*To clarify another point Sean touched on, although I do think two more doorstop volumes should leave ample room for Martin to resolve everything he needs to, I'd just ask why anyone thinks it necessarily must be done in the two named, planned volumes. Suppose he cranks out another 1500 pages, only to realize that he's less than halfway into Winds of Winter. His agent and publisher are probably praying for just such an eventuality. As if anyone would say, "No, goose, I want only two more golden eggs from you, and not a single golden egg more!!!" I don't know--has Martin himself said he refuses to let it drag out past two more volumes?
*To touch again on the question of whether the Others can be established as satisfying antagonists within whatever allotted timeframe, when Sean says that Martin "has to root us and the characters alike in the conflict with the Others," my own sense is that Martin doesn't want either us or the characters to be ready for the Others when they finally attack in force. To cite a bit more comics "junk" (which I haven't even read, for good measure!), I suspect it will look something like this:
In a special What If by David Hine and Mico Suayan, the Annihilation Wave reaches Earth in the climactic battle of the super hero Civil War. Nova is outraged the heroes are fighting over secret identities when such a massive threat is coming.In this case, as I imagine it, Civil War translates to Westeros's Game of Thrones (which is slowly but surely reducing the entire realm to a macrocosmic Reek), and the Annihilation Wave translates to the Others. That's a too-geeky-by-half way of saying Westeros will have everything but Others on its collective mind on the day the Wall falls. Everyone will be utterly knocked on their ass by it--including us readers, I hope!--and everyone who isn't Night's Watch will almost certainly be caught in the middle of some other situation that seemed dire enough already.
*Where do I even begin with the Pink Letter? It deserves its own post (or two?), and that's what I'll tackle next. Stay tuned, and stay groovy!
1 comments:
Interesting point (and analysis in the earlier post) regarding the climate being *peace* (with our hero perhaps paying the price for it, much as some peacemakers in the real world).
One other thing I noticed is that the other theme of this book is Prison and Escape.
Just about EVERY major and minor character in this volume spends lengthy periods as a prisoner or a slave. Those that don't are imprisoned by bad weather or stuck on a ship for lengthy periods. Even the dragons are locked up.
And by the end of the book, a lot of them have escaped.
But I didn't realize until your post that the biggest escape o fall is the Wildings... no longer trapped behind the wall.
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