I was unable to finish the book. I barely made it through Feast for Crows, but this time around I could not find the patience to read hundreds of well-written pages about people accomplishing nothing.
Quentin letting the Dragons out? Dany getting carried off via dragon? Theon/Reek’s heel-face turn and getting Jeyne out of Winterfell? Jon betrayed by his men? Arya finally becoming a Faceless Girl? Varys killing Kevan?
I dunno, i thought those were all pretty climactic. Not on the level of the Red Wedding or Battle of Blackwater, perhaps. but still something to remember.
Yeah, I only just finished Dragon, too.
Great thread, lots of interesting stuff. But what I want to talk about now is the “Unbeatable Champion” guy: The new guy on the King’s Guard, who doesn’t talk and never takes his helmet off.
The most obvious interpretation of the events is that EvilMaesterGuy came up with some other huge/misshapen skull to send off to Dorn and it’s ‘just’ the Mountain in there, but how about if it REALLY was the Mountain’s skull?
So then the guy in the armor is more like a Frankenstein creature, body of the Mountain and head from…who? It would have to be a ‘known’ character, I think, to necessitate keeping the other knights from seeing his face. So, who else that was visually familiar to the nobility in King’s Landing has vanished mysteriously? I’m wondering about that missing Lannister boy. I can’t remember his name, I think he was the son of one of Tywin’s brothers, but Tywin and maybe Tyrion, earlier, had troops out searching all of King’s Landing for him, apparently for quite a while. How that guy would have ended up in one of the dark cells and so be available for the EMG to experiment I have no idea.
Another possibility – where is Loras supposed to be? I mean, he was badly injured and all, but is there any chance that he could have been the head donor?
The thing is, to be an unbeatable fighter requires physical abilities AND mental knowledge of tricks/sword play/maneuvers/whatall. Loras clearly had the latter…
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We don’t actually “live” the Dragon mayhem. We are told about it afterwards. This is the pure definition of anti-climax.
By sheer accident.
A plan goes terribly awry and a cowardly character escapes with a dumb girl who isn’t even relevant. Yeah.
I’ll give you this one, although I kept expecting him to say something like “but- but I was elected! Wasn’t there a regulatory way to do this?”
Isn’t this like watching only the wax on wax off scenes in Karate Kid? There has to be a final fight to have a climax to all that training. Again, the opposite of epic.
Fine. A good old final twist with a bond-esque supervillain speech. Oldie but Goldie. Hardly the most memorable moment in the series. Or in any other series.
Two things:
- As his price for helping Stannis, Lord Manderly wanted Davos to smuggle something to some place. The place is evidently scary to Davos, including thoughts about flesh eaters. Does anyone have any ideas for what that is about?
- I think Martin has always named his chapters with just the name of the POV character, like “Bran” and “Jon” and “Ned.” But some of the chapters in the latest book break the pattern by using phrases instead, like “The Merchant’s Man”, and “The Lost Lord”, and “The Windblown.”
Has Martin said anything about it, or does anyone have any guesses about the reason?
Why? if it doesn’t tire, it doesn’t need to eat or drink or sleep or rest and is also invulnerable then it will win every fight. This is one of the very first prophecies in the first book, from when Bran was in a coma: “One shadow was as dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.”. I thought the second one was meant to be Jamie, but now it is clear we are going to get a Sandor and Lancel vs Frankegregor death match, probably next book.
That started in the previous book, with THE CAPTAIN OF GUARDS, THE KRAKEN’S DAUGHTER, etc.
see the chapter list here:
As for why, I can’t say for sure, but I’d guess it’s a way of cramming in extra characterization and info, in a place one might not expect it.
Sorry, why is it clear that the second one is Lancel now? Because he’s with the church? Couldn’t it still be Jamie?
Osha took Rickon to Skagos. Manderly wants Davos to go get Rickon since Manderly still thinks of the Starks as his rightful lords.
As far as “golden and beautiful” referring to Lancel and not Jaime, I’d think it’s because Jaime can’t fight? He’s also not in King’s Landing, but neither is the Sandor.
Sandor isn’t “the Hound” and doesn’t have his helm anymore. Can we still assume that prophecy refers to him?
Rickon is on Skagos, the island with unicorns and savage cannibals.
EDIT: Someone else answered already.
DigitalC, that’s a wonderful quote! I’d forgotten all about that…clearly time for a reread!
As to whether the Hound would still apply to Sandor, I think so – he used that so long its essentially his real name. And when/if circumstances drive Sandor to coming out of his ‘retirement’ on that island, well, on picking up his old life he’d pick up his old name.
And my guess is that Jaime will be the golden one. Maybe just my bias to let the poor guy be the hero again.
Good thing he has the most vicious of the direwolves! 
Yeah because he and Sandor are with the church, and because it would be Cersei’s trial. Jamie might be reconsidering their relationship but i would seriously doubt he would fight for the church against her.
Just finished the book. It took me more than a year - I’d read a chapter or two, realize I wasn’t terribly interested, and then go read something else. I did that several times before finally getting to the end. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s not a good sign when I flip ahead to see how many pages are left, and then am all too keenly aware of how many pages I still have to go. A Dance with Dragons was too big, plodding, not enough happened, etc. - I’d agree with most of the criticism already offered in this thread.
I wanted a lot more about Brienne, although it’s nice to know she’s still alive. Good to see Cersei humiliated before all of King’s Landing. Reek’s chapters were suitably appalling. I liked reading about Arya learning to be an assassin (even though the description of her first assignment was muddled). Tyrion continues to be entertaining - can’t wait to read about him as a sellsword; I’ll wager that he’ll be in charge of the company in a few months. Jon Snow’s stabbing, and Ser Kevan’s murder, were both good, big surprises.
But if I have to read the phrase “much and more” just one more time, I swear, there’s gonna be blood on the snow…