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First review of ADWD


Werthead

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No, spoilers. People waiting 6 years for a book and then reading a summary online would suck.

I don't have a problem with that, but embargoes overall leave a bad taste in my mouth. Though probably irrationally in the case of books, since my main beef with them is in gaming circles, where they pretty much only exist to head off bad or underwhelming reviews for over-hyped releases (as we saw just last week with Duke Nukem Forever).

a list of the chapter division among POVs to help set my expectations

Well, let's put together what we know.

From what GRRM's told us so far, it sounds like Dany, Tyrion and Jon have the most chapters. Almost half just between them, then Theon not far behind.

Way, way, way back in the day, GRRM said that Dany would have 13 chapters, Tyrion 7+ and Jon 9+ (IIRC). That was many years ago and is probably totally unreliable now, but may provide a baseline.

More recently, he indicated that Melisandre would only have 1 or 2 chapters and that Cersei would have 2. He said that Cersei and Jaime would not have many chapters, so I suspect if Cersei has 2, then Jaime only has 2 maximum as well. Quentyn definitely has 1 chapter moved from AFFC when it was split, but he could have many more chapters after that written for ADWD, so there's no way of telling.

IIRC, Arya and Asha both had chapters moved from AFFC to ADWD when it was split, and they didn't have many. In both cases more material could have been written, though for Arya, given how far ahead of everyone she is in the timeline, I'm hoping he doesn't give her too many otherwise we could have an Erikson-class Timeline Meltdown, which no-one wants. Asha has less restrictions, since her chapters in AFFC took place during ASoS anyway.

For the pre-split book, I recall George saying that Bran would have maybe 3 chapters, but of course, in the aftermath of the split it's completely unknown how many more chapters he now has.

For Davos, we know he has 2 chapters, as they've been read out at cons, and a third is heavily suggested by the way the second ends. There are no other POVs in the vicinity to tell us what happens, so I'd guess we have a minimum of three Davos POV chapters.

And of course for everyone else (Barristan and the new POV) we don't know, so by default they're 1+ each.

So that leaves us with:

Daenerys: c. 13

Jon: 9+

Tyrion: 7+

Theon: Unknown.

Davos Seaworth: 3+

Bran: 3+

Cersei: 2

Jaime: 1-2?

Areo Hotah: 1+

Victarion Greyjoy: 1+

Barristan Selmy: 1+

Quentyn Martell: 1+

Arya Stark: 1-2+

Asha Greyjoy: 1-2+

Melisandre: 1-2

New POV: 1+

Prologue: 1

Epilogue: 1

With about 20 chapters to redistribute.

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As for tidbits, from Shawn Speakman at the Terry Brooks forum:

The character based on Pat is killed in one of several grisly fashions, including being eaten by a dragon, cooked in a pie or torn apart by a giant.

None of which are probably any help whatsoever (the first one contradicts the PW review outright) :P

Wert, what does that mean? Who's Pat and who's the character based on Pat?

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Wert, what does that mean? Who's Pat and who's the character based on Pat?

Pat is a blogger who won a bet with GRRM about a football game, so GRRM created a character based on Pat and put him in ADWD, promising to kill him in as grisly a fashion as possible.

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Way, way, way back in the day, GRRM said that Dany would have 13 chapters, Tyrion 7+ and Jon 9+ (IIRC). That was many years ago and is probably totally unreliable now, but may provide a baseline.

Yes, but more recently, he said 35 of the 73 chapters would be a POV of one of the three. Your numbers only add up to 29 chapters.

Thus, the following might be better estimates:

Daenerys ~ 14-16

Tyrion ~ 8-9

Jon ~ 11-12

As for the rest, there is nothing definite to go on, but with some I think good guesses could be made. For example, he said Jaime and Cersei have chapters (plural) but not many. I'd estimate two chapters each for them.

Cersei ~ 2

Jaime ~ 2

I would use the old estimate he gave us on Bran since he more recently said we would only check in on him. I also like your reasoning on Davos and would probably assign him three chapters as well.

Bran ~ 3

Davos ~ 3

As for Arya and Asha, I think they need two chapters each by their very circumstances. I share your concerns about Arya and the timeline but nothing says her next two chapters can't span weeks instead of months. I'll also take a stab at a guess and pin two chapters on Melisandre.

Arya ~ 2

Melisandre ~ 2

Finally, we know Theon has the fourth most chapters, which is not much to go on, but given how many I estimate Tyrion has, I think that means six or seven chapters.

Theon ~ 6-7

That adds up to 55 or 56 chapters, with 17 or 18 to spare for the remaining 5 POVs.

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No, spoilers. People waiting 6 years for a book and then reading a summary online would suck.

I don't have a problem with that, but embargoes overall leave a bad taste in my mouth. Though probably irrationally in the case of books, since my main beef with them is in gaming circles, where they pretty much only exist to head off bad or underwhelming reviews for over-hyped releases (as we saw just last week with Duke Nukem Forever).

Gaming embargoes can be a good thing too. it gives reviewers time to actually finish a product rather than rush through it to post the first review to maximize page views. Publishers often abuse them to hide poor reviews, but it's not such a terrible practice all the time.

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That adds up to 55 or 56 chapters, with 17 or 18 to spare for the remaining 5 POVs.

I think you mean six, not five: Areo, Asha, Barristan, Quentyn,

and Victarion. That leaves you with an average of three chapters for each POV, which strikes me as mildly implausible. Of course, my guesses have no more foundation than yours, but this is a fun exercise so let's see what we come up with.

If Jon/Tyrion/Dany have at least ten chapters each, then we can give Theon as many as nine and fit with GRRM's POV breakdown. Why 9? Because we need a main Northern politics POV, and Theon's the best guy for that. Jon's going to be at the Wall, Melisandre's not going to have more than two chapters, and Davos is going to be faking his own death for a while and hence his frame of reference will be limited. Asha's a tempting possibility as well, particularly since she's going to be captured by Stannis; but her first POV chapter seems to take place in the second half of ADWD so she's not going to have a large number of chapters. Jaime had nine chapters in ASOS, so I think this is a reasonable number for a large supporting role.

Now we're at 44, with 29 left. I accept your reasoning on Jaime and Cersei, and on Melisandre, so 2 for each and we're at 23 left. Davos is going to be confined or in exile to preserve the illusion of his death, so I'd think 3 to 4 for him. Let's say four (one to establish the ruse, one to explain how Davos dies for real), which takes us down to 19.

My inclination is to give 4 chapters to Bran and 3 to Arya, or the other way around. Bran had four chapters in ASOS, which was primarily about him travelling; and I think GRRM could sustain a similar number here, especially considering that it would be a good way to set things up for future Jon chapters. Bran is in a position to witness the undead hordes as they grow and set off for the Wall, for example. As for Arya, GRRM keeps talking about she's easy to write and he has to resist the urge to write a whole novel about her training in Braavos. I'm going to guess that he doesn't resist entirely.

That leaves us with 12 chapters for 6 POVs, which strikes me as a bit more reasonable. (Or ten, except that I'm not sure that the chapter count included the prologue and epilogue, since the one for ASOS did not.)

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As for tidbits, from Shawn Speakman at the Terry Brooks forum:

He says, according to another source, that "More happens in the first 200 pages of ADWD than all of AFFC." Sounds a bit hyperbolic to me, but there you go.

Given that the first 200 pages will probably consist largely of chapters for which we already have summaries in this forum (the first 125 or so pages, at least), this is almost certainly hyperbolic.

I think the debate over the chapter division underscores my point that we only have a very vague sense of the breakdown. For all we know, Quentyn and Barristan may have one chapter a piece, or, then again, they may each have three or four. Jon may have six or seven, or he may have twelve or thirteen. Whether this matters with less than three weeks to go before the release date is another question, but I for one would find a more detailed breakdown interesting.

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Nah dude, thanks for that.

Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way to Daenerys. But his newest allies in this quest are not the rag-tag band they seem, and at their heart lies one who could undo Daenerys’s claim to Westeros forever.

I'm betting this is a fake Aegon. Sounds like he's going to be a major threat to Dany's claim.

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If anything, the first review sounds like ADWD will be more similar to ACOK then AFFC, but with less major (read: cool) events. No battle of the blackwater, but hey, if I can get hints on who Jon's parents are, that's worth the price of admission for me.

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Well, seeing as AFFC/ADWD are largely only necessary in the first place because of the dropping of the in-story 5-year-gap, it's not surprising the two of them have taken so long and may feel a bit clunky in parts. Now that the infamous Mereenese Knot has been resolved to George's satisfaction and at the end of ADWD apparently he has all the cyvasse pieces in the places he wants them, I don't think we'll have to wait so long for the rest of the books.

George knows where the story is going from here on in, ADWD was never going to be an action-packed roller-coaster, it was always going to be about resolving various timeline and plot issues so the rest of the series can proceed as originally planned, more or less.

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Ok, I see people discussing Stannis' actions regarding punishing Boltons, Freys, Ironborn etc. He's att he wall to fight the others and he's probably looking North, not South.

He'll maybe turn south when he's done with the others which might not be until ADOS.

The end of the Asha spoiler chapter seems to indicate that he goes "south" in ADWD

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I think you mean six, not five: Areo, Asha, Barristan, Quentyn,

and Victarion. That leaves you with an average of three chapters for each POV, which strikes me as mildly implausible. Of course, my guesses have no more foundation than yours, but this is a fun exercise so let's see what we come up with.

Actually, I did think of Asha but then forgot to list her. I guessed she might have two chapters. Which leaves me with 57 or 58 chapters assigned and then 15 to 16 chapters left to use among the remaining five POVs (i.e., Areo, Barristan, Quentyn and Victarion). That changes very little though, and now that I think about it, I think you're right, an average of three chapters for those characters seems too much.

I was thinking of how many chapters Theon might have again and, the more I try to come up with a guess, the more I think there must be a noticeable difference between him and Tyrion (who I assume has the third most chapters), otherwise, the writer might have simply lumped him in with Tyrion, Jon, and Daenerys. Still, you might be right about Theon having more chapters considering that neither Melisandre or Davos will be there to document the North. Asha is also intriguing because she is our only window on Stannis. I think she might have three chapters because of that.

Lastly, I remain pretty confident in my guess that Jaime and Cersei will have two chapters each. And I'll use your estimates on Bran and Arya. I wouldn't want to give more than three to Arya though because she's so far ahead on the timeline.

So maybe:

Daenerys 13

Jon 12

Tyrion 10

Theon 8

Bran 4

Arya 3

Davos 3

Asha 3

Jaime 2

Cersei 2

Melisandre 2

That puts me at 62 chapters with 11 to spare for 5 POVs. That seems more reasonable. Although, taking that even further, I would guess that Barristan and Areo would only have one chapter each, which still leaves me with 9 POVs to split between Quentyn, Victarion, and mystery POV. That might be too high as well. I can imagine Quentyn and Victarion having a combined six chapters, although that might be pushing it, but the mystery POV with three as well?

Obviously we can't know who that mystery POV is but three chapters seems too much for a new POV in a book with so many returning POVs. Which leaves me guessing that one or more of the characters I listed above have more chapters than I gave them credit for.

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I'm betting this is a fake Aegon. Sounds like he's going to be a major threat to Dany's claim.

Exactly, and the line previous to that in the review, about a young man seeking Dany would have to be Quentyn Martell and his band...which leads to the Mummer's Dragon and fake Aegon traveling with Tyrion and his "band of misfits"

So, someone with knowledge of Westeros (and the sack of King's Landing) is plotting within a group of mummers to usurp with a fake Aegon, someone in that group has to have pretty good knowledge of Westeros and its political situation to pull that off in any way that's a real threat. Tyrion could be the viewpoint that shows the actions of this faction, or maybe this is where the last new viewpoint (the one we've never met/seen before) shows up.

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