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Favorite part of Fire and Blood?


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19 minutes ago, James Steller said:

It just makes me worry that Fire & Blood will have to be a trilogy to give decent histories of House Targaryen. Look how many pages that got in TWOIAF, there’s a lot of character development potential. Just cut the Aegon V history if you’re that desperate to keep Dunk & Egg spoilers a secret. We can enjoy the rest. All those fascinating kings, let alone other members of House Targaryen. The Blackfyres will hopefully be a highlight too.

Honestly, Aegon 5, Jaeharys  2 Aerys and Robert  are more than enough for a book.

 

10 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Alys Rivers and her son are a cliffhanger starting early on in the Regency, but aside from that the problem is that there are no cliffhangers. Just a pointless ending.

Alys Rivers is not a cliffhanger.

Cliffhanger: a dramatic and exciting ending to an episode of a serial, leaving the audience in suspense and anxious not to miss the next episode.

Alys and her son are possible, relative threats that may or may not appear in the next book, Aegon tooking taking charge of the realm after being neglected and betrayed, while he forever earns the enmity of his Hand is a cliffhanger.
 
 
15 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

FaB I should have gone all through to the death of Aegon III or, at least, to the death of the last dragon. That would have been a proper ending. The way it is the ending is just weird, with clearly no conceptual reason behind it. No proper editor of Gyldayn's work would choose this point to break the material in two.

Well, it certainly would be the ending you'd like more. His reign marks the equator of the Targ dynasty and as such his reign is left in themoment he becomes an adult. I really don't understand the latter.

 

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1 hour ago, frenin said:

Alys Rivers is not a cliffhanger.

Cliffhanger: a dramatic and exciting ending to an episode of a serial, leaving the audience in suspense and anxious not to miss the next episode.

Alys and her son are possible, relative threats that may or may not appear in the next book, Aegon tooking taking charge of the realm after being neglected and betrayed, while he forever earns the enmity of his Hand is a cliffhanger.
 
 

Well, it certainly would be the ending you'd like more. His reign marks the equator of the Targ dynasty and as such his reign is left in themoment he becomes an adult. I really don't understand the latter.

 

Oh, man, of course Alys Rivers is a cliffhanger in the sense that she and her brat are a plot thread that's left dangling, something that has to be continued and tied, something the reader was wondering about and expecting the author to come back to in the remaining three chapters of the book without him making the attempt.

Jaime's ending in ADwD is also a cliffhanger, never mind the fact that his story ends in the middle of the book.

The actual ending is no ending at all, and is certainly the worst ending of any of George's books so far in the sense that it isn't an ending at all. The book just ends, it isn't an ending. It is the same kind of whimper the end of the regency was.

Considering that this book is supposed to be an in-universe history book there is no chance that any in-universe editor publishing Gyldayn's manuscript would break the material in two at that particular point. It makes no sense from a thematic point of view. There the ending would have been after the Dance, with 'The Hour of the Wolf' serving as a coda or Epilogue. The fiction about this thing isn't that it has to be written in the future. It is lying around somewhere in Oldtown and somebody just as to bind it together and copy it.

Where the book was broken in two, there should have been some sort of afterword or foreword to explain what the point of that was.

But as I said - if you have to drag in Aegon III the thematic ending of a first half of the Targaryen reign would have been either the death of the last dragon or the death of the Dragonbane himself because that would have split the Gyldayn history in to a 'Targaryen with dragons' volume and a 'Targaryen lacking dragons' volume.

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11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, man, of course Alys Rivers is a cliffhanger in the sense that she and her brat are a plot thread that's left dangling, something that has to be continued and tied, something the reader was wondering about and expecting the author to come back to in the remaining three chapters of the book without him making the attempt.

No, a cliffhanger is the final act of a piece, and as such, Alys Rivers can't simply be one individually. If your argument was that, all of the loose ends are cliffhangers, they are, then ofc because Aegon's regency is one giant cliffhanger. 

 

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Jaime's ending in ADwD is also a cliffhanger, never mind the fact that his story ends in the middle of the book.

Jaime is a POV...

 

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The actual ending is no ending at all, and is certainly the worst ending of any of George's books so far in the sense that it isn't an ending at all. The book just ends, it isn't an ending. It is the same kind of whimper the end of the regency was.

I just understood that it's not an ending, because it just ends but i don't really know what you expected.

The ending is the regency, which is a chapter among many of Aegon's reign. 

 

 

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Considering that this book is supposed to be an in-universe history book there is no chance that any in-universe editor publishing Gyldayn's manuscript would break the material in two at that particular point. It makes no sense from a thematic point of view. There the ending would have been after the Dance, with 'The Hour of the Wolf' serving as a coda or Epilogue. The fiction about this thing isn't that it has to be written in the future. It is lying around somewhere in Oldtown and somebody just as to bind it together and copy it.

A simple answer is that he couldn't copy the following letters for x reasons.

 

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But as I said - if you have to drag in Aegon III the thematic ending of a first half of the Targaryen reign would have been either the death of the last dragon or the death of the Dragonbane himself because that would have split the Gyldayn history in to a 'Targaryen with dragons' volume and a 'Targaryen lacking dragons' volume.

But Aegon himself is quite the turning point, there is no reason to do it.

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On 5/6/2020 at 10:48 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Interesting. Could you remind me of the hint about Quaithe?

Elissa Farman

 

She stole dragon eggs to finance a custom built boat.  She sailed westward and was never seen again.  Corlys saw Sun Chaser docked in Asshai years later. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm a big fan of Fire and Blood, all of it. Favourite parts occur in the regency of Aegon III, notably the Maiden's Day Cattle Show (because Baela and Rhaena) and the Secret Siege.  Honourable mention to the Dance when Rhaenys and Meleys fought the Kinslayer, the Usurper, Vhagar, and Sunfyre and when Baela and Moondancer brought down the Usurper and Sunfyre.

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I loved F&B so much... 

My favorite has to be Jahaerys and Alyssane but honestly I loved everything.

The Dance of the Dragons is so well written that after I read the last part (where Rhaenyra gets devoured by Sunfire) I saw dragons and fighting in my sleep all night, it felt like a saw a very strong movie, xD.

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On 5/8/2020 at 12:51 AM, frenin said:

That's the very nature of a cliffhanger isn't it??

The book is big already :: these gaps give plenty of opportunity for future stories to fill the gaps.

My copy of the hardback version of Fire and Blood is too big and heavy for the strength of its bindings, and its front cover has come off. It should have been printed as 2 volumes.

On 5/7/2020 at 11:16 PM, Lord Varys said:

The Regency I think is mostly material grown vastly out of proportion with no narrative closure. A guy making six great voyages of which we only hear about one, a stormy marriage where we only saw the beginning, a scheming man whose scheming doesn't seem to be over yet still lives, a witch-queen sitting at Harrenhal with the rightful king is ignored, a Broken King about whose actual reign we learn nothing, etc.

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12 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

@Lord Varys

Considering how much you lionize the Blacks and disparage the Greens why do you believe Aemond's alleged son to be the rightful king and not Aegon III?

Oh, well, that's just me messing with people. I think Aemond's son is the best parallel of Jon Snow so far in the books. Another mysterious love affair turned marriage started at Harrenhal. Another marriage which may not even have been a (proper) marriage. Another child of a prince born in the wilderness who pretends to be royalty (in Jon's case: many readers expect to pretend to be royalty one day).

I like to use the phrase 'rightful heir' there because if Aemond and Alys were married this child could indeed claim to be the rightful king with the same right as, say, Aegon and Jon Snow can in the main series by making absurd claims like 'If Viserys III had known Aegon was still alive or Jon Snow existed he would have never named Daenerys his heir'. Or 'if people knew Jon Snow was a prince nobody would consider Dany a viable heir to the throne'. After all, if Aegon II had known his dear brother had produced a son he certainly would have named that guy his presumptive heir while he had no living sons of his one could argue (although I actually think Aegon II would have done no such thing - he would have preferred his own blood, Jaehaera, over any nephews or nieces he may have had - especially over any whose mother had been baseborn bastard - if he had been completely free in the choice of his heir).

I think the point of the story of Aemond's story is to show that being the rightful heir means nothing if you are not born under the right circumstances or in the right environment (i.e. at court). In that sense, his story is very important as a parallel to Jon's in the political field. Whatever success Aemond's son will have in his quest for the throne will give us a good image at the success Jon could have if he were ever to make a bid for the throne.

And Aegon, too, considering he is also a strong parallel there - like with Aemond's son the Westerosi will have to believe Jon Connington's story that his prince is truly Rhaegar's son. If they don't believe that story he will fail. If many lords are going to believe Alys Rivers' story about her marriage her son might have considerable success. Even more so if he has a dragon already, or might claim one of the riderless dragons left. Aegon III is not likely to face him in battle on dragonback...

If one went by the Green ideological nonsense/Great Council precedent then Aemond's son would come before Jaehaera and Aegon III and his brother and half-sisters. He is the only surviving grandson of Viserys I through the male line, after all. That should trump everything else.

As for the Blacks and the Greens: My view there is very simple. While the author does not establish that there is a law of succession which legally binds the king he can choose his own heir. And that's what Viserys I did. Therefore Rhaenyra is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. That's all there is to that question.

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