[NewChief]

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.