A Song of Ice and Fire - Page 36

Well, finished adwd a week ago and I am still digesting it. Martin said that he wasn't planning on making Crows but then had to because of the time gap. I understand that. But I think he should have reevaluated Dragons and created the time gap after crows. The entire direction of the book pointed away from Westros when in fact, since it is book 5/7(?) it should be gathering towards Westeros. That was my biggest complaint.

I think the reason people don't like the first half of the book is because we have already been through that time in Crows. If Dragons had come out a year after Crows, then it is no problem. But six years and an HBO series later, we needed the time gap now. I honestly didn't care about any of the intrigue in Mereen. Didn't care about the made up problem of the Harpy. Didn't care about the pit fighters wanting to fight. Dany regressed from a kick ass dragon queen to a teenage girl. At the very end of Crows she says she has to learn how to rule, but Dragons spends hundreds of pages with Dany doing everything but. After Crows I would have been happy hearing about Dany next with her dragons grown and mastered, BBQ arm beside her, and the power of her army ready to launch on Westeros.

Some other random thoughts...

- I didn't care about Reek. He himself does nothing, he is just a pair of eyes for Martin, who decided that he needed to describe everything rather than let the reader fill it in. Maybe Reek gets better, but I don't care at this point.

- Needs more Sam.

- John dying sucks. The inability of anyone else on the wall to understand that wildings = wraiths if they don't come south sucks. I know the wall is made up of criminals, but it seems silly to have only one person thinking clearly.

- I'm not sure I buy that Ramsey's letter is fake. If Jon is really going to be AA, why do we need Stannis anymore? We just need his sword, and if John has it then things set up nicely for him.

- We needed another Bran chapter to show us just how powerful he will become.

- Needed more revelation about the intentions of the church in Kings Landing and what they want to do with their army of sparrows.

- Tyrion's chapters were a loss because of his circumstances. Again, he was travelling in the wrong direction.

I have lots more thoughts, but this is what comes to mind now. Like I said, nothing original.

Jon´d death sucks extremely hard becouse we all know that he´s not actually dead or gonna stay dead.. be it being revived by mel,living inside ghost or just not dying becouse he had armor ...

Interesting. Most people seem to like the new Theon and hate Sam. =/. I at least, can't stand his constant complaining of being weak and fat.
I pretty much agree with everything else. The detail and world creation was amazing as usual, but Dany and Tyrion were pretty bad.

if coldhands was benjen bran would have recognized him..

I think Dany's inability to rule Mereen is probably indicative that she will not be the one on the Iron Throne in the end. I had originally thought she had the best chance of ending up on top, what with the three dragons, but now that she's proven herself basically incompetent at managing a city, my guess is she'll be going down some time within the next two books.

Aegon is basically Renly 2.0, in that he has a good idea about what a king is supposed to look and behave like, and has the charisma to make people follow him, but no idea how to actually win his kingdom. That definitely can't end well for him.

I really enjoyed the Melisandre chapter, also, hoping to hear more about Moqorro in the future. That dude's badass, and the combination of him+Victarion is going to be a fun one to follow.

I think there's a better chance Jon becomes Azor Ahai reborn than he gets warg'd into Ghost. Remember, there's already one Stark warg (and yes, Jon counts as a Stark as far as I'm concerned). I highly doubt there will be a second. I like whoever it was that said Mormont might have been warg'd into his raven, though. Hadn't thought of that before, it makes a lot of sense.

I'm curious as to who the King's Landing POVs will be now that Cersei is effectively done as a useful character, and Kevan is dead. I'm really hoping Varys. Please, please let it be Varys.

Speaking of Kings Landing, Frankengregor wtf. I'm actually very annoyed about that. Although, it is possible that Qyburn just managed to heal Gregor, at the cost of several of his higher brain functions like speaking.

My guess about Jaime is that he's fucked. He's developed about as far as he'll go as a character, and now that he's rejected Cersei and cleaned up the riverlands, there isn't much reason for him to continue to exist, except to go back and stand around Tommen all day. Plus, I hardly think he'll be as accepting of Frankengregor as the rest of the Lannisters are, so I would be very surprised if he makes it back to Kings Landing.

Stannis isn't dead, but he soon will be. He's been around for far too long, he clearly isn't going to win the throne, it's doubtful he even wants it anymore, and he pretty clearly isn't Azor Ahai reborn, so even though Ramsey was lying about Stannis being dead, I'm guessing Stannis isn't gonna win that fight when it eventually does happen.

Why was there 0 plot development with Oldtown? That was just starting to get interesting/off the ground at the end of AffC, and then it gets completely tossed in favor of more chapters about Dany and Daario fucking.

Overall, VASTLY superior to AffC. Not nearly as good as Storm of Swords, though, and it did get bogged down in itself a lot. I'm hoping Winds of Winter goes a lot quicker, and gets back to more head-choppin', cause there's far too many factions left standing to reach a peaceful solution.

A Game of Thrones is just the first book though, the series is a Song of Ice and Fire. By that I mean that the end game of the series to me isn't the iron throne. It is the war between man and the others. So when I read I don't feel like I have to figure out who is going to be the last one standing.

I figured the whole point of this was for her to learn how to rule. And I think she learned something very valuble. She spent the entire time in Mereen trying to rule, but to be perfect. Shed as little blood as possible. Take hostages, but instead treat them as your children. Absolutely no concequences for anything.
Martin said that a good person isnt neccisarily a good ruler, and sometimes the best rulers are horrible people. I think Dany won't be fucking around anymore.


What? Jon is a warg. There is no questioning it. So is Arya. Sansa and Robb likely were, which means that Sansa is probably a shapechanger herself. She hasn't really been around any animals to prove or disprove this.


I'm pretty sure Cersei will now be back with a vengeance. Robert Strong will save her.


Funny, I dind't actually consider that he might die. I guess I sort of assumed that he and Brienne will fight themselves out of it, or zombiecat will have a change of heart, or some shit. If he DOES die, I think (and really hope) that we get to watch it happen, not just hear about it.