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Least favourite ASOIAF book and why?


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Or make TWOW an epic masterpiece...

Not in my opinion. I feel like the structure will be all off since the big battles weren't there. The first few hundred pages will have to be focusing on the battles and then all the aftermath will come.

Could you imagine Clash if the Blackwater battle hadn't happened until the next book? It would've been disastrous.

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My least favorite book would be AFFC. It finally introduced Dorne properly but there's also the whole stuff surrounding the Iron Islands which I cannot enjoy, even on a re-read. It seems I'm in the minority with this but I really liked ADWD, it's my second favorite book of the series.

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  • 1 year later...

My least favourite books is the first one. There are just some character behaviours that are just too convenient for plot development but not


very logical (mainly Catelyn's and Ned's behaviour).


I just hate it when authors "bend" the story to their will and its not entirely logical


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It's a toss between AFFC and ADWD. They both have some incredible scenes and story-arcs but big chunks of boring stuff as well. I really liked Jaime's campaign in the Riverlands, Sam's travels and Sansa/Arya chapters in AFFC as well as the epic unravellign of Cersei's arc. Septon Meribald's speech is one of the most powerful in the series and the revelation of the gravedigger was a great Easter egg. The Kingsmoot was interesting for an Ironborn plot. But I found Cersei's POV incredibly exasperating and I really don't care too much for the Iron islands or Dorne so apart from Cersei's downfall nothing happened that I found especially noteworthy.

ADWD has more of really good stuff - the entire Northern plot was just amazing, with Manderly and 'North Remembers', Theon/Reek's masterful transformation, or Jon taking back the North for the Starks via Stannis and if that was all the book was about it would probably be competing for my favourite with ASOS. Dany's and Tyrion's last chapters ware pretty good as well, but the rest of their arcs weren't and were filled with characters and places I couldn't care less about. It's even more frustrating that all that build-up goes exactly nowhere, because they don't even manage to meet. Leaving out the Battle of Meereen was IMHO a very bad editorial decision and the whole book suffers for it. I *almost* feel the same about the Jon cliffhanger.

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Cersei's chapters in AFFC are so much better than anything else IMO. Just watching her delusions play out as she destroys the potential Lannister dynasty is magnificent while she edges closer to madness with every increasingly paranoid move. Between that and Jaime's great redemption arc taking off it would be my #1. Quite remarkable when 3 of my 4 favourite characters aren't really featured.


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Unpopular opinion: AGOT.

Don't get me wrong, it's great and I love it. But compared to the later books, many of the characters still feel like tropes for the majority of the book (Sansa, Arya, Cersei, Jaime. ..) and the deconstruction and development has barely started. This is especially the case with the long introductory phase.

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AFFC, largely because it took chapters that should have been 10-15 pages and stretched them out to over 20; for example, that one Arianne chapter where she hangs out in a tower for 10 pages doing nothing before anything actually interesting happens.

Them's fighting' words! :box:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/118148-trial-by-folly-the-arianne-martell-reread-project/page-6#entry6345954

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My least favorite is actually A Game of Thrones (by default). Don't get me wrong I love this book, but I list as my least because it is very linear. Most of the book is simply setting up for all of the action and intrigue that comes in later books. Most of the POVs are located in the same place at the same time and many of the scenes in the book could be told by any of the characters. I like how the POVs are dispersed in later books, and how many things are learned of other characters by hearsay. I personally think that the books get better as they go on; my favorite is ADwD.


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