Storm of Swords
Jul. 8th, 2011 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessThe greatest book in the series so far (the initial reviews for A Dance With Dragons are making me hopeful), and the first book that actually made me scream out loud at the characters. AUUGH.
This reread will repeat much of this screaming. Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for the entire book; I can't talk about it without talking about the last chapters. So. Warning.
ETA: AUUGH. HTML FAIL. So sorry everybody. I deserve to get flamed by a dragon. Cut tage is working now.
The first three books were all in print when I started the first book. By this point, I was totally hooked – dragons get me – so I think possibly a grand total of fifteen minutes passed between finishing Clash of Kings and moving on this book, mostly to get some ice cream. Ice cream is important.
Minutes later, I had started shouting at the book. Well, specifically, I had started shouting at specific characters in the book. I was that involved. And the characters had done something THAT DISASTROUS.
I'm speaking, of course, of Catelyn freeing Jaime – the first of several shocks in this book. As I said, I went directly from the second book to this one, which meant I'd had no time to theorize exactly what she planned to do with Brienne's sword in the cliffhanger at the end of Clash of Kings. Not that I cared much, either. Jaime was scum who had thrown a little kid out of a window and if she killed him, well, that was understandable, magnificent though their encounter in Riverrun's dungeons had been. I was not overly interested in his fate –
Until she freed him.
AUUGH.
Forget for the moment just how much this angered the Karstarks, and instead focus on Catelyn losing the ONE hostage, the ONE advantage the Starks unquestionably had. Instead focus on Catelyn sending just TWO people to guard Jaime Lannister, however good one of them was, when one of them was Jaime's one fairly pathetic cousin, with no knowledge of what was happening in King's Landing or the route there.
And frankly, Brienne should have known better too.
So after that I should have been prepared for the shocks. And mostly, I was. After Robb announced his marriage, I said, that's it, he's doomed - so if the marriage came as a partial shock (I honestly thought he'd be honorable enough to stick with the Frey betrothal, not to mention knowing that this was just not going to be a good move), the Red Wedding, the shocking moment for everyone else, not so much. Same with Joffrey's death – eventually someone had to kill that kid. If not, a number of us would have kidnapped Martin at some con or other and imprisoned him in a small hotel room until he typed out the death scene. Or maybe a small dungeon. Whatever. I was not at all surprised when Jon took over as Lord Commander – that was kinda telegraphed from the beginning. Or that more dead people were turning up alive (although I wish Catelyn hadn't been one of them.)
Moments that were surprising: the Tyrion/Sansa marriage. Lysa's confession – I have to confess, by that point, I'd totally forgotten about Jon Arryn's murder.
And, of course, Jaime turning out to be….likeable? AUUGH.
Moments that were satisfying: Joffrey's terrible choking death. The duel between Gregor and Oberyn. Dany and her dragons. Littlefinger tossing Lysa off the cliff. Stannis, shockingly, doing the right thing. And more. This is a book where awesome moments pile upon awesome moments. I love it.
Anyway, more thoughts from the reread:
1. The minor theme of this book: just missed meetings. Arya just missing Brienne and Jaime – and Jaime, at least, had a chance of recognizing her. Bran just missing Jon, which certainly would have effected some of Jon's decisions later – Nope, Stannis, apart from the whole needing to stay at the Wall, deal, my brothers are still alive.
2. Melisandre grows more intriguing with each encounter. Here, mostly because much of her advice and predictions are absolutely, spot on correct, and because here she makes it clear: she may be birthing shadow creatures and using ghosts to assassinate charming princes and loyal castellans, but she is, in her way, fighting for the side of the good. Whatever good may be. Because in this book, I am beginning to think that good is not fire (duh!) largely because, ok, yes, the ice creatures are coming and they make dead people come alive and they are really freaky (and more so on television) but the fire is keeping Beric Dondorrion alive against his will and the fire is not seeming all that good either.
3. I can't help hoping that Fat Walda survives the series. Yes, yes, I realize she's a Frey. But damn it, I like her and her jolly approach to life, and I like that Walder Frey had to pay out several more silver coins because Fat Walda loves food.
4. Somehow, I totally missed until this book that one of the Lannister men supposedly searching for Jaime is in fact with the Brotherhood Without Banners. Heh.
5. Catelyn. Yes, yes, I know I said I'd shut up about her. And this is a little thing, but….Catelyn, come on. Your brother is having to marry a complete stranger because you and your son screwed up. Big time. You, in trusting your sister and capturing Tyrion and then not taking him to where he could receive any sort of a normal trial. Robb, in sending Theon back to the Iron Islands and, of course, marrying Jayne. And to add to the problem, your son didn't even bother to explain his military strategy to the guy he left in charge of the chief castle, who was also a blood relative, and then had the nerve to yell at Edmure for not understanding the strategy.
Under the circumstances, Edmure would be well within his rights to say, "Screw you," regarding the Frey marriage. Yes, he failed to follow direct orders – but he did so in order to save people. In return, you are, to repeat, forcing him to marry a complete stranger, in an alliance that many many people are, correctly, dubious about.
And you are yelling at him because he's hoping the girl is at least pretty? He's going to be tied to this chick for the rest of his or her life, because of your screw-ups?
Auugh.
I don't like Edmure, mind you. He's not the brightest guy in the series. At the same time, in this book, he's frequently more insightful than Catelyn – he's the one to point out all of the various signs that Something Is Up with the Freys, only to have Catelyn tell him that he's overreacting. Which, well, no. A minor theme of this book is, you should have listened to Edmure. Which, again, is saying something.
It just occurred to me that perhaps one of the problems is that Catelyn, as the big sister, just naturally assumes that Lysa and Edmure will fall in line with all of her ideas and leadership, forgetting that the two of them have grown since then – and quite probably romanticizing her own memories. This is, however, also the book where we learn, in her viewpoint chapter, that she did have more than one moment with Littlefinger that was not, shall we say, entirely brotherly, and Littlefinger's subsequent reaction to the news that she would be marrying Brandon Stark is considerably more understandable. (And I'm fairly sure that Littlefinger honestly does think that he was with Catelyn, not Lysa, that one night.)
6. I'd totally forgotten that Arya, through Nymeria, is the one to pull Catelyn from the river, starting the process of turning her into Lady Stoneheart, like, THANKS A LOT ARYA.
7. Another character I am kinda hoping survives: The Queen of Thorns, if only for the sarcasm.
8. I was not overly fond of Shae in the earlier books either, mostly with her absolute inability to realize that Tyrion was telling the truth about what would happen to them if he displayed her in court, and with the corollary that if she was genuinely that unhappy, she could and should have taken the jewels and left. I realize that a very large point of this series is that most of the women of Westeros have very few options, and those options are limited by men. And yes, I suppose Shae might have worried that Tyrion would go after her. But. Auugh. Annoying.
Here –
What she does to Tyrion, in that court, may be one of the cruelest things any character does in a series. I grant that she never loved Tyrion and was furious that instead of becoming his pampered mistress, she had to become a maidservant first in Lady Tanda's household and then for Sansa. I grant that she was angry that she couldn't wear the clothes and jewels she had earned from Tyrion. I grant that she wasn't paying much attention to what Tyrion was saying, and even that she might have been angry at the man who bought her and took her to a dangerous court only to turn her into a servant, the exact opposite of what she wanted, and that I'm seeing her through (mostly) Tyrion's eyes (and Sansa's less caring ones).
Well, Shae, you got your revenge. You humiliated the man who saved the city of King's Landing and gave evidence for his execution. As a result, you also wrecked relationships between King's Landing and Dorne for years to come (although if this ends up leading to the removal of the Lannisters from power, I can kinda justify this), leading to still more war after a fragile peace.
And you got yourself killed. Nice job there. And people call Sansa stupid.
(I'm actually all for the vast majority of the whores in the books – they seem like the most well grounded and nicest of the women, but then again, we really only get to know Shae in depth, and she's not really the best example of the group.)
9. Not that I'm exactly saying something massively controversial or new here, but…wow, does this book drive home the theme that marrying the wrong person is a really, really bad idea, and not just because it might get you killed at your wedding.
Cersei's horror at remarrying is very, very real – and probably the most sympathetic part of her character portrayal. It's not just about the lack of power, or that she's sleeping with other men, but that she'd be placed under the control of another man…
…although she's already there. She's the Queen Regent, one of the most powerful people in the kingdoms, and yet even she can't refuse to get married. And her options, as she notes, are terrible. It's not just a question of physical attractiveness, but of compatibility – I can't help feeling a bit of pity for poor Willas Tyrell, the still unmarried heir to Highgarden, unmarried partly because of his disability, but also because, as the heir to Highgarden, he, too, is very limited in his choices of marriage partners. The realm has exactly four available women from the great houses, one the heir to her own kingdom/family (Arianne Martell), the second not exactly focused on traditional marriage prospects (Asha Greyjoy), Cersei, and Sansa. As much as everyone is saying that Willas plans to marry Sansa for her claim to Winterfell, he actually has a much better reason: unless Arianne and Cersei change their minds, Sansa is his only choice. Once Sansa is married – suddenly Cersei and Arianne look much more tempting. And Arianne is from a family with a long standing feud with Highgarden, whose uncle was the the one to injure Willas in the first place.
Wow. Frankly, the person Tyrion may have helped out most with that crossbow is Willas Tyrell.
10. Tywin. We get a passionate defense of him from his brother, and it seems true enough, as far as it goes. This is a man who guided the realm through prosperity – until he grew irritated and left the realm in the hands of increasingly more inept Hands and then Jon Arryn, who was not able to prevent either another rebellion or Littlefinger's raids on the country's funds. Sigh. And he's quite right about the Red Wedding – that is a cheap if horrific price for peace. (In the next book, we get a sense of just why that peace is so necessary, although some of that can be seen in Arya's chapters here as well.)
But, holy crap, Tywin. You saw what getting humiliated by Aerys and your father did to other people, so exactly why do you feel it's a good idea to humiliate and anger all three of you children, to the point of having one openly rebel against you and the second actually kill you?
That's a satisfying moment, however much good Tywin may have done for the kingdom.
11. I'm so hoping this isn't a premonition:
"Jaime was not ready to die just yet, and certainly not for the likes of Brienne of Tarth."
Gulp.
This reread will repeat much of this screaming. Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for the entire book; I can't talk about it without talking about the last chapters. So. Warning.
ETA: AUUGH. HTML FAIL. So sorry everybody. I deserve to get flamed by a dragon. Cut tage is working now.
The first three books were all in print when I started the first book. By this point, I was totally hooked – dragons get me – so I think possibly a grand total of fifteen minutes passed between finishing Clash of Kings and moving on this book, mostly to get some ice cream. Ice cream is important.
Minutes later, I had started shouting at the book. Well, specifically, I had started shouting at specific characters in the book. I was that involved. And the characters had done something THAT DISASTROUS.
I'm speaking, of course, of Catelyn freeing Jaime – the first of several shocks in this book. As I said, I went directly from the second book to this one, which meant I'd had no time to theorize exactly what she planned to do with Brienne's sword in the cliffhanger at the end of Clash of Kings. Not that I cared much, either. Jaime was scum who had thrown a little kid out of a window and if she killed him, well, that was understandable, magnificent though their encounter in Riverrun's dungeons had been. I was not overly interested in his fate –
Until she freed him.
AUUGH.
Forget for the moment just how much this angered the Karstarks, and instead focus on Catelyn losing the ONE hostage, the ONE advantage the Starks unquestionably had. Instead focus on Catelyn sending just TWO people to guard Jaime Lannister, however good one of them was, when one of them was Jaime's one fairly pathetic cousin, with no knowledge of what was happening in King's Landing or the route there.
And frankly, Brienne should have known better too.
So after that I should have been prepared for the shocks. And mostly, I was. After Robb announced his marriage, I said, that's it, he's doomed - so if the marriage came as a partial shock (I honestly thought he'd be honorable enough to stick with the Frey betrothal, not to mention knowing that this was just not going to be a good move), the Red Wedding, the shocking moment for everyone else, not so much. Same with Joffrey's death – eventually someone had to kill that kid. If not, a number of us would have kidnapped Martin at some con or other and imprisoned him in a small hotel room until he typed out the death scene. Or maybe a small dungeon. Whatever. I was not at all surprised when Jon took over as Lord Commander – that was kinda telegraphed from the beginning. Or that more dead people were turning up alive (although I wish Catelyn hadn't been one of them.)
Moments that were surprising: the Tyrion/Sansa marriage. Lysa's confession – I have to confess, by that point, I'd totally forgotten about Jon Arryn's murder.
And, of course, Jaime turning out to be….likeable? AUUGH.
Moments that were satisfying: Joffrey's terrible choking death. The duel between Gregor and Oberyn. Dany and her dragons. Littlefinger tossing Lysa off the cliff. Stannis, shockingly, doing the right thing. And more. This is a book where awesome moments pile upon awesome moments. I love it.
Anyway, more thoughts from the reread:
1. The minor theme of this book: just missed meetings. Arya just missing Brienne and Jaime – and Jaime, at least, had a chance of recognizing her. Bran just missing Jon, which certainly would have effected some of Jon's decisions later – Nope, Stannis, apart from the whole needing to stay at the Wall, deal, my brothers are still alive.
2. Melisandre grows more intriguing with each encounter. Here, mostly because much of her advice and predictions are absolutely, spot on correct, and because here she makes it clear: she may be birthing shadow creatures and using ghosts to assassinate charming princes and loyal castellans, but she is, in her way, fighting for the side of the good. Whatever good may be. Because in this book, I am beginning to think that good is not fire (duh!) largely because, ok, yes, the ice creatures are coming and they make dead people come alive and they are really freaky (and more so on television) but the fire is keeping Beric Dondorrion alive against his will and the fire is not seeming all that good either.
3. I can't help hoping that Fat Walda survives the series. Yes, yes, I realize she's a Frey. But damn it, I like her and her jolly approach to life, and I like that Walder Frey had to pay out several more silver coins because Fat Walda loves food.
4. Somehow, I totally missed until this book that one of the Lannister men supposedly searching for Jaime is in fact with the Brotherhood Without Banners. Heh.
5. Catelyn. Yes, yes, I know I said I'd shut up about her. And this is a little thing, but….Catelyn, come on. Your brother is having to marry a complete stranger because you and your son screwed up. Big time. You, in trusting your sister and capturing Tyrion and then not taking him to where he could receive any sort of a normal trial. Robb, in sending Theon back to the Iron Islands and, of course, marrying Jayne. And to add to the problem, your son didn't even bother to explain his military strategy to the guy he left in charge of the chief castle, who was also a blood relative, and then had the nerve to yell at Edmure for not understanding the strategy.
Under the circumstances, Edmure would be well within his rights to say, "Screw you," regarding the Frey marriage. Yes, he failed to follow direct orders – but he did so in order to save people. In return, you are, to repeat, forcing him to marry a complete stranger, in an alliance that many many people are, correctly, dubious about.
And you are yelling at him because he's hoping the girl is at least pretty? He's going to be tied to this chick for the rest of his or her life, because of your screw-ups?
Auugh.
I don't like Edmure, mind you. He's not the brightest guy in the series. At the same time, in this book, he's frequently more insightful than Catelyn – he's the one to point out all of the various signs that Something Is Up with the Freys, only to have Catelyn tell him that he's overreacting. Which, well, no. A minor theme of this book is, you should have listened to Edmure. Which, again, is saying something.
It just occurred to me that perhaps one of the problems is that Catelyn, as the big sister, just naturally assumes that Lysa and Edmure will fall in line with all of her ideas and leadership, forgetting that the two of them have grown since then – and quite probably romanticizing her own memories. This is, however, also the book where we learn, in her viewpoint chapter, that she did have more than one moment with Littlefinger that was not, shall we say, entirely brotherly, and Littlefinger's subsequent reaction to the news that she would be marrying Brandon Stark is considerably more understandable. (And I'm fairly sure that Littlefinger honestly does think that he was with Catelyn, not Lysa, that one night.)
6. I'd totally forgotten that Arya, through Nymeria, is the one to pull Catelyn from the river, starting the process of turning her into Lady Stoneheart, like, THANKS A LOT ARYA.
7. Another character I am kinda hoping survives: The Queen of Thorns, if only for the sarcasm.
8. I was not overly fond of Shae in the earlier books either, mostly with her absolute inability to realize that Tyrion was telling the truth about what would happen to them if he displayed her in court, and with the corollary that if she was genuinely that unhappy, she could and should have taken the jewels and left. I realize that a very large point of this series is that most of the women of Westeros have very few options, and those options are limited by men. And yes, I suppose Shae might have worried that Tyrion would go after her. But. Auugh. Annoying.
Here –
What she does to Tyrion, in that court, may be one of the cruelest things any character does in a series. I grant that she never loved Tyrion and was furious that instead of becoming his pampered mistress, she had to become a maidservant first in Lady Tanda's household and then for Sansa. I grant that she was angry that she couldn't wear the clothes and jewels she had earned from Tyrion. I grant that she wasn't paying much attention to what Tyrion was saying, and even that she might have been angry at the man who bought her and took her to a dangerous court only to turn her into a servant, the exact opposite of what she wanted, and that I'm seeing her through (mostly) Tyrion's eyes (and Sansa's less caring ones).
Well, Shae, you got your revenge. You humiliated the man who saved the city of King's Landing and gave evidence for his execution. As a result, you also wrecked relationships between King's Landing and Dorne for years to come (although if this ends up leading to the removal of the Lannisters from power, I can kinda justify this), leading to still more war after a fragile peace.
And you got yourself killed. Nice job there. And people call Sansa stupid.
(I'm actually all for the vast majority of the whores in the books – they seem like the most well grounded and nicest of the women, but then again, we really only get to know Shae in depth, and she's not really the best example of the group.)
9. Not that I'm exactly saying something massively controversial or new here, but…wow, does this book drive home the theme that marrying the wrong person is a really, really bad idea, and not just because it might get you killed at your wedding.
Cersei's horror at remarrying is very, very real – and probably the most sympathetic part of her character portrayal. It's not just about the lack of power, or that she's sleeping with other men, but that she'd be placed under the control of another man…
…although she's already there. She's the Queen Regent, one of the most powerful people in the kingdoms, and yet even she can't refuse to get married. And her options, as she notes, are terrible. It's not just a question of physical attractiveness, but of compatibility – I can't help feeling a bit of pity for poor Willas Tyrell, the still unmarried heir to Highgarden, unmarried partly because of his disability, but also because, as the heir to Highgarden, he, too, is very limited in his choices of marriage partners. The realm has exactly four available women from the great houses, one the heir to her own kingdom/family (Arianne Martell), the second not exactly focused on traditional marriage prospects (Asha Greyjoy), Cersei, and Sansa. As much as everyone is saying that Willas plans to marry Sansa for her claim to Winterfell, he actually has a much better reason: unless Arianne and Cersei change their minds, Sansa is his only choice. Once Sansa is married – suddenly Cersei and Arianne look much more tempting. And Arianne is from a family with a long standing feud with Highgarden, whose uncle was the the one to injure Willas in the first place.
Wow. Frankly, the person Tyrion may have helped out most with that crossbow is Willas Tyrell.
10. Tywin. We get a passionate defense of him from his brother, and it seems true enough, as far as it goes. This is a man who guided the realm through prosperity – until he grew irritated and left the realm in the hands of increasingly more inept Hands and then Jon Arryn, who was not able to prevent either another rebellion or Littlefinger's raids on the country's funds. Sigh. And he's quite right about the Red Wedding – that is a cheap if horrific price for peace. (In the next book, we get a sense of just why that peace is so necessary, although some of that can be seen in Arya's chapters here as well.)
But, holy crap, Tywin. You saw what getting humiliated by Aerys and your father did to other people, so exactly why do you feel it's a good idea to humiliate and anger all three of you children, to the point of having one openly rebel against you and the second actually kill you?
That's a satisfying moment, however much good Tywin may have done for the kingdom.
11. I'm so hoping this isn't a premonition:
"Jaime was not ready to die just yet, and certainly not for the likes of Brienne of Tarth."
Gulp.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 04:50 pm (UTC)(Wow, that looked brusque. Sorry. I haven't actually read this book, though.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 06:46 pm (UTC)I feel terrible; I know several people haven't read the book yet and this had major spoilers.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 06:56 pm (UTC)(You didn't spoil me; one of the ways we pass the time on car drives is Chad tells me plots of big-ass fantasies that I've not read. But yeah.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-08 06:58 pm (UTC)