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!

[John Potts]

Delta1212 It's funny, because I've always actually kind of liked Scrappy Doo.

 

Me too! Well, when it first came out, because I liked the little guy who DIDN'T run at the first sign of danger, being a little guy myself at the time - I find him rather annoying today (he talks big but achieves little). Then again, I've supported both Stannis and Tywin in this thread, so my support might not be worth much....

[ImpinAintEasy]

I know why the show cut Arianne(Not for Shimpy)

Without "Aegon", she really doesn't have any use to the story. There would be no reason for friction/misunderstanding between her and Doran. She wouldn't be securing an alliance with "Aegon" by marrying him. She would just sort of be there, basically another Sand Snake.

I don't understand why they still didn't go through with the Queenmaker plot, but with Ellaria standing in for Arianne. Instead, what we got was 4 Darkstars and a 'B' movie unintentional comedy. 

[Haleth]

And boobs.

[nksarmi]

There are threads where I spent a lot of time speculating how the show would give us the queenmaking plot. I am still sonewhat in denial it isn't going to happen. In my mind the end season five was a fake out and its still going to happen. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt....

[WindyNights]

Me too! Well, when it first came out, because I liked the little guy who DIDN'T run at the first sign of danger, being a little guy myself at the time - I find him rather annoying today (he talks big but achieves little). Then again, I've supported both Stannis and Tywin in this thread, so my support might not be worth much....

Stannis is awesome though.

Tywin is an awful person though that is an expert at lying and covering his ass.

[Alayne Stone]

Well, in regards to what could have been done with Arianne ...

 

They could have kept Tristan and sent him to Meereen, so the conflict between Arianne/Doran could have still been there. Arianne gets to keep the Queenmaker plot, and instead of sending Nymeria to King's Landing to sit on the small council and stir things up, he sends Arianne. Show Arianne could have just taken Nymeria's plot going forward and Tristan gets Quentyn's plot. They could have possibly even tied in the Tyrells ... maybe given Loras something more to do than be a caricature of a stereotype and schemed to marry Dorne and the Reach through Arianne/Loras in order to team up against the Lannisters "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of deal.

 

Not saying this is what I want by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the very first plot that came to me off the top of my head that would have made keeping Arianne a viable option and given us a more complex storyline than what we have now.

 

And to be fair, we still don't know for an absolute certainty that Arianne is going to marry Aegon. We really won't know anything on that front until book 6 comes out.

 

Darkstar is one of those characters that seems to cut the fandom in half. A lot of people hate him but there are quite a lot of people who love him too (probably because of that one line). I am one of the few people who remains mostly ambivalent because there isn't enough of him on the page to make my mind up one way or the other.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Alayne Stone

[Haleth]

Shimpy, what makes you think the kindly man isn't kindly?

[Delta1212]

Well, in regards to what could have been done with Arianne ...

They could have kept Tristan and sent him to Meereen, so the conflict between Arianne/Doran could have still been there. Arianne gets to keep the Queenmaker plot, and instead of sending Nymeria to King's Landing to sit on the small council and stir things up, he sends Arianne. Show Arianne could have just taken Nymeria's plot going forward and Tristan gets Quentyn's plot. They could have possibly even tied in the Tyrells ... maybe given Loras something more to do than be a caricature of a stereotype and schemed to marry Dorne and the Reach through Arianne/Loras in order to team up against the Lannisters "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of deal.

Not saying this is what I want by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the very first plot that came to me off the top of my head that would have made keeping Arianne a viable option and given us a more complex storyline than what we have now.

And to be fair, we still don't know for an absolute certainty that Arianne is going to marry Aegon. We really won't know anything on that front until book 6 comes out.

Darkstar is one of those characters that seems to cut the fandom in half. A lot of people hate him but there are quite a lot of people who love him too (probably because of that one line). I am one of the few people who remains mostly ambivalent because there isn't enough of him on the page to make my mind up one way or the other.

I didn't even know who Darkstar was when I first stumbled into the fandom forums. He left no impression on me whatsoever the first time around.

[Lady S.]

Seems a slight miscalculation that he would think a dude who tried to decapitate an innocent young girl would become popular with the fans.  He may have wanted an ensemble darkhorse, but he wound up with a Scrappy.

Not unlike D&D thinking the Sand Snakes would be fan favorites just for trying to kill Lannisters, when the one they were after was an innocent girl who had nothing to do with Oberyn or Elia.

[mac123x]

I thought of a better analogy than the Scrappy:  Show!Sand Snakes = Nikki and Paolo.

[Ashara Payne]

Ok OT question as I'm new to this whole site. What does "Spitball Wall" mean and why?

I've assumed it's a reference to unsullied.

[stillshimpy]

Shimpy, what makes you think the kindly man isn't kindly?

Because he's in this story.

It's pretty much that complicated.

Ok OT question as I'm new to this whole site. What does "Spitball Wall" mean and why?

I've assumed it's a reference to unsullied.

Yeah, it is and it sounds like one of those things that will have a fascinating origin story, but it doesn't. One day I referred to "Spitballing" you know, just throwing out wads of paper/ideas/theories just to kind of fart around. It's a reasonably common term in fandom for fansplaining/fanwanking/trying to guess what happens next.

Somebody else liked it and realized, "Oh spitball rhymes with wall....we are the members of the Spitball Wall" and then someone else made up an oath. Then one day I pulled a muscle in my back, went absolutely nuts trying to distract myself from not being able to work-out for a week and ....yeah, it's just a long story that sounds like it will be interesting, but really ends up involving: We got really silly one day. Stumbler wrote a great Oath. I created a friend named Knifey: The Brains Behind it All.

You know, as you do.

So Sansa's chapter got a little bit wacky. I see she's going Method on the whole affair. Totally gave me the creeps the first time she referred to Littlefinger as her father.

[Ashara Payne]

Well I think it's a great metaphor, if you can call it that. You know, what with the wall and the dangers on the other side, the effort required to climb it, etc.

[ambi76]

Shimpy, what makes you think the kindly man isn't kindly?

 

Because he's in this story.

 

 

LOL (cause it's true).

[John Potts]

stillshimpy We got really silly one day. Stumbler wrote a great Oath. I created a friend named Knifey: The Brains Behind it All.

 

Dammit, now I want to hear the oath!

 

Incidentally, for anyone who thinks GRRM should just get on with finishing ASoIaF check out this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7lp3RhzfgI

[Lavignac]

And the Spitball Wall protects the Unsullied from the dreaded Bookwalkers.

[Haleth]

Incidentally, for anyone who thinks GRRM should just get on with finishing ASoIaF check out this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7lp3RhzfgI

Did you notice that was published nearly 3.5 yrs ago?  The great bearded glacier has not moved.

[stillshimpy]

The Spitball Wall Oath, by White Stumbler. The "me" quoted there is....me.

Book Walkers gather, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until the end of this epic show.

I shall snark no fellow Spitballers, read no GRRM books, reveal no spoilers. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory, but a hat is OK if needed.

I shall live and die at my post on the Spitball Wall.

I am the words in the darkness. I am the watcher for Book Walkers on this forum.

I am the fire that burns against the boredom, the light that brings insight, the horn that wakes the sleepers to odd plot possibilities, the shield that guards the realms of this thread from spoilers. I pledge my life and honor to the Spitball Wall, for this post and all the posts to come. - White Stumbler

... because Winter is...well, you've probably already heard that rumor. Swords at the ready, sweaters within reach, we stand! - me

I uh...might have a done a spot of oath breaking....which Mya got to witness in a truly epic Facebook chat meltdown that had a lot of ...uh....words, I'm going to go with words used in a pointed and heated fashion.

It went something like this:

Me: Fuckity muckity blurbed blurb FUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKK SHOW!

Mya: Ah yes, duly noted. If I might interje....

Me: (managing to type loudly) And while we're at it? FORNICATION AND BLASPHEMY!!! MOTHERCLUCKER!!!

Mya: That's not even technically a....

Me: HEN!

Mya: Yes. But if I could add just a little itty bitty....

Me: Does it contain new variations of the word fuck?

Mya: I...know some Lebanese, so...sure....why not?

Me: Proceed.

[mac123x]

I liked that Alayne Stone chapter.  I really don't know why, because I'm usually kinda "meh" on Sansa in the books.  It was nice to see her figure out that Lyn Corbray was a plant, and that Petyr played the Lords Declarant. 

 

I'm also curious about sweetsleep, the drug they start feeding Robin Arryn to moderate his seizures and if it's supposed to have a real-life analog like milk-of-the-poppy = opiates.

 

Also, I loved Alayne's description of Robin as "eight going on three".  He really is a petulant brat in the books. 

Edited November 17, 2015 by mac123x

[Ashara Payne]

There is also a YT vid of them performing it onstage and GRRM comes on towards the end and wrecks something.

And there is another vid of a band singing "George RR Martin is not your bitch" in reference to the famous Neil Gaiman response.

[Ashara Payne]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w5vw9RTVky4

[Ashara Payne]

http://io9.com/5504626/best-song-ever-george-rr-martin-is-not-your-bitch

[Alayne Stone]

The Alayne chapters are my favorite Sansa chapters, obviously.

 

And yes, she does seem to rather commit to the whole "method acting" doesn't she? But then again she kind of has to considering who she has to deal with. The show only grazes the surface of just how creepy the Sansa/Petyr Baelish interactions are.

[Terra Nova]

Sansa is one of my favorite characters and I really like how, since last chapter's "lies and Arbor gold" she just committed to the act. Though every now and then she can't help but compare tall people to the Hound, tee hee hee ^^

 

Also, with the reference to the Frey in this chapter ("are you a Frey!?") it's also explained that guest right goes both ways: the guest too can't harm his host (this is also a 'nice' call back to Tyrion's plan back in Clash to send an envoy to Robb to discuss peace, nominally, but in truth to try and steal away Jaime... that too was breaching of guest right, only on a smaller scale than the enormity Tywin&Co. later did).

[John Potts]

While I'm not a fan of Sansa (sorry - perpetual victims, however realistic, are rarely much fun to read), I do like the fact that she does learn over the course of the story. She might not be on the level of Tyrion, Tywin or Littlefinger, but she does start to take in what they do and learn from it. One reason I'm sure I won't like her S5 plotline (which I haven't seen yet)

because it seems she's just gone from being in the power of one psychopath (Joffrey) to another (Ramsay)

 

And  know I posted that Paul & Storm song, but I'm in complete agreement with Neil Gaimann and ComicBookGirl19 who have both (rightly) said that GRRM doesn't owe anyone a damn thing and if he choses to not write any more books that's up to him (well, him and his publishers) - I may want to read them (Now!) but I'd also like to be a millionaire and have a Supermodel for a girlfriend - but I don't expect to be given them either!

[chandraReborn]

As an author, I think it's more of a middle ground. When you sell someone the first book in a series, you're making a promise to write the rest. Not a contract for a pound of flesh, but a promise. In the terms of ASOIAF, it's the honorable thing for an author to do, finishing what they start. If a bestselling author took the money made for the first two books in a series and moved to the Bermudas, all the while shouting "SUCKERS!" at their fans, the fans would have every right to be upset. But Martin's working as fast as he can, and there's no reason to be mad--especially not if the rumors hold true and TWOW comes out soon. 

[DigitalCount]

As an author, I think it's more of a middle ground. When you sell someone the first book in a series, you're making a promise to write the rest. Not a contract for a pound of flesh, but a promise. In the terms of ASOIAF, it's the honorable thing for an author to do, finishing what they start.

This is especially true since he's declared that he'll be the only one to write the books. He is essentially putting his own ticking clock on the series in addition to any arbitrary measurement of time that any fan might come up with. It may be legally unenforceable, but it is absolutely an implied promise.

[stillshimpy]

Personally I loved Neil Gaiman's blog post, which was something I read quite a while ago. Mainly because the person writing to Gaiman was more-or-less instructing Neil Gaiman on how he wished to see Gaiman author-scold Martin. Complete with the preferred language he wanted Gaiman to use. It was a fairly bizarre thing to reach out to another author on and of course that was the position Gaiman took: Back the fuck off, fanboy and you're also being a little creepy.

Seriously, the guy wanted Neil Gaiman to sign off on a feeling of outrage that this particular person was experiencing because by following Martin's blog, he had become aware that George R. R. Martin was doing things other than writing, all.the.time.. Clutch pearls. Gasp.

It was strangely childish and definitely churlish and he picked quite possibly the worst person to whine to about it.

But having said all that, and having just completed two lengthy chapters the point of one was to reveal that Cersei Lannister had fancied herself in love with Rhaegar Targaryen (whose swoon-worthy status afforded by all is giving me a case of the eye-rolls, they'd need a cross between Orlando Bloom, Matthew McConaughey -- in his prime -- and Jude Law with a sprinkling of elfin magic to render him onscreen...we get it...the girls could barely contain the fluttery of their fluttery parts) ....that Aerys was really quite the jerk to Tywin and that the reason that everyone seemed so confused about how long it took for the story to spit out Maggy the Frog's pronouncements of doom is because the bloody book is taking for fucking ever about it.

Then I read an entire chapter with Brienne in which Hyle Hunt was added to the stage as yet another player. The Shoeless Septon told a tale of yet another war , fought for supposed lords and bleeding the land dry of all young men.

Then also apparently Un-Hound is really, really a bastard to deal with and then some. There's a nice, friendly dog on the scene, so I'm sure Martin's giddily sharpening his pen to deal with the poor creature soon. Stoneheart is presumably Catelyn?

So yeah, you know, I loved Gaiman's response. I feel it is fitting. We do not buy a stake in the soul of a person simply by enjoying the stories they write. We are not owed their personal time, their consideration and they may leave their profession without ever fully completing something. All that is true.

You know what else is true? George R. R. Martin's fucking around and padding this tale unnecessarily at this point.

I've noticed every time I bring something up there's a bunch of "Wait, that hasn't happened yet..." and everyone kindly scrambles around to conceal whatever it is I haven't seen yet. Something for which I am grateful to all of you and thank you for sincerely.

But part of the reason that is happening is he's taken about four solid chapters worth of happenings and stretched the thing into a 900 page book.

Please consider the source as I say this: I think that our obsession with brevity and confusing it for an art form in and of itself is hurting both our ability to fully express our feelings and thoughts AND the quality of the stories we're telling. We're so anxious to do things concisely that things seldom get done fully and in a satisfying fashion.

That's my position. It's one I continue to hold and I am still sitting here and typing this out with a fair amount of feeling: This man is stalling his narrative balls off at this point.

Edited November 18, 2015 by stillshimpy

[ImpinAintEasy]

Who would have thought excluding the 3 main protagonists from the 4th book would stall the narrative momentum? 

[Protar]

You definitely aren't alone in thinking that Shimpy. I've grown to appreciate Feast a bit more over time (especially after seeing Season 5 of the show, and then reading all the comparative analyses on tumblr (totally a valid source of academia)). But yeah...it drags on a lot. I think that what Martin was going for was a slower, reflection on the desolation of the last three books (especially Storm), but he goes overboard. He's grown a little too attached to his intricate web of characters and his success has given him a lot of power to overrule his editor on issues. I think with some heavy trimming Feast and Dance could maybe even have been one book. 

[Silje]

I liked that Alayne Stone chapter.  I really don't know why, because I'm usually kinda "meh" on Sansa in the books.  It was nice to see her figure out that Lyn Corbray was a plant, and that Petyr played the Lords Declarant. 

 

I absolutely love that Sansa was able to figure out that Lyn Corbray was working for Petyr while the Lords Declarant had no idea.

 

I also like how Sansa thinks of Baelish as two different people - her friend Petyr that saved her and Littlefinger who is not a friend/a mask he wears. And she does call him both Petyr and Littlefinger in her chapters. When she wants to get her suspicions about Lyn Corbray confirmed she goes to Petyr, and when he confirms it, it's Littlefinger that laughs. It's just small detail that I like.      

Edited November 18, 2015 by Silje

[Eegah]

And of course, deciding to split his original book four by region just happened to largely put the less interesting characters into the first half.

[Terra Nova]

Not for Shimpy

Nooes, not even a mention of Davos being chopped like an onion! Our master plan is crumbling on itself! I thought she would have swallowed bait, hook and sink, considering she really did it with 'The Hound' JESUS LET'S DO SOMETHING!

[mac123x]

Then I read an entire chapter with Brienne in which Hyle Hunt was added to the stage as yet another player. The Shoeless Septon told a tale of yet another war , fought for supposed lords and bleeding the land dry of all young men.

 

Septon Meribald's monologue about broken men is considered by some to be a really good piece of philosophy.  Or something.  I thought that his speech, and the encounters with the tiny villages of people who lived near Maidenpool but never even ventured a few miles down the road, was an interesting look at how wars affect the smallfolk.  Funny thing is, he took multiple chapters in this book to say the same thing that Jorah said back in GoT in one paragraph.  "The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are."

 

I gotta say, I'm a little surprised you didn't react to some news that Cercei got from Pycelle.

[Alayne Stone]

I think Meribald's monologue just drives it all home a little harder. I remember at the very end of it all when I realized he had been talking about himself how hard that hit me. And then to think these people have only ever lived one place their entire lives, have no access to education and thus can't even do something as simple as read a map ... and they are set so of course that they can't even figure out how to get home with what little of themselves remains to them ... it's just sad and depressing. But that's why the book is called a Feast for Crows.

 

Was that the Cersei chapter where Pycelle received the grim news from Whiteharbor?

 

Not for Shimpy's eyes regarding unHound and Stoneheart ...

Tee hee. Unhound. I love how very, very wrong Shimpy is on this. I can't wait for the reveal. Also, is it safe now to call unCatelyn Lady Stoneheart now, since she guessed it? Or do we continue to wait?

Edited November 18, 2015 by Alayne Stone

[mac123x]

Was that the Cersei chapter where Pycelle received the grim news from Whiteharbor?

 

Yes.

[stillshimpy]

The only thing that happened in the Cersei chapter that caught my eye was that Cersei put a hit out on Bronn.

What are you guys talking about?

ETA: Oh are you talking about Cersei getting news that Davos was beheaded?

I assumed that was a bunch of shit. Honestly, my attention was caught more by Qyburn needing serving girls for some hideous purpose.

But I did actually highlight the whole "killed the Onion Knight"...but it didn't really make any kind of impression on me. I don't dislike Davos, but I assume he's really alive and then if he isn't? Okay.

Edited November 18, 2015 by stillshimpy

[mac123x]

Oh, okay. 

 

I just found it annoying that we get news that a POV character's death occurred off-screen.  We get a full chapter on Red Shirt Arys Oakheart, and Davos gets a quick blurb on p12 of the Style section.

 

Book 5 spoiler:

Foiled again!  Of course Shimpy saw through that.  I'm guessing that's because she already realizes that everything in Cercei's chapters is wrong.

[mrspidey]

But part of the reason that is happening is he's taken about four solid chapters worth of happenings and stretched the thing into a 900 page book.

Please consider the source as I say this: I think that our obsession with brevity and confusing it for an art form in and of itself is hurting both our ability to fully express our feelings and thoughts AND the quality of the stories we're telling. We're so anxious to do things concisely that things seldom get done fully and in a satisfying fashion.

That's my position. It's one I continue to hold and I am still sitting here and typing this out with a fair amount of feeling: This man is stalling his narrative balls off at this point.

You're starting to see why so many readers have issues with the last two books. But I'm also with Protar in saying that it's less Martin's fault but that of his editor. These two books feel like they could've benefited from a lot of trimming because they read like they haven't been edited at all. 

There were some very questionable decisions on what to include at the end of book five, like chapters that had already been written but, for some reason, were postponed until the sixth book. 

But we should get into that once you're done reading. 

[ImpinAintEasy]

So we can now call Cat by her new name, right? Shimpy guessed it, as it was fairly obvious. Lady Stoneheart is her name,

and hanging Freys is her game.

Edited November 18, 2015 by ImpinAintEasy

[Haleth]

^ Perfect for her business card. Lol

Whenever I read Meribold's chapters I crave oranges.

You all know who has been cast as Meribold right?

[WSmith84]

Hello stillshimpy. A link to this was posted on westeros.org and it's been really fascinating watching an Unsullied's take on the books. I really love seeing the theories and conceptions of characters that some of you had that simply never would have occurred to a book reader, like the Reeds being evil, or dead (loved that one). I'm glad to see you're enjoying them.

 

I agree with you (and the fandom in general, I think) that Feast (and Dance, probably) could have done with a heavy edit. I like Feast, but found it difficult at times on my first read, particularly Brienne and Sam. I'm finding it better on reread, but I'll never be interested in The Wonderful Adventures Of Nimble Dick, no matter how well-written. I'm glad to see that you appear to be enjoying Dorne, and you an probably see by now why fans of Book Dorne were gutted, outraged and (probably) baffled at TV Dorne.

 

I did want to ask one thing which I didn't see addressed on the previous pages, which is your opinion on the leeching scene in the TV show. In Storm, it's referenced that Edric is leeched but nothing sexual is ever implied, whereas in the show they had that scene where Mel starts to have sex with Gendry, only then to leech him (one of them in a painful place, too). Most scenes in the show I can defend, or at least understand to a degree, but that one did have me utterly confused. Basically, I was curious to know what your opinion was at the time (as an Unsullied) and what you think of the scene now?

[John Potts]

The "He's dead - not really! Psych!" gets a bit tiresome after a while. We've so far had Bran & Rickon (Theon), Arya (Red Wedding) and

 Davos (Whiteharbour)

have "they might be dead" chapter endings only to actually turn up alive, plus the genuine resurrections of Beric Dondarrion and Catelyn. There may be more to come. For somebody who criticised Tolkien for NOT killing Gandalf (or at least, not permanently) he sure loves toying with his readers about killing favoured characters. I start to wonder if Eddard Stark might show up having survived Joffrey's "really close shave".

 

ETA: Sorry, I thought shimpy had already got to that point,- and I deliberately avoided mentioning

either Jamie or Brienne

because I wasn't certain where she was up to!

 

Alayne, actually I did mean when Sandor knocks Arya out at the Red Wedding - Yorren grabbing her had slipped my mind. I didn't believe the Hound was really trying to kill Arya (he'd kept her alive up to then, after all), though it might have been ironic if he'd given her an unintentionally fatal skull fracture. Anyway, my point was that if you keep crying wolf on characters dying, people aren't going to buy it when they DO die - probably why

I don't think I've talked to anyone who thinks Jon Snow is really dead - at least not permanently

Edited November 19, 2015 by John Potts

[Delta1212]

I don't think the sexuality of the scene between Mel and Gendry is all that confusing. They're both pretty and it's HBO. Why include just a leeching scene when it can be a leeching scene with pretty people getting naked?

[Lady S.]

The "He's dead - not really! Psych!" gets a bit tiresome after a while. We've so far had Bran & Rickon (Theon), Arya (Red Wedding) and Davos (Whiteharbour) have "they might be dead" chapter endings

only to actually turn up alive

, plus the genuine resurrections of Beric Dondarrion and Catelyn.

There was also Arya's last chapter in Game, which seems set up for panicky readers to wonder what Yoren's going to do to her with that knife, Jaime's fate is left hanging in Cat's last Clash chapter, his own behanding chapter wasn't clear that it wasn't a beheading, and we don't learn that Theon survived the Sack of Winterfell until halfway through Storm. There are probably others we're both forgetting, which is why I really thought it was premature to have all those spoiler-tagged posts assuming shimpy would panic at Davos's offscreen death.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Lady S.

[Ashara Payne]

Haha yeah, any excuse for Carice to get her kit off.

[ImpinAintEasy]

Haha yeah, any excuse for Carice to get her kit off.

I know you didn't mean it this way, but I read kit as 'Kit'(Harrington). Hehe. Which, depending on how things shake out, could be an unknown spoiler.

[WindyNights]

The "He's dead - not really! Psych!" gets a bit tiresome after a while. We've so far had Bran & Rickon (Theon), Arya (Red Wedding) and Davos (Whiteharbour) have "they might be dead" chapter endings only to actually turn up alive, plus the genuine resurrections of Beric Dondarrion and Catelyn. There may be more to come. For somebody who criticised Tolkien for NOT killing Gandalf (or at least, not permanently) he sure loves toying with his readers about killing favoured characters. I start to wonder if Eddard Stark might show up having survived Joffrey's "really close shave".

This question about resurrected Cat and him not liking Gandalf being resurrected got brought up to his face.

Here:

Continues Martin: “I’ve talked about Gandalf [in The Lord of the Rings], and how the impact of his death was enormous. When I was a 12-year-old kid reading The Fellowship of the Ring and ‘Fly, you fools!’ and he goes into the chasm … it was ‘Holy shit! [J.R.R. Tolkien] killed the wizard! That’s the guy who knew everything. How are they going to destroy the ring without him?’ And now the ‘kids’ have to grow up because their ‘daddy’ is dead. If Gandalf could die, anybody could die. And then just a few chapters later Boromir goes down. Those two deaths created in me the ‘anyone could die’ thing. At that point I was expecting [Tolkien] to pick off the whole Fellowship one by one. And then we also think in The Two Towers that Frodo is dead, since Shelob stung him and wrapped him up. I really bought it because he set me up with those other deaths. But then, of course, he brings Gandalf back. He’s a little strange at first, but then he’s basically the same old Gandalf. I liked the impact we got from him being gone.”

Martin’s explanation initially sounds like an argument against including Lady Stoneheart, but Martin then noted: “Lady Stoneheart is not Cateyln. I’ve tried to set it up beforehand with Beric Dondarrion and his repeated [resurrections]. There’s a brief appearance by Beric in Book One and he rides into the city and he’s this flamboyant Southern knight. That’s not that man we meet later on.”

Also I don't really think of Arya at the RW as a fake out death because all you have to do is actually think about it. Why would Sandor axe Arya in the back of the head?

Edited November 19, 2015 by WindyNights

[Alayne Stone]

I think they are talking about when Arya was pulled aside by Yorren and he cut her hair off. It sounded like he was doing much worse to her in aGoT and I'm pretty sure that's her last chapter in the book as well.

 

Alright. We can finally call unCat Lady Stoneheart!

 

I wonder what Shimpy will have to say about the Brienne fake out. That one was written really well though. I even knew she'd be back because I had spoiled myself on the wiki and I still remember thinking "I don't see how she comes back from this" after reading it for the first time.

[dragonbone]

Hi all,

  Long time lurker here.. I read the unsullied posts forever and debated joining here...now I have.

 

  Just one thing I wanted to point out on Lady Stoneheart.  Way back in GoT she had a very interesting thought:

 

"We learned that to our sorrow, Ser Donnel," Catelyn said. Sometimes she felt as though her heart had turned to stone; six brave men had died to bring her this far, and she could not even find it in her to weep for them."

From Game Of Thrones

 

One aspect of GGRM's writing that can't be done on screen are these lines that you have to re-read to pick up.  Often in a slow chapter are buried tiny hints of a story in the story or foreshadowing, or riddles. unreliable narrator is used and the reader has to work to decipher a truth.

 

 

GRRM is being super slow story wise in A Feast for Crows, but I think he's having fun with it.  

Edited November 19, 2015 by dragonbone