Fire & Blood Vol. I does not stint for material on Jaehaerys I – no less than eight chapters, almost three hundred pages, focus on his reign – which means that it is not going to be possible to cover this monarch in one chapter. And since almost all of this is new material, I’m going to go chapter-by-chapter.
Which is not much of a sacrifice, because this is the strongest material in the book,…
Here’s my plan with Fire and Blood, Volume I. This book is a bit of a tricky combination of stuff that’s taken word-for-word from previous texts (WOIAF, Sons of the Dragon, etc.), completely new stuff, and stuff that was in previous texts but has since been expanded.
In each post then, I will just link to where I wrote about the word-for-word stuff when the previous book came out, then continue…
So my initial plan is to do a chapter-by-chapter of Fire and Blood, although it’ll probably be in bullet point form similar to what I did with WOIAF.
Then, I was planning to do an update on some of my essay series, similar to how I wrote a followup essay about “Hollow Crowns and Deadly Thrones” after WOIAF.
At the moment, I don’t have any definite plans for which essay series to revisit: obviously, the “Hollow Crowns” series is most likely, but whether I’ll do the “Hands of the King” or “Laboratory of Politics” depends on what kind of material there is in Fire & Blood Volume 1.
“They took my sword hand. Was that all I was, a sword hand?”
Synopsis: Jaime tries to die, but decides to live instead.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
“They can’t hurt me, they’re dying. She took her cup from her bedroll and went to the fountain.”
Synopsis: Arya and the Brotherhood Without Banners visits Stoney Sept, where they debate the ethics of the death penalty and whether Gendry should bone his half-sister, before Arya meets someone from her past.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all…
“Sansa tried to run, but Cersei’s handmaid caught her before she’d gone a yard.”
Synopsis: a pre-teen girl is forced into marriage with an enemy of her family and for some reason people think she is the bad guy.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
“She felt desperately afraid. Was this what my brother would have done?”
Synopsis: Dany (Ocean) robs Astapor.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
For his second foray into electioneering in AFFC, George R.R Martin clearly decided to go with a simpler model that would (among other things) require less math than the repeated ballots of the Night’s Watch, one that harkens back to the elections and democratic processes of the (early) Middle Ages.
As I talked about in Part I, the Althing of Iceland dates back to the 10th century…
“His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this was so wrong, why did the gods make it feel so good?”
Synopsis: “Oh sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you…”
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
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