The Official Re-Read Project - Book 3: A Storm Of Swords

benteen · October 21, 2016

Excellent chapter with a lot of great character interaction.

Lady S. · October 21, 2016

2 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

I know Tom Sevenstrings singing "The Rains of Castamere" is probably a setup to make sure we're familiar with it well before the Red Wedding, but it's still amusing in light of how much bitching some of these guys have been doing about Lannister army

Arya not being able to remember half the faces of the names on her list feels like a commentary that her list is getting too long and that she's seen too much and becoming too callous about wishing death on everyone. That doesn't make me cheer for her as a badass as much as it makes me sad for what is still a fairly young girl.

It was also about just singing any song with the word rain in it, so I take using Tywin's theme song as a sign of how desperately bored Tom was.

Arya has certainly seen too much, but I don't see how the length of her list means she's being too callous. She can't remember all the men's faces but her memory is clear about their crimes and most of them absolutely deserve to be punished for them (the one exception on her list I'd say was Ilyn Payne who was beheading a confessed traitor.) These men don't deserve much sympathy, and she's not just throwing death sentences on enemies willy-nilly like the BwB did with Sandor. I think it's also noteworthy that people in this series have a hard time remembering even their loved ones' faces. Like Robert not remembering Lyanna's face on the show and show Yoren forgetting his murdered brother's face but never forgetting who killed him, in the books Jaime and Catelyn both can barely recall their dead mothers. Arya barely knew Mycah but she remembers his death, if nothing else, because someone should care about his death and she feels responsible for it. It's sad that a child is taking on all this but it's also sad that it comes to this because no one else cares about these victims, and I'd say the way Arya cares about these victims is what matters here. I think the list is really more about remembering the terrible things she's witnessed than the men whose names are on it, and reciting it as a bedtime ritual and fantasizing about killing them as she feels powerless and despondent shows that it is a coping mechanism for her. If she actually prioritized dealing out death sentences and satisfying vengeance, it would help to actually look for these men but it's her family she wants to find and instead she just comes across the names on her list by happenstance.

As for the attack on the Mummers here, I'd say it's more just than what happened with Sandor because the Bloody Mummers are actually part of the war crimes in the riverlands. Attacking holy men should be enough reason to hang them, but the men are also known for their individual evils like "Septon" Utt and his child molesting/murdering. None of the BwB may have personally witnessed these guys in action, but with the Bloody Mummers and what we've seen of them, I do get the feeling they can all be painted with the same brush more so than any army could be. If so, that's different imo than maligning Sandor with Gregor's bad reputation. True justice as we would think of it is never going to be found here in an unfair world without even lawyers so I think it's just to judge by the likely guilt of the accused and the motives of the accusers.

In light of S6, it's striking to me that Thoros's explanation of powers is similar to what Mel says about bringing Jon back, that it was all the will of the LoL and the LoL must care about the life of the person being brought back. Which explains why Thoros never tries on anyone else, headless or not, but keeps doing it with Beric even though Beric is about ready for death, just like Mel telling Jon in 6.09 that he basically had no say about whether he'd be brought back a second time. That also raises so many questions for me about why Beric would be chosen by a higher power, especially knowing that he ultimately gives up his last life to bring life to Stoneheart.

What is strikingly different from Mel is Thoros and Beric agreeing with the monks they rescued not to pray to Red Rahloo under their roof. I hadn't remembered that bit.

Avaleigh · October 21, 2016

I think what stood out to me in this chapter is Gendry's response when he's pressed for specifics on why he wants to join them when he could do the same work in Riverrun only he'd end up getting paid for it. He brings up the fact that they're still Robert's men and likes the message of them wanting to help the common people. I know he doesn't know about his father but it's like he's fighting for the two things that are most relevant to shaping him as a person--his father and other lowborns like him.

Arya really does seem hurt that Gendry doesn't want to stay with her at Riverrun. I wonder why he's making this decision before he's even seen Riverrun or has some idea of what his life could be like there.

Another takeaway I had from this chapter is how Beric doesn't really eat or sleep much anymore--just like Melisandre describes herself in ADWD. I agree more than ever now that she's likely been brought back at least once.

I was surprised that the septon took the risk of telling them that they couldn't worship their god under their roof.

Septon Utt is one of the creepier characters we've met in awhile.

nodorothyparker · October 21, 2016

I had to go back and skim several chapters of Clash to be certain that Arya's list originating from a story Yoren told about doing something similar was a show only thing because sometimes my memories of the books and show blur. In the book, it's something she comes up with on her own after what remains of her little group is captured by the Mountain with all the horrible that entails, even comparing it to the prayer rituals she had with both of her parents. Except that she doesn't think now that there are any gods to hear prayers on the road and if there are she's not interested in them anyway after what she's seen.

Yeah, callous is not the right word for it but I still think it's all blurring together for her in a way that isn't terribly helpful to her except as a coping ritual. She's gotten lucky on a couple of kills but she's still a little girl without any real protectors at this point in the story and pretty much every prospect of one has failed her. Barring the appearance of another magical murder genie or, say, a convenient free trip to a semi-secret assassin school, she has no real way to do anything about most of those names and apparently now wouldn't recognize half of them if they walked up on her unless they're also helpfully wearing name tags. It hasn't even been that long yet storywise and many of them are just faceless names she's repeating for the sake of repeating.

I know a lot of fans love the list. I've seen it on countless memes and tshirts. But once you get past what a badass thing it is to do to compile such a list in the first place, it becomes a symbol of a child who's seen entirely too much awfulness and loss and is in danger of slowly going dead inside with only fantasies of enacting vengeance to keep her going.

WearyTraveler · October 21, 2016

I think, for me, the most heartbreaking aspect of Arya at this stage is the sharp dichotomy between her list and her fear. The list shows us how much she has seen, how she's becoming jaded, desensitized to violence, and bent on revenge; it represents how fast she's had to grow and how despite being just a little girl, she's older than her years.

The one fear she has is that her family won't want her back because of the things she's done, specifically, killing people. This shows a level of introspection that is, again, beyond her years. Her guilty feelings about these acts and the fact that at some level she still thinks taking a life is wrong, show that she still has some humanity left inside; she's not completely lost. But, most of all, this fear shows that she's still a little girl, who only wants to be loved and be with people who will protect her from the atrocities she now knows are out there.

If I had to pick a song that represents Arya at this point in time, it would be "Save me" by Queen, which always did make my eyes water; so, maybe that is why I find it so heartbreaking to read about Arya being terrified that her family would reject her.

Edited October 21, 2016 by WearyTraveler

Lady S. · October 22, 2016

7 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Yeah, callous is not the right word for it but I still think it's all blurring together for her in a way that isn't terribly helpful to her except as a coping ritual. She's gotten lucky on a couple of kills but she's still a little girl without any real protectors at this point in the story and pretty much every prospect of one has failed her. Barring the appearance of another magical murder genie or, say, a convenient free trip to a semi-secret assassin school, she has no real way to do anything about most of those names and apparently now wouldn't recognize half of them if they walked up on her unless they're also helpfully wearing name tags. It hasn't even been that long yet storywise

Ftr, I agree that the list is too long, but because no child should be dealing with all this, not because men like Polliver and the Tickler don't deserve sentencing. I also don't think we can discount the help it gives her as a coping mechanism when after all she's seen she has to have something to keep her from going crazy or suicidal. I just don't think of the list as a practical matter because other than idle thoughts like here, she never really cares about hunting these men down. I've never considered that she would even come close to finishing the list and I think it's weird that fandom treats this as the defining aspect of her life. But then again, she does recognize all the listees who cross her path, first Sandor with his obviously distinctive face, then Polliver and the Tickler at the inn,

Spoiler

and Raff the Sweetling in Braavos

, so her memories are actually more under control than she thinks. That only leaves Dunsen of Gregor's goons, and I don't think she'd forget Gregor himself or Cersei or Ilyn Payne, but I don't expect her to actually see those three people again anymore than Joffrey.

I think what stood out to me in this chapter is Gendry's response when he's pressed for specifics on why he wants to join them when he could do the same work in Riverrun only he'd end up getting paid for it. He brings up the fact that they're still Robert's men and likes the message of them wanting to help the common people. I know he doesn't know about his father but it's like he's fighting for the two things that are most relevant to shaping him as a person--his father and other lowborns like him.

Arya really does seem hurt that Gendry doesn't want to stay with her at Riverrun. I wonder why he's making this decision before he's even seen Riverrun or has some idea of what his life could be like there.

I think with Gendry, class issues are always at play. What he said on the show feels accurate to the book character. With the BwB he'd be joining a brotherhood of equals helping them serve peasants like himself, but at Riverrun he'd have a new master and would be smithing for knights and lordlings. Of course, he could use his friendship with Arya to join the royal northern army himself, but that doesn't occur to him because he only knows the humble life of a lowborn blacksmith, and it's not what Arya thinks of either. She's always just been friends with her family's servants, and even after what happened to Mycah, she doesn't accept that there are real divisions in their lives whether she likes them or not. I think the explanation Gendry gives Beric is just what he thinks sounds best, though I can see why he'd be impressed by the Hound's "trial", just due to low standards in this crapsack world. When trial by combat is basically the only right a prisoner has for his own defense, granting that right would be a sharp contrast to Tywin and Roose torturing and killing prisoners, a good number of whom were innocent peasants.

Anyways, I thought Lem's retort about foraging was a good excuse. If wartime means armies supply themselves by robbing people, why shouldn't others rob soldiers to feed the starving populace? I only fault the BwB for going too far by robbing children and travelers like Brienne.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Lady S.

Avaleigh · October 26, 2016

Bran III

Bran and the others have reached an abandoned village on the land of the Night's Watch, and Bran gives his friends a little history lesson about how the black brothers were first given the land and how Queen Alysanne added to the original gift of land a thousand years later.

Jojen wonders why such good land has been abandoned by the people who once lived there and Bran says that the people probably fled in fear of the wildlings.

A storm is approaching so they decide to in a holdfast that is on an island in the center of a lake. Bran remembers Old Nan telling him about a stone causeway that's hidden under the water that will lead them to the holdfast. The stones they're walking on are slippery and Hodor twice almost falls into the water with Bran on his back. Bran worries that he'll drown and wonders if it would have been better for them to stay in the ruined inn.

Once they make it to the island, they explore the holdfast, and Bran asks Jojen what they'll do once they finally reach the Wall. Bran wonders how they're going to get past the Wall to get to the three-eyed crow, and Jojen hopes that they'll be able to go through the gates of one of the castles that have been abandoned. Bran tells them that his uncle Benjen said that once castles of the Night's Watch are abandoned they seal the gates with ice and stone. Meera says that they'll have to unseal one of the gates, but the thought of doing this makes Bran feel uneasy and he warns them that 'bad things might come through the other side.'

Bran doesn't understand why they can't just go to Castle Black and ask for permission to pass especially since his father was a friend to the Night's Watch, his uncle is First Ranger, and his brother Jon will also be there. Jojen addresses Bran as 'Your Grace' and explains that it would be too risky for them to go to Castle Black for the same reasons that it's too risky for them to travel on the kingsroad. Bran reminds Jojen that men in the Night's Watch don't take part in 'wars and stuff' but Jojen says all it would take would be for one man of the Night's Watch to forsake his vows in order to blow their cover. Jojen insists that they'll have to avoid Castle Black and Bran is bummed that he won't have the opportunity to see Jon. Bran also remembers how he heard that Benjen went missing during a ranging and thinks that his uncle has probably made it back to the Wall by now.

Jojen calls for quiet and sees a lone rider coming towards the village. The rider takes shelter in the ruined inn and starts a fire, and this makes Bran wish that they could have a fire of their own. Jojen says it's too risky for them make a fire and says that the smoke would be seen from a long way off.

The rain starts and the storm is getting closer. Hodor starts getting freaked out over the thunder and won't stop hodoring. Jojen sees that there are now more men in the village, too many men to count. Hodor grows more and more upset at the sound of the thunder and begins screaming in terror. Jojen shouts at Bran and Meera to shut Hodor up, so Bran tells Hodor to be quiet again and grabs onto his leg. Once Bran grabs Hodor's leg, Hodor stops what he's doing, closes his mouth, and sits down on the ground as though he no longer hears the thunder. Meera asks Bran what he did and Bran claims that he doesn't know, but admits to himself that he slipped into Hodor's skin the way that he slips into Summer's. He's feels scared when he contemplates what he's just done.

Jojen says that something is happening across the lake and thinks that he saw a man pointing at their holdfast.

I won’t be afraid. He was the Prince of Winterfell, Eddard Stark’s son, almost a man grown and a warg too, not some little baby boy like Rickon. Summer would not be afraid.

Meera thinks that the hidden causeway should keep them safe and gives Bran a kiss on the forehead for telling them about it. Jojen agrees that they'll be safe for the moment but is worried about what will happen if the men are all still there in the morning.

Bran can feel Summer's fear and decides to slip into his skin so that he can see what's going on with the men in the village.

Lady S. · October 27, 2016

4 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

Meera says that they'll have to unseal one of the gates, but the thought of doing this makes Bran feel uneasy and he warns them that 'bad things might come through the other side.'

This is a fear which should feel silly and childish, like stories of wildlings drinking blood from skulls, but given what is beyond the Wall and that Bran has a pretty good batting average concerning the mystical, I think it might be a good thing they don't end up having to unseal anything.

Avaleigh · October 27, 2016

I'm curious if anyone remembers if Jojen always addressed Bran as 'Your Grace'. If I noticed it before I don't remember. It just strikes me as odd and made me wonder if he's had some dream to make him think that Robb might not be around much longer. Bran didn't take notice of it, but I thought in this world that princes weren't addressed in that way.

Bran still doesn't get it no matter how many times it's explained to him that they can't trust anyone.

Interesting that Bran was only in Hodor's skin for a few seconds and that was enough to silence Hodor. Given the way that the guy is getting upset over thunder, you'd think that having someone invade his body would terrify him more than some freaking thunder especially when I consider what a violent reaction that one woman had in the ADWD prologue when that guy tried to slip into her skin.

Regarding Bran's fear of unsealing one of the gates, couldn't they just seal it back?

Lady S. · October 27, 2016

Asearchoficeandfire says Meera called him Your Grace in Bran I, and I don't think she knows anything. What's significant about Jojen using it to me is that prince or king, he never stops regarding Bran by his royal title. For years people assumed that Bran was going beyond the Wall for good, that choosing the magical destiny meant he was choosing to turn his back on the mundane game of thrones, and that when Jojen said the wolves would come again he didn't mean Bran physically coming back to Winterfell (even though I think that's what Bran assumed when he meant to repay the Liddles). But if all of that were true, why would Jojen care about proper titles, tying Bran back to irrelevant aristocratic courtesies? Especially when Bran and the Reeds are close enough that I don't think he'd even notice or care if they just called him by name all the time. The signs that Bran wouldn't be stuck in the cave for the rest of his life have always been there, but most of the fandom just refused to see them.

I guess GRRM hadn't really thought through the logistics of human skinchanging at this point. And he never really bothers to write Hodor as a character in his own right (which he could have done if he'd cared to, even with a mostly nonverbal non-PoV, as plenty can be communicated without words), which is what makes this storyline so frustrating.

John Potts · October 27, 2016

Pretty sure (though until GRRM produces "de Brett's Guide, Westeros edition", we'll never know!) that "Your Grace" is only used for the King(s), so Brandon would only be correctly addressed as "Your Grace" after the death of King Robb.

Spoiler

At least until Jon is granted the title, I guess.

Of course, why Jojen would be concerned with the "correct" title is another matter - I'm sure Brandon wouldn't object to "My Lord" (or probably Brandon either) which would be correct for most of their journey. I wonder if it's intended as foreshadowing Robb's death, since as far as Brandon & the Reeds could know through mundane means, they'd have no means of learning of Robb's fate.

11 hours ago, Lady S. said:

And he never really bothers to write Hodor as a character in his own right

Clearly you haven't seen the "Hodor" chapter...

Lady S. · October 29, 2016

Quote

Clearly you haven't seen the "Hodor" chapter...

No, but I've seen an attempt at a joke PoV page which just repeats the word Hodor over and over. That's exactly my point. We can't even imagine Hodor's thoughts as more than one word, as if inability to express himself in spoken word means he's incapable of thought and feeling in his own mind. We know Hodor is scared of thunder, and at one time was scared of the crypts, but we don't really know much else about his feelings. How does he feel about Bran and the others? I don't recall him ever expressing affection towards Bran or anything like that. Whenever he's not obeying commands, he's mostly doing something distracting which other people find annoying like here with the thunder, never doing anything positive or neutral of his own accord. A human toddler or an animal has more personality and more agency than that. I can fanwank that Bran being an ultra-powerful warg explains why he has an easier time with human skinchanging than Varamyr did, but that doesn't explain at all why Hodor stays docile after Bran's left his body and doesn't get even more agitated. The only real explanation is that if he'd been more upset afterwards, Bran wouldn't do it again and this whole plotline couldn't exist. The character exists just to carry Bran, and be abused until his death, and until his death fandom always reduced him to a one-word joke. And given that the second most prominent mentally handicapped character, Lollys, was treated as a gang-rape joke by not only the characters, but her own entry in the appendix, I don't think GRRM is trying to make any clever, larger statement about abuse of the mentally handicapped through his writing of Hodor. It's Bran's story and Hodor's just existing alongside him.

Anyway, I don't think Bran wanting to go to Castle Black isn't sensible from his PoV. He's not just trusting in the kindness of strangers, he believes Jon and Benjen will be there to protect him. That's not much different than Sansa going to Castle Black on the show or Arya trying to go there before going to Braavos, when either of them could have been betrayed by the NW to enemies of House Stark. And it's not like the alternative is safety, it's a journey through a frozen wasteland full of monsters. A journey they don't even have a way to make as unsealing a tunnel would be no easy task. Jojen couldn't lead them on his own, they very much do need help, but Sam opening the Black Gate and Coldhands escorting and guarding them were not things Jojen was planning on. So what exactly were they supposed to do? I guess Jojen just meant to keep going and trust that they'd find a way, but that doesn't mean he's being the smartest one imo or that Bran should just trust blindly in his wisdom and not try to find his family instead.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Lady S.

nodorothyparker · October 29, 2016

Still working my way through the chapter but Hodor is one of the things I think the show mostly did right. Because you're right in that you never really get much sense in the books of what Hodor thinks about anything. He's basically a conveyance who's just there with no real agency of his own. At a couple of points Bran tells us that he does or doesn't like something, like in his previous chapter when he goes all Fred Savage to say Hodor doesn't like kissing stories, but it's never really clear to me if he truly knows much of anything about what Hodor thinks or feels or if like in the example he's just projecting. In the show-only scene where Jon and Bran are both at Craster's Keep but don't meet, Hodor's clearly very disturbed after Bran exits his body to find blood on his hands and realize he was used to killed someone. It's actually what got me thinking about the way warging is portrayed in this series and how entering and using someone else's body like that could be considered a pretty big violation.

Edited October 29, 2016 by nodorothyparker

Avaleigh · November 6, 2016

Jon V

Ygritte is very impressed with a towerhouse they come across and doesn't understand why the people who lived there would abandon it. She also doesn't understand how such a structure could even managed to be built without the help of giants. Jon explains that the tower isn't really that remarkable and says that Winterfell has towers three times the size of the one Ygritte thinks is so huge. He tell that she doesn't really believe him but goes on to tell her that there's even a building in Oldtown that's taller than the Wall.

Jon thinks about how his father once proposed the idea of creating new lords and settling them in the abandoned holdfasts of the Gift.

His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. “It is a dream for spring, though,” Lord Eddard had said. “Even the promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming on.”

Jon realizes that he might have been one of the men chosen to hold one of the towerhouses if Ned and Benjen's plan had gone through and thinks about how their dream of a forging that shield will never be.

Jon tells Ygritte that the land they're on belongs to the Night's Watch, she argues that nobody lives on the land, and he says it's because the wildlings drove all of the people away. Ygritte feels that the people who were there should have stayed and fought if they wanted to keep their land. She and Jon argue about wildling raiders and how she would feel if she were 'stolen' by some man she hated.

The conversation turns to the upcoming battle and Jon tells Ygritte there's no way that Mance is going to win. He says that Mance is going to fail just as all previous Kings-beyond-the-Wall have failed and says they're all going to end up dying. Ygritte says that Jon has never seen the free folk fight, but Jon points out that discipline beats valor every time.

Jon is concerned about how he's going to escape to Castle Black and reach it before the Magnar gets there. He thinks about all of the old men and young boys who will be killed if Magnar arrives before he does. Jon also feels more and more guilty about betraying the wildlings and thinks about how they're all likely going to die soon.

Jon wonders where Ghost is and doesn't have a sense of his direwolf anymore even in his dreams. He feels as though a part of himself has been cut away and thinks about how he doesn't want to die alone.

A wildling weatherman says that a bad storm is coming, so they decide to take shelter in an abandoned lakeside village. The Thenns capture an old man and begin going through his things after they throw him to the ground. Jon walks away so that he doesn't have to watch the old man be killed, and goes over to join Ygritte by the water. She tells him some of the Thenns thought that they heard shouting coming from the tower in the center of the lake. Jon thinks it was probably just thunder. He tells Ygritte that he thinks he knows this place and suggests they get a closer look at the tower. He says that if it's the place he thinks it is then they won't need to swim to make it to the island.

Jon gives Ygritte the backstory on Queenscrown and tells her about Jaehaerys, Alysanne, and Alysanne's dragon Silverwing. The talk turns to dragons and Jon mentions that he had another friend who dreamed of dragons.

The Thenns interrupt Jon and Ygritte's conversation and order Jon to go and see the Magnar. The Magnar orders Jon to kill the old man they've just captured to prove to them that he isn't a crow. Jon refuses to do it even when Ygritte urges him to and she becomes so angry that she ends up cutting the old man's throat herself.

The thunder drowns out whatever command the Magnar gives to his men and soon they're being attacked by a direwolf Jon thinks for a moment is Ghost but realizes is grey in color. Jon takes the opportunity to fight his way to horse so that he can make his escape from the wildlings. He doesn't stop riding for hours and it isn't until he allows himself to rest that he realizes he has an arrow in his leg. It takes him a long time to finally remove the arrow and the pain is excruciating.

Jon wonders if the direwolf who came to his rescue was Grey Wind and wonders if it's possible that Robb has returned to the north. He thinks that the arrow in his leg might have been from Ygritte and decides that he doesn't blame her for having that reaction.

He rides for Castle Black and tells himself that he's going home. He wonders why he feels so hollow if he's really returning home.

Lady S. · November 7, 2016

Hit the like button before finishing this one, as soon as I saw wildling weatherman.

Interesting that Jon has given thought to alternate futures for himself, which is more than Ned ever did. If they'd had any serious talk between them about the future, Jon probably wouldn't have drunkenly decided to join the NW before he even reached 16. And if Ned actually had any future in mind, he wouldn't have seen Jon's suggestion to Benjen as the only way to avoid taking him to KL, despite feeling Jon was still too young. The fact that Jon could think of a different future for himself shows he did have more options outside of Winterfell than Ned made out to Catelyn at the time.

Here's Ygritte's line about a woman and a knife, echoing Jeor's about Craster's wives and Craster's axe. Which I guess shows how affected the NW was by their dealings with Craster that the victim-blaming, survival of the fittest, individualism of the wildlings had been adopted to justify their friendship with Craster.

Jon missing Ghost and fearing dying alone is the most poignant part of this chapter for me. Also mistaking Summer for Grey Wind and hoping Robb's returned when we know Robb never will return and in fact, he and Grey Wind are on the way to their deaths instead.

I wonder how things would have gone if Summer hadn't been there. Feels pretty convenient that he not only gets the chance he desperately needed to escape but that it comes the first time he has to face a major moral dilemma due to being attached to the wildlings. (His relationship with Ygritte is also a moral dilemma for him but Ygritte made the choice while he just went along with it and he did get some enjoyment out of it.)

Shouldn't Jon have waited til he returned to Castle Black to let others remove Ygritte's arrow? Moving it should have been dangerous as well as painful and it's not clear that leaving it there somehow carries greater risk. Feels like the medieval version of the WeHavetoGettheBulletOut trope.

WearyTraveler · November 7, 2016

Jon is my favourite, so I love all his chapters, and it's chapters like this that make me wish the show could have done a better job at portraying Jon's internal struggles.

Avaleigh · November 8, 2016

This is another one of those chapters where I realize that I have little recollection of how it played out on the show. I remember Meera, Jojen, and Bran running up against the false brothers of the Night's Watch and Meera nearly being assualted, but I don't recall how/if Summer played into it or not and whether or not Ygritte killed the old man. I definitely remember Ygritte shooting Jon multiple (?) times on the show and them sharing some long and painful gaze as they were parted but I can't recall how she and Jon were parted exactly.

I wonder why it took so long for Ned and Benjen to come up with the idea of resettling the Gift. You'd think that this is something that might have long been proposed by people in the North, starting with House Umber. They could have taken a younger son from all of the important Houses to resettle the watchtowers. It seems like something that people would jump on especially if there are multiple places that are just sitting there abandoned and have been for years.

I love that Jon and Bran both remember Queenscrown because of a story that Old Nan told them. I feel like Old Nan taught them nearly as much as Maester Luwin did.

Grey Wind, Summer, and Nymeria all seem to share similar looks but Jon only considers that it could be Grey Wind who helped him. I understand why he'd guess that it was Grey Wind over the others but I guess I would have liked for him to have a thought of 'there's no way it could be Summer or Nymeria because __________.'

I find it interesting that Jon has no sense of Ghost at this point. Considering how Arya still has a sense of Nymeria, I wonder what the difference is especially since Ghost and Jon have spent a lot more time together than Arya and Nymeria ever did. Jon seems like he feels a wound that is similar just not as strong as Sansa's in being parted from Lady.

I feel sorry for all of the wildlings who are marching to their deaths when a lot of them seem like they would be more than happy to just take over one of these watchtowers and would count themselves extremely fortunate to be lucky enough to live in a 'castle' that has land they can farm.

John Potts · November 8, 2016

Resettling the Gift does sound like a good idea - unfortunately, like many things in ASoIaF, it seems like a good idea at a time when nobody wants to do anything about it and seems like a non-problem when people are prepared to act. Shame it never happened, really (and Jon would actually be a likely candidate for such a project, as a way of disposing of "spare" sons, though his parentage might make it problematic).

Getting the arrow out is probably (medically) a bad idea, however Jon might not agree. Jon might reckon that he's better off pulling it out, especially if it's tugging at the wound. His best bet might be to cut off the shaft and leave the arrowhead in, at least until he gets to Castle Black (which probably isn't much better, but they can at least cauterise the wound/pour spirits on it in getting it out), though at least in the show, since the arrow was in his back, it would be very hard to get at the arrow and do anything about it (since it's in his leg in the book, cutting off the shaft is a definite possibility).

As for the Wildlings - if we go with the Show's statement by Manse, they united because they feel the risks of attacking the Wall are better than the imminent death from The Others (or just the imminent Long Night). Better to Die Than Be Killed, as TVTropes puts it.

11 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

I remember Meera, Jojen, and Bran running up against the false brothers of the Night's Watch and Meera nearly being assualted, but I don't recall how/if Summer played into it or not and whether or not Ygritte killed the old man

The whole deal with the Mutineers isn't until later (I think it isn't until after Jon is elected Commander). On Show, the old man is killed and not by Jon (I think Ygritte does it) and Jon does use the ensuing argument to escape.

Lady S. · November 8, 2016

17 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

I find it interesting that Jon has no sense of Ghost at this point. Considering how Arya still has a sense of Nymeria, I wonder what the difference is especially since Ghost and Jon have spent a lot more time together than Arya and Nymeria ever did. Jon seems like he feels a wound that is similar just not as strong as Sansa's in being parted from Lady.

Oh, I think the difference is the Wall. Ghost is still on the wrong side of it, and I guess the magic in it must block more than just the Others.

The show's Queenscrown sequence played out pretty similarly to this, except that Summer and Shaggy were both there because Rickon/Osha didn't split until the next morning. And Tormund was holding Ygritte back, I guess afraid she'd defend her crow lover. Then in the finale she tracks him down on foot and shoots him full of arrows, not just the one, but at least three in the back and chest, which annoys because he was completely recovered by 4.01. The second Jon/Bran near-miss was in mid-s4 and was a completely invented Craster's sequence.

Avaleigh · November 9, 2016

Daenerys IV

Dany and her new army are in Yunkai and Dany is trying to decide whether or not she should have them attack. She tells Jorah to send the slavers to see her so that they can talk and asks to speak to the captains of the the sellsword companies.

The people Dany freed in Astapor outnumber her Unsullied and are more of a burden than a help to her. Her bloodriders and Unsullied urge her to cut the freedmen loose from her entourage but Dany can't bring herself to do it.

Dany speaks to the captains of the Stormcrows and they reject her offer to join up with her Unsullied. The captains threaten her and leave, but Dany notices one of them, Daario Naharis, looking back at her and giving her a polite nod before leaving.

Mero, the commander of the Second Sons, arrives alone to see Dany and says a bunch of vulgar things to her during their meeting. She agrees to give Mero a wagon of wine and he promises to give her his answer regarding whether or not the Second Sons will fight for her the next day. Jorah warns Dany about Mero and says that under Mero's leadership the Second Sons are almost as bad as the Brave Companions. Jorah says that none of the Free Cities will hire the Second Sons anymore and that's why they've ended up in Yunkai. Jorah also feels that the Stormcrows are unlikely to join Dany's side.

Dany speaks with an envoy named Grazdan from Yunkai who tells her that it won't be easy for her army to take the city. He asks Dany why she'd waste her strength on trying to take Yunkai when her ambitions are in Westeros. He says that the people of Yunkai only wish her well in her western endeavors and presents her with a chest of fifty thousand golden marks. Dany opens the chest to look at the coins and tells Grazdan that she has a gift for him too.

“I have a gift for you as well.” She slammed the chest shut. “Three days. On the morning of the third day, send out your slaves. All of them. Every man, woman, and child shall be given a weapon, and as much food, clothing, coin, and goods as he or she can carry. These they shall be allowed to choose freely from among their masters’ possessions, as payment for their years of servitude. When all the slaves have departed, you will open your gates and allow my Unsullied to enter and search your city, to make certain none remain in bondage. If you do this, Yunkai will not be burned or plundered, and none of your people shall be molested. The Wise Masters will have the peace they desire, and will have proved themselves wise indeed. What say you?”

Grazdan tells Dany that she's mad and she replies by using the word dracarys. The dragons immediately respond and Drogon sets the envoy's tokar on fire. Grazdan freaks out as he tries to beat away the flames on his arm and Arstan ultimately has to throw water on the man to put the fire out. Grazdan complains that he was promised safe conduct but Dany makes light of the incident by saying his tokar was merely singed. She offers to buy him a new one if Yunkai does as she asks in three days time. She tells Grazdan that if Yunkai chooses not to meet her demands that Drogon will end up giving him a 'warmer kiss' next time they meet. She points out that the envoy has soiled himself and tells him to take his gold and go. Grazdan tells her that she will rue the day she chose to be so arrogant and asks her if she really thinks it's so hard to kill a dragon. Dany replies that it's harder to kill a dragon than a slaver.

Once darkness has fallen and all of the envoys leave Dany's camp, she gathers Jorah and her bloodriders and tells them that they're going to attack the city an hour past midnight. Dany gives more details of her plan and Jorah tells her that she's definitely Rhaegar's sister. Arstan agrees with Jorah's comment and adds that Dany is acting like a queen as well.

Daario Naharis is caught trying to smuggle his way back into the camp and Dany agrees to speak with him. Dany takes a moment to compare Jorah and Daario physically and doesn't think they could be more different in appearance. Daario tells Dany that the Stormcrows are now hers and presents her with the heads of the other Stormcrow captains.

Daario tells Dany a little about himself, she decides that she likes what she sees, and tells him to swear his sword to her service. Dany asks Daario to fight for her that evening, but Jorah is suspicious and advises Dany to have Daario left behind and under guard in case he ends up betraying her. Daario smiles at Dany and she feels flushed to the point where she has to turn away. She tells Jorah that Daario won't betray her and decides that the heads of the Stormcrow captains are proof of his sincerity.

After Daario leaves, Jorah tells Dany that she's made a huge mistake and says they have no way of knowing whether or not they can trust Daario. Dany says that Daario is a great fighter and finds herself thinking about the color of the sellsword's eyes. Jorah insists that Daario is not worthy of Dany's trust and when he continues to talk about how false Daario must be, Dany gets angry and asks Jorah if he thinks that he's the only man in the world she should trust. She points out that Jorah seems to have a problem with most of the men who are in her service and tells him that she respects him but she's never going to desire him, so he needs to stop pushing men away from her.

Jorah seems embarrassed at first and then grows cold with Dany once she tells him that his behavior isn't going to make her love him any better. She commands him to go and see to the Unsullied and reminds him that he has a battle to win.

Once Dany is alone, she starts to feel bad about being so sharp with Jorah but tells herself that he'll forgive her. She starts to worry if Jorah might be right about Daario and thinks back to what Mirri Maz Duur told her. She thinks about how she'll never have a living child and how House Targaryen will die with her. She tells her dragons that they're her children and thinks about how they'll go on long after she's dead.

Dany can't sleep that night so she has Arstan brought to her and asks him to tell her about her brother Rhaegar. Arstan tells Dany about a tourney where Rhaegar was unhorsed by a member of the kingsguard but Dany is more interested in hearing about the tourneys that Rhaegar won. Arstan says that Rhaegar won the greatest tourney of all and tells her about the tourney of Harrenhal. Dany remembers that this is the tourney where Rhaegar crowned Lyanna Stark the queen of love and beauty and wonders what happened between Rhaegar and Elia. Arstan says that he doesn't know what was in Rhaegar's heart but mentions that Elia was a good woman who was frail in terms of her health.

Dany says that Viserys used to blame their problems on her by saying if she'd only been born earlier, she could have married Rhaegar and the business with Lyanna Stark might never have happened. Dany goes on to say that she once made the mistake of telling Viserys that it was his fault for not being born a girl, and ended up suffering a beating for it.

Arstan says that he isn't sure that it was ever really in Rhaegar to be happy and Dany complains that Arstan makes her brother sound like a sour man. Arstan says that Rhaegar had a melancholic air about him and mentions that Rhaegar was 'born in grief'. Dany thinks about how Viserys only every spoke of Rhaegar's birth once and guesses that the story made him too sad to talk about. Arstan gives confirmation when Dany asks if Summerhall was what haunted Rhaegar but also acknowledges that Summerhall was the place Rhaegar loved best.

Arstan tells Dany a little about Robert Baratheon's taste in music but the conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Dany's victorious army. Jorah tells Dany that everything went according to plan and that the Stormcrows did indeed turn their cloaks to fight for her. Jorah says they now have thousands of captives and Dany gives orders to spare any of the sellswords or slaves who are willing to pledge their allegiance to her. She also says that the Second Sons can remain intact as a company if there are enough of them who are willing to join her.

Dany heads to Yunkai the next day and thinks that it basically looks like a yellow version of Astapor. When Dany goes through the city gates, Missandei tells the crowds of people that they owe their freedom to Daenerys. The people respond by calling Dany 'Mhysa' and other variations of the word 'Mother'. Thousands of people pick up the chant as Dany rides through the city and many of the people reach out to touch her and her horse.

Ser Jorah urged her to go, but Dany remembered a dream she had dreamed in the House of the Undying. “They will not hurt me,” she told him. “They are my children, Jorah.” She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. The freed slaves parted before her. “Mother,” they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand. “Mother,” they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. “Mother, Mother, Mother!”

John Potts · November 9, 2016

What strikes me about this Chapter is how much "Arstan" knows about Rhaegar. Now it makes perfect sense that Baristan Selmy has a close understanding of Rhaegar's deeds and personality, but how did Danny imagine "Arstan" had gained such insight? It's not like the Crown Prince is going to be hanging out with some random Hedge Knight! I guess Danny just didn't think about it, but it is a rather threadbare lie Ser Baristan is running here.

Avaleigh · November 10, 2016

I thought it was funny that Dany seems like she doesn't want to hear anything negative about Rhaegar. She only wants to hear about how awesome and cool he is and gets a little irritated anytime someone challenges the idea of perfection that she has in her mind. She doesn't want to hear about Rhaegar being unhorsed or how he was melancholy, and her instinct is to assume that Elia was at fault somehow in the marriage rather than Rhaegar.

Lady S. · November 10, 2016

3 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

I thought it was funny that Dany seems like she doesn't want to hear anything negative about Rhaegar. She only wants to hear about how awesome and cool he is and gets a little irritated anytime someone challenges the idea of perfection that she has in her mind. She doesn't want to hear about Rhaegar being unhorsed or how he was melancholy, and her instinct is to assume that Elia was at fault somehow in the marriage rather than Rhaegar.

What's frustrating is this attitude is hardly limited to a family member who only knows Viserys's biased view of history. The least I can say for Barry the bad liar is that he at least has a realistic view of Rhaegar/Elia, unlike the Lannisters or JonConn assuming everything would have been fine if he'd just had a better wife. Even if Elia's health were the only issue and he'd have stayed put with a wife who could give him three children (although I think it's possible that the union of ice and fire could have drawn him to Lyanna for the 3rd head regardless), Barry admits that he probably would have been just as emo and unhappy with any woman, which I think would have proved disappointing to all those in love with Rhaegar and the idea of fixing everything for him through the power of love. I thought it was funny that Dany and Viserys used to argue over which of them should have been born differently to marry their brother. And if any of the Baratheon bros had been born a girl, one of them could have been married to cousin Rhaegar. Given that Renly was only a baby at the time of his parents' doomed voyage to find a bride for Rhaegar, it's possible said voyage was prompted by Viserys and Renly both being born boys.

And here we have the introduction of everyone's favorite blue-haired sellsword. Jorah has a point about Daario but he wasn't helping his case by asserting that even his beard was false. That just makes him look ridiculous but doesn't really have much to do with why he's not very trustworthy. Also not helping his case, either as an advisor or a prospective husband, was reminding Dany that he's three times her age and saying that's why she should listen to him. And of course once she learns that Jorah betrayed her it's going to be impossible to take his judgements about the irredeemability of other traitors seriously.

nodorothyparker · November 10, 2016

Jon's chapter is one of my favorites of his just because of the sheer depth of his internal struggle between duty and his growing attachment to Ygritte and the wildlings. You can see that he probably under different circumstances could been perfectly content had he been allowed to settle with his own woman and own people and that he realizes that too. Especially with the mention of Ned wanting to resettle the Gift with all the empty holdings laying about, it does make me wonder again what if anything Ned's longterm plan for Jon was. The Nights Watch decision in the first book did read as very "Welp, gotta go somewhere since I'm leaving and Catelyn won't have you underfoot. A lifelong vow at the end of the world you decided on while in a snitty teenage drunk? Good enough." Even with all the secret Targaryen stuff lurking in the background, it seems like a no brainer that Ned could have set Jon up as a minor far North lord and nobody probably would have thought much of it.

I do like Ygritte's musings on how kings come about, that it's all about claiming things from other people and exerting control over their ability to access them.

Edited November 11, 2016 by nodorothyparker

nodorothyparker · November 11, 2016

Dany slides pretty easily into the role of conqueror, considering she just acquired the army to be one all of about five minutes ago. It's funny that she starts out her meeting with the leaders of both sell sword companies with the "I'm only a young girl who doesn't know war" bit when you know these grown seasoned fighters had to be thinking exactly that. As much as I don't like so much of the costuming of Essos characters on the show with all the weird random rings and ties and cutouts, the descriptions here of some of these guys remind how much worse it could have been. In addition to our favorite blue-haired sellsword, we get a Yunkai captain with hair in the shape of a unicorn horn.

The argument between Dany and Jorah is interesting. He's been trailing along with her since she was barely more than a child sold into marriage to Khal Drogo and he has watched her make a lot of seemingly arbitrary decisions and attachments, some of which could have easily gone very badly for her if she wasn't one of those magical characters that everything always just works out for. But she's also right in that he's still treating her like a child and trying to push every man she might form any dependence on away to keep his number one spot on Go Team Dany.

A great example of one of those arbitrary attachments is the entire thing with "Arstan." She took him into her inner circle with seemingly very little to go on other than what he tells her and she never once wonders how he knew her brother so intimately without being more than he claims to be? Dany kind of reminds me of Bran here, only wanting to hear the good parts of the story. I'm curious to see if how the show change of having her well aware of what her family actually was and what actually happened with the Mad King where in the books she's still operating almost entirely on Viserys' extremely biased telling changes where all this goes. It's also interesting to see Barry describe Rhaegar as the moody broody guitar player on the campus quad for as much of a Targaryen fangirl as he can sometimes be.

The harpy statues with their instruments of oppression as symbols of entire cities just strikes me as depressing to see day after day.

WearyTraveler · November 11, 2016

6 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Especially with the mention of Ned wanting to resettle the Gift with all the empty holdings laying about, it does make me wonder again what if anything Ned's longterm plan for Jon was. The Nights Watch decision in the first book did read as very "Welp, gotta go somewhere since I'm leaving and Catelyn won't have you underfoot. A lifelong vow at the end of the world you decided on while in a snitty teenage drunk? Good enough." Even with all the secret Targaryen stuff lurking in the background, it seems like a no brainer that Ned could have set Jon up as a minor far North lord and nobody probably would have thought much of it.

I fanwank that Benjen knew and that he was supposed to stop Jon from taking his vows.

Avaleigh · November 13, 2016

Arya VIII

Arya and the Brotherhood are back at High Heart and Arya and Ned Dayne are walking through the weirwood stumps while the camp is being set up. Arya asks Ned why Thoros is staring for so long at the fire, and Ned says that Thoros can see the past and the future in the flames. Arya squints at the fire for awhile to see if she can see anything but gives up after her eyes begin to water.

Gendry is watching Thoros too and decides to ask the red priest if he can really see the future. Thoros replies that he isn't seeing anything at the moment but acknowledges that the Lord of Light sometimes grants him visions. Gendry tells Thoros that the master armorer he apprenticed with said that Thoros is a bad priest and a fraud, and Thoros admits that this is true as well.

Thoros goes into his backstory about how he was given to the Red Temple because he was the youngest of eight children, and explains that it isn't a life that he would have chosen for himself. He says he had a gift for languages and was eventually sent to King's Landing to try to attempt to convert the fire loving Aerys into believing in R'hllor. Thoros tells them that the pyromancers knew more tricks than he did and says he had a better relationship with King Robert who was fond of him. He reminisces about the first time he rode in a melee and how his flaming sword frightened the horse of Kevan Lannister, causing the man to be thrown. He recalls Robert being greatly amused by the incident at the time.

Lord Beric is suddenly standing behind them and he has a dark moment where he starts talking about how nothing is left once "fire consumes". He tells Thoros that he's saying the same thing that he's said before; he feels that "six times is too many".

Later that night, Arya watches as the dwarf woman goes to sit with Thoros, Lem, and Beric by the fire. Arya notices that the woman's eyes are red and it makes her think of Ghost. The woman address the three men as the Ember, the Lemon, and the Lord of Corpses. Beric doesn't particularly care for his nickname and has asked the woman not to use it.

The woman asks for wine and her song as payment and then begins to tell them about the dreams that she's had. She tells them that the kraken king is dead and that the iron squids are now turning on one another. She mentions that Hoster Tully is dead and then says, "In the hall of kings, the goat sits alone and fevered as the great dog descends upon him." Arya wonders if the dog in question is the Hound or the Mountain. It makes her think about her list and she wonders if Beric will end up hanging any of the names that are on it.

“I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief,” the dwarf woman was saying. “I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” She turned her head sharply and smiled through the gloom, right at Arya. “You cannot hide from me, child. Come closer, now.”

Arya comes forward but is ready to run at any moment. The woman looks at Arya and calls her a wolf child. She says that she thought it was Beric who smelled like death but implies that it's actually Arya. She tells Arya that she's cruel to come their with her grief and says that she personally "gorged on grief" at Summerhall. She calls Arya 'dark heart' and tells her to leave High Heart. Arya hears fear in the woman's voice and Thoros asks the woman not to frighten Arya. Beric assures the woman that they'll be taking Arya with them when they leave in the morning. Beric says they're taking Arya to her mother in Riverrun and the woman says that Arya's mother is at the Twins for a wedding. She tells Thoros to look into the fires and he'll see that it's true, but adds that he won't be able to see anything from the flames while they're at High Heart because the land still "belongs to the old gods".

The dwarf woman asks to hear "my Jenny's song" and once Tom begins to sing, Thoros takes Arya away so that the woman can enjoy her song in peace. He points out that the song is all she has left. Arya asks about what the woman meant by mentioning the Twins and asks if her mother is still at Riverrun. Thoros says that Beric will find Catelyn wherever she is.

The next day Arya and Ned talk and Arya notices that Gendry doesn't seem to like Ned. Arya asks Ned how long he's been Beric's squire and whether or not he's killed anyone. Ned is startled that Arya thinks he's killed anyone and tells her that he's only twelve. Arya thinks to herself that she had her first kill when she was eight but decides it's better if she keeps this info to herself. She tells Ned that her father had the same name and Ned already knows this and mentions that he saw her father at the tourney that was held in his honor. Ned admits that he wanted to go up to her father and speak with him, but says he couldn't think of anything to say. Ned asks Arya if she was at the tourney and says that he remembers seeing her sister there and how Loras Tyrell presented her with a red rose. Arya mentions that Sansa's friend Jeyne was 'in love' with Beric during that tourney. Ned says that Beric is promised to his aunt Allyria but makes it seem like that betrothal is up in the air now that Beric is different.

Ned asks Arya about Jon and she thinks about how much she still misses her brother. She tells Ned that Jon is with the Night's Watch now and asks how he knows about him. Ned explains that he and Jon are "milk brothers" and says that a woman named Wylla was Jon's mother. He says that Wylla was his wetnurse and works for his family. Arya tells Ned that she'll punch him in the face if he lies to her and Ned swears on the honor of his House that he's telling the truth. Arya is surprised to learn that Ned has a House and is even more surprised when she realizes that he's the Lord of Starfall. Gendry is disgusted when he hears Ned talking about his House and Arya responds by throwing an apple at Gendry's head. Arya thinks that she'll have to write to Jon when she has the chance so that she can tell him that he has a mother.

Arya brings up Arthur Dayne and Ned explains that his father was Arthur's older brother. Ned says his uncle Arthur was the Sword of the Morning and mentions that he never knew his aunt Ashara who killed herself before he was born. Arya asks why Ashara threw herself into the sea, and Ned seems surprised that Arya's father never mentioned her. Ned says that Ashara's heart was broken when she leapt into the sea and, after Arya prods him a bit more for information, he says that his aunt Allyria told him that her father and Ashara fell in love at Harrenhal. Arya denies that this could be true and insists that her father only ever loved her mother. Gendry brings up the fact that Ned had a bastard and Arya wishes that she had another apple to throw in Gendry's face. She tells Gendry that she and Ned weren't talking to him anyway.

Gendry says that at least Arya's father raised his bastard and took responsibility for him. Gendry doesn't even know his father's name or whether or not he's dead or alive. He imagines that his father was some foul smelling drunk.

Ned tries to apologize to Arya for upsetting her but she doesn't want to hear it, and ends up riding away from him and Gendry. She's convinced that Ned is lying and doesn't entirely understand why she's so upset over what Ned told her. Harwin eventually catches up to Arya and they talk about what Ned told her. Harwin is familiar with the story and says it shouldn't really matter because at the time, Catelyn was engaged to marry Brandon rather than Ned. Harwin tells Arya that there's no stain on her father's honor if something did happen because he and Ashara were both single at the time. Arya seems troubled by the idea of Ashara jumping to her death, but Harwin says that it's likely she was overwhelmed by grief in general since she'd also lost her brother the Sword of the Morning. Harwin tells Arya to let it go and asks her not to bring the subject up to her mother when they see her.

They take shelter that night in a ruined and burned out village. Arya thinks that the Lannisters are likely responsible but learns that Hoster Tully was responsible for putting the village to the torch back during Robert's Rebellion. Once they build a fire, Thoros is completely focused on staring into the flames and as Arya watches him, she thinks she hears Thoros murmur the word Riverrun.

Tom announces to the group that he must be mad to go back to Riverrun considering past interactions that he's had with various members of the Tully family. He talks about how Lysa once forced him up the high road where he was robbed by the mountain clans who stole everything he had on him with the exception of his harp. He remembers how he had to walk naked and when he finally reached the Bloody Gate, the guards refused to let him pass until he sang two songs for them. He claims that he takes solace in the fact that three of the guards died laughing. He says he hasn't been to the Eyrie since.

Arya sees that the men are having a disagreement of some kind but she's out of earshot until Beric calls her over to join then. Thoros tells Arya he's seen that the Lannisters will soon have Riverrun under siege. Arya feels as though she's been punched in the stomach but instantly says that Robb will beat them back. Thoros thinks that the dwarf woman was likely right about Robb and Catelyn being at the Twins for a wedding and this makes Arya turn to Tom and Lem and tell them that if it hadn't been for them, she'd be with her family right now.

Beric asks Arya if her great uncle Brynden would know her if he saw her and she admits that he wouldn't. Tom doesn't think that the Blackfish will pay ransom money for a girl that he doesn't know but Lem thinks that Arya and/or Harwin might be able to convince him of her identity. The men go over more plans and indicate that they're going to stop back at Acorn Hall again before heading for Riverrun.

Arya thinks about how she could have been with her mother and brother right now if she'd been traveling on her own from the start. She makes a run for it and slips away from Harwin when he tries to grab her. She races out into the rain and nearly runs into a man who grabs her arm so hard that it hurts. She tells the man he's hurting her and protests that she was going to go back only to realize that the man who has her is Sandor Clegane. He makes it clear that she isn't going back with the Brotherhood and tells her that she belongs to him now. He drags her to his waiting horse as she kicks and shouts and all Arya can think of is the time he asked her, "Do you know what dogs do to wolves?"

John Potts · November 14, 2016

Curious that the Red God can't "get through" at High Heart - presumably the Old Gods are running some sort of interference (or maybe Thoros simply isn't very powerful!). I'm actually curious to know if we're going to get a "rational" explanation for the various Gods. Just as "the Old Gods" are (probably) just a gestalt entity made up of various Greenseers, I wonder if we learn the real nature of the Red God is something similar (we haven't seen any powers from "The Seven", but maybe we'll get an explanation for them too).

We also get our Countdown to the Red Wedding and further discussion of just who Jon's parents might be (is this the first mention of Book!Wylla?).

nodorothyparker · November 15, 2016

Just as in the show, book Ned briefly names Jon's mother as Wylla when Robert presses the issue but refuses to say anything else. This chapter again makes me really wonder what exactly happened after Ned killed Arthur Dayne and stopped by Starfall with his sword and presumably baby Jon before heading back north. Was Wylla as a Dayne family servant in attendance at the Tower of Joy and did she then agree to step up as mother of record if anybody asked? It's hard to imagine that someone wouldn't have remembered if she had been at Starfall the entire time and suddenly had a lord's bastard but hadn't been pregnant. Ned Dayne speaks of her as if she's still alive, so I suppose it's possible she'll still figure in at some point.

Arya reacts very much as the child she is to the news that her father had a life and possible love before her mother. I'm still unclear on what exactly happened with Ashara Dayne and why she was the most special to ever special so all the men were in love with her. I'm also going to need George to fill me in at some point as to why it even matters. Most of the dead characters we're told about at least fill some role in the backstory of how everyone got where they are when we meet them in Game of Thrones, but she seems to exist mostly as a red herring in the Who's Jon Snow's Mommy sweepstakes or for Ser Barry to sigh over.

I do like the commentary George is giving here in having Arya assume that every burned out or ruined thing is the work of the Lannister army only to be told that no, the Tullys did that as retribution to some other lord and some other stuff too that people like Tom O'Sevens is still pissy about. It sucks to be smallfolk in this world no matter which lord is riding you down and none of them are really white hats.

It's amusing that Thoros was originally sent to try to convert Aerys to the Red God over their shared loved of fire and burning people and ended up hanging around to become Robert's drinking buddy. But as was pointed out in an earlier chapter discussion, that also means he was around for the end of the Targaryens and life at Robert's court and doesn't really have any excuse for not knowing perfectly well who all these people are to each other and at least some idea of who did what.

The Hound apparently has nothing better to do than hang around the outskirts of the BWB camp and hope something like a young girl in a snit falls into his lap. On to the red wedding, which is being telegraphed pretty hard here with the complete lack of Starks in the vision of the siege of Riverrun.

Edited November 15, 2016 by nodorothyparker

Lady S. · November 15, 2016

On 11/15/2016 at 9:50 AM, nodorothyparker said:

Just as in the show, book Ned briefly names Jon's mother as Wylla when Robert presses the issue but refuses to say anything else. This chapter again makes me really wonder what exactly happened after Ned killed Arthur Dayne and stopped by Starfall with his sword and presumably baby Jon before heading back north. Was Wylla as a Dayne family servant in attendance at the Tower of Joy and did she then agree to step up as mother of record if anybody asked? It's hard to imagine that someone wouldn't have remembered if she had been at Starfall the entire time and suddenly had a lord's bastard but hadn't been pregnant. Ned Dayne speaks of her as if she's still alive, so I suppose it's possible she'll still figure in at some point.

Arya reacts very much as the child she is to the news that her father had a life and possible love before her mother. I'm still unclear on what exactly happened with Ashara Dayne and why she was the most special to ever special so all the men were in love with her. I'm also going to need George to fill me in at some point as to why it even matters. Most of the dead characters we're told about at least fill some role in the backstory of how everyone got where they are when we meet them in Game of Thrones, but she seems to exist mostly as a red herring in the Who's Jon Snow's Mommy sweepstakes or for Ser Barry to sigh over.

Ah, someone else who doesn't care for the beautiful, tragic cipher that was Ashara Dayne. ;) I have to appreciate Arya's immature response out of sheer petty character bias as I too ship Ned/Cat and think that a woman's life amounting to being the hottest in all the lands until she got her heart broken and jumped into the sea makes for a shitty story which shouldn't be romanticized. Gendry had a good point that Ned had obviously been with another woman to father a bastard, and I'm also amused that Arya is aware her mother was originally going to marry Brandon but can't stand the thought that, during that same time, her father had eyes for another before he even met Catelyn. I think the difference is that Cat having a previous betrothal and Ned having an affair were probably uncomfortable enough thoughts, but uncomfortable thoughts the Starklings were used to their whole lives, while Ashara Dayne is a third woman in the mix, neither Arya's mother nor Jon's. That inequality of one Uncle Brandon vs. two women not her mother (with only one of them producing her beloved brother Jon) would feel like more of an attack on her father's love for her mother above all others and her exalted image of him as an honorable man not prone to lusts for women he was never going to marry. I guess that until this point Arya had only considered Ned's love life away from Catelyn as an abstraction, as if Jon was indeed found in a cabbage patch or hatched from an egg, but that fantasy is shattered with the apparent reality of Ned/Ashara. Knowing that her parents only married because Brandon was dead carries the scary-for-children implication that any woman Ned fell for before he had to get married may have been the true love of his life whom he wished he could have been with instead, especially with the knowledge that Ned did cheat shortly after the wedding and especially with both the names of Ashara and Wylla being such closely guarded secrets. Which of course is similar to Catelyn's insecurity and resentment, but is also like Jon's insecurity about his parents, because when children know their parents keep secrets and such secrets cause tension which the secret-keeper refused to ever recognize then there are bound to be issues. Anyways, people insist that Arya doesn't have a romantic Sansa-like bone in her body yet she is pretty naively romantically inclined when it comes to her parents by being so set on them being made for each other and not comprehending that people can love different people in different ways throughout their lives, isn't she?

Edric Dayne's account seriously does raise more questions than it answers. All we really learn is that there was indeed a woman named Wylla somehow involved with Jon so that wasn't just a name Ned pulled out of thin air when questioned by Robert. But under this version, Ned and Ashara fell madly in love in the space of a few days, then Ned married Catelyn some months later, then Ned knocked up one of the Dayne servants (who was temporarily not at Starfall or else he knocked up a random Dornish commoner and this babymama later found employment with his first love's family), then Ned killed Ashara's brother, reunited with Ashara with her dead brother's sword and his newest lover/babymama in tow, and then Ashara promptly committed suicide after all of that. That story does not add up for me. I can understand the Daynes not holding a grudge about Ned killing Arthur in combat when both were doing their duty, but this story of Ashara losing the will to live from heartbreak sounds like noble Ned discarded his first love to impregnate two subsequent women and that the sight of Wylla/Jon along with Arthur's death at Ned's hands was what broke Ashara's heart. Yet her family loves Ned, still employs his babymama, and Edric treats Ashara's heartbreak/suicide as a delicate subject but seems to think casually of what would have been partial causes of that heartbreak, Ned/Ashara's doomed love affair and Ned moving on to a love affair with Wylla. This kid who falsely believes he is Jon Snow's milk brother (and was already stretching the term by doing so) is the only source that Ned and Ashara ever did more than dance together, as in the only person who claims to know it for a fact and not just suspect due to rumors. (Even if we take Meera's KotLT story as an accurate secondhand account of the Harrenhal tourney from Howland, that only tells they shared a dance together, with no indication of a mutual attraction or really any indication of the feelings of the cipher in question.) Harwin says he doesn't believe there's anything to the rumors, even after hearing that Ashara's own family says so, which could be just an attempt at placating Arya, but that's a bit at odds with his also explaining that even if it were true it'd be NBD because they were both single at the time. Sure, Ned/Ashara does make enough sense if the Wylla/Jon aspect is taken out and I'm not sure why Allyria would think Ashara loved Ned if she didn't or why she'd mislead Edric about all this, but I also don't understand why our definitive account of Ashara's love for Ned comes with a red herring about Jon's mother which puts Ned/Ashara in a weirder context, or why the only firsthand PoV from a player at the Harrenhal tourney acquainted with the people involved doesn't really corroborate Ashara loving Ned and only adds more complications. (I really resent that I've put this much thought into a non-character who has yet to prove any real relevance in the narrative.)

I too appreciated the background about Hoster Tully using fire and sword against his own bannermen. I think BENTEEN has noted some Hoster/Tywin similarity earlier, and I know I see parallels between Hoster/Tywin, Catelyn/Lysa/Cersei and Edmure/Jaime, but this has to be the clearest and most obvious parallel, what with Arya assuming this was another case of Lannister destruction and ruthless retaliation against disloyal vassals being such trademark Tywin behavior. I suspect Hoster would have liked to punish the Late Lord Frey for his lack of obedience too, but being a drag-ass to a battle before turning up on the right side does not qualify as clear oathbreaking. Even Tywin felt the need to prod the Reynes into open rebellion before he massacred all of them. Until the Red Wedding, the Freys specialized in plausible deniability and cautiously looking for the winning side, which is why I think they would have likely turned on Robb anyway once the tide turned against the King-who-lost-the-North, but would never have betrayed him on the dramatic scale that they did without Robb wounding Walder's petty sense of pride.

I wonder if Thoros can do any flame-reading in the BwB's cave which has weirwood roots on the walls or if he's only blocked at High Heart. Looking back, I don't think we've seen him try it before this chapter. Interesting that the old gods still have such a hold on High Heart even with the heart trees all cut down. With that and what we see later in Bloodraven's cave, I get the feeling that the roots of the trees are actually more important than the faces in the weirwoods. Personally, I hope we never get a true explanation for the various higher powers behind the gods being worshiped, and based on comments GRRM's made, I don't think we will.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Lady S.

Avaleigh · November 16, 2016

I wondered if Melisandre or Moqorro would be able to read the flames if they were at High Heart.

Regarding the skill of reading the flames, I thought it was interesting that Thoros admitted that he'd seen visions a few times prior to coming to Westeros. It wasn't enough to make him think he was powerful, but it was enough to get him to believe that reading the flames and seeing visions in them is possible. Interesting too that he says the pyromancers seemed to know more than he did. I wonder if Melisandre would have been as impressed with the pyromancers since we know she's into using visual tricks too.

I find it odd that Aerys apparently allowed Thoros to continue to hang out at King's Landing even after being unimpressed with Thoros's attempt to turn him on to R'hllor.

I agree that weirwood stumps are still really powerful and have thought so ever since Jaime's odd dream. You're right that it's probably the roots.

Lady S., I'm amused to say that my tired brain read 'some Hodor/Tywin similarity...'

benteen · November 16, 2016

Arya and Edric are cute together.

Avaleigh · November 16, 2016

18 hours ago, benteen said:

Arya and Edric are cute together.

Gendry seemed a little jealous of twelve year old Edric.

When Arya told Gendry that he wasn't apart of the conversation she was having with Edric, it almost came across as her pulling rank over him even though I know she didn't mean it that way.

nodorothyparker · November 16, 2016

That's exactly the way it reads though and probably exactly how it came off. Which is somewhat understandable considering that Arya and Ned Dayne are both still relatively young children of nobility far from the homes and protections their rank would normally offer. Gendry certainly recognizes as much when he's groaning "lords and ladies" as they're comparing pedigrees. It's a minor bit of continuity with Arya's realizations in earlier chapters that however much she might protest that it doesn't matter that Gendry and Hot Pie as commoners were coming from a very different place than she was and their skill sets or lack thereof reflected that.

In a society where it's a matter of course that highborn marriages are arranged, I would imagine it's one thing to know that your mother had a previous betrothal that didn't pan out and another entirely to contemplate that your father physically and/or emotionally loved at least one or more other women who weren't your mother. A nonfulfilled betrothal would be little more than a broken business arrangement. It sounds like Ned, by never naming or talking about Jon's mother at all, made her such a nonentity that the kids save Jon for obvious reasons never really considered her at all beyond knowing that she wasn't Cat. Suddenly having names made them actual people.

Lady S. · November 17, 2016

22 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

Gendry seemed a little jealous of twelve year old Edric.

Yeah, he disliked him even before knowing he was a Lord, and I think the problem must have been Arya's friendship being taken up by this new kid. Learning they were both highborn would have made it even worse. It was funny when Gendry asked what kind of lady threw crabapples at people and Arya told him a bad one. Then when she tells him to shut up about her father, she brings up Bella from Stoney Sept, which must have been weeks back at that point. I don't think she meant that he should stick to his own kind so much as reminding him that someone else had shown interest in him and only him, so why couldn't she also interact with someone outside of her friendship with Gendry. Maybe a little jealousy on her part back in Stoney Sept? And she probably still feels he betrayed her by joining the BwB instead of choosing to stay with her. I also thought it was funny that Gendry was pretty on the mark about his father being some dead, smelly drunk. He just didn't know that that particular lazy drunkard sat the throne.

Btw, there's a mistake in here where Arya thinks she killed a boy when she was eight. She was already nine throughout aGoT, and I'd think that's the kind of life-changing event where someone would remember their exact age. Unless the KL stableboy wasn't actually her first kill, but more likely it was just GRRM's allergy to numbers and bad memory of his own material flaring up again.

As well as betrothals being mostly business arrangements, there's a gender difference which Arya wouldn't be able to articulate in her thoughts but was probably unconsciously aware of. Even in an informal courtship, the woman's desires wouldn't matter so much and she'd be more a passive romantic objects for suitors. So having one betrothal and another man in love with her challenging her betrothed to a duel doesn't really say much on its own about whether Catelyn herself had feelings for either guy. (We know she was fond enough of Brandon, but there's no way of knowing if she was dead set on him as her first choice above all other handsome lordlings even if she had a choice of lovers. Obviously she didn't know him well enough to know he was a womanizing asshole.) Or just like how Lyanna is seen by the Starks as passive in her love triangle, never considering what her feelings for Robert may have been. Whereas a non-political, private love affair was more the province of men, lowerborn women, and to some extent, Dornishwomen. So a man choosing to pursue a woman privately must be freely making that choice, purely out of lust and/or romantic feelings, without other considerations pushing him into it or making the choice not his own.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Lady S.

Avaleigh · November 20, 2016

Jaime VI

Jaime is finally leaving Harrenhal and he thinks about the conversation he had with Roose Bolton on the morning of their departure. Roose tells Jaime that he's sending Qyburn with him to look after him and says that Qyburn has hopes that Tywin will persuade the Citadel to give him back his chain. Roose asks Jaime to give his warm regards to Tywin, and Jaime say that he will as long as Roose gives Jaime's regards to Robb Stark. Roose promises that he will. As Jaime leaves the castle, he reminds a few members of the Brave Companions that the Lannisters always pay their debts.

Jaime is anxious to get back to Cersei and thinks if they hurry he might be able to make it in time for Joffrey's wedding. He wants to take the kingsroad but the head of his escort refuses and says he's doing his best to avoid trouble.

Jaime thinks back to the day he took his vows for the Kingsguard and how he didn't realize that Aerys was using him until it was too late. He remembers how Aerys wouldn't allow him to compete in the tourney and thinks that Aerys specifically chose him to spite Tywin.

Qyburn admits that he sent the woman Pia to Jaime to make him feel better and asks Jaime how he liked her. Jaime thinks about how difficult it was for him to turn Pia down especially after she tells him that she's fantasized about him when she's had sex with other men. Jaime tells himself that he already has a woman waiting for him.

Qyburn says that Vargo Hoat would make him examine any woman that Vargo was interested in having sex with because he once 'loved unwisely'. Qyburn says that in addition to examining Pia, he also examined Brienne and mentions to Jaime that Brienne is a virgin. Jaime asks if this request for Brienne to have an examination has anything to do with Brienne's ransom, and learns that Vargo believes Brienne's father is holding out on him by only offering three hundred dragons for his daughter's return. Vargo is still convinced that there are sapphires on Tarth even though Qyburn has told him that this information is false.

Jaime can't understand why he's irritated by this news and thinks to himself that he'd still have his hand if it weren't for Brienne. He decides that she's strong enough to survive being raped but worries if she's too resistant, that Vargo will likely mutilate her unless she somehow manages to kill him first.

Jaime's thoughts turn to his father and he wonders if Tywin ever received Vargo's ransom and whether or not he knows about his hand. He thinks about how his father will hate having a cripple for a son.

The road they're on takes them through a burned village and Jaime remembers how he once went to an inn at the village where the innkeeper refused to take his money and said that it was an honor to have a man of the Kingsguard under his roof. He remembers the innkeeper saying that he'd be able to tell his grandchildren one day about the visit, and Jaime thinks that if the innkeeper ever did have any grandchildren that they likely died when the village was burned.

When they make camp for the night, Jaime's arm is throbbing, so Qyburn gives him some dreamwine to help him sleep. Jaime hopes that he'll dream about Cersei and thinks about how vivid his fever dreams have been.

He begins to dream that he's naked and alone at Casterly Rock. He has two hands in the dream and thinks that having his hand back feels as good as sex. He thinks that it was a dream that he lost his hand and feels relieved that he's whole again. He doesn't feel like anything will be able to hurt him now that he has his other hand.

He notices that there are a dozen dark figures around him and asks what they want and what they're doing in Casterly Rock. The figures give no answer and simply prod Jaime with the points of their spears. He has no choice but to descend down a passageway as they push him along. He tries to resist but has no sword to fight with. He continues to descend and is convinced that there's some bad shit waiting for him.

The steps finally end and one of the figures shoves him so that he falls to the ground. He doesn't recognize where he is and asks what place this is.

“Your place.” The voice echoed; it was a hundred voices, a thousand, the voices of all the Lannisters since Lann the Clever, who’d lived at the dawn of days. But most of all it was his father’s voice, and beside Lord Tywin stood his sister, pale and beautiful, a torch burning in her hand. Joffrey was there as well, the son they’d made together, and behind them a dozen more dark shapes with golden hair.

Jaime asks Cersei why their father has brought them here and Cersei tells Jaime that this is a place that is for him alone. She turns to leave and takes away the only light that's in the room. Jaime pleads with Cersei to stay with him and asks her not to leave him alone in the dark. He senses that something terrible lives in this place and asks if he can at least be given a sword. Tywin says that he gave Jaime a sword and Jaime suddenly realizes that there's already a sword at his feet. Jaime tells himself that nothing will be able to hurt him as long as he has a sword.

Jaime hears a splash and sees Brienne with her hands bound in chains. She's naked and reminds Jaime that she swore an oath to protect him. She asks Jaime to help her with her chains and once her chains are off, she asks for a sword. Jaime thinks that she almost looks like a beauty; he thinks that she almost looks like a knight as well. Brienne's sword begins to burn with a silvery blue light and Jaime hears Cersei tell him that the flames will burn for as long as he lives. She says that once the flames die that he'll die too. Jaime again asks Cersei to stay with him but she doesn't reply and begins to walk away.

Brienne asks Jaime what sort of creature is kept down in this place and wonders if it could be a bear, lion, or even a direwolf. Jaime replies that only doom lives in this place and Brienne admits that she doesn't like it there. Jaime says that he doesn't like it there either and Brienne suggests that they try to leave the way they came. Jaime feels himself getting hard at the idea of being able to leave so that he can follow Cersei, and turns away so that Brienne won't see.

Brienne hears something coming and points out two riders who are getting closer. Jaime wonders if one of the riders is Ned Stark and calls out to him. Brienne sees that there are more riders coming and once Jaime gets a better look, he realizes that the men are his dead brothers from the Kingsguard. Prince Rhaegar is there as well and Jaime tells the men that they don't frighten him. He says that he'll fight whoever he needs to and asks which one of them is going to fight Brienne.

Brienne tells Rhaegar that she swore a vow to protect Jaime, and Arthur Dayne comments that they all swore sacred vows. The figures descend from their horses and draw their swords. Jaime protests that Aerys was going to burn down the city. Jon Darry reminds Jaime that Aerys was his King. Oswell Whent tells him that he swore to keep Aerys safe and Prince Lewyn adds that Jaime was supposed to protect the children as well. Rhaegar tells Jaime that he left his wife and children in his hands and Jaime defends himself by saying he never thought that Elia and the children would be hurt. Jaime notices that his sword isn't burning as brightly as it was before and replies to the figures that he was with the king when Elia and the children were killed. The fire in Jaime's sword is starting to go out and this makes Jaime remember what Cersei said about what will happen to him once the flames die. His sword goes dark and suddenly Brienne is the only light that is there for him as the ghosts begin to rush in around them.

Jaime's heart is racing when he wakes up from his dream and he's covered in sweat. When he looks down and sees that his hand is still gone, tears come to his eyes and he thinks about how real it felt in the dream to have his hand back. He notices that the tree stump that he was resting his head on is white and this makes him think of Ned's heart tree at Winterfell.

Qyburn tries to get Jaime to take more dreamwine or milk of the poppy, but Jaime resists and instead asks Qyburn if he believes in ghosts. Qyburn seems to believe in the possibility and mentions a time when he thought he saw one once. He also says that the only Maester in the Citadel who appreciated his way of thinking was Maester Marwyn.

Jaime tells Steelshanks that he forgot something at Harrenhal and says they'll have to go back. Steelshanks wants to continue on to King's Landing but ends up being persuaded to go back once Jaime threatens to lie to Tywin and say that Roose and Steelshanks were the ones responsible for his hand being cut off. He promises Steelshanks some gold to sweeten the deal and once it's daylight, they all begin the journey back to Harrenhal.

The gates at Harrenhal are opened without any difficulty and Jaime thinks to himself that the Brave Companions are fools to think that they're all still allies. Jaime rides through and wonders if he's too late to find Brienne.

Jaime finds that the Mummers have put Brienne in the bear pit where she's fighting a bear while wearing the same ill-fitting dress that she was forced to wear for dinner with Roose Bolton. She hasn't been permitted to have any armor and her left arm is all bloody from where the bear has raked her.

Steelshanks tells Jaime that he doesn't want to get involved with saving Brienne and says Roose told him that the Mummers would be able to do whatever they liked to her. Jaime calls out to Vargo to pull Brienne out of the pit and Vargo tells Jaime to stay out of it if he doesn't want to end up with another stump. Vargo complains that Brienne bit off his ear and comments that it's no wonder her father isn't willing to ransom such a freak of a daughter.

Jaime shouts out encouragement to Brienne and urges her to kill the bear when he thinks she has a good chance. He doesn't understand why Brienne isn't attacking the animal more aggressively until he realizes that she's only been armed with a tourney sword. Jaime offers to pay Brienne's ransom in gold, sapphires or whatever it is that Vargo wants and again asks for her to be taken out of the pit. Vargo tells Jaime that if he wants to get Brienne out of the pit then he's going to have to do it himself, so Jaime jumps into the pit with her and begins to help her hold off the bear.

Brienne addresses Jaime as Kingslayer and asks him what he thinks he's doing. Jaime reminds Brienne that his name is Jaime and tells her to get behind him. Brienne argues that she's the one with the sword, and Jaime attempts to throw something at the bear but misses by about a yard. The bear charges towards them and is stopped once Steelshanks' men begin using their crossbows to put him down.

Vargo is pissed that his bear was just killed, and Steelshanks makes it clear to Vargo that they'll kill him too if they have to but they're taking Brienne with them. Vargo takes a moment to assess the situation and knows that half of his men are too drunk to be able to put up a decent fight. He orders his men to help Jaime and Brienne out of the pit and tells Jaime to tell Tywin that he's chosen to be merciful.

Once they're away from Harrenhal, Brienne asks Jaime why he came back for her and Jaime replies that he had a dream about her.

Avaleigh · November 20, 2016

I really loved this chapter so this turned into a lengthy post--my apologies. The bear pit is probably the moment where I went from being intrigued by Jaime's character, to his character becoming a full on favorite. Not only does he not hesitate to jump in, but he tells Brienne to get behind him and has that clumsy moment where he tries to throw that piece of jawbone and doesn't even come close to hitting his target. He's totally in the moment, there's no real plan, he just knows that he has to do *something* because he's not just going to stand around and watch this woman get mauled to death by a bear. Not if he can help it.

Even though the moment is about Cersei and not Brienne, I love Jaime telling himself that he already has a woman as he resists Pia's advances. Outside of Ned and maybe Jon, I can't really see any other male character that we know making a decision like that. It's not just that he turned down sex with a pretty woman. It's that he hasn't had sex in over a year, he's emotionally vulnerable because of everything that he's been through, and he knows that this is one of those rare situations where he'd be able to enjoy some consequence free sex without anyone (mainly Cersei) ever knowing about it. He admits to being tempted and that it's hard to say no, but thinks it's worth it to be loyal. I found that to be astonishing and it made me reexamine the Jaime/Cersei relationship.

What I find interesting about the dream is that Cersei, the woman he wants to dream of, provides him no comfort in the dream. Before the dream, he thinks about how a 'real woman' is waiting for him at King's Landing and I noticed in the dream that Jaime thinks that Brienne's shape is somehow more 'womanly' than usual. (He also thinks that she almost looks beautiful.) Brienne is the woman who protects Jaime and comforts him in the dream. Cersei is her cold, arrogant self and she abandons Jaime to the darkness of his fate. Cersei is grouped in with Tywin and Joffrey in this dream and the (good) Lannisters are all MIA or are reduced to merely being shadowy figures.

Is Jaime being sent this dream by Bloodraven? If so, does Bloodraven have a larger plan for Brienne and that's why he wanted Jaime to rescue her?

Steelshanks Walton is a character that I don't recall at all so I'm curious to know what happens to him at King's Landing and whether or not Jaime was sincere about getting him some gold.

I also really liked that Jaime asked himself 'What would Tyrion do?' when thinking about how to get Steelshanks to change his mind about going back. He's drawn strength from Tyrion (and Cersei) more than once since he's been on this journey. I also appreciated him acknowledging that he's probably going to learn how it feels to be a disappointment to Tywin in the way that Tyrion is now that he feels deformed.

The dream is almost predicting the future in a way because Tywin does give Jaime a sword and we know that Jaime is going to give the sword to Brienne. It doesn't work exactly that way in the dream, but the implication is that Jaime helps Brienne by giving her a sword after he frees her from the chains.

Jaime couldn't have known how bad it would go for her, but I wish that he could have had the foresight to have Pia to come along to King's Landing and found a place for her to work or something. For some reason, I thought that Vargo was responsible for her looks being ruined later on but if that were the case it likely would have already happened, so it was probably the Mountain or one of his men.

Vargo Hoat creating this folly of entertainment really is a precursor to the fighting pit scenes that we'll see in Meereen. Giving Brienne a blunted tourney sword and putting her up against a savage bear like it's the funniest thing in the world seems like it's straight out of the rulebook of Daznak's pit. She isn't given any armor because Vargo's crowd wants to see blood.

I really like how Jaime's first instinct is to encourage Brienne because he thinks that she's fully capable of taking down a bear if she has to. It's only when he realizes that she hasn't been given a proper weapon that knows that he's going to have to intervene.

I have to say that I both laughed and groaned that Brienne would still address Jaime as Kingslayer after he jumps in the freaking pit with her to help her ass out. It's a cute moment and I love how Jaime corrects Steelshanks when he refers to Brienne as 'wench' as opposed to using her name. I can't recall if Brienne ever corrects somebody for calling Jaime Kingslayer instead of by his name but I hope it happens.

I wonder what Brienne thinks when Jaime tells her that he came to her because of a dream. The idea of hey, you were in my dream last night, almost implies something sexual even though we know of course that it wasn't like that.

At the same time, I found it interesting that while Jaime is aroused by Cersei in the dream, it's something that he doesn't want Brienne to see. I couldn't decide if dream Jaime was embarrassed on a personal level or if it was more about not wanting to offend Brienne somehow. He's already been open with her about his feelings for Cersei, so I don't think the moment was about him being secretive so much as him not wanting to acknowledge his feelings in front of a person whose opinion he's coming to value whether he realizes it or not.

As for the knights of the Kingsguard, I do wonder what any of them would have done if they'd been in Jaime's position where they knew that the city was in danger of being blown to bits. Their dream counterparts don't seem to care but I find it hard to believe that not one of them would be moved by the idea that Jaime was putting down a madman who wanted to murder thousands of innocent people in one cruel stroke.

Jaime's protests seem feeble when he says that he didn't know that Elia and her children would be harmed, but could he really have saved them? This is the moment when the light from his sword starts to go out and the implication is that Jaime is on the wrong side of the argument, but I'm not convinced that he alone could have saved Elia and the children even if he'd given up his life in the attempt. (ETA: I guess the point to them is that he should have died in the attempt whether he was successful or not?)

Edited November 20, 2016 by Avaleigh

nodorothyparker · November 20, 2016

Steelshanks Walton will be escorting fake Arya North to the Boltons in a couple of chapters. I don't think we ever get any mention of how well he was or wasn't rewarded, but he seems to part with Jaime on good terms at that point so I think we can probably safely assume he wasn't going empty handed.

I love this chapter so much too that I can't help but write my own lengthy missive about it. There's just so much going on and so much to unpack in terms of character development. Although he would probably argue otherwise, I read Jaime's rejection of Pia and later saying more than once that he already has a woman to be as much about his own sense of honor and loyalty as it actually is about Cersei. Because yeah, he's being offered a freebie with a willing partner and no real repercussions after a long dry spell, but curiously, the guy fucking his sister has one of the better developed senses of sexual honor in the entire series. It hardly feels like coincidence that the woman he claims to love and has basically given up his entire life for offers no comfort or continuing light to sustain him in his dream.

What really strikes me in this chapter in all the scenes up to the bear pit is how much of it is about sense of self and identity. He's contemplating being Tywin's son and how Tywin won't like having a cripple for a son when he's already got a dwarf. When Roose outfits him with the shield from an extinct house to hide his identity on the road, he thinks about how it makes him effectively no one. Hearing that Brienne's father offered what would have been a generous ransom for a knight, he's left wondering what a swordsman without a sword hand is worth and whether it would even be offered for him now. Mixed in with all of this is the memory of probably the one time in his life that everyone genuinely cheered for him when he was sworn into the Kingsguard only to almost immediately realize that it was never about him at all but as a giant fuck you to Tywin. Of course, in the end he relies on what would Tyrion do and the axiom that Lannisters lie and promises of Lannister gold to cajole or bully the entire party to go back to the bear pit. Yet in his dream, both the named or unnamed Lannisters seem to abandon him without any comfort, aid, or light to offer him and he's left with only himself and Brienne, who's probably one of the only people in his life completely unconnected with his family or his name, and her light to sustain him.

Jumping into the bear pit is one of the purest moments of the series for me. "You want her? Go get her." So he did. There's no ulterior motive, no plotting or scheming, no pretense for hope of gain, no anything but what it is. It's actually this moment more than any other that makes me believe everything every other character has ever said about how Jaime is all impulse and not thinking before he acts. It's why I accept that the shove out the tower window in the beginning was likely purely an impulsive thing and there probably wasn't much more to it, for good or for bad. I wouldn't lie though that I don't get a small kick out of the fact that they're facing down a bear basically unarmed and they're still squabbling and wrestling with each other just like they did in their earlier fight.

The shadows of the knights of the Kingsguard are pretty much the same dicks here that they are in Ned's Tower of Joy dream or in every reminiscence we get of them standing idly by watching their king do unspeakably terrible things with a shrug and "we guard him, not judge him." They continue to be a terrific example of following the letter of oaths without any consideration for how those oaths might become impossible. Sure, Jaime probably could have let the Mountain split his head open too during the sack of Kings Landing to keep the oath of fighting to the death, but it's unlikely Rhaegar's children would have ended up any less dead or the entire city likely wouldn't have burned.

The thought of Qyburn playing forced gynecologist with Brienne and then discussing the physical state of her virginity with Jaime will never not gross me out on every level.

Edited November 20, 2016 by nodorothyparker

Avaleigh · November 21, 2016

4 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

The thought of Qyburn playing forced gynecologist with Brienne and then discussing the physical state of her virginity with Jaime will never not gross me out on every level.

I sort of find it hard to believe that Brienne would submit to a gynecological examine without a fight unless it was her idea. I can't even really see her undressing for Qyburn let alone actually allowing his to examine her closely.

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Mixed in with all of this is the memory of probably the one time in his life that everyone genuinely cheered for him when he was sworn into the Kingsguard only to almost immediately realize that it was never about him at all but as a giant fuck you to Tywin.

This reminds me of something else that I wanted to bring up. I was thinking about the part where Jaime is remembering how respectful the innkeeper was that Jaime was a member of the Kingsguard. This was a case where somebody was kissing his ass but it wasn't because of money or his high birth or because he's a Lannister. The guy respected the Kingsguard enough to think that it would be an honor to tell his grandchildren that he once extended his hospitality to a member of an order that the entire realm has/had respect for.

It made think of Yoren talking about how people used to show that sort of respect to the men of the Night's Watch and I can't help but think that with the way things are currently that the average innkeeper likely wouldn't be as kind and hospitable of a member of the Kingsguard no matter who they are.

It's just another reminder of how different things are in the realm.

nodorothyparker · November 21, 2016

11 minutes ago, Avaleigh said:

I sort of find it hard to believe that Brienne would submit to a gynecological examine without a fight unless it was her idea. I can't even really see her undressing for Qyburn let alone actually allowing his to examine her closely.

This reminds me of something else that I wanted to bring up. I was thinking about the part where Jaime is remembering how respectful the innkeeper was that Jaime was a member of the Kingsguard. This was a case where somebody was kissing his ass but it wasn't because of money or his high birth or because he's a Lannister. The guy respected the Kingsguard enough to think that it would be an honor to tell his grandchildren that he once extended his hospitality to a member of an order that the entire realm has/had respect for.

It made think of Yoren talking about how people used to show that sort of respect to the men of the Night's Watch and I can't help but think that with the way things are currently that the average innkeeper likely wouldn't be as kind and hospitable of a member of the Kingsguard no matter who they are.

It's just another reminder of how different things are in the realm.

I have a hard time with the notion too, but this is apparently a thing because it's mentioned at least a couple of times that I can think of, most notably when Cersei thinks it's just the funniest damn thing for the High Sparrow to have had done to Margaery in the next book. There's never any firsthand perspective to tell us how any of the women actually regard it or if they would ever voluntarily submit to such a thing. The few actual medieval examples I've read about sound fucking terrible and humiliating.

Those examples sort of read to me like a "kids these day, no respect for nothing" kind of thing. Yoren certainly does and Jaime has a bit of that too later on when he's lecturing his replacement Kingsguard that always makes me think Jaime, dude, don't be that crotchety old guy. I never know how seriously to take them, although we know Ned certainly held both institutions in high esteem.

Lady S. · November 21, 2016

I really doubt his father's own men would kill Jaime. Even Gregor should know better than that, though I guess anything is possible with him. More likely someone would be sent to find Tywin or Kevan to intervene with Jaime. In any case, I don't think it was any fear of confrontation that kept him in the throne room after the kingslaying. I think he was telling the truth that Elia and the kids' fate just did not occur to him. Not out of any illusions about what his father was capable of, but because he was caught up in other concerns that day and his memories in previous chapters make it sound like he was in a bit of a daze not thinking much farther than killing Aerys with no thoughts for afterwards. Personally, I think Rhaegar's ghost should look in the mirror if he wants to blame anyone for not caring for his wife and children. But I don't know that we're really supposed to see these visions from the past as actual ghosts or just representing Jaime's subconscious. I think the sword started to go out because Jaime himself was the one who didn't believe his answer was good enough. Despite his pride in killing Aerys and his bitterness about his Kingsguard career, his feelings never really changed about Rhaegar and Arthur Dayne (another object of idealization for men to crush on, almost as annoying as his sister) and I think he does regret his failure of duty regarding Elia and the kids because he never really made a choice about giving up his loyalty to the entire royal family. Knowing that after the kingslaying he just sat around on the throne waiting to see what would happen next while his father's knights were invading Maegor's Holdfast, that his own actions that day would always be judged in light of the Sack as a whole, and that if he had thought of Elia and the kids he would have grasped the danger they were in means that this aspect understandably slipping his mind is a blight on the whole heroic saving the city from a madman idea. Protesting that he never thought Tywin would do all he did is pretty feeble because he knows his father well enough, but by even using that as an excuse instead of saying he momentarily forgot about them or that Tywin is not an easy man to oppose or that even if Gregor and Amory were somehow stopped, there'd still be Robert's Targ bloodlust to deal with, he is in effect implying some responsibility for his dereliction of duty and his father's sins, which must be shrugged off by claiming ignorance.

13 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Steelshanks Walton will be escorting fake Arya North to the Boltons in a couple of chapters. I don't think we ever get any mention of how well he was or wasn't rewarded, but he seems to part with Jaime on good terms at that point so I think we can probably safely assume he wasn't going empty handed.

Which I believe is alluded to in this chapter when Jaime says "You'd get the girl, and a nice fat purse of gold as thanks." Steelshanks asks how much gold, but nothing about the girl so I don't think it's meant as him offering a girl as part of Walton's personal reward, but that this mysterious sole mention of a girl is hinting at a prior arrangement and that Jaime is offering gold in addition to a girl Walton is already supposed to pick up in KL for some reason. Given that Walton does end getting Jeyne in KL with no word about any other girl joining the entourage and that Roose mentioned "Arya" being sent back north in the previous Jaime chapter, I don't think this girl could be anyone else or see why there's this single random mention of a girl if it's not Jeyne. All of this is just confusing enough so that the Jeyne bridal reveal can be a twist in Dance and first-time readers can worry in Jaime V that Roose had found who his escaped cupbearer really was and was tracking down the actual Arya Stark.

nodorothyparker · November 21, 2016

I don't believe any Tywin's own bannermen would kill his son either unless he wanted to live a short life and die an agonizing death, but I also know that when the Mountain's involved, it's a fair bet that the most horrible awful thing that he could possibly do is exactly what he'll do. So while unlikely I also can't entirely rule it out entirely that he wouldn't have happily smashed another head or two of anyone who tried to stop him as we're told a Kingsguard member should die trying to do.

All descriptions of the sack make it sound like it must have been horribly bloody and confusing and loud with all the fighting. I have no trouble believing that a 15- or 16-year-old boy who's just violated what has be Oath No. 1 written in big letters in the White Book about dying to defend your king rather than killing him was probably traumatized and distracted enough that whatever was happening to other members of the royal family didn't occur to him at the exact moment he chose to sit down and wait. Yes, given that his father is Tywin "Rains of Castamere" Lannister, he should have realized what his father might do or have ordered after finally taking a side in the war, and I agree that the fact that this is coming up in a dream at all after all this time means he recognizes it as his real failing in all of this too.

I've always read the line about the girl as a general thing, as in your reward will be gold and girls. He's been sitting in a cell for more than a year at this point and has been completely out of the loop for all the plotting and scheming that's been going on between Tywin and Roose Bolton. Unless Roose told him something specific off page between the time of Jaime and Brienne's dinner with him and Jamie's departure, I don't think he's in any position to know anything about any arrangement they've made. Of course in this series, that's not out of the realm of possibility either.

Edited November 21, 2016 by nodorothyparker

SeanC · November 21, 2016

10 hours ago, Lady S. said:

Which I believe is alluded to in this chapter when Jaime says "You'd get the girl, and a nice fat purse of gold as thanks." Steelshanks asks how much gold, but nothing about the girl so I don't think it's meant as him offering a girl as part of Walton's personal reward, but that this mysterious sole mention of a girl is hinting at a prior arrangement and that Jaime is offering gold in addition to a girl Walton is already supposed to pick up in KL for some reason. Given that Walton does end getting Jeyne in KL with no word about any other girl joining the entourage and that Roose mentioned "Arya" being sent back north in the previous Jaime chapter, I don't think this girl could be anyone else or see why there's this single random mention of a girl if it's not Jeyne. All of this is just confusing enough so that the Jeyne bridal reveal can be a twist in Dance and first-time readers can worry in Jaime V that Roose had found who his escaped cupbearer really was and was tracking down the actual Arya Stark.

I'm not sure how that works, because when Jaime sees Fake Arya later in the book he seems sincerely in the dark about the whole arrangement.

nodorothyparker · November 21, 2016

Jaime seems to be playing along when Steelshanks leaves with Fake Arya, but in the same chapter he later tells Brienne when he gives her Oathkeeper that it's definitely not her so she won't waste time chasing after her. So at some point he was definitely told, we just don't when.

benteen · November 22, 2016

Great chapter and review, Avaleigh. I always loved Jaime's last line in it.

I agree that I don't see either Book or TV Brienne allowing Qyburn to examine her unless she allowed him too as a last resort. That part always struck me as odd.

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Jaime's protests seem feeble when he says that he didn't know that Elia and her children would be harmed, but could he really have saved them? This is the moment when the light from his sword starts to go out and the implication is that Jaime is on the wrong side of the argument, but I'm not convinced that he alone could have saved Elia and the children even if he'd given up his life in the attempt. (ETA: I guess the point to them is that he should have died in the attempt whether he was successful or not?)

I've often wondered if Jaime could have saved Elia and her children. I have to admit wondering if they even entered Jaime's mind once he elected to kill Aerys.

Avaleigh · November 22, 2016

Catelyn V

Robb has three separate goodbye scenes with Jeyne and during their last farewell, she attempts to get him to allow her to go with him to the Twins. Robb is touched by Jeyne's pleas but tells her that she can't come along. Catelyn sees that Robb is speaking gently to Jeyne but can also tell that he's a little annoyed that he has to console his wife in front of half of his army. Grey Wind prowls around the couple the entire time they talk.

Lothar Frey comments on what a loving heart Jeyne has and says that she reminds him of his sisters. He tells Edmure that Roslin is likely very excited about about her upcoming wedding and asks Edmure how he feels about it all. Edmure comments that he feels the way he did before the warhorns sounded at the Stone Mill. Lothar laughs at this and replies that he hopes Edmure and Roslin's marriage will end just as happily.

Catelyn thinks about how she was the one to suggest that Jeyne stay behind at Riverrun. She told Robb that he has too much of his father in him to not respond if Walder Frey ended up going out of his way to insult Jeyne to her face. Robb sees the sense in his mother's argument for leaving Jeyne at Riverrun, but Catelyn can tell that he resents her for making the suggestion all the same. In addition to leaving Jeyne behind, Robb has also left behind his Westerling squire out of sensitivity to Olyvar Frey who'd previously been Robb's squire. In fact, the only Westerling who will be accompanying Robb to the Twins is Ser Raynald.

Catelyn thinks about how her father stopped trusting Walder Frey after the Trident and tells herself that Jeyne will be safe at Riverrun with the Blackfish. Catelyn misses her uncle and knows that Robb will miss Brynden's council since he's played a role in every single one of Robb's victories. Galbart Glover has taken over the Blackfish's role of overseeing the scouts and outriders, and while Catelyn thinks that Galbart is a good man, she doesn't think that he shares her uncle's brilliance.

Thirty five hundred people are traveling with Robb to the Twins and Catelyn thinks about everything that this group has been through together since the Whispering Wood. The lords of the Trident have remained behind to hold the riverlands and aren't going to be with Robb when he goes to take back the North. Catelyn thinks about how she doesn't have anything to look forward to if she ever returns to Winterfell and wonders where Brienne is. She hopes that Brienne will be able to bring Sansa and Arya back to her.

It's raining heavily as they travel, and Catelyn passes the time by talking with Maege and Dacey Mormont. Catelyn has found the Mormont women to be more understanding than the others regarding the matter of freeing Jaime and notes how comfortable they are being women who dress in mail and leather. She thinks about how they seem more at ease with themselves in comparison to Brienne.

Dacey talks about how she's fought by Robb's side from the beginning and how Robb has never lost a battle. Catelyn thinks to herself that Robb may not have lost a battle, but he seems to have lost everything else. She refrains from speaking her thoughts out loud because she doesn't want to dampen their spirits and wants to be strong for Robb. At the same time, she can't help but fear that even if the marriage alliance is a success that they won't be able to fight off both the Lannisters and Greyjoys.

Edmure is concerned about what his future bride is going to look like and is concerned that all of Walder Frey's daughters will look like their father. Ser Marq Piper thinks that Old Walder probably has a few pretty daughters but admits that he doesn't see why Frey would bother to give one to Edmure. Edmure glumly thinks this is probably true and Catelyn is irritated with how bummed out her brother is. She reminds him that a woman like Cersei Lannister is pretty and says that it would be wiser for Edmure to pray that Roslin Frey is healthy woman with a good head and heart. Catelyn rides away from Edmure after she says this and the next day he does his best to avoid her. Catelyn thinks that she's always been too hard on her brother and regrets being sharp with him.

Catelyn admits to herself that there isn't anything wrong with a man wanting to have a pretty wife and thinks back to how disappointed she was when she first clapped eyes on Ned. She'd expected him to look like a younger version of Brandon and instead found him to be a sombre man with a face that was plain in comparison with his brother's. She thinks about how sex felt like a duty in the early days of her marriage and how everything changed after the war once they got to know each other and Catelyn realized what a good heart her husband had. She doesn't think there's any reason why Edmure shouldn't be able to find a similar sort of happiness with Roslin.

They pass through the Whispering Wood and Catelyn has a moment where she thinks about how different things might be if Theon had been killed instead of Karstark's sons during the Battle of the Whispering Wood. Seeing the cairns and remains of bodies makes her think of Ned and where his bones are resting. She wonders if his bones were ever brought to Winterfell. She also finds herself wondering if she'll ever see Riverrun again.

When they reach Oldstones, Robb begins to ask Catelyn what she knows of the place and she remembers playing there with Littlefinger when she was about twelve. She gives Robb some backstory about House Mudd and how they had the blood of the First Men but were eventually defeated by an alliance of Andal kings.

Robb tells Catelyn that he and Jeyne have been trying for a baby and is worried about what will happen if he dies without having any children of his own. Robb doesn't want Sansa to be his heir because of her marriage to Tyrion, so this leads to Catelyn bringing up the fact that Ned had a sister who married into a junior branch of House Royce. This sister had three daughters who went on to marry lords of the Vale. One married a Waynwood, one married a Corbray, and one might have married a Templeton, but Catelyn isn't sure. Robb gives his mother a look and reminds her that Ned had four sons.

Catelyn says that a Snow isn't a Stark and Robb replies by saying that Jon is more of a Stark than some lords from the Vale who have never even been to Winterfell before. Catelyn argues that the men in the Night's Watch serve for life, but Robb thinks that he should be able to get around that by reasoning with the Night's Watch. He thinks that they'll be able to come to some sort of arrangement if Robb offers to give the Night's Watch a hundred men to take Jon's place. He also mentions that if the Lannisters can change the rules with the Kingsguard then there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do something similar with the Night's Watch if it comes down to it.

Catelyn argues that a bastard won't be able to inherit and Jon counters by saying that a bastard can be legitimized through royal decree. He points out that there's more precedent for legitimizing bastards than there is for releasing a Sworn Brother from his vows. Catelyn reminds Robb how much grief and fighting was caused by Aegon IV's decision to legitimize his bastards and says that the Blackfyre pretenders troubled the Targaryens for five generations until the last one was put down by Barristan Selmy. She says that once Jon is legitimized he'll always be a threat especially if he ends up having any children. Robb doesn't think that Jon would ever hurt any of his children, and Catelyn mentions that Robb also didn't think that Theon would hurt Bran and Rickon. Grey Wind bares his teeth after Catelyn says this, and Robb tells his mother that she's being both cruel and unfair. He says that Jon isn't Theon.

Catelyn asks Robb why he's passing over Arya and Robb says that Arya is dead. He tells Catelyn that she's lying to herself if she thinks otherwise and says that Sansa will likely be killed too after she gives Tyrion a child. If Robb dies before he and Jeyne have any children then he wants Jon to be the King in the North; he says that he'd hoped Catelyn would be supportive in his choice. Catelyn tells him that she can't be supportive of this and again tries to persuade him that it's a bad idea. Robb tells her that he doesn't need her approval and reminds her that he's the king. He leaves his mother's company and Grey Wind follows him.

What have I done? Catelyn thought wearily, as she stood alone by Tristifer’s stone sepulcher. First I anger Edmure, and now Robb, but all I have done is speak the truth. Are men so fragile they cannot bear to hear it? She might have wept then, had not the sky begun to do it for her. It was all she could do to walk back to her tent, and sit there in the silence.

Days later, Maege Mormont asks Catelyn why she seems so sombre and asks her if anything is wrong. Catelyn thinks about the long list of stuff that's wrong in her life but settles instead for commenting on the bad weather they've been having. Catelyn asks if all the women from Bear Island are warriors and Maege says that the women on their island had to be strong because of the constant threat of the ironmen. Maege mentions how her nephew Jorah brought home a highborn lady as his second wife and how she didn't take to the way of life at Bear Island. Catelyn remembers meeting Lynesse Hightower when she and Jorah came to stay at Winterfell. She remembers Lynesse getting drunk enough to confess to Catelyn that 'the north is no place for a Hightower of Oldtown'. Catelyn admitted to Lynesse during this exchange that she once felt the same way when she first came to Winterfell, but eventually learned to love a lot about it. Catelyn wonders if she had too many Lynesse-like sensibilities and wonders if things would have been different if she'd been the kind of woman who knows how to wield an axe.

Jason Mallister joins up with Robb's party and brings a ship captain with him who has news from the Iron Islands that Balon Greyjoy is dead. The captain says that Balon was crossing one of the bridges on Pyke during a storm when the bridge was torn to pieces by the wind. His body washed up two days later and the Greatjon gets a kick out of the rumor that Balon's eyes were eaten by crabs. The captain also mentions that Euron Greyjoy is back at the Iron Islands after an absence of many years.

“Euron. Crow’s Eye, they call him, as black a pirate as ever raised a sail. He’s been gone for years, but Lord Balon was no sooner cold than there he was, sailing into Lordsport in his Silence. Black sails and a red hull, and crewed by mutes. He’d been to Asshai and back, I heard. Wherever he was, though, he’s home now, and he marched right into Pyke and sat his arse in the Seastone Chair, and drowned Lord Botley in a cask of seawater when he objected. That was when I ran back to Myraham and slipped anchor, hoping I could get away whilst things were confused. And so I did, and here I am.”

Robb tells the captain that he'll be rewarded for his service and once the captain leaves the tent, the discussion turns to who will be running the show now at the Iron Islands. Euron, Theon, Victarion, and Asha are all discussed and Robb is inclined to think that Victarion and Asha will both likely want to return to Pyke to press their claims.

Robb tasks Jason Mallister with taking some ships to sail up the Neck to Greywater Watch. Jason is hesitant and doesn't know how he's expected to find Greywater Watch since it moves. Robb tells Jason that the crannogmen will find him as long as he's waving Robb's banner.

Robb goes over his plan of how they're going to take Moat Cailin and details the key roles his people will play. Roose Bolton, the Freys, the Greatjon, Howland Reed, Maege Mormont, Galbart Glover, and Jason Mallister are all essential to the plan, but Robb informs Catelyn that she'll be spending the rest of her time at Seaguard until the war is over. Catelyn wonders if this is Robb's way of punishing her for speaking her mind and says that she'd rather go back to Riverrun if she won't be allowed to continue on with Robb. Robb says that he doesn't want Catelyn to go back to Riverrun because Jeyne is there and thinks it's better to keep his 'valuables' in different places.

Robb closes the meeting by asking his lords to put their seals on his will that makes Jon his heir if he should happen to die without issue.

Lady S. · November 22, 2016

3 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Jaime seems to be playing along when Steelshanks leaves with Fake Arya, but in the same chapter he later tells Brienne when he gives her Oathkeeper that it's definitely not her so she won't waste time chasing after her. So at some point he was definitely told, we just don't when.

Yeah, I remembered that much. And I thought he looked Jeyne over when they met and thought she looked enough like a Stark. In dialogue he, Steelshanks, and Jeyne are all going along with the charade and I think Jeyne thought he really believed she was Arya, but I don't think his inner monologue showed that. I'd have to check and I don't know if we want to skip ahead like that, but it would be weird if he met Jeyne believing she was Arya and then shortly afterwards (maybe even the same day?) tells Bri that she's not Arya with no hint of how he found out in the meantime that he was wrong before to think she was Arya. And it would make the random mention of "the girl" here, who Steelshanks was already meant to pick up, a completely extraneous mystery if the girl wasn't Jeyne and if Jaime was unaware of the Jeyne arrangement. What makes me think the girl is not meant as part of Steelshanks's reward (like Tyrion promising Bronn gold, women, and/or golden women) is that he says the girl, not a girl, as if referring to one in particular, and Steelshanks only responds to the offer of gold, as if that's the only part of it that's new to him. Maybe Walton isn't interested in a sexual reward to go with the gold, but it'd be more clear phrased as "You'll get gold and a girl as your thanks", all clearly one subject. Instead I think this sentence could be read as "you'd get the girl, [and in addition] a nice bag of gold as your thanks". Could be unclear phrasing about a reward Walton isn't interested in, it's just all very confusing. I'm certainly not suggesting Roose let Jaime in on his whole deal with Tywin down to sending regards by killing Robb Stark at his uncle's wedding, but I can buy that in however much time passed between chapters as Jaime was recovering, that he'd want to settle on an exchange of Jaime for Jeyne and have Jaime agree to that, especially if he has doubts about Tywin delivering even after he returns Jaime and kills Robb. Roose may doubt there even is a feigned Stark girl waiting in King's Landing, or at least that there's an adequate one.

9 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

I don't believe any Tywin's own bannermen would kill his son either unless he wanted to live a short life and die an agonizing death, but I also know that when the Mountain's involved, it's a fair bet that the most horrible awful thing that he could possibly do is exactly what he'll do.

At the time I don't think Jaime would know to expect the Mountain or his psychopathy. It sounds like Gregor got his reputation (and his official role as Tywin's pet rapist/babykiller) from the Sack, and before that he terrorized and murdered his own family with all of it being pretty hushed up. I'm not saying Jaime is to blame at all, even for not thinking of what would happen to Elia and the kids, just speaking to whether he could have done anything short of sacrificing his own life if he'd wanted to help them. By anything I don't mean a successful rescue, just some effort. It's not clear if there was enough time for him to beat Gregor to Elia's quarters, but he could have left the throne room to try to find her, or ordered someone else to do so. He was taking authority over his father's army by ordering the first bannermen to find him to announce the king's death, spare all who surrendered, but not to declare any new king. It just didn't occur to him that killing Aerys didn't settle everything with the Sack and that the rest of the royals were a loose end. Even these self-righteous visions might not have bitched at him about Elia and the children if he'd tried and failed to look after them.

The whole dream is just so weird, but I get distracted by Jaime being naked except for his boots. That's dream logic for ya, I guess. As to whether Bloodraven sent him the dream to rescue Brienne because she's important to the old gods plot, I think that makes sense seeing as Jaime ends up giving her an Other-killing sword. But as far as Jaime's own storyline, the main message I sense is that his ultimate fate is tied with Brienne, not Cersei. And by ultimate fate, I mean his death, thinking of the show quote about dying the arms of the woman he loves. Perhaps even a last side-by-side fight in the War for the Dawn.

Anyways...I know the dreamed of you line is what the fandom is attached to, but I've always been partial to I only rescue maidens, and not just because the dream itself is more super weird to me than romantic or sexual. I think it's the first time Jaime spouts off with a smartass remark to her which isn't insensitive or misunderstood by Brienne. He still manages to accidentally insult her after this and she still manages to misread his intentions, but here even with how generally humorless and guarded Brienne is, she can't possibly take him literally about only wanting to rescue virgins. A person doesn't jump into a bearpit to save someone who may have already been raped if they're hung up on bullshit like that. For once one of his funny lines isn't about being a mouthy smartass. He's subtly letting her know he's concerned about what else they may have done to her, and there's not really any politer way I can think of to publicly ask someone if they're a virgin.

And drat, this is what I get for wasting too much time on these essay-posts, I see Catelyn V went before I finished this and that's naturally another chapter with A Lot to Talk About.

benteen · November 22, 2016

I know Catelyn isn't the most popular character but I always enjoy her chapters and the people she has around her in them.

Though I always remember someone on another board saying that Catelyn is pretty much like "The wedding sucks. The weather sucks. The food sucks. The music sucks." I remember laughing when I read that because it is a true representation of her character.

And we're still waiting on the contents of Robb's will.

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It's raining heavily as they travel, and Catelyn passes the time by talking with Maege and Dacey Mormont. Catelyn has found the Mormont women to be more understanding than the others regarding the matter of freeing Jaime and notes how comfortable they are being women who dress in mail and leather. She thinks about how they seem more at ease with themselves in comparison to Brienne.

I know daughters weren't fostered like sons but I always thought Arya would have thrived if she had been fostered at Bear Island. She would have loved Maege and someone like Dacey might have been able to teach Arya how to balance being a warrior and a lady.

Avaleigh · November 22, 2016

7 hours ago, Lady S. said:

The whole dream is just so weird, but I get distracted by Jaime being naked except for his boots. That's dream logic for ya, I guess. As to whether Bloodraven sent him the dream to rescue Brienne because she's important to the old gods plot, I think that makes sense seeing as Jaime ends up giving her an Other-killing sword. But as far as Jaime's own storyline, the main message I sense is that his ultimate fate is tied with Brienne, not Cersei. And by ultimate fate, I mean his death, thinking of the show quote about dying the arms of the woman he loves. Perhaps even a last side-by-side fight in the War for the Dawn.

Regarding weird dream logic, did you notice how Brienne and Jaime can hear the shadowy figures riding up but then once they're in closer range, the ghosts make no sound. The contradiction might have even come in the same paragraph but I thought it was weird how they went from being able to hear their movements to the ghosts moving soundlessly. Not a big thing but just one more thing that made the dream odd to me.

3 minutes ago, benteen said:

I know Catelyn isn't the most popular character but I always enjoy her chapters and the people she has around her in them.

Though I always remember someone on another board saying that Catelyn is pretty much like "The wedding sucks. The weather sucks. The food sucks. The music sucks." I remember laughing when I read that because it is a true representation of her character.

And we're still waiting on the contents of Robb's will.

I know daughters weren't fostered like sons but I always thought Arya would have thrived if she had been fostered at Bear Island. She would have loved Maege and someone like Dacey might have been able to teach Arya how to balance being a warrior and a lady.

I would very much like to know what Brienne would have made of the women of Bear Island and how the Mormonts would have responded to her in turn.

I'll get to my other Catelyn thoughts in a bit. I really loved the chapter.

nodorothyparker · November 22, 2016

It's much easier for the women of Bear Island to be comfortable with themselves as both warriors and women because they come from a culture that accepts and even expects that of them. They haven't been subject to a lifetime of ridicule and one obstacle after another and being told they're not real women because they can swing a sword. They also have the support and comradery of each other. While I do think it's a shame Brienne never managed to encounter any of them while she was among the Stark forces serving Catelyn, I think it's entirely possible she probably would have treated them with a bit of suspicion and kept her distance initially just because she wouldn't have known how to be around them either. She may not have trusted that they were for real or not some joke against her.

I like Catelyn's chapters too even if I don't always like her because she's just so freaking straight and by the book and absolutely positively refuses to see that not everyone operates that way. But she has great witness chapters in that there's always a lot going on in them that she just happens to be privy to because of who she is. There's such a sense of gloom throughout this with all of the what-ifs and foreboding that Walder Frey may not cooperate in moving on for a unified northern campaign.

I end up wanting to just throttle her in the whole Robb's will/Jon the bastard discussion. While you can sort of see what she's trying to say from a purely dynastic standpoint, she's just ridiculous with wanting Robb to give the North to some random third cousin once removed or whatever it is who's never even set foot in the North and probably would never be accepted by the Northerners anyway. Her distaste for Jon is never more evident than it is here with her suggestion that if he legitimizes Jon he would be a continual threat to any children Robb might father and that some person she's never even met would be preferable. The same could be said for anyone he designates as heir but he still has to designate somebody who could realistically be accepted as ruler and be capable of actually ruling the North.

It's interesting that Robb seems to have both at least a basic understanding that Iron Island succession isn't a straightforward thing like it generally is on the mainland but still identifies Theon as the rightful heir. I'm not much of a Iron Islands fan and hated how much they ate of the next two books, but we get just the right amount of information here on what the upcoming power struggle there is likely to be.

Edmure Tully manages to be both irritating with all of whining about his sight unseen bride and completely disregarding the bigger picture and a little humorously sympathetic as he faces the prospect of marrying one of Walder's less attractive spawn to clean up a mess that Robb made.

Edited November 23, 2016 by nodorothyparker

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