Page 105: Storm Clouds Gather

Here begins my account of Book III: A Storm of Swords.

I know, I said I was going to wait, and that lasted a couple hours before I rushed off to open the next book. For so long what put me off opening these books the most was their sheer size. They make quite an impressive tower when stacked up. It's funny, people talk about Lord of the Rings being one of the mammoth undertakings of fantasy epics, but Lord of the Rings might as well be The Hobbit when set next to A Song of Ice and Fire. I can read LOTR in a couple of days. I can read all the Harry Potter books in a week. I can read something like Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books all in a couple of hours. This series is going to take me more like a month. I have to say though, I can't ever remember being more invested in a series of books before, and I've never felt such a wide range of emotions in response to a set of characters and events before. The series, thus far, is a fantastic mixture of being plot and character driven. It wouldn't work as just a plot driven story, as it moves too slowly for you to care unless you honestly care about the characters, and that doesn't happen without attention and exploration.

Prologue: Well it's certainly off to an energetic start. Hopefully the Others don't kill all of them. At the very least I'd like Mormont and a couple of Jon's friends to survive.

Jaime: First off, this is an interested character to choose to delve into more deeply.  I feel like we're delving as deeply into the Lannisters as we are into the Starks, and they're certainly a lot more twisted, and more complicated. I'm not sure how intentional some of this was, but Jaime's first scene has a lot of interesting metaphorical imagery to it. He shaves his head and pours river water over it, almost like he's changing identities and ceremonially baptizing himself. Does this foreshadow some sort of change to his personality, or is he the same douchebag he was always portrayed as? It's interesting that he's actually monogamous with Cersei (Cersei doesn't seem to share that compunction). He also gives Tyrion his due for being cunning and clever. I'm wondering why he saves Brienne from drowning, or at least, why he doesn't attack her when he has the chance. Perhaps for self-serving motives, or perhaps she fascinates him. Brienne might jump up into my list of female characters worth giving more analysis to. She was deeply in love with Renly, but she's basically She-Ra when it comes to mowing down bad guys and doing the rough and tumble. I like that she's thus both vulnerable and tough. Is the hanging of women who gave "comfort" to the enemy a common theme in history? I only remember it being a facet of post-Nazi Germany when women were beaten or had their heads shaved for a public shaming for having been with Nazi soldiers during the occupation. Surprisingly, I look forward to Jaime's development.

Catelyn: There seem to be a lot of Tully family secrets, and really, lots of family secrets for everyone. I figured Tansy must have been Lysa's dead baby, and so she was. I think it was incredibly stupid of Catelyn to send Jaime to King's Landing for Sansa and Arya, but not because the trade is a bad idea. She did it without enough information. If she had waited, she would have found out that Tywin was back in charge, not Tyrion, and that Arya wasn't even there. And she found out only hours later how bad a decision it truly was. I don't fault her her emotions, but I do fault her for at least ensuring that her emotionally wrought plan would actually succeed.

Arya: Smart but stupid. Smart to keep moving constantly, to double back, to cross rivers, and do all the other things she is doing to confuse pursuit, but stupid that she doesn't even know what way is up. Moss on the sides of the trees? Oy, are they in trouble. Apparently Nymeria is still alive, and she's having the wolf dreams as well. It's sad that Sansa doesn't have Lady around, though frankly, I question whether or not Lady would ever have survived all that's happened if she had survived the trip to King's Landing. I'd like to see all the Stark kids keep in touch via these new powers. It'd solve a lot of problems (and for that reason, probably won't happen).

Tyrion: Wow, that was pretty harsh. Poor Tyrion, he works his butt off for the defense of the city, and it seems like Cersei does everything she can to ruin the city's defense. Then, in a moment of foolish courage, he rushes off into a melee and gets himself greatly injured, losing all the progress he had made, and losing all the credit for the work he did to Cersei. On top of that, he gets a major smack down from his father. I wonder though, are those the words that Tyrion needed to hear in order to declare a mental separation from his family? Lannister loyalty exists, but apparently it's an insular club, and Tyrion just found himself booted from it (plus, you know, fratricide). Seriously, why can't someone just give Tyrion a hug? For all that they underestimate him though, I hope they learn their lesson the hard way when Tyrion turns his talents towards making them pay. He's not a man to forget insults.

Davos: Hey look at that, you're alive! And what's that? You've decided to consider being a worthwhile character and not just a plot device? Oh, you want to kill Melisandre cause you blame her for what happened to your children. I guess you're still undecided on that plot device thing then, eh? Either way I wish you the best of luck. You seem like you'd be a really cool character if you ever got the chance.

Sansa: Nice that she's finally learning caution...and yet she's fawning over the Knight of Flowers like a panting ten year old at a Justin Bieber concert. You know what's interesting here is less the fact that Sansa is a fangirl, it's that she totally misses the fact that Loras Tyrell is just as upset, if not greatly more so, over Renly death than his sister would be. She only knew him for ten minutes, because of an arranged marriage. Loras pledged himself to Renly, and I think we knew from the moment Renly died and Loras went a little mad that it wasn't an idle pledge. Sansa totally misses that though. I don't think she understands that aspect of knighthood. I have to say, I love the idea of her being spirited away to Highgarden for a couple reasons. 1. Her character development is flatlining in King's Landing, and I very much want her to be relevant. She tends to depress me a bit, but, I really like the Tyrells, though I have to say I really felt for her when they asked her for details about Joffrey. They were putting her in an incredibly difficult situation, but I'm glad that she fessed up. 2. The biggest reason I hope she goes to Highgarden is the Queen of Thorns. The woman is a hoot, and she's the absolute perfect mentor for Sansa to help wash away the stars from her eyes. Also, Highgarden really is the perfect place for Sansa to thrive, since by all accounts it's a real life manifestation of all the royal court gallantry crap that she's always wanted. She deserves a little vacation.

Jon: It was easier than I would have thought to get Jon into Mance Rayder's host. I worry a bit about the wiles of the free folk, but Jon is too well grounded for that, I hope. It's be cool if he could get in touch with Bran again. One of the things I like about Jon getting in touch with the free folk, is that like Bran getting involved with the Reeds, they seem to know a lot more about magic than anyone else Jon could have talked to, so it might help to better develop his abilities.