[ADwD Spoilers] Well That Was Disappointing

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

I actually enjoyed Tyrion's travels a great deal. What interesting locations.

Yeah, Tyrion's travelogue was wonderful. The Sorrows chapter is my favorite in the whole book.

[Ser Pistus]

I think you are overreacting. First of all, why are you angry at Jaime and Theon exactly? As I recall, neither of them killed any Stark.

[winteriscoming73]

Things I'd like to see in the next book:

3. Dany has so much fun training and riding her dragons that she forgets to mope about men for at least two weeks, during which Daario and Hizdahr kill each other.

I second you on #3.

[Big Brad the Bald]

I agree, I'm disappointed too. Basically nothing happens in the book until the very end, the editor should have taken a meat cleaver to this book and cut out all the characters sitting around and talking and scheming. How many times did we have to read about how Dany wants Daario and wants peace to save her people and how many Wildlings-Crossing-the-Wall missions were really necessary for Jon's character to move along? Couldn't some of them have been combined or thrown out?

Was Quentyn Martell even necessary to the plot other than freeing the dragons? We are finally waiting for a war in the north and both parties get snowed on?

I was hoping for more action before the huge invasions into Westeros start, kind of like Helms Deep in Two Towers, there was just waiting and maintenance of the status quo in this book, imho...

[KDream]

It's my first post here and I'd like to take the change to say hello to everybody.

Regarding the slaves in the East, I think they're going to be critical in the following books. There is a minor character - the widow of the harbour, which is a former slave. It's the one that provides passage for Tyrion and Mormont. She says something along the lines : "Tell your Queen that we're waiting and she'd better come quickly". I figure we're about to experience a large scale slave revolt, possibly augmented by the red priest religious wave.

As for the dissapointed part, I myself have read the books since GOT first aired on HBO, having never heard of GRRM before. It was a pretty long time between finishing AFFC and getting my hands on ADWD. I'm terriffied at the prospect of having to wait FIVE more years to read the next book.

I think that the biggest cause of dissappointment is that, even if GRRM wanted to depict characters as grey-ish, rather than good or bad, still the actual accomplished setup was that Starks were good, Lannisters rather bad and current Targaryens somewhere in between - still to be decided. And while the Lannisters took a deserved and rewarding beating (Jaime, Cersey, Tywin, Devan), the Starks have yet to triumph. Moreover, it seems that they're also experiencing even more bad spots - Jon dying, "Sansa" married to Boltons. As for the Targaryens, aka Daenerys, they're pretty much where they've started. They're trying to do something, but it seems like she's not entire sure herself as to what this would be about. Is she trying to regain the Iron Throne? Is she trying to change the world, by freeing slaves? Is she trying to get settled, fall in love, become a wife, etc...etc...

Maybe the initial plan of GRRM is really what he hinted in some interview. The end will be a snowy graveyard. So he simply is set-up of destroying everything and killing everybody. Although the seventh title - A Dream of Spring(?) suggests there would be more than ice, frozen winds in the ending.

[Podrick + Arya = Win]

It's not about them not killing Starks. I just despise them and after reading dozens of chapters and thousands of words about them feeling sorry for themselves, I've just grown tired of them. Which is similar to what I feel for most of the other characters too.

[evanesco75]

I think that the biggest cause of dissappointment is that, even if GRRM wanted to depict characters as grey-ish, rather than good or bad, still the actual accomplished setup was that Starks were good, Lannisters rather bad and current Targaryens somewhere in between - still to be decided. And while the Lannisters took a deserved and rewarding beating (Jaime, Cersey, Tywin, Devan), the Starks have yet to triumph. Moreover, it seems that they're also experiencing even more bad spots - Jon dying, "Sansa" married to Boltons.

Maybe the initial plan of GRRM is really what he hinted in some interview. The end will be a snowy graveyard. So he simply is set-up of destroying everything and killing everybody. Although the seventh title - A Dream of Spring(?) suggests there would be more than ice, frozen winds in the ending.

Very good point about the Starks. Despite getting to know other characters individually and perhaps sympathizing with some (Tyrion, Jaime), the Starks are still seen (by me anyway) as the ones most deserving of respite/happiness. That they spiral steadily down is depressing. Of course, an eventual triumph is entirely possible (and hopefully probable) but I fear it will be the tattered remains of an already broken House by the end. I don't want to see a lone Stark survivor, for example.

[evanesco75]

double post.

[evanesco75]

godsdammit!

[Ser Pistus]

It's not about them not killing Starks. I just despise them and after reading dozens of chapters and thousands of words about them feeling sorry for themselves, I've just grown tired of them. Which is similar to what I feel for most of the other characters too.

I like Jaime, but I agree, the only emotion I felt reading his Feast chapters was boredom. (Is it an emotion, anyway?)

[Guest Raidne]

You know, there was a point toward the end where I felt a lot of momentum pick up and was all "yeah baby shit is going to go down!" probably around when Dany rides off with Drogon, and then...it didn't. I don't know what I expected, since there weren't many pages left, but the very end felt like kind of a let down.

But, okay, editorial concerns prevailed, these two books are minor character books that get everyone else in place, okay, I can live with that.

The main character storyline seems to be about character - Tyrion's hit rock bottom and is climbing out, Jon is killing the boy...but then running to defend Winterfell???...Dany's working through the familiar "why am I fucking this douchebag?" character crisis familiar to women and Nice Guys the world over and failing to heed her actual destiny, etc. I can live with that I guess.

[The Human Abstract]

Actually, not really. I don't feel those things. Or at least not to the same extreme.

[Ellroy]

Maybe the initial plan of GRRM is really what he hinted in some interview. The end will be a snowy graveyard. So he simply is set-up of destroying everything and killing everybody. Although the seventh title - A Dream of Spring(?) suggests there would be more than ice, frozen winds in the ending.

You know, while I don't agree that ADwD is disappointing (I find it quite good) sometime I think that Westeros is completely f*cked and that Dany was never destined to land. The wall will crumble, the Others will win, and the few survivors will leave for Essos: mass exodus in the free cities ruled by Dany :laugh: .

Mind, I'm joking... mostly :laugh: .

[Kaitscralt]

I've been pretty numb to the series since the end of book three. I keep reading because I love the world so much, but the story itself has become rather bland to me. What bothers me is that the death of a character like Joffrey was boring and uninspired, dealt by Littlefinger/Tyrells for political reasons when what the reader needed at that point was for Sansa to cut his head off with a butchers knife.

I don't even know what I want from the series anymore -- for Davos and Shireen to survive? For Sansa to not get raped?

Exciting!

[Sun]

I didn't have to wait for Dance.I came to the series from the HBO show & read all four books in succession in the past few weeks. I only finished AFFC 2 days before Dance came out, and I still found Dance to be a massively inferior book to all the 4 that preceded it. Yes, even Feast.

AFFC was a character driven book, well drawn, vivd, with a pathos and a depth of insight only matched by the Theon chapters in ADWD. Though the book differed in tone and structure from the first 3 books it has a definite character of its own and once I got used to it I found a rhythm to the succession of chapters that made the book flow for me. The characters that dominated AFFC, I found engaging. I loved what Jamie and Breinne and even Cerssie, the mad cow, had to tell me about themselves and their surroundings. Not so with ADWD.

I didn't mind the cliffhangers, what bugged me was: The craft of the book. The POV read as completely disparate from each other, unconnected. The book moved in jerks and stops for me. The material covered was mostly uninteresting, the character development lacked authenticity, and most annoying of all, 2 of the main POVs (Tyrion, Dany) inhabited a cartoonish world with hardly any dimensionality at all which robbed their POVs of context (more pronounced for Dany than for Tyrion). Also, the story told in ADWD could have easily been told just as well in a lot less pages. When I can skim through chapter, sometimes skip entire chapters, and still not miss a single beat of the plot, that tells me that this book was in dire need of some old fashioned tightening.

I was extremely disappointed in ADWD and it has nothing to do with expectations or waiting time, I'm afraid.

[Aegon II]

Ned Stark getting beheaded was an brilliant twist in book 1.

Then i thought Bran and Rickon getting butchered was genius... but no it just was a ruse

Likewise Theon, Catelyn, Brienne - i hoped they have stayed dead.

With all the raping and killings going on, GRRM seems to be protecting Sansa, Arya, Brienne, even Tyrion to come into harm although the girls and the midget are physically vulnerable.

Question:

Do you think GRRM has already know the outcome to this novel and he's just writing subplots to extend the books?

[The Human Abstract]

Question:

Do you think GRRM has already know the outcome to this novel and he's just writing subplots to extend the books?

Well, according to him... yes he knows the outcome.

Is he trying to extend it? I dunno.

[Lyndsica]

I find myself agreeing with almost everything you say. I'm actually kind of grateful because now I'm not in such a tizzy waiting for the next book to come out. I'll buy it first thing when it does, but right now I'm not on the edge of my seat DYING to know what's going to happen. I mean, I'm curious.

I'm pretty sure Jon's going to survive, though, so the whole cliffhanger thing just pisses me off. If he does die, will I even care anyways?

I really don't care what that little dumbass, Dany does. She was one of my favorite characters, but the whole marriage to Hizdhar or whateverTF his name was was just boring and pointless. I don't even know whyTF the book was called A Dance with Dragons. The dragon action was all pretty lame. I knew Quentyn was gonna bite it, too. No shock there. And Daario? WhoTF cares? All the sudden Dany gives a damn about what tradition says she is allowed to marry? Seriously? Lame. And she decides on the very day that someone mentions the idea of her marrying that she will do it? Lame, lame, lame. It's all so freakin' pointless and boring!

The best story arc of the whole book was Theon/Reek, and that was friggin' depressing as hell. I actually missed the whole Frey Pie thing, I must have dozed off while listening to the audiobook (I switched back and forth between audio and Kindle) because I was so freakin' bored. I liked Wylla's little speech, though. And Tyrion? BORING BORING BORING.

Griff Jr. has possibilities - he sounds like the Arthur Pendragon of Westeros. So he will probably effing die as soon as it's convenient.

The letter from Ramsay? I don't think Stannis is dead, call me crazy, but it just wouldn't make sense. Otherwise, Bolton wouldn't be asking for his Reek back. He'd have him.

And the epilogue? AUGH!!!!!!!

I will probably like it better when I re-read it. I hope.

[Podrick + Arya = Win]

I like Jaime, but I agree, the only emotion I felt reading his Feast chapters was boredom. (Is it an emotion, anyway?)

When I realized the futility of my hatred at a book character, it gradually turned into boredom.

I've been pretty numb to the series since the end of book three. I keep reading because I love the world so much, but the story itself has become rather bland to me. What bothers me is that the death of a character like Joffrey was boring and uninspired, dealt by Littlefinger/Tyrells for political reasons when what the reader needed at that point was for Sansa to cut his head off with a butchers knife.

I don't even know what I want from the series anymore -- for Davos and Shireen to survive? For Sansa to not get raped?

Exciting!

What? Don't you want to see Drinkwater take Quentyn's bones back to Doran? Don't you want to see Lady Dustin whats-her-face intercepting Ned's bones and feeding it to her dogs?

:o

I also recall that I felt excited about the plot in ADWD twice. One was when Davos was treating with Manderly (both times) and the other when Tyrion advised Aegon to go to Westeros instead of begging in front of Dany. This was sound advice, I thought, nice, Tyrion is back to form.

It turns out it was one of his schemes. Bait, he called it. And people want Tyrion to become Dany's Hand. Out of love? Fealty? Honour?

Open your eyes, he means nothing but ill-will towards her.

[YouKnowNothingJonSnow]

Count me in the disappointed group. And rather firmly so.

I don't like cheap cliffhangers, so I was especially disappointed there. We didn't get resolution at the Wall (Jon), at Winterfell (Asha/Theon/Stannis/Mance/Manderly/Bolton's). Barely anyone even got to Meereen (Tyrion/Victarion/Marwyn) except for Quentyn. We didn't get resolution in Meereem (Dany, Tyrion, Barriston, Victarion).

Taking it to another level, Feast and Dance were split up, on purpose, because GRMM said he'd rather give us a book "that told all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters." Miraculously, he did neither. Jon's fate and that of the Wall is up in the air cliffhanger style. As is everyone's fate at Winterfell. As is everyone's fate in Meeereen. Cersei and Margaery still haven't been tried.

And all this while not progressing Bran or Arya much, despite ample opportunity to do both. We left Davos and Rickon hanging. And although we know Brienne is alive (we which really knew already), Jaime is also up in the air.

Starting from AFFC through ADWD, whose arc got finished?

Yes: Quentyn

No: Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Theon, Jamie, Asha, Victarion, Barristan, Melisandre, Aeron, Euron.

Not really: Cersei, Davos, UnCat, Brienne

Sort of: Bran, Arya

Now, one can certainly quibble with how I categorized the characters, but the overall conclusion that we didn't seem to get resolutions for many/most of the main characters, including the 3 major ones, despite intentionally breaking up the books into 2 books expressly so we could get all the story for all the characters, has to be a disappointment.

We could have had a lot less traveling down the river or in the snowstorm. Could have had a lot less Danny wants Darario but wants to do the right thing. Less Jons want to be loyal to his vows, but loves his sister, and must battle anti-wildling sentiment at the Wall. Could have ditched a Qeuntyn chapter or two, all he had to do was free the Dragons. Could have lived /wout the last Connington chapter as well. Or even Cersei's walk, though I enjoyed it.

With those 6-8 chapters, we could have gotten a much more satisfying resolution at the Wall, at Winterfell, in Meereen, and more Bran/Arya/Davos as well.

The book itself was enjoyable in parts, no doubt. But the in light of what we've been waiting for, and how long, and why, the editorial decisions, the pacing, and the cliffhangers make this one a major disappointment for me.

I certainly won't buy the next one in hardback.