#i think it may be that they're very much written by middle class americans for middle class americans without realizing it

[clairelutra]

i forgot how fuckin' depressed "motivational" nonfiction makes me

[atopvisenyashill]

i think the problem with hotd is that people are expecting asoiaf levels of writing or early got levels of writing but they're just not built like that lol martin is a generational talent but f&b is not that good and some changes are needed

okay so-

f&b is bad

objectively yes. i think it has better world building than a lot of other fantasy out there but the concept of “hiding my hints about the main series through world building with an unreliable narrator” is not done particularly well with f&b. i think it just doesn’t fit george’s gardening writing style and i wish he’d let it go or at least rework the concept.

some changes are needed

again, yeah objectively, and that’s not even just an f&b thing. adapting a series with this many characters and this many moving parts is monumentally difficult and that’s not even getting into how moving from book to film is always a challenge bc something that works on paper won’t work visually. but also, with how all over the place f&b is, it makes sense to tweak things to be more thematically resonant.

people are expecting better writing but these people do NAWT have that dog in em

again objectively right. it’s not just that no one can stand up to george’s writing, it’s that d&d just fundamentally misunderstand or don’t care about a lot of the main themes and characters in the books. they specifically spoke derisively about fans of the books who were “moms” (what the fuck does that even mean!) and nerds who like to analyze themes, because d&d are fake nerds, they are NOT fantasy lovers and they are NOT good writers. then you get condal, who imo buys way too much into the idea of the divinity of nobility in fiction (which is a very common thing in american fantasy. i think i’ve talked about this before, but mia from btb had a really great thread basically saying that divine nobility is so common in american fantasy bc we’ve never culturally HAD a monarchy & therefore don’t have that cultural memory of “this system sucks and we should be guillotining these freaks post haste” and this is something george is specifically critiquing!) which is why he’s so willing to cut lowborn or what i like to call “middle class nobility” like jeyne poole, beth cassell, and nettles (and tbh i think there’s shades of this in why sandor is written so abysmally too) and i do think ryan UNDERSTANDS that monarchies are Bad but he has this preoccupation with Exploring Divine Right that eclipses a lot of the class analysis. and hess is just like. idk what that woman’s problem is tbh i think she has a preoccupation with women being victimized and while i think understanding the ins and outs of what Being A Woman In The World is incredibly important to have in the writers room, i also think what she wants is catharsis and that’s just not something this series is ever going to offer anytime soon.

all of that to say, condal & hess may have a better understanding of the series and less weird hang ups about gender, race, and sexuality than d&d, they’re already kind of fucked bc the og show is such a bad adaption and they have their OWN hang ups that they seem completely unaware of, and no one to tell them no bc this ip is hbo’s cash cow.

the problem

HOWEVER. i feel similar about like, the last jedi for example in that i think that was a deeply flawed and annoying movie that misunderstands the entirety of lucas’ skywalker saga and is way too focused on kyle ron’s whiny bitch baby tantrums over his parents getting divorced when it should have been focused on THE MAIN FUCKING CHARACTERS in rey & finn, ntm the incredibly weird racial dynamics of how rian wrote finn, poe, rose, and tio benicio’s character who i forget the name of. BUT. i also think a lot of the good, necessary, and CORRECT criticism of tlj gets lost in the misogynistic racist nerdboy backlash to Women And Brown People Existing, and then further buried by Disney running the IP into the fucking ground (as well as, unfortunately, queen carrie fisher dying before production was finished).

So IMO i think there’s a non zero chance that HBO does some meddling with hotd bc it’s expensive and a big ip, and because tbis is a series that means a lot emotionally to a lot of people, including some of the most annoying illiterate assholes on the internet, a lot of the really good, necessary, and CORRECT criticism gets lost under the sheer amount of people with nicola-or-holliday-as-rhaenyra-icons bitching about how they don’t let rhaenyra look girly enough and never mind that outside of like two scenes where she HAS to wear trousers, she’s ALWAYS WEARING DRESSES AND JEWELRY??? it’s like, yeah i DO think the way they write daemon’s interactions with his daughters & laena is stupid & bad & makes him less interesting as a character and i think part of that is hess’ preoccupation with victimization and catharsis but do NOT put me in the same goddamn conversation as people unironically saying that targaryen problems started when they started fucking andals, it’s not MY fault the h particles go craaaazy in this fandom!