[SPOILERS] New POV Revealed

[iheartseverus]

And we have 3 Greyjoy POVs? *stares in horror* Why? Why not someone interesting? One of the Tyrells, for example. Every single one of them is better than Victarion. This is certainly only personal opinion, but the Greyjoys are my least favorite family in the series. I was hoping they'll get wiped out.

This!! The Greyjoy-squids are unbearably boring to me. I can't even make sense of who's who or what's what with them because I don't care, arrrgghh. They're ridiculous, to me. Borrrrring, pointless. Whew. [/end rant]. Would have loved to see a Dayne POV--tell me all about Ashara and Arthur, not, please, more squids. Just my two cents, of course.

[Bronn Stone]

Wow. I thought without a doubt that the chapters GRRM published as "Arms of the Kraken" were the highlight of AFFC and some of the best writing in the series. I also thought they worked really well as a single story, even though the narrator of that story changed several times in the telling.

[Law Lord]

I find the inclusion of Ser Barristan Selmy as a POV character an excellent development. It will be great if he reveals knowledge that he's accumulated over the years from serving various monarchs and is another view from the East which is a part of the series i really do enjoy. Hopefully his big part involves leading Daenerys forces into battle as he did Aerys. My only criticism is that it would be good to have a POV character that offers insights into the Tyrell family and the South other than Samwell. There was too much of the Lannisters in AFFC in my opinion.

[Joy Lannister]

Imho there wasn't enough of the Lannisters in aFfC. Jaime, Cersei, Sansa and Arya are the only chapters I read on rereads. Sometimes I skip some of Arya's or Sansa's chapters, but Jaime and Cersei - never.

I agree though, a Tyrell POV would have been much appreciated. We have POVs in, or at least close to, every single great house except Tyrell. They play a major role, they are fascinating characters, they deserve a POV. Or at least someone to provide insight into their house.

[Arataniello]

The number of different PoVs is largely irrelevent, if they all move the story formward. Three Greyjoy PoVs is fine, since each one of them will be relating events in different parts of the world.

Further, so called "minor" PoVs DO move the stories of the "major" PoVs forward, they just don't do it from the viewpoint of said major characters. So to kvetch about having too many Greyjoy PoVs and this meaning there are not enough Dany PoVs is daft. Skipping PoVs because one doesn't like them also seems pointless.

Feel free to suggest to GRRM at the next book signing that the entire story is written from the PoV of four major PoVs. Dany for Essos, Bran, Jon, and one other? Yeah, that would be a MUCH better series :rolleyes:

People just aren't happy unless they are complaining, I guess.

[DurararaFTW]

Feel free to suggest to GRRM at the next book signing that the entire story is written from the PoV of four major PoVs. Dany for Essos, Bran, Jon, and one other? Yeah, that would be a MUCH better series :rolleyes:

Who the hell is talking about 4 POV? 9 or 10 we were okay with. Now we have EVERY VIEWPOINT in EVERY CORNER OF THE WORLD? WHY? It was a decent plot when we were seeing the world from Ned's point of view and we din't know how much we could trust Varys, Littlefinger, Pycelle and everyone. Now we do. About everybody in the history of Westeros. Good luck putting yourself in the characters shoes when you are guaranteed to know eveything they are trying to find out first.

[Thefalconemperor]

I kind of agree that the viewpoints are becoming too many and that's a bit worrying. Seems like Martin used it at first to move the story forward when he didn't know that to do on AFFC and now it became his favorite tool.

[Werthead]

And we have 3 Greyjoy POVs? *stares in horror* Why? Why not someone interesting? One of the Tyrells, for example. Every single one of them is better than Victarion. This is certainly only personal opinion, but the Greyjoys are my least favorite family in the series. I was hoping they'll get wiped out.

Because the Greyjoys have a role to play in the continuing storyline. If we missed them out in AFFC and they showed up in other character's POVs in ADWD with no explanation, people would complain that their actions had not been set up ahead of time and GRRM was using them as a deus ex machina to resolve certain storylines.

[DurararaFTW]

No explanation? He was complaining about them having three though it's actually four POV's. We can see what's going on with the friggin Lannisters with less.

[Joy Lannister]

Because the Greyjoys have a role to play in the continuing storyline. If we missed them out in AFFC and they showed up in other character's POVs in ADWD with no explanation, people would complain that their actions had not been set up ahead of time and GRRM was using them as a deus ex machina to resolve certain storylines.

I know it's necessary. Or at least I guess it is. That doesn't make me any less unhappy at the prospect though.

[Lord Varys]

The Greyjoy story in AFfC was not really necessary. We knew that Euron was King in ASoS, and that did not change in AFfC. His position with the Ironborn might be better now, after the Kingsmoot, but come on: we could have learned about that in Asha's memories in ADwD.

Victarion is the only Greyjoy POV in AFfC who might have been somewhat necessary, although it might have worked as well if he just appeared in Meereen out of the blue in ADwD. Now we know much and more about Dany's visitors, whereas it could have been even better if we were as surprised as she when these guys showed up.

And I'm really not sure if the Greyjoys should be more than supporting characters anyway. What's the point of Euron? I still don't understand him. Is he supposed to be new antagonist, or just distraction, or is he going to become and ally of Daenerys? Euron as antagonist I'm actually not interested in, as the evil guy with a lot of ships would require to write a story which has little/nothing to do with the fight against the Others.

But there are certainly too many tentacles within tentacles in this whole kraken business. There's Theon alive and partially flayed, there's Asha plotting revenge or her not-so-dear-nuncle, there's Victarion planning betrayal rather obviously, and then there is Mad King Euron.

[Carter209]

Love the news about Selmy as a POV. Hopefully he gives Dany a clue about who her pops really was.

WRT Greyjoys, I feel that besides the Starks, they may become the biggest players in the series(as a house). We have Euron, who is King and raiding the Tyrell coasts, even threatening Oldtown. We have Victarion, sent by Euron with the Iron Fleet to bring Dany back for Euron, while we know that Vic will take her for herself(or, at least, a dragon). We also have Asha and Theon, with one imprisoned by the Boltons and the other (seemingly) going to become an ally of Stannis. Frankly, as much as I like the Lannisters(Especially Jamie and Tyrion), their time in the spotlight has run out. The krakens seem to be the new antagonist house(Euron and Vic), while also having members starting to gravitate towards the "defenders of Westeros."(Asha and Theon)

POV count-as long as they move the story forward, they're fine by me.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

A caveat before I start: obviously not everybody is equally invested in every part of the story, and I'm not trying to say that anybody is "wrong" for reacting a certain way to the ironborn. I'm not even sure what that would mean. Once that becomes a factual claim (i.e., that the ironborn chapters are unnecessary to the story), then that claim is up for debate.

Now we do. About everybody in the history of Westeros. Good luck putting yourself in the characters shoes when you are guaranteed to know eveything they are trying to find out first.

It's odd that you describe this as different from the situation in A Game of Thrones, when arguably it's the same: GRRM makes the big secret of the incest clear to the readers way before it ever becomes apparent to Ned, so we spend four hundred pages following Ned around on his investigation knowing exactly what he's going to find at the end of it. And yet you didn't seem to have trouble putting yourself in Ned's shoes.

Granted, the world was much more mysterious then than it is now. But that was the first book in a seven book series. Now more than half the series is already in print, and ADWD should take us past the two-thirds mark. By this point, we should know what the shape of the story is like, what major characters are like, what a lot of the relevant back-story is. That's basic story-telling.

No explanation? He was complaining about them having three though it's actually four POV's. We can see what's going on with the friggin Lannisters with less.

I'm baffled by the importance attached to the number of POV characters (and you're not the only one who does that, just a handy example). If the story of the Greyjoys was told with the same number of chapters, taking up the same number of pages, but only using one POV character, what difference would that make? That wouldn't make the ironborn story more or less important.

------

The Greyjoy story in AFfC was not really necessary. We knew that Euron was King in ASoS, and that did not change in AFfC. His position with the Ironborn might be better now, after the Kingsmoot, but come on: we could have learned about that in Asha's memories in ADwD.

Victarion is the only Greyjoy POV in AFfC who might have been somewhat necessary, although it might have worked as well if he just appeared in Meereen out of the blue in ADwD. Now we know much and more about Dany's visitors, whereas it could have been even better if we were as surprised as she when these guys showed up.

I don't think that it would have worked nearly as well. I'm not sure if you've watched a lot of movies by Alfred Hitchcock, but if you have, you may be familiar with the distinction he makes between surprise and suspense: surprise is three people sitting at a table and all of a sudden a bomb blows up. Suspense is seeing the bomb first, knowing that the people are unaware of the terrible danger than they're in, and biting your nails waiting for them to realize what's going on. Surprise is a fleeting reaction, over in a few seconds; suspense (done right) is much more effective.

You want a surprise, but GRRM is opting for suspense (as he normally does). He shows the bomb being set (in this case, it's Euron getting the Iron Fleet together and sending them after Dany), and then lets the reader bite their nails wondering what's going to happen when the ironborn arrive in Meereen later. It doesn't just provide information to the reader, although it does that too. It makes the story in Meereen much more involving than it would otherwise be as well: instead of an out-of-left-field arrival, it's a high-stakes confrontation that we've been anticipating for a while.

Besides that, I don't see how GRRM could have sold the arrival of the ironborn in Meereen as dramatically plausible without spending a fair amount of time on it. I read an sf novelist say once that you can make anything sound plausible provided that you spend enough time going over how it works, and I think that last part is key. "Asha remembered how Euron sent the Iron Fleet off to Meereen in a mad quest after dragons" isn't dramatically plausible, even if it technically gives us all the information that we need. We need to really understand why Euron has enough of a hold to get that to happen, why he himself might be interested, how he could risk defeat or the loss of his throne in the meantime, etc. And that's not a matter of providing the bare facts; it's about taking the time to tell the story of how this came about.

[Lord Varys]

Well, I do know the difference between surprise and suspense, but I'm not sure if Victarion and the Iron Fleet do really qualify as a 'bomb'. They were not set up properly, in my opinion. I actually imagined Euron to be more or less how he was described in the end, so seeing him alive was not really necessary.

We don't know

- how this 'dragon horn' is supposed to work,

- whether Euron gave it to Victarion to take it with him to Slaver's Bay,

- if Euron truly believes he could conquer Westeros with three small dragons, a few viking-like pirates, and (a possible uncooperative) Daenerys Targaryen,

- if Victarion intends to become King and Conqueror of Westeros in Euron's place, or if he just want to take the woman his brother desires to spite him (I actually assume the second, as Victarion is neither smart nor mad),

- if Euron intends to follow/accompany the Iron Fleet to Slaver's Bay,

- what the now vastly spread Ironborn intend to do down in the Reach while Victarion (and maybe Euron) are away - conquering the Reach is not going to work, and if the Tyrells are smart, they play with Euron like the Russians played with Napoleon,

- what Aeron is going to do back home on the Iron Islands,

In my mind, the whole Ironborn situation does not really work as suspense. The Reach and Highgarden is not really threatened in a way that I'm fearing for Olenna's life, and I don't see Victarion, the horn, and the whole Iron Fleet as a threat to Daenerys either. Mostly due to the fact that Daenerys is quite powerful herself, and I'm pretty sure the Unsullied would make short work out of the Ironborn. This could change during ADwD, but we don't know its first volume yet, so the Iron Fleet going to her is no news that alarms me.

[Joy Lannister]

WRT Greyjoys, I feel that besides the Starks, they may become the biggest players in the series(as a house). We have Euron, who is King and raiding the Tyrell coasts, even threatening Oldtown. We have Victarion, sent by Euron with the Iron Fleet to bring Dany back for Euron, while we know that Vic will take her for herself(or, at least, a dragon). We also have Asha and Theon, with one imprisoned by the Boltons and the other (seemingly) going to become an ally of Stannis. Frankly, as much as I like the Lannisters(Especially Jamie and Tyrion), their time in the spotlight has run out. The krakens seem to be the new antagonist house(Euron and Vic), while also having members starting to gravitate towards the "defenders of Westeros."(Asha and Theon)

I really hope you're wrong about that.

[History of Westeros]

We don't know

- how this 'dragon horn' is supposed to work,

- whether Euron gave it to Victarion to take it with him to Slaver's Bay,

- if Euron truly believes he could conquer Westeros with three small dragons, a few viking-like pirates, and (a possible uncooperative) Daenerys Targaryen,

- if Victarion intends to become King and Conqueror of Westeros in Euron's place, or if he just want to take the woman his brother desires to spite him (I actually assume the second, as Victarion is neither smart nor mad),

- if Euron intends to follow/accompany the Iron Fleet to Slaver's Bay,

- what the now vastly spread Ironborn intend to do down in the Reach while Victarion (and maybe Euron) are away - conquering the Reach is not going to work, and if the Tyrells are smart, they play with Euron like the Russians played with Napoleon,

- what Aeron is going to do back home on the Iron Islands,

One by one:

- the dragon horn. We don't know how any magical item in aSoIaF works. Doesn't that increase the suspense *and* add the opportunity for surprise? Wouldn't it be awkward if we did know how it worked? It might not work at all.

- If Victarion has the horn, we'll know in his first aDwD chapter. The suspense of how the horn works will continue up to the point where it's used.

- Euron's plans. To me this isn't much different than not knowing Melisandre's plans (though it looks like we will finally learn that). Maybe Euron is making the simple mistake of believing the Dragons are full grown..? I semi-agree that this his plan is awkward, but men have followed weaker, crazier leaders irl.

- Victarion's plan. We'll learn that in his first chapter too, most likely. Probably early on in a gigantic book.

- I'm curious about how they handle the Reach too. But given your points about how it's not terribly important, we can hear about it off-screen. Since it's not so important, it doesn't really matter that we don't know how it's going to play out.

- Aeron. Guess we have to wait until tWoW for that, obv. He certainly is unlikely to have a role in most pressing aspects of the ironborn part of the story. In other words, since he's got nothing to do with the trip to Meereen or the situation in the Reach or the North, his story being hidden doesn't matter much either.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Lord Varys:

I'm confused. First you were arguing that AFFC didn't really need any ironborn chapters. Your current post suggests that you wish that we'd seen _more_ from the ironborn, the better to answer all the questions you just raised. Which is it?

The questions you raised mainly amount to you saying that we don't know what's going to happen next. I agree that we don't know that. We also don't know what's going to happen in Dorne, or in King's Landing, or in the North, or everywhere else in the world. I assume that we're going to see how these things play out in ADWD, at which point we will learn the answers to these questions, and I'm not sure why you think that we should know them now.

[History of Westeros]

The reason I think Barristan is going to die is simple: I really wanted him as a POV, ergo, he'll die a horrible, ugly death. ;) Every silver lining comes with a cloud, in Westeros.

Aha! Barristan is not in Westeros.. That must mean he'll survive... cause in Essos every silver lining comes with an immortal old knight.

[Lord Varys]

Actually, my problem with the Ironborn chapters as they are is that they are mostly completely irrelevant for the overall story. The first Aeron chapter is completely irrelevant, as we really did not need to see Aeron's reaction to Balon's death. It would have been much more interesting to to start either AFfC or the Ironborn chapters with a Balon chapter, depicting his death, and giving us also a clue about if a Faceless Man really was involved, and if there was some kind of history between Euron and Balon besides the Victarion affair.

[As I've mentioned said FM - has anyone ever thought about the possibility that there might be a FM in disguise among the Ironborn right now? There seems to be a consensus that Balon's murderer was not the Jaqen-FM, so he has to be somewhere right now? Maybe a certain mute woman just looks like a mute woman? Then Victarion is really, really dead...]

Then there is the whole Kingsmoot which is fun and all, but as it does not change the political situation as it is, we did not really need to see it (Renly's coronation would have been a fun thing to see as well, but we did not see it, either). Or, it would have been better to start the Ironborn story there, and give us another two chapters after 'The Reaver' to elaborate a little bit more on certain things. I admit that the Kingsmoot was a good way to introduce us to Euron as a character, and various secondary Ironborn characters.

I just feel that the important/new part of the Ironborn story starts after the Kingsmoot. This is true to a lesser extent to the Dorne story as well (there the important things happen after the Myrcella plot fails). And Euron is really only introduced properly in 'The Reaver', so there should have been at least another chapter to show us more about him and his personality. That is, if he is really going to be important. If he does not go with Victarion, there will be no Greyjoy POV left to show us what he is doing. And I'm pretty sure that there will not be any Euron chapters...

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Then there is the whole Kingsmoot which is fun and all, but as it does not change the political situation as it is, we did not really need to see it...

There's a misunderstanding here that's key to your argument. You think that Euron was basically king as soon as we hear that Balon is dead in ASOS, but that's not true. Stannis tells Jon that "[t]he ironmen are fighting amongst themselves since Balon Greyjoy's death." In the chapter where we learn of Balon's death, Robb tells the audience that there's going to be a struggle for succession between three major claimants to the throne:

"Euron Greyjoy is no man's notion of a king, if half of what Theon said of him is true. Theon is the rightful heir, unless he's dead... but Victarion commands the Iron Fleet. I can't believe he would remain at Moat Cailin while Euron Crow's Eye holds the Seastone Chair. He has go back."

"There's a daughter as well," Galbart Glover reminded him. "The one who holds Deepwood Motte, and Robett's wife and child."

"If she stays at Deepwood Motte that's all that she can hope to hold," said Robb. "What's true for the brothers is even more true for her. She will need to sail home to oust Euron and press her own claim. ... Theon told me how his people think. Every captain a king on his own deck. They will all want a voice in the succession."

So the kingsmoot was definitely important. At the beginning of AFFC, we'd been told that there were three claimants to the Seastone Chair; by the end of the kingsmoot chapter, this political situation changed radically: Asha was in hiding with only a few loyal men, Aeron was missing, Victarion was working for Euron, and Euron had won over the ironborn with an ambitious plan of conquering Westeros.

Now, you may have guessed that Euron would emerge on top, but that's not the same thing at all. Many people guessed that Robb would die in ASOS; that doesn't mean that the Red Wedding was unnecessary.