[Boaz]

If an author or director gets me to suspend my disbelief, then I almost always stop guessing while I'm reading or watching and just enjoy the story... I end up not looking at the future or even trying to connect the dots in the past. For example, while watching The Sixth Sense I became caught up in the characters and their circumstances during each moment and I did not relate previous events or look into the characters futures... consequently I missed all the signs. I was floored when the wife dropped the ring... at that moment it all came flooding back to me. Then I watched the movie again with Shyamalan's commentary. He thought that every scene was a dead giveaway (pardon the pun) and he worried all along that people would catch on quickly. The scene where the boy says, "I see dead people" bothered him so much that he wanted to cut it. But his advisors all told him to leave it in.

I wonder how much Martin thinks this way. Is he thinking, "In Eddard's last dream I gave away the ending to book seven! They are all going to see it and I'll be ruined!" I imagine he believes that he's given so many obvious clues that the ending can't remain a secret any longer. He must wonder about this. A movie is one and a half to three hours... and we don't have years in between scenes to log onto the web and discuss the movie. He must have good advisors and sounding boards for his writings.

A further comment on loose threads and layers upon layers of plots. I love it how Martin introduces themes early on in AGOT and ACOK, but only starts to develop that theme later in ASOS and AFFC. Specifically, the Greyjoys. In AGOT we learn, though it seems unimportant, that Theon's brothers died in a previous rebellion, that Theon has a sister, and that Theon has uncles. In ACOK we learn one uncle is pious, one is a renegade, one is loyal, that Asha is headstrong, that Balon will rebel again, and that none of the Greyjoys respect Theon. But not until AFFC do these facts become fleshed out as major plot lines. Even so, it is evident that Martin put those facts in the earlier books to set the stage.

I detest it when an author introduces the hingepin of the whole story at the last moment. Agatha Christie is notorious in my book for doing this. Who did it? The butler or the maid? Please tell me Miss Marple! A

nd Miss Marple answers... Neither one... it was that man, yes, you. You are the former chauffeur who knew the secret combination to the safe... You are left handed, but you stabbed him with your right hand to fool the police... You were the only one aware of his affair with the red headed gay dwarf, because the dwarf is your brother... You secretly substituted double malt whiskey for bourbon... You studied to be a priest and a lounge singer so you know how to charm people... But the fact that the victim had a chauffeur, was stabbed from the left side, had a short gay lover, was allergic to bourbon and was charmed by pious singing was never mentioned in the story until Miss Marple solved the crime.

The only time I've felt that Martin has introduced a new plot out of the blue is concerning the valonqar. Valonqar was not mentioned in the first three books and Cersei is a main player in all three books. But AFFC is the first time we get her POV. I now think Martin had this in mind way back, but when I first read it I thought it was creatio ex nihilo.