Another
great book in A Song of Ice and Fire. ACOK is the story of the next
phase of the War of the Five Kings. While AGOT gives us the prelude to and the
first phase of the war, dominated by the sacking of the Riverlands and Northern
victories, ACOK gives us the second phase, dominated by Stannis Baratheon, the
scattering of Renly’s forces, the buildup to the Battle of the Blackwater, and
the battle itself. There are many other stories happening at the same time, as
Jon and Daenarys are all POV characters whose stories have nothing to do with
the War of the Five Kings. In ACOK (excepting the prologue), Daenarys and
Tyrion, our only two non-Stark POVs, return as POV characters. The only POV
character not to return, for obvious reasons, is Lord Eddard Stark. All the
other Starks do return: Catelyn, Jon (kind of a Stark), Bran, Arya, and Sansa.
Theon and Davos provide new POVs.
Catelyn Stark
has an interesting POV that takes her from Riverrun to the Reach and the
Stormlands, attempting to broker a deal between Stannis and Renly Baratheon,
which she fails to do. She stops appearing towards the end of the book, but in
the beginning, she sits in on Robb’s war councils, where it is becoming clear
that things are not going to go well for the Northmen. At a fundamental level,
when ACOK opens, the Northerners do not have any good reason to be in the
Riverlands. They were there to save their lord, Eddard Stark, but he was
executed. They decide to proclaim an independent kingdom. However, they claim
the Riverlands as part of their kingdom, which is a huge area outside of the
traditional North to have to defend. It is also unacceptable to any of the claimants
to the crown, and they fail to ally themselves with any of the other four
kings. Robb would only accept Stannis, who refuses, and then tries to find
terms with Balon, who goes and attacks the North instead. Despite all this, the
Northerners continue to win tactical victories in the Riverlands and the West. However,
at the strategic level, the announcement that Robb will be King in the North
only has the benefit of encouraging the Northerners to stay South to fight in a
war, but the much bigger disadvantage of making it impossible to win that war.
Neither Stannis nor Renly will accept the loss of half of the kingdom, and the Northerners
isolate themselves further.
To me,
this book has a weird feel to it as the two most prominent characters in AGOT
(in my opinion) were Ned Stark and Daenerys Targaryen, who play almost no role
in this book. After all, Ned is dead and Daenarys is on the far side of the
world with only 5 POV chapters. Daenerys’ story is interesting nonetheless, as
she goes through trials that allow her to save her khalasar, which was
extremely weak at the end of GOT, receive interesting prophecies, let her
dragons grow, and meet two new companions who will help her on her journey: Ser
Barristan Selmy and Strong Belwas. The most interesting thing that happens to Dany
is her visit to the House of the Undying, where she sees four little men raping
a beautiful woman. Perhaps this has to do with the War of the Five Kings? She
also sees a banquet of blood with a dead king with a wolf’s head, obviously a
prophecy of the Red Wedding. There is not much else that happens, but she
resists temptations from both Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Jorah Mormont to go east to
the Jade Sea, choosing instead to keep her eyes on the prize: Westeros. Her
last chapter is a huge tease that ends in a way that really makes you think she’s
going to Westeros, yet here we are three books later and she’s wandering the
Dothraki Sea.
I think
that the most prominent character in this story is Tyrion Lannister. He has by
far the most POV chapters in the book at 15, as he is the only set of eyes
through which we see King’s Landing as Joffrey settles into power and as the
Lannisters prepare for attack now that Eddard is dead. His 15 POV chapters are
matched in the series only by Eddard, who had 15 in AGOT. Tyrion is constantly
in a struggle with his family. In the first book, he struggles with his father,
and in the second with his sister. He has not seen the one member of his family
who actually likes him, his brother Jaime, since they left Winterfell early in
AGOT, but he thinks about him often. Tyrion keeps succeeding and rising to the
challenges that face him. In ACOK, his primary challenge is to get power for himself
as the King’s Hand and to use it to stay alive and protect King’s Landing from
Stannis’ attack. While we root for Tyrion as a reader, he does get sort of darker
as this book progresses. In Tyrion VI, he hears a petition from Ser Aliser
Thorne of the Night’s Watch about the dead coming alive. He makes Thorne wait
so long that the moving hand that he had has completely decomposed and then
mocks him in court. He had vowed to Lord Commander Mormont that he would help,
but Tyrion is not much help! Even though he sends men with Ser Aliser for the Watch,
by mocking him in court he keeps the court in disbelief over the true claims of
the Watch that the dead are rising. In this critical moment, Tyrion causes huge
damage to the entire realm. Tyrion also slaps Shae when she mocks him in Tyrion
X, which is fucked up.
The
third and worst thing Tyrion does is a threat he makes in a conversation with
his sister, Cersei, in Tyrion XII. It is a major turning point in the siblings’
relationship, as it ends the last bits of goodwill between them and is likely
the reason that Cersei sent Ser Mandon Moore to kill him. In it, Cersei reveals
that she has captures Alayaya, mistaking her for Shae, Tyrion’s whore. She promises
to harm the girl if anything happens to Joffrey, at which point Tyrion decides
that “if she thinks me such a monster, I’ll play the part for her,” and tells
her that whatever happens to Alayaya will happen to Tommen, including the
beatings and the rapes. We, as the readers, know it is a bluff, but Cersei
doesn’t. Later in the same conversation, he tells her that "I have never
liked you, Cersei, but you were my own sister, so I never did you harm. You've
ended that. I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A
day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy
will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid." This
quote is huge! It is what makes Cersei think that Tyrion was responsible for
Joffrey’s death later on and is the final cut that solidifies the Lannister schism.
After
Tyrion, the most prominent character is Stannis Baratheon, even though he doesn’t
have a single POV chapter. We hear about him through other characters, mainly
Ser Davos Seaworth, but also Catelyn Stark. Stannis is pretty cool because he’s
been built up a lot. We hear a lot about him in AGOT, mostly people wondering
when he will strike, so the tension has been building up to the Battle of the
Blackwater for a long time. The entire book is really a big prelude to his
battle, at least in the grander scheme of political events. The POV chapters of
Tyrion, Davos, Catelyn, and Sansa are dominated by it.
Theon
has a story line that is very important and tragic. He seizes Winterfell in
ACOK for the Ironborn but finds himself abandoned by his father and sister. He
meets Reek, who helps him with all sorts of things before revealing that he is
truly Ramsay Snow after killing Northmen, mainly Cerwyns and Tallharts, outside
Winterfell’s walls. Theon is totally delusional. He has way too high an opinion
of himself and thinks about taking the black before Ramsay Snow “rescues” him.
He thinks to himself that he could even rise to be Lord Commander, even though
he’s an idiot. Maybe that’s why he thinks he could do that. We know that bad
things are coming for him in A Storm of Swords.
The last
character I wanna specifically talk about is Sansa. This whole book is
basically torture for her. Her world comes crashing down and she becomes a
friendless hostage in King’s Landing. It’s a huge time of personal growth for
her as she successfully navigates all of the challenges posed to her by the
Lannisters and prepares her escape.
Some
interesting stuff happens at the Fist of the First Men. Specifically, in Jon
IV, Ghost refuses to enter the ringfort, getting spooked by something. Then, in
the same chapter, Ghost finds an old warhorn and dragonglass, recently buried
with a cloak of a brother of the Night’s Watch. That is very interesting, and I
am shocked that people were not more interested when Jon brought that stuff
back. Jon tried to blow the horn but it was cracked and didn’t work. He gave it
to Sam. I have a feeling that this stuff is gonna be very important. I found
Jon’s chapters to be way more interesting in ACOK than in AGOT, as he spends
ACOK north of the Wall, ranging and eventually getting captured by Wildlings.
This book also introduces us to Dolorous Edd Tollett, the funniest character in
the books. He was definitely my favorite side character.
Things I noticed:
- Prologue: White ravens leave the citadel, announcing the coming of winter, which is very early compared to the show, in which winter is announced in season 6 (I think).
- Prologue: Maester Cressen introduces us to a poison that takes the form of a “little crystal seed,” called the Strangler, which we know will later be removed from a certain someone’s crystal hairnet and dissolved in a cup of a certain boy-king’s wine.
- Tyrion III: The funniest moment in the book is easily when the Small Council is trying to think of a rumor to shame Stannis to match the (true) rumor spreading about Joffrey’s incestuous parentage. As they plot, it is suggested that perhaps Stannis’ wife, Sylese, is cheating on him with another. When they think of people to be her lovers, Cersei immediately suggests brothers and uncles. I laughed out loud. That lady has a serious family-sexuality complex.
- Tyrion IV: I’m not sure if this comes to anything, but I notice that Lady Tanda has been having lots of dinner parties since AGOT with people like Littlefinger and Balon Swann.
- Tyrion VI: When Tyrion interrogates Grand Maester Pycelle, it is revealed (and later confirmed in another chapter) that Renly originally wanted to marry Margaery Tyrell to his brother Robert, showing that Renly was working against the Baratheons for a long time and that the Tyrells wanted to marry Margaery to a king for a long time. Eventually she marries three: Renly, Joffrey, and Tommen.
- Daenerys II: An interesting quote from Daenerys’ thoughts in light of the series finale on HBO: “Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father. [paragraph break] But before she could do that she must conquer.” It is really interesting to see where her mind is at while in Qarth.
- Arya VII: Arya overhears that many people have seemingly killed Beric Dondarrion. She hears that Amory Lorch killed him at Rushing Falls and the Mountain had killed him twice. GRRM gives us these rumors now so that we think that they are just false information, but we will learn later that Beric is actually being revived and living again.
- Tyrion XI: Wisdom Hallyne of the Pyromancers finds that they are able to make way more wildfire than expected and asks Tyrion if they’ve seen any dragons about, since the existence of dragons allows them to make more. Tyrion says no, but we know that the answer is yes. Ha ha George. I wonder if Stannis would have won if Dany hadn’t woken the dragons?
- Jon VI: The only R+L=J information I saw in the book was in Jon VI, when he thinks to himself, “He was his father’s son. Wasn’t he? Wasn’t he?”
- Arya X: Arya hates a Frey boy in Harrenhal named Elmar, little does she know, Robb and Cately had agreed to marry her to that little boy. In Arya X, Elmar tells her that the Freys have been dishonored and that he won’t get to marry a princess. Arya told him “I hope your princess dies,” not knowing that she was the princess. What a world.
- Arya X: While AGOT ends with Arya getting her first kill, ACOK ends with her second, though this one, a Bolton guard, was premeditated.
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