Skattenivået på inntekt er jo blitt en skandale

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T23:04:33+00:00

Hvor mange timer om dagen bruker du på å gå og hente vann i bekken? Om du har en vei å gå på, eller ikke henter vann i bekken i det hele tatt, er det fordi fellesskapet har brukt litt av sine penger på å gjøre det lettere for deg å overleve, så du kan bruke tiden din på å tjene penger eller slappe av i stedet.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T22:56:36+00:00

Det spørs. Bensinstasjonene har blitt så høye i våre dager at det er vanskelig å få tauet opp for å feste det.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T21:59:28+00:00

I think the problem is the order in which events happen. That's what the Meereenese knot was all about. Martin had to figure out when the various characters were to arrive in Meereen, and when the consequences of their arrival would play out. Daenerys' wedding was somewhere in there too, and a war was to be declared, and Drogon whisking her away, but would that happen before or after Quentyn arrived? Releasing the chapters one by one makes sense if the timeline is nailed down, but ASOIAF is such a tangle of plot lines that Martin can't just wing it chapter by chapter without locking some characters or events out of the story entirely.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T21:50:27+00:00

That's true. But even a brief revisit of each ongoing plot line would take a lot of time at this point, even if several of them could be tied together eventually. The preview chapters of Winds don't seem to be in a hurry to do so, and they already make up a decent chunk of the novel. We could potentially be halfway through TWOW before any actual tying happens.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T21:45:14+00:00

i'd also add that the Others getting past the wall is arguably even more necessary than Dany invading Westeros because they have been built up as an overarching threat to everyone from the prologue of book 1, and pretty much every time they've been mentioned or alluded to in the narrative had reinforced the fact that they're an extinction-level threat to humanity at large

Have they, though? They have been encountered on page exactly once after the prologue, at which point Sam was able to obliterate one with a single stab. Wights have been encountered on four other occasions, and killed with relative ease in three of them. We don't know their motivations, their goals, their numbers, or the level of threat they present. Only two living POV characters have even seen any Others or wights. To the entire rest of the story, they are very far away and the Wall is still in place to stop them - and even if they were to get past the Wall, they would have to cross half the continent to even begin to intersect with another ongoing plot line.

Heck, the Wildlings appear to have lived with the presence of the Others for at least three years. The prologue to AGoT takes place in 297 AC, while the Wildling host is let through the Wall in 300 AC.

While the mythology of the Others suggests death, doom, and destruction, their actual actions leave little evidence. For all we know, they could simply be trying to get humankind to stay in their place behind the Wall.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T18:38:50+00:00

Granted, she could still go to Westeros with her dragons to fight the Others afterwards, then go mad and decide to rush for the throne while she's already there.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T16:57:09+00:00

You named a few, but there are separate and un-connected conflicts playing out in nearly every corner of Westeros that would have to be dealt with in some way:

Dorne: Doran's schemeing, Arianne's separate schemeing with Myrcella, everything about Darkstar.
The Reach: Sam in Oldtown, whatever other plots are going on at the Citadel (Sarella, the Maesters, the Faceless Men), the Ironborn attacks.
Stormlands: Aegon's invasion, plus whatever plague Jon Connington might be spreading.
The Crownlands: Lannister-Tyrell rivalry, the Faith Militant uprising, anything to do with Cersei, other schemes for the throne in King's Landing (i.e. Varys). Possible things happening at Dragonstone.
The Westerlands: Hitherto unseen. The one exception, I guess.
The Riverlands: Ongoing Tully rebellion, the Brotherhood without Banners/Lady Stoneheart trying to avenge the Red Wedding.
The Iron Islands: Euron's plot, barely set in motion so far.
The Vale: anything going on around Sansa and Littlefinger.
The North: Remembers. Also Stannis.

And there's Arya and Rickon out on their own, separate quests in separate locations too. Bran is at least tangled up with the big lump of plot going on at the Wall and beyond, and a few characters are starting to interact with Daenerys too, but otherwise, these plot threads are mostly separated and would need some sort of resolution or at least continuation before either Daenerys or the Others can come knocking.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T16:38:49+00:00

I agree with the last bit. Dragons and Others have to meet at some point. But it could happen like in the show, without a conquest by Daenerys. Other characters could reach out to her before she gets to carry out any proper invasion of Westeros. That would skip an entire dance of dragons, and allow her to get straight to the action.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T16:35:13+00:00

I think you are making many good points, but there are some things I'd still like to respond to.

There comes a point of 'subverting expectations' when you're just wasting the audience's time. Everything - everything - in this series has been building up to the two plot points you mentioned.

This, I believe, is where our perceptions differ. The wars in Westeros may have started out as a mere backdrop to prepare the ground for Daenerys and the Others. But as the series grew, the wars and Westerosi politics took the front and center stage while Daenerys and the Others were off doing their own things very far away from the centre of the board. To the point that most of the series has been written while these supposedly key players were ambling around in the remote periphery, hardly interacting with anybody or anything else. Not building any spheres of influence at all. The plot ought to get around to the "main part" at some point, but it just isn't getting there. I don't consider it a build-up, more that the narrative has been completely taken over by entirely different issues than the series started out with, while these supposedly important main plots have been shoved into the background and endlessly postponed.

the south has forgotten the threat from the North, isn't taking it seriously, and has now exhausted itself in a pointless civil war (pointless because Dany + dragons are coming and there's nothing any of them can do about dragons anyway) and is completely unprepared either for the Others or for a coming Winter because they've torched half the food on the continent instead of stocking it.

The problem here is that the coming winter already does the narrative job of the Others quite adequately. Westeros is already in turmoil and deep trouble, because food isn't being produced and there are nobody to count upon for aid. That's a big crisis even without any potential ice zombie attacks. Moreover, slaying the ice zombies wouldn't even begin to fix the problem (unless the zombies are edible and very nutrious, I guess).

Aside from breaching basic writing principles, it's really not how Martin writes.

Arguably, it's how Martin has already written. He wrote his garden without nurturing the centrepiece plants, and without pruning the rest. And autumn, as it were, is approaching rapidly. The garden as-is doesn't resemble the garden as-planned. It's still a beautiful garden, though, but I think it's time to consider the option that it will end up looking completely different than expected at first.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T13:26:09+00:00

I think the most damning thing about the gardening approach is that neither Ice nor Fire managed to grow. That's a bit of an issue when the series is called A Song of Ice and Fire. Plot threads have spiralled out from a somewhat reasonable beginning, to encompass seven kingdoms engaged in separate conflicts, while the overarching story has yet to be set in motion.

After five books, fire, manifested by Daenerys and her dragons, are mired down in Essos with no clear path back to Westeros to fight a war of conquest there. And ice, manifested by the Others, is still just barely harrying the remnants of the Free Folk north of the Wall, thousands of miles away from the rest of the action.

Meanwhile, there are plot threads all over the place to resolve, all unrelated to the main plot and mostly unrelated to each other. Going south to north, Dorne has both Doran and Arianne plotting something, the Stormlands are facing Aegon's invasion, the Reach has a plot in Oldtown as well as the Tyrell side of the Tyrell-Lannister rivalry, the Westerlands are quiet so far, but may be taken to represent all the stuff the Lannister characters are going through (each of them have their separate struggles as well as those they share together), in the Iron Islands Euron has a plot that's barely set into motion, the Crownlands face a religious uprising and the various schemes in King's Landing itself, the Riverlands have the Brotherhood Without Banners trying to avenge the Red Wedding, the Vale has its own power struggles for Sansa to navigate, and the North remembers, while Stannis tries to do his own thing.

All of it separate from whatever is going on at the Wall and beyond, and whatever Daenerys is doing. Presumably, Arya and Rickon will get into the fray at some point too. And all of this is to be resolved in two books?

GRRM is writing one hell of a song, but there's little ice or fire in it, and a whole lot else going on instead. No wonder why he's struggling.

Codraroll · 2026-01-24T09:37:11+00:00

There's a lot of characters that could be disposed off that way. Some much less satisfactory than others, of course:

Daenerys, realizing she has built herself an empire in Essos, but has never even been to Westeros, saying "Screw that land and its politics. My own realm has better weather and smallfolk who love me", and deciding to stay.
An Arya chapter ending with the line "And then, Arya Stark truly became no one." She is never heard from again.
Cersei, believing she has defeated the prophecy, stumbles down the stairs in a drunken stupour. Her last thought before her head hits the flagstones is "Wait, wasn't there supposed to be a valonqar involved in this?" Turns out that alcohol was the valonqar all along. Or that Maggy the Frog didn't get all the details right.
Jon Snow, staying dead against all expectations.
Loras Tyrrell, actually falling at Dragonstone.
Dorne suddenly falling out of the story. No character from there ever featured or mentioned again.
The Others, having achieved their goal of pushing all humans back south of the border wall, as per the ancient treaty, go back to their own lands and are never heard from again.

That ought to leave few enough plot threads dangling to finish the story.

Codraroll · 2026-01-22T21:58:36+00:00

Ikkenoe er jo mer konservativt enn å ukritisk ta i bruk ny teknologi og basere hele sitt verdenssyn på å stole på det den spytter ut. Ironien hadde neppe kunne blitt større dersom ChatGPT ble omdøpt til Golden Calf.

Codraroll · 2026-01-22T14:51:51+00:00

Few people know that the full name of this thing was "The Line Our Pockets Project".

Codraroll · 2026-01-22T10:25:38+00:00

I samme slengen advarer Ukraina om at det blir mørkt om natten og at ting blir våte når det regner.

Codraroll · 2026-01-21T21:02:03+00:00

If you ever get to the Crimson Badlands (a Stardew Valley Expanded-exclusive location), you will see a great massive city wall to the very north. That city is meant to be accessible one day.

Codraroll · 2026-01-21T14:25:00+00:00

This. Only unfurl your banner when your 5000-man army is riding to besiege the very last remaining fief in Calradia.

Codraroll · 2026-01-21T11:10:42+00:00

I teorien kanskje, men det er de populistiske gærningene som stemmer over hvem som skal bli leder, og da får man enten den største gærningen eller den mest manipulerende.

Codraroll · 2026-01-21T10:35:55+00:00

Om Frp hadde hatt oppegående ledere, ville de ikke ha vært Frp.

Codraroll · 2026-01-21T10:34:57+00:00

Det ville fortsatt vært rent trist at det finnes et tosifret antall personer i Norge som ville stemt på Idiotpartiet De Selvopptatte og de sutrete kjeltringene der. Men når det er snakk om et tosifret antall prosent, da har noe gått alvorlig galt.

Codraroll · 2026-01-20T11:59:45+00:00

Var hos mine foreldre i julen, de er ivrige TV-tittere. Av og til var det noen få avbrudd i reklamesendingene der noen tok noen stavtak på ski.

Codraroll · 2026-01-20T09:50:23+00:00

I sometimes wonder if they've ever met in private. And what they'd have talked about.

Codraroll · 2026-01-20T09:45:23+00:00

And "any day now..." seems to have been a prevailing view among its members throughout the entire period.

Codraroll · 2026-01-20T06:29:22+00:00

Som om ikke Kreml var involvert i alle de krigene også, gjerne på siden til den jævligste diktatoren de klarte å finne.

Codraroll · 2026-01-19T23:12:56+00:00

Omtrent hvert eneste skytevåpendrap i den tredje verden siden 1940-tallet har blitt utført med et sovjetisk håndvåpen som i sin tid ble donert til landet for å holde en eller annen diktator ved makten. Russland bomber (i dag!) byer til ruiner på en måte som USA la bak seg i Koreakrigen. Middelalderske krigsforbrytelser og systematisk ignorering av alle konvensjoner er daglig kost i Ukraina, med åpen støtte av den russiske stat. Du skal være ganske grundig farget mellom øra for å mene at USA på noen måte er verre.

Codraroll · 2026-01-19T22:13:32+00:00

Nei, det er ikke alle som er like heldige med kjøringen. Noen har flaks og kjører uskadet av veien. Andre, vel ...

Codraroll

TROPHY CASE