#i reread the adwd chapter

[ilynpilled]

i think what i ultimately came away with when it comes to jaime’s feast arc is that yeah it mainly focuses on jaime’s internal development and it was necessary in beginning to address all the huge flaws we are left with in asos (he wanted revenge, he wanted the golden hand, he is still stuck on perception and has a flawed #cope outlook on honor, he wants glory (tie to his family), he is still w cersei and the lannisters) so he is made to revisit his asos journey in a new context, with a new partner. it is not with the idealistic brienne, but ilyn, who is in some ways identical to jaime himself. his first journey is with what he used to be when he was a boy (naive idealist), and then he revisits that journey with the man he eventually became (an executioner of the lannister regime). and it is emphasized that what he is doing is not enough and that many of his pursuits are inherently flawed or a dead end. and he is aware deep down. u cant really make the vows, and whatever deeper and more abstract meaning they hold, compromise is what is in the conclusion of the subtext imo. adwd is so full of such contradictions. his choices in it keep unwittingly contradicting tywin’s dogma in every way. i think it puts him in the ideal place to be forced into confronting stoneheart and all the baggage that comes with that. that is what i really hope will happen. and then i want him to make a grueling effort in addressing things and pivoting. winds will not be easy, it will be 10x worse than feast: stoneheart and all his sins, potential brienne conflict, his children that he also doomed by choosing the oath, cersei, etc. it is all gonna be pretty brutal. i just think the set up is pretty clear atp

[hylora]

Went on a proper reread of ASOIAF in english recently and I don't know what happened.

Never really cared for Theon, never understood the obsession some had with him, and when reading his chapters in ACOK he was even worse than I remembered.

Then I got to ADWD again, and now I understand....

[visenyaism]

💥MY CHILD WAS TURNCLOAK OF THE MONTH AT CASTLE BLACK 300 AC💥

[denmark-street]

What if both George R. R. Martin and Philip Pullman announce the release date of their next book during their Oxford conversation this summer...

What if The Winds of Winter is published on September 20th for GRRM's birthday...

What if it was also mine...

[death-of-cats]

300 AC is going to be the year of realizing things 💅

[cecilyneville]

i think i must have almost totally skipped the reaver chapter of affc bc i remember the vic/euron chat and nothing else but my god i enjoyed it so much on a reread! i'm proud to identify as morosexual victarion you're so fucking stupid!!!

[smallhatlogan]

guy who didn't finish their last ASOIAF reread because they kept procrastinating on ASoS Tyrion 11: "What if I reread ASOIAF from the start again?"

[empireofembers]

Putting on my delusional goggles for a second while rereading ADWD, but what can I say, a girl has no other hobbies as of late. There is this specific Tyrion chapter in which he is traveling through the Rhoyne, and this stood out to me as it reminded me of what Mel's told Jon she saw in the fire.

"..but there's another tale I like better. The one that says he's not like t'other stone men, that he started as a statue till a grey woman came out of the fog and kissed him with lips as cold as ice."

- Tyrion V, ADWD

“I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will."

- Jon VI, ADWD

This absolutely has nothing to do with the fact that I recently rewatched Enchanted, and the role reversal resurrection kiss, GRRM fairytale subversion shit is just what I am into..

[kingsmoot]

whenever i reread the early arya + sansa chapters my mind is blown anew at the sort of malice that people assign to sansa and jeyne in their treatment of arya

like i frequently think that george writes his baby characters as far far far beyond their years, but in the early agot chapters this couldn't be less the case. jon, arya, sansa, and jeyne are all very realistically 14, 9, and 11. they're tiny. and they act tiny.

like i've seen plenty of people saying that jeyne gets "what she deserves" in adwd because she's so cruel to arya and like ....jeyne is a little girl bullying another little girl. i'm sorry that apprently all of you were little ceramic precious moments figures as children and not. children. and that thid has tainted your read of the series. this is a very realistic and age appropriate squabble/contentious relationship between babies.

the parallel between jeyne naming arya and then being named arya in return is a doyalist one. it is a narrative structure. it is not the old gods cursing jeyne to bear arya's fate. and jeyne is purposefully the character selected to be theon's sisterfreezerbride because she, like theon and joffrey, is a character the audience easily dismisses as annoying or mean or unsympathetic. and then the audience has to reckon with how it actually feels seeing a little girl get tortured or a little boy get assassinated or a young man be utterly psychologically and physically broken.

anyway whatever. this kind of got away from me as most of my posts do when jeyne is involved. i just really wanted to say that george's depiction of the straklings early on in agot is his most realistic writing of children. the baby lannisters as well!! in later books tommen seems like a toddler at 8 and myrcella seems like a college student at 10. but rn they're all the right level of baby.

[weirwoodsugar]

i’m on the jon dies chapter of my adwd reread. two things 1) george why did you have the quentyn and jon death chapters back to back but the quentyn chapter is upsetting and disturbing and the jon chapter is extremely funny until the last like two scenes 💀

???? he is going to die in ten pages

what would the lord commander like us to do with his corpses 💀 💀 workplace comedy

2) it is such a jaw dropping power move to announce to an entire all-staff meeting that you’re deserting. i can’t wrap my head around it. such a moment. my man knows how to work a room!

[lori133]

Asoiaf reread

After a dizzying long summer filled with House of the Dragon Omegarverse fanfiction, I have made the brave decision to re read the whole Asoiaf saga.

To be completely honest, the thought of it fills me with both anticipation and anxiety. Anticipation because this is a much beloved saga filled with interesting characters and plotlines, and I want to go back through it with another mentality and putting more care in the details and conspirations that teenaged me ignored.

The anxiety part comes from the memory of the hurt these books cause.

The first time I read them I was a teenager who picked the Game of Thrones book because John Snow looked hot on the cover. But as I read it became way more than that. I was the same age as most of the children and suffered with them the indignities bestowed by adults and their powerlessness in preventing being used like pawns for the furthering of their houses. I have until today never quite recovered from reading Sansa's POV and her extended suffering and I am a woman marked by it.

Anyways, I haven't seen the TV series and have only passing knowledge of the changes they made to the plot tho I, like most people with interenet, know who ends on the Iron Throne (LOL) and who dies at the end.

Regardless my memories of the books are pretty vague and I stopped being as into them in the interim six years before Adwd so ironically that is the book I remember the least.

I have a bit of a strong impression of most of the Stark children's plots and chapters (me coming from YA and rooting for all of them only to be punched in the guts again and again) but quite frankly skipped through most of Dany's eastern adventures and thought Stannis to be as boring as Renly claimed him to be.

All these impressions have since changed after reading and reblogging so much asoiaf meta.

Lastly, I used to be really into kings and princesses and nobles but growing up in a country with a King, I have since become an antimonarchist and I believe I'll find myself squarely on the smallfolk side.

[visenyaism]

how did you understand victorian fans. i’m trying i really am but can’t get to the finish line

I thought every single Victarion chapter was fucking insane and offputting and it really took for me until adwd when he started confidently following two monotheistic religions at the same time with literally no understanding of why that would even be an issue to be like okay george rr martin you are fucking with me and I understand the specific way how now. And then I reread them and can appreciate them now.

[hyenagurl]

im sooo behind on my reread of adwd and its both bc i dont want it to end but also bc im fucking sick of the quentyn chapters. sorry george i appreciate a deconstruction of the heroes journey more than anyone but i cant even be fucked to remember all the names of of his merry gang of fools when theyre probably not gonna live to see Winds. why are there so many characters george. i love the chapter where he gets Crisped though

[death-of-cats]

it wasn’t until this reread of Arya’s chapters that i realized just how much her time in Harrenhall parallels Theon’s time in Winterfell in ADWD, from conceiving of themselves as ghosts to being hated for their association with the castles’ new masters

[corneliushickey]

8, 20, and 12!

8. Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones?

almost!! i wanted to read 24 books this year and i've read 23. i am not sure i'll finish another one before year's end and i don't want to cram one in just to hit the number, but maybe i'll find something short and sweet just because!!

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

the winds of winter for the thirteenth year in a row and no, i did not ...😒 but what actually happened this year is that i finished rereading adwd in january and truly made my peace with the fact that we are never getting another book from george and that is ok because i don't need one. sorry to all my friends and loved ones whose favs are in the middle of their arc or left on a cliffhanger or wandering around the riverlands but MY blorbo forever actually went through ego death and came out the other side and reunited with his sisterlover as an unrecognizable shambling corpse of the boy he once was so truly i don't NEED another book it's all GOOD HERE

12. Any books that disappointed you?

i tried reading babel and it sucked so much ass i dnf'd it after torturing my way through the first handful of chapters. and this book was hyped up to me for ages as like exceptional magical hard fantasy dark academia. well you all fucking lied.

send me end of the year book asks 📚

[istumpysk]

Hello! I’ve really been enjoying your chapter rereads. I’m a big fan of both Daenerys and Sansa (although unlike many Dany fans, I like her for her potential as a villain. I’ll be a fan of the character whether or not GRRM decides to follow through with her villain arc. There are things that she could do that would make me stop liking her but for now I hold the position that I like her, hero or villain).

Have you ever given much thought to potential anti-parallels between Dany and Sansa? They do share a lot of common experiences but with mostly different outcomes and I think their trajectories are clearly pretty different. I think there’s some really fertile ground for comparison.

1. Both are forced into marriages with much older men as political pawns. Both are traumatic experiences but as a result, Sansa ends up losing power whereas Dany gains it. 2. Sansa’s magical creature dies (RIP Lady) and Dany’s magical creatures are brought back from the dead. 3. Both are in a sort of exile as a result of the crimes of their fathers. Difference is that Ned didn’t actually really commit a crime and Aerys was a monster. 4. Both have a dark mentor who is also a spy, who makes unwanted advances and specifically force a kiss upon them. Both girls remind these men of another woman they loved. 5. Hair is somewhat significant. Sansa has distinctive Tully auburn, which she must dye. Dany has distinctive Valyrian silver, which is burned away. 6. Both have a dead older brother who incited great violence by having extramarital affairs (I guess Robb wasn’t married yet but I count it). 7. Both are romantics who love stories/songs and go through a sort of disillusionment. However, Sansa becomes more aware and realistic whereas Dany falls deeper into delusion. 8. Lemons. The house with the red door and the lemon tree vs lemon cakes.

Im still only like 30% through AFfC but know how it and ADwD differ from the show so idc about book spoilers. I’d really love to hear your input and if you can think of any other parallels or anti-parallels!

Hey anon, great list!

Admittedly, I suck at drawing direct parallels between characters, so I can only think of the contrasting aspects of their personalities, such as their leadership styles, their approaches to power, their notions of identity and self-perception, etc.

One thing that does stand out is how differently the author explores the themes of home and motherhood in both their POVs. A couple of people have written about it before, perhaps you'd like to read it.

Thanks for your message. :)