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So I found this blog, and wanted to share it. He makes some pretty interesting points about the Daenarys plotline in ADWD.
I found it a pretty good read atleast.
http://meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/
TL:DR
Taken from http://boiledleather.com/ 1. That the Shavepate was the locust poisoner, not Hizdahr nor the Sons of the Harpy, in an attempt to break the peace between Daenerys’ forces and those of both the Harpy and the Yunkish alliance
2. That Dany’s peacemaking efforts had in fact worked prior to the Drogon/locust debacle, her departure, and Barristan’s coup, during which he was unwittingly acting as the Shavepate’s catspaw
3. That Dany’s character arc in this book isn’t just a series of indecisive fuckups but a consistent pattern of self-sacrifice that achieves her goal of peace in Meereen, but at the cost of her happiness, her drive to eliminate slavery worldwide by force, and her path to Westeros
4. That Daenerys’s vision quest in the Dothraki Sea with Drogon represents a decisive turning-away from her peacemaking ways and embrace of “fire and blood,” a transition signaled repeatedly by textual clues
5. That the romantic/marriage subplot involving Daario and Hizdahr is a symbolic representation of Dany’s internal struggle and her need to choose between war and peace, again signaled repeatedly by textual clues
On October 11 2013 04:38 Conti wrote: Definitely better than the last one. But I still don't get why they didn't keep the first one.
He had another project, cant remember what it was but he couldn´t continue. The second one was a stunman afaik hence he had little to no lines.
Actually, I remember distinctly that the first guy posted a short blog after the announcement saying that he had no idea why they replaced him, and that he'd have really like to keep playing the Mountain.
I was looking forward to being able to reprise the role for season 02, but it seems like HBO decided to go in a different direction for the 2nd season and I will not be playing Ser Gregor this time around which is a pity.
Of course, if I were asked to appear in season 03 I would be very excited to do so.
On September 14 2013 16:59 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:
On September 14 2013 16:48 B_Type13X2 wrote: I love the series... but I am having a painful read of a dance with dragons devoured a feast of crows; but Its painful to read because I so want to see how thing play out at kings landing. On page 237 trying to power through 100 pages a day until I'm done...
Bad news then, ADwD is very light in that regard.
I'm surprised you ran through AFfC, I dropped that one for several months because I lost interest. Cersei and Jamie were the only POVs saving the book and even they were boring at times imo.
Sansa chapters were the bomb.
I LOVED Sansa's chapters in AFfC. The final chapter got me all giddy to see that the Vale (hopefully) enters the playing field.
On October 11 2013 15:24 DrStrangelove wrote: So I found this blog, and wanted to share it. He makes some pretty interesting points about the Daenarys plotline in ADWD.
I found it a pretty good read atleast.
http://meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/
TL:DR
Taken from http://boiledleather.com/ 1. That the Shavepate was the locust poisoner, not Hizdahr nor the Sons of the Harpy, in an attempt to break the peace between Daenerys’ forces and those of both the Harpy and the Yunkish alliance
2. That Dany’s peacemaking efforts had in fact worked prior to the Drogon/locust debacle, her departure, and Barristan’s coup, during which he was unwittingly acting as the Shavepate’s catspaw
3. That Dany’s character arc in this book isn’t just a series of indecisive fuckups but a consistent pattern of self-sacrifice that achieves her goal of peace in Meereen, but at the cost of her happiness, her drive to eliminate slavery worldwide by force, and her path to Westeros
4. That Daenerys’s vision quest in the Dothraki Sea with Drogon represents a decisive turning-away from her peacemaking ways and embrace of “fire and blood,” a transition signaled repeatedly by textual clues
5. That the romantic/marriage subplot involving Daario and Hizdahr is a symbolic representation of Dany’s internal struggle and her need to choose between war and peace, again signaled repeatedly by textual clues
This agrees with a growing sense among the theories I have seen that try to make sense of Dany and interpolate where things are going, which seem to all say that she is about to start burning things. I want to agree with the reasoning. I am mindful of the bias towards wanting something like that on the part of Dany apologists who want to see her forceful again though. It has a "not nearly terrible enough to be true" vibe to it. That is the GRRM version of too good to be true
In part, the essay bases itself on looking at who knew and wanted what at an earlier point as a better way to piece things together than simply looking at things at the end of Dance. That is a good idea, but it seems to have missed a spot regarding its apparent implication that Skahaz was the architect of Barristan's round table. That looks like xanatos roulette to me.
I'm not sure I'm convinced that Skahaz is that likely the poisoner. Skahaz was in trouble with the peace, but he would probably be dead really quickly if he hadn't won Barristan in the post-pit political chaos. I do not think he would have known he would be able to get cooperation and support from the sellsword/unsullied/Barristan 'caucus'. He could only have counted on his own brazen beasts and other freedmen. The rest is a gamble that mostly hinged on getting Barristan. What was his plan B if Barristan hadn't been at just the right mix of lawful stupid white knight but feeling the right amount of call to action to go against his usual MO, and furthermore doing so while siding with Skahaz?
I think that a random actor is reasonably likely. Someone along the lines of the boy who tripped on his Tokar. Someone who isn't a player who either understands or cares that the poison would be a loss for all the major actors in Meereen.
Another option would be a sellsword company. Someone for whom war, any war, is a profit and standing around in detente fighting flux is a disaster.
Then there is Littlefinger, because not including him on any list of suspects is just ridiculous no matter how far away he seems or how hard it is to make sense of it as his action.
On October 11 2013 15:24 DrStrangelove wrote: 3. That Dany’s character arc in this book isn’t just a series of indecisive fuckups but a consistent pattern of self-sacrifice that achieves her goal of peace in Meereen, but at the cost of her happiness, her drive to eliminate slavery worldwide by force, and her path to Westeros
"To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."
Many have taken this prophecy at face value, thinking that Quaithe is talking about Asshai. She is not. She is saying that when Daenerys makes war, she achieves peace, as in aSoS. When Daenerys tries to make peace in aDwD, all she gets is death and misery. Her chapters in the last book were used to hammer down this point, to us but also to her. In the final chapter she realizes she's been doing it wrong.
On October 11 2013 04:38 zatic wrote: Holy shit that guy is huge! Really good pick!
He's a bit taller than what book Robert/Hound/Victarian's height actually is.
Now with that in mind, imagine what the real Gregor height would be
A head taller than Andre the Giant (~8 in/20 cm), but a lot narrower (about 80% of as much mass, 520lb/240kg vs 420lb/190kg). He would tower almost as much over that guy as that guy does compared to Headey, but without the modern body builder build.
I was on a trip recently and picked up the first book in a book exchange. Plowed through it in a few days or so, and am now most of the way through the second.
My first impressions are that this series is much, much better than I expected. Since Zelazny's Amber I've been waiting for a good "warring families" style series, and this sort of scratches that same itch. I'm also a huge fan of viking-inspired fiction because of the austerity and the bleakness of those, and Poul Anderson's Broken Sword is probably my favorite fantasy book of all time. The bleakness of these books is sort of refreshing after all the idealized fantasy drivel that has been cranked out endlessly since the seventies.
Having said that, I don't think I'll be able to stick it out until the final book. I really, really would have loved this series if it ended in three books, maybe a grand total of 2000-2500 pages max. My issue is that there aren't any moments of wonder to break up all the despair... if this was a shorter series, that would be fine and it would be making a literary point. If it's 7 epic-length books of this, I really don't see the point other than to drive more sales (which is valid, but won't keep me reading.)
One of my favorite things about most bleak fantasy is that it has moments of wonder, respite, or awe. In Amber, for example, most of the plotlines were hokey and basically relied on deus ex machina to come to a resolution ever single time, but it was the wonder of the discovery of how the universe ticked and, more importantly, the layers of personality that were uncovered in each Amberite that really kept me going. I really don't get that here, even in the 'softer' moments. The closest you ever get to that here is when some of the kid characters start to pull through, because at least some of them have vestiges of innocence left. It's exhausting.
There is also some ham-fistedness when it comes to characterization. Tyrion is probably the most "complex" character I've come across so far, but even this often feels forced and hodge-podge -- his relationship with Shae is really one of the worst parts, his attachment to her (and the reasons for it) scream "forced flaw". I'm really hoping she turns out to actually be on his side, because if she ends up backstabbing him I can't think of how this could have been telegraphed any worse. A lot of the betrayals are like this, telegraphed from a mile away which means again that it's hard to feel anything but disgust and exasperation when it happens.
Finally, the few magical / otherworldly elements which have been interjected so far have been mega corny in comparison to the relatively very well-done "real life stuff". The Others are probably the lamest monster/ghoul thing I have come across in a really long time. Bran's wolfsight isn't particularly interesting either, especially considering how the timelines of these books coincided with Jordan's and all his tiresome wolfy shit.
In spite of this above negativity, I have to say I was really pleasantly surprised by this series so far. I've tried to pick up random fantasies since I basically quit the genre over a decade ago, and they're so barftastic that I can't get past the first five chapters. The first book was really, truly well done. If only the length of this beast had been tamed a little, I could have better endured the endlessly bleak tone. I'll stick it out until book 3 and hopefully I can keep going
Edit: The real last thing I was going to say -- is this Daenrys storyline ever going to connect to anything??? I'm like, close to 1200 pages into this series or something and it still feels like a vestigial organ. After the culmination she reached in the first book, this is sort of getting ridiculous now...
On October 20 2013 08:17 mikedebo wrote: Finally, the few magical / otherworldly elements which have been interjected so far have been mega corny in comparison to the relatively very well-done "real life stuff".
Edit: The real last thing I was going to say -- is this Daenrys storyline ever going to connect to anything??? I'm like, close to 1200 pages into this series or something and it still feels like a vestigial organ. After the culmination she reached in the first book, this is sort of getting ridiculous now...
These 2 things are actually getting even worse. You have already found the biggest flaws with this book series. Indeed the "real life stuff" and Westeros events are the good parts while the magic stuff and the Eastern storyline are much weaker.
On October 20 2013 08:17 mikedebo wrote: Finally, the few magical / otherworldly elements which have been interjected so far have been mega corny in comparison to the relatively very well-done "real life stuff".
Edit: The real last thing I was going to say -- is this Daenrys storyline ever going to connect to anything??? I'm like, close to 1200 pages into this series or something and it still feels like a vestigial organ. After the culmination she reached in the first book, this is sort of getting ridiculous now...
These 2 things are actually getting even worse. You have already found the biggest flaws with this book series. Indeed the "real life stuff" and Westeros events are the good parts while the magic stuff and the Eastern storyline are much weaker.
I pretty much wrapped up ADWD and the eastern storyline is to develop Danny into a strong female ruler before the inevitable invasion of the West. Although I am honestly less interested in her then I am in Dorne or the other Targaryan. She is more of an ancillary character then a main one right now.
They cast Bloodraven already. That is slightly interesting for implications regarding it as more indication that s4 will be making it into feast and dance content. (the other big one was when they cast Tycho, but having the iron bank start squawking at Cersei a bit early was a likely enough trivial explanation for that one.)
On October 20 2013 10:30 Irrelevant Label wrote: They cast Bloodraven already. That is slightly interesting for implications regarding it as more indication that s4 will be making it into feast and dance content. (the other big one was when they cast Tycho, but having the iron bank start squawking at Cersei a bit early was a likely enough trivial explanation for that one.)
I don't think the order of events really matters that much, and I like the idea of the Iron bank making cersei's life difficult, it'll help show he descent from occasionally rational into what we all know she becomes.
Found this today on youtube and found it very funny: ***CAUTION LANGUAGE NSFW NSFW SERIOUSLY DON'T TAKE THAT LINK IF YOUR AT WORK THIS IS A BLATANTLY OBNOXIOUS WARNING IF YOU CLICK IT AT WORK ITS ON YOU NOW ***
So I just saw that someone commented that the guy cast for the mountain isn't lefthanded (which I guess Gregor is in the books). Why the fuck does it matter, I can't recall if it means anything and I was edited so I didn't spoiler anything, so I just wanna ask in this thread.