A Game Of Thrones discussion

[DragonAge93]

Just finished reading A Game Of Thrones and.... WOW.... Just wow. I'm just going to finish up the Appendix, then I'm jumping right into A Clash of Kings. And just in time for the premiere of Game Of Thrones tomorrow, right?

[Areo]

Just beware that sometimes (in ASoS in particular) the Appendix contains spoilers for things to come. I believe it was mentioned. So, reading it after the book is OK, but during or before may spoil some of the fun.

[DragonAge93]

Ah, thanks for the headsup Areo.

[Basel Gill]

Just beware that sometimes (in ASoS in particular) the Appendix contains spoilers for things to come. I believe it was mentioned. So, reading it after the book is OK, but during or before may spoil some of the fun.

Thus far, I've found the Appendix to be more helpful than harmful. I'm on page 57, and I've had to refer back to the Appendix several times to look up a character to clarify who is who. Anyhow, I've read a few more chapters, and wanted to post my thoughts on Chapters 2 through 5:

Chapter 2 (Catelyn I): I think the concept of a godswood is interesting. Catelyn's faith in the seven faces of god sounds worth exploring a bit as well. I'm hoping to see the religion of Westeros explored a little more in-depth. I don't have much more reflection on the second chapter, other than noting with interest Ned's refusal to believe in the Others. If he sends an army north to "deal with this King-beyond-the-Wall for good and all", then boy is he gonna be in for a nasty surprise! I wonder if the men stationed at the Wall have ever gotten comfortably numb.

Chapter 3 (Danaerys I): I think Viserys could easily give Waymar Royce a run for his money as "most odious little noble out there." In the end I think Viserys takes the gold there, because Royce had some actual authority, regardless of how little he deserved it. Viserys has no power whatever at the moment, but continues to walk around strutting his stuff as if he is still on the throne. I feel sorry for Dany, the way he treats her. I suppose it's a good thing she isn't going to be wed to him, although Khal Drogo doesn't sound very pleasant to be around either. I haven't actually met Drogo yet, just seen him from a distance across the room. At least Drogo has money and power, so she will have a more comfortable life as Drogo's wife than that of a "beggar king." From what I've heard, the primary parallel for this series is the War of the Roses, but I'm definitely seeing hints of the Jacobite revolts backed by France that came a few centuries later.

Chapter 4 (Ned I): Ned sure is in a tough spot here! On the one hand, being the Hand of the King means he has a whole lot more to deal with than he does in Winterfell... not hard to see that coming. Getting away from that cold weather to move down south has plenty of appeal, however. Trust me, cold weather sucks. Now I wonder what this does to the prospects of sending a bunch of soldiers over that Wall to deal with the situation up there, if Ned isn't going to be around. I suppose a large part of it will have to do with who is left in charge in Winterfell. It's also not hard to predict that we haven't seen the last of the Others, or the world beyond the Wall.

Chapter 5 (Jon I): Jon's skepticism, and his freedom to get royally drunk (pun intended) at the banquet welcoming Robert and Cersei were amusing. Something I noticed in this chapter was that the Lannisters are mentioned as "of Casterley Rock." Now that name sounds familiar. Could this be an homage at all to Stephen King's recurring town of Castle Rock, Maine? Props to Ghost for defending his meal so effectively from another pet. That honeyed chicken sounds quite tasty. My last thoughts on this chapter are of the conversation between Jon and Tyrion. Tyrion certainly give Jon some very good advice. I foresee the two of them becoming friends of some sort based on this scene, regardless of how well their Houses get along. If they become enemies, or at least rivals, they will still have a strong respect for each other.

[Basel Gill]

Chapters 6, 7, & 8

"Shocking. Positively shocking." Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger

Chapter 6 (Catelyn II): I seem to have gotten to the series first major bombshells. In hindsight, it isn't hard believing that Jon Arryn was murdered. Hand of the King seems like the sort of job that comes with a giant bullseye on your back. Murder... "murder most foul"... would certainly explain Arryn's sudden illness when he had been the picture of good health just a couple of weeks before. I bet it was poison of some kind. Given the way that medieval times worked, I can't see anything wrong with the decisions on where to leave the children. Robb is Ned's heir, and does need to learn to rule. A three-year old is too young to take that far south, and the daughters will indeed need to see the wider world for when they get married off. Bran would have been helped by the trip south, and might have been discouraged more effectively from climbing all over the place in the royal castle. At the least, he would be wary while he needed the time to explore it some. It looks like Jon Snow will come into play later on in the events in the North. I wouldn't mind seeing him someday proving himself in Catelyn's eyes As things are, she is holding Ned's time with another woman against Jon, as if it's somehow Jon's fault. If he can do so without alerting the attention of the Lannister bunch, Ned would benefit from finding out who delivered Lysa's letter to Maester Luwin. This may be the only person, aside from King Robert himself, that can be trusted in the Baratheon household... or at least in the Baratheon traveling party.

Chapter 7 (Arya I): Arya, from the brief glimpse we have of her, is also unfairly put down upon by her family. No wonder she gets on well with Jon. So she can't do needlework. Big deal. When she is married off, she'll likely have servants to do it for her. So will Sansa, for that matter. Joffrey... another arrogant, annoying member of the young nobility. Except he's a Crown Prince, so he even lords it over other nobles.

Chapter 8 (Bran II): And here's where the other shoe dropped for me. Not content with assassinating the Hand of the King, Jamie and Cersei decide to top it off with killing a seven-year-old boy who had the bad luck to overhear their evil planning. One thing the conversation between them, and the events with Joffrey in the previous chapter, made me wonder, was whether Joff is an active participant in the plot, or just a pawn? The Lannisters look like they want to get rid of Robert and put Joff on the throne, and then they can be the powers behind the throne without being in the forefront. What happens when Joff comes of age? How long is he going to be willing to be just a Lannister puppet? I don't expect him to stay loyal to his father, though. Not with that divided coat of arms.

Finally, a question of nomenclature: One thing I've noticed is the chapters are not numbered. Instead each one is simply titled with the first name of the POV character. What's the standard for referring to chapters among ASOIAF fans? Do people normally number the chapters anyway? Just using the names from the books would be confusing, since there are several identically titled chapters. I'm planning to keep this blog going through till the end of the book, and pick it up again whenever I get to the following books. (I happen to be in the middle of several book series at the moment. Reluctance to juggle yet another series of books was part of what took me so long to start ASOIAF.) If I stick with the blogging, I want this not to get confusing as to where in the book I am for those reading.

[Zizoz]

I believe it's normal to refer to chapters with the POV character and a Roman numeral, e.g. Chapter 8 is Bran II, the second Bran chapter in the book. At least that's how I've seen it done here.

[Basel Gill]

I believe it's normal to refer to chapters with the POV character and a Roman numeral, e.g. Chapter 8 is Bran II, the second Bran chapter in the book. At least that's how I've seen it done here.

I'll keep that in mind for future installments. If I'm not too lazy, I may even edit what I have written already. Thanks for the info.

[Aelinor Keath]

I'm getting the impression that I should buy a roll of butcher paper and start mapping out all the relationships. It's hard to know who's a minor character, and who might come up again later. Thankfully there are vast databases of info on the web... Just type in a characters name and you're at the wiki page for them - but I run into the same problem I have here, of spoiling myself, when I'm just trying to figure out who Shmendrick is and then I go to his page and it's like "Shmendrick was a cool guy who is BRUTALLY MURDERED on page 400", and I'm like "AAAAH TOO MUCH INFO!!!"

My friend just started COK and he's an obsessive note taker. He photocopied the appendicies and enlarged them onto legal size paper and uses that to take notes on.

[Kat]

You guys are killing me here! I so want to participate in this discussion, as I'm on page 225, and am just LOVING the book! But I took a chance and clicked on the first spoiler link in this thread and *REALLY* blew a pretty big event for myself. Maybe people could refer to how far along in the book their spoiler refers to?

I'm getting the impression that I should buy a roll of butcher paper and start mapping out all the relationships. It's hard to know who's a minor character, and who might come up again later. Thankfully there are vast databases of info on the web... Just type in a characters name and you're at the wiki page for them - but I run into the same problem I have here, of spoiling myself, when I'm just trying to figure out who Shmendrick is and then I go to his page and it's like "Shmendrick was a cool guy who is BRUTALLY MURDERED on page 400", and I'm like "AAAAH TOO MUCH INFO!!!"

When you get to the next book, if you have a hard time remembering who people are, the character guide at Tower of the Hand has a feature where it allows you to set a reading level for which book(s) you have finished, from 0 to 4, so if, say, you say you have finished AGOT and you're reading Clash of Kings, you'll get spoilers for a character only through the first book.

[Basel Gill]

When you get to the next book, if you have a hard time remembering who people are, the character guide at Tower of the Hand has a feature where it allows you to set a reading level for which book(s) you have finished, from 0 to 4, so if, say, you say you have finished AGOT and you're reading Clash of Kings, you'll get spoilers for a character only through the first book.

Kat, where on the Tower do you go to do this? I've never heard of it, and can't seem to find it. I tried My Tower Landing, no luck there.

[Zoë Sumra]

Chapters 6, 7, & 8

So [Arya] can't do needlework. Big deal. When she is married off, she'll likely have servants to do it for her. So will Sansa, for that matter.

Not actually the case, though you'd think it. Rough mending, yes. Embroidery was an expected skill up to the early nineteenth century.

Kat, where on the Tower do you go to do this? I've never heard of it, and can't seem to find it. I tried My Tower Landing, no luck there.

On each character's bio page, there's a drop-down at the top where you set the level. It defaults to No Books Read, i.e. no spoilers. I think it may remember which setting you're on if you go from one character to another...? *tests* Yes, it does.

[Basel Gill]

On each character's bio page, there's a drop-down at the top where you set the level. It defaults to No Books Read, i.e. no spoilers. I think it may remember which setting you're on if you go from one character to another...? *tests* Yes, it does.

Is that the part that says Scope? I kept clicking Scope, and I had been quite aggravated that the mouthwash I ordered hadn't arrived yet. ;) :rolleyes: *rimshot*

On a side note, I really wish the WoT Encyclopedia would add this feature.

[Basel Gill]

Chapters 9-12:

Chapter 9 (Tyrion I): BRAN IS ALIVE!! I thought sure that fall would kill him. Joff here shows that he isn't ready for the world of political intrigue quite yet when he can't be bothered to go to Ned and Catelyn and express his sorrow over Bran.Not only is he a jerk, but he is a dope (granted, he's only twelve). Sure, Bran doesn't matter to him, but the forms must be followed. Tyrion so far seems like the only likable Lannister there is. But I'm assuming he will still work toward the Lannister cause, no matter how much of a bunch of jerks the rest of his family is. Tyrion's choice of breakfast order sounds quite tasty. But does anyone think that his bacon, which he ordered burnt till it turns black, arrives rather quickly? The ensuing conversation after he orders doesn't seem to have nearly enough time to cook bacon that much.

Chapter 10 (Jon II): I'm sorry, but I just really didn't care for Catelyn's behavior in this chapter. She is a nice person, except whenever Jon enters the picture. Then she becomes a real bitch. I had expected her attitude toward him to thaw out some, now that he would be having no kids of his own who might challenge for head of the House. Guess not. I enjoyed his farewell to Arya. I wonder if she will eventually have a need for that sword. A girl going for the tomboy approach in medieval times must have sucked.

Chapter 11 (Danaerys II): Okay, so Drogo isn't such a bad person after all. Those handmaidens Dany got as a wedding present will come in handy. Illyrio and her brother knew exactly what she needed to learn. Once she and Drogo have more than one word in common, I think they will get along splendidly.

Chapter 12: (Eddard II): Ned found King Robert to be physically unrecognizable earlier in the book. Maybe that was a foreshadowing, as here he seemed to be wondering what happened to his old friend on the inside. For two men who used to be very close, they have some pretty fundamental disagreements in this chapter. Robert is way too trusting of the Lannisters. Nothing good can come of this; I'm just sure it will come back to bite him. Jaime and Robert are right on one thing: that throne, if GRRM conceived it anything like HBO has shown it, does seem to be really uncomfortable. That seems to be a common stereotype of thrones, although I think this one would take the cake.

[Whatever]

One per chapter would be a LOT of threads. Maybe grouping into sections of, I don't know, 10 chapters might make more sense. Feel free to try the experiment. :)

sure, when i have 3 hours and nothing to do i'll try :D

[Basel Gill]

It's been a bit since I've posted some more chapter thoughts. Here's my reaction to Chapters 13-16:

Chapter 13 (Tyrion II): This chapter is unsettling for Jon. Here he finds out for the first time that joining the Night's Watch is not the noble calling he always envisioned. I have a feeling the two rapers will be back in future chapters, even after the group gets to the Wall. Even with the Watch being full of the dregs of society and scum of the earth, Jon should be glad to be there. For the first time in his life, he is somewhere that he can be judged solely on his merit. His parentage won't be an issue serving on the Wall. If he serves well, he will presumably advance and be held in high regard. The other thing I took special note of in this chapter was Tyrion's interest in dragons. There seems to be a good deal of dwelling on dragons so far, between Dany getting dragon eggs for bride gifts, and now Tyrion's reading. We're getting told time and again that there are no more dragons, but I have my doubts. GRRM seems to be dropping a bit of foreshadowing here. I wonder if those are really dragon eggs.

Chapter 14 (Catelyn III): Catelyn really improves during this chapter. I found it interesting that if she had been in full command of her faculties earlier, she wouldn't have been present to defend Bran. It's a wonder what a good sleep will do for someone. Once she wakes up, she is much better! Who set the fire in the library? Tyrion spent a good deal of time in the library. He's a very smart person, this seems like the sort of plan he could come up with. How much does he know of Jamie and Cersei's involvement with Bran's injury? The scenes with him so far don't seem to give any indication that he knew Bran was pushed from the window. So does he even know that Bran knows things he shouldn't? Bran's attacker couldn't have set the fire when he was trying to kill Bran, so I'm guessing there's another mole besides the attacker. Tyrion himself couldn't have done it, he's on his way north. The other issue I have with this theory is, Tyrion loves books so much, would he want anything to do with burning a library?

Chapter 15 (Sansa I): Our first POV with Sansa. She has come off badly in Arya's POV, so it's nice to see her side of things. Even from Sansa's POV, I still like Arya. I'm finding it hard to dislike her as much as Sansa does. Joff started to show his good side for a bit, but then things went badly. It looks like the planned marriage between Joff and Sansa isn't going to go very well. One thing I took note of was Joff's sword is named Lion's Tooth. A lion being the sigil of House Lannister, this comes to me as another sign that he feels more loyalty to his mother's house than than his father's, regardless of his last name.

Chapter 16 (Eddard III): Things following off the last chapter develop into worse things here. It isn't as bad as it could have been. Assaulting the heir to the throne is generally a capital offense in most medieval lands, so Arya could very well have been executed. Cersei doesn't come off as very pleasant here, even though her son has been attacked and his sword tossed into the river. I liked Ned having Lady buried at Winterfell just so Cersei wouldn't be able to convert her to a rug. Ned has his principles.

[Bronn Stone]

Spoilers for Chapter 16 - Eddard III

Chapter 16 (Eddard III): Things following off the last chapter develop into worse things here. It isn't as bad as it could have been. Assaulting the heir to the throne is generally a capital offense in most medieval lands, so Arya could very well have been executed. Cersei doesn't come off as very pleasant here, even though her son has been attacked and his sword tossed into the river. I liked Ned having Lady buried at Winterfell just so Cersei wouldn't be able to convert her to a rug. Ned has his principles.

Response to above

A peasant assaulting the heir might be executed, but not the daughter of the Hand. The Mycah's of the world pay that price, not the Arya Starks. Cersei is a bitch, but Robert fails almost as badly. He IS the King. His whole passive-aggressive bit is not very kingly.

[Basel Gill]

Response to above

A peasant assaulting the heir might be executed, but not the daughter of the Hand. The Mycah's of the world pay that price, not the Arya Starks. Cersei is a bitch, but Robert fails almost as badly. He IS the King. His whole passive-aggressive bit is not very kingly.

Yeah, I wasn't very impressed with Robert's lack of balls here. He puts Cersei in her place a little bit when he tells her to shut up, but in the end she gets pretty much everything she wants, aside from the direwolf rug. Cersei is such a bitch in this chapter, not as a reaction to her son being assaulted, but just cause it's part of her personality. I can tell there isn't much love in that marriage.

[Basel Gill]

Another four chapters under my belt... 17-20:

OK, so things take a few interesting turns in my next chunk of the novel....

Chapter 17 (Bran III): Bran wakes up. But I found his dream to be far more interesting. Apparently Bran has some psychic visions while he is sleeping. He accurately sees his mother and Ser Rodrik on a ship, complete with Ser Rodrik retching his guts out. He sees the events surrounding Ned, Sansa, and Arya dealing with the stuff from the previous two chapters. He sees some men in armor. The first one is obviously the Hound. The second has shiny golden armor and might be Jaime. I can't recall for sure seeing any description of his armor earlier in the book but this rings a definite bell. The third one, a hulking figure in armor made of stone... I have no clue who the hell this could be. Armor made from stone... seriously? Most likely this is someone I haven't met at this point in the book. At the end Bran names his wolf Summer. I think it's a good name.

Chapter 18 (Catelyn IV): The plot thickens. Catelyn apparently has an ally in an old flame (or at least that's how he thinks of himself). Varys certainly has a lot of informed sources. You'd almost think bugs had been invented a few hundred years early. And the dagger used in the attack on Bran belongs to Tyrion. Curiouser and curiouser. This meshes well with my earlier Tyrion ruminations. But... and this is a significant but... was the dagger still owned by Tyrion when it was given to Bran's attacker? Petyr reveals he owned it, and lost it in a wager to Tyrion. We have no knowledge - yet - of what has happened to the dagger in the intervening time. It's possible Tyrion lost it in another bet, and has no connection whatever to this plot. It's even possible the true plotter knows of the dislike between Lannisters and Starks and either sees a convenient person to frame, or wants to play the two houses against each other.

Chapter 19 (Jon III): Jon is still learning that life in the Watch isn't so glamorous as he had thought. He's getting no sympathy or special treatment from anyone, including his uncle. (Realisitically, he's better off without it, since with it, he'd just be hated as a commander's pet. His best bet is to prove himself worthy.) He is showing himself a better fighter than any of the other boys, and they hate him for it. Tyrion once again shows himself to be Jon's friend. The two outcasts, from houses that don't care for each other, get along splendidly. It's like a bromance version of Romeo and Juliet. Tyrion's advice helps Jonwin over the other boys, but he's now made a serious enemy of Ser Alliser Throne in the process. One thing that could come back to cause trouble is Jon crows about Bran's waking up directly to Tyrion... one chapter after Tyrion is implicated in the plot to kill Bran. Uh-oh.

Chapter 20 (Eddard IV): Robert is really quite clueless as King. Fifteen years ago, he overthrew a cruel despot in the war against the Targaryens. Now Robert has been showing his failings as King are just the opposite; he is too nice. Every time we see him, he either has no guts to enforce his will (he eventually caves in to Cersei over killing one of the direwolves) or he seems to be looking at things through magical rose-colored glasses. Now we find out that he inherited a vast treasury from the Targaryens, and not only squandered it all but currently has Westeros six million in the hole. And to top it all off, he wants to blow another hundred grand on a tournament honoring Ned, which if he knew Ned as well as an old friend should, he'd know Ned would prefer to not have this honor. Ned seems not to have had much luck persuading Robert of anything so far in the book. Somehow, I don't think that if he went to his King and said "Your Grace, are you barking mad?" it would go over well. But that's certainly going through Ned's mind.

[LeBæuf]

Eddard gets beheaded. It made me really sad whilst reading this chapter, since Ned is my favorite character, and seeing how in his last moments, everyone looked at him as a traitor, and not the honorable man he is. And also my disliking of Joffrey was at an all-time high. And poor Arya, all the pain and trouble she had to suffer through throughout that whole chapter.

Eh,

It wasn't very honorable of Eddard to deceive his king on his deathbead like he did. And Joff is only a boy of what, fourteen? I expect there'll be plenty of positie character developement in store for him, perhaps even a POV. As for him being responsible for Ned's ececution, I find it unlikely he wasn't just told to do wat he did; He sems very dependent on his mother, who would probably shift blame unto her son the King instead of being responsible for enraging the Northmen.

And Arya seems like a sociopath, killing people with no (POV) sign of remorse.

[Basel Gill]

I've had this ready to post for two days but hadn't got round to it. Chapters 21-24:

Chapter 21 (Tyrion III): I love Tyrion's sense of humor. He cracks me up during the dinner scene in this chapter. Alliser once again shows himself to have absolutely no sense of humor. Then Tyrion goes up to the top of the Wall for one last look He meets Jon, and their friendship deepens with a handshake that really carries some weight. I'm hoping this bit is done just as effectively on screen. He mentions to Jon he will be stopping at Winterfell on his way back south. Since he knows (through Jon) that Bran is alive and awake, this gave me some trepidation. Yet for all the evidence against Tyrion, we don't see anything about the attack in his thoughts. Shouldn't his POV include him thinking about it if he arranged it? A new possibility that hit me this afternoon was, what if Tyrion isn't behind the attack on Bran and the fire in the library at all, but it was one of Tyrion's men traveling with him? Even if Tyrion

, the true orchestrator of the plot on Bran may be returning to the scene to finish the job. Jon indicates a desire to head north of the Wall to search for his uncle. Something tells me that would be a suicidal move on Jon's part. If he ever sees Uncle Ben again, he will find Ben has a strange new appetite for BRAAAAAIIINNNNS!!! Jon would be better off simply taking to heart Uncle Ben's final bit of advice: "With great power comes great responsibility." Oh, wait... wrong Uncle Ben.

Chapter 22 (Arya II): I'd been wondering when we'd get back to Arya's POV. Ned seems to be learning to accept his daughter for what she is, rather than trying to force a square peg into a round hole. She doesn't want to be a pretty little princess. If she wants to play at swords, then go with it. As Ned says, if he took the sword away, she'd just get a morningstar under her pillow. Under your pillow doesn't strike me as the best place to keep one of those, for either your pillow or your head. It sure wouldn't be very comfortable. The story of how Arya and Jory got rid of Nymeria to protect her was very touching. I get the feeling we haven't seen the last of Nymeria, somehow. Domesticated animals have a way of returning home.

Chapter 23 (Danaerys III): One of these days, Viserys is going to lose his temper at the worst possible time, and it will cost him much more than the embarrassment of walking behind the riders. I don't see him living until the end of the book. Dany seems to be learning to stand up to him; she may even play a hand in his death. And she is carrying Drogo's baby. Interesting, but I don't know where this is going.

Chapter 24 (Bran IV): Robb's reception of Tyrion is pretty cold. Word can't possibly have reached Winterfell about what Catelyn found out in King's Landing. So this is based solely on Stark/Lannister mistrust. Tyrion redeems that with the saddle blueprnt. Too bad it takes the wolves more time to realize it. No clue what might have set them off. Family hostilities are beyond the understanding of pets, right? Robb still has a bit of growing up to do, both from his treatment of Tyrion and his reaction to the news of Ben.