Book Five and Hindsight.

[Fraemakr]

I think that aDwD will probably not be more liked when Winds of Winter is released, but at least people should be able to understand it better. The first time I read it, I hated it, and thought it was just a waste of time, because in 900 pages, not enough happened. But after re-reading it, you start to notice all the little things happening, like Tyrion becoming part of the Second Sons, I think, and Davos going to Skagos to find Rickon. When aWoW comes out, we'll probably see why all this was important, and appreciate why aDwD was like it was. That doesn't mean the book will be better liked; after all, it can only ever be 900 pages of scene-setting for the next book.

However, for the most part, I will never like Feast. Maybe the bits with Cersei, and in Dorne and the Iron Islands were important, but they were overblown, and interesting events were few and far between. For one thing, Cersei has turned into the most twisted woman ever. But too much was needless. Brienne, and I know she may be a fan-favourite, is a dire POV. To my mind, with the current situation in Westeros, Sansa can never be terribly important, so to waste hundreds of pages reading about Brienne hunting her down with the dullest cast and through the most unimportant locations was tedious beyond belief.

Example: All that rubbish about Lothston, and the houses that ruled Harrenhal. Pages of information, on houses that have been dead for generations, and did very little of any worth.

[Errant Bard]

Comparing Jon to Nixon?

Clinton, actually.

I disagree with a good deal of the comments about Jon. The purpose of the Night's Watch is to protect Westeros from the Others, not the wildings. By bringing the wildings south of the Wall, and getting them to agree to obey Westerosi law, Jon scores a major victory. (No one else in Westerosi history has been able to pursuade the wildings to accept Westerosi law.)

Nobody said it was not.

He just does a bad job of winning the debate over the issue in the eyes of some of the Watch, because as Lord Commander he feels he shouldn't try to win a debate; he should give orders.

That is what he did, it got him stabbed. I don't think you understand what being a leader entails: it entails people following your lead, and they only follow you so far when their only motivation is respect of hierarchy.

[The Lost Lord]

I already think ADWD is the strongest and deepest book in terms of character development. In real life, people don't change only because of big dramatic events, like they mainly do in the first 3 books of ASOIAF. However, in ADWD, the day-by-day experience of Dany, Jon, and Tyrion slowly, gradually changes them into different people. This volume doesn't "need" the plot climaxes necessarily because their character arcs have all completed. Jon has thrown aside his vows in favor of using power to get what he wants, Dany has sadly concluded that dragons plant no trees and she can't protect innocent life, Tyrion is now ready to accept his role as Tywin's true son. But these character changes were so subtly written that many people have missed them. Their significance will become clear in the next book.

[Salavace]

ADWD is the deepest book in terms of character development

I definitely think that this is a huge aspect of the book, more so than many of the previous novels.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

That is what he did, it got him stabbed. I don't think you understand what being a leader entails: it entails people following your lead, and they only follow you so far when their only motivation is respect of hierarchy.

A.) The vast majority of the Night's Watch is following Jon's lead. Only a very small minority (about four or so) is involved in the revolt. Jon's error was not due to abysmal leadership. He made two tactical errors. 1) Instead of keeping his friends close and his enemies closer, he kept his enemies close and sent his friends away. 2) He underestimated the lengths his opponents would go to in order to stop him. So Jon's not perfect (no one in a GRRM world is), but he's not abysmal.

B.) Leadership is also about making the right decisions. Persuading people to follow you is worse than useless if you lead them over a cliff. Jon's decisions are mostly good. Again, not perfect, but much better than Bowen Marsh would have made.

Remember that Marsh took a blow to the head at the Bridge of Skulls. Jon's inability to win over Marsh, or to anticipate Marsh's actions, is hardly a valid reason to brand Jon as an "abysmal" leader IMO.

[Chirios]

I already think ADWD is the strongest and deepest book in terms of character development. In real life, people don't change only because of big dramatic events, like they mainly do in the first 3 books of ASOIAF. However, in ADWD, the day-by-day experience of Dany, Jon, and Tyrion slowly, gradually changes them into different people. This volume doesn't "need" the plot climaxes necessarily because their character arcs have all completed. Jon has thrown aside his vows in favor of using power to get what he wants, Dany has sadly concluded that dragons plant no trees and she can't protect innocent life, Tyrion is now ready to accept his role as Tywin's true son. But these character changes were so subtly written that many people have missed them. Their significance will become clear in the next book.

lol, okay, this is quite possibly the greatest thing I have read on these forums.

So, it's not that the book is bad, it's that George's genius is so great that us lesser mortals simply can't comprehend him.

To the OP: No. ADwD will not get better with hindsight. Nor will AFFC.

[The Lost Lord]

lol, okay, this is quite possibly the greatest thing I have read on these forums. So, it's not that the book is bad, it's that George's genius is so great that us lesser mortals simply can't comprehend him.

I don't know whether you "comprehended" ADWD, but you certainly didn't comprehend my post. I offered my opinion that ADWD is a very complex book full of subtle character development. In my reading the books have led Jon and Dany (and Tyrion) down certain paths in character development that will become more clear when the next book comes out. For instance, lots of people think Dany's last chapter is boring and lame, but my view is that her character has completely changed to embrace a much more violent path, rationalizing the loss of lots of innocent life, and that will become clear early in TWOW. Then people will look at ADWD with new eyes, realizing that what they thought was time-wasting nonsense was actually careful character development leading Dany to a very specific mental place, where she can abandon or ignore some of her most cherished values.

In my opinion, the moral and practical situations that Jon and Dany grapple with in ADWD are devilishly complex and very carefully constructed to challenge their deepest beliefs and values. Personally, I love ADWD because it explores complicated questions of leadership like the following in a way the previous books don't:

• Jon: What does the Night's Watch vow mean? Is Jon a bad leader because he lost his men (as discussed in this thread)? Should Jon interfere with northern politics, like with the Karstark wedding, to help a young girl? Should Jon risk the Watch's men to try to save thousands of wildlings at Hardhome? Does Jon even realize that he's repeatedly bending and breaking his vows? What are Jon's duties to the Watch, to the wildlings, to the realm, and to Arya? How far can moral righteousness alone get you, if you can't convince others that you're right? Is Jon backing Stannis the right practical move, or oathbreaking, or both? What happens to a leader when he doesn't have trusted advisers to push back against his bad ideas? How does a leader get more and more comfortable with using power to get what he wants? Using violence? How can a leader be visionary and brilliant on some issues, but short-sighted and foolish on others? What happens when your reforms are too much too fast?
  
• Dany: How can you stop an insurgency that you can't beat on the battlefield? What happens when violence doesn't work? How can you win over a part of a population that despises you? How far should a conqueror go toward accommodating the conquered people's culture? How far should Dany go to restore peace to Meereen -- should she back away from violence, marry a man she doesn't want, give up some of her reform goals? What happens when you want to change the world but doing so just leads to violence and death? How does Dany react when she has to compromise on some of her deepest beliefs? How does Dany react when she loses some of her autonomy? How does a person with good intentions and compassion end up ordering the torture of a woman? Is a part of Dany truly in love with and attracted to violence? How does a conqueror rationalize the death of innocents?
  

I find these questions very interesting, but YMMV.

[MediumJon]

We can all agree that AFFC and ADWD are stage-setter novels. Some people are bored by the lack of action, other people (including myself) like them because Mr. Martin replaces action with character development PLUS subtle hints at other storylines. The current whereabouts of Sandor Clegane, Manderly's pies, all of these gems and more are snuck into the character chapters to flesh them out and reward the reader. ADWD however devoted a large amount of time to the story outside of Westeros, and that is where it weakened. There is so much less going on in Mereen that the reader cares about, so in Dany's and Tyrion's chapters we have a much emptier background. No clues to the history of westeros, no glimpses of minor characters and interesting subplots. Everyone loves the chapters in Westeros, even Jon's dissapointing reign is atleast interesting.

Also and unrelated, too many cliffhangers. Personal opinion.

[Chirios]

I don't know whether you "comprehended" ADWD, but you certainly didn't comprehend my post.

But these character changes were so subtly written that many people have missed them.

^AKA: George's writing of character development was subtler than most people would have understood.

As for character development, I disagree. Strongly. The characters didn't develop, they regressed. They became idiots so that George could have his cheap plot twist (Jon); or suddenly became indecisive, lazy and stupid when previously they had been forthright and assertive (Dany). Jon's character arc is not one of a man in a difficult situation, though there are shades of that in there, it's one of where the author realises he needs to have his prophecy fulfilled to create his superhero; so he makes his character into a moron to accomplish it, thereby invalidating any success that said character may have in the future. Dany doesn't spend time trying to build her kingdom, she lounges around and daydreams about having sex with whatshisface because lol!teenage girl.

Also, it's been said that the two preceding novels are: "Set Up Novels". Here's my problem with that: AFFC and ADwD are, combined, over two thousand pages hardback. ADwD is so long that it had to be split into two volumes paperback. How is it good pacing when you have to have that many words devoted solely to set up? And when people say that I'm reminded of people who say that FFXIII is good after 20 hours of gameplay, it doesn't matter. Games shouldn't take twenty hours to get good, book series's shouldn't take two books to get decent.

Then there are other problems, like lazy storytelling, contrived coincidences and description so purple the Queen of England's curtains look at it with a disapproving eye.

But above it all is the question: Why exactly should I care? The Starks have been shown to be incompetent and stupid, Dany is insane lazy and hormonal, and the plot is paced like an ant pushing a brick up a sandhill. Because Jon might be AA? Great, so, by being a complete idiot he get's himself killed and then is given something that he didn't earn, and I'm supposed to like this character?

[John Luiza]

I know my appreciation has increased from a re-read. It went from Meh to HOLY CRAP. So who knows...

[Sterling Archer]

It's baffling to me how one can consider Jon's acceptance of the wildlings as moronic. He seems to be the only person at the wall who knows what the true danger is. Bringing the wildlings south gave him more bodies on the wall and cut the others' army by (insert # of wildlings here, I forget) wights. Backing Stannis is necessary, in my opinion, because he's the only king who cares about winter's impending sucker punch. And while the decision to march to Winterfell was an emotional one, I myself was like, Jon, you're my boy. Let's go kick some ass. Seriously though, he made unpopular, but correct, decisions. Leadership isn't solely about people following you, especially when you're position grants you their loyalty anyway. It's about making the right decisions, regardless of others' opinions.

[The Lost Lord]

As for character development, I disagree. Strongly. The characters didn't develop, they regressed… They became idiots… suddenly became indecisive, lazy and stupid when previously they had been forthright and assertive

"Character development" does not occur over a simple spectrum from weak screw-up to awesome badass. In your whole post you mention nothing about values. But values are central to Jon and Dany's arcs and to Martin's writing in general. Martin creates characters with various values, pits those values against each other and forces them to make morally wrenching choices. They are not just video game characters who have to level up. They can't get everything they want, they have to choose which values they consider more important than other values, and these choices contribute to their character development and show what kind of people they're becoming.

Jon's entire arc in ADWD explores how he deals with his vows, his newfound power, and his competing duties to the Watch, wildlings, innocent civilians, the North, the realm, his family, and himself. While he is making various wise preparations for the conflict against the Others, he is also being drawn deeper and deeper into involvement in Northern politics by siding with Stannis, giving him a battle plan, sending Mance to rescue Arya (a huge risk to the Watch that seriously backfires), locking up a Karstark uncle and arranging a Karstark-wildling wedding, and finally taking this involvement to its logical conclusion by deciding to march south with an army of wildlings. Jon has decided that he won't take a strict interpretation of his vows and stay neutral, but that instead he will use his military power to try and depose the Lord of Winterfell if he thinks it's the right thing to do. This is a huge development in his character and it obviously has serious implications for what he'll do when he finds out R+L=J.

Dany's arc pits her "Mother" and her "Dragon" sides against each other by testing whether she will make unpleasant compromises for peace to try and protect the lives of her people, or whether she will violently act and bring a war that will result in the loss of tons of innocent lives. By the end of the book we know -- she's miserable with the peace deal even before it falls apart, then she forgets the name of the dead girl Drogon killed who she's been thinking of the whole book, she sadly concludes she'll have no children only dragons, decides Meereen is the Harpy's city and she'll never be a Harpy, and that she should embrace "fire and blood." This is a huge development for what kind of an invasion of Westeros she will launch and what kind of ruler she could potentially be there.

Conquest is very different from ruling. Jon and Dany seemed like awesome badasses in ASOS because they won big battles. It's not regression if, after the battles are over, they suddenly don't get everything they want. It's not regression if Dany becomes extremely concerned with protecting her people's lives in Meereen and avoiding a war, indeed that concern for innocent life has existed for her since back in AGOT. It's not regression if Jon thought he could turn down Winterfell and stick to his vows at the end of ASOS, but when trying to put it into practice he found out that he can't keep letting Ramsay Bolton run wild and skin women in his family's castle. We have seen them be forged by the day-to-day challenges of leadership into different people.

[Errant Bard]

A.) The vast majority of the Night's Watch is following Jon's lead. Only a very small minority (about four or so) is involved in the revolt. Jon's error was not due to abysmal leadership. He made two tactical errors. 1) Instead of keeping his friends close and his enemies closer, he kept his enemies close and sent his friends away. 2) He underestimated the lengths his opponents would go to in order to stop him. So Jon's not perfect (no one in a GRRM world is), but he's not abysmal.

Please, even his former friends were cold to him in ADWD, and the Watch is made more of Chetts than of Sams. He was the one who cut himself off, who antagonized everyone, and who refused to see it. This is not a matter of four men, everyone was against him, in the end, even the king's men, even if not everyone was part of the assassination attempt, most would be satisfied with it.

He did much more than "underestimate", he actively fanned the flames against him. That's the problem with bad bosses, they can always justify themselves like that: they didn't expect that reaction, the complainers are morons, it's just a matter of happenstance they don't have any more friends... but you know, in the end, these are as many proofs of their inadequacy. Good bosses can think and would expect that reaction, only it doesn't happen like that because they don't treat their subaltern like crap and address their complaints, and thus also get some friends and allies. And so on.

Leadership is also about making the right decisions. Persuading people to follow you is worse than useless if you lead them over a cliff.

Except not. Having a good judgement is useful, but the measure of leadership is if people will follow you or not over this cliff. As it happens, they will not follow Jon, when it's not even a cliff he's leading to, they will instead bring him forcefully to the cliff and push him down.

Remember that Marsh took a blow to the head at the Bridge of Skulls. Jon's inability to win over Marsh, or to anticipate Marsh's actions, is hardly a valid reason to brand Jon as an "abysmal" leader IMO.

It's way more than that. symptomatic enough of the whole problem. It's not only Marsh, stop trying to reduce the scope of the discontent. Jon got a leader position, and what he did -that we saw him do-, is basically isolating himself and antagonizing his power base.

You're arguing that because he has good intentions and has been given authority, that makes him a good leader. That also makes Aerys a good leader. "Aerys' inability to win over Jaime, or to anticipate Jaime's actions, is hardly a valid reason to brand Aerys as an "abysmal" leader IMO." is how your argument sounds. Damn rebels, disagreeing with his leader decisions.

It's baffling to me how one can consider Jon's acceptance of the wildlings as moronic.

As it happens, nobody said that. Good strawman, but I think when Chirios mentioned Jon written as a moron, he had something different, more general in mind than his only non-contentious decision.

I don't know whether you "comprehended" ADWD, but you certainly didn't comprehend my post. I offered my opinion that ADWD is a very complex book full of subtle character development.

What you have certainly heavily implied (with people "missing" the subtle touches) is that people criticising Jon and his storyline for any reason are imbeciles who cannot see the subtleties of martin's writing, and that character development is an end unto itself.

Not that Jon's character development was actually that good or subtle. It's quite jerky, with a big incongruity in the end, and most of his PoV is not about him but about Northern politics and Others. Circumstances. Not his character changing, but what he did forcing him down one path because he *doesn't* change. Now if he had decided to abandon "Arya" without a talking to from friends or colleagues (like was the case for Robb and Ned) or had decided to compromise with his Watch and not try to save everyone at the risk of killing everyone, that would have been change. Internal change, not something circumstances make him do. Heck, Ramsay's letter is actually pretty similar to Summer bailing him out of Ygritte's gang, speaking of subtlety.

There is more development in any other PoV, even Tyrion, and god knows Tyrion stays the jerk he always was.

[The Lost Lord]

What you have certainly heavily implied (with people "missing" the subtle touches) is that people criticising Jon and his storyline for any reason are imbeciles who cannot see the subtleties of martin's writing, and that character development is an end unto itself.

Maybe you have confused me with someone else? Why exactly do you think I support Jon's choices? I actually agree with you for the most part and I've made the case all over these boards that Jon broke his vows and that Jon grew disturbingly arrogant with how he used his power.

As for this "imbeciles" thing, why are you guys so touchy? All I've said is that I think ADWD is a lot more complex than people give it credit for, and that I've really enjoyed it, and I've listed many, many examples as to why. I'm convinced from my reading that Jon and Dany have changed in the ways I've outlined, but in my forum posting I've found that this is hardly a common view, so in my opinion most people have "missed" these changes and they'll be revealed in the next book. If I say that people "missed" the clues that Shavepate poisoned the locusts, am I calling them imbeciles? Of course not, I'm just stating that I believe something was set up in ADWD to pay off later and the vast majority of readers and forum posters haven't picked up on it yet.

Not that Jon's character development was actually that good or subtle. It's quite jerky, with a big incongruity in the end, and most of his PoV is not about him but about Northern politics and Others. Circumstances. Not his character changing, but what he did forcing him down one path because he *doesn't* change.

But that's how people change in real life, especially leaders. Through circumstances. Through their day-to-day experiences -- they go through life, they make decisions, they don't really have a ton of time to reflect on them. In a leadership position you're constantly presented with decisions and you must act, act, act constantly without having time to truly examine whether you're going down the right path. (Jon himself thinks something to this effect in the book.) You must examine Jon's actions to see how he changes or doesn't change.

His reaction to the Ramsay letter is not at all out of left field, it's been subtly but extensively set up throughout the book. He constantly tries to navigate a middle ground between his vows and his desire to get involved in Northern conflict but always ends up getting a little too involved -- when he gives Stannis the battle plans, when he sends Mance to rescue Arya, when he arranges a Karstark-wildling wedding. These are all affirmative choices Jon makes. Then the Ramsay letter arrives as a direct consequence of Jon's earlier decision to send Mance -- again, his own choices have led him to this point. Now his meddling has been exposed and he makes the affirmative decision, finally, that he is going to get openly involved, that he's not going to cede the North to the Boltons, that he's going back to fight like he always wanted to deep down. This is a big decision and a huge change for his character! But it was extensively foreshadowed going right back to his first few chapters the book when you pay attention to his thoughts as he's talking to Sam and Stannis.

[Chirios]

"Character development" does not occur over a simple spectrum from weak screw-up to awesome badass. In your whole post you mention nothing about values. But values are central to Jon and Dany's arcs and to Martin's writing in general.

No they aren't, no it isn't.

Jon's entire arc in ADWD explores how he deals with his vows,

No it doesn't. It explores the extent to which he is an idiot so that George can have his plot twist.

Dany's arc pits her "Mother" and her "Dragon" sides against each other

sides which she has already dealt with in book 2 at least.

Conquest is very different from ruling. Jon and Dany seemed like awesome badasses in ASOS because they won big battles.

No, they didn't.

It's not regression if, after the battles are over, they suddenly don't get everything they want.

LOL, and now we're back to the: Those of us who think this is badly written are too dumb to understand it thing again.

This isn't about them not getting everything they want. It's about George using the stupidity of the POV characters to drive the plot rather than allowing them to have any agency.

[The Lost Lord]

No they aren't, no it isn't... This isn't about them [Jon and Dany] not getting everything they want.

George R. R. Martin: "Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only Dany has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world. But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I'm trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn't mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals.

Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn't give you the power to reform, or improve, or build."

You apparently don't care at all about anything other than the plot, fine, we all have different interests. I'm simply pointing out when you dismiss ADWD as "a bad book" because of its lack of plot movement, some of us disagree because we're interested in the difficult problems of power, leadership, and values that are in there. To deny that those themes even exist in the book is rather ridiculous.

[Salavace]

Great exchanges here.

[Errant Bard]

Maybe you have confused me with someone else? Why exactly do you think I support Jon's choices? I actually agree with you for the most part and I've made the case all over these boards that Jon broke his vows and that Jon grew disturbingly arrogant with how he used his power.

I don't necessarily disagree with your interpretations of the text, I just pointed at what you were implying in regard to people disagreeing with you on the worth of the books. It's not the same thing.

Look, you do it again:

As for this "imbeciles" thing, why are you guys so touchy? All I've said is that I think ADWD is a lot more complex than people give it credit for

Essentially "ADWD is great and 'people' are too dumb to see it". But in the end, people actually are not that dumb and already know what you list.

But that's how people change in real life, especially leaders. Through circumstances. Through their day-to-day experiences -- they go through life, they make decisions, they don't really have a ton of time to reflect on them.[...]

Huh, not really, but this has nothing to do with what I said. There is a difference between a marble going this way and that because the slide it's on bends that way or the other and a marble being transformed in a cube because of the pressures it gets. Jon is the former. Round and bland and following the bends of the slide without ever changing internally, or in any case changing less than anyone else.

His reaction to the Ramsay letter is not at all out of left field

Yes, that was the point. It's not "subtly and carefully set up throughout the book" though. It come triggered by a DEM letter on one hand, and it is on the other hand exactly like when he deserted to join Robb and free Ned in AGOT, four books before. It's consistent with the character even in its early incarnations. What subtlety?

A more satisfying outcome of any "change" to the Jon character would have been to have him act differently there than he did when he was a fifteen year old brat. Alas.

[Brucolac]

Lack of plot is just one of the many problems with the book. Ignoring traditional structure in literature is fine, but the equation GRRM used here with 95% exposition and 5% cliffhanger is absurd. I have more of a problem with other aspects of it though: the repetitive catch phrases, pointless descriptions(nothing is going to convince the 50 shields hanging in the NW hall was necessary to relay just to name one off the top of my head), POVs that should have been incorporated as third person characters, lack of credible character motivation in several cases, temporal conflicts with earlier work...it is a long list. Yeah, there is complexity and there is quality content in it, but for the first time in the series; there is more poor content than good. GRRM had no filter when he was writing this thing and he put out a bad book as a result. It isn't a lack of reader comprehension causing the negative reactions and anyone touting ADWD has extremely questionable taste.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

Having a good judgement is useful, but the measure of leadership is if people will follow you or not over this cliff.

I strongly disagree.

You're arguing that because he has good intentions and has been given authority, that makes him a good leader.

No. I'm saying he's a good leader because he comes up with a good plan and executes it, even when some of his subordinates object. The Lord Commander's job isn't to pander to his subordinates. His job is to defend Westeros. If Bowen Marsh doesn't like Jon's decisions, that's Bowen Marsh's problem, not Jon's, especially when the decisions are correct. (The decisions I'm referring to here are: continuing to send out rangers, bringing Tormund south of the Wall, , manning the forts with Stannis' men under NW command, etc.)

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this.