being out. What was even stranger, this commenter implied that I live in some forgotten part of the world . I had to explain that I ship Renly and Loras and that am glad that the show has their relationship in the open. But that I still find their sex scene using several stereotypes. This is may be my recent extensive obsession with reading m/m romances talking, or most likely my general dislike for any race, nationality, gender, sexuality, etc. stereotypes talking. But me saying that the scene is stereotypical is not in any way anything detrimental to my character, right? And it has nothing to do with the part of the world I live in? May be I am missing something, I am still puzzled.


Anyways, I didn't want to make a fuss in the community, so I commented back and was as light as possible, thinking as I always do that "may be this commenter had a bad experience with someone else". But here, in my own LJ, I can rant away. :D So, just for the record, I do not live in a forgotten part of the world. And anyways, what is wrong with other parts of the world ?



I do see a problem looming ahead, though. And it has to do with Robb.

It all starts with the show creator's decision to make everyone older. As a general rule, take away 10+ years from the age of any character and you'll get the book age. For some characters this makes sense, especially for Sansa and Dany. They both have storylines that would have freaked out the majority of the viewers if their characters were played by someone of the book age. Dany is 13 in the books and Sansa is 11. Imagine a 13-year old actress doing the "wedding night with drogo" scene? There would have been a mighty outcry. So instead we have actresses that are 22 and 15 which makes sense.

Then we have Robb. I am still a little puzzled by the huge popularity of Robb. I find the actor to be semi-attractive and good at acting (but I am yet to see an actor that is not good at acting in this show). He also has a heroic part to play in the season 1, "let's fight for the rights of the North" part, which I, as a person from the North, am really partial to. We do have a clear North/South divide here in the UK , you see :D. But I am a bit puzzled as to why he seems to be turning into such a pin-up. He is not that attractive, surely, not in "OMPH! he is so HOT!" way? But at the same time I personally like him, so why not?


( The rest is spoilery , but I tried to be vague in spoilers and marked the spoilers with asterisks **** )



What do you think?

It is almost Sunday 22nd where I live, the time to post the results of the "Your favourite Game of Thrones character" poll.

Sub-poll 1: The character(s) you love the most?

Three top characters (in terms of loving) are really REALLY close. It seems that Arya, Tyrion and Jon receive almost equal amounts of love, but it also seems that many other characters are loved as well. Personally, I am so glad that Jory Cassel, Benjen Stark and the Direwolves received a vote! And Bronn!

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes
Arya Stark	1	77
Tyrion Lannister (The Imp)	2	75
Jon Snow	3	71
Daenerys Targaryen (Daenerys Stormborn)	4	47
Jaime Lannister (the Kingslayer)	5	28

Sub-poll 2: Character you love to hate

It seems that Cersei is the most hated character of them all, she received much more votes than the other top two (Joffrey and Viserys). I have been worrying about the softening of Cersei's character in she show, may be I shouldn't worry.

Among other interesting results: Jaime Lannister receives as much hate as he receives love. Yep, you have to give it to Jaime: you either hate him or love him, nothing in between.

The most surprising for me personally result is how many "love to hate" votes Catelyn Tully have received. If any of the voters don't mind to answer - why do you love to hate Catelyn? I am just curious. I would love to have an answer!

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes
Cersei Lannister	1	59
Joffrey Baratheon	2	34
Viserys Targaryen (the Beggar King)	3	31
Ser Jaime Lannister (the Kingslayer)	4	29
Petyr Baelish (Littlefinger)	5	24

Sub-poll 3: The best casting

Again, three top characters (Arya, Tyrion and Ned) are quite close. I am so glad that Jory Cassel, Benjen Stark and the Direwolves received a vote - well done, show!

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes
Maisie Williams as Arya Stark	1	50
Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister (the Imp)	2	44
Sean Bean as Eddard (Ned) Stark	3	35
Aidan Gillen as Petyr Baelish (Littlefinger)	4	23
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister (the Kingslayer) -	5	19

PS Me? Still obsessed. Sadly, I have lended my copy of the first book in an attempt to push the show to my co-workers. I might just re-read "A Feast for crows" , I seem to remember the events of this book not as well as the events of the other three.

Spoilers: possible vague book spoilers