Hi everyone! I have been an ocasional visitor (lukrer) on this forum for about half a year, and I now finally decided to join. I figured outh that this thread would be a good place for my first post. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that one of the fist posts in this thread was from a Romanian just like me. I didn't expect there would be many of us here. Now let me tell you a fun story about how I became a fan of ASOIAF. I first discovered the books about 3-4 years ago. At first, I wasn't impressed by all the hype. In fact, most reviews that I read gave me a wrong impression of the books. First because I am a huge Tolkien fan and since ASOIAF is often advertised as "not like Tolkien", so I expected not to like it. I allso said to myself: "Sex, violence, moral nihilism, sounds like some kind of pulpy Conan-clone. I won't waste my time with it. But my lillte brother could like it. It might impress his imature teenage mind and get him to al least read something!" So I bought the first volume for my little brother as a birthday present. He never got past the prologue. I hovewer eventually picked up the book to read a few pages and see what is was about... and couldn't put it down. I had finally realised why he books were so popular. But I didn't go and buy the sequels imediately. That's because one of the first things I learned about GRRM was that he had apparently abandoned the series halfway though it, and I was reluctant to read a story where I might never know the ending. I decided to wait some more, at least until Dance of Dragons would be published. Last spring, after the TV series started, I finally gave in and bought a boxed set I found on Amazon, in the original english language. Through a lucky coincidence I finished AFFC on 11 july 2011 (He, he, he!) After finishing the book I started to visit this forum to see fan theories and other things. I had known about it for some time but had carefully avoided it so I wouldn't be spoiled (unfortunately I didn't know about the "still reading" section) Instead, I got horribly spoiled in other places where I didn't even expect it. Now, with a new season of the TV series knocking at the dor, and with some spare time momentarily on my hands, I finally decided to sign in and join the discussions.
