Reading Sequence of Book Five: A Dance with Dragons: Song of Ice and Fire

[KillingTank]

I don't get this style of book reading. How do I properly read this book without getting totally confused?

Do I only read Tyrion's perspective, or do I read everyone's? How do you properly get the most out of this jam packed book of great adventures?

Please any answer would be grateful.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Read them one by one, in the order they are presented. Should you by the end feel confused, reread the POV that confused you.

In Dance, POVs interact with one another, so reading only one POV will make you wonder why specific characters are suddenly on a specific location. And later, you will be wondering where they went. That won't be usefull :)

[KillingTank]

Hmm okay, I have already read like 4 of Tyrion's chapters, so I guess I should go back and treat it like a normal book?

Thank you for replying by the way.

[KillingTank]

I went onto reading from Daenery's perspective, but it feels weird as I was starting to understand Tyrion so much. Would it really ruin the experience if I just read one person's perspective until the end, and then move onto the next one?

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Well, then I'd suggest reading per story arc, not per POV (as multiple POVs have interacting storylines).

Since you started with both Tyrion and Daenerys, You could do the following read (this list is the normal sequence of chapters, with all the non-important chapters for this arc left out)

1. Tyrion I
   
2. Daenerys I
   
3. Tyrion II
   
4. The Merchant's Man
   
5. Tyrion III
   
6. Daenerys II
   
7. Tyrion IV
   
8. Daenerys III
   
9. Tyrion V
   
10. Tyrion VI
    
11. Daenerys IV
    
12. The Lost Lord
    
13. The Windblown
    
14. Tyrion VII
    
15. Daenerys V
    
16. Tyrion VIII
    
17. Daenerys VI
    
18. Tyrion IX
    
19. Daenerys VII
    
20. Tyrion X
    
21. Daenerys VIII
    
22. Daenerys IX
    
23. The Queensguard
    
24. The Iron Suitor
    
25. Tyrion XI
    
26. The Discarded Knight
    
27. The Spurned Suitor
    
28. The Griffin Reborn
    
29. Victarion I
    
30. Tyrion XII
    
31. The Kingbreaker
    
32. The Dragontamer
    
33. The Queen's Hand
    
34. Daenerys X
    

In the end, it will always be your own decision :) but if you really want to "cut" the story into pieces, reading by arc is the way to go. The Tyrion arc interacts with a new POV, who eventually separates from the storyline, but keeps containing "spoilers" for the Daenerys storyline.

Whereas the "Merchant Man" (Windblown, Spurned Suitor, Dragontamer) begins separate, but merges into the Daenerys storyline.

The Discarded Knight (Queensguard, Kingbreaker, Queen's Hand) and Daenerys are basically the same storyline, which separates only during the last Daenerys chapter.

Victarion (Spurned Suitor, Victarion I) continues his arc from Feast, and is on his way to Daenerys. If you want, these two chapters could be read separately after the Daenerys arc has been read, A character from Tyrion's arc does appear in Victarons', though.

And then there's the Lost Lord (Griffin Reborn), who first appears in the Tyrion arc, before getting a POV of his own.

The chapters are placed in the order they are in for a reason :) think of it a bit like Game of Thrones, where Ned, Arya, and Sansa are all in KL.. While for deeper perspective reading only 1 POV at a time is usefull, when you first read only Sansa, you'll be stuck wondering where that "dance master" came from, while he's simply mentioned as having been hired one Arya chapter before, yet you won't find out until you read the Arya arc.

A Dance with Dragons basically consists out of an arc in Essos (as displayed above), an arc in the north (Prologue, Jon (13), Reek (6) and Asha (2)), and some chapters finishing up some stuff from Feast (Areo (1), Cersei (2), Jaime (1), The Blind Girl (1), Epilogue).

You could try that approach..?

[KillingTank]

Thank you very much for your help, I will try that order.

I'll let you know if I have any problems.

[UtherSnow]

There was a suggested reading sequence somewhere, I can't recall where. It had notes too, explaining why you skip certain chapters and leave others until afterwards. Perhaps someone else has a better memory than myself (possibly with a link).

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

There was a suggested reading sequence somewhere, I can't recall where. It had notes too, explaining why you skip certain chapters and leave others until afterwards. Perhaps someone else has a better memory than myself (possibly with a link).

Wasn't that for the combined read of Feast and Dance?

[KillingTank]

I couldn't cope it, I had to just resort to Tyrion's perspective as I kept forgetting what happened in the previous segments with all the different perspectives. It is much easier to follow and read and enjoy when I just stick with Tyrion's perspective. It was greatly engrossing reading Tyrion's views and I just finished his last segment today, I have moved onto Jon's perspective now.

I really did try your method which you recommended as the "proper" way of reading it, but it just didn't flow well.

Thank you anyways.

[kamkaran]

The best way is to read one by one with fully understading!!

[KillingTank]

One by one, what do you mean?

[Jez Targaryen]

Just read it in the order that it was written, it's better that way. Generally a fair amount of time passes from one POV of a character to the next time that they appear. I think that part of the confusion that you feel may be due to the fact that a lot of time/events occur *between* chapters, and we are just given clues to piece it together on our own. In my opinion, reading just one character at a time loses some sense of the flow of time as it would make it seem like the events you read about from one chapter to the next are happening back to back, when in fact they're not.

[KillingTank]

Thank you for clearing that up, I have no more use for this thread. I have decided to stick with my original reqading method and although it skips a few chapters, at least I can recall what I read previously and quickly know what part I am up to again.