Sorry for the bit of a hiatus with
this one. 800 pages is a beast to get through!
Let's start with the characters, since
there happen to be so very many of the them. The characters are
divided into those that narrate chapters and those that don't. I'm
not going to try and get all of them in here because there are so
many. I'll focus on most of the characters that narrate the chapters
of the story.
Eddard Stark, or Ned, is the father of
the Stark family. They live in the north of the Seven Kingdoms of
Westeros, in a castle called Winterfell. Ned is a very honor bound
man. He wishes to do the right thing and always takes responsibility
for his actions. This however makes him incredibly stupid. No,
seriously, Ned is an idiot. He constantly hopes that the king, his
old friend, will chose him over the king's family despite being shown
that the king will not put
Ned first. Catelyn Stark is Ned's wife. She is vaguely contradictory
character. She spends the first third of the book taking care of her
injured son in a coma. She never leaves his side for the span of
several months. Then immediately after he wakes up, leaves him and
her other children to go across the country to find Ned. She ends up
never making it back to Winterfell, leaving two small boys without
their mother or father. I can't understand how Catelyn thinks. At
first, she seems like the caring mother, but suddenly changes to a
woman who seems nearly obsessed with defeating the Lannisters. She
claims it is in the name of her son, and yet, she up and left her son
in Winterfell to deal with the paralysis of his legs without his
parents. Arya is their 9-year-old daughter. She is a girl who would
rather play with swords than learn to sew. I enjoy characters like
Arya, even if they are one of the most cliched fantasy girl
storylines. Sansa is their 11-year-old daughter. She is the
polar-opposite of Arya. Sansa wants to be a lady, and is smitten with
the crown prince, 12-year-old Joffrey. Sansa's character is
absolutely unbelievable. Her level of attraction to Joffrey given
both of their ages is ridiculous and nonsensical. Despite Joffrey on
more than one occasion showing how little he cares for Sansa, she
still fawns over him. She even gets mad at Arya, her own sister,
rather than Joffrey at one point.
14-year-old
Jon Snow is Ned's illegitimate son. He is quiet and thoughtful.
Despite his status as illegitimate, he considers the Stark children
as his brothers and sisters. He is very loyal to his family,
something that almost gets him killed. Despite the varying states of
accuracy of Martin's other child characters, Jon is very well done.
He has a clear character progression. Many moments that show him to
be just a 14 year old, despite the new responsibilities he now has.
Tyrion
Lannister is the youngest son in the Lannister family and a dwarf. By
far, my favorite character, Tyrion is the only one who has any sort
of real intelligence. While Tyrion does have a love for his family,
he is mainly out for taking care of himself. He is the only one who
seems to realize how each specific person in a seat of power thinks.
He knows how they work, and could even manipulate them should he
chose.
Daenarys
Targaryen is an ex-princess, exiled after the killing of her father,
the Mad King. She is partially a good character and partially a bad
one. I think its mostly that I love the idea of her owning dragons
and her eventually being able to come into her own after being
ordered around by her brother. Yet at the same time, her relationship
with her husband, Khal Drogo, is entirely unbelievable. There is no
logical reason for how their relationship evolves into what it does.
She is very cold despite Martin's attempts to make her seem warm or
full of fire.
So, the plot of this book is separated
into different segments of stories told by some of the main
characters featured. Most of the chapters from Ned, Arya, Sansa and
half of the ones from Catelyn and Tyrion revolve around the many
facets of the political system of Westeros and the war that starts.
This particular storyline is where most of the intrigue comes in.
With several mysteries running around such as who killed the former
right-hand-man of the king or more importantly what information did
the right hand man find that got him killed. This storyline also
later includes the viewpoints of the war from the side of the North,
with Robb Stark and the men of the North fighting the Lannisters, as
well as the Lannisters point of view through Tyrion. The next
storyline is that of Jon. Jon goes north to become a man of the
Night's Watch, essentially leaving his home behind forever. Jon's
story revolves around becoming accustomed to his new life with his
new friends. Also this storyline introduces the concept of the
supernatural “Others”, frozen zombie-like creatures with the
ability to command the dead. The Others are one of my favorite
creations from Martin and one of my main reasons to continue reading
the novels. The last storyline is that of Daenarys. Daenarys's story
is about her adventure across the sea. Starting with her brother's
depravity in wanting to be king and ending with her leading her new
people to achieve that same end for herself.
The plot is not necessarily bad, nor
is it awesomely good. There is really nothing new or innovative in
the plot or in the way it was told. For me, Tyrion saves the whole
book. Tyrion and the promise of supernatural zombie things and
dragons in later books.
My quick thoughts on the books vs. the
TV series, the plot is exactly the same in both. I mean exactly the
same. There is nothing in the books that didn't make it to the TV
show. Now having said that, some of the characters are better or
worse depending on how they are portrayed.
Overall, it wasn't a terrible book.
But it wasn't the amazing, world-stopping book that everyone makes it
out to be.
2/5 Stars
