Martin officially finished the book today and submitted it to the publisher. His blog has a big picture of Kong dead. Damn I can't wait.

Did they kill the Butcher's boy or just severely beat him?

The hound ran him down and kills him. Ned asks him, and the hound says, "he ran.... Just not very fast." It's one of the things in the book that really characterizes the Hound as a cold blooded villain at this point.

Cleganes are just huge pieces of shit, man.

The hound isn't quite as dastardly as he needs to be. The stuff he doesn't later isn't going to seem so odd with him almost being likeable.

Almost cleaved in half, so killed.

Agreed.

Agreed 100%. One of my few complaints so far...

LMAO

Those guys win the Fanboy Wars.

I just bought the books on Amazon, they were 17 bucks for 4 books. Had 10 bucks credit, so not to bad for me. I should have them monday.

I just finished the second book. I'm finding more and more that there are certain characters and story lines I just don't give a **** about. Daenerys is firmly in that category. Really, anytime the story moves away from the the Starks and Lannisters, it just slows down so much for me.

I won't spoil anything, but Theon only became interesting to me towards the end of the book, for obvious reasons. Davos was okay, but still very mehhh.

Not that I don't like it. I'll still pick up the next book...

I see what you mean, but I think she becomes to integral to the story before it ends that he knew he had to develop her well all along or else it would be like a WTF sort of blindside when she all the sudden lands on the shores of Westeros. The story doesn't take up THAT much of the content. I have a harder time reading about the guy with gout or whatever down south than that part....not sure how that part comes into play other then fleshing out what happened with Gregor Clegane and killing the chick and her kids during the rebellion.

I think Daenerys is one of the most fascinating and well rounded characters in the series. She only gets more interesting to me with each book.

Otherwise I would agree, WoodDraw. The second book is my least favorite so far. The next one (Storm Of Swords) is one of my favorite books ever. In any genre.

Ugh, this episode is boring so far. talktalktalktalktalk