Reading Dance & Feast together... this really bothered me

[aceluby]

Why on earth did GRRM have the same scene from the POV of both Sam and Jon? I don't know why, but this REALLY bothered me on my re-read. No other scenes are like that and it could have easily been written to not read the exact same dialogue twice. Anybody else find it irritating?

[Blutraven]

So you get the perspective of both characters. This is the first time we see Jon the LC so it's interesting to see how he and his friends perceive him now.

[CJ McLannister]

I liked it.

[Arya kiddin']

I read all the books one after the other, so it was annoying, but it was necessary as well. Sam sees the difference between Jon, his friend and Lord Snow the Lord Commander in his POV. Jon has all the kill the boy thing going on. The repeated dialogue is an unpleasant necessity.

[Whitering]

Surely Feast is long enough that by the time you run into that scene again it won't bother most people. I suppose if you speed read it, you might only have a 1.5 hour break between the two scenes. If this bothers you I cannot imagine what it's like for you to see the same commercial twice during the same show.

[Newstar]

Why on earth did GRRM have the same scene from the POV of both Sam and Jon? I don't know why, but this REALLY bothered me on my re-read. No other scenes are like that and it could have easily been written to not read the exact same dialogue twice. Anybody else find it irritating?

Because it's significant in some way, maybe? Posters noted the comparison between Jon telling Sam that the snowflakes were melting in his hair and the last time Jon saw Robb alive...a comparison Jon himself draws. Maybe it's the last time Jon will see Sam alive (or vice versa, depending on who outlives whom).

[aceluby]

Surely Feast is long enough that by the time you run into that scene again it won't bother most people. I suppose if you speed read it, you might only have a 1.5 hour break between the two scenes. If this bothers you I cannot imagine what it's like for you to see the same commercial twice during the same show.

Lol, yeah that's why it didn't bother me the first time through. Now I'm reading them side by side, so it was basically one chapter after the next and felt it was totally unnecessary. Lots of characters go through big changes yet this is the only scene out of the series so far where we get the same scene from two POV. If they were going to do that they should have at least done it w/ a cool scene, not simply sending Sam off...

With all this being said the ADWD chapter was my favorite in the entire book, I just thought the repeat performance was unncecessary.

[aceluby]

Because it's significant in some way, maybe? Posters noted the comparison between Jon telling Sam that the snowflakes were melting in his hair and the last time Jon saw Robb alive...a comparison Jon himself draws. Maybe it's the last time Jon will see Sam alive (or vice versa, depending on who outlives whom).

I really hope you're right.

[jon stark I]

I think in the begining of the series Bran mentions Ned wearing the lord face and not his normal face.Jon just like Ned has to wear LC hace but in rare occasions you can see Jon(the real Jon human Jon)

[Kienn]

A reminder for what's going on since the way it was written they're a whole book apart.

If you read it merged on a re-read then it's a little awkward... but oh well it's 5 minutes lost.

[aceluby]

A reminder for what's going on since the way it was written they're a whole book apart.

If you read it merged on a re-read then it's a little awkward... but oh well it's 5 minutes lost.

Yeah, it shouldn't have bothered me, but it got under my skin for some reason. He could have easily written it differently to not have the exact same dialogue twice, but I guess with 5,000 pages I can forgive him for a few pages of repeats :)

[Dornish Whine]

I really liked that he wrote the same scene from both points of view. Granted, I have never done the merged re-read, but when the scenes are a thousand pages apart it makes a lot of sense. It helps to re-synchronize the reader to the timeline, which is a rare treat when every other POV is anywhere from concurrent to the last chapter to weeks or months in the future.

I wonder; is the dialogue exactly the same... or are there some small 'unreliable narrator' hints thrown in there? There may be treasures to uncover within the two tellings.

[sarah.jenice]

I really liked that he wrote the same scene from both points of view. Granted, I have never done the merged re-read, but when the scenes are a thousand pages apart it makes a lot of sense. It helps to re-synchronize the reader to the timeline, which is a rare treat when every other POV is anywhere from concurrent to the last chapter to weeks or months in the future.

I wonder; is the dialogue exactly the same... or are there some small 'unreliable narrator' hints thrown in there? There may be treasures to uncover within the two tellings.

I agree. I thought it was interesting to see each character's perspective and internal dialogue at what I think is an important time - the beginning of Jon's role as Lord Commander.

[aceluby]

I really liked that he wrote the same scene from both points of view. Granted, I have never done the merged re-read, but when the scenes are a thousand pages apart it makes a lot of sense. It helps to re-synchronize the reader to the timeline, which is a rare treat when every other POV is anywhere from concurrent to the last chapter to weeks or months in the future.

I wonder; is the dialogue exactly the same... or are there some small 'unreliable narrator' hints thrown in there? There may be treasures to uncover within the two tellings.

I'm fairly certain it's exact, like copy/pasted exact. Now I didn't do a word for word comparison, but as I was reading it I was thinking "well, this could have been done better". It would have been better IMO, if they would have started as the cart was going to leave and have a few repeated lines. I think my main problem is that it was a few pages...

[LordStoneheart]

Just goes to show that they're not meant to be read as one intermixed book. Whether that's good or bad, well that's up for a lot of debate.

[Ours if the Fury]

Its becasue they are the only characters that overlap, who are both pov's... its a mere coincident

[sertravisredbeard]

I thought it was interesting that we got Jon's POV during his conversation with Gilly and how he convinced her to switch the babies. We'd all already read Feast so we know that she ended up doing it. Getting the first glimpse at "Lord Jon" and the different way he'll approach problems was informative. Plus I just like Jon POV's more than Sam ones.

[danm_999]

Actually, I really liked it. Both men are keeping secrets from the other, despite being friends and Brothers, and there's lots of little touches that make me believe it's the same event totally viewed from two perspectives. Then again, Rashomon is one of my favourite movies.

[shiola]

I liked it. Seeing both sides was really neat, I thought. I wouldn't mind if GRRM decided to do this once more.

[Pod The Impaler]

I liked it. As some said, it shows the perspective problem.

From Sam's POV, we see how hardened Jon Snow has become, so coldly decisive like the Starks of old - a commander first and a friend second (or not at all). But Sam's POV also shows us what Jon also does not understand about him. One important thing being that Sam can keep a secret - namely that of Bran heading North - even though this might soften up Jon a bit, Sam in a also chooses keeping his word over being a friend.

From Jon's POV, we see him trying so hard to do the right thing. We see what he knows about the two babies, and the rest of what is going on with Stannis and Melisandre, and the wildlings. Jon is pulled in many directions at once, and not as confident as the image he projects. Jon makes a decision to do a small cruelty to avoid a larger kindness, but this is also a brutal decision because he has to send a child away from its mother's arms, and that is (unwittingly) the parallel with Eddard and himself.

Ultimately, the sad thing is we see that the world around Jon reacted to Jon's actions much the same as Sam did - not understanding them. This leads to Jon being backstabbed by his own comrades, because as a commander he is alienated from them.