#old nan

[ladystoneboobs]

idt we talk enough about how a song of ice and fire is also the song of incest and cannibalism. i mean, sure, obviously both of those subjects are noted as present, but the saga feels much more known for its incest, which idt is fair or accurate to the later materiel. iirc, jaime fucking cersei next to their dead firstborn is the last instance of onpage incest happening in present tl, and after that it's all about the cannibals, baby.

(disclaimer: cw/tw sa, cw/tw rape, and i'm not counting cousincest as that's normal in-world even for non-targaryens and also still legal in many places in our world today, nor counting the faux-incestuous freudian mess that is littlefinger/alayne(sansa)/sweetrobin, nor any dark humor jokes and/or unfulfilled threats wrt forced cannibalism)

in fact pretty much all the active incest during the present tl happens in those first 3 books:

the twincest as a major plot point ofc, kicking action off when bran saw them fucking in a tower

and viserys creeping on dany and twisting her nipple

tyrion relating his backstory to bronn wherein he and tysha were both raped by proxy by his father, tywin (tho tyrion does not use that terminology)

craster still being alive to rape and impregnate his own daughters (resulting in dozens of forced incestuous relationships)

and theon unknowingly groping his own sister while she (knowingly) groped him in return

jaime's early pov recalled how he shut up cersei with kissing when they fought after bran refused to die

bella of stoney sept trying and failing to seduce gendry who is (unbeknownst to them both) her half-brother as both were sired by robert baratheon (only example in these 3 books where incest was averted before any sexual activity or incestuous contact occurred)

the aforementioned sept twincest next to joffrey's corpse

tyrion learning from oberyn about cersei twisting his penis when he was a baby

cersei's failed attempt to seduce jaime in wst, pulling out his dick for either a bj or hj until her talk of tyrion's death made him lose his boner

while incest is not exactly absent from the text after that, it seems to exist in the feastdance only in hypotheticals or past memories:

aeron's trauma flashbacks of his (implied only in published text) csa by euron

jaime still feeling lust when seeing cersei nude

and her fond reminiscing about them fucking behind robert's back/brief dream of them as a married couple before her walk of shame

victarion misinterpreting asha's offer of partnership as a marriage proposal and suddenly looking at his niece in a new way with "his manhood beginning to stiffen"

jaime's recollection of fucking cersei at darry next to robert as he was passed out drunk before cersei sent him to hunt arya (which would have happened back in agot and the point of this scene is more his failed hunt for a child just to make cersei happy)

arianne's "uneasy" memory of a past fantasy about being seduced by a man whose description is suspiciously similar to her late uncle oberyn

the aborted marital match of aegon/young griff to his purported aunt dany

illyrio saying (the now dead) viserys tried to rape dany the night before her wedding to drogo (another event from agot concerning a guy we already knew was into incest)

and tyrion once saying he wanted to rape as well as murder cersei

conversely, the cannibalism in the earlier books is most often only unproven hypotheticals alluded to as possible cannibalism:

old nan saying the others fed their dead servants the flesh of human children (which we have not yet seen with any wights so far, whether or not one counts walking undead eating human flesh as straight-up cannibalism)

the mystery meat in flea bottom's bowls o' brown which may or may not contain symon silver tongue after tyrion had him killed

renly's recollection that cressen kept stannis from catapulting their old master-at-arms by saying they may need to eat him later (which did not come to pass thanks to davos)

joffrey telling his people to eat their own dead (with no way of knowing if any actually did)

lady hornwood eating her own fingers

the mentions of the ice river clans being the cannibals beyond the wall (who are def not among the free folk jon snow gets to know onpage, making it just background detail)

bran's (possibly mythical) story of the rat cook

and biter chewing on people he attacked and other corpses (which seems to be just a side hobby connected to his killing method moreso constituting a snack than a full meal from a person butchered for meat. this tendancy of his is just background detail in acok, with biter chewing a corpse in the background after the weasel soup operation, and the hindsight implication that it could well have been him rather than dogs or wolves who had "been at" the corpses after the skirmish where yoren was killed)

while the feastdance feels much more in your face with cannibalism, having not only more total mentions of the practice but also more confirmed, actual cannibalism (as opposed to the ambiguity of each and every bowl o' brown), for those who know how to look at the evidence:

jaime learned that his father's mad dog aka the mountain fed parts of vargo hoat to all his prisoners (including vargo himself) after recapturing harrenhal

jaime then recalled tales of danelle lothston presiding over feasts of human flesh in harrenhal

and euron bragged about pulling a similar trick with the warlocks he captured (the only twist being that the warlocks knew what they were being forced to eat, which vargo hoat and wylis manderly etc at harrenhal likely didn't)

the elder brother of the quiet isle told of biter eating all of a woman's breasts at saltpans after she'd been raped and killed (prob the largest amount of flesh biter's confirmed to have eaten from one corpse)

bran and co. ate "pig" supplied by coldhands which had to be long pig aka human meat

brienne felt her face being eaten by biter in her own pov (which is so much worse than him chewing others in the background of the weasel soup scene)

theon was told that two ironmen at moat cailin were found eating their dead comrades

the astapori were said to eat their own dead while under siege by the yunkishmen

and then were said to do so again in refugee camps outside meereen

sam and davos sailed past skagos and each remembered stories of skagosi cannibalism

khrazz the pit fighter cut the hearts from his defeated foes to eat them

cotter pyke's last letter to jon snow said the wildlings were eating their own dead at hardhome

4 of stannis's men were executed by burning for butchering and eating dead men (with asha wondering how many others had done so without being caught)

and ofc the frey pies with wyman manderly having his 3 former guests killed and serving their meat to their own kin and the other guests at ramsay's wedding while eating some himself too

two of these examples (involving gregor clegane and euron greyjoy) must have actually happened during the course of asos, but grrm chose to give us the gruesome details in affc, which was brand new information about men we already knew were villains but did not know were into that fucked-up shit specifically, unlike being reminded that agot-era jaime and viserys wanted to fuck their sisters. it's as if after craster was killed and jc effectively broke up grrm decided cannibalism was the taboo subject matter he would fill the later books with, so we'd really feel the increasing danger of starvation-induced cannibalism with winter's arrival (and have no trouble believing rickon's new home of skagos really is a cannibal island). however, in-universe it feels like there's some sort of environmental balance connection so that the decrease in one formerly common behaviorial abomination just allows another such abomination to fill in the gap with a sharp increase in activity, like deer overpopulation resulting from lack of predators as if all the active incest somehow stopped more people from eating themselves or other people.

[death-of-cats]

lmaooooooooo you know everyone in the castle wanted to give that boy a good kick, gods bless Old Nan for her self-restraint

[silverflameataraxia]

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

- Arya II, AFFC

Needle reminds Arya of her family, and therefore it's the one thing she cannot give up to become No One. As much as she wants to be No One - the girl who isn't hurting, the girl who doesn't have a hole where her heart should be - she just can't let go of those she loves.

And remember, she wanted to go to the Wall to be with Jon. She didn't want to go to the House of Black and White. She only did, and she only does what's necessary to stay, because she has nowhere else to go.

[gotham-at-nightfall]

Drawing Every Named Character in A Song of Ice and Fire

By Alejandro Kay

Part I: Prologue

Part II: Bran I

[stromuprisahat]

Theon Greyjoy had once commented that Hodor did not know much, but no one could doubt that he knew his name. Old Nan had cackled like a hen when Bran told her that, and confessed that Hodor’s real name was Walder. No one knew where “Hodor” had come from, she said, but when he started saying it, they started calling him by it. It was the only word he had.

A Game of Thrones- Chapter 24 (George R. R. Martin)

[nulnoildrinker]

Sure, some of Old Nan's stories might be kernels of ancient folk wisdom inherited through millennia of oral traditions. But have you concidered how fun it is to lie to children?

She likely did the Lucamore Strong Limbo with Dunk, and we all know that he likes women with that extra little spark in their eyes.

[troubleandscorn]

[fandomlife-confessions]

[ophelias-lamentation]

Which characters would y’all assign to the seven?

for me rn

maiden: Sansa and Margaery

mother: Danaerys and Catelyn

warrior: Jaime, Sandor, and Brienne

smith: Gendry Waters

father: Ned Stark, Stannis Baratheon

the crone: Old Nan and Melisandre

the stranger: lady stoneheart.

[lego-asoiaf-fan-minifigs]

All ASOIAF Characters as LEGO Minifigures, Part 2.1: AGOT, Bran 1

Row 1: Prince Bran Stark and Summer; Lord Jon Snow and Ghost; King Robb Stark and Grey Wind

Row 2: Lord Eddard Stark; King Robert Baratheon; Prince Theon Greyjoy

Row 3: King Mance Rayder; Jory Cassel, captain of the guards

Row 4: Old Nan; Hullen, master of horse

Art used as reference (by alexandrokayart):

[goosebasedcryptid]

I hope GRRM writes and releases The She-Wolves of Winterfell just so I can finally know if Old Nan did in fact get freaky with Dunk please George it's all I ask

[silverflameataraxia]

She hated the way he talked, always so harsh and angry. "Does it give you joy to scare people?"

- Sansa IV, ACoK

I'm sorry, but what? Sansa hates how Sandor is always so harsh and angry?

Let's give a brief recap of just one of Sansa's interactions with Arya, shall we?

It was running down her nose and stinging her eyes. Sansa wiped it away with a napkin. When she saw what the fruit in her lap had done to her beautiful ivory silk dress, she shrieked again. "They should have killed you instead of Lady!"

Sansa threw her head back in disdain. "You?" You couldn't sew a dress fit to clean the pigsties."

"It won't be so bad, Sansa," Arya said. "We're going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we'll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest." She touched her on the arm.

"Hodor!" Sansa yelled. "You ought to marry Hodor, you're just like him, stupid, and hairy and ugly!" She wrenched away from her sister's hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her.

And this brief moment between the sisters doesn't even compare to the years of Sansa calling Arya ugly and stupid, being ashamed of her appearance, wishing she was a bastard like Jon, wishing Sansa could have someone else as her sister, and looking down on Arya's friends because they're commoners.

[flying-ham]

it was so funny to discover that the phrase “sweet summer child” was invented by grrm

[stromuprisahat]

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”

A Game of Thrones- Chapter 24 (George R. R. Martin)

“You mean the Others,” Bran said querulously. “The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?” “Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only …” Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.” Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen. “Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—” The door opened with a bang, and Bran’s heart leapt up into his mouth in sudden fear, but it was only Maester Luwin, with Hodor looming in the stairway behind him. “Hodor!” the stableboy announced, as was his custom, smiling hugely at them all.

[a-thousand-eyes-and-one]

characters i believe are not dead and in fact are living out happy lives as of right now:

— toddler weasel

— beth cassel & old nan

— tyrek lannister

— rickon and osha

the key here for the most part is to pick characters george implies are dead but doesnt care enough about to show their deaths on-page and therefore they are alive To Me. for instance i fully believe old nan snuck beth out of the dreadfort in the dead of night and now theyre living it up in an abandoned cabin or something. theyre literally fine guys #trust

[nedstarkfortnite]

Mikey reads ASOIAF: Bran IV AGOT

Short summary: Bran is struggling to come to terms with his new disability. The people around him do their best to cheer him up and include him. While all this is happening Bran is contemplating his strange dreams…

God knows how relatable this is to me. I might have been older when I got my chronic illness (that sure, isn’t physically disabling most of the time, but still impacts me in my daily life) but I understand how humiliating and frustrating it can be. Poor Bran doesn’t have the maturity to realize his life can still amount to a lot.

Anyway, let’s look at the wolves.

The significance of the direwolves/parallels with their owners

“In the yard below, Rickon ran with the wolves.Bran watched from his window seat. Wherever the boy went, Grey Wind was there first, loping ahead to cut him off, until Rickon saw him, screamed in delight, and went pelting off in another direction. Shaggydog ran at his heels, spinning and snapping if the other wolves came too close. His fur had darkened until he was all black, and his eyes were green fire. Bran's Summer came last. He was silver and smoke, with eyes of yellow gold that saw all there was to see. Smaller than Grey Wind, and more wary. Bran thought he was the smartest of the litter. He could hear his brother's breathless laughter as Rickon dashed across the hard-packed earth on little baby legs.”

Martin has already discussed at length how all Stark children (plus Jon) have warging abilities, so let’s not repeat what’s been said over and over. I was more wondering about their symbolic parallels with their owners. Lady has her throat cut and is silenced just before Sansa unknowingly arrives at her prison where she will be silenced under the threat of violence for a long time.

Nymeria runs off into the wild, and Arya later traverses the lawless Riverlands which might as well be a man-made kind of wilderness. 

So stick with me here: Grey Wind was there first, like how Robb was firstborn and came before Rickon. He is also the first (and only, unless you count Jon) Stark kid to die. Loping ahead to cut him off…grasping at straws here, but I wonder if Robb’s will will somehow turn out to be a problem for a Rickon raised by the North to take over Winterfell. Maybe this will turns up and “lops ahead to cut him off”. We’ve heard about it before so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it return.

Shaggydog is a ferocious and aggressive dog, and sticks close to Rickon. Maybe he will be a warg turned wild due to their intimate connection and Rickon practically growing up with this wolf by his side. You could also see a potential conflict with his siblings being hinted at here.

Summer is smaller and more wary than Grey Wind. This is purely speculative on my end (like most of this), but I could imagine that Bran’s fight will be more subtle and abstract. He will not be the warrior Robb was, but…Summer is the smartest of the litter. Bran will come out of his adventure knowing more of the world than anyone else who is alive, due to his powers and the ability to see through the weirwoods. 

I’ll admit this sounds a bit like “14 years of no book” theory boredom, but it was just a thought that occurred to me reading this.

“His eighth name day had come and gone. He was almost a man grown now, too old to cry.”

…Sure Bran. Whatever you say mate. 

This is immediately followed up by Bran snapping “petulantly” at Old Nan so LOL

“"Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework.”

I feel a tingle in me telling me to rant about Bloodraven ≠ 3EC. I am resisting. Please admire my restraint.

Old Nan is old. It sounds like she might be 80-100, or something like that. We love a cute little wrinkly lady telling children scary stories for the lulz. Would it be absolutely batshit insane to consider the possibility of her being the 3EC or at least a servant of it? I don’t know, I feel like she receives a lot of attention for a minor character.

Bran mentions feeling as though Ned, Catelyn and Jon have died while he was in his coma. I wonder if he and Jon will ever meet again, because uh…when we last saw Jon he wasn’t doing too good. Ned and Catelyn are both dead (Catelyn resurrected, sure, but clearly not the same). Would he still be ‘Jon’ if he is resurrected?

“Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes, Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head.”

On one hand I do want to talk about time travelling Bran. On the other hand I do not wanna open that can of worms. Let’s just quietly acknowledge it and hope it goes away.

Old Nan drops some Others lore. We better see the ice spiders or I’m RIOTING. Remember how lackluster the HBO Long Night was? Ugh. Horrible. Getting flashbacks from the godawful experience.

There is some Hodor lore. I believe Martin has confirmed that “hold the door” will happen but in a slightly different way in the books. Poor sweet guy :( all because Bran wasn’t taught any warging ethics and accidentally scrambled his brain so hard it warped time.

Later on Robb and Tyrion banter a little. Tyrion is always funnier than everyone else in the room combined. 

Robb telling Tyrion the Lannisters need to remember the Starks are hard to kill, living through Ned’s beheading and being the only Stark kid murdered by the Lannisters (technically also the Freys and Boltons but the Lannisters made it happen)...Ouch.

Anyway Tyrion gifts Bran the saddle and it’s cute. I do wonder what it means that Summer also attacked Tyrion, though…All the direwolves have been particularly hostile toward him. Foreshadowing for a future Tyrion turned cynical and bitter, unleashing hell on the Starks (assuming he goes to advise Daenerys and sets some nasty things in motion)? The direwolves do seem to be connected with the Old Gods more than the New, so maybe Tyrion will threaten to disrupt the Old Gods or the general balance of things. Maybe they just don’t like him though, I could be reaching. Summer, the smartest of them all, is participating in this aggressive behavior though…

Bran has another dream that is pretty obviously about what he saw the day he fell. Not much to say about it, it’s there. 

“"Are they ever coming back?" Bran asked him.

"Yes," Robb said with such hope in his voice that Bran knew he was hearing his brother and not just Robb the Lord. "Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn't that surprise her, to see you ahorse?" Even in the dark room, Bran could feel his brother's smile. "And afterward, we'll ride north to see the Wall. We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure."

The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb's face. "An adventure," Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together.”

Aughngngngng…

Good chapter I liked it