[Mentalist]

First off, i just finished reading David Durham's "Acacia". It was a great book, that i would recommend to all who enjoy Erikson and/or GRRM, and other epic fantasy. Despite the title of the thread, I have nop intention of saying that Durham plagiarised GRRM in any way: The world he created is original, although imho the darkest that I've ever read, but still rather immense and diverse. Despite my original annoyance that the cover flap synopsis gave aay too much, the book really picked up, delivering a very nice ending. Once again, my heariest recommendation for any epic fantasy fan!!!

IF YOU HAVENT YET READ THE BOOK, STOP HERE!!!
WHAT FOLLOWS IS A BIT OF A RANT WITH SOME SPOILERS!!!!!!!









The reason for the title of the thread are the stunning similarities that I couldn't help but notice beteen some of the characters in "Acacia" and in GRRM's A Song og Ice and Fire. specifically, I am talking about the Akaran kids and the Starks. Now, I can plainly see that he situatons they found themselves in ere quite different, and maybe I'm just spoiled so I compare everything to either MBotF or ASoIaF, or maybe I've spent tooo much time on the ASoIaF Facebook group, but when reading I couldn't shake the feeling that the story arks of the Arakan kids and the Starks had some eery similarities, and in some cases I found myself thinking "This is what Sansa will be like in the future!!!" when reading abour Corinn, or, "Wow, that is so like Robb" when reading about Aliver. Of course, not every major character was like that--I really enjoyed Hanish Mein and strongly simpathized with him, despite his portrayal as a "villain", but for the royal family, I just couldn't help the comparison...
This in turn makes me think--perhaps what we see in the genre today, as more and more epic fantasy is produced that attemps to be as "real" as possible and really bends the definitions of "good" and "evil", is the emergence of a new type of hero archetypes--repeating trends in character progression that take them don the same basic path, bringing them to their calling as tragic idealist, ruthless intriguer, etc... (as i started to consciously analyze my comparison, I someho also dre some parallels with the bunch of heroes from the "Fionovar Tapestry" By G. G. Kay... which just strengthens my view of the "archetype" idea)

[Mort]

Try reading Jung and his sub-conscious archetypes.

Alternatively, in Danse Macabre Steven King discusses the idea of archetypes very well.
Plus the book itself is a great way of understanding the way in which he approaches horror.

[Mentalist]

I've read Campbell, (hence the smart word "archetype", lol)...

but in htis case, i think it's more speific than that...

[kcf]

I had some very similar thoughts when I first read Acacia - and I said as much in my review. Since then I've followed Durham's blog and even interviewed him a couple of times - he says he didn't read ASOIF until after he had written Acacia. I see no reason to not believe that - the similarities really are mostly superficial and I could easily see independent development of the ideas.

Quote

This in turn makes me think--perhaps what we see in the genre today, as more and more epic fantasy is produced that attemps to be as "real" as possible and really bends the definitions of "good" and "evil", is the emergence of a new type of hero archetypes--repeating trends in character progression that take them don the same basic path, bringing them to their calling as tragic idealist, ruthless intriguer, etc... (as i started to consciously analyze my comparison, I someho also dre some parallels with the bunch of heroes from the "Fionovar Tapestry" By G. G. Kay... which just strengthens my view of the "archetype" idea)

I think you're on to something here.

[Myshkin]

I didn't like this book much at all. I had major problems with the pacing, the plot, the character development, and the world building. And I agree that the inside flap gave away WAY too much and ruined the first third of the story.

But to stick to the topic at hand: the royal family were almost carbon copies of the Stark kids. In fact I can't even remember their names, I just think of them as Bran, Arya, Sansa, and Robb. I don't want to call Mr. Durham a liar, but I just don't see how he could have created these characters without first reading ASoIaF.

[Mentalist]

Well, I see no point accusing him, because I did love the world he built, albeit it was not as complex as Wu... and the ultra-pessimistic atmosphere was also... innovative, not to say refreshing.

As for the character similarities, I'm a ctually pretty sure that what we're seeing is a new trend in character writing. Like I said, I looked back to Fionovar tapestry, and I remembered one of those kids (forget her name, the one who becomes Guiniviere), being captured by enemies, and then I see Sansa, and now Corinn... apparently Tad Williams' new novels "Shadowmarch" and "Shadowplay" are also centered around 2 noble kids who lose their father (of course, from the synopsis those books provide i want to just SCREAM GRRM), and right now I'm reading "the Keys of power" by Simon Brown--and once again I have 4 royal kids, mother dies, The Oldest is noble and dies, the sister is ruthless and calculating,etc... And, I mean the circumstances are totally different (the sibling actually go to war with each other), but the motif is there..and I refuse to beleve that all theses authors just take the Starks and remodel them...It's just the way everyone seems to write...
I'll even go as far as to say that if we look at Parans, we see some similarities....

[Dag]

I agree with kud13. It seems to be the current trend in fantasy.

For example, when I started reading Greg Keyes' "Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone" I also thought that his royal family looked slightly like Starks. His Anne was very similar to Arya, and her mother reminded me of Cat... but I don't think that he was in any way trying to copy GRRM. Even if there was a bit of that "inspired-by"-element in there, I don't really mind it. I liked the books, and I appreciated the fact that his characters had enough flesh on their bones to make them threedimensional and rather convincing.

The same way, I wouldn't be surprised if the future would bring more books in which the main characters (who traditionally used to be sacred and simply had to survive until the end) are getting killed en masse for the sake of thrill (and our oh-so-tender tear glands). GRRM certainly didn't invent it, although he took this plot-device to the extreme. Still, I find it unfair when people claim that eg. Erikson was now simply trying to follow in his footsteps: the path was already there, and if different authors take it, each in their own way, that's fine with me.

[polishgenius]

When I read aSoIaF I was struck with how similar the Starks were to the ConDoins in Magician, so it's not exactly new, and GRRM's not the first. Granted, GRRM was the first major writer to treat them so meanly, but killing characters is not an innovation.

[Shurque's biatch]

I am just starting this. It is not as gritty (so far) nor as gripping, but it is still interesting enough to continue.

It makes me appreciate stellar dialogue from SE and GRRM.