George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire BOOK Discussion thread-Book 5 out July 12th

Not clicking those spoilers for all the tea in China.. Can you spoiler that whole post? Just giving the fact that you'd be upset with GRRM by the ending is a bit of a spoiler in and of itself.. Now I'm going to be waiting for something bad to happen.
 
[quote name='bvharris']Not clicking those spoilers for all the tea in China.. Can you spoiler that whole post? Just giving the fact that you'd be upset with GRRM by the ending is a bit of a spoiler in and of itself.. Now I'm going to be waiting for something bad to happen.[/QUOTE]

Dude, how often have you been completely happy with every character's end? Earlier book spoilers:

Clash of Kings:
Tyrion nearly dies, Stannis' host is smashed, Jon kills Qhorin

Storm of Swords:
Red Wedding??? Tyrion is on the run after being abandoned by everyone. Littlefinger frames Tyrion for Joffrey's murder, murders Lysa and molests Sansa. Jorah gets banished

Feast for Crows:
Loras is maimed, Brienne is hung by UnCat, Arya is blind, Asha is on the run from Euron...

There's definitely joy in each book, but there are sad and disturbing plot twists as well. Rest assured that the newest book is very well written, and some bad people get their comeuppance. If it had all happy endings, why would we need two more books?
 
[quote name='RAMSTORIA']finished the book last night.

fuck you george.



yeah ive already read this online, and i hope its true, otherwise i'll be so mad.

as surprising as that was, how about at the end of the book when
no seriously, this is like the last couple of pages
when Varys murders Kevan Lannister and Maester Pycelle. He said he doesn't want them fixing Cersei's work, which I assume he means fragmenting the kingdom even further. Seems more and more that Varys is working specifically towards restoring the Targaryens to the throne. Until now we've never seen him take such direct methods towards manipulating the kingdom, it was almost sloppy for the spider.
[/QUOTE]

I actually really liked that.

Not that Kevan deserved it, but because I totally saw it coming. I've thought Varys was actively trying to restore the Targaryens this whole time. I was a little surprised that he acted outright like that, but he totally wanted Tyrion to kill his father. Why else take him down there, especially when he *knows* that Shae is in the room with him.
 
[quote name='Quillion']Dude, how often have you been completely happy with every character's end? Earlier book spoilers:

Clash of Kings:
Tyrion nearly dies, Stannis' host is smashed, Jon kills Qhorin

Storm of Swords:
Red Wedding??? Tyrion is on the run after being abandoned by everyone. Littlefinger frames Tyrion for Joffrey's murder, murders Lysa and molests Sansa. Jorah gets banished

Feast for Crows:
Loras is maimed, Brienne is hung by UnCat, Arya is blind, Asha is on the run from Euron...

There's definitely joy in each book, but there are sad and disturbing plot twists as well. Rest assured that the newest book is very well written, and some bad people get their comeuppance. If it had all happy endings, why would we need two more books?[/QUOTE]

I wasn't implying that I wasn't expecting a depressing and cliffhanger end, obviously I am. I'm just saying that we should generally err on the side of spoilering things rather than not for those who haven't finished the book yet.
 
[quote name='bvharris']Not clicking those spoilers for all the tea in China.. Can you spoiler that whole post? Just giving the fact that you'd be upset with GRRM by the ending is a bit of a spoiler in and of itself.. Now I'm going to be waiting for something bad to happen.[/QUOTE]
Something bad happens in these books? The hell you say...;)
 
[quote name='bvharris']Not clicking those spoilers for all the tea in China.. Can you spoiler that whole post? Just giving the fact that you'd be upset with GRRM by the ending is a bit of a spoiler in and of itself.. Now I'm going to be waiting for something bad to happen.[/QUOTE]

saying "fuck you george" at the end of a book is to be expected.
 
[quote name='RAMSTORIA']saying "fuck you george" at the end of a book is to be expected.[/QUOTE]

fuck you George! Is how I've felt several times throughout the series.

Enough about the sad/upsetting moments.

Favorite moment of the book?

Page 550 or so:
Winterfell wedding feast, "What do you want with your Freys." ;) It wasn't pork in the pork pies.

Page 130ish:
The beheading of Janos Slynt. I actually cheered. :)

Appriximately Page 750:
Dany climbing on Drogon's back and flying away. I don't know how they're going to film some of these moments.
 
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[quote name='Quillion']
Appriximately Page 750:
Dany climbing on Drogon's back and flying away. I don't know how they're going to film some of these moments.
[/QUOTE]

All I was thinking when I read that one was "in lesser hands, someone would certainly film this scene set to a crappy heavy metal guitar solo." :D
 
[quote name='Quillion']Finished! And Oh My God....

Jon Dies at the End? No. I he's still alive. In fact he's Azor Ahai. Gotta be. Melisandre searched for AA in the flame, but couldn't find Stannis, only saw Snow, it was capitalized for a reason.

Also, Azor Ahai will be reborn amidst a bleeding star, smoke and salt. When Jon was stabbed, Bowen Marsh was crying (salt), his stab wounds were "smoking" in the cold air (odd to say smoking instead of steaming), and the knight that Wun Wun was swinging about like a bloody "morning star", had blue stars on his surcoat as his standard.

It fits too well.
[/QUOTE]

I can now add my "fuck you george" as well. I've got about 50 pages left, but I figured I'd probably gotten to the part you guys were talking about (and was right):

I agree that Jon definitely won't stay dead. He's too important a character and too beloved a fan favorite for GRRM to do him like that (at least I hope). Especially before the parentage question has even been resolved (we didn't get much on that in this book, just more circumstantial stuff). I'm fairly confident he'll be back.
 
[quote name='RAMSTORIA']
as surprising as that was, how about at the end of the book when
no seriously, this is like the last couple of pages
when Varys murders Kevan Lannister and Maester Pycelle. He said he doesn't want them fixing Cersei's work, which I assume he means fragmenting the kingdom even further. Seems more and more that Varys is working specifically towards restoring the Targaryens to the throne. Until now we've never seen him take such direct methods towards manipulating the kingdom, it was almost sloppy for the spider.
[/QUOTE]

Just finished.

I really hope Book 6 is when we finally get a long overdue Varys chapter, since it seems like he's often the only character in the books who has a firm grasp of everything which is going on. I'd definitely like to know where he's been keeping himself since Tyrion murdered Tywin.
 
[quote name='bvharris']Just finished.

I really hope Book 6 is when we finally get a long overdue Varys chapter, since it seems like he's often the only character in the books who has a firm grasp of everything which is going on. I'd definitely like to know where he's been keeping himself since Tyrion murdered Tywin.
[/QUOTE]

god i hope so. i mean, he's arguably the most important character in the series, yet we hardly know anything about him or his motives.
 
Something I completely missed while reading (the perils of trying to read too fast):

I missed the connection between the three Freys who lost their way between White Harbor and Winterfell and the wedding pies that Wyman Manderly gleefully presented (and ate) at the wedding. Manderly was already the breakout star of the novel for me just based on his interaction with Davos, but this sealed it for me. Such a badass.
 
[quote name='bvharris']Something I completely missed while reading (the perils of trying to read too fast):

I missed the connection between the three Freys who lost their way between White Harbor and Winterfell and the wedding pies that Wyman Manderly gleefully presented (and ate) at the wedding. Manderly was already the breakout star of the novel for me just based on his interaction with Davos, but this sealed it for me. Such a badass.
[/QUOTE]

Yup. It was kind of hidden. I knew something was up when
he was being jovial, knowing how he felt about the Frey's. When he called for the Rat Cook song at the end of the chapter, I had to turn back several pages...
Awesome.
 
So, now that I've finished, my overall (and incredibly lengthy as it turns out) impressions:

I liked it, though not nearly as much as SOS, probably more on par with AFFC. It truly felt like the companion to that book, which I guess makes sense, because it was. It was as well-written as any of the books, though certain aspects of the story really seem to have bogged down.

The Good:
- Pretty much anything to do with the North. Other than Jon on the Wall, we really haven't gotten a good luck at the North since the first book, and I'd say this book was the most vivid description we've gotten. And it was awesome.
In particular:
- All the ways in which the Northmen showed how beloved Ned Stark was (and still is). Manderly saying "The North remembers", and all of the hill tribes talking about saving "Ned's little girl." That stuff was awesome, the Stark name has pretty much been shat upon for several books now, and it's nice to hear people finally telling it like it is again.

- Theon. All the credit in the world to GRRM for taking a character I'd grown to despise (for good reason) and turning him into someone I actually sympathized with. He's never going to be fully redeemed, that's clear, and part of him will be Reek forever. But him finally getting the courage to shake off that persona was great. Moreover, it felt like his transformation back into Theon (as spelled out in the chapter titles) came along with him really coming to regret what he'd done to the Starks, which was good as well.

- Bran and Davos, two characters who in the past I could take or leave, both were more interesting in this book than they've ever been (the plots they're involved with if not the characters themselves, who remain pretty flat). If anything, I wish we'd gotten more of both, which is something I've never said in the past.

- Aegon/Griff. We didn't get a ton of exposition on them, but it was refreshing to see a group of characters that we meet, learn their motivation, and then they immediately act on their motivation rather than limping around for three books. Whether their invasion of Westeros will prove folly or not (I tend to think yes) remains to be seen, but the fact that they actually did something is worthy of note.

- Arya. She's probably my favorite character in the books, and though she didn't get many chapters they certainly didn't disappoint. Not much to say here, can't wait to see where her story goes.

- Barristan. I'm putting him here despite where I'll end up putting his Queen, because once we switched to his POV things actually started happening in Mereen. It seemed clear to me that GRRM figured out the only way these characters were ever going to leave Mereen was if Dany was out of the picture. The gallant and efficient Barristan will hopefully have this nonsense wrapped up in a few chapters in the next book.

The Just Okay:
- Jon. Which is a shame, because I really liked where his character was going for the first half of the book. Executing Janos, turning down Stannis, etc all showed that he was finally growing up and becoming a good commander. Then he took a hard left turn into "my way or the highway"-ville. I'm not saying that all his decisions with regards to the Wall weren't correct, in fact I agreed with most of them, but the way he continually "consulted" with the other brothers only to crap all over their opinions every time made the conclusion here pretty inevitable. The fact that he was warned by Melisandre and yet still seemed surprised when it got to murderin' time was just hopelessly naive. Then again, he is a Stark. :D I think he'll be back, as most do I'm sure, and at that point it'll be interesting to see what he does.

- Quentyn/Victarion/Tyion. I'm lumping these guys in together since their arc was essentially the same (get to Dany), only the paths were different. And since none of them concluded (except Quentyn's obviously), they're getting incomplete grades.

- Our brief looks at Victarion were awesome, and showed a level of badassery that only the Iron Fleet is capable of. I kind of wish he'd stopped at Sothoryos, since I've always been curious to see what's going on down there (plague and jungle, probably).

- Quentyn's quest was interesting in that they didn't delve too deeply into it and yet I still came to feel for the poor kid. I love a good example of a character who clearly thinks they're the hero of the story and doesn't realize they're not until the very end. His last thought was simply "Oh," which seems to be the moment he finally realized it.

- Tyrion's chapters were individually entertaining, as they usually are because he's a great character, though it became a bit silly to see how often the poor guy could be shuffled from one form of captivity to another. He does win the award for "total distance covered" though, which I guess is a plus in a book which was otherwise slow-moving. I also really liked the addition of Penny, since she's the first true friend he's had in the books who didn't have some ulterior motives, and that he's had to earn their friendship. Seeing Penny's innocence is frustrating to him, but I think also will ultimately help his character with a lot of his own demons.

- The AFFC Characters. Jaime, Cersei, whatever's going on in Dorne. They weren't any more involved that I expected, and the purpose of these chapters was just to remind us they exist and move them a bit further along the chessboard. All we really learned here was that Quentyn made a FrankenGregor (which was already pretty obvious), and that Brienne survived (which everyone assumed). "This is good to know" as the kindly man would say, but hard to give a complete grade with so little to go on.

The Bad:
- Dany. I didn't count, but Dany certainly seemed to have the most chapters in the book, and the vast majority of them were utterly pointless. This character is so obnoxious at this point that it's hard to root for her, but it seems like every book is now one step forward and two steps back for her. The fact that she continues to do so many stupid things and make such terrible decisions, even with good counsel, is maddening at this point (as I'm sure George intended to some extent). Her fixation on Daario just proves she's still an idiotic teenage girl at heart, not a true leader (as was pretty obvious by the end). Ultimately it became necessary to remove her from Mereen by force, since she was probably going to take three more books to leave at this pace. While sending her back to the Dothraki wouldn't be the choice I'd have made (though it does fit the motif of moving backwards to go forward), at least she'll have something to do rather than try (and fail) to play at politics and make goo-goo eyes at Daario, who is hopefully splattered on the pavement of Mereen for good.


So yeah, ultimately I thought it was an enjoyable read, though it certainly didn't advance the overall story as much as I would have liked. Since I only started reading the series last year, this is the first time I'm going to have to wait between books. Not looking forward to that at all...
 
Wait, so in ACOK
when that kid with the "green dreams" told Bran that Reek would kill him, he really meant Theon i'm assuming?
 
[quote name='Clak']Wait, so in ACOK
when that kid with the "green dreams" told Bran that Reek would kill him, he really meant Theon i'm assuming?
[/QUOTE]

No...
The dream was that :“I dreamed of the man who came today, the one they call Reek. You and your brother lay dead at his feet, and he was skinning off your faces with a blade.”

That came true, all literal - except that the boy was someone else, and the Reek was Ramsay Snow (soon to be Bolton). When they see a dream, they only see the literal vision of the event, or a metaphorical vision (sea rising over the walls, meal served with maggots)

Jojen had no way of knowing that the boys whos' faces Ramsay was skinning were not who Ramsay and Theon said they were, the faces were already off.
 
So I'm 40% of the way through DwD, and I'm having the same reaction to it that many had to FfC: that is, it's boring. FfC was a quick, short read for me, whereas DwD is a slow, long read. I don't know when I'll finish this thing.


And after dragging through a lot of different POVs over ASOIAF that all somehow worked out for me -- even Catelyn Stark's POVs "worked," though I didn't care for her character -- I can't see how anyone could claim that
Quentyn Martell's
POVs work, at least to the point I'm at in the book. It's the first time in all 5 books that I've honestly questioned GRRM's choices. This had better have a huge payoff, but I know from
Dany's vision
that there's a 99% chance it won't.


I'm also losing interest in the Dany POVs, too (no need to spoiler, I think, her presence in DwD was spoiled by GRRM himself). It seems like I'm one of the few readers I know who have enjoyed her POVs in the previous books -- I liked the descriptions of the khalasar; of Dany's understanding of her past (the Targaryen legacy), present (lonely, horny queen-in-training), and future (ruler of Westeros?); and of Essos in general. But to the point I'm at in DwD, I'm slowly starting to side with those who were bored with Dany as early as GoT. We'll see, I've got to keep at it.


In the earlier books, I was deeply hooked by the time I reached 40-50% complete. Not so with DwD. There are POVs I'm certainly eager to return to, but I could really take or leave this book. I won't go so far as to call it disappointing, but I don't think it's unfair to call it boring.
 
I'm about 80% done with it, I haven't found it boring. Yeah, there's a lame POV here or their as you note. But Dany's get better and I enjoy the sections with John, Tyrion and Bran a lot.

So i don't find it near as bad as Feast for Crows where there were lots of POV with the Iron Island and Dorne folk that were boring as hell.

I will say his logic in splitting the books is BS though since several Feast POVs pop up here like
Jaimie, Cersei, Ahsa, Victarion etc., so it's not split purely on geography/character like he said.
He should have just kept it chronological and split it in the middle.
 
If DwD picks up, I'm happy. Maybe I'm jumping the gun.

I agree that the ordering is baffling. I think he's pretty much stated outright -- I'm sure someone can confirm this -- that he took some wrong turns and re-wrote a lot. If he were to do it all over again, I imagine the two books would be ordered differently.

And in light defense of FfC, I thought the Seastone Chair stuff was interesting. I'll grant that it felt forced, that we were expecting more on Jon/Dany/Tyrion instead, but I liked it for what it was, the characters in those POVs are much more interesting to me than those in
the Quentyn Martell Experience
. And the Dornish tale I liked for the sake of Doran, who seems to have an interesting mind. I enjoy reading about the strategists -- e.g. Tywin, Varys, Littlefinger, Doran, Hodor -- GRRM sets them up very well.

The only stuff that well and truly bored me in FfC was Samwell, but then it was easy to get through as I wanted to learn more from Aemon or eventually see who crossed paths with Sam.
 
[quote name='dothog']...the characters in those POVs are much more interesting to me than those in
the Quentyn Martell Experience
. [/QUOTE]

To be fair there's only a couple of chapters from that POV (at least through 80% or so of it). After that he just comes up in Dany's POV etc.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']To be fair there's only a couple of chapters from that POV (at least through 80% or so of it). After that he just comes up in Dany's POV etc.[/QUOTE]

He's got one more near the end...
His last ever. ;)
 
Finished the book last night.

I liked it more that book 4 since it's more focused on some of my favorite characters, but it still drug at times and isn't nearly as compelling a read as books 1-3.

Some spoilered discussion...


I agree with everyone else that Jon definitely isn't dead. When he's killed of character's he's made it readily apparent that they're dead. Ned=beheaded. Robb=beheaded and his wolf's head put on his corpse. Cat=throat slit (doubt they'll bring Jon back as a zombie).

That they just had him stabbed 4 times and fading out into cold makes it pretty clear he'll survive and be back. He's just to central a character to kill off. There'd be no point in all the hints they've dropped about his parentage throughout the books if he was just going to kill him off with no resolution.

As for other characters, it will be interesting to see if Stannis is indeed dead, or if the letter Jon got from Ramsay was just a ruse (either Ramsay lying, or the whole thing faked by other Crows to set up his murder).

Dany's story line was pretty annoying, but I'm glad the Meereen nonsense looks to be coming to an end.

I liked Bran's story and wished there would have been a few more POVs from him and we'd learned more about the Three Eyed Crow and his intentions for Bran.

Tyrion's story was ok, but didn't really progress all that much.

The book 4 returning POVs--Jaime, Cersei etc. where largely pointless. All that could have waited for book 6 and been resolved their instead of just getting a couple of chapters to leave things hanging again. Asha's POVs were laregely useless as well, though at least they were tied to events in the north this time. I didn't care much for Victarion's POVs either.

And, like the others, I did love the epilogue with Vary's killing Maester Pycelle and Kevan Lannister. Off all the events in the book, Vary's plotting will probably have the most impact on the game of thrones.

Anyway, a good read if still lacking compared to the first 3 books. I do agree with dothog that I really worry that he can wrap up this story satisfactorily in only two more books.
 
I finished DwD a week after it came out and I was unimpressed. It was good but not as good as I was expecting. All the points covered here are things I would agree with. Now some spoiler rants:

I think Jon dying was stupid. He should have died at the beginning of the book to have any sort of impact. We all know he isn't dead and therefore no one is upset. GRRM has brought too many characters back from the dead for my tastes. That was originally the best part of this series, the fact that anyone could die. Now you know certain people won't die, which is a feeling I didn't have during the first few books.

It splitting the book into two books I think GRRM created two okay books instead of one good book. I think we could all look at the combined chapters of both books and eliminate half of them no problem.

Dany was a waste of time in this book. She didn't do anything but generally annoy me. Dragons are unpredictable, who would have thought? Really, you know more than me but I am a teenage girl so I overrule you. She is a moron and I was originally hoping she'd take back the throne. Now I think I'd rather see her die. Barristan's chapters were far more interesting and advanced the book more than all of her chapters.

The epilogue was awesome and Varys is by far the most intriguing character left. I hope he gets his due chapters in the next book, that hopefully comes out before my six year old graduates high school. I will also echo the feeling that two books is not enough to tie up the lose ends left. Unless half the characters die in the same battle I suppose.

Cersei, Jamie, Tyrion, etc. have all become boring after doing basically the same thing for extended period. Tyrion's chapters were also a waste to me as nothing really happened.

Anyways the more I think about the more I was very disappointed in this book. I have read all the books for the first time this year and I enjoyed this one the least.
 
I really enjoyed the book but I have a some complaints

#1
Jons "death". Nobody believes hes dead so if he is it was mishandled (and makes no sense) and if hes not his "awakening" should have been revealed at the end of the book. I assume that will happen when they burn his body. It just feels like more of GRRMs fake cliffhangers

#2
Bran and Davos disappearing. Bran in particular went at least 500 pages without another chapter. After waiting to find out what was going on with Davos since everyone was told he was dead in AFFC we find out and then nothing else happens

#3
Jaime gets 1 chapter and ends on an interesting note but again hundreds of pages go by without another. I wouldnt have had a problem with that if it was at the end of the book (or not in it at all) as opposed to you sitting there expecting a continuation

#4
Dany just seemed to have a total change of character which was excused as "well shes is a young girl". Her chapters reminded me of Cerceis chapters from the last book but Dany is a character we are supposed to root for.

#5
Quentyns storyline felt kind of pointless. At least I'm not sure he needed his own POV

The best part of the book was
Theon. His chapters were great
 
And as I think more about it
NOTHING HAPPENS! Its no wonder he wanted to have a 5 year gap. The whole book builds up two major conflicts and neither happens by the end. When you think about how little progress was made towards the endgame you have to wonder why its a 1000 pages.
 
I finally finished A Feast for Crows. My biggest complaint was that it slowed down a lot in the middle. I thought the last third was great. I also liked the sections that focused on the
Iron Islands
.
Dorne
, however, bored me.
 
I think the way to do DwD is the same way I did FfC: sloooow. I'm enjoying it more now that I'm not trying to tear through it. I've hardly read much more since my earlier bitching.

Based on the little bit I've read since then, I still think there's no way he gets this done in 2 books. "Normal" sized books, at least (and quotes for normal by GRRM standards). Shit is gonna have to get CRAAAAZY fast. I hope he starts churning them out and just tacks on a 3rd book, rather than releasing 2 books over the next two decades.
 
So, just started A Storm of Swords. What am I in for? This is where most people start complaining about the books, isn't it?
 
[quote name='dothog']I think the way to do DwD is the same way I did FfC: sloooow. I'm enjoying it more now that I'm not trying to tear through it. I've hardly read much more since my earlier bitching.

Based on the little bit I've read since then, I still think there's no way he gets this done in 2 books. "Normal" sized books, at least (and quotes for normal by GRRM standards). Shit is gonna have to get CRAAAAZY fast. I hope he starts churning them out and just tacks on a 3rd book, rather than releasing 2 books over the next two decades.[/QUOTE]

Yeah and in his comments you can tell hes not 100% on only 2 books. Which makes all the unnecessary events of the last two books even more annoying.
 
[quote name='Clak']So, just started A Storm of Swords. What am I in for? This is where most people start complaining about the books, isn't it?[/QUOTE]

A Storm of Swords is great. There are some amazing moments throughout, but the best are at the end.

And the fact that he's discussing more than 7 books proves that he isn't fully in control of the narrative. That's a scary thought for an author.
 
[quote name='Clak']So, just started A Storm of Swords. What am I in for? This is where most people start complaining about the books, isn't it?[/QUOTE]

No, thats maybe the best book. A Feast for Crows is where the complainong starts.
 
Ah, I thought it was around the third book people started complaining about the POV characters used and all.
 
About 750 pages into Storm of Swords.

Jamie Lannister has been owning this book up. I initially hated the character, but when you see things from his POV, you really start to respect him as a character. I'm also very saddened by the death's of Robb and Cat Stark. More so Robb because he seemed like a character that cold do really great things. Davos is really growing on me as well
 
[quote name='munch']And the fact that he's discussing more than 7 books proves that he isn't fully in control of the narrative. That's a scary thought for an author.[/QUOTE]

He's known what he wanted to tell all along, it just as he writes he finds more details are necessary to convey what's going on, and thus it grows. He's at least vowed not to split based on POVs again, so Winds of Winter should be a contained book again.
 
Yeah, no more splits will be good.

And I'd definitely take more than 7 books over getting a rushed resolution. That said, I hope things start moving more quickly in the next book. A ton of shit happens in book 1-3. Books 4 and 5 not a whole lot of major consequence happens until the end of book 5, as it's more just moving the pieces into place on the chess board of the game of thrones.
 
I have to say, the story of the Stark family may be one of the most depressing I've ever read. To think none of it probably would have happened if Ned had not become the Hand.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah, no more splits will be good.

And I'd definitely take more than 7 books over getting a rushed resolution. That said, I hope things start moving more quickly in the next book. A ton of shit happens in book 1-3. Books 4 and 5 not a whole lot of major consequence happens until the end of book 5, as it's more just moving the pieces into place on the chess board of the game of thrones.[/QUOTE]

Not a lot happens in those books because
everybody dies in books 1-3
 
[quote name='Anexanhume']Not a lot happens in those books because
everybody dies in books 1-3
[/QUOTE]

Nah, nothing happens as because...
book 4 spends so much time on Dorne/The Iron Islands, Brienne is blindly chasing after Sansa, Sansa is just idling her time in the Eyrie, and Arya is training with the faceless man. Nothing that really moves the plot forward. The stuff with Cersei and Margery was the only thing really majorly important to the game of thrones that was explicitly covered in that book).

And in book 5 Dany is just wasting time in Meereen (though that finally progresses toward the end), Jon is dealing with the wildlings on the wall, and little happens in Brans story after he meets the 3 eyed crow. Tyrion is simply making his way to Meereen to meet Dany, and nothing really major happens on that front in the book. The rest is just focused on Stannis vs. the Boltons and Theon's story within that. As well as useless plot lines like Quentyn's.

He just got too much away from the game of thrones plot these past two books and has spent to much time just moving the pieces around the board.
 
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I'm nearly 70% done, I'm really crawling along.

While I think my first impression was harsh, I'm still a touch disappointed in the Jon/Tyrion/Dany chapters. Here's why....

1. Dany & Tyrion
I know that Dany has to learn her lessons, and Tyrion has to take his winding path to the dragons, and I don't mind that it's deliberate. I enjoyed the deliberation of FfC, but in FfC that time is spent with characters we don't know as well as others. In DwD, that deliberation is largely spent on characters I'm already VERY familiar with from previous volumes. Prior to DwD, I had already read quite a few of Tyrion's cock remarks or Dany's blood of the dragon asides.

I don't need the plot to move quickly, but I need more insight into Tyrion than where he thinks the whores are going on any given day. (Seriously, if he poses that question to himself one more time, fuck it, I may root for Cersei to curb stomp the snout-having mofo.) Tyrion's insight largely deals with the deception that surrounds him on his travels, and given that we as a reader already recognize that something's amiss, it's not compelling stuff....not in the way Tyrion's chapters were in previous volumes.

As for Dany, a gal's gotta get laid, I guess. Go for it, GRRM. Just know that in doing it, I've lost track of the 500 made-up names that surround Dany at any given moment. There's the Shavepate, aka Fizzpop zo Popper, Serjaent Peter Plumm, Beery and Queery, Big Ballas, Arstan, Hizpar no Hizpar, Billion'ara, the Green Fairie, Khal Jazzy Jeff, Mr. Squiggles the Worm, Missiandibobanafofana, Rufio Naaris, blah blah blah. WITH EVERY NEW SHITTY NAME I GIVE 10x FEWER fuckS.

2. Jon
While Jon's conventions are also known well by DWD, I'm a little put off by how lousy a leader GRRM's making Jon. I'm not saying that it's a bad decision as an author, it just feels inconsistent with how precocious Jon was in earlier volumes. Is part of "killing the boy" being a shitty boss?

Jon comments at times that Aemon or Sam would see his strategy where Marsh and others fail, but if Jon has the clarity to recognize that they don't grasp it, as their Lord Commander he should take the time to get people on board. That's not hard to see in the moment, I would think. His behavior is puzzling, for me at least, he seems to act as two leaders, thoughtful in places and compulsive in others. The inconsistency is fine, I guess, IMO it just doesn't jibe with the Jon of Books 1-4, who seemed deliberate, perhaps *too* pensive at times.
 
Yeah, I'm just hoping George is done with all the exploration of characters and spends the last two all on endgame material. He should try not to pull a George Lucas where the first two prequel trilogy movies dicked around and he had to scramble to actually connect the movies and finally start telling the primary story in the third.

Still, even when Martin stumbles, he's still one of the best storytellers of the past few decades. Crows was still leaps and bounds better than any other book I read in a long while. It's pretty damn enjoyable as long as you don't expect it to be direct continuation of what the 3 books built up. I think the whole purpose of the way he split the POVs was to function like he originally intended, a gap in the story that was supposed to pick up again after characters "matured." He wanted a 5 year lapse between books 3 and 4. But instead opted to just not have a time lapse and just let some A plot shit happen in the background while exploring other characters in various B plots.
 
I liked FfC for what it was, but I was hoping that *all* of DwD would resemble DwD's last 150 pages rather than almost all of DwD resembling FfC.

I don't think the exposition has taken away from the story, I just question the need for exposition on some of the events (or lack thereof) in DwD. I don't know that I needed to be intimate with Quentyn Martell and his decision making. It didn't hurt, but it consumed pages that could have been devoted elsewhere. Why couldn't he have been a 3 chapter sideline in the Dany chapters? GRRM may have a good answer to that, I'm just askin'.

Even the later exposition on Tyrion became ponderous -- the earlier exposition
unveiling Aegon and Connington
I can understand, but the later stuff
with Jorah, Penny, and Ben Plumm
didn't seem to me to require the volume of pages it was given. I just don't see how drawing out the later events involving Tyrion really justified the detail they were given -- I don't feel that they brought us to a new understanding of Tyrion and friends.

My lasting impression of DwD is that prior to reading the book, I would've laughed had someone told me I'd get sick of Dany, Jon, and Tyrion chapters. But for me that was exactly the case. I would've easily traded 3 of each of the DJT chapters to have another Bran, Arya, Davos, or even Victarion chapter. Or he could've included another brief POV (maybe Brianne or undead Catelyn) the way he did Jaime. Hell, I would've even traded up for a Sansa just to see what that bombass pimp Littlefinger is up to.

I think the
Theon
chapters were the only ones where the pacing felt just right, where the exposition and plot-driven elements merged in the right amounts. Everything else was either too brief or too slow/voluminous.

I still don't see how he gets this done in two books. It's going to feel rushed unless these fuckers weigh in at >1500 pages a piece.
 
one of the few hardcover books I have ever bought new. Arya is definitely my favorite character. Finally some damned winter and finally got around to posting in this thread more than a month after finishing it. Not that I have anything worth while to contribute, let the wait begin, also will try and get my sister to read the books(she really liked the show).

something that came to mind reading comments here I just had to post for some stupid reason, sorry. bk 5 spoiler sort of?
http://www.amazon.com/John-Dies-End...9148/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316070912&sr=8-1
doubt it's true but should be interesting, going from there.
 
I want more from the iron islands. I found myself really enjoying the sections from both feast for crows and dance of dragons.
 
I didn't care much for the Iron Islands stuff, but it was better than the Dornish stuff.

Just too many characters to juggle--he should have left it just the people in Westeros and Dany and the characters around her IMO.

Especially with only 2 books left. I don't see how he can tie it up in a satisfying manner in even two very long books.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I didn't care much for the Iron Islands stuff, but it was better than the Dornish stuff.

Just too many characters to juggle--he should have left it just the people in Westeros and Dany and the characters around her IMO.

Especially with only 2 books left. I don't see how he can tie it up in a satisfying manner in even two very long books.[/QUOTE]

Two very action packed books. Who's going to bewail another ACoK or ASoS?
 
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