A Song Of Ice and Fire (Spoilers for all Published Books)

[Anders]

3
2
1
5
4

Could most easily switch 2 and 1 and possibly 4 and 5. The first three are really solid, and Martin lost it somewhere in writing book four. He was writing it in a similar way to 1-3, but then decided it wasn't working. In the end he gave out book 4, which is solid, but lacking many of the core characters. Book 5 has all the characters, and moves the story along well. However, I think it's fair to say that he probably struggled to write parts of it, and it's a bit long winded at times.

[Norah]

Read a pretty good Lightbringer theory the other day.

go on...

[BurtReynolds]

Read a pretty good Lightbringer theory the other day.

go on...

Spoiler: show

I'd bet that Lightbringer turns out to be Ice. Ice has already been broken once(after Ned Stark died, when the Lannisters had it split into Widow's Wail and Oathkeeper). Widow's Wail is going to break when Jaime tries to kill Cersei(tempering it with the blood of a lion), which will force him to strangle her(fulfilling the valonqar prophecy). Because we've seen him rediscovering his honour, and because he knows that it's the remains of Ice, Jaime will send the broken pieces of Widow's Wail north to be interred beneath Winterfell.

The Brotherhood Without Banners is spread all throughout the riverlands, and they already possess Oathkeeper, the other half of Ice. Gendry is with the Brotherhood Without Banners, and he was the apprentice of Tobho Mott, a smith who knew how to work Valyrian steel. He's going to re-forge Ice, under instructions from Lady Stoneheart, who will then want to see it returned to Winterfell.

Jon Snow(Azor Ahai reborn) will be at Winterfell, and there have already been several references to him desiring Ice. He's going to be at war with the Others, reinforced by Daenerys(brought north by Victarion Greyjoy at the urging of Moqorro), whom he's going to share a bond with. Through some Martinesque series of events, he's going to kill either Daenerys or Drogon(her metaphorical soul) with Ice, tempering it for the final time. This also neatly ties up Dany's last betrayal "once for blood and once for gold and once for love", because while Jon may or may not love her, he undoubtedly loved Ned Stark, Winterfell, and the North.

[BurtReynolds]

So yeah, 5 was noticeably better than 4, if only because of Tyrion, but there is no reason these need to be two separate books, except to sell more copies. There isn't much reason for these books to exist at all. He should have just skipped ahead like he originally planned.

complaints:

Spoiler: show

- Am I supposed to think Dany is a clown? Because she's a clown. It's comical how she manages to make Slaver's Bay an unlivable hellhole.
- The Connington/Aegon stuff is tacked on and generally terrible for the story. Soap opera twist.
- Ramsay is a pale imitation of previous villains like Joffrey and The Mountain, only more overtly torture porny. Don't care for that.
- Dorne is still a pointless addition to the story.
- The Iron Islanders aren't much better. Euron had potential, but he's cast aside for the utterly boring Victarion. Another brutish villain. yawn.

likes:

Spoiler: show

- Tyrion's story is cool. I like the stuff with Penny.
- The Wall stuff is ok, except for the lame cliffhanger
- The Walk of Shame bit was alright.
- Meereen seems suitably terrible. The various merc companies are cool.

[Mecca]

One could argue that Dany messes up in Slaver's Bay because she's young and naive. Making mistakes means learning from them, hopefully

[Norah]

BurtReynolds sucks.

[BurtReynolds]

One could argue that Dany messes up in Slaver's Bay because she's young and naive. Making mistakes means learning from them, hopefully

Maybe, but she doesn't seem to learn from her mistakes so far. And once she has control of her dragons, she can do whatever she wants anyway.

It would be more interesting to see her crack and become a bad guy.

[Simple Torture]

Alt Shift X has started to upload ASOIF "off-season" videos (so not recaps of the show). This first one is on Dany's visions in the House of the Undying:

[Norah]

the radio westeros podcasts are pretty good

http://radiowesteros.com/

[Simple Torture]

I tried the History of Westeros podcast and couldn't really get into it; it sounded like they were just reading Wiki pages. Is Radio Westeros just "facts/history" or, like, substantive discussion?

[Norah]

I tried the History of Westeros podcast and couldn't really get into it; it sounded like they were just reading Wiki pages. Is Radio Westeros just "facts/history" or, like, substantive discussion?

substantive discussion

most asoiaf podcasts i've sampled have been hard to listeno to, radio westeros is the first one i've found that i've finished an episode and wanted to listen to another one

[Norah]

the most recent one dissects the (f)aegon theory pretty well

[Simple Torture]

I tried the History of Westeros podcast and couldn't really get into it; it sounded like they were just reading Wiki pages. Is Radio Westeros just "facts/history" or, like, substantive discussion?

substantive discussion

most asoiaf podcasts i've sampled have been hard to listeno to, radio westeros is the first one i've found that i've finished an episode and wanted to listen to another one

Sounds cool. Lord knows I don't have enough podcasts.

[Leatherhead]

I just started reading the first book of this series. I read books pretty slowly, few pages at a time before bed, few pages in the morning with coffee, etc. Probably going to take years to get through all these books.

[Norah]

I rarely stop reading mid chapter.

[philpritchard]

I rarely stop reading mid chapter.

The only time I stop mid chapter is when I realize I've read the same line/paragraph over and over because I'm so tired.

I finally finished A Dance with Dragons yesterday. Since I started A Game of Thrones, I haven't read anything else... it's going to be a painful wait until whenever the new one comes out. I may have to go back and read the series again, though. I found it hard to keep up when a secondary character from an early book gets re-introduced in a later book and I have almost no memory of him/her existing, so I think a second read would really help.

[Monkey_Driven]

The different POV characters and somewhat short chapters make these books a lot easier to digest than some other extremely long novels.

I'm almost done with my reread of Clash of Kings. Been enjoying the Theon chapters way more the second time around.

[Norah]

I rarely stop reading mid chapter.

The only time I stop mid chapter is when I realize I've read the same line/paragraph over and over because I'm so tired.

I finally finished A Dance with Dragons yesterday. Since I started A Game of Thrones, I haven't read anything else... it's going to be a painful wait until whenever the new one comes out. I may have to go back and read the series again, though. I found it hard to keep up when a secondary character from an early book gets re-introduced in a later book and I have almost no memory of him/her existing, so I think a second read would really help.

Definitely go through it again. The whole world opens up when you're reading through already knowing who the characters are.

[Norah]

The different POV characters and somewhat short chapters make these books a lot easier to digest than some other extremely long novels.

I'm almost done with my reread of Clash of Kings. Been enjoying the Theon chapters way more the second time around.

Don't worry, the chapters get longer in AFFC/ADWD.

[Monkey_Driven]

The different POV characters and somewhat short chapters make these books a lot easier to digest than some other extremely long novels.

I'm almost done with my reread of Clash of Kings. Been enjoying the Theon chapters way more the second time around.

Don't worry, the chapters get longer in AFFC/ADWD.

Hopefully the reading both at the same time trick makes them go by a bit quicker. I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy the re-read of those the most though.