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PaperclipPerfector  16d ago (text post)   30773 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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I do not care that someone on the internet may actually bring to life the strawman assertion that "[A Song of Ice and Fire] is some kind of nihilistic, grimdark, pornographic deconstruction of all that is right and good in the world". Your essay remains a response to a strawman. For comparison, here's the whole text under the "Criticism" of GRR Martin's wikipedia page:

Martin has been criticized by some of his readers for the long periods between books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, notably the six-year gap between the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows (2005), and the fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons (2011), and the fact that The Winds of Winter, the next volume in the series, hasn't been published since. In 2010, Martin had responded to fan criticisms by saying he was unwilling to write only his A Song of Ice and Fire series, noting that working on other prose and compiling and editing different book projects have always been part of his working process.

I have went through all five stages of grief and have come to accept the fact that the last two books in the series will likely never be written, with the HBO's crappy last two seasons will remain the one-and-only allowed fan-fiction. I am at peace now.

So I have to be honest with you: I did not read your essay past the first three paragraphs. The framing of your essay is I-will-put-on-full-armor-and-destroy-this-strawman, and it turned me off so badly from what you have to say about one of my favorite fantasy series that I don't want to read the rest--even as I recognize by skimming the headlines that you may have something interesting to say about ASoIaF.

And maybe that's just me, and other people here will find the strawman a delightful hook. However, if you do get similar complaints, please consider reposting a revised version of your essay, where instead of this-nobody-thinks-X-but-I-think-Y framing it's just Y. I will gladly read and engage with that essay then.

This is not a strawman. I'm quotting from an actual article that someone wrote on substack that I linked to it.

That's why people came up with the concept of "weakman". It may not be literally a strawman to treat an extreme minority opinion on the Internet as if a substantial number of people believed it, but it may as well be.

There needs to be a name for when people pretend that nobody believes something that people absolutely believe.

Nobody is doing that. This post is a response to one person's opinion, not a claim that most people share said opinion.

It's not an extreme minority opinion. I see people on the right bashing on GRRM all the time. This guy's post got hundreds of likes. It's a real opinion. You can see many examples of it upthread

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