So Veeky Forums...

There's also the Church of Starry Wisdom, started by that evil sorcerer emperor who worshipped a black stone which fell from the sky

Or the fish people, the random unexplainable black structures* scattered around the world, or the fucked up maze city that was made for no apparent reason.
That sunken civilization with only 1% of it being above the sea, with its green skinned natives filing their teeth and afraid of "fish gods" taking them from their homes.

*Black frog statue with deformed aquatic people surrounding it.
*Abandoned city of Yeen, so evil that the jungle even won't grow over it.
*Five forts in the east, a direct parallel to the Wall in an Asian mirror of Westeros

Asshai and the Shadowlands are also pretty fucked up.

Yeah, Martin's world is hilariously bleak.

incidental similarities do not a setting equate.
>no aliens
>no viscera
>shock and gore are central to the horror in the story
>four main intellectuals: Tyrion, Sam, Bran, Qyburn. Qyburn is the only example of a Lovecraftian character
>the writing is not by any stretch of the imagination antiquarian, 'ser' and 'maester' are stylistic

It's not cosmic horror so much as it is Sword and Sorcery. The world building is like 60% Conan.

It's technically not the actual map. Martin commissioned it looks like pic related in their world.

They had no satellites. The "cold deserts" in the east might just be their version of the North. Essos is a stretched out Asia.

keep pointing to examples that have literally nothing to do with the storyline. it really helps prove your point

>*Abandoned city of Yeen, so evil that the jungle even won't grow over it.
Also, any attempt to settle in Yeen results in all of the people either spontaneously disappearing or winding up dead in some horrible manner. The entire place is also made up of "oily black stone", which is practically a Lovecraft/Eldritch staple.

Fuck off. It's still a part of the setting, you utter cock-munching mong. It's free for people to point to as a proper example of how bleak this setting is however they so wish. It doesn't need to be a part of "MUHMAINQUESTREEEEEEEE" to count.

The OP literally says "the setting", not "the story".

That said, it's still wrong.

>ASOIAF is more or less a cosmic horror story
>It doesn't need to be a part of "MUHMAINQUESTREEEEEEEE" to count.

so which one is it, you retarded faggot?

Martin literally snagged names and places from Lovecraft's work and pasted them onto his own world book.

Fucking fags.

ASOIAF is garbage. Who the fuck wants to read a story where they know going into it that whoever they're rooting for is probably going to wind up dead or raped or both?

right, so because GRRM copypasta'd, that means the setting is cosmic horror and not lazy shart filler to make the actual setting seem more dark and mysterious than it actually is

And Lovecraft stole shit from Howard and vice versa. Pulp fantasy is bereft of originality.

>The setting of ASOIAF
"Setting" was the specific term used, you utterly illiterate retard. Not the "main story" which you are sperging over, but the setting in and of itself. Truly, you are a most uniquely autistic individual on a board fill of autistic individuals.

Lovecraft "stole" things from numerous other authors before him, so your point is beyond moot, friend.

BECAUSE IT'S REALISTIC

>the setting is a story
write better, plebbit

>it makes reference to a genre so it's part of that genre
Dan Simmons' Ilium is an Elizabethan stage-play now?

I forgot how much Veeky Forums hates quality fiction

Nobody here uses Leddit, but you, 'friend'. But please, do try to prove that you aren't just sperging out and throwing a childish temper-tantrum over nothing.

This Is the same group of people who have even come to hate Terry Pratchett and Discworld as time went on. Are you REALLY surprised?

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GRRM said that he made these exotic lands to give the mysterious feeling that medieval europeans had.

The Drowned God does look like some lovecraftian thing. Especially from that book, the Shadow over Innsmouth

I believe the church of starry wisdom mutated into the faith of the 7. and some other things, like the Andals are full of shit theory, seriously their back-story makes no sense unless you never looked at a map of Essos and never learn anything about the Valerian freehold
I'll give a quick rundown
>Maestars believe Andals came from even further east but migrated, from around a lake that's around the Dothraki sea.
>they came to the axe, a north Essos peninsula
>They conquered their way to what is now the Bravosi coast
>They say their gods where among them at this time, and built great settlements
>The Valerians build Volantis on the other side of of Essos, which is thousands of miles away from any lands they held, while the Rhoynar still existed, sending them back to the axe
>They are in the axe, in north Essos and go "North and West" from there
>The Rhoynar are weak now
>They attack a free city
>The Valerians attack them for that
>Rather than attempt to spread their religion to the now non conquering empire that allows freedom of religion to conquered peoples and is proud of it, they build ships and go to Westeros, a land they dont know about with potentially hostile natives, and eradicate any trace of their religion from Andalos
>they conquer the vale so utterly that to the current timeline the vale houses are known for having the most pure Andal blood of Westeros
>not a single pure vale house resembles what they say the Andals where"Tall and Blonde"
>the only blondes have some first men ancestry in them
>The High Septon ruled as reagent to the first Faith of the Seven borne Hightower for 20 years
>No mention of what happened to the boys family
>But that was around the time the Manderlys came to the north
>and the creepy monument of skulls that Cerise notices the sparrows build around a giant statue that goes up about 5 stories
>The warriors sons symbol is a crystal sword, the only other crystal swords are held by White walkers

Eh, even if he was replicating the "mysterious nature of medieval Europe" (which I'd say he's honestly succeeded at), there's FAR too many mentions of "oily black stone", or "cities older than time", or "nebulous dark forces lurking in the oldest reaches of the world" for it all to just be one big coincidence.

Trying to connect and add up history in Planetos is impossible, user. To do so puts you on par with the idiots over at the ASoIaF forums.

There are people over there that *seriously* think Westeros is a post apocalyptic north America.

It's all bordering on fanfiction - which is what Martin fucking despises.

Keep things vague for the best.

>There are people over there that *seriously* think Westeros is a post apocalyptic north America.
What? How? It's quite clearly inspired by Medieval Europe and the mystical tales that shaped it's culture at the time. How could they jump to such a fucking stupid conclusion?

>Who the fuck wants to read a story where they know going into it that whoever they're rooting for is probably going to wind up dead or raped or both?

Because I like to watch people suffer.

probably in a similar fashion to how OP jumped to his conclusion

I just don't know. I wanted to believe it was ye old forum troll, but the guy literally wrote pages on it.

I couldn't survive more than a week in that hell hole.

Books don't come out fast enough. People go insane from the wait. The official forums are more suited for theory crafting than proper discussion.

That conclusion actually has some basis in the setting itself however. That though? That's just evident retardation in all forms.

Considering it's the shape lace that's o fucking strong up on "REALISMREEEE" in the series that it's users regularly try to disprove all of the obvious magic and spellcraft going on in the series? Yeah, it's pretty obviously a place of the deranged.

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>What The Actual Fuck Am I Reading
He DOES realize that even if we go by his "nanomachines" theory, it doesn't work well at all with what we know about the Others, Ghost Grass, places like Yeen or Stygai, the construction of The Wall, The Five Forts or other Hinges of the World, and basically any of the truly notable magical phenomena of the setting, Right?

The guy is clearly beyond reason. Just look at that post count.

is it though?
>ravens
>wolves
>first men
>children of the forest
>rare obsidian
>north vs south
holy fucking shit, it IS post apocalyptic N America, but the key vital piece they've missed is the cosmic horror underpinning!!1 truly, you should go elucidate them with your preponderance of evidence and come up with the grand theory of ASOIAF weeaboo fightan faggotry

Are you having a stroke, friend. 'Cause it seems to me like you're having a stroke.

What kind of autism are you smoking.

>So Veeky Forums, have you realized yet that the setting of ASOIAF is more or less a cosmic horror story with some of the lettering filed off?

Yeah, lots of fantasy and sci-fi writers add Lovecraft stuff to their settings in a homage to the way Howard and his circle of friends originally did it.

You'd know this if you read some actual quality books.

>You'd know this if you read some actual quality books.
Like Black Library, Am I right?

>people don't like Martin's trash so they must be Warhammer kiddies
Right.

That's really the only other possible option for anyone on this board. Nobody on here truly enjoys things for what they are anymore, what with the fact that you Retards killed everything relating to actual worldbuilding or storytelling just so you could have more room for Warhammer/Fetish shit. In truth, you brought this on yourselves.

>everyone on this board is the same and has the same opinions

I hadn't even posted on this thread before but you seem like a huge dumbass, user.

I don't think that its appropriate to call it "cosmic horror" if its just a High/Low Magic fantasy setting. If dragons and Titans and stuff from western myths had been real I don't think we'd be saying earth was experiencing a cosmic horror. The Greek Pantheon were all gods who messed with humans all the time, but cosmic horror is implicitly more closely related to sci-fi.

It would need to be the case that horrors are coming from the cosmos, or caused by the cosmos, in order to be a sort of cosmic horror. There's no real indication of that as far as I can tell. It seems to be more the case that dangerous and mysterious things naturally exist on that world and that life for people on that world is naturally very difficult and dangerous.

I love worldbuilding and storytelling and dropped ASoIaF halfway through the last book.
It just became a slog to read, a book can have all the best backstory and setting, but if the story that it itself is telling is boring then it's shit.
I'm pretty much only here for the worldbuilding and setting threads.
The post you responded to was my first post in the thread by the way.

>everyone on this board is the same and has the same opinions
Considering how all of Veeky Forums has become as of late (never-ending shitflinging, blame-shifting, /pol/-bait, fetish crap of all forms and other inane stupidity), I'd say that Yes, that has certainly become truth. But I know that pull be unable to admit that, and that's ok with me.

Why the fuck are you here then if you hate the place so much?

>It's all bordering on fanfiction - which is what Martin fucking despises.

You know what I despise? Taking a fucking decade to write one book.

I don't "Hate" it. In fact, prior to all this cancerous bullshit, it was genuinely enjoyable. But then people like (You) and co came about, and basically every thread of worth tuened into "ORKDICKRAPEELVESMMMM" or "BIGDICKFUTAAMAZONIANGIRLS" or "REEEEEE/POL/SCREEEEEEE", and the like. I only really come here now because nce in a blue moon, nu/tg/ manages to produce a thread of the slightest quality. But either way, I digress, this thread isn't for discussion on why Veeky Forums is so fucking toxic now. That's what the Dungeons The Dragoning thread is for.

Not sure why you think I like any of that garbage anymore than you do, but you can just keep being bitter I suppose. Again, I'm pretty much solely here for the map making threads and /wbg/ and occasionally pop into threads that pique my interest a bit.
But no, you're right. Everyone who disagrees with you is a 40k who wants to turn Veeky Forums into /d/.
That's a very mature worldview you have there friend.

>But no, you're right. Everyone who disagrees with you is a 40k who wants to turn Veeky Forums into /d/.
>That's a very mature worldview you have there friend.
Never said any of that in my post (barring calling you a 40kid, but eh), but please do feel free to keep holding on to that wondrous delusion. Either way, I isn't care. Are you just here or shitpost, or are you going to post something of actual 'worth'?

>"people like (You)"
Maybe you meant that some way I can't construe, but whatever.
As for things of worth, that's hard considering the thread is dead.
I hope the next few books focus on more interesting characters, namely the Greyjoys and maybe the stuff going on in Oldtown(?) with the "oily black stone" everywhere. I think it would be neat if something came out of the left field and surprised us, what with all the magic shit getting more prevalent as time goes on.
But at the same time, the Others have been built up as the end boss for a while so I dunno where it's gonna go.
Hopefully something more interesting than AFfC and ADoD.

>But at the same time, the Others have been built up as the end boss for a while so I dunno where it's gonna go.
The Others are obviously the spawn of Ithaqua, who is the "Great Other" oft mentioned by the followers of the God Of Fire and Shadow. Either that, or the Great Other is Winter-based Azathoth.

That'd be neat, I like the idea of these frozen unknowable fae things just wandering down from the North with no construable motivation. I haven't read the books in a while, so I can't particularly remember the specifics, but all the stuff with the various religions was what gripped me. Once we lost most of the interesting characters and it seemed like half the book was focused on Daenerys I sorta just stopped reading and picked up Malazan.

>Spoiler
Good taste. Though I personally feel as though that series dragged on a tad bit too long, and it started to really show signs of slipping up later on, it was still an excellent fantasy series all said.

I really enjoyed it, while it was slow at some points and tricky at others, the characters were for the most part all really enjoyable.
I'm trying to get my hands on the new Stormlight Archive book at the moment, but it's basically sold out everywhere.

Martin wrote the Others (White Walkers) with winter fae in mind. "Beautiful but dangerous".

Certainly not like the frozen old men on the tv show.

Yeah, I actually stopped watching the show somewhere in the second season, but I remember being particularly irked at the show's depiction of the Others.

Not until now. Neat.

I enjoy both - the Others on the show remind me more of Wendigo than fae. Though I certainly prefer the novel.

Hmm, I suspect that the White Walkers resembling Winter Fee in appearance, if not behavior, is probably what has led so many people to cross ASOIAF together with the Dresden Files. Though I do wish they'd use some of the more horrific elements from ASOIAF in those crossovers, even if it's only in passing.

Lovercraft, Howards and Clark ashton smith both made the same setting, only in different timelines.

Most epic fantasy is, you ignorant cunt.

Doesn't change the fact it's a map of British Isle with Ireland lumped to it and three Anatolias lumped together, you stupid shit.

>you stupid shit.

Was that really necessary? The guy wasn't even being hostile.

Your mistake is thinking that GRRM is actually a competent writer attempting to weave his work into the Lovecraft mythos rather than seeing the truth that he's a fat fuck who loves to throw out (not terribly subtle) references to other people's work.

The only reason this idea ever gained any traction was the sun in the shows opening "totally looking like a Dyson sphere".

>>not a single pure vale house resembles what they say the Andals where"Tall and Blonde"
The Arryns are blonde.

>attempting to weave his work into the Lovecraft mythos
Never said he was trying to do that. It's perfectly possible for someone to drop Lovecraft references in their work, hilst using said references to expand their world by merging them with the history of the setting.

But he was still a stupid shit

Essos in particular has an extremely Howerdian vibe to it.

That's what happens when you're starved for new content for 7 years.

>>Rather than attempt to spread their religion to the now non conquering empire that allows freedom of religion to conquered peoples and is proud of it, they build ships and go to Westeros, a land they dont know about with potentially hostile natives, and eradicate any trace of their religion from Andalos

The reason for that is the faith wanted to create a theocratic government to guide the Andal people. Something that wasn't possible under Valerian dominion.

I suppose so. But stupid "REALISMDURRBLURGH are still utterly retarded and cancerous, no matter the reasoning.

It was GRRM himself that tried to push the realism in his critics of Tolkien

Kids these days don't know how to be educated.
Their parents never taught it.

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>which I'd say he's honestly succeeded at
no he didnt. Starks felt like "nuclear family visit in Medieval park, gone wrong," cultures and religions have taste of secular liberal doing historic checklist without being capacity to understand meaning of "sacral", and while I will give him credit for making magic magical when he introduce it to reader for the first time, its exposure has no metaphysical change for characters understanding of the world. It is just tool to reach their goals that has chance to backfire into their face. But at the end he make the biggest sin of any fantasy writer. The more he shows you his world the more bland and boring it becomes.

>Hack rips off yet another author and set of themes
>Anons, why can't you see his genious
Genious of what? Stealing ideas? Fucking them up with implemention?

Most main characters from the first book are still alive.

Oh boy another "epic" youtube tier theory

Leng has that underground city with 'something' deep inside out. Something that drives a man mad - or something like that.

No because it's not. A couple of Lovecraft references in mostly extraneous bits of lore doesn't make something cosmic horror. Nor do evil gods, death gods or antagonistic races of ice elves. And it's never been particularly scary.

You didn't understood it well.
It is not the stuff that happens with the characters that create this "mysterious" vibe, but things like the Five Forts or the Thousand Islands

It also has a "God Empress" that is said to have bred with the slumbering "Old Ones" beneath the city. So, yeah.

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ASOIAF is actually a high fantasy story trying to disguise itself as a low fantasy story.

Well,, that isn't exactly wrong. It's certainly been getting more high-fantasy as time goes on to be sure.

>Veeky Forums hates Pratchett now
I refuse to believe you, and thus instead of looking around the confirm this, I'm going to call you a lying faggot, because the alternative is too unpleasant.

So fuck you, you lying faggot.

I'm sure medieval peasants thought roman ruins were from "cities older than time" too