You are right, I did forget about the arena chapter and that was quite good. But really, everything else of any import can be easily summed up in a few sentences without reading through the excessively repetitive dithering/arguments at Mereen/Wall.
Danny loves Dario oh so much (her advisors are unhappy about that). She locks her "children" in a dark pit and wrings her hands over it from time to time. A prince of Dorne arrives to offer her support to retake the Iron Throne but alas it is too late as she is pledged to another and has her people to consider. So she marries a local noble to solidify her reign in Mereen and to stop the revenge killings on the freed men (she doesn't like him & hes into boys). Que the arena and the unresolved poisoning of Belwas.
Anything of any real tactical value concerning the siege can be gleaned from Bariston The Bold's PoV.
Jon needs to act to save mankind, this includes the wildlings. Thus he must open wide the gates to them and somehow feed them. No one else on the wall is keen with the idea and they bring it up every chapter but Jon isn't interested in their concerns. He sends some ships to a ruin north of the wall to save a large group of wildlings but fails at great cost to their ships due to a storm. Learning of Bolton's claims of holding his sister he sends the King beyond the wall (who everyone else but the red witch thinks is dead) in disguise to go rescue her.
To feed the wildlings through the winter he cuts a deal with a Bravosi Banker and they are admitted to the wall to help fight the white walkers. Jon meddles with some Karstark family intrigue and marries their runaway heir to a Magnar of Thenn in the hopes of fostering unity and gaining allies. Jon's plot to save his sister is discovered by Bolton who then sends Jon a provocative demand laced with threats. Jon reacts badly, breaks his oaths very publicly and things blow up in his face as a result.
I don't think I missed very much.
But really do as you like, I don't know why I posted above aside from the memory of how bummed out I was after reading book 5. There's no reason to be overly negative though, enjoy it for what it is. Lets look forward to the fireworks in book 6.
I'm not the biggest fan of ADWD either, in fact I found it a bit of a drag to read, but let's be fair, you could summarize any of the plotlines from any of the books in that way.
I'm not the biggest fan of ADWD either, in fact I found it a bit of a drag to read, but let's be fair, you could summarize any of the plotlines from any of the books in that way.
You could write any summary that way but the point I was trying to make was that in this case nearly each of those chapters was a repeat of the one that came before it (useless bloat). They dealt with the same concerns more or less and consisted of little more than artificially prolonged inaction and stalling over the course of hundreds of pages. Whereas in the other books things progressed in a natural and flowing manner without any evidence of obvious padding and delay and were, as a result, a pleasure to read. GRRM dug himself a hole with this one by trying toalmost resolvenearly every plot line (up to a point in time) at the same instant, hopefully hes out now and things will improve in the 6th.
Only reading a summary of aDwD and you'll miss the reek chapters and the Manderly's meat pies.
You'll also miss all the details used to build theories that manage to keep us in the Westeros universe and not forget everything before the next book release.
Honestly, the pie thing went over my head entirely when I read it for the first time. I was pretty sick with a flu or some BS at the time (and, tbh, a little bored with the book) so I probably wasn't paying as much attention as I should have.
For those not aware a companion book titled "The World of Ice and Fire" is due out late this year. GRRM is not the sole author but one of three (+ two ASOIAF researchers). It's the history of the ASOIAF world through biased Maester and other characters POV.
Has anyone read the Dunk and Egg novels/prequels/shortstories? Are they strictly graphic novels or can I get a paperback version? Is it part of some other short story compilation?
Has anyone read the Dunk and Egg novels/prequels/shortstories? Are they strictly graphic novels or can I get a paperback version? Is it part of some other short story compilation?
The versions that I read were all text and were each ~100 pages long. They were fun to read and I wish he would do more of them, it's refreshing to see Westeros at a different time without the threat of whatever impending all the time. As far as buying them in a collection I have no idea.
We discussed them back on MN, and I think most of the people that show up in this thread had read the Dunk and Egg books.
I enjoyed them quite a bit, for reasons that I'm sure will be stated a dozen times over.
Hopefully it'll be the first real move she makes in the series and it causes people to think 'man I can't believe she's capable of being so cold-hearted/calculated'. But really I doubt there will be anything really controversial.
Littlefinger has had too much build up and not enough resolution to just be killed? Also while Harry "Arryn" has been established to be a womaniser, it's Sansa's style to fall in love with dicks then whine about it.
It must be something to do with sweet robin dying, especially bad considering she is caring for him and he is her cousin.
