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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Theron" data-source="post: 130408" data-attributes="member: 2326">SPOILERSSpoilers Follow - You've Been WarnedGreat thread!  There's a nice variance of opinion without abusive commentary.Here are a few of my thoughts on the series.Before gaming, before fantasy, before all other forms of geekdom, my first love is history.  Specifically, medieval history.  As such, I am a hard customer for writers of medieval fantasy.  Snap my disbelief suspenders too hard, and I'm outta here.  Martin is one of the few writers I've found who can write believeable people from the medieval perspective.  Also, it's fun to try and figure out which figure from the Wars of the Roses (one of his inspirations) provided which character in the novels (not that there are direct corellations).As for his writing skills, I am constantly in awe.  I too had to put the book down and catch my breath after the red wedding.  What was worse was seeing all the signs pointing to treachery, but not wanting to believe them. At present, I'm re-reading the first book, having read all of them once so far.  As such, I've got a lot of knowledge culled from the second and third volumes, and it's fascinating to see how deftly elements of the story are woven together. Take the whole Lyanna/Rhaegar/Jon situation.  In the first book, Robert rails against Rhaegar raping Lyanna over and over again.  Knowing what we learn from the swamp kids in the third book (which basically says that Lyanna loved Rhaegar and ran off with him), it's clear that the "rape" was Robert's rationalization for losing his love to a hated rival.  I even casts some doubt on Robert's love for Lyanna, given his hatred for the Targaeryans and his competitive nature. Furthermore, it pretty well confirms that Jon is a Targaeryan himself.</blockquote>

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