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No one makes perfect decisions in the series because it's impossible. Decisions that seem to be good at the time come to bite characters later on. That's because they're human, and it's a tragedy. The model is Shakespeare as much as it is Mallory. No good deed goes unpunished. The more I read, the more I'm convinced that this really is 100% based on the model of the historical tragedy and that none of the main characters are getting out in one piece. If the end of the series is a Hamlet style bloodbath I would not be at all shocked. Edit: I think the repeated phrases (kennings if you are effete) are just a symptom of the rushed editing job. Sexpansion fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 14:20
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I think a Photoshop/Paint thread of the next GRRM book cover would be perfect. I would start it but I suck at both of those things. And yes, Martin's constant phrase recurrence is really annoying, but what is more annoying is his inability to describe things beyond using extremes.
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Jul 21, 2011 14:53
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I had a thought this morning: Maybe Bloodraven is warging* Coldhands? Coldhands seem to be helping Bloodraven. He got Bran et al to the cave. * I hope it is ok to turn warg into a verb.
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Jul 21, 2011 14:56
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Coldhands is zombie Benjen.
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Jul 21, 2011 14:59
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pigdog posted:Coldhands is zombie Benjen.
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Jul 21, 2011 15:02
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It is a hypothesis. There is no conclusive evidence. Edit: What made me think of warging Coldhands was two things: 1. There is a passage where Jon thinks about the wights and notices that the one who attacked Mormont knew where to go. Jon thinks that this is because they retain some knowledge of their past life. 2. Bloodraven a. was a member of the Black Watch and b. is nigh omniscient where ever there are ravens and wierwoods. So maybe the wights know where to go not because they remember their past life, but because the entity that is warging them knows where to go. euphronius fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 15:02
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I mean it would be the most obvious way to wrap up the Benjen loose end. But Benjen had blue-grey eyes according to AGOT, and in ADWD it says: "Coldhands stood beside the door, a raven on his arm, both staring at the fire. Reflections from the flames glittered off four black eyes." Also what other language would Benjen Stark know? The Old Tongue maybe? "It had been twelve days since the elk had collapsed for the third and final time, since Coldhands had knelt beside it in the snowbank and murmured a blessing in some strange tongue as he slit its throat."
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Jul 21, 2011 15:22
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 Has this been posted before?
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Jul 21, 2011 15:47
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"No body gently caress with THE MOUNTRAIN!"
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Jul 21, 2011 15:57
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Man, that scarred hosed up black cat that's been running around kings landing this whole time has clearly been planning this entire sequence of events and will be the one to kill zombie Gregor as revenge for his murdered mistress.
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Jul 21, 2011 16:16
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Decius posted:It's pretty clear that Manderly had them murderd. And then served as pie. Goddammit. I knew something had to be up with those loving pies, they made such a huge deal out of them. I figured Wylis had poisoned them or something, and then when nothing happened I forgot about them.
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Jul 21, 2011 16:17
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Does anyone have any idea what was up with naming every chapter something different? I get it for certain characters going through identity changes (Sansa/Alayne, Reek/Theon, Arya/No one) or dramatic purposes, not revealing who the POV is until later in the chapter. But so many characters had random chapter names this time for seemingly no reason. Asha: The Wayward Bride, The King's Prize, The Sacrifice Quentin: The Merchant's Man, The Windblown, The Spurned Suitor, The Dragontamer Victarion: The Iron Captain (AFFC), The Reaver (AFFC), The Iron Suitor, Victarion Barristan Selmy: The Queensguard, The Kingbreaker, The Queen's Hand I can't reconcile it with anything, and may be trying to make sense of nothing. Edit: When Victarion embraces R'ollo as a true god, his next chapter gets named his name instead of his title.  Scoobi posted:
Reo fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 16:39
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Sexpansion posted:The more I read, the more I'm convinced that this really is 100% based on the model of the historical tragedy and that none of the main characters are getting out in one piece. If the end of the series is a Hamlet style bloodbath I would not be at all shocked. The very last chapter is gonna be Rickon showing his children around the crypts and pointing out all his brothers and sisters. I've been convinced for awhile that Rickon's point in the story is his very insignificance. No one else is coming back, as he himself says, they're all gonna die or be turned into trees.
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Jul 21, 2011 16:43
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Thoguh posted:Gratuitous sex in a fantasy series doesn't bother me, it's that, other than Jon and Dany (post rape Drogo), they tend to be really, really, really creepy gratuitous sex scenes. At least Dany and Daario, while pointless and showing her being a stupid teenager, wasn't creepy like Jayne & Theon and so many others.
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Jul 21, 2011 17:10
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Eight year olds, ser
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Jul 21, 2011 17:12
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Is john goodman little walder
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Jul 21, 2011 17:15
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Reo posted:Does anyone have any idea what was up with naming every chapter something different? I get it for certain characters going through identity changes (Sansa/Alayne, Reek/Theon, Arya/No one) or dramatic purposes, not revealing who the POV is until later in the chapter. This started in AFFC with Arianne being the Princess in the Tower and a few other things and Areoh Hotah being Captain of the Guard. It's for dramatic effect, though I'm not sure I like it. Also, either Bloodraven or one of the Children mention that Coldhands is very old or something like that. I don't think his identity is particularly important, but if he is indeed ex-Night's Watch it's more likely he's an old buddy of Bloodraven's than Benjen.
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Jul 21, 2011 17:20
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I always figured that the epithets as chapter names were meant to signify that the character isn't a major PoV - which makes the name choices for Melisandre's and Victarion's chapters rather interesting.
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Jul 21, 2011 17:27
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Brannock posted:I always figured that the epithets as chapter names were meant to signify that the character isn't a major PoV - which makes the name choices for Melisandre's and Victarion's chapters rather interesting. This is what I thought too
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Jul 21, 2011 17:32
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He called Asha the Sacrifice and yet she was not sacrificed!
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Jul 21, 2011 17:40
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"Near enough to make no matter" is another one. I checked it out and it only made 3 appearances in Dance, but it felt like a lot more. Checking the other books, it doesn't show up at all in the first 3 but shows up twice in Feast. This is partly why AFFC and ADWD feel so different from the first 3 books - the language and phrases and stuff are all different. There are a ton of phrases in Feast and Dance that are repeated several times in those books, but didn't show up at all in the first 3 books. I sort of felt bad for being happy when Little Walder got dead at Winterfell, but not too bad. The little prick needed killing. Reek posted:Little Walder had become Lord Ramsay’s best boy and grew more like him every day, but the smaller Frey was made of different stuff and seldom took part in his cousin’s games and cruelties. Interesting that Little Walder was actually Roose Bolton's brother-in-law, as Fat Walda was his sister.
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Jul 21, 2011 19:04
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:This started in AFFC with Arianne being the Princess in the Tower and a few other things and Areoh Hotah being Captain of the Guard. It's for dramatic effect, though I'm not sure I like it. It was pretty awesome when Theon was actually finally called Theon.
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Jul 21, 2011 19:50
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euphronius posted:He called Asha the Sacrifice and yet she was not sacrificed! I took that as a cheap attempt to build up suspense and get you to believe that Asha is about to be burned. Also, upthread someone asked if the names like Eddard and Benjen bothered me like "serjeant" and "ser" do. They don't because they exist alongside all sorts of "weird" fantasy names like Aegon and Tyrion.
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Jul 21, 2011 20:01
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In book 6 Darkstar hooks up with Chella and no one in Westeros is getting out of this with both ears intact. Then Zombie Gregor, Zombie Cat, and Zombie Jon all rise up against him and bite Darkstar, who, because GRRM loves defying conventions, dies from the bite, but DOESN'T resurrect. Meanwhile, Bran wargs into Dany right as Daario is nailing her in the pooper, and he decides he never wants to warg again and all the weirwoods die, removing the Others' source of power. Lastly, Tommen "Ralph Wiggum" Lannister appoints Ser Pounce to the Kingsguard in place of Kettleblack, and Sansa and Arya and Littlefinger raid King's Landing, and Tommen is beheaded by Ser Pounce in an ironic twist. We then find out Varys was behind the whole thing. Because Varys is actually the mad king Aerys Targaryen in disguise (we never saw them in the same place). In fact all the Targaryens are alive. Except for Viserys. He's a zombie.
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Jul 21, 2011 20:12
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For those interested, here's Gurm talking about Dance: http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/07/12/george-martin-talks-a-dance-with-dragons/
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Jul 21, 2011 20:16
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I'm kind of dreading Tommen's downfall and presumable death. He seems like a nice kid despite being the product of incest (also Myrcella). Hopefully Ser Pounce, Lady Whiskers and Boots all escape at least.
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Jul 21, 2011 20:18
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Just finished the book. The epilogue was awesome, good to see Varys willing to get his hands really, really dirty instead of just seemingly dirty. Did anyone else feel like Dany's chapters in this book were like Brienne's chapters in the last book? She just kept loving up and doing nothing, over and over again, I just wanted her chapters to be over. e: it was also super annoying that for the first quarter of the book, all of the viewpoint characters were like "Hey, remember the last time you saw me ten years ago? Let's relive that over and over again.  "But it was a good book, and I'm still going to read the next one (there is no next one) CzarStark fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 20:25
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Is there any significance in Victarions whore? The dusky lady? I haven't reread the series and I mostly had to check the wiki for character names and what they were. Five years is simply a too long time  I finished the book a couple of days ago and I still don't know what to think. I feel bad for wanting to skip the Tyrion chapters after Penny, Dany ones were poo poo, in the end I don't really know what I actually got out of the book. I even tried to spoil the book to a friend but I couldn't get past "Jon dies", "Kevan dies". There just isn't more to spoil. loving hell.
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Jul 21, 2011 20:48
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I liked Penny.  It was refreshing to have a optimistic naive person in the midst of all of that cynical nihilism.
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Jul 21, 2011 20:50
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I like Martin's reaction to the first question here, about Jon Snow. "Oh so you think he's dead do you?". I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks he is gone. The first chapter of the loving book goes on at great length about how wargs have a second life after their human bodies die. They even belabor the point further with Bran and the raven he possessed. I mean, I completely missed the part about Lord Wyman serving up the Freys in the meat pies so I am prone to being oblivious at times, but overlooking this just seems way too dumb.
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Jul 21, 2011 20:59
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One thing that I thought was kind of interesting that I don't think I've seen anyone mention was the second Jon chapter which included a conversation that he had with Sam from one of Sam's AFFC chapters. Having just reread AFFC I picked up on it pretty quickly and grabbed my copy of Feast to read along back and forth.
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Jul 21, 2011 21:07
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CzarStark posted:Did anyone else feel like Dany's chapters in this book were like Brienne's chapters in the last book? She just kept loving up and doing nothing, over and over again, I just wanted her chapters to be over. Of course, this motif is boring as poo poo, so hopefully it's over with. Linguica fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 21:11
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Just popping for a quick question. Is young Griff the baby who was supposedly smashed against the wall? And what are the stone people, how do they move if they are stone, I feel like I missed something important, isn't Gray Plague supposed to make you immobile, not stoned, before you die? Also holy poo poo the previous bad thread made realise how much he writes about food and rape, gently caress you, you ruined my reading experience.
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Jul 21, 2011 21:34
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Dr I am a Doctor posted:Just popping for a quick question. 1) Yes 2) Lepers
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Jul 21, 2011 21:40
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Anyone else find it funny that the joke theory of Tyrion being a secret Targ got a new pair of legs this book?
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Jul 21, 2011 21:46
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HUMAN FISH posted:I even tried to spoil the book to a friend but I couldn't get past "Jon dies", "Kevan dies". There just isn't more to spoil. loving hell.
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Jul 21, 2011 21:58
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Besides the two wights that were carried through the Wall and attacked Mormont in the first book, have any wights crossed the Wall? I remember Coldhands couldn't cross through the tunnel, but noone in the Watch besides Sam knew that.
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Jul 21, 2011 22:10
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I like how everyone laughs whenever Darkstar is mentioned.
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Jul 21, 2011 22:12
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HUMAN FISH posted:I even tried to spoil the book to a friend but I couldn't get past "Jon dies", "Kevan dies". There just isn't more to spoil. loving hell. I'm personally a fan of, "Lord Manderly eats his enemies."
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Jul 21, 2011 22:17
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HUMAN FISH posted:I even tried to spoil the book to a friend but I couldn't get past "Jon dies", "Kevan dies". There just isn't more to spoil. loving hell. "Dany shits. Alot."
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Jul 21, 2011 22:18
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