A song of ice and fire - 2nd post

Last time when i wrote about A song of ice and fire, i had read only three books. Now, i have read five. There was a brief pause in between 4 and 5. Both 4 and 5 took longer for me to finish than the previous three. Partly i was more busy at work, but partly also because they were not as good as 1,2 and 3.

4th was quite a difficult one to read because there was no Tyrion. 5th had some great parts but i had more expectations from Tyrion. Jon Snow saved a lot in 5. Overall i am not super happy but i will be content if GRRM can now say that he is mostly done with the setup and all that remains now is execution on all sub plots. Here are a few reasons why 4th and 5th are below par -

1. Lots of travelling. All characters are going from Point A to point B and they never reach B and GRRM spends lots and lots of time in the journey. Imagine the Arya Stark chapters in 2 and 3 and now instead of one Arya, there are 7 people (Brienne, Tyrion, Frog, Sam, Jaime, Griff and The Iron King's brother, yeah that is 6) and all of them get lost.

2. Very few killing. Lets face it - 1,2 and 3 were interesting because (a) there were many deaths and (b) Good people died too. In 4 and 5, there are very few deaths and all good people are still alive (with some bits of approximation). Death keeps everybody on their toes and made the novel so much more.

3. Varys and Littlefinger are almost absent. My fav part of the series has been the time when Tyrion is at the Casterly Rock and the conversations that happen between Tyrion and Varys. Littlefinger was always a suspicious character but in 3 and 4, his nature is revealed better and more of it was wanted. He is left out of all fun at the Vale.

4. Many new characters are introduced and every character gets less POV time because of that. We need quality not quantity.

5. The woman with Dragons - WTF are you doing ? The woman with dragon tattoo did more than you.

Things that did work in 4 and 5 -
1. I think, without a doubt Reek in 5 was one of the better reads. GRRM has generated sympathy for a villian by creating a bigger villian. And Jon Snow's chapters were also very well done. People who stayed at a place had a much better story to tell.
2. Bran, more Bran was needed in 5. Atleast one more chapter was required. Same goes for Arya. Both Bran and Arya have atleast temporarily reached a destination from where they dont want to leave. More details would have been better.
3. New constructs such as the drowned God, what is dead can never die, wargs, god with many faces were all interesting constructs and good to read.