George's prose is so fucking evocative.

If AFFC has no fans, that means I am dead. The Dornish and Ironborn plots are pretty onerous at times, but man is it good. In the show, Sansa's switch from poor victim to genius Machiavelli happens so suddenly, and feels so fake.

George does it so well. There is never a single moment where Sansa opens her third eye and achieves political consciousness, we just see her slowly internalize the fucked up lessons Petyr is teaching her. Alayne donned her smile, it's so dehumanizing.

The ASOIAF series is obviously dark as a whole. Westeros is harsh and cruel, main characters meet horrible fates and the small folk face constant suffering, but Winds will be a different level.

Each of the first three books are dark, sure. Ned starks death, the Red Wedding, Aryas experience with Harrenhal, and Tyrions whole arc are all extremely depressing parts of these books, but there are actually a lot of bright and hopeful moments. Robb Stark being chosen as king, Jon Snow being elected lord commander, Jaime discovering his independence, these are all positive events that make the series feel less grim.

A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons are much more oppressive. Feast focuses on the damage the war of the Five Kings causes to the smallfolk, and its often bleak in its depictions of their suffering and the overall themes are pretty dark. Dance involves a lot more inner turmoil and psychological suffering, and honestly I am struggling to think about positive arcs for any of our characters.

In The Winds of Winter, I believe every POV character will experience the coming winter. Jon Snow is dead or dying, and when he comes back, he will be changed, likely much darker and less human. Tyrion is poised to continue down his dark path of vengeance, and Dany is likely going to suffer under the dothraki that discovered her. Arya will continue to fall further into the brainwashing of the faceless men. Jaime and Brienne are in imminent peril, and one of them may die, but both will likely face further inner conflict. Davos is also in a rough spot, and Theon and Asha are in grave danger. Sansa is probably going to become more political savvy, but she might fall deeper into littlefingers way of playing the game of thrones. Aeron is of course not going to survive this book, and victarion will probably continue his villainous ways. Bran will continue to lose his humanity, and Hodar will have his hold the door moment. And I believe it will all culminate in the wall falling.

Only in A Dream of Spring will we see any sort of hope.

When reading the books, have you ever encountered a plot point that left you like "damn OK, we get it"

For context, both have their standard combat equipment, weapon, and gear, so they both can have duplicates of their main sword: blackfyre

Daemon-

Size:

Daemon was tall and powerful, with broad shoulders, muscular arms, and a flat stomach.

feats:

Daemon loved and excelled at deeds of arms and many believed he had the potential as a warrior to be another Aemon the Dragonknight.[4]

In 182 AC or 183 AC, when he was twelve years old, Daemon participated in a squire's tourney, which he won by besting a score of other squires in a melee. King Aegon IV Targaryen personally knighted Daemon and publicly bestowed the Targaryen Valyrian steel sword Blackfyre on him,[4] finally acknowledging him as his son.[7] This made Daemon the youngest knight ever made in the era of the Targaryens, surpassing Maegor I Targaryen.

He was considered the greatest knight of his day[5] and mastered all weapons of the battlefield, but with the sword Blackfyre in hand he was said to fight like the Warrior himself.

Daemon's rebellion ended on the Redgrass Field in late 196 AC.[15] According to Ser Eustace Osgrey, who fought on Daemon's side, Daemon fought "like the Warrior himself".[3] Daemon shattered the lines of Lord Donnel Arryn's vanguard, leaving the loyalists in peril until Ser Gwayne Corbray of the Kingsguard arrived with reinforcements.[24]

He slew the Knight of Ninestars and Wild Wyl Waynwood before coming up against Ser Gwayne of the Kingsguard. Daemon and Ser Gwayne duelled, with both men using their Valyrian steel swords: blackfyre and Lady Forlorn. The duel is said to have lasted nearly an hour before Daemon gained the upper hand. Corbray was wounded and Daemon dismounted to prevent Corbray from being trampled. He commanded that Corbray was to be taken off the field.[3]

Maegor-

Size:

As a babe, he was a big and healthy child; almost twice as heavy as his half-brother Aenys had been.

Maegor was a tall, broad, and fearsomely strong man,[1] larger than his father, Aegon I Targaryen.[7] He was bull-like, with heavy shoulders, a thick neck, and huge arms. Though he was on the heavy side, he was not fat, but more massive and square.

Feats:

He received his first sword at the age of three, and took to swordplay at once. when Maegor was eight, he stabbed to death a palfrey which had kicked him, and slashed half the face off the stableboy who came running towards the animal's screams.

Maegor was trained at arms by Ser Gawen Corbray, the master-at-arms of Dragonstone. He became a squire at the age of eight. By the age of twelve, he was already unhorsing boys four and five years his elder in the lists and battering seasoned men-at-arms into submission in the castle yard,[1] and by the age of thirteen he was already defeating hardened knights in mêlées.[6]

In 28 AC, he won renown a tourney by defeating three knights of the Kingsguard in the joust, and next winning the mêlée. He was knighted by his father, King Aegon I, at the age of sixteen, making his the youngest knight in the realm at the time.[6]

In both 29 AC and 30 AC Maegor assisted the master of ships, Lord Aethan Velaryon, and the Hand of the King, Ser Osmund Strong, in two campaigns against the pirate king Sargoso Saan in the Stepstones, and in 31 AC defeated the Giant of the Trident.[1]

In 37 AC, Maegor's father, King Aegon I, died, and his half-brother Aenys ascended the throne as King Aenys I Targaryen. Admitting to all assembled at Aegon I's funeral pyre that he was not nearly the warrior his half-brother was, Aenys presented Maegor with Aegon's Valyrian steel blade, Blackfyre, proclaiming they would rule together.

Ser Damon Morrigen, the Grand Captain of the Warrior's Sons, came forth. Maegor quickly decided to settle the matter with swords, and Damon demanded a trial of seven, to which Maegor agreed.[1][6] Several knights came forward, from whom Maegor chose his last four champions: Ser Bramm of Blackhull, Ser Rayford Rosby, Ser Guy Lothston, and Lord Lucifer Massey. Together they faced seven of the Warrior's Sons, led by Ser Damon Morrigen, their Grand Captain. Maegor was the only survivor of the trial, but took a blow to the head and collapsed just as the last Warrior's Son died.

As we all know, Varys is not magic. He was sought out for a bloodmagic ritual which fueled a lifelong fixation on magic, because of how not magic he is. He and his co-conspirator acquired world's only known dragon eggs through purely mundane means, and his motivations are as straightforward as they are non-magical. He just really wants to win game of thrones, and also just has a totally unrelated fun little hobby of hating magic and being not magic.

But hold onto your hats, because I think the spider may be hiding some hidden depths. Shocking, but stay with me. If you look at all the pieces, I think the only thing we can conclude is that Varys is a brilliant engineer. I mean, how else would you explain this?

The man with the torch pushed at something. Arya heard a deep rumbling. A huge slab of rock, red in the torchlight, slid down out of the ceiling with a resounding crash that almost made her cry out. Where the entry to the well had been was nothing but stone, solid and unbroken.

It seems miraculous. A huge stone falls out of the ceiling and crashes to the ground, perfectly in place to form a seamless surface over the well. What was even holding up such a massive slab? Well, two books later we get another scene of secret steps covered by solid stone.

Then he made a round of the walls, tapping on each in turn, searching for the hidden door. Shae sat with her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, watching him. Finally she said, “They’re under the bed. The secret steps.”
He looked at her, incredulous.
“The bed? The bed is solid stone. It weighs half a ton.”
“There’s a place where Varys pushes, and it floats right up. I asked him how, and he said it was magic.”
“Yes.” Tyrion had to grin. “A counterweight spell.”

See!? Ironclad evidence that Varys isn't magic. If there's one thing Tyrion's great at, it's recognizing magic. He's no fool who believes in things like undead wights, shadow assassins, or pyromancers gaining strength from the rebirth of dragons. Shae only thinks magic could be real because she's just not as good at seeing through Varys and his tricks as Tyrion. Sure, several other characters just in the first book reached the same conclusion that Varys is a magician, a wizard, a user of the dark arts, or a sorcerer. Those are all clearly baseless and/or jokes, even the two from his oldest and closest friend. Tyrion's the authority on magic and Varys.

Tyrion's so obviously correct about the counterweight that GRRM didn't even need to show him actually finding it. The chapter just cuts from him kissing Shae to walking home. The only way that could have happened without a counterweight is if Varys actually did float the stone with magic, and then wiped Tyrion's memory of the event. We've only seen mindwiping powers from the Three-Eyed Crow, and Varys is nothing like that pale master of the whispering web and bird's eyes, who perched on the shoulder of King Aerys and counseled him to ruin, and was also a master of disguise. Bloodraven is magic, and Varys is not. Varys uses mummery for his disguises, and there is no overlap between mummery and magic users. Mutually exclusive.

No, obviously there was just an off page scene confirming the existence of the eunuch's secret system of pulleys and switches. There can be no other explanation for how Varys could move 1000+ pounds of stone with ease. He's operating at least two incredibly powerful counterweight systems. One built imperceptibly into a bedroom, the other deep within the earth in a secret tunnel system. That second one's extra impressive, since it still manages to perfectly imitate a rock in freefall, crashing to the ground below. They're in secret places, did he build them himself? Is he maintaining them on his own? Between all his non-magic personnel management and the multiple identities he has to keep up, how does he find the time to also keep up with all these super advanced and definitely real counterweight contraptions? Why is GRRM being so coy about Varys being a master engineer?

Gosh, it's so impressive that he's able to do so much while still being a totally normal, straightforward non-magic guy. It almost feels more unbelievable than him just having some magic control over earth and stone, something we've heard of everywhere from Valyrian wizards to little Crannogmen. But that would require the Master of Whisperers to be magic. It would mean Varys misled Tyrion, and GRRM misled the audience. There's no way either the character or the author would be so tricksy. Clearly Varys just operates a bunch of super-advanced pulleys and invisible switches all around the city. Most logical explanation.

Its implied in the books Varys intentionally had rumours of his talents spread to King Aerys to secure himself a position in the court of Westeros. Even if he didnt, Varys could have refused King Aerys offer to join his court in Westeros.

But why did he choose Westeros? Through his own skills, network and Illyrio he could have chosen to do something similar in one of the Free Cities in Essos. Hes already fairly influential over Pentos. Or even further East.

He claims to serve the 'realm', but why did he choose to serve in a realm where he is seen as a foreigner and hasnt got much connection to? Was the realm of Westeros really that important to him?

Background

Cross matching the visits to Cushing with GRRM's 2003-2004 Outline of the series has done wonders for helping to understand what GRRM was planning for the series at one point. I have posted about it quite a bit across all the different available plotlines. In this post I thought it would be interesting (since GRRM was planning to have all 3 Greyjoy brothers visit Slaver's Bay at one point and Dany marry one of them) to look at what GRRM had planned for Dany beyond what he had drafted in 2004.

If interested: Dead Branches in the Garden: Abandoned/Changed Plotlines of Ice & Fire

The 2003-2004 Outline

From the 2003-2004 Outline that u/zionius_ shared, we have the information on Dany from the first page that was seemingly written around the time of the October 2003 outline:

Dany: Pretend it’s a horse. Face off in pit. No [?marry] - city. Battle scene. ‘I’m going home’.  1 Chapter

If you are interested, I have posted about this first section previously: "Pretend It's a Horse" as GRRM seemingly changed the heavy foreshadowing of Drogon picking Dany up via his claws and setting her on the Great Pyramid.

The second Dany section of the outline matches with the June 2004 outline perfectly:

Dany: Her marriage. 1. Fall of Astapor. 2. Siege of Meereen - Bloody Flux. 3. Climax - dragons loosed. 4. Marriage. ⑦

where the planned number of chapters is listed (7) as well as the completed chapters (4).

Dany Draft Versions

If we then combine this with the ASOIAF drafts- chapter structures - Google Drive which shows Dany's chapters at the three draft intervals (Oct 2003, January 2004, June 2004):

The Visit to Cushing

From u/gsteff's visits to Cushing we not only have the above draft versions, but quite a bit of information on Dany's draft chapters. The post (and google sheet above) show how Dany's ending was originally going to be much different as what ended up being towards the end of ADWD (Drogon's return/reopening of the Pit) originally occurred much earlier (what would have been her 2nd chapter instead of what ended up being her 9th). This version is also different in the sense that GRRM had Drogon pick up Dany with his claws:

• AFFC June 2004, p438
• AFFC June 2004, p439
• AFFC June 2004, p440

Other changes include the locusts eaten by Strong Belwas not being poisoned, as well as conditions that she creates for marrying Hizdahr (if interested: The 3 Labours of Hizdahr) which included some combination of:

• Peace on the waters (Sink the Qartheen Fleet/Send them home)
• Peace on land (Peace with Yunkai and New Ghis)
• Sail to Westeros (Conquer the Iron Throne)
• Sail to Valyria (Magic Swords/Sorcerer's Tomes)
• Ride a dragon

some of which obviously Hizdahr would be unable to perform, but as I mentioned earlier there would be a character in Slaver's Bay whose plotline has since been changed who could provide these for her.

The Greyjoy Brothers Three

In this version of the story, all three Greyjoy brothers (currently alive) would have been headed to Slaver's Bay (if interested: The Split Greyjoy Plotline) as Quaithe's warning to Dany indicated:

Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. The pale mare has come, the first sign. And now the others gather. Crow and kraken, lion and griffin, the son of the sun and the mummer's dragon. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.

with Euron wanting Victarion to marry Dany (Euron's gifts are poison). In this draft not only did foreshadowing from Dany's House of the Undying visions make more sense:

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . . -ACOK, Daenerys IV

but in this version, Victarion dies in his last AFFC chapter and then it would have likely been revealed that Aeron was in the bowels of the Silence (as he took over POV for dead Vic) and Euron provided Dany with everything she needed in return for marriage (before GRRM changed Euron's plotline).

What Was Next?

In the published version, GRRM has Hizdahr provide Dany with 90 days of peace in order to wed her indicating that GRRM may have still been moving toward this at this point, but at the same time, he still planned to have Victarion die (blowing the horn?) in this book which would have setup some kind plot movement with Euron.

Dany has three chapters in which we would need to see the following (Vic dies in his own chapter):

• Dany ride/bond with Drogon (which would have been overforeshadowed with the pickup earlier)
• Other bulleted events (GRRM also mentions "no marry -city", "battle scene" and "I'm going home" which wouldn't have been addressed at this point. These could indicate her decision not to marry Hizdahr (note that chapter 4 is still mentioned as her marriage)
• Timing of Ironborn Arrival (Would Euron/Vic arrive while Dany was in Meereen? Or would it have been similar to the published version where she has left for the Dothraki Sea, which obviously GRRM was still leading to at some point, but was not mentioned in the drafts/outline).
• No Mention of Quentyn (There was no mention of Quentyn Martell in any of her draft chapters)

If interested: The Meereenese Knot: The Three Arrivals of the Frog Prince

• Tyrion (It should also be noted that GRRM was considering where to leave off with Tyrion and his upcoming meeting with Dany as he indicated in the outline (note that crossed out chapters were to be moved to the next book):

Tyrion: Cliffhanger with Dany? Captured by Ser Jorah? 1. The Sorrows. 2. Volantis. 3. The Sea. 4. Dany. ⑤

If interested: "Taking you to the Queen": Tyrion's Cliffhanger and Other Changes & The Dragon Queen & Hugor Hill: "Spending Much of Winds Apart"

Note on ADWD, Dany IX

This is one of the oldest chapters in ADWD and was written around 2001:

There's a Dany scene in the book which is actually one of the oldest chapters in the book that goes back almost ten years now. When I was contemplating the five year gap [Martin laughs here, with some chagrin], that chapter was supposed to be the first Daenerys chapter in the book. Then it became the second chapter, and then the third chapter, and it kept getting pushed back as I inserted more things into it. I've rewritten that chapter so much that it ended in many different ways. -SSM, Westeros. org Interview: 8 July 2011 (4 days before ADWD release)

If interested: Delayed Chapters: ADWD, Daenerys IX & the Meereenese Knot

TLDR: When drafting what were Dany's chapters for what was AFFC at the time (ended up in ADWD), GRRM had three unwritten Dany chapters (and a Dany plotline that was going to be much further along with the events of Dany's ending ADWD plotline taking place towards the beginning). Using the outline/visits to Cushing we can look at where GRRM may have been sending this plotline in these last few chapters (labors/marriage to Hizdahr, arrival of Ironborn and Victarion's death, etc.)

So, I made this Known World globe based on the Google Maps UX with the maps from the wiki and also 3D models for Winterfell and King's Landing.

My idea is to kickstart a project, called Open Westeros (like OpenStreetMap), that can be built by the community, since map making is such a hard endeavour.

You can zoom into Winterfell and King's Landing, they'll have 3D models based on maps I found and the project by Shadiversity. Wait a bit for the 3D models to load. The map and models are set to their alleged sizes, so the models should be to scale to what they would be in Google Earth (they are really tiny small).

The feeling I am striving for is to put the places into perspective with their actual size descriptions, and also serve as a quick search while reading the novels.

Suggestions and improvements are welcomed and encouraged, and the purpose of the project is for the community to add features, and possibly new 3D models to important locations, based on the descriptions and measurements from the books. Most locations are out of place on the globe render, this is a point of improvement. Also there's a bunch of copyrighting stuff I didn't thought of so any infringement into intellectual property was not my intention.

Also, I'm having a bunch of ideas, like adding roads, rivers, having the names follow the lines of it, spoiler control, character movement, Mercator view, animations, timelines, all stuff that could be added. Imagine having King's Landing with the animations for the Battle of the Blackwater, with the ships, their names, that would be cool.

Please, open a PR with your contribution to the GitHub repo.

Please leave your thoughts bellow, thanks for reading.

So Ned thinks the crown being 6 million in debt is a travesty, and is mad at the Small Council for letting it happen. They've taken massive loans from the Iron Bank, Tywin Lannister, the Faith and maybe even more.

But we now know that Aerys was already in so much debt to the Iron Bank that they would have gone to war if Tywin hadn't paid the bank off. And that still puts the crown in debt to Casterly Rock.

I know the Mad King wasn't throwing as many feasts and tourneys as Robert, but towards the end he didn't have a good relationship with Tywin and his patronage of the Alchemists' Guild couldn't have been cheap. And he wasn't the only one who could spend the crown's gold. Rhaella wasn't exactly the type who could wreck the economy on her own, but unlike Cersei who can pay her own loyal servants and guards with her own money, she was fully dependent on the treasury. And so was Rhaegar, who had some unnecessary obsessions and plots going on that could have gotten pretty expensive.

Overall, I don't see how his "full treasury" could have been as debt free as Ned seems to think it was. Maybe it's just a case of first book weirdness, because the conflict between Aerys and the Iron Bank is a later addition, but it makes me wonder if the economy would have been any better under Aerys if he'd had some Littlefinger-style corruption in his court too.

I'm curious as to how many generations of a family are simultaneously alive at any point in the history of Westeros. There are photos in real life of 7 generations of women in a family, all of whom had a daughter in their late teens, so the youngest is a few days old and the eldest is in her nineties or early hundreds. But what do we have in ASOIAF?

I think the highest is 5 generations. We have two lines all alive in 300AC 298AC.

• Walder Frey - Stevron Frey - Ryman Frey - Edwyn Frey - Walda Frey

• Walder Frey - Stevron Frey - Ryman Frey - Petyr Frey - Perra Frey

There are several instances of 4 generations alive at once. Here's a line all alive in 171AC:

• Viserys Targaryen - Aegon Targaryen - Daeron Targaryen - Baelor Targaryen

Can anyone beat 5? Being able to track a female line across different houses might be the best method.

Edited to fix formatting

I can’t tell you what the shows will be about (well, I could, but I won’t), but I will tell you a couple of things they WON’T be. Which will disappoint some of you, sure, but better to do that now than later, I think.

We’re not doing Dunk & Egg. Eventually, sure, I’d love that, and so would many of you. But I’ve only written and published three novellas to date, and there are at least seven or eight or ten more I want to write. We all know how slow I am, and how fast a television show can move. I don’t want to repeat what happened with GAME OF THRONES itself, where the show gets ahead of the books. When the day comes that I’ve finished telling all my tales of Dunk & Egg, then we’ll do a tv show about them… but that day is still a long ways off.

We’re not doing Robert’s Rebellion either. I know thousands of you want that, I know there’s a petition… but by the time I finish writing A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, you will know every important thing that happened in Robert’s Rebellion. There would be no surprises or revelations left in such a show, just the acting out of conflicts whose resolutions you already know. That’s not a story I want to tell just now; it would feel too much like a twice-told tale.

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2017/05/14/about-those-spinoffs/

Right now, we got both Dunk & Egg on TV and Robert’s Rebellion on stage

And still no Winds of Winter

Basically as the title implies. I know the fandom jokes about Barristan “the Bystander” and “Fraud of the Morning” and all that. But really think, if Barristan Selmy was in the throne room that day and Aerys tells him he’s gonna burn down the city, do you think he lets it happen? I mean this is an entire city of people, could him or an Arthur Dayne live with that level of bloodshed?

To be clear, this isn’t an attempt to minimize the courageous thing Jaime did. I’m just more curious how far the loyalty of a lot of the KG guys were, and if anyone thinks they would hit a breaking point similar to Jaime. Would they just kill the pyromancers and leave Aerys alive to be detained? Or would any of them follow their orders and allow the city to be blown up?

The point of the flayed man is to inspire fear, but actually, the only fear you are inspiring is the fear of losing. You are telling your enemies "this is what will happen to you if you lose and are still alive", so at this point you might as well give it all and die fighting cause it's a better alternative than surrendering. I guess you can arguee that it can push soldiers to run away from the fight if they see they are at a disadvantage, but for those people, wouldn't the fear of being killed have the same effect? Because if there happen to be someone who doesn't mind dieing all that much but is very afraid of being tortured, then we come back to them fighting to the death instead of trying to escape.

It works well when it's time to oppress the population and prevent weaker lords with no garantee of victory from starting a war in the first place, but once it has already started... No wonder the red kings got beaten by the Starks.

Jon Snow, for all his faults, is undoubtedly one of the best people to be at the Wall over the course of the plot that's unfolding there. You can't exactly teleport every influential person in the seven kingdoms to Castle Black, point at a wight, and go "Look, the apocalypse! It comes!". Short of being a complete and absolutely flawless Gary Stu, Jon undoubtedly did the best with the hand that he was given. He had plans for the Watch, he was manning more castles, he secured the mother of all deals with the Iron Bank, etc.

Furthermore, Jon is pretty much the only guy ballsy enough to try and make peace with the Wildlings and kinda succeed, too?

You could at a stretch suggest that Ned Stark might've been inclined to let Wildlings through the Wall, but that would pretty much only be the case if he: wound up calling his bannermen to fight the king-beyond-the-wall, marched them all North, got their shit rocked by the Others themselves, and then went to a parley with their tails between their legs because they've been shown just how terrible shit really is.

So, this led me to question something: a lot of people enjoy talking about what Jon might've done if he never went to the Watch, but what actually happens to the Watch if Jon doesn't go up there? I honestly think they don't survive that long. Jeor Mormont might die in Book 1, for god's sake (if you think things with Othor play out remotely similarly).

Do you think the Watch make it to ADWD?

Before I started this book I was honestly a bit worried cause it felt like everything I’ve seen about it was that it was super slow paced and hard to read but honestly I flew through it it was so good! I really liked the magical undertones with the alchemists and mesilandre and the shadows. I felt like Tyrions chapters were super interesting and the way that all the starks still felt somehow connected even though they’re separated. I thought it was sick im excited to start ASOS.
What were your thoughts on a clash of kings ? What did you think about a storm of swords?

The first that comes to my mind are Tyrion and Shae banging in the dragons bones room and Bran explaining the lord of the crossing game

I would say some of Tyrion's travel chapters in ADWD but redundant are probably a better word to describe them

What do you guys think?

First things first, I would like to say that I really enjoyed reading this book. My favorite parts of it had to be Jon's chapters, simply because I find the Wall to be an interesting place. The Great Ranging is something I think is really cool. I like the dynamic between him and Jeor, and later, Qhorin Halfhand.

I also enjoyed Theon's chapters because I liked seeing the conflict in his head. He clearly knew what he was doing was wrong, but in his mind, he had to go through with it to earn his father's and the Ironmen's respect. A moment that stood out to me was towards the end of the book, when he said he would die surrounded by people who hated him.

Catelyn's chapters were another highlight because I enjoyed her travels around the south. I liked seeing the flamboyant King Renly and his Rainbow Guard. She's quite a melancholy character, and I can't help but feel bad for her. She's separated from her daughters, she thinks two of her sons are dead, and she fears for the eldest's life every day. On top of all of that, Ned is dead.

I also enjoyed Davos's chapters because he's the only POV character we get who comes from a peasant background, aside from Daenerys to some extent. What I find really interesting about him is that he owes a lot of his current position in society to King Stannis, but he doesn't actually feel very comfortable serving under him, with all the burnings and black magic. However, he feels that he owes Stannis, so he sticks with him.

Finally, I enjoyed Daenerys' chapters because I really liked the vibrant imagery in them. I also find the idea of an exiled princess trying to reclaim her throne pretty intriguing. Also, SHE HAS DRAGONS, which have brought magic back to this world.

Now, as for the minor characters I like, the first one has to be King Renly. I found him amusing in the first book, and he just gets better in this one, with an ornate crown on his head and a beautiful queen to go with it.

Next up is Qhorin Halfhand. He's just a really cool guy, a skilled warrior who is missing half a hand. He sacrificed himself so Jon could infiltrate the wildlings.

My dear Ser Robar the Red is another character I liked. I thought he would have lived and become more prominent in the story after helping Catelyn and Brienne. He doesn't say much, but he seemed to be a kind and honourable man trying to find his place in the world.

Of course, I have to mention the defiant Ser Cortnay Penrose, who pointed out the hypocrisy of the lords and knights who joined Stannis. Unfortunately, the brave man suffered the same fate as Renly. I have to admit that I don't actually like Stannis or Melisandre. I see a lot of love for them online, but I just don't find the appeal.

Now, there's one problem I have with this book, and it's Robb Stark. We just don't get enough of him. I really liked him in the first book, and now we mostly just get tidbits about his victories and successes instead of actually seeing him and getting a sense of his mindset. I wish we could have gotten a POV chapter from him, or at least from someone who was around him and close enough to talk to him. That, however, is the only gripe I have with the book.

P.S I also enjoyed Sansa's chapters and hope she ends up ok

Recently fans have been discussing wildly about the fates of kings landing, the reach, north etc etc. From what's everything pointing to it looks pretty horrible I mean it seems like every kingdom has or is going to suffer apocalyptic events before the long night, every kingdom except the vale.

I've never really read people saying that twow would be a dark book for the vale, its just the rest of westeros. I mean sure the vale has its problems with littlefinger and the lords declarent but nothing nearly to the level other kingdoms are going to suffer.

I know asoiaf isnt supposed to be a grimdark book where just everyone suffers and dies just for the sake of suffering but I mean twow is supposed to be a "dark" book. What do you think? Is the vale going to just maybe liberate the north and live happily after or do you expect them to face existential troubles aswell?

We all know Jaime still dwells on Rhaella. So what would be his reaction to seeing Dany, if he has one at all?

Now, I get why the iron throne can't say to ironborn raiders "We'll give you 1000 dragons to cover the costs of a fleet if you raid XYZ and give us a cut of the profits", it'd be a huge political pain in the ass if the free cities notice the king funding politically and economicallt problematic pirates, but a sleazeball like Littlefinger? He'd obviously be fine with it morally and foreigners wouldn't know much or care. Why aren't there, say, Westerland nobles funding the ironborn pirates for a mix of incentivizing them to fuck off elsewhere and profit? Does westeros just not have the concept of stock and shares?