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A Song of Ice and Fire -- **Unmarked Spoilers For All Books including ADWD**

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CygnusXS

will gain confidence one day
Dude has, literally, zero redeeming traits and he's fucking slimy to boot. Dany having the hots for him is cool and all because, you know, teenage hormones and stuff. Falling in love with him though? Girl obviously has no standards.
 
What bothers me most about Daario is that Daenerys' relationship with him almost cheapens her marriage to Drogo. I mean, for someone who just lost her beloved Sun and Stars, she seemed to get over it pretty quickly.

I dunno. Maybe she just really wanted a rebound fuck.
 
Doesn't he show up like halfway through SOS though? I don't know the timeline in months/years, but it seems like they had a while between Drogo's death and Daario.
 
Doesn't he show up like halfway through SOS though? I don't know the timeline in months/years, but it seems like they had a while between Drogo's death and Daario.

I can't remember exactly. But still, I got the impression that Drogo was the kind of love that would take her ages to get over - and probably never entirely.

I feel like Drogo's effect on her wore off rather quickly. But then again, she is a teenager, and teenagers are fickle and impetuous by nature.
 

Veelk

Banned
Where the hell is it stated that she fell in love with him?

She makes it a point that she knows just how unreliable and dangerous he would be as her husband and that he'd be a cruel ruler. She DOES just find him hot, and that doesn't make her an idiot, just horny.

What bothers me most about Daario is that Daenerys' relationship with him almost cheapens her marriage to Drogo. I mean, for someone who just lost her beloved Sun and Stars, she seemed to get over it pretty quickly.

I dunno. Maybe she just really wanted a rebound fuck.

The dragons hatched in the year 298 AL

Joffrey's wedding was in 300 AL.

So she met him atleast a year after drogo died. Took much longer to 'fall in love' with him.

How long was she suppose to wait, exactly?
 

apana

Member
This would have been a good place for "I ain't even mad", but i'll abstain.

Gold teeth blue beard. Fueled a billion pages of wasted space...

So much to love.

I was just joking, I hate him too! Though I'd love to play him in the tv show.

It was like 2000 pages of a "little bump".




He's the kind of dude that gets the girls GAFfers want but never get. Hence why a lot of people hate him.

Personally I didn't hate his character, I just hated how much time GURM spent making Daeny fantasize about him. I don't even care that she wanted to fuck him, just get it over and done with and move on to something more relevant!

If anything GRRM was the one displaying his insecurities with Daario, Quentyn, and that speech Barristan gave about fire vs mud or whatever it was. The thing is Jorah is just as badass and manly as any of these dudes, probably more so but Dany doesn't like him. Maybe I'm biased though because my first introduction to the character was from watching the show.
 
Dany is definitely the worst thing about ADWD, by far. And I liked her chapters in the previous books.

ADWD turned her from an irritant for me, into the most hated thing on the face of the planet. I've never loved her, but I've liked a few of her chapters. Reading her chapters in ADWD was painful.

Dany has always suffered from having weak supporting characters. Jorah was never great (TV Jorah is better), and so pretty much the only decent characters she has are Barristan, Belwas and Brown Ben Plumm. It doesn't help that her main supporting character in ADWD is Daario who is the 2nd worst character in the whole damn story.
 

Veelk

Banned
If anything GRRM was the one displaying his insecurities with Daario, Quentyn, and that speech Barristan gave about fire vs mud or whatever it was. The thing is Jorah is just as badass and manly as any of these dudes, probably more so but Dany doesn't like him. Maybe I'm biased though because my first introduction to the character was from watching the show.

There are 3 main reasons:

1. Jorah's described as ugly in the books iirc, or atleast old.
2. Jorah was a father figure to Dany, before she was sexually awakened, so she maintains seeing him this way.
3. Jorah may be badass, but when we say manly men, we mean the noble savages/barbarians. Both Drogo and Daario are these, but not Jorah.
 
I think the reason it felt off is because there were too many separate storylines and few of them actually intersect. From a reading stand point (also, from someone who read 1-5 continuously) I didn't mind this too much. However, I have no idea how they will film season 5-6 (Feast and Dance) while keeping the viewers interested. By this point we'll have 10 different stories from characters across the world and I think viewers will be pissed that instead of getting any form of resolution to these arcs, we just get more characters and more separate story lines.

Pretty sure they'll treat Feast and Dance as one book over two seasons (they might even try one, but it'd be hard to condense that far) and adapt it with the older POVs at the core.
 
He's the kind of dude that gets the girls GAFfers want but never get. Hence why a lot of people hate him.

Personally I didn't hate his character, I just hated how much time GURM spent making Daeny fantasize about him. I don't even care that she wanted to fuck him, just get it over and done with and move on to something more relevant!
Drogo was also that kind of dude and everyone thought he was awesome. Daario annoyed me because I kept picturing him as Jack Sparrow with a blue beard, clown clothes and a bad golden-age-of-Hollywood attempt at a vaguely middle-eastern accent. Think the voice of the guy who sings the opening number in Aladdin.

What's more, Drogo was a demonstrated badass whereas Daario just traded off a reputation for badassery.

That Dany thought he was soooooo hot was just ridiculous.
 

zeroshiki

Member
I wouldn't have cared about Daario if I weren't forced to read about him for what felt like thousands of pages. I also really dislike Daenarys' storyline, so the Daario pining only added to the pain of reading her boring chapters.
 

KingK

Member
I don't even recommend the books anymore after how ADWD turned out unless people ask me about them. Can't be a crazy fanboy after that. Hopefully TWoW will return to the pace of ASoS.

Meh, I though ADWD was just as good as CoK. If it weren't for some of the bizzare editing decisions it would have been right up with GoT behind ASOS. The only thing about it that I really disliked about it was Dany, which admittedly did take up a lot of time. I was always rather indifferent or annoyed by her, but ADWD turned my annoyance into hatred.

But some of the early Tyrion chapters, everything in the North, and the Barriston chapters fucking ruled. Theon had one of the best arcs in the series, right up with Arya in CoK and ASOS.
 

Fiftyeight

Neo Member
Can someone throw me a refresher on the whole Rickon and Davos thing?

The only thing I recall is Davos being sent to rescue one of the Stark boys. He was shown a map and told where to go and he was extremely displeased/terrified by it. I don't remember who it was who ordered him to go, and I don't even recall Rickon being mentioned. I had always just assumed Davos was going to retrieve Bran.

Anyone? I'm still quite interested in this.
 

KingK

Member
Anyone? I'm still quite interested in this.

Theon's squire, the mute kid, had been hiding in a tree in Winterfell when Bran, Rickon and company left the crypts. He apparently followed Osha and Rickon a ways before being found by White Harbor men. Manderly reveals all of this to Davos and says that if he can go retrieve Rickon, he'll throw his support behind Stannis.

It's implied that the location on the map he pointed to was the island of Skagos far in the north, which is rumored to have cannibals.

edit: Also, in a Sam chapter in AFFC, they pass by Skagos on and see a shipwreck on the shore. This could have been Osha and Rickon's ship, or maybe some of Manderly's own men who he'd sent there to get them but failed, which is why he's now having Davos (a smuggler/sailor) go.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Dany has 100 pages before she even returns to Meereen...

The Theon TWOW chapter suggests he might die but you bring up an interesting point about seeing the battle from someone's POV. If he does get executed/sacrificed, I guess we'll see it from Asha's POV.

I really hope a lot of these secondary characters like Theon, Asha, etc die in TWOW to lower the POV count and streamline things.

i thought we were spoiling TWOW stuff? i certainly dont want to know anything until the book comes out.

i first read all five books at once last year. i didnt dislike ADWD as much as many long time fans and always assumed it was because i didnt have to wait 5 years for it to come out.
 

Veelk

Banned
Instead the dragons get locked in a pit for some reason, Dany dithers about on the most boring continent imaginable for what seems like decades, and it gets a bit colder and more crowded at the wall.

It's posts like these that make me wonder whether some of you have read the book. Important shit went down at both these locations.

The "Surprise! Another Targ lives, so Dany has been a waste of time." reveal.

Uh...how? How in the fuck does Aegon's existance invalidate Dany's?

The mysterious black "wizard" found floating who knows everything, yet doesn't reveal anything. A fucking wizard?!

Um...yes. Why is this a problem? Also, have you considered that he's not actually on Victarion's side?

Frankenstein Kingsguard zombie. WTF!?

FrankenGregor was foreshadowed from way back. Have you been paying attention?

Jon killed by imbeciles, who seem oblivious to the fact that he was the only one stopping the Nights Watch being immediately slaughtered and the wildlings taking the wall.

Again, did you read the books? The watch did what they did for very clear and understandable reasons. Part of the problem was Jon, who insisted on distancing himself from the men because "a lord and his men can't be friends". He respects and likes them, but he doesn't show them that in any way, so they assume that his motivations for bringing the wildlings over and leaving the wall are less than noble.

I don't see how half of these are even a negative thing.
 
As far as I'm concerned, Dance could've been SoS levels of awesome had they done two very important things:

1) Trim the shit out of it-Let's face it, more than a few chapters in Dance could've been yanked out entirely. The Jaime chapter was just a lame-ass cliff-hanger that would've been much more effective had we gotten some follow-up in the same book, Tyrion's wacky slave adventures meander too much, Quenten Martell's stuff could've all been shoved into the chapter in which he bites it and bugger-all of value would be lost, and, of course, Dany's chapters needed to get chopped faster than Ned's head. Going over the same old shit chapter after chapter was just frustrating, I don't think anyone disagrees. I think they should've also taken out the Cersei material. But that leads up to the epilogue! Yes, which is why the last chapters of the book would consist of:

2) A bloody climax!-Bloat is one thing, but taking out both battles that had been signposted throughout the book was just criminal, in my opinion. Had George and the editors been more forceful in their editing, and gotten the book down to around the length of CoK, complete with the one-two punch of the battle of Winterfell and the battle at Meereen, we would've been looking at a goddamn masterpiece.

I don't think George has 'lost it'. Dance has some absolutely superb stuff in it, so I'm certainly hopeful for the future book(s). It's just that I get a bit miffed when I think of what could've been.
 
George definitely hasn't "lost" the ability to write quality material. What the books are suffering from is lack of structure, which is the result of GRRM not outlining or planning things out in advance. AFFC/ADWD have no cohesiveness and are structurally a mess, and GRRM has struggled for over a decade with the structure of the overall series, hence the problems with the 5 year gap and Mereenese Knot. Combine this with a bunch of poor editing and bloat both in terms of chapter length and unnecessary chapters, and you get the last two ASOIAF books.
 

KingK

Member
As far as I'm concerned, Dance could've been SoS levels of awesome had they done two very important things:

1) Trim the shit out of it-Let's face it, more than a few chapters in Dance could've been yanked out entirely. The Jaime chapter was just a lame-ass cliff-hanger that would've been much more effective had we gotten some follow-up in the same book, Tyrion's wacky slave adventures meander too much, Quenten Martell's stuff could've all been shoved into the chapter in which he bites it and bugger-all of value would be lost, and, of course, Dany's chapters needed to get chopped faster than Ned's head. Going over the same old shit chapter after chapter was just frustrating, I don't think anyone disagrees. I think they should've also taken out the Cersei material. But that leads up to the epilogue! Yes, which is why the last chapters of the book would consist of:

2) A bloody climax!-Bloat is one thing, but taking out both battles that had been signposted throughout the book was just criminal, in my opinion. Had George and the editors been more forceful in their editing, and gotten the book down to around the length of CoK, complete with the one-two punch of the battle of Winterfell and the battle at Meereen, we would've been looking at a goddamn masterpiece.

I don't think George has 'lost it'. Dance has some absolutely superb stuff in it, so I'm certainly hopeful for the future book(s). It's just that I get a bit miffed when I think of what could've been.

Agreed on both counts. As is, Dance is better than Feast, and about equal to CoK, imo. It could have been on the same level as GoT had they fixed the editing issues.

-Eliminate Quentyn's POV entirely, if possible, or at least just make him have the one chapter like you said. I actually liked the guy, but at this point in the series, we shouldn't keep adding more characters to take up time when it's not necessary. I think I heard mentioned once that Quentyn was originally planned to be the POV in Mereen after Dany left, but was replaced by Barristan when GRRM decided to include him as a POV. This makes Quentyn's existence as a POV character feel very pointless.

-There were 10 Dany chapters. He probably could have cut that in half and still gotten the message across.

-Tyrion's journey down the river was great, but everything after meeting up with Jorah and Penny could have been trimmed significantly.

-As much as I loved Jon's chapters in Dance, he had 13 of them and, if necessary it probably could have been trimmed a bit. But none of his chapters really ever stood out as feeling bothersome or bloated to me, so I'm fine with what we got here.

With all of that stuff trimmed, we would have enough room for at least one of the big battles, maybe both. All of the stuff in the North was fucking ace though, and some of my favorite shit in the series.
 
It's posts like these that make me wonder whether some of you have read the book. Important shit went down at both these locations.



I don't see how half of these are even a negative thing.

At the very least he's right about the Jon thing. The people who "killed" him had their reasons, but at the same time they're surrounded by wildlings and the only thing keeping the wildlings in check was Jon.
 

ZeroRay

Member
In my ideal world, I would have a more streamlined DwD follow ASoS, with all of the storylines south of the neck and Essos taking place in that book, culminating with the Battle of Mereen at the end.

Have AFFC (or whatever it's called) follow afterwards with all the northern storylines present in ADWD, having them reach their logical conclusions, and have the ADwD epilouge we got to end it. I think it would be considered the best book in the series, judging by how awesome all the northern stuff was in ADwD.
 
AFFC and ADWD could have been one book. You could probably trim a quarter off of most of GRRM's chapters in the latest books and lose nothing. Then you cut out the filler chapters and pointless POVs and have some things happen off screen. It's doable.
 

KingK

Member
I think my biggest problem personally with Feast and Dance is that Arya is my favorite character in the series. She had a total of 5 chapters throughout both books combined, while a character such as Brienne, for example, had 8.

I understand that this is probably just a result of Arya being one of the characters hit hardest by the decision to ditch the 5 year gap, but it still hurts :(
 

bengraven

Member
Theon's squire, the mute kid, had been hiding in a tree in Winterfell when Bran, Rickon and company left the crypts. He apparently followed Osha and Rickon a ways before being found by White Harbor men. Manderly reveals all of this to Davos and says that if he can go retrieve Rickon, he'll throw his support behind Stannis.

It's implied that the location on the map he pointed to was the island of Skagos far in the north, which is rumored to have cannibals.

edit: Also, in a Sam chapter in AFFC, they pass by Skagos on and see a shipwreck on the shore. This could have been Osha and Rickon's ship, or maybe some of Manderly's own men who he'd sent there to get them but failed, which is why he's now having Davos (a smuggler/sailor) go.

Wow.

WOW.

I completely forgot about that part and your theories are good. I can't wait to read the series when it's done and see all the "oh that's ______" moments.
 
-As much as I loved Jon's chapters in Dance, he had 13 of them and, if necessary it probably could have been trimmed a bit. But none of his chapters really ever stood out as feeling bothersome or bloated to me, so I'm fine with what we got here.

it felt like very little actually happened during his whole arc
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
it felt like very little actually happened during his whole arc

Oh come on.

First of all he executed Janos Slynt in one of the coolest moments of the book. Then he allowed the entire wildling force to cross the wall. He had interesting discussion with Melisandre, vowed to attack Ramsay Snow and then got murdered. These are all hugely significant plot points for the character and the world. I don't know how anyone can say nothing happened in his arc.
 
it felt like very little actually happened during his whole arc

There was too much repetition. Most of the chapters felt like they were all about Jon appeasing the wildlings while pissing off the Night's Watch (which is still infinitely better than Dany's chapters which were all about her doing nothing and pining after Daario). Jon had my favorite chapter in the book though where he cuts off Slynt's head.
 

ZeroRay

Member
Oh come on.

First of all he executed Janos Slynt in one of the coolest moments of the book. Then he allowed the entire wildling force to cross the wall. He had interesting discussion with Melisandre, vowed to attack Ramsay Snow and then got murdered. I don't know how anyone can say nothing happened in his arc.

But then again, this took 13 chapters to accomplish. A lot of the wildling wrangling could have been simplified. Also you forgot about the Karstark chick.
 
Oh come on.

First of all he executed Janos Slynt in one of the coolest moments of the book. Then he allowed the entire wildling force to cross the wall. He had interesting discussion with Melisandre, vowed to attack Ramsay Snow and then got murdered. These are all hugely significant plot points for the character and the world. I don't know how anyone can say nothing happened in his arc.

Stuff happened, but there was plenty of filler, like pages of Jon going over pointless supply details.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Stuff happened, but there was plenty of filler, like pages of Jon going over pointless supply details.

This doesn't contradict my post. I said I think it's ludicrous to say nothing, or "very little" happened during his arc. I've conceded in the past that ADWD on the whole is bloated.
 
This doesn't contradict my post. I said I think it's ludicrous to say nothing, or "very little" happened during his arc. I've conceded in the past that ADWD on the whole is bloated.

I wasn't really trying to contradict you. I agree that plenty happened in Jon's chapters, just not 13 chapters worth of stuff. And I liked most of the North material in ADWD. It's the Essos chapters that are really problematic.
 
I think the best part of dany's chapters was drinkwater calling her out which was such an awesome, bold move and she couldn't really counter that with any words. IIRC even barristan thought gerris was right.

I think that dany's stories were meant to be hated. You were suppose to see this side of her that was still a young kid looking for refuge in another person's arms. She has a lot of responsibility and doesn't want to bear it alone. Hopefully she's past that now after this book.

Jon's situation is a bit different. I think what drove the nightwatch over the edge is all of these moves that he did (letting wildlings over the wall, giving away nightwatch land and sending east watch by the sea on a suicide rescue mission...) followed by him just throwing away his duty as Lord Commander and going out on a personal mission. He just dropped all responsibilities on an impulse to go after a family feud. Who would pick up the mantle? The whole situation makes it look like he sabotaged the night watch for personal gain.
 

apana

Member
I was just wondering what were some of the saddest or most emotional moments in the series for you? For me it was this quote in ADWD, the last Jon chapter where he is reading Ramsay's letter:

"Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night's Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon's breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell... I want my bride back... I want my bride back... I want my bride back..."

The other ones are Theon chapters in ADWD and that Brienne chapter in AFFC where the priest with the dog is recounting his stories of war. Robb's death was a bit of a numb moment for me, I was sad but kind of expecting it because of Dany's vision of the man with the wolf's head.
 

KingK

Member
As far as saddest, Ygritte's death is the top for me. Her and Jon were the best romance in the series, and it was really tragic.

Also, in Dance when Theon is remembering about Robb in Winterfel and thinking that he should have been with him and died with him.

Most of the big emotional deaths like the Red Wedding filled me with overwhelming rage more so than sadness.
 

KingK

Member
I never understood the Davos love. I like him well enough and he's never done anything terrible to piss me off, which is more than I can say for a lot of characters in this series, but he always just seemed like a pair of eyes to witness events rather than an interesting character. Kinda like Doran Martell's bodyguard with the axe but not quite as boring.
 

apana

Member
As far as saddest, Ygritte's death is the top for me. Her and Jon were the best romance in the series, and it was really tragic.

Also, in Dance when Theon is remembering about Robb in Winterfel and thinking that he should have been with him and died with him.

Most of the big emotional deaths like the Red Wedding filled me with overwhelming rage more so than sadness.

Yeah it was sad but again something I was prepared for because it seemed from the start that it was destined to end badly. Oh and that Theon chapter was the one I was thinking about earlier.
 

KingK

Member
Yeah it was sad but again something I was prepared for because it seemed from the start that it was destined to end badly. Oh and that Theon chapter was the one I was thinking about earlier.

yeah, her death didn't shock me, but still the way it was written made me misty eyed. Plus most deaths in this series cause you to get pissed off at someone to the point that rage overpowers sadness, but in this case there was nobody to be angry at, so the only emotion was sadness.
 
No, his death was awesome. Only behind Merrett Frey, Joffrey, and the Tickler.

The scene was great, but the series is worse off without Tywin, especially when he was replaced with insane AFFC Cersei. The gods punished Tyrion by making him boring in ADWD.
 

SaskBoy

Member
The scene was great, but the series is worse off without Tywin, especially when he was replaced with insane AFFC Cersei. The gods punished Tyrion by making him boring in ADWD.

Bu-bu-but we jousted on a pig!!

Yeah he was pretty boring in ADWD. Total boss in ACOK though.
 

KingK

Member
The scene was great, but the series is worse off without Tywin, especially when he was replaced with insane AFFC Cersei. The gods punished Tyrion by making him boring in ADWD.

Tywin just got what was coming to him. It's great seeing his legacy fall to pieces because of his failure in raising his children. Great contrast with Ned, who sucked at the Game but was great at raising his kids, which will probably be what ends up saving their house.

Also, the first half of Tyrion's chapters were great. It was only once he got separated from Griff in Volantis that they started getting boring.
 

ZeroRay

Member
Having read LotR before AFFC and ADWD. I actually liked Brienne's and Tyrion's journey chapters.

The chapters with Tyrion hanging outside of Mereen were frustrating as hell though.
 

AngryMoth

Member
Having read LotR before AFFC and ADWD. I actually liked Brienne's and Tyrion's journey chapters.

The chapters with Tyrion hanging outside of Mereen were frustrating as hell though.
I really like Brienne's but not Tyrion's. I think This is mostly because I don't give the slightest fuck about Essos exposition. I don't really mind what he did with the charcter, but it shouldn't have taken SO many chapters. I mean he spends the entire book traveling to Mereen, and them doesn't even meet Dany, or at least Barristan. One of my general gripes with the series is as it goes on travel time gets longer and longer in terms of page count.
 
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