Re-Read Suggestion

[YOVMO]

So I am thinking of a targeted re-read. Anyone have any suggestions? Sorry I have been amongst the missing for a while.....dern RL keeps getting in the way. Not sure what any of it has to do with the price of tea in Westeros.

[White Ravens]

Not exactly a targeted re-read but have you tried reading A Feast For Crows and A Dance with Dragons mixed together chronologically as one big mofo of a book?  I read it that way last year and it was a great experience.  Here is where to get the chapter order...

 

http://boiledleather.com/post/24543217702/a-proposed-a-feast-for-crowsa-dance-with-dragons

[YOVMO]

12 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

Not exactly a targeted re-read but have you tried reading A Feast For Crows and A Dance with Dragons mixed together chronologically as one big mofo of a book?  I read it that way last year and it was a great experience.  Here is where to get the chapter order...

 

http://boiledleather.com/post/24543217702/a-proposed-a-feast-for-crowsa-dance-with-dragons

That is a fascinating idea. I don't know why this never occurred to me. I don't have the time to do a full read right now (which is why the targeted reading) but when (ugh and if) WOW gets announced I plan to do a straight read through at which point I will seriously consider reading AFFC and ADWD as a single volume! Thanks for that!

[White Ravens]

3 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

That is a fascinating idea. I don't know why this never occurred to me. I don't have the time to do a full read right now (which is why the targeted reading) but when (ugh and if) WOW gets announced I plan to do a straight read through at which point I will seriously consider reading AFFC and ADWD as a single volume! Thanks for that!

You are most welcome!  Feast and Dance are supposed to occupy the same time line more or less but when you read the books in order it naturally makes the events in Feast feel like they happened before the events in Dance.  For me the Boiled Leather chapter order felt natural to read.

[Lollygag]

I've found that picking two characters who on the surface have little in common except a few small pieces of similarity to very rewarding and also more manageable.

Working through Dany/Bran right now. Just read Jaime I of ASoS and there are so many Theon parallels that my head is spinning. That will probably be my next one.

I have noticed that a lot of Sam chapters are next to Arya chapters. So many so that it can't be chance and we have their unknowing meet up in Braavos, and now maybe-Jaqen is in Oldtown with Sam. Looking forward to that one, too.

If you want something even smaller, dig into the first character chapter of each book. I've noticed that they're especially foreshadow-y.

[The Fattest Leech]

2 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

You are most welcome!  Feast and Dance are supposed to occupy the same time line more or less but when you read the books in order it naturally makes the events in Feast feel like they happened before the events in Dance.  For me the Boiled Leather chapter order felt natural to read.

I very much agree with this. I set my books up with little post-it flags to help me with this reading order. This chapter table of contents listing may help @YOVMO or anyone else do that if they want to ahead of time. It gives the page numbers each chapter starts on so you can go through and flag it however you want.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Chapters_Table_of_contents

 

...and yes, I am that crazy...

[The Fattest Leech]

1 minute ago, Lollygag said:

I've found that picking two characters who on the surface have little in common except a few small pieces of similarity to very rewarding and also more manageable.

Working through Dany/Bran right now. Just read Jaime I of ASoS and there are so many Theon parallels that my head is spinning. That will probably be my next one.

I have noticed that a lot of Sam chapters are next to Arya chapters. So many so that it can't be chance and we have their unknowing meet up in Braavos, and now maybe-Jaqen is in Oldtown with Sam. Looking forward to that one, too.

If you want something even smaller, dig into the first character chapter of each book. I've noticed that they're especially foreshadow-y.

Exactly. If you look at a list of chapter names, you will see a pattern in how the books were set up. I think GRRM wants us to think about certain POV's together whether for specific related content, or because of how one chapter ends and then the how the next chapter starts up again.

This happens A LOT with Jaime-Brienne-Cersei chapters. Those three are paired together too often to be a coincidence

[White Ravens]

6 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I very much agree with this. I set my books up with little post-it flags to help me with this reading order. This chapter table of contents listing may help @YOVMO or anyone else do that if they want to ahead of time. It gives the page numbers each chapter starts on so you can go through and flag it however you want.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Chapters_Table_of_contents

 

...and yes, I am that crazy...

Ooooo....   That's a great resource.  Thanks!  I thumbed through the pages for each chapter but I plan to do another full re-read when GRRM announces Winds and I will read the glommed together version again for that with post-it flags.  I now consider Feast and Dance to be one book.  How about calling it A Feast for Dancing Crows and Dragons? 

My own claim to crazy is that when I read the combined chapters I read them out loud to my wife over several months. 

[Seams]

What about a Brothel Re-Read? Or Brothels and Inns?

Or a Smith Re-Read?

The "A Search of Ice and Fire" website makes it possible to plug in a key word and find all references to that word, in order. So you could set up a Dragonglass Re-Read or a Rickon Stark Re-Read or a Rust Re-Read or a Plum and Prune Re-Read.

Maybe a Reed Re-Read.

Edit: You could also set yourself a quest to identify an unrecognized pattern. This classic thread by Kingmonkey developed and refined a list of elements that are always present before dragons are hatched.

For those who don't want to read that whole thread, the elements that precede/accompany dragon hatching, identified by Kingmonkey with some input from others on the thread, are:

1. Seven against three.
2. Three Kingsguards, or some equivalent / cloaked figures.
3. Event takes place at sunset with a blood-red sky.
4. Ghost / wraith imagery.
5. A tower long fallen / destroyed at the end of the event.
6. A parley before the battle.
7. Promises and vows.
8. A refusal to flee.
9. A great red stallion / stallion on fire.
10. A notably martial woman.
11. The sign of the falling star / red comet.
12. Animal totems.
13. Bloody walls.
14. Eight deaths.
15. A maegi or possibly similar wise/magical figures.

Maybe you can pick out some other elements from the books and try to figure out whether there are other patterns. For instance, pick something like the arrival of dawn, crossing a river, climbing a mountain, taking a bath, drinking spiced wine. Then look at things that happen before or after that activity: Do people always move to a new home or camp? Do they receive a visitor? Do they find someone important to their future arc? Pretend to believe a lie?

On the recent thread about Roose Bolton burning the unnamed book at Harrenhal, we realized that Sansa and Arya both make escapes after destruction of a book (Joffrey destroys "Lives of Four Kings" at his wedding feast). Now I'm starting to wonder whether Sam Tarly noticing the mouse eating the book in the Castle Black library is connected to the departure of Gilly from the Wall. I also started to wonder whether Arya wearing two layers of smallclothes as she prepares to leave Harrenhal is like Sansa wearing her own cloak as well as Littlefinger's cloak when she arrives at the ship in the harbor.

But maybe this is too much of a tail-wagging-the-dog approach. I'll be curious to hear what you settle on as your theme or uniting element.

[The Fattest Leech]

Just now, White Ravens said:

Ooooo....   That's a great resource.  Thanks!  I thumbed through the pages for each chapter but I plan to do another full re-read when GRRM announces Winds and I will read the glommed together version again for that with post-it flags.  I now consider Feast and Dance to be one book.  How about calling it A Feast for Dancing Crows and Dragons? 

Nice! And it makes for an interesting head picture as well.

Just now, White Ravens said:

My own claim to crazy is that when I read the combined chapters I read them out loud to my wife over several months. 

EXCELLENT!!!! I fully approve This is too funny. I do very, very similar things to my husband as well. Especially in the car when I have the one and only ROY DOTRICE reading the story to me. I speak along with Roy (he and I are on a first name basis now) and I use his accents to "read" along with him. My dear, loving hubbs thinks I am nuts. And he is jealous of Roy

[Lollygag]

3 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Exactly. If you look at a list of chapter names, you will see a pattern in how the books were set up. I think GRRM wants us to think about certain POV's together whether for specific related content, or because of how one chapter ends and then the how the next chapter starts up again.

This happens A LOT with Jaime-Brienne-Cersei chapters. Those three are paired together too often to be a coincidence

Jon/Cat are often paired. That's when I realized that Cat and Ygritte died at about the same time. Think Stoneheart is going to have a big impact on Jon's future.

Also noticed that when one POV bookends another POV it's significant, too. There are times when the bookended POVs make sense like the Cat/Arya back and forth during the Red Wedding and the Sansa/Tyrion back and forth during Blackwater. But when there's no obvious reason for a bookending, I've found some interesting things through a good dig.

I've been dreaming about a chapter list which also has a brief summary attached to further discern the patterns.

[The Fattest Leech]

1 hour ago, YOVMO said:

So I am thinking of a targeted re-read. Anyone have any suggestions? Sorry I have been amongst the missing for a while.....dern RL keeps getting in the way. Not sure what any of it has to do with the price of tea in Westeros.

And welcome back. Reality is but a silly place.

[YOVMO]

45 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I very much agree with this. I set my books up with little post-it flags to help me with this reading order. This chapter table of contents listing may help @YOVMO or anyone else do that if they want to ahead of time. It gives the page numbers each chapter starts on so you can go through and flag it however you want.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Chapters_Table_of_contents

 

...and yes, I am that crazy...

Leech, if you are going to call a mass scale annotation of a fantasy series "crazy" then we all better just put our bats and balls down and go home. 

Thanks for this.

 

As for Reality...real, total bullshit.

[Seams]

1 hour ago, Lollygag said:

I've been dreaming about a chapter list which also has a brief summary attached to further discern the patterns

The wiki has something like this but maybe the summaries are too long for you? For example, here is AGoT, Arya I. There is also the little directional tool that allows you to go to the next chapter of that POV or the next chapter in the book.

[YOVMO]

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Nice! And it makes for an interesting head picture as well.

EXCELLENT!!!! I fully approve This is too funny. I do very, very similar things to my husband as well. Especially in the car when I have the one and only ROY DOTRICE reading the story to me. I speak along with Roy (he and I are on a first name basis now) and I use his accents to "read" along with him. My dear, loving hubbs thinks I am nuts. And he is jealous of Roy

I knew a guy when the Harry Potter books would first come out that would go on road trips with his wife and young son who was just the right age. His wife would drive and he would read out loud. That was the whole trip. I remember thinking it was quite untoward to be jealous of a friends 7 year old kid and there was no way he was going to adopt a person 2 years older than himself.

[Lollygag]

6 minutes ago, Seams said:

The wiki has something like this but maybe the summaries are too long for you? For example, here is AGoT, Arya I. There is also the little directional tool that allows you to go to the next chapter of that POV or the next chapter in the book.

I've toyed with this and I really like it for some things. But yeah, for what I'm thinking, more of a full chapter list alongside a brief summary of just a sentence or two would work better.

[Seams]

6 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

I've toyed with this and I really like it for some things. But yeah, for what I'm thinking, more of a full chapter list alongside a brief summary of just a sentence or two would work better.

My own dream is a searchable spreadsheet of injuries. So you could search on all the people with hand injuries, missing eyes or scars. I suppose it would have to include deaths, too. "Stabbed with a sword" would have to be broken down into smaller categories - through the mouth, in the belly, etc. "Clawed by a skinchanged eagle" would be a relatively small category.

[YOVMO]

1 hour ago, Seams said:

What about a Brothel Re-Read? Or Brothels and Inns?

Or a Smith Re-Read?

The "A Search of Ice and Fire" website makes it possible to plug in a key word and find all references to that word, in order. So you could set up a Dragonglass Re-Read or a Rickon Stark Re-Read or a Rust Re-Read or a Plum and Prune Re-Read.

Maybe a Reed Re-Read.

brothel re-read sounds excellent. Great idea!

[Lollygag]

12 minutes ago, Seams said:

My own dream is a searchable spreadsheet of injuries. So you could search on all the people with hand injuries, missing eyes or scars. I suppose it would have to include deaths, too. "Stabbed with a sword" would have to be broken down into smaller categories - through the mouth, in the belly, etc. "Clawed by a skinchanged eagle" would be a relatively small category.

Oh I agree. I just noticed all of the shadowcat imagery around Qhorin Half-hand, and Cat, who later becomes a "shadow cat", also has a major hand injury.

Figurative or symbolic injuries as well. There's a Jon-Sansa-Jon chapter bridge that I was looking into, and I noticed that Sansa's dream where she's stabbed in a crowd and the knights "betray" her by not helping her is a strong parallel to Jon's getting stabbed. Jon gets stabbed by for betraying the Watch, and it's in these 2 chapters that he's with Qhorin and Ygritte. 2 vow betrayals right there.

Another: Jaime shaves his head (a sort of injury) in ASOS Jaime I and when he looks in the water, he looks older and not like himself at all. Another Theon parallel who looks much older and is losing his hair. Think there's Theon foreshadowing here, too.

[Lollygag]

Is there a resource for non-POV character re-reads? I'd like to read up on a number of them, but finding the text is daunting for ones referenced more than sporadically.