A Song Of Ice And Fire

I maintain my theory that Jon is the dragon with three heads (faces), Jon The Bastard, Jon The Black Brother, Jon The Prince.

Can you really see the story telling us that Jon is the three heads of the dragon because of that?

Seems like bad writing.

Maybe it isn't a metaphor.

Maybe Dany's dragons will literally combine into a three-headed dragon.

edited 25th Mar '15 3:36:56 AM by DrDougsh

BLUE EYES ULTIMATE DRAGON

I finished reading the fifth book a while ago. I suppose I can come here since there won't be spoilers until a new one is released.

...

Arya Stark rules!

This is kind of weird question, but wondered if others had read things that were clearly inspired by ASOIF.

Like in terms of my reading, not only does Joe Abercrombie seem to have characters inspired by Martins, but he also sometimes uses similar phrasings and plotpoints. Two that stand out for me as cleverer is that in Best Served Cold, the "heroes" hire a bunch of assassins/musicians to crash a party- although they only planned to kill one guy, they basically ended up with the Red Wedding. Also, in the second Shattered Sea book (need to create a page for that series), there's an incident toward the beginning that has clear shades of the Catspaw assassin in AGOT- from context, I wonder if Abercrombie supports the idea that Littlefinger sent him.

I also noticed a lot of Martin influences inGolden Son, the Sequel to Red Rising. The main villain is this very cold, rational Lawful Evil guy who is a lot like Tywin and his son who is a sort of Ramsayish type voices very Tyrion-like sentiments of anger at his father's treatment of him. And without spoiling too much, there's a scene in the book that I can only describe as a sci fi version of the Red Wedding- I mean it really uses all of the scenes/beats of the book scene, just with changes made to fit the universe of the story.

More positively, one of the significant characters is an older knight who is universally respected as both a great warrior and a great guy. It's hard not to read him as Barristan.

edited 26th Mar '15 4:47:54 PM by Hodor2

Honestly, Abercrombie's stuff kinda made me think of a negative impact ASOIAF's success may have had upon the contemporary fantasy genre. Deconstruction for its own sake.

I'm still thinking that GRRM may end up Reconstructing bits and portions (like Jon Snow becoming king) so that doesn't appeal to me.

I haven't read much fantasy stories.

I tried the Wheel of Time but it came off as really 2D. Made me feel like I was watching a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

edited 26th Mar '15 5:00:33 PM by MadSkillz

The Wheel of Time has excellent worldbuilding, good climaxes, horrid pacing and every last goddamn character has the emotional maturity of an 11-year-old. Have you read anything of Brandon Sanderson?

edited 26th Mar '15 5:13:32 PM by Ninety

I haven't read anything by Brandon Sanderson but I heard about The Way of Kings and it piqued my interest.

This might be a deal-breaker for me.

edited 26th Mar '15 5:23:28 PM by MadSkillz

Well, bigger fans will probably tell you otherwise, and I'm determined to finish the series (I'm currently on book 8 of 14, the last 3 being finished by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan's death, Sanderson being a huge fan of his). But force of personality is the be-all-end-all of every social interaction. Bullying through people is the only way discussions are solved, and everybody sulks. I want to throttle half the characters most of the time. And don't get me started on the gender relations.

Now I'm a huge Sanderson fan so take this with a grain of salt, but the Stormlight Archive (Way of Kings' series) is my number one favorite fantasy series right now. That said, it's set in the greater Cosmere universe and has some elements of a Crisis Crossover, so you may want to read some other of the books of the universe (Elantris, Mistborn, TheEmperorsSoul, and Warbreaker), but it's by no means mandatory.

...Anywho! How bout that ASOIAF?

edited 26th Mar '15 5:35:14 PM by Ninety

Even before I actually got around to reading ASOIAF, I thought The War with the Mein was like what I'd heard about it, with deconstructing the fantasy setting and hero tropes. Looking back, that impression is only strengthened. It definitely has its own Robb.

On the topic of reconstructions, I also remembered The Dagger and the Coin written by Martin's frequent contributor Daniel Abraham which is basically written as a reaction against the grimdark of Martin's setting (in particular, Abraham made a choice to not write about rape).

The writing style/POV structure is very similar although much more limited.

Cithrin, one of the main characters, is a similar character to Danaerys in terms of a very young female character who is calculating and in some respects wise beyond her years. She has Cersei's alcholism and Cersei/Arianne's propensity for trying to solve problems by sleeping with people- but both are presented in a less judgmental light with Cithrin. There's actually a scene that discusses/deconstructs that comment from ASOIF that "a woman's weapon is between her legs".

And the main male character, Marcus Wester is basically Jorah if he was Mal Reynolds.

I think the most interesting parallel is with this character Dawson who I would label the "Mirror Universe" Ned Stark- he's similarly a believer in Honor Before Reason, but Dawson's Honor takes the form of being an arch reactionary. It's like reading about Ned's oddly sympathetic Evil Counterpart.

And Dawson's wife Clara is somewhat like Catelyn, although less judgmental and without having things constantly going wrong for her.

edited 26th Mar '15 6:18:06 PM by Hodor2

I suppose I can come here since there won't be spoilers until a new one is released.

Technically there are since there were a couple preview chapters of TWOW released. The most notable is the Theon chapter which will almost certainly come up if you start reading theories about the Pink Letter and the prospects of Stannis v Bolton. But they're early chapters so it doesn't really spoil much.

This is kind of weird question, but wondered if others had read things that were clearly inspired by ASOIF.

I found one series called Lord Of The Rings that really reminds me of ASOIAF. It's a relatively low magic fantasy setting in a world with a detailed back story for thousands of years and family trees for all the royals. The main difference is that it primarily focuses on commoners though it turns out one guy is secretly the last heir to one of the kingdoms.

edited 26th Mar '15 7:34:44 PM by storyyeller

I didn't know that. I guess I'll search for those chapters if I want to read them, though I probably won't.

After talking with a friend of mine who read the series before me, we got into a disagreement over two things that happened in the series. One of them is whether or not Jon dies at the end of the fifth book. According to him, the writing implied he didn't. We both read the Portuguese translation, not the original text in English, by the way. While we did disagree, I think even if Jon did, Melisandre could probably bring him back.

Our second topic of disagreement is what happened to Rickon. I actually forgot he even existed, until Lord Manderly had a mute person draw two wolves escaping from Winterfell. My friend said he didn't remember it very well, but that he thought Rickon was being hid by Lord Manderly in his city. I know that Davos was sent to find either one of the Starks in the land beyond the wall. Do we know what the hell happened to Rickon, other than being sent with a woman to a place that wasn't the land beyond the wall?

Jon is dead per Word of God, IIRC. Rickon is in Skagos, the island of cannibals and unicorns.

People on this site keep confusing "deconstruction of X" with "grimdark take on X".

I for one don't think Jon is dead. He still has a role to play, I think.

Jon is dead, but he's going to get better. Lord Beric did, after all. Several times.

edited 27th Mar '15 12:45:01 PM by Lawyerdude

Jon is dead, but will be the subject of an arc in the next book where he enters the land of the dead and participates in a Civil War between the various killed-off characters.

Jon is dead and will be resurrected. Unfortunately, this is not a good thing. He becomes the Night's King and serves as the Big Bad.

This may be wishful thinking though.

edited 27th Mar '15 1:13:59 PM by Millardkillmoore

Jon is going to Warg into Wun Wun and kick the crap out of everybody.

I'm pretty sure that LS is gonna resurrect Jon.

And that Jon won't be completely himself by the time he comes back but some fusion of Ghost and Jon.

AA was never Jon. AA was Ghost.

I would prefer it if Dany and Bran are the Big Bads.

edited 27th Mar '15 3:15:56 PM by MadSkillz

Jon is pretty much the least likely person to die (for good) right now, just due to narrative reasons and the unfulfilled plotline.

Jon could get shot in the head onscreen followed by two chapters of characters going on about just how dead he is and I still wouldn't believe he is really dead (for good).

I'd be pretty surprised if LS resurrected Jon. Besides the question of "why", my impression is that she's still in the Riverlands. It wouldn't totally surprise me if she and the "crew" went North (news of F!Arya/more Freys to kill), but it would take a while. Seems more likely to me that Melisandre will res Jon using a bunch of mutineerers and/or Shireen as fuel.