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  1. #1
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    Feb 2007

    A Song of Ice and Fire (Probable spoilers for Game of Thrones)

    This thread is for discussion of the series of books and short stories A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, and for discussion of the HBO television series Game of Thrones as informed by knowledge of the books.

    Spoilers for books and other materials in print are welcome, though spoilers for the forthcoming A Dance with Dragons should be withheld or hidden until the book's release.

  2. #2
    Good idea!

    ---

    WARNING: This post is huge spoilers right off the bat.

    ---

    Let me start off: Some people have complained in the other thread that the series just gets darker and darker with too many sympathetic characters killed off and not enough comeuppance for the villains. I disagree but couldn't really argue without spoilers . If any of you guys are reading this thread, could you go into a little more detail about what events you were thinking of?

    The Red Wedding is brutal, but even that features only one POV character, and she was hardly a fan favorite. It's disappointing that the Lannister downfall doesn't come out of a Stark military victory (but I do like that it's Joffrey's cruelty to Sansa in particular that gets him killed!), but all things considered:

    - The Stark kids minus Robb are alive and well and even thriving at the end of Book 4, as are fan favorites Dany+Tyrion.
    - Only Jaime is doing all right out of the nasty Lannister quartet of Jaime+Cersei+Tywin+Joffrey, and he is (a) out of politics now, (b) seriously remorseful, (c) nowhere near as evil as GoT implied in the first place, and (d) punished pretty badly nonetheless.

    Just curious what people objected to. Renly? Bran+Rickon shenanigans? Winterfell?

  3. #3
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    Why do we need a second thread on Thrones?

  4. #4
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    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Jarhead View Post
    Why do we need a second thread on Thrones?
    To discuss events in the books without spoiling them for people that are watching the series, and to discuss the books themselves.

  5. #5
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    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by darthur View Post
    Just curious what people objected to. Renly? Bran+Rickon shenanigans? Winterfell?
    It's been a while, but I recall having the Red Wedding and the sack of Winterfell come in rapid succession as pretty deflating. I can see how that would cause someone to drop the series.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by darthur View Post
    Good idea!

    ---

    WARNING: This post is huge spoilers right off the bat.

    ---

    Let me start off: Some people have complained in the other thread that the series just gets darker and darker with too many sympathetic characters killed off and not enough comeuppance for the villains. I disagree but couldn't really argue without spoilers . If any of you guys are reading this thread, could you go into a little more detail about what events you were thinking of?

    The Red Wedding is brutal, but even that features only one POV character, and she was hardly a fan favorite. It's disappointing that the Lannister downfall doesn't come out of a Stark military victory (but I do like that it's Joffrey's cruelty to Sansa in particular that gets him killed!), but all things considered:

    - The Stark kids minus Robb are alive and well and even thriving at the end of Book 4, as are fan favorites Dany+Tyrion.
    - Only Jaime is doing all right out of the nasty Lannister quartet of Jaime+Cersei+Tywin+Joffrey, and he is (a) out of politics now, (b) seriously remorseful, (c) nowhere near as evil as GoT implied in the first place, and (d) punished pretty badly nonetheless.

    Just curious what people objected to. Renly? Bran+Rickon shenanigans? Winterfell?
    Responding, also has SPOILERS, highlight to read the spoilery bit.

    -----------------------

    Its not that they necessarily get killed off, its that their situations just go from bad to worse to even worse, with no small victories along the way to relieve the repressive atmosphere. I also never liked Dany. Too disconnected from the rest of the plot, too distracting, too unlikeable (to me). It does sound like there are a few happy moments, like Joffery getting whacked that I haven't gotten to. I've started and quit the series in annoyance three times, most recently mid-book 3 when Robb gets it. I threw the book at the wall at that point.


    ------------------------

    All in all there are books I enjoy far more, and I'll repeat my recommendation of Patrick Rothfuss as a much more enjoyable read in the same genre. I won't be posting again here and in general I think a thread on a book series is a bad idea, especially when most of the readers will be at different points in the series... or waiting years for the next book. A TV series is easy to discuss, there are frequent updates when its in season, and everyone is more or less at the same place. A book series does not work as well.

  7. #7
    Responding to dukebluelemur:

    Anyone who looks at a thread entitled books - spoilers - deserves what they get if they read it anyway and get spoiled.

    Anyway, a few minor comments:

    - I very much expected you to say you had quit early. Book 2 is all leading up to one giant victory for Tyrion, which it is easy to begrudge since he is fighting on the side of Lannisters (although it's not a victory against the Starks, and I don't see Stannis as a preferable alternative, especially after he calls Robb a traitor). And the first half of book 3 is leading up to the devastating Red Wedding, but it really is clear sailing from there on out. The end of book 3 has some of the most satisfying comeuppances I have ever seen in a novel, and book 4 covers the one big villain that survived.

    - I won't pretend that GRRM is for everyone, but please stop trying to convince fans to give up on it . People don't become huge fans of the book because they haven't tried other books. Song of Ice and Fire is some of the most powerful writing you'll ever see in a fantasy, and many of us will gladly take some (big) setbacks along the way to experience it. Although book 4 WAS pretty long and slow - hopefully just a blip on the radar...

    - We'll see what happens from here, but I don't expect any big good guy deaths for the foreseeable future. Eddard and Robb were both heavily, heavily foreshadowed. The remaining characters are really only going onward and upward right now. Of course with book 5 on the horizon, I may be proved wrong very soon!
    Last edited by darthur; 06-21-2011 at 03:12 AM.

  8. #8

    A Dance With Dragons

    I tore through this one, and was even more disappointed than I was with A Feast for Crows. Without delving into spoilers, my general feeling was that GRRM did as he feared, and bit off more than he could chew when it came to the number of story lines he created. The story and feel changed almost as much from Feast to Dance as it did from Storm to Feast. It felt like I was not longer reading part of the same tale. Perhaps he would have been better served by following his original plan of just having a 10-year period pass between the timelines in volumes 3 and 4, without trying to fill it.

    Favorite characters have become droll and uninteresting. By the end of Feast I found that I no longer cared about the stories of several characters (and never grew interested in the new ones). Dance suffered the same problem for other characters, and when its timeline overtook the end of Feast and some characters from the prior volume returned to the PoV roster, they did not recover their pre-Feast luster.. Worse, the new story lines were, with limited exception, not of any interest, and served only to needlessly complicate the narrative.

    It's a shame. I really enjoyed this series through Storm of Swords, and appreciated GRRMs complicated story arcs, plot twists and the killing central characters for the sake of story. He goes perhaps too far Dance, and leaves me wondering what happened to the story I started reading more than a decade ago. I guess he decided not to bother finishing it, because he liked the new stories he was thinking up.

  9. #9
    So, while I haven't finished the series up to ADWD, I'm one chapter from the end of AFFC (ie. starting "Meanwhile, back on the wall").

    Cavlaw, I'm sorry to hear ADWD wasn't what you'd hoped. I've heard mixed reviews so far. I thought the first three books were excellent, with Storm being by far the best. I totally get what people are saying about all the deaths being hard to take, but what I loved is the series really keeps you on the edge of your feet, and you really feel no character is ever safe, after Ned dies. This is one of the few series that can play that angle, as it spends so much time introducing and filling in backstory on so many characters. Other novels I've read simply couldn't kill off more than one or two protagonists and make it work.

    As mentioned, though, I do get what people are saying. Robb, Ned, Catelyn, for a while Bran/Rickon (although I saw that one coming), both Cassells, everyone at Winterfell, Aemon, Mormont... a lot of "good" characters die. Then, an absolute TON of neutral characters, like Lysa, Drogo, Dondarrion, Oberyn, Arys, etc. I've never read a series where you get to know this many characters, and so many die. And that's not even counting all the maiming that happens to the rest. The Lannisters, Bran, Arya, Catelyn, Lord Snow, etc.

    Indeed a lot of bad stuff happens in the series, but in a way, much like the first season of BSG, that's what keeps the reader on the edge of his seat. My issue is that really tailed off in Feast, and chapters ended with much more subtle words as opposed to large plot developments. I wound up liking the Dorne subplot, but it was a totally different direction, and Cavlaw is right that so long went by without the main characters moving the story forward.

    One nice thing was that I didn't start the series until a few months ago, and have been reading straight through, and managed to time it so the 5th book came out right as I was finishing the fourth. I really hope I don't have to wait 5 years for the sixth, though!

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Reisen View Post
    I've heard mixed reviews so far.
    Really? I haven't started reading yet (saving it for a cross-continental flight tomorrow!) but aside from the one here, the reviews I've seen have been extremely positive.

    http://ology.com/technology/early-re...ns-masterpiece

    NYT also had a glowing review saying that comparing George RR Martin to Tolkein was an insult to Martin .

  11. #11

    Adwd

    I'm partway thru ADWD and most of the action so far is taking place at the wall and the continent where Dany is. There are some surprises so far, but one thing is that the time frame starts back at where AFFC starts, and even if you know that going in it is a little confusing. I just kind of have a feeling that all this wrenching conflict is going to end up with everyone where they should be. A Targaryen on the Iron Throne, a Stark in Winterfell, a Lannister in Casterly Rock, etc. Or not. I love the fact that GRRM is not predictable. It's one reason I keep reading. I do feel bad for the actors on HBO. Their characters are going to have a rough go of it.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    I liked it, though it struck me as the first 1000 pages of a really good 1200-page book. Have a hard time seeing how the story can be wrapped up in "only" 2000 more pages, though.

  13. #13
    I need help deciding whether to read this one. I started the series when the original book came out, and read the next two when they were released. When I heard Martin's plan to split books 4 and 5, I decided to wait until 5 came out to read both together.

    After the 10 year wait, I am not sure I really want to get back on the horse. Certainly, I'm not going to go back and read 4 at this point. Is 5 good enough in its own right to jump back in, or should I just cut my losses and move on?

  14. #14
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    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by cato View Post
    I need help deciding whether to read this one. I started the series when the original book came out, and read the next two when they were released. When I heard Martin's plan to split books 4 and 5, I decided to wait until 5 came out to read both together.

    After the 10 year wait, I am not sure I really want to get back on the horse. Certainly, I'm not going to go back and read 4 at this point. Is 5 good enough in its own right to jump back in, or should I just cut my losses and move on?
    You could probably manage it, though there are a number of threads in Book 5 that follow directly from Book 4. (The two don't run precisely concurrently - Book 5 has events that take place after events in Book 4.)

    Just read both. At this point, what's another 700 pages?

  15. #15
    Didn't want to post this in the Season 6 no-book-spoiler thread, but I just saw that the third episode of this season is called "Oathbreaker."

    Does this imply that we'll finally see Stoneheart? It could be a darker version of Jon Snow's presumed revival, which will probably be much less zombieish. Or am I just trying to convince myself of something that will never happen?

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    Didn't want to post this in the Season 6 no-book-spoiler thread, but I just saw that the third episode of this season is called "Oathbreaker."

    Does this imply that we'll finally see Stoneheart? It could be a darker version of Jon Snow's presumed revival, which will probably be much less zombieish. Or am I just trying to convince myself of something that will never happen?
    It's hard to say without knowing if she has a larger significance to the book plot. In terms of basically where we are, the plot seems to have advanced pretty well without her (though I definitely would love to see her in some incarnation). In the books, it seemed she was going to have an effect largely on the Brienne plot, right? But with the developments last night, would that term even be relevant for Brienne now?

    The term can be applied to any number of the characters, though you are right that she and Jaime would be the ones from the book most associated with it (I could be forgetting someone. It's now been years since I read the novels, and I flew through the last two, trying to get past the terrible writing in those specific ones).

    cato, as noted above, I really disliked the last two novels (just as pure novels, though I understand why Martin made the technical choices he did), but I'd agree with Duvall that if you've made it this far, you may as well make the leap. In for a penny and all... Don't expect any resolution, though. The first few books, I thought, balanced being heavily serialised with being whole novels themselves. I believe the end of the last book was chopped off for the start of the next one; that may be an untuthful rumor, but it certainly felt that way to me.

    I read a lot, so it's hard for me to keep track of what happened in these books with any degree of detail. I'm actually thinking of starting a selective re-read of the whole series. I'll probably stall out in book 4, though. I think that was the one where whole phrases were literally copied and reused throughout. The editor for whichever book that was should've been fired. I loved the first few, though, and I probably have greater patience for the world-building minutiae than many.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    Didn't want to post this in the Season 6 no-book-spoiler thread, but I just saw that the third episode of this season is called "Oathbreaker."

    Does this imply that we'll finally see Stoneheart? It could be a darker version of Jon Snow's presumed revival, which will probably be much less zombieish. Or am I just trying to convince myself of something that will never happen?
    It is possible they were holding off on revealing it so that it did not lessen the impact of the possible Jon Snow resurrection, but I think that ship has sailed given the amount of time that has passed. It would have been awesome in Season 4, but it would have taken over the whole show, so I think it was probably wise to leave her out. And I do not think they really need her at this point; if Brienne is tasked with what Stoneheart tasks her with in the books, that order could now come from Sansa, who had in the line in the most recent trailer about having everything taken from her and who just pledged an oath to Brienne about not asking her to do anything that would bring dishonor to her.

    The title could be a reference to something else though, e.g., Jon (wrestling with leaving the Night's Watch), Jaime (the original oathbreaker), Euron (offing Balon).

  18. #18
    Doria and El Diablo, I largely agree with both of your responses. I still think there's a chance - maybe the reason they didn't introduce her at the end of Season 3 is that it would be such a hyped moment, and then she would have nothing to do in Season 4 and 5. This is a flaw present in the books. The idea of Sansa instead noticing the Lannister sword and being pissed off and ordering her to go kill or capture Jaime or something is a good and interesting idea though.

    If Stoneheart isn't in Episode 3 given the title, then yes, she's 100% not in the show.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    Doria and El Diablo, I largely agree with both of your responses. I still think there's a chance - maybe the reason they didn't introduce her at the end of Season 3 is that it would be such a hyped moment, and then she would have nothing to do in Season 4 and 5. This is a flaw present in the books. The idea of Sansa instead noticing the Lannister sword and being pissed off and ordering her to go kill or capture Jaime or something is a good and interesting idea though.

    If Stoneheart isn't in Episode 3 given the title, then yes, she's 100% not in the show.
    Hey, don't get me wrong--I totally want her in the show! She was awesome, and the descriptions in the novels made me really want to see it on the screen. But yeah, I agree with El Diablo that if the order/task is important in the long run, having Sansa issue it now would make more sense. (I haven't seen all the trailers, since some were released so close to the series start date, I didn't feel the need to spoiler myself even more. So I may well have missed more evidence.)

    However, you've 100% succeeded in making me look forward to episode 3 even more, as though I weren't already looking forward to it!

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