In no particular order:
You can safely skip the detailed description of the food being served. It rarely has anything to do with the way people consuming the food will die. Besides, there are only two cuisines in Westeros: Northern, where everything is glazed with, braised with, or dipped in honey, and Southern, which is a hot snake stew. The rest of the world eats horse and puppies on a stick.
You don't have to try to memorize ancestral lineage of every character in the books. Most of them will die soon enough, and the rest will talk about their fathers, grandfathers, and grand grandfathers endlessly, so you will learn anyway.
Regardless of how carefully and meticulously somebody plans something, that something will never come through. Once you embrace this simple concept, you will save yourself a lot of disappointment, because everything always goes terribly wrong. Strangely enough, all that does happen is commonly a result of an elaborate plan of some shadowy character, of whom we know very little and whose intentions are unclear. They evidently know how to plan for success.
If you feel that a character is growing on you, it is best to be ready to part with him or her and prepare yourself for his or her demise. Then consider each new chapter with that character to be a nice surprise. I have to admit, though, that character's lifespan seems to be directly proportional to the complexity of the one's persona, and disposition to intense inner conflict. Simpler people seem to expire much faster, deeply tormented souls tend to linger awhile.
If a character of any significance is said or believed to be dead, it's a sure sign that he or she is not. Even if you read the whole chapter about it, it might still not be true. And even if it is, some might come back from the dead.
And finally, like with all of those epics, there is always another book coming.
Or two...
You can safely skip the detailed description of the food being served. It rarely has anything to do with the way people consuming the food will die. Besides, there are only two cuisines in Westeros: Northern, where everything is glazed with, braised with, or dipped in honey, and Southern, which is a hot snake stew. The rest of the world eats horse and puppies on a stick.
You don't have to try to memorize ancestral lineage of every character in the books. Most of them will die soon enough, and the rest will talk about their fathers, grandfathers, and grand grandfathers endlessly, so you will learn anyway.
Regardless of how carefully and meticulously somebody plans something, that something will never come through. Once you embrace this simple concept, you will save yourself a lot of disappointment, because everything always goes terribly wrong. Strangely enough, all that does happen is commonly a result of an elaborate plan of some shadowy character, of whom we know very little and whose intentions are unclear. They evidently know how to plan for success.
If you feel that a character is growing on you, it is best to be ready to part with him or her and prepare yourself for his or her demise. Then consider each new chapter with that character to be a nice surprise. I have to admit, though, that character's lifespan seems to be directly proportional to the complexity of the one's persona, and disposition to intense inner conflict. Simpler people seem to expire much faster, deeply tormented souls tend to linger awhile.
If a character of any significance is said or believed to be dead, it's a sure sign that he or she is not. Even if you read the whole chapter about it, it might still not be true. And even if it is, some might come back from the dead.
And finally, like with all of those epics, there is always another book coming.
Or two...