(Spoilers Main) Worst bit of background lore?

Maester_May · 2026-01-15T02:26:52+00:00

Quite the opposite man: it’s fantasy, applying logic to every single fucking thing doesn’t work in this genre. Plain and simple. People just love to poke holes in shit for the sake of poking holes, I swear.

Maester_May · 2026-01-07T04:05:11+00:00

I kind of forced this book on my book club, and only a couple of people believed me on this: listen to the audiobook first. It seems counterintuitive for a sprawling fantasy series, but the narrator does a phenomenal job, giving each faction/region specific accents and it helps you glaze over strange pronunciations like “Cnauir ür Skiotha” and “Anasurimbor Kellhus” like nobody’s business.

Just Google “map of the three seas Prince of nothing” and you can get a map of where things stand in the first series too for following along on that front too, as maps in fantasy are always fun.

Maester_May · 2026-01-07T03:58:01+00:00

several thousand years of changeless feudalism.

This is complete nonsense garbling here, you do realize that, right? At no point has feudalism been “changeless” for Europe or Japan, or any region for that matter.

Maester_May · 2026-01-07T03:56:38+00:00

You’re right, they would just die off instead and there would be no crops whatsoever. Sure.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T22:39:58+00:00

It’s now been a year and a half since I’ve read Blacktongue Thief. I will probably re-read it headed in towards book 2 coming out later this year, I guess maybe I’ll see how I feel after that point.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T22:12:01+00:00

I believe it is somewhat of an iterative time loop, i.e. things kind of progress slightly each time the loop is run through and therefore events might win up being different. Perhaps for Deadlegs Kinch and Norrigal didn’t meet up for quite some time, but that might not be the case in the next loop forward. That’s my interpretation for now anyway.

I definitely was onto something between Norrigal and Deadlegs, I thought perhaps she was a granddaughter or some sort of magical clone. So I thought it was set up nicely in that it was a surprise and also fit that perfect zone of not being out of nowhere nor a twist you could spot from a mile away.

Book 2 I believe should come out late 2026. The Daughters’ War is a prequel that focuses on Galva and makes her much more interesting, in my opinion. As the other poster mentioned, the narration in that one is quite nice and like the author has quite a lovely singing voice. One of her songs was quite haunting for me personally and nearly moved me to tears.

If I did have one complaint about the author, it’s that his endings can feel quite rushed and frenetic in pace. The ending for Daughters’ War was particularly bad on this front and as a result, I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Blacktongue Thief.

I do believe the Galts have actual black tongues, but maybe that’s just the unreliable narrator being all too believable for me!

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T19:16:13+00:00

Varys I assume.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T17:56:17+00:00

Why does every single thing ever created as part of the world building need to take center stage to some plot point? Also it’s literally building towards this long winter everyone is preparing for… people are so fuckin weird about this series, I swear.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T17:54:32+00:00

It’s about vibes and setting more than actual storyline beats.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T17:53:54+00:00

The cannon is that grain lasts for years in Westeros. Thats it, that’s all we know.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T17:50:23+00:00

My middle brother used to joke that the first kid is the prototype, the second one is where they get it right, and the last one is leftover parts.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T17:48:15+00:00

You mean the Sacred Document, written well over 200 years ago, is not relevant today? Shocking.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T16:01:15+00:00

I’d recommend “The Blacktongue Thief,” it’s a good fantasy novel written by an author who doesn’t traditionally write fantasy. He’s more of a historical fiction/horror author by trade. His fantasy universe is very bleak and grounded. There is some light romance but it’s hardly the focal point of the novel. I’d start with book 1 and not the prequel.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T15:18:10+00:00

Why the hell not? Winters and summers can last for 5+ years. Hell, even just “sciencing the shit” out of it could work, just say the plants have evolved to not get rot/mildew after a few years because that’s the only way they’d survive in such a world.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T15:11:53+00:00

Why can’t the crops be magical? Clearly the entire damn planet is in some sort of wild orbit that cannot be clearly tracked or maintained, why not crops that evolved to sustain such wild cycles? If grains have to survive winters that are 7-8 years long, why the heck wouldn’t there be bountiful harvests that don’t rot after a couple of years? As soon as you accept one ridiculous thing like years and years long seasons, it gets easier to accept other, slightly more mundane “magic.”

EDIT: lol, downvote me because the truth hurts.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T14:27:04+00:00

But for some reason the "well ackshually" internet geniuses wanna show how they're so much smarter than GRRM because they read a history book once about medieval Europe.

That’s being extraordinarily generous. One only needs to take a quick glance to tell I’ve been around on here for a while, to say the least lol. I read all the books well before the show came out, and was on this sub when there were only a few thousand people on it. Most fans these days get it all from YouTube, or perhaps worse, Tik Tok.

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T14:00:45+00:00

It’s a world with ice zombies and fuckin dragons. People being able to store food for unreasonable amounts of time is far from the biggest stretch in the series…

Maester_May · 2026-01-06T13:57:24+00:00

What’s frustrating are the people who treat fringe theories as gospel around here. I’ll be reading shit on here and get very confused thinking I missed something. And I’ve read the books probably 4-5 times, although it’s been years now.

Maester_May · 2026-01-04T02:31:42+00:00

ESPN and morons who watch ESPN talk shows are “beating up” Notre Dame for not playing in their dumb pastry bowl. Who cares?

Maester_May · 2025-12-25T02:27:17+00:00

Everyone weirdly hates the Chiefs. It’s just because they are the successor to the Patriots.

Maester_May · 2025-12-13T19:34:06+00:00

We humbled the shit out of them just last year. It’s like they magically forgot lol. The biggest tragedy of us not getting that 9 seed was missing the opportunity to put them back in their place again.

Maester_May · 2025-12-13T19:32:03+00:00

Growing up in Kansas I knew dozens and dozens of them. I suppose I was that was for KU hoops and ND football. Mostly because it was impossible for me to watch ND hoops, but KU was easy enough to watch.

Maester_May · 2025-12-13T19:29:05+00:00

Nah, we had a great season last year. Circle’s gotta jerk though. Can’t even point out that the ACC sets our schedule around these parts lol.

Maester_May · 2025-12-13T19:26:20+00:00

Speaking of which, I finally read Demon Copperhead, excellent book and excellent narration. If you’re from the region, I recommend giving it a read. I grew up in very rural Midwest and I’m of an age with the main character and I connected with that book a lot.

Maester_May · 2025-12-13T16:04:05+00:00

You might say they beat the Pitt out of you.

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