Dance with Dragons

After a busy week, I finally got around to finishing reading A Dance with Dragons this weekend.

After all the anticipation, I was a little disappointed. The printed book was over 1000 pages, but not a great deal actually happened. In that way it reminded me a little of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (maybe it's something about the fifth book in a series of seven?). While the questions left hanging from A Feast for Crows regarding who was dead and who was alive were answered, nothing else was really answered or resolved. Things started to move right at the end of the book, but it seemed to be only so that there could be a new set of cliffhangers. I guess I just have to hope that the next book is better (and doesn't take too long to come out).

The rest of this post is going to be chock full of spoilers so stay away if you haven't read the book.



I'm going to run through all the characters in the same manner as my pre-book cheat sheet, with a brief round-up of what we saw of each character in this book and my thoughts on it.

Starks

• Catelyn: Didn't actually appear, although spared Brienne from death and sent her after Jaime. Not fussed about this, not a big dead-Catelyn fan.
• Sansa: No word from her. I knew she wasn't POV, but at least a little progress in her storyline would have been nice.
• Arya (The Blind Girl, The Ugly Little Girl): Blindness turned out not to be permanent (yay!). Had her first face-changing. I don't think this was really explained very well - is her face actually cut off and replaced with someone else's? If so why can't she feel that it's different? That makes me think that it's all some kind of magic, although potentially using actual faces. She also kills her first man as part of her new role. The explanation of this was even worse - she gave a coin to the guy and he died? What the? On the whole a confusing storyline, but was glad to have a reasonable chunk of Arya.
• Bran: Finally met the three-eyed crow, who is one of the Children of the Forest and entwined with a tree. Bran started his training but didn't really get far. Bit of a disappointment; feels like by the time Bran gets anywhere the series will be over.
• Rickon: Still no appearance :( But Wex saw him escape Winterfell and then met up with Stannis, and Davos has now been sent to find him, so he has to appear in the next book. I miss Rickon.
• Jon: Things at the wall didn't go too well for him. Stannis wanted him to hand over forts and land, the Night's Watch wanted to keep the status quo, and Jon wanted to rescue the wildlings (mainly so they didn't turn into wights and help the Others with the attack). In his last POV chapter he was attacked by some of the Night's Watch. It's left as a cliffhanger whether he lives or dies. My guess is that he dies as a human but lives on in Ghost (the prologue with Varamyr contributes nothing to the plot but tells us what happens when a warg dies; my assumption is it was put in to foreshadow what would happen to Jon). If this is true, then R+L=J is presumably either not true, or at least not as important as people had believed. That doesn't really bother me, since I wasn't that fussed about the theory anyway (I can understand the reasoning behind it, but I didn't really want it to be true). I just really really hope that Jon doesn't turn out to be completely dead. That would piss me off.
• Jeyne Poole: Arrives at Winterfell as fake Arya and marries Bolton. Escapes with Theon and meets up with Stannis. According to Bolton's letter, she remains on the run at the end of the book.
• Alys Karstark: Runs away from her family and an arranged marriage to the wall. Jon protects her.

Lannisters

• Cersei: Confessed to being with Lancel but not Jaime. Released but forced to walk naked through the streets. Now back with Tommen but no longer really has any power. I'm getting a bit sick of Cersei to be honest. They could have executed her and I wouldn't have complained.
• Jaime: Not a lot of Jaime in this one. Takes the last remaining castle that was sworn to the Starks. Brienne finds him and tells him that she can take him to Arya and the Hound. This is clearly a lie - presumably Catelyn is using this to get Jaime to her so she can kill him. Would have liked more Jaime. Hope he doesn't die in the next book, I'm getting kind of attached to him.
• Tyrion: Quite a lot of Tyrion in this one, and some classic Tyrion lines :) He is smuggled by Varys across the sea to Illyrio, who sends him on his way to meet Dany. He is captured by Jorah who intends to give him to Dany. They are then captured by slavers, along with Penny (one of the dwarfs that jousted at Joffrey's wedding) and taken to Meereen. Tyrion and Penny joust at the re-opening of the fighting pits. They escape slavery and join up with a sellsword company who keep switching sides in Dany's war against Yunkai. Tyrion buys them with promises of money from Casterly Rock to fight on Dany's side. Tyrion's sections were good for the amusement value, but his story doesn't progress all that much - he just keeps switching hands.
• Kevan: Acting as King's Hand and Regent throughout most of the book, then killed along with Pycelle by Varys at the end because they were threatening to wreck Varys's plans with Dany and Aegon. This development had some promise, but it's right at the end of the book, so we'll have to wait for the next one to see where it goes :(

Baratheons

• Stannis: Working on taking the North from the Greyjoys. Successfully takes Deepwood Motte (where Asha is) but according to a letter from Bolton is killed trying to take Winterfell. His death is unconfirmed and I suspect he hasn't really been killed off. My guess is that Bolton is faking Stannis's death to frighten the Watch into turning in Theon and Jeyne if they are found.
• Melisandre: Burns Rattleshirt pretending he is Mance Rayder. Melisandre isn't turning out to be quite as crazy and evil as I initially thought. She's still sacrificing humans, but it seems like R'hllor actually does have power to achieve things so I guess she is justified according to some twisted logic. And now that we have had a point of view scene from here she seems a bit more rational in her choices.
• Davos: So he didn't actually die. What a surprise. He's looking for Rickon now, which means we will finally get to see Rickon, but couldn't we have actually got to that bit in this book? We've gone 2 books without a peep from Rickon now.
• Edric Storm: No mention of him :(

Greyjoys

• Euron: Briefly mentioned but no appearances. Don't mind though, the only Greyjoy I care about is Theon.
• Victarion (The Iron Suitor): On his way to court Dany. Doesn't really get anywhere in this book though, although he seems to be converting to R'hllorism (is that the correct noun?), which is an interesting turn of events.
• Aeron: No word of him. Again, not really fussed.
• Asha (The Wayward Bride, The King's Prize, The Sacrifice): Is captured by Stannis's forces and eventually reunites with Theon. Asha is becoming a little more sympathetic in this book - a little less of the snotty oneupmanship with Theon now that she's a prisoner. Her eventual fate is uncertain, since she was presumably with Stannis when he lost at Winterfell and is not mentioned in Bolton's letter.
• Theon (Reek, The Prince of Winterfell, The Turncloak, A Ghost in Winterfell): Alive but partially flayed. Not a surprise, but I'm glad of it (the alive part at least, not so much the flaying, it kind of grosses me out). Initially very subservient to Bolton despite losing various appendages to him, but eventually worked up the courage to protect and then rescue Jeyne and escape from Winterfell. He found Stannis's party but Stannis was apparently then killed at Winterfell so Theon's status is now unclear (although based on Bolton's letter he must have escaped).

Martells

• Doran: Finally taking some vague action. Can we kill him off yet?
• Quentyn (The Merchant's Man, The Windblown, The Spurned Suitor, The Dragontamer): Arrives in Meereen to propose marriage to Dany, but she is already engaged to someone else. As a last-ditch attempt tries to tame the dragons (releasing them in the process) and gets burnt to death. Didn't feel that I really knew Quentyn well enough to care about his death, and he hasn't actually achieved anything, so in the end he was just a red herring.
• Sand Snakes: Two of them are now on their way to King's Landing to represent Doran.
• Areo Hotah (The Watcher): POV character but really just existed to relate what the Martells were up to.

Tyrells

• Loras: Still in much the same state as in Book 4 - injured but not officially dead yet.
• Margaery: Released from imprisonment as the case against her pretty much fell apart.

Targaryens

• Daenerys: The dragons go kind of wild and start eating little kids. To stop local uprisings against her, agreed to marry some guy called Hizdahr (tip: if your characters are getting confused about each others' names, don't expect the reader to keep track of them). Hizdahr turns out to be a bad guy and tries to poison Dany so that he can be ruler. Dany escapes with Drogon. At the end of the book she comes across one of the khals that was formed after Drogo turned into a vegetable.
• Aegon/Young Griff: So this was the big surprise in this book - Aegon (son of Rhaegar) is still alive. This puts an interesting twist on the prophecies and theories, but he didn't really do a whole lot in this book. On Tyrion's advice he headed to Westeros instead of to Dany, and people have heard who he is, so his plot in the next book is bound to be interesting.
• Barristan (The Queensguard, The Discarded Knight, The Kingbreaker, The Queen's Hand): Mainly there to narrate events in Meereen. Becomes more active towards the end when he takes over from Hizdahr, but then what the plague leaves of Meereen is overtaken by war, so maybe that wasn't the best thing for him to do...
• Jorah: Captures Tyrion in an attempt to impress Dany, but is captured by slavers. Ends up with the Second Sons along with Dany.
• Jon Connington/Griff (The Lost Lord, The Griffin Reborn): Thought to be dead, this guy (who was good friends with Rhaegar) turned out to have been protecting Aegon, masquerading as his father, and grooming him to be king. Mainly acts as a POV character for what Aegon is doing.

Other

• Brienne: Survived (not a big surprise), and has convinced Jaime to come with her under the pretence that she has found Arya. Presumably she is leading him to Catelyn.

So. That felt like a lot of information and very little plot. I guess this is the calm before the storm, the last chunk of setup before things really take off. At least I hope so. Crossing fingers for a book 6 that takes our breath away.