#jozor thoughts

[jozor-johai]

Because the concept of "historical accuracy" gets brought up in regards to ASOIAF despite it being a fantasy series and therefore not requiring historical accuracy, I think it's really worth realizing the degree and manner in which GRRM is drawing from history. He consults historical texts to be sure, but what he seems to focus on is how the style of older historical texts delivers these tales as stories, and how much hearsay makes it into the documents.

GRRM likes stories, more than history for its own sake, which makes sense; he's a storyteller. This appreciation is how we get Fire & Blood, plenty of attention to tales told rather than representative history.

Emblematic of this is his response to his inspiration for Stannis: GRRM says that Stannis is inspired by Tiberius Caesar, but he qualifies that this is "in some part Tiberius from history, but to a greater extent specifically Tiberius from the TV series 'I, Claudius'" (my paraphrasing). He's open with the fact that, rather than trying to mirror history, GRRM is drawing inspiration from other stories and media about history.

And so we should not understand ASOIAF as a fantasy filter over a historical framework, we should understand ASOIAF as building on and responding to stories first, both fantasy and history—and especially where the two get confused.

So when people complain that his feudal model is more rooted in pop-history and has little actual functionality, I think that's fine; perhaps it's even the point, whether GRRM intends it to be or not. ASOIAF is not the real medieval era, but rather has roots in the fantastic way that medieval aesthetics have been developed.

This is also applicable to his oft-cited inspiration for the series as a whole structure, the War of the Roses. GRRM frequently says that the War of the Roses was the single biggest influence, but lately I've been wondering if what he really means is that the Henry VI + Richard III Shakespeare tetralogy is the biggest influence, because in truth the Shakespearean parallels we find often feel more informative for the text of ASOIAF than the strictly historical comparisons.

[jozor-johai]

This is just a short note I will expand on elsewhere, but GRRM has this somewhat infamous quote about LOTR, about what to do with the orcs after the story ends. This is about rulership—what happens after the conquest?

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

Part of what I love to death about ASOIAF is that it seems fundamentally more interested in these questions than the excitement of the conquest itself.

I see this quote brought up about the Others every once in a while, but I also think that we might be seeing one iteration of this idea with Dany in Meereen and the children of the slavers:

“The Sons of the Harpy are laughing in their pyramids,” Skahaz said, just this morning. “What good are hostages if you will not take their heads?” In his eyes, she was only a weak woman. Hazzea was enough. What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children? “These murders are not their doing,” Dany told the Green Grace, feebly. “I am no butcher queen.” (ADWD Dany IV)

There are obvious differences—for a start, humans have the potential to grow up to be anything, rather than the known entity of the inherent evil when it comes to orcs.

In an ASOIAF-relevant context, though, the question is similar: you won, do you eradicate your enemies? Their remaining families? What if it looks like a direct path to peace for those you were fighting for? “What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children?”

Considering that slavery is some of the clearest evil we’ve seen in the books thus far, I think this is one way GRRM is be bringing his thoughts on fantasy rulership to a more human context in ASOIAF.

The issue of letting the children live (or not) also makes for another very interesting parallel between Dany and Robert Baratheon, who is another key figure in ASOIAF’s exploration for how one rules after the battle has been won. Barristan makes the connection nearly explicitly for the reader, standing up for Ned’s name:

“Your Grace,” said Selmy, “Eddard Stark played a part in your father’s fall, but he bore you no ill will. When the eunuch Varys told us that you were with child, Robert wanted you killed, but Lord Stark spoke against it. Rather than countenance the murder of children, he told Robert to find himself another Hand.” (ADWD Dany II)

Robert was faced with the same choice and, over the course of his reign, has been given two different takes, one to start his reign and one at the end of it. Robert’s peace was bought with the blood of Rhaegar’s children, the young Aegon and Rhaenys, delivered—albeit unsolicited—by the Lannisters, to cement Robert’s legitimacy and their own stake in his rule. At the end of his reign, Robert is faced with the premise of a new Targaryen baby being born and Ned offers an contrary opinion much like Dany’s own (in spirit if not in allegiance):

“Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?”

There’s plenty more to be said, but I just want to point out this angle for interpreting the GRRM LOTR quote. For one, sometimes people take issue with how literally GRRM himself is enacting his criticisms (saying things like, 'we never see Robert's tax policy either')—but this is a great example of how GRRM can raise a criticism that fits for a different series and make it work within his own world by adjusting the circumstances.

Also, I think that for discussions that attempt to predict where the story will go from here based on comments like this from GRRM, it’s important to see where GRRM is already exploring these ideas. In ASOIAF, this sort of application doesn’t require this idea to be explored with some kind of similarly-undying evil like the orcs or like Sauron, GRRM is applying these ideas to much more human evils, like slavery, and much more human applications, like any kind of military victory.

[jozor-johai]

The Red Comet appears exactly 400 years after the Doom of Valyria. Doesn’t that seem significant?

Because round numbers like that make me want to look twice here… and in doing so, there’s something very interesting in the timeline that GRRM has made efforts to keep slightly veiled.

The Red Comet appears a year before the turn of the century in ASOIAF—that is to say, 299 AC. The Doom occurs in 102 BC. The non-existent year zero of this kind of timekeeping makes it look wrong, but that’s exactly 400 years.

I always thought it was interesting that the Doom of Valyria happened in 102 BC—it’s so close to being a round number, but it’s just off. Just enough off, though, that the Red Comet in 299 AC lines up.

Round numbers feel meaningful, and that’s even true for the characters within the world of ASOIAF:

Joffrey and Margaery shall marry on the first day of the new year, which as it happens is also the first day of the new century. The ceremony will herald the dawn of a new era. (ASOS Tyrion I)

The new century, of course, is 300 years since Aegon’s Conquest:

It’s a new century, my lady. The three hundredth year since Aegon’s Conquest. (ASOS Sansa IV)

It’s almost dissatisfying that all this talk of the new century doesn’t line up with the Doom and doesn’t line up with the Red Coment.

So do we have Aegon to blame for making these numbers not line up? Actually, no—Aegon invaded Westeros in 2BC, exactly 100 years after the Doom of Valyria.

It was then that he crowned himself… but that’s not the date that Westeros counts years from; Westeros counts the years from his coronation in Oldtown. This is a detail apparently so interesting (and perhaps important) that it’s described twice in The World of Ice and Fire. For example:

Only a handful of lords had been present for Aegon’s first coronation at the mouth of the Blackwater, but hundreds were on hand to witness his second, and tens of thousands cheered him afterward in the streets of Oldtown as he rode through the city on Balerion’s back. Amongst those at Aegon’s second coronation were the maesters and archmaesters of the Citadel. Perhaps for that reason, it was this coronation, rather than the Aegonfort crowning or the day of Aegon’s Landing, that became fixed as the start of Aegon’s reign.

If Westeros counted years from the year Aegon crowned himself, rather than from the year Aegon was crowned by the Citadel, then the year that the Red Comet appeared in the sky would be 300AC, and that would be exactly 400 years after the Doom. Seen that way, everything lines up curiously well…

So much happens when the Red Comet arrives—the revival of dragons and the return of magic in the world, whatever the relationship between those things is. Those events, and that year, feels much more like the “dawn of a new era.”

Additionally, seeing it all line up so well raises some eyebrows. Seeing all the dates like this make it seem significant that Aegon invaded exactly 100 years later, and makes room for interpreting the Red Comet as potentially having some kind of relationship to the Doom, because 400 years feels just too regular. Why does the comet appear exactly 300 years after Aegon’s invasion, exactly 400 years after the Doom?

At the least, there’s a sense of fate involved that Dany’s dragons wake exactly 400 years after the Doom—or do the revival of magic and the return of dragons both relate to some unknown third factor?

[jozor-johai]

Sometimes I think it's underrated how much of Westeros we see during wartime. Amidst all of the discourse back and forth over whether the brutality of ASOIAF has a "realistic" basis in real-life feudal history, I think the fact that we're seeing Westeros in a very atypical and specific circumstance should not go overlooked, and I think in that regard there are parts that are "realistic" to modern history, let alone feudal.

For instance, in regards to the complaints about how many women are sex workers in ASOIAF—I think that has more to say about the nature of the wartime economy.

War breaks out; as a result, the regular economy halts. This is the result of various blockades, as well as from the workforce being redirected away from production and towards standing armies—fewer farms are being maintained, and fewer still are making it across wartime boundaries. Another side effect, then, is the trouble when this economic situation interacts with the practical existence of a standing army: massive amounts of young men, either single or separated from their families, drawing disproportionately on the limited resources of the farmland around them (which is being worked at a less-efficient rate than usual to begin with).

The army—comprised of young men—creates a demand for sex that interacts with the overflowing supply of young women without stable income (since this is an incredibly patriarchal society and the men in their lives have been taken away from work for military service). Without better jobs available, and with the market right there, these women turn to sex work, which syrockets. But of course they would, and of course it seems like every smallfolk woman we meet in ASOIAF is doing it: because people have to eat and feed their families, and the fields to plow have been burned by war, and the people who would work them have either been taken for military service or killed by war. It's exceedingly likely that sex work wasn't as widespread before the war so the increase in the need for sex workers represents the failing economy—consider the overabundance of sex workers in ACOK King's Landing, which was under a trade blockade from almost all fronts.

Then, the pendulum swings back the other direction: this is an unsustainable economy and an unsustainable way to live, so there is a reactionary religious response demanding a return to the way things were before (pre-war, in effect, but never separating this from the "social ills" that war results in). The women are blamed for their behavior, despite being demanded by the men around them and made necessary by the economy, and so this reactionary response leads to a religious condemnation of the "wanton" behavior of women.

The religious response in particular gains traction because organized religion offers several very meaningful things that otherwise solve these problems. We see from Septon Meribald toting his goods that the Faith offers charity to the starving. We see with the Sparrows, and personally with Lancel how the Faith offers a sense of meaning to those disenchanted by this strife. We see from the Sparrows and the rise of the High Sparrow how the organized religion of the Faith also offers a means of returning power to the disenfranchised.

So GRRM is achieving something unnervingly realistic here, showing what happens to local economies under wartime and the lingering horror that is left behind—a scenario that is still true of modern war, even if Americans don't have to see it personally. GRRM lived through Vietnam, and the influence is obvious in how the invading American military practiced rape and forced dubiously-consensual sex work onto the local economy.

It's also realistic how organized religion gains traction in scenarios where disenfranchised peoples need sources of hope and methods of organizing to regain what little power is available to them, and how organized religion can leverage a desire for better times into moral condemnation that fuels its rise to increasing levels of de jure power. It will be interesting to see in TWOW and beyond where the trajectory of the High Sparrow leads these people (and what that says about GRRM's observations and interpretations about modern historical parallels).

[jozor-johai]

Ghost as Jon's "white shadow" in AGOT Tyrion III:

They walked, with Ghost pacing along beside Jon like a white shadow.

Ser Mandon Moore as Joffrey's "white shadow" in ACOK Tyrion IX:

Joffrey was galloping at his side, whey-faced, with Ser Mandon Moore a white shadow on his left.

and then, with Ser Balon Swann, two "white shadows" to Tyrion in ACOK Tyrion VIX:

His two white shadows were always with him; Balon Swann and Mandon Moore, beautiful in their pale plate.

and again, more menacingly, later in the same chapter:

The knight was a white steel shadow, his eyes shining darkly behind his helm.

Ser Barristan Selmy as Daenerys' "white shadow" in ADWD Daenerys I:

Dany glimpsed Ser Barristan sliding closer, a white shadow at her side.

Five chapters later, Ghost as Jon's "white shadow" again in ADWD Jon II:

Ghost padded after him, a white shadow at his side

and again in ADWD Jon VII:

Ghost ran with them, a white shadow at Jon's side.

That's almost every instance of the concept of the "white shadow" in ASOIAF, and I think the limited context is striking: this is only in reference to the Kingsguard, clad in their pure white-enameled armor, and Ghost, Jon's all-white guardian.

If we are assuming Jon is a lost Targaryen Prince, then perhaps we might say Ghost is spiritually the first member of his Kingsguard.

I think it's a sweet thought.

However ... that's notably omitting the third context for the phrase "white shadow"

From the AGOT Prologue:

Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness.

From AGOT Jon VIII:

"We have white shadows in the woods and unquiet dead stalking our halls, and a boy sits the Iron Throne," he said in disgust.

From ACOK Jon III:

"The cold gods," she said. "The ones in the night. The white shadows."

and again:

We ride north, after Mance Rayder and these Others, these white shadows and their wights. We seek them, Gilly.

From AFFC Samwell III:

Maester Aemon's woken up and wants to hear about these dragons. He's talking about bleeding stars and white shadows and dreams and . . . if we could find out more about these dragons, it might help give him ease. Help me."

What can we make of that, then?

These are the only three contexts for this imagery, actually. I think it works if Ghost is sort of like Jon's Kingsguard but then... can there be some connection in this phrase with the Others? What could that mean?

[jozor-johai]

Jon’s identity arc in AGOT Jon I

I’m back to working through a reread of the series, this time taking quite a lot of time to take notes and read each chapter twice over. (There will be a lot of posts like this as I work my way through).

Something already very noticeable to me reading the book this way is how GRRM’s short story skills are used to great effect in each chapter, giving chapters an excellent sense of arc and resolution, even if only minor developments are made towards the overall plot. One such that stands out is in AGOT Jon I, where Jon deals with his identity as a bastard and his position in the Stark family.

Jon spends the whole chapter “telling himself” that he’s glad he’s not sitting with his family, and that he’s a bastard. This is such a central focus of the chapter that GRRM makes it the opening line:

There were times—not many, but a few—when Jon Snow was glad he was a bastard. As he filled his wine cup once more from a passing flagon, it struck him that this might be one of them.

As the chapter goes on, though, we get the sense that Jon is actually quite bitter about this and is suppressing his feelings (and drinking heavily to compensate). He comes up with reasons why he should be glad to be where he is he whole chapter long: he’s glad because he can drink unsupervised, he’s glad because he doesn’t have to escort insipid princesses.

GRRM makes the connection to Jon’s drinking when recalling his family finally being seated—all at the dias, far from him.

After all had been seated, toasts were made, thanks were given and returned, and then the feasting began. Jon had started drinking then, and he had not stopped.

As the chapter goes on, the facade of this defense becomes increasingly obvious—Jon has to “tell himself” he’s fortunate.

His brothers and sisters had not been permitted to bring their wolves to the banquet, but there were more curs than Jon could count at this end of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He told himself he was fortunate in that too. His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke.

The first time I read this, I didn’t realize this was GRRM code for: ‘he started crying,’ but it’s an excellent line.

Jon’s identity gets highlighted with Ghost as a proxy while talking to Benjen:

A very quiet wolf,” he observed. “He’s not like the others,” Jon said.

An observation that is immediately followed by a paragraph about how “a bastard had to learn to notice things,” and about how, with no other palce to go, Jon wants to join the Night’s Watch.

This whole time Jon is clearly upset about being a bastard and not like his siblings, and trying to find solace in that but failing as he eventually erupts into an outburst about bastardy and leaves the hall truly in tears.

Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he said carefully. “Never!” He spat it out like venom. Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and they were all looking at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind his eyes. He pushed himself to his feet.

This continues on into the Tyrion conversation, which eventually leads to this absolutely brilliant interaction:

“Lord Eddard Stark is my father,” Jon admitted stiffly. Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.” “Half brothers,” Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf’s comment, but he tried not to let it show.

Jon’s response here is such genius characterization to show a change in his attitude. After an entire chapter of Jon searching for some reason why he should be happy to be a bastard, Tyrion gives him a genuine reason: something different between he and his family he can be proud of.

In that moment, though, Tyrion groups Jon and his family all together as “brothers,” and this time, Jon interjects to add space and difference between him and his half-siblings. For the first time, it seems clear that Jon is trying to separate himself, rather than making excuses for the existing separation. And unlike earlier in the chapter he’s not trying to convince himself—it’s genuine: Tyrion’s words make him actually proud of a difference he has.

What a great little character arc for Jon—and a testament to Martin’s writing, I think.

[jozor-johai]

Ned has this small speech in AGOT Bran I about why he must behead Gared, and I think there's some really interesting takeaways. Not about why he must do it, the part he focuses on; the part Ned doesn't focus on: why it's legal, and what that means for Gared.

"Do you understand why I did it?" "He was a wildling," Bran said. "They carry off women and sell them to the Others." His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again. In truth, the man was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile.

Ned moves our attention along to why Ned had to be his own headsman, but in just a few sentences here, we've been introduced to the paradox of law that makes this system so fundamentally unjust and broken.

We're told that "no man is more dangerous" than this deserter, so we might think, for a split second, that Ned feels he must kill the man because he is dangerous. But as Ned points out, the logic is actually the reverse: "he knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime" (emphasis mine). It is not the prevalence of crime that is creating the demand for law, here, it's the existence of this extreme law that is generating the crime. Not wanting to be killed, the deserter would do anything to survive.

For Ned, the epitome of law in the North, who literally acts as judge, jury, and executioner, the tautology of the reasoning is irrelevant. The man is dangerous, now, whatever the situation. Of course, for Ned it's also really about an adherence to the laws of the Night's Watch, which is an institution as old as his house. It's their death sentence to declare, his to pass.

This time reading it, though, I was struck by how Ned's words here are an inversion to Septon Meribald's broken man speech, which is too long to relay here but ends with this:

"He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well."

Septon Meribald is describing Gared here, just as much as he's describing the men at war. There isn't a mention here directly of the threat of punishment for desertion, which is more extreme with the Night's Watch than elsewhere, but the reality is the same. Here, though, Meribald's approach is entirely different than Ned's—Meribald, who walks among the smallfolk and gives away what good he can offer, has a much more understanding and empathetic view of these men.

Ned has the capacity for this understanding, but his role is simply not to have kindness here. All of the goodness and kindness Ned has otherwise just doesn't matter here, because here Ned is the law, and Ned is a lord still.

With the fact that even Ned is given this treatment, we see how rigid and unjust the laws and class structures are here. Even a "good person" is not good in Ned's position.

I think this highlights the cause behind the growing smallfolk unrest throughout the books and especially in Feast/Dance. Even the good lords, the ones who can see the problems at work here, are still lords, and still hold themselves to the status quo that keeps them in power above all else. And it takes a very different perspective—like the kind Arya has gotten, for example—to see it the way Meribald does. (Though Arya has gone the opposite route away from forgiveness... that's interesting too.)

[jozor-johai]

Just a thought about Archmaester Marwyn's motives, maybe...

Archmaester Marwyn is of course infamously mysterious, appearing on-page in only one chapter, and once he finally appears he immediately departs. He gives cryptic warnings and advice to Sam, but the reader is left desperately wondering what to believe and what should be taken as untrustworthy ravings. Amidst all that, readers are left with very little to be sure of when it comes to Marwyn’s actual motives.

He says this of his plans, a brief enough description:

“Get myself to Slaver’s Bay, in Aemon’s place. The swan ship that delivered Slayer should serve my needs well enough. The grey sheep will send their man on a galley, I don’t doubt. With fair winds I should reach her first.”

That's still quite cryptic—sure we knew why Aemon wanted to reach Dany, but does Marwyn have the same reasons? Or even similar ones?

However, there’s a fragment of an idea from an Asha chapter that I think should not go overlooked, and might offer some additional insight into Marwyn’s investment in Daenerys. Asha asks what Rodrik the Reader is reading, and it’s a book by Archmaester Marwyn:

“Nuncle.” She closed the door behind her. “What reading was so urgent that you leave your guests without a host?” “Archmaester Marwyn’s Book of Lost Books.” He lifted his gaze from the page to study her. “Hotho brought me a copy from Oldtown. He has a daughter he would have me wed.” Lord Rodrik tapped the book with a long nail. “See here? Marwyn claims to have found three pages of Signs and Portents, visions written down by the maiden daughter of Aenar Targaryen before the Doom came to Valyria. Does Lanny know that you are here?” (AFFC The Kraken’s Daughter)

So shortly we finally meet Marwyn, we learn this: he claims to have found three pages of visions written down by Daenys the Dreamer, who predicted the Doom and saved the Targaryens from destruction.

What might Marwyn have found contained in those pages? Even three pages of such a valuable lost book might be enough motivation and insight to propel Marwyn to act, especially when he claims to have seen much and more besides through his glass candle.

Marwyn claims not to trust prophecy… but perhaps his attitude is affected by these three pages of Signs and Portents.

“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 . . .”

That “Still…” might hold a lot of weight here.

This is but one of many minor mentions of Marwyn have preceded his appearance, but especially because this detail from Rodrik comes from the same book he finally appears in I think it should be given special attention. I think it’s no accident that GRRM gave us this insight, no matter how brief.

Just making an observation.

[jozor-johai]

i love how the entirety of the Northern plotline in ADWD is about the total absence of Starks. Almost every relevant character is defined against their lack of Stark-hood.

Ramsay, unjust-lord of WF (a non-Stark in a Stark place) marrying Jeyne as Fake-Arya (a non-Stark faking Starkness),

Theon the ward with no home, who took WF by force rather than let go of it (a non-Stark defined by his relationship to the Starks) and Jon who is a non-Stark for countless reasons (you don't belong here, the stone kings in the crypts say to him).

Stannis, too, is marked by his lack of Starkhood, as Lyanna Mormont puts it, because the only real king in the North is named Stark.

Oh, and Alys Karstark, who is a non-Stark in the way all Karstarks are, and is also not-Arya when she arrives

Each is defined by the way that they aren't Starks in their own way, and that's the root of all of their plots.

And out of them only Theon and Jon want to be a Stark. Stannis is willing to make a Stark to fit his purposes, Jeyne’s been forced to be a fake Stark, and Ramsay doesn’t want to be a Stark but has to put up with all the trappings even as he’s the one that torched them to begin with

[jozor-johai]

some of my favorite "evidence" for the Seven:

Davos, ardent worshipper of the seven, who stayed true in the face of a false god, is miraculously saved from drowning during the Blackwater and then, once he's stranded on a remote rock, he prays to the Mother for salvation and is delivered a ship.

Sandor, too, has a certain reverence for the Faith in him, even if he shows it in a blasphemous way, naming his horse Stranger; Sandor, too, is (probably) saved by the faith in exchange for a new life of devotion, doing peaceful work of the kind that the Hound was never allowed to do

this is the kind of thing I say when people tell me the Seven aren't real. Should we imagine that this is any less real than Melisandre or Thoros attributing her powers to "R'hllor" ?

[jozor-johai]

I think ASOIAF asks the question of whether or not free will exists at all if we can prophesize the future. Jojen believes that the future can't be changed at all, so where does he fall in the debate of free will? Does he think everyone is a slave to fate? On the other end of the spectrum is Melisandre, who believes that the future can be changed (else what's the point of visions) ... and that's so fitting because she used to be a slave. So of course she believes in free will by contrast.

[jozor-johai]

“GRRM loves to subvert expectations” has got to stop being the foundation for an argument. It can be part of a discussion, maybe, but it’s never going to do any convincing on its own.

The subversion is not “the fantasy hero of prophecy isn’t really the hero of prophecy” and it’s just “the fantasy hero of prophecy struggles with having to be all of that”

I feel like people forget how old ASOIAF is actually. There’s something to how different media has become in the modern era. In the 2020s we’ve already gone through postmodernism going mainstream and all of the reinventing all of old tropes with tongue-in-cheek self awareness … but people forget that coming out of the 80s, GRRM is responding to an era where people were more sincere about Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian, and He-Man. Pop culture has gone through three decades of deconstruction, but that wasn’t so far along when this series began. So I think people these days are expecting an entirely kind of subversion than was even intended in first discussions around GRRM subverting expectations.

[jozor-johai]

I noticed a little subplot happening in the background of ADWD, and I’m wondering if anyone has any theories on where this is going. I have my own theory, which I'll explain in full at the end, but is essentially this: I think that GRRM is placing these Dothraki khalasars strategically along the Rhoyne and telling us about them in ADWD so that if Dany commands the loyalty of the entire Dothraki in TWOW, she'll already have loyal armies in place right by the Free Cities, rather than having to wait transport troops anywhere—even though the Dothraki aren't a threat now, the Dothraki will be in place to attack the Free Cities while the Free Cities have sent all their armies to fight Dany's forces at Meereen.

I'll explain my reasoning, and where I think GRRM is putting the pieces into place here—under the cut, since it's a slightly long post with maps.

We first hear of Dothraki along the Rhoyne in ADWD Tyrion III:

“Griff means to strike downriver the instant we are back. News has been coming upriver, none of it good. Dothraki have been seen north of Dagger Lake, outriders from old Motho’s khalasar, and Khal Zekko is not far behind him, moving through the Forest of Qohor.” The fat man made a rude noise. “Zekko visits Qohor every three or four years. The Qohorik give him a sack of gold and he turns east again. As for Motho, his men are near as old as he is, and there are fewer every year. The threat is—” “—Khal Pono,” Haldon finished. “Motho and Zekko flee from him, if the tales are true. The last reports had Pono near the headwaters of the Selhoru with a khalasar of thirty thousand. Griff does not want to risk being caught up in the crossing if Pono should decide to risk the Rhoyne.”

As a reminder, Dagger Lake is where the Rhoyne in the east meets the Qhoyne in the west to make the full-force Rhoyne that we know and love.

Illyrio dismisses any reason to be concerned with these particular Dothraki, and perhaps he is right. But we do get our first preview into the concerns of Khal Pono, and the premise of Dothraki along the Rhoyne. Are they doing to be placated by gifts, like Illyrio says? Or is something different afoot?

Next we get an update in Tyrion VI, by Selhorys.

Haldon Halfmaester explained. “On the way down from the Sorrows to Selhorys, we thrice glimpsed riders moving south along the river’s eastern shore. Dothraki. Once they were so close we could hear the bells tinkling in their braids, and sometimes at night their fires could be seen beyond the eastern hills. We passed warships as well, Volantene river galleys crammed with slave soldiers. The triarchs fear an attack upon Selhorys, plainly.”

Another reminder for geography, Selhorys is significantly south from Dagger Lake. Like, further than King’s Landing is from the Trident. Once again, we have this concern: will Khal Pono cross the Rhoyne for Selhorys?

That concern is brought up again in Tyrion VI:

“Three,” Qavo allowed, “against thrice three thousand enemies. Grazdan mo Eraz was not the only envoy sent out from the Yellow City. When the Wise Masters move against Meereen, the legions of New Ghis will fight beside them. Tolosi. Elyrians. Even the Dothraki.” “You have Dothraki outside your own gates,” Haldon said. “Khal Pono.” Qavo waved a pale hand in dismissal. “The horselords come, we give them gifts, the horselords go.” He moved his catapult again, closed his hand around Tyrion’s alabaster dragon, removed it from the board.

As predicted by Haldon in Tyrion III, here is Khal Pono across from Selhorys. We hear that Qavo is unconcerned with Khal Pono, despite Haldon’s concerns.

This might be a bit of a meta opinion, but whenever someone is as flippant as Qavo is being here, expect them to be wrong. They definitely aren’t going to go away with gifts, Qavo is totally jinxing it—that’s my prediction.

Then we get another update later on, in The Lost Lord:

Haldon’s horses did not please him. “Were these the best that you could find?” he complained to the Halfmaester. “They were,” said Haldon, in an irritated tone, “and you had best not ask what they cost us. With Dothraki across the river, half the populace of Volon Therys has decided they would sooner be elsewhere, so horseflesh grows more expensive every day.”

By this point, they’re in Volon Therys, which is only barely outside of Volantis—think roughly the distance between King’s Landing and Duskendale, for comparison. And here, too, there are Dothraki on the other side of the river. Are these the same Dothraki, are they traveling south at the same pace as Tyrion/JonCon? Or is this yet another khalasar? We haven’t heard any update from Qohor, and this is the first time that we’ve unexpectedly encountered a khalasar—are they here to meet with the Volantenes about Meereen, like Dany’s advisors fear? Or are they here for another reason? Is it possible that Illyrio and Qavo are wrong?

The last update we get is in ADWD Victarion, when he captures a ship from Myr heading for New Ghis and Yunkai:

Sailing out of Myr, the Dove brought them no fresh news of Meereen or Daenerys, only stale reports of Dothraki horsemen along the Rhoyne, the Golden Company upon the march, and others things Victarion already knew.

Unfortunately, this is stale news for both Victarion and we the readers—this is like a snapshot back to Tyrion II/III, when the Golden Company broke its contract and started marching east, and when we first heard about the Dothraki on the Rhoyne in my first quote.

However, despite this being a snapshot back in time to old news, I wonder about GRRM’s choice to include this again so close to end of the book—is this a reminder for the readers about these Dothraki on the Rhoyne? We’ve learned why the Golden Company marching ended up being important, could this passage from Victarion be a reminder of these tidbits of news because they will continue to matter moving forward?

I am doubly interested because it’s in this same book, in the very midst of all this talk of Dothraki on the Rhoyne, that we hear the tale of a previous time the Dothraki came. This is back in ADWD Tyrion IV, between the reports of Motho and Zekko on Dagger Lake and before the talk with Qavo about Pono. I’ve bolded the relevant sections, because it’s long, but left the rest for context.

“The war left the Disputed Lands a waste, and freed Lys and Myr from the yoke. The tigers suffered other defeats as well. The fleet they sent to reclaim Valyria vanished in the Smoking Sea. Qohor and Norvos broke their power on the Rhoyne when the fire galleys fought on Dagger Lake. Out of the east came the Dothraki, driving smallfolk from their hovels and nobles from their estates, until only grass and ruins remained from the forest of Qohor to the headwaters of the Selhoru. After a century of war, Volantis found herself broken, bankrupt, and depopulated. It was then that the elephants rose up. They have held sway ever since. Some years the tigers elect a triarch, and some years they do not, but never more than one, so the elephants have ruled the city for three hundred years.”

Maybe this wasn’t just to set the stage for the Volantene elections, but to remind us that the Dothraki can come out of the east to wreak havoc…. when the Free Cities are weak. And boy, is Volantis looking undefended right now: the Golden Company is gone to Westeros, other sellsword companies have gone to Meereen, the Volantenes have sent their fleets to Meereen.

Before I continue, here’s a map of the locations of the Dothraki khalasars along the Rhoyne:

Why we should care

We can be almost certain that Dany has to return to Vaes Dothrak to visit the Dosh Khaleen. Though we don’t know for sure if Khal Jhaqo’s forces are going to outpower Dany and Drogon, Dany is already envisioning the future where she returns to Vaes Dothrak when she sees Jhaqo’s outrider at the end of ADWD:

One rider, and alone. A scout. He was one who rode before the khalasar to find the game and the good green grass, and sniff out foes wherever they might hide. If he found her there, he would kill her, rape her, or enslave her. At best, he would send her back to the crones of the dosh khaleen, where good khaleesi were supposed to go when their khals had died.

Of course, we ought to already have known this from Dany’s vision in the House of the Undying:

Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed.

If Dany was truly seeing her future—and I believe she was—then we know we will inevitably be seeing her return to Vaes Dothrak to accept the homage of the Dosh Khaleen.

However, this creates a bigger problem: we need Dany to get to Westeros, and potentially have time to also reach both Volantis and Pentos (though whether or not Dany will actually go either of those places is purely speculation, however well-founded). Vaes Dothrak is in the entirely opposite direction from where she is now—that would be heading east, away from Westeros, not closer to her end goal.

For some readers, this isn’t a concern: we might trust Quaithe, who reminds Dany that:

To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.

Some readers, though, wonder about the time and ability for TWOW to contain this storyline within its time. GRRM is realistic about how long travel time takes, which is great for the realism, but presents immense logistic problems.

Dany doesn’t need to worry about the time it takes to travel long distances as mucha as she used to—if she can begin to control Drogon, she can fly around at will. However, that’s only her; if Dany does gain the allegiance of the Dothraki at Vaes Dothrak, how can she actually leverage that in a meaningful way when they’re constrained to horseback? While the AGOT timeline is largely unclear, we can use Dany’s pregnancy to at least be sure it takes months to get from one side of the Dothraki Sea (in Dany III) to Vaes Dothrak (in Dany IV). Does Dany have months to mobilize Dothraki from one side of the Sea to the other?

With the Dothraki along the Rhoyne, though, she doesn’t need to wait for anyone to ride across the sea. Conveniently, they’re already there. If there’s some way to send a message that the Dosh Khaleen have decreed that the Dothraki will follow Dany, that she is the Stallion Who Mounts the World, then she has a ready-made army just waiting for her word to cross the Rhoyne after all, and take the Free Cities. Then Dany can fly over there on her own and just meet them.

I know we’re all looking forward to Dany taking Volantis, so I don’t want to propose something too contrary, but how about this: sicne we’ve been hearing all through ADWD that there are a ton of Dothraki already in place, conveniently for story purposes, ready to accept their regular gifts… or perhaps ready to act if, for example, word came that the Stallion Who Mounts The World has come after all. That might speed things up a bit. We know Volantis is only weakly defended, we know there are Dothraki outside of Selhorys, Qohor, and Volon Therys. Dany has spent five books searching for home and finding one among the people she’s freed. Maybe this is how she makes sure it’s the Volantene slavers who don’t have a home to go back to this time.

[jozor-johai]

does anyone else wonder if Arya being left-handed is meant to be an early hint at her "sinister" trajectory? (pun intentional)

Of course it also works as yet another aspect of her otherness—she has the Stark look rather than the Tully look, she doesn't act like the other ladies or even the other nobility, and she's left handed rather than right. That might just be it, and nothing more to it...

but beyond that, the "left hand of evil" seems to be too classic a symbol not to at least think about, even if it doesn't seem to be used very often anymore.

plus, we have "Left-hand Lucas Codd" who might be Euron's "left-hand man," so to speak. And all good men do despise him, after all.

[jozor-johai]

Thinking about how much Craster represents all that is broken in Westeros, and it occurs to me: Craster has nineteen daughter-wives, the way that the Watch has nineteen Castles. Are Craster's sacrificed sons analogous to the brotherhood of the Night's Watchmen?

[jozor-johai]

It's no secret that the Red Temple of Volantis, and the vast majority of the R'hllorists in Essos, are considering Dany to be Azor Ahai reborn.

And it's equally no secret that Melisandre is off making a splinter sect of her own—rather than agree with the Dany-as-messiah hegemony, she's set her sights on Stannis Baratheon.

But these separate sects—and their potential—take on ever more meaning with the biblical parallels of their respective figureheads.

Dany has a series of paralleled images with Moses, if not wholly chronologically aligned: leading her people away from slavery, leading her people through a desert, communing with a magical fire and returning with a deified presence. I believe, in fact, that in the sense of this parallel she's in the middle of her trip to the top of Sinai, where some her followers believe her dead and begin to follow a false god leader in her absence.

So the Essosi branch of R'hllorism has this figurehead who is heavily paralleled with Moses...

and then Jon, then, for his part, is a heavy-handed Jesus figure, as we all know, with his betrayal and death at the hands of his brothers, his close allies with those who society rejects (Sam the effeminate scholar and Satin the prostitute), who is the de facto "king" of a refugee minority (the Wildlings) and who will be resurrected to return as a deity in truth.

The truth of Jon's return has the possibility to unite the two major factions of R'hllorists in Westeros. There's the small sect which is the Brotherhood Without Banners, or at least those not following Stoneheart, because the majority of their faith was earned through the proof of resurrection (of Beric) and who might follow another leader if he, too, seemed chosen by R'hllor (and was not as creepy or vengeful as LSH). Then there is the slightly larger sect which is Stannis' host and the Queen's Men in particular, who follow Melisandre's lead and believe in Stannis as Azor Ahai. If Melisandre changed her opinion for whatever reason—perhaps also through the "proof" of divine intervention via resurrection, then she and her followers, too, might follow Jon in the "cult of resurrection" so to speak.

Which would give us a geopolitical religious split along R'hllorist belief in who exactly is Azor Ahai, the Essosi sect believing that it's Dany, slave-freeing Moses-figure, and the Westerosi sect believing that it's Jon, resurrected king Jesus-figure.

Of course all of this comes with the caveat that Dany has her own Jesus parallels (wise men visiting her, "born" under a star) and Jon has his own Moses parallels, and of course that Jesus and Moses have plenty of parallels even themselves. I mean their status as major messiah figures is probably more nuanced than Moses/Jesus but it does make for an interesting divide. Not sure what it all means, to be honest, beyond noticing it.