Ben X

A Song Of Ice And Fire

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He was

fighting with a wooden sword, cornered on a boat, right? Maybe he gave Arya enough time to leg it and then dove into the sea. Maybe he even hung around for long enough to find out that she hadn't been captured...

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I don't buy it, to be honest. He got a great send-off and I'm happy with what we had. It'd cheapen that final scene of his if he was actually alive.

Points for Martin, though,

to give a character two scenes in the entire series and make him so memorable.

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I really, really hope Syrio is dead

Also, spoilers for everything:

I don't buy Septa Lemore as a sand snake at all. If she were, it would seem much more likely that the Martells are aware of Griff's parentage, and they aren't (based on the new Arianne Martell chapter from winds of winter

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She's not a Sand Snake. Sorry, that's my mistake. She's the mother of one of them, a former lover of Oberyn Martell.

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She's not a Sand Snake. Sorry, that's my mistake. She's the mother of one of them, a former lover of Oberyn Martell.

Yeah, I'm sorry, that's what I meant too. That's what I doubt. But who knows, I don't think there's really enough evidence to know either way at this point.

Also, the new Arianne chapter has some really interesting things going on, stuff about krakens, magic vs. maesters, etc.

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Aurane Waters is a pirate now, too.

Spoilers for everything:

Oh hey did you mention the Theon is the ghost of winterfell theory yet? That is one of my favorites as I totally missed it on my first read of Dance, but in retrospect it's pretty textually implicit.

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I don't know that one. I thought

Mance's spearwives were the ones killing. Are you talking about Little Walder's death?

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I don't know that one. I thought

Mance's spearwives were the ones killing. Are you talking about Little Walder's death?

Not little Walder. It's pretty clear Big Walder killed little Walder. Rather, when Theon talks to one of the spearwives, she says that they did not kill all the men who had been killed. If you go back and read Theon's chapters carefully, you will see big jumps in time. He is experiencing missing time, going crazy, and killing people. Roose talks to Theon and says he can not physically accomplish the killings, but there are other spots where you see that he has some strength remaining. In addition, he meets a mysterious hooded man, who knows all about Theon and his deeds, and who he has killed and hasn't. The theory is that Theon is talking to himself in this section.

As a crazy aside: When Theon pretends to kill Bran and Rickon in Winterfell, we learn very quickly that he did not kill them. But who were those boys? They were the sons of the miller's wife, who we know Theon was having a relationship with while at Winterfell. Did Theon unknowingly kill his own sons? All that stuff is really dense.

Edit: And now I sound like the crazy people I was mocking last page.

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I picked-up on that second one, but it's tenuous.

I think the hooded man is just a guard, although I'm googling a bit to see if I find any convincing theories.

Also, I just remembered a nice piece of trivia:

Euron paid the Faceless Men to kill Balon; they threw him off a bridge.

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Season 3, which adapts roughly 2/3s of A Storm of Swords and includes one aspect from A Dance With Dragons, has been getting trailers. Don't click if you plan on reading the books: spoilers.

 

Where do you think they're going to end the season? I've been thinking about this and, thematically, it only makes sense if (spoilers up to and including book five)

they end it at Joffrey's wedding, minus the Battle for the Wall and Daenerys taking Meereen. That way you finish Melisandre's prophecy with the leeches, you set-up Dorne, Red Viper included, for season 4, and you start drawing parallels between Daenerys and Cersei for season four, which was in the books but not as prevalent. I'm just saying, it's not a coincidence they both face similar problems and take long, introspective-inducing walks at the end of their journeys

.

 

Anyway, it should be a great season.

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Looking at the list of episode titles on Wikipedia (don't read them if you don't want spoilers), it seems pretty clear that it's going to end on or about

the Red Wedding.

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That'd be episode 9. A quick check of the book shows the Purple Wedding to be ten chapters later, or an episode's worth of material. It only makes sense that they include it this season. Not only does it end the War of the Five Kings, but why cast the Queen of Thorns if she doesn't do anything? I think the actress playing Lysa comes back this year, too, which means that Sansa escapes.

 

I'd be surprised if we didn't get our first glimpse at Lady Stoneheart this year. Introducing her next season would seem like a cheap move, but put it in the same season/book and it makes it obvious it was part of the plan all along.

 

The last episode is called "Mhysa", Old Ghiscari for mother (I checked). Seems a lot of mothers will get loads of issues to deal with in that episode: Daenerys ("Mother! Mother!"), Stoneheart, Cersei (with Joffrey).

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My girlfriend just said she fancies reading another GRRM book. What's a good one to pick up?

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I'll take this to mean there are no good non-ASOIAF GRRM books!

 

I haven't read anything other than ASOIAF, but I know that a lot of his earlier works either won, or were at least nominated for, awards in their genres.  I've been meaning to read Dying of the Light for years, but haven't got around to it.  I have a shelf of unread books that always seems to grow rather than shrink.  DotL is about the end of a world, a planet that is going to die and there's nothing anyone there can do to stop it.  It sounds about as upbeat as you would expect.

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I've just started reading the books again, and I'm going to post thoughts here. I'll put them all in spoilers, but as long as you've read all the books there shouldn't be anything in there that you didn't know already. If anyone wants to respond with theories or lists of evidence for stuff not yet overtly revealed, please do it in such a way that I don't accidentally read them. I'm still annoyed that I read the (probably correct) theory about who

Jon Snow's mum

is - I don't think I'd even realised it was in question, as I'd been gobbling up the (probably) red herring story all the way! I hear there's a hot new fan theory which the actor

Sean Bean

was asked about and agrees with, but I've managed to avoid it.

 

So, my thoughts:

 

It's great seeing all the stuff from the next four books getting mentioned and set up so early on  - the Iron Bank, the Faceless Men, Dorne, the fat Manderleys. I'd love to know exactly how much GRRM knew in advance. He even has Catelyn think about how she has a stone heart at one point, although that's probably coincidence!

 

Looking back at my earlier posts I can see that I noticed the point about Jon Arryn wanting to send his kid off to Dragonstone, but I couldn't see how it was relevant. It's cool to read it again knowing what it's hinting at.

 

I'm very proud of myself for noticing that the mean old black cat that Arya chases is most likely the grown up kitten of the Targaryen princess who got done in.

 

I read the bit where Loras gives Sansa a flower, keeping an eye out for the bit where it says that Renly is sitting behind her but I couldn't see where that is mentioned. Some of this stuff is so subtle I can't even see it when I'm looking for it!

 

UNPROVED THEORIES: I learnt from another novel that if someone remarks how strange it is that real-life gore looks fake, that could well be a hint that it actually is fake. And Sansa says this about her father's head on a stick. Could it somehow be that Ned is alive? Maybe a lookalike (as he was so withered when he got his head chopped off) or something like the magic of the Faceless Men or Mellisandre's glamours. Patchface is getting a lot of attention in GoT - could he be a spy from wherever it was he got picked up, playing dumb?

 

I feel like there's more that I picked up on or was impressed by, but I didn't think to post about it in time and now it's gone again!

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A couple of other things:

 

I found it difficult even on a second reading to grasp who all the Targaryens were and who got killed at which point, probably because Aerys II had so many kids. So he was the mad king, and the rebellion killed him (via Jaime), his princess daughter (can't remember her name, the one with the kitten) and Rhaegar (by Robert's hand) along with Rhaegar's Dornish wife and their little baby (did they have another child? Was that the one with the kitten, actually?). However Aerys's other two kids, Viserys and Daenerys, got away ... Ah, just looked at the appendix and realised Princess Rhaenys was Rhaegar's other kid. I think the thing that gets confusing is that Viserys and Dany were so much younger than Rhaegar and so it's hard to tell who is whose offspring!

 

I'm not sure I ever associated the maegi whom Dany burns with Mellisandre's Lord Of Light, but actually they both come from Asshai and deal with shadow magic, right? Along with Thoros of Myr being able to ressurrect people (more effectively than the maegi did Khal Drogo - would she have been able to bring him back more fully if she wanted?), this seems like a much more tangibly powerful religion than the Old Gods (all we've seen from their practioners is spy trees, obsidian and one old guy kept alive in a tree, iirc) or The Seven (for which I can't think of any examples of fantastic effects). Perhaps rather than there literally being gods, these are just constructed beliefs that simply work as groupings of certain types of magic...

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I'm pretty sure GRRM has confirmed that Ned is indeed dead, despite all slightly plausible theories.

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I've just started reading the books again, and I'm going to post thoughts here. I'll put them all in spoilers, but as long as you've read all the books there shouldn't be anything in there that you didn't know already. If anyone wants to respond with theories or lists of evidence for stuff not yet overtly revealed, please do it in such a way that I don't accidentally read them. I'm still annoyed that I read the (probably correct) theory about who

Jon Snow's mum

is - I don't think I'd even realised it was in question, as I'd been gobbling up the (probably) red herring story all the way! I hear there's a hot new fan theory which the actor

Sean Bean

was asked about and agrees with, but I've managed to avoid it.

 

What's the theory you're talking about?  Sometime around book 2 (maybe even in book 1), I thought that Snow was

 

the son of Ned's dead sister and the Targaryen that kidnapped her. It makes a ton more sense than the overt story told about him and there's plenty of in text hints pointing towards it.

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Yeah, that's the prevailing and most potentially satisfying theory.

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It seems that I was the only reader not to have figured that out!

 

Onto Book 2:

 

Joren's mention of someone paying him to take Ned to the Wall and then that "something went queer" suggested to me that Varys was trying to save Ned while perhaps Littlefinger was goading Joffrey into killing him. It could be that he came up with it on his own, evil little shit that he is, as Cersei tells Tyrion, but the idea is certainly floated.

 

I like the theme of verbal armour - Sansa has her courtesies, Tyrion has his "little" jokes , Dany will soon have her "I am but a girl and know nothing of war" refrain.

 

There's a mention by a tavern landlord that his brother Lync got sent to the wall by Ser Malcolm for filching pepper - I suspect I've probably met these characters already but I can't remember it. Is Ser Malcolm Sam Tarly's father?

 

Even if Syrio and Ned don't come back, I'm eagerly looking forward to the return of the direwolves, Nymeria and Shaggy Dog. I really hope they come back and have a big effect on things. Speaking of direwolves, I noticed that Bran refers to Sansa's as "Lady's Shade" in the second book - up 'til it's just been "Lady". I wonder if that signifies anything - a hidden shade to Sansa?

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My girlfriend just said she fancies reading another GRRM book. What's a good one to pick up?

 

I know this is a LATE response, but I'm new here:

 

I've heard nothing but good things about his Wild Card novels (superhero world where people get random powers corresponding to cards in a deck) and the Hedge Knight series is a Song of Ice and Fire prequel.

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Ah, thanks UDP. Yeah, I might read the hedge knight books after I've finished my ASOIAF read through. I'll pass on the info about Wild Cards too, cheers!

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