#so for arya: agot + acok -> acok + asos -> affc + adwd -> adwd + twow -> twow + ados | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

daceytheshebear · 2 years ago

Text

My Oak Leaf Dress post is getting some traction again years after it was first posted, and it got me wondering if tumblr might be more fertile groud to talk about some Arya Stark-centered analysis of mine I feel never got the attention it deserved in the westeros.org forum?

Okay, have you noticed that Arya's five chapters in AGOT have very very strong parallels to Arya’s five chapters in Feast/Dance? I've cataloged them and it blows my mind that more people aren't dissecting it. If we take into consideration that the AFFC and ADWD were supposed to one book, Arya has exactly the same amount of chapters as she had in book one, which is much less than she had in ACOK or ASOS. A pity in my opinion, as I love to read her, but I believe this is not a coincidence on Martin’s part as there seem to be several parallels between what Arya experiences in the first book and the last two. I’ll compare:

AGOT Arya I to AFFC Arya I

AGOT Arya II to AFFC Arya II

AGOT Arya III to AFFC Cat of the Canals

AGOT Arya IV to ADWD The Blind Girl

AGOT Arya V to ADWD The Ugly Little Girl

So, AGOT Arya I / AFFC Arya I: Both take place in a different setting from the other four chapters (Winterfell vs. Kings Landing for AGOT, the ship The Titan's Daughter vs. the city of Braavos in AFFC and ADWD). In both we have Arya directly interacting with two siblings, one who is two years older than her and whose place she would like to be able to occupy (Sansa with all her ladylike abilities, Denyo who is a cabin boy) and another who is older and more guarded and with whom she has important conversations about the ways of the world (Jon Snow and the talk about bastards and girls and Yorko and all the exposition about Bravosi culture). Quotes about Sansa and Denyo:

It wasn't fair. Sansa had everything. Sansa was two years older; maybe by the time Arya had been born, there had been nothing left. Often it felt that way. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys. Arya took after their lord father.

And

Denyo had taken her up to the crow's nest once, and she hadn't been afraid at all, though the deck had seemed a tiny thing below her. I can do sums too, and keep a cabin neat. But the galleas had no need of a second boy.

In both chapters we have adults who are not really happy to be in charge of Arya, who are associated with the color grey, and who frown at Arya with similar phrasing (septa Mordane and Tradesman-Captain Ternesio Terys). I'll give you the quotes:

Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. It was frowning now. "What are you talking about, children?"

And

Arya turned to find Denyo's father looming over them in his long captain's coat of purple wool. Tradesman-Captain Ternesio Terys wore no whiskers and kept his grey hair cut short and neat, framing his square, windburnt face. On the crossing she had oft seen him jesting with his crew, but when he frowned men ran from him as if before a storm. He was frowning now. "Our voyage is at an end," he told Arya.

In one of the chapters Arya is said to be “too skinny to hold a sword” and in the other she is “too small to man an oar”. Both chapters end with Arya entering rooms where two authority figures await for her (septa Mordane and Catelyn in her room AGOT, the kindly man and the waif inside the House of Black and White in AFFC).

AGOT Arya II / AFFC Arya II: In both chapters a long time has elapsed between Arya I and Arya II. In both chapters Arya feels very isolated from people around her (in AGOT she is mourning Mycah, angry at her father’s men who let the boy be murdered and sad that even Sansa “wouldn’t talk to her unless their father made her”, in AFFC Arya takes the other servants of the HoBaW for mutes until she hears them praying, they never talk to her and Umma, who does talk, speaks in a language she can’t understand.

In both chapters we have vivid descriptions of rich food Arya eats, which is very rare in her story because she is underfed most of the time. In both chapters Needle is discovered (in AGOT Ned sees the sword, in AFFC the waif catches Arya training).

In both chapters she has a very important conversation about lies (Arya tells her father Sansa lied about not knowing what happened at the Trident, and Ned says to her: "We all lie" and later says that some lies are “not without honor”, meanwhile the kindly man says to Arya “All men lie when they are afraid. Some tell many lies, some but a few. Some have only one great lie they tell so often that they almost come to believe it”).

In both chapters Arya promises to obey:

“This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience… at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up." "I will," Arya vowed. She had never loved him so much as she did in that instant. "I can be strong too. I can be as strong as Robb."

In AFFC the kindly man tells Arya

“Remain if you will, but know that we shall require your obedience. At all times and in all things. If you cannot obey, you must depart." "I can obey." [...] “It takes uncommon strength of body and spirit, and a heart both hard and strong [to be a faceless man]" I have a hole where my heart should beand nowhere else to go. "I'm strong. As strong as you. I'm hard."

In Both chapters Arya is said to be beautiful (a word that is not used to describe her in any other occasion). In both words Arya explicitly refuses feminine roles (in AGOT she tells Ned she doesn’t want to be a lady, in AFFC she thinks she wanted none of the placements the kindly man offers her, with courtesans where she would “sleep on rose petals and wear silken skirts that rustle when [she] walks” or “marriage and children”).

In both chapters Arya uses rocks to save a part of herself: in AGOT she recounts to Ned how she had to throw stones at Nymeria for her to stop following and be saved from the Lannister men who would execute her (we hope Arya will reunite with Nymeria again), and in AFFC she hides Needle behind a loose stone step to keep it safe for later (we hope she will retrieve it at some point).

Another plot-point that repeats between the two chapters is the introduction of a teacher. Arya II in AGOT opens in a dinner scene in the Small Hall ends with the introduction of Syrio Forel in the same Small Hall, where Arya begins to learn water dancing. Syrio says “now we dance”. Arya II in AFFC starts with Arya reciting her list, and ends after the Waif becomes Arya’s teacher on the braavosi language and the lying game (she actively compares what she is learning now with the lessons she once had from Syrio) and then Arya finally leaves the temple, reciting her list like in the beginning (so both chapters start and finish “in the same place”) and saying she is “so happy she could dance”.

AGOT Arya III / AFFC Cat of the Canals: Okay so in AGOT Arya II, Arya assumes a “fake identity” for the first time ever! Tommen and Myrcella mistake her for a peasant boy, and she acts the part. In her third chapter in AFFC this is taken up to the next level and this is the first time her chapter title changes when she takes the identity of Cat. Cats! Of course, Arya II in AGOT is that one chapter that is all about cats, she talks about pursuing them and she finally kisses Balerion. She then becomes Cat in her third chapter in AFFC, and reminisces about chasing cats in the Red Keep in that chapter!

There is a sense of expanding horizons in both these chapters. Arya leaves the Red Keep for the first time in AGOT Arya III, and walks back from the Blackwater all the way to the castle. In her third AFFC chapter, Arya is exploring the city of Braavos after having finally been allowed out of the temple. She is also very cheeky in both these chapters! Arya interacting with the guards of the Red Keep is hilarious, and very similar to how she acts when being her Cat persona.

Nightmares. Arya experiences vivid, terrible nightmares in both these third chapters (and in her third chapter in ASOS). In AGOT she hears her father’s voice becoming fainter and fainter in her dreams, which some have interpreted as foreshadowing for Ned’s death and as a sign that Arya may have precognitive abilities. In AFFC it’s her mother she hears screaming. Both these chapters also explore and detail the place Arya inhabits. In AGOT Arya III the Red Keep is heavily featured, and it’s described as an “endless stone maze”. In AFFC Cat takes us all around Braavos, which of course is a “crooked city” with all its buildings made out of stone.

Daenerys is mentioned!! Illyrio and Varys discuss “the princess with child” in AGOT Arya III, and tales of “dragons hatching” reach Cat in AFFC. Daenerys isn’t mentioned in any other Arya chapters.

Retelling overheard stories features heavily in both chapters. Arya tries to convey to Ned what she overheard and is casually dismissed. In Cat of the Canals, Arya is learning to actively overhear conversations and gather information and retells them to the kindly man with caution.

Bathing is also present in both chapters. Arya usually doesn’t really enjoy bathing in ACOK and ASOS, but both in AGOT Arya III and in Cat of the Canals, on the other hands, we witness Arya disrobing and cleaning her body of her own volition, getting rid of bad smells in almost ritualized cleansing. Compare the quotes from AGOT, Arya III:

She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and crawled out shivering.

and AFFC, Cat of the Canals:

Down in the vaults, she untied Cat's threadbare cloak, pulled Cat's fishy brown tunic over her head, kicked off Cat's salt-stained boots, climbed out of Cat's smallclothes, and bathed in lemonwater to wash away the very smell of Cat of the Canals. When she emerged, soaped and scrubbed pink with her brown hair plastered to her cheeks, Cat was gone.

One of the most important parallels in this set of chapters regards the Night’s Watch. It is in Arya III AGOT that Arya for the first ever interacts with a black brother, when she meets Yoren. Although Arya isn’t aware of it, it was Yoren’s death that made it possible for Dareon leave Eastwatch and go to Braavos in the first place, as the singer was assigned by Jon Snow to take up the role of recruiter that used to be Yoren’s. Yoren had other roles as well, including that of Arya’s protector. The first encounter she has with each of the two black brothers show us just how much Arya has changed. She thinks of Yoren:

He was stooped and ugly, with an unkempt beard and unwashed clothes. [...] The old man in his smelly black clothes was looking at her oddly, but Arya could not seem to stop talking.

While Arya can’t stop herself from rambling to Yoren, she has learned not to share all of her thoughts by the time she meets Dareon. This is the quote:

He is fair of face and foul of heart, thought Arya, but she did not say it

Also, in both this chapters she goes blind! “She was blind.” That sentence shows up exactly like that, word for word, in both chapters. Of course in AFFC she actually becomes blind, while in AGOT she is only in a really really dark room. But still. The wording! And structurally speaking, while the last pair of chapters starts and finish “in the same place”, now both of these chapters start with a more light-hearted tone to then plunge into really dark territory, literally and metaphorically, as Arya hears the threats to her family whispered in the dark in AGOT and kills Dareon to then goes blind in AFFC.

AGOT Arya IV / ADWD The Blind Girl:

Considering AFFC and ADWD as one long long book, Blind Girl is Arya’s fourth chapter. Arya’s fourth chapter in AGOT is the one in which she gets that all-important lesson when Syrio Forel tells her to “look with her eyes”. He also touches upon her other senses though:

“The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth."

Syrio says all that! And while Arya looks with her eyes in several moments of the story and this true seeing literally saves her life more than once, she never does explore her other senses that much… until she goes blind in ADWD. In The Blind Girl we get:

Hear, smell, taste, feel, she reminded herself. There are many ways to know the world for those who cannot see. [...] "You have five senses, learn to use the other four, you will have fewer cuts and scrapes and scabs"

Also, both chapters feature scenes where Arya in engaged in training with someone to improve her martial skills. While she practiced her needlework on her own all throughout ASOS, this is the first time she does so with someone else since Syrio in AGOT Arya IV! The way the two fights are described is incredibly similar, with the descriptions of rights and lefts and right and lefts, and the clacking sound of wood, her opponent “cheating” (coming from the “wrong” side) and there is a “sudden stinging” cut which catches her by surprise. It’s very very similar, go reread it if you don't believe me.

Another really important parallel regards skinchanging: in Arya’s fourth chapter in AGOT, Arya is helpless after witnessing the horrors that took place at the Tower of the Hand. The narration tells us “she was only a little girl with a wooden stick, alone and afraid” (the wooden stick here is her practice sword). And than, to escape, she pretends she is chasing cats… “except she was the cat now”. I kid you not, this is the exact wording used. She is the cat now, and that is what empowers her to keep going. In ADWD, when Arya is most definitely LITERALLY just a little blind girl with a wooden stick, she actually skinchanges into a cat for the first time, and that is what finally empowers her against her mentor/abuser. She “becomes a cat” in both chapters

Also, it is in The Blind Girl chapter that we learn that “the Sealord is dying”, which is comparable (both from doylist’s and watsonian perspectives) to Robert Baratheon dying, exactly what happens around Arya IV. Now a bit of a stretch: in AFFC "The Merling Queen has chosen a new Mermaid to take the place of the one that drowned. She is the daughter of a Prestayn serving maid, thirteen and penniless, but lovely." I propose the new mermaid might stand in for Jeyne Poole. While the new Mermaid is the daughter of a Prestayn’s serving maid, and we know Prestayn be a noble house, Jayne is the daughter of the Stark’s steward. Petyr Baelish, who is connected with the braavosi galley The Merling King, takes charge of Jayne, who is then a twelve year-old.The “Mermaids” are actually described to be “young maidens in the blush of their first flowering who hold [the Merling Queen’s] train and do her hair”. Of course, same as the Mermaids are being trained to become courtesans, Jeyne will be trained in a brothel to become Ramsay’s bride.

AGOT Arya V / ADWD The Ugly Little Girl: Okay, so Arya V makes me sad from the very first line to the very last. The situation is hopeless, Arya is helpless. King’s Landing is unwelcoming and claustrophobic, the people range from rude to downright mean. The people of the city likely look at her with suspicious eyes, and as much as Arya has told us she loved nothing more than to be underfoot and mingle with the common people of Winterfell, the experience in King’s Landing is traumatizing, and it ends with her father beheaded. Oh joy. In A Dance with Dragons the waif describes how people will react to the ugly little girl Arya will become after she changes her face for the first time:

"Women will look away when they see you. Children will stare and point. Strong men will pity you, and some may shed a tear."

For reasons very different than a destroyed face, this sounds very similar to what Arya experiences in King’s Landing. I find the overall tone of The Ugly Little Girl chapter to be rather analogous to that of Arya V. Arya is in the HoBaW because is certain she has nowhere else to go. Life is easier now than when she was blind, but she doesn’t feel very comfortable – and yet goes through with all that is asked of her. Though not helpless anymore, she is more hopeless than ever before. She experiences physical pain and nightmares; she is questioned and constantly told she doesn’t have what it takes to be in the only place that has been a steady roof over her head in years.

Before undergoing her magical transformation in ADWD, Arya is given a tart drink. This is the quote:

She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya.

In AGOT Arya V, we get this:

Arya would have given anything for a cup of milk and a lemon cake,

In fact, lemons come up very scarcely in Arya’s whole story. She only thinks about the fruit in her inner monologues in Arya V and The Ugly Little Girl, both times prompted from external stimuli (there is the lemon tart she could not steal moments before she wishes for the lemon cake in AGOT, and the magical tart drink she is given in The Ugly Little Girl). The word comes up a handful of times in A Storm of Swords while Arya is in the company of Lem Lemoncloak, but the fruit not so much.

Another parallel between this pair of chapters comes in the form of Arya’s target, the binder salesman. The man Arya targets for the faceless men in ADWD is described in a way that calls back to Petyr Baelish (pointed beard, thin lips) and Yoren (a hard face, mean eyes, crooked shoulders), both of which Arya encounters in her fifth chapter in AGOT.

Eddard Starks beheading is a moment full of similarities to Arya’s “defacing” by the kindly man. This is from AGOT Arya V:

The old man shook her so hard her teeth rattled. "Shut your mouth and close your eyes, boy." Dimly, as if from far away, she heard a… a noise… a soft sighing sound, as if a million people had let out their breath at once.

and this is from ADWD The Ugly Little Girl:

"Sit," the priest commanded. She sat. "Now close your eyes, child." She closed her eyes. "This will hurt," he warned her, "but pain is the price of power. Do not move."

And of course what follows her closing her eyes in AGOT hurts much more deeply than having her forehead slashed. In A Game of Thrones, Arya opens her eyes to finally recognize Yoren. He then giver her Needle back, and drags her to a doorframe where he cuts her hair to give her a new identity, that of Arry. This is the quote from Arya V:

As the blade flashed toward her face, Arya threw herself backward, kicking wildly, wrenching her head from side to side, but he had her by the hair, so strong, she could feel her scalp tearing, and on her lips the salt taste of tears.

and this is the quote from The Ugly Little Girl:

She sat unmoving. The cut was quick, the blade sharp. By rights the metal should have been cold against her flesh, but it felt warm instead. She could feel the blood washing down her face, a rippling red curtain falling across her brow and cheeks and chin, and she understood why the priest had made her close her eyes. When it reached her lips the taste was salt and copper.

That's it! If you are interested in a more in-depth analysis check my original post from (five!!) years ago .

#arya stark #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #a feast for crows #a dance with dragons #book!arya #arya stark meta #a game of thrones

100 notes · View notes

lemonhemlock · 1 year ago

Note

I'm a 'Martin won't ever publish another ASOIAF book' truther but in addition to King Bran being profoundly idiotic, Martin has major structural issues that are now too 'big' to 'fix' imo. Namely, the ages of the characters are ridiculous and are all wrong for where their arcs need to go. The characters on the show were aged up and even the younger ones grew up on screen so Bran and Sansa and Arya were at least into late teens/adulthood at the end of the show - one is 13 and other is currently 11 and Bran is like, what, 8 in books? sksksksksk Just absolutely disastrous.

The characters should have been in their mid to late teens at the start of AGOT, at minimum. Especially because Martin essentially treated them, and has them act, like adults. I'm sorry, but I don't think that man has any understanding between the mental and physical developmental differences between, say, a 14 year old girl and a 17 year old girl. Every character appears and acts like they are anywhere from 3 to 5 years older than they are.

Also, the POV structure, while interesting, has also been disastrous in actually getting the story moving because certain characters have to be in certain places for things to happen while others are just sitting around killing time.

Hmmm, I don't really agree about the POV structure. It functioned fine for three books and offered compelling court drama, battles, magical elements and intriguing plot-twists. AGOT / ACOK / ASOS are pretty well paced and I've even seen someone making the case that the series could even have ended in that point and would have been one of the best fictional fantasy experiments. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing. I think the ASOS ending would have still distinguished ASOIAF from other fantasy series in its toppling of the good-guys-win-everything type of wrap-up, but it would be way less ambitious than what GRRM ended up pursuing.

The pacing problems came about with AFFC/ADWD. And I'm not one to talk here, because I'm an AFFC truther and it's always been my favourite of the series, so my two cents on this is that Dany's Slaver's Bay plotline is too damn long. Tyrion is also taking too damn long to get to her. It's a drag. In the book she is supposed to solve the Quaithe riddle,* escape Vaes Dothrak, get herself an army + navy, make the decision to leave Slaver's Bay AND sail to Westeros, so that in TWOW she can fight Young Gryff, face-off the Others, become a mask-off tyrant AND get deposed? It's a lot.

I honestly think he should just give up the 7 book compartmentation, admit defeat and just add another damn book to the series to get Dany to Westeros and fit in his fAegon plotline. It's not like he doesn't have the pages. No one's gonna care if there are 8 books instead of magic no 7. But my guess is that he's hung up over some decisions he's made in the past and kept trying to make the gargantuan plot fit inside this neat box he envisioned - 7 books, King Bran, Caesar!Jon etc. It would explain why he tried a time skip between ASOS and AFFC and had to scrap it - it would make more sense for the Stark children to be older. But he characterized himself as a gardener-style writing who doesn't plan everything in advance and lets the story grow organically. In that case, he should make allowances if the story grew in a direction he did not initially predict and make the required changes! Maybe King Bran made sense when he first wrote the initial three-book outline, but that was a long time ago & many other plot points changed.

My advice is to just stop trying to make the plot fit the previous designs, stay true to the way the characters evolved and respect the themes you've painstakingly developed over the course of nearly 30 years. Otherwise what's the point? If your original ending doesn't fit anymore, think of another ending ffs. The show is irrelevant at this point, so what if the endgame will be different? IDK, I'd be thinking that this is my life's work and I have every right to do it justice. Perhaps that's what he's thinking too and why it's taking him so long.

I agree that the ages of the characters are ridiculous, but if a time skip really, really can't fit anywhere, it's better to compromise on the age issue and leave off with a teen monarch than it would be to impose a surveillance state in Westeros as the solution with all-seeing, all-knowing Bran. That's a starkly dystopic ending, if you ask me.

Not to mention that it clashes directly with the end of magic - how is Bran supposed to be the Tree of Sauron if there's no magic anymore and everything goes back to normal? On what basis does he even get to be king at all if he's just a regular boy? How will he even survive being pulled out of the weirwood net if magic leaves the realm of men?

*“To go north, you must journey south. 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.” JFC, if Dany has to get to Asshai, I will fucking scream.

#ngl i think visiting asshai would be so cool but. do we have time for this???#ask #anon #asoiaf #grrm #anyway whether he ever gets to publish TWOW nobody can say #but in any case he 100% will have extensive notes on how he planned the novel out #so whatever happens. we'll know sooner or later #also i'm like. this is his life at the end of the day #he has the right to write as little or as much as he wants #i'm sure there must be pages of correspondence with his editors about this or that #so the ending of asoiaf will not remain a mystery realistically-speaking #which is why i'm not a fan of prioritizing our own demands as readers #most 75-year-olds are in retirement not churching out thousand-page books

16 notes · View notes

jozor-johai · 1 year ago

Text

Revisting the Rat Cook, Part 7: A dead Hound and a "drowned rat"

If you're only interested in Sandor and Arya, you can read this part alone, although my arguments are built on the analysis of rats and dogs as symbols that I laid out in the last part, so it works better reading that part first. In a way, this is a second part to that post.

As always the meaning is more complete in the context of the series. In Part 5, I laid out my analysis for "rats" as a symbol in the context of a power hierarchy in ASOIAF, and you can find links to the rest of the series here.

A dead Hound and a drowned rat

While his dog brother, Ser Gregor, spent ACOK hunting down the ratlike Brotherhood Without Banners, Sandor Clegane spends ASOS hunting down one rat in particular, and through the entire last post I’ve been avoiding this very notable instance of a “dog” hunting a “rat” in order to give it special attention now.

Sandor Clegane’s status as “dog,” at least in the beginning of his story, is indisputable. As mentioned, Sandor is dripping with dog imagery throughout the story, from his “hideous dog’s-head helm” to his three-dog sigil.

The rat in question, like the Hound, has an equally apt nickname.

Consider the metaphoric imagery of rats being associated with the smallfolk who are trampled on by the great Lords, as well as when rats are literally in danger of being trod upon by Jon in ADWD Jon IV:

Careful of the rats, my lord." Dolorous Edd led Jon down the steps, a lantern in one hand. "They make an awful squeal if you step on them.

or Jaime in AFFC Jaime III:

As Jaime entered, he almost trod upon a rat.

Put another way, given an instance where this extended metaphor describes “rats” of the world as continually underfoot, then it would be incredibly consistent if the imagery of being rat-like was continually applied to a character whose nickname is literally Arya Underfoot.

In fact, Arya is frequently compared to a rat throughout the first three books. I have been saving nearly all of these Arya quotes for this part, but bear in mind that nearly all instances of her being a “rat” corroborate our earlier interpretations—she is called a rat when she is mistaken for the powerless smallfolk, when she is starving, and when she feels utterly without agency.

In Harrenhal, Arya even leverages her position of non-power in order to revolt, as with the “weasel soup,” itself a callback to the Rat Cook story, where vengeance is brought from the kitchens to be wrought upon the rulers. Not only that, but throughout her story she shares the Rat Cook’s lust for vengeance, praying every night since ACOK Arya VI for the chance to kill those who have wronged her.

In AGOT Eddard III, Renly names Arya not only a rat, but a rat who takes on an Andal Prince, keeping with our Rat Cook narrative:

“Perchance later you'll tell me how a nine-year-old girl the size of a wet rat managed to disarm you with a broom handle and throw your sword in the river.”

In discussing the smallfolk’s status as rat, we already looked at this quote from AGOT Arya III, where the guards of the Red Keep liken Arya both to the smallfolk of King’s Landing and to rats, one and the same:

Boy, how did you come here? You have no business in this part of the castle." "You can't keep this sort out," one of the red cloaks said. "Like trying to keep out rats.

By AGOT Arya V, after she flees the Red Keep, Arya has integrated herself into the world of the smallfolk nearly completely, making her a gutter rat:

"You be keepin' your filthy hands off. The gold cloaks know how to deal with thieving little gutter rats, that they do."

As a “gutter rat,” the image of Arya as a “wet rat” remains, only now, perhaps, permanently wet from living in the gutter. Since the gutter is the entry path to the sewers, the epithet also parallels Daenerys' forces of freedmen, who she calls “sewer rats” when they take Meereen.

Arya remains a “gutter rat” into ACOK, beginning with Arya I:

"Where's a gutter rat like Lumpyhead get him a sword?"

This title is reiterated again in her next chapter, ACOK Arya II:

The Bull scowled at her. "Why should she want you? You're nothing but a little gutter rat!"

Again here, consistent with the symbolic associations, Arya’s status as “rat” means that she is someone wholly unworthy of attention or fear.

Even more interesting, in the context of her new companions, is how consistently the symbols from the “Rat Cook” story appear in Arya’s journey throughout ACOK.

Arya’s entire story through the second and third books contains the main characters of the Rat Cook story, rearranged: Arya herself is the “rat," and she is accompanied by a boy named Hot Pie, as well as Gendry, who is an (illegitimate) Andal Prince.

Gendry, the Andal Prince of the “Rat Cook” analogy, is also named a “Bull,” a role which has sacrificial connotations that have been pointed out by many others, and so I will not reiterate here. That sacrificial undertone takes on even more damning qualities in the context of the "Rat Cook" story, though—that “prince” ended up dying a the hands of the Rat Cook, sacrificed as a proxy for his father so the cook could take out his vengeance against the King. Gendry’s constant proximity to these “rat” and “pie” characters make it feel like his death is haunting him from the moment he leaves King’s Landing.

Since we have already established the Brotherhood as rat-like characters themselves, Gendry leaving Arya’s company for theirs simply means that the "prince" changes hands from one “rat” to another group of “rats." Given the prince's ultimate fate in the “Rat Cook” story, these symbolic associations only reinforce the idea that this “Bull” might end up becoming a metaphoric, sacrificial, steak pie.

Once Arya and Gendry part ways, Sandor does as dogs do and catches this “gutter rat.” Yet, contrary to every appearance of the metaphor in ASOIAF, Sandor does not kill Arya “as a dog would kill a rat.” Rather than make this metaphor inconsistent, however, their relationship raises a different question: is Sandor really still a dog, once he has no master?

In ACOK Tyrion XIII, Sandor disobeys for the first time—and in that moment, doffs the helm of “the Hound”:

"Who commands here? You're going out." "No." A shadow detached itself from the shadow of the wall, to become a tall man in dark grey armor. Sandor Clegane wrenched off his helm with both hands and let it fall to the ground. The steel was scorched and dented, the left ear of the snarling hound sheared off. A gash above one eye had sent a wash of blood down across the Hound's old burn scars, masking half his face. "Yes." Tyrion faced him.

We have earlier established how important obedience is to the "dog" metaphor, and here Sandor literally removes his “dog” imagery as he begins to separate himself from his “dog” status; the act of disobedience and the removal of the “Hound” helm are one and the same. The helm itself has even been abused to symbolize the Hound’s abuse here: perfectly matching Sandor himself, the steel of the helm is “scorched and dented”, with one ear entirely missing.

If the helm was not enough, Sandor sheds a second layer of his identity as he is born anew in the Brotherhood’s cave. The Brotherhood accuse the Hound of all the crimes which the Lannister’s other “dogs” have committed, seeing the Hound, in his doghood, as an extension of the Lannister’s force when naming the Hound’s victims in ASOS Arya VI:

"People," said Lord Beric. "People great and small, young and old. Good people and bad people, who died on the points of Lannister spears or saw their bellies opened by Lannister swords." "It wasn't my sword in their bellies. Any man who says it was is a bloody liar." "You serve the Lannisters of Casterly Rock," said Thoros.

In truth, their complaints are misplaced, at least at an individual level, as Sandor no longer serves the Lannisters, no more than he is their “dog” any longer. He, perhaps rightfully, names himself innocent, but the Brotherhood, agents of these people, say that the Cleganes are inherently guilty—while also drawing attention to the “dogs” on his arms:

"I was not at Sherrer, nor the Mummer's Ford," the Hound told him. "Lay your dead children at some other door." Thoros answered him. "Do you deny that House Clegane was built upon dead children? I saw them lay Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys before the Iron Throne. By rights your arms should bear two bloody infants in place of those ugly dogs." The Hound's mouth twitched. "Do you take me for my brother? Is being born Clegane a crime?"

From the perspective of these so-called “rats,” these “dogs” are culpable enough for their attachment to their master, the Lannisters, by way of how they both obediently enact and also benefit from the brutality which earned them that preferred status.

Beric tests Sandor's innocence in the eyes of R’hllor—whose domain is fire, and whose “judgment,” therefore, might be interpreted by the behavior of fire in the scene. Sandor, as he says, is innocent of the crimes that the Brotherhood lay at his feet (if not the murder of Micah, which Arya confronts him with). Appropriately, given that innocence, Sandor Clegane emerges from the fight alive… but not wholly.

Though Sandor is innocent, the Brotherhood is also right that House Clegane was “built upon dead children,” and that the actions of “the Hound,” as a Clegane and a Lannister dog, are tied to the actions of his masters, whose will he was carrying out. He may not have literally done those crimes, but as a dog, he was no different.

Appropriately given that guilt, the fire claims Sandor’s dog-sigil shield, symbolically killing Sandor’s last ties to that house and the Lannisters:

"His shield is afire," Gendry said in a hushed voice. Arya saw it in the same instant. The flames had spread across the chipped yellow paint, and the three black dogs were engulfed.

As with his rebirth in fire at Battle of the Blackwater, Sandor survives this trial by combat, while the Hound, and House Clegane, burns away.

Arya, like the Brotherhood, wrongfully believes that Sandor has remained a dog, as she thinks in ASOS Arya IX:

It has to be the Blackwater, Arya decided as she watched the rain lash the river. The Hound was Joffrey's dog; he was taking her back to the Red Keep, to hand to Joffrey and the queen.

Arya's mistake reveals how much Sandor has shed his role as “dog.” If Sandor were still a dog, then, as Arya points out, his hunt for her would be to return her to his master, like a good dog would do, like the dogs the Brotherhood hides from. Instead, though, Sandor, only tenuously still “the Hound,” has hunted her for his own reasons, to ransom her for his own gain, because he is becoming his own man.

His own dog, perhaps, in his own words from ASOS Arya IX:

"If I'd had any wine, I'd have drunk it myself," the Hound told him. "I can give you water, and the gift of mercy." The archer looked at him a long while before he said, "You're Joffrey's dog." "My own dog now. Do you want the water?"

Like the Unsullied, Sandor becomes his own master. The Unsullied went on to kill their their former masters in Astapor, and interestingly, Arya herself unknowingly wishes for that exact thing earlier, in ASOS Arya III:

"I wish I had a good mean dog," said Arya wistfully. "A lion-killing dog."

Arya wishes for a dog who might kill lions. Whether or not the Hound will actually kill Lannisters, we see Sandor go on to kill “lions,” in the sense that the smallfolk mean it, when he turns on his brother’s men at the end of ASOS. In Sandor, as with the Unsullied, “doghood” is mutable.

Like Theon-Reek-Theon, whose new identity is reborn as the previous one dies, Sandor is born anew even as “the Hound” dies, as is reported by Elder Brother in AFFC Brienne VI:

The Hound died there, in my arms.

Brienne mistakes the meaning here, and also makes an interesting observation about the Hound’s role, confirming our understanding thus far:

Destriers were trained to kick and bite. In war they were a weapon, like the men who rode them. Like the Hound. "It is true, then," she said dully. "Sandor Clegane is dead." "He is at rest." The Elder Brother paused.

Brienne makes the astute observation that as a "dog," the Hound himself is a weapon, “trained to kick and bite” (though not the hand that feeds him). As for Sandor Clegane, it's possible that Elder Brother’s words here are actually a correction: Sandor is not dead, Sandor Clegane is finally “at rest,” finally escaping the world in which he was required to bite, finally able to separate himself from the role of “dog” as fully as he removed his helm after the Blackwater.

Considering that the Hound loses his dog’s head helm, his dog-sigil shield, and with it, his status as “the Hound” as he turns traitor to his former liege lord, and considering that this former “dog,” having found the “rat” he was searching for, begins to care for her rather than kill her, then the difference between being a “dog” and a “rat” may not be so different from the perspective of the dogs, either, regardless of what the Hound might have said to Sansa in ACOK.

The nature of Brienne’s search for the Hound in AFFC reveals the truth of this separation between the individual and the role they play in the hierarchy. Her destination was not Sandor, but a different “Hound” altogether. Because, however, what is dead may never die, the eternal role of “the Hound” is one which others are all too willing to take up in his stead.

As for the fate of “the Hound,” we see how this mutable nature works in the reverse, too. The latest owner of the dogs-head helm is Lem Lemoncloak, who Thoros had named a “rat” by proxy, and though we get to see little of it, Lem, appears to be a rat who has just become a “dog”—perhaps Stoneheart’s dog.

Returning to Arya, though, she transforms again after being “caught” by Sandor. Rather than remain a “gutter rat,” she is a drowned rat in ASOS Arya X:

She looked more like a drowned rat than a lord's cupbearer these days. A drowned boy rat.

Like the Rat Cook, Arya once served a lord but has become a rat. Arya’s changing states within her rathood is consistent with our understanding of how rat-status is a mutable condition, an understanding deriving both from the “Rat Cook” story itself, in which a cook becomes a rat, but also from the example of Reek, who was a man, then a rat, then a dog, then a “Prince” in Winterfell.

Arya's rathood so far follows a linear progression towards this destination. She began as a “wet rat,” besting princes in rivers, later a “gutter rat," awash in the filthy water of the city—now, as she leaves Westeros, she is fully submerged: a “drowned rat."

Like with our other “rat” Reek, once Ironborn and returned as a “ghost,” calling Arya drowned evokes the Drowned God, and therefore one phrase in particular: what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.

As with Reek, Arya’s “drowned” state is literal death than a loss of self—one which becomes even more complete as she joins the Faceless Men. Like Stannis’ siege and other instances of the “rat,” the “rat” symbolism in Arya’s story is a rejection of death, and a vow to cling to life, or to come back.

Over the course of ADWD, I mentioned earlier how we see Reek regain that personhood again, slowly becoming Theon once more, a long story made short in his chapter titles: Reek, Reek, Reek, The Prince of Winterfell, The Turncloak, A Ghost in Winterfell, Theon.

Arya’s POV chapter titles follow a parallel trajectory, beginning with AFFC: Arya, Arya, Cat of the Canals, The Blind Girl, The Ugly Little Girl. From AGOT to ASOS she was a wet rat, gutter rat, then a drowned rat. Once “drowned”, she had her name, then a different name, then no name at all.

Since her visit to the Faceless Men and subsequent loss of identity comes after her status as a “drowned rat,” we might expect that although “Arya” is dead, she will also “never die,” and instead return—an idea corroborated by Theon’s example as well. Like the Rat Cook, Arya may also return searching for vengeance, but, as Old Nan says, “a man has a right to vengeance.”

Considering everything discussed in the last part about dogs, rats, slaves, and masters, it is also interesting that this particular “rat,” Arya, would end up in an organization that began in slavery, as told in AFFC Arya II:

“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.”

Consistent with the themes present in the “Rat Cook” story, the strength of the Faceless Men challenges the expected origin and hierarchy of power. Like the “rat,” as discussed in part five, The Faceless Men draw their agency from the fact that they are unknowable and unnoticeable, even from their beginnings in Valyria without agency and without even full personhood when they were wholly overlooked at the very heart of civilization.

The Kindly Man's version of this story, though, focuses on a different subject, following the same structure as the “Rat Cook” story. In the telling of the Rat Cook, the fate of the Andal King is never revealed—Bran recalls nothing of whether the King learned the fate of his son nor the repercussions of the Rat Cook’s vengeance. Instead, the story continues with the fate of the cook and his transformation. Similarly, the origin story of the Faceless Men follows the fate of the slave, not the slavers:

"The slaves were not crying out to a hundred different gods, as it seemed, but to one god with a hundred different faces . . . and he was that god's instrument. That very night he chose the most wretched of the slaves, the one who had prayed most earnestly for release, and freed him from his bondage. The first gift had been given." 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."

Arya’s reaction, and her conviction that the slave should use their teeth against the masters, echoes not only the vengeance of the Rat Cook but also Dany’s story in particular. Dany, at least, seems to want to act out Arya's wish as she turns legions of slaves against their former masters, just as the Rat Cook turned against his own, as Sandor turned against his own, too.

Given the nature of Arya’s “drowned” state, the apparent “death” of the Hound, and Theon’s rebirth from Reek, it’s also interesting how this story begins with the presumed death of a slave in the mountains of Valyria as a precursor to the deaths of the masters. Although the nature of the Faceless Men as an assassin guild implies that this may have been a literal death, the exact words used were only that the slave was “freed from his bondage.”

Given that “the Hound’s” death was not the death of Sandor, who instead became specifically “at rest,” and given that though Arya is losing her face and believed dead, there is still a girl in Braavos who dreams of Arya Stark’s wolf, it’s also possible that in some way, this first "death" at the hands of the Faceless Men was somehow a death of self and an induction into the leagues of the non-people, no-one’s, which make up the Faceless Men.

Of course, in a way, the highborn already consider the smallfolk and slaves to be unnamed non-people. The smallfolk in Westeros are literally unnamed, having only a first name and no family name; all of these institutions, and Reek as well, who must remember his name, tie names to roles and identities, and these identities to strata on the hierarchy of power. The Faceless Men ignore and transcend this hierarchy altogether, choosing to have no name at all. To overcome the limits of that status, sometimes an entire rebirth is necessary—perhaps like the rebirth from a man into a rat, large as a sow.

I don’t believe we have enough information to appreciate the full significance of that first act of the first Faceless Man. However, I can say that Reek, Theon, Sandor, and “drowned rat” Arya have taught us that what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger, and just as a rat may be raised up to become a dog, a defeated dog may be reborn a vengeful rat.

Concluding my thoughts on dogs and rats from this part and the last, a man made into a dog may hunt rats in exchange for bones, but it's easier for a dog to become one of the rats than it is for him to be raised up onto the high bench. Perhaps, no longer wishing to be a Hound, a man might finally find peace. If peace is not an option, however, and should the dogs and the rats begin to fight together, realizing, as Tyrion begins to, that a collar is a collar whatever the material, then the lords and masters of the realm should begin to fear for their vengeance.

In the next part, I'll return to a more tight focus on the "Rat Cook" story, this time talking about the various "rats" in the walls of the Red Keep, including Littlefinger's understanding of these power dynamics and Tyrion's transition from fearing rats to becoming one.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #asoiaf analysis #rtrc #jozor thoughts

13 notes · View notes

abcdosaka · 7 months ago

Text

acok really picks up in the second half. and i’m glad aryas pov was so prominent bc it provides such a good look at how the war affects the regular people of the world. shes def my fav in this book she’s such a funny little kid the way she interacts with everyone is so charming. i didn’t realize her working for tywin as a cupbearer was a got original but that was really good i wish that was in the books too. although the boltons are much scarier and just freakier in the book at this point. i said i was a theon hater but i kinda got over it by the end bc he’s just too pathetic and ik it only gets worse from here so. it’s actually so sad how much shit the starks get put through like some awful gamechanging shit happens at the end of every book. i’m guessing the red wedding is at the end of asos. and since i never finished affc or adwd i have no idea what happens after that.

but also this world is just so depressing too. thank god for characters like brienne and sansa and sam i couldn’t bother with all the bs if they weren’t around. dany too but i think she only really comes into her own during the slavers bay arcs. at this point she’s still just doing random shit in qarth. also, cat is so much more likeable in this book compared to agot. before my current reread i remember she was one of my favourite characters and after i finished the first book i was like wtf why? is it just bc she’s a milf? (btw that title is exclusively for cersei) but no i had reasons. her pov chapters are much more interesting in this book.

tyrions chapters are pretty good too bc i love the kings landing drama but oh my god i haaateeee shae. like i don’t actually hate her i don’t really care about her but i just don’t like the relationship drama between her and tyrion bc it’s something i’ve seen a thousand times before and it always ends badly and makes everyone feel bad about themselves and tyrions gonna go on a depressive spiral and become incel in two books. like i don’t want that for him i want him to be free from his family and the unfair expectations put upon him and find happiness and love himself. like i want that for all the characters but him especially. the characters who really want to be loved but just can’t seem to get it and become cynical as a result always bum me out. if nothing else i want tyrion to have a happy ending i don’t want an incel ending for him please

1 note · View note

hewantshisbrideback · 4 years ago

Text

THE LITTLE SISTERS — All hail Queen Lucy Pevensie of Narnia and Princess Arya Stark of the North.

Click for quality. Character parallels.

48 notes · View notes

queenaryastark · 2 years ago

Text

If GRRM wanted Arya to be a sea captain who spent her endgame sailing the ocean to find new lands, he would have given her .... you know .... skills for that. He gave Elissa Farman and Corlys Velaryon lots of development as seafarers in far less page space than he has available for Arya, yet they are detailed as experienced and talented captains while Arya only has the ability to be a passenger on a ship.

Seriously, think about it. If GRRM wanted that ending for Arya, he probably would have had her fostered in White Harbor where she would have developed a love of sailing and begun to learn everything she could from all the people she met while spending her days on ships or reading about seafaring adventures. But he didn't. Arya spent her pre-series life several miles inland and visited White Harbor only twice.

Or in AGOT, GRRM could have had Arya become fascinated by the ships in King's Landing, spending lots of time on the docks and developing a dream of becoming a sailor too. But he didn't. Instead, she got water dancing lessons and developed skills in observation, self-control, agility, critical thinking, etc.

Or in ACOK, he could have had Yoren take a ship to the Wall (as he realized he should have done partway through his doomed journey) and Arya would have learned about sailing from the crew and developed a passion for the profession that would lead to her to pursue the career post-series. But he didn't. Instead, she traveled through a war zone, experienced how the common people suffered due to the choices of the powerful, and continued developing her skillset.

In ASOS and AFFC, Arya finally boards a ship! This means that she finally gained knowledge of what it is like to be a sailor and aspects of running a ship. This was building to her becoming a sailor, right? Nope. After considering staying on the ship bc she wasn't certain what awaited her in Braavos, she disembarked and never showed any signs that she wanted to pursue a life as a sailor, nor has she since suggested that she wants to actually learn more than what little she experienced between those two books. Instead, she gains more education in observation, critical thinking, spying, learning languages, gathering information, telling truth from lies, etc.

So... in ADWD, GRRM .... did nothing to develop Arya's non-existent sailor skills. She continued to learn the skills she's been learning since AGOT and developing her magical abilities.

Thus far, her TWOW sample chapter has continued to show no progress on the sea captain!Arya theory. Instead, she's showing how well she can slip into a role while retaining her identity. Oh, and she's also ruining Cersei's financial situation, too, lol. But no sailing.

If GRRM wanted Arya to sail the western seas for her ending, why is it that he has written five out of seven novels, but made 0% progress on turning Arya into a sailor? That's because Captain Arya is a show-only invention that doesn't even fit for MW's character, let alone Arya Stark. Her foreshadowing and the skills she's developing are setting her up for a future in Westeros, likely in the North.

#arya stark #asoiaf

140 notes · View notes

agentrouka-blog · 2 years ago

Note

Jon is said to be called black heart bastard in books. Besides him Rhaegar, Jaime, Bronn and Brown Ben Plumm are mention to have black hearts. Melisandre told Davos that Others also have black heart. Do you think it's implying about treachery and duplicity in these characters?

Oh, let's do it the old-fashioned way and just check out Every Single Mention! :)

One thing that stands out is that the black heart is usually assigned in an accusatory manner by a different character, so the connotation to treachery or cruelty is definitely an in-universe trope, while at the same time creating some fun parallels between those so described.

Black hearts a-plenty. Lots of quotes.

"Rhaegar … Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. (AGOT, Eddard X)

-> Dead, yet triumphant. An armored heart.

So many dead, so very many. Their corpses hung limply, their faces slack or stiff or swollen with gas, unrecognizable, hardly human. The garments the sisters took from them were decorated with black hearts, grey lions, dead flowers, and pale ghostly stags. (ACOK, Tyrion XV)

-> A sigil worn by the dead.

Styr scowled. "His heart may still be black."

"Then cut it out." (ASOS, Jon II)

-> A mark of treachery. In need of killing.

"So tell me, Ser Davos Seaworth, and tell me truly—does your heart burn with the shining light of R'hllor? Or is it black and cold and full of worms?" [...] It is well you did not lie to me. I would have known. The Other's servants oft hide black hearts��in gaudy light, so R'hllor gives his priests the power to see through falsehoods." She stepped lightly away from the cell. "Why did you mean to kill me?" (ASOS, Davos III)

-> Treacherous, in opposition to fire, with ill intent.

"Why? Is it your fault that Bronn's an insolent black-hearted rogue? He's always been an insolent black-hearted rogue. That's what I liked about him." (ASOS, Tyrion IX)

-> A mark of disloyalty.

Ser Brynden laughed again. "Much as I would welcome the chance to take that golden sword away from you and cut out your black heart, your promises are worthless. I would gain nothing from your death but the pleasure of killing you, and I will not risk my own life for that . . . as small a risk as that may be." (AFFC, Jaime VI)

-> A mark of treachery. In need of killing.

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. (ADWD, Jon VI)

-> A mark of treachery (against his family) caused by torn loyalty (between the Watch and the Starks).

"Ser Grandfather knows how to count. The Second Sons have gone over to the Yunkai'i." Daario turned his head and spat. "That's for Brown Ben Plumm. When next I see his ugly face I will open him from throat to groin and rip out his black heart." (ADWD, Daenerys VI)

-> A mark of treachery. In need of killing.

A horn of mead was never far from his hand, so the spittle he sprayed when making threats was sweet with honey. He called Jon Snow a craven, a liar, and a turncloak, cursed him for a black-hearted buggering kneeler, a robber, and a carrion crow, accused him of wanting to fuck the free folk up the arse. Twice he flung his drinking horn at Jon's head, though only after he had emptied it. (ADWD, Jon XI)

-> Variety! An unrelenting negotiator with high demands who cannot be moved. Treacherous only in the expectations of generosity placed on him, not in true falseness.

Ghost came racing from the gate. Tormund's horse shied so hard that the wildling almost lost his saddle. "Naught to be feared?" Jon said. "Ghost, stay."

"You are a black-hearted bastard, Lord Crow." Tormund Horn-Blower lifted his own warhorn to his lips. The sound of it echoed off the ice like rolling thunder, and the first of the free folk began to stream toward the gate. (ADWD, Jon XII)

-> Same as above: Unrelenting, intimidating, stern.

Bonus Black-heartedness:

The Hoares

The west coast of the North has also oft been beset by reavers, and several of the Hungry Wolf's wars were forced upon him when longships out of Great Wyk, Old Wyk, Pyke, and Orkmont descended upon his western coasts beneath the banners of Harrag Hoare, King of the Iron Islands. For a time the Stony Shore did fealty to Harrag and his ironmen, swathes of the wolfswood were nothing but ashes, and Bear Island was a base for reaving, ruled by Harrag's black-hearted son, Ravos the Raper. (The World of Ice and Fire - The North: The Kings of Winter)

Archmaester Hake tells us that the kings of House Hoare were, "black of hair, black of eye, and black of heart." Their foes claimed their blood was black as well, darkened by the "Andal taint," for many of the early Hoare kings took maidens of that ilk to wife. True ironborn had salt water in their veins, the priests of the Drowned God proclaimed; the black-blooded Hoares were false kings, ungodly usurpers who must be cast down. (The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: The Black Blood)

-> A mark of cruelty as well as treachery and illegitimacy. In need of killing. (Historically opposed to the dragons.)

The Heart of Old Volantis

Who built it? When? Why? Most maesters accept the common wisdom that declares it to be of Valyrian construction, for its massive walls and labyrinthine interiors are all of solid rock, with no hint of joins or mortar, no chisel marks of any kind, a type of construction that is seen elsewhere, most notably in the dragonroads of the Freehold of Valyria, and the Black Walls that protect the heart of Old Volantis. (The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Oldtown)

They must have a library in Old Volantis, surely. I may find a better copy there, if I can find a way inside the Black Walls to the city's heart. (ADWD, Tyrion IV)

One looked toward the Long Bridge and the black-walled heart of Old Volantis across the river. (ADWD, Tyrion VII)

-> A black heart may simply be armored in black, protecting what is within.

So a black heart does, indeed, indicate treachery and duplicity, mortal animosity, often in opposition to a fire-related enemy. It can also indicate illegitimacy, and it carries a strong connotation with death, though in the case of Ben Plumm it is survival he champions. It may indicate a "wall" or "armor" around the true intentions of the heart, similarly to a metaphorical Wall of Ice.

Honorable mention: Dark Heart

One spoke with the timbre of a child. The floating heart pulsed from dimness to darkness. [...] Perched above her, the dragon spread his wings and tore at the terrible dark heart, ripping the rotten flesh to ribbons, and when his head snapped forward, fire flew from his open jaws, bright and hot. (ACOK, Daenerys IV)

-> In opposition to Daenerys and her dragons.

The dwarf woman studied her with dim red eyes. "I see you," she whispered. "I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death . . ." She began to sob, her little body shaking. "You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!" (ASOS, Arya VIII)

-> A child. A wolf child. A dark heart.

Or, interestingly distinct: Heart of Darkness

At her command, one produced an iron key. The door opened, hinges shrieking. Daenerys Targaryen stepped into the hot heart of darkness and stopped at the lip of a deep pit. Forty feet below, her dragons raised their heads. Four eyes burned through the shadows—two of molten gold and two of bronze. (ADWD, Daenerys II)

-> Where dragons dwell.

Most sinister of all the sorcerers of Asshai are the shadowbinders, whose lacquered masks hide their faces from the eyes of gods and men. They alone dare to go upriver past the walls of Asshai, into the heart of darkness. On its way from the Mountains of the Morn to the sea, the Ash runs howling through a narrow cleft in the mountains, between towering cliffs so steep and close that the river is perpetually in shadow, save for a few moments at midday when the sun is at its zenith. In the caves that pockmark the cliffs, demons and dragons and worse make their lairs. The farther from the city one goes, the more hideous and twisted these creatures become...until at last one stands before the doors of the Stygai, the corpse city at the Shadow's heart, where even the shadowbinders fear to tread. Or so the stories say. (The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow)

-> A place of demons, dragons "and worse". A place of corpses. Marked by the run of a river named Ash, a city named Stygai. Truly stygian.

Far be in from me to cast aspersions (Lies, I love casting those.) but given that Jon is associated with the term most frequently, I'd suspect he will end up playing a role in opposition to a fire-related enemy, who will want him dead, guarding his heart's true intentions behind a black armor and plotting with ill intent. Perhaps accused of trying to be a usurper, perhaps accused of demanding too much, perhaps trying to reconcile a taint in his blood with his loyalty to the Starks.

#rouka queue #long post #quote compilation #black heart #jon snow #parallels #anti daenerys targaryen #not really but you know

67 notes · View notes

thelustybraavosimaid · 2 years ago

Text

"I know where we could go," Arya said. She still had one brother left. Jon will want me, even if no one else does. (Arya XII, ASoS)

She went back to the window, Needle in hand, and looked down into the courtyard below. If only she could climb like Bran, she thought; she would go out the window and down the tower, run away from this horrible place, away from Sansa and Septa Mordane and Prince Joffrey, from all of them. Steal some food from the kitchens, take Needle and her good boots and a warm cloak. She could find Nymeria in the wild woods below the Trident, and together they'd return to Winterfell, or run to Jon on the Wall. She found herself wishing that Jon was here with her now. Then maybe she wouldn't feel so alone. (Arya II, AGoT)

"She thinks that if she finds the right god, maybe he will send the winds and blow her old love back to her," said one-eyed Yna, who had known her longest, "but I pray it never happens. Her love is dead, I could taste that in her blood. If he ever should come back to her, it will be a corpse." (Cat of the Canals, AFfC)

Ygritte watched and said nothing. She was older than he'd thought at first, Jon realized; maybe as old as twenty, but short for her age, bandy-legged, with a round face, small hands, and a pug nose. Her shaggy mop of red hair stuck out in all directions. She looked plump as she crouched there, but most of that was layers of fur and wool and leather. Underneath all that she could be as skinny as Arya. (Jon VI, ACoK)

She wasn't wed and her weapon of choice was a short curved bow of horn and weirwood, but "spearwife" fit her all the same. She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore. (Jon II, ASoS)

"If you kill a man, and never mean t', he's just as dead," Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. Is she still my sister? he wondered. Was she ever? (Jon III, ASoS)

Jon could almost see her in that moment, long-faced and gawky, all knobby knees and sharp elbows, with her dirty face and tangled hair. They would wash the one and comb the other, he did not doubt, but he could not imagine Arya in a wedding gown, nor Ramsay Bolton's bed. No matter how afraid she is, she will not show it. If he tries to lay a hand on her, she'll fight him. (Jon VI, ADwD)

"The heart is all that matters. Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you."

"I have no sister." The words were knives. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?

Melisandre seemed amused. "What is her name, this little sister that you do not have?"

"Arya." His voice was hoarse. "My half-sister, truly..."

Would she still have that little sword he'd had Mikken forge for her? Stick them with the pointy end, he'd told her. Wisdom for her wedding night if half of what he heard of Ramsay Snow was true. Bring her home, Mance. I saved your son from Melisandre, and now I am about to save four thousand of your free folk. You owe me this one little girl. (Jon XI, ADwD)

She wondered if he would still call her "little sister." I'm not so little anymore. He'd have to call me something else. (Arya VIII, ASoS)

The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. "Let him be scared of me." The snowflakes were melting on her cheeks, but her hair was wrapped in a swirl of lace that Satin had found somewhere, and the snow had begun to collect there, giving her a frosty crown. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her eyes sparkled. (Jon X, ADwD)

You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell…I want my bride back…I want my bride back…I want my bride back… (Jon XIII, ADwD)

#asoiaf #jon snow #arya stark #ramble #needleheart #jonrya #canonjonsnow #canonarya

69 notes · View notes

jackoshadows · 3 years ago

Text

Arya wanting to explore nature and her love for the elements is reflected in a few other female characters. It’s a character trait that demonstrates her desire for knowledge, her inquisitiveness, her love of all things wild and real and good.

There is Arya and Sarella Sand (Or Alleras) and their need to understand the world around them:

Then to Sansa she said, “When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycah showed me a lizard-lion.”

Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth.

None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. - Sansa, AGoT

My uncle brought me here, with Tyene and Sarella.” The memory made Arianne smile. “He caught some vipers and showed Tyene the safest way to milk them for their venom. 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, AFfC

There is Arya and Ygitte’s love of the water and being fantastic swimmers:

"Do I need a trick for that now?" he teased. "Or is that you can't swim a stroke?" Jon was a strong swimmer himself, having learned the art as a boy in Winterfell's great moat.

Ygritte punched his arm. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. I'm half a fish, I'll have you know." - Jon, ASoS

If I jumped over the side, the river would wash me away before the Hound even knew that I was gone. She looked back over a shoulder, and saw Sandor Clegane struggling with his frightened horse, trying to calm him. She would never have a better chance to get away from him. I might drown, though. Jon used to say that she swam like a fish, but even a fish might have trouble in this river. Still, drowning might be better than King's Landing. She thought about Joffrey and crept up to the prow. The river was murky brown with mud and lashed by rain, looking more like soup than water. Arya wondered how cold it would be. I couldn't get much wetter than I am now. She put a hand on the rail. - Arya, ASoS

Arya and Lyanna being one with the horses:

“You ride like a northman, milady,” Harwin said when he’d drawn them to a halt. “Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna. But my father was master of horse, remember.” - Arya, ASoS

Not even Lord Rickard’s daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself.

He loved to ride. His little sister took after him in that. A pair of centaurs, those two. - Theon, ADwD

Arya, Daenerys and their love of the earth and soil and scents:

She made for the godswood. She liked the sharp smell of the pines and sentinels, the feel of grass and dirt between her toes, and the sound the wind made in the leaves. Arya, ACoK

The green swallowed her up. The air was rich with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Dany’s sweat and the oil in her hair. Dothraki smells. They seemed to belong here. Dany breathed it all in, laughing. She had a sudden urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil. - Daenerys, AGoT

It’s a motif and a character trait that highlights similarities between these young, ambitious, brave girls who have a keen liking for the world around them.

#Arya Stark #aryastarkmonth2022 #Sarella Sand #Ygritte #Lyanna Stark #Daenerys Targaryen #Parallels

156 notes · View notes

kingsmoot · 3 months ago

Note

what are your fav povs for each book?

oughhh picking just one is so hard 😩

after agonizing over it:

agot - tyrion

acok - theon

asos - jaime

affc - ASHA AND CERSEI I'M SORRY I CANNOT PICK ONE

adwd - theon

cat and arya are also two fav povs in every book in which they have them 🙂‍↕️

#ask tag #anon tag

8 notes · View notes

istumpysk · 3 years ago

Text

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

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

"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

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

+.+.+

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

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

". . . 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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

"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

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

"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

+.+.+

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

"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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

"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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

"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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

"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

+.+.+

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

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

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

"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

. . . 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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

"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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

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

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

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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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.

+.+.+

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

"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

"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

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

+.+.+

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

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

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

+.+.+

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

"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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

No true Scotsman.

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

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

+.+.+

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

+.+.+

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

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

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

+.+.+

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

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

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

"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

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

+.+.+

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

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

"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

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

+.+.+

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

"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

+.+.+

AFFC: PART III

Touch me.

Chapter Transitions

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

+.+.+

#operation stumpy re-read #foreshadowing smorgasbord #affc summary #anti daenerys #anti jonerys #jon snow #arya stark #stark vs. targ #storm x storm #house greyjoy #asoiaf

46 notes · View notes