[Ceda Cicero]

So for those of us who got a head start and those on the forum getting their books today and pounding through them in 48-72 hours (I know you're out there you crazy assholes) I wanted to start a thread for just various sundry spoilery questions/comments/nitpicks. It's less a place for reviews (I've tried to write a "review" twice now and I'm just too damn lazy) and more a place for specific questions, though certainly impressions aren't discouraged.

So that said, DO NOT PROCEED if you don't want to be spoiled. And if you lack discipline and are on the fence, heed my words and DO NOT SPOIL THIS BOOK for yourself.

Seriously.

Spoilers.

FUCK YOU SPOILERS

Spoiler

Hokay, my first question is oddly specific and kind of revolves around a comparatively mundane point in the book. I have plenty more but this is one that's been bugging the hell out of me.

Why did the mountain clans, who seem to demonstrate pretty fierce loyalty to "the Ned" and Winterfell and the Starks, not march in force with Robb when he originally went South to rescue Ned? They're all fired up to rescue "the Ned's" little girl or die trying when they're marching with Stannis, but (IIRC), we didn't see any of the clans going South with the Young Wolf. Am I wrong?

This post has been edited by Ceda Cicero: 12 July 2011 - 06:30 PM

[Slick Mongoose]

Ceda Cicero, on 12 July 2011 - 06:29 PM, said:

Spoiler

Hokay, my first question is oddly specific and kind of revolves around a comparatively mundane point in the book. I have plenty more but this is one that's been bugging the hell out of me.

Why did the mountain clans, who seem to demonstrate pretty fierce loyalty to "the Ned" and Winterfell and the Starks, not march in force with Robb when he originally went South to rescue Ned? They're all fired up to rescue "the Ned's" little girl or die trying when they're marching with Stannis, but (IIRC), we didn't see any of the clans going South with the Young Wolf. Am I wrong?

Spoiler

I was under the impression that Robb's army was hastily put together. The North is huge and it would take forever to gather everyone together. Remember that when he first marched, it was to free Ned. So he only went with the major northern houses.

And even they didn't bring complete armies. The Manderlys in particular seem to have kept a lot of strength up north. I think it was partially time constraints and partly not wanting to strip the countryside of too many people. Winter is coming, after all.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I haven't read any of it yet, but I impulsively clicked on this thread. I'm glad you're still using spoiler tags.

[Aptorian]

This is a very confusing Dust of Dreams thread.

[Werthead]

Quote

Spoiler

Why did the mountain clans, who seem to demonstrate pretty fierce loyalty to "the Ned" and Winterfell and the Starks, not march in force with Robb when he originally went South to rescue Ned? They're all fired up to rescue "the Ned's" little girl or die trying when they're marching with Stannis, but (IIRC), we didn't see any of the clans going South with the Young Wolf. Am I wrong?

I think Slick nailed it.

Spoiler

The mountain clans keep themselves to themselves and Robb didn't see any need to go and raise them and get them moving, nor did he have time. In addition, the mountain clans are not organised or disciplined armies like the rest of the Northern levies. They're more like Shagga's mountain men who fight for Tyrion and the Lannisters, and are most useful for their knowledge of the terrain, how to live off the land and how to move through the snow with a minimum of difficulties. It's also debatable how numerous they are: the few hundred or couple of thousand they add to Stannis' army are pretty important considering the size of his forces in the first place, but small beer compared to the 20,000+ that Robb takes south.

[amphibian]

Ok, I finished.

Spoiler

My quick thoughts: This is how Martin should write, with the epic whooshing around the globe. AFFC suffered mightily for its geographic constraints and fucked him over big time for the ADWD storyline jenga. The whooshing was very enjoyable and led to strong thematic elements developing in wildly different places.

Martin loves to play with identity - in that almost everyone in the series has a constant battle to figure out who they are at any given time - and he fucking hates anyone who assembles a shred of benevolent authoritativeness over the other characters.

Jon probably won't rise as an Other. He's on the Wall and the corpses in the cells didn't rise either. He's done unless he goes full warg.

Why the hell did Mance go south? Is the true horn at Winterfell in the crypts?

Bran's arc was crazy. He's now unstuck in time and nowhere near experienced or grown-up enough to handle it or do something productive with the knowledge. The youth thing bugs me and I think the TV aging up will make this arc much more plausible when it happens. Unless he somehow spends years in there or gets a dramatic boost through a wise counselor or pure magic, he's fucked.

Arya still wargs out in her sleep. Her direwolf (Nymeria?) must still be alive and slinking around somewhere - perhaps in the Winterfell area, where Arya "jumps" into random people to do the serial killer thing on Bolton's men. The Faceless Men arc finally got her somewhere productive, as she's now good enough to get Faces and to be an apprentice.

Daenerys is an idiot. If I had dragons, I'd be figuring out how to tame them from day one. I know that's sorta what Tyrion and Victarion are for, but this stinks of plot contrivance. I've seen reptiles acknowledge their owners and be visibly more at ease with them than strangers. At least she now knows that her dragon connection is her number one priority and that her visible usage of that power is the fount from which all her power flows.

The Barristan and Connington POVs were good, but a bit mired in the past. I like the elaborate history of Westeros, but Martin really has a problem with infodumps. My eyes glazed over a fuckload of times when the family histories and stuff were discussed. At least Jaime had the sense to comment on how screwed up the rivalries were in his near useless infodump session.

Stannis was Stannis. Well done. However, I thought Melisandre was a bit out of character. Maybe we'll see in the next book that she rigged the assassination attempt by talking to the right idiots.

And my last note - Tyrion's arc was well done, but I could have done without Penny or the intermediate slavers. Just have the Second Sons buy him and the book gets shorter by 50 pages.

[Ceda Cicero]

amphibian, on 15 July 2011 - 02:12 PM, said:

Spoiler

Jon probably won't rise as an Other. He's on the Wall and the corpses in the cells didn't rise either. He's done unless he goes full warg.

Spoiler

There's another possibility here, and it seems to me to be the most likely. I think we'll see some period of full warging with Ghost but ultimately there's every possibility Melisandre will have some hand in reviving Jon. We've seen that Thoros was capable of doing this (with Dondarrion and Stoneheart) when his powers began to resurge after Dany's dragons came back. My gut says Melisandre is, at a default, "stronger" than Thoros, not to mention the fact that she says she is more powerful at the Wall than ever. All this combined with her ongoing interest in Jon makes me think she'll have some hand in us seeing him again as something other than a direwolf.

And that has a lot of interesting implications, most notably for me the fact that an UnJon imbued with the fire of R'hllor would be an embodiment of the Ice and Fire idea. This plus the R+L=J possibility would make him like... quadruple Ice and Fire Man.

This post has been edited by Ceda Cicero: 15 July 2011 - 07:32 PM

[amphibian]

Quadruple, hahahahaaaaaa.

It's possible.

[Ceda Cicero]

amphibian, on 15 July 2011 - 08:53 PM, said:

Quadruple, hahahahaaaaaa.

It's possible.

Hey also, your idea that

Spoiler

Mance and the wildings at Winterfell were searching for the true Horn of Winter is, I think, a brilliant one and a possibility I totally missed. In addition to making sense on every other level, it also satisfactorily explains why Mance agreed to go South at all, a point that I was not at all sold on.

[Slick Mongoose]

Ceda Cicero, on 15 July 2011 - 09:02 PM, said:

amphibian, on 15 July 2011 - 08:53 PM, said:

Quadruple, hahahahaaaaaa.

It's possible.

Hey also, your idea that

Spoiler

Mance and the wildings at Winterfell were searching for the true Horn of Winter is, I think, a brilliant one and a possibility I totally missed. In addition to making sense on every other level, it also satisfactorily explains why Mance agreed to go South at all, a point that I was not at all sold on.

But

Spoiler

The whole point of the horn of winter was to bring down the wall. But they're the other side of the wall now, why bring it down when it's your only protection from the Others?

[Ceda Cicero]

Slick Mongoose, on 15 July 2011 - 10:20 PM, said:

Ceda Cicero, on 15 July 2011 - 09:02 PM, said:

amphibian, on 15 July 2011 - 08:53 PM, said:

Quadruple, hahahahaaaaaa.

It's possible.

Hey also, your idea that

Spoiler

Mance and the wildings at Winterfell were searching for the true Horn of Winter is, I think, a brilliant one and a possibility I totally missed. In addition to making sense on every other level, it also satisfactorily explains why Mance agreed to go South at all, a point that I was not at all sold on.

But

Spoiler

The whole point of the horn of winter was to bring down the wall. But they're the other side of the wall now, why bring it down when it's your only protection from the Others?

True, true. Can't deny that. But

Spoiler

I just have a feeling the Horn of Winter is still in play, and will have some significance. Mel "burned" it the same way she "burned" Mance. If she was willing to fake Mance's death (for reasons that we don't fully understand yet) then it stands to reason that she might have faked the Horn's destruction (for reasons that we don't fully understand yet.) And, again, it would go a long way towards explaining why Mance agreed to go on an errand for Jon and a foreign priestess.

I'm not disagreeing with your logic, and I have absolutely no idea why anyone south of the Wall would want the Horn of Winter or what possible role it could have. But Melisandre is clearly playing some deeper game through Mance, and Mance is playing his own game, possibly one that aligns with Melisandre's aims, possibly something totally separate, possibly both. In the midst of all that, seems like the Horn of Winter could still be in the game, especially considering we more or less know, from Tormund, that the horn Mel burned was a fake.

[Cyphon]

Spoiler

Was it just me that went, 'D'oh' when Aegon popped up? Both for the prince fantasy trope (I was hoping GRRM would skewer that in the remaining 3/4 of the book, but perhaps he wants longer) and that it hadn't occurred to me that the half head of the baby put at Robert's feet might imply it wasn't actually Aegon.

I was pleased Jon died, I was thinking throughout the book he was juggling to many balls and trying to change the watch too quickly.

[Slick Mongoose]

Cyphon, on 16 July 2011 - 11:56 AM, said:

Spoiler

Was it just me that went, 'D'oh' when Aegon popped up? Both for the prince fantasy trope (I was hoping GRRM would skewer that in the remaining 3/4 of the book, but perhaps he wants longer) and that it hadn't occurred to me that the half head of the baby put at Robert's feet might imply it wasn't actually Aegon.

Spoiler

Lots of people, me included, think he's a fake. There's a lot of prophesies around indicating a fake dragon, and there were several descriptions in the book of non-targaryens with similar features in the east. It's also indicated that the female line of Blackfyres are still around somewhere. So lots of possibilities for a fake.

But more to the point, does it matter, if he's a good king?

[amphibian]

Spoiler

I had this really bizarre theory going that this is some colony world way out in the galaxy where the Valryians are actually the descendants of the space-adapted crew and have retained advanced technology and bioengineering longer than the regular colonists. Valryia got blown up Fukushima/Chernobyl-style and so on... It all came crashing down once I realized that the magic wasn't really explainable by "science".

I think Martin has basically quit coming up with new forms for the magic in the books to be expressed. Everything magical has pretty much been introduced already. We have the explanation for the Faceless Men and through Bran we understand why the godswoods were so important (greenseers may have been more common long ago). The "fairies" were kinda new though.

Getting back on topic: I don't think Aegon is a fake. The eyes, Varys's and Connington's involvement and the replication of pattern (Theon letting Bran and Rickon go) make too much sense.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 16 July 2011 - 01:41 PM

[Ceda Cicero]

amphibian, on 16 July 2011 - 01:38 PM, said:

Spoiler

I had this really bizarre theory going that this is some colony world way out in the galaxy where the Valryians are actually the descendants of the space-adapted crew and have retained advanced technology and bioengineering longer than the regular colonists. Valryia got blown up Fukushima/Chernobyl-style and so on... It all came crashing down once I realized that the magic wasn't really explainable by "science".

I think Martin has basically quit coming up with new forms for the magic in the books to be expressed. Everything magical has pretty much been introduced already. We have the explanation for the Faceless Men and through Bran we understand why the godswoods were so important (greenseers may have been more common long ago). The "fairies" were kinda new though.

Getting back on topic: I don't think Aegon is a fake. The eyes, Varys's and Connington's involvement and the replication of pattern (Theon letting Bran and Rickon go) make too much sense.

Spoiler

I'm honestly on the fence about Aegon, but moving more and more towards thinking he's a fake. There were a number of seemingly rando characters in DANCE (Illyrio's former wife, the whore on Jorah's lap in Volantis, etc) who are deliberately described as having Targaryen-esque features, indicating they might be far less rare than we initially believed. Connington needn't be in on the deception - Varys and Illyrio brought him to the table a little bit later, he was already in exile when they pulled their supposed bait and switch. I also think Varys and Illyrio's intentions are a lot more complex, and a lot less pure, than just restoring the Targaryen dynasty and putting a "capable" ruler on the throne. If Varys is willing to orchestrate years of chaos and the death of thousands to reap instability so that Dany/Aegon can have an easier time coming into power, to me, that severely undermines his whole "I do it all for the realm" stance.

There's also the House of the Undying prophecy Mongoose mentioned about Dany slaying a mummer's dragon. Aegon would seem to fit this bill nicely, with Varys having a background in a mummer's troupe. That doesn't necessarily mean Aegon is a "fake," tho.


Aren't there some theories floating around that Aegon might be Illyrio's son? He tells Tyrion that he used to be fit, trim, and skilled with a sword, and somewhere else talks at length about a wife he describes as having Targaryen features (who could be on of the female Blackfyres.) This would go a long way towards explaining Illyrio's stake in all this, if nothing else. I doubt anyone is willing to buy that Illyrio is truly motivated purely by "friendship" as he would have Tyrion believe.

[Garak]

Still waiting for my copy to arrive but what I want to know in advance is this: any good battles in it? This will determine if I read Clash of Empires first or not.

[kurono]

Garak, on 16 July 2011 - 04:21 PM, said:

Still waiting for my copy to arrive but what I want to know in advance is this: any good battles in it? This will determine if I read Clash of Empires first or not.

Lol no. Think of it as A Clash of Kings ending before the Battle of the Blackwater.

Ceda Cicero, on 15 July 2011 - 09:02 PM, said:

amphibian, on 15 July 2011 - 08:53 PM, said:

Quadruple, hahahahaaaaaa.

It's possible.

Hey also, your idea that

Spoiler

Mance and the wildings at Winterfell were searching for the true Horn of Winter is, I think, a brilliant one and a possibility I totally missed. In addition to making sense on every other level, it also satisfactorily explains why Mance agreed to go South at all, a point that I was not at all sold on.

Sam has the Horn of Winter. Jon found it under the Fist of the First Men in ACoK and gave it to Sam not knowing what it truly was. He took it with him south to Oldtown.

This post has been edited by kurono: 16 July 2011 - 05:09 PM

[amphibian]

kurono, on 16 July 2011 - 05:07 PM, said:

Sam has the Horn of Winter. Jon found it under the Fist of the First Men in ACoK and gave it to Sam not knowing what it truly was. He took it with him south to Oldtown.[/font]

What? Really? I don't remember a dang horn. The obsidian knife, yes.

Quote

A length of frayed rope bound the bundle together. Jon unsheathed his dagger and cut it, groped for the edges of the cloth, and pulled. The bundle turned, and its contents spilled out onto the ground, glittering dark and bright. He saw a dozen knives, leaf-shaped spearheads, numerous arrowheads. Jon picked up a dagger blade, featherlight and shiny black, hiltless. Torchlight ran along its edge, a thin orange line that spoke of razor sharpness. Dragonglass. What the maesters call obsidian. Had Ghost uncovered some ancient cache of the children of the forest, buried here for thousands of years? The Fist of the First Men was an old place, only . . .

Beneath the dragonglass was an old warhorn, made from an auroch’s horn and banded in bronze. Jon shook the dirt from inside it, and a stream of arrowheads fell out. He let them fall, and pulled up a corner of the cloth the weapons had been wrapped in, rubbing it between his fingers. Good wool, thick, a double weave, damp but not rotted. It could not have been long in the ground. And it was dark. He seized a handful and pulled it close to the torch. Not dark. Black.

Even before Jon stood and shook it out, he knew what he had: the black cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch.

[...]

Jon slid his new dagger from its sheath and studied the flames as they played against the shiny black glass. He had fashioned the wooden hilt himself, and wound hempen twine around it to make a grip. Ugly, but it served. Dolorous Edd opined that glass knives were about as useful as nipples on a knight’s breastplate, but Jon was not so certain. The dragonglass blade was sharper than steel, albeit far more brittle.

It must have been buried for a reason.

He had made a dagger for Grenn as well, and another for the Lord Commander. The warhorn he had given to Sam. On closer examination the horn had proved cracked, and even after he had cleaned all the dirt out, Jon had been unable to get any sound from it. The rim was chipped as well, but Sam liked old things, even worthless old things. “Make a drinking horn out of it,” Jon told him, “and every time you take a drink you’ll remember how you ranged beyond the Wall, all the way to the Fist of the First Men.” He gave Sam a spearhead and a dozen arrowheads as well, and passed the rest out among his other friends for luck.

Oh good memory, Kuruno. Wow. That totally snuck by me.

[amphibian]

But if Sam has the horn,

Spoiler

then what the fuck was Mance doing? GAAAAAAH!

[Slick Mongoose]

I thought

Spoiler

Mance was just doing a favour for Mel, who saved his life.