ASOIAF LIVE READING: A DANCE WITH DRAGONS (SPOILERS!)

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

I've finally got "A Dance with Dragons" and, as you can understand, I've finished it quickly! Despite the long long time that GRRM took in writing it, I'm pleased to report that it contains in spades all the elements we've come to know and love in "A Song of Ice and Fire": death, destruction, mental and material torture, disfigurement, kinslaying, suicide, sex, rape, incest, necrophilia, and kittens. - All chapters have a different POV. I especially like "JON'S CROW" and "TYRION'S LEFT EYE". - If you read every third letter from every first sentence of every chapter, backwards, they all spell "PAUL IS DEAD". My favourite parts: - There are no Greyjoys. - Tyrion keeps running, farther and farther away, looking for a mythical place everybody keeps telling him to go to, until he finally finds himself in a remote, outlandish country, in front of a road sign saying LOURDES. (Sorry, joke's only for Catholics.) - Thoros of Myr starts reviving ALL the dead characters of the series. After the likes of Ned's skeleton, Robb and Greywind's hybrid corpses, Faceless Oberyn, Formless Lysa, Khal Drogo's ashes, Theon's flayed skin, the left side of the Hound's face and all the pieces of Vargo Hoat start roaming Westeros, everybody is a bit uneasy. Daenerys' dragons pulverize them all, including Thoros, then start dancing on their dust, hence the title. Brilliant. - I especially loved the long-awaited meeting between Jon and mute Ser Ilyn Payne on the Wall, and their conversation written through images (Ser Ilyn can't write either) on scraps of parchment. "ned stark ever tell u who was ur father?" "he told me enough! he told me u killed him!" "no! I M UR FATHER!" Jon scribbles "NOOOOOOO!" in a neat slanted hand and throws himself from the Wall. - GRRM throws us all for a spin, finally revealing that Rhaegar and Lyanna's son is Dolorous Edd. On her death bed, Lyanna made Ned promise that he would never kill him for one of his depressing jokes. Ned kept his promise. However, Edd dies heroically by cushioning Jon's fall. Jon climbs back upon the Wall to ask who his mother was, but meanwhile Ser Ilyn has been eaten by the crows. Jon sighs and starts calling himself Jon Payne, thus becoming even more emo. - Cersei is found murdered with 239.485 knife stabs in her heart. Everybody's little brother struck her by turns, more than once. Qyburn's authopsy determines that whoever struck the fatal blow is left-handed. - The inquiry into Cersei's death makes up the bulk of GRRM's next books, "A Wind of Wolves" and "A Glance at Gekkos". - Brynden Blackfish dies heroically so that all the Stark kids can retake possession of Winterfell. They are still so many that they can cover all the bases: Bran as Lord of Winterfell, Sansa as bargaining maidenhead, Arya as (blind) Master of Arms, Rickon as future knight and Shaggydog as Maester. - The Blackfish is among those revived by Thoros, and, being cool, escapes the dragons. But he's mindless like his niece Undead Cat, so they fall in love. This reverts them to their humanity. All the Black Brothers start convincing the wights to mate with each other. Cat, pregnant with a Blackfish zombie baby, kills herself, leaving a mysterious note: "Damn you, GRRM! You've managed to break most possible taboos with this!" Bryn, a pragmatic man, lives happily ever after with a pretty un-undead wight of uncertain sexual identity. Edmure goes on as Lord of Riverrun amongst the general resounding indifference. - Jaime Lannister becomes King, after all the other pretenders decide there are much safer and more rewarding activities - breeding dragons, breeding kittens, developing a new energy source by locking his sorceress inside a reactor, keeping a monthly sex advice column on a ladies' magazine ("Dear Dead Cersei") etc. Despite being known as The Kingslayer King, Jaime is a wise and just ruler, also thanks to his close relationship with the new Hand of the King: his own severed right hand, which he saved in a jar. - The Hound throws away his disguise and kills everybody (again), then moves on to the Marvel Universe - they really take anybody over there. The end.