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Yeah GRRM thinks too much of his characters, he wrote a match between Jaime Lannister and Rand Al'thor, and Jaime won. Absolutely ridiculous a guy who can wield magic that can burn people out of time vs a guy with a sword.

Also a guy who reality shapes itself around and therefore doesn't really lose.
- Also he has the memories of hundreds of years of training in the sword.
The Wheel weaves as the Wheel willls
For real, even without channeling Rand was a basically peerless swordsman.
- Don't bother of them lose their dominant hands?
Rand broke and reformed existence itself. I don't think he'd be threatened by a little sister fucker.

So one Question I'm always asked. Who would win in a fight? Who would win in a fight if Galactus fought The Hulk, or if Thor fought Iron Man? And there's one answer to all of that. It's so simple, anyone should know this. The person who'd win in a fight is the person that the scriptwriter wants to win!

-Stan Lee

I think GRRM would declare Ser Pounce the winner in a match against Kratos.

I freaking love ASOIAF, but this guy talks way too much crap sometimes.

I haven't read the books, but it seems like a theme is that everyone is extremely "human". Like no one in the series could miraculously survive a fall of a cliff. That's why I like the show, but I think it would pretty immediately discount anyone from being able to win a fight against a pseudo-superhuman who was able to, almost literally, walk off the damage from falling off a cliff
- Or if you do, say, survive a fall from a tower window you don't survive, get magic powers, and become king in the end.
  Oh, wait.
- everyone is extremely "human". Like no one in the series could miraculously survive...
  Some Targaryens are fireproof (e.g., Dany), some people can't seem to be able to get the hang of staying dead no matter how much they're literally killed (e.g. Beric Dondarrion, Lady Stoneheart, wights, if you consider them people, Ser Robert Strong)... plenty of the supernatural going on in those books.

What I always found weird about this, is that even in universe Martin makes a point that Jamie wasn't as good as he thought he was. He ends up being humbled.

Right? Jamie is not nearly the best fighter in his own story. How can he possibly beat magical creatures?
- Seriously, give me Ser Arthur Dayne wielding Dawn and then we'll talk. (Aragorn would probably still win, but at least he'd have a bit of a challenge...)
- Head canon.

fights off 5 ringwraiths while protecting a gang of hobbits
kills like a hundred magically engineered supersoldiers so hobbits can cross a river
kills an unreasonable number more at Helm's Deep
beats up an actual ghost
just one of those supersoldiers could easily kill like 10 regular humans, but here he is again just mowing them down
charges the entirety of mordor on foot: survives

But yeah, I'm sure the regular human of above average skill will be fine.

Real bookheads know that Arthur Dayne could maybe take Aragorn but Jamie is a chump.
- Yeah, when your sister keeps your cojones in her purse, you start off the cage match at a big disadvantage. He hates himself and believes in nothing.

Some guy with one hand who fucks his own sister.

Now, Aragorn vs Dassem Ultor could be an interesting fight.

JRR-logic: "Well the reader probably likes Aragorn more, so yeah, he gonna die."

https://youtu.be/1-so7GT02ko?si=71VxlrEYYVr9aiQ1

In Deep Geek covered this, and I'll take Roberts opinion on it over GRR Martins.

Gg, Im the perfect amount of drunk to actually very literally lol at this. Am I embraced by this. Perhaps.

But do I imagine Aragorn wondering where that -0hp damage is coming from? Perhaps.

He also wrote a short story in which 1 armed Jaimie bested Rand al Thor. You can't take him seriously

...
Rand would no diff him even if he was still locked in the depression box
- "You're talking mad shit for someone standing in baelfire range"
Haha! What a dummy. Rand Al'thor, the champion of the Battle of Dumai's Wells, The Dragon Reborn, the man who broke the world, was bested by a sister fucker with one hand? Okay then!
Hadn't read this before, link for anyone else interested: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2010/04/10/trial-of-seven/
Jaimie besting Rand doesn't really make sense there tbh, even with the conceit of taking away Saidin
- Yeah take away Saidin and Rand is still a master swordsman. He was shielded and killed was able to kill 2 warders, one of them unarmed and the other with the first one's weapon.
  I think GRRM did admit he was taking the piss a bit with that one to be fair to him

It is a stupid question to begin with, and it was classy from George to give a straightforward answer, and maybe it would have been more classy to say that Aragorn would have won.

But I don’t understand this antipathy towards George, he wrote some great groundbreaking fantasy novels just as Tolkien, and I’m happy I was able to enjoy both.

He wrote an unfinished soap opera in book form.
- unfinished soap opera
  Soap operas are designed to not finish. It was doomed from the start.
I tried to read A Game Of Thrones and it was so boring. It didn't stay with one character long enough for me to get invested in their story. Too many characters, and not enough writing skill to pull that number off.
I think George should have written a few simpler novels to practice good writing before he went and did a big project like this.
- I think George should have written a few simpler novels to practice good writing before he went and did a big project like this.
  Guy's been writing professionally since 1970; his first full length novel was punished in 1976; he had been awarded two Hugo awards, six Locus awards, two Nebula awards, a Bram Stoker award, a World Fantasy award, and a couple Emmys before he even published A Game of Thrones.
  Him having no experience writing shorter works is extremely evidently not the problem.
  Him not having written something on the scale of A Song of Ice and Fire before, and writing himself into a gordian knot of plotlines and characters his aged brain might not be able to untangle, on the other hand, might.
  Or he simply lost interest and would rather write about gridiron in his not a blog. 🤷‍♂️
- I read the first book back in the 00s. This was just before everyone was making these epic, high production TV series. Even so, my first thought was, this would do well as an HBO/Showtime/cable series. My second thought was, I'm not going to bother reading any of the other books. Too many characters that I not only didn't like, but could keep track of. Having a different chapter for each character, and jumping back and forth, not for me.
Martin is a troll, so he gets treated like a troll. It's as simple as that.

Yeah, this is where any semblance of respect for GRRM died for me.

The show fucking sucked and his books aren't even close to finished after decades so why bother even engaging with him at all? And he still has the audacity to try to repeatedly dunk on Tolkien the GOAT when he can't even finish one story? FINISH YOUR FUCKING BOOKS, GEORGE, AND FINISH THEM WELL. Then we'll see if you can talk a little shit. But we all know he won't.

King Slayer vs a King

Who's Jaime?

The blonde dude lanaster who gets the metal hand.
- ? ? ?

Okay but Arwen was kind of stepsister to Aragorn too

No, not at all. Neither of them shared a parent. They're technically cousins, but the amount of generations between Arwen's uncle and Aragorn make the familial link not matter at all
- It kind of does, though... From Aragorn's perspective, at least
- Stepsister, Aragorn was raised in Rivendel and Elrond was closest to a father figure
they met when Aragorn was 20 years old and Arwen was over 2700...
- Doesn't change the fact they had the same (step)father, and Aragorn respected Elrond immensely. Also, pardon the Freudianism, but it's kinda weird how the idealized finale to Béren and Luthien's tale of love featured quasi-incest in Tolkien's mind.
Not a stepsister but Arwen was a much, much older ~~cousin~~ aunt.
They're not even the same species, of course they're not siblings.