Climbing the Spitball Wall - An Unsullied's Take on A Song of Ice and Fire - Reading Complete! Now onto Rewatching the Show and Anticipating Season 6!

[Delta1212]

Well in fairness to the show on the daddy issue front, that's a recurring them in the books, too. Basically everyone in the series has some sort of lingering issues tied up in their parents and childhood.

Which I suppose is realistic, although yes, the daddy issues ones are a bit more prominently displayed on the show.

[nksarmi]

Ok I am just seriously giddy with anticipation for you to read book three.  As close as D&D have come to the source material, I think it gets less with each season (sometimes that is not so bad, other times egads).  So there are definitely some fun moments ahead (plus, reading your comments saves me from needing to reread lol).

[stillshimpy]

It's entirely true that it is a theme within the books, but that theme coexists with a lot of other elements that the TV Show decided to ditch for just entirely baffling reasons.  Lingering at Crasters for so long just so that we could be truly grossed out instead of covering the material necessary and then developing a character who's actually really important to Jon's character trajectory would have been nice.  

 

That's far beside the "Oh for god's sake, he's a Warg?" that's sort of a HUGE thing to leave out. 

 

Then the stuff with the Reeds, okay, I understand that they waited to introduce them for a few reasons, but they botched it so badly and then whereas I truly appreciate the work the actor playing Osha did (Tonks was great) adding in an entire "she mistrusts and has some kind of rivalry with Meera" is bizarre, because rather than demonstrate in any other way that the Reeds were badasses in their own right, they introduce them threatening Osha...who is the only person who just got the Stark boys out of Winterfell alive, while also being responsible for Hodor.  If they expected anyone to say "I bet they are swell" it would have helped to not have Meera so cheerfully threatening the only person who had protected the boys.  

 

It was not a the wisest decision.  So the things they cut out for the sake of dwelling on the horror are often only matched by the "random stuff that was added for reasons that sort of baffle me". 

 

As for what I'm looking forward to in the third book.  Argh.  That's such a hard one.  I mean, I know that they slaughter the hell out of most of the Starks and whereas it's good to know that I'm not in for any lengthy descriptions of Ramsay's favorite hobbies or women being stabbed to death a billionty times in the baby (or poor cornered wolves being slaughtered by cowards who then do weird shit to corpses) ....it was still an unrelentingly grim season.  So what am I looking forward to?  

 

Uh....I'm going to go with the fact that my very least favorite things in the show aren't as delved into?   I can't say I'm super looking forward to Sansa being married off to Tyrion, because with all the "made him a saint" comments , I actually live in fear for what happens then.  

 

Only because so many people I like, enjoy and whose judgment I have long since trusted are such fans, I guess I can honestly say, I'm looking forward to finding out why Jaime is a loved character by many.  

Edited September 7, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Haleth]

For whatever reason HBO seems to have struggled the most with the material at The Wall, because it isn't just Qhorin in that storyline who gets short shrift, it's all of the characters.  In the show pretty much the only heroic, or admirable men at the Wall are either Jon, Jon's Friends or Cannon Fodder, thy name is Honor.   Basically, if someone behaves even close to honorably onscreen and is from the Night's Watch, they will die.  Usually because another member of the Night's Watch killed them.  Mormont, Qhorin anyone that had a speaking part that wasn't limited to threatening someone horribly.

 

There are definitely more honorable, decent men at the Wall than rogues and rapists and murderers.  It will even become more apparent once Jon gets back.  Budget constraints did the men of the Nights Watch a grave disservice.

[Delta1212]

And since we're looking back on book two right now, I'm going to indulgent the one slightly petty adaptation complaint I have up to this point and just note the fact that Shireen's hair color on the show renders the entire central plotline of the first season utterly nonsensical.

Ned's realization goes from "All Baratheons have black hair except for the King's three children by Cersei; they must be illegitimate" to "All Baratheons have black hair except the King's children with Cersei and the King's brother's daughter who is also a slightly dirty blonde, which is actually a lighter shade than either of her parents; the King's children must be illegitimate."

Edited September 7, 2015 by Delta1212

[stillshimpy]

And since we're looking back on book two right now, I'm going to indulgent the one slightly petty adaptation complaint I have up to this point and just note the fact that Shireen's hair color on the show renders the entire central plotline of the first season utterly nonsensical.

 

Well, that or Stannis isn't legitimate ;-)  Which would just rock his "it is mine by right!" world. 

 

Actually, I wasn't sure if it was a case of "Every stinking last Baratheon recorded in this book, had this hair color. Ever.  For ever. " or if it was a case of "There's always a black haired Baratheon in amongst the litters.  Thereby indicating that the fact that there weren't any dark haired children in that brood was unlikely to the point of being suspicious.  

 

I sort of assume that it had to be that, because in all that time, no one stepped out on their Baratheon husband before?  That seems unlikely.  

 

I get the complaint, and agree, since the show simplified it to "My God, they all have black hair!"  However, beyond all else, the evidence itself was highly improbable and Ned even does confirm that all three children are products of Cersei and Jaime's...whatever we want to call that.  Affair, relationship.  Really, really bad idea on so many, many levels.  Take your pick. 

[magdalene]

Even worse about the addition of Alton Lannister (whose presence I did understand at first, as it saved them desperately needed screentime of explaining why Cleos Frey was helping the Lannisters after the previous season made such a big deal of the Freys now being on Robb's side) is that it makes Jaime a kinslayer, considered the second-most horrible crime in Westeros after kingslaying. And yet it seems no one cares at all and it's never once been brought up afterwards.

Maybe folks forgot about the fate of poor invented Alton because they got too busy being outraged over the showrunners next entry in the Jaime character assassination tournament - that infamous Jaime/Cersei sept scene. Sometimes I wonder what NCW did to bring the wrath of PTB down on his character in particular. I also wonder what GRRM makes of it, besides shrugging and going, the show is the show and the books are the books.

[Delta1212]

I don't think the Sept scene was character assassination. I think it was poor staging and directing.

But that's getting well ahead of ourselves, I think.

[nksarmi]

I don't think the Sept scene was character assassination. I think it was poor staging and directing.

But that's getting well ahead of ourselves, I think.

Well that's what they said it was - but clearly it elicited a storm all the same.  Shimpy, I will be curious about your comparison of that scene in the book vs the show. 

  

I never thought it was rape, but seriously, isn't twincest sex by your son's corpse in a church bad enough?

Edited September 8, 2015 by nksarmi

[chandraReborn]

Guys, cover your spoilers, please. We haven't gotten that far yet. 

[magdalene]

Guys, cover your spoilers, please. We haven't gotten that far yet. 

We were talking about a controversial moment that aired on the TV show and stillshimpy is current with that as far as I know.  

I think that - besides that they turned it into rape and Jaime into a rapist on the show - the timing of the scene also made no sense on the show. In the book, while shocking, it rang emotionally true for the characters at that particular moment.

[Lady S.]

Well, that or Stannis isn't legitimate ;-)  Which would just rock his "it is mine by right!" world. 

 

Actually, I wasn't sure if it was a case of "Every stinking last Baratheon recorded in this book, had this hair color. Ever.  For ever. " or if it was a case of "There's always a black haired Baratheon in amongst the litters.  Thereby indicating that the fact that there weren't any dark haired children in that brood was unlikely to the point of being suspicious.  

 

I sort of assume that it had to be that, because in all that time, no one stepped out on their Baratheon husband before?  That seems unlikely.  

 

I get the complaint, and agree, since the show simplified it to "My God, they all have black hair!"  However, beyond all else, the evidence itself was highly improbable and Ned even does confirm that all three children are products of Cersei and Jaime's...whatever we want to call that.  Affair, relationship.  Really, really bad idea on so many, many levels.  Take your pick. 

I think it has to be the second one in both book and show, even though most show viewers assume the first. Otherwise it makes everyone involved look stupider for failing to notice anything odd about Cersei and Robert having only blond children. If all Baratheons ever, throughout their history in Westeros, had only black hair, I'd think that fact wouldn't be something people could only know by looking in a big, dusty, old book. Wouldn't it be a basic thing all Baratheons and people familiar with Baratheons would know? Targaryens are known for incest, and sometimes madness, and most of them have silver hair and purple eyes, while Baratheons always, always, always have the jet-black hair, that should be easy enough to remember. Maybe Robert would be too drunk to pay attention to hair colors, but other people should have already noticed and remembered such a reliable trend through the centuries. If every single Baratheon was born black of hair, shouldn't the black hair be expected in every future Baratheon? Either that or Cersei's brood were indeed not the only false Baratheons in there. Book Ned only looks at past Baratheon/Lannister marriages and tv Ned just reads off 3 or 4 older Baratheons who are also black haired, it's the fact that all of Bob's bastards do have his hair that makes that significant. (Which, if I remember my high school bio, actually adds up. If Robert didn't carry a recessive blond gene, he wouldn't produce blond children. But that's a moot point, as Martin doesn't write with much regard for real science, or even math, for that matter. And the book explanation of Baratheon hair maybe just dominating Lannister gold in particular really doesn't make sense.)  But in both book and show, Ned doesn't read through the entire Baratheon section because that would be very time consuming, and it feels ridiculous to me if every unread entry there actually was full of black haired babies, thanks to a magical super-strong seed, and Ned and Jon Arryn were the first to ever take note of this magical super-strong seed.

[Holmbo]

I think Shireen is more brown of hair than golden head. Though I'm from Sweden so my perception of who's blond and not might be scewed compared to most of the rest of the world.

[stillshimpy]

Yeah, Shireen is either medium brown, or auburn, but then Stannis isn't particularly dark haired either.  In the book, I think someone even makes the comment that if Cersei had just had the wisdom to bear at least one of Robert's children, she wouldn't have gotten caught.  So it is meant to be the "There's always a black/very dark haired Baratheon in amongst a Baratheon family" vs. all Baratheons have nearly black hair. 

 

But the show really shot very broad on that whole "Ned Figures it Out" sequence.  The show also made him rather ...it really is unfair to stay stupid...but he also wouldn't have been described as "Known for his agile and quick mind, as well as stellar inter-personal judgment skills".  

 

On the whole, "did I already know that Jaime doesn't rape Cersei in the books" ....well, no on that one, but I'm unsurprised to learn that as that was  yet another one that was impossible to miss picking up on something, unless you just weren't on the internet. Even doing stuff like avoiding news sites and buzzfeed wasn't going to stop a person from finding out "What the hell did they just do to Jaime Lannister's character?"  It was everywhere if not in the specifics -- I didn't specifically know that he hadn't -- I just knew that "fans are outraged" and since that had happened on the show, it didn't take incredible leaps of logic to figure out. 

 

However, that's one where it's sort of a shrug for me, because as a person who -- right up until this moment -- has no particular reason to view that as character assassination it's sort of neither here nor there.  I have a feeling by the end of book three I'll be far more likely to be all "WTF were you doing show??"  but I'll keep you guys posted on that. 

[nksarmi]

Yeah, Shireen is either medium brown, or auburn, but then Stannis isn't particularly dark haired either.  In the book, I think someone even makes the comment that if Cersei had just had the wisdom to bear at least one of Robert's children, she wouldn't have gotten caught.  So it is meant to be the "There's always a black/very dark haired Baratheon in amongst a Baratheon family" vs. all Baratheons have nearly black hair. 

 

But the show really shot very broad on that whole "Ned Figures it Out" sequence.  The show also made him rather ...it really is unfair to stay stupid...but he also wouldn't have been described as "Known for his agile and quick mind, as well as stellar inter-personal judgment skills".  

 

On the whole, "did I already know that Jaime doesn't rape Cersei in the books" ....well, no on that one, but I'm unsurprised to learn that as that was  yet another one that was impossible to miss picking up on something, unless you just weren't on the internet. Even doing stuff like avoiding news sites and buzzfeed wasn't going to stop a person from finding out "What the hell did they just do to Jaime Lannister's character?"  It was everywhere if not in the specifics -- I didn't specifically know that he hadn't -- I just knew that "fans are outraged" and since that had happened on the show, it didn't take incredible leaps of logic to figure out. 

 

However, that's one where it's sort of a shrug for me, because as a person who -- right up until this moment -- has no particular reason to view that as character assassination it's sort of neither here nor there.  I have a feeling by the end of book three I'll be far more likely to be all "WTF were you doing show??"  but I'll keep you guys posted on that. 

 

For what it's worth, I wasn't watching when this happened and I too knew it when it went down via social media.  I mean during the seasons when I wasn't watching GoT, two things got plastered all over my FB rather I wanted it or not - this thing with Jamie and the outrage that non-book walkers felt when Oberyn was killed (which I knew because I had read the books, but if I wanted to avoid spoilers - FB would have practically been off limits lol).

 

In fact, the sept scene with Jamie was something I was very curious about when I started watching again with my significant other.  I wanted to see what the rape debate was all about and I guess I ended up seeing both sides - those who said it was and those who said it wasn't.  But jiminy cricket - I don't know if a single scene in all of television has ever been analyzed so closely (not just words, but actions by both parties, etc....).

[Delta1212]

I like Jaime Lannister, but he still pushed a seven year old out of a window.

At least in the books, he may not have been happy about that, and he may have had some rather dire and somewhat understandable reasons for doing it.

But it's understandable in the way that someone deciding to swerve their car into a kid on a bike in order to avoid crashing headlong into a school bus is understandable, as long as you ignore that they were only in danger of crashing into the school bus because they were driving on the wrong side of the road to begin with.

[Delta1212]

Oh, and shimpy, it just occurred to that you wouldn't know this, and since this scene's already being discussed anyway, the "debate" surrounding the scene in the sept isn't just about the book vs the show.

It's about the writers and director for that episode insisting in interviews that Jaime didn't rape Cersei in that scene on the show.

So yeah.

[stillshimpy]

Well, the director has a fucked up notion of what constitutes rape, if that's what he's insisting, because unless the super power they haven't included for Jaime is his ability to read minds, Cersei clearly says "No" so, not a lot of debate to be had there for me.  I'm sure the director got lambasted so how it was shot and the dialogue if that wasn't his intent but well....he deserved that lambasting.  

 

 

 

But it's understandable in the way that someone deciding to swerve their car into a kid on a bike in order to avoid crashing headlong into a school bus is understandable, as long as you ignore that they were only in danger of crashing into the school bus because they were driving on the wrong side of the road to begin with.

 

Without a license, while drunk, in a stolen car and mainly so that your lover, in the passenger seat beside you, wouldn't die. 

 

Yeah, I kind of understood the outrage, for all that I'm cracking wise about it.  There's a difference between "I do terrible, horrible things and think I am doing them for a person I love and arguably to preserve the peace of the world -- even if that's a concern that barely rates on the scale" and "I'm hurting and violating the person I claim to love." 

Edited September 8, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Avaleigh]

I did appreciate Ned and Catelyn both acknowledging that they aren't sure what they'd do if they were forced to choose between a child of theirs or somebody else's child. 

 

To me that was the choice that Jaime was ultimately making. Saving five lives over one. Doesn't make it right of course and it was a kind of poetic justice that he ended up becoming a 'cripple' like Bran, but I can see how he thought it was the best option to keeping his lover and children alive. 

[Delta1212]

Oh, like I said. It's somewhat understandable in the moment.

But that's ignoring the larger context that it's his own fault that that moment exists. He put himself in a position where his actions endangered his loved ones, and then when the danger materialized, the only way to get them out of it was to (try to) kill a seven year old.

I get the impossible choice, but he put himself in that position rather recklessly knowing it was dangerous, and Bran suffered the consequences of that decision.

[nksarmi]

It never helped Jamie that the actor played that scene almost with a smirk on his face.  I hated Jamie for a very long time just because of the look on his face when he did it.  My significant other and viewing partner says that Jamie can never be redeemed - ever.  He doesn't hate him, but he says you can't come back from that moment and become "likable."

 

I don't think I can say I "like" Jamie - I just think he is interesting in the books (not so much on the show) and he is one of the few characters who seems to be changing in a positive way over the course of the books.  In my opinion, most of the characters are getting hardened or even ruined by their experiences.  Jamie might be one of the few who through hardship is getting better.  But maybe that's just because he started out in such a bad place to begin with. 

[magdalene]

I did appreciate Ned and Catelyn both acknowledging that they aren't sure what they'd do if they were forced to choose between a child of theirs or somebody else's child. 

 

To me that was the choice that Jaime was ultimately making. Saving five lives over one. Doesn't make it right of course and it was a kind of poetic justice that he ended up becoming a 'cripple' like Bran, but I can see how he thought it was the best option to keeping his lover and children alive. 

It's totally poetic justice that Jaime loses the hand he pushed Bran out the window with.  But his loss is the reader's gain because with that he becomes one of those characters Martin really excels in writing - one of the bastards and cripples, and broken things.

 

 

Jamie might be one of the few who through hardship is getting better

 

Hardship and getting out from under Cersei's toxic influence - that's no small thing either.

 

Though to me he doesn't so much change for the better as I have changed my opinion of him  while reading from sister fucker and little boy defenestrator to hey - there's an interesting and thoughtful human being in there. I have enjoyed seeing the world through the eyes of Jaime Lannister.

[Mya Stone]

I'm the girl who named my youngest Bran, so I feel like I can say, with absolute certainty, that book Jaime is on a very different journey than show Jaime, yet they both may eventually end up in the same place by the end of it.

That's merely my own speculation. I have no inside knowledge really and based on Jaime's journey last season alone I'm making that call. I will hold off on my Jaime discussion though, until shimpy gets through at least some of his chapters in book 3.

I have a lot of feelings. ;)

[Delta1212]

I see Jaime as being like an addict (with Cersei acting as both drug and dealer), who winds up hurting a lot of people as a result of his addiction and only starts waking up to the fact that he has a serious problem that maybe he should do something about when he finally hits rock bottom.

Which I would normally argue happens around the time he gets his hand chopped off, but on further reflection, I think there is a smaller, subtler, much less dramatic moment that is actually where he truly hits bottom which was cut from the show.

I'll point it out when we get to it, because I think I like it better than the hand chop as being the turning point for the character, even if both it and it's immediate effects are much less spectacular.

[Dev F]

Jon being a Warg rates pretty freaking high. 

 

This is the kind of change that doesn't really bother me. I don't get the impression that they carelessly neglected to establish that Jon is a warg; it seems like they made a creative decision that show!Jon isn't a warg -- presumably to avoid duplicating and diluting Bran's role in the story. It seems like a perfectly legitimate choice to me, since there's not really any element of his character as portrayed on screen thus far that depends on him being a skinchanger. If they end up having to renege on the choice in the future, I may end up feeling differently, but for the time being that character point seems to have been cleanly excised.

 

I'm much more irritated by the fact that the show ended up using the term warg carelessly, in place of the term skinchanger as the name for anyone who can project his mind into an animal. In the books, a warg is specifically a skinchanger who can project himself into a wolf -- which reflects the wolfish connotations of the term outside the bounds of the series.

 

And, yeah, it's the tiniest possible quibble, but it robs the story of a neat bit of nuance and muddies up the mythology unnecessarily. Like the scene where Lord Karstark, a Northern lord who follows the Old Gods, not the Seven, says that he "would carve out my heart and offer it to the Father if he would let my sons wake from their graves."

 

Or that scene at the end of season 2 where Jaqen H'ghar says that Arya has "names to offer up to the Red God" -- as if that's a generic name for his Many-Faced God. In the book, he does say earlier in the story that Arya stole three lives from the Red God, but presumably only because the Red God/R'hllor/the Lord of Light is the face of the MFG that's responsible for death by fire. By using the term more generically, the show's writers gave the mistaken impression that Jaqen's god and Melisandre's were interchangeable. I recall that you Unsullied were particularly puzzled by that possibility, at least until an obvious Bookwalker jumped in to explain and then got banned.

 

How self-directed Sansa and Arya are.  I get the urge to utilize Charles Dance more because....Charles Dance.  However, Arya's story is much better if she's a cup-bearer for Bolton, who has sort of ushered him into the castle by killing off everyone with "Weasel Soup"  that's got some heart-rending connotations for what happens to her poor family.

 

Yeah, Arya's book storyline is so carefully constructed that every clumsy alteration just galls me to no end. The whole point of Arya's storyline in CoK is to show her moving from dependence to self-reliance. She starts out as someone who survives only at the whim of powerful men, and when she gets her first taste of power it's through a powerful man, an assassin who's conveniently forced to do her bidding. Then she defies her source of power to force him to rescue the Northern prisoners, and he forces her to take an active part in his final acts of murder in order to free them. Then, she's presented with a chance to serve another powerful man, Roose Bolton, who's purportedly an ally, but instead she refuses to capitulate to him. She makes her escape all of her own initiative, with her own cold-blooded act of murder. It's a turn both horrifying and beautiful in its elegance.

 

The show version of the storyline lacks the same linear progression. She still starts out under the protection of powerful men. She still meets an assassin forced to do her bidding, still defies him -- but only to make use of his magical assassin powers yet again. She never really moves toward self-reliance. Indeed, all the Friendly Grampa Tywin nonsense suggests that she would've been content to remain subservient if only Tywin hadn't been about to hand her over to an underling she knows to be a horrible bloodthirsty monster. Now, granted, Arya's decision to flee in the book does follow the discovery that she'll end up in the care of Vargo Hoat, but that's only one of several factors, including her dawning realization that she's fundamentally unsuited to servitude: "She should have gone, silent as a mouse, but something had hold of her . . ."

 

In other words, her escape in the book is motivated by character; in the show it's motivated purely by circumstance. It's not just a bad adaptation choice; it's bad dramatic writing, period.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Dev F

[nksarmi]

Shimpy,  have you climbed into book three yet?

[stillshimpy]

Going to be starting it later today :-)  Whiskey and fresh horses for my....yeah, actually no whiskey.  Can't stand the stuff.  Horses in the Kingdoms have a really hard time too.  

 

To the Kindle I ride with freshly cleaned spectacles!  

[Triskan]

Looking forward to your reaction to the prologue and the first chapters ! :)

[nksarmi]

Awesome, it's a ways in and I don't expect you to speed read, but I eagerly await your reaction to Catelyn  II next week sometime.  And Jon's first chapter is a great one too.  I might need to reread this book - I think it is my favorite.

Edited September 11, 2015 by nksarmi

[Avaleigh]

I'm super excited about your take on the first few chapters. I think the prologue for this one was great. 

Edited September 11, 2015 by Avaleigh

[Haleth]

Good. I was getting a little too far ahead and needed to find something else to read while you catch up.

[Lady S.]

I see Jaime as being like an addict (with Cersei acting as both drug and dealer), who winds up hurting a lot of people as a result of his addiction and only starts waking up to the fact that he has a serious problem that maybe he should do something about when he finally hits rock bottom.

Which I would normally argue happens around the time he gets his hand chopped off, but on further reflection, I think there is a smaller, subtler, much less dramatic moment that is actually where he truly hits bottom which was cut from the show.

I'll point it out when we get to it, because I think I like it better than the hand chop as being the turning point for the character, even if both it and it's immediate effects are much less spectacular.

Ah, now I'm wondering what you could mean, and I've already read Storm more than once.

[Delta1212]

And we're off!

Ah, now I'm wondering what you could mean, and I've already read Storm more than once.

It's one line, if that helps any. I'll explain my reasoning when we get to it.

[Protar]

Early SOS I'm very much looking forward to Shimpy's reactions to:

 

• Arya being a Warg.
• Talisa not existing.
• Jaime being a POV.

[ambi76]

My predicted reactions in order, Protar:

 

You have got to be kidding me?

WTF?

Seven, what an asshole!

 

[Avaleigh]

I'm looking forward to the reaction of number two.

I basically couldn't stand the character of Talisa and am curious to know if Shimpy thinks it's a better choice that the show included the character in favor of Jeyne Westerling or if she'll wonder why the showrunners thought Talisa would be more compelling. With the exception of the RW and Talisa speaking up for the Lannister boys, I didn't find any of her scenes to be compelling and would skip them on my episode rewatch during the season. They tried hard to make her perfect and likeable and extra noble and I just didn't care. A great big yawn of a character. JMO.

[nksarmi]

Protar - your one and two are what I'm most looking forward to her reading - but three should prove interesting as well. 

 

Avaleigh - since we can probably discuss it freely next week sometime when shimpy gets there, I will wait to comment in detail.  But in short, I think the show made a mistake.

[Haleth]

^  Yup, yup, yup.  I agree completely with the last four posts.  

Not only the character of Talisa was a mistake, but the actress as well.

Cannot wait for this discussion.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Haleth

[SeanC]

Early SOS I'm very much looking forward to Shimpy's reactions to:

 

• Arya being a Warg.
• Talisa not existing.
• Jaime being a POV.

I wouldn't think the third of those would be a surprise.  I mean, who else would they think Jaime's Season 3 story was told from the perspective of?  The focus pretty clearly isn't on Brienne.

[Protar]

I wouldn't think the third of those would be a surprise.  I mean, who else would they think Jaime's Season 3 story was told from the perspective of?  The focus pretty clearly isn't on Brienne.

 

Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I'm looking forward to Shimpy finally getting inside Jaime's head.

[Avaleigh]

It's what I've been waiting for, Protar. 

[glowbug]

The whole Talisa storyline was a horrible mistake. I absolutely hated her character and Robb's actions in regards to her made me hate him too. I'm looking forward to the discussion when Shimpy gets there.

[magdalene]

I am looking forward to stillshimpy's reaction to 

Robb never having a POV. And I agree that Talisa was a poor invention of the TV PTB. Along with Locke instead of Vargo Hoat - looking forward to shimpy's thoughts about good ol' Vargo.

.

 

And of course 

the Jaime POVs and later on Uncat.

Edited September 11, 2015 by magdalene

[Brn2bwild]

I'm looking forward to her 

seeing how St. Tyrion and Sansa's wedding really went, as well as their marriage, what with with Tyrion's perpetual sadness that Sansa doesn't want to have sex with him.

[Haleth]

<-- Settling into a comfy chair with a big bucket of popcorn, waiting for the fun.

[Protar]

I had a terrible (possibly alcohol induced but let's not jump to conclusions) nightmare that Shimpy announced she no longer cared about being unspoiled, and spoiled herself for all the cool stuff in AFFC I was looking forward to her reacting to. Send help.

[Seerow]

I had a terrible (possibly alcohol induced but let's not jump to conclusions) nightmare that Shimpy announced she no longer cared about being unspoiled, and spoiled herself for all the cool stuff in AFFC I was looking forward to her reacting to. Send help.

 

This post makes the assumption there is cool stuff to look forward to in AFFC.

[Protar]

This post makes the assumption there is cool stuff to look forward to in AFFC.

 

Let's not go there just yet :P

[magdalene]

I like AFFC. I don't think it's a bad book - just different from the others.

[stillshimpy]

Whoa.  So just glancing at all the posts above me and not clicking any of the tags, I take it something sort of big is going to go down soon?  Because I'm 90 pages in and thus far, nothing of a truly astounding nature has occurred.  Jaime had his first chapter, and it was interesting, but not a great deal occurred other than the fact that they have a Lannister cousin in tow and are thankfully not walking towards King's Landing.  That was always one of the more "Hum and pretend you don't notice the budget decision" moments.  

 

I can't imagine anything easier than rounding up two people on foot, if they went anywhere near a road or water way.  I'm glad that the actual story dealt with that in an entirely different way.  I wanted to feel sorry for Catelyn when she learned that Edmure had announced to all and sundry that Jaime Lannister was on the lam, but I just couldn't.   I understand she's heartbroken and probably really just rendered stupid by grief, but she practically signed Robb's death certificate the moment she let Jaime go and whereas Tyrion might have released Sansa, Catelyn ought to know that Tywin never would.  

 

It was an impulsive and silly move.  

 

So, the Others/Zombonis are the gates of the First of the First Men?  Mya, I know you've frequently said that you loved that prologue and the end was genuinely creepy, but I kind of hated it.  I'm a little surprised you didn't realize I would.  Watch Chett be a weasel.  Watch Chett starve and kick dogs repeatedly.  Not exactly the stuff that is ever going to make me yell "Boy, good stuff this!"   It's atmospheric and creepy, and it really does show that Martin does know how to set a tone and write the hell out of a prologue, but I was mainly distracted by the "I swear to god, you kick another one of those dogs, motherfucker and I will figure out how to Take On Me, A-ha! video your ass, in a not good way soon."  

 

What made you like it so much?  Just the "Chett's going to get his, thank the lord and may the dogs eat him while they're at it.  Slowly" of it all?  

 

I've already seen a few fun details.  The world-building stuff that Martin is so good at.  Just details like The Crone letting the first Raven into the world.  I always love mythology like that.  

 

Arya has wolf dreams too?  Pretty cool, but they're just regular wolves, instead of it being Nymeria out there, I take it? 

 

Poor freaking Sansa, again, another character I wanted to pity, but that was Sansa at her least likable all "Oh brave, smart, dreamy Ser Loras...."  and then I did feel sorry for her by the time she ends up sucking on yet another lemon in life, when she's engaged to a crippled heir, and has the promise of always having Olenna (who's funner than hell to read, but would be awful to live with, that's for sure) always at her elbow.   Yet another crushed dream sand castle for our resident dreamer, Sansa, She Who Cannot Seem to Learn (yet).    Plus, what's actually going to happen to her is a worse fate still, so that was another part of the "Oh brother, you poor kid, just wait until you find out how bad this is going to get."  

 

Great use of the Bear and the Maiden Fair though.  

 

Tyrion's chapter was rather painful to read, but contained a lot of the material that the show did, in that incredibly painful scene where Tywin is so cruel to him.  Now with added "had some poor, entirely innocent young woman lashed because Tyrion needed his Shae fix so desperately."   

 

But I did feel sorrier than hell for him.  

Edited September 13, 2015 by stillshimpy