And So it Begins

It has begun! First off, a couple notes on the text. I just wanted to mention that the overall design of the book itself is great. I pay close attention to the actual paper and illustrations in novels, when they warrant it, and this book is especially nice. The pages are soft and crisp, which suggests some fairly high quality paper. The illustrations of Westeros, the Free Cities, and Slaver's Bay are just outstanding. Beautiful maps that are in far greater detail than the earlier novels were. Even the cover is quite nice. I hope they style the paperback to match the earlier editions of the paperbacks, like the green cover with the gold dragon that was shown a long time ago but dumped. And now, the story.

Tyrion: I have to say, it's somewhat depressing to see sad, defeated Tyrion. One of the things that always made him so interesting and enjoyable was his love of life, his sharp tongue, and his resiliency. All of that is gone now. Fair enough I guess. Seems every other character in the novel has had to put up with a fair bit of crap and has undergone serious changes, so why should Tyrion be any different? Still, him sitting around crying and drinking all day won't endear me very much to his storyline, whether it's interesting from a character perspective or not. His perspective on Jaime doesn't appear to have changed much in his short journey. He seemed to hesitate when he first thought of him, but later reaffirmed his desire to kill him. He's clearly absolutely devastated over learning what Tysha really was, and I can't say I blame him given what happened to her, but I think he's putting way too much blame on Jaime, especially given all that Jaime has done to help and defend him over the years. At the end of the day, Jaime chose Tyrion over Cersei and his father. I have to hope that upon further reflection, Tyrion will recognize that. I'm a little surprised that Mopatis is pushing Tyrion to Meereen so fast, but so much the better, and for that matter, I'm fascinated to see how the Westerosi characters will react to confirmation that Dany is a badass, and has dragons. It seems everyone south of the next in Westeros is totally oblivious to the existence of the supernatural, and everyone else is having to face it head on. It'll be an interesting wake up call to them to find out about Others and dragons.