Bran reread (All books)

I always liked Bran's earlier chapters. The first showcased everything that's really good in Martin's writing: his style, his ability to introduce seamlessly a whole cast of characters without getting heavy or cumbersome, his talent of planting the seeds of plots through different methods and his skill in simply telling a fascinating story.

I read the first one today! It felt like putting on an old and comfortable shoe. The truth is that I had the option of reading Wild Cards I, as I finally caved in and borrowed it. So I read Bran I instead. Story just flows.

It was good to see Ned Stark teaching some Stark values like "the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword", that a man should take no pleasure in that task or more general ones such as: "the only time a man can be brave" is when he is afraid or that "a ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is". I missed Ned. Poor guy was just trying to be a dad to Bran. Gave in with the puppies but was stern with the: you better take care of it yourself, no servant will waste time for THIS   total parent. Except that most parents these days end up taking care of the kids' pets themselves But I digress.

What else... I liked two things that I forgot were there or maybe never thought about. It's been a while since I read AGoT so I am not sure which.

One: Bran is hilariously close to what happens with the Carster's babies according to the show.

Too bad Old Nan didn't tell him what the Others DO with the women!

And the other is right at the end of the chapter. I never actually thought of it but the dialog is such a parallel to what happens with Jon and is predicted by no one else than Ned himself:

This of course would be Ghost who was found away from the mother direwolf and the rest of the pups. And Jon IS driven away to the Wall by the Starks, no matter how I look at it. However, if Jon's last words in the chapter are to be a foreshadowing, then I have faith in him outlasting everyone. When Theon said that the sixth pup will die faster than the others his answer is:


EDIT: I am very unorganized when it comes to book readings. I will probably end up commenting all over the place about something from a different chapter. I'll do my very best to keep to whatever threads you guys decide to do if anyone is interested to read everything Bran. If not, I can stick just as well with one thread. This one.

I already made a subforum for you, and moved this thread to it.

I was thinking if you liked that idea we could add links to each chapter to this OP. Within the sub forum, threads are automatically sorted by the most recent comments, so that would help folks find chapters as they read along.

Damn! And here I thought I was quick! 

I am only just now opening the book to Bran I, AGOT. LOL

I think it's Ilyn Payne looming over the Hound and Barristan Selmy. But I think I'm in the minority on that one.

The Mountain certainly fits that description. But I think it is noteworthy that Ser Gregor was not present at the Trident... nor was the Viper. 

Bran's vision seems to be a realtime one, and I would argue that the characters/places he glimpses are in situ. Rather than be a dream, I believe Bran is experiencing a surveillance-satellite-view, out-of-body spirit flight.

If interested, my evidence for this interpretation might be found here:
thelasthearth.com/thread/821/shadows-brans-vision-updated 



Would you like me to start adding threads for each chapter? An all-in-one thread works too, if you prefer it that way.  



It really is. Every time I reread, I am always struck by how tight GRRM's writing was in the first book. It's fairly tight in the second...but you can feel the superlatives growing larger. The third moves at a quick pace, but the 4th and 5th double as thesauri for E!, Food, and Travel Networks. 




It seems the awol albino Lord Commander would agree with the 997th Lord Commander:

voice,I'm not really fussed either way on the threads. I think it's been working okay so far as just the one thread as people can just chat generally about what ever point interests them.

One thing I would like to know peoples opinion's on is the final Bran ACOK chapter. In the first one or two paragraphs of his wolf/summer dream he sees a winged snake that's raw is a river of flame and this appears to be in real time not a cryptic vision. Can we take it at face value that we have a living dragon in the north? Or is there another option? I've seen it suggested that it could have been a horse on fire which I don't really buy. Also although Ramsey had Winterfell put to the torch and you'd expect the wooden buildings to go up easily enough its also mentioned that the iron portcullis is warped by fire. I'm not an expert temperatures iron can withstand but I'd imagine it needs to be a fair amount. On the other hand if there was a dragon why has no one mentioned it? It would have been a fairly big deal.

Anyway, I've got one chapter of the reread left now and its been good to do it with other people and throw ideas about.