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Glimpses from Anne Groell


Ran

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In my mind Mel is evil and so it would not surprise me at all if she is working with the others. But that is not for this thread.

I am just excited about the book and found the small glimpses Anne showed us to be fascinating.

If the Iron fleet is smashed, how does Danny get to Westeros?

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The point is, that Mel being literally hot, makes her a rather bad choice for being an ally of the Others. Her very essence should be destroying the Others and their power.

Melisandre wants to fight a religious war. She seems to believe that both her R'hllor and her Great Other do exist. That might not be true (I'm sure the Others do not worship a god they call 'the Great Other'), but there might very well be a battle for the survival of mankind in Westeros. And despite we haven't yet been in Melisandre's head I'm pretty sure that she, despite her habit of burning people alive, has no intention of destroying humanity as a whole. She might have had no or little idea about the Others as a species, as she sees everything from her religious point of view, but it's not her fault that Stannis did not go to the Wall earlier. Pylos did not show the letter to her or Stannis, so they did not know about the situation at the Wall. They could have known, as Stannis had a vision of the battle at the Fist of the First Men, but they did not draw the right conclusion. Not until Davos read the letter.

I'm actually somewhat confident that Stannis' plans don't go wrong during ADwD. He really is desperate already, and he has to gain some strength to become a player and a power again, to be able to be either a guy trying to do the right thing or an antagonist fighting the return of Daenerys. To be that, he must either get all the wildlings on his side, or consolidate the North, and get most of its lords behind him. Without that, he will be threat to no one, and neither his fake magic sword nor a living stone beast is going to make much of a difference.

An alliance with the Northern Lords, the wildlings, and Asha's Ironborn faction would at least give him some power back, although the North's strength should be a joke now, most of the wildlings have no discipline, and the count of Asha's ships and men should be a joke as well. But then, the Boltons should not have that much men, either, so the battle for the North will not be fight with huge armies on either side.

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But then, the Boltons should not have that much men, either, so the battle for the North will not be fight with huge armies on either side.

I agree with everything you've said. The main strength of the Boltons is south of Moat Cailin anyway, and it's not clear how easy it will be for Roose Bolton to succeed in marching up it. A big factor will be the allegiance of the Crannogmen, and whether they are aware that Roose has assassinated their King.

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I agree with everything you've said. The main strength of the Boltons is south of Moat Cailin anyway, and it's not clear how easy it will be for Roose Bolton to succeed in marching up it. A big factor will be the allegiance of the Crannogmen, and whether they are aware that Roose has assassinated their King.

If they're not, it should become clear once Maege Mormont and that other guy link up with them and they hear that Roose is now Warden of the North. I am wondering if that element is going to come out in ADWD and if the Reeds will enter the story at that point.

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If they're not, it should become clear once Maege Mormont and that other guy link up with them and they hear that Roose is now Warden of the North. I am wondering if that element is going to come out in ADWD and if the Reeds will enter the story at that point.

Maege Mormont was not at the Red Wedding. I do wonder whether it is generally known that Roose Bolton assassinated Robb Stark, First Men Style (the man who speaks the sentence should wield the sword..).

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Maege Mormont was not at the Red Wedding. I do wonder whether it is generally known that Roose Bolton assassinated Robb Stark, First Men Style (the man who speaks the sentence should wield the sword..).

Maybe it is not known that Roose killed Robb, but it is known for sure (see AFfC, and it should be even more obvious to people living not far from the Twins) that House Bolton betrayed House Stark. I think this will be sufficient to both Maege Mormont and Howland Reed.

I really hope the whole Howland-Maege-maybe Rickon subplot will pop up in ADwD. If not there, where? I have waited 11 years especially with the curiosity to have a look in that subplot, so... fingers crossed.

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Yes we do, in the sense that we 'know' anything in the novels. Look if the point is that GRRM might write Sansa to be the next Brienne-style warrior maid, yes he could do that. Is it probable? Everything we have seen about Melisandre in both word and gesture (and I'm not talking just about her words either, she rescued Davos from the dungeon after all, and gave Cressen a chance to spill his wine) suggests her enemy is the Great Other. She might be misguided, but it runs completely contrary to my sense of her character or the plot or the rythym of the books for her to be a machiavellian schemer who wishes the Others to triumph.

I generally agree with these sentiments but even then I still think we should hold off judging Melisandre. She's such a wild card that anything is in play with her. Although, if she was trying to help the Others, she's done a bad job so far. At the very least, her not killing Davos seems to run counter to those goals, and she could have done that half a dozen times already.

An alliance with the Northern Lords, the wildlings, and Asha's Ironborn faction would at least give him some power back, although the North's strength should be a joke now, most of the wildlings have no discipline, and the count of Asha's ships and men should be a joke as well. But then, the Boltons should not have that much men, either, so the battle for the North will not be fight with huge armies on either side.

Yeah, all this so he can win back the North and then bend knee to Daenerys with his rag-tag army. Needless to say, not where I think the story is going. We haven't been following Stannis around for three books to get that as the conclusion to his story. I keep insisting that the writer is far more conventional than people make him out to be. The person to win back the North and unite it will be a 'Stark.' It's all about the imagery and symbolism of it.

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I don't think that he's "too conventional"--the story works as it is--but so far the story has been structured in a traditional way, even if there have been some surprises along the way. None of the big reveals really come out of left field, even if--because of misdirection--GRRM makes them seem that way.

I quite agree, but as you said this is not a bad thing. Especially not if being unconventional means having big reveals coming out of left field (thinking about some things from Moore's BSG here, for example). Big twists and surprising reveals are very nice but it is much better, IMO, if they fit logically into the world, plot and flow of the story. From this perspective, I think GRRM is doing a splendid job (though I wish he wouldn't rely on cliffhangers so much, especially not if it then takes 5 years to resolve them). Big twists and shocks just to have big twists, without reason or rhyme, ultimately are not satisfying once you think the story through a little bit.

I think that what makes Stannis such an interesting villain is that in a lot of ways, he really is a traditional fantasy hero. He has a Gandalf-esque magical adviser, he's the subject of an ancient prophecy, he's having visions of a great battle between good and evil... and (to him) that means if he fails, all of humanity will be extinguished. IMO, that idea will ultimately drive him to cross any other ethical line, because under the circumstances how could he not do anything he could to save the world?

Interesting view. Sort of like an extra dour version of Rand Althor (or substitute other messianic figures), but with the twist that he is actually misguided.

So on the prophecy of the "great stone beast", why do we have to believe it's Melisandre's stone dragon?

I'm not sure if this has been put out there before but here goes,

The prophecy from the house of the undying states:

"From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire."

Could this be UnGregor?

That's an interesting suggestion. Considering what kind of magic Qyburn is using, I could see the "breathing shadow fire" thing, allthough both this and the "taking wing" would have to be interpreted figuratively. I like it though.

Werthead, I was hoping there was some more definite info about the AFFC POVs, a pity that Martin hasn't confirmed this yet. The "DONE" on his website was satisfying but just a little bit more info would have been great.

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Maybe it is not known that Roose killed Robb, but it is known for sure (see AFfC, and it should be even more obvious to people living not far from the Twins) that House Bolton betrayed House Stark. I think this will be sufficient to both Maege Mormont and Howland Reed.

I really hope the whole Howland-Maege-maybe Rickon subplot will pop up in ADwD. If not there, where? I have waited 11 years especially with the curiosity to have a look in that subplot, so... fingers crossed.

Following Maege Mormont is going to be important. Both Jon and Dany had Mormonts as mentors.Both Jon and Dany (assuming R+L=J) lost their mothers in childbirth during an attack by Baratheon forces, both grew up fostered by others, both have had trials and tribulations of the heroic kind. Her daughter is dead so she is the last one (besides her nephew who I guess will be skulking around Myreen hoping for redemption). My guess is Horn Hill or Oldtown on instruction from Howland Reed.

My guess for last line? "Ser Homer looked down at the sword sticking out of his belly. Just before the light went out of his eyes he managed to speak just one word, D'Oh!."

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My guess last line? A pov at the hanging scene with brienne. By this part of the book dannys dragons have crossed the narrow sea and as brienne hangs she screams a word "dragons!"

Gods, I hope Brienne isn't left hanging until the very end of the book. Especially since the last half of Dance is supposed to continue past where Feast ended.

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Sure. But why would Anne Groell not want to say "dragons"?

Why would she not want to say any word? There is no single word that could be considered such a large spoiler that she couldn't tell us, at least not anything larger than the line she read, it is just a tease and that is why she did it.

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I can't view video. Could someone tell me what's all about last word. Did Anne say whole line except last word? Did she told only first letter of last word? I think it's the latter, but I am not sure. Confirmation?

She made it seem as if she was going to say the last word, but then she said she wouldn't, only saying that it started with the letter 'd.' She never read the last line in any form. All we know is that the last word of the book starts with a 'd' and that it could potentially be spoilerish, or, alternatively, as some readers have proposed, she's just messing with us.

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"(Nasty! Is it a Theon POV? Sounds like hes at least on speaking terms with the population of winterfell, which seems like a stretch.)"

There weren't any survivors from Winterfell, he's probably talking about whatever soldiers and workers were sent there by the Boltons.

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"(Nasty! Is it a Theon POV? Sounds like hes at least on speaking terms with the population of winterfell, which seems like a stretch.)"

There weren't any survivors from Winterfell, he's probably talking about whatever soldiers and workers were sent there by the Boltons.

Do we know that there were no survivors? I mean it can be assumed, but there are many people whose fates we just do not know about.

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Why would she not want to say any word? There is no single word that could be considered such a large spoiler that she couldn't tell us, at least not anything larger than the line she read, it is just a tease and that is why she did it.

If the world is not spoilery then guessing it doesn't matter. No real information is gained. I would say that "Dragonrider" and "Dragonslayer" would both be counterexamples to your assertion that no single word could be a spoiler. Those would be major spoilers.

"Dorne" could be a mild spoiler.

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