GRM is overrated~
Back in the days he was famous for killing major, major characters. "No one is safe enough in his books" they said. But other than that: nada.
The incest thing and sex? Smokescreen. It drove the fans mad but nothing more. The apocalypse "Winter is Coming"? Yeah, it's been coming for books. Unlike John Ringo who's always jumping straight into apocalypse in the middle of 1st book, GRM always hem and haw and delay the thing~ Grand battles with tactics and spears and bows and shits? Excuse me what battle?
This TV shows is like best thing ever happen to GRM as a writer (I dont mean money), because book 5 is about exhausting his strength. I, and many other readers, simply not that much pressing him into finish the drafts and published because we can clearly see he's overstretched.
As we like to say around here "GRM is a mistake". He's worse than Rowling: at least we know Rowling limit the world in Hogwarts and London, or at most England. GRM gave us a world and plentitude to expect then refuse to advance far in that.
Great job listing non-flaws.
Here's a list of actual flaws:
- He completely wrote himself into a corner re: Mereen. Has no clue whatsoever how to get the blonde bitch and Tryion out of there in a satisfying way.
- Daenarys's actions don't make sense. She does things because she does things. For example, why did she free the slaves? Why does she hate slavery? Because she's a protag, and that's all there is to it. Missed opportunity to give her character some sorely needed depth -- this lack of depth is why she's stuck in Mereen; she needs a good reason and method for leaving, but she's just a bundle of getting stuff handed to her on a silver platter. George is a good writer and knows this, which is why he's frustrated. His writing style is like Stephen King's: he just puts pen to paper and goes without much or any forethought. It's bitten him in the ass here.
- We all know Jon is coming back to life. We all knew it before the show brought him back. We all know Daenarys is going to come to Westeros and that she will team up with Jon. We all knew it before it the show gave us boat sex. The twists and turns have run their course, and now we see the main structure. Suddenly, the convoluted plot that seemed so fun to navigate previously is a painfully obvious collection of red herrings. Again, George knows this because he is a good writer, and it frustrates him. He's looking for a way to give other character stories worth telling without turning the series into more of a soap opera than it already is.
- Good people are too far and few between. People are self-interested, backstabbing sons of bitches. People are also kind and loving. He's gotten to the kind and loving part on a personal level with characters like Jaime, but the complete political ineptitude of genuinely decent humans is maddening. Just because a person is kind or honorable doesn't have to make him naive. Without George Washington and the other American generals won the Revolutionary War without relying on resurrection or other miraculous asspulls. Occasional good luck is fine, but winning via asspulls significantly cheapens the hero's journey. (And this doesn't mean the hero has to win by being the most competent guy around... but maybe not having every step forward depend upon Fortune isn't a good thing).
- Similarly, as it stands, virtually everybody successful is a conniving villain. When everybody is a conniving villain, the impact of villainous behavior gets lost in the shuffle. When you suspect that everybody is a piece of shit, learning that the person is a piece of shit becomes less satisfying. It's the inverse problem of a story filled with perfect heroes and bad guys dressed in black -- when all the heroes are nauseatingly white knights, their achievements as white knights feel like a force-fed trope rather than story.
ASOIAF remains one of my favorite series of all time.