In the 5th Harry Potter book, Order of the Phoenix, Rowling had figured out what it was readers liked best about the stories and kept turning the expectations on their head. Nothing Harry could do worked right, the school was not a safe, comfortable place, and Dolores Umbridge became that series’ best villan.

Martin does the same here, and in spades. I’ve given up trying to figure things out; I’m just on the ride

I wonder if these books will one day become required reading for political science majors?

There’s a lesson for other writers to learn from what Martin seems to do so effortlessly: just because your characters have written themselves into a corner does not mean you have to write them out of it; let them keep writing themselves.

Basically, I like the Martin lets the characters stay honest to themselves and never cheats his way through the story.

The relationship between the Hound and Arya is one of the most oddly touching in the entire book. She’s becoming a bit of a monster herself, what with ripping the stuffing out of that girl’s doll (though her motivation was pretty obvious).

I would like to see a bit more from Davos, however. He’s a cool character, but a bit flat and too honorable and predictable; nobody is that duty-bound (except maybe the wench).

Never get married in Westeros, ’tis a bad place to have a wedding ceremony.

I’m really hoping Sansa turns into a cold-blooded, plotting, monster who after having been kicked around up to this point finally decides to play the game and tries to take the crown for herself. I mean, at some point she’s gonna have to grow up and learn a thing or two – like Danny.

Sometimes it’s just the small details that I love about this story, be it a door that turns into a mouth with a warm tear, or a man fighting a piked horseman outside a city wall, or the hot, stuffy air in a litter as a man and wife ride through a city. Martin takes enormous care to bring these details into focus to tell the tale and the effect is that it makes the more fantastical bits then seem plausible.

The image of the head of a direwolf sewn onto the headless corpse of the king you just killed is so brutal that I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some historical precedence for something similar.

Going all the way back to the very beginning of the very first book, Martin has never placed the characters in an truly safe and happy environment. Most stories have a ‘heaven’ (like The Shire); there’s no peace here.

Oh, sure, let’s just kill ALL the characters. Maybe by the end of the series the only person left in all of Westeros will be some blind bakers bastard boy who everyone forgot to kill down in the slums of King’s Landing. Shit.

When Samwell killed the one white walker only to then walk out into a whole crowd of them I literally cried out “no!” I love how Martin has managrd to use this rain storm to keep all these chess pieces in order and all moving towards what feels like an inevitable crossroads.

So Jamie is turning out to be quite the surprise. Can’t say I was expecting anything he’s been doing lately. What a great character he has become.

That was a lot of fun reading the two chapters of Bran and then Jon during the storm. Danny sure seems to be having an easy time conquering everyone she comes across. A little too easy. I want her to earn her victory, not have Martin write her way to it.

The Hand of the King, The Fingers, the Fist of the North, a missing hand, missing fingers; symbols of control.

I like how even the characters can only tell who is who based on their banners and sygil and how easily these banners can be swayed by the prevailing winds. Not that that’s a wholly original idea, but it’s still fun.

Martin raises a tricky theological paradox. A ‘good’ person is one who turns the other cheek and forgives his enemies. This ‘good’ person is then rewarded with the kingdom of heaven because he’s not gonna last long in this world. A ‘sinner’, however, goes to bed every night reciting the names of her enemies to vow revenge. And perhaps she’ll get it too; but will she go to hell just for vengeance?

Unless you’re Tolstoy, writing a book that’s over 1000 pages long (longer still since this is a series of massive books) even a good writer is gonna have a stinker of a scene now and again.

The whole chapter of Danny buying the slaves had me just wanting to get to the inevitable scene where she’d use the army against the slavers and left me wondering why nobody had ever pulled that ‘trick’ before.

I think one of the themes these novels toy around with that attracts people to them so much is that tug-of-war between two opposing forces. Each character has their own struggle and it’s fun getting to see them struggle with their personal battles even more than the real wars. It’s very easy to relate, in one way or another to many of these characters.

I love how we sometimes only learn about a character’s motivations until the very last sentence of a chapter. Here, Arya, in the care of Lady Smallwood for the evening, is forced to wear a dress, then after ripping it when she fights with Gendry, she’s forced to take another bath and wear another dress. Only as Arya is riding away, in boys clothes, do we learn Smallwood lost her son when he was only 7.

Some of the best storytelling Martin has done so far is this chapter with Samwell; in and of itself it could be a stand-alone short story.

Martin is the only fantasy author who can write a song that doesn’t suck to read.

I’d love to find the parallels between the fiction Martin creates with an actual historical counterpart. Not that everything here can be traced to a true event, however, it would make for a fun study in medieval history.

When the boy with the crossbow meets Jamie and sees that he’s shackled and asks him why so, when Jamie answers because he killed a crossbowman I had to laugh because it’s scenes like that that makes Martin such a grand storyteller.

I think the reason why this series has grown exponentially in size from just 3 books to a planned 7 is that Martin stays true to the characters and lets them lead the story where ever it might go. Of course this means the story will then go off in unforeseen directions, but that’s the appeal here because if the author doesn’t know where a character may wind up from day to day, then neither will we.

There is nothing better when you’re sick then getting lost in a well told yarn

Cat never gets enough credit in the book (or even the show); she’s the strongest and toughest out of all of them except for Jamie. I love that duality between them, too. She’s the moral ‘good’ and he’s the moral ‘bad’, but they’re two sides of the same coin.

I can’t honestly figure out why I never kept reading after book 2. I must have the dumbs; I love these books.