Title: Curse of the Old Gods
Author: kumquat90
Rating: Explicit
Genre: Adventure/Romance/War/Politics/Horror?
Status: WIP
Word Count: 74,302
Library Category: ASOIAF
Pairings: Robb Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Summary: He sighed and collapsed into his armchair. Even from across the room, she could feel in her bones the putrid smell of ale on his breath. "I don't want to. I have to."

"What?" she asked

He had a dead look in his eyes. If she didn't know better, she may have been speaking to a living corpse. "I can't win. I can't escape. I can't scheme my way out. The Old Gods have cursed me to do this over and again, on until there's nothing left to lift the sword. I shatter myself against the walls, on and on, until it's over or I've gone mad in trying to do the impossible. The only escape is death, and I can never die
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41039772/chapters/102859284

Curse of the Old Gods takes one of my favourite characters from asoiaf, Robb, and then puts him in one of my favourite fanfiction scenarios, the repeating time loop. The story takes place some time after Robb's 200th life, and is mostly told from the perspectives of those who either previously knew him or are greatly affected by his actions. Robb is jaded, depressed and an alcoholic, dealing with his constant death and resurrection in the only way he can, by no longer really viewing people as people. To those who get to know the new him, he's a monster. To those in the armies he leads he's a god, The Warrior come again.

Fair warning, Robb is obviously very ooc, but the author mostly gets around that by showing us him through the eyes of others. There is some fantastic world building, depictions of combat and warfare, and dialogue in this fic, alongside some rare pairings and canon typical violence and themes. It's quite well written, but some of the dialogue can feel unnatural at times.

From search I know that @Garden and @aceflyers have already read this fic, so if you guys would like to share your thoughts on why this should/shouldn't have a place in the library you're more than welcome to.

I would give it a 4 or a 5 out of 5 depending on where the author takes it in the future, but I'll give it a 5 for now.

 

I'll admit that I struggled with this.

I love time loops, so I was really eager to read this. And the fact that it was a late loop cycle rather than the usual awkward getting situated arc was a draw. But I despise - in general, but also especially in asoiaf fanfics - the vast bloat of tertiary character PoV sections. Setting a story entirely from these tertiary PoVs watching the main character instead of writing it from Robb's PoV is a cardinal sin, in my book.

It seems like there are interesting and unusual things happening with his characterisation, so it's a shame we can't see those closer up. That does help retain some of the mystery about wtf is going on with Robb, but I don't feel like this works as a hook. He's messed up from repeated time loop failures and carrying the guilt of his past deeds. Every reader will grasp this right away.

The prose is okay. Minor errors on occasion, but nothing to impede the flow. It leans a bit more towards telling than showing in a lot of places, but given the structure of this story, that kinda makes sense. You can interpret it more as the narrator of the day thinking about Robb, which works. It's significantly lesser than simply showing Robb living those moments, but on the other hand this does allow the author to cover more ground quickly when used right.

It isn't always used right. There are completely useless bloat chapters (Sansa I such an egregious example I dropped it here on my first attempt a while back)

I almost don't want to rate this because it tramples on a few pet peeves very hard, but people who don't care about those may still enjoy this a lot. I do think they're things which make it an objectively worse story so I'll keep them factored in, but if excessive PoVs don't bother you then I'd say still check it out. If you enjoy the AH snippets style of fanfic, you'll probably like this.

3/5

 

4/5.

I don't like long angst fics and this fic has some of that, redeemed by quite interesting plotting decisions.

 

It's readable as an ASOIAF mood satisfier. As soon as I was wanting another fandom I dropped it. The draw is seeing if Robb can come back to Westeros from his hot air balloon ego due to his interactions with Margaery, I guess? Kind of hard to imagine a shoe dropping that isn't internal treachery of some kind, and that not being enough to stop Robb being King. It's premise and world is interesting, execution is mediocre.

All that to say what this fic really made me want was a fic where Joffrey goes to fight Stannis due to Robb fucking up Tywin, losing, gets kidnapped by the Hound, keeps surviving, becomes Westeros-standard horrible instead of extremely horrible, and basically claws his way back to power only to finally die to Northern justice and it be revealed Robb is in a timeloop and Joffrey's journey has been Robb refining the process of weakening the east for his forces.

 

It's well enough written with an interesting enough spin on the premise to be taken at face value.

I'll give it a 4/5 for now, with reserved judgment upon reading future updates.

Edit: Though granted, it doesn't seem likely that there's ever going to be any.

 

We can hope, it's only been half a year or so.