[Agraba]

I must be one of the few people who really liked Dany's arc, and the direction this book took her. When Viserys died, she started out power hungry, willing to take the Iron Throne at all costs because she feels it is her birthright. While her way of conquering was awesome, I can't really say I liked her motivation. But as she got deeper into it, her whole perspective shifted from desire for power to obligation. In a way, she's becoming a female Ned Stark. I think it sparked when she learned how some tyrant king killed the three councilmen she left at Astapor and made it worse than when she first got there. That's when you realize that if you just impose a law that would completely break the foundation of how a culture functions, and then leave it to its own designs, it will just recover that practice, and be in worse shape. So she felt obligated to say and see it become a thriving city, and in the process, sacrificed a ton to see to it (such as arranging her marriage with a man she didn't like - not that it ended well). I also like that she's losing control of her dragons, it makes the threat of Victarion taking them over a lot more real. To be honest, I think DwD had my favourite Danaerys chapters in the whole series.

As for the rest of it. Well, I'm inclined to share my distaste with others' over it. The greyscale zombie action, introduction to Reek (and reintroduction to Theon after 2 MIA books), and introduction to Aegon, and Varys' grand plot were all pretty cool. But the rest of it seemed like such a drag. Jon worrying about winter harvest and Braavos bank loans wasn't very fun (though his execution of Janos Slynt was nice and satisfying). GRRM constantly making us think a character was dead at the end of a chapter, only to reveal that they're just fine by some miracle in their next chapter was getting really annoying. (This is him starting to abuse his notoriety as an author who kills his characters, and as a result I'm starting to take him less seriously as one.) Certain plots, such as Stannis' march and Tyrion's journey are really starting to drag.

My favourite character chapters were Bran's, but they were also the most scarce. I believe there were three in the whole book. I'm really starting to wonder if he'll be the Sauron-esque big bad villain of the series. The idea of the Children of the Forest controlling the Others to get their Westeros back from the Andals makes a lot of sense, and seeing as how Bran is more powerful than any leader they had in a long time, he might be the one to bring about this long dark horrible winter that the prophets are all pissing about.

Anyway, like RetiredBridgeburner, I feel like I need to give the book another read before I judge it too harshly. It is my least favourite in the series so far (I tend to give FfC a lot more credit than I think others do), but that might change on my second read.

[worry]

Agree with you about Dany in terms of plot, at least. There's definitely a balance problem (too many Cersei chapters in AFFC, too many Dany chapters in ADWD, and they did get repetitive) but otherwise I just think it's an issue of seeing the sausage get made. Which I like. And I agree with you about the dragons...and it's not just about losing control, it's about the dfiference between your massive powerful dog protecting you from a burglar, and that same dog ripping the throat out of the neighbor kid.

Anyway, when I do a reread I'm probably gonna try one of those fan-made chapter re-orderings, like A Ball of Beasts or whichever's best. See how that works out.