TheLeviathan
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Everything posted by TheLeviathan
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I agree, though I think there can be more or less merit in some positions people take on their favorite books. A lot of us become fan-boys/girls of something and lose perspective on this. And it is especially prone to happening when something we enjoyed as a book becomes a film/tv show. Not saying you or mike are doing that, but sometimes we pick and choose what we WANT to see in a character rather than what is there. In any case, what made me bristle was a notion that mike looks like he edited in his post. Never once did Brock or I suggest all the guys are paragons of virtue. But almost all of them have some strong, positive capacity to themselves that the female characters lack. Jon Snow has flaws, but he's also radically changing the circumstances at the Wall for the better. Ned might have been naive, but he was naive because he wanted to believe in the best. Jamie is genuinely trying to become a better person. Tyrion is usually a character of high moral standards and highly intelligent. Most of the female characters - central and tertiary - are pretty hollow caricatures IMO. Driven almost exclusively by emotions they can't control. But I hold hope for Arya and Dani.
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On what do you base this? -
Mike, I'm sorry, but you're having a rash of difficulties reading posts lately it seems. I specifically said that there are plenty of bad dudes, but that's missing the point. The point is that all the female characters are morons that need men to advance their cause. You just basically admitted that he's writing women as if it's 14th century France. That's fine and it is part of the context of his writing, but you can't say that and say his female characters are anything more than a 14th century woman - obedient to a fault, meek, timid, and largely irrelevant to the power making decisions. That's what they are - there to be props for the men that ultimately matter.
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Let me add to that real quick: Dany - Martin's female character that SHOULD be his redemption and an opportunity for a profoundly awesome lead fantasy female character - is currently stuck in a mess of politics and strife of her own creation. And what is she waiting for exactly? That's right - the council of men much smarter than her to tell her what to do so she quits messing **** up all the time. The best chance for a strong female is waiting for a smart-ass dwarf male to come along and clean up her mess for her.
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If Sansa is just a loser through and through, that's fine with me. But in the wake of some stupid choices by the show (mostly in execution rather than in theory), the book zealots have been lording over how the show has torn down the great Sansa Stark. She really is the worst character and a horribly misogynistic take on a teenage girl. If we can all agree to that rational conclusion it really isn't an issue with the show, but the source material. I agree there are a lot of scummy men, but most of the guys you listed are side characters. Ned didn't die by being bad at politics, he died because he had a profound belief in honor to the point of naivete. He understood politics, he just refused to dive down in the muck. The problem isn't that all his men are good and all his women are dumb, it's that the vast majority of his women are emotional basket cases that need the men to tell them what to do.
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Perhaps, I have some difficulty with "savage giant" being a little finger reference. I dont have an alternative better though either.
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I won't argue with that at all and I don't think you're arguing the characterizations are strong, but there is that interpretation out there in ASOIAF fandom. The show is starting to reach those same troublesome parts with Dany, but what will ultimately matter most for both the show and the book is how she comes out of it. That remains to be seen, so I'm willing to wait and see (and hope) with her. Sansa? Terrible. I think what many readers struggle with is that when the show lays bare the novel, it's hard for them to swallow. (Not saying that's you) They want so badly to believe Sansa is on the road to redemption and away from victimhood and blame the show for portraying her that way, but the truth is that she is every bit (if not moreso) the hapless, gullible, stupid, selfish, emotionally driven caricature of a woman that the show has made her to be. She is so obsessed with love and needing a husband that she has literally gotten half her family killed and caused thousands of deaths. Worse yet - it took a sneaky, manipulative man to pull her out of those awful choices and is currently manipulating her (again) towards his own ends. MAYBE Martin has Sansa turn the tables on Littlefinger, but that would still be so, so far out of character for her that I don't see how that's possible.
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I tend to believe that you can work with a kid and improve their hands and fielding at third much like we did with Plouffe. I think good OF defense is much harder to teach. But that's just my opinion.
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Span fetched a very highly rated prospect who was a distance from the minors, but still got a very good return. A similar value, but closer to major league ready doesn't seem as unlikely as you think given that. Also, I really, really dislike the assumption that he can just be a decent RF. The strange thing is it often seems to come from the very same people, like me, that bemoan the bad outfield defense on this team. It's fine if you want to just ride out two more years of Plouffe. My point is that if you can turn two years of Plouffe into a spot for Sano and 6 years of some other impact talent....isn't that far better for the team overall? If you can't find a trade to accomplish that, fine, keep him. But, again, I'd be looking for that sort of deal.
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Not off hand, but players like Plouffe aren't typical either. (28 years old, two years of team control, good player who came back from the dead essentially) Part of this is I firmly believe that you don't "hide" people in the outfield. The Twins, for too long, have been playing garbage in the OF and passing it off as acceptable. Sano having a strong arm out there is meaningless to me - he shouldn't be playing outfield unless he's actually good at that. I've said before I probably play Sano at DH to start and let him work at his defense. But let's be real here - are going to want to extend Plouffe past his two years of control? He'll be 30 and looking for a serious pay day. If the answer to that is "no" (and it probably should be, age curves and all) then isn't now or very soon the right time to deal him? Again, I'd prefer (barring the type of trade I'm talking) to keep Plouffe and DH Sano. But I wouldn't rule out a trade either.
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You seriously think there is some sort of unbreakable logjam of starters that an elite AAA talent wouldn't be able to break through? I could not disagree more with that assessment. And yes, adding talent that is about to align with our current group is an excellent idea if the talent is good enough. I thought we were going to speculate fairly but that isn't what's happening if you're going to portray my proposals as "just a prospect". That clearly was not what I suggested. I suggested elite talents that could be promoted before the end of this year. If you can add a talent like that at a position that isn't logjammed? I call that good team building. Not shuffling guys around out of position out of fear of losing a 28 year old with 2 years of team control. But I don't just toss Plouffe aside either. He's a good player. But perhaps the team can get better by trading him.
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Mike, I specifically said they didn't have to be flawless. Just not dumb, gullible, or over-emotional. Gunnathor covered the ones I'd grant - there are some minor characters who fit that too of course, but of the main cast? Brock is right, the vast majority of the men are controlling what happens while the women dutifully follow along. Even Cersei's schemes have largely only worked because Tywin bailed her out.
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I meant book. I like Arya and I agree that many features of her character are strong and competent and I'm hoping to see that continue to develop. I'd grant that one for sure. Brienne hasn't been particularly competent (she's basically Ned without the influence required for someone to want to see her dead) Cersei is good, but a bit hollow, but I'd grant her too. Where we disagree is Dani. As of Storm of Swords? Hell yeah. One of the best female fantasy characters ever. The last two books took a huge toll on that. Could they be trials and tribulations that make her stronger? Yes, I wouldn't rule that out, but where we stand today it isn't pretty. And Sansa? How could she not get better? Her selfish stupidity had nothing to do with not knowing politics. She was really just a foil to make things roll the way he wanted the narrative to go. Which is fine, I just bristle when anyone tells me she's any better in the books. I hold hope that Arya and Dani redeem the women of this series, I really do. But my confidence in Martin is waning.
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Are you though? Because the way these things normally play out I could throw out the most brilliant suggestion ever and more often than not it gets dismissed because of perceptions on how realistic it is. We don't know what is out there and what is available, so as long as we're going to play the game of speculation fairly, I'm game. Hopefully you are too. Trades like this happen, though typically in the offseason. What we're talking about is a surplus for a surplus deal. So we need to find a team with garbage at third but a near ready or ready player that is likely either a C, SS, or SP. Here's a sample: The Astros have a bad 3B. They also have a kid (who they just called up) by the name of Lance McCullers. Is that too much for Plouffe? Maybe, but I'm also not sure I want to give up Plouffe for much less than that and the value seems pretty good to me. Maybe Susac and more from SFG. Maybe Syndergaard or Palewki from NYM. There may be options out there that are strength for strength and shouldn't be so easily dismissed as possibilities. They allow us to call up a good player at 3B and fill another hole at the same time rather than trying to play someone out of position. It can and should be explored.
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How about swapping him for quality elsewhere. I don't think anyone is suggesting he be given away for a handful of magic beans. I'd DH Sano when he comes up.
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Sansa hasn't even been competent enough to be the damsel. She has directly led to many of the most devastating consequences to her family in the entire series. She was selfish and you can blame her youth if you want....but by all means point to the competent female lead in the series for me. (Not flawless, but just one woman who isn't obnoxious or stupid) Open question for you too mike.
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I hope so. But it's also hard to see how there is any story at all if Sansa isn't the archetype for "Stupid girl too busy being ruled by emotions" and the host of ridiculous mistakes she made throughout. Cat fits the same. I want to believe that it ends with that theme but it's hard to overlook just how bad the portrayls of some women have been to this point. (Book and show)
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Yes they are, that's true. But hundreds of pages that don't advance the narrative are not. AFFC was basically a bunch of lame POVs that Martin manipulated because he wanted to world build in a few new corners of his world and the rest of the story suffered. He admitted in his own intro that things got out of control. The guy lost focus and it became pretty obvious.
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You should, it'd be fun to assign how many pages about them you had to read. Let's start with Arys Oakheart and then Areo Hotah - we can all agree those were catastrophic wastes of time right? I'm sure we can work our way up to Cat Stark.
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The depth and nuance of his books are absolutely amazing. It's a shame, though, that I feel like the books devolve into a bunch of red herrings. Every time you feel like you're marching closer to the conclusion, you take 8 or 9 steps backwards. At some point, even if it's a lurch, we need to lurch forward towards the ending. The books, to me, missed a central idea with all storytelling at some point: We call it a climax in a movie/book for a reason - the best ones build to the payoff. In his third book Martin was building to an awesome climax. And then we stalled. Maybe even slid backward. The TV show can't do that and they are smartly avoiding that trap. The books forgot about that central narrative and it has harmed the product. Those out there defending the books are doing so on the hope that all the narrative has been purposefully building to a core story, but I really don't think it is. Martin lost his original vision in a sea of his own imagination. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that if he concludes the novels at some point it would take the heights of stubbornness to say the show didn't tell this story better. Even if it missed a few skips off the path here and there. (As interesting and rich as those skips can be at times)
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Agreed, let's look at guys that might actually be long-term assets and not short-term patches. Blocking Vargas or anyone else for a legitimately good player is fine with me. Howard is not that.
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Gibson + Change-up + Confidence = Ace?
TheLeviathan replied to jimbo92107's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
Of course it doesn't hurt to have great players, but that wasn't the point. Dave, correctly, said it's more valuable to have a depth of good #2/#3 pitchers than a top heavy rotation of one ace and a bunch of meh. The poster I replied to suggested Bumgarner proves that wrong and then you managed to find 3 examples in 15 years. (A whopping 20% of the time an ace, arguably, made THE difference) Look, it's always nice to have dominant players but the "you need an ace to win the title" is a meme that is ridiculous and demonstrably false. What you need is good pitching in the playoffs, but that frequently does not come from aces but instead from guys exactly like Kyle Gibson. -
Something we should all commend them for. That storyline is needlessly dumb.
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Because this should be shared: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games
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I agree about the handling of the Sansa scene. (The subsequent producer explanation only made it worse) They seemed to be building her in a different direction only to swerve back to the same problem. But to be fair - Martin is to blame for that. His Sansa is every bit the incompetent victim the show's is. That's a source material problem. And much of the misogyny is also source material related, right down to the character that was supposed to be a central protagonist being turned into a hapless ruler who can't keep her stuff together. (Dany is by far the books' biggest let-down as time goes on) But yeah, you have a point with the coincidental run-ins, but to the show's credit they have also cleaned up the Cersei/Tyrell storyline in a much more sensible way than the books. They've also kept Stannis and his agenda in the north much more focused.
