Re-read ASOIAF Questions

[WinterDruid]

Hello, everyone,

I've hung around these forums for a little while now, but now I'm officially stepping out of the lurker shadows. I finished reading all five of the ASOIAF books a year or so ago and am now thinking about re-reading them all with a more careful eye for detail, since I missed a lot of the hints buried in the text that now seem obvious to me (i.e. Renly being gay was quite an eye-opener, which I found out on this forum, I stumbled across the R+L =J theory in a Google search while reading the first book and feel that it has very convincing support in the texts, etc.). However, I also feel like when I'm reading these books that I'm getting a sensory overload what with all the detailed worldbuilding, descriptions of characters and food and clothing and such, etc. So, my question is: When I re-read the books, how should I go about it? How do I separate the important clues (or apparent clues) from things that are not? How do I not get overloaded with too much information? I thought for the longest time that Arya and Jon Snow must both be the children of a different mother since Arya is dark-haired and grey-eyed and doesn't look at all like her red-headed siblings, who are all Catelyn's children, but that's obviously wrong since Catelyn confirmed in AGOT that she had, indeed, given birth to Arya and why would she lie about that? And then you have Cersei's children, where the hair coloring was the tipoff that they weren't Robert's children. So, how do you separate the important from the extraneous in a re-read? And I've seen that there are a lot of very different theories out there about ASOIAF, from Norse mythological associations to people thinking some characters are not who they claim or seem to be to the "nothing is as it seems" Heresy people (hope I'm not mischaracterizing you all), etc. How do you sort through them all? 

[KingMance]

On my first read, I'd get frustrated at clothing descriptions or food flavoring going on for 3 paragraphs. Now that I've read through a few times, I can see that, oh, someone is wearing that exact attire/has the same features 30 chapters later. Or, oh, the duck is too rich for tyrion's taste, but that's actually describing the conversation he's currently having. 

99% of Martins word usage is important imo. Even if it's not revealing huge secrets such as Jon's lineage, it's cool to read back through and say "I see what you did there" 

[Dorian Martell's son]

There is an entire reread section of the forums. You can start there 

 

[Dorian Martell's son]

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/forum/22-re-read-project/

[Queen of Procrastination]

Welcome to the board  

One thing I would generally recommend you for a re-read: Take your time and pay attention to the detail. I don't know how fast you read, but from my experience many of us read the books rather fast on our first read and focused  more on the plot than on the words GRRM used to foreshadow some things. Due to this we missed some important clues. If you read a bit slower on your second read, you can spend more time processing what you've read and this may help you to see some of the clues.

I'm also pretty sure that you will automatically find some clues you've missed on you first read. Once you've heard about R+L=J it's pretty easy to find the clues. Same thing with Renly and Loras, I missed it on my first read, but once you know about it it becomes easier to see the clues. 

If you are among those that didn't like AFFC and ADWD that much (I liked them, but I can understand why some people have issues with these books) try out the Boiled Leather read. It's a combined reading order for AFFC and ADWD, so that you don't have the characters and locations split 

http://boiledleather.com/post/25902554148/a-new-readerfriendly-combined-reading-order-for-a

Another advice: Don't skip chapters you didn't like (at least not on your first re-read). Some stuff gets better on a re-read and you may learn to truly appreciate it. 

There are so many theories out there, you can't focus on all of them. So try to focus on those that you consider important.

If you forget who certain minor characters are, just search them on the Wiki. You already know what is going to happen in the book, so you can read the Wiki articles without getting major plot points spoiled. 

You can also take a look on the threads that are posted in the re-read section on this board. The different chapters are discussed at length there. 

[The North Forgot]

As KingMance mentioned, when things are described in more detail than usual they might be important. Also when things that usually are described aren't, that's also something to look closer at, like when Septa Lemore's eyecolour isn't mentioned at all by Tyrion who usually notice things like that

[Lost Melnibonean]

Each time I read the series it takes me longer and longer. everytime I read a line now, I ask myself, "What is the storyteller trying to tell us? What does he want us to believe? Is this a foreshadowing? Is this an allusion?" You can find a lot of answers here. 

If you see foreshadowing, please note it in the Moments of Foreshadowing threads, and if you notice things for the first time, please note them in the Wow, I never noticed threads. 

When a charter is introduced, seach your books for other references if it's a minor character, or go to the wiki if it's a primary or secondary character, so you can better understand how they fit in the plot.