Today after I finished watching the season 3 episode 7 of Game of Thrones, I was thinking, it is the third season and still the story doesn’t have seemed to moved ahead much considering what can happen in three seasons in other TV series. I know this series is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of high fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin. I haven’t read those and would rather prefer to enjoy the TV series this one time. But this is the background noise. What I wanted to talk about is that it struck me that the story plots that I have come across in recent years, Lord Of the Rings, Harry Potter universe, or even the Christopher Paolini’s Dragon riders universe; all of them are very elaborate in nature of the plot and deeply and minutely painted. These stories present the situations from different character perspectives and that’s what makes them more accepting.
I always had a notion of stories being biased from the perspective of the one character, what that character thinks or how it reacts as the plots of the story progresses. But the stories that I recently have come across as mentioned above, though do have their fair bit of biasness (my heart goes out for the Stark family still and then that Targaryen widow queen from the east), does more justice and brings a balance to the story as a whole and lets the readers decide on their own perspectives. Now that’s choice. And freedom of choice is what I like. Mmmm..
What are your thoughts?
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Hi Ankush,
What you said is absolutely right. Story lines are becoming more intricate these days, which I personally think is something great. By intricate i mean characters. Lord of the rings was intricate but if you think about it, the characters were uni-dimensional. Game of thrones, a series like breaking bad, even harry potter to a small extent, explores other sides. Characters as shades of grey instead of black and white. In Game of thrones, even the seemingly black and white characters are actually not black and white, but dark grey or light grey.
I think not only is it better to read, but better to educate. Many people know only black and white. Even the assholes believe in black and white (they are just hypocrites). I think books have an ability to educate the reader about different perspectives, how it is to look at life from someone else’s eyes. And i think the world will be better for it if these books can educate people about what people are really like, and maybe what they are really like
I am currently reading “The Monk who Sold HIs Ferrari” In the book, it says, books donot teach us anything new, they just bring out the fact and wisdom we already know. They enlighten us and force us to put on our thinking hats about the ways of the world and our own.