A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Books Matter.

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Marcuse » Tue May 17, 2016 12:42 am

I'm re-reading A Game of Thrones again to see what weird things I can drag up about this series.

Tyrion tells Jon Snow that he has more of the North in him than his siblings. They're all half Tully, so what does that say about Jon? Obviously it's entirely possible that he's just complimenting him in terms of calling him more of an OG Northerner than his family. Or it's a subtle indication of his lineage. It actually made me wonder if Jon wasn't actually some product of creepy Northern incest, like Brandon and Lyanna Stark or something.

In Catelyn's second chapter, explicit mention is made of Ashara Dayne, one potential mother for Jon. People in the castle tell a story of Ned travelling to Ashara at Starfall to return the greatsword Dawn from the Tower of Joy, where he and Howland Reed killed Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. When Catelyn asks about it, Ned is furious and says to her "never ask me about Jon." Barristan later reminisces about Ashara and refers to her as having "looked to Stark".

Ned's very first recounting of finding Lyanna in the Tower of Joy is weird. We have the usual "promise me Ned" stuff, and when he gave it she relaxed. But then there's mention of a fever that kills her, and she was reported as holding rose petals that turned black. It's very unclear what this means, because the consensus for R + L = J is that she died in childbirth asking Ned to take care of her newborn child and to hide his Targaryen ancestry from outsiders by claiming him as his own. But the weird thing is that right after the whole "promise me" thing, he's explicitly shown to lose time, only coming to when Howland Reed removes his hand from hers.

The thing is, given the strong connection the "little crannogman" has with the Children of the Forest, and presumably with Bloodraven, this makes the situation at the ToJ very suspicious indeed. This is even more so given we have good reason to think that Bran can cast his mind back (aided by Bloodraven and the Children) to this time, and can possess people. Add Summerhall and the Ghost of High Heart's connection to Rhaegar in there, and you have a fucking forest dweller conspiracy on your hands.

But then the Children don't give a shit about Jon. They ignore him, way way closer to them, in favour of Bran. If the Children had something to do with the events of the ToJ then they clearly didn't intend to create Jon Snow if they wanted to do anything like that at all. It's entirely possible that they simply wanted to do something to get rid of Rhaegar, a perfect Targaryen with all the attributes people list in a good leader and king. False visions (my proctor) are the order of the day for most hive-minded species that oppose humans, so I wonder if Rhaegar's obsession with visions and his dalliance with Lyanna were simply orchestrating Robert's rebellion?

Also, how the hell did Ned have the ToJ torn down to make cairns when there was only him and Howland there? That really doesn't make any sense at all, but it's there in aGoT.

Dany is met by an Unsullied in Khal Drogo's manse in the first or second chapter she's in.
  • 3

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby CarrieVS » Tue May 17, 2016 1:33 am

Marcuse wrote:In Catelyn's second chapter, explicit mention is made of Ashara Dayne, one potential mother for Jon. People in the castle tell a story of Ned travelling to Ashara at Starfall to return the greatsword Dawn from the Tower of Joy, where he and Howland Reed killed Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. When Catelyn asks about it, Ned is furious and says to her "never ask me about Jon." Barristan later reminisces about Ashara and refers to her as having "looked to Stark".


I know, I've publicly sworn off SoIaF, but I just can't stay away however much it frustrates me.

I don't recall exactly what the text was but I definitely remember rereading one time and realising that it really sounded a lot more like it was Brandon Stark who had captured Ashara's heart.
  • 3

A Combustible Lemon wrote:Death is an archaic concept for simpleminded commonfolk, not Victorian scientist whales.
User avatar
CarrieVS
TCS Redshirt
TCS Redshirt
 
Posts: 7103
Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 7:43 pm
Location: By my wild self in the wet wild woods waving my wild tail
Show rep
Title: Drama Llama

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Marcuse » Wed May 18, 2016 12:19 am

CarrieVS wrote:
Marcuse wrote:In Catelyn's second chapter, explicit mention is made of Ashara Dayne, one potential mother for Jon. People in the castle tell a story of Ned travelling to Ashara at Starfall to return the greatsword Dawn from the Tower of Joy, where he and Howland Reed killed Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. When Catelyn asks about it, Ned is furious and says to her "never ask me about Jon." Barristan later reminisces about Ashara and refers to her as having "looked to Stark".


I know, I've publicly sworn off SoIaF, but I just can't stay away however much it frustrates me.

I don't recall exactly what the text was but I definitely remember rereading one time and realising that it really sounded a lot more like it was Brandon Stark who had captured Ashara's heart.


Yes, potentially, though that might be Barristan recalling incorrectly. Either way, Ashara definitely did dance with Ned at the tourney in Harrenhall. Brandon convinced her to do so, because Ned wasn't up for approaching her. If he had a thing for Ashara then it would seem weird for him to pass her off to his brother. Starks don't seem to have that kind of approach to women. Also Brandon would have been betrothed to Catelyn at that time, which would make it pretty awkward if Brandon actually approached her.

Another weird point a lot of people overlook is Edric Dayne. He nicknames himself Ned and calls himself Jon Snow's brother (okay milk brother, but c'mon). Now, why is that weird? Well, Ned is said to have basically killed two prominent members of the Dayne family: Arthur Dayne at the Tower of Joy (while Howland Reed is said to have helped there, the commonly held story is that he beat Dayne in single combat), and Ashara when she learned of this. Why then name yourself after someone who killed members of your family? That seems a strange thing to do even if you're running with former Stark men.

When Ned is directly asked about Jon's mother by Robert, it's pretty apparent that he's lying to the King about it. Wylla is the name of the wet nurse that raised both Jon and Edric, and the idea that Ned Stark did that is pretty unbelievable. What is more unbelievable is that he is said to have moved said nurse into Winterfell with Jon while he was a baby, and if this was indeed Wylla then it seems a monstrous stain on his honour to keep the same person he dishonoured his vows with in his home raising his bastard who is so very important to him.

Absolutely everything about Bran's opening chapter, up until his fall, is a direct allegory for his eventual fate with Bloodraven in the North. He loves seeing the big picture, and viewing things in a way that nobody else ever gets to see. His entire interest in climbing is predicated on his love of forbidden and inaccessible knowledge, and his climbing is an allegory for the risk he takes in going to find it.

Whenever Dany has dreams she has them about menstruation, dragons, and her fear is miraculously gone.
  • 2

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby CarrieVS » Wed May 18, 2016 12:43 pm

Marcuse wrote:That might be Barristan recalling incorrectly. Either way, Ashara definitely did dance with Ned at the tourney in Harrenhall. Brandon convinced her to do so, because Ned wasn't up for approaching her. If he had a thing for Ashara then it would seem weird for him to pass her off to his brother. Starks don't seem to have that kind of approach to women. Also Brandon would have been betrothed to Catelyn at that time, which would make it pretty awkward if Brandon actually approached her.

I couldn't swear to it but I seem to remember there was another part besides Barristan's recollection that gave me that impression. It sounded like they were both attracted to her (probably along with half the men present) and I can see the shy young Ned getting out of his older brother's way. Maybe, even, he was actually acting as a go-between for them, what with Brandon being betrothed. Or maybe it's all more misdirection and it was Ned.

Another weird point a lot of people overlook is Edric Dayne. He nicknames himself Ned and calls himself Jon Snow's brother (okay milk brother, but c'mon).
...
When Ned is directly asked about Jon's mother by Robert, it's pretty apparent that he's lying to the King about it. Wylla is the name of the wet nurse that raised both Jon and Edric, and the idea that Ned Stark did that is pretty unbelievable. What is more unbelievable is that he is said to have moved said nurse into Winterfell with Jon while he was a baby, and if this was indeed Wylla then it seems a monstrous stain on his honour to keep the same person he dishonoured his vows with in his home raising his bastard who is so very important to him.

Edric claims that Wylla was his wetnurse and Jon's mother. If Ned brought Jon back to Winterfell with a wetnurse, the one person that couldn't have been (unless they lied about it, which is a big 'unless' in the context) is his biological mother. To say nothing of the fact that if Ned brought her to Winterfell, how did she come to nurse Edric?

I presume Wylla nursed Jon at some point, she may have been in on the secret of his real parentage, and likely agreed to say he was her own. And then Ned brought Jon back to winterfell with another woman as wetnurse, while Wylla remained with the Daynes.
  • 2

A Combustible Lemon wrote:Death is an archaic concept for simpleminded commonfolk, not Victorian scientist whales.
User avatar
CarrieVS
TCS Redshirt
TCS Redshirt
 
Posts: 7103
Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 7:43 pm
Location: By my wild self in the wet wild woods waving my wild tail
Show rep
Title: Drama Llama

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Marcuse » Wed May 18, 2016 11:56 pm

More book 1 musings.

GRRM really pushes the fact that Jon looks like Arya. In several chapters he has different characters at different times compare the two and point out that they have the same features (a long face, brown hair, brown eyes) and he specifically has Catelyn mention that the remaining Stark children take after their mother a lot, naming Robb, Bran, Sansa and Rickon by name. Jon is noted as being like Ned from Tyrion's perspective (noting the same long face thing that's brought up as Arya's offensive nickname of "horseface"), Sansa mentions wondering if Arya was also a bastard because she and Jon look so alike, but being gently corrected by Catelyn, and Cat reminisces about how the other children have Tully looks, specifically leaving out Arya.

Jon is also noted by Tyrion to have essentially nothing of his mother in him. This shouldn't be misinterpreted as a general statement, because it's made in the context of Ned being assumed to be his father. The upshot though is that he seems to be 100% Stark, and more so than even the trueborn siblings who're half Tully. This is the second time in 150 pages this is explicitly brought up.

Bran has a conversation with Bloodraven in the form of a crow, and casts his disembodied mind across the world and even sees dragons in Asshai. This is despite a detailed description of the death of the Targaryen dragons and the assertion that dragons have left the world. His mind also travels North to the Land of Always Winter to "the curtain of light at the end of the world" and then beyond that, which frightens him. Also, when he sees Winterfell from the perspective of an eagle (an interesting metaphor to use) he looks at the Weirwood, and it looks right back at him.

The entire segment with Catelyn, Bran and the unnamed footpad who's hired to murder Bran is weird as fuck. Catelyn is understandably consumed by grief, and refuses to leave Bran's side. This is all normal parent behaviour, except she persists even when she's asked to attend her other children by Robb and the castle issues by Luwin. Her constant refrain is "what if he dies while I'm away?", which not only keeps her by his side, but also keeps her awake almost all the time as well.

This is important because when the library at Winterfell is burned, Catelyn doesn't respond like the footpad thinks she will, refusing to leave Bran, even exclaiming "Thank the Gods" when she realises the fire can't reach Bran. Robb is noted as thinking this weird. He rushes off with the guards to put out the fire, and the footpad does his thing, saying several times that she wasn't supposed to be there, indicating that he intended the fire to be a diversion for his deed.

After the attack, Cat passes out for four days, and when she awakens, she is said to feel like a great weight is lifted from her. She suddenly chooses to ask first, not about Bran, but about the identity of the attempted murderer, and then only afterwards asks how Bran is. This is, remember, after being frantically desperate that he might die while she's asleep, and she's just slept for four entire days. If her behaviour is consistent then I'd expect her to ask about Bran first, at least, if not want to see him again to make sure. But she doesn't. In fact she does the opposite, deciding that she's done all she can do for Bran and he's in the hands of Luwin and the Gods. Then she decided to leave for King's Landing herself.

She states explicitly that were it not for her frantic devotion to remaining by Bran's side, he'd be dead.

The footpad is killed by Summer, who was previously kept outside and not allowed in the room with Bran at all. Afterwards they allow Summer to sleep on Bran and he starts to have his discussion with Bloodraven. Prior to this, Luwin notes that Bran seemed to strengthen when he was able to hear Summer howling, and that he weakened when they closed the window. The howling also seems to drive Catelyn pretty crazy.

When Cat asks for an oath not to speak about Lysa Arryn's suspicions, Theon is the first to give it, declaring Ned to be a second father to him. He then states later on that he would be willing to fight for House Stark if it came to that, stating that his house owed house Stark a great debt. This is entirely different to his behaviour in book 2.
  • 1

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Marcuse » Mon May 30, 2016 12:41 am

I finished book 1, and here's my list of final musings.

Cersei is aware of the possibility of Ashara Dayne being Jon's mother. She confronts him with it in the scene in the Godswood when she utters the famous "when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die" line.

Ned hasn't thought about Rhaegar for years when he comes to mind in the black cells. If he were raising another man's child he claimed as his own, whom he saw routinely for fourteen years or so, wouldn't he think of him from time to time? Why does Ned not feel any animosity toward him if he kidnapped and raped his sister?

Why did Jon Arryn counsel Robert Baratheon against having Viserys and Dany killed in the Free Cities? The Dany chapters specifically state that they were, by the time he decided to have them killed, beyond his power. Jon would seem to have no love for Targaryens, being one of the first to raise his banners in rebellion against Aerys, but he then about faces and protects Dany for years against his King who loathes Targaryens.

Why does Ned counsel Robert against killing Viserys and Dany? The book seems to suggest it's Ned's distaste for killing children, which does make a certain amount of sense. Ned's reluctance to harm or even imprison Cersei's children leads him to his fatal error of allowing Cersei time to leave. His mercy is what gives her the time to prepare to oppose him.

Ned is a moron. He discusses his entire plan with Littlefinger, and Peytr tells him he should support Joffrey and rule as regent in his place, using Robert's letter as guarantee of this. Ned outright refuses and then expects Littlefinger to just do what he wants, when Littlefinger has absolutely no reason to do so. Ned also refuses Renly's offer of support out of hand, without thinking about it, and this leads to Renly fleeing the city pursuing his own designs. He's completely mislead by the accusations levelled at the Mountain, to the point where he sends a good proportion of his own household guards, as well as Lord Beric's men, into an ambush that gets them killed.

During the scene where Ned is hearing the complaints from the Mountain's supposed victims, he wonders openly whether the knights who brought the smallfolk gave them a choice whether to come or not. In other words, they're being coerced. Who're they being coerced by? Well the primary person leading these complainants is Ser Raymun Darry, who is noted in the scene prior to Lady's execution to have been a massive Targaryen loyalist, who had tapestries of all the Targ kings on his walls until Robert took the throne. There's almost no chance he wasn't trying to foment war between the parties that fought the rebellion.

Cersei wears a mourning dress following the death of Robert that's black with rubies inlaid on the breast. She's basically dressed like Rhaegar, to anyone who might care to look at her and knows.

The singer Marillion is weird. In book 1 two things happen to him: his fingers are crushed and broken by Tyrion on his journey to the Eyrie, and several of his ribs are broken, along with his harp. This might be normal injuries someone suffers while being attacked by Mountain Clans, but Marillion is a singer. He plays a harp and sings, and his ribs and hand were broken. Yet in A Storm of Swords and Feast for Crows he can play and sing again as though nothing has happened. Weird, especially given later claims by Sansa and Robert Arryn to be able to hear him singing from a Sky Cell.

It's almost certain that Dany is being pushed towards hatching the dragons by an external force. She has dreams that always come to the same conclusion, and when she awakens her fear and pain is gone and she's gripped by strange compulsions to do things she wouldn't normally do. However, I wonder if this is more likely to be Quaithe than Bran, merely because her visions seem so much more practised and coherent, and whenever we've seen Bran intervene with people (Theon, Ned, Jon) it's been with someone he knows and in a fairly obvious way.

I do wonder if the seeds of Robb Stark's defeat were conceived in that war tent when Tywin is eerily silent. He seems to recognise that they might be outclassed in the field, and the best thing to do is to take out Robb himself more than it is to defeat him in battle. Ironically this is exactly the same way that Stannis deals with Renly. It seems to be showing that more calculating leaders rely on unorthodox methods to remove charismatic leaders who cannot be defeated directly. Tywin lacks the outright military strength after Whispering Wood, and Stannis lacks the same due to his position on Dragonstone. Both of them seek out a forbidden solution to their problem (Stannis uses blood magic and Tywin orchestrates Walder Frey to break guest right) and it works. But in both cases, it also marks their downfall, Stannis' in trusting Melisandre (which at the very least, leads him to a snow swept field outside Winterfell while his forces die around him), and Tywin in tying his family up in plots within plots to the point where he is betrayed in turn.

It's interesting that the Lord who leads the Riverland forces while Jaime beseiges Riverrun is Tytos Blackwood, the only lord of the Trident who follows the Old Gods. He's also the only one present in the Godswood when they go to honour the fallen. He's also supposedly part of a house closely tied to Bloodraven. He rescues Edmure Tully from the Lannisters, which frees him up to be promised for marriage to a Frey...

It's weird how, even after he lost two of his sons in Whispering Wood, Rickard Karstark was the second after the Greatjon to proclaim Robb King in the North.

The only thing that Tytos Blackwood and Jonos Bracken ever agree on is war with the Lannisters, when Catelyn tries to argue for peace or common cause with Renly.

Now a couple of things from Book Two:

Why is Dragonstone the furthest reach of the Valyrian Freehold? It existed up until Aegon's conquest as the only Valyrian outpost anywhere near Westeros. But for a hundred years House Targaryen had held it before the Doom, and there were developed culture and houses on the mainland. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought that there was some specific reason the Valyrians wanted to keep clear water between them and mainland Westeros.

It's never satisfactorily explained how Melisandre manages to avoid the poison that kills Cressen. Sure we just say "magic, duh" and move on, but that seems like a poor answer when she clearly relies on trickery far more often than actual magic. I wonder if being Asshai'i meant she'd previously developed an immunity to the poison that she simply never spoke of?

It seems really out of character for Stannis to order Cressen to put on the fool's helmet. It seems like he doesn't really want to, he just does it because it's what his wife ordered, but I feel like Stannis wouldn't really give a shit about the form of supporting his wife's cruel suggestion and would just deny it.

Stannis' war is clearly meant to be an allegory for Aegon's conquest. But he has no dragons, so it really suggests he's doomed to failure before he starts. Everything on Aegon indicates that he was numerically inferior to his enemies, but the dragons made all the difference. Weirdly, they seemed to be a response to a loss more than they were active participants in a battle. A Targaryen army would be attacked (often, ironically, led by a Baratheon) and defeated with heavy losses by a superior foe, who was then utterly annihilated by one of the dragons. Stannis never had that.
  • 2

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby cmsellers » Mon May 30, 2016 2:05 am

According to AWOIF, before the conquest, there were at least three houses of Valyrian descent in what became the Crownlands, all based on islands. House Celtigar was based on Claw Isle, in the Narrow Sea, but claimed dominion over Crackclaw Point. House Velaryon was based on Driftmark, the the west of Dragonstone and firmly within Blackwater Bay. The Targaryens were the only Valyrians with dragons to survive the Doom due to a prophetic dream.

It's not clear (to me at least) how firmly integrated these islands were with the Valyrian Freehold, but it would certainly make sense that they'd want control over the Narrow Sea, so as to keep it clear of pirates. Dragons can defeat large armies in battle if they can find them, but it might be considerably harder to find a small number of pirate ships with dragons; better to have naval outposts and patrol. A lot of the expansion of the Roman Empire (including the conquest of Britain) was about fighting pirates after all, and Valyria is clearly intended to be roughly analogous to the Roman Empire.
  • 1

User avatar
cmsellers
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9316
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:20 pm
Location: Not *that* Bay Area
Show rep
Title: Broken Record Player

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Malfeasinator » Mon May 30, 2016 4:19 am

Marcuse wrote:
CarrieVS wrote:
Marcuse wrote:In Catelyn's second chapter, explicit mention is made of Ashara Dayne, one potential mother for Jon. People in the castle tell a story of Ned travelling to Ashara at Starfall to return the greatsword Dawn from the Tower of Joy, where he and Howland Reed killed Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. When Catelyn asks about it, Ned is furious and says to her "never ask me about Jon." Barristan later reminisces about Ashara and refers to her as having "looked to Stark".


I know, I've publicly sworn off SoIaF, but I just can't stay away however much it frustrates me.

I don't recall exactly what the text was but I definitely remember rereading one time and realising that it really sounded a lot more like it was Brandon Stark who had captured Ashara's heart.


Yes, potentially, though that might be Barristan recalling incorrectly. Either way, Ashara definitely did dance with Ned at the tourney in Harrenhall. Brandon convinced her to do so, because Ned wasn't up for approaching her. If he had a thing for Ashara then it would seem weird for him to pass her off to his brother. Starks don't seem to have that kind of approach to women. Also Brandon would have been betrothed to Catelyn at that time, which would make it pretty awkward if Brandon actually approached her.

Another weird point a lot of people overlook is Edric Dayne. He nicknames himself Ned and calls himself Jon Snow's brother (okay milk brother, but c'mon). Now, why is that weird? Well, Ned is said to have basically killed two prominent members of the Dayne family: Arthur Dayne at the Tower of Joy (while Howland Reed is said to have helped there, the commonly held story is that he beat Dayne in single combat), and Ashara when she learned of this. Why then name yourself after someone who killed members of your family? That seems a strange thing to do even if you're running with former Stark men.

When Ned is directly asked about Jon's mother by Robert, it's pretty apparent that he's lying to the King about it. Wylla is the name of the wet nurse that raised both Jon and Edric, and the idea that Ned Stark did that is pretty unbelievable. What is more unbelievable is that he is said to have moved said nurse into Winterfell with Jon while he was a baby, and if this was indeed Wylla then it seems a monstrous stain on his honour to keep the same person he dishonoured his vows with in his home raising his bastard who is so very important to him.

Absolutely everything about Bran's opening chapter, up until his fall, is a direct allegory for his eventual fate with Bloodraven in the North. He loves seeing the big picture, and viewing things in a way that nobody else ever gets to see. His entire interest in climbing is predicated on his love of forbidden and inaccessible knowledge, and his climbing is an allegory for the risk he takes in going to find it.

Whenever Dany has dreams she has them about menstruation, dragons, and her fear is miraculously gone.


Brandon was dead when Ned and his crew took on Arthur Dayne and the other two Kingsguard. The battle took place after Robert's rebellion had pretty much already won, and the old Kingsguard had nothing really to fight for, except their honor. Even though they couldn't protect their King, they could still fight in his name against his enemies. Ned got married to Cat and knocked her up before he ever went to war.

The timeline is better explained here: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Robert's_Rebellion

What makes the battle so tragic is that Ned didn't want to fight. Robert would also be in need of good guards, and they wanted to offer the old Kingsguard terms of amnesty, to have them join like Barristan the Bold did.

Ned returned the sword to an obviously grieving sister, and knowing Ned and his honor and respect for warriors of virtue, he probably apologized profusely for killing her brother and talked up what a great swordsman he was and tried to do all manner of things to comfort her. In her grieving state (as well as possibly drunk, because wine seem to go with everything in this story) she might have been confused and thought Ned was showing some feelings for her that he didn't really have, and maybe she was cool with it, but when Ned said no she lost her shit, and, being embarrassed on top of being in grief, she just ended her life. It wouldn't be the first time a drunk person with problems killed themselves. Ned would take something like that personally and feel responsible and guilty about her death, which is why he'd never want it brought up again, especially if he'd heard some of the rumors over the years.

As far as Edric Dayne, there wouldn't be any hard feelings about Arthur Dayne if the story was told right and understood by people as being the logical outcome of brave people fighting for whatever they believed in. The Kingsguard took out 5 people to their 3, so they fought bravely and died well. There's nothing like a "retirement plan" for the Kingsguard. Dying with honor is how they tend to want to go out, and the "Sword of the Morning", Gerold Hightower, and what's his face Whent did just that.

The knocking down the tower thing isn't hard to explain. A war had just taken place. There were bound to be big ass battering rams and other siege equipment not too far off, and they didn't have to bury the guys right away. It might have been a day or two after the battle took place. Reinforcement soldiers and civilian workers wouldn't be too far away, either.
  • 2

User avatar
Malfeasinator
Time Waster
Time Waster
 
Posts: 1039
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:17 pm
Location: Florida
Show rep
Title: this guy

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Marcuse » Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:46 pm

Here's another musing from the middle of book 2.

When Arya is travelling with Yoren and the Night's Watch recruits North, they travel through the Riverlands which have already been scarred by the conflict between Houses Lannister and Stark. They see the tides of people fleeing to King's Landing, they see the burned villages and broken bodies scattered around. Then they come to a certain place, and discover a pair of survivors. One is an old woman missing an arm, who will only say the word "please" over and over again. The other, who is the subject of my post, is a two-year old girl who won't stop crying.

While the woman is basically ignored by the narrative, the crying girl (as she is referred to) is continually mentioned in the story, right up until Amory Lorch and his men kill Yoren and Arya, Hot Pie and Gendry escape through the flaming barn. She never stops crying, and Arya finds this annoying and feels no sympathy for her. When the battle is upon her, she's gearing up for the battle and finds the girl hugging her leg, desperate for someone to keep her safe. She angrily throws her off and sends her away, and that's the last time we hear from the little crying girl.

There's a couple of ways to read this. The first and most obvious one is that she's a metaphor for Arya and her innocence. The figure of a small child, overcome by grief, is representative of the tears Arya can't shed herself, and her throwing off of the little girl before the battle is symbolic for her in disregarding that part of her that cannot cope and just wants to be safe. Even though Arya's mindset isn't one of someone who flees from danger, she's surrounded by events that are way beyond her ability to fight, and her mind does turn to fleeing and crying when she has time to think following her escape from King's Landing.

On a practical level, this girl is why Westeros is fucked. Arya refuses to help the girl, she kicks her away and she's left alone in a battle. As a parent, this is a wrench for me, because that wouldn't be my instinct at all. Yet Arya takes the time to run back into the battle to save... Jaqen H'Gar, Rorge and Biter. Yeah, she puts more effort and attention into saving Biter than she does that little girl, and this is everything of why Westeros is fucked up and won't get better. Until a crying toddler gets more care and attention than a cannibal murderer I don't see a way for Westeros to know any kind of peace.
  • 2

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby CarrieVS » Mon Jun 06, 2016 8:33 pm

Marcuse wrote:The crying girl (as she is referred to) is continually mentioned in the story, right up until Amory Lorch and his men kill Yoren and Arya, Hot Pie and Gendry escape through the flaming barn. She never stops crying, and Arya finds this annoying and feels no sympathy for her. When the battle is upon her, she's gearing up for the battle and finds the girl hugging her leg, desperate for someone to keep her safe. She angrily throws her off and sends her away, and that's the last time we hear from the little crying girl.


I think you're mistaken. She may have kicked her aside rather than offer her comfort in/before the battle (I don't recall), but they dragged her with them through the tunnel by which they escaped, even though she was uncooperative. She stayed with them until they were captured by the Mountain's men - they started calling her Weasel rather than 'the crying girl', which may be the point of confusion. When they were captured, she ran off into the woods, with Arya silently willing her to run and hide and not be caught.
  • 2

A Combustible Lemon wrote:Death is an archaic concept for simpleminded commonfolk, not Victorian scientist whales.
User avatar
CarrieVS
TCS Redshirt
TCS Redshirt
 
Posts: 7103
Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 7:43 pm
Location: By my wild self in the wet wild woods waving my wild tail
Show rep
Title: Drama Llama

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Marcuse » Mon Jun 06, 2016 8:54 pm

CarrieVS wrote:
Marcuse wrote:The crying girl (as she is referred to) is continually mentioned in the story, right up until Amory Lorch and his men kill Yoren and Arya, Hot Pie and Gendry escape through the flaming barn. She never stops crying, and Arya finds this annoying and feels no sympathy for her. When the battle is upon her, she's gearing up for the battle and finds the girl hugging her leg, desperate for someone to keep her safe. She angrily throws her off and sends her away, and that's the last time we hear from the little crying girl.


I think you're mistaken. She may have kicked her aside rather than offer her comfort in/before the battle (I don't recall), but they dragged her with them through the tunnel by which they escaped, even though she was uncooperative. She stayed with them until they were captured by the Mountain's men - they started calling her Weasel rather than 'the crying girl', which may be the point of confusion. When they were captured, she ran off into the woods, with Arya silently willing her to run and hide and not be caught.


I just haven't read that far in the book yet.
  • 0

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby CarrieVS » Mon Jun 06, 2016 9:10 pm

Well OK, but they definitely did take her with them in their escape from the holdfast despite having to physically drag her. That's described in some detail at that point.
  • 1

A Combustible Lemon wrote:Death is an archaic concept for simpleminded commonfolk, not Victorian scientist whales.
User avatar
CarrieVS
TCS Redshirt
TCS Redshirt
 
Posts: 7103
Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 7:43 pm
Location: By my wild self in the wet wild woods waving my wild tail
Show rep
Title: Drama Llama

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Malfeasinator » Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:17 am

Marcuse wrote:Here's another musing from the middle of book 2.

When Arya is travelling with Yoren and the Night's Watch recruits North, they travel through the Riverlands which have already been scarred by the conflict between Houses Lannister and Stark. They see the tides of people fleeing to King's Landing, they see the burned villages and broken bodies scattered around. Then they come to a certain place, and discover a pair of survivors. One is an old woman missing an arm, who will only say the word "please" over and over again. The other, who is the subject of my post, is a two-year old girl who won't stop crying.

While the woman is basically ignored by the narrative, the crying girl (as she is referred to) is continually mentioned in the story, right up until Amory Lorch and his men kill Yoren and Arya, Hot Pie and Gendry escape through the flaming barn. She never stops crying, and Arya finds this annoying and feels no sympathy for her. When the battle is upon her, she's gearing up for the battle and finds the girl hugging her leg, desperate for someone to keep her safe. She angrily throws her off and sends her away, and that's the last time we hear from the little crying girl.

There's a couple of ways to read this. The first and most obvious one is that she's a metaphor for Arya and her innocence. The figure of a small child, overcome by grief, is representative of the tears Arya can't shed herself, and her throwing off of the little girl before the battle is symbolic for her in disregarding that part of her that cannot cope and just wants to be safe. Even though Arya's mindset isn't one of someone who flees from danger, she's surrounded by events that are way beyond her ability to fight, and her mind does turn to fleeing and crying when she has time to think following her escape from King's Landing.

On a practical level, this girl is why Westeros is fucked. Arya refuses to help the girl, she kicks her away and she's left alone in a battle. As a parent, this is a wrench for me, because that wouldn't be my instinct at all. Yet Arya takes the time to run back into the battle to save... Jaqen H'Gar, Rorge and Biter. Yeah, she puts more effort and attention into saving Biter than she does that little girl, and this is everything of why Westeros is fucked up and won't get better. Until a crying toddler gets more care and attention than a cannibal murderer I don't see a way for Westeros to know any kind of peace.


I'm not spoilering anything I'm about to say. The topic itself says SPOILERS and I'm assuming since it's about book 6, people have read the first 5.

So....

Oh dude, Westeros, even the entire world this takes place in, is totally fucked and completely irredeemable. That's pretty much the whole theme of the series. No one and nowhere is safe. The average life expectancy is probably 12, and that might be a little high. The people can starve and die in the streets and if they go to complain, the king shoots them with a crossbow and tells them to eat their newly dead friend. The Mountain can go and kill and rape and plunder and burn as much as he pleases, since there's usually no one to stop him.

The Biter goes and freaking bites womens' tits off, for crying out loud. There's an army of slaves who were castrated as babies. There's a disease that wipes people out with bloody diarrhea and no one does anything to stop it; the idea of a 'quarantine' never even comes up. So called 'knights' go around killing women and children on a regular basis, sometimes on orders, sometimes because they can and they feel like it.

Even the people of the Iron freaking Islands have made a way of life of violent raiding, slavery, and rape. That's pretty much their "code"; if you don't do those things, you don't follow their way of life. Why they haven't all been scourged ages ago is beyond me. Beyond that, though, slavery and human trafficking is a big deal in a lot of places in the world. Even little boys can be prostitutes in big cities and that's somehow okay.

Braavos is probably the only semi-decent area left in the whole known world, which means it's probably about to get burned down or shit on by pirates in some fashion like Old Town was/is.

What bothers me is how naive some of the characters can be. Cat and Sansa, especially. They see a lot of the real horror of what's around them and they still refuse to change the way they see the world. The Hound even breaks it down for Sansa and she refuses to believe him, even after all she's seen, even after almost being raped by a violent mob and saved by the Hound, being repeatedly beaten up by knights at Joffrey's behest, even after seeing her father's head chopped off - she still wants to believe that there are "true knights" and other such fairy tales. Catelyn has her head filled with the same nonsense and she messes up everything she touches. She literally fucks the whole Stark family over on many occasions, especially with that spur of the moment decision to capture Tyrion. Way to start a war and get your husband killed and your other children endangered, when you don't have all the facts, there. You'd think she'd learn from her mistakes but she doesn't; she keeps blundering on through. She lets Jaime go, for crying out loud. She sets up everything that causes the Red Wedding to happen.

She's also too out of the loop to understand things that are right in front of her. When her father is dying and feeling guilty about forcing Lysa to have an abortion to kill Littlefinger's baby, decades ago, Cat doesn't understand and thinks this "Tansy" is a person, and not a plant they use in the storyline to make a tea that kills unborn babies. Everyone and their mother knows what "Moon Tea" is in the story except Cat, somehow, probably because she's too goody-goody to ever consider that something like that could exist. She misses out on an important part of her own family's history and struggle because she's off in a make believe world of true knights and courtly ladies.

What makes the whole world so fucked is that the people who try to be good and just are usually ill-equipped mentally or physically to deal with the horrors of the way the world really is. Evil is rampant and pretty much goes unchecked. Whole family lines get wiped out like it's going out of style, and when that happens, there's no justice for them that died - someone just makes up a catchy song about it and everyone else goes on thinking "well, glad it's not me."

We're talking about a world where people think it's funny to sick lions on unsuspecting little people, like that's just part of the afternoon's entertainment.

There's no redemption coming. Everyone's been stuck in the same cycle for many thousands of years. There's not going to be anything like a Magna Carta or democracy any time soon, and no one is going to invent Calculus and kick off the Industrial Age. If they're lucky, the doom of Valryia will spread and take everything else out and put the whole horrid world out of its misery.
  • 2

User avatar
Malfeasinator
Time Waster
Time Waster
 
Posts: 1039
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:17 pm
Location: Florida
Show rep
Title: this guy

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Marcuse » Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:53 am

When her father is dying and feeling guilty about forcing Lysa to have an abortion to kill Littlefinger's baby, decades ago, Cat doesn't understand and thinks this "Tansy" is a person, and not a plant they use in the storyline to make a tea that kills unborn babies.


Weeeeeeell there is that young redhead whore that Arya meets when she's at an inn with the Brotherhood without Banners. Her name is Tansy.
  • 1

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 6 Speculation: SPOILERS

Postby Malfeasinator » Thu Jun 09, 2016 12:56 pm

I can't keep track of all the whores in this story.

I honestly think they make up about half the population of everywhere.
  • 4

User avatar
Malfeasinator
Time Waster
Time Waster
 
Posts: 1039
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:17 pm
Location: Florida
Show rep
Title: this guy

PreviousNext

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests

cron