ASOIAF LIVE (DEAD) READING - END OF ASOS II (SPOILERS, YOU KNOW!)

(find an updated version here: My ASOIAF Live Reviews)

Lo traduco lunedì dopo che ho fatto mezz'ora di lavoro.)

OK, where was I? Oh, right. Spend a week at your folks' without ASOS, and you forget everything. - Arya-Hound. Remember that I predicted-feared that she would kill him? She did something worse... or something better. That's the stuff I like, pages that make me ponder about ethics and morality even though it's just a fantasy novel. Wounded (though not mortally - just losing a lot of blood), the Hound ask Arya, by now a sort of daughter-apprentice, for a mercy killing. Instead she rides away. Is she cruel? Is she giving him a chance? Chilling and moving at once. (Needless to say, I hope that Sandor recovers, rejects his evil ways and marries me... I mean, Sansa.) - Tyrion-Tywin. Hey, Lord Tywin died like Elvis, if the rumours are true! Well, Elvis wasn't shot with a crossbow in his privy. (How cool would that be? His legend would be even greater. In Graceland they'd sell miniature replicas of the crossbow that killed Elvis!)* To think that Tyrion is one of GRRM's favourites! I was so sure he had come to a closure with Shae, but no, he has to come across her naked in his father's bedroom. I'm not sure I buy the Shae-Tywin affair. He's not the kind. (Granted, he's not Stannis. Maybe GRRM wanted to drag the Great Tywin in the mud.) But it smells like a ruse to get Tyrion... who FINALLY is accused of a murder he DID commit. Yet the twitch of his finger, disconnected from his conscious brain, felt so realistic. "If you say that word again I'll kill you." "Which one, 'whore'?" THUNKKK. I think I'd have reacted the same way. - Lord Commander Jon. That plotline was hysterical. Once again, I love the Black Brothers as a whole, with Jon as the straight man to his fellow jesters on the literal brink of death. Sam double-crossing the candidates, Dolorous Edd complaining he keeps getting votes, Sam revealing he had nothing to do with the raven who flew out of the kettle... at one point I was laughing aloud. Jon by himself and his dilemma with King Stannis left me colder. I'm marginally more interested about whether Mance Rayder was / will be burned alive. I'd be sorry if he was, but I'd be even sorrier if he's not mentioned again in the saga, and GRRM, years from now, casually says in an interview: "Mance? Who? Oh yeah, they burned him. Back to more important things: Jaime Lannister is gay." (Yes, I'm looking at you, JK Rowling.) - Petyr-Sansa-Lysa. That scene by the Moon Door will remain in my memory (and in Sansa's - who, incidentally, keeps thinking about the Hound). Sansa hangs suspended for an eternity in the swirling snow over nothingness, I swear that chapter felt like 200 pages long, then Petyr comes in like a saviour... and throws Lysa out into the void. Good riddance. Though I sort of liked Petyr and Lysa together. The fox and the nut. The jury is still out about Petyr: he's creepily attracted to Sansa, but so far he has kept her safe. Is he to be pitied because he sees young Catelyn in her? Or did he kiss her so that Lysa would have a fit of jealousy, and he'd be justified in killing her? Will we ever have a Petyr POV? I love his mystery, but as I said above I don't want the saga to end (sometime in 2562) with unanswered questions, and unwanted answers. - Undead Cat. Oh my. That epilogue was sooo long (who cares about Whatshisname Frey, who is clearly a red shirt?) but almost justified by the discovery at the end. What happened? If Thoros revived her after she's been decomposing for days, he's an idiot. Obviously she had brain damage, not like Beric who's been always revived at once after he's been killed - and feels sooooo much better. (I still think that Thoros will come to his senses and kill Beric with fire. For Beric, it would be merciful.) GRRM must love Cat even more than he loves Tyrion: she loses everyone she has loved, dies mad and IS REVIVED to keep grieving, possibly forever. Don't anybody criticize ME ever again for what I do to MY characters. I still hope that all this will be linked to the Others somehow. OK, GRRM has killed more main characters that I can count right now: who's left for "A Feast for Crows?"... (* When I re-read the post I realized I had written "crossword". It's true that it's a typical privy pastime, but it's not usually lethal.)