The Bridge of Dream chapter (Tyrion Five from A Dance with Dragons) delves deeply into a number of the key themes in the series. These include the subjective nature of reality, the non-thought of received ideas, and the unreliability of language/communication. These issues are central to the human experience, and their treatment in this chapter makes the case for a moral reading of the text.

This is a response to the Bridge of Dream episode from Boiled Leather Audio Hour. Those guys are legendary ASOIAF podders, so please do give a listen to their work.

The "non-thought of received ideas" I first encountered in Milan Kundera's Art of the Novel. He was responding to Flaubert's earlier, posthumously published Dictionary of Received Ideas. Both get at the cost and consequence to the individual and society as a whole when critical engagement with ideas fails. Please do check them out.

Thank you for listening!