The A DANCE WITH DRAGONS Spoiler Thread
- Thread starter Brendan Moody
- Start date
Quick answer - yes.
This is a more suitable thread for this question:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=140825
But since we are in the spoiler thread for the latest book, prepare yourself for some major spoilers.
The first non-human race is the Others (or White Walkers, as they are sometimes called in the books and always on the TV show), which we meet in the prologue of the first book or in the first 10 minutes of the first episode of TV series. This is a race of intelligent beings who live in far north, they love the cold and they are invulnerable to the most non-magic weaponry. People who are killed by them return as wights (zombies).
The far north has also giants (sort of a giant neanderthals) and children of the forest (small humanoids that populated the world before humans).
All of these races are thought extinct by almost everyone in the world because no one had seen them in several thousand years. Only Others and wights were seen on the show so far.
Just finished.
I could see the mistakes Daenerys and Jon were making from miles away. I went into the deaths of Ned Stark and the Red Wedding blind, but by this point either Martin tipped his hand or I'm better at reading his signs but the betrayal of the Night Watch was clear to me before Meilisandre warned of it, and I knew that Daenerys should have gone to Astapor, should never have been leinent to Yunkai, should never have chained her dragons (and, better still, have a bloody plan about what to do with her dragons - you have three, all three need riders, but no, let's chain them up, refuse to use them and hope for peace... a little girl who knows nothing of war indeed.)
I doubt if Jon is dead. I would prefer that he is, actually, it just strikes me as the ballsier course to take - particularly after all this time letting him come into his own as one of the novel's great heroes. His would be a promise unfullfilled in a way that the distant Robb never was, and the chaos that would erupt around the Wall in his absence would be quite interesting reading (as I suspect it will be anyway).
Jaime, of course, is being led to meet Lady Stoneheart by Brienne. Perhaps he will die there, or maybe not, who knows. The Lannister cause is running short of able men almost as quickly as the Starks have.
In some ways that was the most compelling reading in the book because it was the most frustrating. The rise of Daenerys in A Storm of Swords was the shining arc of that book, the hero, the goddess, the mother. The myth melts away and I feel like I am eating ever greater quantities of ash as I read of her dithering, indecision and poor judgement as the masses of armies come to Mereen.
Martin has never really been able to make Essos come alive as well as Westeros, even though this novel makes the most conerted effort yet - not just in the map, but with Voletene history, the Mereenese politicking, and so on. It usually feels more like rewarmed Orientalist tropes - the lazy, indolent East who are decadent and gluttonous and ugly compared to the iron virility of the West - and the teeming cultures are sketched vaguely, if at all. Westeros is the War of the Roses; it would have been nice if Essos had that kind of historicity to keep it grounded and feel more real, but I guess that's not how this'll be played. Parts of it work, sure - the Alan/Mongol Dothraki, for example - but the Slaver's Bay we spend so much time around this novel is as empty as Qarth.
King's Landing and its endless, endless scheming feels ever fresh and real in ways Mereen never does... which may be want makes A Feast for Crows the better novel; because even when not a lot is happening in King's Landing it is still a lot of fun to read about. It is nice that this novel keeps us abreast of the latest scheming in Westeros' capital, all the same.
I have to agree with this. I did however like A Feast for Crows - probably a little better than this book. But yeah, it's very much a A Song of Ice and Fire novel, and that means several chapters of not a lot happening and long stretches of it. I wasn't that disappointed because I'd gotten used to that at this point. Martin wants to tell you whether or not Doran Martell served sherbet to Ser Balon Swann, and you'll bloody well sit back and take it. It's part of why I think adapting the later, longer books for TV with the same ten episode length of the HBO series' first season will work just fine.
That said, the book does shy away from some very interesting things mostly it seems to stuff them into later books. Bran gets the best chapters he's had since A Game of Thrones - the plodding Bran and Hodor and the crannog kids do crap all finally gets some payoff. But the payoff is sweet, and brief, and then Bran is out of the book entirely so we can have another chapter of the noose slowly tightening around Daenerys.
If anything, the Bran chapters demonstrate a swift, brief, laconic nature that's wholly alien to the rest of the book. The only thing comparable is Arya, whose chapters have been strong ever since she came to Braavos - expunging some of the weakess of her earlier chapters by throwing them into context (it is as if everything she's done has led her here, and perhaps it has).
A Game of Thrones may be the fastest moving novel of the series. But then, it was written when the books were intended to be a trilogy. I've never read The Wheel of Time, but the analogies to that series feels more apt than, say, Lord of the Rings - Tolkein is able to take his sweet time but still have a firm grasp on his story and world in a way that is compelling. Martin can take his sweet time... and sometimes feel quite frankly like he's stalling, like he's got to write some filler chapters to give us a little more detail about the river Rhoyne or whatever.
You know actually I was done with Tyrion at the end of A Storm with Swords. He'd killed his father and accepted his fate as an outcast. I didn't think Tyrion severed from his Lannister role would be up to anything terribly interesting, and the novel first promised me he would, and then proved me right with a book of abortive boat journeys and prancing slaves. Perhaps in book six Tyrion will have carved out a role for himself, I suspect given Martin's fondness for the character that's almost a given.
Thoughts on Aegon Targaryen:
I assumed he was genuine. At any rate Jon Connington is convinced he is, and the explanation as to how he was hidden sounds convincing enough. The logic behind hiding Aegon is a little more baffling, however. Sure, he's a Targaryen, and sure, Robert likes killing Targaryens, but Illyrio had a hand with Aegon and Illyrio also rather openly patronized Viserys and Daenerys. The big difference between Aegon and those two, of course, is that he's the son of Rhaegar.
Patrilineal descent: The sons come before brothers. Rhaegar's firstborn takes precedence over his younger brother. Aegon, if truly Aegon, had more right to be the Targaryen pretender then Viserys ever did.
And Doran Martell seems to have been completely ignorant of his existence, as what we know of his plans suggest he wanted to put Viserys on the throne and then Daenerys, sealing each effort with a Dornish marriage. But a Targaryen with a better claim than either and the son of Princess Elia of Dorne? Surely had Doran known Aegon would be the one he worked towards... so why didn't he know?
If there's one consistent theme here, it's the novel has a dozen people all involved in terribly elaborate incredibly secret schemes about bringing the Targaryens back to power, none of them are telling each other, and oftentimes they're running completely cross purposes and since even Daenerys is ignorant they end up worse than useless, which is the extent of dear Quentyn Martell's failed journey. Secret plotting is no good if the people you're secretly plotting for have no idea what you're secretly plotting and go do something else instead, clearly.
So yeah. It was like all the Ice and Fire books something that was easy to read quickly, occasionally quite engaging, involved in a lot of world building, and juggled a titanic cast. There were problems with it, and I wouldn't reread it, but most of the main strikes against it are true of the series generally rather than just this novel. It was very much like the novels before it; I suspect the last two novels will be much like it as well.
I could see the mistakes Daenerys and Jon were making from miles away. I went into the deaths of Ned Stark and the Red Wedding blind, but by this point either Martin tipped his hand or I'm better at reading his signs but the betrayal of the Night Watch was clear to me before Meilisandre warned of it, and I knew that Daenerys should have gone to Astapor, should never have been leinent to Yunkai, should never have chained her dragons (and, better still, have a bloody plan about what to do with her dragons - you have three, all three need riders, but no, let's chain them up, refuse to use them and hope for peace... a little girl who knows nothing of war indeed.)
I doubt if Jon is dead. I would prefer that he is, actually, it just strikes me as the ballsier course to take - particularly after all this time letting him come into his own as one of the novel's great heroes. His would be a promise unfullfilled in a way that the distant Robb never was, and the chaos that would erupt around the Wall in his absence would be quite interesting reading (as I suspect it will be anyway).
Jaime, of course, is being led to meet Lady Stoneheart by Brienne. Perhaps he will die there, or maybe not, who knows. The Lannister cause is running short of able men almost as quickly as the Starks have.
In some ways that was the most compelling reading in the book because it was the most frustrating. The rise of Daenerys in A Storm of Swords was the shining arc of that book, the hero, the goddess, the mother. The myth melts away and I feel like I am eating ever greater quantities of ash as I read of her dithering, indecision and poor judgement as the masses of armies come to Mereen.
Martin has never really been able to make Essos come alive as well as Westeros, even though this novel makes the most conerted effort yet - not just in the map, but with Voletene history, the Mereenese politicking, and so on. It usually feels more like rewarmed Orientalist tropes - the lazy, indolent East who are decadent and gluttonous and ugly compared to the iron virility of the West - and the teeming cultures are sketched vaguely, if at all. Westeros is the War of the Roses; it would have been nice if Essos had that kind of historicity to keep it grounded and feel more real, but I guess that's not how this'll be played. Parts of it work, sure - the Alan/Mongol Dothraki, for example - but the Slaver's Bay we spend so much time around this novel is as empty as Qarth.
King's Landing and its endless, endless scheming feels ever fresh and real in ways Mereen never does... which may be want makes A Feast for Crows the better novel; because even when not a lot is happening in King's Landing it is still a lot of fun to read about. It is nice that this novel keeps us abreast of the latest scheming in Westeros' capital, all the same.
I have to agree with this. I did however like A Feast for Crows - probably a little better than this book. But yeah, it's very much a A Song of Ice and Fire novel, and that means several chapters of not a lot happening and long stretches of it. I wasn't that disappointed because I'd gotten used to that at this point. Martin wants to tell you whether or not Doran Martell served sherbet to Ser Balon Swann, and you'll bloody well sit back and take it. It's part of why I think adapting the later, longer books for TV with the same ten episode length of the HBO series' first season will work just fine.
That said, the book does shy away from some very interesting things mostly it seems to stuff them into later books. Bran gets the best chapters he's had since A Game of Thrones - the plodding Bran and Hodor and the crannog kids do crap all finally gets some payoff. But the payoff is sweet, and brief, and then Bran is out of the book entirely so we can have another chapter of the noose slowly tightening around Daenerys.
If anything, the Bran chapters demonstrate a swift, brief, laconic nature that's wholly alien to the rest of the book. The only thing comparable is Arya, whose chapters have been strong ever since she came to Braavos - expunging some of the weakess of her earlier chapters by throwing them into context (it is as if everything she's done has led her here, and perhaps it has).
A Game of Thrones may be the fastest moving novel of the series. But then, it was written when the books were intended to be a trilogy. I've never read The Wheel of Time, but the analogies to that series feels more apt than, say, Lord of the Rings - Tolkein is able to take his sweet time but still have a firm grasp on his story and world in a way that is compelling. Martin can take his sweet time... and sometimes feel quite frankly like he's stalling, like he's got to write some filler chapters to give us a little more detail about the river Rhoyne or whatever.
You know actually I was done with Tyrion at the end of A Storm with Swords. He'd killed his father and accepted his fate as an outcast. I didn't think Tyrion severed from his Lannister role would be up to anything terribly interesting, and the novel first promised me he would, and then proved me right with a book of abortive boat journeys and prancing slaves. Perhaps in book six Tyrion will have carved out a role for himself, I suspect given Martin's fondness for the character that's almost a given.
Thoughts on Aegon Targaryen:
I assumed he was genuine. At any rate Jon Connington is convinced he is, and the explanation as to how he was hidden sounds convincing enough. The logic behind hiding Aegon is a little more baffling, however. Sure, he's a Targaryen, and sure, Robert likes killing Targaryens, but Illyrio had a hand with Aegon and Illyrio also rather openly patronized Viserys and Daenerys. The big difference between Aegon and those two, of course, is that he's the son of Rhaegar.
Patrilineal descent: The sons come before brothers. Rhaegar's firstborn takes precedence over his younger brother. Aegon, if truly Aegon, had more right to be the Targaryen pretender then Viserys ever did.
And Doran Martell seems to have been completely ignorant of his existence, as what we know of his plans suggest he wanted to put Viserys on the throne and then Daenerys, sealing each effort with a Dornish marriage. But a Targaryen with a better claim than either and the son of Princess Elia of Dorne? Surely had Doran known Aegon would be the one he worked towards... so why didn't he know?
If there's one consistent theme here, it's the novel has a dozen people all involved in terribly elaborate incredibly secret schemes about bringing the Targaryens back to power, none of them are telling each other, and oftentimes they're running completely cross purposes and since even Daenerys is ignorant they end up worse than useless, which is the extent of dear Quentyn Martell's failed journey. Secret plotting is no good if the people you're secretly plotting for have no idea what you're secretly plotting and go do something else instead, clearly.
So yeah. It was like all the Ice and Fire books something that was easy to read quickly, occasionally quite engaging, involved in a lot of world building, and juggled a titanic cast. There were problems with it, and I wouldn't reread it, but most of the main strikes against it are true of the series generally rather than just this novel. It was very much like the novels before it; I suspect the last two novels will be much like it as well.
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I've been reading around on the internets. Apparently the theory that Aegon is fake is backed up by the assertion Aegon is descended from the female line of the Blackfyres, the defunct line of pretenders to the throne who of course were Targaryens by blood. That'd allow Aegon to both naturally look like a Targaryen and have no legitimate claim to the throne.
Uh...
There were plenty of very damaging rivalries during the Targaryen period. Indeed, it's precisely that rivalry which brings down the Targaryens in a rather bloody civil war. And while Robert was not a very good king, after Greyjoys' Rebellion there was no open insurrection to his rule - although, granted, the Baratheons are a the only major post-Targaryen family and one with a dynastic tie to the Targaryens that legitimized Robert's claim to the throne.
On the other hand, I think some Targaryen supporters - like Varys - are so because they think Aegon will be a better king. Robert wasn't great, and Renly, Stannis, Joffrey have all had their problems. Tommen, sweet kid though he may be, hasn't had the proper master class in kingship were to rule is a duty and not a privilege.
Of course people support the Targaryens for a ton of other reasons. Personal, like Jon Connington's connection to Rhaegar, or the absence of better choices, or because they believe the old dynasty in having the best right to the throne should be allowed to claim it.
Uh...
There were plenty of very damaging rivalries during the Targaryen period. Indeed, it's precisely that rivalry which brings down the Targaryens in a rather bloody civil war. And while Robert was not a very good king, after Greyjoys' Rebellion there was no open insurrection to his rule - although, granted, the Baratheons are a the only major post-Targaryen family and one with a dynastic tie to the Targaryens that legitimized Robert's claim to the throne.
On the other hand, I think some Targaryen supporters - like Varys - are so because they think Aegon will be a better king. Robert wasn't great, and Renly, Stannis, Joffrey have all had their problems. Tommen, sweet kid though he may be, hasn't had the proper master class in kingship were to rule is a duty and not a privilege.
Of course people support the Targaryens for a ton of other reasons. Personal, like Jon Connington's connection to Rhaegar, or the absence of better choices, or because they believe the old dynasty in having the best right to the throne should be allowed to claim it.
Despite the fact that his death was described as far back as A Game of Thrones, I've never been convinced that Aegon was, in fact, dead. It makes more sense from the standpoint of the source material that there's a pretender Aegon, a la Perkin Warbeck (who claimed to be one of the dead Princes after the Wars of the Roses), but I can't dismiss the idea that Aegon managed somehow to survive.
^
Indeed, since we don't have a 'somehow' survival. We're told he was swapped with another baby and while his sister was clearly identifiable, the stand-in baby was so defaced as to not be.
I don't think there's any real need for Aegon to be fake. I'm just more concerned that Aegon was so well hidden, even from useful staunch secret allies to the Targaryen cause like Doran Martell.
Indeed, since we don't have a 'somehow' survival. We're told he was swapped with another baby and while his sister was clearly identifiable, the stand-in baby was so defaced as to not be.
I don't think there's any real need for Aegon to be fake. I'm just more concerned that Aegon was so well hidden, even from useful staunch secret allies to the Targaryen cause like Doran Martell.
It's one of the reasons this whole deal with Aegon looks weird to me. Doran claimed in AFFC that marriage contracts were signed in order to marry Arianne and Viserys (or so I understood). Viserys and now Daenerys have a much better claim to the throne, being the natural children of the Mad King, thus preceding any children of Rhaegar.
All of this makes me wonder what was the original plan of Illyrio and Varys - to install Viserys to the throne using an alliance with Dothraki or to ship both Viserys and Dany to Dothraki in hopes that they'll die (and Illyrio says to Tyrion that he didn't think Dany will survive) and install Aegon as a king, using Jon Connington and the Golden Company? In the first case, Aegon is just a backup plan, but why invest so much in backup plan when it can cause so many problems? In the second case, wasn't it much easier to just let Robert Baratheon kill Viserys and Dany when they were younger and much more vulnerable, thus giving the Baratheons, Lannisters and such an illusion of a complete extinction of Targaryen dynasty?
I don't like the reveal of Aegon, it feels like GRRM had no idea how to create a possible plot of Dany invading Westeros, so he just invented another Targaryen. I can clearly see why he had such a difficulty writing this book, but I don't like the way he solved it.
Aegon has a better claim to the throne than Viserys or Daenerys. He is the son of Rhaegar. Just like Robert's sons come before Robert's brothers. Rhaegar was never king, but he was Aerys' eldest male heir, so the succession would pass through him if any of his male children survived.
In short Aegon maybe never was the back up plan.
And that actually makes some sense. Varys supported Robert's wrath on killing Daenerys, which didn't pan out but did come very close to doing so.
Further, neither Illyrio nor Varys seem to have been in a great hurry to give Viserys specifically things that'd help him become king; a marriage of Daenerys to the Dothraki could aid Aegon just as well as it aids the Beggar King.
It seems to me whatever the original plan for Aegon was (and Illyrio and Varys' plans seem to have to go through multiple permutations to react to unanticipated events); the plan by the time of Dance with Dragons is that Aegon would go to Mereen and wed Daenerys... which obviously isn't how it panned out. Aegon acting independently of Daenerys is Tyrion's doing, not the Eunuch or the Pentoshi Magister.
That would be a bad thing. Extinct dynasties typically do not reclaim their thrones, especially in medieval times when proving lineage can be very difficult. Viserys and Dany alive would make it easier for Aegon to reclaim the throne, because they would indicate to people that Targaryen blood still flows. Viserys and Dany dead would have demonstrated to the larger populace that the Targaryen line had been extinguished, which would make Aegon, even if he truly is Aegon, appear to be a pretender. He's still going to appear to many, if not most, to be a pretender, but Dany's survival makes Aegon's survival at least plausible.
I enjoyed it. It's maddeningly frustrating at times, but it breaks the traditional fantasy mold - the best of many of the dark fantasy that's become popular these days.
I also tend to think Jon is going to survive, as unlikely as that seems. Real magic exists now, including that of his brother Bran as the new greenseer and Melisandre, who understands in some way he's important. Indeed, when she asks to see Azor Ahai, the flames always point to Jon. Considering that Rh'llor is known for resurrecting the dead, and that the dead have risen in the North and some still seemed to understand their own identities (such as Coldhands), there's numerous avenues for Jon to be involved past this point. Indeed, there's also hints that skinchangers can live on in their beasts, though that would be particularly unsatisfying considering the limitations there.
The one underlying issue I have with Martin is that he deems good = stupid. Some of the mistakes made are easily seen miles away, and while some opportunities are denied to those who have a moral code that refuses to take certain paths, it doesn't mean they are less intelligent or perceptive.
Finally, I have no faith whatsoever the plot can be wrapped up in two books. IIRC Martin said at one point there'd be a jump forward in time after this book. However, he left us with so many cliffhangers that it's impossible to see how he could do so with the current narrative. At the pace and intricacy he's writing, it would take another 5 books to get us to the end of the war with the Others - which is where this has to go or be considered an epic failure.
I also tend to think Jon is going to survive, as unlikely as that seems. Real magic exists now, including that of his brother Bran as the new greenseer and Melisandre, who understands in some way he's important. Indeed, when she asks to see Azor Ahai, the flames always point to Jon. Considering that Rh'llor is known for resurrecting the dead, and that the dead have risen in the North and some still seemed to understand their own identities (such as Coldhands), there's numerous avenues for Jon to be involved past this point. Indeed, there's also hints that skinchangers can live on in their beasts, though that would be particularly unsatisfying considering the limitations there.
The one underlying issue I have with Martin is that he deems good = stupid. Some of the mistakes made are easily seen miles away, and while some opportunities are denied to those who have a moral code that refuses to take certain paths, it doesn't mean they are less intelligent or perceptive.
Finally, I have no faith whatsoever the plot can be wrapped up in two books. IIRC Martin said at one point there'd be a jump forward in time after this book. However, he left us with so many cliffhangers that it's impossible to see how he could do so with the current narrative. At the pace and intricacy he's writing, it would take another 5 books to get us to the end of the war with the Others - which is where this has to go or be considered an epic failure.
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He wanted a time jump after ASOS, started to write, saw that it requires lots of flashbacks and started from scratch without the jump. That's why AFFC took 5 years and ADWD took 6. ADWD had an additional problem with the whole Meereenese plot.
I still think that he can finish the series with two books, if he will stop stalling and start moving the plot faster. Book 6 can be devoted entirely to the fight for the Iron Throne and various other Westeros-related plots, while building up the Others' threat to serious and real levels - like wights and Others showing up openly near the Wall and such. The final book can be devoted entirely to the war with the Others.
That appears to be the fan consensus. Most of them jumbling together the fact wargs live on in their animals, so there's Ghost, but also that nifty Red Priest power of resurrection Thoros used on Beric Dondarrion... with Melisandre not too far from Lord Snow.
I just think it'd be far more interesting if he died. After building him up all this time as our designated hero to fight against the big fantasy enemy, ripping him away from us too soon has just the right taste of bitter dregs.
I'm not so sure. Cersei's arc in A Feast for Crows is all about the failure of stupid evil - and there are very few characters as cruel as her - and some of the more cunning characters in the novel series - like Tyrion and Varys - have principles... after a fashion. The means may be nasty, but often those with good Ends are playing the best game.
Barristan's acquitted himself pretty decently as Queen's Hand in this novel too, even as conscious as he is he is ill suited to the task.
Nah. I think the issue with the Others is, to a point, I suspect the readers have bigger ideas as to what they are then Martin does. I remember reading in one of these threads that people felt Game of Thrones was a bad name for the series because the game was a sideshow, but frankly the reverse is true. These novels are the War of the Roses with some colouring from the old hoary fantasy trope of the ancient evil slouching around once more.
What can one really say about the Others? They're old, they animate dead things, and they want to come over the wall and subsume the realms of men. They have little and less of agency. All that matters then is they are stopped from doing that at some point. I think pretty much everything Martin needs to do with the Others can be done in one book, probably the last one.
But yes, for such a long book not enough actually happened in A Dance With Dragons, and there's too much space devoted to very little.
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Theon and Jon's chapters continue to be the best stuff in the book.
I never thought I'd like Theon as a character, but no one deserves what he went through since he was captured by Ramsay. Death is easier. It also looks like in addition to losing several fingers and toes and broken teeth, Theon was castrated.
I never thought I'd like Theon as a character, but no one deserves what he went through since he was captured by Ramsay. Death is easier. It also looks like in addition to losing several fingers and toes and broken teeth, Theon was castrated.
Anyone have thoughts on where Osha may have taken Rickon? When Wex pointed it out on Manderly's map, Davos didn't seem to care much for the idea of going there, but I don't see any towns/cities/castles on the new map south of Winterfell that would result in that reaction (though, as a new reader who flew through these books when the television series started, I'm not as intimately versed in the world as others).
The popular theory seems to be Skagos - an island up north populated by cannibals (or at least that's what people say about the island's population). Why would she take him there or how they got there - I have no idea.
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