Game of Thrones Bookclub (Week Three)

Daniel

Daniel is a journalist.

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17 Responses

  1. Trumwill says:

    Any chance we could get that alternative spoiler thread? I have something to say on the matter, but it leans pretty heavily on later events. Maybe you could put something in Off-The-Cuff?

    Also, when you post these things, could you devote a few sentences to where the story left off, so that I don’t inadvertently give something away?Report

  2. Trumwill says:

    The Starks make me think of Superman, for good and for ill. More nuanced, to be sure, but so reliably true as to be uncompelling. I root for them, just as I root for Superman, but I don’t care as much as I do for Tyrion and others.

    To follow up on something I previously said, I’ve come around on Jon Snow. He was interesting when he was with the Starks, but with him on the wall, the more interesting conflicts that he evokes are notably absent.Report

    • Daniel in reply to Trumwill says:

      I think we discussed this in a previous thread and you’re right, the story of Jon Snow is different when he’s on the Wall compared to when he’s at Winterfell with his family. He seems less well rounded.Report

      • Trumwill in reply to Daniel says:

        Yeah, we did. I was defending Snow as being interesting (to me). But he hadn’t been gone for the wall long. It’s been downhill from there. So this is my concession. You were right.Report

  3. Ryan Davidson says:

    Just a note: it’d be awesome if each week’s post could indicate which chapters are at issue. Not all of us are watching the series yet, and I found I lacked sufficient self-control to pace myself in reading, so I finished the book last week. It’d be easier to avoid spoilers this way.

    Anyway, yes, the book does seem to lie pretty far down the “cynical” end of the sliding scale. But one thing I have noticed this time through is what I perceive as a parallelism between the Starks and Daenerys. Both seem to have pretty high standards of nobility in settings that do not tend to reward such. Has anyone else noticed this?Report

  4. Daniel says:

    Funny, I’m the same. I love Tyrion the most and Catelyn is one of the characters I like the least.

    Admission: Only in my rereading do I start to like Arya. I never have before. There I said it. Come at me.Report

    • James K in reply to Daniel says:

      Arya’s more than a little feral so I can see how she wouldn’t appeal to everyone.Report

    • North in reply to Daniel says:

      I found her hidiously cliche. The scrappy tomboy girl-child who doesn’t want to be a girl/lady? Yawn.Report

      • Daniel in reply to North says:

        That was my feeling for a long time too except I started to wonder, who will Arya become in this world? In the Forgotten Realms books she would surely find a place as some kind of vagabond-warrior-beauty. But in Westeros? We both know social customs will require Arya to eventually settle down and marry…if she lives long enough to get the chance. That’s what makes Arya interesting to me. I don’t particularly like her but how will her story resolve itself? For some reason I find the question of how Arya’s story will end more interesting than the question of how Tyrion’s story will end and I do want to know how Tyrion’s story will end. But my liking Tyrion has more to do with who he is now than who he will be in the end. With Arya it’s the opposite.Report

  5. Ryan B says:

    I take the Starks as a nice illustration of how fragile a certain kind of ethics is. They live in a world where they are trying to universalize their maxims, as it were, but no one else is. And it leaves them extremely vulnerable when they step outside of their power zone.Report

    • Ryan B in reply to Ryan B says:

      All of which is somewhat ironic, of course, given (as Renly points out in the TV show, and I cannot remember if he does the same in the book) that Ned was one of the linchpins of a rebellion that put a false (or just “new”, if you want to be generous) king on the throne.Report

      • Daniel in reply to Ryan B says:

        In response to your “false” king on the throne comment: Yeah but I don’t really think it’s worth debating whether Ned and Robert broke the law. They did and they got away with it. That’s really the justice of this world; it’s illegal if it can’t be stopped, it’s law if it can be defended.Report