[Cause]

silvenquesti, on 21 July 2011 - 08:47 AM, said:

[/i]1 and a half of these answered? B.S. We got to see Cersei's Trial and FRANKENGREGOR!, we know that Brienne is alive, Quentyn made it to court and failed miserably, and both Bran and Arya made progress down their respective paths. Now, to me that 4 and a half with Brienne counting as the half. True, we don't have solid endings to a couple of these storylines however progress was definitely made.

Please remember I do as well wish we'd had more answers that questions given to us in this book.

I agree mor with the original poster than you. Yes more happened then he implies but for the most part he has it right.

Dany mastering her dragons, escaping the Meereen situation, and heading west. - cliffhanger, but a 1000 pages late yes something is happening
Tyrion arriving at Dany's court to serve her in his unique ways - Tyrions entire story is 1000 pages of delaying the inevitable
The battle with the Others finally starting in a serious way - 5 books and still only three sighting!
Jon learning who he is - More missinformation and clues but thats its
Cersei's trial and the unleashing of FrankinGregor - Cerse is still on trial for incest and treason, knowing Frankingregor exists and seeing him unleashed are different
What is Jaime going to do? - no idea
Is Briennie dead, what did she say to get out of the noose - she is alive, 6 years to reveal this cliffhanger and we get two sentances
Quentyn arriving at Dany's court and revealing Dorne's plans to her- happened, to no result. whole story arc is a bit of a missfire
Victarion using the horn to control the dragons - nope
Bran meeting the Greenseer and finishing his training - we meet him, we leave him
Arya finishing her training - more like finally starts it in earnest

Interesting things I never picked up.
Sun rising in the west and setting in the east. Quentyn comes from westeros to mereen and dies
Seas going dry- The Dothraki sea is having a drought
Mountains ground to dust? No idea, Gregors dead?

Also with johns death/eventual resurection
His wound 'smoked'
Marsh was crying 'salt'
and Ser Patrick was dying in the background and his sigil is a star 'bleeding star'

[Gothos]

Cause, on 21 July 2011 - 10:07 AM, said:

Interesting things I never picked up.
Sun rising in the west and setting in the east. Quentyn comes from westeros to mereen and dies
Seas going dry- The Dothraki sea is having a drought
Mountains ground to dust? No idea, Gregors dead?

Oh... oh my. That's awesome.

[Cyphon]

~ Infinity, has cause to rep.

Also, in regard to NW I think you're all underestimating the problems of culture change. Yes the NW are douches about the Wildlings, but their reaction is pretty damn accurate if you ask me. Jon was reaching for too much too quick.

[Tapper]

Cause, on 21 July 2011 - 10:07 AM, said:

Mountains ground to dust? No idea, Gregors dead?

Or the pyramids of Meereen are reduced to smoke and rubble by Daenerys' dragons?

[Ceda Cicero]

Holy shit, Cause. Those are some of the best finds I've ever seen. The Dany stuff would have been enough cause for rep, but the Jon bit is just icing on the cake. Well done, sir. Very well done indeed.

This post has been edited by Ceda Cicero: 21 July 2011 - 03:32 PM

[Serenity]

Overall I enjoyed it, with a few misgivings. I guess I'm just a little disappointed that it didn't soar like the first three books did. I thought, with the chapter at the fighting pits, and Dany and Drogon's awesomeness (which was breathtaking), that things were really going to take off, but it didn't seem to work out that way. Dany's story in general seemed to go nowhere until that point, to me anyway, and then her final appearance seemed a bit aimless. I loved the way all these various factions were converging on her to take her and the dragons back to the west, though.

The stuff at The Wall was okay, but Jon's fate had been telegraphed hundreds of pages beforehand, so I didn't find it shocking when it happened. Tyrion's storyline was just a bit bizarre. The beginning was good, but then it seemed to meander, and every time he got close to where I wanted him to be another obstacle got thrown in his path. I loved Jorah finding him in the brothel, that just seemed so right, but for me their story should have snowballed from that point onwards, where instead it actually seemed to falter, not helped by Penny, who overstayed her welcome. I know GRRM loves putting his characters through misery after misery, but it would have been nice to see some progress in all of those storylines. Instead, there was a lot of promise that was left unfulfilled.

On the plus side, I thought it was far better than AFFC, and it was as well written as always, and some of it was top class (Theon, Cersei and Selmy in particular).

Very impressed by the little hints and pieces of info people have eeked out of it in this thread

[Werthead]

Quote

I loved Jorah finding him in the brothel,

When Jorah took Tyrion prisoner in a yet another hostelry I wanted Tyrion to scream, "Not again!"

Quote

and Ser Patrick was dying in the background and his sigil is a star 'bleeding star'

I may have missed it, but I don't think anyone even on Westeros spotted this. Excellent suggestion

EDIT: Oh, they did, and I did miss it

This post has been edited by Werthead: 22 July 2011 - 07:23 PM

[End of Disc One]

Werthead, on 22 July 2011 - 06:59 PM, said:

I may have missed it, but I don't think anyone even on Westeros spotted this. Excellent suggestion

EDIT: Oh, they did, and I did miss it

I was gonna say, we've been talking about that on GameFAQs for weeks now!

[Held]

ADWD was about identity and what defines identity. George states that identity was the major theme in ADWD. The prologue with the skinchanger foreshadows this. All the POV's were struggling with identity issues with Theon/Reek being the ultimate identity theft and redemptive arc, also Arya who goes through so many different faces she looks like she is becoming no-one. After what most of them have experienced they should be questioning the basis of their identities and I think he is trying to position them for the final act with grey tones.

[Traveller]

I finished this last night.

I have to say, I thought the beginning was slow... which then got even slower paced with the new POV's and chapters of Dany still going nowhere.

But it picked up again, thankfully. I thought the Bran chapters, and the insights into the Ravens and the Weirwoods was great - especially the moment where Bran was linked back to the scene with Ned from GoT's. After the Meereen 'set-up', I almost cheered when we finally got some Jaime and Arya action at last, and more Theon... best part of the book for me, i think, even if the whole Stannis thing was left hanging - we've seen letters about deaths to be wrong before.

I'm not too happy about the Jon ending. I'm really hoping that this is like an Arya/Hound/Axe moment... presumably he was wearing furs/mail etc? It didn't actually describe him bleeding out or anything. Or am I just hoping too much?

The Dany chapters... well, the situation that she was in was actually well thought out, as you can't just take a city, call yourself leader, and expect everyone to be happy. I liked the way it didn't work out, and all the political upheaval (although pretty dull reading) was exactly the sort of thing that you'd expect to happen. Summed up by Quentyn... plan = sneak in, come out riding dragon, off into the sunset with the grateful Queen. Reality = dragon scares the shit out of you, then cooks you where you stand.

Overall I liked the book, it had some great writing. I just wish the whole format was different, and that he'd merged it more successfully with AFFC - it went for too many chapters without following anyone I was really interested in, which was a mistake I think.

And BTW, it really seems a liitle too out there to suggest that Ned isn't Jons father - after the first 3? books of description of him being just like Ned/having Stark eyes/colouring/hair etc.

[Gothos]

Traveller, on 27 July 2011 - 08:08 AM, said:

And BTW, it really seems a liitle too out there to suggest that Ned isn't Jons father - after the first 3? books of description of him being just like Ned/having Stark eyes/colouring/hair etc.

That could be on account of Lyanna just as well.

[Paran]

Or Brandon... or Rickard. There's the possibility now that we see that Brandon was a bit more of a wild guy that he might have sired a bastard via Ashara Dayne. Still, doesn't explain why there were 3 kingsguard at the tower of joy protecting Lyanna.

WRT Jon possibly being Azhor Azhai, didn't the prophecy sat 'RED star bleeds'? Pat's cape was the BLUE stars of the Cowtards. Perhaps another red herring...

Other points of note - you think that Tyrion mentioned those sewers enough?? Perhaps our height (and nose) challenged friend plans on using them to attack casterly rock.

And how good was that LambFREY pie?!

[Ceda Cicero]

Paran, on 28 July 2011 - 03:22 AM, said:

WRT Jon possibly being Azhor Azhai, didn't the prophecy sat 'RED star bleeds'? Pat's cape was the BLUE stars of the Cowtards. Perhaps another red herring...

The cape was covered in blood.

[Paran]

Which covers the "bleeds" part, but it was "red star bleeds", not just "star bleeds". Of course interpretation/translation of the prophecy could be wrong.

[QuickTidal]

HAHAHA! This meme seriously does NOT get old.

LOL

Hitler learns about Jon Snow's fate.

[Gatekeeper]

That shit was funny

[Ceda Cicero]

King Kazma, on 08 August 2011 - 06:18 PM, said:

HAHAHA! This meme seriously does NOT get old.

LOL

Hitler learns about Jon Snow's fate.

The last line is easily the best.

I can't understand how whoever did that displays what seems like a really eloquent grasp of English in some places, but then screws the pooch elsewhere with "doesn't mattered" etc.

[alt146]

I agree with the review someone posted earlier that said the book ended 200 pages too soon. I thought I still had about 50 pages to go and had no idea how there would be any sort of 'end' and then bam - fooled by the length of the dramatis persona :/ So many of the plots just didn't go anywhere, it felt like there were whole chapters (especially with Dany and Jon) that presented the character with the same problem they couldn't solve in the last chapter. That and the reuse of phrases and descriptions really started to get on my nerves. Does every fat man have to look like suet?

I think I missed/forgot a lot of what happened in the previous books, it felt to me that a lot of the prophecies were coming out of nowhere, but from the discussions in this thread they've been around for a while. I felt at the time that Mel looking for Azor Ahai and finding Jon Snow was incredibly heavy handed if Jon is actually Azor Ahai, but I think maybe I missed a whole bunch of earlier clues pointing to it being him.

Overall mixed feelings about the book. I can't say the book was crap, but when I hit the end I had a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. I understand this is definitely not a story where everything goes swimmingly for the characters, but I was really hoping for significant progress of some of the plotlines. Instead the majority of the book was PoV characters being thwarted, followed by a bunch of tidbits and cliffhangers.

[Ceda Cicero]

Look, we all know exactly what the book was missing and why we came away feeling unfulfilled. Let's just stop pussyfooting around it. Everyone would have walked away from DANCE happy if Martin hadn't cut this chapter out:

[Rhand]

Fuck this. They killed my n. Jon man. What bullshit!


Completely ruined the book for me, that and the Tyrion/Daenerys-chapters beings so boring. I really don't care that much about Esos (or whatever the continent is called) so I hope in the next book they'll finally move.
Robb and Jon were my absolute favourite characters and now both are dead, okay...