Interesting theory, Jonnie, I hadn't thought of that.  I remember Ned telling Jon that a Stark has always defended the Wall, but I didn't consider it might be Ned's sister's son instead of Ned's son.

Jonnie, is that the sister that he kept remembering a promise he made to?

Jonnie, is that the sister that he kept remembering a promise he made to?

Yes.  When Robert and Ned go down to the catacombs, they are visiting her grave.  Robert was betrothed to Lyanna (I googled how to spell it).  Ned Stark went away for a period of time and came back with a baby.  He's never admitted to sleeping with another woman and wouldn't tell Jon who his mother was.  I think he did this to protect Robert and to protect Jon.  If he's the King's son, then a big fat target is going to be on his back.

Just my thoughts, though...no spoilers here.

How do you feel about Jon’s choice to join the Night Watch? Do you think he is giving up his life and his gifts/talents? Do you think his choice is an honorable one? How did you feel when the Lord Commander gave Jon his family sword?

I think he believes it's the best he can do given his position in life.

I think it's the only honorable choice he has.

I agree, as a bastard son, he really doesn't have any other options.

Yeah, he doesn't have a lot of options. I think if he hadn't he would have been made good use of though. If he made a good showing, and he surely would have, and something happened to oh, what's his name, the older son, his life may have had gotten a different value.

What do the Starks mean when they say, "Winter is coming?" And how does this concept influence the story?

Their weather is so weird. It seems the further north you go the colder it is until you reach the wall where it's covered in snow and freezing even during the summer. I can't imagine what winter is going to be like up there. And the seasons last for years. I live in Arizona and a 7 year summer would kill me, probably after the first 2 years.

The saying "winter is coming" could have one or more of several ominous meanings.

1. Winter is actually coming. The seasons are about to change and it's about to get darn cold. Since winters are so long and hard it's a sure bet life is going to get a lot harder no matter whose side you're on. They had mentioned at times the days were starting to get shorter. I wonder if it's going to go completely dark.

2. Since winter signifies a much harder life it could be used as a general saying, like we may say hard times are coming.

3. The Stark castle is called Winterfell, it could be symbolic of the Stark's coming to get revenge. Winter = Starks

I think it's a conglomeration of all three, depending on the exact circumstances they're using it under. Or I could be over-thinking this, lol.

Interesting you ask though because I actually wondered about the different meanings while I was reading it.

Agree with Barb's points 1 & 2.  Not sure about 3. 

In my mind, Winter meant a long cold season, lasting years, where growing food would be next to impossible, caring for animals would be difficult, just staying warm would mean the difference between life and death, and they needed to get prepared. 

I think that the "Winter is coming" warning meant the coming back of the white walkers.  It seemed to me they were named that because they only went out in the snow.

The warning lends a desperation to the story, as each family wants to get its territory and situation settled before the Winter comes.  It will be much harder to survive if they are also fighting for leadership and control.  Having that question settled would allow them to concentrate on preparations instead of wasting time fighting each other.

Did you feel that Martin did a good job of world building? Was his world building detrimental to the story or did it enhance it for you?

I always describe Martin's work as atmospheric because he puts a lot of attention into making the world real for the reader. Sometimes that makes his work a little tedious to read but I think in the case of this book it was imperative because he had to set up a huge landscape for tons of characters.

I agree, Chris, the stage has to be set especially in the first book of a series.  I would expect that subsequent books wouldn't need as much description.  But I got a good sense of the bleakness of Winterfell, the frigidness of the north lands beyond the wall, the wall itself, the Dothraki country, all very different areas.   I don't think it was overdone.

I get bored really easily with background descriptions sometimes but I didn't notice much in the way of superfluous descriptions. I thought he described it very well with not a lot of useless blather. Anything that had elaboration it was usually for a reason.

Did the book have a main character?

I think with such an ensemble cast it's hard to pin point a main character.

I don't think any one person stood out as lead, each storyline may have had a lead but not overall.

I agree.  Usually it is confusing when the point of view changes, but the chapters were headed with the character so I knew when the scene was changing.  Also it helped a lot that this was written in third person, which I prefer.  I have a hard time with novels written in first person from different people, like The Help.

I hate it when the writer goes back and forth from one person to the other in first person. It's also annoying if they do it in third without a clear distinction that they POV has changed.

I think that I'm out of questions. Anyone got any closing thoughts?

Anyone else tired of the word "jape" yet? Probably it's only me it is bugging.

Didn't notce the word "jape".  Not sure what it means.

I didn't notice either, but it has been a few weeks since I finished. Details start to fade....  Acording to google it's a synonym of joke.

Is everyone going to finish the series? Or check out the HBO show?

I plan to read the rest of them, I want to see how bad Dani screws everything up, lol. I've always been partial to dragons so that could be fun. I don't have HBO but if I came across the dvds cheap enough I might give it a go. I don't usually watch movies made from books because you just can't do it right in the time constraints but they might be able to pull it off with a series.

I have the second one, and will decide on the third later.  I also mainly want to find out about the dragons.  I am hoping HBO will do another free weekend and show all of season two like they did season one.  I won't read it for a while though, I want to get to some of the others in the TBR pile that have been waiting longer.

I started Clash of Kings, am about halfway through it. Still very good stuff.

I don't know if I'd tackle the rest of the series this year. I tend to get bored with very long books, even good ones, so I don't want to stack too many into a year. I will probably watch the first season of the HBO show though. Just to check it out. I always get HBO in the summer for True Blood so I'll check GoT on HBOgo.