Oh, I should read Legends and Lattes

Honestly, I may not read The First Law trilogy at all.

Grimdark is okay every now and then but I can just play some Warhammer 40,000 game like Rogue Trader or something.

I loved my second ever read through of A Song of Ice and Fire (2024 to (2025)

But it being better than anything that HBO has produced in their GOT version of events just… isn’t saying much.

Westeros.org Forums is literally ruled by transphobes, the fifth book (once my favorite book in the series) literally has transphobia near the end (including SA in one of the Tyrion characters before he gets captured by Jorah), Penny gets slapped for essentially no reason, the fanbase is always downplaying or doing apologia for incest and/or pedophilia (looking at you, Renly Epstein fans (err, I mean, Renly Baratheon fans)), the ASOIAF content on YouTube is abysmal and it has basically just circled around… Fuck, what’s his name? The person that came up with the “Dornish conspiracy” theory? Otherwise, it’s basically conspiracy (fan) theory nonsense that has been built up over time.

Also:

• almost all the main POV characters barring maybe one (Davos ig or was idk) are from noble houses (inb4 “commoners aren’t important” arguments incoming or somesuch)

• Best Autistic Rep™ in fantasy (aka The Stan with the Plan aka the Mannis aka the Trannis aka Stannis Baratheon) will probably do something dum-dum and basically die horribly and I really don’t want to wait till 2031 or 2036 to read that so I am not really going to wait in line for that lol (honestly, I don’t even care “whether he does or doesn’t” flambet Shireen to resurrect Jon Snow or something silly, I don’t care if she’s the Night’s King at the end, etc. just give her estradiol and disappear him somewhere. Give Daenerys some t, he needs it); honestly, I should probably just read the Wikipedia or Fandom wiki of it and just move on, idk

• Jon Snow = useless know-nothing who is only really important due to being Rhaegar’s son

• the Orientalism (don’t get me started)

• the racist stereotypes (they’re somewhat separate in my mind since they encompass more than just what’s in Essos)

• the ableist stereotypes (Bron is a sex pest smdh should have never married Llolyd yeesh)

• bad audiobooks in general ngl

• no leprosy (common Gurm, what medieval setting is this?!)

• no guilds (no, pyromancers don’t count, you know what I mean)

• boring shit happening in King’s Landing all the time (to be fair, more pronounced in the TV shows)

• Super Arya (honestly, it’s her fans I don’t like the most)

• sexist portrayals of women but otherwise the author gets away with it because "GRRM cares about the characters first and foremost and the women are flawed and tragic at the end of the day, same as the men, and so it’s fine if he writes Cersei as a Disney villain or whateve"r)

• saneism (I don’t even care if it’s essentially from the 1990s, it’s time to cut it out)

• pop feminism for bourgeois nobles, ngl

• anti-war message in Book 4 but otherwise promotes war or even other forms of war as a solution (economic, social, psychological, etc.)

• anti-femininity (honestly, I feel like Asha and some of what shes says is a good example of this)

• Also, what’s with Victarion Greyjoy dead-ass thinking that Asha was proposing to marry him and have babies with him (keep in mind that Asha and Victarion are literally uncle and niece, just saying). Yeesh, GRRM, I know that incest happens in this setting, and maybe Victorian is not the brightest, but…

• Eunuchization against males and every other gender is bad and a serious issue in the real world, mmkay (well, tbf, this is really a dig at the TV shows, it’s not really played for laughs during Theon Greyjoy’s story arc in Book 5)

• Book 4 and Book 5 is basically the “time-skip” and, honestly, I’m fine that GRRM didn’t do the time-skip or at least didn’t do it for five years because some of it doesn’t make sense. But, in a way, the series was always supposed to three trilogies (well, there was the treatment that GRRM gave to that publisher, but aside from that…) Otherwise, there was the supposed to be the first trilogy (War of the Five Kings), second trilogy (Daenerys invades Westeros stuff), and then the third trilogy (Long Night or whatever). But also: Daenerys’s chapters in Meereen was literally supposed to be just one or two chapters originally and then he turned it into a whole 'nother arc replete with mustachiod twirling villians and it’s sooooooooooooo boring, dawg…

• Dorkstar (he is of the Night)

• _Daario (oh god, if he does the stupid “aunt and nephew” Jon/Dany relationship, I think Daario will either die before that happens, die while it’s happening (oof) and essentially give Daenerys his blessing to “find love where you… find it or whatever”, OR maybe he’ll be turn bad for no good reason (I honestly don’t think that he’s secretly Euron but whatever)

• Brown Ben Plumm (…idk, I just like this person)

• The Hound (should’ve stayed dead, literally killed some kid, I don’t care if he’s a gravedigger now, wtf)

• Marwyn (he’s mysterious and will pull some bullshit out of his ass or know some shit or reveal some shit or maybe do something with the candles but, dawg, I am so tired of characters just being introduced and then disappearing off into the blue)

• Please no “repetition” of phrases writing technique. It gets soooo bad by Book 4 (“wherever removed go”). I don’t even care what eventual scene or “punchline” or nonsense it’s leading up to.

• Look, I’m just going to say it here: the women in this series get a bad wrap from the fans… And the writer, holy shit. Cersei is just as two-dimensional as she appears once you read her POV chapters, Daenerys literaly abuses one of her slaves for no reason even up to Book 5, licentious women like Aemy Frey or whatever suck because they sleep around and that’s bad, all the prostitute characters (e.g. Shae) seems to have a high death count in general, Llolys just gets raped but isn’t treated sympathetically and is treated as dumb so I don’t know what that’s about, Catelyn is basically manipulated by Littlefinger and various others (though gets blamed by fans for “starting the war” even though it’s technically Littlefinger and various others doing that in this case) and, honestly, when Catelyn keeps being portrayed as being suggestible or manipulatible, you’re going to have fans that see her as otherwise useless or annoying or even get resentful about her (latching onto her neglect of what’s essentially her foster child Jon Snow, which is fair, but goddamn, can we talk about Jaime Lannister…)

• To be fair, I really don’t know what Jaime is going to do in Book 6. Most likely we’ll get Book 6 but Book 7 won’t be published during GRRM’s lifetime is what I’m guessing. Either way, I’m just going to say it, he really… hasn’t gone through Theon levels of sufferance or self-reflection or realization. Idk. His arc is fine but I have a feeling that Jaime is just going to coast at this point and sidestep any real growth that he did in Book 3, but eh, whatever, we’ll see.

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In conclusion: Oh, Robert (Head)Strong Baratheon, just shoot lasers at everyone in this series and make it end! Make it stop! Maybe then you can take the Brotherhood Without Banners (literally started to “serve the King” (they mean Robert, that’s literally what they say at one point)) and go start a mercenary company and start your own kingdom. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind spinoffs set after the events of ASOIAF but eh whatever, those will disappoint too. Disclaimer: Also, my “Robert Strong is Robert Baratheon” theory is a personal fan theory of mine and even I really don’t believe it, though I never really tell people because I don’t like adding my fan theory to all the other “theory slop” that I see out there, at least not in Internet spaces that are centered around ASOIAF, so yeah, I’m sure some other bloke mentioned it somewhere in some online community but I don’t care at this point.

I need good fiction shit to read ngl