General Impressions and Observations (No explicit spoilers)
 

This is going to be delicate, because we've got people who are now reading, who are waiting for the book, who are waiting for the paperback, who are reading slower than others, who are reading faster than others, what have you. I think we MIGHT be able to do a general impressions thread without explicit spoilers. I hope.

Anyway, Dany's kind of boring sitting in one place. I hope she starts to move soon.

I just got to the first big shocker revelation (on the Rhoyne). Whoa...there was some speculation about this on the various ASoIaF message boards, but it wasn't as popular a theory as Jon's parentage (and I may just be slow, but I got NO inkling from the previous Rhoyne chapter(s)).

I'm trying to space my reading out so the book lasts more than a couple of days...

The one thing I don't like so far is the way Tyrion seems to be taking Tywin's last words so literally. "Wherever whores go"...it was amusing when I first thought he was just being Tyrion but at this point I have to believe Tyrion actually believes that Tywin was actually giving him an answer. Tyrion's not that stupid. It jars.

Tywin might have been giving Tyrion an answer. I think Martin is pushing that line too much for it just to be Tyrion's own psychobabble.

It's possible, but it just didn't SOUND like a purposeful answer, rather than a "How the hell should I know?" answer.

Oh, and Quentyn is boooooring...but it might just be my reaction to a new POV this late in the story. Given that I don't find the..er...big secret POV boring, though, I don't think so.

I'm wondering what Illyrio's long term plan is. It has to be more than installing a friendly Queen.

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Tyrion is in shock. He is babbling it. He knows that there isn't a real answer.

Why? Installing a friendly Queen is a reasonable goal. Do you doubt his stated answer in chapter 4?

He does seem to stop later on. I can go with this hypothesis...

Haven't read chapter 4 yet. But he seems to be investing a lot from the very first book.

ETA: I think the Pentos counsel of Magestars are trying to take control of Westros in order to destroy Braavos

Hmm, I am not sure that Illyrio's scheming goes all the way up the chain of the council of Magisters. Seems to me like Illyrio is something of a singularity in Pentosi politics.

Yeah, the Free Cities seem like the kind of places where everyone has a finger or several in a pie or several. Illyrio having his own schemes that he's not sharing with the other Magisters is par for the course.

Yeah, spot on. That's how I see it too.

I get the impression that he is the power on the council. And the council is only to provide political cover.

He's the Kingpin from Spiderman.

The general impression I get from the Free Cities (which does not include Slavers' Bay, I believe) is "Renaissance Italy"...a patchwork of independent city-states ruled in various ways, full of people who are constantly on the lookout for the main chance. Scheming, conniving, spying, conspiring, stealing, etc. Braavos is Venice, Pentos is Florence, Volantis is Rome, etc.

Good description. We learn a lot about the free cities in this book and about Valyria. Italy is a good analog. What we have here are the independent remnants of a great empire. The bones of what made the empire great are still there, but no one has the strength to rebuild what was.

Haven't started the book yet. Is Martin writing any memory jogs? I don't need to be reminded about major stuff, but I have forgotten a lot about the various treacheries and alliances, who's friends with who, etc.

He does do that, yes. Not in great detail, but enough to gently remind you who's who and what's what.

Oh good. I've read series books without memory jogs, and some where the author did them but clumsily, or repeated too much. It's a fine line.

So does that make Meereen like Turkey?

Being used too frequently always reminds me of Dune.

'And his mind swirled with information, as he was taken over by the mentat calculation'

I think the cities of Old Ghis are modeled more after Sumeria or Babylon, actually.

Well, well, well...isn't the story Barristan tells Dany about whether Aerys loved her mother...interesting?

Yeah, I can buy Old Ghis as Babylon. But that would make Meereen kind of somewhere like in Syria or Turkey, or Lebanon.

Tyrion even talks about 'The Seven' being from that region, which kind of gives it that whole, 'Holy Land', vibe.

The 'ruins of old Valyria' strikes me as the remnants of the 'Eastern Empire' (nevermind that in real life the Eastern Empire was thriving after the collapse of the Western one)

I don't think there's necessarily a geographical equivalence ("Italy" is over here, Turkey is over here, Mesopotamia is over here). I think it's more a cultural equivalence and I don't really think the cultures of Yunkai, Astapor and Meereen differ enough to do anything more than say "Old Ghis is alt-Mesopotamian".

Fair enough.

I just got there too. It seemed obvious that everyone was hiding something, but the truth was definitely a surprise. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to reading so I can see how they fuck they pulled it off. (Or be mad at Martin for forcing a clumsy twist, we'll see.)