A Song of Ice and Fire - Page 28

Yeah I'm still a little confused on Arya's first assassanation, but eh, whatever.

My biggest problem is at this point it's pretty much guranteed that a bunch of characters are going to die simply because of how many sides there are, and probably more then a few characters I like.

Thoughts though
No way Stannis is dead
Jon is Azor Ahai/Azai (can't remember spelling)
Arya is going to be sent eventually to assinate some important character like Tommen or Dany
I like Theon again
Ramsay is even worse than Joff
Brans story is getting way too fucked up
Go Davos
Dany needs to get her balls back
Cersei isn't finished
Kevan =(
Go Aegon. I feel like Rhaegar would have been everyone's favorite character had he actually been in the books
Go Dorne!!!!!!!!!
Sansa? The Archmaester going after Dany? Rickson (even if I don't want to read about him)?

arya put a poisoned coin into the moneybag of the guy she ran into while he was going to the insurance guy

I believe she coated the coin in the liquid from the temple that kills the people who come to drink it, so that when the guy bit the coin, it would stop his heart too. I was a little unsure of that theory though because that water would have to be super duper potent.

I thought the book was way too drawn out, just like book 4. The mereen chapters were almost completely pointless.

Tyrion meeting a shy and innocent female dwarf seemed absolutely silly to me. It felt out of place. This is supposed to be a grim and realistic world (aside from the obvious fantasy stuff), but it seems as though the horrendously ugly dwarf Tyrion can't go two chapters without having some flirtation with someone. I would've much rather had his chapters trimmed considerably. He is one of my favourite characters, but i don't want to spoil myself with too much of him in unnecessary chapters.

I'm surprised at how many of you thought brienne was dead. I thought it was clear she had said something before they hung her in book 4 which stopped it. I don't think catelyn is really as zombie-like as everyone makes her out to be. Thoros brought beric back to life (not zombifying him, simply undoing his death) and beric passed that life on to catelyn. She doesn't talk because her throat was cut when she died the first time. I think her wits are entirely about her, she's just angry as hell.

I also feel it was fairly clear from the first four books that jon's parents were rhaegar and lyanna. I am probably reading too much into certain pieces of text, but I never felt like GRRM was trying to hide it from the reader.

I thought the characterization of a lot of the wildlings was awesome. I really like most of them.

Patchface has been one of my favourite minor characters since he was introduced. I think a lot of the random shit he says is extremely clever and shows knowledge that we the readers can comprehend, but the other characters cannot. He predicted events to come and I always felt like GRRM was hinting that he was more important than everyone thought. I think it was revealed in Melisandre's PoV (not sure) that he appeared very dangerous in her visions.

Fuck this was bad. And that's your tl;dr for this post.

Some brief points.

Daenerys' chapters accomplish nothing outside of reiterating the obvious. At the very end of the book the event that should have been at the very start of it takes place. So much for the metaphorical dance with dragons.

Meanwhile, Jon decides to take a leaf out of Rand Al'thor's book and "kill the boy inside" in an attempt to make himself appear tougher. As a result, he talks tough, kills some people and makes an embarrassingly bad speech, but doesn't really accomplish anything and gets assassinated in the end. Some cliffhanger. If Jon dies, and there is no reason why he shouldn't, Melissandre will simply resurrect him, thereby cheapening what little value the scene already held.

Quentyn Martell travels all the way from Dorne and accomplishes less than Jon and Daenerys combined. A complete waste of space.

Martin pulls Aegon right out of his ass. So get this. Back in the day the rebels cement their victory by murdering all but two of the heirs to the throne, who escape. But wait, it just so happens that one of the babies had been switched with another in anticipation of the murder. He was then spirited away to another continent where he was raised as the son of an exiled noble until the day he could reclaim his throne. This is actually pretty good. It means Rob Stark was probably replaced by a magical clone before he got his head cut off at the Red Wedding.

Reek. Boy, I love redemption stories, but Martin repeating his catalog of words that rhyme with reek is not my idea of redemption as much as torture. Theon used to be an arrogant prick before Ramsay Bolton got a hold of him and now he's a narrative device. He's the one potentially gold character that gets hidden behind a veil of dirt, pain and brainwashing. The reader hopes fervently that Theon will remember who he is and do some really great stuff in the same way I'd be hoping Batman would come around if the Joker ever brainwashed him to be his bitch.

Miscellaneous POVs. Martin has all these random POVs all over the book. Sure you have the main Jon, Daenerys and Theon storylines, but then there are all these weird ones. Like why are Jaime and Cersei in there if they don't accomplish anything? What value does Martin's system have if he just jumps around however he pleases anyway? And since I'm on the topic, why the hell can't he keep the same name? He's been doing this since book four. First it's the master of the boat, then it's the shitter on the deck, then it's the flyer into the water. Oh, for god's sake, Martin, you don't seriously think this is entertaining, do you? It's just confusing.

Arya's chapters saved Feast, but they're too little for Dance. I'm glad she's getting stuff done, but the problem is just not enough stuff was got done. This is a repeating pattern in Dance. In the others books, characters would do stuff all the time, and in the end they'd have a really big party to top it all off. Now, it's like they sit around for a while and consider doing stuff. Eventually, they do some stuff. When it happens, even they are underwhelmed.

Repeating phrases. Characters in Dance repeat their thoughts every other paragraph. You know nothing, Jon Snow. I get it already, please stop.

I just don't care anymore. When Winds of Winter comes out, I'll wiki the plot, because that's all Martin can give me that might still have some sliver of value. Goodnight.

Jon isn't dead, either Melisandre has him protected somehow or she will revive him. Also Eddard isn't his father, Jon is Rhaegar/Lyanna's son (a guess) and he will marry Dany when she comes to Westeros!

They are the Fire, and fight the Ice after they take the throne back.

Wild guesses but I can quote this in 6 years if I'm right. ^.^

I just got to the part where the fucking asshole Theon kills Bran and Rickon. I didn't see that coming at all, he kills off so many characters, how in hell is there going to be any left after this is over. May Theon Greyjoy rot in hell by the way.

He might be real. "Mummer's dragon" might also simply mean he is Varys' dragon - since Varys used to be a mummer and all.

Arya is 'taken in the head' by an axe instead of the chapter with her going to Braavos.

Being the twin book of AFFC, it certainly shares the same pace. I was expecting for shit to hit the fan again in this one, but I guess not. I wonder if there will be an 8th book since AFFC and ADWD were originally supposed to be one book? There seem to be so many storylines to be resolved in only two more books.

as she still has not landed on the island.

I'm glad Barristan is actually doing awesome stuff. He was one of the few characters that intrigued me that actually survived simply by keeping a low profile. Course now that he gets POV, I'm not so hopeful for his survival.

Also, I find it funny that so many people are angry/ hoping that Jon didn't die. One of the things that I found frustrating thing about GRRM is that anyone remotely virtuous got shot down. And GRRM fans quickly throw such protests back in your face because all the deaths make it 'gritty' and 'unexpected.' But I guess it's equally frustrating now as then.

But I wonder at this point, is it really that unexpected? They either die, become zombies, or somehow are screwed. The only way to be truly unexpected at this point is to suddenly stop the death march of virtuous characters. Also interesting that GRRM has managed to create his own set of predictable patterns despite being touted as an author cutting against expected patterns.

He is a very good (if frustrating) author, but it's hard to be unexpected in your killings when that's become the expectation- and it's still just as frustrating. But given the amount of complaints on the excess of writing/ bloated pacing, I am fast running out of patience for people that think Tolkien is crap and GRRM is genius. I'll give GRRM credit, but I dislike the critique on Tolkien's writing style while GRRM seems to have become even more verbose and meandering.

Why is everyone saying he will survive the 4 blades or get rezzed back up?

It would be beyond lame if GRRM wrote that. At that point this series of relative realism in a fantasy setting suddenly becomes dominated by magic.

You start getting that Heroes vibe where there are so many options that the author has to come up with convoluted reasonings as to why rezzing people doesn't work all the time.

Life was breathed into Dondarion, i liked that because he was never a big character anyway so it was just a little thing to make him unique. Cat was rezzed but i didn't mind that because lady stoneheart doesn't exactly seem like Catelyn anymore so it feels more like a complete new character.

But if Jon just up and walks and shrugs off 4 fucking knives and is like "yo thanks Meli, ima go off and conquer the north now" that would be fucking ridiculous. Everytime a main character dies i just ask "why doesn't a red priest just rez them?" and then GRRM has to make up some weird illogical reason as to why it doesn't work like that but it does work like that when he needs it to work like that.


He is the writer and he can do whatever he likes but main characters shrugging off death like it's nothing? That is just piss poor writing. I thought GRRM was all about restoring the threat and impact of death and how permanent and sudden it is. Now he is gonna commit the ultimate cop out and literally rez a person from the dead?

I like to think GRRM is better then that. If he didn't want Jon to die then he should not have written Jon to die. Making him die and bringing him back just to have a cliffhanger? That is fucking daytime drama level writing.


I liked Jon, he was one of my favorite characters but i want him to stay dead for the good of the story. Fun as it may be for Jon to still be alive, it does not weigh up to the damage such a plot device would do to the general plot.

Arya kills the insurer by coating a coin with the poison that the "waif" manages. She notices that the insurer bites on every coin to check if it's real, so she simply swaps out a normal coin for a poisoned one.

Quentyn's journey wasn't that bad. It showed the state of the conditions in Volantis and his naivety was a good foil for Tyrion's cynicism and highlights again that naive prince charmings don't live long in this book. Also, his death was necessary to complete part of the MMD prophecy: i.e. when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east - he is a Prince of Martell, coming from Westeros and dying in Meereen. After the conditions of the MMD prophecy were met (including Dany's stillbirth and the ashes off the pyramids), Drogo, or rather, Drogon, returns to Dany.

Jon is most surely dead, but I am even more sure that he will be resurrected. The assassination was too well scripted (in terms of the descriptions) for it not to not resemble the AA prophecy. I don't like all this prophecy crap, but I would imagine that Mel would try to resurrect Jon anyway. Also, it should be noted that when Mel asks the flames to show her AA, she sees only "snow" - i.e. perhaps Jon Snow rather than snow of the white variety.

All in all, I don't think ADWD was a bad book. It was certainly not the book that we were anticipating after 6 years, but it is a good book in the sense that it fleshes out the world more, adds more complexity to the characters and introduces new POVs as foils to the old main POVs. If GRRM was younger and healthier, I don't think people would complain too much. Another ASOIAF book to read is always a pleasure after all.

Frey pies to be hilarious!

I waited so long and I sort of didn't enjoy it too much. There was so much inner dialogue. Just characters thinking. You'd get a whole chapter of almost political machinations, but half of it would be thinking about the past. Then at the end of a chapter you'd get one action, one cliff-hanger type thing. Then you'd be spirited off to someone else who was also meandering about and witnessing their inner dialogue. Jon thinks about Ygritte, then gets a letter. Next chapter: Tyrion thinks about his past, then gets kidnapped. etc. The entire story is there, but the words on the pages don't tell it. It feels like everything that happens happens between the lines. I hope the next book is more than people receiving letters and reports about what's going on elsewhere. I exaggerate a little, but that's the general feel of the book.