A Song Of Ice And Fire: book discussion thread

[Guynemer]

Just finished the book. Not sure if it is the mass insanity towards the end or just the length of the thing, but I'm not sure to what you're referring, Koya.

Spoiler:

Knives in the mother****ing dark, GODDAMMIT, Jon got Julius mother****ing Caesared!

The whole book, I was thinking about a certain character, "whatever happened to (name redacted)," and then BOOM, Epilogue.




On another note, whoever thought a freaking banker would be awesome?


So, tangentially regarding what will undoubtedly be regarded as this books Red Wedding equivalent:

Spoiler:

Does anyone think the Boltons have defeated Stannis? Whatever came of the Manderlys and Freys being sent out from Winterfell?

And, finally:

Spoiler:

Whither Davos? Where is it that people are cannibals, and why on Earth would Osha bring Rickon there?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Just finished the book. Not sure if it is the mass insanity towards the end or just the length of the thing, but I'm not sure to what you're referring, Koya.

Spoiler:

The pies that Manderly brought to the wedding...they had the missing Freys baked inside.

Spoiler:

Does anyone think the Boltons have defeated Stannis? Whatever came of the Manderlys and Freys being sent out from Winterfell?

Spoiler:

No way, there's too much wrong about the letter for it to be real. I see two main options:
1) The Manderlys turned on the Freys, killed them, and joined Stannis. Now the Boltons are stuck in Winterfell. Ramsay sends the letter as a last-ditch attempt to get leverage over Stannis. Problem with this is, how are Manderly's men going to flip when Manderly himself is still in Winterfell with the Boltons?
2) The letter is faked by Mel to keep Jon Snow from riding off to rescue the wildlings stuck at the bay. If she was trying to protect him it kinda backfired a bit, I'd say. Problem with this idea is that there's info in the letter that she wouldn't normally have, but maybe she saw it in a vision.

[Guynemer]

Oh ****, I didn't even realize. How did I miss that?

So there were two blatant Shakespeare references, instead of just the one?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Apparently the clue was a song request, which went right over my head.

[Guynemer]

I knew I liked the guy, but holy ****ing ****, he might be my new favorite Northman.

[Nostromo]

Me too, it went right over my head. I tend to skip passages where Martin talks about food: he goes on and on, its tiresome...

[Imran Siddiqui]

I just finished. I think I'm with Boshko, this book was the worst of the series. I'm crushingly disappointed.

Spoiler:

Seriously all those words for what? Yes, we get some really new characters and plot movement on Aegon and Jon Connington, but Dany & Tyrion go no where really. Dany learns that being a Queen is hard work and you have get your hands dirty a bit. Great, did it have to take that long? Tyrion's chapters are a travelogue. Jon basically just lets the Wildlings join the cause of Night's Watch only to get killed for it and, seemingly, start a war on the Wall (even if Melissandre gives him the Beric Dondarrion treatment)... which can only benefit Stannis, who I really doubt is dead.

I did like Cersei basically taking herself out of the picture by just confessing and taking the walk (second time in the series were confessing is the WRONG thing to do) and then Varys decides to put her back in by killing the guy that could make things work out fine for Tommen.

One wonders what Dany is like to do when he discovers Aegon may have beaten to her to the punch.

And I'm sorry, but the whole Bran story arc has always been dull.

Hey George, you think we can move this story along a little bit? I realize character development is nice, but you did a great job balancing character development with plot movement in your first three books of the series. Remember those?

On another note, I just, from this thread, realized that Mance and the spearwives were in Winterfell causing havor and the pies were Freys. So that's much more fun .

[joncha]

Spoiler:

Whither Davos? Where is it that people are cannibals, and why on Earth would Osha bring Rickon there?

Spoiler:

Skagos. I'm not sure who mentioned cannibals and unicorns (the "goat" in the dream only had one horn), but I think it was in a AFFC.

Apparently the clue was a song request, which went right over my head.

Spoiler:

Bran tells the swampy kids about the Rat Cook when they get to the wall in ASOS.

Also, +1 on Boshko's assessment. The book had its moments, but it was the literary equivalent of treading water.

[Flubber]

Just finished book 3 and

1. Still like tyrion
2. I like little finger.
3. Everyone hates the freys


Time to start book 4

[Guynemer]

**** all y'all, I loved it. It wasn't as good as books 3 or 2, but it was still great.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You also didn't wait 6 years for like 1000 pages of nothing.

Perhaps that is the reason I liked A Feast for Crows far more than other fans who had been waiting for 5 years for a book that really didn't go far plotwise either (I think I spent 6 months to a year waiting for AFFC).

Maybe Martin should have plugged away making the "5 years later" work (that's basically what "A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons" is - filling in the 5 years that Martin originally wanted to skip but couldn't make work).

[Guynemer]

And seeing as I didn't wait at all, maybe that's why I thought it was swell?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I waited for both - AFfC is still the worst in the series, I'd probably put ADwD at third behind ASoS and GoT.

[Krill]

Where is aCoK then?

[Sparrowhawk]

Where is aCoK then?

Process of elimination suggests he would put aCoK 4th (seeing as there are 5 books and he told us his 1,2,3 & 5 picks).

/me