#valyrian sphinxes

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

He found four members of the small council waiting for him.

The chamber was richly furnished.

Myrish carpets covered the floor instead of rushes, and in one corner a hundred fabulous beasts cavorted in bright paints on a carved screen from the Summer Isles.

The walls were hung with tapestries from Norvos and Qohor and Lys, and a pair of Valyrian sphinxes flanked the door, eyes of polished garnet smoldering in black marble faces.

[satinoflowers]

hii soo.. these guys. I didnt reread sam chapters before drawing and tbh i dont remember if they ever interact but! I think alleras ans sam would be great friends :)

[bidonica]

what does it mean when maegery patroned merchants and singers? Is it just giving money to them or is it getting something designed? Is it like when someone writes a book and they get it distributed all in the book stores

Well, to patron merchants you simply buy stuff from them; it probably means she had some trusted dealers she went to to buy luxury goods. I often think of the description of the Small Council chamber as an indicator that luxury goods in Westeros are mostly bought from abroad, and you need merchants for that:

The chamber was richly furnished. Myrish carpets covered the floor instead of rushes, and in one corner a hundred fabulous beasts cavorted in bright paints on a carved screen from the Summer Isles. The walls were hung with tapestries from Norvos and Qohor and Lys, and a pair of Valyrian sphinxes flanked the door, eyes of polished garnet smoldering in black marble faces.

As for sponsoring singers, it would mean they were given food and lodging in exchange for entertaining the noblefolks, and probably also money and/or material gifts. You see it with Marillion at the Eyrie:

Since coming to the Eyrie, the singer had become her favorite. He sang Lord Robert to sleep every night, and tweaked the noses of Lady Lysa's suitors with verses that made mock of their foibles. Her aunt had showered him with gold and gifts; costly clothes, a gold arm ring, a belt studded with moonstones, a fine horse. She had even given him her late husband's favorite falcon. It all served to make Marillion unfailingly courteous in Lady Lysa's presence, and unfailingly arrogant outside it.

In the pre industrial Western society asoiaf draws from, artists and often even intellectuals (though the latter could be independently wealthy, which makes sense: there's a higher chance a wealthy person gave their children an education compared to the working classes, though entering the clergy could provide some upward mobility in that respect) depended on the patronage of kings, nobles, and to an extent of institutions such as the church or the state, as in the case of republics. This also meant their work circulated in a much more limited manner than it would do today; we don't call them "mass media" for nothing. Think of how before we figured out how to record and broadcast sounds (so a VERY recent invention), the only way to listen to music would have been to either play it yourself or find someone who played it. You understand that actually "owning" a guy who could play and possibly even write music for you was one hell of a status symbol. In asoiaf you see a pretty archaic version of this, with their singers being essentially troubadours and storyteller, but in essence that's what Mozart was also doing. Hope that answers your question anon!

[moonwyvern]

Valyrian sphinx

[biblempreg]

took me most of the last year to read the lord of the rings trilogy and it did feel like a chore at times compared to it game of thrones is going down easy but it's also like . wdym the door was guarded by two black marble valyrian sphinxes. sphinxes? ancient egyptian sphinxes. ok. oh you've heard they might have wooly mammoths up north. that's great. is there a tesco as well

[dedalvs]

Lexember (December 8th)

Today's Valyrian glyph is vela "man". Super common one; was kind of surprised I didn't do it yet... It features in one of my favorite words of all time that makes cackle like a rooster. lol Vala is "man" zaldrīzes is "dragon". Sphinxes in Valyria are half-man/half-dragon, hence the word for "sphinx" is…valdrīzes. lol I love it.

[jozor-johai]

Just an observation, because I frequently think there are hints in ASOIAF about cultural origins:

Consider the appearance of the Valyrian Sphinx:

a dragon’s body and a woman’s face (ADWD Tyrion II)

And that of the Ghiscari Harpy:

the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion’s curled and venomous tail (ASOS Dany II)

Doesn't seem like the same at first, except—wings like a dragon, talons ... like a dragon, long curved tail... like a dragon, perhaps?

Minus the changed interpretation, these are both images of dragon-esque features with a person’s face—a woman's face, even. I think both of these cultural images might have a common source.

[wpmorse]

Clash of Kings - The Small Council

"Father did," said Tyrion. "That is why he sent me. To put an end to these follies and bring your son to heel.”

Clash of Kings - Chapter 3 - Tyrion

I was looking forward to drawing Tyrion's arrival at the small council. Many of my favorite parts of A Clash of Kings involve him being a master player of the game. Because of this, I was looking forward to his first tete a tete with Cersei.

Unfortunately, when I reread the chapter, I found a major flaw. After Tyrion climbs into the hand's chair he doesn't go anywhere until the end of the scene. Cersei is sitting in the king's chair. She doesn't move either. The text doesn't actually say where these chairs are at the table, but it's easy to assume they're on opposite sides. If that's the case, how is Cersei able to slap Tyrion?

I ended up doing something I mostly hoped to never do, use the show as a reference. The scene is almost entirely rewritten with entirely new dialogue. While the chairs are indeed on the opposite sides of the table, the show makes the notable change of having an angry Cersei get up and go sit next to Tyrion for a tete a tete. I figured book Cersei would never do this, so I took the liberty of having Tyrion go to her. 

[selkiewife]

House of Ladies, Day 4: House Martell || Sarella Sand / Alleras, daughter of Oberyn Martell

Sarella turned over rocks, brushed sand off the mosaics, and wanted to know everything there was to know about the people who had lived here.

~The Queenmaker, A Feast for Crows 

Alleras drew his bowstring back to his ear, turning gracefully to follow the target in flight. He loosed his shaft just as the apple began to fall. 

“You always miss your last shot,” said Roone. 

“See?” said Roone.

“The day you make them all is the day you stop improving.” 

~Prologue, A Feast for Crows

@womenasoiaf

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

[themotherofhorses]

Vic!! I have a request pretty pls hehehe,

Creepy dark! Aemond forcing his way with fem!reader as she sleeps after stalking him for many moons? PWEASEEE

what was mine is still mine, regardless of time.

pairing: soft but dark!aemond targaryen x fem!targaryen!reader

warnings: explicit language. nsfw smut. slight breeding kink towards the end. consented abduction. aemond is (as usual) obsessive and possessive but is actually kinda a sweetheart in this.

notes: ok so small thing: i kinda put my own twist to this request, because this sort of idea has lived in my head RENT FREE since forevvaaa. hope u enjoy it :)

masterlist

Dragonstone was quiet when arrived, the sea tide calm and peaceful.

Aemond Targaryen could not remember the last time he stepped foot in the castle, if he ever did at all, having spent the entirety of his life behind the bronze doors of the Red Keep. He did not care for the damned island, nor did he hold any love for its people, but his twentieth nameday was fast approaching, and his mother was insisting more and more that he take a wife soon.

“Now, where will you be,” he mumbles to himself as he rips off his riding gloves and tucks them into his belt.

The castle hallways were without light, and no houseguards stood afoot. Aemond smirks. It would be much easier for him to find you, tucked away in your own chamber.

Your personal chamber was nicely furnished, in the colors and style of your shared noble house, and had an aura belonging only to a Targaryen princess. Thick wool carpets covered the floor instead of harsh black stone, and your windows were cracked open just a little, with pretty drapes swaying from the light ocean breeze. The walls were hung with different tapestries, all of horses and dragons, and the doors were flanked by Valyrian sphinxes.

And to the corner was your bed, where you, his niece, lay atop, fast asleep.

Aemond wills his heart to continue beating, and for his cock to behave.

He has not laid eyes on you in almost a full decade, ten years too long for him. Both your parents whisked you away to Dragonstone when you were still a child, soft-faced and in the mid of girlhood.

They refused his mother’s offer for a betrothal between the two of you, and broke his heart to the tiniest of pieces that he wondered if they were still scattered around the Keep. But that was so many moons ago, and time slipped by him.

“Gods be good,” Aemond whispers, moving closer.

What has happened to that little girl, that kid niece of his? In her place sleeps a living goddess, too lovely for mankind. You’ve grown beautiful, a mirror image to your mother, his eldest sister. He bends to kiss your bare shoulder- just a simple and tiny kiss- and you stir in your sleep. It is cute, he admits, but he also can not wait another second longer.

Only the gods above know how much he’s wanted you.

With a hard yank, Aemond draws back the bedsheet covers, causing you to jolt up from the bed. You look around, confused and scared and still half-asleep, purple eyes clouding from drowsiness. In front of you sits a stranger, a man- silver-haired and cloaked in black riding leather. Across his eye, an eyepatch.

Your heart quickens at the sight. “Aemond…?” you call out, unsure.

He smiles, teeth and all. “You do not know how happy it makes me to know you are still able to recognize me, my niece. After all, it has been awhile- ten years, has it not?”

You shrug, trying to wipe the sleep away from your eyes. “What…what are you doing here?” you ask, while patting down the bed, looking for the sheets to cover your chest. “Should you not be at King’s Landing? Why are you here?” Your eyes grow as wide as a dinner plate as you soon add, “Oh no, has something happened? Is it my grandfather?”

But Aemond scoots closer, bringing his face to yours. “Do not fret, nice. I’m here on my own wishes,” and he twirls a thin strand of silver hair around his finger, humming as he watches it fall back around your shoulder. In that sheer Dornish nightgown, you look good enough to eat, and the princeling is feeling beyond ravenous.

“I’m here to collect a debt.”

Lucerys…you think, a sinking feeling in your chest. His stolen eye, that night on Driftmark…

Ten years and Aemond still seeks revenge.

“No,” Aemond says, shaking his head. He moves even closer, grabbing at your shoulders. His palms are rough and callous. “I would dare not hurt you. Anyone but you. You…” he sighs, “-you were promised to me, back when we were children. You were meant to be my wife, and they stole you from me. The only good fucking thing in my life, and it was taken away…”

He studies you, his eye running across your face, down your neck and to your chest.

That Dornish nightgown clings loose to your body, and he can see your nipples perk against the fabric. It sends blood rushing between his thighs. “Tell me, niece, what did I do to deserve that?”

“Aemond…”

“No!” he hisses, tightening his grip on you. “No! You have not the slightest idea of the fucking torture I’ve endured these years. The nights I stayed up, begging to the gods that I might have you. I thought…maybe if they heard my pleas, saw my faith, they would…but no. Ten years, and not a single glimpse of you.” Your breath hitches when he meets your gaze, “I dreamt of you, every damned night. Fought the urges to fly over and collect you from here…”

You shake your head. “Aemond…” you say, softly. “I’m betrothed to another, this cannot be.” You press your hand against his cheek, feeling him lean into your touch, and kiss his forehead. “I have missed you greatly, uncle, but it has been years! So many years. I’m to be married soon.” You pull back, “It is best if you return home, and start finding a lady of your own choosing.”

Aemond sighs, and inside his chest, he feels his heart being ripped apart again.

“You are right, my dearest niece. My sincerest apologies for waking you up, it was quite wrong of me. I shall see myself out,” and he kisses your hand, brushing his lips against your knuckles. “I wish you all the luck in your marriage, and may your husband love and appreciate you till the dying days of his damned life.”

You smile at him, though a bit sad now. “Thank you, uncle. To you as well.”

The princeling turns to leave, and you sit up watching as he makes his way to your door, before sinking back into your bed. “Goodbye, Aemond,” you call out, one final time before your eyes close, failing to see him pause and turn around to look at you.

What was he doing? Foolish man, he thinks. Foolish, stupid man!

Was it in his nature to admit defeat so easily, and to some unnamed wastrel cunt of a man? No. Throughout his life, Aemond suffered nothing but tremendous losses, while being denied the goodness and fairness that a child should’ve had. His lips pucker at the thought.

You were right there, close enough for him to finally claim.

And so he did.

“Shhh, keep your voice down,” Aemond tuts next to your ear, a heavy arm slung over your naked breasts as he holds you as close to his chest as possible. It feels as if he is frightened to let you go, worried you would disappear before his very eye, with another ten years slipping by until he finds you again.

His other hand lies between your trembling thighs, fingering you with such an intensity and speed that it leaves you utterly ruined and in tears. “Aemond…” you hiccup, nibbling at your bottom lip as he groans. “Fuck! You sound so good when you say my name like that. Gods be good, you are wet. Absolutely soaking my fingers. Doesn’t this feel good?” he asks, using his thumb to rub at your clit. “Yeah…it does, doesn’t it?”

You sniffle, fat tears streaking down both cheeks as you nod.

Oh, it feels good. So good, but so wrong as well.

You were to be married in less than a fortnight, to a highborn lord of House Stark, handsome and kind. How would you explain this to him? Or to your parents, who proposed the marriage between you two? How would you tell them that you were ruined? And it was your uncle’s fault.

“Please, Aemond…”

Aemond grabs at your jaw, cradling it in his hand before pulling it close to his face. “Shhh, it will be alright, my love. Do not fret. You will be okay, just give in,” he whispers, quickening his fingers as he fucks them into you, curling two to hit your sweet spot. You almost scream, so overcome with pleasure that it hurts. “This is where you are meant to be, darling, make no mistake in believing that. My bride, my love.”

My woman, he thinks gleefully, watching how your face scrunches up. Your eyebrows furrow and your mouth press together in a tight line, and it is the most beautiful sight.

My woman, made for me. Made for my love and protection and seed…

Goosebumps prickle along your arms as wet sounds echo across the chamber, followed by a strew of whimpers and moans. It sounds so dirty, so sinful and wrong that you pray to whichever god was listening in that no one would overhear such, especially your parents and siblings. Your father would have Aemond’s head, no doubt, and your older brother might rob him of his only other good eye.

“Oh, fuck…” you moan, flinging your head back, “-don’t stop, don’t stop, please don’t stop!”

A minute or so later, your vision blackens, the room spins, and your jaw slacks as you cum plenty around his fingers, all with such a high-pitched shriek that Aemond slaps a hand over your mouth to muffle the noise. “What did I say? Stay quiet!” he hisses before chuckling, smearing the mess around your folds while you make an attempt to catch your breath. “Very good, my love. You did so well for me.”

He brings a finger to his mouth, to suck at the taste. “Your taste is heavenly,” he moans, swirling his tongue around it. He then brings two to your mouth, swiping at the tiny bit of drool pooling before stuffing them in. “Suck. Taste yourself now.”

“Dirty girl,” Aemond hums, a smirk curving on his lips as he watches the way you lick and suck at his fingers. “You are digging a grave too deep to escape, darling.”

Ruin me, you want to say. If I’m to die, I rather it be in your hands than anyone else’s…

He lays you back down on the bed next, making sure your head rests comfortably against the pillows. Ten years, Aemond reminds himself. Ten fucking years. He can feel his resolve slowly weakening by the second. You’re too beautiful, too soft and womanly and perfect for him. Every fantasy he dreamt up during boyhood never claim as close as to this. “I dreamt of this for fucking years,” he admits while kissing your pink and pouty lips. “All the possible ways to take you, to fuck this pretty cunt of yours.”

Your legs wrap around his hips as he pushes his cock inside you. It is painful- undeniably painful- yet he swallows every cry and wince and moan that you give. Your fingernails dig into his skin from the terrible pain- the stretch and the sting and the weird feeling growing deep within your tummy.

“It is too much…!” you whimper against his lips. “Hurts!”

“Of course it hurts, darling, it is your first time. Every woman hurts when a man takes her first blood. But you can take it.”

“No,” you whine, trying to shove him away. “No, Aemond, it hurts too much-” But Aemond only kisses your temple, sweet and gentle and lovingly, while rocking his hips against yours. “It’ll feel so good soon, my love, trust me. I would never do anything to hurt you, not my precious and sweet girl,” he coos, leaning to rub your noses together, “-my brave girl.”

Ten years.

He could not stop, even if he wished to. No, not now that he finally has you, underneath his body and wet and ripe for his seed.

“I’ll give you our child,” he mutters beside your lips as he pinches your nipple between two fingers and keeps his thrusts hard, deep, and fast. All of it makes your face twist in a soft gasp, your body tightening as you feel that thick rush of pleasure from before, right before you creamed over his fingers.

“Take my seed and have our child. I promise to take you back to King’s Landing and marry you," he vows through ragged breaths, "and spend the rest of our lives making up for those ten years.”

“Aemond,” you pant, clutching onto his shoulders and dragging his face down for a kiss. His skin is sweaty and flushed, and he has never appeared so beautiful before. You love him. You love him so much, how did you spend ten years without seeing him? It makes no sense. You understand his woes now, clear as day, and you want to rid of them forever.

“I love you! I love you, I love you, make me your wife, please. Please!”

He feels your cunt tightening around his cock, and he is ready to give you everything: his heart, his soul, and his seed.

Come the morning, his son will be swelling within your belly, and he will have you seated atop Vhagar, flying back to the Keep to make you his wife, in both the eyes of the gods and the laws of the land.

The next day, at dawning, Rhaenyra Targaryen’s only daughter does not join her family to break fast together. Her three half-brothers and two half-sisters raise eyebrows as they munch quietly on their meals but keep silent, all until little Joffrey asks where his older sister might be. Rhaenyra does not know, and neither do the houseguards, the men of the small council, and the maesters, and it worries her greatly.

Her husband, though, is quick to remind her that the princess- ever their trueborn child- enjoys morning rides on dragonback. “Give her a few hours and she will surely return with a new story to tell us,” Daemon says, while sipping on his wine.

But a few hours turn into the rest of the day, and soon evening creeps by.

A raven arrives from King’s Landing, bearing the family a note:

“I’ve taken what was owed to me. Such a pity you all forgot that what was mine is still mine, regardless of time.”

[starryrosebud]

I am so tired of “Westerosi culture” “Northman culture” “dornish culture” when we can finally talk about the Valyrians??! Without demonising them or whitewashing the “poor Westerosi”?!?

Let’s talk about:

- how the Valyrian,ghiscari and summer islanders were already trading with the children of the forest before the first man invaded westeros?

- the beginning of Valyria, they went from being shepherds to a incredible empire!

- how apparently the High Valyrian have four grammatical genders!! How this work for spells?

- The massive sexual objectification they receive from both Westeros and Essos.

- blood magic and glass candle

-Sphinx and dragons in Valyrian architecture

- the thousands gods they worshipped

-their dances and music

[twicelivedsummer]

some people were going full "valyrian blood has no connecetion to controlling dragons" and I just need to scroll it back to

“He likes you, Ben,” said Dany. “And well he might.” Brown Ben laughed. “I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know.” ... She gave him a searching look and said, “How could that be?” “Well,” said Brown Ben, “there was some old Plumm in the Sunset Kingdoms who wed a dragon princess. My grandmama told me the tale. He lived in King Aegon’s day.

which if you try could be wishful thinking or something except that it's also set-up for

A younger son of Viserys Plumm, I’d wager. The queen’s dragons were fond of you, were they not?” That seemed to amuse the sellsword. “Who told you that?” “No one. Most of the stories you hear about dragons are fodder for fools. Talking dragons, dragons hoarding gold and gems, dragons with four legs and bellies big as elephants, dragons riddling with sphinxes … nonsense, all of it. But there are truths in the old books as well. Not only do I know that the queen’s dragons took to you, but I know why.” “My mother said my father had a drop of dragon blood.” “Two drops. That, or a cock six feet long. You know that tale? I do.

Tyrion knowing sight-unseen that the dragons liked Ben Plumm, because you knows about Elaena and [redacted]. If wasn't true, he wouldn't be able to correctly predict it.

yes ~dragon blood~ makes dragons like you more nettles was just That awesome (persistent & clever & careful) to do it the hard way.

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

A FEAST FOR CROWS

Summary & Foreshadowing Smorgasbord (Part II)

Crouching dragon, hidden wolf.

AFFC Part II: UNDER THE CUT

Dark Daenerys Highlights & Laughs

Let's Dance: Stark vs. Targ

A Rat in a Maze 🐀🔪

The Usurper's Knife

Storm x Storm 🦑🖤🐉

Squid Game

AFFC Part I: CLICK

Sansa Stark, Queen in the North

Jon Snow, King in the North

Jon (Aemon?) Snow

Ahoy Matey! Arya Stark Sails the Ocean Blue

Bran the Broken, King of Westeros

High Septon Rickon?

Pick Your Poison: The Twins Meet Their End in the Bowels of Casterly Rock . . . or King's Landing

Younger and More Beautiful Cersei

AFFC PART III: CLICK

Chapter Transitions

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

Previous books:

AGOT Summary & Foreshadowing: CLICK

ACOK Summary & Foreshadowing: PART I / PART II

ASOS Summary & Foreshadowing: PART I / PART II / PART III / PART IV

Stumpy note:

If I didn't give you credit for discovering something or if I missed any foreshadowing, please contact me and I'll rectify that.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the reread project. All of you have great observations and comments, I wish I could highlight them all. 🙂

DARK DAENERYS HIGHLIGHTS & LAUGHS

Talking dragons, while a Sand Snake shoots three arrows.

"Dragons," said Mollander. He snatched a withered apple off the ground and tossed it hand to hand.

"Throw the apple," urged Alleras the Sphinx. He slipped an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bowstring.

"I should like to see a dragon." Roone was the youngest of them, a chunky boy still two years shy of manhood. "I should like that very much."

[...]

Far and fast the apple flew . . .

. . . but not as fast as the arrow that whistled after it, a yard-long shaft of golden wood fletched with scarlet feathers. Pate did not see the arrow catch the apple, but he heard it. A soft chunk echoed back across the river, followed by a splash.

Mollander whistled. "You cored it. Sweet."

[...]

"There's another apple near your foot," Alleras called to Mollander, "and I still have two arrows in my quiver." - Prologue, AFFC

+.+.+

A storm is coming.

"No," said Alleras. "It was Prince Rhaegar's young son Aegon whose head was dashed against the wall by the Lion of Lannister's brave men. We speak of Rhaegar's sister, born on Dragonstone before its fall. The one they called Daenerys."

"The Stormborn. I recall her now." - Prologue, AFFC

+.+.+

A sword with fire shadows Oldtown.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, its beacon fires bright against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell the time of day by where that shadow fell. - Prologue, AFFC

+.+.+

Does the Faceless Man want a book?

"The key?" the alchemist inquired politely.

Something made Pate hesitate. "Is it some book you want?" Some of the old Valyrian scrolls down in the locked vaults were said to be the only surviving copies in the world.

"What I want is none of your concern." - Prologue, AFFC

x

Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth's work had found its way across the narrow sea. And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel. - Tyrion IV, ADWD

+.+.+

Speaking of The Death of Dragons (what a coincidence!), let's follow Samwell's book.

He had to get down on his knees to gather up the books he'd dropped. I should not have brought so many, he told himself as he brushed the dirt off Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium, a thick volume of tales and legends from the east that Maester Aemon had commanded him to find. The book appeared undamaged. Maester Thomax's Dragonkin, Being a History of House Targaryen from Exile to Apotheosis, with a Consideration of the Life and Death of Dragons had not been so fortunate. It had come open as it fell, and a few pages had gotten muddy, including one with a rather nice picture of Balerion the Black Dread done in colored inks. Sam cursed himself for a clumsy oaf as he smoothed the pages down and brushed them off. - Samwell I, AFFC

↓

The second wayn would carry their clothing and possessions, along with a chest of rare old books that Aemon thought the Citadel might lack. Sam had spent half the night searching for them, though he'd found only one in four. And a good thing, or we'd need another wayn. - Samwell I, AFFC

↓

The only things of value that still remained to them were the books they had brought from the vaults of Castle Black. Sam parted with them glumly. "They were meant for the Citadel," he said, when Xhondo asked him what was wrong. When the mate translated those words, the captain laughed. "Quhuru Mo says the grey men will be having these books still," Xhondo told him, "only they will be buying them from Quhuru Mo. The maesters give good silver for books they are not having, and sometimes red and yellow gold." - Samwell IV, AFFC

↓

"Two days, ten days, who can say? However long it takes to empty our holds and fill them again." Kojja grinned. "My father must visit the grey maesters as well. He has books to sell." - Samwell V, AFFC

+.+.+

What do storms and dragons make? Not food.

Thank you, @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir!

"The Storm God cast him down," the priest announced. For a thousand thousand years sea and sky had been at war. From the sea had come the ironborn, and the fish that sustained them even in the depths of winter, but storms brought only woe and grief. - The Prophet, AFFC

x

"Grapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make wine. What do dragons make?"

"Woe." The Crow's Eye sipped from his silver cup. - The Reaver, AFFC

+.+.+

Like the Unsullied?

Thank you, @magiclovingdragon!

No proper man would choose a life of thralldom, nor forge a chain of servitude to wear about his throat. - The Prophet, AFFC

+.+.+

Death came to Dorne on black wings, with red wax.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

Death had come to Dorne on raven wings, writ small and sealed with a blob of hard red wax. - The Captain of the Guards, AFFC

+.+.+

Quick reminder:

Cersei and Daenerys are intended as parallel characters --each exploring a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world. - George R. R. Martin

+.+.+

Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: above them all edition.

She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all. - Cersei I, AFFC

x

Meereen had a score of lesser pyramids, but none stood even half as tall. From here she could see the whole city: the narrow twisty alleys and wide brick streets, the temples and granaries, hovels and palaces, brothels and baths, gardens and fountains, the great red circles of the fighting pits. And beyond the walls was the pewter sea, the winding Skahazadhan, the dry brown hills, burnt orchards, and blackened fields. Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.

Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Good luck Aegon.

"My own father raised the same objections when I chose a life of service," the old man said. "It was his father who sent me to the Citadel. King Daeron had sired four sons, and three had sons of their own. Too many dragons are as dangerous as too few, I heard His Grace tell my lord father, the day they sent me off." - Samwell I, AFFC

+.+.+

A storm of black wings couldn't buy Diet Daenerys an ally. The silence had been thunderous.

He's trying to convince himself, Sam realized, but he can't. The ravens had gone forth from Castle Black in a storm of black wings, summoning the lords of the north to declare for Stannis Baratheon and join their strength to his. Sam had sent out most of them himself. Thusfar only one bird had returned, the one they'd sent to Karhold. Elsewise the silence had been thunderous. - Samwell I, AFFC

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: just like my daddy edition.

"Lord Tywin was a great man, an extraordinary man," he declared ponderously after he had kissed both her cheeks. "We shall never see his like again, I fear."

You are looking at his like, fool, Cersei thought. It is his daughter standing here before you. - Cersei II, AFFC

x

She lifted her head. "And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo." - Daenerys IX, AGOT

x

". . . my father's daughter?" If she was not her father's daughter, who was she? - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Dark wings high above King's Landing.

There were crows circling the seven towers and great dome of Baelor's Sept even now, Jaime suspected, their black wings beating against the night air as they searched for a way inside. - Jaime I, AFFC

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Mad Danelle and her giant bats won't stop eating children.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

She had a cheerful manner, but when Brienne showed her the shield her face went dark. "My old ma used to say that giant bats flew out from Harrenhal on moonless nights, to carry bad children to Mad Danelle for her cookpots. Sometimes I'd hear them scrabbling at the shutters." She sucked her teeth a moment, thoughtful. "What goes in its place?" - Brienne II, AFFC

x

He found himself remembering tales he had first heard as a child at Casterly Rock, of mad Lady Lothston who bathed in tubs of blood and presided over feasts of human flesh within these very walls. - Jaime III, AFFC

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If history is a wheel, what does that tell us about Daenerys Targaryen?

"Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said. I think of that whenever I contemplate the Crow's Eye. Euron Greyjoy sounds queerly like Urron Greyiron to these old ears. I shall not go to Old Wyk. Nor should you." - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC

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A dragon eating itself.

"Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?"

He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?"

"The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. Anders Yronwood is Criston Cole reborn. He whispers in my brother's ear that he should rule after my father, that it is not right for men to kneel to women . . . that Arianne especially is unfit to rule, being the willful wanton that she is." - The Soiled Knight, AFFC

x

+.+.+

Doesn't sound like a happy song.

He sang of the Dance of the Dragons, of fair Jonquil and her fool, of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of Dragonflies. He sang of betrayals, and murders most foul, of hanged men and bloody vengeance. He sang of grief and sadness. - Sansa I, AFFC

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Kings are dancing, hey-nonny hey-nonny.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

"Does he now?" The man took the coin and spun it, smiling. "I like to see a king dance, hey-nonny hey-nonny hey-nonny-ho. Mighten be I saw this fool of yours." - Brienne III, AFFC

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Towers are collapsing, and flames are dancing.

The Tower of the Hand gave out a sudden groan, so loud that all the conversation stopped abruptly. Stone cracked and split, and part of the upper battlements fell away and landed with a crash that shook the hill, sending up a cloud of dust and smoke. As fresh air rushed in through the broken masonry, the fire surged upward. Green flames leapt into the sky and whirled around each other. Tommen shied away, till Margaery took his hand and said, "Look, the flames are dancing. Just as we did, my love."

"They are." His voice was filled with wonder. "Mother, look, they're dancing." - Cersei III, AFFC

+.+.+

Cersei prays for a storm to rock the Red Keep.

"No one wants rain," said Cersei. For herself, she wanted sleet and ice, howling winds, thunder to shake the very stones of the Red Keep. She wanted a storm to match her rage. To Jocelyn she said, "Tighter. Cinch it tighter, you simpering little fool." - Cersei III, AFFC

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Be careful what you wish for.

"Even if Tyrion were still hiding in the castle, he won't be in the Tower of the Hand. We've reduced it to a shell."

"Would that we could do the same to the rest of this foul castle," said Cersei. - Cersei III, AFFC

+.+.+

Careful where you point that dragon.

Jaime ignored that. "If these flames spread beyond the tower, you may end up burning down the castle whether you mean to or not. Wildfire is treacherous." - Cersei III, AFFC

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Mad Queen & Mad King parallels that make us laugh: white castles edition.

"Would that we could do the same to the rest of this foul castle," said Cersei. "After the war I mean to build a new palace beyond the river." She had dreamed of it the night before last, a magnificent white castle surrounded by woods and gardens, long leagues from the stinks and noise of King's Landing. "This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock." - Cersei III, AFFC

x

In 265 AC, offended by "the stink of King's Landing," he spoke of building a "white city" entirely of marble on the south bank of the Blackwater Rush. - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II, The World of Ice and Fire

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I was thinking someone else.

"Let all of King's Landing see the flames. It will be a lesson to our enemies."

"Now you sound like Aerys." - Cersei III, AFFC

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: pyromania edition.

"No need." Cersei felt too alive for sleep. The wildfire was cleansing her, burning away all her rage and fear, filling her with resolve. "The flames are so pretty. I want to watch them for a while." - Cersei III, AFFC

x

The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought. 

Another step, and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals. Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run. Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. - Daenerys X, AGOT

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Mother of beasts, mother of monsters.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

"Yet this peace is fragile . . . as fragile as your princess."

"Only a beast would harm a little girl." - The Soiled Knight, AFFC

x

"Pets?" screeched Reznak. "Monsters, rather. Monsters that feed on children. We cannot—"

"Silence," said Daenerys. "We will not speak of that." - Daenerys V, ADWD

+.+.+

If Randyll Tarly does it, perhaps it's time to rethink these methods of punishment.

"I know what Lord Randyll does with outlaws," Brienne said. "I know what he does with rapers too."

She had hoped the name might cow them, but the serjeant only flicked egg off his fingers and signaled to his men to spread out. Brienne found herself surrounded by steel points. "What was it you was saying, wench? What is it that Lord Tarly does to . . ."

". . . rapers," a deeper voice finished. "He gelds them or sends them to the Wall. Sometimes both. And he cuts fingers off thieves." A languid young man stepped from the gatehouse, a swordbelt buckled at his waist. - Brienne III, AFFC

x

Meereen had been sacked savagely, as new-fallen cities always were, but Dany was determined that should end now that the city was hers. She had decreed that murderers were to be hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls, and the Unsullied had filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and soft red worms, but Meereen was calm again. But for how long? - Daenerys VI, ASOS

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The author isn't finished making his point.

Tarly had heard enough. "Take his little finger. He can choose which hand. A nail through the palm for the other." - Brienne III, AFFC

x

She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

She has three, Sam.

Exhausted as they were, his rowers bent to their oars again, and the ship clawed south toward the narrow sea, till Skagos dwindled to no more than a few dark shapes in the sky that might have been thunderheads, or the tops of tall black mountains, or both. After that, they had eight days and seven nights of clear, smooth sailing.

Then came more storms, worse than before.

Was it three storms, or only one, broken up by lulls? Sam never knew, though he tried desperately to care. - Samwell II, AFFC

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Lightning and darkness, the worst is just beginning.

"No." Sam wiped his nose, and pointed south with a fat finger, toward the gathering darkness. "There," he said. No sooner had he spoken than lightning flashed, sudden and silent and blinding bright. The distant clouds glowed for half a heartbeat, mountains heaped on mountains, purple and red and yellow, taller than the world. "The worst isn't done. The worst is just beginning, and there are no happy endings."

"Gods be good," said Dareon, laughing. "Slayer, you are such a craven." - Samwell II, AFFC

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Thunder from the south, ice from the north.

The autumn gales had hounded them all across the narrow sea. Sometimes they came up from the south, roiling with thunder and lightning and black rains that fell for days. Sometimes they came down from the north, cold and grim, with savage winds that cut right through a man. Once it got so cold that Sam had woken to find the whole ship coated in ice, shining as white as pearl. - Samwell III, AFFC

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When you make Tywin Lannister look good.

The funeral procession departed King's Landing through the Gate of the Gods, wider and more splendid than the Lion Gate. The choice felt wrong to Jaime. His father had been a lion, that no one could deny, but even Lord Tywin never claimed to be a god. - Jaime II, AFFC

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Cersei and Aerys aren't the only two people aroused by flames.

Jaime knew the look in his sister's eyes. He had seen it before, most recently on the night of Tommen's wedding, when she burned the Tower of the Hand. The green light of the wildfire had bathed the face of the watchers, so they looked like nothing so much as rotting corpses, a pack of gleeful ghouls, but some of the corpses were prettier than others. Even in the baleful glow, Cersei had been beautiful to look upon. She'd stood with one hand on her breast, her lips parted, her green eyes shining. She is crying, Jaime had realized, but whether it was from grief or ecstasy he could not have said.

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. - Jaime II, AFFC

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Good omens: the night Daenerys was conceived.

A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. "You're hurting me," they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. "You're hurting me." In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted's screaming. "We are sworn to protect her as well," Jaime had finally been driven to say. "We are," Darry allowed, "but not from him."

Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew. - Jaime II, AFFC

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Fateful words.

Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat, Jaime remembered, studying his sister's smile. Let him be the king of ashes. - Jaime II, AFFC

x

"Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat," he said to a man below him. "Let him be the king of ashes." Drogon shrieked, his claws digging through silk and skin, but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: teats edition.

"I govern the realm."

Seven save us all, you do. His sister liked to think of herself as Lord Tywin with teats, but she was wrong. Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cersei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted. - Jaime II, AFFC

x

"Must?" Tyrion made a tsking sound. "That is not a word queens like to hear. You are her perfect prince, agreed, bright and bold and comely as any maid could wish. Daenerys Targaryen is no maid, however. She is the widow of a Dothraki khal, a mother of dragons and sacker of cities, Aegon the Conqueror with teats. She may not prove as willing as you wish." - Tyrion VI, ADWD

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A storm's coming for the ants.

Men began to shove at one another. Someone flung a pinecone at Asha's head. When she ducked, her makeshift crown fell off. For a moment it seemed to the priest as if he stood atop a giant anthill, with a thousand ants in a boil at his feet. Shouts of "Asha!" and "Victarion!" surged back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf them all. - The Drowned Man, AFFC

x

Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many … - Daenerys X, ADWD

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Dam-phair's prophetic dream? Who is we?

The priest had dreamed the same dream, when first he'd seen the red comet in the sky. We shall sweep over the green lands with fire and sword, root out the seven gods of the septons and the white trees of the northmen . . . - The Drowned Man, AFFC

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There's no honor in using the magic sword.

Crabb thought that was hilarious. "The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. What's the point o' having some magic sword if you don't bloody well use it?"

"Honor," she said. "The point is honor." - Brienne IV, AFFC

x

When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world. - Daenerys III, ADWD

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The dragons have a target.

"I understand you've fought some mighty battles too, Your Grace," said Drey in his most cheerful voice. "It is said you show our brave Prince Trystane no mercy at the cyvasse table."

"He always sets his squares up the same way, with all the mountains in the front and his elephants in the passes," said Myrcella. "So I send my dragon through to eat his elephants." - The Queenmaker, AFFC

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: the wolf girl edition.

If she had only married Rhaegar as the gods intended, he would never have looked twice at the wolf girl. Rhaegar would be our king today and I would be his queen, the mother of his sons. - Cersei V, AFFC

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"If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would not have needed the Stark girl." -Daenerys IV, ASOS

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More grief than glory, Aemon.

He was not making sense. "Remember what?"

"Dragons," Aemon whispered. "The grief and glory of my House, they were." - Samwell III, AFFC

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Fire consumes.

He closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. "I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves. The Wall . . . but it is too late to go running back. – Samwell III, AFFC

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"Fire consumes." Lord Beric stood behind them, and there was something in his voice that silenced Thoros at once. "It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing." - Arya VIII, AFFC

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The dreams killed them, every one.

"The last dragon died before you were born," said Sam. "How could you remember them?"

"I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend . . . or . . ." - Samwell III, AFFC

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A preview?

Three hundred years ago, when Aegon the Dragon landed beneath this very hill, the High Septon locked himself within the Starry Sept of Oldtown and prayed for seven days and seven nights, taking no nourishment but bread and water. When he emerged he announced that the Faith would not oppose Aegon and his sisters, for the Crone had lifted up her lamp to show him what lay ahead. If Oldtown took up arms against the Dragon, Oldtown would burn, and the Hightower and the Citadel and the Starry Sept would be cast down and destroyed. Lord Hightower was a godly man. When he heard the prophecy, he kept his strength at home and opened the city gates to Aegon when he came. And His High Holiness anointed the Conqueror with the seven oils. I must do as he did, three hundred years ago. I must pray, and fast." - Cersei VI, AFFC

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Just because you give something a different name. . .

"Who are they?" he asked the men who helped tie up their boat.

"Widows and orphans. They're to be sold as slaves."

"Sold?" There were no slaves in the Iron Islands, only thralls. A thrall was bound to service, but he was not chattel. His children were born free, so long as they were given to the Drowned God. And thralls were never bought nor sold for gold. A man paid the iron price for thralls, or else had none. "They should be thralls, or salt wives," Victarion complained.

"It's by the king's decree," the man said.

"The strong have always taken from the weak," said Nute the Barber. "Thralls or slaves, it makes no matter. Their men could not defend them, so now they are ours, to do with as we will." - The Reaver, AFFC

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Are you sure they believed in the cause?

"When I died in the Battle of the Trident. I fought for Prince Rhaegar, though he never knew my name. I could not tell you why, save that the lord I served served a lord who served a lord who had decided to support the dragon rather than the stag. Had he decided elsewise, I might have been on the other side of the river. The battle was a bloody thing. The singers would have us believe it was all Rhaegar and Robert struggling in the stream for a woman both of them claimed to love, but I assure you, other men were fighting too, and I was one. - Brienne VI, AFFC

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At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar's cause, or because they had been bought and paid for? - Daenerys II, ASOS

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: they're everywhere edition.

The far end of the hall was lost in darkness, and Cersei could not but feel that the shadows were closing around her too. My enemies are everywhere, and my friends are useless. - Cersei VII, AFFC

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"No more than I did." Dany took a deep breath to stop her shaking. Enemies everywhere. "Take me back to my tent. Please." - Daenerys V, ASOS

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: bed slaves edition.

She twisted Taena's other nipple too, pulling until the other woman gasped. "I am the queen. I mean to claim my rights." - Cersei VII, AFFC

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Dany stepped away from her. "No. Irri, you do not need to do that. What happened that night, when you woke . . . you're no bed slave, I freed you, remember? You . . ." - Daenerys II, ASOS

x

Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed with her, for the first time since the ship. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

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What fools they were! Aemon has the prophecy all figured out.

Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth in that.

On Braavos, it had seemed possible that Aemon might recover. Xhondo's talk of dragons had almost seemed to restore the old man to himself. That night he ate every bite Sam put before him. "No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." - Samwell IV, AFFC

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As Archmaester Gyldayn notes in his fragmentary history, there is no record that Vermax ever laid so much as a single egg, suggesting the dragon was male. The belief that dragons could change sex at need is erroneous, according to Maester Anson's Truth, rooted in a misunderstanding of the esoteric metaphor that Barth preferred when discussing the higher mysteries. - TwoIaF

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Poor Melisandre, deceived herself because she wanted to believe, unlike Aemon Targaryen. . .

"No," the old man said. "It must be you. Tell them. The prophecy . . . my brother's dream . . . Lady Melisandre has misread the signs. Stannis . . . Stannis has some of the dragon blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg's little girl, she was how they came by it . . . their father's mother . . . she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl. I remembered that, so I allowed myself to hope . . . perhaps I wanted to . . . we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that . . . light without heat . . . an empty glamor . . . the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam. Daenerys is our hope. Tell them that, at the Citadel. Make them listen. They must send her a maester. Daenerys must be counseled, taught, protected. - Samwell IV, AFFC

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: bored to tears edition.

"May I have the honor of accompanying Your Grace to court?"

"If you can bear the tedium," said Cersei. "Robert was a fool about most things, but he was right in one regard. It is wearisome work to rule a kingdom." - Cersei VIII, AFFC

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The rest was a tedium the queen knew well. She sat upon her cushions, listening, one foot jiggling with impatience. - Daenerys VII, ADWD

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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: bad ideas come in three edition.

The girls wandered for a long while before they found the crone's tent. By the time they did all the torches were guttering out. Cersei watched the girls huddling, whispering to one another. Go back, she tried to tell them. Turn away. There is nothing here for you. 

[...]

She dreamt an old dream, of three girls in brown cloaks, a wattled crone, and a tent that smelled of death.

The crone's tent was dark, with a tall peaked roof. She did not want to go in, no more than she had wanted to at ten, but the other girls were watching her, so she could not turn away. They were three in the dream, as they had been in life. 

[...]

"Three questions may you ask," the crone said, once she'd had her drink. "You will not like my answers. Ask, or begone with you." - Cersei VIII, AFFC

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"Then I must heed Pyat Pree, and go to the warlocks."

The merchant prince sat up sharply. "Pyat Pree has blue lips, and it is truly said that blue lips speak only lies. Heed the wisdom of one who loves you. Warlocks are bitter creatures who eat dust and drink of shadows. They will give you naught. They have naught to give." - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

. . . mother of dragons . . . child of three . . .

"Three?" She did not understand.

. . . three heads has the dragon . . . the ghost chorus yammered inside her skull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the still blue air. . . . mother of dragons . . . child of storm . . . The whispers became a swirling song. . . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love . . . Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her, blue and corrupt . . . three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . . The voices were growing louder, she realized, and it seemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath. . . . three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . . - Daenerys IV, ACOK

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Final reminder:

Cersei and Daenerys are intended as parallel characters --each exploring a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world. - George R. R. Martin

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Wait for the payoff.

Lord Hallyne of the Guild of Alchemists presented himself, to ask that his pyromancers be allowed to hatch any dragon's eggs that might turn up upon Dragonstone, now that the isle was safely back in royal hands. "If any such eggs remained, Stannis would have sold them to pay for his rebellion," the queen told him. She refrained from saying that the plan was mad. Ever since the last Targaryen dragon had died, all such attempts had ended in death, disaster, or disgrace. - Cersei VIII, AFFC

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A Griffin King is slayed by someone flying on a falcon.

The Winged Knight was Ser Artys Arryn. Legend said that he had driven the First Men from the Vale and flown to the top of the Giant's Lance on a huge falcon to slay the Griffin King. There were a hundred tales of his adventures. - Alayne II, AFFC

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Lady Stoneheart shows no mercy.

"Judgment?" She frowned. "Podrick Payne is just a boy."

"He says he is a squire."

"You know how boys will boast."

"The Imp's squire. He has fought in battles, by his own admission. He has even killed, to hear him tell it."

"A boy," she said again. "Have pity." - Brienne VIII, AFFC

x

Within he found a boy of twelve laying out clothing on the bed; his squire, such that he was. - Tyrion III, ACOK

x

"Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." - Daenerys III, ASOS

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That's the thing about prophecies.

"Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy." Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. "Not that I would trust it. Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time." He chewed a bit. "Still . . ." - Samwell V, AFFC

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LET'S DANCE: STARK vs. TARG

Thank you, @aegor-bamfsteel and @agentrouka-blog!

The Moonsingers led the slaves to a place where the dragonlords couldn't find them.

"The Moonsingers led us to this place of refuge, where the dragons of Valyria could not find us," Denyo said. - Arya I, AFFC

x

When a shipment of slaves of the Valyrian Freehold bound for Sothoryos revolted, seized the slave ships transporting them, and fled north, a group of enslaved women from the lands of the Jogos Nhai prophesied where they would find shelter: a lagoon behind a wall of pine-clad hills and sea stones, where frequent fogs would help hide the refugees from the eyes of dragonlords passing overhead. These women were moonsingers and, according to Braavosi history, their prophecy proved true. For that reason, the Temple of the Moonsingers is the largest in Braavos. - A Wiki of Ice and Fire

x

In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her. - Jon I, ADWD

+.+.+

Arya and Daenerys come face-to-face with similar doors. Drogon's not a fan.

At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought. - Arya I, AFFC

x

Finally the stair opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward.

[...]

She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

In the opening chapter of the book, the author appears to be using apples as a placeholder for dragons. Hard to not be reminded of Arya's big bite.

Thank you, @mozzlan!

"Fuck your quiver." Mollander scooped up the windfall. "This one's wormy," he complained, but he threw it anyway. The arrow caught the apple as it began to fall and sliced it clean in two. One half landed on a turret roof, tumbled to a lower roof, bounced, and missed Armen by a foot. "If you cut a worm in two, you make two worms," the acolyte informed them. - Prologue, AFFC

x

She ended it with valar morghulis, touched Jaqen's coin where it nestled under her belt, and then reached up and plucked an apple from among the dead men as she rode beneath them. It was mushy and overripe, but she ate it worms and all. - Arya I, ASOS

+.+.+

Who's hungry for some fyreworms?

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

"The tale of our beginnings. If you would be one of us, you had best know who we are and how we came to be. Men may whisper of the Faceless Men of Braavos, but we are older than the Secret City. Before the Titan rose, before the Unmasking of Uthero, before the Founding, we were. We have flowered in Braavos amongst these northern fogs, but we first took root in Valyria, amongst the wretched slaves who toiled in the deep mines beneath the Fourteen Flames that lit the Freehold's nights of old. Most mines are dank and chilly places, cut from cold dead stone, but the Fourteen Flames were living mountains with veins of molten rock and hearts of fire. So the mines of old Valyria were always hot, and they grew hotter as the shafts were driven deeper, ever deeper. The slaves toiled in an oven. The rocks around them were too hot to touch. The air stank of brimstone and would sear their lungs as they breathed it. The soles of their feet would burn and blister, even through the thickest sandals. Sometimes, when they broke through a wall in search of gold, they would find steam instead, or boiling water, or molten rock. Certain shafts were cut so low that the slaves could not stand upright, but had to crawl or bend. And there were wyrms in that red darkness too."

"Earthworms?" she asked, frowning.

"Firewyrms. Some say they are akin to dragons, for wyrms breathe fire too. Instead of soaring through the sky, they bore through stone and soil. If the old tales can be believed, there were wyrms amongst the Fourteen Flames even before the dragons came. The young ones are no larger than that skinny arm of yours, but they can grow to monstrous size and have no love for men."

x

She had broken her fast on some acorn paste and a handful of bugs. Bugs weren't so bad when you got used to them. Worms were worse, but still not as bad as the pain in your belly after days without food. 

[...]

"We're all hungry," said Arya.

"You're not," Lommy spat from the ground. "Worm breath." - Arya V, ACOK

x

Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand.

The yellow skull was melting too, and the kindliest old man that she had ever seen was smiling down at her. "No one has ever tried to eat my worm before," he said. "Are you hungry, child?"

Yes, she thought, but not for food. - Arya I, AFFC

+.+.+

He should have killed the masters! Still waiting on the story of the first Faceless Man killing Valyrian masters.

"Burnt and blackened corpses were oft found in shafts where the rocks were cracked or full of holes. Yet still the mines drove deeper. Slaves perished by the score, but their masters did not care. Red gold and yellow gold and silver were reckoned to be more precious than the lives of slaves, for slaves were cheap in the old Freehold. During war, the Valyrians took them by the thousands. In times of peace they bred them, though only the worst were sent down to die in the red darkness."

"Didn't the slaves rise up and fight?"

"Some did," he said. "Revolts were common in the mines, but few accomplished much. The dragonlords of the old Freehold were strong in sorcery, and lesser men defied them at their peril. The first Faceless Man was one who did."

"Who was he?" Arya blurted, before she stopped to think.

"No one," he answered. "Some say he was a slave himself. Others insist he was a freeholder's son, born of noble stock. Some will even tell you he was an overseer who took pity on his charges. The truth is, no one knows.

[...]

Arya drew back from him. "He killed the slave?" That did not sound right. "He should have killed the masters!"

"He would bring the gift to them as well . . . but that is a tale for another day, one best shared with no one." He cocked his head. "And who are you, child?" - Arya II, AFFC

x

Are the Faceless Men under contract to kill Dany's dragons?

Not yet - George R. R. Martin

+.+.+

Lots of sweet things smelling foul.

And then he was alone again with his lord father, amongst the candles and the crystals and the sickly sweet smell of death. – Jaime I, AFFC

x

All the rainbows vanished in that perfumed mist, yet the stench persisted, a sweet rotten smell that made Jaime want to gag. – Jaime I, AFFC

x

When the chief fool undid the drawstring on the sack and plunged his hand inside, the smell of decay filled her audience chamber like some rank rose. - Cersei IV, AFFC

x

"Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones." - Daenerys II, ACOK

x

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

The northmen aren't fond of The Stoneborn.

The Skagosi named themselves the stoneborn, but their fellow northmen called them Skaggs and liked them little. – Samwell II, AFFC

+.+.+

Crows are dining!

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

The smell reminded Jaime Lannister of the pass below the Golden Tooth, where he had won a glorious victory in the first days of the war. On the morning after the battle, the crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike, as once they had feasted on Rhaegar Targaryen after the Trident. How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king? - Jaime I, AFFC

x

My flesh will feed the wolves and carrion crows, she thought sadly, and worms will burrow through my womb. - Daenerys X, AFFC

+.+.+

Will The Perfect Fool slay a dragon?

Crabb thought that was hilarious. "The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. What's the point o' having some magic sword if you don't bloody well use it?"

[...]

Brienne could not help but smile. "Perhaps," she allowed, "but Ser Galladon was no fool. Against a foe eight feet tall mounted on an aurochs, he might well have unsheathed the Just Maid. He used her once to slay a dragon, they say." - Brienne IV, AFFC

+.+.+

Arya's favourite words.

Winterfell is burned and fallen, Arya reminded herself. Old Nan and Maester Luwin were both dead, most like, and Sansa too. It did no good to think of them. All men must die. That was what the words meant, the words that Jaqen H'ghar had taught her when he gave her the worn iron coin. She had learned more Braavosi words since they left Saltpans, the words for please and thank you and sea and star and fire wine, but she came to them knowing that all men must die. - Arya I, AFFC

x

"Him of Many Faces."

"And many names," the kindly man had said. "In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him . . . else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?"

"No," she would answer. "All men must die." - Cat of the Canals, AFFC

+.+.+

Showdown at the Trident (link): lessons were learned after King Harren and his people burned.

Crabb gave her a sideways look. "Aegon sent his sister up to Crackclaw, that Visenya. The lords had heard o' Harren's end. Being no fools, they laid their swords at her feet. The queen took them as her own men, and said they'd owe no fealty to Maidenpool, Crab Isle, or Duskendale. - Brienne IV, AFFC

+.+.+

A RAT IN A MAZE 🐀🔪

You're going to need the original theory to make better sense of this.

If you want to read the theory in its entirety (including the new evidence below), click on the link. I strongly suggest this option.

If you're familiar with the theory and only want the AFFC additions, keep reading.

To summarize:

Arya Stark, often likened to a rat, and uniquely familiar with the secret tunnels of the Red Keep, will emerge from one of the walls to kill Daenerys with a dagger when she's alone in the throne room.

Similar to Maegor the Cruel, there will be wild speculation over who killed Daenerys. Some will say it was the Iron Throne that rejected her.

The rats are back!

Like a what?

He glanced around the bedchamber. "Whoever did this might still be lurking in the walls. It's a maze back there, and dark."

She imagined Tyrion creeping between the walls like some monstrous rat. - Cersei I, AFFC

___

What kind of rat?

And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down below. - Jaime I, AFFC

___

Your only friend is a rat when you're in the black cells.

If the Eyrie had been made like other castles, only rats and gaolers would have heard the dead man singing. - Sansa I, AFFC

___

Rats near the dungeons.

So it had been left to Rennifer Longwaters, the head undergaoler with the twisted back who claimed at tedious length to have a "drop of dragon" in him, to unlock the dungeon doors for Jaime and conduct him up the narrow steps inside the walls to the place where Ilyn Payne had lived for fifteen years.

The chambers stank of rotted food, and the rushes were crawling with vermin. As Jaime entered, he almost trod upon a rat. - Jaime III, AFFC

___

What about Arya?

A passage to the black cells had been found, and a stone well that seemed to have no bottom. They had found a chamber full of skulls and yellowed bones, and four sacks of tarnished silver coins from the reign of the first King Viserys. They had found a thousand rats as well . . . but neither Tyrion nor Varys had been amongst them, and Jaime had finally insisted on putting an end to the search. - Cersei III, AFFC

___

I think she already left.

"Do you still mean to go ahead and burn the Tower of the Hand?"

"After the feast." It was the only part of the day's festivities that Cersei thought she might enjoy. "Our lord father was murdered in that tower. I cannot bear to look at it. If the gods are good, the fire may smoke a few rats from the rubble." - Cersei III, AFFC

___

Mice work too!

"The queen is wise. These walls have ears."

"So they do." At night Cersei sometimes heard soft sounds, even in her own apartments. Mice in the walls, she would tell herself, no more than that. - Cersei VII, AFFC

+.+.+

Someone's in the walls.

Sounding like Aerys in more ways than one.

"Forever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch." He is in the walls. He killed Father as he killed Mother, as he killed Joff. - Cersei I, AFFC

___

You can never be too careful.

"Tyrion will not kill the same way twice. He is too cunning for that. He could be under the floor even now, listening to every word we say and making plans to open Tommen's throat." - Cersei III, AFFC

___

Too bad Daenerys doesn't know to be this paranoid.

She seized his arm. "Not a guardsman. You. And inside his bedchamber."

"In case Tyrion crawls out of the hearth? He won't."

"So you say. Will you tell me that you found all the hidden tunnels in these walls?" They both knew better. - Cersei III, AFFC

___

You never know who may be listening.

"Win Alla if you can, but be careful what you say. The gods may not be the only ones listening." - Cersei X, AFFC

x

Cersei gathered up her skirts and dignity. "This must be very frightening for you. I shall forgive those words." Here, as at court, one never knew who might be listening. - Cersei X, AFFC

x

Someone is listening. Even here, even now, she dare not speak freely. - Cersei I, ADWD

+.+.+

Secret tunnels, passageways, and wells - oh my!

To the sewers, Osmund.

"The guards were at their posts, Your Grace," said Osmund Kettleblack. "We found a hidden door behind the hearth. A secret passage. The Lord Commander's gone down to see where it goes." - Cersei I, AFFC

___

What about a child?

Guardsmen clustered near the hearth. The secret door that Ser Osmund had spoken of gaped open behind the ashes, no bigger than an oven. A man would need to crawl. But Tyrion is only half a man. - Cersei I, AFFC

___

With blade in hand?

There had always been talk of secret passages within the Red Keep. Maegor the Cruel was supposed to have killed the men who built the castle to keep the knowledge of them secret. How many other bedchambers have hidden doors? Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen's bedchamber with blade in hand. Tommen is well guarded, she told herself. But Lord Tywin had been well guarded too. - Cersei I, AFFC

___

You can't leave from the front door, Osfryd.

Osfryd nodded and started toward the door. "No, not through the yard." She gestured toward the secret passage. "There's a shaft down to the dungeons. That way." - Cersei I, AFFC

___

Do we need keys?

Her twin's face had a haggard look. "The shaft goes down to a chamber where half a dozen tunnels meet. They're closed off by iron gates, chained and locked. I need to find keys." - Cersei I, AFFC

___

Thanks for all the information.

"If any of them were hiding in the tower, we would have found them. I've had a small army going at it with picks and hammers. We've knocked through walls and ripped up floors and uncovered half a hundred secret passages."

"And for all you know there may be half a hundred more." Some of the secret crawlways had turned out to be so small that Jaime had needed pages and stableboys to explore them. A passage to the black cells had been found, and a stone well that seemed to have no bottom. They had found a chamber full of skulls and yellowed bones, and four sacks of tarnished silver coins from the reign of the first King Viserys. They had found a thousand rats as well . . . but neither Tyrion nor Varys had been amongst them, and Jaime had finally insisted on putting an end to the search. One boy had gotten stuck in a narrow passage and had to be pulled out by his feet, shrieking. Another fell down a shaft and broke his legs. And two guardsmen vanished exploring a side tunnel. Some of the other guards swore they could hear them calling faintly through the stone, but when Jaime's men tore down the wall they found only earth and rubble on the far side. - Cersei III, AFFC

+.+.+

Who's there!?

Cersei's not alone.

His merriment still echoed in her ears when she felt a light touch on her shoulder, and woke suddenly. For half a heartbeat the hand seemed part of the nightmare, and Cersei cried out, but it was only Senelle. The maid's face was white and frightened.

We are not alone, the queen realized. Shadows loomed around her bed, tall shapes with chain mail glimmering beneath their cloaks. Armed men had no business here. Where are my guards? Her bedchamber was dark, but for the lantern one of the intruders held on high. - Cersei I, AFFC

___

Bad dreams are becoming reality.

But that was folly. Her dwarf brother was down in the black cells, condemned to die this very day. She looked down at her hands, turning them over to make certain all her fingers were still there. When she ran a hand down her arm the skin was covered with gooseprickles, but unbroken. There were no cuts on her legs, no gashes on the soles of her feet. A dream, that's all it was, a dream. - Cersei I, AFFC

x

Someone was in the cabin with her.

[...]

She is standing over me. "Who's there?" Dany peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the faintest outline of a shape. 

[...]

"A dream." Dany shook her head. "I dreamed a dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to sleep." - Daenerys III, ASOS

___

King Renly's run-in with a deadly shadow.

That night she dreamed herself in Renly's tent again. All the candles were guttering out, and the cold was thick around her. Something was moving through green darkness, something foul and horrible was hurtling toward her king. She wanted to protect him, but her limbs felt stiff and frozen, and it took more strength than she had just to lift her hand. And when the shadow sword sliced through the green steel gorget and the blood began to flow, she saw that the dying king was not Renly after all but Jaime Lannister, and she had failed him. - Brienne II, AFFC

x

Lord Renly was ahead of her, her sweet smiling king. He was leading her horse through the trees. Brienne called out to tell him how much she loved him, but when he turned to scowl at her, she saw that he was not Renly after all. Renly never scowled. He always had a smile for me, she thought . . . except . . .

"Cold," her king said, puzzled, and a shadow moved without a man to cast it, and her sweet lord's blood came washing through the green steel of his gorget to drench her hands. He had been a warm man, but his blood was cold as ice. - Brienne VIII, AFFC

+.+.+

Iron Throne or Shadow?

The Iron Throne is slicing up Cersei.

Horrified, she tried to cover herself with her hands. The barbs and blades of the Iron Throne bit into her flesh as she crouched to hide her shame. Blood ran red down her legs, as steel teeth gnawed at her buttocks. When she tried to stand, her foot slipped through a gap in the twisted metal. The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they were slick and red, glistening. - Cersei I, AFFC

___

Daddy was tormented by the blades.

By the end the Mad King had become so fearful that he would allow no blade in his presence, save for the swords his Kingsguard wore. His beard was matted and unwashed, his hair a silver-gold tangle that reached his waist, his fingernails cracked yellow claws nine inches long. Yet still the blades tormented him, the ones he could never escape, the blades of the Iron Throne. His arms and legs were always covered with scabs and half-healed cuts. - Jaime II, AFFC

___

The Iron Throne's shadow.

Noho Dimittis, the Braavosi named himself. An irritating name for an irritating man. His voice was irritating too. Cersei shifted in her seat as he went on, wondering how long she must endure his hectoring. Behind her loomed the Iron Throne, its barbs and blades throwing twisted shadows across the floor. - Cersei V, AFFC

___

The shadows are closing in.

The torches on the back wall threw the long, barbed shadow of the Iron Throne halfway to the doors. The far end of the hall was lost in darkness, and Cersei could not but feel that the shadows were closing around her too. - Cersei VII, AFFC

___

A shifting shadow.

"No," said Cersei, "all is well. On the morrow Ser Loras will sail for Dragonstone, to win the castle, loose the Redwyne fleet, and prove his manhood to us all." She told the Myrish woman all that had occurred beneath the shifting shadow of the Iron Throne. - Cersei VII, AFFC

+.+.+

THE USURPER'S KNIFE

You're going to need the original theory to make better sense of this.

If you want to read the theory in its entirety (including the new evidence below), click on the link. I strongly suggest this option.

If you're familiar with the theory and only want the AFFC additions, keep reading.

To summarize:

Arya will kill Daenerys with Robert Baratheon's dagger (the usurper's knife). The same dagger the show used to kill the Night King.

With blade in hand.

There had always been talk of secret passages within the Red Keep. Maegor the Cruel was supposed to have killed the men who built the castle to keep the knowledge of them secret. How many other bedchambers have hidden doors? Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen's bedchamber with blade in hand. - Cersei I, AFFC

+.+.+

I know one girl who would agree.

". . . to remove Jon Snow from the command," Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was right to want him on my council. "That is just what we shall do." She laughed. If this bastard boy is truly his father's son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs. 

[…]

This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration. - Cersei IV, AFFC

+.+.+

George casually reminds the reader the usurper's knife still travels on Littlefinger's hip.

"Your apple-eater holds a blade. Tell him to give it to you, or draw that dagger." - Alayne I, AFFC

+.+.+

STORM x STORM 🦑🖤🐉

Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: there's a storm a comin' edition.

"No," said Alleras. "It was Prince Rhaegar's young son Aegon whose head was dashed against the wall by the Lion of Lannister's brave men. We speak of Rhaegar's sister, born on Dragonstone before its fall. The one they called Daenerys."

"The Stormborn. I recall her now." - Prologue, AFFC

x

A storm was brewing, he could hear it in the waves, and storms brought naught but evil. 

[…]

He was born a lord's son and died a king, murdered by a jealous god, Aeron thought, and now the storm is coming, a storm such as these isles have never known.

[…]

Aeron tugged his beard, and thought. I have seen the storm, and its name is Euron Crow's Eye. - The Prophet, AFFC

x

A smile played across Euron's blue lips. "I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria." - The Reaver, AFFC

+.+.+

Dothraki x Ironborn: the perfect complement.

Aeron shoved a bare black foot into a stirrup and swung himself onto the saddle. He was not fond of horses—they were creatures from the green lands and helped to make men weak—but necessity required that he ride. - The Prophet, AFFC

x

Savage beasts he did not fear, nor any man who had ever drawn breath, but the sea was a different matter. To the Dothraki, water that a horse could not drink was something foul; the heaving grey-green plains of the ocean filled them with superstitious loathing. - Daenerys VI, AGOT

+.+.+

Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: gods? pfft edition.

"No." Aeron Damphair did not weigh his words. "Only a godly man may sit the Seastone Chair. The Crow's Eye worships naught but his own pride." - The Prophet, AFFC

x

I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy . . . protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence." He laughed. "Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray." - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.

Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. Missandei had told her of the Lord of Harmony, worshiped by the Peaceful People of Naath; he was the only true god, her little scribe said, the god who always was and always would be, who made the moon and stars and earth, and all the creatures that dwelt upon them. Poor Lord of Harmony. Dany pitied him. It must be terrible to be alone for all time, attended by hordes of butterfly women you could make or unmake at a word. Westeros had seven gods at least, though Viserys had told her that some septons said the seven were only aspects of a single god, seven facets of a single crystal. That was just confusing. The red priests believed in two gods, she had heard, but two who were eternally at war. Dany liked that even less. She would not want to be eternally at war. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: rules & loopholes edition.

"Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn."

"A pious sentiment, Damphair," said Goodbrother, "but not one that your brother shares. He had Sawane Botley drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to Theon."

"If he was drowned, no blood was shed," said Aeron. - The Prophet, AFFC

x

Ser Jorah had explained that it was forbidden to carry a blade in Vaes Dothrak, or to shed a free man's blood. - Daenerys IV, AGOT

x

Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest, setting the scarlet silk to smoldering … yet no drop of blood was spilled. - Daenerys V, AGOT

+.+.+

Deranged Greyjoys and Targaryens love the basic elements.

Aeron crept from his little shelter into the chill of the night. Naked he stood, pale and gaunt and tall, and naked he walked into the black salt sea. The water was icy cold, yet he did not flinch from his god's caress. A wave smashed against his chest, staggering him. The next broke over his head. He could taste the salt on his lips and feel the god around him, and his ears rang with the glory of his song. Nine sons were born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and I was the least of them, as weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is drowned, and the god has made me strong. The cold salt sea surrounded him, embraced him, reached down through his weak man's flesh and touched his bones. Bones, he thought. The bones of the soul. - The Prophet, AFFC

x

No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children. - Daenerys X, AGOT

+.+.+

Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: uncles and aunts stealing birthrights edition.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

Aeron tugged his beard, and thought. I have seen the storm, and its name is Euron Crow's Eye. "For now, send only silence," he told the lord. "I must pray on this."

"Pray all you wish," the maester said. "It does not change the law. Theon is the rightful heir, and Asha next." - The Prophet, AFFC

x

Now, how do you suppose this queen will react when you turn up with your begging bowl in hand and say, 'Good morrow to you, Auntie. I am your nephew, Aegon, returned from the dead. I've been hiding on a poleboat all my life, but now I've washed the blue dye from my hair and I'd like a dragon, please … and oh, did I mention, my claim to the Iron Throne is stronger than your own?'" - Tyrion VI, ADWD

+.+.+

Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: here we go again edition.

"Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said. I think of that whenever I contemplate the Crow's Eye. Euron Greyjoy sounds queerly like Urron Greyiron to these old ears. I shall not go to Old Wyk. Nor should you." - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC

x

"Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?"

He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?"

"The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. - The Soiled Knight, AFFC

x

"And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo." - Daenerys IX, AGOT

+.+.+

Euron the dragonlord?

"I will go anywhere with you, but . . . Lord Blacktyde says this kingsmoot is a dangerous folly. He thinks your uncle will descend on them and kill them all, as Urron did."

He's mad enough. "He lacks the strength."

"You do not know his strength. He's been gathering men on Pyke. 

[...]

"but if they catch you in those nets of theirs, you'll be as dead as if they had been dragonlords. And there's worse. The Crow's Eye brought back monsters from the east . . . aye, and wizards too." - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC

+.+.+

Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: their favourite black and red mounts edition.

And then he saw her: a single-masted galley, lean and low, with a dark red hull. Her sails, now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor Silence looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had no mouth. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting … and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. - Daenerys IX, AFFC

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Euron Greyjoy, you dreamboat.

He looks unchanged, Victarion thought. He looks the same as he did the day he laughed at me and left. Euron was the most comely of Lord Quellon's sons, and three years of exile had not changed that. His hair was still black as a midnight sea, with never a whitecap to be seen, and his face was still smooth and pale beneath his neat dark beard. A black leather patch covered Euron's left eye, but his right was blue as a summer sky. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

When the exile knight delivered him, she asked herself whether two men had ever been so different. The Tyroshi was fair where Ser Jorah was swarthy; lithe where the knight was brawny; graced with flowing locks where the other was balding, yet smooth-skinned where Mormont was hairy. And her knight dressed plainly while this other made a peacock look drab, though he had thrown a heavy black cloak over his bright yellow finery for this visit. He carried a heavy canvas sack slung over one shoulder. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

x

She thought of Daario. If ever there was a man who could rape a woman with his eyes . . .

To be sure, she was just as guilty. Dany found herself stealing looks at the Tyroshi when her captains came to council, and sometimes at night she remembered the way his gold tooth glittered when he smiled. That, and his eyes. His bright blue eyes. - Daenerys V, ASOS

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Sounds familiar.

"Just so," said Euron, "and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you who kneels to me for blessing." - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

"I will take my khalasar west to where the world ends, and ride the wooden horses across the black salt water as no khal has done before. I will kill the men in the iron suits and tear down their stone houses. I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak to bow down beneath the Mother of Mountains. This I vow, I, Drogo son of Bharbo. This I swear before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness." - Daenerys VI, AGOT

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Those luscious blue lips.

"King Crow's Eye, brother." Euron smiled. His lips looked very dark in the lamplight, bruised and blue. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

"Not all your enemies are in the Yellow City. Beware men with cold hearts and blue lips. - Daenerys III, ADWD

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The female sea dragon, who fed on krakens.

On the crown of the hill four-and-forty monstrous stone ribs rose from the earth like the trunks of great pale trees. The sight made Aeron's heart beat faster. Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves. She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. For a thousand years and seven he reigned here, Aeron recalled. Here he took his mermaid wife and planned his wars against the Storm God. From here he ruled both stone and salt, wearing robes of woven seaweed and a tall pale crown made from Nagga's teeth. - The Drowned Man, AFFC

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The ironborn are ants, and a savage storm is about to engulf them all.

Men began to shove at one another. Someone flung a pinecone at Asha's head. When she ducked, her makeshift crown fell off. For a moment it seemed to the priest as if he stood atop a giant anthill, with a thousand ants in a boil at his feet. Shouts of "Asha!" and "Victarion!" surged back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf them all. The Storm God is amongst us, the priest thought, sowing fury and discord. - The Drowned Man, AFFC

x

Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many … - Daenerys X, ADWD

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Red comet doomsday predictions: will the Greyjoys and Daenerys sweep over the green lands with fire and sword?

The priest had dreamed the same dream, when first he'd seen the red comet in the sky. We shall sweep over the green lands with fire and sword, root out the seven gods of the septons and the white trees of the northmen . . . - The Drowned Man, AFFC

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Euron, and his red and black Valyrian toys. Will a dragon or a Targaryen queen be bound to his will?

The horn he blew was shiny black and twisted, and taller than a man as he held it with both hands. It was bound about with bands of red gold and dark steel, incised with ancient Valyrian glyphs that seemed to glow redly as the sound swelled.

[...]

"That horn you heard I found amongst the smoking ruins that were Valyria, where no man has dared to walk but me. You heard its call, and felt its power. It is a dragon horn, bound with bands of red gold and Valyrian steel graven with enchantments. The dragonlords of old sounded such horns, before the Doom devoured them. With this horn, ironmen, I can bind dragons to my will." - The Drowned Man, AFFC

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Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: conquerors edition.

"We are the ironborn, and once we were conquerors. Our writ ran everywhere the sound of the waves was heard. My brother would have you be content with the cold and dismal north, my niece with even less . . . but I shall give you Lannisport. Highgarden. The Arbor. Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne and the marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the Stepstones. I say we take it all! I say, we take Westeros." He glanced at the priest. "All for the greater glory of our Drowned God, to be sure." - The Drowned Man, AFFC

[...]

"I know as much of war as you do, Crow's Eye," Asha said. "Aegon Targaryen conquered Westeros with dragons."

"And so shall we," Euron Greyjoy promised. - The Drowned Man, AFFC

x

No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden cock, in less than a day. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

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No true Scotsman.

These are no ironmen, Victarion thought. They still fear drowning. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon. - Daenerys V, AGOT

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Will Euron fly (on a dragon)?

Euron stood by the window, drinking from a silver cup. He wore the sable cloak he took from Blacktyde, his red leather eye patch, and nothing else. "When I was a boy, I dreamt that I could fly," he announced. "When I woke, I couldn't . . . or so the maester said. But what if he lied?" [...] "Perhaps we can fly. All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower?" - The Reaver, AFFC

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Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: precious collectibles edition.

"I once held a dragon's egg in this hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his entrails sliding through his fingers he said, 'But it has not been a year.'" He laughed.

[...]

Victarion shuddered. "Show me this dragon's egg." "I threw it in the sea during one of my dark moods." Euron gave a shrug. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce … and resting on top, nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs. Dany gasped. - Daenerys II, AGOT

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Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: Kool-aid edition.

"I mean to open your eyes." Euron drank deep from his own cup, and smiled. "Shade-of-the-evening, the wine of the warlocks. I came upon a cask of it when I captured a certain galleas out of Qarth, along with some cloves and nutmeg, forty bolts of green silk, and four warlocks who told a curious tale. One presumed to threaten me, so I killed him and fed him to the other three. They refused to eat of their friend's flesh at first, but when they grew hungry enough they had a change of heart. Men are meat." - The Reaver, AFFC

x

He stood no higher than her knee, his faced pinched and pointed, snoutish, but he was dressed in delicate livery of purple and blue, and his tiny pink hands held a silver tray. Upon it rested a slender crystal glass filled with a thick blue liquid: shade of the evening, the wine of warlocks. "Take and drink," urged Pyat Pree. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

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Euron wants his bride.

"A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver's Bay and bring my love to me?"

[...]

"So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that's worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware."

[...]

"The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver's Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me." - The Reaver, AFFC

+.+.+

Victarion's highly skilled at making deliveries.

When Balon was wed, it was me he sent to Harlaw to bring him back his bride. - The Drowned Man, AFFC

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Ironborn dressed like hunky Daario.

"My apologies," the captain said when his inspection was complete. "It grieves me that honest men must suffer such discourtesy, but sooner that than ironmen in Oldtown. Only a fortnight ago some of those bloody bastards captured a Tyroshi merchantman in the straits. They killed her crew, donned their clothes, and used the dyes they found to color their whiskers half a hundred colors. Once inside the walls they meant to set the port ablaze and open a gate from within whilst we fought the fire. Might have worked, but they ran afoul of the Lady of the Tower, and her oarsmaster has a Tyroshi wife. When he saw all the green and purple beards he hailed them in the tongue of Tyrosh, and not one of them had the words to hail him back." - Samwell V, AFFC

+.+.+

Euron's banner is smoke-stained.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

Xhondo pointed at a half-sunken longship in the shallows. The remnants of a banner drooped from her stern, smoke-stained and ragged. The charge was one Sam had never seen before: a red eye with a black pupil, beneath a black iron crown supported by two crows. "Whose banner is that?" Sam asked. Xhondo only shrugged.

+.+.+

SQUID GAME

Join me, as we try to piece together how the story ends for Victarion and Euron Greyjoy.

What do we know about Vicky Greyjoy?

He's a fearsome warrior, loyal to a fault, and has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal (wink, wink).

"Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet, and a fearsome warrior. I have heard them sing of him in the alehouses."

"During my lord father's rebellion, he sailed into Lannisport with my uncle Euron and burned the Lannister fleet where it lay at anchor," Theon recalled. "The plan was Euron's, though. Victarion is like some great grey bullock, strong and tireless and dutiful, but not like to win any races. No doubt, he'll serve me as loyally as he has served my lord father. He has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal." - Theon II, ACOK

x

Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and Victarion was the strongest of them, a bull of a man, fearless and dutiful. And therein lies our danger. A younger brother owes obedience to an elder, and Victarion was not a man to sail against tradition. He has no love for Euron, though. Not since the woman died. - The Prophet, AFFC

x

Obedience came naturally to Victarion Greyjoy; he had been born to it. - The Reaver, AFFC

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He wears lots of armor. Like, a lot of armor. All the time. Heavy, steel armor. At sea. On a ship.

"Keep line," Davos shouted. A gust of wind tugged at his old green cloak. A jerkin of boiled leather and a pothelm at his feet were his only armor. At sea, heavy steel was as like to cost a man his life as to save it, he believed. - Davos III, ACOK

x

Beneath he wore heavy grey chainmail over boiled black leather. In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

Victarion loomed above all of them save Andrik. His brother wore no helm, but elsewise he was all in armor, his kraken cloak hanging golden from his shoulders. - The Drowned Man, AFFC

x

"It was good of you to bring such gifts to my queensmoot, Nuncle," she told Victarion, "but you need not have worn so much armor. I promise not to hurt you." - The Drowned Man, AFFC

x

They hacked at him from front and back, but their swords might have been willow switches for all the harm they did him. No blade could cut through Victarion Greyjoy's heavy plate, nor did he give his foes the time to find the weak points at the joints, where only mail and leather warded him. Let three men assail him, or four, or five; it made no matter. He slew them one at a time, trusting in his steel to protect him from the others. - The Reaver, AFFC

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He doesn't fear drowning.

They were clutching swords and spears and axes, but nine of every ten wore no armor, and the tenth had only a shirt of sewn scales. These are no ironmen, Victarion thought. They still fear drowning. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

Most like the man had drowned. "May he feast as he fought, in the Drowned God's watery halls." Though the men of the Shield Islands called themselves sailors, they crossed the seas in dread and went lightly clad in battle for fear of drowning. Young Serry had been different. A brave man, thought Victarion. Almost ironborn. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

"Throw the dying in the sea. If any beg for mercy, cut their throats first." He had only contempt for such; better to drown on seawater than on blood. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

A gang of sullen survivors moved amongst them, chasing off the black birds and tossing the dead into the back of a wagon for burial. The notion filled Victarion with disgust. No true son of the sea would want to rot beneath the ground. How would he ever find the Drowned God's watery halls, to drink and feast for all eternity? - The Reaver, AFFC

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He beat his wife to death, and gave her to the crabs.

Actions like that are never met with poetic justice in this story.

Victarion knew that to mean the girl did not have a hump. Yet when he tried to picture her, he only saw the wife he'd killed. He had sobbed each time he struck her, and afterward carried her down to the rocks to give her to the crabs. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

"She was only a salt wife." He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. - The Reaver, AFFC

+.+.+

And he will absolutely positively never ever kill his brother.

No man is as accursed as the kinslayer, got it?

Euron Greyjoy, King of the Isles and the North. The thought woke an old rage in his heart, but still . . .

"Words are wind," Victarion told them, "and the only good wind is that which fills our sails. Would you have me fight the Crow's Eye? Brother against brother, ironborn against ironborn?" Euron was still his elder, no matter how much bad blood might be between them. No man is as accursed as the kinslayer. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

Victarion's hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he had ever been, with a bull's broad chest and a boy's flat belly. The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men, Balon had reminded him on the day he sent the Crow's Eye off to sea. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

Victarion would not speak of kinslaying, here in this godly place beneath the bones of Nagga and the Grey King's Hall, but many a night he dreamed of driving a mailed fist into Euron's smiling face, until the flesh split and his bad blood ran red and free. I must not. I pledged my word to Balon. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

Balon had commanded them not to speak of it, but Balon was dead. "He put a baby in her belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return . . ." - The Iron Captain, AFFC

x

The only blow he landed completed the ruin of Victarion's shield, but the cut the captain dealt in answer split his head in two. Would that I could deal with the Crow's Eye as simply. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

He drank in the darkness, brooding on his brother. If I do not strike the blow with mine own hand, am I still a kinslayer? Victarion feared no man, but the Drowned God's curse gave him pause. If another strikes him down at my command, will his blood still stain my hands? - The Reaver, AFFC

x

"I placed the crown upon his head," said the priest, seaweed dripping in his hair, "and gladly will I wrest it off again and crown you in his stead. Only you are strong enough to fight him."

"The Drowned God raised him up," Victarion complained. "Let the Drowned God cast him down." - The Reaver, AFFC

x

His oarsmen bent their backs toward Oakenshield, and the iron captain went belowdecks once again. "I could kill him," he told the dusky woman. "Though it is a great sin to kill your king, and a worse one to kill your brother." He frowned. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

He would give half his teeth for the chance to try his axe against the Kingslayer or the Knight of Flowers. That was the sort of battle that he understood. The kinslayer was accursed in the eyes of gods and men, but the warrior was honored and revered. - The Reaver, AFFC

x

One day I shall drink your wine, Crow's Eye, and take from you all that you hold dear. But was there anything Euron held dear? - The Reaver, AFFC

x

"A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver's Bay and bring my love to me?"

I had a love once too. Victarion's hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter on the floor. I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. - The Reaver, AFFC

+.+.+

But let's say the unthinkable happens, and Vicky does kill Euron - please understand drowning doesn't really count.

"Euron is elder," the priest said, "but Victarion is more godly."

"Will it come to war between them?" asked the maester.

"Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn."

"A pious sentiment, Damphair," said Goodbrother, "but not one that your brother shares. He had Sawane Botley drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to Theon."

"If he was drowned, no blood was shed," said Aeron. - The Prophet, AFFC

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AFFC: PART III

Touch me.

Chapter Transitions

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

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[ilargizuri]

Three Things in One - Part 3: Every Bird Has 2 Wings

Let’s start with the wings of a Falcon because this attribute of the Sphinx occurs as a pair. Perhaps it applies to more than one character. Unlike Essos, Westeros is full of characters. Each of them has a different focus and point of view, which makes this story so varied and exciting. We can therefore assign the attributes of the Sphinx not only to factions but also to characters, and sometimes even to themes related to them. To start with the wings, which are described in ASOIAF as the wings of a falcon. This is different from the mythological Sphinx whose wings were simply described as those of a bird.

Just as with the harpy, the characteristics and animal attributes of the sphinx are not always physically present or literal, but neither are they too allegorical. We had the dragon wings, which were not only indicative of Daenerys‘ dragons, which she received in the Dothraki Sea but could just as easily be a reference to the cities around Slavers Bay that succeeded the Valyrian Empire. The animal attributes we find in the Sphinx are equally ambiguous and even more so with the wings, for these always appear as a pair. In my opinion, it is therefore possible that the wings apply to more than one person, perhaps even to more than one region.

»The only traffic was the flat-bottomed ferry that took them across the river, and when they reached the kingswood they found a wilderness of ash and charcoal and dead trees. But the waterfowl teemed in the marshes along the bay, and Sansa’s merlin brought down three ducks while Margaery’s peregrine took a heron in full flight.«

Sansa 2, A Storm of Swords.

In a less-than-idyllic wilderness, described as more dead than alive, the two noble ladies go hunting and their birds of prey kill a heron and three ducks. Falconry was a popular sport in the Middle Ages and the game they killed, mostly rabbits and waterfowl, was served up in the evening after the hunt. It would therefore be within the realm of this attribute to point not only to persons and regions but also to this problem of food shortage. Would it not be a true heroic deed to save the population from starvation?

Whereby a hint is already given here as to who will be the greater help. Although Margaery’s bird made the more impressive catch by killing the larger bird, this bird was only allowed to be eaten by the nobility, but Sansa killed three ducks. The common people were not allowed to hunt in the Middle Ages, but they were allowed to kill pests, including not only crows that ate the seeds in the fields, but also rabbits that ate the lettuce or other vegetables in the garden that officially did not belong to the farmers, but to the sovereign. And these pests also included ducks, it rarely happened, but if a duck was killed in the garden, the farmer was allowed to eat it. In fact, the corvid was a more regular food than the duck.

Margery’s family is House Tyrell, who are the High Lords of the Reach. This is the most fertile corner of Westeros and may rightly be called the granary of the seven kingdoms. But just as Margaery only killed one heron, the granary of the Seven Kingdoms is probably not for the common people but for the nobles. In Westeros there is a food shortage, in fact, the problem of food for the common people is addressed several times in the books, unlike in the series where it is only ever a marginal issue. One of the reasons why food is so scarce is the war, but also the unequal distribution of food. The poor population starves and the rich citizens buy food from abroad and the nobles demand it from the thralls.

In King’s Landing, we see with Sansa how the rich or almost rich people live and how the situation leads to tensions between the poor population and the rich. Later, in the Vale, in Alayne’s chapter that GRRM published from The Winds of Winter, she learns that Petyr Baelish is buying food to sell later at a high price to the nobles in Westeros.

With Bran and Arya we also see how the common people starve. On his journey north to find the Three-Eyed Crow from his dreams, it is even implied that Bran Stark eats human flesh to avoid starvation.

So we have a clear motif dealing with food scarcity and its consequences and apart from the scene in A Storm of Swords where we actually meet hawks, the characters I have just mentioned are all connected to bird motifs.

Sansa is not only referred to as a bird by people - the most famous scene is probably the one with Sandor who compares her to the songbirds of the Southern Isles - but she is also surrounded by them later on. Petyr Baelish, who smuggles her out of Kings Landing, chose mockingbirds on a green field as his personal crest. He takes her to the Vale where she lives with her mother’s relatives, the Arryns, who have a falcon in their crest and in The Winds of Winter Sansa meets a character called the Young Falcon. Also, the common people of Kings Landing tell that Sansa turned into a red wolf with wings to escape from the Red Keep.

The motif of the wolf with wings also appears in a dream by Jojen Reed.

»„I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,“ he said. „It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.“ «

Bran 4, A Clash of Kings.

n A Game of Thrones, Bran dreamt of a crow before waking up from his coma. When asked, Jojen confirms that he dreamt of the same crow, Brynden Rivers, who lives behind the Wall with the Children of the Forest. Through these dreams, Bran is connected to the motif of the birds and, moreover, Brynden Rivers tells him on his arrival in the cave that he will fly one day. Although Bran is mainly in his Direwolf Summer and Hodor, he also puts his mind into the body of a crow from time to time.

The last person who has a strong association with the bird motif, and also with the food shortage motif, is Jon Snow. He is a brother of the Night’s Watch and they are called crows by the free people, later they also call him King Crow or simply Crow. During his time as Lord Commander, the theme of food procurement is central to Jon’s chapters. And he manages to negotiate a loan with Tycho Nestoris to buy food, as the spoils from the hunt are no longer sufficient to feed the men of the Night’s Watch.

Daenerys only Connection to a Bird Motif are the Stormcrows a Group of mercenaries. Daenerys also has a problem providing for the population. It is commendable that she has freed all the slaves, but who is now in the fields to cultivate them? It is a late problem because her wandering army has always taken what it needs from the conquered cities by the time they arrive in Meereen, but it is a problem and one that Daenerys is trying to solve by creating a new working class that she treats as the masters treated their slaves before Daenerys‘ conquest. Here is a conversation between her and Xaro Xhoan Daxos from A Dance with Dragons.

»Xaro gave a languid shrug. “As it happens, when I came ashore in your sweet city, I chanced to see upon the riverbank a man who had once been a guest in my manse, a merchant who dealt in rare spices and choice wines. He was naked from the waist up, red and peeling, and seemed to be digging a hole.” “Not a hole. A ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water.” “How kind of my old friend to help with the digging. And how very unlike him. Is it possible he was given no choice in the matter? No, surely not. You have no slaves in Meereen.” Dany flushed. “Your friend is being paid with food and shelter. I cannot give him back his wealth. Meereen needs beans more than it needs rare spices, and beans require water.”« -Daenerys and Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Daenerys 3, A Dance with Dragons

Next Part we are talking who are the Wings. Here are my Previous Parts.

[dedalvs]

Hiya,

I remember you saying, a while back, that you worked on a functional religion for the valyrians. Is there anything you can let us know about the process for that? How did dragons, sphinxes/chimera and bloodmagic fit into all of that?

One thing that I’m particularly interested in is that the septons and maesters considered the valyrians to be atheists (believing themselves to be greater than any god). In your mind, is this a Westerosi misunderstanding or was it the truth?

Best wishes

What you are remembering is that I worked on a show that was intended to serve as a different prequel to Game of Thrones. It was set in Old Valyria and was intended to depict the days leading up to the Doom of Valyria. Everyone would have been speaking Valyrian, so I don't know how much Valyrian would be in the show, but in those very early days, one of the writers contacted me to ask if I wanted to help in setting up the religion of the Valyrians. It was intended to be a polytheistic religion, and, essentially, the sky was the limit, as he was asking about names for various Valyrian gods, and what they might stand for. It was quite a task to be set with! But that show never came to fruition, and never even progressed to the script phase (or not for me, at least), unlike the Old Westeros prequel (Bloodmoon), so I don't think any of the work that was done for that show should be considered canon in any way.