A Song of Ice and Fire [2]

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wot?

It's going to be a bit strange seeing Jonathon Pryce as the High Sparrow. I usually think of him as his James Bond villain, or the mayor-thing from Pirates of the Caribbean. Doran Martell should be quite good though! And I like all the unknowns being casted. They have good character faces I think.

{{{Geez I hate that this freakin' show made me care so much for the Hound and then let him to bleed out because Arya Horseface felt like being a jerk. }}}

yeah the Hound is one of my favorite characters, probably second after Tyrion. At least Arya didnt Needle him.

Six Jon Snows in the show could die and it wouldn't compare.
Well, I never did much care Jon Snow anyway. He has his moments in the show once Ygrette shows up, but the actor's constant hurt puppy-face tends to distance his character from me.

Pouty-faced, sad-puppy-eyed, by-the-rules traitor and overall hard-to-relate-to wanker:



Villainous henchman-turned-sympathetic war-weary realist and crudely humorous guardian of Arya:


Not much of a competition for my affections!

no contest

Blech, I got stuck with house-cleaning duties this weekend because my sister is a flake (she's been hanging out with her boyfriend for the last week, leaving me with the farm-work).
I'm a little over halfway through the vacuuming now and it's been three hours since I started.

It's like a fall cleaning around here!

P.S.
Oh yeah, I forgot "duck-lipped" for Jon Snow. <-- Relevant to the thread!

P.P.S.
I know Bungo is out of town doing fun stuff, but is anyone else joining the new Roll to Dodge game? If not I should get it going soon! Four is probably enough players I suppose.

Lancebloke wrote:Davos has been a big part of the current series and he gets to make his most important journey (to date) with the Manderly piece so that should really be in there leading up tot he return to Winterfell.

Yeah, though it has been rumoured they will be replaced by the Umbers. With Bran sending RIckon to Last Heart in the book, that would negate the need for Davos to go off to Skagos.

Latest rumours are that the Manderlys are in though.  

But all rumours so far, we'll have to wait and see, I guess.

Lancebloke wrote:Also, the Greyjoy storyline is building up to something big concerning Daenarys so they should be doing something there.. just not sure how in depth they will go on Balon's succession...?

True, and why else include the pointless Yara/Asha to the Dreadfort thing last season. There's been no casting news so far though, and it's good to remember that in the series Baelon isn't even dead yet. So hoping for Kingsmoot and so on, but so far unclear how it will be handled and wether it'll even be in the next season.

In the official HBO series guide Baelon is apparently listed with only one brother, Euron. Which is why people think Valerion might be cut. Also in the series Daeneris captured the Meereneese fleet which apparently counts around the same number of ships as Valerion brought. So the need for him isn't necesarily there.

But again, we'll just have to wait and see.

All one can say so far is that there will be big changes from the books this season.

George RR Martin hinting Winds of Winter.


https://youtu.be/moTwqB1iqq4?t=2m18s

"Plenty of deaths... including some viewpoint characters."

Interesting to ponder who that might be. Haven't been a lot so far. Except Ned Stark.

Oh, and it will be good to get those battles resolved.

The battles that were set up at the end of ADWD were actually supposed to be included in that book, but they got cut for being too long. So we get to wait for half a decade instead. But the preview chapters show that...

Spoiler:

There's a lot of stuff that was right on the cusp of happening at the end of Feast/Dance, so I hope that the sixth book will be far more eventful and exciting. The first three were so dense, despite their length, and that was a big part of why I loved reading them.

Yeah, it is a bit frustrating waiting on stuff that was written a long time ago.

For the..

Spoiler:

The..

Spoiler:

Particularily it's frustrating when leaving the end out led to ADWD feeling a bit unfinished. I think looking back at the series the third book stands out as the best, partly because it had all the buildup of the two first books leading up to it. Both AFFC and ADWD, on the other hand, felt a bit like half a book to me, but George RR Martin did call them a bit of a stopgap and hopefully the buildup in them can be used to great effect in the next books.

Doesn't help that some of those preview chapters are really good. I particularily liked the Theon one and the Mercy one, though that one was a bit of a shock.

I agree with pretty much everything you said there, Blue, and am not entirely sure what more to add to it. ASOS is my favorite book as well, and I agree that a big problem with AFFC and ADWD is that they feel unfinished. In fact, they seem to break off just as things are getting interesting (particularly with AFFC). Martin has stated publicly that he doesn't really pay attention to the division between the books since he considers the whole series one big story; I believe he's compared it to LOTR in that respect. But I don't think that the first three books really indicate this. While they're not self-contained, they have clear ending points and satisfying conclusions (or infuriating ones, but in a good way ). I feel like it wasn't until Feast/Dance that this broke down. Apparently it was his publisher who pushed for the publication of incomplete parts of the narrative, but since the alternative was a 13 year gap and a 3000 page fourth novel (either that or some serious fucking editing/hacking away at subplots), it was probably the right call.

I really hope that the story structure improves with the last few volumes (I do not for a second believe that it will take only two more books), but I'm not super hopeful. Fortunately, Dance was a lot more enjoyable to read than Feast, largely because it focused on interesting characters. I'm sure the beginning of TWOW will be hella awesome, too. I'm just concerned that it might drop off again after that climax. But hopefully things will keep moving forwards with reasonable momentum.

I for one hope the sixth book will be 3000 pages at the very least

We might get to read it in 2024 if that's the case.

I think I feel a bit more sympathy for George after reading the Wheel of Time books. There just about nothing happens from book 7-10, and then stuff get's a bit rushed when the second author takes over for the last 3 (of 14.) In comparison Georges small problems with AFFCs ADWDs doesn't seem all that big a deal.

To me a lot of the problem comes down to them actually being one book and reading them seperately does neither of them full justice. I did start that combined reread over the summer, though I only got to about chapter 30 before I fell into other things. So far it's just great and a completely different book. You feel it as early as it jumps from Cersei 1 to Tyrion 1 as the two first chapters, really.

It still lacks a proper ending and maybe it'll get to feeling a bit long towards the end, but for anyone getting around to reading AFFCs and ADWDs I would recommend reading them combined. It's much preferable.

With that in mind I actually think it was a wrong decision to split the books the way they did. They should have released the whole thing, with the unreleased ending, chronologically, but put it in two or three volumes or something.

It would have been a massive book, but I think quality wise it would have been a lot better.

So really hoping he can get back on track with Winds of Winter.

If I ever re-read the whole series (which is a questionable proposition given the investment of time), I will probably try the back-and-forth approach for books 4 and 5.  That might change my opinion about the split, although I feel like having had to wait 11 years for anything after ASOS would have been worse.

I've known a lot of Wheel of Time readers but despite hearing various praises for the early books, I just can't bring myself to read something that got so out of hand. I don't read a ton of fiction anymore, but if I do, I'd rather read something that I have a good chance of finishing and enjoying.

11 years is certainly quite the wait, and I'm not sure of the feasabilty of a larger combined book either. I don't think an 11 year break without releasing something was ever a viable choice for either George or his publishers. Practically, the larger combined book was probably never a possiblity.

As for simply reading, I think it would have been far preferable. It'll be interesting, when Winds comes out, to get a feel for how that larger book might have been. It would have been huge, but I think it would have been great. Something quite special, really. And in the context of Georges series and fantasy in general, perhaps it would have been quite the statement and event to release such a book. Instead of the lukewarm reaction he got for AFFCs.

I'm not doing a great job advertizing the Wheel of Time books , am I. Though, no, on the whole, and despite them having a lot of qualities and some great concepts, I wouldn't say it's worth it. I'm mostly reading them as I read up until about book 7 a long time ago, and thought I might as well finish it. It has been really interesting to read it right after A Song of Ice and Fire though, and there are probably some interesting things to say about the development in modern fantasy by comparing the two series.

I thought about collecting together the sample chapter from Winds together in one post, but they're a bit spread out and it would take some work. Here are the Theon and Mercy chaptersthat I mentioned above for anyone interested. They're really good, in my opinion. Though the Mercy one might come as a bit of a shock.

Theon:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120103133022/http://www.georgerrmartin.com/if-sample.html
Mercy:
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/excerpt-from-the-winds-of-winter/

I've read the one included at the end of book 5 so far, but I don't think I'll read any more of these "preview" chapters. If I have to wait this long for the next book I want every chapter to be new and fresh, perhaps that will make the wait a little more worthwhile

I read all the TWOW preview chapters I could find once I finished ADWD (which was a couple years after its publication; I had been so put off by AFFC that it took me that long to even try).  The previews didn't really make the fact of the wait any easier to deal with, but it did make me a little more confident that TWOW would be another step in the right direction, at least in the beginning.