My favorite novel is ACOK. I really love the climax of the war of the five kings and think it should have lasted longer, just like Ned's ordeals in King's Landing. As GOT stood I almost got the feeling of a tragic shakesperean feudal lord lost in a renaissance court and making mistake after mistake just for the sake of having him dying by the end.
Anyways ASOIAF is a very funny series because it stands at the top of the counter-wave of LOTR-styled fantasy who want the rid the genre of it's usual tropes, courtesy of decades of authors ripping off Tolkien, and a perceived idealism who honestly doesn't exist (like Aragorn not being accepted as king firsthand and Frodo succumbing to the ring before the end).
As consequence a lot of people have learned to expect the absolute, most gritty things ever from ASOIAF now when it's clear to be the author didn't intend the series to look like that, when seen as a whole (maybe only the first part who extends to the red wedding only, the original GOT when the series was a trilogy).
I mean... Jon's parentage, the whole Azor Azhai stuff, Dany's dreams about Jon... the series was hinting at a standard epic ending where they are united as lovers and defeat the evil beyond the wall. I can see Jon forging his epic lightbringer (man look at the name of that) on Dany's heart and such, like the legend. I really do. And maybe a true Aegon at the throne after being introduced in the by-then second book, ADWD. Now who knows what GRRM might pull because of these expectancies...
P.S. For those who do not know the last book originally was called "A Time for Wolves". Do you have any doubt a Stark reunion was going to happen, alongside most of what I mentioned above?
