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I'm still invested in a lot of the characters, both ones who played a major role in this book and ones who don't play a major role or even appear until later, but reading it when you know a lot of the shocking moves,
I have heard a lot of people praise his world building, and as an aspiring writer/actual dungeon master who has dabbled in world building her own fantasy settings, Martin's quality is very inconsistent at best. Daenerys spends a lot of time with the Dothraki over the course of five hefty books, but the culture comes off as very one dimensional and most members of it are forgettable. I don't think I'm alone in remembering all Dothraki characters except Khal Drogo exclusively in terms of their relationship to Dany and maybe a name because they are very unimportant. Heck, there's a short paragraph in one of Dany's later chapters that feels like Martin is just dumping the personality of the youngest of her future bloodriders (Aggo? The three of them really blur together) on us in place of letting it unfold naturally as he interacts with Dany. The culture is mostly a combination of raiding and horses, almost to the point of impracticality (how many horses do they keep if they need them for transportation, fighting, clothing, and meat, plus burn horses in the funeral pyres of their leaders so they have a mount in the afterlife? There's a reason real world horseback nomadic cultures usually herd other animals). This is especially bad if you compare them to the equally raiding focused Ironborn, who in later novels are fleshed out through four point of view characters and with a number of memorable side characters that show that not everyone is raiding every waking hour of the day.
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Infertility, Racism, Rape, Torture, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Self harm, Trafficking
Graphic: Child death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Death, Gore, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury
Having said that, I also think that this book was a bit to long and certainly dragged at parts. There were whole chapters comprised of pages of nothing with one tidbit of important information throw in the middle, all POVs suffered from that problem.
I also found some of the charaters just plain annoying. Calelyn and Ned's poor decision making through out the whole story made me so mad. After a certain point, everything that happens of bad in this book can be traced back their shitty choices. And the more you learn about the other characters and how intelligent they are and how deep their scams go, the poor choices of those two only becomes more obvious and infuriating. Also, I didn't really care for Daenerys, mostly she just made me sad. I'm sure she will be one of the important figures in this series, but it's hard to read her story when all of it is just her being sexualy abused and beaten. News flash, being raped doesn't make anyone stronger or more powerful. And for all the people that said her relationship with Drogo was cute and romantic, please point me to what book you read, because clearly it wasn't this one.
On the other hand, I really liked Tyrion, Arya and Jon, they are my favorites for now. Specially the last two, who have the combination of smarts and stubborness that I like. Bran seems to be in the brink of some kinda of magical awakening and I'm all here for it. And, contrary to most of what I have seen online, I didn't dislike Sansa. Sure she has a lot o character development to make, but she is just a scared child that no one bothered to tell about the dangers of the real world.
When it comes to characters who didn't have a POV, I'm very interested in Varys, he seens to have big plans on the works behind everyone's backs. I also loved to hate the Lannisters, except Joffrey, he is just an asshole.
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Death, Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Death of parent, Murder, War
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Slavery, Torture
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Pregnancy, War
Minor: Child death
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Grief, Alcohol
Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault
Minor: Child death
Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism