A Dance with Dragons |OT| - Read the rules or Melisandre casts magic missile

How many ships did Manderly say he had?, I can see him going to Stannis.

Push comes to shove......... Stannis, if he alive, might go and crush the Iron Born and put Asha/Theon in charge is exchange for loyalty. He'd kill Euron most like and Aeron as well, though would prefer not since the religious crazies make it so much funner. He can wouldn't really head South and leave the Iron Born at his back like Robb di.

All that depends on the situation at the wall as well i guess.
 
not that this has anything to do with adwd per se but "Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken" is the best motto in the series.
 
My goodness... ASoIaF GAF is insane.

I like all the books equally for the most part. How can AFFC, ACoK, & ADWD have haters? Oh well. Of the two halves, I think I may prefer AFFC.
 
Irish said:
My goodness... ASoIaF GAF is insane.

I like all the books equally for the most part. How can AFFC, ACoK, & ADWD have haters? Oh well. Of the two halves, I think I may prefer AFFC.
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Don't even step foot on the SomethingAwful thread for ADWD. There are people running around called GRRM a bad writer, that he has completely lost track of the story, and that he's an obese pedophile rapist.

Of course the last part may be true but whatev
 
About 290 pages in, so spoilers for everything up to that point and then my speculation

Very interesting to learn more about the extent of what the wargs can do and that they can even possess humans. Will we see Bran in the body of one of the dragons or will Jon have to do it (assuming R + L is true and the dragons won't resist Jon as much since he has Targaryen blood). I never thought of that until the the first section of the book and it's a neat idea and really changes how I think the ending will play out. Obviously, since all the Stark kids seem to be wargs it raises the question about whether Ned is one too and if his spirit is possessing someone/thing.

I thought that we might see Aegon appear when I was reading the previous books, but it was a nice surprise to see Tyrion out him.

I can already see why Martin struggled with the "Mereenese knot" so much. Interested in seeing what he does from here. At the pace the book is going it's hard to see how this wraps up in 2 more books, but we'll see how the rest of ADWD is.
 
Brian Fellows said:
Almost 400 pages in and Dany's chapters are still a chore to get through.
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Am I wrong to skip them?

She's a pretty shit character and her story is going nowhere fast.
 
With Dany chapters I always hope something is going to happen and hope for some shit to go down but it never does. You think things are going to happen and shit will get real but it hasn't come. I am over halfway through the novel now.
 
Big-E said:
With Dany chapters I always hope something is going to happen and hope for some shit to go down but it never does. You think things are going to happen and shit will get real but it hasn't come. I am over halfway through the novel now.
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The real meat of Dany's chapters is the interesting political parallels the people around her have with the forces-that-be in Westeros. You have to kind of look at her chapters like that, rather than 'focusing on something happening'.
 
Huh, there must be something wrong with me because I think the Dany chapters are good and the Tyrion chapters are shit. Still, loving the book, so far.
 
What is the difference when Martin writes of the "queen's men" and the "king's men"? Probably something easy, but I don't know if I am missing something important.
 
Help Me! said:
What is the difference when Martin writes of the "queen's men" and the "king's men"? Probably something easy, but I don't know if I am missing something important.
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Queen's men are those who followed Queen Selyse in adopting R'hllor as their god. While they are called "queen's men" for being followers of Selyse, it is usually said that they are truly Melisandre's men.

King's men are those loyal to Stannis.
 
Help Me! said:
What is the difference when Martin writes of the "queen's men" and the "king's men"? Probably something easy, but I don't know if I am missing something important.
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The Queen's men are loyal to the queen/Melisandre & the god of light, King's men don't necessarily give a shit about the god of light crap and are loyal only to Stannis.
 
Famassu said:
The Queen's men are loyal to the queen/Melisandre & the god of light, King's men don't necessarily give a shit about the god of light crap and are loyal only to Stannis.
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So it only has meaning in that context? An interesting division. Thanks.
 
Duki said:
dwd
euron and his bros would kick the shit out of theon, whereas the guy in the story who was replaced was weak and unloved by the other vikings.

besides victarion is where its at, biggest badass in the books right now
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Victarion will die the moment he'll have to fight someone capable with valyrian steel. He puts way too much faith in his plate.
 
~500 pages in. Not much has happened, true, but I'm enjoying the ride well enough. Still 3.5X better than Feast.

Though it's almost insulting that this timeline ended up becoming two books anyway.
 
elrechazao said:
but words are wind
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no that's the title of the next book

aidan: I read your blog and I disagree. I really believe it's the worldbuilding and setup that necessitated two books. His prose, however, has become absolutely brilliant and so evocative I can't help but feel like I'm right there, alongside these characters, in a fully realized world. Never before have we been able to FEEL the world of A Song of Ice and Fire before AFFC/ADWD.

And that's just the kind of feeling I want going into the next novel.
 
aidan said:
I wrote a piece on my blog about what I think the big difference is between A Game of Thrones and A Dance with Dragons and how it's not so much Martin's plotting that's getting in the way of the story as it is his prose.
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The prose is fine (and in fact I love his writing in all of the books and wish I could write half as well).

The problem is that he has killed off too many of the good characters (and the new ones are not as good, i.e. Brienne) and I honestly don't think he knows exactly where the story is going, leading to a lot of treading water.

If everyone is correct and the action picks up in the next book and it is released in the next 3 years all will be forgiven.
 
bionic77 said:
The prose is fine (and in fact I love his writing in all of the books and wish I could write half as well).

The problem is that he has killed off too many of the good characters (and the new ones are not as good, i.e. Brienne) and I honestly don't think he knows exactly where the story is going, leading to a lot of treading water.

If everyone is correct and the action picks up in the next book and it is released in the next 3 years all will be forgiven.
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I wouldn't mind if it took more than 3 years again, honestly. Writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do.

I have a multitude of other novels and well, my life, to occupy the time.
 
bionic77 said:
The prose is fine (and in fact I love his writing in all of the books and wish I could write half as well).

The problem is that he has killed off too many of the good characters (and the new ones are not as good, i.e. Brienne) and I honestly don't think he knows exactly where the story is going, leading to a lot of treading water.

If everyone is correct and the action picks up in the next book and it is released in the next 3 years all will be forgiven.
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How is that a criticism of A Dance with Dragons? Dany, Tyrion and Jon, who are far-and-away the most popular characters in the series, comprise 75% of the novel's narrative.
 
aidan said:
How is that a criticism of A Dance with Dragons? Dany, Tyrion and Jon, who are far-and-away the most popular characters in the series, comprise 75% of the novel's narrative.
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I was talking about the series as a whole and why aDwD to me lags compared to earlier books. Martin is such a great freaking writer though that I still have faith in him to make me forget about of all my complaints in the next book assuming he ever gets around to writing it.

And is Dany really one of the most popular characters in the series? I said it before, but Dany and the Starks are pretty damn boring without their animals. Give me the Lannisters any day of the week over them. Even Cersei!
 
aidan said:
How is that a criticism of A Dance with Dragons? Dany, Tyrion and Jon, who are far-and-away the most popular characters in the series, comprise 75% of the novel's narrative.
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and nothing interesting happens to 2/3 of those, in a progression sense.
 
I think Martin's prose is fine. His exposition has always been heavy and overly detailed, but that's also part of the reason why people miss so many subtleties in the text such as Renly/Loras' relationship, R+L=J theory, or (ADWD)
fake Aegon
.

His narrative structure took a real nose dive with AFFC and ADWD though. His previous novels were like music compositions in structure -- a slow ballad at the start, a crescendo to an epic climax, followed by a denouement.

In ADWD,
we got most of that for the first 750 pages, but then the last 200 just fizzled out with no climax. We were thrown with 10+ different PoV's, largely unconnected, and mostly to keep us up to date with characters not seen since AFFC. And then we're left with a bunch of cliffhangers and no resolution to the Battle of Winterfell or Meereen.

AFFC was even worse imo, as that book was mostly plodding throughout with no crescendo or rising tension. I thoroughly enjoyed ADWD's first 2/3rds though, and thought Martin was in top form. I blame all faults of ADWD's unsatisfying conclusion on GRRM's editor.
 
Guys... please remember that this is the spoiler everything!!!! thread when speaking broadly about the book.
 
scosher said:
His narrative structure took a real nose dive with AFFC and ADWD though. His previous novels were like music compositions in structure -- a slow ballad at the start, a crescendo to an epic climax, followed by a denouement.

In ADWD, we got most of that for the first 750 pages, but then the last 200 just fizzled out with no climax. We were thrown with 10+ different PoV's, largely unconnected, and mostly to keep us up to date with characters not seen since AFFC. And then we're left with a bunch of cliffhangers and no resolution to the Battle of Winterfell or Meereen.

AFFC was even worse imo, as that book was mostly plodding throughout with no crescendo or rising tension. I thoroughly enjoyed ADWD's first 2/3rds though, and thought Martin was in top form. I blame all faults of ADWD's unsatisfying conclusion on GRRM's editor.
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I think that Martin's real problems with this series are structural. But I suppose that's the risk with a "gardener" writer penning an epic fantasy series. Martin has always talked about how he started the series with the direwolf scene, and the series has expanded from a trilogy, to six books, to seven, and now probably even more. He didn't have the books planned out or outlined in detail, and it has resulted in severe structural problems when the 5 year gap didn't work and he expanded the scope of the story starting in ASOS. Hell, even the 5 year gap was an idea he thought up while writing ACOK. He spent 11 years dealing with these structural problems.
 
scosher said:
AFFC was even worse imo, as that book was mostly plodding throughout with no crescendo or rising tension. I thoroughly enjoyed ADWD's first 2/3rds though, and thought Martin was in top form. I blame all faults of ADWD's unsatisfying conclusion on GRRM's editor.
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I dunno, there was plenty of rising tension at King's Landing with Cersei's failures piling up & the rise of the religious army, ending with her getting imprisoned by the High Septon. And this plotline got a perfect continuation in ADWD with
the walk of shame
, after leaving it in an interesting point in AFFC. Plus Jaime not giving a shit about Cersei's cry for help after him growing apart of her throughout the book was *thumbs up*

Then there was the Iron Isles stuff that, yes, was probably the weakest part, but even it had a somewhat clear beginning, middle & end with the call to kingsmoot and "surprising" conclusion of who "won" it (and the whole dragon controlling horn thing), with a clear new plotline starting with Victarion being sent to Dany to try & take control of the dragons.

Not to forget Dorne. It was seemingly slow & somewhat uneventful, but even there were their slow build-up (with a lot of introduction to their culture & whatnot), more action/event filled middle (Doran capturing the Viper's daughters to make it seem like he's friends to King's Landing, Arianne trying to do what she did) and SHOCKING REVELATIONS about the real intentions of Doran in the end, leaving them with a clear kind of storyline for the future.

And while Brienne's story perhaps didn't follow the normal "slow beginning, a bit more eventful middle/build-up to a climax" formula (it was more about fleshing out (the post-war) Westeros), the ending with the fight & her being left at the mercy of Lady Stoneheart & Co was a good way to end her part in the book. Some may not like the cliffhanger ending, but for her I think it worked (especially since there weren't any other similar ones in the book).

Only Arya's & Sansa's POVs didn't really advance too much, even though there were some tasty tidbits with Arya being left blind due to what she did and Sansa learning more of Littlefinger's ambitious plans for her and for everything.
 
scosher said:
I think Martin's prose is fine. His exposition has always been heavy and overly detailed, but that's also part of the reason why people miss so many subtleties in the text such as Renly/Loras' relationship, R+L=J theory, or (ADWD)
fake Aegon
.

His narrative structure took a real nose dive with AFFC and ADWD though. His previous novels were like music compositions in structure -- a slow ballad at the start, a crescendo to an epic climax, followed by a denouement.

In ADWD,
we got most of that for the first 750 pages, but then the last 200 just fizzled out with no climax. We were thrown with 10+ different PoV's, largely unconnected, and mostly to keep us up to date with characters not seen since AFFC. And then we're left with a bunch of cliffhangers and no resolution to the Battle of Winterfell or Meereen.

AFFC was even worse imo, as that book was mostly plodding throughout with no crescendo or rising tension. I thoroughly enjoyed ADWD's first 2/3rds though, and thought Martin was in top form. I blame all faults of ADWD's unsatisfying conclusion on GRRM's editor.
Click to expand...
AFFC was about building bricks, as is ADWD. And that's good enough for me.
 
So the three heads of the dragon implies three Targs, right? End of DwD
With Dany being the obvious one, it is between Little Griff, Tyrion, and Jon Snow for the other two.
 
ZephyrFate said:
The real meat of Dany's chapters is the interesting political parallels the people around her have with the forces-that-be in Westeros. You have to kind of look at her chapters like that, rather than 'focusing on something happening'.
Click to expand...

I do enjoy the political stuff somewhat but a real problem I have that I don't know if other people have is that the names of the people outside of Westeros all sort of blend together and I forget who is who as they are all weird names.
 
I'm about half way through now. Enjoying it so far, although not much has really happened. But the build up is pretty interesting at the moment. Seems like a lot of stuff is going to happen in the second half of the book.
 
Big-E said:
I do enjoy the political stuff somewhat but a real problem I have that I don't know if other people have is that the names of the people outside of Westeros all sort of blend together and I forget who is who as they are all weird names.
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There's a pretty good naming system, but to explain it is a bit spoiler-y.
 
ZephyrFate said:
AFFC was about building bricks, as is ADWD. And that's good enough for me.
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AFFC was about building bricks, but I'd argue ADWD was mainly about setting the pieces on the chess board. I think knowing about the knot really robbed me of some enjoyment. I'll reread it in a few months to see how I appreciate it as a novel, rather than as a part of the series.
 
The Asha chapter had the worst sex scene ever. It was awful even by Martin standards. Actually the whole chapter sucked, so I'm glad she died.
 
I didn't realize until this book that Robett Glover is not actually named Robert Glover. Mind blown. Throughout multiple rereads and even a run through the audiobooks, I mentally inserted an R every time.
 
scosher said:
I think Martin's prose is fine. His exposition has always been heavy and overly detailed, but that's also part of the reason why people miss so many subtleties in the text such as Renly/Loras' relationship,
Click to expand...


still don't get how this can be missed, I lost count of all the references to it.
 
That link doesn't seem to work for me. Just brings me to the generic Google Talks page.
 
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