I was fifteen when I first read the Game of Thrones book series. At the time there were only three novels out: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords. I read all three in my sophomore year of high school and eagerly read A Feast for Crows when it came out in the autumn of my junior year. It wasn’t until the summer after my undergrad that the fifth book, A Dance of Dragons, was released. By this point the first season of HBO’s show had aired and the release of A Dance of Dragons was greeted with a lot more press than A Feast for Crows was (although AFFC did hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list) thanks in large part to the success of the show.

“I’ll find another.”

With that one sentence it became clear that there was no way out, no last minute rescue, no reprieve. Sure, there’s been precedent for this with Ned Stark but at least he went out with a clean stroke of the sword. The red wedding, though? No. Here we see a horrible, ugly, mass murder. Totally unfair, disgustingly brutal, and like a knife through the heart.