ReturnToRock: A Song Of Ice And Fire Ranked

apert 03.21.13	correct order is 4>3>1>2>5
Underflow 03.21.13	ASoS>AGoT>ADWD>ACoK>AFfF.
kris. 03.21.13	yea 4 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
kris. 03.21.13	and which twist are you talking about with 1?
apert 03.21.13	underflow you were almost right when do you think winds of winter will come out 2200?
TheSupernatural 03.21.13	I've never read the books or seen the show, but I've been wanting to.
omnipanzer 03.21.13	Good enough but I think the first (3) is the best.
Vakarian12 03.21.13	uuuuhhhh no. ASoS>
Underflow 03.21.13	I'm thinking late 2014/early 2015 for TWoW is a reasonable estimate.
DarkSideOfLucca 03.21.13	Wtf? 4 is 1
apert 03.21.13	i think it will be closer to 2016, seeing as the last 2 books have both taken him 5 years
Underflow 03.21.13	Part of the difficulty in writing the previous two books was whether or not George wanted to time skip ahead five years to let the characters grow. He'd written some under that plan, but later scrapped it. There were further difficulties in figuring out how to get the plots to converge. Those things have been sorted now, so, theoretically it shouldn't take as long.
apert 03.21.13	we can hope but can't see it being next year, 2015 at the earliest i just hope he finishes the series before he bites the dust
Underflow 03.21.13	Did you read the sample chapters he put out over the past couple years?
JackSparrow 03.21.13	So wrong I don't even know. Storm of Swords, Clash of Kings, Game of Thrones, Dance With Dragons, lastly Feast For Crows
Vakarian12 03.21.13	'Having possibly the most sudden, unexpected and gasp-omg twist in any book ever doesn't hurt, either.' why is this for Clash? did you completely forget about The Red Wedding?
kris. 03.21.13	WE DONT TALK ABOUT THE RED WEDDING
Underflow 03.21.13	lol kris
apert 03.21.13	i read the theon one which was at the back of my ADWD but none of the others, i don't want any potential spoilers and prefer to read it the correct order
AngelofDeath 03.21.13	Fuck, is it March 31st yet?
Vakarian12 03.21.13	next Sunday!!
Underflow 03.21.13	time to get hyped
JackSparrow 03.21.13	The problem is he killed off too many interesting characters and replaced them with characters no one has any allegiance to
Tyrannic 03.21.13	I swear I will piss on his grave if he dies before finishing these books
AngelofDeath 03.21.13	Read they're going to start killing off characters in the TV series that never die in the books lol.
Underflow 03.21.13	They already did lol.
AngelofDeath 03.21.13	Well, I meant more, haha.
apert 03.21.13	daenerys to die in season 3 ep 1
kris. 03.21.13	tyrion and dany die in twisted suicide pact 5 minutes into ep1
Uranium 03.21.13	"I swear I will piss on his grave if he dies before finishing these books" Wouldn't that suck, half way through writing book 7?
AngelofDeath 03.21.13	Is the seventh really gonna be the last one?
Underflow 03.21.13	George said it may go to eight books.
AngelofDeath 03.21.13	Damn. Guess there's going to be some nice big gaps in filming for the show lol.
Underflow 03.21.13	Actually Beinoff and Weiss (the showrunners) have been given the overall outline of the plot by Martin. They essential know where the story is going, so that may not be an issue.
apert 03.21.13	yeah but does Martin really know where the plots going, or is he just making it up as he's going along. obviously he may have an overall arc but i can't imagine he has much more
Underflow 03.21.13	He basically said (paraphrasing): "I know where it will end up, but I don't know how it will get there."
Uranium 03.21.13	Let's see, so he is 64 now. He said both 6 and 7 will be 1500+ pages and now possibly an 8th? He better hurry up especially if it takes 6 years to put out a 1,000 page book.
Underflow 03.21.13	Nah, book four was good, but not great. It has some of Martin's best prose.
apert 03.21.13	i thought that Cersei's chapters were the best in book 4
Underflow 03.21.13	Jaime, Cersei, Sam were all awesome. The rest were good, except for Brienne.
JackSparrow 03.21.13	I thought Sam sucked, I'm annoyed he's still alive. Same for Brienne. Jaime, Cersei, Arya, and Victarion were the only redeeming parts of Feast
Underflow 03.21.13	Victarion is one of my favorites haha. There should be black metal songs about him.
JackSparrow 03.21.13	I don't hate Feast like everyone else but its easily the weakest. I really dislike how the series has drifted so far from the Starks who were clearly the main characters in aGoT
JackSparrow 03.21.13	I'm guessing Theon's betrayal
Underflow 03.21.13	or maybe renly
JackSparrow 03.21.13	I felt bad for him in Dance With Dragons, the shit they did to him and how Martin described it was so gruesome
pissbore 03.21.13	BAPTISED IN
apert 03.21.13	the twist must be the renly incident, in regards to theon in ACOK he's a massive twat and i really didn't like him but by the end of the latest book i like him alot, he's definitely paid for his crimes
kris. 03.21.13	theon's a twat but he's so entertaining to read about cat is a goddamn annoying satan bitch though
Underflow 03.21.13	Actually enjoy the Iron Born storyline (Except Damphair) and the Martells tbh.
Tyrael 03.21.13	ADWD and AFfF weren't part of the original storyline Martin had in mind when he started the series and it shows, both are decent but most of their content is highly redundant nonetheless
ReturnToRock 03.21.13	@everyone asking about the twist: I meant Renly. That comes out of NOWHERE and is not treated with any importance right away, he just keeps going. I was like "wait, WHAT?!" The Red Wedding is good, but that's the one that does it for me. Re: Cersei, his attempt to make her sympathetic sort of fails, but the problem with Crows is it's so damn boring. Also, did anyone ever notice Joffrey is the ONLY one-dimensional cartoon villain character in the entire series? Everyone else has shades of grey, but he's just pure concentrated essence of twat. It's like he exists just to die so people can get gratification - and it IS immensely gratifying, but still...Joff's the only (purposefully) badly written character in the entire thing, which is jarring. And I totally agree with anything anyone says about Arya saving any of the books. She's AWESOME. Might even be my favourite character, even more so than Tyrion.
Underflow 03.21.13	I would argue that Ramsay Bolton is also 100% evil, also I don't think he's trying to make Cersei sympathetic at all.
kris. 03.21.13	ehhhhhhhhhhh the renly assassination wasn't nearly as big of a twist to me as the red wedding srry
AngelofDeath 03.21.13	I don't know if it was the biggest twist, but I totally agree with it not being dwelt upon for very long lol.
Underflow 03.21.13	Some serious carnage is about to go down in the ice though.
kris. 03.21.13	why should it be dwelt upon this is ASOI&F people die all the time robert died and pretty much the same thing happened
AngelofDeath 03.21.13	Robert died and set the whole thing in motion lol.
apert 03.21.13	red wedding was definitely biggest twist, you could see that renly was probably gonna die in some way, although the shadow baby was a huge wtf moment
Underflow 03.21.13	Second biggest wtf moment was the last Jon chapter
apert 03.21.13	nah you see that coming in the way he alienated everyone in the watch and sent his friends away
Underflow 03.21.13	Yeah, but I didn't expect it to happen the way it did
kris. 03.21.13	right and renly's death had a shitload of consequences to it too but robert's death wasn't 4 chapters of people moaning and weeping it got straight to what happened due to his death, just like what happened with renly so idk why people are saying it just got glossed over
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	All I'm saying is, in a 'normal' book, Renly's death would have been a dramatic chapter ending. On Song, the fucking chapter goes on for another three pages, and the whole thing becomes a BIG LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOMENT for a while there. Kind of like what happens with Cat's murder, which literally is forgotten about for the first 3/4 of the next book before it FINALLY gets mentioned in passing
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	^Except in that case it was sloppy writing, whereas Renly's death initially being set aside because there's other shit to attend to sharpish is actually kind of genius.
Tyrael 03.22.13	I wouldn't call joff badly written I mean whenever I read about him I hate him a bit more that makes him a good character imo
Underflow 03.22.13	Joff isn't that bad compared to Ramsay Bolton.
kris. 03.22.13	who even cares about cat lol god worst person ever
JackSparrow 03.22.13	The series hasn't introduced Ramsay, in Clash of Kings it was explicit that Ramsay was behind the slaughter at Winterfell. What's the matter with Catelyn? I was pretty upset with the Red Wedding. I sighed and reread the chapter to make sure that just happened
Underflow 03.22.13	Lol, what? Ramsay has definitely been introduced.
JackSparrow 03.22.13	I meant the tv series, he hasn't appeared in any episodes of the show. Which is weird because he has a pretty important role in Clash of Kings, he's the reason Winterfell is burned
Underflow 03.22.13	Oh, gotcha.
klap 03.22.13	they cast him for season 3, made sense to wait until next season to introduce him bc it leaves viewers wondering why winterfell burned on the finale. plus can't keep introducing new characters near the tail end of a season
Underflow 03.22.13	I don't think viewers would wonder why it was burned. The Iron Born said they were going home and being the reavers and pillagers that they are, it isn't hard to imagine that they ransacked the place.
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Up there I meant Cat's RESURRECTION, not her murder. Also, Arya gets what, two chapters in Feast? And they're instantly the best thing on that book, because Arya. I also agree Jon's murder, if not totally predictable, is not totally unexpected either. He did a magnificent job of turning the whole Wall against him by letting the wildlings into the Seven Kingdoms. And he was just a bad Lord Commander in general. So you're mad that he gets murdered, but not exactly surprised.
apert 03.22.13	i don't think thats just it for Jon though pretty sure he'll live, seems odd for in my view of the 3 characters with the most time invested (along with tyrion and daenerys) to die by a stab in the back, but its the sort of thing Martin might do
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Don't forget he killed off Eddard, who by all appearances was set to be the main character of the series. And he STAYED DEAD. Jon dying isn't really that surprising.
JackSparrow 03.22.13	I don't think Jon will die. The Starks clearly are not normal children. Him, Bran, and Arya are skinchangers, and Bran is becoming a seer. Martin will do something magical with Jon. I thought Lady Stoneheart was cool
Captain North 03.22.13	Because sitting around and talking is such a bad thing. Everything should be just swords and killing and shit. GRRM writes so brilliantly that the quiet moments are fantastic. AFFC gets more slack than it deserves, although Brienne can get a bit tedious. I don't know what you're on about for the first half of SOS. Shit is real all the way through
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	I don't mind character development, Cap. You read me wrong. Tyrion sitting around talking to Littlefinger and a messenger coming in to give news of an offscreen battle is awesome. Cersei or Brienne or whatnot being all like "we have to get to Place X", "we have to stop them from getting to place X", "u suk b/c we lost the battle at the river cos o' yo ass" is not awesome. And SoS and FfC have way too much of that. It's like, there doesn't need to be nonstop excitement, but have the talky stuff MEAN something!
JackSparrow 03.22.13	I'm with you on that Return but with that said, Dance With Dragons is much worse than Storm of Swords. Martin spent 900 pages building up stories with countless characters you don't really care about like Ser Barristan and Asha Greyjoy only to neglect the major characters. He even managed to make Davos' story boring. Jon needed to pick up the slack left in the wake of losing so many good characters from Storm, but he didn't. All he did was talk about wildlings. I even thought Tyrion was boring. No one cares "where whores go" nor does it need to be asked 10 times each chapter from his POV Dance With Dragons was bad, the only thing making it better than Feast was Daenerys, but of course she disappears halfway through. I felt completely ripped off when that book ended. 900 pages building up to 2 wars, neither of which we'll be reading for 4-5 years
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	I dunno Jack. I am really interested to see what happens to Arya in her "apprenticeship", and Tyrion joining the Second Sons should be predictably hilariawesome. The book also did a good job of setting a "holy shit Dany gon' fuck shit up with dragons!" mood for the next one, when Dany is probably gon' fuck shit up with dragons.
JackSparrow 03.22.13	The only thing that will further drag this series down is giving Brienne another chapter. I wanted to skip entire sections featuring her
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Also, the whole storyarc with the lost Targaryen kid was a pretty interesting development, and kind of off-set the distinctly un-Martin-like Disney-movie predictability of 'here's a girlfriend for Tyrion, awww, aren't they cute together?'
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Yeah it set the mood for it but then it ended! Storm set the mood and followed up on it
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	And I kinda like Brienne, she has a pretty strongly developed character. She can be a bit emo/girly at times, but I much prefer her chapters to Cersei's or Catelyn's. Also, I WANT TO SEE A RICKON POV CHAPTER. That would be kick-ass.
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	It ended because Martin didn't want to blow his load all in one book. I can understand that. It's kinda like Harry Potter slowly built to that final confrontation over seven books.
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Haha I don't think we're gonna see a Rickon chapter, he's like the forgotten Stark. What's the matter with Cersei and Catelyn? Catelyn was my favorite up until the red wedding and I thought Storm's epilogue was awesome. She knew what everyone else didn't and when they didn't listen, things went wrong. She saw the red wedding coming before it started but Robb had to go anyway. I really hope his widow wife has a son just so we can read "THE KING IN THE NORTH" again
kris. 03.22.13	all cat did was complain and whine and worry about her kids and i mean i'm not a mother and i assume if my kids were in the same situation i'd do the same thing but holy shit reading so many pages of OMG GOTTA GET MY KIDS BACK from her pov was fucking annoying after a while. plus she made some ridiculously poor decisions
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	And she was a sanctimonious goody two-shoes, which also annoyed me about Jon. Cersei's chapters had the same problem, they were nothing but "boo hoo my baby boy's dead and Jaime won't pay attention to me even when I show him my tits oh woe is me!" It got fucking annoying. Whenever it was one of their chapters (or Brienne's, or 'random guard dude' or 'random Dornish guard dude') I'd find myself thinking "can we go back to Arya/Tyrion now please?" Arya chapters were like five pages long while sometimes Dornish people got three times that. Fucking criminal.
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Of course she wanted her kids back are you kidding? She thought Bran and Rickon were dead, no one knew where Arya was, and Sansa was with the people who killed her husband. And her father dies halfway through it. It was clear only her and Robb were fighting for good intentions. All of the characters made bad decisions, Ned shouldn't have trusted Cersei but he did and look how that turned out. Does that make him a dumb character?
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Oh, we're forgetting Sansa, who's also an annoying vapid little ditz. Even after she gets beat up by Joffrey and separated from her family, when you'd think she'd get a clue and get her act together, nope. Still waltzing through the wintry woods like she was the second coming of fucking Sleeping Beauty.
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	^And making O-faces when shit happens to/around her.
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Yeah Sansa kinda sucks but I've thought that since the beginning. I felt the same way during Feast. No one cares about what's going on on the Eyrie and no one cares about Dornish guards. The Dorne plot had potential but it got wasted
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	I'm fine with the Dornish plot, but the POV characters are totally wrong. Why are we not hearing from the scheming fake-nice-when-it-suits-her blonde sister, for example? Also, getting summarily trounced by Bolton's troops made them all look fucking weak. OK, it was an ambush, and they were weakened from their march, but still. Black-haired princess (forgot all their names - Arianna?) is supposed to be Merida, and she ends up looking more like Rapunzel from Tangled.
kris. 03.22.13	cat was annoying as hell end of story
Captain North 03.22.13	I honestly feel briennes story is the only one that tends to veer into that sort of talking. I mean, cersei is thoroughly unlikeable but consistently engaging. As for characters....Cat is entirely sympathetic, I don't get people's hate for her. Sometimes just sounds like mysogyny tbh. Sansa was annoying at first, that was the point, but she's quickly become awesome. And characters we don't care about like barristan and asha? Are you kidding, those two are great characters! Barristan is one of the best
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Asha, thank you! She was the one ambushed in the woods, not anyone from Dorne! I'm sorry, details are fuzzy. It's been a couple of months and books since then. Cat is just a little too goody-goody for my taste, but I don't hate her. I just prefer people like Arya, Tyrion, Ned in the first book, or Jon.
Captain North 03.22.13	She's not really that goody goody at all. In the books she's the one that convinces Ned to go, and shes quite willing to do nastier stuff. She just loves her kids? In fact it's Ned who is the biggest goody goody in the whole series
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	But he's a badass goody goody :D Cat only becomes EVIL when she comes back as a corpse and is all like "do what I tell you or gtfo" to Brienne.
Captain North 03.22.13	Hes not even that badass. GRRM made it clear he's only an ok fighter and didn't really have a lot to do with the big victories. He was a goody goody who made an awful lot of mistakes and then died for it. His wife was less of a goody good, but yes an overall decent person but I'm not sure why that is an unlikeable trait.
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	I like show-Cat more, but that's 'cause she's a fox. Mmmmm...MILFs...
Captain North 03.22.13	But show cat has all the good stuff stripped away and she really is dumb. But not bad lookin, it's true. Although I'd still bang dany first
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Barristan is alright but when he gets a POV its useless. We want to know what Dany is doing with her dragon at that point in the story. Asha is alright too but come on, its just another thing in the way of the huge battle between Stannis and the Boltons. She isn't really needed. No, Ned is 100% badassery and by far the best character the series had. When he fights Jaime in Kings Landing: awesome.
Captain North 03.22.13	Lol you are so so wrong about all of those points. The Ned vs Jaime only happens on the show btw, in the book his horse falls on him before he does jack shit
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Jaime is what Joff should have been: a wrestling heel whom we suddenly realize has depth and is almost-but-not-quite a decent guy. I like him. Asha serves her purpose too. And he couldn't show Dany right away, it would ruin the is-she-or-isn't-she mystery. Which is lame (we know she isn't, and she's going to win the War Of The Five Kings because DRAGONS), but, y'know, basic storytelling 101.
kris. 03.22.13	maybe i just don't enjoy the way GRRM wrote her i find page after page of MY KIDS GOTTA SAVE MY KIDS OH WORRY WORRY WORRY to be tiresome
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Seriously, though, how awesome would Rickon, Osha and Hodor POV chapters be? Think about it. Hodor's could consist of only "Hodor" repeated over and over, or we could actually find out he was a really intelligent and thoughtful guy but just couldn't talk for some reason, and that's why everyone thought he was slow. How great would it be if THAT happened?
apert 03.22.13	worse POV is brienne wish she would just do something other than aimlessly wandering for ages
AngelofDeath 03.22.13	Pretty much every chick on that show is mega-boffable.
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Yeah I know but the scene still shows Ned killing Lannister men. He was my favorite character, afterward it became Catelyn/Robb in their war. That would be the worst thing ever RtR. How is Asha even a good character? She uses "nuncle" like a thousand times which is the stupidest thing ever and all she does it talk about proving herself. She's clearly the least interesting of the Greyjoys. Victarion is going to slaughter everyone at Meeren, a battle that could easily have fit in the end of Dance with Dragons. Instead, you have tons of people with too many Q's and Z's in their name talking while the most interesting character (Dany) isn't there.
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	I said OSHA. As in Rickon's wildling nanny. And sorry, I like Asha. The first thing she does is completely shoot down petulant sulky baby Theon. How can you not like that?
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Theon was a brat, now he's the most pitiful thing ever. I really didn't expect them to sneak "Arya" out of Winterfell successfully
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Reek, rhymes with leek. And sick. And meek. And weak.
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Is it telling that I was surprised at Ned staying dead and immediately called "fake Lysa" when Lysa arrived at the Eyrie? LOL I read too many books/watch too many films/wrestling.
ReturnToRock 03.22.13	Yeah, that's exactly why you expected Renly NOT to die five minutes into his first scene...
JackSparrow 03.22.13	I feel bad for Theon. You hate his guts by the end of CoK but he really regrets his actions later on. Martin did a great job, whenever Theon thinks of Robb you can tell he wants to redeem himself. I didn't think Renly dying was that much of a twist, definitely not as much as Theon capturing Winterfell or Tywin going to save Kings Landing
Uranium 03.22.13	i guess i'm going out and buying AGoT now
apert 03.22.13	do it
Uranium 03.22.13	hella ya all the wizardry talk is getting me pretty hyped
kris. 03.22.13	hey guys next weekend are your bodies even ready
apert 03.22.13	fuck im so pumped, been surviving on spartacus so far this year, but this and spartacus going for about 2 weeks at the same time... fuck fuck fuck
apert 03.22.13	and all the TV audience will lose their shit
kris. 03.22.13	there will be so much anger and hatred and oh my god i can't wait to see peoples' reactions
apert 03.22.13	fuck if they did it at the end of episode 10 and people had to wait a whole season to see the next episode...
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Hey darth i'm rereading GoT and got to the part with Bran seeing the three figures in his dream. Your explanation seems pretty plausible, at least with something going on with the Hound and Robert Strong. I have a feeling Jon's mother will be someone with significance to the developing climax
apert 03.22.13	would it be funny if Jon's mother was just a whore from Oldtown
kris. 03.22.13	no one knows for sure who they are but yeah i know who they are
kris. 03.22.13	it's gotta be and if it is then GRRM is a goddamn genius
JackSparrow 03.22.13	FUUUUUCK I was so close I thought it would have been Ned + a Targaryan but that makes so much more sense! Especially with all of the "who would have made Ned Stark forget his honor" stuff and why he wouldnt let Robert kill Dany
JackSparrow 03.22.13	That genius, there really is no other reason for all of those clues to keep popping up. I'm rereading GoT now and "promise me ned" is repeated so often
JackSparrow 03.22.13	Do you think Littlefinger/Lysa Arryn found that out which is why he poisoned Jon Arryn/started the entire plot of the series?
DarkSideOfLucca 03.22.13	Ned Stark will be the best part of season 3
kris. 03.22.13	there are so so so soooo many positives to the theory that it's rhaegar and lyanna http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/FAQ/Entry/Who_are_Jon_Snows_parents/ also i expect for dany and jon to somehow hook up if he's dead at the end of ADWD and is resurrected by melisandre like i think will happen, then he'll be free from his vows to the night's watch so he and dany can hook up and make dragon babies wassup
kris. 03.22.13	AND HE WILL BE KING
kris. 03.22.13	like nic cage and john travolter
Captain North 03.23.13	Also, I don't think either dany or Jon will win the throne. I actually suspect no one will since the series is meant as a deconstruction of the good v evil, king win she throne of classic fantasy
ReturnToRock 03.23.13	I think either Dany because dragons, or Young Griff/Rhaegar because Targaryen, and it will devolve into a 'one must kill the other' situation, since they can't hook up because ew. Also, doesn't anybody want to see Joffrey die on TV? I mean I whooped and cheered out loud when that happened in the book, let alone TV.
Captain North 03.23.13	I highly HIGHLY doubt GRRM is going to boil it down that simply. Young Griff is probably not even a true targaryen, dany I strongly suspect will die but even if she doesn't I can't see her taking the throne. It sends the wrong message. GRRM doesn't believe there is such a thing as a rightful king and Dany isn't the rightful monarch. Her dragons will soon be taken from her control (except the black one obv). I really wouldn't be surprised if the end game is the start of democracy in a very basic form
JackSparrow 03.23.13	The Seven Republics sounds so gay