Author Topic: A Song of Ice and Fire  (Read 6516 times)

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A Song of Ice and Fire
« on: August 20, 2008, 07:28:41 AM »

Offline Robb

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Holy crap.  So I didn't think that anyone else read this series, but thanks to nickagneta and crownsy's posts in the Star Wars thread I'm doing one for ASoIaF, too. 

If you haven't read the series, it's written in kind of the Dark Age-era, and it's semi-fantasyish.  It has dragons and giants, wizards and magic, but that isn't the appeal of the series to me at all.  The characters and the entire world that author George R. R. Martin (GRRM) created are so extensive and well written.  There is tons of intrigue, sex, violence, war, mystery, drama, and a good bit of comedy, too.  It's just an absolute beast of a series.

HBO and the BBC have gotten on board and first draft scripts have been made for the production of a TV series.  Each season will represent one book.  They haven't given the official green light, partly because they're considering another series based off of Arthurian legends, but I think Arthur has been done to death.  It may happen, it may not, but that they're considering it vouches for it's quality.

There is only one criticism of the series as I see it, and it has nothing to do with the series, per se.  GRRM is involved in A LOT of other projects, so it's taken him a long time to finish the fifth book.  That's the biggest criticism, that you'll be angry that you have to wait so long to pick up the next book (but it should be out sometime next year).

So...go read the books, then get back to this thread.  There are spoilers coming up.  Big ones.

Favorite book?
Favorite/most hated characters?
Scenes with the greatest impact?
Favorite pet theory?

I'm going with Storm of Swords as my favorite book.  The Red Wedding scene.  I've once re-read the series and when I got to the end of Clash of Kings when they tell of Robb Stark taking the Crag I feel like I've been punched in my stomach even though the repercussions of that aren't felt until a book and a half later.  Also, anything about the Red Viper of Dorne is going to be awesome, so Tyrion's trial is one of my favorites.  I'm not a big fan of Feast for Crows just because there is no Jon, Bran, Tyrion or Dany and those seem to be the most important characters in the series, but the whole situation with Doran Martell trying to marry Arianne to Viserys and then sending Quentyn after Dany.  Fire and Blood.  Just awesome.

Favorite character?  Who isn't a favorite character?  Jon is good, but he's so perfect that it's kind of boring.  Still, though, you have to pull for the hero.  Davos Seaworth can't really be dead, can he!?  Tyrion is awesome, Bran is great, but above all, the best story belongs to Jaime, I think, and the Hound is probably my favorite to read.  The only character I haven't enjoyed reading has been Brienne.  I'm also kind of proud of the fact that I never got attached to Robb, even though we share the name, you know?  I was REALLY attached to Ned (how could you not be?), and I'm glad I didn't hitch my wagon to the King in the North.

Scene with the greatest impact?  This is a so-many-way tie.  The Red Wedding was insane.  The Tower of Joy scene with Ned, Howland Reed and company facing off against The Sword of the Morning, Gerold Hightower and Oswell Whent the three Kingsguard members.  What an awesome bit of writing.  I loved both of Tyrion's trials, when Tyrion killed Tywin and when Tyrion fought on the Blackwater.  Dany's vision in the House of the Undying, though, I think, takes the cake for impact if not for enjoyment.  There is A LOT in that scene yet to come.

Favorite pet theory?  Everyone's favorite:  Jon is the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar.  That'd be crazy.  Also there is the "Grand Tyrell Conspiracy" that is available on westeros.org.  It's so ridiculously in depth and it makes really good sense.  I just can't resolve that Loras Tyrell is dying or dead or that Margaery was sleeping around on Tommen (unless that it was that Joffrey forced himself on her before their wedding, then I would probably die laughing).  Actually scratch that, the best theories are the ones about Hot Pie.

Anyway, even if only two or three people respond to this, I'm just glad that I know of two other people who read this amazing series.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2008, 09:10:06 AM by Robb »
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Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2008, 08:29:01 AM »

Offline Evantime34

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I'm also a fan of this series. I can't wait for the next book and I hope HBO picks up the series (they have the rights to it but they haven't decided if they are going to do anything with it). I think the next book will be phenomenal because  the previous book covered all the characters I don't really care for this book has to focus on the ones that are important to me (mostly the Stark family). I think the chapters on Bran will be the most interesting, because I believe that he is going to spend a long time over the wall, learn magic then come back and take revenge on anyone that messed with his family.
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Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2008, 08:51:04 AM »

Offline drza44

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I started reading this series not long after AGoT came out in '97, and it's been driving me CRAZY waiting for the next book(s) to come out.  IMO, the kids are the most important part of the story and it seems almost like GRRM is having them grow up in real-time!  Oh, by the way...there are quite a few spoilers in the OP, and I don't know if that matters on a board like this but I figured I should point it out.  As to the questions:

Favorite book? Probably A Storm of Swords due to the big fireworks, though AGoT is not far behind

Favorite/most hated characters? Favorite: Bran.  I bonded with his POV early on, and I think he's got some good stuff ahead of him (if GRRM ever lets him grow up).  Honorable mention to Tyrion (unique and complicated), and I generally pull for Jon and Dany as well.  Most hated: there's no one in particular, but GRRM does a good job with shades of gray and creating realistic villains.  At one point I dreaded reading Sansa chapters, but as she gets older they get progressively more interesting.

Scenes with the greatest impact?  Hard to top the Red Wedding.

Favorite pet theory? The Rhaegar/Lyanna theory is so old now that it almost seems to be a given, despite the fact that it's not really spelled out in the book.  But since it could deal with the central premise of the title, I guess I'll go with that one.

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2008, 09:16:56 AM »

Offline Barnabas

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I'm a big fan of the series.  GRRM does take his sweet time following up with sequels. 

I'm a big fan of Daenerys Targaryen.  Gotta be my favorite character in the saga.

As far as the Red Wedding, in my view, Robb deserved that one.  I can hardly blame Roose Bolton for doing what he did.  Here he is, fighting for his liege lord.  And then all of a sudden, his liege lord does something stupid that would lose them the war.  Now, do you go down with him and face the wrath of Lord Tywin?  Or do you try and work out a deal to save your own skin?  It wouldn't be fun to be on Robb's side once Lord Tywin takes control.  Roose would have lost everything, and gotten tortured by the Mountain to boot!

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2008, 09:19:06 AM »

Offline Robb

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I started reading this series not long after AGoT came out in '97, and it's been driving me CRAZY waiting for the next book(s) to come out.  IMO, the kids are the most important part of the story and it seems almost like GRRM is having them grow up in real-time!  Oh, by the way...there are quite a few spoilers in the OP, and I don't know if that matters on a board like this but I figured I should point it out.  As to the questions:

I rewrote that a few times.  It originally had a spoiler warning, but I left it out the second go-round.  Thanks for pointing that out.

Quote
At one point I dreaded reading Sansa chapters, but as she gets older they get progressively more interesting.

I'm the same way, I hated Sansa so much for what she did to Ned, but as it's gone on, I think her character is one of the best written characters in the series.  The story is written by a modern, fat old man and I think he has a really good idea what a 13 year old girl in those kind of times would act like.  Pretty little lord daughters like Sansa were just raised and taught that all they had to do in life was to marry a lord and have sons.  That she defended Joffrey for so long seems to make a good deal of sense in the context.  I think it's a shame we don't see as many common characters.  We're really dealing with only the celebrities of the world.  Joffrey is the next king and Sansa has the rest of her life to deal with him.  This would be like if a little girl was getting married to the King of England back when they ruled the entire planet.  I don't think what she did was right, but I think it definitely makes sense for her to have done it.

Quote
Favorite pet theory? The Rhaegar/Lyanna theory is so old now that it almost seems to be a given, despite the fact that it's not really spelled out in the book.  But since it could deal with the central premise of the title, I guess I'll go with that one.

It has so much evidence in the series that I imagine that it has to be fact.  All the blue rose imagery and what not.
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Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2008, 09:25:33 AM »

Offline Robb

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As far as the Red Wedding, in my view, Robb deserved that one.  I can hardly blame Roose Bolton for doing what he did.  Here he is, fighting for his liege lord.  And then all of a sudden, his liege lord does something stupid that would lose them the war.  Now, do you go down with him and face the wrath of Lord Tywin?  Or do you try and work out a deal to save your own skin?  It wouldn't be fun to be on Robb's side once Lord Tywin takes control.  Roose would have lost everything, and gotten tortured by the Mountain to boot!

It all depends on how far the scheme went.  Maybe it was Tywin's idea to have Jeyne seduce Robb?  I'm not saying that Jeyne was a part of it, but maybe they decided to throw two teenagers into a romantic situation and just hope.  I'm pretty sure that Tywin gives his "some wars are won with quills" quote to Tyrion BEFORE the capture of the Crag, which I think to mean that he was writing to Bolton, Frey, and/or Westerling to get the job done.

Like with everyone, I don't think you can blame Roose, but I certainly hate him for it.
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Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2008, 10:09:44 AM »

Offline crownsy

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I think my favorite book is proably a feast for crows, just because it deals with so many of the key issues in the setries from the other side. One of the things I like best about the series is martin’s ability to make you love characters by seeing things from their point of view, and then twist that around on you in later books.

The biggest example of this would be Jamie. For the first 2 books, I loathed Jamie, couldn’t stand him. Then, in book 3, you get chapters from jamie’s perspective, and you start to realize “huh, he’s still a jackoff, but I can see where he’s coming from” add that to the character revelation we’ve seen him go through lately, and martin completely turned my perception of a key character on its head.

On that note, Are you as psyched as I am that cersi gets chapters next book? Those ought to be a mind trip, nothing like seeing the world of westros from a complete and utter manic’s twisted point of view.

For favorite character, I had to pick 3, can’t stick to one.

1. Deanerys- Favorite character by far, her development from subservient puppet to leader of an entire nation has been stunning, some of martin’s best work. Absolutely love her chapters, and look forward to them with great anticipation next book. The way she’s written is fantastic, and I love how she keeps her idealism in tact despite the much harsher world she has to live in across the ocean. Plus, she controls the last 3 dragons in existence, whats not to love?

Also, she’s part of my unbeatable targ/lannister deck in the CCG, stormborne is a ridiculous card :D

 

2. Arya- I flat out love the character development we’ve seen with her. The last book on her was utterly fantastic, and the next one should be more so. I love how she’s gone from annoying rich girl to assassin in training, and her take on things is very insightful, since she pretty much plays the role of the stark’s thirst for revenge, but its tempered by being a teenager on her own.

Best quote- “What are these?”
                   Arya- “Good boots.”
                   “good boots are hard to find”
                   Arya: “just so.”

                   (song readers will get why that was so cold and awesome :D)

3. Tyroin- the dwarf rocks. Funniest chapters around, and he embodies the lannister way of rule without being all BSC like cersi. Now that his father is gone and he’s on the run, his chapters should be even better. Add to that his place (I believe) as one of the 3 dragon riders in the finaly, and you’ve got yourself an awesome character.

Onto best scenes, again, couldn’t pick just one.

1.   cersi and eddard before all hell breaks loose

The scene that made me love martins storytelling, and how he plays both sides when eddard is playing up the high and mighty “your children are abominations, and you crippled mine” speech and cersi brings him up short with;

Cersi: do you love your children stark?

Eddard: of course

Cersi: no less than I love mine.

And eddard contemplates what he would have done faced with his children going to the headsman for being products of incest, and if it was the life of one child he didn’t know was all it would cost to keep them safe, and wheather cersi is really evil as he thinks. I miss eddard.



2.   Sansa and littlefinger in the aerie.

Stunning scene where sansa is being threatened with being thrown out of the aerie by her crazy aunt, only to be saved by little finger talking her down and convincing her he’s only ever loved one person. One of the most shocking moments ever when he whispers “only cat” and shoves her out the door. Amazing chapter.

3.the bar scene with arya and the hound-

I just love how arya comes full circle here, when her and the hound catch up to the mountains men. Between the awesome way the hound goes out, besting 3 people while flat drunk, one of the most chilling moments in the whole book is where arya REALLY lets go of any innocence she had left after her familys destruction when she flat out eviscerates the tickler while screaming “is there gold in the village?!? Jewels?!?” add in the understanding her and the hound come to of their nature’s as the hound dies, and this is a charcter making scene for the she-pup.


Theory on deanerys: my three riders are jon, danny, and tyroin. Tyroin just makes to much sense. His father implied multiple times that he wasen’t his mothers child and that he was a product of “my weakness” which I think would involve sleeping around as the kings hand. Add this to the always implied tension between him and eddard (because they both lusted after the targeryn princess) and you have a pretty good reason, beyond just sneaky vs honesty on the part of their houses, for them to hate each other.

I’d write more, but im at work hehe. intersted to hear peoples interprtations of the above scenes, great topic robb, mucho TP's :D
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Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2008, 10:13:35 AM »

Offline crownsy

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oh as an add on for disccusion to the above post, i'd like to nominate the dialogue between jamie and the blackfish in the latest book over the surrnder of riverrun as one of the coolest conversations of all time, espcially if you include jamie destroying the frey's, love when he informed the frey's they were twice the trators the ex-stark bannermen were sicne they betrayed both lannister and stark.
“I will hurt you for this. A day will come when you think you’re safe and happy and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth. And you will know the debt is paid.” – Tyrion

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2008, 01:47:06 PM »

Offline nickagneta

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First as I said in the Star Wars thread, I like this series so much I am willing to go on record as saying that when it is done it will be the greatest fantasy work ever done. I know that is saying a lot but GRRM brings so much human history and reality of medieval times into these books that it is hard not to love them.

So many works fron LOTR to the Sword of Shanara series to works of Robert Jordan, Stephan Donaldson, L E Modesitt, Terry Goodkind, and David Eddings have a feel of being just a grand fairytale where good fights bad.

Martin's work with the Song of Fire and Ice throws the idea of good and bad right out the window and fades immediately into grey and medieval reality right from the get go in a SOS with Jamie throwing a Bran off the tower to hide his incestuous love.

And if Martin weren't writing fantasy he would have been an utterly fantastic author of suspense novels as his intrigue and game of politics that he is constantly playing is amazing.

I must say that I also love the fact that he doesn't fall in love with characters and get them miraculously out of spots. In SOS of course you're cheering for Ned and boom, he's dead. Robb becomes the hero and boom, he's dead. And on and on it goes with very important characters dying throughout the series. Dying because in reality they probably would have died in real life given their actions.

My favorite characters by far are Tyrion and Arya. People have expounded enough about the two of them that I don't have too.

And as of right now I must say that the most significant scene in the series might just be Jamie seeing the snow and the arrival of the long dead winter. The foreboding of dread and bad things to come considering all the catastrophically bad things that have already occurred during the summer and fall, I think was a brilliant stroke of Martin's in the last book.

Other than that scene of course the Red Wedding, Joffrey's wedding, Danys hatching of the dragons, and Jon defending the wall and being elected Lord Commander have to be some of the most significant scenes, IMHO.

I haven't read any of the samples that GRRM has on his site as I just check the update on his release about once a month and leave it at that. As for the pet theories, I stay away from those as I really don't want to ruin my suspense when reading the book. I prefer just to let GRRM astound, astonish, and surprise me.

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2008, 01:54:16 PM »

Offline crownsy

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Quote
I must say that I also love the fact that he doesn't fall in love with characters and get them miraculously out of spots. In SOS of course you're cheering for Ned and boom, he's dead. Robb becomes the hero and boom, he's dead. And on and on it goes with very important characters dying throughout the series. Dying because in reality they probably would have died in real life given their actions.

Tp, thats my favroite aspect of the books.

mark my words though, ned may be among the living. I'll write up my crazy conspracey theory on that when i get home.  ;D
“I will hurt you for this. A day will come when you think you’re safe and happy and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth. And you will know the debt is paid.” – Tyrion

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #10 on: August 21, 2008, 05:56:15 AM »

Offline Robb

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mark my words though, ned may be among the living. I'll write up my crazy conspracey theory on that when i get home.  ;D

Sadly, I think Martin has gone on record saying that Ned is definitely dead.  Baby Aegon, however, he remains mum on...hmmm...

The three heads of the dragon is an interesting topic.  I think it's Danaerys, and then it's probably going to be Jon if he is truly the son of Rhaegar, but here's an idea that gets me really pumped up:  Bran warging into one of the dragons!

Also, there is the theory that Tyrek Lannister (the one that disappeared during the Riot of Kings Landing) is actually baby Aegon, Rhaegar's son who was supposedly killed by the Mountain, and that Varys had actually kidnapped him and smuggled him out.  It'd be interesting, but I think it's really unlikely.  The hidden Targ theories kind of bore me outside of Jon because I know and like him.*

I hate the fact that the theories sucked me in.  I was really into LOST theories, and then one of them came true and it made one of the best episodes seem like a waste of time.  Oh well.  I know that Martin is a good enough writer that even if Jon is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, it'll still be awesome to read.

I agree that Eddard's conversation with Cersei was awesome.  You're right, Martin's ability to completely turn characters upside down is astounding.  I can't wait for Un-Gregor's POV Chapters when we find out that he's actually a really nice guy in a tough situation.

Also, Dance With Dragons will have a new POV, one we've never seen before, but no one knows who yet.  Some people think Loras Tyrell.  Some think Quentyn Martell.  If Quentyn Martell is any bit as awesome as his uncle, count me em-effing in.

Other than "Favorite Character."  How about "Favorite non-POV Character?" or "Favorite Dead Character".  I'm going with Beric Dondarrion as Favorite non-POV, and Arthur Dayne or Rhaegar as Favorite Dead Character.

Have you guys ever read Martin's the Tales of Dunk and Egg?  They're about Maester Aemon's brother Egg and a knight of the Kingsguard called Ser Duncan the Tall.

*One of my favorite aspects of the R+L=J theory?  If true Cersei wanted to be with Rhaegar and Robert wanted to be with Lyanna.  How funny is that?  Maybe the Baratheon-Lannister marriage would have worked out a little better had Cersei and Robert known that...Nah.
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Re: A Song of Ice and Fire
« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2008, 05:57:23 AM »

Offline Robb

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I'm also a fan of this series. I can't wait for the next book and I hope HBO picks up the series (they have the rights to it but they haven't decided if they are going to do anything with it).

Kind of like the Celtics with Billy Walker!
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