Is there any chapter-- or POV-- you would do away with

[teemo]

I think more of a problem was the POVs that were way drawn-out to the point of putting me to sleep, especially in AFFC, and Brienne was a major offender. Her chapters just dragged on and on. I hate to say of anything I'd like to eliminate totally, because I like to think GRRM has them all in there for good reason. Obviously some are less exciting than others, but I still like to read. I'm just annoyed we still haven't had any Tyrell POV. Even if it was just a guard like Areo Hotah, whatever...just something.

[danm_999]

Brienne in the Riverlands in AFFC. For a few reasons.

1) We know where Sansa is, we know she's not going to find her, so there's no excitement in the unknown you get from, say, Bran trying to find the Three Eyed-Crow or Davos looking for Rickon.

2) We already get the flavour of what's going on in the Riverlands from Jaime's 7 POV chapters.

3) There's 8 bloody chapters of it! The only character with more POV chapters in AFFC is Cersei with 10! Think of it this way, if you gave up the space from half of Brienne's chapters, Sam could get an extra 4 chapters that could cover his time in Oldtown, or Arya's faceless man training, or Sansa's intrigue in the Vale.

Why do we need such a sizeable chunk of the book dedicated to something that honestly, could have been done in 2-3 chapters, and is so utterly pointless to the overall plot?

[Hear Us Roar]

Many of Dany`s

Damphair

Arianne.

[Queen Cersei I]

I've commented on this before but I've never been fond of the Bran POV, mostly because of Bran himself. The whole thing is doubly odd because he is the only one of his kind. I like every other POV, albeit, to different degrees, and I like all the other chapters save those involving Bran.

I don't know what to say; I'm not overly fond of being in an 8, 9, 10 years old's head I guess.

Yeah, plus all that "mystical tree/ becoming one with nature/ green dreams/ erie little prophet boy/ magical elves, ahem, I mean, children of the forest" shit seems to play right into all of the obnoxious fantasy cliches that GRRM has so thannkfully avoided throughout the rest of the book.

I mean, Brans becoming a tree? Really? REALLY?

[Grip]

I generally prefer the adult pov's rather than the childrens, IE Catelyn over Arya/Bran etc. My least liked pov's are probably Areo and Arys, both of whom imo dont contribute to the story in any real meaningful way. I guess Arys was partially meant to show us how hard it is to be a KG with all their wows etc, but then again we already have Jaime and later on Barristan..The pages spent on Hotah could as easily have been given to Arianne.. Actually I dont mind Brienne and her travelogue, I rather enjoyed it too be honest..

[Faint]

Yeah, plus all that "mystical tree/ becoming one with nature/ green dreams/ erie little prophet boy/ magical elves, ahem, I mean, children of the forest" shit seems to play right into all of the obnoxious fantasy cliches that GRRM has so thannkfully avoided throughout the rest of the book.

It isn't so much the mystical aspects of his chapters as his personality which I can't take. Most of his thoughts are simply . . . uninteresting? I don't know how to describe it, really.

I suppose it says it all that the only times I enjoy Bran's chapters is when he doesn't figure (i.e., his visions of the past, the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, his prophetic dreams, etc.).

[Lord Over]

Removing Pov would be I'll-advised and this is coming from someone who fell asleep (yes I fell asleep in my chair, no joke) whilst reading AFFC.

That being said, I'd shorten Brienne and Tyrion's journey by half.

[The Sleeper]

The way I see it, each successive installment reads less as an individual book as the series progresses. AGOT intorduces the characters and concludes/resolves their arcs in comprehesive manner while its last chapters sets clearly defined next stages of their journey. ACOK and ASOS introduce and resolve story arcs though they can't be read out of context. AFFC and ADWD were supposed to be one book and even combined they are not finished, as is evident by every major story arc left unresolved. Whether this works for the series overall remains to be seen. I am optimistic.

The fantasy elements are a matter of taste. It's not however like Martin has not been up front about it. The first chapter was about the attack of the zombie-raising ice demons, after all.

[another bastard]

I don't think we'll really know if most of the chapters were necessary or not until the next books come out.

For example, I detest the Ironborn and everything about them - all of them - and I found their chapters in AFFC tedious as all hell. The phrase "exterminate the Ironborn" comes to mind every time I read or think about them, and after AFFC I wished that all of their chapters and whatever influence they're going to have on the overall plot should have been exterminated. However, in ADWD Theon and Asha actually had interesting storylines that contributed to the overall plot in the North. And Martin is obviously invested in the Ironborns' role, with Victarion approaching Dany and whatever Euron is scheming, and even in Aeron's character for some reason. So maybe they will end up having a worthwhile and significant impact on the overall story, despite their slow start. It depends on what the author's able to pull off. Maybe all of those AFFC chapters that I disliked so intensely will end up being necessary in retrospect.

But with respect to Dorne, I still don't see any good reason why everything so far couldn't have been told from Arianne's POV. Maybe Martin thought if he needed to give the Iron Islands multiple POVs, he should do the same with Dorne so it seems like they're getting equal treatment? Bad call, I think, even if it does give the two regions a certain symmetry.

Quentyn's chapters were also pretty boring, except the last one, and he's obviously not going to be playing any further role in the story. So I don't really see the earlier chapters as particularly necessary.

POV chapters that I thought were absolutely critical in AFFC/ADWD: Sansa, Arya, Bran. They're all main characters, and their stories are all clearly going somewhere, even if they all had a small number of chapters in these books. Plus their chapters were interesting to read. To me at least. Plus Davos in ADWD, since he's off to find Rickon, and his chapters were also interesting. To me at least. I was disappointed that they got as few chapters as they did, and cutting what little they had would have been like cutting flesh from the main story, I think.

Jon, Dany and Tyrion are also major characters, obviously (like Sansa, Arya and Bran, they were all introduced as POV characters in the first book), and their stories are all also clearly going somewhere that will almost certainly be essential to the overall plot. I agree that Dany's more tedious Meereen chapters probably could have been condensed without losing anything essential, but I think that every one of Jon and Tyrion's chapters was interesting and useful in some way or another, and kept ADWD from being derailed by side characters.

I'll also defend Brienne's chapters in AFFC. On my first read, they were sort of a chore, but on my reread I started seeing all kinds of details that I'd missed and they became some of my favorite chapters in the book (apart from Arya and Sansa). I actually think they made it a much better book by serving as a counterpoint to all of the scheming in KL (and in the Iron Islands and Dorne). Sam's chapters were also useful, I think, and will probably prove to be important. And I think Cersei and Jaime are basically the backbone of AFFC - the closest thing to a plot it has - so I don't see how they could or should have been cut, except I suppose the Myrish swamp :ack: (actually most of the painfully written sex scenes in the last two books could have been condensed or at least edited, e.g. fat pink mast :ack: ).

But the fact that there's even threads like this that lots of people are contributing to seems to indicate that there's something lacking and generally dissatisfying about AFFC/ADWD. I suspect it's largely the lack of resolution. AGOT, ACOK and ASOS all ended after major conflicts and even battles had been resolved, and set the main characters up for the next book. AFFC/ADWD ends on a ... for almost every storyline, after thousands of pages. I suppose we'll have to see how much the next book rectifies this and retrospectively alters our views of the last two. But from my own present vantage point, it seems that including at least the battle of Meereen in ADWD - at the expense of some of the lounging around in Meereen, and the traveling to Meereen - might have made both AFFC and ADWD more satisfying.

[Jamie Lannister]

As far as stand-alone chapters go, I'd have done away with Pate's AFFC prologue. I know it set up the scene for Sam's story a little later, but still...

I'd have preferred, say, a Balon Greyjoy prologue. That could've been cool.

[Winter Wasnt That Bad]

Would be cool to add a POV for:

+ Littlefinger: where is he getting all that dough? What kind of alliances has he formed. I'm sure there are a few.

+ Melisandre: she rocks in the books (less so in the HBO show). Want more info. Need more info. Must have info...

+ Varys: who in the hell is this guy? Is he a Targaryen himself? I don't think he is who he portrays himself as. He seems like he could be really a bad-ass. Reminds me of the Mule in the Foundation trilogy.

[Ivy Snow]

Every Iron born chapters, except Theon. Well, maybe Asha is interesting now since she's with Stannis. I had to force myself to read Damphair chapters though.

Oh yea Areo Hotah. I don't want to read how he admires his axe or whatever like it's a woman anymore.

[bbqq]

Brienne in the Riverlands in AFFC. For a few reasons.

1) We know where Sansa is, we know she's not going to find her, so there's no excitement in the unknown you get from, say, Bran trying to find the Three Eyed-Crow or Davos looking for Rickon.

2) We already get the flavour of what's going on in the Riverlands from Jaime's 7 POV chapters.

3) There's 8 bloody chapters of it! The only character with more POV chapters in AFFC is Cersei with 10! Think of it this way, if you gave up the space from half of Brienne's chapters, Sam could get an extra 4 chapters that could cover his time in Oldtown, or Arya's faceless man training, or Sansa's intrigue in the Vale.

Why do we need such a sizeable chunk of the book dedicated to something that honestly, could have been done in 2-3 chapters, and is so utterly pointless to the overall plot?

Completely agree, I'd half the amount of Brienne POVs. Some bits of them were fascinating; the history of Crackclaw point was great, the septons near Saltpans was great, the exchanges with Randyll Tarly were great - but I found the lack of character development wearing, and I think the material could have been covered with much less text.

[mor2]

Victarion Greyjoy. I just don't like his character and his POV just shows how utterly detestable he is.

Damphair Greyjoy's pov chapters didn't add much to the story so far. The material therein could easily have been included in Asha's or Victarion's chapters.

You guys mirror what I feel, but I suspect that GRRM has added them now because they going to play a bigger part in the next book and he didnt want to spring them out of the blue or deal with their background etc.

[Kittyhat]

Areo Hotah and Damphair. That is all.

And I'd just as soon remove not only their POVs but actually the characters themselves. Areo could just be replaced with Generic Unnamed Guard, and Damphair could be Generic Unnamed Religious Nut. I could have gone my whole life without knowing anything more about them than that.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Brienne's travelogue in Feast could've been halved and still arrive at the appropriate place.

I'm not fond of the ironborn, other than Asha and Theon. I don't care who Damphair drowns.

Areo Hotah, I "get," because it's like he wants us to know what's going on in Dorne without getting into the head of Doran. I'm fine with that.

Dany, Quentyn, Barristan and Tyrion's Dance chapters could've been consolidated more. A lot of the information there is redundant. We learn about the same Astapori sortie at least twice.

[Faint]

Would be cool to add a POV for:

+ Melisandre: she rocks in the books (less so in the HBO show). Want more info. Need more info. Must have info...

Have you read ADwD?

[Winter Wasnt That Bad]

Have you read ADwD?

Yes, I have. I think there was one POV chapter for her? Are you saying that should be good enough? Not even close. I wouldn't be surprised that she has an expanded one in upcoming books. At least until she dies...

[Christina Ceriddwynn]

Dany.....

*yawn*

I dont need another description of her thought processes about Daario

[Lord Warhammer]

Save Theon remove the Greyjoys