A Song of Ice and Fire Books Spoileriffic Thread

[Brendocon]

Yes.

I've read it. It was ****.

You won't like it.

I've told George to go off and do it again.

It might take him a while.

[Best First]

Bah.

[Hound]

There's a new preview on GRRMs website.

WHY DOES HE MAKE ME WAIT?!?

[bumblemusprime]

Season 3 will be Storm of Swords 1

Season 4, Storm of Swords 2 and most likely chunks of Dance and Feast

Seasons 5 & 6 will more or less be Feast and Dance, although there's a lot of padding in those books. They'll have to construct stuff from whole cloth or else pull in stuff from Winds.

So assuming he has to be done by the start of Season 6 in 2016, we are looking at an early 2016 release.

Only three years! Hell, I waited from 2003 to 2011 to find out what happened to Tyrion and Dany and Jon...

[composite word including 'f*ck'] you, George. I mean that nicely.

[bumblemusprime]

Just have to sign in to say that I am rereading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

It really sucks compared to Ice & Fire.

Why can't Ice & Fire be done? At least give me another damn book.

[Best First]

Ha - i was thinking of giving that a go. Goosd time saving review Spence.

[bumblemusprime]

Oh yeah. Do not do the Wheel of Time unless you are a rabid fantasy nut who will take anything.

Or just go to the end of Book Four, and like everyone else, figure out that he lost it around books 5 & 6.

Naw, the books for a Martin fix are the Lies of Locke Lamora series by Scott Lynch, although he is even SLOWER, and anything by Joe Abercrombie, who churns it out and is nice and violent. I liked Pat Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind too, although was not so hot on the second book.

[bumblemusprime]

Also check out Octavia Butler--mostly sci-fi, but nice and brutal.

[bumblemusprime]

Not yet!

[bumblemusprime]

Quadruple post!

Has anyone read his other stuff? Rather liked "The Armageddon Rag" and "Fevre Dream" among the novels.

"The Pear-Shaped Man" and "Portraits of His Children" are rather wrenching short stories.

[bumblemusprime]

I am rereading the series now on the Nook. Just finished book 1. Some thoughts, years later:

- Boy, the actors are just engraved on my head. I don't mind picturing Bean and Dinklage as Ned and Tyrion. Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington bug me. There they are, though, stuck as Jon Snow and Daenerys whether I want to picture them there or not.

- The final hundred pages of this book are a marvelous clusterf*ck, aren't they? The setup is the typical late-act jeopardy of a fantasy novel. In fact, there's this minor wound on Khal Drogo that doesn't even seem important to the story. And then... off with his head! Drogo is a vegetable! Dany gave birth to a monster in her sleep! Sansa has gone from being a shallow thirteen-year-old to the most poor, abused person on the planet! It's magnificent.

- There's a nice critique of a cult of manhood here, and I think Martin is smarter than his critics give him credit for. People go after the enormous amount of sexual violence in the books, but I think Martin makes it clear that this is an entire rape culture. The notion of "a man's not a man until he kills other men with his sword" enables a lot of crappy behavior.

- Jon-is-Rhaegar-and-Lyanna's-kid-theory: This is clearly what George meant from the start. I wonder what he will do with it now that the fandom has guessed. I had forgotten that Ned has several flashbacks of Lyanna whispering Promise me... Presumably he promised never to tell Jon the truth.

- Tywin Lannister does the exact same things in the books, but comes off as a bigger dickwad. Maybe it's the description of him as bald save for giant golden sideburns.

- The show's treatment of Shae is certainly different than what you might expect. In the book, she yanks off her clothes and f*cks Tyrion's brains out every few pages. She's eighteen and flighty and clearly a poor choice for Tyrion. Had I called it, I would have called Shae as the eye candy in the show, serving up boobs each week. Never would have guessed that they would turn her into a worldly-wise, foreign-born foil.

[Computron]

I really liked Fevre Dream. The writing is so evocative you can almost feel the humidity of the southern stretches of the Mississippi River and the bayou. It's also a really crisp story great for a quick weekend read.

I was in Natchez once for a deposition. It is the perennial Southern river town and after reading Fevre Dream I had a good laugh at how the town is now from what it may have been in decades past.

Definitely a fish out of water deposition though. 3 Northern Illinois lawyers being hosted by your classic Southern Gentleman Lawyer with enough hospitality to make Martha Stewart jealous.

[Brendocon]

- Jon-is-Rhaegar-and-Lyanna's-kid-theory: This is clearly what George meant from the start. I wonder what he will do with it now that the fandom has guessed. I had forgotten that Ned has several flashbacks of Lyanna whispering Promise me... Presumably he promised never to tell Jon the truth.

See, I assumed from the moment I read those scenes that she was talking about [something I've forgotten now because so damn ******* much has happened in the interim]. I never applied any subtext or mystery to it.

Similarly, I don't buy the whole Jon's parenthood theorising. I fully admit being a cynical twist-guessing bastard, but I've always taken Jon Snow at face value. Ned went off to war, had a fling with some bird, insisted on doing the right thing and raising the child.

There was a bit of mystery when Ned was the only one who knew "the truth" then died; but since then we've had the "well duh" stuff of people who knew his mother, and whoever the friend of Ned's was who knew. And several references of people who can tell he's Ned's son just by looking at him (I know genetics is a fun thing and that's no actual proof - my sister looks spookily like my aunt, but still).

Sometimes a bastard trying to find his way is just a bastard trying to find his way.

Which probably means I'm completely wrong.

[bumblemusprime]

It's entirely possible that Lyanna doesn't want Robert to know that she went to Rhaegar willingly BUT there is no kid involved.

My theory, which is full of aspersions:

George has said he's an organic writer. A gardener--he plants and tends what comes up, rather than being an architect who builds on a blueprint. I think that 1996 George, writing the first book, wanted Jon to be the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. The first book reads like that is important. Who knows whether 2013 George cares about following through with that. Heard a few times that Rowling threw out a lot of her plot twists because so many people guessed them and she didn't want to be seen as predictable.

Of course, that's assuming George ever decides to WRITE the book, since he spends most of his time watching football and humping the extras from the whorehouse scenes on top of a pile of money.

[Brendocon]

Thinking about it, my assumptions may have been rooted around a bit of early confusion over which character was which. I think I tagged the "promise me" stuff onto Ned taking care of Catelyn on behalf of his brother or something, I can't remember. Meh.

George has said he's an organic writer. A gardener--he plants and tends what comes up, rather than being an architect who builds on a blueprint. I think that 1996 George, writing the first book, wanted Jon to be the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. The first book reads like that is important. Who knows whether 2013 George cares about following through with that. Heard a few times that Rowling threw out a lot of her plot twists because so many people guessed them and she didn't want to be seen as predictable.

Sounds reasonable. Did we ever get a sensible answer to the business with Tyrion's dagger being used to try to kill Bran? That was massively important but just sort of got complicated and handwaved away as I recall.

Of course, that's assuming George ever decides to WRITE the book, since he spends most of his time watching football and humping the extras from the whorehouse scenes on top of a pile of money.

Like you wouldn't.

[Computron]

Sounds reasonable. Did we ever get a sensible answer to the business with Tyrion's dagger being used to try to kill Bran? That was massively important but just sort of got complicated and handwaved away as I recall.

It was never outright stated but it's been implied it was Joffrey trying to impress King Robert. After Bran was injured, Cersei mentions to Jaime that Joffrey had overheard a conversation between Robert and herself in which he had stated it would be a kindness to have let the boy pass away. Joffrey presumably ordered the boy's assassination in order to impress his father.

The blade was originally Baelish's, but he lost it in a bet to King Robert. However he told Catelyn that it was Tyrion's. (Thus helping to spark the Stark-Lannister war and furthering his own purposes. I don't know whether Baelish knew who exactly ordered it, but by accusing a Lannister he definitely gave it the air of truth it needed to pass muster.)

Edit

In other words, your original statement still applies.

[bumblemusprime]

Huh. I forgot all about that. I am halfway through A Clash of Kings and haven't gotten to that info yet. Robert actually won the dagger?

I love how unsympathetic Ned Stark is in the moment he seals his destruction. Littlefinger is right: if you overthrow Joffrey and crown Stannis, the kingdom would be worse off than if Stark just tried to influence Joff for the better.

The second book feels more like a slog this time than before. A whole lot of Bran sitting at the lord's table being bored by stuff that bores me too. I know that the thread of "who-marries-Lady-Hornwood" plays into more important stuff in the fifth book, but I don't know if I'll remember by then. Bring on the Blackwater already!

[Brendocon]

I know that the thread of "who-marries-Lady-Hornwood" plays into more important stuff in the fifth book, but I don't know if I'll remember by then.

This is the problem. By the time anything gets paid off, you've forgotten what the hell happened in the first place.

"You! You're the person who somebody I've never briefly heard mention of in conversation three books ago! It all makes sense now!"

Like why I didn't realise until much later that the alchemist in the Feast prologue was Jaqen.

[Brendocon]

There's a part of me that thinks I'd rather be a tv viewer right now, caught in the horror of having seen Robb and Cat dead, rather than being trapped in the indeterminate "is Jon Snow dead?" cliffhanger that the books have provided me with.

Then again maybe not.

He's dead too, isn't he?

[bumblemusprime]

There's a part of me that thinks I'd rather be a tv viewer right now, caught in the horror of having seen Robb and Cat dead, rather than being trapped in the indeterminate "is Jon Snow dead?" cliffhanger that the books have provided me with.

Then again maybe not.

He's dead too, isn't he?

He's dead, Jim.

According to a friend, Melisandre is going to resurrect him as Zombie Jon, doin his Zombie Thang. Whether or not that gives him a weird cult a la Lady Stoneheart I dunno.

[Brendocon]

Imagine how Stannis will handle the news that Ned Stark's bastard is the Lord of Light's chosen.

Also, Sprunklemus, this was you wasn't it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8dos7QYX24

[bumblemusprime]

Imagine how Stannis will handle the news that Ned Stark's bastard is the Lord of Light's chosen.

Also, Sprunklemus, this was you wasn't it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8dos7QYX24

HE'S NOT READING THE RIGHT COPY. Blue. It's blue, it has a picture of Robb shooting a fire arrow at Hoster Tully's pyre, and I still have it on my shelf with the 2003 tearstains!!!!

But yeah, pretty much.

I'm still only halfway into Clash on my reread, but if I recall correctly, Stannis gave battle at the end of Dance to Ramsay Snow, and potentially died off-screen?

[Brendocon]

HE'S NOT READING THE RIGHT COPY. Blue. It's blue, it has a picture of Robb shooting a fire arrow at Hoster Tully's pyre, and I still have it on my shelf with the 2003 tearstains!!!!

Next you'll be telling me that it doesn't have the "now a major tv series" banner across the top.

I'm still only halfway into Clash on my reread, but if I recall correctly, Stannis gave battle at the end of Dance to Ramsay Snow, and potentially died off-screen?

If I remember right, when last we saw Stannis he was on the bukkake end of some serious blizzardage, and possibly going to starve/freeze to death. Then Jon got THE LETTER from Ramsey saying that he'd killed Stannis.

So personally I think that Stannis is still alive. Partly because I don't buy off-screen deaths when they're perspective chars/accompanied by them (see also Davos), partly because Ramsey is Ramsey, and partly because if they'd done TEH BATTLE then Ramsey wouldn't be demanding that Jon give him back his Reek and his fake-Arya-wife.

Ze leetle grey cells, zey theenk zis.

[bumblemusprime]

MANY THOUGHTS as I reread Dany's time in the House of the Undying.

The Red Wedding is foreshadowed all over the place in Clash: Theon dreams it, and Dany sees a wolf-headed king at a table of the dead. Dany also see a woman ravaged by four little monsters--Robb, Balon, Joffrey and Stannis ravaging Westeros?

Aegon gets foreshadowed too, and again there's evidence that there's a third Targaryen--Jon Snow?--as Rhaegar, in Dany's vision, holds up Aegon and says "The dragon has three heads." Dany appears to see Aerys, frying someone who is the "king of charred bones and cooked meat.

"Three heads has the dragon" comes back in the scene with the Undying Ones.

One might think that Aegon, Dany and Jon Snow are meant to team up against the Others. But that would mean that Aegon has to live out the sixth book, and all signs point to his death, perhaps at the hands of his aunt. The Undying show Dany her son as well, so they are showing the not-quite-real as well.

"Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow." Azhor Azhai one way or another? This is the one that intrigues me, along with the various things that accompany it: a corpse at the helm of a boat, a blue flower growing in ice (the Wall falling down?), etc. The fact that Rhaego is included here seems to point to these images being possibly imaginary. Even so, I can't help seeing the red sword as an eventual fulfillment of the red god subplot. Jon, perhaps? He hardly qualifies as a king.

[Best First]

Sudden urge to start rereading...

Agree with all of Brend's speculation above.

[bumblemusprime]

The Horn of Winter (insert terrible joke here) is on the cover-to-be of The Winds of Winter. Meaning the Wall shall fall in Book Six at all?

Write, George, write, you f*cker.

[bumblemusprime]

Storm of Swords, first half:

Oh, man I am excited for Oberyn Martell in the show. The guy is a legend. Interested to see where the 10,000,000,000 Dornish plotlines spinning out of Martell politics go in Books Six and Seven.

So Arya meets Jon's milk brother in the Brotherhood Without Banners, supposedly nursed by Wylla, handmaiden to Ashara Dayne. This hearkens back to the Ashara Dayne story, although Ned claimed, to Robert, that Jon's mother was actually Wylla.

So as far as the theory goes that Jon is Rhaegar and Lyanna's son, we have:

Pros:

1- Ashara Dayne killed herself for grief. Rather than grief over Ned leaving her, or loving her brother's killer, it was simply grief over her brother Arthur's death.

2- Ned allowed the cover story of Ashara Dayne to flourish, hoping no one would guess that Lyanna had died in childbirth, her "promise me" a promise to keep Jon safe. But when confronted by Robert, he named Wylla as the mother, because if Jon is both a Dayne and a Stark, he could still be legitimized.

3- Ned acquiesced to his son joining the Night's Watch very fast. One of the few places in the realm where even a Targaryen can be safe, as we see from Aemon.

Cons:

1- Ashara killed herself because she fell in love with her brother's killer and bearing his son much better story than killing herself over grief for her brother.

2- Ned might have sped Jon on to the Night's Watch as much because the Daynes could legitimize him as for the fact that he's a Targaryen.

3- The Lyanna and Rhaegar thing seemed TOO strong in the first book. Now George throws what appears to be a red herring. The sudden appearance of Aegon in Book Five does not preclude the reappearance of another Targaryen, after all.


In other stuff:

Glad that the TV series didn't include the silly B- plotline about Melisandre killing Edric Storm (or Gendry, in that case) to wake up the dragons under Dragonstone. It gets a bit silly, especially the way they go round and round about it for chapters and chapters.

Stannis once again sees this lord of fire with a red crown. Undead Jon Snow prediction?

I missed Walder Frey's line in the TV series: "Seems I've killed some of your men, Your Grace. Oh, but I'll make an apology..." Great line, and drives home what a bastard that old ****** is.

[bumblemusprime]

It's nice to have read beyond the show. Ygritte got a great death scene. I hope they don't [composite word including 'f*ck'] with it. I like the moment where she killed Deaf Dick Follard and Jon has her in his sights and can't fire--very fast, very nicely written with no lingering.

[bumblemusprime]

Halfway through FeastDance now, after taking a break to replace the broken eReader, go through a couple of history books, and, of course, start up the UK marathon reread thread again.

Even held up next to each other, Dance reads better than Feast. I've been doing 2-3 chapters of each and switching back and forth and the conflicts in Dance are just more compelling. They shouldn't be, because there's nothing inherently more dramatic about the premise on either side--power play politics and extended quest/travel scenes--but the power plays in Dance all have higher stakes. Except Tyrion's story, which seems to have been inspired by Eat, Pray, Love.

Young Griff's secret is handled very quickly--to the point where I don't know whether George just made it up, or had been building to it for so long that he had no energy left for the big reveal.

My favorite bit is the dilemma with Dany's dragons. Two were thrown into the pit and a third just... off he goes.

I did forget about the bit where Cersei encourages the High Septon to re-start an order of military monks, in exchange for some loan forgiveness. It was one of the rare occasions when Cersei does well.

[Hound]

I did forget about the bit where Cersei encourages the High Septon to re-start an order of military monks, in exchange for some loan forgiveness. It was one of the rare occasions when Cersei does well.

I somehow get the feeling that having a religiously driven army venture around the 7 kingdoms isn't going to be a good thing!