Once a Stranger

Here's hoping nothing bad happens to Quentyn!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is easily distracted XD

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I can't get over how insufferable Tyrion is. It's all "Oedipus complex" and "how badly my father hurt me" and whining with intermittent physiology. If I had an ounce of sympathy left it'd be gone after those first chapters.

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gogoratchet.livejournal.com

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I can't say I'm surprised. He was already deep on the road to self pity by ASOS.

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angerfish.livejournal.com

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Yeah, I like him much better in earlier books, when the actual damage was being done. We need a visit to Cersei if we're going to have any Tyrion sympathy at all. I'm not sure the way GRRM set up the previous two books and this one works at all. He may just be juggling too many characters.

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I don't know - I have much more sympathy for Cersei than I do for Tyrion, especially considering his malice towards her.

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Hmmm. I need to reread to explain even to myself why he hates her, but I can recall a lot of damage done to him by the rest of the family and a lot of damage done by her to other people. But maybe I'm forgetting some important things about her? Aside from the fact that she wasn't her husband's one true love?

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He hates her because he's sexually attracted to her and she hates him, I'd say ;) I have sympathy for her because she's written in a very stereotypical manner, given stereotypical flaws and obviously set up as a character to hate, given less authorial sympathy than her husband who is also her rapist.

And she struggles in a world where she was never given the tools to sharpen her mind, and her ambition is overgrown while her abilities aren't, and she only knows how to use sex to bind people to her - because sex is all that's ever been expected from her, and children.

(At the same time of course she is still wildly privileged - but then, we get almost only POV characters who are, pretty much.)

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But aren't her problems and limitations the same as those of most of the women in the books, and don't some of the others become more human than she is?

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The others don't have a twin brother to remind them of how oppressed they are, I guess XD

I don't mean she's justified, just that I get where the rage comes from? ~~While the paranoia, well, that's just Martin being misogynistic.~~

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Like your crossed-out comment. But he does let a few women have full humanity (or something like it).

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Which ones do you mean? :>

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I don't think any of the woman are treated well, but then I don't think many of the men are, either. Daenerys and Arya are the two women (well, Arya's not quite a woman yet, but female) who seem most human, although both do some terrible things--but they do have some moral instincts, and certainly find ways to control their own lives when they can. I'm forgetting the name of the wilding woman that Jon met, but she too seemed very strong, in spite of the things that happened to her as well. And to some extent Brienne and Asha Greyjoy.

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All warrior women then ;) traditional femininity is kinda monstrous.

Men are not sexualized and oggled. And some men who treat women badly (or even rape them) are still positive characters / redeemable, while the same doesn't seem to be true for women.

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podrick.livejournal.com

Just passing page 94, so a long way behind you now. :) I'm avoiding the DwD part of the part.

I can guess where Quentyn is going. Good luck with that. GRRM never makes it easy on POVs.

I loved how Illyrio introduced Tyrion to the Dragon. I agree that Illyrio can definitely play the game.

The prologue wasn't as shocking as some but GRRM keeps nailing the end of chapters. Dany's especially.

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Yeah, I'm definitely enjoying the writing in general.

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hamsterwoman

Young!Illaryo & Varys' bromance! Like Swordspoint, except not XD

Haha! But, yeah, that's been one of the more intriguing flashbacks/revelations/whatever in this book.

And totally agreed on Tyrion coming off the worse in his conversations with Illyrio. I like it!

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scriva.livejournal.com

I read parts of the book yesterday, and I just wanted to add that the part about Varys and Illyrio was sweet. And I also like Quentin, I feel sorry for him. It would be believable and somewhat cute, if the Martell siblings had both inferior complexes towards each other. Arianne because she thinks ther father likes her brother better, and Quentin, because only Arianne got their mother's looks. ;)

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