Guess I'll just follow along by character as you guys did...

Tyrion - Tyrion was one of my favorite characters to read about in the previous books. Not so much in this book - I think his personality got a little darker, and his witty comments seemed a little grimmer somehow. I was really annoyed by his absolute focus on his father's "wherever whores go" comment. When he was asking people "Where do whores go?" I kept thinking to myself, "C'mon, Tyrion is smarter than this..." I never took Tywin's "wherever whores go" comment to mean that there was a literal gathering place for whore's somewhere. To me, that was Tywin's way of saying "I have no idea where she is, and I couldn't care less". He just had to say it in a cruel way because...well, because he was Tywin Lannister. To have Tyrion act like he thinks there's an actual place where whores go is...odd. However, Russ made a comment that maybe is a key to understanding this. Russ commented something to the effect that Tyrion may be losing his grasp on sanity a little bit. That makes sense to me...and after all Tyrion has been through, I can understand it to some degree.

Danaerys - Well, I like you was not terribly enthralled with the plot in Mereen. I was not invested in the local inhabitants, and honestly I found a lot of the Mereenese natives hard to tell apart. With names like Reznak Mo Reznak, and Skahaz Mo Kandaq and Grazdam Zo Galare...I can't keep those crazy names straight. I think the Mereen plotline was central to the delay of this book. Following GRRMs blog the last few years, he often referred to the "Mereenese Knot" in trying to advance the story. I think with Dany's liberation of the slave cities, he kinda painted himself in a corner. He couldn't just have a fairly tale "she freed the slaves and they live happily ever after" ending for those cities, and likewise, to be true to her character, she just couldn't leave them to be herded back into slavery. So, I'm thinking he ended up writing more about slave cities politics and culture than he ever originally intended to.

Now, of course Dany's story gets pretty interesting in the last chapter or two. One thing about her last chapter, is that it seems to fulfill the "prophecy" laid on her by Mirri Maz Duur in the first book. If you recall, that was the "wise woman" who promised to heal Drogo, only to send him to a comatose state. Dany burned her alive in Drogo's funeral pyre. Before that, though, Dany asks her when Drogo will "be as he was". "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before." The sun rising i the west and setting the east - Quentyn Martell (the Martell sign being the Sun) coming from the west and dying in the east. The sea going dry - Dany is noticing that the grass of the Dothraki sea is dry, brown and brittle. Mountains blowing in the wind - some of the pyramids in Mereen and the other slaver cities have been destroyed. Womb quickening, etc...when Dany starts walking she starts bleeding - possibly having her first period since Drogo died, or maybe a miscarriage? So...what does this mean? Is Drogo returning? j Probably not literally...I think it might herald the majority of his khalasar returning to Dany, though.

Jon - I agree that Jon is too important to be dead. And, yes I know we've thought that with other characters. I agree that it's likely he's warged into Ghost, and will likely return to his own body with the help of Melisandre. He was elected as the 998th Lord Commander. Presumably now that he's "dead", they will elect a 999th commander. If he comes back and retakes the top spot - he'd be the 1000th Lord Commander...that's a little bit of an auspicious number. You guys talked about seeing people warg into other humans - we did see that a little bit back in A Storm of Swords, when Bran started doing it to Hodor for the first time. I'm not so sure that's what Jon will do - I think he's probably in Ghost.

A little bit of trivia - Jon did in fact get stabbed while trying to calm the giant Wun Wun, who was ripping apart "Ser Patrek". GRRM, who is a big NFL fan - specifically of the New York teams - made a bet with an online book reviewer named Pat who's a Dallas Cowboys fan. Pat won the bet, which meant he got a cameo in ADWD. "Ser Patrek" in the book is described as having a silver cloak covered in blue 5 pointed starts - the colors/symbol of the Dallas Cowboys. It's no mistake that he's killed by a "Giant" - and the giant's name is "Wun Win", i.e. "One One", i.e. "11" - Phil Simms old number with the NY Giants.

I also think that we likely know who Jon's parents are...but that's a theory right now, and I won't spoil that here. If you can "spoil" a theory....

Bran - I think he's a got an interesting story going, and I'll be interested to see where it goes. Somehow, I don't see him staying in that cave forever. The ability to see through the heart trees is interesting, and despite the Three Eyed Crow saying he couldn't communicate that way, he nearly did with Theon in the Winterfell. This story is maybe a little more interesting if you know who the "Three Eyed Crow" is. So...a little background...

If you have not read the "Dunk and Egg" short stories set in Westeros, I recommend that you do. They cover the adventures of "Dunk", i.e. Ser Duncan the Tall, and "Egg", i.e. the boy who becomes Aegon V Targaryen, i.e. "Aegon the Unlikely" - the 4th son of a 4th son, and Maester Aemon's younger brother. The stories take place about 80 or so years prior to the events in the main book. The characters are alluded too in the main books - Jaime reads about Ser Duncan the Tall who was a previous commander of the King's Guard, Brienne remembers finding a shield in home, which matches the description of a shield Dunk has made (indicating that Brienne maybe his descendent), and there are a few references to the "tragedy at Summerhall", which killed Aegon and Ser Duncan. There are 3 stories out now - the first one depicts how Dunk and Egg meet, and the 2nd and 3rd show more of their adventures, and reveal some info about the politics/situation of that time. The general consensus is that GRRM will write enough of these short stores to tell us what happened at Summerhall.

In any case, as part of these stories, you get some of the events of the time. In particular, you learn a little about the "Blackfyre Rebellion". On his deathbed, Aegon IV legitimized his bastards, and gave the Targaryen valaryian blade, "Blackfyre" to one particular bastard, Daemon. There's a bunch of detail that I'll spare you, but in effect this led to a civil war between some of the Targaryen bastards and the "legitimate" Targaryens. One Targaryen bastard, Brynden Rivers aka "Bloodraven" stayed loyal to the crown. Eventually, Daemon Blackfyre was slain, and another rebellious Targaryen bastard, "Bittlersteel" fled across the ocean. Bittersteel ended up founding the Golden Company, the mercenary company that Connington hires in ADWD (and more on this later). However, the "loyal" bastard, Bloodraven, eventually becomes the hand to the current king...and is said to use sorcery to watch the kingdom with "A Thousand and One Eyes". Later - and we don't know the details - when Aegon V ("Egg") takes the throne, Bloodraven is sent to the wall, and rises up to become it's Lord Commander.

Why is this important? Because when Bran meets the "Three Eyed Crow", by his description (a red eye, and blotch on his face), and a comment that he makes about "A Thousand and One Eyes" - it becomes clear that this is the Targaryen bastard, Bloodraven, all these years later. So, it's all tying together...

Quentyn - I agree that this kind of felt like a wasted character...but if it's part of fulfilling the prophecy for Danaerys, then that's his role I suppose. I found it interesting that he appeared to be having some success taming a dragon before someone fired a crossbow bolt and screwed it all up.

Davos/Manderly - Not much to say about Davos, other than I think GRRM might be playing the whole "he's dead...no he's alive" card a little too much. As for Manderly, I wanted to talk about the feast that he threw at Winterfell, where Craig was hoping he might poison everyone. Well...the reality of that feast is maybe even darker. You recall that Manderly had some Frey "guests" with him in White Harbor. When they got to Winterfell, the Frey's were not there and some story was given about how they had set off on their own and must have gotten lost in the snow. During the serving of the big pies, Manderly requests the ballad of the Rat Cook to be played. We heard about the legend of the Rat Cook in ASOS shortly before Bran and company met Coldhands. The Rat Cook was a member of the Night's Watch who served an king a pie made from the king's own son. So, with Manderly having that song played during the feast...the pies were likely Frey Pie...

Theon - Just wanted to clear up that Theon himself did not see Bran & Rickon escape Winterfell - he was down in the courtyard during Ramsay's takeover of Winterfell, and got knocked out after seeing his horse gallop by on fire. It was one of Theon's ironborn servants that hid up in the tree, and was later found by Manderly. And yeah...Theon is missing his most important "member", I think.

Connington We'd heard snippets of him before this. In ASOS when Arya is wandering around the Riverlands, she meets up with the "Brotherhood without Banners" for a while and they take her to see some noblewoman who's name I forget. She tells Arya about the "Battle of the Bells" where Jon Connington had Robert Baratheon cornered. He could have killed Robert and ended the rebellion by burning the entire town, but chose not to kill innocents, and therefore starting searching house by house for Robert. This delay enabled Ned Stark to arrive and drive off Connington's forces. Now, by Connington's recollection of Rhaegar Targaryen, many people seem to think he felt a little more than friendship for Rhaegar. The interesting thing here...is "Young Griff" really Aegon Targaryen that was smuggled out of King's Landing? Referring back to the Blackfyre rebellion above, when Bittersteel fled and formed the Golden Company, the Blackfyres continued to be a thorn in the Targaryen's side for years. In fact, it is mentioned that Barristan the Bold slew the last of the Blackfyre pretenders during the war of the "Ninepenny Kings" or somesuch. There's some that think Young Griff might just be another Blackfyre descendent.

Melisandre - I found her one POV chapter interesting, because we got a look at the "human" side of Mel. Before she seemed like this mysterious woman who held unearthly powers of divination and other sorceries. Turns out that she's just as human and fallible as the rest of the folks.

Well, that's about as much as I wanted to comment on the characters - I don't have much to add to the others you mentioned. I'm interested to see how much Franken-Gregor is like his old self.

Overall, I agree with your general assessment of disappointment in the lack of plot progression. When all is said and done, I think's book 4 and 5 will be looked at as the weak point of the series. I think it was mistake to split the characters (I found myself having to reset my internal timeline when starting book 5 after re-reading book 4). In particular, I think a lot of folks are read for Danaerys to get a move on, and get to Westeros. Unfortunately, I'm guessing that it's going to take most of the rest of the next book for him to get here completely untangled and on her way (on Victarion's fleet, maybe?). My guess is that Danaery's last chapter in book 6 will be her setting foot in Westeros - which would only give her one book to actually do things in Westeros. I wouldn't die of shock if the series ends up taking more than 7 books.

One other annoyance...the chapter titles. I liked the original books, where they were simple names. I thought it was clever when he started changing Sansa's chapters to "Alayne" as she took on that role. And similarly, having Theon's chapters titled as "Reek" as he sunk into that role...but the rest of them...too cutesy.

Well, that was kind of lengthy...hopefully you got some new things to think about.