Song of Ice and Fire reread
Aug. 9th, 2011 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhI am way behind in posting these comments, since I'm almost down with Storm of Swords now. But anyway, here are my thoughts on the second book! Also, god, these titles are all so generic. I can't remember what happens in what book.
Theon: dumbass foreveeeeeeeer. I don't even dislike his character. It's just... you make every bad decision, dude! I feel a little bad for him, because he's not quite a Stark and not quite a faux!Viking; he's just stuck in the middle, and so sucks at both options. And yet I do not feel bad enough to actually care for him.
I love Stannis's dark magic. I particularly love how he seems sort of... unaware of it. Renly's death is so surprising and creepy and has such great consequences. The later scene with the birth of the shadow-creature-spell-whatever is even creepier, but I love this one because it's so unexplained at the time. It just comes out of nowhere, and for a while you have no idea what's happening.
Sansa is the best thing ever. That is all.
Arya's arc in this book is very different from what I'd expected. She's not particularly brave or warrior-like here, she's mostly just... a servant. Which is realistic, and I like it. I also like that her POV shows us the "common people's" perspective (there's probably a better way to phrase that, but I can't think of one right now); not entirely, since she still thinks of herself as a noble, but more so than any of the queens and princes and knights and so on all the other characters are. It's good to have some sense of the effect all these wars are having on the people who aren't in charge.
I LOVE JAQUEN H'GHAR SO MUCH. Is he Syrio? I want him to be, but I can't decide if that would be kind of cheesy. But I suppose it would be too much of a coincidence for Arya to run into two super-skilled assassins randomly. I love that he somehow can turn dogs against their masters.
I'm really looking forward to this season on HBO, because there are some potentially amazing setpieces here. Particularly Harrenhal, Riverrun, and Pyke (is that the name? The cool Viking castle with all the bridges). I hope HBO has the budget to do them right, because the images in my head are fantastic. Similarly, the Battle of the Blackwater. That's going to take major special effects, but it could be so very, very cool.
Who's been cast as Asha? Has it been announced? She's got a relatively minor part, but I love her so much. She's so kick-ass.
Tyrion is, as always, awesome in this book. He's so fantastic at playing politics; I wish it had worked out better for him. Is it confirmed that it is Cersei who tries to have him killed during the battle? She's the obvious choice, but in this series, I always suspect something other than the obvious. I also like the hints we see in this book that while Jaime genuinely loves both his siblings, Cersei really only cares about herself. It's a good, subtle foreshadowing of the problems that will develop in the Cersei/Jamie relationship later.
I don't have much to say about Bran, though I really like Jojen and Meera as characters.
I'm fairly bored by Jon's arc here, though Ygritte is very cool. There's good buildup for later developments, though.
Dany also doesn't get much to do. I feel like her whole arc in this book is basically just wasting time before the next book. The prophecies/glimpses of the past in the House of the Undying are really the only worthwhile scene.
I feel like there's not as much of a big twist at the end of this book. I suppose Bran and Rickon being not-dead is supposed to fill that role, but I didn't think it was all that surprising. Maybe people being not-dead is just always less of a shock than people dying, since we often expect creators to keep the major characters around?
Theon: dumbass foreveeeeeeeer. I don't even dislike his character. It's just... you make every bad decision, dude! I feel a little bad for him, because he's not quite a Stark and not quite a faux!Viking; he's just stuck in the middle, and so sucks at both options. And yet I do not feel bad enough to actually care for him.
I love Stannis's dark magic. I particularly love how he seems sort of... unaware of it. Renly's death is so surprising and creepy and has such great consequences. The later scene with the birth of the shadow-creature-spell-whatever is even creepier, but I love this one because it's so unexplained at the time. It just comes out of nowhere, and for a while you have no idea what's happening.
Sansa is the best thing ever. That is all.
Arya's arc in this book is very different from what I'd expected. She's not particularly brave or warrior-like here, she's mostly just... a servant. Which is realistic, and I like it. I also like that her POV shows us the "common people's" perspective (there's probably a better way to phrase that, but I can't think of one right now); not entirely, since she still thinks of herself as a noble, but more so than any of the queens and princes and knights and so on all the other characters are. It's good to have some sense of the effect all these wars are having on the people who aren't in charge.
I LOVE JAQUEN H'GHAR SO MUCH. Is he Syrio? I want him to be, but I can't decide if that would be kind of cheesy. But I suppose it would be too much of a coincidence for Arya to run into two super-skilled assassins randomly. I love that he somehow can turn dogs against their masters.
I'm really looking forward to this season on HBO, because there are some potentially amazing setpieces here. Particularly Harrenhal, Riverrun, and Pyke (is that the name? The cool Viking castle with all the bridges). I hope HBO has the budget to do them right, because the images in my head are fantastic. Similarly, the Battle of the Blackwater. That's going to take major special effects, but it could be so very, very cool.
Who's been cast as Asha? Has it been announced? She's got a relatively minor part, but I love her so much. She's so kick-ass.
Tyrion is, as always, awesome in this book. He's so fantastic at playing politics; I wish it had worked out better for him. Is it confirmed that it is Cersei who tries to have him killed during the battle? She's the obvious choice, but in this series, I always suspect something other than the obvious. I also like the hints we see in this book that while Jaime genuinely loves both his siblings, Cersei really only cares about herself. It's a good, subtle foreshadowing of the problems that will develop in the Cersei/Jamie relationship later.
I don't have much to say about Bran, though I really like Jojen and Meera as characters.
I'm fairly bored by Jon's arc here, though Ygritte is very cool. There's good buildup for later developments, though.
Dany also doesn't get much to do. I feel like her whole arc in this book is basically just wasting time before the next book. The prophecies/glimpses of the past in the House of the Undying are really the only worthwhile scene.
I feel like there's not as much of a big twist at the end of this book. I suppose Bran and Rickon being not-dead is supposed to fill that role, but I didn't think it was all that surprising. Maybe people being not-dead is just always less of a shock than people dying, since we often expect creators to keep the major characters around?
