A Song of Ice and Fire - Spoiler-Free Book Discussion

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > A Song of Ice and Fire - Spoiler-Free Book Discussion

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

3Romeo posted:

I was thinking more of the inevitable Jon Dany get-together.

Dany would be Jon's aunt, not his sister if that particular theory is true.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2010 14:32

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 20:47

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Montalvo posted:

Also did anyone else find A Feast for Crows to be a little more dry than the previous books?

I wouldn't call the myrish swamp dry :pervert:

# ¿ Dec 17, 2010 01:07

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Yeah I read books. posted:

I didn't come to this conclusion, either. I think it may have been something I didn't really think of, but gurm doesn't really kill characters in their own chapters, it's always third person perspective when someone dies

Catelyn begs to disagree. She was resurrected later, but we still got to see her die in first-person.

I thought that Arya died in that chapter just because it happened so soon after that, characters weren't safe in their own PoV-chapters anymore!

# ¿ Dec 31, 2010 16:28

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

IRQ posted:

Pure speculation but it wouldn't surprise me even a little if Jon became king of the Wildings but of course that will never happen because the book is never coming out.

We are more or less guaranteed to get the next book in one form or another even if GRRM falls over dead tomorrow (which is pretty likely) since presumably his editor has a somewhat up-to-date version of DwD that could be released with the missing chapters left empty or ghost written by Brandon Sanderson or whatever.

No more books after that though! (Except for Wild Cards)

# ¿ Jan 1, 2011 02:18

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

So I finally caved in and read the three a Dance with Dragons preview chapters.

The Theon chapter was really disturbing. drat GRRM, didn't know you had it in you.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2011 16:29

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Meefy Bread posted:

How many preview chapters have been released for Dance? There's a Daenerys in the back of my copy of Feast, and I found a Jon and Tyrion on GRRM's website. Is that all of them? Does the order in which I read them matter?

You missed out on the best preview chapter.

Poor Theon :smith:

# ¿ Mar 6, 2011 23:05

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

nwin posted:

3/4 way done with GoT and have a question for clarification:

Joffrey is on the throne, and Eddard comes up and says to take him and cersi into custody. Then the City watch closes in on the two, to which Eddard says he doesn't want any bloodshed and tells the queen to have her guys put down the swords.

All of a sudden, one of the city watch guys attacks a lanister guardsman. WTF was the reasoning behind this? Then Littlefinger basically takes control of Ned and has him by the next telling him he shouldn't have trusted him.

What went on here? why didn't the city watch just move in and capture joffrey and the queen? Did Baelish pay the city watch to fight and it was all his doing? Why would he have done this? To set up Ned?

So confused...

It will get clearer later on, but suffice to say that Littlefinger has plans of his own, and yes, he did pay off the City Guards. Remember how he told Ned that he would pay the city guard to remain loyal to Ned? He lied..

# ¿ May 2, 2011 00:20

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

(Storm spoilers) There are plenty of sympathetic characters other than Robb, and they are mostly still alive.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 18:09 on May 24, 2011

# ¿ May 24, 2011 18:06

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

DarkCrawler posted:

Umm...duh, they were originally the same book.

Yeah, I don't know what people were expecting here.

I liked Feast for what it's worth, and I'll be perfectly happy if Dance follows the same pattern. At least there won't be any chapters where Brienne wanders aimlessly searching for a girl you know she has no chance of finding.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2011 17:20

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Is that the Vagina Shadow-Monster-chapter? Because yeah, that's one of the more :wtc:

parts of the book. I'm really looking forward to seeing it on the show. :allears:

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 20:04

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Eggnogium posted:

Another question from ACOK, which I just finished. How did the Bloody Mummers end up switching sides at Harrenhal? They did some hosed up poo poo for the Lannisters, captured all Bolton's men, then they just get a free pass and forgiveness? Were they with Bolton the whole time?

The details are a bit unclear, but Roose is a fairly pragmatic fellow and sees that the Bloody Mummers can be useful if they are willing so break their allegiance to Tywin. It's not like Robb himself hired them

e; This is a bit spoilerish for you, so you might not want to mouseover it, but Boltons actions in general will make more sense later in the books

Kainser fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jun 22, 2011

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 22:30

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Eggnogium posted:

turn coat the minute Tywin's men return

A Lannister pays his debts (or at the very least tries to)

e; I don't know if you've read about Castamere and Tarbeck hall yet, but Tywin doesn't take treason and betrayals kindly and probably wouldn't take them back, and chances are that the Mummers are aware of that.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jun 23, 2011

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 23:28

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

GreenBuckanneer posted:

That's me in ACOK everytime I get Catelyn chapters.

edit: got me some bitchin ASOIAF screensavers for my brand new kindle and this one just came up.

Who would willingly associate themselves with the Tullys. I mean really now, Trouts and Family?

e; Oh, the thread name got changed. Anyway; Feast spoilers: Did Roose Bolton get past Moat Cailin in Feast, and if so how? Or if he didn't, how the hell is he planning to do it?

Kainser fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Jun 24, 2011

# ¿ Jun 24, 2011 01:31

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

mind the walrus posted:

Although... certain fan-favorites seem to have narrative immortality, so I guess that reputation died out with ~~More Deaths~~ Ned

Yeah, I honestly think that GRRMS reputation here is a bit unearned. In four books there have only been one POV character who died. People are just being pussies :colbert:

(And so is GRRM, kill more characters man.)

mind the walrus posted:

Read ASoS, it'll clear some of that right up for you and is the best book in the series anyway (My opinion goes ASoS; ACoK; AGoT; AFFC in terms of quality).

Book rankings eh? For me it would go AFFC>ACoK=ASoS>AGoT. I'm weird :saddowns:

e; I like them all though!

Kainser fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Jun 25, 2011

# ¿ Jun 25, 2011 11:29

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Yuran M. Bazil posted:

Ned and Catelyn, that's at least two.

That doesn't really count, seeing as she comes back!

# ¿ Jun 25, 2011 15:28

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

hampig posted:

Since when is the standard for being a main character that they have a POV chapter though? There are plenty of non-POV characters that people would care about more if they died than certain POV ones, especially since he started introducing so many new POVs.

Robb, Renly, Oberyn and Drogo were all well liked prominent characters who got killed off. Tywin's death is notable since even though he was nominally a bad guy, he seemed untouchable until his death.

Well, we've had 14 POV characters (20 if you include those with only 1 or 2 chapters in feast), and of those 1 is dead (2 if you include Arys Oakheart). For me that's really not enough to deserve the No-one is safe, main characters die all over the place, there is no happy ending! :byodood:

and so on that people say about the series.

But who knows, maybe Daenerys, Tyrion or some other POV characters dies in Dance/Winds of Winter. That would make me change my mind.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Jun 26, 2011

# ¿ Jun 26, 2011 13:27

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

hampig posted:

Which is completely missing my point. Just because a character has a POV chapter it doesn't make them a main character, and just because a character doesn't have one, it doesn't mean they aren't. How can you possibly argue that Aeron Greyjoy and Davos Seaworth are main characters compared to Robb or Tywin, or that people wouldn't be more upset by Littlefinger or Mance Rayder dying than Cersei?

I tend to agree that the series isn't as depressing as people make out, but that isn't because not many of the POVs die.

I agree with you for the record, it's just that I dislike the fact that it feels like POV characters have plot armor, which, again, might change with the coming books.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2011 14:26

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Radish posted:

oops

Your post was ok by the way if that's why you edited it out. Wasn't it just Feast stuff in spoiler tags?

Habibi posted:

That would be great. They could just end the season on:
"Three! I heard three...they never blow three. Two is for rangers returning. Three is for..."
"Others."

That would be a pretty amazing end of the season. Just sucks that they changed the name of Others to White Walkers

# ¿ Jun 27, 2011 18:53

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

hypocrite lecteur posted:

Started reading the books as I'm sure a lot of people have because of the shows. Never really had the impulse to try them out before, figured what the hell, I like the show, the 4 pack is 15 bux on Kindle, I'll give em a shot.

Holy moly the writing is rough. When Tyrion talks to Jon in the courtyard in the first book, he goes through the door and "for a moment, his shadow stands as tall as any king" are you for loving real. is there no other way to communicate that tyrion has regal qualities belied by his outward freakishness other than with that anvil of a metaphor

I'll keep plugging cause it's not so bad as to be totally unentertaining but ffffffffffff it's embarrassing in some spots

There is some spotty writing earlier on in Game of Thrones, I think GRRM was going for a different tone for a while before changing his mind.

See also: Tyrion doing a :krad:

backflip.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jun 28, 2011

# ¿ Jun 28, 2011 01:53

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

GreenBuckanneer posted:

Series questions, I'm currently on ASOS

Is bran or rickon ever mentioned in ASOS or afterwards? Does rickon ever become more than a little brat?

What about Arya or Jon?

Is there some symbolism between Lady being dead and Sansa being alive?

About Jon does he make amends with the wall for killing a black brother? I love his and mormont's relationship

Just keep reading man.

And Rickon being 3 is fine. You can complain about the other kids ages in the books but that one works.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2011 21:12

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Mowglis Haircut posted:

Oh right. What happened to the read-along?

The guy who arranged it didn't have time for it any longer.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2011 23:56

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

(Feast spoilers)I can understand some people hating on Feast since it has a very different pace when compared to Storm, but not how you can hate Cersei and Jaime chapters where important stuff actually happens. They're certainly a lot more interesting than Jon continuing on his stupid hero's journey. They are even my favorite POV's together with Davos.

I guess it helps that I don't have the hardon for the North and the Starks that a lot of readers seems to have.

e; Except for Sansa. She's cool.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Jul 3, 2011

# ¿ Jul 3, 2011 10:05

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

hypocrite lecteur posted:

You could skip AFFC and probably fill in the gaps going on your own going forward

You could do the same with GoT, Clash or SoS if you were so inclined.

e; Davos is most likely not dead, but I agree that Brienne's chapters kinda sucked. Which is a bit of a shame, I like her character and getting to see the war-torn landscape was nice.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jul 3, 2011

# ¿ Jul 3, 2011 17:32

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

The Greyjoys owns, sorry :colbert:

I can agree that the Aeron chapters suck, but I love the Asha, Victarion and Theon chapters

fake edit: The best part of Feast is King Tommen anyway :3:

# ¿ Jul 4, 2011 09:56

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

burf posted:

I just finished AFFC, and the book is entirely worth it just for the Cersei chapters. The whole series up until that point paints her as the dominant actor in the Game of Thrones, but then you start reading from her PoV and she's just this paranoid lady motivated by fear and spite rather than logic. She thinks that everyone else in the world is out to get her, so she dismisses every competent adviser that could actually stop her from following through on some of her crazier ideas. It's not until one of the Sansa chapters that you get a true read on how she's perceived by other "players" in the game, and that's as an unruly and unpredictable pawn, rather than a player herself.

And throughout the whole thing, she never stops talking about how smart she is, how she's the true heir to Tywin, how nobody else can match her ability to rule, etc. The realm's a wartorn mess that won't have food for winter, she's turned the church into a dangerous future enemy of her son, she's following Aerys's footsteps with the whole Qyburn "torture everyone" thing, and she's surrendered the lands of her main supporters to the Ironmen, but all she wants to do is assassinate Ned Stark's bastard on the Wall (who can't do a single thing to her from where he is), and get rid of her son's wife (because she's worried that Margaery might stop Tommen from turning into a giant monster like Joffrey was) It's glorious. The book starts with the reader considering her a competent, if power-hungry and ruthless, leader, but ends with the reader viewing her as an incompetent, sociopathic, paranoid crazy lady. I went in hating her, and ended up pitying her for the mess she's brought down on herself and her family.

It should be noted that Cersei was more competent before Tywin and Joffrey died. After that she became hilariously paranoid and deluded. There is a line in a Jaime chapter in Feast which is somewhat appropriate. It goes something like 'Cersei is competent enough, but she's rash and a horrible judge of character', flaws which were exacerbated when her first-born and her father were murdered by her little-brother.

Have anyone figured out how to properly merge Feast and Dance yet? I think both books would benefit from that.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 14:08

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

A Stannis-fostered Robert Arryn would have been amazing.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 20:36

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Ross posted:

I'm 30% in to ASoS and nothing grand has happened yet. When does the start?

Around 55%~ in is the generally accepted point.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 14:15

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

^^^ Don't spoil the great windowrape of Casterly Rock man.

Something else that's interesting about that spoiler is that (end of DWD spoilers) Roose isn't the one writing the letter. I can't see him letting Ramsay send something like that if he was aware of it. So I'm guessing that Roose is indisposed, dead or have somehow been separated from his son.

But other than that, yeah. A lot of that letter is quite likely lies

Kainser fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jul 18, 2011

# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 19:04

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Adding conflict between Daenerys and Dorne. Dany spurned Quentyn and indirectly killed him, which probably makes Doran's support of her a lot less likely. Particularly with another Targaryen hanging out in the Stormlands.

vvv: Doran would probably see it as Daenerys forcing Quentyn's hand, but who knows.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Jul 19, 2011

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 13:25

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

FairGame posted:

You're missing an enormous loving thread. Oh hey, sup baby Aegon; nice of you to join the party 5 books in and become a major player.

Yeah, that did come a bit out of nowhere.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 22:12

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

Bastards have 0 claim to any form of title unless legitimized. Gendry and any other of Robert's bastards are completely irrelevant to the line of succession, Stannis is 100% the legitimate heir.

Kainser fucked around with this message at 22:13 on May 6, 2013

# ¿ May 6, 2013 22:11

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

freebooter posted:

edit - what's the "same" theory with Tyrion, I haven;t heard that one?

The theory is that King Aerys II raped Tyrions Mother which resulted in Tyrion. It's a really stupid theory.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2013 17:25

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

All prophecies will turn out to be completely false, just you wait.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2013 23:39

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 20:47

Kainser: Apr 27, 2010; O'er the sea from the north
there sails a ship
With the people of Hel
at the helm stands Loki
After the wolf
do wild men follow

It would be older than Balerion at around 240 years if that was the case.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2014 15:34

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > A Song of Ice and Fire - Spoiler-Free Book Discussion