Pages 1-100
Pages 101-200
Pages 201-300:
1. Dany is described thus after her 'marriage' to Drogo: Her thighs were chafed raw, her hands blistered from the reins, the muscles of her legs and back so wracked with pain that she could scarcely sit.
And then...
Yet every night, some time before dawn, Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he road his stallion. He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW FUCKED UP THIS RELATIONSHIP IS? PLEASE, DEAR GOD, CAN WE TALK ABOUT IT? THIS IS LITERALLY THE MOST DISTURBING RELATIONSHIP I'VE EVER READ, AND IT IS TREATED AS SOMETHING THAT MADE DANY STRONGER AND WHICH EVENTUALLY TURNED INTO LOVE. EXCUSE ME, MARTIN YOU SICK FUCK, THAT IS NOT HOW PEOPLE WORK.
2. And then and then...
She began to find pleasure even in her nights, and if she still cried out when Drogo took her, it was not always in pain.
Is this supposed to be romance growing? Or character development? Because what it is is an incredibly extreme form of Stockholm syndrome and to be honest, it's character regression. Dany loses all her (justified) fear of Drogo and unhappiness about her situation because... somehow she starts to enjoy the sex? Forgive me, but that sounds a lot like someone's terribly twisted fantasy.
3. "The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are."
One of the worst things about this book is that it shows flashes of being good. This, right here, this is an interesting theme. Of course, Martin can't actually explore it, because every single one of his characters are melodramatically placed nobles. It's so, so frustrating to see moments like this, when it looks like it could become something interesting and real and important, and then it swerves away into more unnecessary sex scenes.
4. She rode him as fiercely as ever she had ridden her silver, and when the moment of his pleasure came, Khal Drogo called out her name.
They were on the far side of the Dothraki sea when Jhiqui brushed the soft swell of Dany's stomach with her fingers and said, "Khaleesi, you are with child."
"I know," Dany told her.
It was her fourteenth name day.
JESUS FUCK THESE TWO I CANNOT EVEN
I CAN'T
I FUCKING CAN'T
THIS IS THE MOST DISTURBING RELATIONSHIP I HAVE EVER, EVER READ.
THE.
MOST.
5. Two solid pages describing every single knight in the tournament, their armor, their coats of arms, and a whole lot of shit no one cares about. TWO SOLID PAGES. And I am not exaggerationg one bit; if anything, I'm underestimating the exact length.
6. And now the world would forget his name too, Sansa realized; there would be no songs sung for him. That was sad.
Yet again, here is an interesting theme - the way the nobility discards not only commoners, but sometimes its own as well - which is briefly mentioned, dismissed with a trivial understatement of bland emotion, and then followed with another 3/4 page describing all the various unhorsings which followed it. What's the point of including something if you don't make it matter, hmm?
301-400 will be posted tomorrow.
