[ADwD Spoilers] Well That Was Disappointing

[Raksha the Demon]

The editor clearly failed me. "He was not wrong" (or 'she was not wrong') popped up multiple times in every chapter and it made me want to scream (or tug my braid...)

Also, seriously? Doesn't calling a book "A Dance With Dragons" imply...you know, a lot of dragons, and them maneuvering either themselves or, more likely, events of the world around them? Instead of spending the first 900 pages locked in a pit and not doing anything at all?

I was annoyed at the sea storms and snow storms holding up progress, but mainly annoyed with the dragons-in-pit crap. It was one big ploy to keep Dany sitting on her butt so people can come find her (but not too quickly...) and I was not pleased.

I guess the blatant plot devices (Ghost is locked in my room! See, it's snowing! There's no wind for the ship! We're waiting for our other ships to come!) really interferred with my ability to enjoy the good stuff, like Arya and Bran's chapters.

(Also, who gives a crap about Victarion, seriously?)

I kept wishing that Victarion would either wake the dragon, wake a dragon, become dragon toast, or have an unfortunate encounter with the live version of House Greyjoy's sigil - the kraken. I became very tired of his killing people, usually innocent people, left and right.

The dragon stuff that we did see in ADWD was great, though there should have been more. I still wonder how Dany is going to conquer Westeros, or even one of the Seven Kingdoms, when she can barely control Drogon and no one can apparently control the other two. The dragons would be toasting Dany's soldiers as well as those of her enemies. That should have been what she was doing in the last two or three books, not agonizing on how to rule a foreign city.

[elmis]

Also kinda disappointed. :(

I feel like a lot of the traveling could have been cut.

I really wanted to see the Tyrion, The Mage, Victarion and the others meet up with Dany and resolve the Meereen situation, but nothing happened. She learned a few lessons.. but did we really have to spend 900 pages on that. The Wall stuff too grew tedious.

I guess waiting almost 7 years brings up the expectations.

[Davos' Middle Finger]

I think Quentyn was a POV character simply out of necessity . GRRM has said before that he kind of regrets that his characters are spread so far apart from each other that they are really interact with each other. The result is exactly this, the existence of " throw away" characters, that only exists to provide information about a part of the story, out of reach for other characters. Kind of like an extended prologue POV. To get some kind of information about his journey, he had to be a POV character, because there was no other character in his proximity who could have done it for him.

That said, this is the result when you introduce even semi important characters on short notice. Imagine Quentyn's journey would have started last book, parallel to the other Dorne chapters. Imagine the speculations and theories about him and Dany we would have had, the possibilities about the Dorne-Targaryen alliance. His death would have had a much bigger impact.

Did we need information about his journey though? I am not certain.

If including three chapters of " his journey" meant the pushing back of Jon's resurrection and the battle of Winterfell, was it really worth it?

[Reggie]

How much would have needed to have been cut, do you guys think, in order to have merged AFFC and ADWD?

I'm curious as to what people think.

a lot would have been cut. and IMO, the series would be better for it. the entire story could have been better told in five books. the story of dany, bri, jon, tyrion and others could have been made better by fewer pages.

book 4 was a near disaster. book 5 was an improvement but not enough of one to salvage the train wreck that was feast.

[Alais]

I'm not quite finished yet. Just skimmed the last few chapters so I'll go back and actually read them. But I've become pretty disillusioned. I didn't start the series until I saw ads for GoT on HBO. I wasn't familiar with the books so I bought them all and read the first 4 before the TV series started. First three were really good. The 4th - not so much, but it's a long series so you kind of expect the middle books(s) to be less exciting - all those threads have to diverge a bit before they come together.

I guess I expected Dance to start tying things up a bit, especially the last part of the book. No such luck. We have more loose ends and cliffhangers than ever. I actually appreciate an author who doesn't mind killing off some main characters, but wtf? Who's going to be left after 2 (maybe 3?) more books?

Hate is too strong a word for me. Pissed is more accurate to describe the way I feel about it - and that's a major disappointment for something that I anticipated so eagerly.

"Would you like Freys with that?"

:bowdown: That made me almost choke laughing.

[-eX-]

Did we need information about his journey though? I am not certain.

If including three chapters of " his journey" meant the pushing back of Jon's resurrection and the battle of Winterfell, was it really worth it?

You do have a point there. The only actual important thing about him is that he bites it, given how Martells normally react to the demise of family members at the hands of others, but he could have easily been handled like his uncle. Appears at Dany's court in one of her chapters and gets eaten in one of Baristan's chapters.

[sToNED_CAT]

How much would have needed to have been cut, do you guys think, in order to have merged AFFC and ADWD?

I'm curious as to what people think.

Cut 4 Ironmen chapters in AFFC to 2 (Kingsmoot, The Shields), cut some of the Brienne and Cersei stuff, the whole Oldtown plotline, ADWD - cut the whole young Aegon and Quentyn plotline, trim Tyrion, Dany chapters and maybe some Jons.

[Davos' Middle Finger]

a lot would have been cut. and IMO, the series would be better for it. the entire story could have been better told in five books. the story of dany, bri, jon, tyrion and others could have been made better by fewer pages.

book 4 was a near disaster. book 5 was an improvement but not enough of one to salvage the train wreck that was feast.

Here's what I think would have to have been done to begin to combine the books:

- One of the two prologues obviously.

- All Brienne chapters. The purpose they served was to show the devastation of the Riverlands, which we had already seen through Arya's eyes.

- At the very least the Asha and Victarion chapters covering the Kingsmoot, " The Kraken's Daughter" and " The Iron Captain." " The Reaver" and " The Wayward Bride" work perfectly well as introductions to those two's POVs. If the Kingsmoot needs to happen, show it through Aeron's eyes only. If it doesn't have to happen, cut it out and just have it explained that Euron declared himself King after Balon died and Asha and Victarion couldn't do anything about it because they were away. If you go that route that eliminates all of the Ironborn chapters from AFFC except " The Reaver."

- Cut three of Quentyn's POV chapters and make the events of " The Dragontamer" be seen through a Barristan POV.

- Move Cersei and Jaime's ADWD chapters to TWOW.

- Instead of having the Areo and Arys chapters from AFFC, show the events of the Arys chapter from Arianne's POV and possibly move some of the description from Areo's POV into this new Arianne I chapter. The Sand Snakes can be introduced here too.

Who knows whether or not this would have worked, and overall I liked the end products anyway, just not as much as I might have. Maybe I just am hopelessly addicted to spitballing these sorts of things.

[boxian]

I felt that a lot of traveling could have been done without.

I also felt that Tyrion was okay, but only okay. I really, really wish that instead of having boring travel sections, GRRM had done some research into what a cold-turkey stop from a lifetime and recently ramped up alcoholism abuse does to a person: nightmares, cold sweats, irritabiliy, etc. It could have been rather interesting to see Tyrion as nearly mad or diseased as he suffered from withdrawal from alcohol.

I felt that the Dany chapters were overwrought, I thought I read that she was "blood of the dragon" and "Mother" far too many times, I thought she made a series of only incompetent decisions and I thought she needed to kill a lot more people or merely sack the city and move on. I was very frustrated when I realized that she wasn't going to train her people-eating flame-throwing beasts and was just going to hope they listened to her when they were big enough to ride. Her locking them in the pit was so frustrating. I don't like how Dany is just a 16 year old girl because she's not - she's an abused and married 16 year old girl who counts herself as a woman and has sacked a couple of cities and ridden with and controlled a Mongol horde, killed her husband out of mercy and another woman out of revenge and walked into flames more than once, sort of willing to die but confident in herself, and has dragons and an army of Unsullied who at least are loyal upon death to her. So I don't really like how she gets puppy love for Daario and basically says that if Quentyn was hot, it'd have been game over for Hizdahr, spears or no.

I thought Jon's chapters were good, but the people around him didn't listen to any of his explanations. That was just kind of whatever. Most of the chapters, again, were tedious and basically about the chores of a Lord Commander. Not really riveting. I thought that his death, while not unforeseen, was a jerk move and I feel that ending this book on so many cliffhangers is also pretty irreverant of the fans.

Giving us 3 Bran chapters and 2 Arya chapters was crap. The Cersei chapters should have been in the Cersei book, the Jamie chapter as well. I'm pretty annoyed that Brienne is just "boom. Alive!" instead of having that explained. I'm glad that Rickon is being found, I'm not glad to have read all of those Davos chapters to get to it.

I like Ser Barristan more now. The fight scene with him was great. I don't know why anyone trusts the Green Grace, especially Selmy. He should be able to see through her by now: she is a slaver along with the rest of the city.

I liked the Theon chapters a lot. I actually liked him when he first showed up, I thought he was pretty cool. Then he was a douche. Now I just feel really bad for him and hope that he gets his revenge and kicks some ass. I also think that he might be able to team up with Asha and do something about calling for a Kingsmoot again, but I can't see him getting elected unless he kills A LOT of people. The Theon chapters though, were very difficult to read because of the horror factor. Can't wait for Ramsay and Roose to get the noose or the headsman's axe.

The Melisandre chapter was okay.

The chapters that followed Stannis's army were pretty terrible, honestly, though I thought Asha was a cool character. Whee, the army is stuck in a snow storm and the Northmen keep saying "lol, you noobs this nothing. brb, i'ma go die right quick."

I really dislike the Aegeon plot. I didn't even know that was a plot on the table for consideration and it reeks of too much author-willing-it-to-be. I find it ridiculous and weak that Jon Connington has greyscale but Tyrion does not. I feel like Robb and Ned's deaths were just to make you fear for people you liked.

I like Victarion, I hope that he and Dany hook up honestly. I like Val, and I hope that when Jon gets over being dead they can hook up too.

I think that Martin has begun to overuse death for me, mainly it's non-permanence. When he kills Ned and Robb and Catelyn, I know that I was shocked and sad. In this book, he killed Tyrion (twice, inflicting him with maybe-Greyscale and drowning him) and Jon (stabbing him at the end and leaving it there). When he killed Quentyn, I didn't even care until Selmy told me that he was for-real dead. Then I thought to myself, "That's too bad" and moved on. I'm fairly annoyed that I had to read all of his stupid POV chapters only for him to die on me. I would have rather he been held up even more as The New Best Guy Ever (the way Robb and Ned both are pretty much paragons of awesome except for a mistake each), and the POV been from Ser Archibold or something and then Quentyn died.

Edit to add more:

I also disliked the incredible descriptions of all the food. I don't care. It's not what interests me. Let's move on. This isn't Redwall.

I also thought that the use of pet words and phrases was ridiculous.

"much and more"

"nightsoil" - especially when thinking about how irreverant he is about other crude words, this is just a bit silly, but whatever

"words are wind"

"You know nothing"

"If I turn back, I am lost"

"I am the blood of the dragon"

"Where whores go"

etc. They just grated on me.

[Lesionaire]

I also was less than fond of this book, in fact upon finishing it I felt sick. I tried to put it into words for myself but I've found people here have already done it for me. It seems that George now feels the need to describe everything in exquisite detail, from the colors of random tokars to the barrel-vaulted ceilings; needless to say, it gets tedious quickly. The prose seemed more amateur and not Martin-level. I couldn't be bothered to remember or care about any characters in the east except for Barristan and, slightly, Danaerys. Even Tyrion managed to bore me, which I would have never thought possible before, and he had a useless sidekick that really only detracted from the story. I would have been much more satisfied with the Tyrion-Jorah dynamic instead; at least those are two characters we are familiar with.

The Reek chapters were actually pretty good, except for the annoying repetition. Other than that, it seemed as if very little happened in the entire book. There were a few things I liked; the Jeyne/Ramsay wedding chapter was appropriately haunting and twisted, especially since it took place at Winterfell. The chapter where Dany rides Drogon for the first time was good, and since I love Varys I also loved the epilogue. There was very little else I actually enjoyed and didn't feel was a chore to read. Backstory/world building is nice, but not when it compromises pacing and plot. Which, in my opinion, it totally did.

So is Martin losing it? Has he lost it? I hope not. The first three books are some of the best fantasy I've ever read. The last two aren't even close. At least aFfC was set primarily in Westeros, where names are much easier to remember.

Oh, and I also thought it was strange how Jon and Dany kept acting out of character (especially in Jon's last chapter). But there's already a huge thread on that.

[Silent Brother Clegane]

- All Brienne chapters. The purpose they served was to show the devastation of the Riverlands, which we had already seen through Arya's eyes.

Yes, but without Brienne we would have never learned the fate of Sandor Clegane...

Also HAHA at the "Tug my braid" line earlier. My wife was about to burn the thing if she read another "...much, and more."

[MindLikeWarp]

I was really disappointed with this book as well. I don't feel as though the story moved much at all. Jon moved a little, but the rest didn't move much at all considering the amount of words. I thought Feast was bad, but it wasn't nearly as disappointing as this book. Comparing the two makes Feast seem great. At least stuff that mattered happened in Feast. Cersei and Jaime, and Arya, and even Sam, all had more happen to them individually, than all of Dance combined. I hope the next book is more like Feast, which in retrospect compared to Dance, was actually a book that did something.

[Erendis]

I found the main three to be rather boring (as many people seem to feel too). They all definitely could've been condensed or something. Jon's was the least boring and painful, of the three, to read however. Even though I found Dany's story dull, I'm starting to like her as a character, surprisingly, because it was fun to see her make such mistakes as she did AND suffer the consequences. In regards to Tyrion, I think he's boring here because he's simply not in his element where he can be witty and cunning.

Also, the one Jaime chapter was rather pointless, plotwise in a way, but it was fun to see Raventree Hall, and the Blackwoods versus the Brackens.

I found Arya's two chapters absolutely pointless. At least the main three had a point to having so many chapters- some of the things that happened to them moved the plot forward. Arya's chapters I would say are just fanservice. We already know what Arya's doing. I see no point in reading about every little thing she learns. It is stupid to waste paper and thought on the minutiae of Arya's training, moreso because he has already covered it in her AFFC chapters.

The best sections of this book are the supporting cast- Theon, Bran, Davos and Ser Barristan. Not only did they move the plot forward for the most part; their chapters were not boring. Actually interesting things occurred in their chapters.

[LadySansa]

I think if the next book is anything like ADWD/AFFC and not more like ACOK/AWOS then he has definitely lost it. I always read his books in a few hours but this one bored me so much I decided to go to sleep and finish the last few hundred pages in the morning. And I didn't set my alarm.

I am kind of disappointed. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and read the nest one that comes out. I might not buy it though. I think I will read it first to make sure it is worth buying and then if it was good I will buy it because I like to read them over and over and over...

Tyrion chapters were terrible. I don't particularly like Tyrion as a character/human being but I think his chapters (in the other books) are almost always interesting. I'm neither a Dany hater or a Dany lover and was not too crazy about her chapters. They were better than Tyrion's but that's it. I was actually more interested in Jon's chapters for once, and I usually find his chapters boring. Theon and Davos had good chapters and Theon's chapters were probably the best ones.

In my opinion GRRM is best at writing Cersei, Jamie, Sansa, and Tyrion chapters. Or maybe those are the chapters I find the most interesting? Not sure. I don't dislike Cat as a character but I didn't find her chapters incredibly interesting. Oh yes, and I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I have always found Bran chapters to be pretty boring, except of course when Theon took Winterfell.

[Raging Bear]

Did anyone who read book 4 actually think book 5 would be full of action? Book 4 and 5 cover the intermission between act 1 (book 2/3) and act 2 (book 6/7). GRRM said that he first tried using a 5 year gap in the story but couldn't make it work as a individual book. If a 5 year gap was his original idea, do you really think that a lot of action and major plot points are going to be covered?

It is a river that had to be crossing in the grand overarching plot, and in a story as big as ASOIAF it covered two companion novels. Did the story go where I thought it would? no. Did Character's stories advance less than I thought they would? Yes, but given that that has been true for all five books I'm not surprised. Did I enjoy the book for what it was? yes.

[Pecan]

I think all of the Arya and Cersei chapters and the lone Jaime and Areo Hotah chapters should have stayed in AFFC, simply for the sake of narrative continuity. I think there should have been a few more Bran chapters. I think the ironborn are kind of boring, and I would have just as soon seen GRRM keep them out of the main storyline altogether. I think they're adding a needless complication to the story and are one of the reasons he's taking so long between books.

While it seems likely that Aegon is a fake, I think that kind of sucks, because I like the idea of this young man coming in with good education and a sense of duty to put things right. But, if he isn't a fake, I would have liked to see him and Griff introduced in earlier books, or at least have there be more of a setup to his possible existence. I wonder if he's actually a Dayne?

I want to know what's happening in the Vale.

I'm really tired of endless cliffhangers and getting a bit pissed off about it. If the wait between books was one or two years, then okay, but it's been six fucking years since AFFC and it was 5 years between ASoS and AFFC. With that kind of wait, we need each book to wrap up a little bit more cleanly. Again, I waited six years for ONE more Jaime chapter? Really?

Again, why so much damn emphasis on the Ironborn? We get it, they're mean dudes. It would be a bad thing if they won.

Overall though, I still enjoyed the book immensely.

[Pecan]

Also, what's the point of giving Jon Connington greyscale? I don't get it.

[Silent Brother Clegane]

I'm a little too close to the scene of the crime to be able to determine whether or not I'm upset by the quality of the book, or the fact that I am going to have to wait a decade to find out how Wun-wun dies(or more importantly how many of the Queens Guard he "Aegons" to death first.)

Truth is, when I think back on it this book reminded me of Mat's chapters in WOT, filler and laughs. There is not too much else. There were the dany flies/jon the boy dies meat and potatoes sections, but on the whole I found the best parts to be:

When Tycho Nestoris shows up at Stannis's "3 days till Winterfell" camp I literally choked I was laughing so hard. He just goes to prove that the employees of the Iron Bank of Bravos are willing to go the extra mile for your groat. I Wonder if they have free checking? Just so.

When Dany inadvertently saves our Giant of Lannister I had to give Mr. Martin a tip o' my hat. Throwing one of the most highlighted characters lives at the feet of another of the main storyline character's and allowing the natural inclinations of the latter to save the day, as it were(for us "Tyrion for president" club members anyway), was a master stroke. Especially in light of the fact that if Dany knew who was actually "Sow-back"(This phrase also forced me to set the book aside so i could stop laughing.), she might have just let the lions do their work, or grabbed him up for some other Lannister-tainted reason.

The line "The sow had a sweeter temper than some horses he had ridden.". Again, had to put the book down.

Now if the comedy is the best part of a 900+ page, No-holds barred, honorable characters die, baby-killing, daughter raping sort of series then we may just have a problem.

[Pecan]

Did anyone who read book 4 actually think book 5 would be full of action? Book 4 and 5 cover the intermission between act 1 (book 2/3) and act 2 (book 6/7). GRRM said that he first tried using a 5 year gap in the story but couldn't make it work as a individual book. If a 5 year gap was his original idea, do you really think that a lot of action and major plot points are going to be covered?

It is a river that had to be crossing in the grand overarching plot, and in a story as big as ASOIAF it covered two companion novels. Did the story go where I thought it would? no. Did Character's stories advance less than I thought they would? Yes, but given that that has been true for all five books I'm not surprised. Did I enjoy the book for what it was? yes.

This is a good point. AFFC was clearly transitional in nature and ADWD could just as easily be called AFFC Pt. 2.

With regard to the 5 year gap, it's obvious how much trouble dropping that idea has caused him. The first three books, for the most part, fit together perfectly. It's obvious he knew exactly where he was going with those. Then, when he threw out the 5 year gap, the whole story became a lot more messy.

Personally, I don't understand why the 5-year gap couldn't work. Yes, there would have been a lot of flashback narrative and what not, but most of that would have taken place in the first POV chapters for each character.

[Pecan]

When Tycho Nestoris shows up at Stannis's "3 days till Winterfell" camp I literally choked I was laughing so hard. He just goes to prove that the employees of the Iron Bank of Bravos are willing to go the extra mile for your groat. I Wonder if they have free checking? Just so.

Oh yes, that was awesome. Really, really awesome.