Well, I was not expecting that.
Somehow, from the exposure I’ve had to images from the TV show and the things I’ve picked up from TVTropes. I had gotten the impression that these books were mostly about warring kingdoms and the politics, backstabbing, and inevitable star-crossed romance that ensued. I thought that this would be a fantasy world where the major players were all just normal humans and that the most fantasy-like element would be the strange elongated seasonal patterns that the back cover mentioned. Maybe a few incidental faeries (not fairies, of course, because in fantasy literature, a faerie isn’t respectable unless it has an “ae” in it), but not much more than that. I was very wrong. Not that I’m backing down from the general “warring kingdoms” hypothesis, but there certainly are some major fantastical elements at work here. I’m okay with that.
Backing up for a bit, I would like to say that this book is definitely up there on the confusing-first-pages scale. When the word “wildings” was first mentioned, I had no idea if they were humans or plant-people or ghosts or rabid dogs, but I couldn’t spend too long worrying about it because I had to figure out where exactly a “lordling” ranked in society and whether or not dead people were normally expected to stay dead in this universe. To the book’s credit, I was able to orient myself pretty well by the end of the chapter, but I still don’t understand exactly what this mysterious Wall is weeping. Is it water, or maybe 1% agarose with EtBr? Look, I’ve been in a lab all day. This was actually one of the first possible fluids I thought of.
Somehow, I didn’t predict that anyone would die in the prologue until they actually started sensing something being wrong, even though prologues are basically meant for killing off minor characters to make a point. I also predicted that Will would be somehow important to the narrative simply on the strength of him having the most “normal”/relatable name of the three. I was wrong on that score too, which was sad, because I was so close to seeing him get out of that prologue alive. Royce, on the other hand, was not so lucky. To be fair, though, an eighteen-year-old with that special teenage sense of superiority and an all-black wardrobe worthy of a 13th century punk band was never going to survive long in this genre.
Speaking of Royce’s death, though, HOW COOL WAS THAT. I mean yeah, poor guy, sad way to go, but seriously, mysterious icy shadowy people with blades that could give the subtle knife a run for its money? YES PLEASE. And then Royce turns into an ice person zombie! As someone who plays Humans Versus Zombies, I love things like this. I also love that in this first chapter, songs, ice, and fire have all been clearly referenced. Maybe this series title will have more meaning than just being an allusion to the length of the seasons? All ice zombies point to yes!
So in general, I am really liking this so far, and I honestly don’t know what to expect from this book at this point other than some politics and backstabbing and badass dwarves and now apparently ICE ZOMBIES. I am so ready for this.
I agree completely that this was pretty high up there on the confusingness of the first chapter, although in my case it didn't last for too long after the initial bit. One thing that may help a lot in the future (I don't think this constitutes as a spoiler in any way) that I used quite extensively is the family trees located in the appendices in the back of the book. I didn't realize they were there till about 1/3 of the way through the book, and they're a really nice reference point if you ever get confused.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, and no, that's doesn't constitute a spoiler. I think I'm going to avoid those for as long as I can, though, just in case. Maybe I'll even try to draw my own family tree.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that :-D In all seriousness though, since I checked this since I was likewise afraid of spoilers, the appendices are always "current' for the very beginning of the book they're included in, so you can never have something serious spoiled unless you reference an appendice from a future book.
ReplyDeleteI think you may find some intriguing things when you reread this post later. I recognize that this is, in part, the point of the exercise, but still.
ReplyDeleteThat's a large part of the reason why I do this. But shh! Don't say things like that in the future, because I may start hyper-analyzing this post and then end up with spoilers! :)
ReplyDeleteI suppose you *COULD* come up with spoilers from overanalyzing this, but would they really be meaningful?
ReplyDeleteI mean, I could come up with "spoilers" for Harry Potter (assuming I had not read it) by saying "Harry will die, or Harry will not die, or Harry will die and get better, or Harry will become immortal, or Harry will really be a Time Lord, or Harry will die an infinite number of times, or Harry will be wished out of existence, (etc out to all possibilities)," and, if I listed all possibilities, then technically, there would be a spoiler embedded in the statement. But that doesn't mean that I'd have actually learned anything from the exercise.
I'll refrain from commenting in the future, but I fail to see how you could derive anything of value from a statement that amounts to "you're either right or you're wrong."
You know what? You're right. Forget I said that. There's no fun in this if everyone feels constrained by strict censorship laws. Just avoid the spoilers I listed before, but that's enough. :)
ReplyDelete