I’m about 7/8 way through and it’s been a disappointment.
Agree with Frank and the other posters on this statement. As much as I like the character of Tyrion, he should have been dead. Even if he did save Aegon, I can’t see why Griff would go in after him. There are still Stone Men about on a very foggy night and you’ve got to protect the prince.
I can’t see any reason to preserve Asha either. In a fight in the dark, how are you going to tell she’s a VIP to the Krakens? Would a Northman even know who she is?
Add Strong Belwas to this list, too. You eat a whole bowl of poisoned locusts? You should croak and very quickly.
I could understand the reasons for preserving Theon’s life at the end of AFFC. After all, as a ward of Ned Stark, he would have been known to many of the Northmen, and they could either keep him for ransom or make him pay lslowly and dearly for what he did to Winterfell.
If I were Ser Barristan and/or the sellsword leaders, I would have been on my knees begging Daenrys: “You Magnificence, you’re the only person in the Known Universe who has dragons. Fucking dragons! They fly and they breath fire! Use the damn things. Spend less time trying to be Mrs. Perfect Justice and train them. Burn out our enemies!” Instead she makes a disastrous marriage to try to save her empire. :rolleyes Dany really regressed in this book
The plot of Littlefinger and the Lannisters to use a fake Arya to get the Northmen on their side makes a great deal of sense, but why pick Jeyne Poole for the role? She has the wrong eyes and, IMO, she hasn’t shown the sand to pull off such an impersonation. Furthermore, as Sansa’s best friend, a fair number of Northmen have probably seen her and it hasn’t been long since she went south. In TGOT I got the impression that Littlefinger was going to put her in one of his brothels and that made more sense.
Arya remains the ultimate Mary Sue character, IMO.
Jeyne Poole was picked because it was Littlefinger doing the picking – he wanted sending her North to blow up disastrously. (He’s got Sansa, after all.)
Jeyne seemed plausible because she was from Winterfell and so should be able to fake her role. Plausible, at least, to someone like Cersei. Which isn’t saying much. Poor thing was doomed from the start – just as sparkle-headed as Sansa was, but not important enough to be protected from her own stupid.
Although Martin putting her in Bolton hands was a bit of a fridge job. Par for this course, though.
This was the absolutely most aggravating thing about this book: Dany tossed Mirri Maz Duur on a funeral pyre out of pique, bought all the Unsullied and sic’d them on Astapor… and now she’s mooning about that her dragons might hurt someone?
That poor girl got chained to the idiot ball because Martin couldn’t figure out how to fix his plot timeline without it. Rob Stark being stupid over knocking up a girl is completely in-character for him; Dany fretting over burning people, not so much.
1: The book was well written stylistically, but I’m beginning to see traces of author fatigue where he’s re-using the same characterizations over and over. There are no fewer than three separate characters in ADWD that have “hands as big as hams”.
2: I get the impression on some level he really did not want to write this book. It’s so overwritten and meandering in parts it really does feel like something he attacked little by little, begrudgingly over time. I really don’t get the “parts of a whole” feeling I got with the first two books of a narrative sweep and flow to the story. You can almost feel him chafing as he wrote it.
3: While I can appreciate there are multiple POVs this book actually exhausted me with the clicking Viewmaster approach to the storyline with so many character perspectives. It gets to be something of a mess at some point.
4: While Danerys and Jon are written from a somewhat “right thinking sympathetic hero” perspective most of the time they really are kind of stupid in many of the long term strategic decisions they are making and their political opponents are correct. In addition I’m also having trouble with their interior dialogs coming from a 16 year old and an 18 year old. It just doesn’t true.
I may be out of line here, but I got the feeling from the last 1/4 of the book or so that some of the set pieces (Cersi’s naked walk and the Varys kids all coming out of the woodwork as examples) were being deliberately set up with an eye toward the television series.
In the end I enjoyed it insofar as it moved the story along and I enjoyed the character dialogs. His conversational flow between characters has actually gotten better over time. As far as the story structure goes it was kind of a mess. I get the feeling that artistically he really is pretty much done with this story, and the fan demands are what keep it going with like a re-animated corpse.
As an aside once an author is super successful can he effectively work without editorial supervision? This book could really have used some major pruning.
I seriously might be done with this series. This book reminded me almost exactly of Crossroads of Twilight. Very long and nothing happened.
If George doesn’t care about the series anymore, why should I?
Also, fuck Aegon being alive. Why? There was no reason to believe that he was.
I heard there would be confirmation of Syrio’s fate in this book. Anything? I’d prefer no because I’m not conflicted, just wondering if I missed anything.
That’s not entirely fair. There are plot points that get advanced, but he really could have done so in one half the pages. There is waaaayyy too much narrative padding in this book, and far too many character POVs for a coherent narrative.
There was not one moment where I took that revelation at face value. Seriously, trusting Varys and Illyrio that their Mummer’s Dragon is the real thing? Not seeing that happen.
I foresee a Quentyn moment in his future when he tries to prove he’s a Targaryean.
Actually, he’s one of several “revelations” that seem to have been thrown in because readers had fixated too closely on certain theories. See also: Ned’s bastard child, Tywin’s being cuckolded by the Targaryean king, and that queensman’s who got giant-stomped star device just before Jon got gacked. Little late in the game for me to see any of those as anything but obfuscation.
I wasn’t nearly as negative about it as some of you, although I agree that it was nowhere near as good as Storm of Swords. A lot of build up, and very little climax. All this build up to Stannis attacking Winterfell, and it all happens off screen (we’re supposed to assume that we can believe the contents of Ramsay’s letter, I guess?). All this build up of Victarion heading to Mereen… and he doesn’t get there. All this build up of Tyrion making contact with Dany… and it never happens.
I think my favorite bits were Theon’s and Arya’s. Tyrion’s were fun to read, but seemed way too much like generic fantasy adventure with goofy mystical obstacles popping up and then never heard from again, bizarre coincidences, etc. Bran’s was satisfying but short. Cersei’s was interesting but barely moved forward at all. I did like us getting one POV from Melisandre, interesting to know for certain that she truly believes she is doing the right thing on the side of light, and the fact that she’s willing to be pragmatic about things like leaving Mance alive makes her quite a bit more interesting. Jon’s storyline was good but felt repetitive (he’s trying to make peace, lots of people don’t like that idea, we get it). Jaime did basically nothing other than confirm that Brienne is alive (and where is she taking him?). Davos was interesting, and while I like the idea of him going after Rickon, the whole “well, I’d like to help you, but first you must go on this quest for me” thing is pretty hackneyed. Dany’s stuff was good and interesting, but again, repetitive. And I agree that her just locking the dragons up is insane. I do like the growth we’ve gotten from Barristan, however.
Apparently the editor convinced George to push some juicy bits into the next book. How about you cut a dozens chapters of nothing and add 5 where something happens?
What’s here wasn’t bad in isolation. It’s just that there’s no payoff. I know there’s an overall arc, but give US something. It’s not like the tv show where it’s a week until more info. It’s been ten years since something major happened.
Actually, that one’s easy. He’s got the red priestess RIGHT THERE and she’s been telling him he’ll need her on hand the whole time. That’s why she didn’t go with Stannis to save his ass from the blizzard. She needed to be there to throw a rez on John, the way Beric Dondarion and Catelyn got brought back.
I’ve been trying to think of any scenario in which it benefits Ramsay to fake up such a letter, and I can’t really come up with one. If the battle was happening, and was looking bad for Ramsay, would he have this lying letter pre-written to send by raven just to cause confusion at the wall? That seems like a weird and vaguely pointless plan…
It definitely is a bit of a jerk-around for martin to present us with things like this through non-reliable narrator, particularly when the next book is presumably years in the future.
Roose seemed to be on to “Abel”, and it’s entirely possible that he or Ramsay (or Mance, if he’s in on it) sent the message to goad Jon into doing something stupid. That’s pretty much been the Bolton MO all along. At the point that Jeyne escaped, they thought Stannis was doomed in the snow anyway; not much of a stretch to just claim they defeated him in battle.
We absolutely can’t believe the letter. If Stannis has truly been defeated, Ramsay would have Theon and Jeyne. Undoubtedly Mance and the spearwives were flayed into spilling who they are and who sent them.
The part that hopes sees this is the way to get Jon away from the Night’s Watch. No matte what he is an oath breaker, but now at least it is because they tried to kill him. He could have not died. He is surrounded by watchmen, but there are 5-1 wildlings who know that they are safe because of Snow. Also there is a witch of sorts who seems to like him.
So the hopeful part of me hopes that his wildling friends come to save him and he leads them to greater things.
Of course the other part of me knows that during this series we have been reminded time and again that the songs are just songs and that is not what happens in real life and there are not always happy endings.
Anybody catch any updates on any theories? There are a few things that support R+L=J, probably the biggest one being that Elia had trouble with childbirth and couldn’t have a third child. Rhaegar would have looked elsewhere to fulfill the prophecy then.
I’ve heard that there is support for Tyrion being a Targ, but I haven’t found the specifics yet.
While discussing her impending state marriage (and how it will affect her physical relationship with a certain mercenary captain), Dany asks Barristan if her mother loved her father and vice-versa. Barristan drops a little tidbit about how Aerys lusted after Joanna Lannister but she married Tywin.
To what purpose? So now we’ve got a semi-alive and stitched-up Jon who is no longer Lord Commander of the Night Watch. Yeah, I can’t wait till HBO shows zombie Jon in bed with Roz the Exposition Whore.
Which reminds me, this is a serious step back in Jon’s character even ignoring the whole letting the wildlings in. (Which is, in fact, entirely in character.) Jon, books ago, made the decision that he was a man of the Watch. Now, just because there’s an untrustworthy witness in Melissandre who says that a girl will flee to him, he’s going to assume that it’s Arya, and he’s going to throw up the Wall for that girl that might be Arya. That’s Stupid with a capital s.
Doesn’t matter; Jon’s dead. Even if he’s active, he’s dead, just like the Lightning Lord and Catelyn were/are dead. (Who knows about Catelyn anyway? Brienne is still alive, maybe. Maybe she died and Catelynn breathed into her. Who the fuck knows anything? gaspgasp OK, I’m better now. )
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