George R.R. Martin's A DANCE WITH DRAGONS - Spoiled Discussion

[Expletive Deleted]

In order to keep the main "Winter is Coming" thread from becoming a morass of spoiler tags as people read A Dance With Dragons at different paces, I thought this might be a good idea.

To be clear, there will be spoilers.

To get us started . . . I liked the Griff chapters, but I'm undecided on the idea of an additional Targaryen running around. Bringing him in adds an intriguing new faction, especially with the connection to Varys and Illyrio, but it makes Dany a little less special.

Speaking of Aegon VI, was that foreshadowed at all? The image of the Mountain bashing baby Aegon's brains out was a powerful one in earlier books and one that Martin went back to several times, but I don't recall there being any noticeable ambiguity to it.

[thespianphryne]

But knowing Varys, is young Griff really baby Aegon? Remember Dany's vision in Qarth? The mummer's dragon.

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That's certainly an option. Connington would have to be in on it, though, and I'm not getting that sense from his POVs.

As far as the mummer's dragon bit goes, I don't know if it's necessarily relevant. The other two items in that passage (Lightbringer and a stone dragon) were related to Stannis's storyline in the same book.

[Sheldon]

I think Aegon's purpose is a plot device to keep southern westeros busy until Dany gets her crap together (both literally and figuratively) and gets the hell out of Mereen. He will be killed just before she arrives. All I know is that 1/2 through the book I was ready for them to get out of there, but Martin seems to have some grand purpose for keeping her there so long. It was pretty frustrating when I read the last Barristan chapter and realized it the book was going to end, and we were probably going to spend a good chunk of the next book in that hellhole.

[worstblogever]

I'm around 350-400 pages in now.

The Aegon think threw me for a loop, and immediately got my wheels spinning, about the implications. The Targaryen line might not end with Dany, after all, if he is what he says he is.

Varys continues to be fascinating in all he's involved in, even if thus far in book 5, he just has the one opening scene during Tyrion's escape.

Melisandre has just started trying to get her hooks in Jon Snow, where I'm at. The priests of the red god bother me, don't trust them. It's not when they order sacrifices, even, it's the scene where Davos took Melisandre to assassinate his brother, Renly, and she birthed a shadow that did the job. I don't want to be suspicious of folks just for wielding magic... but the Red Priestess is pretty sinister about what she's doing with it. She's hardly pulling rabbits out of hats, here.

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Varys continues to be fascinating in all he's involved in, even if thus far in book 5, he just has the one opening scene during Tyrion's escape.

He only gets one more scene later on, but it's a doozy.

[Jared H.]

Just finished the book.

So is Jon post-stabbing going to end up dying and possessing his direwolf or live and become Azor Azai reborn, do you think?

[Sheldon]

Just finished the book.

So is Jon post-stabbing going to end up dying and possessing his direwolf or live and become Azor Azai reborn, do you think?

Both. He'll be in his direwolf probably for a chapter or two, and then become Azor Azai reborn through some ridiculous magical thingamabob....

[cactusmaac]

It was good. I can understand why it took so long to come out given how vast the scope of the book was.

I was marking out at the prospect of a Jon throwing down with Ramsay and then Martin has him Caesered. Hopefully there will be a Stannis-Asha-Mance team-up to get rid of him. Stannis is too good a character not to keep around till the end.

I'm not sure what to make of the new Aegon. He seems more like a plot contrivance than anything else. It does make an odd sort of sense since if Varys had pinned his hopes on Dany or Viserys as being the realm's saviour, he hadn't done much in the way of prepping them for leadership.

I was pretty annoyed at Dany's chapters. They were long. They were mostly populated by characters I don't care about at all and just involved far too much political table-talk and not enough change and movement.

Surprised we didn't get much confirmation of Jon's parentage or Coldhand's identity. But there were pretty heavy hints of Jon being the true king and Azhor Azhai.

Really surprised by my growing sympathy for Theon. I hope he and Jeyne survive.

[Sheldon]

I agree with much of what you wrote cactusmaac.
Here is what I posted in the other thread before this thread was started there are end of the book spoilers:

First - Even though it appears that he met his end, I doubt that Jon is dead. I'm wondering if the prologue about Warging is some sort of setup for how Jon is going to survive. Melisandre kept telling him to keep Ghost close, maybe he is going to Warg into Ghost and find some way to survive. Still I did think that he was assuming that the Night's watch was going to accept all of changes. He had to know there would be some blowback from letting all the Wildlings through.

Furthermore I doubt that Ramsay's letter is legit, I don't think Stannis's army fell despite how ragged they looked when Asha and Theon were reunited. I think Bolton has Mance Rayder and is using information he gleaned from them because he thinks Fake Arya is with Jon. Still if that is how Stannis meets his demise, and we only get it via letter I'll be pretty annoyed. Plus I think Fat Manderly has something up his sleeve.

Regarding Meeren, I am really annoyed that it is not resolved and they are not on their way out of there. Barristan has been a great character, and I am pleasantly surprised he isn't dead, he is a lot like Ned, and his honor is going to lead to trouble for him.

Poor Quentyn Martell, he came too late, and really died because of his stupidity.

Dany just bothered me more and more as the book went on. She should have been working with her dragons more, it seems like she just left them there, and spent more time yearning for that damned Daario. Meeren was a horrible situation that she made worse.
Now she has the plague, and she's met up with Khal Jhaqo at the end with Drogon. I do not think Jhaqo is going to treat her very well, even if she has a Dragon. I can see her claiming to still be his Khalesi, but I don't think he's going to accept her.

Victarion,(whose chapters I oddly enjoyed, especially his interactions the Red Priest in comparison to Stannis/Melisandre) will come to Meeren's aid, and he provides enough boats to take Dany's army, but the way the Dany's chapter ends she seems far away and it looks like Meeren will fall without her. Again I don't see Jhaqo coming to the rescue with Dany.

Regarding Aegon, I'm want to see how Dorne responds to his arrival. Jon Connington's chapters were good. I understand why they are there. With Dany delayed yet again in Meeren, Connington's men will provide someone for Mace Tyrell (besides crazy Cersei) to have to deal with next book. Plus it nicely muddies Dany's claim. Plus with his existence it also makes it harder for Jon if he really is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna to have a claim, unless of course Aegon dies, and that wouldn't surprise me either.

I like Penny, but everytime I read a Tyrion chapter I am expecting some sort of horrible thing to happen to her. I am happy that Tyrions time as a slave was relatively brief. He is one of the few characters where things are getting better for.

I'm not surprised Brienne is alive and Jaime has disappeared with her. The Brotherhood probably had Podrick hostage until she brings Jaime.

Cersei with Robert Strong (undead Mountain) as her protector was also predicted by many. In light of Varys killing Kevan Lannister at the end, I think she will try to become Queen Regent once her trial is done, and just as Varys wants there will be more chaos, and ineptitude. It was nice seeing Varys make an appearance.

Bran's chapters were interesting but too few, but I understand why, his perspective is limited.

While Arya only had two chapters they were among my favorites. GRRM could write a young adult novel of just Arya training chapters. I like how she was able to "see".

[Jared H.]

Yeah, Dany went from having frequent moments of crazy genius in previous books to just being a dumb horny teen in this one.

Also, I'm assuming her last chapter in the book is showing us that she has the flux(riding the pale mare), yes?

Looks like to get the benefits of being of the lineage of the dragon(immunity to illness and flame, taming the dragons), one must embrace their inner dragon/work towards realizing their purpose.

[Expletive Deleted]

So is Jon post-stabbing going to end up dying and possessing his direwolf or live and become Azor Azai reborn, do you think?

Here's a left-field option: he could become a "good" wight, a la Coldhands.

[ImmortalIronFist]

Here's a left-field option: he could become a "good" wight, a la Coldhands.

I'm pretty sure he's Azor Azai and is in the process of being reborn in salt and smoke (His wounds were smoking and Bowen Marsh was crying (salt).

Plus, whenever Martin has killed a main character, its been definitive that they're dead (with the exception of Catelyn, but she's kind of a zombie), which also makes me believe Stannis isn't dead.

[thespianphryne]

Dany's behaviour makes sense in light of the fact that she's still a teenager. And her early easy victories have made her complacent. Also she's learning the same lesson Robert Baratheon learned: winning a kingdom is easy, keeping one is hard. Especially if you want to change the basis of its political system. Dany has already shown that she wants to be kind to her people. Now she needs to know how to be cruel to be kind. So yeah, as static as the Meereen scenario turned out to be it highlighted something about the girl queen. Also how many people just turn out to be brilliant fucking strategists overnight?

As for her dragons, the fact that one of them ate a little girl is frightening. Remember that she thinks of herself as the mother. And she can't have kids. That would put anyone off dragons for a bit, don't you?

[cactusmaac]

They don't have teenagers in the world of ASOIAF. You're either an adult or a child. Dany's behaviour was disappointing in that she seems to be the only younger character to have regressed in maturity. She spent most of the time paralysed and just reacted emotionally to events. Contrast that to Jon who you could see growing into a good leader through the course of the book. There wasn't much offered that would suggest Dany would make a decent ruler.

A few items picked up from other boards:

1) The sorcerer that Bran encounters is probably Brynden Rivers aka Bloodraven, a Targaryean bastard who served as Hand of the King over a century ago and later became Lord Commander of the Nights Watch. He had one eye and was reputed to be a sorcerer.

2) Jon Connington was in love with Rhaegar,

3) It's speculated that Ramsay had Theon castrated, hence his poor reaction to Abel's handmaidens and fears of being seen naked.