Oh, and that epilogue. The zombie corpse of Catleyn Stark rolling with my dawg Beric Dondarrion? The balls is going on there? I can't wait to get the next book to figure out wtf is happening there.

This is one of the more interesting things in the book especially. Early on, all of book 1 I guess, you're basically hating Jaime for tossing Bran out of the window. Over time Martin humanizes him, and really explains some of the reasons for the supposedly horrible acts that he did. The whole Kingslayer thing becomes completely justified. Who wouldn't have run their sword through Mad Aerys just like Jaime, oath or not?

It's a pretty cool approach I can't remember coming across in any other book.

The Sand Snakes are awful in the show. Like, almost as bad as the magic fireball Children.

On a somewhat related note, why haven't they brought up the fact that women have the same inheritance rights in Dorne as men? Isn't that kind of important?

Oh, absolutely. Anytime he delved deeper into that particular part of his past I was gripped.

I also took great interest in Rhaegar. I'm dying to know the truth of his love affair with Lyanna. It seems like it's basically already been spelled out, but... would that I could read it with mine own eyes...

Man, I knew it wasn't happening, but I really wanted both Theon and Tommen to open up some shoe stores in asses.

And **** the Boltons. They need to be made to suffer horribly.

"Find this nancy boy Ramsay Bolton! I want him DEAD!!"

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Why would it be? Limiting yourself only to the tv show stuff, I'm not sure how it has become an important item to know.

THAT IS SO ****ING PERFECT. Exactly how I feel. I want the Boltons and Walder Frey to suffer and ****ing die horribly.

Arya already gets to see the hall of faces? Are they skipping the whole blind Arya fish hustler piece?

It might be blasphemy, but I think the Sand Snakes are kind of dumb in the books as well. Just seems like GRRM geeking out and creating concept heroes just for the sake of creating them. A lot of the shit he does... I dunno... It boils down to the fanboy dorky factor of authors who write novels with maps. They're often more in love with world/culture creation than actual characters and plot.

Edit: And by no means am I saying that GRRM doesn't do good plot or good characters. He actually does. But sometimes I think his geekier instincts of "Oh man. This is such a cool facet of the world I want to show people that I've thought up... how can I write it into the plot?" sometimes outweigh his instincts for pushing forward a good plot. I find the Sand Snakes to be symptomatic of that. Are they neat? Sure. Are they ultimately just a huge ****ing digression that probably won't add shit to the overall story? Most likely.

Thank you. I was about to come on here and say much the same. In the books, iirc, they're all ready to go beat some ass only to have Doran throw them under house arrest, so we never get to see the vaunted Sand Snakes in action.

I am, however, eager to see Hotah get down with that battleaxe.

You aren't alone. I couldn't get past the thought of "any of these bad ass knights in armor would wreck these chicks in combat. Ned Stark, Dondarian, any Clegane, etc."

Side note: I took some visitors to the Bario Cafe last week. We set out to wreck the margarita menu after apps and dinner. Of course it ended up wrecking us.

ROFL

That place is ****ing solid, man. Great vibe, great food, great chef, great drinks. Probably my favorite meal when we were in PHX. Need to get out that way again soon.

I was pleased you enjoyed it. I knew you'd get the vibe; the whole that is greater than the sum of their outstanding parts...try the hibiscus flower marg next time. It's different, delicious, and dangerous.

Evidently.