Leigh Butler First time reader

[Faint]

She is really serving as proof positive that some readers don't catch on to R + L = J; something I found quite impossible before I found this forum.

[Whitering]

Well, ya, perhaps it has to do with her reading so slowly, she often forgets previous details, and, for example, in her Wheel of Time reread, she maintained the FAQ, was a big participant in the newsgroup of the day, and had read all the books many times but still missed details she had forgotten about until doing a detailed reread. Maybe it will come to her when she reads the books at a normal pace, at this rate, it's been a couple of years since she read Ned's thoughts about the whole thing.

[ambi76]

She is really serving as proof positive that some readers don't catch on to R + L = J; something I found quite impossible before I found this forum.

IIRC she contemplated shortly if Lyanna could be Jon's mother but Rhaegar as the papa is just not really on her radar and so she dismissed it again.

She also hasn't gotten the Renly/Loras stuff, or rather even more frustratingly she does get all the hints and then interprets them totally wrong/different. I almost fell off my chair when she thought for an odd moment that Loras had something to do with Renly's murder, because she couldn't make sense of Loras killing the other rainbow guards otherwise. Part of the problem is that ever since Ned thought so in GoT she's convinced that Renly was madly in love with Margaery.

[Roose Bolton's Onesie]

Her reaction to the Red Wedding was bloody delicious.

[Kienn]

I call farce - she writes the meme "Ned's dead, baby, Ned's dead" verbatim after Ned's execution chapter. She's been spoiled or read the books before for sure.

Skimming the commentary is slightly entertaining for me at least(basically similar to reading comments on these forums). I find most of her reactions a bit over-the-top though.

[Father of Hosts]

I call farce - she writes the meme "Ned's dead, baby, Ned's dead" verbatim after Ned's execution chapter. She's been spoiled or read the books before for sure.

Skimming the commentary is slightly entertaining for me at least(basically similar to reading comments on these forums). I find most of her reactions a bit over-the-top though.

I disagree. The "Ned's dead baby" is a pretty simple connection to make if your job is to be "hip" on literature and cinema.

[Kienn]

So you think she had heard the line before and just had no clue what it was referencing until she finished the chapter?

Or you think she finished the chapter, then managed to find it online somehow without spoiling anything else in the books so she could include it in her comments?

[Father of Hosts]

So you think she had heard the line before and just had no clue what it was referencing until she finished the chapter?

Or you think she finished the chapter, then managed to find it online somehow without spoiling anything else in the books so she could include it in her comments?

So you would assume she is not capable of connecting the Pulp Fiction character of "Zed" to "Ned"?

ETA: It's a pretty well referenced and bastardized line, outside of ASOIAF.

[Whitering]

Part 1 of the Purple Wedding dropped today, and if you haven't been reading you may want to look back at her reaction the Red Wedding as well.

[Whitering]

Leigh wrapped up her read of Storm of Swords this morning. It will be a couple of weeks until she tackles the first D&E story because you Americans have a strange holiday schedule.

[Whitering]

She just finished finished the Sworn Sword, so next week or so she should start on Feast.

[The Holy Goat]

I've been following her read of the series and I find her first impressions refreshing. I was myself spoiled on much of the series, and many things didn't have the same initial impact for me as they seem to have had for her. Can't wait to see what she makes of Feast and Dance. Both books are slower and less entertaining on a first read, but more fullfilling on a reread, or so I thought. I wonder if she will think the same.

[Ser Arys Redshirt]

I enjoyed what I read of Leigh Butler's coumns. I did not feel the need to fiinish them all, but there was some funny stuff and some nice observations of the work in question. I did not find them objectionable., nor did I find them laudable. If anything, I saw them as enviable. If somebody would pay me to write about what I think about A Song of Ice and Fire, I'd be very happy.

[Ser Not Appearing]

I'm enjoying quite a bit of this, having started at the beginning just yesterday.

I will say, however, that Leigh is either very astute (quite possible) or has had more spoiled than is letting on (also quite possible) or my own reading was too fast to be this thoughtful (again quite possible) or I picked up on more at the time than I now remember (not as possible but there's a chance).

Grain of salt for that reason but it is quite the fun cliff-notes+ for ASOIAF. An enjoyable style of writing as well. Very happy to have found this thread.

[Whitering]

Well, Leigh just met Quentyn for the first time in Dance and has done all the Dunk & Egg novellas. I am quite sure that she will be doing a reread after it's all said and done, maybe even starting it after she catches up. I have no doubt now that she will finish Dance before the release of WoW, but I hope I am wrong.

It can be tough to restrain myself from posting about something she has forgotten, but it happens a lot because for her, the first chapter of Feast was over a year ago. We'll get more of her insight and discussion after she finishes, rereads, and then rereads for TOR.

A long time ago she maintained the Wheel of Time FAQ, which you can probably still find archived on the net, and was a lively debater on the old newsgroup where we chatted about that series before forums and so on were actually a thing.

Anyway, she's off for Christmas break, but if you haven't checked it out you might be the type to enjoy it. I've read all the books numerous times but still enjoy seeing what she thinks.

Some people think she must be reading ahead, but I guarantee everyone on these boards would catch a lot more if after every chapter they sat down to write a one or two page essay about it.

[Annara Snow]

Well, ya, perhaps it has to do with her reading so slowly, she often forgets previous details, and, for example, in her Wheel of Time reread, she maintained the FAQ, was a big participant in the newsgroup of the day, and had read all the books many times but still missed details she had forgotten about until doing a detailed reread. Maybe it will come to her when she reads the books at a normal pace, at this rate, it's been a couple of years since she read Ned's thoughts about the whole thing.

Oh, it's definitely because of her way of reading. It's hard to catch up on clues when a lot of times passes and you forget something minor. Or even not so minor. She got the Gravedigger hints immediately because they were all in the same chapter, but things like R+L=J and Loras/Renly are in little clues throughout the text: they're obvious when you put the clues next to each other, but not so obvious if you forget earlier stuff. Jaqen = fPate was something I didn't get the first time I read the chapter because there was almost an entire book between those two chapters and more than one book since the last chapter Jaqen was in, but I went back to the prologue of AFFC and realized it was an FM. I didn't get Alleras = Sarella because I forgot the mention of Sarella. Some things you can only get through re-reads, and some things you get immediately but only when you're reading at a faster pace than 2 chapters per week (like I got R+L=J on my first read when I got to Ned's last POV chapter where he's thinking in his cell about the tourney at Harrenhal, and then went back to go through all the previous mentions of Lyanna and Rhaegar to confirm it).

I don't understand her determination to never re-read a chapter. It's severely hurting her ability to understand the story. For instance, she didn't just forget the clues, she completely forgot all the previous mentions of Beric and the BwB when we first met them in ASOS - and there were so many of them. I found that particularly odd, because I had been waiting forever to finally meet the BwB, after all those ACOK references, and was so happy when they finally popped in ASOS, but I guess not everyone has the same tastes.

Also, speaking of BwB, she has huge blinders due to her anti-religious prejudice, and her views on the BwB were particularly frustrating to read. She's decided that they were some crazy religious extremists just because they worship the Lord of Light and held a trial by combat, so BwB = Melisandre = Spanish Inquisition.

[Whitering]

Well, the chapters with Uncat won't help her with regards the zealot angle, and let's face it, it turns out she wasn't wrong in the long term. She does seem to have a generally anti religious bias, I don't notice it because I do as well.

I think it's a thing for TOR, and she's doing a fresh read, and then she will do a reread. I wouldn't be able to do that with this particular series, but it's her job. I guess if she goes back and rereads a chapter, it's skipping ahead to her next job with TOR, which will likely be to do a reread.

[Booknerd2]

Well, Big Nyms got a shout out….

"BECAUSE NYMERIA IS TOTES THE BOSS OF THEM, THANK YOU."

Whoah….Big Nyms!

I am reading some and skipping around for now. Always interesting to read a variety of takes on the series. Thanks for posting!

[Tyrell_like_Squirrel]

I'm liking her take on ADWD a little more then AFFC and ASOS. Early on I really enjoyed her perspective, but there was a time were she rarely quoted text passages she liked, and would completely skip over what she thought of certain characters. Also she thought the summer islanders were racist, which is silly because its only Sam's point of view. If you haven't picked up on unreliable narrators and perspective bias by AFFC, then I don't know what to say.

But as I said, I'm liking her posts a lot more now.

[Annara Snow]

Well, the chapters with Uncat won't help her with regards the zealot angle, and let's face it, it turns out she wasn't wrong in the long term. She does seem to have a generally anti religious bias, I don't notice it because I do as well.

I think it's a thing for TOR, and she's doing a fresh read, and then she will do a reread. I wouldn't be able to do that with this particular series, but it's her job. I guess if she goes back and rereads a chapter, it's skipping ahead to her next job with TOR, which will likely be to do a reread.

Lady Stoneheart's actions have nothing to do with religious zealotry. And Thoros is actually the least pleased with the direction they took.