A Dance With Dragons various comments and stuffage

[mariness]

Dance With Dragons

Ok, it's been almost a week, and I can't bear it any more. Plus, waiting for critical business call and need the distraction. So! Not a formal review, but, just notes:

Comments

[silviamg]

I really did not like this one :(

I was kind of pissed at the way Danny was handled. I felt her character was undermined. She seemed a very resolute girl (willing to put so many guys on a pike in the first three books) and suddenly seemed to misplace her guts, marry and fall in love with a certain character.

I thought so many Theon chapters were a waste of time.

I also thought other stuff (lets introduce a brand new contender for the throne! As if a bazillion POVs were not enough! And he's even cooler than Danny!), but I'll save myself the rant.

[mariness]

I thought the Theon chapters were gripping but seriously repulsive even for Martin - I really wish he'd left out the scene with Jeyne and Ramsey, even if it showed just how low all of those characters had fallen.

I figure Aegon will soon die so I'm not worrying about him.

Dany, though -- well, the hero's journey requires a setback, and I was expecting one for her, and certainly her rulership problems made sense. But her love life stuff...I'm still not entirely sure why she married the guy (yes, I know, peace in the city, but...you have dragons. An army. Other methods.) And Daario didn't do much for me.

[silviamg]

Agree on Theon. Waaaay too much masochistic interest in a minor character I don't really want to hear about.

Danny was having too much luck, but rather than giving her a silly marriage story I would have rather seen her solve her problems maybe by researching more about dragon lore and beginning a bit o' dragon taming and deciding that she needed more soldiers, thus seeking the Dotharki. It would also have made more sense if she met Tyrion at the end of the novel because Tyrion = useful dragon lore and political advice.

She acted seriously un-Danny in her chapters and I felt Martin was trying to deconstruct a powerful woman.

Talking about women, how about that rape-alicious scene with Asha? Yeah, I guess it's kinky but coupled with Jeyne and some other stuff I was seriously frowning at the way the stick was hitting the women.

[mariness]

I thought the scene with Asha was just roleplaying on her part and meant to show that she was pretty kinky, and I thought it also might have been meant to suggest again that the Greyjoys had some sexual child abuse in the not so distant past (both Aeron and Victarion seem to remember some issues with Euron.) I don't think I would have had any problem with it if the book hadn't also included the scene with Jeyne, Ramsey and Theon. We already had plenty of information that Ramsey was evil, Theon more or less mentally destroyed, and Jeyne...in trouble, and I don't think we needed more.

At least Dany mostly controlled her sexuality. I'm assuming her last chapter indicated that she was miscarrying, which I guess means that she's sorta fertile again and might be able to have kids after all. But yeah, she wasn't the Dany of the earlier books -- perhaps because one dragon had flown away, and the other dragons were chained, but, still.

[silviamg]

For me the Asha stuff disturbed me because of the cumulative aspect of the Theon stuff. So we might be of a similar mindset there.

I also assumed a miscarriage, but took the more pessimistic view that it means she will consistently miscarry and not be able to carry to term. (Weird theory: unless maybe she needs special Targaryen blood to carry to term, in which case Aegon or Jon, if Jon is indeed part Targ. But I have no real textual info to support this except for the incestous predilection of her family).

Btw, does NOBODY notice that there is a freakishly tall new knight at court and say something?

Regarding Ashara Dayne. I think Ashara Dayne = the septa of Aegon.

Random thought: how many times is Tyrion going to tell us how he killed his dad? That's not a leitmotif, it's frakking annoying.

Bacon = funny!

[mariness]

I thought that Kevan, Mace Tyrell and the Kingsguard had noticed and complained about the freakishly tall new knight at court. But, Kevan is in no position to say anything. Cersei has to be defended by a knight of the Kingsguard, and the only available knights still in King's Landing are not very good. If she loses, then the charges of adultery and incest stick - and Tommen's claim to the throne gets considerably weaker, putting Kevan and the Tyrells who supported the Lannisters in considerable danger and possibly opening up the threat of war again -- especially because, as I noted while reading the last book, Tommen really has no male heir, other than Stannis, who quite apart from his current problem of being trapped in snow, is a traitor. And if the charges of incest/adultery stick, Myrcella doesn't have much of a claim either