This is a funny take since GoT transparently was pretty obviously “inspired” by Dune’s story… At least with the first book(s).

Exactly. This was a competition in which everyone did well so small differences decided it. And they liked Guiseppi’s better, which included the cherry that was “needed.”

I was watching the show. Which is why I saw that they liked the taste of everyone’s showstopper. They just liked everyone else’s more than his. They has the least to say about how tasty his was. And it was mostly, “Wow. Can barely taste the matcha.”

Watching it sounds like there was nothing wrong with Jurgen’s showstopper, it just didn’t taste as good as anyone else’s. And he didn’t elevate it by having a fancy complex presentation for the baked items.

Don’t they often explain it? Usually, fantasy worlds have some kind of prior cataclysm (or many of them) that destroys the earlier more-advanced world. So the world is spotted with artifacts of early technology people can’t create anymore. That’s literally what the “palantir” are in LotR.

It’s interesting to compare two writers who both seem to have gotten thoroughly sick of their most famous ongoing works: Jordan and Martin. Both have shown similar tendencies but Jordan’s response was to write endlessly yet kind of aimlessly while Martin is just sort of stuck. My complaints aside, I do have sympathy…

I think Min was the most bearable to me for the longest. But even she kind of became one-note. Honestly, I think a lot of it was that he was exhausted with his story and the characters so his writing became broader in general. This affected everything but it effected the way he wrote women the most (IMHO).

If by “better and better” you mean “interchangeable caricatures of a sexist guy’s version of ‘strong women’,” sure, I guess.

I mean … yeah obviously. Galina and Elaida are villains. They aren’t framed as loveable heroines.

She’s both physically and emotionally abusive. Like, she hits him because she’s jealous. 

“His behavior was atrocious … except it really wasn’t it’s really all these mean actors making things up about the poor poor overworked soul. I don’t really care about Joss, I’m just claiming to have exhaustively researched the decades of history around his behavior… It’s really about ethics in film-set bullying.”

By the later books practically all the female characters had morphed into abusive carping monsters. One of the reasons I stopped reading the series. But the first few books were soooo fun. I read that fourth book until it fell apart in my hands. 

Honestly, Jordan’s increasing insistence on adding pointless and tedious detail became one of the biggest flaws of the series. To me, it smacked of an author bored with the story distracting himself with pointlessness. The plot stopped moving, the main characters vanished, and the story just stopped happening. 

I loved this series sooooo much when I was a teenager and then the 8 or 9th book killed whatever affection I had. I’m kind of excited to see a hopefully good screenwriter cut this story up and perform some addition by subtraction. 

Watching Dune again reminded me how much GoT grabbed plots and characterizations. Like Leto and Jessica’s dynamic clearly informed Ned and Cat’s (for instance - though Jessica is far more interesting than Cat was). But that’s ok. Books inspire more books.

The “May” part is because it’s spring. New growth, beauty, youth. February would be like saying a “winter and winter” romance. It’s about the seasons not the length of days. From a time when society was agricultural and seasons mattered far more. 

I assumed it was like about horses and horses eat … oats? I don’t understand why we need it. 

Sure, and how is that not just “a Western”?

You’re writhing need to rewrite history for the sake of a wealthy jerk is strange, to say the least.

I prefer Stagecoach. Particularly the denunciation of evil destructive capitalists. And John Wayne playing a really sweet guy.