Review: Game of Thrones, Season 3 (Contains Spoilers)

It’s hard to say that there has ever been a more hotly anticipated season of any show than the third season of HBO’s adaptation of George R R Martin’s sprawling epic fantasy, Game of Thrones. One comment I hear again and again from people is that upon finishing an episode of Game of Thrones they instantly want more – like they had expected it to go on and it cut off abruptly. So greatly are people drawn into the world and its plot. I myself was counting down the months, the weeks, the days, from a surprisingly long time off. Basically, from the end of season 2. As one macro said: ‘One does not simply wait 306 days for Game of Thrones Season 3‘. Of course, HBO, weren’t idly letting the tension build itself. In addition to a dazzling array of posters and trailers, the cast seem to have been everywhere doing countless promo shoots, both ridiculous and sublime, including the sublimely ridiculous. They also seem to have cottoned on to the humorous creativity which infects the fans, offering the ability to create your own Game of Thrones style sigil.

I made a sigil for Philosophy, because I’m sad.

Although, to be honest, all these things were just stop-gaps in my already stoked anticipation.

The question is: did it deliver?

The answer? A complex shuffle of competing shouts of ‘HELL YES!’ and ‘Eh’.

There’s no doubt, the big moments this season were big. Of all the moments in GRRM’s A Song of Ice and Fire that stand out as jaw-droppingly shocking for newcomers and most-tensly anticipated by long-time fans, this season has an uncommonly high percentage. The previous two seasons probably contained one a-piece: Ned’s execution in season one, and the Battle of Blackwater in season two. This season we are treated to:

• Daenerys sacking her first city
• Jaime losing his hand
• The Bear and the Maiden Fair
• and, of course, the Red Wedding

All of which were unutterably delicious. This season saw the pay off for things that have been set up gradually over a long period of time, with Daenerys’s freeing of the Unsullied and raising of Astapor being one of the most visually stunning and dramatically satisfying pieces of television I’ve ever seen. Daenerys’s storyline is one of the most interesting and complex in an exceptionally interesting and complex show. And it has to be. Hers is the storyline that involves dragons, and that’s a trope of weighty cultural depth, heavy with the legends and fairytales of disparate cultures and centrally located in the modern consciousness of fantasy tales by Tolkein’s iconic Smaug in The Hobbit. I love dragons, but I know a lot of geeks who find them overused and annoying. If you want to win over that crowd, as well as the crowd of non-geeks who are watching for the sexy, violent, political drama, you need a solid foundation of plot, character, and acting of sufficient gravitas.

And they pull it off. Daenerys comes to her pivotal moment early in the season: episode 4. Having escaped from Qarth with her dragons and a modest amount of loot, Daenerys comes to Astapor, a great slaving city, famous for training the Unsullied: eunuchs of unparalleled fighting skill, endurance, and obedience. Jorah urges Daenerys to buy Unsullied, despite her entrenched ideological objections to slavery. The Masters of Astapor give her the usual spiel via translator, all the while mouthing off about her in Valyrian. Daenerys, against Jorah and Selmy’s advice, agrees to trade one of her dragons for all of the Unsullied – including those still in training.

Daenerys Kicks Butt

Up until now, Daenerys has been a beautiful young girl with a great name and three dragons, but she has had no land, barely any people, no army, few funds, and her dragons were small enough to be mere curiosities. At the start of season 3, though, we see that her dragons have grown, and so has she. Jorah and Selmy are too busy squaring off against each other to realise that Daenerys would never give one of her dragons into slavery. She is deeply opposed to slavery, views her dragons as her children, and is more than smart enough to realise that one dragon is worth more than 8,000 Unsullied when it comes to war.

In a stunning move that cements her stature as legend in the making, she waits until the Master has placed the whip of power in her hand and then reveals to the sexist pig that Valyrian is her mother tongue, and she has understood every insultingly misogynistic phrase he has uttered. She tells him that a dragon is not a slave and commands the Unsullied to kill their masters, and her dragon to roast the one who holds his chain alive. Having sacked the city, she frees all the slaves and asks them to fight for her of their own free will. Of course, they do.

It’s stunningly cinematic, worthy of a feature film. Emilia Clarke really comes into her own, and I take back every single word of doubt I voiced for her. I dare you to watch the above and not want to follow her anywhere.

Rousing stuff. Climactic stuff. Which is a little bit weird for an episode just shy of half way through the season.

Brienne and Jaime’s Very Bloody Buddy Movie

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Tumblr for a while you may be aware that I was basically referring to this season in anticipation as ‘Brienne and Jaime’s Very Bloody Buddy Movie’. Of course, in reality, this was only one thread of plot, but it forms the backbone for the middle part of the season where all the political shenanigans are working themselves out to set up the big events further down the line.

Brienne and Jaime’s relationship is one of my very, very favourite things about A Song of Ice and Fire, and I’ve basically been waiting two seasons to see it finally flower before us. It’s through Brienne’s relationship with Jaime that we get to see a side of him that we have only glimpsed before, hidden behind the shocking introduction, way back in the first season, where he pushes a small boy from a window. We’re set up to hate Jaime, and almost all the characters are colluding to encourage this impression. It’s not just that he tried to kill a child to hide his incestuous relationship, he killed a king whom he was sworn to protect. Pretty shitty thing for a knight to do, right? Yeah, it’s easy, very easy to see Jaime the Shitbag.

Except, the king he killed was a mad man known for burning adults and children alive, sparking the war that led to Robert gaining his throne. And having killed the king, with his father’s army entering the capital, Jaime could have made a play for it himself. But that never even occurs to him. He cedes the throne instantly to Robert. He never wanted it. When Cersei tries to persuade him that he should be the Hand of the King, he refuses. He has never wanted power or responsibility. Despite his bravado and insolent manner, we gradually see revealed a man who’s never really at ease in social settings unless he’s talking about war. There is a hesitancy and lack of confidence lurking under the surface. His harsh words reflect a bitter disillusionment, and one might take the time to wonder why any man might ‘take the white’ – join the King’s Guard, swear to celibacy – if he were young and rich and beautiful and the heir to Casterley Rock. There must have been some real idealism in there somewhere. What would make a man like that kill a king? What would it do to a man like that to kill his king? And to be condemned for that act from every quarter outside of his family.

We also learn that Jaime always struggled with his schoolwork. There are hints that he may have had dyslexia, but Tywin, father of the year, would brook no quarter, and forced Jaime to read for four hours a day before he was allowed to go and do what he was good at: learning to fight. And I think we see here the germ of a deep insecurity. A man who only ever wanted to do what he was good at and enjoyed, but from whom others always demanded more. With no mother and a father like Tywin, it’s unsurprising the Jaime would feel drawn to the unconditional love of his twin sister for solace (even if incest is taking it a bit far). And it’s equally unsurprising that he would run away from his father for the simple, cleanly honourable life of a knight of the King’s Guard at King’s Landing.

But everywhere he is seen through the veil of ‘Kingslayer’. And at first Brienne despises him for his lack of honour. He seems everything that she is not. And he taunts her for the strength of her principles – her strength of honour, which he feels is lost to him forever. But when she proves herself his equal as a fighter he cannot help but respect her. He has always connected best to people on this one level where he is sure of his own skill, and it creates a connection that he has never had with a woman before. In turn, the respect he accords her as a fighter is one that Brienne has rarely experienced, except from Renly, whose meagrely kind treatment sparked an unrequited love, and from Catelyn, whose bravery and respect won Brienne’s undying loyalty.

When Jaime’s (successful) efforts to save Brienne from rape lead to him losing his hand, they each open up to each other in a way neither has to any other person, and in a post-amputation fever, Jaime tells the real story of what happened when he killed the mad king. How Aerys, had commanded him to kill his own father, and for his pyromancer to destroy the city; how Jaime’s action in killing him saved a quarter of a million lives. And where every other person outside of his family had refused to hear him out, had despised him, Brienne listens. And she believes him. And she tells him he did the right thing. It’s probably the most powerful thing anyone has ever done for Jaime.

I’ve written a lot about their relationship here and here. But I guess what I’m coming to is best summed up by someone else:

Put simply, she’s the knight that he wanted to be. She has all of the qualities that he tries to pretend aren’t important to him, are the realm of the naive and the stupid, but that he hates that everyone assumes he doesn’t have, that he thinks it’s too late for him to ever reclaim.

– glamphonic on Tumblr

Jaime doesn’t push Bran out of a window because it’s what he wants to do. He does it because Cersei asks him to: ‘The things I do for love’ he says. Jaime was a man of honour who was despised for doing the most honourable thing in a bad situation. He had always been starved of love – his mother died when he was young and his father is a big time poo – and in a world that hates him he would have done anything for Cersei, even though she never shared the honour that came naturally to him.

And then, there’s Brienne. Who is everything he ever thought a knight should be, and she doesn’t think what he did was dishonourable when she hears the whole story. And she tells him he can be the sort of man he always wanted to be.

Guys… I just have too many feels about this. If you don’t ship Brienne/Jaime I think your heart is broken.

Ahem. *coughs* Not a tear in my eye. Dust. Yeah, dust.

Anyway. Before all the feels come out, it is totally a buddy movie, I promise. Because there is also a world of BANTER, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime) Gwendoline Christie (Brienne) manage perfectly the shift between humour and tension. Particular kudos to Gwendoline Christie for managing to portray Brienne as suitably awkward whilst also keeping up her end of the banter. Honestly, it may not have had the cinematic glory of Daenerys’s sacking of Astapor, but Brienne and Jaime’s character arc provides a much needed emotional anchor, one which gets its pay off as Jaime is forced to abandon Brienne at Harenhal, where she is forced to fight a bear in parody of a popular Westerosi folk song ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’. Learning that Brienne’s ransom has not been accepted because Jaime led her captors to believe that her father is richer than he really is, Jaime returns, jumping into the bear pit despite knowing that he is now useless in a fight, his only value being that others will protect him for his ransom. It is an utter confrontation with his own vulnerability at the same time as a true act of heroism, marking a quite remarkable moment of redemption.

Of course, all of the above is drawn from the books, but the HBO team are commended for pulling off what was, for me, one of the most anticipated story arcs of the whole show.

There were a couple of rough notes. Brienne’s cry of ‘The Kingslayer!’ when Jaime faints in the bath tub, felt way forced and overdone, mostly due to poor staging and overly dramatic camera angles, but the scene leading up to it was spot on. They even managed to make Brienne’s forgetting that she’s naked (one of the most painfully unrealistic moments in the books) into an act of power. Also, the fact that Gwendoline Christie is actually beautiful, and not as ugly as Brienne is meant to be in the books, makes what is meant to be a humiliating and inappropriate act of forcing her to wear a dress lose all its power. She doesn’t look awkward in it at all, and all the ‘uglying up’ styling, which was passably effective up until this point, basically evaporates when she’s cleaned up and wearing a dress that actually suits her quite well.

Minor points, though.

The Red Wedding

No review of season 3 could go by without discussing the moment that shook the Internet, as millions of fans who hadn’t read the books tuned in for the penultimate episode to witness Robb Stark, Catelyn, the pregnant Talisa, and all of the Stark army slaughtered by the Freys (and Roose Bolton) after Edmure Tully’s wedding to Rosalind Frey.

Twitter wept. An account was set up called @RedWeddingTears retweeting all the people who said they were rage-quitting Game of Thrones afterwards (you’d have thought Ned’s death in season one would have alerted them to the stakes in this game, but hey ho). Highlights include:

@gameofthrones HBO should cancel this show as a lesson to deter treacherous writing and i don’t care if its in the original book

— Victor M (@ogevictor) June 4, 2013

И стандартное: GAME OF THRONES IS THE WORST SHOW EVAR. I QUIT I QUIT I QUIT. FUCK YOU HBO. FUCK YOU LIFE. YOU SUCK

— Darya R (@acute_delirium) June 3, 2013

RIPS OUT INTESTINES AND HANGS SELF W/ THEM I HATE GAME OF THRONES

— ♥ theon gayjoy ♥ (@ereborn2bewild) June 3, 2013

how the fuck am i suppose to go to school and work and function after that game of thrones episode, fuck im shaking and crying

— Niccolò Rockiavelli (@Everyones_Niggy) June 3, 2013

Meanwhile, on Youtube, countless people videoed their friends reacting:

Which was reblogged to Tumblr. Although in the land of gifs and macros everything takes a lighter tone, and to ‘Red Wedding’ becomes a verb:

Red Wedding: To betray, shoot, stab, dismember, eviscerate and humiliate a foe in a place of false safety”

– @MalkyDel on Twitter

So, I think we can assume that the episode had the desired effect. Honestly, I have difficulty connecting with people who want to quit a show because it generates a strong emotional reaction for them. I kinda wish I hadn’t known it was coming, because that kind of punch to the gut is what I want from fiction. I don’t know why, but I think it’s relatively normal for humans to feel that way. Something about tapping into shared emotion at a fundamental level. Being moved by terrible things somehow makes us feel less alone.

And on a serious note, this was a very sophisticated presentation of a blood bath. No, I’m serious. I don’t know why people who will grant Shakespeare as a great genius decry violence in shows like Game of Thrones. There’s a difference between blood presented for pure titillation and blood presented as a grim confrontation with reality. A lot of the plays we count as truly great are revenge tragedies. Hamlet has a body count of nine. Titus Andronicus is his most gruesome at fourteen, as well as rape, dismemberment, and cannibalism – it was his most popular play during his lifetime. Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is famously bloody, as is his White Devil – in one production I saw fake blood ended up literally dripping off the stage. I couldn’t find an exact figure for it, but The Revenger’s Tragedy is widely thought to be the bloodiest of the genre, with one reviewer writing: ‘the body count of Revenger’s Tragedy makes the deaths in plays such as Hamlet seem like an adolescent squabble’.

And that’s what this is: a tragedy. Anyone familiar with the genre could not help but see the visual and stylistic references. It perhaps sits somewhere between classical tragedies (like Oedipus Rex) and Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedy, but both are evoked. I can’t have been the only one who noticed that the set dressing for the Frey stronghold turned remarkably Elizabethan once the wedding started. The spartan stone castle was suddenly clad in oak panelling and tapestries. And the layout of the set with the dais for the wedding party’s table was reminiscent of a stage – complete with galleries above, just like the galleries of an Elizabethan theatre, to which our attention is drawn when crossbowmen fire down upon the wedding party from above. In this context the excessive bloodiness of the scene feels right at home and calls on centuries of literary discourse about death, and our voyeuristic interest in death. I wrote my exam piece on Shakespeare about the relationship between revenge tragedies and the spectacle of hangings in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. The playwrights were conscious of the similarities between plays and these obscene spectacles. People would rent out rooms with good views of an execution; issue programmes of the day’s hangings, much like theatre programmes; sell snacks to the audience… It’s one of the reasons the play-within-the-play is a recurring feature of the revenge tragedy, calling the audience to reflect upon their own behaviour and fascination with death.

Death is one of the most central themes in literature because it comes to us all. And it is a large emotional part of life before it comes to us ourselves. I would imagine that everyone who is old enough to watch Game of Thrones has known death, probably death in the family, so the family dramas that usually form the central part of both classical and revenge tragedy ring home for all of us. And the centrality of family is emphasised from the start. We begin with a scene in which Robb and Catelyn come together again, having been estranged, are bonded by their shared desire to avenge Ned – Robb’s father and Catelyn’s husband. The scene is also set at a wedding – a joining of families. And as Catelyn pleads for her son’s life she calls on the honour of both her families: the Tullys and the Starks. Moreover, the centrality of motherhood to Catelyn’s character has been emphasised throughout the season, as she makes ritualistic doll-wreaths to protect her sons Bran and Rickon, who she thinks are probably dead, and she regrets never being able to accept Jon Snow, Ned’s bastard, properly into her heart as a son. It all leads up to the final tableau, as she seizes Walder Frey’s unfortunate wife and holds a knife to her throat, begging for Robb to be spared. Who could not but feel her agony, admire her strength – Michelle Fairley, who had always played the role with intensity, taking it up to a new and as yet unseen level.

Her stillness and inarticulate cry at Robb’s death, before her own throat is slit, thus seem wholly appropriate, where the oft trotted out cry of ‘Noooooo’ has been rendered silly in other shows. Even the realistically spurting blood that is usually forgone in modern cinema, as audiences (who have rarely seen arterial blood spray) find it implausible, works in the context of the revenge tragedy.

Granted, the Red Wedding lacks the trope of a ghost sending a protagonist on a quest of vengeance, but I think the scene between Catelyn and Robb at the start of the episode, considering Ned’s death, spurring them on to accept the Frey deal in the name of revenge, can be seen as a symbolic ghost scene. Certainly, the ghost of Ned’s death hangs over the event, and the outrage it prompted eerily echoed in the excess of grief evinced on the Internet for the Red Wedding.

We also see Robb’s hubris. He should see, really, that going back to the Freys cap in hand when he has slighted them so thoroughly is a really bad plan. But he’s the Young Wolf. He’s never lost a battle. In the classical style, the Red Wedding forms a requisite catharsis. And although Robb was, for many, a favourite character, he was set up to be a little too perfect. The handsome young man and brilliant tactician, his one flaw being falling for the wrong woman, perhaps pride in thinking he was above marrying a Frey… in the literary game he had been set up for a fall. People call George RR Martin names for murdering favourite characters, but I’m not sure he’s as harsh as people think. The really interesting characters – the Tyrions, the Aryas, The Daeneryses – the flawed characters who make the compromises necessary to survive, but still retain a humanity and charm to keep us on their side… they seem to be doing quite well.

Doubtless I am tempting fate to say such a thing, and I’m by no means convinced anyone is immune from not making it to the end, but I’m not terribly surprised that it’s the Ned and Robb Starks of this world that have popped it. Or, at least, I wasn’t surprised by Robb after Ned had gone that way.

I honestly think ‘The Rains of Castermere’ The Red Wedding is a brilliantly crafted piece of theatre – not just in the original writing of George R R Martin’s books, but in the direction, scripting, set design, and acting of the actual episode itself. It’s like a little play within a series – a set piece – after the old revenge tragedy tradition. And it provides a concentrated microcosm of the themes of the wider series. Whilst there is some voyeuristic enjoyment of scenes like this, the enjoyment is parasitic on the horror. I’m willing to bet that the majority of people who swore off Game of Thrones after the Red Wedding will be back again next year after they’ve digested the event. In part because they will digest the event. It’s an event that demands to be digested and considered. It forces reflection because the emotions it provokes are so intense. It provides a counterpoint to the glorification of violence we see exemplified in the sub-plot, as Daenerys’s three best fighters – Jorah, Greyworm, and Daario – showcase their fighting skill in a striking piece of choreography. Because, for some reason, that kind of violence, which obfuscates the pain and death and gore it causes, is permissible, where as the raw horror of a blood bath like the Red Wedding is repugnant.

Surely violence should be repugnant. Surely we should wince and look away. I’m puzzled by people who want to see violence cleaned up (except for in kids shows, because, as my friends who are parents tell me, kids can find that stuff pretty upsetting), especially as they tend to be the same people who think we are becoming desensitised by violence on telly. We’re desensitised by santised violence. By violence only ever presented as cool and bloodless. No, I’m not saying every episode should be a Red Wedding, but anyone who thinks the Red Wedding glorifies violence needs to have their internal sensitivity to violence checked, because all those reactions above? That great outcry such as I have never seen in response to television before? That’s people who are shocked and awed and were confronted by the fact that the underlying message of Game of Thrones is not and never has been ‘violence is cool’; rather the message in unequivocally ‘war is awful’.

The Eh

OK, that’s a lot of praise and in-depth analysis. Let’s take a breather before the close to return to the ‘eh’ that I mentioned in the beginning. Because, believe it or not, this was not my favourite season. It has most of my favourite moments (and I haven’t even covered all the brilliant stuff between Tyrion and Sansa and what’s been going on with Arya becoming a murderous little revenge driven terror*), but it also has the worst pacing. Between the really awesome moments are a lot of scenes that stand out against those moments as somewhat grey and unexciting. Most of the scenes at Riverrun are required to set up the Red Wedding, but seem to crawl by in comparison to places where things actually seem to be happening. Granted, this is only a low note in the context of general Game of Thrones quality, and you need some quiet moments amongst the burning cities and Red Weddings, but, for instance, the Brienne/Jamie banter scenes do this much more effectively than the Riverrun scenes, despite the wonderful Tobias Menzies bringing such colour in incompetence to the role of Edmure Tully.

In this way I’m hard pressed to rate this season over season two, just because season two was consistently good value. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that season three of Game of Thrones was a fantastic bit of television with some Internet-shaking drama that sort of throws down a gauntlet for all other television shows to take up… if they dare.

*Just a quick sidenote, there, as it relates to the Red Wedding, I think Arya’s witnessing of the events of the Red Wedding form a crucial part of the message as outlined above. Because, unlike, for instance, Hamlet where the cleansing pile of bodies leaves a sense that order has been restored, Game of Thrones presents the more realistic picture that violence begets violence. Revenge only ever leads to more revenge, and Arya’s story arc is all about the forging of a revenge driven character. That list she repeats to herself? That’s not just a list of people she wants to kill, that’s a list of people she wants to wreak revenge on. In hurting her they stoke the desire to hurt others.

Read Along with Rhube #29: Chapters 57 and 58

(Index of previous ADwD posts here.)

Just as an FYI, we’re now up to p. 754, and this post will take us up to p. 792. It would have been well-useful if I had started out by recording such helpful locatory information seeing as GRRM doesn’t seem to think we need chapter numbers in a book that has more than 60 of the fuckers, but I didn’t think of it at the time.

Chapter 57: Tyrion

Yezzan zo Qaggaz, the dude who bought Tyrion et al, has caught the plague. This is bad because belonging to Yezzan, and being in his favour, is about as cushy as it gets for a slave. Oh, and because they might also catch the plague. And, being slaves, they might very well be killed if their master dies. If they’re not claimed by someone less savoury. Unless, that is, they can escape.

Tyrion, ever cunning, makes the excuse of fetching water for Yezzan to get himself and Penny out of the tent. He also persuades the guards to let him take Ser Jorah to carry the water (they’re not very bright guards). Jorah is a broken man. Slavery does not suit him, and he seems to have adopted a state of near catatonia in response, refusing to move, absorbing his beatings for disobeying without complaint. But once he sees that they are heading for different tents to Yezzan’s he perks up a bit.

Tyrion’s plan is to throw in with Brown Ben Plumm, who tried to buy them from Yezzan before, recognising Tyrion. And it works, he even persuades (apparently) Plumm to take them on as Second Sons, not merely a gift for Cersei, pointing out that he, Tyrion, can be a very good friend to those who do him a turn.

I like this chapter, for the most part. Tyrion gets to be cunning and they get free of the yoke of slavery, which was a slightly tedious side-bar. Things move one step closer to Tyrion meeting Daenerys and forming an unstoppable alliance (or so I like to dream). But it’s not without its flaws. The ‘freak show’ preference of Yezzan for unusual slaves provides Martin with a reason for Our Heroes to stay together when they are bought, but one can’t help but feel that the audience is expected to enjoy the exoticism of the ‘freaks’ as well. Sweets, the intersex slave, is sympathetically portrayed, but Martin doesn’t miss the excuse to have a character make a quip about him being able to ‘fuck himself’. It’s from a guard with whom we’re not intended to sympathise, but it isn’t exactly challenged. Yezzan’s own morbid obesity is often riffed off by Tyrion, both verbally and in point-of-view description. It isn’t out of character – we’re used to off-colour jokes from Tyrion, and we know his philosophy of speaking plainly about things that others will mock you for – but then one has to ask oneself why the author made the character morbidly obese anyway. After all, an author does have control over these things. I assume it is as a representation and manifestation both of Yezzan’s wealth and self-indulgence. On one level that’s fair enough – obesity would be a sign of unusual wealth – but it also perpetuates a stereotype of fat people as selfishly indulgent and in some way deviant. The combination of the fat man presented as unreasonably self-indulgent and ridiculed for supposedly comedic effect, and the ‘collection of freaks’ he has made of his unusual slaves, together suggests that this is more for our entertainment – presenting the ‘exotic’ and the extreme for our entertainment. For ‘colour’. It’s a bit uncomfortable.

We also see another two uses of the word ‘teats’ to describe breasts. It’s just a really uncomfortable and objectifying term. It says ‘these are not the woman’s breasts, these are things for you to tug on and get something out of’. It equates the woman with a cow – with a not especially intelligent animal bread for complacency and usefulness to others. In other words, it’s pretty gross. I get that it shows the coarse language of those who use the term – I don’t mind coarse language – I just think an unusual number of men seem to be using the same term in this book, and from a wide variety of backgrounds. It doesn’t really represent coarseness of the characters, to me, it represents a rather unpleasant enjoyment of objectifying and dehumanising women via their breasts.

Oh, and did I mention that one of the Second Sons takes the opportunity to have a quick grope of Penny whilst commenting on her ‘teats’ and how exotic it is for a ‘dwarf’ to have ‘teats’? Why? Just because. Just for ‘colour’. Yeah.

Speaking of Penny, she is starting to annoy me, largely because I think she is drifting out of believability. I mean, yeah, I guess she was super naive and had been shat on all her life, but… this was a woman who took a knife to Tyrion to try and avenge her brother. Suddenly all that fight just… isn’t a part of her character anymore? Even Tyrion comments that it’s weird that she’s so passive – even more passive than Sansa! I know we’re just seeing it through Tyrion’s eyes, but it’s not like we’re given a challenging perspective. It’s not like we even get Penny’s perspective. Not that I’m advocating yet more POV characters, and not that you can’t have passive or gentle female characters. I do not, for instance, have the same complaints about Sansa. The problem is more that with Penny… there’s no there, there, anymore. She’s been reduced to this pliant girl who’s happy to moon around after Tyrion. And I know I said I thought it would be off for Tyrion to have a romance with her if it suggested that little people should ‘stick to their own kind’, and I’m glad there is a character motivation for Tyrion not to be interested in her, but his constant, unchallenged dismissiveness of her is making her feel like she’s just a vehicle that allowed Tyrion to move from A to B that Martin doesn’t really feel moved to do anything with for the sake of her character.

So, I guess there were quite a few things wrong with this chapter after all. Huh.

Chapter 58: Jon

This chapter starts with Jon dreaming that he’s fighting wildlings, killing all the people who are now his allies, yelling that he’s the Lord of Winterfell, and even killing Robb, before he is woken up by Mormont’s crow. He notes that for the first time the crow calls him by his full name ‘Jon Snow’. And, more curiously, it also mutters ‘King’ and then ‘Snow’, although Jon does not put these two together.

Jon gets up and rides out to meet Tormund Giantsbane at the head of the wildling horde waiting to pass from one side of the Wall to the other. But first they must let pass their sons – a blood price to ensure the behaviour of the wildlings. Some idiot also sends three daughters he says have king’s blood to present to the queen, although she’s no doubt idiot enough to take that as meaning something to the other wildlings (it doesn’t). They also donate a significant amount of treasure, vital for buying provisions for the dramatically increased population.

Tormund tells Jon that the horn Melisandre burnt was not really the horn of Joramun, but merely a huge horn they found in a giant’s grave. And Jon wonders if Mance Rayder lied to him. He thinks to himself ‘And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter and woke the giants from the earth‘. One assumes this is a line from a historical text, poem, or legend of some sort. One might wonder if such a line would suggest not a giant horn, merely a horn to wake the giants… which one might assume to be human sized, given that all the giants would be asleep.

Tormund also has information about the Others – that they are far more terrible than their armies of dead men alone. That they can raise a white mist of sheer cold – the sort of weapon that cannot be countered with a sword. Perhaps the natural opposite to dragon fire? Jon keeps to himself that he has found Dragonsteel, which might be able to fight the Others where ordinary steel cannot.

The chapter closes with a message from Cotter Pyke concerning the ships Jon sent to rescue the wildlings at Hardhome, and it’s a doozy. Their ships are damaged and some lost. The wildlings have been eating their dead. There are dead things in the woods and dead things in the water. The Braavosi captains are only taking the women (suggesting that they want to take them as slaves, not to rescue them) and a wildling witch has told her people that they are all slavers, so the wildlings are fighting the Crows, not going to them. It is a plea for help (via land) but with what possible resources can help be sent? How can help avoid the Others if not by travelling by sea?

This is a chapter that contains a lot of interesting information, but no interesting action. Whatever’s happening at Hardhome sounds pretty interesting, but some wildlings going through a wall is… pretty dull, really. In terms of dramatic structure, it’s pretty poor. There is no central enigma that is resolved – just some people moving without problem from point A to point B. It’s all set up. Really interesting set-up, but set-up nonetheless, and thus a bit of an odd chapter to have eight hundred pages into a thousand page book.

Oh well, let’s talk about what was interesting. Firstly, Jon’s dream. Clearly a dream belonging to a man with confused identity and warring desires, suggesting that catastrophe lies ahead if he can’t resolve these. He doesn’t know if he wants to side with the wildlings, with the Nightswatch, or claim his birthright (or what should be his birthright if he were not illegitimate). Meanwhile, Mormont’s crow seems to suggest another role for him: king. Whether that’s king of Westeros (going with the fan theories that suggest he’s not Ned’s bastard, but Robert’s), or king of the wildlings, it’s not really the sort of thought that is appropriate for a man who’s taken the black.

And there’s the fact that the bird is calling him Jon Snow, now, which fits with my theory that Mormont was actually a skinwalker, too, and is living on through his bird. My thought is that Mormont is slowly gaining greater control over the animal and desperately trying to communicate advice to Jon, who is walking a tight-rope he’s possibly not experienced enough to be secure on, yet. And there’s the fact that crows are heavily linked with prescience in ASoIaF.

We’re also treated to a few more tantalising hints about the Others, although Martin is still wise enough to know that the less we know about them the scarier they are. Just a drop or two of information to whet our appetites with.

And the thing about the horn, of course, and the question of whether Mance is still playing his own game, keeping information from Jon.

All of that is pretty damn cool.

This is an odd pair of chapters – one is all excitement! Escape! Plot development! But marred but aspects that are ostensibly set down to add colour, but are more uncomfortable than they are engrossing. The other is dull and uneventful, but brimming with really cool information that actually does colour in the world a bit more for us.

Ah, and so it goes. ASoIaF remains as flawed as it is brilliant.

Read Along with Rhube 26: Chapters 51 & 52

Seems like I’m always apologising for not getting back to this sooner. What can I say? It’s a 959 page story and I’ve reviewed 672 pages. That’s 50 chapters down with an estimated 22 more to go (based on an average chapter length of 13 pages). It’s a bit daunting. But I’m 70% done now, so I don’t want to quit, and I don’t want to let down those of you who have come this far. I guess it’s just going to have to become a long-term project that I dip in and out of, rather than something I post religiously every week (which I pretty much did do until Christmas). Anyway, these reviews aren’t going to write themselves!

Chapter 51: Theon

Theon gets his name back! Three cheers for Theon! And it is apt, this chapter is the culmination of all that has gone before it. With the help of Abel’s women, Theon rescues Jeyne Pool (although, of course, Abel and his women think they are rescuing Arya). As Theon has become something of a lady’s maid to Jeyne, he is able to arrange to dress Jeyne in a servant girl’s clothes and sneak her out whilst in the pretext of bathing her. Squirrel takes Jeyne’s clothes and will pretend to be her to give them more time. Theon uses his position as the despised and ignored Reek – allowed free reign of the castle because he is harmless, and Lord Ramsay’s pet – to get past the guards at the wall (or at least close enough to them for the women to do their bloody work). But, alas, the violence is more than poor Jeyne can take. She screams and gives them away. Frenya stops to hold the guards off whilst Theon, Jeyne, and Holly escape. Too late, they realise that Frenya was the one who had the rope they were to use to get down from the wall. Holly falls to a crossbow. There is nothing for it, Theon and Jeyne jump from the wall into the snow…

The sub-plot of this chapter also sees the culmination of the tensions between the factions in Bolton’s army. The latest murder in the night is not some random soldier, but Little Walder – a mere boy – and the Freys are out for blood. Much is spilt. Lord Wyman Manderly has ‘three of his four chins’ cut, which seems to not kill him, although several others die. Finally, Roose Bolton calls them to order and dictate that the chief antagonists, Wyman and Hosteen Frey, be the first to gather their knights and direct their agression towards Stannis, who waits outside the walls.

This is a great chapter. Tensions running high on all sides and every moment taught. Nice to see Theon take something back of himself, although he is still a broken man. Still not entirely sure of who he is and what he should be, torn, as he ever was, between the Starks and the sea. He does not expect to survive this rescue attempt, and if he dies he does not know if he will go to the sea god or remain at Winterfell, but who ever he is, and wherever he will go when he dies, he knows it is better to die as Theon than to live as Reek, and that is some kind of a triumph.

It remains perplexing, however, that he still hasn’t told Abel or his women that he didn’t kill the Stark boys. He did kill two boys, and that’s pretty bad, but he’s getting a lot of enmity for being a kinslayer, and insisting that he’s not without explaining why just makes people dislike him more, for they take him to be rejecting kinship with the Starks. If he explained that he had actually saved the Stark boys by killing two different boys he might get at least some more sympathy. One supposes that it must be part of the psychology of self-punishment stemming from his torture, but it remains frustrating for the reader, and still feels like a bit of a fudge to keep the pressure on. The pressure is already on quite enough.

Chapter 52: Deanerys

Another chapter of culminations. The fighting pit has been re-opened, and in honour of Daenerys and Hizdahr’s wedding they are to be put to enthusiastic use. Daenerys dresses up in the constricting native dress and submits to attending the fighting she worked so hard to keep closed. Tyrion gets his moment in her presence, play fighting on pig-back with Penny, but if he thought he might get her attention then, he is sadly mistaken. In fact, he is lucky to leave with his life. Daenerys learns that the dwarf entertainers are to be surprised by lions at the end of their act, and angrily countermands the order. She has consented to free men and women fighting if they consent to do so, but not to people who have agreed to no such thing.

Meanwhile, someone’s plot has been afoot, and all fingers point to Hizdahr. He invited her to eat spiced and honeyed locusts, which he does not touch himself. Daenerys decides it to too hot for spicy food, and so does not eat them, but Strong Belwas helps himself to plenty… and soon starts to feel considerably worse for wear. Before this can fully come to the attention of those around him, however, an event happens that put all others in shadow: Drogon returns.

Attracted by the blood and fresh meat, Daenerys’s lost dragon swoops down on the arena and begins eating the combatants. Much screaming and panicking ensues. Fortunately, Daenerys was already in the process of removing some of her encumbering garments, disgusted by the blood-sports and finally rebelling against the oppressive customs of her conquered home. She leaps into the arena and runs to Drogon. For a moment it seems that he will eat her too, not recognising her for his ‘mother’. In the background, Ser Barristen Selmy has followed her and is vainly trying to pull Drogon’s attention to himself. But Daenerys is not some princess in need of a knight to save her from the dragon. She stands her ground and pulls a whip from the dead hand of a corpse. With it, she demonstrates her fearlessness and command. She imposes her will upon Drogon, and proves herself as blood of the dragon. Taming the beast, she mounts him, and flies away…

I gotta say, everything about this is a class-act. It’s a long, long time in coming, and I have to admit I feel like we could have done without some of the treading-water chapters that brought us here, but it was worth the wait. I have my problems with Daenerys as a character, or at least, with her depiction, but I can’t deny that this is glorious. When she’s good, she’s very very good. And I didn’t realise until I was writing about it how completely Martin is inverting the fairytale trope of what knights and princesses and dragons are supposed to do in each others presence. Daenerys doesn’t need rescuing from the dragon, she is a dragon, and Drogon is not her assailant or her captor, but her route to freedom. It is Meereen that has ensnared her these 52 chapters, and she has finally broken free.

Read Along with Rhube 25: A Dance with Dragons, Chapters 49 & 50

(Index to previous A Dance with Dragons posts here.)

Back on the waggon again! Sorry for the gap, chaps. Absence of Internet for three weeks in January plus Life equals a bit of a RAWR backlog, and once I got off this horse it was a little daunting to try and get back on again. But I’m not leaving this baby unfinished. I’m still flattered by the number of hits this gets, and I kind of feel I owe it to people not to get 48 chapters through and just stop. So: onwards and upwards!

Chapter 49: Jon

Jon sees Alys Karstark married to the Magnar of Thenn to save her from an unwelcome marriage claim and help cement peace. Jon keeps Cregan Karstark (Alys’s uncle, who would have taken her by force) prisoner in an ice cell under the wall. Jon offers t let him take the black if he yields his claim upon Alys’s holding, but he refuses. Tensions continue to run high between the Queen’s men and the men of the Night’s Watch, and between the old guard of the Night’s Watch and their new wildling brothers and sisters. Lady Melisandre says that she has seen the Queen’s fool in her fires, surrounded by skulls, but when she searches for Stannis all she sees is snow. The same as when she searches for Mance. When she searches for Jon, she sees daggers ever closer. Happy omens all. The chapter closes with the sound of a horn, heralding Val’s return, with what Jon hopes will be a host of friendly wildlings to swell their ranks.

The plot inches onward in this chapter. The wedding saves Alys and will presumably mean something somewhere down the line. Val’s return will be important, but we don’t actually see her safe and sound and backed by a host of friendly wildlings, yet. Mostly, we’re treading water, although there’s a lot going on in Lady M’s visions. Menacing skulls and daggers and an awful lot of snow. And, of course, Snow may have a double meaning – the snow Stannis and Mance are buried by in the weather-stalled conflict to the south, or ‘Snow’ – the last name of a certain significant viewpoint bastard. Is Melisandra seeing snow when she searches for R’hllor’s champion because it is Snow who should be her champion, not Stannis? Everything is much too vague to say much of anything, for now, but it’s interesting that the fool is being highlighted as sinister. Fools have a literary history of unusual significance.

Chapter 50: Daenerys

Daenerys is married, and uncomfortable with the concessions she has made to gain peace. Peace with slavers – slavers who trade directly outside her walls. There’s a recurrent and poignant refrain in Daenerys’s thought ‘If I look back, I am lost‘. It is both her strength and her weakness. She has come as far as she has by pushing ever onward and not showing uncertainty, but there is a weakness, too, in sticking to one’s decisions and never retreating. Staying in Meereen seems to have been an increasingly bad idea. Daenerys is as unyielding as Tyrion is as changeable as the wind. Both are survival tactics, and I become ever more and more curious of what will happen when they meet. Oh God I hope they meet!

Daario had reportedly become wild since the wedding, and likely to kill Quentyn for his betrayal. Daenerys sends him and several others to the Yunkai’i as hostages against the peace. She must also make peace with Brown Ben Plumm of the Second Sons and in talking to him she learns that he betrayed her because he saw her as defeated – because she had chained her dragons, instead of releasing them. She comes to understand, and learns a valuable lesson, but it would be wrong to say that she forgives. Uneasy in her peace, Daenerys plots to reach out to the other mercenary companies, so that she will be ready if betrayed.

She also takes Quentyn to see her dragons, and warns him – she is his only friend in these lands, and she is married. The sellswords would kill him for his betrayal, her husband is not likely to be at ease with another suitor so close at hand, and Quentyn, bless him, is just a boy with two knights and a bit of paper. He says he will stand his ground, of course.

OK, so maybe Quentyn is not made of the same hard iron as Daenerys. Bah. It’s an interesting chapter, but like the one before it, one senses that it is mostly setting things up for the future. The various tensions and potential alliances are outlined for us, and Quentyn meets some dragons, but it’s still a waiting game. No one has come out into the open, yet; it is all preparations and secrecy. It’s well described, but I was hoping for a bit more bang in the 50th chapter. I guess one shouldn’t expect writing by nice round numbers, though.

Tune in next time to see if something actually happens!

Read Along with Rhube 24: A Dance with Dragons, Chapters 47 & 48

(Index to previous A Dance with Dragons posts here.)

Making up for lost time! Lordio, I sort of wish I’d started out giving page numbers for these chapters – it’s surprisingly difficult to find where I was last at. Ne’ermind, too late now. Onwards!

Chapter 47: Tyrion

When we last saw Tyrion he was about to be taken by slavers, now he’s on the auction block. Him and Penny seem likely to go for a pretty… uh, penny. Being performing dwarfs and all. Ser Jorah? Not so much. He gave a good fight before they took him, earning himself a bad reputation, and hearing that Daenerys is married took it all out of him. He’s been beaten physically and mentally – there’s not much left.

There’s a bidding war over Tyrion and Penny, spurred on by Tyrion, who sees that one of the sellswords has recognised him for who he really is. Tyrion knows his chances are better with someone who recognises him as a Lannister – whether to take him to Cersei (who is, after all a long way away) or as a man who would pay his debts to anyone who freed him. Alas, the sellsword is outbid by a large wealthy man who likes to keep a menagerie of ‘freaks’, Yezzan zo Qaggaz. Tyrion persuades Nurse, who supervises Yezzan’s menagerie, to take Jorah, too, claiming that he plays the role of the Bear in a sketch of ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’ that they perform.

Their first job as slaves is to perform at a feast, and then serve at table. They perform admirably, and as Tyrion boasted of his skill at Sheldon’s three person chess cyvasse on the auction block, he is commanded to perform in a wager between Yezzan and the sellsword who tried to buy them, who turns out to be Brown Ben Plumm – the man who betrayed Daenerys for money. The wager is that Plumm will win the dwarves if he can beat ‘Yollo’ (Tyrion). Of course, he does not. But in performing so well, Tyrion and Penny please their master, and it is decided that they will perform for Daenerys as entertainment in the great pit. Our players draw ever closer together…

This was a fun chapter. Tyrion on fine form ‘selling’ himself on the auction block. And poor Ser Jorah, learning that he has come too late, and Daenerys is already wed. Not that he had much of a chance – she was always going to need to marry for advantage, and marrying him has little to offer. It’s a nice note, though, his utter dejection after having just displayed his power and prowess trying to fight off a bunch of slavers by himself.

The game of cyvasse is also well employed, in this instance. However much as Tyrion is humiliated and physically beaten, Martin has yet to show him at mental disadvantage, and the encounters with Brown Ben Plumm and the future performance before Daenerys have him well set to turn the situation to his advantage.

Chapter 48: Jaime

Jaimeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Finally, we see Jaime again 😀 He is come to resolve a seige that has been going on needlessly long, and been handled very ineffectually by a Lord Jonos. There’s yet another episode of needless focus on breasts and nipples that I could have done without, but it’s mercifully brief. Unfortunately, Martin also decides that it’s necessary to have a feature of the landscape known as the ‘Teats’. O_O Not that it’s 100% implausible in and of itself – lord knows there are some funny named places about (Cockermouth springs to mind – although I’m pretty sure it didn’t mean the same thing when they first named it, just as ‘Effin‘ is not really a rude word; I once went on holiday to a place called Sandy Balls, and visited a nature reserve called ‘Windy Gap’ on the way back, but they weren’t really named for body parts). These hills, however, really were named as an act of objectifying a woman (although it’s disputed as to which one), on top of employing the most over-used and unpleasant word for a woman’s breasts in this book: ‘teats’. I have never read any book that used the word ‘teats’ so much. And that’s not because the book is so long – I’m talking percentagewise. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it used at most one or two times in pretty much any other book I’ve ever read, but Martin has got stuck on it. Once or twice is shock value, this is just unpleasant; not skillfully unpleasant as in a horror novel to intentionally discomfort, though – I’m pretty sure this is meant to be funny and titillating. Way to alienate your female readers. Yes, you still write some truly awesome lady characters, and I give you full credit for that. It does not make this kind of casual objectification OK.

But enough about that. Jamie sorts out the siege, showing some intelligence and skill that has nothing to do with his sword. Not screwing Cersei appears to be good for him. Speaking of Cersei, he receives a fairly moving plea from her to come to her aid, and ignores it. It’s kind of awesome. He’s growing up. And I think maybe he really is sort of falling in love with Brienne (and I ship Brienne/Jaime so hard).

Speaking of Brienne: !!! Last time we saw her she was apparently being killed, and I was all ‘Nooooooooooooooooo!’. Actually, considering all the things I’ve forgotten about the last book, it’s impressive how much Brienne’s fate was seared into my mind. I’ve been on tender-hooks waiting to find out if she’s really dead, or, you know, undead. After all, death doesn’t have to be final in a GRRM book. And she shows up, saying that she has found Sansa. And with a bandage on her face…

So, is Brienne alive or undead? What has happened to her since we last saw her? I guess if she were undead she’d have black hands, and nothing was said about that, but maybe she’s wearing gloves? I kind of hope she’s not undead, but I kind of don’t dare hope it. OH MY GOD but I want to know more about what’s been going on with her RIGHT NOW. But it’s the end of the chapter and we’re left waiting. You tease!

Suffice it to say that this chapter had a couple of really, super annoying moments, and moments of glorious squee. Could be a metaphor for the whole book.

Read Along with Rhube 22: A Dance with Dragons, Chapters 43 & 44

(Index of previous ADwD posts here.)

I’m playing catch-up, so you get twice in one weekend! 😀

Chapter 43: Daenerys

So, Dany and Daario are now doing a whole Romeo and Juliet thing – wishing the dawn away so that they can have rampant bunny-sex and forget about the fact that Danerys has promised to marry Hizdahr. You can imagine how much I enjoyed these scenes. To give him his credit, though, Daario genuinely seems to be attracted to Daenerys as a strong woman. He doesn’t like this marriage, not only because it takes her away from him, but because he knows the Meereenese are chipping away at her power base, and Hizdahr is likely to steal it out from under her the moment they are married.

Not that I’m now sold on him. I still have no clue what was supposed to be attractive about him in the first place, and up until this point he really didn’t seem to have that many admirable qualities. All in all, it doesn’t seem to me that Dany is presented as loving him because he respects her power. To be honest, that came as a bit of a surprise. Dany’s interest has so far been expressed as a wish to be dominated by him. But whatevs.

The fun part of this chapter is that Quentyn has finally got himself an audience with Dany, and reveals his plan. Bless his little Dornish socks. But his offer comes too late. She is to be married to Hizdahr for the sake of peace within her city and without. Dany rejects his offer, she has to, but she has the decency to respect the distance he has traveled to reach her, and commands that others treat him with the honour he deserves. Must make for a nice change after the road.

And so Dany marries Hizdahr. The chapter ends with them both bound ‘wrist and ankle with chains of gold’. The metaphor for bondage is a little obvious, but if you squint a little there’s a nice echo back to Tyrion strangling Tysha with the Hand’s chain of gold. There’s also a nice moment where Dany declares she will ride to her wedding on a horse, but her maids regretfully point out that she cannot ride in a tokar. A nice demonstration of the ways that fashions have so often been used to stunt women’s ability to act freely, as well as a symbol of how this marriage is likely to restrict Dany, and prevent her from doing the things she wants to do. The inability to ride a horse is a nice symbol, considering her first power was as khaleesi of the Dothraki, a horse people.

Of course, I’m frustrated that Dany can’t marry Quentyn, but he’s not ready for her yet – he’s still a bit soft around the edges, and Dany wasn’t in a position to change her mind about marrying Hizdahr at that stage. Not without unleashing anarchy. Guess I just have to wait for Hizdahr to get killed off!

Chapter 44: Jon

Queen Selyse arrives at Castle Black, and is a right pain to everyone. This is Stannis’s queen, and she’s rather aware of her position, sadly without the savvy to do much sensible with it. She also has various irritating hangers-on, such as the delightful Ser Axell Florent, who fancies himself as a husband for Val. Plus one daughter, Princess Shireen… who has greyscale. Surely not a good thing for a potential monarch to have, what with the early death and madness we were hearing about being associated with this disease earlier in the book.

More interestingly, Selyse brings with her a banker from Bravos – Tycho. Tycho is come to chase after the debts of the iron throne, as Cersei has refused to pay them, and as far as the banker is concerned the debts are owed by the thrown, and whoever sits on it. If Stannis is prepared to pay those debts, he could have a powerful ally/source of coin. But it would be taking on an awful lot. But for Jon, what’s more important is what Tycho could mean for the wall. He wants money for food, and for ships to rescue the foolish wildlings who have headed up to Hardholme to die. They haggle under the watchful eye of Mormont’s raven, finally settling on an agreement that pleases neither, but probably means they both got something.

Incidentally, I’ve been developing a theory about Mormont’s bird. After all the wargs in this book, and with the story earlier about how people used to use ravens because they could possess them to send messages by having the ravens speak it… well. All I’m saying is that it’s not beyond the realms of plausibility that Mormont’s raven carries something of Mormont’s spirit, and may be guiding Jon, somewhat, from the grave. Not that I expect this theory to be confirmed in any way, but it fits, for me.

The big surprise comes at the end of the chapter – a grey girl on a dying horse. Jon was expecting Arya, I was expecting Jeyne (although it puzzled me that she would arrive so soon), we’re both wrong. It’s some girl we’ve never heard of, before. Woman, really. Alys Karstark – rightful heir to Karhold, if her brother dies, on the run from a forced marriage. She reveals that Arnold Karstark declared for Stannis in the hopes of provoking the Lannisters to kill her brother, though he plans to betray Stannis in the end. Before that happens, they hope to force her into a marriage to a man who will almost certainly kil her off once she’s produced a child, just so that they can lay claim to her birthright.

It’s all a bit of a mess, really, but the point is that she has come to John for protection, and she is neither Arya, nor Jeyne. Which leave me wondering… Jeyne’s escape is somewhat less assured than it previously seemed.

Read Along with Rhube 20: A Dance with Dragons, Chapters 39 & 40

Bloody hell – I’ve done 20 of these things? O_O (index of previous posts here).

Chapter 39: Jon

Not a lot of action in this chapter, mostly set up. Jon allows Val to go north of the Wall to parle with Tormund Giantsbane, inviting him to join them in the safety of the Wall and share their food in exchange for help defending against the White Walkers and so forth. It’s not a popular decision. Stannis regards Val as his prisoner and a wildling princess, even though the wildlings don’t really work like that. Jon is relying on Val’s word and her returning before Stannis does.

Several of Jon’s men come to complain at him about this and other things. Many other things. They want more men, but not more wildling men, and certainly not the giant, Wun Wun. Stannis’s queen, Selyse is unhappy about her accommodations at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and her ‘Hand’ writes to say that she wishes to move to the Nightfort, which Jon has ceded to Stannis. They also don’t like the wildling women, and have taken to calling Long Barrow, where they are based, Whore’s Hole. Nor do they like that Jon has made a wildling man master-at-arms, nor that a former catamite has joined their ranks (Satin). All of this despite the fact that the foundation of the Night’s Watch is men who have committed crimes ranging from petty to murder and rape – crimes which are forgotten and never spoken off once a man takes the black and devotes himself to the Wall. It’s a nice moment of irony.

Perhaps the most disturbing news, though, comes from north of the Wall. A witch called ‘Mother Mole’ (an unfortunate name, I have a damnable time remembering that she has nothing to do with Mole Town) has persuaded thousands of wildlings that she has had a vision that they will be rescued by a fleet of ships taking them to safety if they head to an inhospitable ruin called ‘Hardholme’. Jon wants to send ships to pick up these wildlings, which his men think is madness, until he points out the somewhat chilling fact that if thousands of wildlings die of exposure following Mother Mole to Hardholme, there will be thousands more dead people to rise and join the fight.

Not much to say about this chapter, it gets the job done. Tensions are building between the different factions Jon has introduced into the Night’s Watch by forcing them to accept wildlings and women amongst their numbers. It’s obviously the wise choice – the necessary choice – but it’s won him few friends amongst his own men. The Night’s Watch desperately needs men. I hope Val can persuade Giantsbane to join with them too. They’re going to need to join together to fight the forces of winter. I don’t doubt Val’s word (perhaps that is foolish of me in a George R R Martin novel, but it’s how I feel) but I’m not at all sure Tormund will go for it.

The really nice moment is at the end when we see Jon has realised what is suddenly obvious and clearly hasn’t occurred to anyone else at all – that dead wildlings doesn’t mean less foes, but more. That’s what you want for showing the wits of a character – to have them think of something the other characters didn’t and that the reader didn’t think of either. Nicely done. A simple, but chilling, moment.

Chapter 40: Tyrion

The Selaesori Qhoran has been becalmed for days. Tempers are running short, and the supposed good luck of having a dwarf on board is wearing thin in contrast to the supposed bad luck of having a woman on board. Tyrion is persuaded to come down off his high horse and onto a pig. He tilts with Penny in the mock jousting she used to perform with her brother in an effort to raise the crews spirits. It doesn’t really work. What really surprised me, though, is that Tyrion seems to have come complete about-face and decided that he wants to joust with Penny, not just as a last resort to cheer up the sailors, but as an opportunity to ingratiate himself with Daenerys.

Tyrion also goads Ser Jorah once too often and earns both a fat lip and expulsion from the cabin they have been sharing. He goes to stay in Penny’s cabin instead. Penny decides to make her move on him and he gently rebuffs her, using his mockery of a marriage to Sansa as an excuse, which Penny is innocent enough to accept.

A massive storm brews up – from the sound of it, possibly a hurricane? This, then, is the squalling grey monster with one eye of the priest Moqorro’s prophecy. It nigh-on destroys the ship, killing many, including the priest. Then dubious rescue comes, in the form of what Ser Jorah identifies as a slaver.

I like the resolution of this aspect of the prophecy. I was genuinely puzzled as to what malevolent, tentacled thing might be approaching Daenerys with one eye. A hurricane works. Or a tropical storm – I know the distinction between the two is essentially just one of strength, and I’m not sure how well they really would have survived a hurricane.

I also liked that Tyrion did not sleep with Penny when the opportunity arose. It’s a tricky line to walk. On the one hand, why shouldn’t he find another little person attractive? If he only fancies big women is this saying something bad about taller ladies being objectively more beautiful? I have a friend who is endlessly incensed by the fact that Gimli is smitten by Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings. He’s a dwarf, after all, why should tall, willowy elves be considered objectively more beautiful by all peoples? On the other end of the scale, though, I feel the film Freaks looming uncomfortably large in the background. It’s a film from 1932 set in a freak show. On the one hand it makes for challenging viewing, as the true monsters as presented as being the ‘normal’ performers. On the other, the catalyst of all the terrible events of the film seems to be one man’s (Hans) daring to think that he could love a big woman (Cleopatra), even though he himself is a little person. the unpleasant message: stick to your own kind and everything will be OK.

I have to wonder if there is a bit of deliberate reference to Freaks on Mr Martin’s behalf. apart from the ‘humour in difference from the norm’ aspects of Penny’s way of earning a living, Penny herself recalls palpably the meekness of Frieda, the little person who is in love with Hans and who wants him to see how they could have a much happier life if only he would stick to his own kind and marry her, not Cleopatra.

I think, on balance, it is handled well. Tyrion does not dismiss Penny for anything to do with her size. She is simply too innocent and simple in her outlook to be attractive to him. I also liked that he was not cruel in turning her down, turning to the very naivety that is the reason they are unsuited as a way of letting her down gently.

All in all, a good chapter, and one that brings Tyrion and Jorah that much closer to Meereen, even though it looks like they will arrive in the hands of slavers…

Read Along with Rhube 19: A Dance with Dragons, Chapters 37 & 38

(Index to previous ADwD posts here.)

Chapter 37: The Prince of Winterfell

AKA Reek, AKA Theon. Again with the names! I guess it sort of does have some impact here, though. In spite of himself, Reek is starting to think again as Theon, but will it be enough?

In this chapter, Ramsay marries Jeyne Poole, who is pretending to be Arya. It’s not clear who knows that she is not Arya, apart from Reek The Prince of Winterfell Theon. What is clear is that it if Jeyne doesn’t play her role, she won’t be doing much of anything for very long. Poor Jeyne, at the start of the chapter she just thinks she is going into a forced marriage under a false name; she has no idea of the sort of man she is marrying. Hanging over this whole chapter is the question of whether Theon will come sufficiently to himself to launch some kind of rescue.

He takes her to the godswood and gives her away, as the closest thing she has to a family member. Despite Theon’s brief fantasy that she will announce to everyone who she really is – getting them both killed, but also getting the truth out – she meekly submits, and he confirms for all those gathered that she is Arya. They then return to the repaired hall to feast. Lord Wyman Manderley is there, suspiciously cheery, having brought with him a great deal of food, including three giant ‘pork’ pies. Funny that he somehow lost three Freys along the way. It’s pretty clear that Wyman has had his revenge by baking those men into the pies, and now he’s taking great pleasure in feeding them to his oppressors.

Also present are a bunch of musicians – ‘Abel’ and his six women. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking this is Mance and his six spearwives. Hanging over the feast is the question of whether there will be some great uprising before the marriage is consummated. ‘Abel’ is there to save ‘Arya’, ‘Reek’ flutters around the verge of becoming Theon again and coming to her rescue, and there are some very bitter northman in the room who might be persuaded to rise up, or at least sit back and do nothing. But no one is clearly who they seem, no one is sufficiently committed to their roles. Abel does nothing. Wyman is content to have his secret cannibalistic joke. Theon seems to come close, especially when Ramsay insists that Theon accompany him as the ‘Prince of Winterfell’ when he goes to bed her. Finding that ‘Arya’ is dry, he commands Theon to go down on her first – I presume in some mockery of the tradition of a lord’s right to have his way with a newly wedded bride of his subjects (Theon having once proclaimed himself Prince of Winterfell, Ramsay his subject, before their positions were so dramatically reversed). For a moment it seems he might refuse, but he does not.

This is a well-constructed chapter. It is tense and horrible on several levels. We want the last minute rescue, and Martin dangles it artfully before us again and again, but the time is not yet ripe. Any rescue at this point would wind up with a lot of people dead, including, probably, the lady herself. All the fake names and duplicity hover around, looking as though they should be symbolic of something deep, but I can’t find it. They seem to be symbolic of… the fact that everyone’s hiding something, which isn’t so much a symbol as a fact. Still, tensions and understated horror reign.

Chapter 38: The Watcher

Odd point of view, this. Instead of returning to one of the players in the scene, we follow Areo Hotah, man-with-axe, and servant of Prince Doran Martell. The scene unfolds as the prince is presented with a massive skull that is thought to have belonged to Ser Gregor Clegane – aka The Mountain. The Prince and his family are pleased by this, especially the Sand Snakes – Obera, Nymeria, and Tyene, bastard daughter’s of the prince’s dead brother Oberyn. Gregor killed Doran’s sister and her children, so they’re pretty pleased to hear that he had a painful death.

The head is presented to them by Ser Balon Swann, as a gift from the Lannisters. He’s also there to ask that Princess Myrcella (daughter of Cersei, betrothed to Trystene Martell) return to King’s Landing, and that Doran accompany them to become the boy king’s Hand. Doran suspects that this is a trick, which is confirmed by Balon’s obvious discomfort when Doran proposes travel by sea, as opposed to by road, where it is suspected there would have been an ambush. Balon is also concerned to find Myrcella and her protector, Ser Aerys Oakenhart are away at the Water Gardens, and not there to greet him. The reason for this is that Aerys has been killed following a rebellion plotted by Princess Arianna and the Sand Snakes, for which the Sand Snakes had been detained in the Spear Tower until recently. I honestly can’t remember the details of this – I had forgotten this plotline completely until this chapter, and only now have vague recollections of what happened.

Anyway, after the presentation of the skull, the prince, the Sand Snakes, the Princess Arianna, and (for some reason) Areo Hotah retreat to discuss what to do in private. Doran would be a fool to go to King’s Landing. Balon will need to see Myrcella, but they need to work out how to handle the fact that his brother in arms is dead. The Sand Snakes are generally reactionary, but Doran advises caution, because he knows a few things they don’t. A plan emerges. Princess Myrcella has been led to believe that Gerold Dayne (aka Darkstar) tried to kill her and that Ser Aerys died protecting her. Doran mainly wishes to maintain a holding-pattern, and will send Lady Nym in his stead to King’s Landing. He has heard of a fleet departing from Lys. He hopes this is Quentyn with dragons and Daenerys. Of course, we know that it’s the lost prince, aka Young Griff. Either way, it could go well, for them.

This chapter was interesting. I didn’t remember any of the players well, but they do have an interesting plot. One of the Sand Snakes is apparently wearing a see-through dress, which I found a bit odd and rather unlikely, but ho hum. I like Prince Doran’s cunning. I like that we’re hearing of some interaction between what’s going on in the south and Westeros, finally. I like that everyone’s going to be very surprised when they find out whose fleet it is. I do feel sorry for poor Quentyn, though, off on his fool’s quest with his family thinking he might somehow have succeeded already. Smart though they may be, they clearly have no idea of the scale of the task they have set him.

Read Along with Rhube 18: A Dance with Dragons, Chapters 35 & 36

(Index to previous ADwD posts here.)

Sorry to keep you waiting for this one, had to try and get on top of real life things for a while. But I’m still reading, and this behemoth ain’t gonna review itself. Let’s get to it!

Chapter 35: Jon

Short and sweet, this one. Time has come to swear in some new men of the watch, and some of them want to do it before a tree of the old gods. This means going out into the lands beyond the Wall. For some reason, Jon decides to go out with the men escorting the new blood. I’m kind of with Dolorous Edd on this one – he points out that, nice though the gesture is, Jon should really be thinking of looking after himself as Lord Commander. Nevermind, it means we get eyes and ears outside the Wall.

So, they head on out and it turns out the weirwood is rather farther from the Wall than I supposed from when Jon went to take his oath there. It’s late in the night by the time they arrive, and they do so to find a bunch of wildlings huddled around the tree, come to die before their gods, because they had nowhere else to go. Things are a bit tense for a moment, especially as one of the wildlings is a giant, who starts roaring something unintelligible to most of the men. Fortunately, though, one of the swearees is a former wildling himself, and he is able to speak the Old Tongue. He talks the giant down and is able to explain that they’ve just come to worship themselves. Once communication is established, they’re also able to invite the wildlings back to the Wall with them, which they’re pretty willing to do, seeing as they’re near death, and the only reason they didn’t go surrender to the Wall in the first place is that they heard about Melisandre’s burning of weirwood in her fake Mance-killing show. Nice one, Melly.

So, Jon is now up some new recruits, including a giant. He gets back to the Wall somewhat later than intended, but fairly safe and well. He finds a letter waiting for him from Stannis, saying that he’s taken Deepwood Motte and plans to march on Winterfell to take it and save Jon’s sister, if he can. Jon ponders that if Stannis were his brother Robert, he’d take his men on a forced march and probably get there with the advantage of time and ahead of the snows. Stannis is unlikely to do this, however, so it’s probably not going to end well.

I liked this chapter – I like that some of the wildlings are integrating and actually choosing to take the Black. I like that the wildling, Leathers, is able to use his knowledge of the Old Tongue to the advantage of the Night’s Watch to bring more wildlings into the fold. I like the exploration of religious tensions. There’s a little mention of further tensions with the women who have volunteered to help man the Wall, but I can’t say it overly engaged me. Having women in your army causes tensions – wah wah – that doesn’t mean they aren’t good fighters – wah wah – but some men can’t help themselves anyway – wah wah. Nothing wrong with dealing with this issue, it’s just that so far it’s very much predictable and uninteresting. Clearly we’re being set up for some Event further down the line, but there’s nothing to write home about, or to the Internet with, yet. This chapter progressed things a bit, but didn’t do that much more.

Chapter 36: Daenerys

The predicted waves of plague-riddled Astapori have arrived at Meereen. They’re starving and dying. Some say they are eating their dead. Against everyone’s guidance, Daenerys goes out to deliver the food herself. Appalled at their conditions, and knowing that things will only get worse if the people don’t wash and dispose of the dead properly, Dany gets down off her horse and goes to help them herself, shaming everyone else into joining her. Everyone thinks this is a bad idea, but Daenerys reassures herself that the blood of the dragon never gets sick, which I guess is nice for her, if true, although I don’t know about her men.

So, they feed and wash the sick and fifty of her Unsullied go to help burn the bodies of the dead. Then they return to the palace and wash a lot. After which Dany has to go speak to the Graces about her upcoming wedding, where they try to force a number of ‘merely symbolic’ concessions on her, including an examination of her lady-parts to verify that she’s still fertile… which of course she isn’t. It’s not clear whether she wins the day on that, although she concedes virtually everything else, including washing Hizdahr’s feet as a symbol of her subservience. Dany demands that he should wash her as well, which he concedes to, but I can’t help but feel that if this marriage goes through it’s not going to be as much to her liking as she thinks it’ll be.

After this, Daario arrives with bad news. Hearing that he’s covered in blood, Dany breaks her resolve not to see him anymore, although it turns out that the blood is mostly someone else’s. His news shocks everyone: Brown Ben Plumm has gone over to the Yunkai’i. I don’t know if I’m supposed to remember this dude, but I don’t. Dany does, though, and she’s as shocked as everyone else. Is this one of her predicted betrayals? If this is the one for money, was she wrong about Ser Jorah? (Answer: yes, but I guess she lacks our omnipotent perspective.) She commands the closure of Meereen’s gates, even though this means that the Astapori will be left helpless outside.

After this, Daario and Dany are left alone and she gives into her inexplicable desire to sex him up. Apparently realising she’s unsure about what the prophecies mean anymore means that she now thinks Daario won’t be one of her betrayers? Don’t ask me, I don’t get any of this line of character motivation. All I can think is that this dude has killer pheromones. His final line before she ends the chapter by saying ‘What are you waiting for?’ is to boast that he’s had a thousand women before her. I guess it must be true that some women are turned on by lines like this, but to me it’s not only laughably cheesy, but the cheese is an unpleasant, oily sort of cheese. Eh… I’m bored of bitching about the Daenerys/Daario plotline. If you’ve come this far with me you know why it bothers me, and, to be honest, this is probably the least offensive chapter in which he has featured. At this stage I just have to go ‘Lust is blind’ and hope that it won’t be too long before his inevitable betrayal.

As for the rest of the chapter, well, I’m glad the war appears to finally be reaching her. I know it fits with the realism that armies take a while to get together and go whether they need to be, but we’ve been doing an awful lot of treading water down here in the southerly plotlines. The plague-filled Astapori outside the walls are interesting, though. If the Yunkai’i are in for a siege then that’s going to cause them problems. Biological warfare FTW!

And that’s about it, for now. Toodle-pip!

Read Along with Rhube 17: A Dance with Dragons, Chapters 33 & 34

(Index to previous ADwD posts here.)

It’s a bumper ADwD weekend, here in Womblevonia. I’m still playing catch-up with my reading and trying to make sure this doesn’t end up as something I doggedly do all winter as some kind of penance for my geek-sins. Not that I’m not enjoying it, it’s just that I don’t have a lot of time left over to review anything else, atm, and I know not everyone comes to ISotHM for the RAWR.

Let’s get started!

Chapter 33: Tyrion

This is a nice little chapter, mostly about character development, but that’s OK.

Tyrion and Ser Jorah have set sail for Slaver’s Bay, and taken poor Penny, the dwarf girl who’s brother was killed in Tyrion’s place, with them. Jorah is mostly drunk, seasick, and taciturn. Tyrion is mostly bored. He talks to a red priest who’s on board for a bit and reads the three books the ship lays claim to. Penny mostly hides away in her cabin, grieving. She doesn’t know anyone except Tyrion and Jorah, and she’s understandably not comfortable in their presence at first. Tyrion determines to be a friend to her when Jorah refuses, however, and eventually wins her trust. Jorah suggests that he sleep with the girl, but Tyrion doesn’t fancy her, even when she starts angling at him either as a bed-companion, or as someone to take her brother’s role in the comedy dwarf jousting that used to earn her a living.

The chapter ends as they pass near the ruins of Valyria, but not so near as to see it. That, we are told, is to become cursed. We learn that Tyrion’s uncle, Gerion, went to Valyria and never returned. Tyrion had begged Lord Tywin to let him go along, but Tywin forbade. It sounds as though there was a massive earth-movement – quakes and volcanoes, sinking cities beneath the waves and turning the sea to acid. Nice. Tyrion discusses it with the red priest, Moqorro, who also has visions, just like Melisandre. He has seen that others seek Daenerys, including a ‘tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood’.

So, no real events, in this chapter, but a lot of colour. You know I like the whole lost-civilisation thing, and Valyria has been hovering in the background, a looming past that we see only tantalising glimpses of. (Is it bad that I sort of want Martin’s next series to be a prequel? In the unlikely event that he finishes this one, that is?) I may get a bit drowned in visions, though. I sort of like it, but at times the sudden upsurge in magic in this book is too sharp a contrast with its notable virtual non-existence in the earlier volumes. I’ve known many people to praise the originality of the series as a fantasy tale with relatively little magic. Well. It’s certainly not that anymore.

The twisted black thing with one eye and many arms is intriguing, though. Methinks this is not Quentyn. Daenerys’s missing black dragon, perhaps? Not with the many army and only one eye. It sounds more figurative – could be the plague from Astapor, but then, what’s the eye? Curiouser and curiouser.

I like that Tyrion befriends Penny, and also that he does not sleep with her. I had a fear for a while that he might, and it would be all ‘Gosh, isn’t it just easier when people stick to their own “kinds”?’, but fortunately, it wasn’t. I sort of like that Jorah callously suggests it, though. It rounds out his character. Loyal he may be, but that doesn’t mean he’s perfect. I wonder if those lines will make it into the TV series, if they make it that far. It does underline that there are some of the differences in characterisation, however much my hormones would like imagine Ser Jorah as he is in Iain Glen’s portrayal.

I both like and don’t like Tyrion’s attitude to Penny’s name. He’s disgusted by the fact that she’s chosen a name for herself that signifies her worth as equivalent to the smallest denomination of currency. He therefore refuses to call her by her name. He’s right in his analysis, and that it is a sad thing that she devalues herself so. At the same time, though, that is the name that she chose for herself, and there’s something a bit distasteful in the fact that he refuses to use it. It’s disrespectful of her and looks down on her for not having the intelligence to recognise how stupid her name is and that she should have the self-respect to choose a better one. Oh, Tyrion, you’re too smart for this – have the sense to recognise the irony in what you’re doing.

It sort of hits a nerve for me. I chose the name ‘Rhube’ as my Internet handle more than a decade ago. Actually, it goes back to before I was on the net – back when fans communicated almost solely via fanzines. I initially chose the name ‘Spacehippy’ for my interactions with ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the Hitch-Hiker’s fanclub. But someone assumed I was a man, and at the tender age of 14 I was too embarrased to correct them, and chose to go by ‘Rhubarb’ instead. I won’t bore you with the details, but ‘Rhubarb’ had a meaning for me and tickled me. When a penpal I got through ZZ9 took to shortening it to ‘Rhube’ I was flattered by the affection this signified. When the Internet entered my life and I started frequenting my first online forum, the Star Ship Titanic help forums, it was only natural that I take the name ‘Rhube’ with me. I have a lot of good memories tied to that name, memories that stand in stark contrast to the associations I have with my real name. There’s a power in choosing a name for yourself, one that I think Penny probably knows well. Imagine how I felt, then, on entering my university creative writing group’s forum, when one of my new university friends told me ‘Great to see you here, but we have to find you a new name – that’s AWFUL’. His objection? ‘Rhube’ sounds like ‘Rube’, which is apparently a slang term I’d never heard of for ‘country bumpkin’. It simply wouldn’t do for me to call myself something that, in his eyes, undervalued me and revealed my ignorance.

Took me a long while to get over the anger and shame generated by that careless comment about how stupid I had been not to respect myself more in my choice of name. Now I know that he was the idiot, and have embraced my self-chosen name again, but I’m still angry that I allowed him to colour my thought that way. So… I guess what I’m saying is: it’s awesome that Martin is presenting this nuanced look on the complexities of prejudice and respect, but all I want to do is just shake Tyrion and say: ‘Grow up! Do her the decency of respecting her choices, whatever they may be, gods damnit!’ Hope it comes out and they have a blistering row that brings him to his senses.

Chapter 34: Bran

Ohhhhh, this shit is creepy.

Bran continues life with the children of the forest and the greenseer that’s mostly just a corpse wired into a tree, now. He learns to control ravens, and that the reason people in Westeros use ravens rather than pigeons to carry their messages is that the First Men learnt from the children to slip into the skins of the ravens and speak the messages directly, rather than tying scraps of paper to their legs.

Bran is also getting far too comfortable about using Hodor to go places and do things. He’s also clearly working up to using Hodor to have a physical relationship with Meera. Not convinced she’ll be 100% cool with that, dude. Plus, they’re eating a blood soup of unknown meat – what are the odds this turns out to be man flesh?

Towards the end of the chapter they decide that it’s ‘time’. The children give Bran a paste of weirwood seeds, the mush of which apparently has red veins in it from the red sap of the trees. I’m not entirely clear how that works. I’d have assumed that if you mush it up it would go a pinky colour, but whatever. With some reluctance, Bran eats the mush and finds that he can see things through any weirwood tree he chooses, and because time feels different to the trees, a moment in the past can feel as present as now. Bran sees his father as a younger man beneath their tree back at Winterfell, and as he calls out to him Ned almost seems to hear him.

When Bran wakes up, Hodor carries him to his bed in the darkness. Neither Jojen nor Meera are there, Meera having wandered off with a case of the sads earlier. There’s something ominous about their absence. Bran resolves to stay awake until Meera gets back, but instead he slips into visions of the tree at Winterfell again, going rapidly back in time to what seems to be its beginning, where a woman slits the throat of a captive in what seems to be an offering. At the end, Bran cries out, asking them to stop, and one is left wondering whether this is only happening in the deep past at Winterfell, or if something is happening to Bran himself, or one of his friends. Meera’s and Jojen’s cryptic comments hint at something like that. It’s not clear what there is for them to do here, but it seems that Jojen, at least, does not expect to be going back down south.

So, anyway: super creepy. Suggestions of cannibalism are rife, whether real or symbolic. I have to say, the whole ‘going into the tree’ thing, with roots wrapping round and through your mouldering corpse, is squicking me out. I have actually had nightmares about it, people. I don’t want this for Bran. It’s not clear that he wants it, either, he’s just kind of going along with it, not least because no one else has offered him an option of a viable active life where it doesn’t matter that his back is broken. I keep wanting for him to stand up and say ‘no!’, but I don’t think he’s going to. And I guess that’s maybe part of my problem. He’s still so young and impressionable, he’s too easily led, too eager to show that’s he’s a brave man and will give things up if called upon. I don’t think I’m going to be happy with how this ends, and I can’t decide if it’s the book being good in taking me to extremes, or if I actually just don’t like it. I think it’s probably the former, but… what can I say? I’m uncomfortable. I’m half dreading the next Bran chapter because I’m not sure I want to find out what’s happened.

But the book keeps rolling on. Tune in next time for more Read Along with Rhube!