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[Spoilers] The Princess and the Queen, complete spoilers discussion


chrisdaw

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So I'm pretty far behind. I bought the book the day it was available, but I didn't actually read it until last night. All I can say is that I really expected to like Rhaenyra a whole lot more. What the hell, lady.


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So I'm pretty far behind. I bought the book the day it was available, but I didn't actually read it until last night. All I can say is that I really expected to like Rhaenyra a whole lot more. What the hell, lady.

I thought she was ok, but I definitely expected more from her, especially since the book was called "Dangerous Women". The women mostly came off as weak to me, save Rhaenys and Baela.

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I thought she was ok, but I definitely expected more from her, especially since the book was called "Dangerous Women". The women mostly came off as weak to me, save Rhaenys and Baela.

Weak people in positions of power can be dangerous to everyone around them.

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I thought she was ok, but I definitely expected more from her, especially since the book was called "Dangerous Women". The women mostly came off as weak to me, save Rhaenys and Baela.

I know what your mean. I was a bit disappointed that she didn't take a more active role in her own war. And her behavior once she was in the capital was pretty unsettling. She succumbed to excessive paranoia, gave too much heed to bad advice, turned the city against herself, and generally gave her allies plenty of reasons to turn against her. Ordering the deaths of Nettles and Addam was especially absurd.

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Alicent disappointed me as well. It wasn't just that she was Cersei 2.0, but also that she started in a truly cunning and badass way (leaving the corpse of poor Viserys to rot and going over the list of possible allies and foes), the woman didn't waste time. But after that she just kind of became a non-presence and hardly did anything relevant for the rest of the book. I expected more from THE Queen



I was kind of disappointed by the whole thing, but I'm mostly intrigued by Larys Strong and the pale person who hired Blood and Cheese. I bet there are lots of awesome theories about that, but I can't possibly go through 80 pages to look for them :frown5:


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I was kind of disappointed by the whole thing, but I'm mostly intrigued by Larys Strong and the pale person who hired Blood and Cheese. I bet there are lots of awesome theories about that, but I can't possibly go through 80 pages to look for them :frown5:

My favorite theory that's buried somewhere in here is that the "pale stranger" in question was a weyrwood.

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My favorite theory that's buried somewhere in here is that the "pale stranger" in question was a weyrwood.

:stunned: That's unexpected!

I thought he was Varys, but that would mean Varys is some kind of magical being and I would hate that

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My favorite theory that's buried somewhere in here is that the "pale stranger" in question was a weyrwood.

:stunned: That's unexpected!

I thought he was Varys, but that would mean Varys is some kind of magical being and I would hate that

That's not the "theory." The theory is that TPatQ foreshadows an association between Daemon and the Old Gods after his plunge into God's Eye. The "pale stranger" is one of the hints. In TPatQ Daemon is said to have a "pale stranger" whom he trusts completely, in AFoC Brienne goes out to the whispers w/ Nimble Dick and they come across a wierwood that is referred to as a "pale stranger." These are the only two instance in the series/novellas in which this phrase is used. There are a number of additional hints pointing toward Daemon's survival and foreshadowing his connection w/ the Old Gods out on the Isle of the Faces.

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Thanks for clearing that up. :)

Looks like he ruled for a long time. Hope we get more details of the duel in the world book.

Well, that suggests Cregan was a very young Lord Stark, like Bran, and that also allows that he wouldn´t necessarily march south but would let his better Bannerman lead the way..

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Unprovoked and unprovoked. As noted in the text, he lost his eye because of his cousins, so he had a particular hatred.

But yes, what he did was quite bad. He sounds a look like that generation's Aerion Brightflame, to be honest.

Aemond didn´t seem full on Viserys or Aerion crazy to me...just kind of a real jerk...

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I just finished TPatQ and it was better than I expected. It was action-packed, full of plot twists and surprises even after I'd been spoiled on many major events by reading the wiki. The Storming of the Dragonpit and the death of poor Joffrey were the most intense moments for me. It felt like a very similar sort of story to ASOIAF, one that could have been a whole book or series of books if GRRM had wanted, but was condensed. In many ways it was kinder to the reader than ASOIAF; it's written as a history rather than through the personal eyes of participants, which gives it more distance and makes the horrors easier to stomach. Joffrey's death still yanked my heartstrings pretty hard, especially with his mother screaming for her men to bring him back to her. I find it very ironic that he has the same name as His Grace the Royal Pustule. I wonder if Cersei named her son after him?



I was very annoyed by the way it left off after Aegon II's triumph, leaving the real end of the war (which was only half a year later, wtf) off page with only a vague summary of what came next. The crowning of Aegon III would have been a much more natural place to conclude the story, because that's when the action really came to an end and peace was actually restored. As it is, it feels incomplete. I'm also deathly curious about Viserys. How and when did he return to Westeros? The book makes it sound like he died, by referring to Aegon the Younger as Rhaenyra's "last surviving son" but from the subsequent history we know he survived and eventually made it home. What happened, dammit? Was he ransomed? Did he hatch some clever escape plot? Inquiring minds want to know!


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I just finished TPatQ and it was better than I expected. It was action-packed, full of plot twists and surprises even after I'd been spoiled on many major events by reading the wiki. The Storming of the Dragonpit and the death of poor Joffrey were the most intense moments for me. It felt like a very similar sort of story to ASOIAF, one that could have been a whole book or series of books if GRRM had wanted, but was condensed. In many ways it was kinder to the reader than ASOIAF; it's written as a history rather than through the personal eyes of participants, which gives it more distance and makes the horrors easier to stomach. Joffrey's death still yanked my heartstrings pretty hard, especially with his mother screaming for her men to bring him back to her. I find it very ironic that he has the same name as His Grace the Royal Pustule. I wonder if Cersei named her son after him?

I was very annoyed by the way it left off after Aegon II's triumph, leaving the real end of the war (which was only half a year later, wtf) off page with only a vague summary of what came next. The crowning of Aegon III would have been a much more natural place to conclude the story, because that's when the action really came to an end and peace was actually restored. As it is, it feels incomplete. I'm also deathly curious about Viserys. How and when did he return to Westeros? The book makes it sound like he died, by referring to Aegon the Younger as Rhaenyra's "last surviving son" but from the subsequent history we know he survived and eventually made it home. What happened, dammit? Was he ransomed? Did he hatch some clever escape plot? Inquiring minds want to know!

It is edited from a larger text, so we should get answers to some of that question when The World of Ice and Fire comes out hopefully this year. We won't get the full text until after all the novels are done. Some of the editing, including ending with the death of Rhaenyra instead of the end of the war, was probably to make it more focused on Rhaenyra and Alicent and justify it's inclusion in the Dangerous Women anthology.

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Tons of interesting things in this -- but I'm really intrigued by all the Targaryan women that keep having deformed miscarriages.

For instance, when Princess Rhaenyra goes into labor early, after finding out her father was dead and her throne stolen, her whole birthing scene seems oddly familiar:

Anyone else getting flashbacks of Dany?

More interestingly, both Princess Rhaenyra and Dany suddenly feel as if a dragon has awoken after their children die. For Rhaenyra, it was an internal dragon that awoke after her second son's death:

And Dany, too, had a similar feeling when she woke after MMD's ceremony -- a feeling of internal heat:

But, absent her child, Dany began to feel a new heat from her dragons' eggs, one of which she slept with as she recovered and the others she hovered over after she awoke:

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but it seems like Targaryan women + miscarriage = "dragons awaken"

Which I think is pretty interesting...

[but, it also begs the question of what Dany is going to receive following her miscarriage in ADwD]

dany and rehanys situation reminds me of when aegon tells jon to let go of the boy and become a man. maybe he knew how to awaken the inner dragon or whatever it is

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I've been listening to my favorite ASOIAF/GOT podcasts and their takes on it. It's interesting how differently people react to some things.



My favorite character hands down was Daemon. What a DILF! My favorite part of the story was his fight with Aemond. Badass infinity + 1. What if it had been a full book instead of a novella, with POVs instead of historical accounts? That POV chapter would be epic.



But what happened to The Cannibal? Virtually impossible, I know, but I wish he was just in hibernation or something...ergo waking up and scaring the pants off Drogon when Dany arrives in Westeros.



TPatQ sure made the "Dance with Dragons" scenario in the Crusader Kings II mod more interesting. I played through it as Lord Corlys. Joffrey died in a siege but left his dragon to his granddaddy (me). Hands down the most awesome-if-random moment was Baela taking down Aegon in a dragonfight. Nettles had just died against him in a similar battle, so my imagination played it out as Sheepstealer wounding the fuck out of Sunfyre, and Baela diving in to finish him off. I hitched my heir to Baela right quick.


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I've been listening to my favorite ASOIAF/GOT podcasts and their takes on it. It's interesting how differently people react to some things.

My favorite character hands down was Daemon. What a DILF! My favorite part of the story was his fight with Aemond. Badass infinity + 1. What if it had been a full book instead of a novella, with POVs instead of historical accounts? That POV chapter would be epic.

But what happened to The Cannibal? Virtually impossible, I know, but I wish he was just in hibernation or something...ergo waking up and scaring the pants off Drogon when Dany arrives in Westeros.

TPatQ sure made the "Dance with Dragons" scenario in the Crusader Kings II mod more interesting. I played through it as Lord Corlys. Joffrey died in a siege but left his dragon to his granddaddy (me). Hands down the most awesome-if-random moment was Baela taking down Aegon in a dragonfight. Nettles had just died against him in a similar battle, so my imagination played it out as Sheepstealer wounding the fuck out of Sunfyre, and Baela diving in to finish him off. I hitched my heir to Baela right quick.

:lol: That's hilarious, and I agree completely. I was more than a little jealous of Rhaenyra and Nettles, fictional character be damned. :P

My brother got me Crusader Kings for Christmas, but he says it's too confusing for me to play without him around to instruct me, which made me not want to try to figure it out. But knowing there's PatQ mods... I might have to actually check it out...

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