It's been a while since I've done any sort of meaningful update, really. Depending on your opinion, this might not be one either.
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I just finished the series finale of
Angel. There may be someone out there who hasn't seen it (just look at how long it took me) so I won't discuss it, except to say that I do like it, but I'm uncomfortable with some things. Overall I don't think I'm uncomfortable with them from a writing standpoint.
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For those what don't already know, I'm reading George R. R. Martin's
A Game of Thrones. I'm still not halfway through, and it may become one of the few books I'm "reading" while just happening to start (and finish) other books meanwhile.
Dune's on that short list.
I've actually been discussing this with a friend of
Rogue277's named Alex through
FaceBook. He's into the series and doesn't really agree with me, it seems. My thing is, the book is told through something like eight different POVs.
Well, offhand: Eddard, Sansa, Arya, Jon, Bran, Catelyn, Daenel... Dan-something, Tyrion... That's all I can think of, and that's eight. Neat.
Anyway, I think it does the opposite of its intended effect - first, I'm assuming it's to give the reader an enhanced sense of the world and the events. Really, I think it distances the reader, because we can't really empathize with anyone. It would have been very easy to pick, say, three viewpoints, and give us all the info. we'd need - for the first book, anyway. That was one of Alex's defenses, actually, that the differing viewpoints become important in later books. Which leads to another criticism - I think a book should be written to function by itself in some way or other. Moorcock's the best example of this: something like eighty books exist in the Eternal Champion mythos, but every one functions on its own, even when it's part of a particular trilogy. I saw the same thing happening in Tad Williams'
Shadowmarch. Too many points of view that can only be justified by crying "next book."
Here's a theory, but it'll only be really interesting for people that've read the book. I think Sansa's pov should have been gone altogether - it could have happened from Arya's pov, easily. A few story-shifts and we'd even get the sense of Sansa's frightening relationship with Joffrey. Jon, while a great character, hasn't been a required pov character yet - everything that's been from his pov could have happened from Tyrion's. Bran is apparently some sort of prophet after his thing (vague to avoid spoilers, as if anyone's interested), so he's probably still needed. So's Eddard, for obvious reasons. Catelyn could have been excised altogether. One might ask about the scenes before the library fire and her boat-trip. The boat-trip didn't advance a damn thing, plot-wise, and could have been gone totally. The pre-library fire scene could have been combined with Bran's awakening, and been done from his pov. Also, if you cut the boat scene, you get to indulge a little surprise - we could find out Catelyn's in the capital when Eddard does, from his pov, and our empathy with his character would have risen exponentially. Generally when a reader actually experiences the same emotions as the pov character, instead of getting them
through the character, you're doing something right.
Anyway, that's my thing. Some people say a great deal of magic is mystery, and Granny Weatherwax would definitely agree. Overexposing everything takes the magic out of the new world we're supposed to be experiencing. Donaldson showed us a new fantasy world better than anyone (save Tolkien) in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and you only get a handful of characters as the pov - in fact, I think the entire first book's from Thomas' pov. In the other two books of the first trilogy the characters split up, so one pov in each group is needed. That's another point, I suppose - in the "going south with the king" party in
Game of Thrones there are three POV characters. That's overkill, I'm pretty sure.
All right then. Just thought I'd get that out there. Now to go watch some episodes of
Angel from just before Connor's born (apparently).
