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A Dance of Dragons leaks early thanks to ZEE GERMANS, spoilers start popping up all over the net, GRRM fandom is having a worldwide embolism over it, and yet you all are still arguing over what constitutes a bad thread or not. I expected more of this thread. Anyway, we're a week out, maybe this thread will survive until then at which point we can do something new here - actually discuss the books. For my part, I just re-read AFFC, initially with the same enthusiasm Stannis takes to his marriage bed, but I ended up liking it a little better this time. Maybe because I know I only have to wait a week to continue it now? Anyone else try this?
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Jul 6, 2011 00:56
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:14 |
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Some dude has posted a chapter by chapter rundown of the thing. I refuse to read it, but I fully expect a ton of "Snape Kills Dumbledore" posts all over the net for the next week so be forewarned.
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Jul 6, 2011 01:31
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Is it more or less a given for this thread that a lot of people have read ADwD now? I know some terrible scans were posted but I imagine it's a matter of time, if it hasn't happened already, before someone does a better job of it and posts a full ePub. I'm waiting myself, but it seems like book 5 spoilers are popping up here already.
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Jul 6, 2011 14:42
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The problem with Brienne is A) She's not a very good character - we're reminded seemingly every other page how ugly, stubborn, naive, and awkward she is, with virtually no redeeming qualities outside of her fairly simple-minded view of what constitutes loyalty (and even that is pretty weak, considering she originally was on a different side from the Starks/North). This makes her a hard character to sympathize with, compared to, say, Tyrion, who in some ways is even more hosed by life than Brienne but is a vastly more interesting character. B) She's on a mission for the entire book that the reader knows is completely pointless, as we know exactly where the Stark girls are at all times and C) the traveling circus she meets up with along the way (the Mad Mouse, Pod, random hedge knights) are a spectacularly boring lot. My favorite chapter of hers is when she runs in to Randyl Tarly, because while he may be a gigantic prick he at least has some personality (along with a reason for being a prick - say what you will about him, he knows he's in charge and so does everyone else). The crappy thing is that, because of the larger story it's wrapped in, it's easy to miss the real point of her chapters, which is to show the effect of the wars on the regular people of Westeros. Looked at in that light, it is a pretty interesting story that does (I think, anyway) add to the series as a whole. You just have to trudge through a lot of seemingly pointless crap to get to it. My theory (not backed up by evidence) has always been that Martin fattened her chapters up after he realized he was going to cut the non-Westeros stuff out of AFFC. It probably didn't happen that way but it sure feels like it. More likely, he just didn't edit them as hard core as he might have because he had a lot more room in the book post-cut. Ixian fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jul 6, 2011 |
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Jul 6, 2011 23:19
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kissyboots13 posted:I've been re-reading AFfC this past week and every single time I reach a Brienne chapter, I become overwhelmed with exhaustion and end up either going to bed or taking a nap. Yes, but like I said, you'll miss a lot of good details skipping them. I suspect starting with ADWD we're going to find out that the "common folk", particularly the Warrior's Sons (who are now armed) are going to play a big part in the coming fight(s). Cersei and Brienne's chapters serve as two doors in to that world, along with the how and the why so when the common folk/Warriors Sons eventually rise up (as I fully expect them to do) it won't come out of nowhere. To me that's the value of both of those women's chapters. Neither one is very likeable, for very different reasons, both of them carry on with tasks that we the reader know to be pointless (maybe less so in Cersei's case, but I think it was made obvious fairly early on that her rule as reagent was going to be short and end badly), and overall they both have primary "arcs" that by themselves aren't that interesting. It's all the background stuff going on in their chapters that really matter to the story. I've always thought it was a weird couple of POV choices and I bet it was a real bitch for him to write. Edit: I just realized I made a terrible (and awesome) pun with that last sentence 
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Jul 7, 2011 00:42
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literallyincredible posted:I didn't find that to be true at all. She's much more compassionate than most POV characters, and I found the stories of how most men had treated her her entire life, and the way she latches onto the few who show her any kind of kindness no matter ho obviously unavailable they are, to make for a really tragic and interesting mix when combined with her insistence on doing what she perceives as the right thing. I also find her to be a pretty compelling deconstruction of a fantasy archetype that usually doesn't get this kind of scrutiny. We'll agree to disagree on this one. She's too much like Eddark Stark in that her stubbornness to do whatever she perceives as "right" ends up doing far more harm than good, and she lacks Eddards human qualities - like his love for his children, and wife, which are genuine, unlike Brienne, who's only love was Renly and was more of a crush than anything else. I agree with you in that Martin certainly wants us to empathize with her, the problem is he just (in my opinion) ham-fisted it. After re-reading AFFC just recently I was again reminded just how many times he hammers in that she's an ugly, stubborn "wench", and little else. literallyincredible posted:Who the gently caress doesn't like Pod? Pod owns. His stammering of "Ser Milady" kills me every time, although that may just be because I imagine him as Michael Cera circa his Arrested Development years. The problem with Pod is that he has so far been a gimmick, with one Deux Ex Machina moment. Yes, his stammering was amusing....in 2000, in ASOS. Now he's basically playing the exact same role for Brienne as he did for Tyrion, and suffers for it, because he went from some of the best chapters in the series to the worst. I don't dislike him, I just don't find him to be very interesting as a character. We get it, he's a shy, lonely, confused young kid thrust in to events too big for him; in a series that has a character like Arya Stark he doesn't hold up well, in my opinion.
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Jul 7, 2011 02:10
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literallyincredible posted:Fair enough, but I think he hammers home Tyrion's ugliness/dwarfness (by which I mean also all of the myriad emotional issues he has because of this), or Jaime's handlessness, or Sam's fatness/cowardliness, or Theon's stupidity/douchiness, or any of his other POV character's primary flaws, just as much as he focuses on Brienne's flaws. And she is very Nedlike in a lot of ways--I suppose for readers who found Ned hard to like thats a flaw, but I've always had a soft spot for those kinds of characters. But, as you say, agree to disagree. True, but those characters are all awesome in other ways, I'd almost say in spite of Gurm's insistence on beating a point home (which I agree with you on, for all of them). I think the difference is, in Brienne's case she agrees with everyone's opinion of her - as written, she sees herself as badly as others do, and so naturally the reader is pulled in that direction as well, where with (better) characters, it's nearly the opposite. You root for them, to succeed or fail, but root all the same. That's a big difference from the others. Tyrion? He knows he's an ugly dwarf, but says gently caress that, pass the wine and ho's. Jaime knows lots of people despise him, and he can't fight well without his sword hand, but gently caress them and gently caress that, he's going to train around it anyway. Sam knows he's a big fat crybaby craven but gently caress that, if an Other shows up that fucker is going to get so owned and he'll be a mad pimp when he gets his chain - he's already forged the "fuckery" link thanks to Gilly! And Theon's entire story could be summed up as "they don't think I have it in me, but gently caress them" (oops! They were right!). It all works out to varying degrees but in the end that's what makes them awesome. Brienne? She's big, manly, flat chested, ugly, good with a sword and naive as poo poo. People who know her know it, people who don't know her know it, she knows it, there are probably songs about it, even in chapters she isn't in it gets brought up. The only thing she's got going for her is a sense of duty and honor, which leads her on a journey to find Catelyn Starks daughters because Catelyn was nice to her once for 5 minutes, and as I said before we all know that is just a waste of time because we know where the daughters are. literallyincredible posted:but he's just such a shy little nerd that nobody's noticing because its happening in the corners of the narrative and he never calls attention to it. Yes, but that's his problem. It's all good, you like that about him, difference of opinion and all that, but what I said earlier wasn't that I didn't like him, just that he was kind of boring 
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Jul 7, 2011 02:43
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I don't want to be spoiled on ADWD, but I understand that (I'll spoiler all this just in case) Bloodraven, or the story of Bloodraven, is somehow involved so I am trying to remember from the books/Novella - we know that he's one of the "Great Bastards", and was the Hand at one point, and then Egg shipped his rear end off to the Wall, where he became Lord Commander. That's all been established pre-Dance. What I am trying to remember is if anything is said about what happened to him? Did Mormont become Lord Commander after him? Is it mentioned that he wandered off somewhere, died, or is all that left unsaid to date? Just trying to get the story to date straight before the 12th.
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Jul 7, 2011 02:57
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literallyincredible posted:Well, the early reviews are really, really good. That's good news for me, because - call me crazy - Clash is my favorite book. I mean, I love 1 and 3 as well, and even am coming around a bit to 4, but 2 has always been my favorite. Yes, I know it's just a bridge to ASOS where all the good poo poo goes down. Yes, the Dany stuff is not up to the standards of the rest of the book. I don't care, I still like it best, so maybe this means good things for me and ADWD.
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Jul 7, 2011 19:45
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I am feeling like a lunatic at the moment: First I pre-ordered the hardcover on Amazon because I have all the others even though all my reading these days is electronic. Then I pre-ordered the loving hardcover on Amazon.uk even though I live in the US. Why? Because I have all the other UK editions, which have different covers (and in the case of ACOK, slightly different editing as well). Why do I have the UK editions? Because, as some of you may remember, starting with ACOK in 1998 the books were released several months early overseas (in the case of 2 and 3, over 5 and 6 months early) and if you ordered off Amazon's UK site - this was back when they were only known as booksellers online - you could get it shipped to the US even though back then technically they weren't supposed to. This has been the case with all the following books until now, but even though ADWD is being released simultaneously this time around the UK edition still has a different cover, and I have signed editions of the others, so.....gently caress it. And on top of all this today I pre-ordered it for the Kindle because that's the version I'll actually read. Gurm is getting his due today, I guess.
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Jul 7, 2011 20:19
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They make good re-reads though, even AFFC. When the latter came out in 2005 I didn't bother to re-read the first three, as a result it was nearly 5 years since I had read any of them and I had no idea what the gently caress was going on. Combined with AFFC being the weakest of the 4 to begin with it made for a bad experience and I stopped thinking about the whole thing for years. This from a guy who's been to a Martin appearance/signing for the last three books (ACoK had about 40 people and was awesome, two hours of shooting the poo poo with Martin, ASOS had maybe 100 or so, still fun, AFFC had over 500 and was a mess. I don't know if I am going to even bother with ADWD signings, seeing as the line will probably wrap around the block). Then last year news of the series revved my interest and earlier this year I decided to re-read them at a leisurely pace. I recently finished AFFC and found it to be better than I remembered (still not as good as the first 3). I also read all the Dunk & Egg novellas, which are surprisingly good considering they are set 100 years before the books. I have a buddy who just now decided to start them all in prep for next week which seems like a lot of rape and lemoncakes in a short period of time to me, but I can't imagine how ADWD will make much sense if you haven't read anything since AFFC came out. In short, at the least I'd recommend brushing up at Westeros.org or the Wiki, which have decent summaries for all the books and novellas.
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Jul 8, 2011 00:55
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uncle jimbo posted:So how come Theon doesn't point out that fake Arya is, well, fake? It's not like Ramsey doesn't know, along with (likely) everyone at the Dreadfort. I mean, why would they care? They aren't portrayed as people who let trifling details like that get in the way of a good inheritance.
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Jul 9, 2011 06:19
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Relax, it's due to demand for the print books. So many are preordered they may not be able to fulfill them with stock on hand, so they put in another order (the publisher printed enough, believe me) and they probably aren't certain they'll get them in time. You'll notice the Kindle edition still has the same date, the 12th (12am PST on the 12th to be exact).
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Jul 10, 2011 18:34
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Habibi posted:I just finished my series re-read with AFfC this morning. I had forgotten about the last page. The one that reads, in summary, "Hey everyone I had to cut half of the book out, but don't you worry, it will most likely come out next year. Cheerio, Absolute Fucker, February 2005." You know, he's apologized for that about a dozen times. Yes, it's annoying it took close to 6 years for the second half of a book he originally split to come out. We're all a little peeved about it. At some point though doesn't it just become a little tiresome to keep bitching about it? That horse is beyond dead. It's corpse has long decayed and even the bones have been carried off by scavengers - it's time to move on. Tonight - when the book actually comes out - would be a good time to do so, don't you all think? Plenty of stuff to bitch about in the new book, I imagine.
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Jul 11, 2011 17:29
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SlipkPIe posted:So, wait As is the case with many (most) discussion forums, there is little room for the middle on any given topic. Either you love something unconditionally, find it without flaw (or the occasional token flaw that in no way diminishes the majesty of whatever it is), and are total, slobbering, blind fanboy who honestly believes that anyone who thinks otherwise has a severe mental condition that requires medication to treat - or - whatever the topic is, is the worst thing ever produced, said, or thought. Worse than nuclear war or the black plague; a stain upon humanity. It is punishment sent by God for the sins of man, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a simpering suck-rear end who's opinion on all topics, related or otherwise, can hereby be rendered moot. Whether it's politics, cars, tv shows, books, philosopy, or religion, it's all the same: there is one Right Answer, and everything else is Wrong. Nothing really new here; it's been like this forever. In the case of this book, the fact that no one has had much to do in the last 6 years but bitch about how long it has taken while re-reading the existing books and finding new flaws with them (familiarity, as always, breeding contempt) has led us to the current situation, where hating the books, and the author, is considered high sport, with points awarded for extra creativity. Hopefully now that we have a new book the thread can evolve in to discussing it, but the vitriol train has been running for so long now it's going to be hard to stop.
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Jul 11, 2011 17:48
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kcr posted:At some point doesn't it just become a bit tiresome to come to the bad thread and tell people what is OK to post about? A) This isn't the bad thread. The bad thread(s) keep getting gassed as of late. This is the book is finally out goddamn lets talk about it thread B)I wasn't "telling" anyone what to do. I'm not a mod. I made a suggestion. You don't like the suggestion? Then ignore it. C) Profit.
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Jul 11, 2011 23:43
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Apple released it to everyone on iBooks a few hours ago. I guess they figured, gently caress it, it's Midnight somewhere we have users. I believe it was released on the Nook store a little bit ago as well. Amazon is sticking to their 12am PST timeline.
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Jul 12, 2011 05:58
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If you are super hard up and have an iphone or ipad you can download the sample of ADWD even if you don't buy the book for them. It's 84 pages, which is pretty long for a sample.
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Jul 12, 2011 06:17
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Happydogska posted:http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2011/07/15/270611/on-a-dance-with-dragons/ Thanks for posting this, I liked it. Just finished ADWD and out of all the things I loved and hated about it nothing annoys me more than the fact that the "Tyrion is a secret Targ" crowd will not shut up now. Even though I still don't believe he is. We'll be pointlessly debating this for years. Thanks Gurm.
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Jul 16, 2011 16:44
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doctor thodt posted:Which is stupid, because the implication was obviously that Cersei and Jaime are secret Targs. It could just be that I'm stupid, because I honestly don't see where any of this comes from. We get one brief allusion to Aery's possibly fondling Joanna during the bedding (which isn't all that out of place anyway in this world; we've gotten like 6 descriptions of Westoros bedding customs now, and that sick gently caress Ramsay aside they all involve a bunch of drunks ripping the clothes off the bride before chucking her in to the bedroom. In this world that sort of conduct seems to be more or less accepted). That does not lead to "he hosed her, they had an affair, those are Aerys kids, blah blah blah". It's just stupid fantasy wish fulfillment. None of them are Targaryens.
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Jul 16, 2011 17:55
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Aurubin posted:GRRM is a real big believer in Chekov's gun. Book 4: "The Golden Company may have broken their contract with Myr." A nice bit of fluff to make the world seem alive right? Six years later...Hi Jon Connington and Aegon Targaryen! That doesn't really fit the definition at all. I never thought the (several) references to The Golden Company breaking their contract in AFFC were fluff; I fully expected to hear more about them. It seemed like a really obvious plot point, given that AFFC was dedicated to the goings-on in Westoros and the next book would cover the other side of the narrow sea during the same time - I figured it was a way to connect the two, and it was. While I didn't expect Connington I wasn't surprised at all to find chapters about it in this book. In other news, over on Westeros.org it is almost accepted as fact now that Varys is a Blackfyre. Did I miss something pointing to this, or is it just an assumption based off of A) the exile of the Blackfyres and B) that Varys needs some motivation to do what he's doing, and that would supply it (sort of).
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Jul 16, 2011 18:43
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Christ Pseudoscientist posted:I thought I read somewhere that most of the cut material concerned Sansa, Brienne, and Arienne Martell. Sansa was cut for certain; he mentioned a year or two ago he was pushing her back. Brienne, Arienne, and Damphair were later confirmed to be in the next book as well, but I don't know if they were written then pushed back or he always planned that.
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Jul 16, 2011 18:44
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ruddiger posted:I really want the Golden Company to be led by the Blackfyre supporters. The show already denied us Connington, I'll be pretty bummed if Bittersteel's golden skull is left out too. No way that is getting in except as a background prop/easter egg. If there was a chance the Dunk&Egg stories were being spun off I could see them throwing in a few more details like Bittersteel as a way to connect them but GRRM has already stated that D&E aren't in the current plans.
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Aug 7, 2017 21:10
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:14 |
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Beep beep! All the tactical dragon-sperging has reached the peak "My immersion is ruined!" level: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/08/getting-medieval-a-military-analysis-of-game-of-thrones-westeros-war/ Aka "African or European Swallows?" level.
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Aug 11, 2017 02:14
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