Anticipating "A Feast For Crows" by George R. R. Martin (Nov. 9)

robert jordan gets sooo tedious.

i am going to shit this mini diatribe out here so that i don't foul up the tv show thread for the good folks who haven't read the books. every non-book scene in the latest episode was disgraceful.
1. renly and loras - what are they doing to renly?? his character seems so different from in the book, and he was such a well drawn character. he is all effete whereas in the book he is a fighter, just with more to him than robert who is only a fighter. and why the fuck are they talking about renly being king already? robert is still aliiiiiive. neither of them have any kind of motive to talk about ousting robert and renly is big on his biggest bro iirc. also, gay undertones were v cool when they were just undertones and you suddenly realized in book 2, "oh so...". that was v nicely handled by grrm imo. i guess on this point you can't blame hbo for hboing it.
2. littlefinger and varys - nooooooo. no. no. i thought it was kind of important that you never witness those two interacting alone. their relationship is left deliberately murky. and also the implications of what they were saying made no sense with ref to what at least littlefinger is shown to be up to in book 3. inaccurate and useless scene.
3. cersei and robert - cersei thought she had feelings for robert once?? what thee fucke? so stupidly rong. i got the impression that her being in love with her brother was kind of a plot point here, maybe an important one. why were they being so civil? the whole tone of the conversation was off.
and to make room for this shit, the trip to the vale and the useful particulars of the eyrie were gutted and the ongoing revelation re the king's bastards was kinda shoehorned in. BAH.

I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS POST

Loras and Renly are both pretty much ciphers in the book. Renly's not gonna be around long so i imagine they're trying to give his demise a little more resonance.

2. littlefinger and varys - nooooooo. no. no. i thought it was kind of important that you never witness those two interacting alone. their relationship is left deliberately murky. and also the implications of what they were saying made no sense with ref to what at least littlefinger is shown to be up to in book 3. inaccurate and useless scene.

i agree with this! part of me loves the idea of a scene between the two, but i reacted p negatively to that scene. it felt way too on the nose for those characters.

that said i think you can justify both that scene and the renly scene in the context of the show - they're still laying groundwork for the uninitiated. im not sure how clear varys' role was up until now, and having him interact like that w/littlefinger explains a lot about both of their power dynamics. the renly scene is like the new theon material, who does almost nothing in the first book - laying the foundation for season 2 so viewers at the bare minimum know who these characters are.

i actually didn't realize that renly & loras were gay while i was reading the books (it seems comically obvious in hindsight)(RAINBOW GUARD), for a couple of reasons - one is that martin never seemed to be coy about sex, so i figured if he was going to introduce gay characters he'd just show them plowing each other. but i think i wasnt taking into account that he's a dirty old fucker who just writes the kind of lurid sex scenes that get him hot & bothered. the other is that most of the "evidence" is in the form of other people making childish "lol what about your butt-buddy renly" jokes that i didnt think were supposed to be taken seriously. but i think its cool that the show's making it more explicit, i found myself wondering where all the queer characters were when i was reading it and its alright to foreground those aspects imo.

i thought the cersei & robert scene was good (if not particularly true to my conception of the cersei character), though lena headey was making some really weird... i dont know if there's something wrong with her eye, but she was making some distracting faces that sorta looked like this: http://i.imgur.com/hkAkX.gif

Well it would be difficult to explicitly show that they're gay considering neither of them are POV characters.

yeah but when the red viper is introduced, the book basically just says HE FUCKS BOYS. everyone's a lot more coy about renly & loras.

just finished feast for crows!

it felt like such a.... half-book. BUT it was nice to see grrm tackling stuff that i had been pretty conscious of him missing in the first 3 books -- the political power of religion, the experience of war on the ground (as ptamtam says upthread)

i like that martin seems to have affection and some degree of respect for his female characters but its kind of bugging me how STUPID they all are. with the exception of arya i guess? but cersei is just so transparently idiotic and brienne is a fumbling moron and sansa... well sansa is barely a character. even catelyn ends up being not as smart as robb.

tbh i didnt really give a shit about jon and stannis and the wall. or danaerys. i kind of dont care whats happening over there! way more interested in tyrion... and bran! and the reeds! i am really hoping we can get some scenes set at the neck w the crannogmen and howland reed.

also the iron islands... i dngas. i thought there was going to be something cool with the dragon horn but that petered out.

also this guy loves lesbian sex huh

frankly i hope podrick payne wins the game of thrones. #teampodrick

Hoping for some Howland Reed action too. And i guess Tyrion and Daenerys are gonna meet up at some point.

Re the female characters: yeah but almost everyone in GRRM's books is ultimately not too bright in a way that leads to his or her messy demise. There's just a lot more male characters than female ones, but I'm not sure intelligence/survival rates are disproportionate?

Very superior of you guys with your omniscient viewpoints to call the characters stupid.

I'm DYING to find out what Bran and the Reeds do and how Bran finds his secret powers and what exactly they are. Also, I remain 100% convinced that Arya and her direwolf are going to be re-united and that moment is going to make like 5 books' worth of material totally worth it.

i dunno i was kind of struck by how much smarter jaime and kevan are than cersei. and.... everyone is smarter than brienne. and even catelyn gets outwitted by robb several times! danaerys and arya seem pretty competent i guess.

i think the next book is really gonna bug me... like i was saying i was happy to not pay attention to the wall and danaerys and im not looking forward to returning to those plotlines unless some real game-changing shit is going to happen. its hard to juggle a lot of plotlines, and GRRM is better at it than most, but its like... im okay with rickon and the wildling woman just disappearing! I dont need sixteen chapters set from oshas point of view! and i wish he would take that attitude with some of the other stuff. sansa stark at the vale? please, just keep me updated during the kings landing chapters and ill be okay.

Very superior of you guys with your omniscient viewpoints to call the characters stupid.

― Number None, Friday, May 20, 2011 2:24 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha but EVERYONE thinks cersei and brienne are stupid. in the book! they get outwitted CONSTANTLY

Nah i know. I think Cersei just sort of blinded by rage/power. Brienne's dopey "I'm looking for my sister... thing was pretty annoying

Oh yeah, Theon will be back too and he's gonna totally redeem himself. Maybe.

Yeah Cersei is a case study in hubris; she basically plotted and manipulated and bode her time, but when she made her move she grossly overreached and threw all of her caution to the wind.

i like that martin seems to have affection and some degree of respect for his female characters but its kind of bugging me how STUPID they all are

i think a lot of hes trying to make a point abt how belief in/adherence to any particular code blinds a person to the reality of someone who doesnt accept the same code & so makes them unable to anticipate/manipulate those ppl. with ned its his code of conduct with sansa its her belief in romantic chivalry with cersie its her own infailability &c &c also i think he wants to show how characters that exist on the margins or 'outside' society are better able to see things for what they really are, theyre less fettered by preconceived notions & so can operate w/in the game more effectively

so its not that theyre STUPID theyre just beholden to outmoded or ineffective codes of conduct or beliefs. otoh... sansa.

poor Sansa

I ended up feeling really sorry for her

OK can someone clarify something? In the map posted above, I distinctly count eight kingdoms. Is Winterfell not a kingdom? Or is it that King's landing is a capital territory—like DC or Canberra—and therefore does not count as a kingdom?

all the other stark kids are having the most bad-ass time and sansa is stuck in the stupidest of the seven kingdoms with an idiot child and rapey littlefinger

Or is it that King's landing is a capital territory—like DC or Canberra—and therefore does not count as a kingdom?

i think its this? because there was never a king there the way there was a king of the north, king of the reach, etc

xp: not ALL of the other Stark kids; Robb's journey wasn't too hot

sure, he met a bad end but he never lost a battle and had sick nickname

i really shouldve read that over before hitting 'submit post' (xps)

sansa is kinda a gross character tbh in that he makes her pay for her mistakes a hundred times over & it never really seems to be enough. shes like the pretty girl in a horror movie

theres gonna be something up w/ jeyne westerling, right? every time they talk about her they mention that her grandmother was a "mad witch" or something of the sort

I guess that was more an "ambush" than a "battle"

Anyway I too would rather be murdered than trapped with Littlefinger so I retract my objection

theres gonna be something up w/ jeyne westerling, right? every time they talk about her they mention that her grandmother was a "mad witch" or something of the sort

i think this was primarily done to hint that her marriage to robb was the result of a glamour or w/e iirc her mother uses 'potions' on her?

oh hmm. disapponting

there seems to be some speculation online that the jeyne presented to jaime in affc is not real jeyne, because jaime thinks her hips are narrow, and catelyn wouldnt shut up about jeynes hips in asos

really? i havent looked at forums in long time but iirc there was a lot of spec that jeyne might be pregnant which i guess cld tie in to that...

the only other stuff i remember abt jeyne was that the potion/spell that caused her & robb to fall in love (spec) had worked 'too well' & that was why she refused to take of mourning colors & so she might still be attempting to work against her mother and the lannisters in some way

i will laugh if the arya-wolf thing never actually happens

should we make a dance for dragons thread or leave it until the book comes out

also, a big collected SONG OF ICE AND FIRE THE SOURCE OF THE TV SHOW GAME OF THRONES is top ten amazon sellers this week, so is another completely unrelated novel which includes the words 'ice' and 'throne'

so max did you figure out jon's real parents

i dunno i was kind of struck by how much smarter jaime and kevan are than cersei. and.... everyone is smarter than brienne. and even catelyn gets outwitted by robb several times! danaerys and arya seem pretty competent i guess.

i think the next book is really gonna bug me... like i was saying i was happy to not pay attention to the wall and danaerys and im not looking forward to returning to those plotlines unless some real game-changing shit is going to happen. its hard to juggle a lot of plotlines, and GRRM is better at it than most, but its like... im okay with rickon and the wildling woman just disappearing! I dont need sixteen chapters set from oshas point of view! and i wish he would take that attitude with some of the other stuff. sansa stark at the vale? please, just keep me updated during the kings landing chapters and ill be okay.

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Friday, May 20, 2011 2:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i felt like with cersei, she wasn't stupid so much as her paranoia and her vanity made her shortsighted - shes like a paranoid despot who surrounds herself with weak & incompetent people b/c they cant challenge her. i thought it was a neat contrast w/tywin, who was an even more horrible person but as a ruler seemed to understand the value of having the brightest people in important positions.

the thing about catelyn is whenever she has a great idea nobody listens to her, and whenever she has a dumb one everyone pays attention

sansa's p. dumb though which is why i had trouble buying into littlefinger turning her into a lil schemer - there are a few times where he prompts her to explain some of his schemes and she does so w/little difficulty. how much a devious genius can this guy be if she's dismantling his shit like that

w/brienne, shes 'dumb' in the same way as Tragic Manly Dude Ned Stark is - just overly bound by honor and not suited to dealing with scoundrels. shes one of my fav characters tbh. brienne's paranoid in the way a lot of mistreated & marginalized people become, in that she can't really tell the difference between one kind of raw deal and another. shes one of the saddest characters imo. i felt so bad for her & pod (and now i hate zombie cat!!!!)

for smart broads, peep the Tyrell matriarch (forget her name) - i always wished we got more of her

the iron island chapters were real bad and a disappointment, but i dug the dorne stuff

i thought the dorne guy was rad - but i love in these kind of books when a place that you keep getting an outside view of finally opens up

the tyrell matriarch is a great character tbh id kinda forgotten abt her!

i thought it was a neat contrast w/tywin, who was an even more horrible person but as a ruler seemed to understand the value of having the brightest people in important positions.

i kinda disagree! at least re: twyin. he was just as arrogant & blind to his own prejudices as cersei! to me the point was that as a male w/in westeros twyin was secure enough to be able to encourage competence in his subordinates. whereas cersei was put in the position of nvr being able to show weakness or need. also tywin had an entire support network & the weight of tradition to stand on whereas cersei was constantly having to prove herself...

thats a great point about tywin & cersei, yeah

reminds me, my favorite part of AFFC is possibly the scene where jaime talks to his aunt about tywin - men are such great thundering fools etc

i figured jon snow is bryanna and rhaegars kid? Or whatever ned's sister's name was? was there more significance to the conversation arya had with beric's squire?

you make good pts abt the women--I think it bugged me in this book especially b/c brienne and cerise are prob the two most written characters and they just keep making stupid decisions. it's less obvious when you have dumb male characters like Ned in there too.

dead cat went seriously ham. I'm probably more mad at the freys than any other characters in the book, I hope she murks the whole family and haunts the twins forever. But I will never forgive her if she kills pod #teampodrick

i liked dorne a lot -- braavos too -- im excited for more of places getting opened up like that -- the ruins of valyria and the neck in particular.

gonna be bummed at spending so much time on the iron islands unless there's a really good payoff w/ the dragon horn.

also excited to find out what tyrion and varys have been doing.

the freys are the biggest pieces of shit in the books imo

thats pretty much the common theory on jon since it explains ned's treatment of him pretty decently (his oft-referred promise to lyanna was to keep her kid safe, he can't reveal the truth to anyone lest word get to the king who would order him killed for being heir to house targaryen). hopefully that'll be confirmed/denied in the next book instead of stringing us along until the end of the series to find out if we were right. there's one character left alive (howland reed) who was with ned when lyanna died and presumably shares the secret.

howland fuckin reed man. howland fuckin reed.

^^this.

walder frey's an awesome villain, and i was unbelievably stoked when i found out they cast david bradley in the role:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01177/arts-graphics-2007_1177125a.jpg

enjoying my re-read of these in anticipation of the new one, i just started book 2 and there's so much i had forgotten, basically everything except the few major plot twists. it's all coming back to me now though.

thats pretty much the common theory on jon since it explains ned's treatment of him pretty decently (his oft-referred promise to lyanna was to keep her kid safe, he can't reveal the truth to anyone lest word get to the king who would order him killed for being heir to house targaryen). hopefully that'll be confirmed/denied in the next book instead of stringing us along until the end of the series to find out if we were right. there's one character left alive (howland reed) who was with ned when lyanna died and presumably shares the secret.

― ciderpress, Friday, May 20, 2011 7:09 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah. i think thats why we havent met howland reed yet - dude just knows too much. didnt ned say that he couldnt have beat arthur dayne w/o reed's help? im so curious about how that went down

i didnt pick up on jon's real parentage at all on my readthrough, so when i read about it online i was like :OOOOOOOO

I'm gonna be bummed if Frey just kicks the bucket. Martin has a habit of denying you vengeance -- both joffrey and the mountain die in ways that aren't particularly satisfying. though tywin gets his for sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if jons royal parentage comes out in the context of melisandre needing royal blood to wake the dragon

god, the mountain. the duel between him & the red viper was maybe the most visceral moment in the series for me - the way martin has you doubting that he can stand up to gregor, then slowly lets you think maybe he can win, then pulls the rug out from under you is great imo. also apparently gregor clegane's an undead zombie golem now. i hope sandor gets to kill him!

i'll be real impressed if martin can pull off all the undead stuff w/o it seeming stupid