A Dance with Dragons is the fifth volume in the epic series – we can call the Song of Ice and Fire saga “epic”, right? – and was released on the heels of HBO’s (wildly successful) television adaptation of the first book, A Game of Thrones. So, it would be fair to say that I began reading it with some expectations. I wanted more of everything. More fire, blood, feasting, snow, scheming and fighting. I was not disappointed.
ADwD is most easily summarised as the other half of the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows. It recounts that same stretch of time but in the voices of the characters neglected in AFfC. It extends the story beyond AFfC time by just a little bit, but mostly ADwD brings readers up to date with the characters that AFfC left them wondering about. Which is not to say that it answered more questions than it raised. Finishing ADwD was much like watching a mid-season episode of LOST; it covered the same narrative time as the previous installment from a new point of view, answered a few questions, and raised a couple dozen more.
It seems to me that G.R.R.M. (who does not blog here) is toying with two particular ideas in ADwD; death and identity. Often tied together. There’s an interesting counterpoint developing between characters with slippery identities. Take the various commanders as an interesting example. The men who reluctantly accept the responsibility of Hand of the Realm (by the authority of whichever monarch you would like) all seem to wear their title as a separate identity. There is the decision the man would make and feelings he has about his circumstances, and then there is the decision he makes in the interest of his monarch, realm and responsibiliites. Ser Barristan is bolder as the Queen’s Hand than he ever was as the Queensguard. Ser Davos is a Hand after Ned Stark’s heart. Just as Ned would rather have been Lord of Winterfell, Davos would rather be the Onion Kinght, or better still, at home raising his children and working hard at the quiet life than going about the realm’s business. But his king asked it of him, so he attends to it. Also like Ned Stark, there is much about his king’s personal life that Davos disapproves of, where one drank and reveled the other is a reluctant religious zealot, in neither case does his Hand approve. Then, there are the black and white commanders, Jon and Jamie. Jamie wears a white cloak, commands the King’s Guard, has lost a hand, and it could be that he prefers Brienne and all her honour to his brothers of the White Tower. Jon wears a black cloak, commands the Wall, has a maimed hand and it could be that he prefers the wildings to his brothers of Castle Black. Jamie isn’t riding the defense of his sister, his other half, but Jon intends to ride to the defense of his half-sister. (Never mind that the woman Bolton is after is not really his sister but a fraud, he doesn’t know that).
There are those with slipperier identities though, and they set up even more fascinating comparisons. While Theon insists, regardless of which identity he is wearing, Reek or Theon, that one must always know his name, Arya is learning to answer the question “Who are you, child?” with “No one”. However, while Jeyne has failed to become Arya of House Stark and can’t even become a reasonable fake, Sansa, much to her own surprise as any reader’s, has become Alayne Stone quite successfully. The sisters Stark grew up into other people through discipline. Sansa learned silence, discretion and endurance at court in King’s Landing because she had no other choice. Arya has learned all the same but only in the Black and White Temple. She would never have thrived at court, and Sansa would never have thrived in the Temple, but each girl has taken on a new and arguably stronger identity. At the very least they have adopted identities better suited to the turmoil of the world than that of highborn and orphaned maids. Neither one, however, seems to be sure of where her identity begins and her facade ends making them even more interesting to read.*
Arya’s association with death may seem the most obvious, until you consider that the Red Priests and Priestesses have been running around raising people from the dead so that they can return as cruel zombified versions of themselves. And that Qyburn may have built a dead Frankenstein knight to champion Cersei in Jamie’s absence. Lady Catelyn has become Lady Stoneheart. And the Wall for being a wall is quite a blurred boundary between life and death, in fact it seems that Death can’t seem to get a firm grip on anyone in the North, whether south of the wall or north of it. There the Drowned God’s drowned holy men to be considered as well. And with a maxim like “What is dead may never die” it may be that the Ironborn know , or once knew, more about the other side of the Wall than they realize or we’ve been led to believe. There is some finality to the conclusion of ADwD, but the series has been a bit like “Torchwood” (pre-Miracle Day), whenever someone dies, there’s the chance that he’s coming back, so giving up on the characters presumed dead is premature. But then the series has also been a bit like LOST, it’s an ensemble project without a titular character, so any character might die without ending the series.
By this point in your reading though you know that. You’ve probably even heard the joke that every time you ask when the next book will be out, GRRM kills another Stark. So, were there any surprises in ADwD? Was it worth the wait? It was worth the wait. It was not predictable, and it was full enough of plot twists that everything has changed without anything changing. There is still war in the North. The Wall still hasn’t enough men. Jamie and Cersei still cannot be together. The Stark children are still scattered. The Lannisters still control the throne, albeit tenuously and Daenerys still hasn’t come to claim it. But it was still worth the wait because I got everything I wanted from it (except more Petyr Baelish). More fire, blood, feasting, snow, scheming and fighting. And more questions.
*(There are two more comparisons that stand out to me: the children Lannister and Tyrell; and Daenerys and Cersei. Loras and Margery mirror in Jamie and Cersei in many ways. Each boy is his father’s favourite, gains renown as a young knight, is brother to the queen, named to the King’s Guard, and is widely considered as beautiful as his sister. Each woman is beautiful, and prepared to play her part in her father’s plans to advance the family by marrying her to a king. Then there are Tyrion and Willas, the Imp and cripple. Both bookish, each living in the shadow of their beautiful siblings. Now, the Queens Daenerys and Cersei. Each has a brother she would have married. While I doubt Cersei would embrace the Queen Mum title (preferring Regent) Daenerys has fulling embraced her role as mother of her people. Each has three children whose very existence threaten the peace of the realm. Neither has a gentle heart, and each would claim the throne. Each was also bald and (mostly) naked when returned to her people at the end of ADwD, Cersei to the Keep now under Kevan’s authority and Dany to the khalasaar now under Khal Jhago’s leadership.)
Tags: ASOIAF, books, review
