#the ghost of harrenhal... unbelievable

[laurellerual]

Sometimes I open Arya's tag and I allegedly want to gouge my eyes out.

[asilverspring]

finished my asoiaf reread so here’s my ranking of the books this time around

a feast for crows - it’s the jaime/brienne/cersei book, it’s grrm’s semiaccidental gender treatise!! i was never going to put anything else first! this is often called the most boring book but everyone on reddit is wrong and simply does not appreciate terrified and terrifying unhinged woman cersei and earnest teenage girl brienne and her quest. every plot in it is like tailor made for me to like. sansa in the vale becoming alayne and learning how to run a household and arya in braavos becoming no one and the parallels!! the dornish plot, arianne martell, the chapter the princess in the tower!! but most of all, brienne no chance and no choice!! she’s the truest knight and she’s not a knight!!!

a storm of swords - this is the most exciting book it’s got the red wedding, joffrey’s death, sansa and tyrion’s marriage, arya and the hound’s duo roadtrip, i could go on. this is the first jaime pov book and i am a jaime lannister girl at heart, and his bearpit chapter is one of my faves ever. the structuring of both weddings and deaths is insanely good, it’s so tense and well-written with the shifting povs, also catelyn clawing her own face when her son dies is so awful i love it. this also has the introduction of margaery tyrell, my favorite enigmatic charismatic teenage girl queen! sam playing politics to get jon elected lord commander fucks hard. the red viper and the beginning of the dornish plot! storm is so action packed i could keep going forever but suffice it to say it’s fucking good and sets up the destruction of society very well.

a game of thrones - the book that started it all! for that reason it’s in the middle, also i realized i like ned’s pov more this time. love that he gets fridged to further the development of his wife and kids. this is the simplest plot of all the books and it’s still insanely good. i’m the least bored by daenerys in this, so points there. this has peak bratty little girl sansa and angry little girl arya and i love them both. the first chapter is SO fucked up and sets the tone perfectly, like a 7 year old is going to see a beheading, it’s exciting. the best part obviously is the ned/cersei confrontation where’s she like yea i’m fucking my brother and he pushed your son out a window to cover it up, you’d do the same, and ned is like yea i would and my wife definitely would.

clash of kings - honestly i could swap this and #3 but for the qarth storyline, other than the house of the undying chapter it is so boring! this is like when things really start getting messy and bad, it’s the sansa in the house of atreus book which goes so hard, it’s arya the ghost in harrenhal, it’s the introduction of brienne of tarth my girl!!! the battle of the blackwater chapters are some of my favorites, especially cersei drunkenly giving sansa insane advice. and this is THE cersei/tyrion dynamic book, this is what shiv and kendall roy want, celebrating together and then one immediately poisoning the other.

a dance with dragons - i feel about this book sorta how i feel about the album lover, some of it is the best he’s ever written and some of it i just don’t care for. the theon/reek chapters are unbelievably good, pure psychological horror and everyone trapped in winterfell actively plotting to kill each other, it’s like murder on the orient express ratcheted up to 100. the northern conspiracy is just so good, bc it’s not a conspiracy! they’re all acting independently and when twow comes out (it won’t) there will be multiple claimants to the north, it’ll be so good. cersei’s atonement chapters make me want to throw up they’re so good. and jon trying to live in a political drama while everyone around him tries to tell him he’s a king, he’s the prince that was promised, and he’s just like sorry i’m counting our stores of salt beef. the one thing i love about him and daenerys in this is that both receive prophecies, and she bases a lot on them, while he doesn’t, and hers don’t pan out, while his do completely. it’s all in the interpretation! but the reason this book is last is that i don’t really care for daenerys’ chapters and i really don’t care about tyrion’s. if i had to read “where do whores go” one more time i was going to put a knife through my brain. i have the reverse opinion of everyone on reddit in that i think tyrion is 100 times less interesting when he’s away from cersei. would that theon had 12 chapters and tyrion 7, instead of the other way around. also loses points for no sansa chapters :(