A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 1...

[fajrdrako]

Chapter 1. I'll put it all under a cut, because I realize that even the chapter titles are spoilers - that is, they tell you who the viewpoint characters are, which tells you who's in the book, and who's alive. Though come to think of it, we could have a dead viewpoint character in these books. I don't think the ghost of Aegon the Dreadful comes back to haunt us, but you never know.

Tyrion

Tyrion, Tyrion, Tyrion. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Drinking his way across the narrow seas.

1. Seems to me this chapter has a Dunnettesque feel to it; the drink, the claustrophobia, the ship. Maybe I'm thinking of the chapter in Pawn in Frankincense when they gave Khaireddin alcohol on the ship? It isn't just that, though: it also reminds me of the descriptions of Djerba when Lymond and Jerott were there, and Algiers. The statue, the fishing boats, they all reinforce the impression.
   
   
2. What a thoroughly unpleasant voyage.
   
   
3. Am I missing a plot point here - why would no one talk to Tyrion? Except Illyrio?
   
   
4. Tyrion gives us a nice synopsis (insofar as his viewpoint allows) of what's been going on politically and personally.
   
   
5. "He had learned High Valyrian at his maester's knee." I don't remember characters learning, or speaking, High Valyrian in earlier books. Was it part of Bran's syllabus? Is it like Latin, of religious and historical value?
   
   
6. I love it when Varys wears disguises. Though I wonder how easy that would be for a large eunuch. Now I'm picturing Varys as being a sort of Batman of King's Landing, a master of disguise fighting for the right - something they could certainly use. And his little birds are not unlike Batman's contacts and informants, though Batman does rather like hanging people upside down.
   
   
7. "Has the Father Above made you his Hand?" - good line.
   
   
8. Illyrio: "His bedrobe was large enough to serve as a tourney pavilion." Heh.
   
   
9. "You are insolent. I like that in a dwarf." Just as well!
   
   
10. I liked Tyrion's quibble about slaves - "the women are not slaves, but they will not refuse you." No wonder Tyrion is suspicious.
    
    
11. Sounds as if Tyrion has inherited, or absorbed, some of his father's contempt of merchants. "It was all profit with the merchants of the Free Cities." Or maybe it could be a poltical agenda? I wouldn't be so quick to think it's money that Illyrio is after. I can think of a few other things it might be.
    
    
12. Interesting that when Tyrion remember's Illyrio's comment about the women, "none will refuse you," he remembers it as "none will dare refuse you".
    
    
13. I like the way Tyrion's thoughts are disorderd and random. The effects of shock? Lack of sleep? Fear? Bitterness over Tysha?
    
    
14. I like Tyrion's first glimpse of the Unsullied.
    
    
15. Tyrion says he has two wives already... Tysha and Sansa?
    
    
16. I like his litany of "Where do the whores go?" With repetition, it seems like a mantra, or something with great hidden meaning.
    
    
17. The girl says, "I was bought to please the king." Presumably she means Visaerys?
    
    
18. Tyrion really is feeling miserable, if he wants to frighted girls to feel better.
    
    
19. I like the image of Tyrion as "a mouse in a mammoth's lair".
    
    
20. Good line from Illyrio: "The world is one great web, and a man dare not touch a single strand lest all the others tremble."
    
    
21. I like the idea of a mischeivous boy hiding inside Illyrio.
    
    
22. I like the way Illyrio seems to understand Tyrion, and to know what to say to him. Mind games? Healing ones, it would seem. It makes Tyrion decide to live, and to think again.
    
    
23. "What is Stannis doing at the Wall?" "Shivering."
    
    
24. I like the way Illyrio keeps his punchline for the last. "A dragon." A Dragon for Danaerys.
    
    
25. This reminds me of a theory I once had, that Tyrion was a secret Targaryen. I wonder.