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Just finished Chapter 52


Bowl o' Brown

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A quick history lesson.

As hype for the HBO adaptation grew, so did the badgering from a friend who is big fan of the series. After about 2 years of badgering, it was alleged that our continued friendship was at stake. So I finally bit the bullet and read the first book of ASoIaF. Once started it wasn't hard to get through it before the April 17th deadline my friend imposed. As you all know the books are very engaging. Long story short.. I'm enjoying the books. My plan is to be caught up in time for the ADwD release.

Enough of that..

The TV adaptation has been pretty stellar so far for the most part. Haven't missed and episode yet. The only thing better than an episode of GoT (aside from the books), is reading all the fan comments, and discussions about the episodes. Which I've been doing, and enjoying.

I've been avoiding the main forums for the book series. One look at the topic list and I knew it was spoilerville, and these "Still Reading" forums are pretty empty/inactive. So I've been lurking around the HBO show/episode forums, they are the safest place for me to hang around to avoid spoilers from the later books. For the most part conversations there focuses on the first book, and occasionally reaches into the second book. Though even there, certain unwanted things pop up... names of characters I've never meet, or places I've never been, or events that haven't happened. One such event is the so called .. Red Wedding.

I was able to avoid any details (skipping posts/avoiding topics), but I could never forget the name. The Red Wedding. All I had picked up was that it was sad/tragic, and because it came up repeatedly, I assumed was impactful to one (or more) of the storylines. Since the first time I read the name "Red Wedding", I had assumed Red = Lannister. So when Tywin started talking about wedding plans for Cersei and Tyrion I braced for the worst, not knowing what to expect. Long story short... Tyrion ends up married to Sansa, and I was left thinking that it's not exactly a fairytale ending for either of them, but it's hardly a show stopper. So I took the "Red Wedding" and labeled it as more hype than substance, and put it behind me. Case Closed.

So when Robb, Cate, Edmure, and company marched towards the Twins. I was looking forward to seeing Lord Frey rake Robb over the coals a bit, a couple pages of wedding/reception, and then back to war, Moat Cailin first, and then back to Winterfell. Arya was getting close to the Twins in her own chapters also, but I had assumed something would happen to keep her from reuniting her with her mother, and brother. So why didn't I put it together!?

Now, Robb has been run through (well shit), Cate's throat has been cut open (an improvement?), Arya has been "run down" by the Hound (assuming recaptured, and brought to safety - Good Doggy), Edmure either lives so the Freys get Riverrun, or dies and Riverrun eventually falls to the Lannisters. Robb's army has been decimated, and the North is lost (sad panda is sad) ... The King of the North is no more, I doubt Bolton would want the position, and there is no way the Freys could hold onto that title. I have no clue how Martin plans on cleaning up the mess he's made. Seriously. Martin really is a masochist isn't he? This entire book has been nothing but constant deconstruction of all the power players he created in the first two books. The Nightwatch lost a ton of guys at the Fist. Tyrion is no longer the Hand. Jaime lost his 'raison d'être', Robb is dead, Catelyn is dead. Arya, Bran, Sansa, and Rickon (where ever he is) aren't in a position to get anything significant done. The only person who's situation has improved is Daenerys who just took her second victory against an army of male prostitutes (a gamble, but a win is a win right?), but I doubt Martin will allow her luck to hold out for much longer.

And if that wasn't enough, the last Tyrion chapter introduced some friendly characters from Dorne, the Martells (?). Now for some sick reason, Martin thinks it would be a great idea to jam them inside the already over crowded Red Keep with the Tyrells (and Lannisters). I know what hes doing. I'm not blind. I can see Martin in my mind, jamming more and more angry murderous people into the keep with a giant ramrod. The North is FUBAR, and it looks like he won't be happy until the south is also. Gah!! .. okay i'm just ranting now.

Back to reading.

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I'm so glad that despite being 'spoiled' that you didn't clue into the true meaning of the Red Wedding!! B)

I finished A Sorm of Swords two nights ago, and picked up the fourth book yesterday. I need to get reading, because I am terrified of getting spoiled, so I am trying to be careful when I am poking around on the boards.

You will have to let me know what you think about the Epilogue in ASoS. I'm still trying to mull it over, but I guess I will just see where they take it in book four before I decide if I like it, or not.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just read the "Red Wedding" bit last night. I can't remember another time where I was so blown away by what happened in a book that I had to stop and just collect myself. You certainly have a more optimistic view of Arya's fate than I do.

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I just read the "Red Wedding" bit last night. I can't remember another time where I was so blown away by what happened in a book that I had to stop and just collect myself. You certainly have a more optimistic view of Arya's fate than I do.

You should have seen the look on my wife's face when I hurled that big bastard of a book across the living room...The Red Wedding will remain a flashbulb memory for me, probably for life. I never, in spite of the subtle warnings I took as Catelyn's paranoia (understandable though it was), saw that shite coming. I literally threw all 970? pages (hard-cover) across the room...walked outside to smoke a thousand cigs...and was amazed at how emotionally disturbed I was over a book. Highest compliment to Martin I can pay, I guess. I was so excited thinking that Cat would finally get some relief seeing Arya alive...

It's good to see that I wasn't the only one with such a reaction...kudos to Marin.

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just finished the red wedding myself.. and even though I knew it was coming I'm still in tears... I think the HBO series has made it even harder to take.. I so like the Robb on tv.. he's just the so perfect King and everything you'd want in one.. and its all gone over not marrying a Frey.. really!... OMG I hope the Freys get their's slow and painfully!

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By the close of season 3 I predict viewers are going to be in love with Robb Stark. He's a hero in the Cambellian sense (yeah, I made that word up) and his quest for vengeance is as pure as the Count of Monte Cristo. HBO will lose viewers when this event occurs on screen, and I think a lot of people will be very very angry.

Kudos to Mr. Martin, that event affected me deeply. And now I want to go all Srebrenica on the Freys.

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You know what really gets you? When you reread it and notice Lord Walder's "mayhaps" when offering them bread and salt and all the protections of guestright.

I caught that on the first time through and nearly screamed in dread, and I was in the break room at work at the time with other people.

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I too, kept reading about the infamous Red Wedding on HBO sites. I was irritated because I knew it was going to be bad, although, much like Bowl o Brown, I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined THAT was going to happen. I was devastated and shocked, yet I still can not wait to keep on reading! I was so excited that Arya was going to get to see Robb and Catelyn again (even though I can't stand her). I should have been expecting another obstacle to stop them from seeing each other, riding up to the Twins was just too good to be true. I just finished reading book three, and I am quite blown away by the epilogue too. ASoS was just intense..... I loved Littlefinger at the Vale too. Lysa was just awful. :D yay ASoIaF!

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You should have seen the look on my wife's face when I hurled that big bastard of a book across the living room...The Red Wedding will remain a flashbulb memory for me, probably for life. I never, in spite of the subtle warnings I took as Catelyn's paranoia (understandable though it was), saw that shite coming. I literally threw all 970? pages (hard-cover) across the room...walked outside to smoke a thousand cigs...and was amazed at how emotionally disturbed I was over a book. Highest compliment to Martin I can pay, I guess. I was so excited thinking that Cat would finally get some relief seeing Arya alive...

It's good to see that I wasn't the only one with such a reaction...kudos to Marin.

A flashbulb moment, indeed. Great way to phrase it. I'm a middle-aged woman but when I finished that chapter, I felt in my guts maybe for the first time in my life, what...joy? Cold satisfying joy there could be in...RETRIBUTION. Hope I never run into anybody in real life named Frey--they're in deep sh*t!

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Welcome to the board christistormborn. And the Red Wedding reaction stories are infamous. (Broken furniture, holes in walls, person in work breakroom throwing the book across the room, screaming "fuck this shit" and walking out, leaving the book behind!

Haha, maybe we should have a thread devoted just to people's Red Wedding reactions.

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Thanks! I had to find somewhere to talk about it since I relentlessly bug everyone I know talking about it! After I read it, I just stared at the book for about ten minutes open-mouthed, and everyone was asking me what was wrong, but I couldn't answer....haha. That's what I love about these books, they leave me speechless, and there have been so many times I have had to just stop, re-read what I had just read, and reflect on how freakin awesome it was! GRRM has a way with words, to say the least. It drives me crazy, because everyone I know just watches the show, and I will have to wait years to see their reaction to the Red Wedding, if it even makes it to a third season. :/ Hopefully RW doesn't deter people from watching!

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I'm new to the books as well - and the forum, hello all :D - and only heard of a thing called Red Wedding a few days ago while lurking this as well as other forums. I was slightly spoiled in that I knew that something horrible was gonna happen, and I kinda guessed that probably Robb was going to die (with all that's gone on in these books, It seemed the most likely horrible thing to happen) and probably Catelyn too.

I just finished Ch 52... oh the horror!

I was afraid to start reading the chapter because I didn't want it, what ever was going to happen, to happen. I was desperately hoping that my guess would prove wrong, but with every word and every line my fear and misery increased.

GRRM is so good at painting a picture that I could actually see the wedding taking place in my mind's eye (to me it looked like a scene from a medieval Godfather movie). And my hands actually shook and I had to struggle to hold the iPad steady.

I'm not quite sure I can forgive GRRM for making me love the Starks and then going about destroying them while I watch helplessly, but frell me if it doesn't make from some very fine reading. :bang:

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I made the mistake of getting spoiled, but I only read one sentence and I believe it went like this: "A scene in which Lord Frey lures Robb and Catelyn Stark into a trap and murders them, along with much of Robb's army..." or something like that and I went "S**T!" because I realized that I'd ruined something pretty major for myself.

That said, it's fascinating to see HOW MUCH foreshadowing Martin puts in the chapters leading up to it - foreshadowing that I think would be either missed altogether or set aside as the characters do in the book to The Towers just being sort of a gloomy and dismal place to begin with. Also, I do believe that the Old Gods were TRYING to keep the Starks out of there (the torrential rain and near impossibility of getting across the river in one of the scenes before that) so maybe Sansa's praying was doing some good, though ultimately it didn't save them from their fates. :/

As much as I dislike spoilers, I do have a couple of things I like to remember to help to mitigate anger or sadness when I have accidentally run across spoilers, or some really unkind person has intentionally spoiled a major plot point:

1) My favorite English teacher in high school told me that she reads the last chapter of every book she reads first, then starts over at the beginning. That way, she can find out how the author led the reader to that point. It's a way of examining the author's craft, I suppose.

2) My husband says that every surprise is always a surprise, just that the timing might be a little off. (And boy howdy =was= it a surprise when I read that line above!)

So please don't misunderstand me. I don't like spoilers, never have, and don't advocate for them - but sometimes we can make the best of a bad situation anyway. (HTTH!)

I am a little envious of the rest of you, though, with your Red Wedding stories. I wish I had a good one to share...

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Holy fucking shit. I just finished Arya's chapter following the Wedding. I put the book down, went downstairs and literally begged my mother to tell me why they were dead.

She looked at me funny, and I said it was just a book and went back upstairs :D

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Unfortunately I already knew what it was before I read it. Most of the notable events in the series so far have been ruined for me by morons on the internet who haven't labelled spoilers properly and one of my stupid friends IRL, ADwD will probably be the first book that someone wont ruin for me. If they do, I'll go all Bolton on them.

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My reaction was similar. It was a stunning combination of rage and despair. I had to stop reading at that point. I almost stopped reading all together. I mean, how can there POSSIBLY be a good end to this after that?

My rage was somewhat appeased by Joffrey's wedding, and Tyrion's crossbow, but the despair is still there. I think every reader in this entire series was cheering for Robb. The North is now officially FUBAR. Martin needs to be careful in the next books. If he kills off all the characters we root for, he's gonna lose a lot of readers. He came damned close to losing this one.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just read this chapter today. I had known an event called the "Red Wedding" would occur, but I had avoided any spoilers relating to it. It was a very upsetting scenario to say the least. I knew nothing good would happen at The Twins. I wasn't terribly surprised that Rob died, he is the only one of Ned's children (excepting Rickon) to never have a POV chapter, most everything he did was told in Catelyn's POV. It's a shame Catelyn died, hers were some of my favorite chapters to read and she had so much heartache, it was sad to see her die with no closure.

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I was partially spoiled for the Red Wedding. Someone posted a vague comment about a horrific, tragic event called the Red Wedding. At the time, I was halfway through A Game of Thrones, so I just HAD to know what book it took place in. I went on Google and typed in 'Red Wedding Clash of Kings'...nothing. Then I typed 'Red Wedding Storm of Swords' and of course saw 'Rob Stark' in one of the link previews. Obviously, putting 1+1 together, I assumed that Rob Stark would die in a wedding during A Storm of Swords.

I need to stop reading ABOUT the books and actually finish reading them...

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