What are you expecting from this long awaited book which is allegedly finally coming out next week? (I wont totally believe it until its in my hands irrespective of of Germans supposedly already being able to buy copies of the books).

Who is expected to die? (I'd love to see Bronn die among others)

Who is expected to be revealed to be alive? (the Hound being alive would kind of annoy me but I suppose its probably going to happen).

Who are the new mystery characters?

LaughingTree said:

Only some Germans are the lucky- choosen ones - which are able to already read the book. I know one person which already has the book, but i´m not among the choosen ones, so i guess i´ll have to wait too.

LaughingTree said:

I think we´ll see a lot of new Martell and Targaryen allies in the book and some more charachters north of the wall.I´m expecting that we´ll finally get the revelation of Coldhands identity.

Also i´m expecting to see a "somehow" living Ser Gregor Clegane. Which will hopefully enforce FFG to finally release a LCG Ser Gregor Clegane version. ;-)

I think the death of either Daeny, Jon or Tyrion would be the most unexpected deaths in the new book. Besides these three charachters no other charachter seem to be safe. In other words, i really don´t have an idea who could be the next charachter on the "hit list".

I'm really curious if the new book will provide fodder for a new chapter cycle. Maybe a "Dance with Dragons" cycle or something.

Old Ben said:

I've seen people posting on the asoiaf.Westeros.org forums which booksellers have been selling the book in Germany. You might want to check that out if you are looking to a Chosen One

Don't you think Arya is safe too? Otherwise I totally agree with you that those 4 characters are "safe" but anyone else is fair game. We might see someone like Doran or Barristan die which would be unexpected to some extent but not entirely unsurprising given GRRM. Also I think the best term for Gregor now might be 'zombified'.

@perpetualnoob

I think FFG will definitely have a few Chapter Pack cycles focused on the new plot developments in Dance to some extent at least. There will definitely be new characters in Dance that will deserve cards (Quentyn Martell being an obvious one) as well as a few new characters that I, for one, will be lobbying for inclusion in the earliest Chapter Pack cycle possible.

I actually think this is dream come true for GoT designers that for almost 10 years have had only 1 new book with material to work with. To me at least, it seems like it will be far easier for FFG to come up with new cards with a whole new book to work with.

@FFG No offense to all the great game designers but FFG really has one of the worst forums for functionality on Web2.0. I honestly don't understand why you went from a forum with normal functionality to this 'PITA' one. vBulletin style and functionality is really pretty standard c.2011 and I am unsure why you made this counter-productive for users choice.

LaughingTree said:

~ You forgot that Arya Stark is believed to be dead ?! :-) I think Cat of the Canals, or Weasel or..... is safe. :-) That makes me wonder if the Starks as a house will make a comeback. I mean which Stark lord or lady will finally lead the warhost of the northerners in the last book?

Hopefully we'll finally find out what's happened to Davos, and get an update on Brienne (I know it's not been long in pages terms, but it's been 5 years!)

I expect the Hound is alive- there's a really good article on it somewhere, but I can't remember where exactly, and with Dance spoilers possibly floating around the net, I'm not going to go trawling in case I find something unpleasant.

After the shock of the earlier books, I feel like GRRM has backed out a bit from killing off major characters. Obviously there's still a lot of death, but the unexpected brutality of teh early days seems gone. I think he needs to do something about it this time- wouldn't be surprised to see the end of Stannis.

I seem to remember the Reek preview chapter being pretty creepy. Hope there's going to be some interesting plot developments behind it.

So excited! I really felt like the last book was a set-up for this one, so looking forward to some serious movement and deaths in this one

Who dies? Jeez, I really don't know. Littlefinger would be my first guess. Cercei a 2nd time (or 3rd) would be my second. Stannis would be my third.

Who lives? Cercei, Jaime, Arya, Sansa, Brienne, Tyrion...

Dance is pretty much parallel to Feast, they are two halves of one big book. They're both setting up the final two books. Will still probably be a more enjoyable read considering which characters are featured in Dance compared to Feast, but I don't think anything massive happens or we would have heard about it from second-hand sources in Feast.

I look at the series as two trilogies. Game, Clash, and Storm work together, then Feast/Dance is like another first volume like Game was and the next two will get bigger and bigger in terms of events.

Marlow said:

Actually, Dance starts where Feast starts, but about 1/2 to 2/3 into Dance, you come to the place where Feast ends. Dance then continues on and essentially draws an end to both books.

Dobbler said:

But Feast and Dance are still essentially Volume 4 according to Martin. That's what I meant. Volume 5 will be TWoW where things actually start to collide (knock on wood). I can't look at Feast as a complete volume.

Marlow said:

Ok true, but Dobbler was responding to your original point of nothing big happening in Dance otherwise we would have heard about in in Feast. Since Dance extends past the end of Feast timeline-wise there is plenty of room for huge happenings in Dance.

The Hound is alive, and he lives on the island with all the religious guys that Briene stops at in Feast. Long story short, he's the brother with the limp. The old priest tells Briene that "Sandor Clegane is at peace" and "The Hound is dead," but never that Sandor had died.

Now, if somehow Frankengregor is promoted to the Kingsguard to defend Cersei in her trial by the faith Sandor may make his way to Kings Landing to fight for the faith against his brother. Except that feels too cliche'd, especially for Martin.

rings said:

Interesting choices. Littlefinger would be first guess to die? That would catch me by surprise. I don't know about Stannis yet either. He seems more like a 6th-7th book kill. He is still getting built up to an extent and Mel is kind of a wild card. For some reason I think Barristan (the Old Mentor) is meant to die soon. Doran could go as well which would send Martell into disarray.

and Bloodraven is the The Three Eyed

THREE DAYS!

I think Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Bran/Rickon, Jaime, and Daenerys are all safe. I figure the rest could and may die at any moment.

I'm a little bummed out to find out Dance only has a couple of Arya chapters. I was really looking forward to see what's going on with her story line. At least I'll have a huge heaping amount of Tyrion to make up for it.

LaughingTree said:

Bloodraven is the The Three Eyed

He's still my pick for Coldhands.

Maester_LUke said:

LaughingTree said:

Bloodraven is the The Three Eyed

He's still my pick for Coldhands.

Could be. That's certainly an option but I prefer the Bloodraven =3EC and Benjen = Coldhands scenario.

hmm, i really need to re-read the earlier books, can't remember Blood Raven at all, and have no idea who 3EC is.

I don't think Bloodraven is even mentioned before the fourth Book. Bur references to this person play a major role in the Dunk & Egg Short stories.

An the C in 3EC stands for "crow".

On a more general note: I'd feel better if we could transfer this discussion to the "spoiler" forum.

Mine shipped today! Just got the confirmation email from Amazon!!

Stag Lord said:

1 hour and 4 minutes till the book will be downloaded on my kindle!

Old Ben said:

You are in Germany and you still can't download it yet?

I am hoping that in 2 hours it downloads to my Nook since Barnes and Noble is HQ is in NYC and some have said they should have available at 12am EST...

LaughingTree said:

I wrote it yesterday exactly at 10:56 p.m. middle european "summer time". I´m now happily reading through the book.

My copy's on the way, and I won't be home until 10 pm or so

I have mine in hand since 9:45 AM AST, 8:45 EST.

Rubinon said:

Good suggestion.

Moving to Spoiler Forum is something I did not think of but probably should be done for any discussion to continue now.