1861

How can one dislike Dany’s story because it’s disconnected from the rest of the characters’ stories but not have the same feeling about, say, Jon’s story, which, after he leaves Winterfell, takes place almost entirely on its own. In fact after GoT, almost all of the Stark clan’s storylines are nearly independent from each other.

This is a story made up of many stories, of which Dany’s is one. There’s not this ONE storyline that she’s separate from.

1862

Well that is all well and good, but when he’s talking about it like it’s a badge of honor, he opens himself up to ridicule. :)

1863

But all the Starks start together. It’d be easier to get annoyed early at the Dany chapters and never go back.

That said, I don’t think anyone should skip reading them. There’s some great world-building stuff in there, and I really like what happens with Viserys.

1864

Not to mention there is interplay between Dany and the other people in the 7 Kingdoms. You have all the Jorah Mormont drama and reveal, and eventually Ser Barristan Selmy, who begins as Kingsguard to King Robert and one of the baddest dudes in Westeros, ends up with her over on the other continent. Plus assassination attempts, etc. And now we have Arya and Tyrion and Sam in her neck of the woods, sort of, as well.

I can’t believe someone would skip her chapters. She is the Fire in the Song of Ice and Fire, most likely. We’re only (really) 3 books into a 6 or 7 book story. She is only going to get more central as we get closer to the end.

1865

If Malloy’s onto something with men not liking Dany chapters, why would that be? Arya’s POVs are quite popular, but then she’s a tomboy. Sansa and Cat are pretty reviled… maybe it has to do with how stereotypically feminine and passive the POV is. Seems like the readership has zero patience for chapters that don’t advance the plot (cf A Feast for Crows).

1866

Personally I like the Dany chapters a lot because I think of her as the main hero of the series - rising to power.

Feast definitely sucks. I’m debating if I should include it in my current re-read or not. There’s some decent meta-plot nuggets in there, but I’m not very excited about reading Brienne’s chapters again. Guess I’ll see how my mood is when I get there.

1867

I’ve always liked the Catelyn chapters (in the books) as I felt they gave an alternate viewpoint to a lot of the events that were only touched on briefly in the men’s POV chapters. I didn’t care for the Sansa chapters at first, but they grow on you later and she becomes a good character as time goes on.

It would be folly to cut the Dany chapters from the books. Yes they start kind of stunted and awkward, tearing the reader away from Westeros just when the action is getting good, yet they serve an important purpose that mmalloy and others have illustrated, and once she transforms and the eggs hatch, it’s on. Her chapters then become some of the strongest.

My only issue with Dany is how the SHOW is doing her “chapters”. I really think the show might have benefitted from not introducing Dany until episode two or even three, and concentrated more on the people in the Westeros to ground non-readers in that location a bit more. Everything in the first couple of episodes felt so disjointed, flying from scenes at Winterfell to Pentos to King’s Landing without so much as a lead in title or some voiceover to lend the viewer a point of reference. If Dany had been split off into the second episode for example, we could have spent more time with her and her situation, getting some more depth to the character and her and Viserys’ place in the overall story. I still would love to see a bit of narrative disguised as a history lesson or a recounting of houses and major players given to someone like Sansa at King’s Landing. I think the viewers would benefit greatly from such a segment.

As to the passage of time that seems to be a major sticking point for some folks. Have you ever seen the Tudors? They had the same thing going on. Henry would dispatch someone to France or Spain, and three scenes later that person would return with news of whatever. Obviously several weeks had passed, but you wouldn’t have known it from anything the show told you. It’s just difficult to do passage of time in a show where it takes long boring days or weeks to travel somewhere. Constantly throwing up titles to tell the passage of time is an immersion killer, so the producers simply assume the viewer will realize that time has passed. I think the maps in the title sequence make it clear that these locations are not close together.

1868

Regarding the opinions of men the far more plausible explanation is simply that far more men than women posting in this thread due to the demographics of the board. There’s no need for gender conspiracy theories. My wife is watching the TV show and is also a bit confused about why Dany is part of the story.

Personally I enjoy strong female characters and I like Dany. I simply don’t like her story being so jarring from all the other stories that are going on. It’s not just the fact that she’s on a different continent but also the fact that the tone of her stories is so different. The Westeros stories have a very gritty, realistic tone to them with a lot of detail and feel more like historical recountings. Dany’s stories feel rushed, are told more like fables with lots of details skipped over, and feel a lot more fantastical.

The complaint isn’t that Dany is a bad character (or unfathomable to us brutish men). The complaint is that the way Martin introduces her doesn’t really do her justice. We’ve got all of this nuanced drama going on in Westeros that has our imagination captured and then he throws us some stuff that is (seemingly) out of left field and then fails to hook it into the main story in any satisfying manner. The problem here is that the Westeros stuff is too compelling and, like many have commented, we feel like skipping Dany’s chapters just to get back to the action that really has us hooked. Slow things down a bit and give her some more focused story-telling, and we’d be far more interested. She could get a book, or half a book, all to herself with PoV’s given to several other characters in her retinue. Or Martin could find other ways to more organically weave her into the story. Mormont could start out in Westeros as a PoV or some other character from Westeros could leave and attend her wedding, giving us an introduction to her character which would be built upon in later books. We don’t need to get to the meat of her story right away just as we don’t need to meet Brienne in book #1, etc.

1869

While the narrative-structure loving person in me tends to agree, I think the disjointed structure of the books is a key, irreducible part of them. In point of fact, I think most fantasy readers are hoping that by book seven, all of these various plot threads will be brought together in some glorious confrontation that resolves everything in a brilliant, sweeping climax – because that’s what typical fantasy does. But I think there is a very good chance that this won’t happen. Martin is going for a “historical fiction” feel, and history doesn’t have a narrative structure. We spend time with characters, big things happen, new characters enter and old ones fade away. I think the show is attempting to capture this, but the jury is still out on whether or not it will be successful, or whether that can even work in the medium of television.

The second season of Rome did this too (which was one of its weak points, IMO). Mark Antony and Cleopatra get together in one episode and in the next episode, they’ve had kids off-screen who are eight or nine years old when we meet them.

1870

In point of fact, I think most fantasy readers are hoping that by book seven, all of these various plot threads will be brought together in some glorious confrontation that resolves everything in a brilliant, sweeping climax – because that’s what typical fantasy does. But I think there is a very good chance that this won’t happen. Martin is going for a “historical fiction” feel, and history doesn’t have a narrative structure.

Considering the title of the series, that big confluence seems like a lock. That’s what the singers sing about, right.

1871

Not necessarily. It could be a sprawling epic “song”, like a Homeric poem.

1872

Feast isn’t great, but on my reread I came to appreciate it a lot more than the first time I tried to get through it. The Brienne stuff is bad for a lot of reasons, starting with us knowing that she’s going to fail in her mission and ending with all the Lady Stoneheart stuff that just opens the door to a lot of questions. However her chapters do shed light on the ultimate fate of one of my favorite non-POV characters, so I’m happy for that. While I think that the Dorne stuff was fantastic with an amazing payoff (one which had me verbally say to myself ‘Goddammit, John Reynolds…’) it could have been done with probably twenty percent less chapter. Five chapters were dedicated to Dorne (at least one of which was a good fifty percent sex scene) and five chapters were dedicated to the Iron Islands. I didn’t find the Iron Islands stuff nearly as interesting as Dorne (though there was some fun stuff in there, like the contenders at the Kingsmoot) and it really, really could have used some paring down. However, we know a lot of that (and I’m not being spoilery here, but two things in particular) will be important in ADwD. The Jaime stuff is all great, with the singular exception of his unnecessarily confrontational scenes with Kevan, which really seemed like Martin made characters act out of character just so Kevan could do what he does. The Alayne chapters did a lot to make me get over my initial dislike of Sansa (I wonder if she’ll ever realize that her actions lead to the Lannister assault on the Tower of the Hand) as she learns the ‘game’ from Petyr. And while the early stuff with Sam seems to go on forever, the last Maester Aemon chapter is awesome and Sam’s final chapter contains a big chunk of information that casts a new light on a group that we, until now, had considered generally beneficent and mostly background characters.

The bright spot is, of course, Arya. Though there are only three (I think) chapters and they just seem to go on and on. There’s also a timing issue with her chapters which make me wonder how they’ll mesh with ADWD. No spoilers, since some people might consider knowing even chapter headings from ADWD a serious breach, but I look forward to seeing how Martin handles it and if he doesn’t end up writing himself into a bit of a chronal corner.

People say Brienne is the worst and I can see the argument, but the Cersei stuff is easily the worst thing AFFC gives us. Some people say that her character changes too much, but I don’t really agree with that. Seeing that deep inside she’s completely insane, especially after the loss of her son and father, goes far to explain just why she refused to trust in Tyrion or anyone else. My problem is that she’s just so much more unlikeable than anyone else. Martin made us love Jaime despite his horrible he was, but there’s no doing that with Cersei. She’s as grossly cruel as Jaime once was without his redemption combined with AGoT Sansa’s lack of wit. And book four is a little late to be adding completely new complications like the militant orders and Cersei-as-Wicked-Queen prophecy nonsense. The only good part of Cersei’s chapters were Tommen.

Poor Tommen.

To you. Presumably there are numerous people for whom the way he handles Dany is just fine.

I can say that if he’d never introduced Dany and then book 4 was just all the Dany chapters with no Jon or Arya or Tyrion I’d be just as pissed as I was that the actual book 4 was all the less interesting characters and a bunch of new ones with no Jon or Arya or Tyrion or, oh, Dany.

Hopefully these readers will be happy with book 5, then. I have a feeling that somewhere around two thirds of the way through the title ‘dance with the dragon’ will take on some pretty literal meaning. Well, figuratively literal.

1873

Why would a series patterned on the War of the Roses suddenly reach for the ancient Greeks? Especially when there’s lots of bards in the story itself, who are singing romantic and exciting tales of chivalry or whatever. But then the characters talk about how life isn’t like the songs… maybe the point is that we’re reading the true gritty story that will later be romanticized. Still betting this will end up with a finale fit for the songs and legends.

1874

Yeah, but most of the other stories have a more-or-less direct impact on one another, at least in the first two books. What What Cat does affects everyone else directly… except Dany. What Arya accomplishes has an indirect effect on everyone… except Dany. Jon Snow’s story is mostly a one-way thing in the first couple books in that he is heavily influenced by others’ stories while his touches no one else, but it’s still a tight coupling.

Contrast that with Dany’s chapters. In GoT she arguably has the most direct interaction with Westros in that Robert authorizes an assassination attempt against her simply because she exists, but after that I’d argue that her dragons have a more direct impact on the other stories than she does. And aside from receiving word of the war across the Narrow Sea in aCoK, I don’t think she is even indirectly influenced by any other PoV character. I can see how - for some - yanking them completely out of one set of tightly-interlaced stories and into an only vaguely related tale could be jarring.

I personally don’t mind the disconnect – I find that Dany’s chapters tend to be more mystical and mythic than the gritty fare served up by the Westros chapters, and I find that a welcome diversion. As it happens I am re-reading Clash of Kings right now and I thought the chapter on Dany’s visit to the Warlocks was a welcome change from the down-in-the dirt exploits of Arya in Herrenhal.

1875

If you are concerned at how little interaction Dany has with other characters and don’t mind being spoiled for some of ADWD, read this.

1876

Well put. To me there are simply too many fantasy elements with far too fantastic characters in this other continent. I just can’t buy into these ideas as much as I would need to, since, as I said, I KNOW that there will be a maximum of 2% of a Dany chapter that has any bearing whatsoever on anything going on in the other stories. Some say that it is obvious that Dany is The main character of the books. I just feel like pointing out that all of us spent the first 1000 pages believing Ned Stark was the protagonist and that rather few of the main players of the first two books are left standing.

Martin is not, and probably never will be, good at dialog and that’s fine in Westeros, which is mostly well grounded in European and also Roman history. But not so with dragons, eunuch super-soldiers, Slaver cities and a super-gladiator that always let his opponent cut him once. But it’s great that so many love the Dany story and that you have such strong feelings about Martin’s work. That The Show cast Iain Glen as Ser Mormont is however brilliant and guarantees that I’ll follow the Dany scenes with more interest than I otherwise would have.

Plus. These are books. I can always pick them up and read any chapters I’ve skipped. Y’know?

1877

I completely agree. I also love that the last hope for the kingdom might actually be the return of a product of the Targaryen bloodline. It’s an interesting twist.

1878

If there are chapters fit for skipping they are the Martell&Greyjoy ones. They are cool as minor players, but boooooring as PoVs, should have kept them as seen from the perspective of the rest of the cast.

I think Dany suffers because when you start reading about her you don’t really know why she’s even relevant, she’s away and lots of stuff is hinted at but not fully explained until much later. She works better in a reread.

1879

No! I’m stating objecting truth.

Of course people think differently on this. However a lot of people have problems with Dany. It’s a good insight to realize that this is not a matter of people not liking her character (or being men). Rather (for most of us) this is a result of how her story feels disconnected in style and content from the rest of the story.

I’m not sure if Dany in another book would work, or if a slower reveal of her story would be best but I do think it’s clear that Martin doesn’t give Dany’s character much room to breath. Consider the breakneck pace of Dany’s narrative as opposed to Martin’s very patient unraveling of Westeros. They almost feel as though they’re written by different authors with completely different goals. Juxtapose the extremely slow reveal of the supernatural in Westeros with the menagerie of dragons, warlocks and super soldiers of Dany’s world. Whether you agree or not, it shouldn’t be very hard to figure out why people have problems with the way Dany’s story is told.

1880

I wouldn’t say it’s a lot, nor “most.” You don’t like it, and there are other people that don’t, but when you presume to speak for the majority, it sounds silly.