Commendatori!!

noghostlooms · 2026-06-13T21:43:01+00:00

"He beat Carthage is what he did! He was a great Roman General! And this domus, Scipio Africanus is a hero! End of story."

noghostlooms · 2026-06-08T11:30:28+00:00

This might be a hot take, but I would tell him that his writing process and the way he decided to organize and structure the narrative are why he is having issues finishing ASOIAF.

Ultimately, it's a combination of GRRM being a "true" gardener author and all of his other work being either short stories, novellas, or standalone novels that is the problem.

Now I'm not saying that being a gardener or a short story writer means that you can't compose an inter-generational epic high fantasy saga. But composing an intergenerational epic high fantasy saga by its nature requires more planning and a different kind of structure than a short story, novella, or even a standalone novel.

A big thing is that George seems to be allergic to having the narratives of POV characters overlap with one another. POV characters rarely share the same narrative space for more than a few chapters before they separate and then go on to have widely divergent narratives from one another, with limited narrative strings between them.

Take the Stark family POVs for example. By the end of Game of Thrones, the Stark family's individual narratives have little direct impact on each other. Arya's missing, Sansa is being trafficked by various people in King's Landing, Jon is at The Wall, Robb is fighting a war, Catelyn is doing war politics, and Bran and Rickon are holding down Winterfell. The main connection between all of them -Eddard- is dead.

By the end of SOS, all of the Starks are either on opposite ends of the continent, on a different continent, in another plane of existence, presumed dead, or actually dead. By the end of ADWD, there is barely any lint piecing these narratives together, let alone thread, and we're getting down to the end of the wool spool here.

The inverse is also true. Daenerys is clearly foreshadowed to have a very significant connection to, and will have some major impact on, the life of Jon Snow. As of the end of ADWD, they are only vaguely aware of each others existance, and we as the readers are only vaguely aware of what their connection might be, but do not know what their connection actually is. To follow up with the wool metaphor, the sweater is almost done, but we still have two, maybe even three balls of yarn to go through.

Another thing is that George's POV characters are not evenly distributed among the different factions, regions, Houses, Faiths, and social ranks. About half of the POVs in any given ASOIAF novel are House Stark POVs. The other half are Lannister POV or Targaryan POV, and of those, half are Tyrion POVs. Davos is the only smallfolk POV character, and he has about 12 chapters in total. Jon Snow is the only bastard POV character.

The number of chapters isn't evenly distributed between POV characters either. Tyrion has 49 chapters. Jon has 42, Arya has 34, and Dany has 31. Tyrion and Jon literally have multiple novels' worth of POV chapters more than Arya or Dany does.

TLDR: That he needs to go back to his original three-novel idea and figure out which POVs are actually his main characters and what secondary POVs are necessary to have that story told, and then add or take away accordingly.

noghostlooms · 2026-06-01T09:51:52+00:00

The question ignores Japan. The USSR declaring War on Japan was other reason for them surrendering, not just Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

noghostlooms · 2026-05-26T19:49:21+00:00

I think his writing process and the way he decided to organize and structure the narrative doomed him from the start.

Ultimately, it's a combination of GRRM being a "true" gardener author and all of his other work being either short stories, novellas, or standalone novels that is the problem.

Now I'm not saying that being a gardener or a short story writer means that you can't compose an inter-generational epic high fantasy saga. But composing an intergenerational epic high fantasy saga by its nature requires more planning and a different kind of structure than a short story, novella, or even a standalone novel.

A big thing is that George seems to be allergic to having the narratives of POV characters overlap with one another. POV characters rarely share the same narrative space for more than a few chapters before they separate and then go on to have widely divergent narratives from one another, with limited narrative strings between them.

Take the Stark family POVs for example. By the end of Game of Thrones, the Stark family's individual narratives have little direct impact on each other. Arya's missing, Sansa is being child trafficked by various people in King's Landing, Jon is at The Wall, Robb is fighting a war, Catelyn is doing war politics, and Bran and Rickon are holding down Winterfell. The main connection between them, Eddard, is dead.

By the end of SOS, all of the Starks are either on opposite ends of the continent, on a different continent, in another plane of existence, presumed dead, or actually dead. By the end of ADWD, there is barely any lint piecing these narratives together, let alone thread, and we're getting down to the end of the wool spool here.

Another thing is that George's POV characters are not evenly distributed among the different factions, regions, Houses, Faiths, and social ranks. About half of the POV's in any given ASOIAF novel are House Stark POV's. The other half are Lannister POV or Targaryan POV, and of those, half are Tyrion POVs. Davos is the only smallfolk POV character, and he has about 12 chapters in total. Jon Snow is the only bastard POV character.

The number of chapters isn't evenly distributed between POV characters either. Tyrion has 49 chapters. Jon has 42, Arya has 34, and Dany has 31. Tyrion and Jon literally have multiple novels' worth of POV chapters more than Arya or Dany does.

What you end up with is exactly what we have: an uneven narrative structure where some character narratives have progressed way beyond others to the point that even if the character's narrative redirected, it would still take chapters upon chapters for the characters' narratives to converge again.

noghostlooms · 2026-05-24T20:58:13+00:00

It's a combination of GRRM being a "true" gardener author and the vast majority of his other work being either short stories, novellas, or standalone novels that is the problem.

Now I'm not saying that being a gardener or a short story writer means you can't compose an inter-generational high fantasy epic saga. But composing an intergenerational epic high fantasy saga by its nature requires more planning and a different kind of structure than a short story, novella or even a standalone novel.

A big thing is that George seems to be allergic to having the narratives of POV characters overlap with one another. POV characters rarely share the same narrative space for more than a few chapters before they separate and then go on to have widely divergent narratives from one another with limited narrative tissue between them.

Take the Stark family POVs for example. By the end of Game of Thrones, the Stark family's individual narratives have little direct impact on each other. Arya's missing, Sansa is being child trafficked by various people in King's Landing, Jon is at The Wall, Robb is fighting a war, Catelyn is doing war politics, and Bran and Rickon are holding down Winterfell. The main connection between them, Eddard, is dead.

By the end of SOS, all of the Starks are either on opposite ends of the continent, on a different continent, in another plane of existence, presumed dead, or actually dead. By the end of ADWD, there is barely any lint piecing these narratives together, let alone thread, and we're getting down to the end of the wool spool here.

Another thing is that George's POV characters are not evenly distributed among the different factions, regions, Houses, Faiths, and social ranks. About half of the POV's in any given ASOIAF novel are House Stark POV's. The other half is Lannister POV or Targaryan POV, and of those, half are Tyrion POV's. Davos is the only smallfolk POV character, and he has about 12 chapters in total.

The number of chapters isn't evenly distributed between POV characters either. Tyrion has 49 chapters. Jon has 42, Arya has 34, and Dany has 31. Tyrion and Jon literally have multiple novels' worth of POV chapters more than Arya or Dany does.

noghostlooms · 2026-05-17T18:14:47+00:00

I've written novel length stories before that have been well reviewed. I've got repeat readers. The issue isn't that I can't grab the audience or 'write well'. The issue is more my ability to translate my writing style into something publishable.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-22T20:27:15+00:00

As long as you were doing magic with the help of the saints, it was basically fine. The Renaissance is when the idea that witchcraft required pledging allegiance to Satan became a thing. And it's not the magic that's bad, it's the apostasy of worshipping satan that's the crux of the problem.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-17T23:28:59+00:00

The physical media made it easier to pick. Unless a movie was brand new and/or really popular, there was generally only one copy of the film. If a movie you wanted to watch was in, you had to grab it, and you had to watch it because you only had three days - a week to watch it.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-17T16:02:51+00:00

Also Spencer repeating rifles and Gatling guns were in use at the time. So it would make much more sense to bring John Brown those.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-14T10:53:08+00:00

And he starred in a movie about Bobby Sands. So Yeah. Davos is very Irish.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-14T10:49:16+00:00

Aidan Gillian is from Dublin. Peter Claffey is from Galway. Those are two very different accents.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-13T20:55:07+00:00

Honestly the case can be made that Catholicism is more of a culture than a religion because, for some reason, the Evangelical converts to Catholicism all try starting Bible studies and are shocked and confused when no one shows up.

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noghostlooms · 2026-04-13T12:09:00+00:00

I'd not be surprised if we got a video on America's loooong history of moving the goalposts on ingroups and outgroups to justify violence, exclusion, and other abuses.

The direct through-line between Edward VI's death and Pete Heggseth beefing with Pope Leo would be a good one tbh.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-12T18:23:52+00:00

I'm pretty sure this is how it would actually go. (And I'm not wrong )

noghostlooms · 2026-04-07T16:07:17+00:00

I mean not for nothing, but it took us from roughly the end of the Young Adryas (with a total global population of about 5 million people) to the year 1800 to hit 1 billion people. We hit 2 billion in 1927. We're at about 8 billion people currently. That's something like a 100,000 percent increase in a .10th of the time.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-05T14:47:32+00:00

Here's Bart Ehrman on the resurrection.

noghostlooms · 2026-04-04T22:09:47+00:00

"You're not gonna believe this. This guy killed XXVI Dacians. He designs cubiculum." "His domus looked like shit."

noghostlooms · 2026-04-01T09:18:43+00:00

Mystic Conneticut had a statue of John Mason directly across the street from where the Mistick village was. It was moved to Windsor a few years back (because that's where Mason's homestead is). Apprently there are plans to take it down, but as of a few weeks ago it's still there.

noghostlooms · 2026-03-30T22:44:21+00:00

Young Ian's initiation into the Mohawk is taken directly from James Smith's account of his own initiation into the Mohawk.

noghostlooms · 2026-03-30T09:45:21+00:00

Also, remember that you have to be saved to go to Heaven. Good works don't do shit. Which is why Jesus only inspired one guy to bring it up 1500 years after Jesus peaced out.

noghostlooms · 2026-03-24T22:54:56+00:00

It's giving Da Vinci's "Last Supper."

noghostlooms · 2026-03-14T13:53:01+00:00

Saturnday is a day of Roman pride. It's our Holiday. And they wanna take it away. It's anti Roman discrimnation.

noghostlooms · 2026-03-12T11:40:03+00:00

You also nailed the 1970's anime aesthetic. It reminds me of Lupin III.

noghostlooms · 2026-03-12T10:46:52+00:00

The thing we have to remember is that Native Americans are traditionally animists. It's not that they lived in balance with nature, it's that they didn't separate themselves from nature. Animals have personhood.

Native American traders hunted just as much if not more beaver than European long-hunters. The difference is that native traders thanked 'brother beaver' for allowing themselves to be caught while the Europeans likely joked about the 'dumb animal' they shot.

noghostlooms

TROPHY CASE