#stark vs. targ
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Operation Stumpy Re-Read
A STORM OF SWORDS
Summary & Foreshadowing Smorgasbord (Part II)
You can ignore this post, or you can open it and find out how Daenerys dies.
It is up to you to make the right decision.
ASOS Part II: UNDER THE CUT
Dark Daenerys Highlights & Laughs
Let's Dance: Stark vs. Targ
Showdown at the Trident
A Rat in a Maze 🐀🔪
The Usurper's Knife
Bran the Dragonslayer?
Storm x Storm 🦑🖤🐉
ASOS Part I: CLICK
Sansa Stark, Queen in the North
Jon Snow, King in the North
Jon (Aemon?) Snow
Jon the Builder & His Gift
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 Mines of Casterly Rock . . . or King's Landing
Tyrion Lannister, (Prisoner?) Hand of the King
In Remembrance: A Look Back at Sandor Clegane's & Ygritte's Greatest Moments
ASOS Part III: CLICK
JONSA 🐺❤️❄️
ASOS Part IV: CLICK
Chapter Transitions
Previous books:
AGOT Summary & Foreshadowing: CLICK
ACOK Summary & Foreshadowing: PART I & PART II
Stumpy note:
If I didn't to 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 that participated in the reread project. All of you have great observations and comments, I wish I could highlight them all. 🙂
DARK DAENERYS HIGHLIGHTS & LAUGHS
Davos recalls the time King's Landing burned, and gives us some fun language in the process.
And then some vast beast had let out a roar, and green flames were all around them: wildfire, pyromancer's piss, the jade demon.
[...]
The sight of it seemed to stop his heart for a moment, and he could still remember the sound of it, the crackle of flames, the hiss of steam, the shrieks of dying men, and the beat of that terrible heat against his face as the current swept him down toward hell.
[...]
In his dreams the river was still aflame and demons danced upon the waters with fiery whips in their hands, while men blackened and burned beneath the lash. - Davos I, ASOS
+.+.+
The gargoyles ripped apart, and the Targaryen fleet crumbled when Daenerys Stormborn entered the world.
No squall could frighten Dany, though. Daenerys Stormborn, she was called, for she had come howling into the world on distant Dragonstone as the greatest storm in the memory of Westeros howled outside, a storm so fierce that it ripped gargoyles from the castle walls and smashed her father's fleet to kindling. - Daenerys I, ASOS
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A choice she'll always make.
Captain Groleo was an old Pentoshi like his master, Illyrio Mopatis, and he had been nervous as a maiden about carrying three dragons on his ship. Half a hundred buckets of seawater still hung from the gunwales, in case of fires. At first Groleo had wanted the dragons caged and Dany had consented to put his fears at ease, but their misery was so palpable that she soon changed her mind and insisted they be freed. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
And never full.
He was always hungry, her Drogon. - Daenerys I, ASOS
x
Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. - Daenerys X, ADWD
+.+.+
Balerion was useless in calm.
But the great cog Balerion was a song of a different key; a ponderous broad-beamed sow of a ship with immense holds and huge sails, but helpless in a calm. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
The jokes are writing themselves.
"I cannot see Drogon," said Ser Jorah Mormont as he joined her on the forecastle. "Is he lost again?"
"We are the ones who are lost, ser. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
I'll take Things You'd Never Hear Bran Say, for $500.
"He could be very harsh to those he thought his enemies."
"A wise man never makes an enemy of a king," said Dany. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
Daenerys, the Third of Her Name.
Whitebeard bowed his head. "It is not my place to question the words of Prince Viserys."
"King," Dany corrected. "He was a king, though he never reigned. Viserys, the Third of His Name. But what do you mean?" - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
The third-born aunt better hope the real heir isn't out there somewhere.
She tried to imagine what it would feel like, when she first caught sight of the land she was born to rule. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
A brother tries to steal a prize from Drogon's jaws.
As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal's head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother's jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: "Oh" edition.
The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul's axe, armor rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped between the iron rings of Paul's mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh. It came out his back with a hissssssssssss and Sam heard Paul say, "Oh," as he lost the axe. - Samwell I, ASOS
x
When he raised his whip, he saw that the lash was burning. His hand as well. All of him, all of him was burning.
Oh, he thought. Then he began to scream. - The Dragontamer, ADWD
+.+.+
Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: smoking blood edition.
When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked. - Samwell I, ASOS
x
The dragon gave one last hiss and stretched out flat upon his belly. Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands. He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I. - Daenerys IX, ADWD
+.+.+
Thunder is crashing and booming, and a kingdom is falling.
Outside the thunder crashed and boomed, so loud it sounded as if the castle were coming down about their ears. Is this the sound of a kingdom falling? Catelyn wondered. - Catelyn III, ASOS
x
Finally the crone opened her eye and lifted her arms. "I have seen his face, and heard the thunder of his hooves," she proclaimed in a thin, wavery voice. - Daenerys V, AGOT
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He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. - Daenerys IX, ADWD
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Azor Ahai reborn.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
She talks of prophecies . . . a hero reborn in the sea, living dragons hatched from dead stone . . . she speaks of signs and swears they point to me. - Davos V, ASOS
x
"The frightened child who sheltered in my manse died on the Dothraki sea, and was reborn in blood and fire. This dragon queen who wears her name is a true Targaryen. - Tyrion II, ADWD
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Stone, she told herself. They are only stone, even Illyrio said so, the dragons are all dead. - Daenerys III, AGOT
x
It is written in prophecy as well. When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone. - Davos III, ASOS
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Dany looked and saw it, low in the east. The first star was a comet, burning red. Bloodred; fire red; the dragon's tail. She could not have asked for a stronger sign. - Daenerys X, AGOT
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Dragonstone was grim beyond a doubt, a lonely citadel in the wet waste surrounded by storm and salt, with the smoking shadow of the mountain at its back. - Prologue, ACOK
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"Burnt," said Salladhor Saan, "and be glad of that, my friend. Do you know the tale of the forging of Lightbringer?
[...]
It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel.
[...]
A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost . . . When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay. - Davos I, ACOK
x
"He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi," the Lysene girl said. "Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. - Daenerys III, AGOT
x
"I wish I had a flaming sword." Arya could think of lots of people she'd like to set on fire. - Arya IV, ASOS
x
When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." - Daenerys III, ADWD
+.+.+
A warning or a prophecy? Despite George R. R. Martin's best efforts, the readers of the book still don't get it.
"An ant who hears the words of a king may not comprehend what he is saying," Melisandre said, "and all men are ants before the fiery face of god. If sometimes I have mistaken a warning for a prophecy or a prophecy for a warning, the fault lies in the reader, not the book. But this I know for a certainty—envoys and pardons will not serve you now, no more than leeches. You must show the realm a sign. A sign that proves your power!" - Davos V, ASOS
+.+.+
Fire consumes her.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
"I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning . . . burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?" - Davos V, ASOS
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"Fire consumes." Lord Beric stood behind them, and there was something in his voice that silenced Thoros at once. "It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing." - Arya VIII, ASOS
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"Did you know that my brother set the Blackwater Rush afire? Wildfire will burn on water. Aerys would have bathed in it if he'd dared. The Targaryens were all mad for fire." - Jaime V, ASOS
x
That hair she had. Well, the hottest fires burn out quickest. - Jon X, ASOS
x
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
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Harpy or Daenerys? Old Ghis or House Targaryen?
In the center of the Plaza of Pride stood a red brick fountain whose waters smelled of brimstone, and in the center of the fountain a monstrous harpy made of hammered bronze. Twenty feet tall she reared. She had a woman's face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion's curled and venomous tail.
The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, its brick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so too its people.
Yet the symbol of the Old Empire still endured here, though this bronze monster had a heavy chain dangling from her talons, an open manacle at either end. The harpy of Ghis had a thunderbolt in her claws. This is the harpy of Astapor.
[...]
Kraznys mo Nakloz bobbed his head. He smelled as if he'd bathed in raspberries, this slaver, and his jutting red-black beard glistened with oil. - Daenerys II, ASOS
x
"An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them." - Daenerys II, ASOS
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And above it all, frowning down from Aegon's high hill, was the Red Keep; seven huge drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts, an immense grim barbican, vaulted halls and covered bridges, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls studded with archers' nests, all fashioned of pale red stone. Aegon the Conqueror had commanded it built. His son Maegor the Cruel had seen it completed. Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, woodworker, and builder who had labored on it. Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed. - Catelyn IV, ASOS
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Missandei, the best slave.
No older than ten, she had the round flat face, dusky skin, and golden eyes of Naath. The Peaceful People, her folk were called. All agreed that they made the best slaves. - Daenerys II, ASOS
+.+.+
I don't know, maybe we shouldn't use this army.
"They are chosen young, for size and speed and strength," the slave told her. "They begin their training at five. Every day they train from dawn to dusk, until they have mastered the shortsword, the shield, and the three spears. The training is most rigorous, Your Grace. Only one boy in three survives it. This is well known. Among the Unsullied it is said that on the day they win their spiked cap, the worst is done with, for no duty that will ever fall to them could be as hard as their training."
[...]
"To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother's eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them." - Daenerys II, ASOS
+.+.+
Viserys returns to the story.
Kraznys waited for that to be rendered in the Common Tongue, and then continued. "This beggar queen must understand, such wonders do not come cheaply. - Daenerys II, ASOS
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"Only lies offend me, never honest counsel." Dany patted Arstan's spotted hand to reassure him. "I have a dragon's temper, that's all. You must not let it frighten you." - Daenerys II, ASOS
x
She had not meant to be so sharp with Ser Jorah, but his endless suspicion had finally woken her dragon. - Daenerys IV, ASOS
+.+.+
Daenerys gets into bed with the wrong man.
Thank you, @sherlokiness!
Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow. - Daenerys II, ASOS
x
"A shadow on the wall," Varys murmured, "yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow." - Tyrion II, ACOK
x
His bruises had mostly faded by now, and the swelling in his face had largely subsided, so Mormont looked almost human once again … though only vaguely like himself. The demon's mask the slavers had burned into his right cheek to mark him for a dangerous and disobedient slave would never leave him. Ser Jorah had never been what one might call a comely man. The brand had transformed his face into something frightening.
Tyrion grinned. "As long as I look prettier than you, I will be happy." - Tyrion XII, ADWD
x
Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice. - Daenerys VII, ADWD
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It was Lemore who forced the water from your lungs after Griff had pulled you up. You were as cold as ice, and your lips were blue. - Tyrion VI, ADWD
+.+.+
The grip is too tight.
Drogon raised his head and screamed, pale smoke venting from his nostrils, and Viserion flapped at her and tried to perch on her shoulder, as he had when he was smaller. "No," Dany said, trying to shrug him off gently. "You're too big for that now, sweetling." But the dragon coiled his white and gold tail around one arm and dug black claws into the fabric of her sleeve, clinging tightly. Helpless, she sank into Groleo's great leather chair, giggling. - Daenerys II, ASOS
+.+.+
Joffrey, Ramsay, Weese. Dogs have a habit of turning on their masters in this story.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
"A word from me and these sheep would spill his stinking old bowels on the bricks," he said, "but do not say that. Tell them that these creatures are more dogs than sheep. Do they eat dogs or horse in these Seven Kingdoms?" - Daenerys II, ASOS
[...]
"The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh," Dany told the girl, "but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me . . ." - Daenerys II, ASOS
+.+.+
George slips something in.
"I saw King's Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. - Daenerys II, ASOS
+.+.+
Never intending to part with a dragon, Daenerys is willing to pay the price of death and destruction.
Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice.
[...]
Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no matter the price, she told herself. - Daenerys III, ASOS
+.+.+
Does history repeat itself in this story?
"Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire."
"I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own." - Daenerys III, ASOS
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Some choose to learn from their mistakes, while others . . .
If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. - Daenerys III, ASOS
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Dragonbone whip, with a woman's head.
Dany handed the slaver the end of Drogon's chain. In return he presented her with the whip. The handle was black dragonbone, elaborately carved and inlaid with gold. Nine long thin leather lashes trailed from it, each one tipped by a gilded claw. The gold pommel was a woman's head, with pointed ivory teeth. "The harpy's fingers," Kraznys named the scourge. - Daenerys III, ASOS
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You are mine.
"IT IS DONE!" she cried at the top of her lungs. "YOU ARE MINE!" She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the first rank, holding the fingers high. "YOU ARE THE DRAGON'S NOW! YOU'RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE! IT IS DONE!" - Daenerys III, ASOS
x
And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo's. - Daenerys X, AGOT
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Kraznys or Viserys? She did not pause to contemplate the ruin, and never will.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver's face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy's fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. "Drogon," she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. "Dracarys."
[...]
A lance of swirling dark flame took Kraznys full in the face. His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks, and the oil in his hair and beard burst so fiercely into fire that for an instant the slaver wore a burning crown twice as tall as his head. The sudden stench of charred meat overwhelmed even his perfume, and his wail seemed to drown all other sound. - Daenerys III, ASOS
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Children.
"Unsullied!" Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. "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." She raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside. "Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" - Daenerys III, ASOS
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"The blood of children?" Robb pointed at the corpses. "How old were they? Twelve, thirteen? Squires." - Catelyn III, ASOS
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Daenerys forgets who holds whips.
Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip - Daenerys III, ASOS
x
One man kept his saddle long enough to draw a sword, but Jhogo's whip coiled about his neck and cut off his shout. - Daenerys III, ASOS
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Sobbing, begging, and dying while Daenerys sings her favourite song.
"Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!"
"Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. - Daenerys III, ASOS
+.+.+
Lem Lemoncloak and Arya don't approve of the Mad Huntman's brand of justice.
A few feet away, a dozen iron cages hung from creaking wooden posts. Crow cages, Arya knew. The crows were mostly outside the cages, splashing in the water or perched atop the bars; inside were men. Lem reined up scowling. "What's this, now?"
"Justice," answered a woman at the fountain. - Arya V, ASOS
x
She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood . . .
Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did it for the children.
[...]
Dany remembered the horror she had felt when she had seen the Plaza of Punishment in Astapor. I made a horror just as great, but surely they deserved it. Harsh justice is still justice. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
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Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: visions of fire paired with visions of ice edition.
"With mine own eyes. After the battle, when I was lost to despair, the Lady Melisandre bid me gaze into the hearthfire. The chimney was drawing strongly, and bits of ash were rising from the fire. I stared at them, feeling half a fool, but she bid me look deeper, and . . . the ashes were white, rising in the updraft, yet all at once it seemed as if they were falling. Snow, I thought. Then the sparks in the air seemed to circle, to become a ring of torches, and I was looking through the fire down on some high hill in a forest. The cinders had become men in black behind the torches, and there were shapes moving through the snow. For all the heat of the fire, I felt a cold so terrible I shivered, and when I did the sight was gone, the fire but a fire once again. But what I saw was real, I'd stake my kingdom on it." - Davos IV, ASOS
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If at first you don't succeed, add more wildfire and call Daenerys.
"I heard tell you almost burned the city down."
"A filthy lie. I only burned the river." - Tyrion XI, ASOS
x
So His Grace commanded his alchemists to place caches of wildfire all over King's Landing. Beneath Baelor's Sept and the hovels of Flea Bottom, under stables and storehouses, at all seven gates, even in the cellars of the Red Keep itself. - Jaime V, ASOS
x
We have sealed them with wax and pumped the lower vault full of water, but even so . . . by rights they ought to have been destroyed, but so many of our masters were murdered during the Sack of King's Landing, the few acolytes who remained were unequal to the task. And much of the stock we made for Aerys was lost. Only last year, two hundred jars were discovered in a storeroom beneath the Great Sept of Baelor. - Tyrion V, ACOK
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What is happening to the other slaves?
"If battle is joined, let Grey Worm show wisdom as well as valor," Dany told him. "Spare any slave who runs or throws down his weapon. The fewer slain, the more remain to join us after." - Daenerys IV, ASOS
x
"Very well," Dany said. "Sellsword or slave, spare all those who will pledge me their faith. If enough of the Second Sons will join us, keep the company intact." - Daenerys IV, ASOS
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Like locusts in sandals.
The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit. Perhaps one in a hundred had a donkey, a camel, or an ox; most carried weapons looted from some slaver's armory, but only one in ten was strong enough to fight, and none was trained. They ate the land bare as they passed, like locusts in sandals. Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me. She gazed at the smoke rising from their cookfires and swallowed a sigh. She might have the best footsoldiers in the world, but she also had the worst. - Daenerys IV, ASOS
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Mad.
"I say, you are mad."
"Am I?" Dany shrugged, and said, "Dracarys." - Daenerys IV, ASOS
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That's not how you parley, Stannis.
"To mount our attack."
Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. "You told the sellswords—"
"—that I wanted their answers on the morrow. I made no promises about tonight. The Stormcrows will be arguing about my offer. The Second Sons will be drunk on the wine I gave Mero. And the Yunkai'i believe they have three days. We will take them under cover of this darkness." - Daenerys IV, ASOS
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Like a whip.
Drogon looped his neck around to nip at her hand. His teeth were very sharp, but he never broke her skin when they played like this. Dany laughed, and rolled him back and forth until he roared, his tail lashing like a whip. - Daenerys IV, ASOS
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Try Not to Think of Randyll Tarly Challenge.
Thank you, @aegor-bamfsteel!
This place was put to the torch a long time ago."
"Who did it, then?" asked Gendry.
"Hoster Tully." Notch was a stooped thin grey-haired man, born in these parts. "This was Lord Goodbrook's village. When Riverrun declared for Robert, Goodbrook stayed loyal to the king, so Lord Tully came down on him with fire and sword. After the Trident, Goodbrook's son made his peace with Robert and Lord Hoster, but that didn't help the dead none." - Arya VIII, ASOS
x
"When he did," Davos repeated. "They were his men. His sworn men. What choice were they given?"
"Every man has choices. They might have refused to kneel. Some did, and died for it. Yet they died true men, and loyal." - Davos IV, ASOS
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The now extinct, once powerful family, that held Harrenhal, and had a great black bat as their sigil.
He found an old shield in the armory, battered and splintered, the chipped paint still showing most of the great black bat of House Lothston upon a field of silver and gold. The Lothstons held Harrenhal before the Whents and had been a powerful family in their day, but they had died out ages ago, so no one was likely to object to him bearing their arms. He would be no one's cousin, no one's enemy, no one's sworn sword . . . in sum, no one. - Jaime VI, ASOS
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Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: breathing fire edition.
The wight was burning, hoarfrost dripping from his beard as the flesh beneath blackened. Sam heard the raven shriek, but Paul himself made no sound. When his mouth opened, only flames came out. - Samwell III, ASOS
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More fun with language during the Red Wedding (Arya XI, ASOS).
+.+.+
A hero wouldn't kill a child.
And Robert's relief was palpable. As stupid as he was, even he knew that Rhaegar's children had to die if his throne was ever to be secure. Yet he saw himself as a hero, and heroes do not kill children." His father shrugged. - Tyrion VI, ASOS
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The stallion or the horns of a dragon?
Thank you, @a-maid-with-sunset-in-her-hair!
Jon sat between two merlons with only a scarecrow for company and watched the Stallion gallop up the sky. Or was it the Horned Lord? - Jon VII, ASOS
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Her captain forgets to play along.
There will be more if we remain. The slaves are weak from the march."
"Freedmen," Dany corrected. "They are slaves no longer." - Daenerys V, ASOS
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No subtext required.
"If I let Meereen's old brick walls defeat me so easily, though, how will I ever take the great stone castles of Westeros?"
"As Aegon did," Ser Jorah said, "with fire. By the time we reach the Seven Kingdoms, your dragons will be grown. - Daenerys V, ASOS
x
"If you were grown," she told Drogon, scratching him between the horns, "I'd fly you over the walls and melt that harpy down to slag." - Daenerys V, ASOS
+.+.+
Freudian slip.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
High on the walls of Meereen, the jeers had grown louder, and now hundreds of the defenders were taking their lead from the hero and pissing down through the ramparts to show their contempt for the besiegers. They are pissing on slaves, to show how little they fear us, she thought. They would never dare such a thing if it were a Dothraki khalasar outside their gates. - Daenerys V, ASOS
+.+.+
We require a man and a woman.
Collio began with his version of "The Dance of the Dragons," which was more properly a song for two singers, male and female. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS
+.+.+
More fun with language during the battle at the Wall (Jon VIII, ASOS).
+.+.+
Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: the mouth of a dragon edition.
The ice pressed close around them, and he could feel the cold seeping into his bones, the weight of the Wall above his head. It felt like walking down the gullet of an ice dragon. - Jon VIII, ASOS
+.+.+
A god.
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
+.+.+
Unpleasant rape metaphors, during the sacking of a city.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
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. Poor Groleo. He still grieved for his ship, she knew. If a war galley could ram another ship, why not a gate? That had been her thought when she commanded the captains to drive their ships ashore. Their masts had become her battering rams, and swarms of freedmen had torn their hulls apart to build mantlets, turtles, catapults, and ladders. The sellswords had given each ram a bawdy name, and it had been the mainmast of Meraxes—formerly Joso's Prank—that had broken the eastern gate. Joso's Cock, they called it. The fighting had raged bitter and bloody for most of a day and well into the night before the wood began to splinter and Meraxes' iron figurehead, a laughing jester's face, came crashing through. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Her sewer rats.
Her dragons had roared as one in that moment, filling the night with flame. The slaves are rising, she knew at once. My sewer rats have gnawed off their chains. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
I'll take Things You'd Never See Bran Order, for $500.
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
+.+.+
Sly shade from the author.
I have given Astapor a butcher king. Dany felt ill, but she knew she must not let the envoy see it. "I will pray that King Cleon rules well and wisely. What would he have of me?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
"You see that at the end of the ['Lord of the Rings'] books, when Sauron has been defeated and Aragorn is king," Martin told the Advance. "It's easy to type, 'he ruled wisely and well,' but what does that constitute?" - George R. R. Martin
+.+.+
If I look back I am lost.
All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Right over her head.
"If blood is what you wish, let it flow. I am told you have freed your eunuchs. Freedom means as much to an Unsullied as a hat to a haddock." He smiled at Grey Worm, but the eunuch might have been made of stone. - Daenerys IV, ASOS
x
"My queen?" Daario stepped forward. "The riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the flies."
Dany was shocked. "They want to be slaves?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
A principled stance.
"I see." Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. "Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman." She raised a hand. "But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife."
"In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each time a slave changed hands," Missandei told her.
"We'll do the same," Dany decided. Wars were won with gold as much as swords. "A tenth part. In gold or silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or zorse hides." - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
There's maggots, flies, and death in her stomach.
Yet the thought of seeing Jorah Mormont again made her feel as if she'd swallowed a spoonful of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing round her belly.
[...]
"Flies are the dead man's revenge." Daario smiled, and stroked the center prong of his beard. "Corpses breed maggots, and maggots breed flies." - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
The Mad King's blood.
"Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was a . . . a good knight . . . chivalrous, brave . . . he spared my life, and the lives of many others . . . Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and . . . forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth . . . even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did."
[...]
". . . my father's daughter?" If she was not her father's daughter, who was she? - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
Your father always had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise . . . but as the years passed, the lapses grew more frequent, until . . ." - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
He thought for a moment of the boy Viserys, fled to Dragonstone, and of Rhaegar's infant son Aegon, still in Maegor's with his mother. A new Targaryen king, and my father as Hand. How the wolves will howl, and the storm lord choke with rage. For a moment he was tempted, until he glanced down again at the body on the floor, in its spreading pool of blood. His blood is in both of them, he thought. - Jaime II, ASOS
+.+.+
I'm not worried about Jon or Aegon, are you?
"I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace. Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Avoiding the history.
The fat leather-bound volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms. Children's stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful to be true history.
[...]
"Viserys was a child, and the queen sheltered him as much as she could. Your father always had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise . . . but as the years passed, the lapses grew more frequent, until . . ."
Dany stopped him. "Do I want to hear this now?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
A change of heart regarding bed slaves.
Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed with her, for the first time since the ship. But even as she shuddered in release and wound her fingers through her handmaid's thick black hair, she pretended it was Drogo holding her . . . only somehow his face kept turning into Daario's.
[...]
Irri slept soundly beside her, her lips slightly parted, one dark brown nipple peeping out above the sleeping silks. For a moment Dany was tempted, but it was Drogo she wanted, or perhaps Daario. Not Irri. The maid was sweet and skillful, but all her kisses tasted of duty. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
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 . . ."
"I am handmaid to the Mother of Dragons," the girl said. "It is great honor to please my khaleesi."
"I don't want that," she insisted. "I don't." - Daenerys II, ASOS
+.+.+
In the middle of Jorah betrayal talk, Daario takes a moment to caress two women + the funniest bouquet you'll ever see.
"The queen has a good heart," Daario purred through his deep purple whiskers, "but that one is more dangerous than all the Oznaks and Meros rolled up in one." His strong hands caressed the hilts of his matched blades, those wanton golden women. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
On the road from Yunkai, Daario had brought her a flower or a sprig of some plant every evening when he made his report . . . to help her learn the land, he said. Waspwillow, dusky roses, wild mint, lady's lace, daggerleaf, broom, prickly ben, harpy's gold . . . - Daenerys V, ASOS
+.+.+
Little Missandei keeps interrupting.
Thank you, @sherlokiness!
She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.
"Your Grace?" Missandei stood at her elbow wrapped in a bedrobe, wooden sandals on her feet. "I woke, and saw that you were gone. Did you sleep well? What are you looking at?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
"I remember the Undying. Child of three, they called me. Three mounts they promised me, three fires, and three treasons. One for blood and one for gold and one for …"
"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" - Daenerys II, ADWD
+.+.+
LET'S DANCE: STARK vs. TARG
The smell of death.
There was a smell of death about that room; a heavy smell, sweet and foul, clinging. - Catelyn I, ASOS
x
"Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones." - Daenerys II, ACOK
x
A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness - Daenerys IV, ACOK
+.+.+
Nymeria hunts down a Dothraki, and paints the world black and red.
Thank you, @dontbipanicjonsa!
Her dreams were red and savage. The Mummers were in them, four at least, a pale Lyseni and a dark brutal axeman from Ib, the scarred Dothraki horse lord called Iggo and a Dornishman whose name she never knew.
[...]
They thought they were hunting her, she knew with all the strange sharp certainty of dreams, but they were wrong. She was hunting them.
[...]
Only the belled man stood his ground. His horse kicked in the head of one of her sisters, and he cut another almost in half with his curved silvery claw as his hair tinkled softly.
Filled with rage, she leapt onto his back, knocking him head-first from his saddle. Her jaws locked on his arm as they fell, her teeth sinking through the leather and wool and soft flesh. When they landed she gave a savage jerk with her head and ripped the limb loose from his shoulder. Exulting, she shook it back and forth in her mouth, scattering the warm red droplets amidst the cold black rain. - Arya I, ASOS
+.+.+
Daenerys believes Rhaegal is trying to steal the prize from Drogon.
Drogon moved quicker than a striking cobra. Flame roared from his mouth, orange and scarlet and black, searing the meat before it began to fall. As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal's head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother's jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
Clever men hatch ambitious schemes.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
Ser Jorah snorted. "That wineseller who tried to poison you was a clever man as well. Clever men hatch ambitious schemes." - Daenerys I, ASOS
x
"Maester Aemon thinks you clever." Mormont moved the raven to his shoulder. - Jon IV, ACOK
+.+.+
Mance or the Conqueror?
Three hundred men could not hope to kill a hundred times their number, of course, but Jon did not think they would need to. He need not slay a thousand, only one. Mance is all that keeps them together. - Jon II, ASOS
+.+.+
A Targaryen stain.
When he touched it his black gloves came away stained with red. - Jon II, ASOS
+.+.+
Snow snuffed the fire out.
Yesterday he begged for them to let him be one of the torchbearers, even if it meant walking outside of the column with the darkness pressing close. He wanted the fire, dreamed of the fire. If I had the fire, I would not be cold. But someone reminded him that he'd had a torch at the start, but he'd dropped it in the snow and snuffed the fire out. - Samwell I, ASOS
+.+.+
Arya the Kingslayer?
"No," the old man said. "Northmen, they were. Savages who worship trees. They wanted the Kingslayer, they said."
Arya heard him, and chewed her lip. She could feel Gendry looking at her. - Arya IV, ASOS
+.+.+
A Faceless Man kills a king.
I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. - Arya IV, ASOS
+.+.+
Words that keep haunting Daenerys.
"Valar morghulis," said Missandei, in High Valyrian.
"All men must die," Dany agreed, "but not for a long while, we may pray." - Daenerys III, ASOS
x
"You know nothing, Jon Snow," Ygritte would have told him. I know that I am going to die, he thought. I know that much, at least. "All men die," he could almost hear her say, "and women too, and every beast that flies or swims or runs. It's not the when o' dying that matters, it's the how of it, Jon Snow." - Jon X, ASOS
+.+.+
Garnets lack fire.
As he entered his lord father's solar a few moments later, he heard a voice saying, ". . . cherrywood for the scabbards, bound in red leather and ornamented with a row of lion's-head studs in pure gold. Perhaps with garnets for the eyes . . ."
"Rubies," Lord Tywin said. "Garnets lack the fire." - Tyrion IV, ASOS
x
The pommel was a hunk of pale stone weighted with lead to balance the long blade. It had been carved into the likeness of a snarling wolf's head, with chips of garnet set into the eyes. - Jon VIII, AGOT
x
Ghost was curled up asleep beside the door, but he lifted his head at the sound of Jon's boots. The direwolf's red eyes were darker than garnets and wiser than men. Jon knelt, scratched his ear, and showed him the pommel of the sword. "Look. It's you." - Jon VIII, AGOT
+.+.+
Jon and Daario are hiding their true colours in back-to-back chapters.
"He must die," Styr the Magnar said. "Do it, crow."
The old man said no word. He only looked at Jon, standing amongst the wildlings. Amidst the rain and smoke, lit only by the fire, he could not have seen that Jon was all in black, but for his sheepskin cloak. Or could he? - Jon V, ASOS
x
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
+.+.+
Catelyn slices up a fool in a crown, ornamented with bells, with a Targaryen name. A younger version of the father.
The eighth Lady Frey stood beside Lord Walder's high seat. At his feet sat a somewhat younger version of himself, a stooped thin man of fifty whose costly garb of blue wool and grey satin was strangely accented by a crown and collar ornamented with tiny brass bells. The likeness between him and his lord was striking, save for their eyes; Lord Frey's small, dim, and suspicious, the other's large, amiable, and vacant. Catelyn recalled that one of Lord Walder's brood had fathered a halfwit long years ago. During past visits, the Lord of the Crossing had always taken care to hide this one away. Did he always wear a fool's crown, or is that meant as mockery of Robb? It was a question she dare not ask.
[...]
"Sire," Lord Walder said, "forgive my Aegon the noise. He has less wits than a crannogman, and he's never met a king before. One of Stevron's boys. We call him Jinglebell." - Catelyn VI, ASOS
+.+.+
While mostly sitting on the sidelines, Jon observes a dance.
The dance has moved on, he thought.
[...]
The dance has moved on, and we're watching from the gallery, he thought as he hobbled back. - Jon VII, ASOS
+.+.+
It's fire against ice.
The heat of the fires was making the Wall weep, and the flames danced and shimmered against the ice. - Jon VII, ASOS
+.+.+
Shades of Arya during an assassination attempt.
The old man feinted with one end of the staff, pulled it back, and whipped the other end about faster than Dany would have believed. The Titan's Bastard staggered back into the surf, spitting blood and broken teeth from the ruin of his mouth. Whitebeard put Dany behind him. Mero slashed at his face. The old man jerked back, cat-quick. The staff thumped Mero's ribs, sending him reeling. Arstan splashed sideways, parried a looping cut, danced away from a second, checked a third mid-swing. - Daenerys V, ASOS
+.+.+
Doubtful the queen will have many kind things to say about the Usurper's Dog and his children.
The north. "I . . . my brother Robb was King in the North . . ."
"Your brother was the rightful Lord of Winterfell. If he had stayed home and done his duty, instead of crowning himself and riding off to conquer the riverlands, he might be alive today. Be that as it may. You are not Robb, no more than I am Robert."
The harsh words had blown away whatever sympathy Jon might have had for Stannis. "I loved my brother," he said. - Jon XI, ASOS
+.+.+
Jon is unsettled by the beautiful red lady, who burns men alive, and smells of fire & blood.
Thank you, @magiclovingdragon!
He had glimpsed Melisandre at her nightfires, and coming and going about the castle, but never so close. She's beautiful, he thought . . . but there was something more than a little unsettling about red eyes. "My lady."
[...]
In the close confines of the iron cage, he was acutely aware of the red woman's presence. She even smells red. The scent reminded him of Mikken's forge, of the way iron smelled when red-hot; the scent was smoke and blood. - Jon XI, ASOS
+.+.+
The raiders and slavers from Valyria better hope that never happens.
Thank you, @astraphysical!
Stannis put a thin, fleshless hand on Jon's shoulder. "Say nothing of what we've discussed here today. To anyone. But when you return, you need only bend your knee, lay your sword at my feet, and pledge yourself to my service, and you shall rise again as Jon Stark, the Lord of Winterfell." - Jon XI, ASOS
x
Even before the coming of the Andals, the Wolf's Den had been raised by King Jon Stark, built to defend the mouth of the White Knife against raiders and slavers from across the narrow sea (some scholars suggest these were early Andal incursions, whilst others argue they were the forebears of the men from Ib, or even slavers out of Valyria and Volantis). - TWoIaF
+.+.+
SHOWDOWN AT THE TRIDENT
Jon and Daenerys stand on opposite sides.
That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened. - Daenerys III, ASOS
x
Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared. - Jon XII, ADWD
+.+.+
Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon. The die is cast.
Thank you, @nusaran and @northernpack!
Dany mounted her silver. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest. She felt desperately afraid. Was this what my brother would have done? She wondered if Prince Rhaegar had been this anxious when he saw the Usurper's host formed up across the Trident with all their banners floating on the wind.
[...]
It is time to cross the Trident, Dany thought, as she wheeled and rode her silver back. - Daenerys III, ASOS
+.+.+
A trip down memory lane that definitely won't be happening again.
"Torrhen had brought his power south after the fall of the two kings on the Field of Fire," said Jaime, "but when he saw Aegon's dragon and the size of his host, he chose the path of wisdom and bent his frozen knees." - Jaime II, ASOS
x
A terrible beauty. Like dragonfire. Tyrion wondered if Aegon the Conqueror had felt like this as he flew above his Field of Fire. - Tyrion XIII, ACOK
x
"Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire."
"I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own." Dany turned away from him - Daenerys III, ASOS
+.+.+
Ned never taught young Robb when to kneel.
-> Jon VIII, AGOT
It would not do to make him feel as if his mother were usurping his place. Did you teach him wisdom as well as valor, Ned? she wondered. Did you teach him how to kneel? The graveyards of the Seven Kingdoms were full of brave men who had never learned that lesson. - Catelyn IX, AGOT
x
Suddenly Catelyn was full of dread. "Wars need not be fought until the last drop of blood." Even she could hear the desperation in her voice. "You would not be the first king to bend the knee, nor even the first Stark."
His mouth tightened. "No. Never."
"There is no shame in it. Balon Greyjoy bent the knee to Robert when his rebellion failed. Torrhen Stark bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror rather than see his army face the fires." - Catelyn IV, ASOS
+.+.+
Or perhaps someone else?
"Yes," the maester said, "but this battle he cannot win. It is time he lay down his sword and shield. Time to yield."
To yield, she thought, to make a peace. Was it her father the maester was speaking of, or her son? - Catelyn III, ASOS
+.+.+
An older wolf might not have believed himself immortal. (Rest in peace, 5 year gap.)
"Won every battle, while losing the Freys, the Karstarks, Winterfell, and the north. A pity the wolf is so young. Boys of sixteen always believe they are immortal and invincible. An older man would bend the knee, I'd think. After a war there is always a peace, and with peace there are pardons . . . for the Robb Starks, at least. Not for the likes of Vargo Hoat." - Jaime V, ASOS
+.+.+
Davos understands some men don't have a choice. Stannis is less forgiving.
"When he did," Davos repeated. "They were his men. His sworn men. What choice were they given?"
"Every man has choices. They might have refused to kneel. Some did, and died for it. Yet they died true men, and loyal." - Davos IV, ASOS
+.+.+
Crowns won't help when the dragons come.
"Some would say it's a poor king who crowns himself with bronze, Your Grace."
"Bronze and iron are stronger than gold and silver," Robb answered. "The old Kings of Winter wore such a sword-crown."
"Small good it did them when the dragons came. Heh." - Catelyn VI, ASOS
+.+.+
In back-to-back chapters, Jon regretfully finds himself riding off with the rebel host, while Rhaegal tries to make an escape before Daenerys massacres a city.
I should have tried to kill Mance Rayder on the Fist, even if it meant my life. That was what Qhorin Halfhand would have done. But Jon had hesitated, and the chance passed. The next day he had ridden off with Styr the Magnar, Jarl, and more than a hundred picked Thenns and raiders. He told himself that he was only biding his time, that when the moment came he would slip away and ride for Castle Black. The moment never came. - Jon III, ASOS
x
Rhaegal could sense something wrong as well. Thrice he tried to take wing, only to be pulled down by the heavy chain in Jhiqui's hand. - Daenerys III, ASOS
+.+.+
A RAT IN A MAZE 🐀🔪
Did you know it's believed that smaller harbour rats from the Free Cities carry the Shivers?
Rats who bring cold.
Rest in peace, Princess Daenerys Targaryen.
And then the Shivers came, and the Stranger walked the land.
The maesters knew the Shivers. They had seen its like before, a century ago, and the course of the contagion was written in their books. It was believed to have come to Westeros from across the sea, from one of the Free Cities or lands more distant still. Port cities and harbor towns always felt the hand of the disease first and hardest. Many of the smallfolk believed that it was carried by rats; not the familiar grey rats of King's Landing or Oldtown, big and bold and vicious, but the smaller black rats that could be seen swarming from the holds of ships at dock and scurrying down the ropes that held them fast. Though the guilt of rats was never proved to the satisfaction of the Citadel, suddenly every house in the Seven Kingdoms, from the grandest castle to the humblest hut, required a cat. - Fire & Blood
x
It was the hour of the owl when Queen Alysanne was awoken by her daughter shaking her gently by the arm. "Mother," Princess Daenerys said, "I'm cold."
[...]
The princess was six, and years past being weaned, but a wet nurse was summoned, for there were some who believed that mother's milk could cure Shivers. Maesters came and went, septons and septas prayed, the king commanded that a hundred new ratcatchers be hired at once, and offered a silver stag for every dead rat, grey or black.
[...]
None of it matter. A day and a half after she had woken her mother from sleep complaining of feeling cold, the little princess was dead. - Fire & Blood
Brrrrr!
The marks of the disease were well-known. It began simply enough, with a chill. Victims would complain of being cold, throw a fresh log on the fire, huddle under a blanket or a pile of furs. Some would call for hot soup, mulled wine, or, against all reason, beer. Neither blankets nor soups could stay the progress of the pestilence. Soon the shivering would begin; mild at first, a trembling, a shudder, but inexorably growing worse. Gooseprickles would march up and down the victim's limbs like conquering armies. By then the afflicted would be shivering so violently that their teeth would clatter, and their hands and feet would begin to convulse and twitch. When the victim's lips turned blue and he began to cough up blood, the end was nigh. Once the first chill was felt, the course of the Shivers was swift. - Fire & Blood
x
+.+.+
Arya the Rat.
Lord Renly stifled his laughter. "My brother is too kind. I can find the door myself." He bowed to Joffrey. "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." - Eddard III, AGOT
x
The old fat septa moved forward. "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." - Arya III, AGOT
x
The older scowled. "Who's this father of yours, boy, the city ratcatcher?" - Arya III, AGOT
x
"You be keepin' your filthy hands off. The gold cloaks know how to deal with thieving little gutter rats, that they do." - Arya V, AGOT
x
When he laughed he brayed like the donkeys they were riding. "Where's a gutter rat like Lumpyhead get him a sword?" - Arya I, ACOK
x
The Bull scowled at her. "Why should she want you? You're nothing but a little gutter rat!" - Arya II, ACOK
x
Porridge at least seemed to know he was alive, and there was a queer sort of kindness to the man. Davos suspected that he fed the rats; that was why there were so many. Once he thought he heard the gaoler talking to them as if they were children, but perhaps he'd only dreamed that. - Davos III, ASOS
x
[Stumpy note: I refuse to track a certain type of foreshadowing, so you're going to have to trust me that the following is an Arya reference.]
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
Every man shall reap what he has sown, from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat. And some will lose more than the tips off their fingers, I promise you. - Davos IV, ASOS
x
Once the direwolf bolted through a dark door and returned a moment later with a grey rat between his teeth. The Rat Cook, Bran thought, but it was the wrong color, and only as big as a cat. The Rat Cook was white, and almost as huge as a sow . . . - Bran IV, ASOS
x
He probably won't even know me. She looked more like a drowned rat than a lord's cupbearer these days. A drowned boy rat. - Arya X, ASOS
+.+.+
There's rats in the walls of the Red Keep.
Part of her wanted to run, but she was afraid of snuffing out her candle. She heard the faint squeaking of rats and glimpsed a pair of tiny glowing eyes on the edge of the light, but rats did not scare her. - Arya IV, AGOT
x
In the Red Keep a man did best to hold his tongue. There were rats in the walls, and little birds who talked too much, and spiders. - Tyrion I, ASOS
x
"You will bring Shae to me through the walls, hidden from all these eyes. As you have done before."
Varys wrung his hands. "Oh, my lord, nothing would please me more, but . . . King Maegor wanted no rats in his own walls, if you take my meaning. He did require a means of secret egress, should he ever be trapped by his enemies, but that door does not connect with any other passages. - Tyrion II, ASOS
x
"It had to be the godswood. No other place in the Red Keep is safe from the eunuch's little birds . . . or little rats, as I call them. There are trees in the godswood instead of walls. Sky above instead of ceiling. Roots and dirt and rock in place of floor. The rats have no place to scurry. Rats need to hide, lest men skewer them with swords." - Sansa V, ASOS
x
I arrived here a King's Hand, riding through the gates at the head of my own sworn men, Tyrion reflected, and I leave like a rat scuttling through the dark, holding hands with a spider. - Tyrion XI, ASOS
x
She imagined Tyrion creeping between the walls like some monstrous rat. No. You are being silly. The dwarf is in his cell. - Cersei I, AFFC
x
"Cheese knew the Red Keep better than the shape of his own cock," Mushroom tells us. The hidden doors and secret tunnels that Maegor the Cruel had built were as familiar to the rat-catcher as to the rats he hunted. Using a forgotten passageway, Cheese led Blood into the heart of the castle, unseen by any guard. - Fire & Blood
x
Years later, when these events had passed into legend, the smallfolk would tell each other that "rats in the walls" had overheard the lords talking and rushed to the princess with the news. - Fire & Blood
x
It is oft said that the Red Keep has no secrets, that there are rats in the walls who hear everything and whisper in the ears of sleepers by night. - Fire & Blood
+.+.+
Arya learns the secret passageways of the Red Keep, and makes some new friends along the way. Twice.
The dungeon was under the Red Keep, deeper than he dared imagine. He remembered the old stories about Maegor the Cruel, who murdered all the masons who labored on his castle, so they might never reveal its secrets. - Eddard XV, AGOT
x
She wondered where she was. When they had first come to King's Landing, she used to have bad dreams about getting lost in the castle. Father said the Red Keep was smaller than Winterfell, but in her dreams it had been immense, an endless stone maze with walls that seemed to shift and change behind her. She would find herself wandering down gloomy halls past faded tapestries, descending endless circular stairs, darting through courtyards or over bridges, her shouts echoing unanswered. - Arya III, AGOT
x
The monsters were still there, but the fear was gone.
Arya got to her feet, moving warily. The heads were all around her. She touched one, curious, wondering if it was real. Her fingertips brushed a massive jaw. It felt real enough. The bone was smooth beneath her hand, cold and hard to the touch. She ran her fingers down a tooth, black and sharp, a dagger made of darkness. It made her shiver.
"It's dead," she said aloud. "It's just a skull, it can't hurt me." Yet somehow the monster seemed to know she was there. She could feel its empty eyes watching her through the gloom, and there was something in that dim, cavernous room that did not love her. She edged away from the skull and backed into a second, larger than the first. For an instant she could feel its teeth digging into her shoulder, as if it wanted a bite of her flesh. Arya whirled, felt leather catch and tear as a huge fang nipped at her jerkin, and then she was running. Another skull loomed ahead, the biggest monster of all, but Arya did not even slow. She leapt over a ridge of black teeth as tall as swords, dashed through hungry jaws, and threw herself against the door. [...]
If the room with the monsters had been dark, the hall was the blackest pit in the seven hells. Calm as still water, Arya told herself, but even when she gave her eyes a moment to adjust, there was nothing to see but the vague grey outline of the door she had come through. [...]
Her fingers brushed against rough unfinished stone to her left. She followed the wall, her hand skimming along the surface, taking small gliding steps through the darkness. All halls lead somewhere. - Arya III, AGOT
x
This time the monsters did not frighten her. They seemed almost old friends. Arya held the candle over her head. With each step she took, the shadows moved against the walls, as if they were turning to watch her pass. "Dragons," she whispered. She slid Needle out from under her cloak. The slender blade seemed very small and the dragons very big, yet somehow Arya felt better with steel in her hand.
The long windowless hall beyond the door was as black as she remembered. She held Needle in her left hand, her sword hand, the candle in her right fist. Hot wax ran down across her knuckles. The entrance to the well had been to the left, so Arya went right. Part of her wanted to run, but she was afraid of snuffing out her candle. She heard the faint squeaking of rats and glimpsed a pair of tiny glowing eyes on the edge of the light, but rats did not scare her. - Arya IV, AGOT
x
"I warn you, Arya, if you're spinning this thread of air—"
"No, I told you, it was in the dungeons, by the place with the secret wall. I was chasing cats, and well …" - Arya III, AGOT
+.+.+
Secret tunnels, and an escape through sewers. Daenerys is told a familiar story.
She must have crept after them for miles. Finally they were gone, but there was no place to go but forward. She found the wall again and followed, blind and lost, pretending that Nymeria was padding along beside her in the darkness. At the end she was knee-deep in foul-smelling water, wishing she could dance upon it as Syrio might have, and wondering if she'd ever see light again. It was full dark when finally Arya emerged into the night air.
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. - Arya III, AGOT
x
"I know a way." Brown Ben Plumm stroked his speckled grey-and-white beard. "Sewers."
"Sewers? What do you mean?"
"Great brick sewers empty into the Skahazadhan, carrying the city's wastes. They might be a way in, for a few. That was how I escaped Meereen, after Scarb lost his head." Brown Ben made a face. "The smell has never left me. I dream of it some nights."
Ser Jorah looked dubious. "Easier to go out than in, it would seem to me. These sewers empty into the river, you say? That would mean the mouths are right below the walls."
[...]
There's things down there too. Biggest rats you ever saw, and worse things. Nasty." - Daenerys V, ASOS
+.+.+
Daenerys hears rats in the walls during her truth-seeking journey. Drogon isn't a happy boy.
What remained served to muffle her footfalls, but that was not all to the good. Dany could hear sounds within the walls, a faint scurrying and scrabbling that made her think of rats. Drogon heard them too. His head moved as he followed the sounds, and when they stopped he gave an angry scream. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
+.+.+
Aerys believes there's traitors inside the walls, right before he's killed.
But when he closed his eyes, it was Aerys Targaryen he saw, pacing alone in his throne room, picking at his scabbed and bleeding hands. The fool was always cutting himself on the blades and barbs of the Iron Throne. Jaime had slipped in through the king's door, clad in his golden armor, sword in hand. [...]
When Aerys saw the blood on his blade, he demanded to know if it was Lord Tywin's. "I want him dead, the traitor. I want his head, you'll bring me his head, or you'll burn with all the rest. All the traitors. Rossart says they are inside the walls! He's gone to make them a warm welcome. Whose blood? Whose?" - Jaime II, ASOS
+.+.+
The Iron Throne kills Maegor the Cruel . . . or was it someone else?
All day the lords made plans, and late into the night. It was the hour of the wolf when at last Maegor allowed them to take their leave. The king remained behind, brooding on the Iron Throne as they departed. Lord Towers and Lord Rosby were the last to see His Grace.
Hours later, as dawn was breaking, the last of Maegor's queens came seeking after him. Queen Elinor found him still upon the Iron Throne, pale and dead, his robes soaked through with blood. His arms had been slashed open from wrist to elbow on jagged barbs, and another blade had gone through his neck to emerge beneath his chin.
Man to this day believe it was the Iron Throne itself that killed him.
[...]
It might also have been a person or persons unknown, entering and leaving the throne room through some hidden passage. The Red Keep has its secrets, known only to the dead. - Fire & Blood
+.+.+
The Iron Throne rejects Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Septon Eustace tells us that the ceremony went on all through that night. It was well past dawn when Rhaenyra Targaryen rose and made her descent. "And as her lord husband Prince Daemon escorted her from the hall, cuts were seen upon Her Grace's legs and the palms of her left hand," wrote Eustace. "Drops of blood fell to the floor as she went past, and wise men looked at one another, though none dared speak the truth aloud: the Iron Throne had spurned her, and her days upon it would be few." - Fire & Blood
+.+.+
Was it the Rat or the Iron Throne?
They say the Iron Throne can be cruel to those who were not meant to sit it.
Ned could feel cold steel against his fingers as he leaned forward. Between each finger was a blade, the points of twisted swords fanning out like talons from arms of the throne. Even after three centuries, some were still sharp enough to cut. The Iron Throne was full of traps for the unwary. The songs said it had taken a thousand blades to make it, heated white-hot in the furnace breath of Balerion the Black Dread. The hammering had taken fifty-nine days. The end of it was this hunched black beast made of razor edges and barbs and ribbons of sharp metal; a chair that could kill a man, and had, if the stories could be believed. - Eddard XI, AGOT
x
"Joffrey is the black worm eating the heart of the realm! Darkness was his father, and death his mother! Destroy him before he corrupts you all! Destroy them all, queen whore and king worm, vile dwarf and whispering spider, the false flowers. Save yourselves!" One of the gold cloaks knocked the man off his feet, but he continued to shout. "The scouring fire will come! King Stannis will return!"
Joffrey lurched to his feet. "I'm king! Kill him! Kill him now! I command it." He chopped down with his hand, a furious, angry gesture . . . and screeched in pain when his arm brushed against one of the sharp metal fangs that surrounded him. The bright crimson samite of his sleeve turned a darker shade of red as his blood soaked through it. "Mother!" he wailed.
With every eye on the king, somehow the man on the floor wrested a spear away from one of the gold cloaks, and used it to push himself back to his feet. "The throne denies him!" he cried. "He is no king!" - Sansa VIII, ACOK
x
Sansa felt limp with exhaustion as she made her way down from the gallery. She wondered how badly Joffrey had cut himself. They say the Iron Throne can be perilous cruel to those who were not meant to sit it. - Sansa VIII, ACOK
x
"Have you ever seen the Iron Throne? The barbs along the back, the ribbons of twisted steel, the jagged ends of swords and knives all tangled up and melted? It is not a comfortable seat, ser. Aerys cut himself so often men took to calling him King Scab, and Maegor the Cruel was murdered in that chair. By that chair, to hear some tell it. It is not a seat where a man can rest at ease. Ofttimes I wonder why my brothers wanted it so desperately." - Davos IV, ASOS
x
"And to mount a dragon . . . I remember the first time my father took me to court, Robert had to hold my hand. I could not have been older than four, which would have made him five or six. We agreed afterward that the king had been as noble as the dragons were fearsome." Stannis snorted. "Years later, our father told us that Aerys had cut himself on the throne that morning, so his Hand had taken his place. It was Tywin Lannister who'd so impressed us." His fingers touched the surface of the table, tracing a path lightly across the varnished hills. "Robert took the skulls down when he donned the crown, but he could not bear to have them destroyed. Dragon wings over Westeros . . . there would be such a . . ." - Davos V, ASOS
x
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
+.+.+
Cold, chilling words.
"I will not be part of murder, Robert. Do as you will, but do not ask me to fix my seal to it."
[...]
Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could feel Robert's eyes on his back. As he strode from the council chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. "On Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men," Grand Maester Pycelle offered. - Eddard VIII, AGOT
x
The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run. - Daenerys IX, AGOT
x
"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." - Daenerys III, ACOK
x
Next you will be offering me a suit of magic armor and a palace in Valyria. "If Daenerys is no more than a sweet young girl, the Iron Throne will cut her into sweet young pieces." - Tyrion II, ADWD
x
"My lord is good to care so much, but I am well protected." Dany gestured toward where Barristan Selmy stood with one hand resting on his sword hilt. "Barristan the Bold, they call him. Twice he has saved me from assassins." - Daenerys III, ADWD
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Nobody can figure out who killed King Renly! Was it a shadow?
"Cold," said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat. - Catelyn IV, ASOS
x
"Oh, very good." Jaime laughed. "Your wits are quicker than mine, I confess it. When they found me standing over my dead king, I never thought to say, 'No, no, it wasn't me, it was a shadow, a terrible cold shadow.'" - Jaime II, ASOS
x
Now at last she had him. High walls pressed close on either side, and ahead was a blank windowless mass of stone. Quiet as a shadow, she repeated, sliding forward, light as a feather. - Arya III, ASOS
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Snow is falling on King's Landing when Kevan Lannister is assassinated by children in the walls.
The snow had been falling on King's Landing most of the night [...]
The chill in the throne room was palpable. [...]
Behind the table where the five members of the king's small council were seated, the Iron Throne crouched like some great black beast, its barbs and claws and blades half-shrouded in shadow. Kevan Lannister could feel it at his back, an itch between the shoulder blades. It was easy to imagine old King Aerys perched up there, bleeding from some fresh cut, glowering down. [...]
"Aye, if we had gold," Ser Harys Swyft said. "Alas, my lords, our vaults contain only rats and roaches. I have written again to the Myrish bankers. [...]
Outside the snow was swirling round the outer ward, a caged beast howling to be free. "Have you ever felt such cold?" asked Ser Harys. [...]
"An old black tomcat with a torn ear," Cersei told him. "A filthy thing, and foul-tempered. He clawed Joff's hand once." She made a face. "The cats keep the rats down, I know, but that one... he's been known to attack ravens in the rookery." [...]
Ser Kevan had always found them uncomfortably hot. Not tonight. Once past the chamber door, the chill was palpable. Black ash and dying embers were all that remained of the hearthfire.
The rest was shrouded in shadow … except beneath the open window, where a spray of ice crystals glittered in the moonlight, swirling in the wind. [...]
"Winter," said Ser Kevan. The word made a white mist in the air. He turned away from the window.
Then something slammed him in the chest between the ribs, hard as a giant's fist. It drove the breath from him and sent him lurching backwards. [...]
"Tyrion?" he called. "Where …?"
"Far away," a half-familiar voice replied.
He stood in a pool of shadow by a bookcase, plump, pale-faced, round-shouldered, clutching a crossbow in soft powdered hands. Silk slippers swaddled his feet. [...]
Pain washed over him. He closed his eyes, opened them again. "There are … there are hundreds of Lannister guardsmen in this castle."
"But none in this room, thankfully. [...]
A gust of wind blew up. Ser Kevan shivered violently.
"Are you cold, my lord?" asked Varys. [...]
Ser Kevan was cold as ice, and every labored breath sent a fresh stab of pain through him. He glimpsed movement, heard the soft scuffling sound of slippered feet on stone. A child emerged from a pool of darkness, a pale boy in a ragged robe, no more than nine or ten. Another rose up behind the Grand Maester's chair. The girl who had opened the door for him was there as well. They were all around him, half a dozen of them, white-faced children with dark eyes, boys and girls together.
And in their hands, the daggers. - Epilogue, ADWD
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Panic! Daenerys can't see who's there.
This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.
She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a football on the deck above her head. And something else.
Someone was in the cabin with her.
"Irri? Jhiqui? Where are you?" Her handmaids did not respond. It was too black to see, but she could hear them breathing. "Jorah, is that you?"
"They sleep," a woman said. "They all sleep." The voice was very close. "Even dragons must sleep."
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. "What do you want to me?"
[...]
"Khaleesi, are you unwell?" asked Jhiqui.
"A dream." Dany shook her head. "I dreamed a dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to sleep." Yet try as she might, sleep would not come again. - Daenerys III, ASOS
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
After another surprise visit that catches Daenerys off guard, Daenerys asks Quaithe how she got past her guardsmen.
A soft rustle made her open them again. She sat up with a soft splash. "Missandei?" she called. "Irri? Jhiqui?"
"They sleep," came the answer.
A woman stood under the persimmon tree, clad in a hooded robe that brushed the grass. Beneath the hood, her face seemed hard and shiny. She is wearing a mask, Dany knew, a wooden mask finished in dark red lacquer. "Quaithe? Am I dreaming?" She pinched her ear and winced at the pain. "I dreamt of you on Balerion, when first we came to Astapor."
"You did not dream. Then or now."
"What are you doing here? How did you get past my guards?"
"I came another way. Your guards never saw me." – Daenerys II, ADWD
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Arya IV, ACOK (click) -> using a secret tunnel found underground, Arya escapes a burning barn, and ends up in a river. Did dragons set the barn on fire? It's hard to tell.
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Davos III, ASOS (click) -> After failing to kill the fire lady, Davos (or is that Jon Snow?) finds himself locked in the cells underneath Dragonstone. His only friends are the rats.
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Tyrion XI, ASOS (click) -> Sibling Jaime manages to free Tyrion from the cells underneath King's Landing. Throw in several references to rats, Maegor the Cruel, spooky warnings about the dangers of secret tunnels, and you have a pretty fun chapter!
Oh, and the murder. I forgot the murder. While in the tunnels he takes a detour and does some murder.
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Bran IV, ASOS (click) -> Bran explores the abandoned Nightfort, and finds a sewer that might as well be Arya's favourite sewer in King's Landing. He's not alone though, he has his friends, and a castle filled with rats in the walls and floors.
+.+.+
Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:
ACOK: Arya IX -> Daenerys IV
Arya the cupbearer. Daenerys is served.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
Nan, you shall be my cupbearer, and serve me at table and in chambers. - Arya IX, ACOK
x
They had rattish pointed faces and tiny pink hands, like the servitor who had brought her the glass of shade. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
+.+.+
Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:
ACOK: Daenerys V -> Arya X
A man from a society of assassins attempts to kill Daenerys. Arya Stark provides the echo, and shows us how it's done.
Thank you, @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir!
A Qartheen stepped into her path. "Mother of Dragons, for you." He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.
Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, "I am so sorry," but she hardly heard.
The scarab unfolded with a hiss.
Dany caught a glimpse of a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom . . . and then the box flew from her hand in pieces, turning end over end. Sudden pain twisted her fingers. As she cried out and clutched her hand, the brass merchant let out a shriek, a woman screamed, and suddenly the Qartheen were shouting and pushing each other aside. Ser Jorah slammed past her, and Dany stumbled to one knee.
[...]
"They were defending me." Dany snapped her hand to shake the sting from her fingers. "It was the other one, the Qartheen." When she looked around he was gone. "He was a Sorrowful Man. There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand." - Daenerys V, ACOK
x
He'd left his dagger on the table as well, so she took that too, just in case Gendry lost his courage.
[...]
"I could catch you if I wanted," she called to it softly, "but I have to go, cat." The cat hissed again and ran off.
[...]
Arya took out the dagger and sharpened it to keep her hands busy. Long smooth strokes, the way Syrio had taught her. The sound calmed her.
[...]
She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear, and it felt as though Syrio Forel walked beside her, and Yoren, and Jaqen H'ghar, and Jon Snow. She had not taken the sword Gendry had brought her, not yet. For this the dagger would be better.
[...]
"He told me to give all his guards a silver piece, for their good service." The words seemed to come out of nowhere.
"Silver, you say?" He did not believe her, but he wanted to; silver was silver, after all. "Give it over, then."
Her fingers dug down beneath her tunic and came out clutching the coin Jaqen had given her. In the dark the iron could pass for tarnished silver. She held it out . . . and let it slip through her fingers.
Cursing her softly, the man went to a knee to grope for the coin in the dirt, and there was his neck right in front of her. Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. His blood covered her hands in a hot gush and he tried to shout but there was blood in his mouth as well.
"Valar morghulis," she whispered as he died. - Arya X, ACOK
+.+.+
Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:
ASOS: Davos II -> Jaime II -> Tyrion II -> Arya II
After King's Landing burns, the sailor returns to Dragonstone, with a gifted dagger, and one goal: assassinate the fire lady who burns people alive.
She would be waiting on Dragonstone as well, waiting in all her beauty and all her power, with her god and her shadows and his king. The red priestess had always seemed loyal to Stannis, until now. She has broken him, as a man breaks a horse. She would ride him to power if she could, and for that she gave my sons to the fire. I will cut the living heart from her breast and see how it burns. He touched the hilt of the fine long Lysene dirk that the captain had given him.
[...]
A knife in the heart, though . . . even demons can be killed by cold iron, the singers say.
[...]
"Yes, just so, someone. But not you. You are weak as a child, and no warrior. Stay, I beg you, we will talk more and you will eat, and perhaps we will sail to Braavos and hire a Faceless Man to do this thing, yes? But you, no, you must sit and eat." - Davos II, ASOS
x
Jaime the Kingslayer describes the Mad King's last moments. He wished he could have vanished once it was done.
When Aerys saw the blood on his blade, he demanded to know if it was Lord Tywin's. "I want him dead, the traitor. I want his head, you'll bring me his head, or you'll burn with all the rest. All the traitors. Rossart says they are inside the walls! He's gone to make them a warm welcome. Whose blood? Whose?"
[...]
Ser Elys Westerling and Lord Crakehall and others of his father's knights burst into the hall in time to see the last of it, so there was no way for Jaime to vanish and let some braggart steal the praise or blame. - Jaime II, ASOS
x
Tyrion searches for hidden passageways in the Red Keep while waiting for Shae. Varys appears disguised as another person.
Varys wrung his hands. "Oh, my lord, nothing would please me more, but . . . King Maegor wanted no rats in his own walls, if you take my meaning. He did require a means of secret egress, should he ever be trapped by his enemies, but that door does not connect with any other passages.
[...]
"He's gone," Shae said.
Tyrion turned to look. It was true. The eunuch had vanished, skirts and all. The hidden doors are here somewhere, they have to be. - Tyrion II, ASOS
x
Arya pulls a Davos.
Her hand went under the table to touch the hilt of her dagger, and make sure it was still there. - Arya II, ASOS
+.+.+
Wait, there's more!
THE USURPER'S KNIFE
Daenerys is running.
Thank you, @kadarakey and @aegor-bamfsteel!
The Usurper's hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one. - Daenerys I, AGOT
x
She hated it, as her brother must have. All those years of running from city to city one step ahead of the Usurper's knives, pleading for help from archons and princes and magisters, buying our food with flattery. - Daenerys III, ACOK
x
She was no pampered lady, blind to such things. She had seen cutpurses aplenty in the streets of the Free Cities, during the years she'd spent with her brother, running from the Usurper's hired knives. - Daenerys III, ACOK
x
He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. "Illyrio protected us from the Usurper's knives, and he believed in my brother's cause." - Daenerys III, ACOK
x
She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother's womb, and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper's hired knives? - Daenerys V, ACOK
x
The narrow sea was often stormy, and Dany had crossed it half a hundred times as a girl, running from one Free City to the next half a step ahead of the Usurper's hired knives. - Daenerys I, ASOS
x
The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run. - Daenerys IX, AGOT
+.+.+
Except there were no knives chasing her. Like so many others in the story, Daenerys believes in a threat that was never there.
The king's mouth twisted in a bitter grimace. "No, gods be cursed. Some pox-ridden Pentoshi cheesemonger had her brother and her walled up on his estate with pointy-hatted eunuchs all around them, and now he's handed them over to the Dothraki. I should have had them both killed years ago, when it was easy to get at them, but Jon was as bad as you. More fool I, I listened to him." - Eddard II, AGOT
And now she's running towards the knife.
+.+.+
A dagger in the flesh.
"Daenerys Targaryen has wed some Dothraki horselord. What of it? Shall we send her a wedding gift?"
The king frowned. "A knife, perhaps. A good sharp one, and a bold man to wield it." - Eddard II, AGOT
x
"Kiss her?" Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.
"A steel kiss," said Littlefinger. - Eddard VIII, AGOT
x
Her words were a knife through Dany's breast. What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? - Daenerys VIII, AGOT
x
Mirri Maz Duur chanted words in a tongue that Dany did not know, and a knife appeared in her hand. Dany never saw where it came from. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT
x
Another pain grasped her, and Dany bit back a scream. It felt as if her son had a knife in each hand, as if he were hacking at her to cut his way out. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT
x
A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew. - Daenerys IX, AGOT
x
"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." - Daenerys III, ACOK
x
Pyat Pree was gibbering in some unknown tongue and hopping from one foot to the other. When Dany looked behind her, she saw thin tendrils of smoke forcing their way through cracks in the ancient stone walls of the Palace of Dust, and rising from between the black tiles of the roof.
Howling curses, Pyat Pree drew a knife and danced toward her, but Drogon flew at his face. Then she heard the crack of Jhogo's whip, and never was a sound so sweet. The knife went flying, and an instant later Rakharo was slamming Pyat to the ground. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
x
"A craven's knife can slay a queen as easily as a hero's. I would sleep more soundly if I knew my heart's delight had kept her fierce horselords close around her. In Qarth, you had three bloodriders who never left your side. Wherever have they gone?" - Daenerys III, ADWD
x
Their father, her brother Rhaegar, perished even earlier, slain by the Usurper on the Trident. Her brother Viserys had died screaming in Vaes Dothrak with a crown of molten gold upon his head. They will kill me too if I allow it. The knives that slew my Stalwart Shield were meant for me. - Daenerys I, ADWD
x
Nine. The word was a dagger in her heart. - Daenerys II, ADWD
+.+.+
Arya loves her daggers.
He'd left his dagger on the table as well, so she took that too, just in case Gendry lost his courage. - Arya X, ACOK
x
She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear, and it felt as though Syrio Forel walked beside her, and Yoren, and Jaqen H'ghar, and Jon Snow. She had not taken the sword Gendry had brought her, not yet. For this the dagger would be better. - Arya X, ACOK
x
Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. - Arya X, ACOK
x
Her sword was still in its sheath across her back, and she kept a hand close to the hilt of the dagger she had stolen from Roose Bolton, in case she didn't like whatever they found within. - Arya II, ASOS
x
I knew they were outlaws, Arya thought, listening. Her hand went under the table to touch the hilt of her dagger, and make sure it was still there. If they try to rob us, they'll be sorry. - Arya II, ASOS
x
She yanked Greenbeard's dagger from its sheath and spun away before he could catch her. Gendry made a grab for her as well, but she had always been too fast for Gendry. - Arya VI, ASOS
x
The Hound sliced the meat with his dagger, and narrowed his eyes when he caught Arya looking at the knife. "Don't even think about it." - Arya IX, ASOS
x
There were two silver stags in the archer's purse, and almost thirty coppers. His dagger had a pretty pink stone in the hilt. The Hound hefted the knife in his hand, then flipped it toward Arya. She caught it by the hilt, slid it through her belt, and felt a little better. It wasn't Needle, but it was steel. - Arya XII, ASOS
x
They're killing him. Arya had no more cups, but there was something better to throw. She drew the dagger they'd robbed off the dying archer and tried to fling it at the Tickler the way he'd done. - Arya XIII, ASOS
x
Gather your belongings, the captain had said, but there were few enough of those. Only the clothes she was wearing, her little pouch of coins, the gifts the crew had given her, the dagger on her left hip and Needle on her right. - Arya I, AFFC
x
In the black of night she rose again, donned the clothes she'd worn from Westeros, and buckled on her swordbelt. Needle hung from one hip, her dagger from the other. - Arya II, AFFC
x
The Tickler hung on the wall as well, the black holes that were his eyes swimming with malice. The sight of him brought back the feel of the dagger in her hand as she had plunged it into his back, again and again and again. - The Ugly Little Girl, ADWD
x
"Dragons," she whispered. She slid Needle out from under her cloak. The slender blade seemed very small and the dragons very big, yet somehow Arya felt better with steel in her hand. - Arya IV, AGOT
+.+.+
Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:
AGOT: Jon II -> Daenerys II
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Arya gave him a whap on the arm with the flat of her blade. The blow stung, but Jon found himself grinning like an idiot. "I know which end to use," Arya said. - Jon II, AGOT
AGOT: Arya II -> Daenerys III
"Arya, what did you think to do with this … Needle? Who did you hope to skewer? Your sister? Septa Mordane? Do you know the first thing about sword fighting?"
All she could think of was the lesson Jon had given her. "Stick them with the pointy end," she blurted out. - Arya II, AGOT
+.+.+
Uh oh, parallels:
Jon recalls something while being stabbed to death by daggers.
Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold … - Jon XIII, ADWD
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Tracking the Usurper's Knife:
Robert -> Joffrey
Instead he went poking among his father's weapons. Robert Baratheon was a man of careless generosity, and would have given his son any dagger he wanted . . . but Tyrion guessed that the boy had just taken it. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS
Joffrey -> Catspaw
Instead the boy found his catspaw among the unsavory lot of freeriders, merchants, and camp followers who'd attached themselves to the king's party as they made their way north. Some poxy lackwit willing to risk his life for a prince's favor and a little coin. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS
Catspaw -> Catelyn
He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. - Bran III, AGOT
Catelyn -> Ned
Catelyn slid a dagger out from under her cloak and placed it in his hand. "This blade was sent to open Bran's throat and spill his life's blood."
[...]
"Very well," he said, thrusting the dagger into his belt. - Eddard IV, AGOT
Ned -> Littlefinger
"You forget," Ned told him. "You forget Jon Arryn. You forget Jory Cassel. And you forget this." He drew the dagger and laid it on the table between them; a length of dragonbone and Valyrian steel, as sharp as the difference between right and wrong, between true and false, between life and death. "They sent a man to cut my son's throat, Lord Baelish." - Eddard XIII, AGOT
x
As his men died around him, Littlefinger slid Ned's dagger from its sheath and shoved it up under his chin. His smile was apologetic. "I did warn you not to trust me, you know." - Eddard XIV, AGOT
Littlefinger -> ???
Petyr cut a pomegranate in two with his dagger, offering half to Sansa. "You should try and eat, my lady."
[...]
"Tell me, Alayne—which is more dangerous, the dagger brandished by an enemy, or the hidden one pressed to your back by someone you never even see?"
"The hidden dagger." - Sansa VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Who will get the Usurper's Knife next?!
Tune in next time to find out!
right weapon, wrong villain, right weapon, wrong villain, right weapon, wrong villain
+.+.+
BRAN THE DRAGONSLAYER?
Bran can be brave.
Bran thought about it. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"
"That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him. "Do you understand why I did it?" - Bran I, AGOT
+.+.+
Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:
AGOT: Daenerys III -> Bran IV
"No dragon," Irri said. "Brave men kill them, for dragon terrible evil beasts. It is known." - Daenerys III, AGOT
ACOK: Daenerys II -> Bran IV
"Dragons die." She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. "But so do dragonslayers." - Daenerys II, ACOK
ASOS: Daenerys II -> Bran II
It was too dangerous to let them fly freely over the city; the world was all too full of men who would gladly kill them for no better reason than to name themselves dragonslayer. - Daenerys II, ASOS
+.+.+
Dragonslayers die?
"Dragons die." She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. "But so do dragonslayers." - Daenerys II, ACOK
x
"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead - Arya X, ACOK
+.+.+
Dragon or eagle?
Thrice that day she caught sight of Drogon. Once he was so far off that he might have been an eagle, slipping in and out of distant clouds, but Dany knew the look of him by now, even when he was no more than a speck. The second time he passed before the sun, his black wings spread, and the world darkened. - Daenerys X, ADWD
x
Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun . . . - Jon VII, ACOK
x
Something was moving atop one of them, he saw. A dragon, but which one? At this distance, it could as easily have been an eagle. A very big eagle. - Tyrion II, TWOW
x
She had a woman's face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion's curled and venomous tail. - Daenerys II, ASOS
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Bran attempts to slip into an eagle.
<- Daenerys II, ASOS
"Look," she said, pointing at the sky with her frog spear, "an eagle."
Bran lifted his head and saw it, its grey wings spread and still as it floated on the wind. He followed it with his eyes as it circled higher, wondering what it would be like to soar about the world so effortless. Better than climbing, even. He tried to reach the eagle, to leave his stupid crippled body and rise into the sky to join it, the way he joined with Summer. The greenseers could do it. I should be able to do it too. He tried and tried, until the eagle vanished in the golden haze of the afternoon. "It's gone," he said, disappointed.
"We'll see others," said Meera. "They live up here."
"I suppose." - Bran II, ASOS
+.+.+
Practice makes perfect.
<- Daenerys I, ASOS
"No," said Jojen, "only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world. Bran I, ASOS
x
"If we were eagles we might fly," said Jojen sharply, "but we have no wings, no more than we have horses." - Bran I, ASOS
x
The skinchanger was grey-faced, round-shouldered, and bald, a mouse of a man with a wolfling's eyes. "Once a horse is broken to the saddle, any man can mount him," he said in a soft voice. "Once a beast's been joined to a man, any skinchanger can slip inside and ride him. Orell was withering inside his feathers, so I took the eagle for my own. - Jon X, ASOS
x
"A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lord Brynden said, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly."
He chose one bird, and then another, without success, but the third raven looked at him with shrewd black eyes, tilted its head, and gave a quork, and quick as that he was not a boy looking at a raven but a raven looking at a boy. The song of the river suddenly grew louder, the torches burned a little brighter than before, and the air was full of strange smells. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own broken body. The raven was unhurt. It flew to him and landed on his arm, and Bran stroked its feathers and slipped inside of it again. Before long he was flying around the cavern, weaving through the long stone teeth that hung down from the ceiling, even flapping out over the abyss and swooping down into its cold black depths. - Bran III, ADWD
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All men die, and every beast that flies.
"All men die," he could almost hear her say, "and women too, and every beast that flies or swims or runs. It's not the when o' dying that matters, it's the how of it, Jon Snow."
[...]
The sound was shocking, ear-piercing, thick with agony. Varamyr fell, writhing, and the 'cat was screaming too . . . and high, high in the eastern sky, against the wall of cloud, Jon saw the eagle burning. For a heartbeat it flamed brighter than a star, wreathed in red and gold and orange, its wings beating wildly at the air as if it could fly from the pain. Higher it flew, and higher, and higher still. - Jon X, ASOS
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STORM X STORM 🦑🖤🐉
Parallels that make us laugh: storm edition.
No squall could frighten Dany, though. Daenerys Stormborn, she was called, for she had come howling into the world on distant Dragonstone as the greatest storm in the memory of Westeros howled outside, a storm so fierce that it ripped gargoyles from the castle walls and smashed her father's fleet to kindling. - Daenerys I, ASOS
x
A smile played across Euron's blue lips. "I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria." - The Reaver, AFFC
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Parallels that make us laugh: Silence vs. Drogon edition.
"Euron. Crow's Eye, they call him, as black a pirate as ever raised a sail. He's been gone for years, but Lord Balon was no sooner cold than there he was, sailing into Lordsport in his Silence. Black sails and a red hull, and crewed by mutes. - Catelyn V, ASOS
x
Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting … and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. - Daenerys IX, ADWD
+.+.+
Parallels that make us laugh: the iron price edition.
Daario had plundered himself a whole new wardrobe in Meereen, and to match it he had redyed his trident beard and curly hair a deep rich purple. It made his eyes look almost purple too, as if he were some lost Valyrian. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
Her bloodriders were waiting for her. Silver bells tinkled in their oiled braids, and they wore the gold and jewels of dead men. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
x
In the Old Way, women might decorate themselves with ornaments bought with coin, but a warrior wore only the jewelry he took off the corpses of enemies slain by his own hand. Paying the iron price, it was called. - Theon I, ACOK
+.+.+
She even liked the sailors.
She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well. She liked the dolphins that sometimes swam along beside Balerion, slicing through the waves like silvery spears, and the flying fish they glimpsed now and again. She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. Once on a voyage to Braavos, as she'd watched the crew wrestle down a great green sail in a rising gale, she had even thought how fine it would be to be a sailor. - Daenerys I, ASOS
+.+.+
Krakens vs. Dragons.
"In the Seven Kingdoms, there are tales of dragons who grew so huge that they could pluck giant krakens from the seas."
Dany laughed. "That would be a wondrous sight to see." - Daenerys I, ASOS
x
"There are dangers at sea as well. Corsairs and pirates hunt the southern route, and north of Valyria the Smoking Sea is demon-haunted. The next storm could sink or scatter us, a kraken could pull us under . . . - Daenerys I, ASOS
x
The eunuch drew a parchment from his sleeve. "A kraken has been seen off the Fingers." He giggled. "Not a Greyjoy, mind you, a true kraken. It attacked an Ibbenese whaler and pulled it under. There is fighting on the Stepstones, and a new war between Tyrosh and Lys seems likely. Both hope to win Myr as ally. Sailors back from the Jade Sea report that a three-headed dragon has hatched in Qarth, and is the wonder of that city—"
"Dragons and krakens do not interest me, regardless of the number of their heads," said Lord Tywin. - Tyrion III, ASOS
x
Then she saw it: an uprooted tree, huge and dark, coming straight at them. A tangle of roots and limbs poked up out of the water as it came, like the reaching arms of a great kraken. - Arya IX, ASOS
+.+.+
Daenerys dreams of banners.
I ought to have a banner sewn, she thought as she led her tattered band up along Astapor's meandering river. She closed her eyes to imagine how it would look: all flowing black silk, and on it the red three-headed dragon of Targaryen, breathing golden flames. A banner such as Rhaegar might have borne. - Daenerys III, ASOS
x
A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. - Daenerys IV, ASOS
x
Tyrion I, TWOW:
+.+.+
Drowning in his eyes.
"A great talker, you mean."
"He brings us the Stormcrows." And he has blue eyes. - Daenerys IV, ASOS
x
The dragon has three heads, but I have only one. 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
x
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
+.+.+
Daenerys yearns for a dangerously cruel man.
Dany tried to imagine what it would be like if she allowed Daario to kiss her, the way Jorah had kissed her on the ship. The thought was exciting and disturbing, both at once. It is too great a risk. The Tyroshi sellsword was not a good man, no one needed to tell her that. Under the smiles and the jests he was dangerous, even cruel. - Daenerys V, ASOS
+.+.+
ASOS: PART III
Touch me.
JONSA 🐺❤️❄️
+.+.+
#operation stumpy re-read#foreshadowing smorgasbord#asos summary#anti daenerys#anti jonerys#jon snow#arya stark#bran stark#stark vs. targ#storm x storm#asoiaf
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"The Starks are going to hate Dany because her father killed their grandfather and uncle"
The Starks thinking about Rickard and Brandon:
#asoiaf#house stark#daenerys targaryen#if they were going to have a conflict based on that then they would actually think about them in their POVs😭#sorry but not even Ned hates the Targs over what happened so it makes no sense that his kids would hold a bigger grudge#an actual potential conflict is Dany being (rightfully) angry at Ned for his alliance with Robert#you know something that's actually been built up in the story and we see how she feels on the topic#vs. /let's assume the Starks will be angry cause I would be angry in their position even though they've literally never thought about it/#normalize making predictions based on the actual books and not just assumptions based on vibes uwu#cleaning out my drafts prepare to be terrorized
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also with all the damage the show did to jon's reputation as a good northern lad and wildling i hope germ comes out with like. yeah he's rhaegar and lyanna's son and the name she gave him while bleeding out on the birthing bed alone but for her big brother holding her hand in a tower with no way to know that baby aegon had been murdered leaving the title of Egg 6 up for grabs was like. howland.
#another big issue of fandom missing the narrative forest for the tinfoil theory trees for me is the duality at the core of jon's story#and centering targ vs stark when he's spent all the books fighting his identity as a stark vs a watchman#and Finally coming to a point where he can deny stannis and say i have a name. being satisfied with being a snow bc it does not matter#at the wall nor beyond it. and his fatal flaws in adwd are 1. he can't lead the way westerosi feudalism demands 2. he loves his family#two things that point very far away from him being a secret targaryen as something actually consequential beyond its role on history#and in places where his parentage matters is about wondering who his mother is. and his mother is lyanna and she loved him.#and ned promised her. who gives a shit abt rhaegar he is literally ned stark's son! and arya and sansa and bran and rickon's big brother!#at this stage what he is to the Greater North (wall & beyond) and the Westerosi North (thru his siblings) is more important than anything#and if he's destined for anything in THAT duality it's king beyond the north though i recognize that that is my tinfoil hill to die on#anyway. if the show confirmed anything abt targ jon as far as i'm concerned its how vital young griff/egg6 is gonna be going forward#mawdop#asoiaf
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I have been reflecting on Jon's past book storyline and trying to reconcile the GoT series with asoiaf. Trying to pull out what is D&D's sad attempt at fanfiction from cannon. One of my conclusions is that Daenerys cannot be Jon's sacrifice for love. All of Jon's most secret hopes and desires are the exact things Daenerys cannot give him. A throne? he doesn't want it. Lust? already had that lesson with Ygritte. Power? It's a burden of responsibility for him not an end. Children? She is barren.
I agree that Jon isn’t power hungry, but to me, the point of him being legitimate or the temptation that Dany might offer isn’t power or a throne, rather, acceptance by society, having the shame he’s burdened all his life eased. For a guy who has been perceived a certain way all of his life, distrusted through no fault of his own, all of his childhood made to feel inferior, viewed as a threat, to then be presented with some form of legitimacy, possibly the why of his birth....well, it can’t erase the pain, but it would lock into all of it and say, “They were wrong about you. You were loved, you were wanted, you were the hope for your house, not a threat to it...” I mean, that is some sweet, sweet poison. Dany had that vision of Rhaegar, imagine her, the last Targaryen, offering that to Jon.
I don’t disagree with you, Jon isn’t gonna flip out and want the throne the way so many others do, but I do think there’s a very real, personal temptation in the idea of being a legitimate Targaryen (we debate this, most don't buy it, I am inclined to think it's a definite possibility for torturing Jon purposes), or simply being accepted by or married to the last of his father’s house. This could be a very short lived temptation, an offer, an inner monologue, rejection, but I think there would be something.
Although, now that I say that, Jon being a Targaryen bastard offers another interesting angle because he’s been tempted to take Winterfell while trueborn Starks live (which would seem related to the negative bastard stereotypes), and he refused. But what if the Targaryen heir is unworthy, what if fighting the trueborn Targ is morally justifiable, necessary, even? That too presents an interesting development of Jon's struggles, and a fun way to write Jon's feelings regarding his Targ family.
I guess I don't think Martin is interested in anything being easy or pat, seems like there has to be something there to torture Jon with? There needs to be an interesting angle to write from, and I don’t particularly care which one, but I do think there will be some element to create inner turmoil for our boy. Not that it changes anything, Jon will assuredly choose the Starks, but imagine reading a Jon chapter post Dany’s arrival or a POV of their meeting. There’s gotta be something interesting for Martin to explore.
As for your point (yes, I got to it, I’m surprised as well! 😂) I never gathered those together that way before, but when you lay it out so clearly, it’s pretty wild. Obviously, I’m not thrilled with Martin’s focus on whether or not a woman can have children, but it’s plot relevant so we end up having discussions about young teens and their fertility which is…unfortunate. But, I buy the idea that we’re meant to see mother of dragons as fundamentally incompatible with mother of children. This is less about kiddos, more about the bigger ideas of war vs peace, how you create or can’t create a future.
It was strange how much emphasis D&D put on Dany having a kid in s7, and I think D&D were beyond foolish to tease Targ restoration so much for the sole purpose of hiding Dark Dany/the ending, but personally, when we think of what Jon wants, the fact that it’s a quiet, domestic life which may be what Dany thinks she wants, but in actuality she has chosen war, will bring war to Westeros...just add it to the list of ways they’re incompatible, anon!
#this one is REALLY old but i'm sharing it anyway because i'm really struck by that list#anti jonerys#anti daenerys#book jon#dot chat#< for filtering
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If my OC was canon how would the fandom treat them? - For Abrogail Strong
You saw how fandom treated sansa stark, right? This is literally gonna be Recycled Sansa Discourse.
Okay kudos to @selfproclaimedunicorn, @acrossthesestars, and @songsonacliffside for their input on this!
Abby would absolutely be a divisive character in a fandom that's fighting over modern feminism, how to be a woman, morals, and other things that just get way too personal and out of hand. I can imagine the thought pieces we used to see on like 'Why is Abrogail Strong an outtdated female protagonist' or 'Why Abrogail Strong is Important' declarative things - because nothing gets people going harder than 'is this a feminist model'.
So while I absolutely, 100% understand why Abby isn't for everyone, there would be some seriously frustrating and gross takes about her. We know how George likes to recycle his archetypes, and so number one, those who hated Sansa, especially early seasons!Sansa, would pull that out.
Abby would be seen as covering for Aegon, being blind to his faults and a terrible enabler who doesn't care for any of the women in Aegon's crossfire. They'd take any sense of comfort that Abby gives Aegon to make it sound like she's victim blaming. That's not even mentioning calling her Alicent 2.0, and how Aegon's only into her because of his mommy issues and if he can't please his mother, he can please her and uwu someone rescue poor Aegon.
There's a set of Targ Stans that get into how Aegon should have married Helaena instead, and how her and Aegon don't actually love each other, Aegon just likes her pretty.
A real anon I got was in regards to Abby not being a Real Strong, and being a traitor and a whore for just wanting to fuck a rapist (Aegon). They would call her manipulative and grasping, and outsider who used her proximity to the prince to use her magical feminine hypnosis powers to get him to marry her so she could become queen, because she had no chance of doing that if she went with Rhaenyra because she can't marry Jace (but then you'll see the AUs where Rhaenyra leans in hard and marries Jace and Abby for the cover story). On top of that, she totally knew Larys was murdering their father and Harwin, so she gets the 'murders family for a cornchip for a chance to become queen'. NOT to mention, she must never have loved Harwin or honored his memory if she's not leaving to Dragonstone with Rhaenyra to serve her.
Other discourse would also involve her not plotting Larys' murder for killing their family and why isn't she so incapacited with grief. Harwin deserves a better sister! Lyonel Strong would be rolling in his grave at his daughter destablizing the realm!
Book readers would point out that Abby was absolutely a broken mess and grief stricken and much like Daemon's grieving scenes with his daughters, was cut from the show.
Then we have the classics: She's too perfect and too sweet. She's too immature or too mature. She's naive, she's silly. Disney princesses don't belong in Westeros. She's a punching bag and therefore Attention Whore or she is protected by the writers because she's fucking someone in charge. She's not playing the game and that's Unrealistic vs She's totally playing the game and absolutely planned to marry Aegon and become queen when she was 5 years old. Her denial of even seeking the throne is seen as fake and 'didn't you see how her eyes shifted away?'
And then there's a particularly cruel subset who I would imagine would want Abby to um, suffer in very particular ways so she can get what's coming to her, for being naive of the game, or being too part of the game.
And then if you're on the right side of loving Abby, well, you're in the trenches. For every post of taking down Abby and explaining why she's terrible and clearly the co-mastermind behind the dance, you'll have posts breaking down why she's important to have. That women are allowed to be soft and don't have to carry a sword or yell at people and 'Not Be Like Other Girls'. Most of the time you're defending her from antis, and other times you're breaking down the subtle way her grief and trauma have shaped the person she is.
I see general audiences really appreciating who Abby is in terms of being a sunbeam in a bleak story. I'm a fan of p'reviewed on youtube, and Jay said at the end of an episode once how watching HotD doesn't leave him feeling 'good' after an episode. and so I can see Abby absolutely being someone audiences appreciate for some hope and relief. People who like Abby are absolutely 'protect this girl at all costs' and definitely a 'Aegon doesn't deserve her why does she put up with this guy, have her hook up with someone else!' but then you get the soft moments between Aegon and Abby and everyone is like 'OH MY GOD WHY ARE THEY SO CUTE LET THEM BE HAPPY' and something something 'their love was made for a softer time'
Like my lovely commenters on Maiden, I totally see the Abby x Aegon shippers to be a wonderfully feral bunch who like to make a lot of comparison posts. They'd dig into old stories of the influences of the ship, as well as tirelessly defending it.
Other than that, I think there's a lot of arguments over book fans over the show adaptation of her as most of the stuff we get upset about. I imagine there's Aemond x Abby ships out there, and there's a lot of projection onto her as a character so people fight over canon vs fanon interpretations. She's definitely a type I think a lot of people struggle to find a voice for. I can see a lot of fix-it fics attempting to make Abby very badass.
Personally, I would give her Vermithor LMAO
#oc: abrogail strong#aegon x abby#this was a fun lil exercise#I'm curious what some of ya'll would think about my baby girl
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So, I came across this question on Quora about whether Jaehaerys would have reacted differently if Saera had been a boy, and one answer has a scenario where Male!Saera (let's call him Saeron) marries his sister Daella as per Targaryen tradition and Daella still dies giving birth to Aemma and later Saeron marries his other sister Viserra and has other daughters and basically, he's like Oberyn as a father. But what do you think? Do you think something like this would happen if Saera had been born a boy and what else might change?
interesting question!
i’m not sure daella and saeron would marry unless alysanne prompted it. alyssa, for example, was likely going to marry aemon in jaehaerys’ eyes until alysanne stepped in to arrange the matches we got in canon. jaehaerys doesn’t seem so set on all of his children having targ marriages, only his heirs. while saeron is certainly more important in that he’s a boy and can inherit, he also poses a potential dynastic threat and this is something jaehaerys is aware of throughout his story. also…that sexual abuse has to land on someone and daella is the next oldest. like og saera, i imagine he would prefer a marriage to an heir in the crownlands so he can keep daella close by and have a say over who her daughters marry. on the other hand, if alysanne notices daella trailing after saeron (especially over vaegon), she might push for a wedding between them. some of hte problem here is that a targ marriage kind of presupposes getting some dragons, which means he has five dragon riders outside of himself, rhaena, and alysanne at some point and that's a lot. so i do feel like, in this case, jaehaerys might prefer them to marry other people besides each other rather than ~keeping the valyrian blood strong~ so he can keep the number of dragon riders lower.
SO. If Saeron doesn't marry Daella, I would think if Jaehaerys can just pick the region (instead of being completely beholden to "is there an heiress here") he's probably going with the North - the Manderlys are powerful, worship the seven, the Targaryens have been trying to intermarry with them for a hot minute, and it undercuts the Starks a bit too. If Saeron does marry Daella because Alysanne prompts it, I do imagine there's going to be some rough feelings after Daella dies - after all, Alysanne points out she was too young, she didn't have to marry. I almost wonder if this makes Alysanne more *aware* of her family's failings, if suddenly Viserra starts going after a widowered Saeron and finds her feelings reciprocated - that Saeron is marrying two 15 year olds in a row.
The extra daughters of Valyrian heritage, regardless of how they're born, are likely to be very popular matches for Rhaenyra's boys, Viserys' boys, and who they marry probably decides who they side with come the great council of 101 - if Saeron sees more value in siding with Rhaenys over Viserys, or vice versa. ALTHOUGH then you run into the issue of Rhaenys vs Viserys vs Saeron as heir for Jaehaerys - would someone make the argument that if Jaehaerys cut Rhaenys out, that means Viserys should be cut out, since there's still one more living son? Does Saeron want to join his line to Rhaenys', perhaps to give his daughters a better claim? If, like you say, he just has Aemma and Aemma still marries Viserys - but that's not even a given, I mean, with Saeron still alive, he gets to have a say over who his daughter marries! - then obviously he's siding with Viserys here, but if he has more daughters closer in age to Laenor, to Aegon, to Aemond, to Jacaerys (Viserra would be a little old by then tbf), well he's got the potential for ties to everyone there. I aso think, if Jaehaerys denies him a dragon, he's likely to get one under Viserys because Viserys just really lets everyone claim dragons kind of willy nilly.
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Hello. While I understand that asoiaf aren’t purely about good vs evil, is the idea of house Targaryen being intrinsically more “bad” with the madness and the belief of their own superiority and house Stark being better with how connected the family’s rule is with the North itself and their own mystical abilities an oversimplification of their roles in the story? Like, Daenerys is apparently bad because she thinks she has a right to rule over others because of who she is, but isn’t that how it is with most of the nobility in general? Is the idea of House Stark supposed to how they’re the good feudal lords compared to everyone else, even if the feudal system is supposed to be inherently flawed?
In order: yes, yes, no.
I don't buy the argument that Targaryens are somehow inherently morally worse than other noble families. It's hard to make the comparison anyway, since we know so many more Targaryens in so much more detail than we do literally any other house.
The thing that drives Targ drama, though, is the throne. We have so much Targ material because the author's interested in examining what political power does to individuals, to families, to lovers, to friends, and to society at large. GRRM's writing depicts the monarchy being bad for all these relationships. It enables the worst human tendencies and makes it hard for people to do the right thing. That's true on both an individual level and a social one. The problem isn't inherent to the Targaryens, it's inherent to the monarchy.
Which is why the Starks are in the same boat, even if we know less about them as a family. First Robb, then Jon get the author's challenge - oh, you're running things now? Here are your moral dilemmas. Neither can uphold their obligations to the people around them and rescue their sisters. We see Robb's dilemma from Catelyn's PoV to emphasise the stress on personal relationships.
Our heroes (which includes both the Starklings and Dany) are our heroes because they're trying. They're products of a flawed system, working in a flawed system, and they aren't perfect at recognising the various issues in their flawed systems, but they want to do the right thing by people and make real efforts at it. A lot of the drama comes out of how those efforts are frustrated.
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Do you think a faithful adaptation of ASOIAF (in an ideal world where the books are finished) would work if they included narration? Especially if the overall aesthetic vision would be more inspired by John Boorman's work/80s fairytale films? I keep thinking about this and like. How robbed we were of a good adaptation. There's some aspects in the show that really worked (mainly most of the cast and like. A few individual shots) but from the very beginning they just didn't do a good job and made almost everything worse. I keep thinking about like an ideal way to adapt the books (I don't think it's impossible!) and the main thing that would be important for me would be to try to make it as faithful as possible, possibly only add scenes that are important for the relationships (I.e. scenes between Catelyn and the girls, since GRRM himself regrets not giving them more) and give it a more coherent aesthetic vision/really lean into the fantastical/focus more on the starks than on the lannisters and targs.
Back to the narration: with Sansa especially I just cant see it working without narration. She figures out so much and has so much background knowledge that i really don't think can be included in dialogue (especially since Littlefinger tells her to never even speak out things to herself since everyone is spying) and good narration could really help
Sidenote but I find it so annoying how GOT just used any opportunity to make Sansa dumber (show!petyr telling her everyone else is smarter than her vs book!petyr acknowledging her intellect, "I'm a slow learner but I do learn", having podrick instruct her etc)
I'm not sure! It might work? A big challenge with narration would be the fact that GRRM is working with individual POV's and multiple unreliable narrators and you'd have a hard time making the presence of deep personal bias felt without being Very Obvious about it and spoiling it as a technique of obfuscation.
I also think the language is often extremely beautiful and underrated in the books, but you can't necessarily make that center-stage in a visual medium, you'd have to translate the imagery into images that evoke the same feelings. Otherwise, it's more of an audiobook with visual aids.
I still think animation would be a great way to tell the story because it's much easier to distort "reality" to signal the presence of memories, extreme emotions, historical information, dreams, magic, hypotheses and concepts.
One thing that would probably be important in any medium would be to slow down and let characters observe from time to time. Just the acknowledgement that they are watching and having thoughts about something, highlighting what they actually focus on, would already work well to establish the importance of their internal life and their individual intelligence and a potential direction of their thoughts.
But I am no expert in these matters.
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If Visenya, Aegon, and Rhaenys are imperialists for being “foreigners” who conquer Westeros then Harren the Black is an imperialist for being an Ironborn king ruling over the Riverlands (and they’re all separate kingdoms at that point), especially since the Riverlanders hated him.
Argilac Durrandon and Harren Hoare were warring with everyone and their mothers in Westeros for decades before Aegon’s conquest. That realm was hell for the smallfolk and it shouldn’t be surprising that the smallfolk loved Aegon so much.
“When Queen Visenya placed a Valyrian steel circlet, studded with rubies, on her brother’s head and Queen Rhaenys hailed him as, “Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros, and Shield of His People,” the dragons roared and the lords and knights sent up a cheer…but the smallfolk, the fishermen and fieldhands and goodwives, shouted loudest of all.” — The World of Ice and Fire - The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest
NOTE: All of these coming quotes refer to the various regions and lords/kings BEFORE the Targs conquered Westeros.
Crazy thing is that Harren is the closer of the two to be an actual imperialist, and he certainly is more like the colonizers most of us are familiar with. He forced people to build his castle Harrenhal ("The Targaryen Kings - Aegon I"):
More on the hatred Harren Hoare accrued from those his forefathers conquered, his own conflict with Argilac, and Argilac explicitly looking for Targaryen support against Harren ("Aegon's Conquest" in Fire and Blood):
Agnes Blackwood and the Brackens ruining shit for most Riverlords in their feud with the Blackwoods ("The Riverlands" - "The Seven Kingdoms" - TWoIaF):
The wars amongst the North houses more or less lessened under the centralization-conquest of the Starks...but it occurred for at least 200 years ("The North" - "The Seven Kingdoms" - TWoIaF):
but then we have this funny little note:
And the war(s) between the North (Kings of Winter) vs the Valemen (the Sistermen and the Kings of the Mountain and of the Vale):
Dorne before Nymeria ("Ten Thousand Ships -- "Ancient History" -- TWoIaF):
Furthermore (until they finally ended more than 10 years after she landed with her Rhoynar):
The Lannisters against Valemen and the Gardners and ironborn ("The Westerlands" - "The Seven Kingdoms" - TWoIaF):
The Reach ( "The Gardener Kings" - "The Reach" - "The Seven Kingdoms" - TWoIaF):
The Stormlanders ("The Stormlands" - "The Seven Kingdoms" - TWoIaF) #1:
Quote #2 ("House Durrandon" - "The Stormlands" - "The Seven Kingdoms" - TWoIaF):
And none of these covers the extensive wars waged against the giants, those who sing the song of the earth/the children of the forest, and the ones between the Andal warriors/lords and First Men lords!
And don't get me fucking started on the Riverlands....
#targaryens as colonizers#asoiaf asks to me#the targaryens#westerosi history#aegon i#visenya the conqueror#rhaenys the conqueror#the first men#westerosi wars#the world of ice and fire#fire and blood
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I'm absolutely amazed at the sheer incompetence of the Targaryen dynasty.
Every single Kingdom of Westeros has precise laws regarding succession (the Starks literally have a case of daughter vs brother of the deceased lord) except them, which leads to the Dance of Dragons. This is absolutely amazing.
Also I'm impressed no one suggested a marriage between Daemon and Rhaenyra. He's a grooming sadistic asshole, but that would have solved the issue and it's not like they're against incest. I mean, from a Targ point of view, it seems like a decent solution.
It's impressive just how much they get wrong.
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Operation Stumpy Re-Read
A FEAST FOR CROWS
Summary & Foreshadowing Smorgasbord (Part II)
Crouching dragon, hidden wolf.
AFFC Part II: UNDER THE CUT
Dark Daenerys Highlights & Laughs
Let's Dance: Stark vs. Targ
A Rat in a Maze 🐀🔪
The Usurper's Knife
Storm x Storm 🦑🖤🐉
Squid Game
AFFC Part I: CLICK
Sansa Stark, Queen in the North
Jon Snow, King in the North
Jon (Aemon?) Snow
Ahoy Matey! Arya Stark Sails the Ocean Blue
Bran the Broken, King of Westeros
High Septon Rickon?
Pick Your Poison: The Twins Meet Their End in the Bowels of Casterly Rock . . . or King's Landing
Younger and More Beautiful Cersei
AFFC PART III: CLICK
Chapter Transitions
JONSA 🐺❤️❄️
Previous books:
AGOT Summary & Foreshadowing: CLICK
ACOK Summary & Foreshadowing: PART I / PART II
ASOS Summary & Foreshadowing: PART I / PART II / PART III / PART IV
Stumpy note:
If I didn't give you credit for discovering something or if I missed any foreshadowing, please contact me and I'll rectify that.
Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the reread project. All of you have great observations and comments, I wish I could highlight them all. 🙂
DARK DAENERYS HIGHLIGHTS & LAUGHS
Talking dragons, while a Sand Snake shoots three arrows.
"Dragons," said Mollander. He snatched a withered apple off the ground and tossed it hand to hand.
"Throw the apple," urged Alleras the Sphinx. He slipped an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bowstring.
"I should like to see a dragon." Roone was the youngest of them, a chunky boy still two years shy of manhood. "I should like that very much."
[...]
Far and fast the apple flew . . .
. . . but not as fast as the arrow that whistled after it, a yard-long shaft of golden wood fletched with scarlet feathers. Pate did not see the arrow catch the apple, but he heard it. A soft chunk echoed back across the river, followed by a splash.
Mollander whistled. "You cored it. Sweet."
[...]
"There's another apple near your foot," Alleras called to Mollander, "and I still have two arrows in my quiver." - Prologue, AFFC
+.+.+
A storm is coming.
"No," said Alleras. "It was Prince Rhaegar's young son Aegon whose head was dashed against the wall by the Lion of Lannister's brave men. We speak of Rhaegar's sister, born on Dragonstone before its fall. The one they called Daenerys."
"The Stormborn. I recall her now." - Prologue, AFFC
+.+.+
A sword with fire shadows Oldtown.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, its beacon fires bright against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell the time of day by where that shadow fell. - Prologue, AFFC
+.+.+
Does the Faceless Man want a book?
"The key?" the alchemist inquired politely.
Something made Pate hesitate. "Is it some book you want?" Some of the old Valyrian scrolls down in the locked vaults were said to be the only surviving copies in the world.
"What I want is none of your concern." - Prologue, AFFC
x
Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth's work had found its way across the narrow sea. And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel. - Tyrion IV, ADWD
+.+.+
Speaking of The Death of Dragons (what a coincidence!), let's follow Samwell's book.
He had to get down on his knees to gather up the books he'd dropped. I should not have brought so many, he told himself as he brushed the dirt off Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium, a thick volume of tales and legends from the east that Maester Aemon had commanded him to find. The book appeared undamaged. Maester Thomax's Dragonkin, Being a History of House Targaryen from Exile to Apotheosis, with a Consideration of the Life and Death of Dragons had not been so fortunate. It had come open as it fell, and a few pages had gotten muddy, including one with a rather nice picture of Balerion the Black Dread done in colored inks. Sam cursed himself for a clumsy oaf as he smoothed the pages down and brushed them off. - Samwell I, AFFC
↓
The second wayn would carry their clothing and possessions, along with a chest of rare old books that Aemon thought the Citadel might lack. Sam had spent half the night searching for them, though he'd found only one in four. And a good thing, or we'd need another wayn. - Samwell I, AFFC
↓
The only things of value that still remained to them were the books they had brought from the vaults of Castle Black. Sam parted with them glumly. "They were meant for the Citadel," he said, when Xhondo asked him what was wrong. When the mate translated those words, the captain laughed. "Quhuru Mo says the grey men will be having these books still," Xhondo told him, "only they will be buying them from Quhuru Mo. The maesters give good silver for books they are not having, and sometimes red and yellow gold." - Samwell IV, AFFC
↓
"Two days, ten days, who can say? However long it takes to empty our holds and fill them again." Kojja grinned. "My father must visit the grey maesters as well. He has books to sell." - Samwell V, AFFC
+.+.+
What do storms and dragons make? Not food.
Thank you, @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir!
"The Storm God cast him down," the priest announced. For a thousand thousand years sea and sky had been at war. From the sea had come the ironborn, and the fish that sustained them even in the depths of winter, but storms brought only woe and grief. - The Prophet, AFFC
x
"Grapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make wine. What do dragons make?"
"Woe." The Crow's Eye sipped from his silver cup. - The Reaver, AFFC
+.+.+
Like the Unsullied?
Thank you, @magiclovingdragon!
No proper man would choose a life of thralldom, nor forge a chain of servitude to wear about his throat. - The Prophet, AFFC
+.+.+
Death came to Dorne on black wings, with red wax.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
Death had come to Dorne on raven wings, writ small and sealed with a blob of hard red wax. - The Captain of the Guards, AFFC
+.+.+
Quick reminder:
Cersei and Daenerys are intended as parallel characters --each exploring a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world. - George R. R. Martin
+.+.+
Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: above them all edition.
She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all. - Cersei I, AFFC
x
Meereen had a score of lesser pyramids, but none stood even half as tall. From here she could see the whole city: the narrow twisty alleys and wide brick streets, the temples and granaries, hovels and palaces, brothels and baths, gardens and fountains, the great red circles of the fighting pits. And beyond the walls was the pewter sea, the winding Skahazadhan, the dry brown hills, burnt orchards, and blackened fields. Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.
Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Good luck Aegon.
"My own father raised the same objections when I chose a life of service," the old man said. "It was his father who sent me to the Citadel. King Daeron had sired four sons, and three had sons of their own. Too many dragons are as dangerous as too few, I heard His Grace tell my lord father, the day they sent me off." - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
A storm of black wings couldn't buy Diet Daenerys an ally. The silence had been thunderous.
He's trying to convince himself, Sam realized, but he can't. The ravens had gone forth from Castle Black in a storm of black wings, summoning the lords of the north to declare for Stannis Baratheon and join their strength to his. Sam had sent out most of them himself. Thusfar only one bird had returned, the one they'd sent to Karhold. Elsewise the silence had been thunderous. - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: just like my daddy edition.
"Lord Tywin was a great man, an extraordinary man," he declared ponderously after he had kissed both her cheeks. "We shall never see his like again, I fear."
You are looking at his like, fool, Cersei thought. It is his daughter standing here before you. - Cersei II, AFFC
x
She lifted her head. "And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo." - Daenerys IX, AGOT
x
". . . my father's daughter?" If she was not her father's daughter, who was she? - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Dark wings high above King's Landing.
There were crows circling the seven towers and great dome of Baelor's Sept even now, Jaime suspected, their black wings beating against the night air as they searched for a way inside. - Jaime I, AFFC
+.+.+
Mad Danelle and her giant bats won't stop eating children.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
She had a cheerful manner, but when Brienne showed her the shield her face went dark. "My old ma used to say that giant bats flew out from Harrenhal on moonless nights, to carry bad children to Mad Danelle for her cookpots. Sometimes I'd hear them scrabbling at the shutters." She sucked her teeth a moment, thoughtful. "What goes in its place?" - Brienne II, AFFC
x
He found himself remembering tales he had first heard as a child at Casterly Rock, of mad Lady Lothston who bathed in tubs of blood and presided over feasts of human flesh within these very walls. - Jaime III, AFFC
+.+.+
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
x
+.+.+
Doesn't sound like a happy song.
He sang of the Dance of the Dragons, of fair Jonquil and her fool, of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of Dragonflies. He sang of betrayals, and murders most foul, of hanged men and bloody vengeance. He sang of grief and sadness. - Sansa I, AFFC
+.+.+
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
x
In 265 AC, offended by "the stink of King's Landing," he spoke of building a "white city" entirely of marble on the south bank of the Blackwater Rush. - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II, The World of Ice and Fire
+.+.+
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
x
The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought.
Another step, and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals. Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run. Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. - Daenerys X, AGOT
+.+.+
Mother of beasts, mother of monsters.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
"Yet this peace is fragile . . . as fragile as your princess."
"Only a beast would harm a little girl." - The Soiled Knight, AFFC
x
"Pets?" screeched Reznak. "Monsters, rather. Monsters that feed on children. We cannot—"
"Silence," said Daenerys. "We will not speak of that." - Daenerys V, ADWD
+.+.+
If Randyll Tarly does it, perhaps it's time to rethink these methods of punishment.
"I know what Lord Randyll does with outlaws," Brienne said. "I know what he does with rapers too."
She had hoped the name might cow them, but the serjeant only flicked egg off his fingers and signaled to his men to spread out. Brienne found herself surrounded by steel points. "What was it you was saying, wench? What is it that Lord Tarly does to . . ."
". . . rapers," a deeper voice finished. "He gelds them or sends them to the Wall. Sometimes both. And he cuts fingers off thieves." A languid young man stepped from the gatehouse, a swordbelt buckled at his waist. - Brienne III, AFFC
x
Meereen had been sacked savagely, as new-fallen cities always were, but Dany was determined that should end now that the city was hers. She had decreed that murderers were to be hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls, and the Unsullied had filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and soft red worms, but Meereen was calm again. But for how long? - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
The author isn't finished making his point.
Tarly had heard enough. "Take his little finger. He can choose which hand. A nail through the palm for the other." - Brienne III, AFFC
x
She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
She has three, Sam.
Exhausted as they were, his rowers bent to their oars again, and the ship clawed south toward the narrow sea, till Skagos dwindled to no more than a few dark shapes in the sky that might have been thunderheads, or the tops of tall black mountains, or both. After that, they had eight days and seven nights of clear, smooth sailing.
Then came more storms, worse than before.
Was it three storms, or only one, broken up by lulls? Sam never knew, though he tried desperately to care. - Samwell II, AFFC
+.+.+
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
x
"Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat," he said to a man below him. "Let him be the king of ashes." Drogon shrieked, his claws digging through silk and skin, but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
+.+.+
Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: teats edition.
"I govern the realm."
Seven save us all, you do. His sister liked to think of herself as Lord Tywin with teats, but she was wrong. Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cersei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted. - Jaime II, AFFC
x
"Must?" Tyrion made a tsking sound. "That is not a word queens like to hear. You are her perfect prince, agreed, bright and bold and comely as any maid could wish. Daenerys Targaryen is no maid, however. She is the widow of a Dothraki khal, a mother of dragons and sacker of cities, Aegon the Conqueror with teats. She may not prove as willing as you wish." - Tyrion VI, ADWD
+.+.+
A storm's coming for the ants.
Men began to shove at one another. Someone flung a pinecone at Asha's head. When she ducked, her makeshift crown fell off. For a moment it seemed to the priest as if he stood atop a giant anthill, with a thousand ants in a boil at his feet. Shouts of "Asha!" and "Victarion!" surged back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf them all. - The Drowned Man, AFFC
x
Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many … - Daenerys X, ADWD
+.+.+
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
x
When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world. - Daenerys III, ADWD
+.+.+
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
x
"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
x
"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
x
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
x
"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
x
Dany stepped away from her. "No. Irri, you do not need to do that. What happened that night, when you woke . . . you're no bed slave, I freed you, remember? You . . ." - Daenerys II, ASOS
x
Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed with her, for the first time since the ship. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
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
x
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
x
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
x
"Then I must heed Pyat Pree, and go to the warlocks."
The merchant prince sat up sharply. "Pyat Pree has blue lips, and it is truly said that blue lips speak only lies. Heed the wisdom of one who loves you. Warlocks are bitter creatures who eat dust and drink of shadows. They will give you naught. They have naught to give." - Daenerys III, ACOK
x
. . . mother of dragons . . . child of three . . .
"Three?" She did not understand.
. . . three heads has the dragon . . . the ghost chorus yammered inside her skull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the still blue air. . . . mother of dragons . . . child of storm . . . The whispers became a swirling song. . . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love . . . Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her, blue and corrupt . . . three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . . The voices were growing louder, she realized, and it seemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath. . . . three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . . - Daenerys IV, ACOK
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Final reminder:
Cersei and Daenerys are intended as parallel characters --each exploring a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world. - George R. R. Martin
+.+.+
Wait for the payoff.
Lord Hallyne of the Guild of Alchemists presented himself, to ask that his pyromancers be allowed to hatch any dragon's eggs that might turn up upon Dragonstone, now that the isle was safely back in royal hands. "If any such eggs remained, Stannis would have sold them to pay for his rebellion," the queen told him. She refrained from saying that the plan was mad. Ever since the last Targaryen dragon had died, all such attempts had ended in death, disaster, or disgrace. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
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A Griffin King is slayed by someone flying on a falcon.
The Winged Knight was Ser Artys Arryn. Legend said that he had driven the First Men from the Vale and flown to the top of the Giant's Lance on a huge falcon to slay the Griffin King. There were a hundred tales of his adventures. - Alayne II, AFFC
+.+.+
Lady Stoneheart shows no mercy.
"Judgment?" She frowned. "Podrick Payne is just a boy."
"He says he is a squire."
"You know how boys will boast."
"The Imp's squire. He has fought in battles, by his own admission. He has even killed, to hear him tell it."
"A boy," she said again. "Have pity." - Brienne VIII, AFFC
x
Within he found a boy of twelve laying out clothing on the bed; his squire, such that he was. - Tyrion III, ACOK
x
"Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." - Daenerys III, ASOS
+.+.+
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
x
When a shipment of slaves of the Valyrian Freehold bound for Sothoryos revolted, seized the slave ships transporting them, and fled north, a group of enslaved women from the lands of the Jogos Nhai prophesied where they would find shelter: a lagoon behind a wall of pine-clad hills and sea stones, where frequent fogs would help hide the refugees from the eyes of dragonlords passing overhead. These women were moonsingers and, according to Braavosi history, their prophecy proved true. For that reason, the Temple of the Moonsingers is the largest in Braavos. - A Wiki of Ice and Fire
x
In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her. - Jon I, ADWD
+.+.+
Arya and Daenerys come face-to-face with similar doors. Drogon's not a fan.
At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought. - Arya I, AFFC
x
Finally the stair opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward.
[...]
She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
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In the opening chapter of the book, the author appears to be using apples as a placeholder for dragons. Hard to not be reminded of Arya's big bite.
Thank you, @mozzlan!
"Fuck your quiver." Mollander scooped up the windfall. "This one's wormy," he complained, but he threw it anyway. The arrow caught the apple as it began to fall and sliced it clean in two. One half landed on a turret roof, tumbled to a lower roof, bounced, and missed Armen by a foot. "If you cut a worm in two, you make two worms," the acolyte informed them. - Prologue, AFFC
x
She ended it with valar morghulis, touched Jaqen's coin where it nestled under her belt, and then reached up and plucked an apple from among the dead men as she rode beneath them. It was mushy and overripe, but she ate it worms and all. - Arya I, ASOS
+.+.+
Who's hungry for some fyreworms?
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
"The tale of our beginnings. If you would be one of us, you had best know who we are and how we came to be. Men may whisper of the Faceless Men of Braavos, but we are older than the Secret City. Before the Titan rose, before the Unmasking of Uthero, before the Founding, we were. We have flowered in Braavos amongst these northern fogs, but we first took root in Valyria, amongst the wretched slaves who toiled in the deep mines beneath the Fourteen Flames that lit the Freehold's nights of old. Most mines are dank and chilly places, cut from cold dead stone, but the Fourteen Flames were living mountains with veins of molten rock and hearts of fire. So the mines of old Valyria were always hot, and they grew hotter as the shafts were driven deeper, ever deeper. The slaves toiled in an oven. The rocks around them were too hot to touch. The air stank of brimstone and would sear their lungs as they breathed it. The soles of their feet would burn and blister, even through the thickest sandals. Sometimes, when they broke through a wall in search of gold, they would find steam instead, or boiling water, or molten rock. Certain shafts were cut so low that the slaves could not stand upright, but had to crawl or bend. And there were wyrms in that red darkness too."
"Earthworms?" she asked, frowning.
"Firewyrms. Some say they are akin to dragons, for wyrms breathe fire too. Instead of soaring through the sky, they bore through stone and soil. If the old tales can be believed, there were wyrms amongst the Fourteen Flames even before the dragons came. The young ones are no larger than that skinny arm of yours, but they can grow to monstrous size and have no love for men."
x
She had broken her fast on some acorn paste and a handful of bugs. Bugs weren't so bad when you got used to them. Worms were worse, but still not as bad as the pain in your belly after days without food.
[...]
"We're all hungry," said Arya.
"You're not," Lommy spat from the ground. "Worm breath." - Arya V, ACOK
x
Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand.
The yellow skull was melting too, and the kindliest old man that she had ever seen was smiling down at her. "No one has ever tried to eat my worm before," he said. "Are you hungry, child?"
Yes, she thought, but not for food. - Arya I, AFFC
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He should have killed the masters! Still waiting on the story of the first Faceless Man killing Valyrian masters.
"Burnt and blackened corpses were oft found in shafts where the rocks were cracked or full of holes. Yet still the mines drove deeper. Slaves perished by the score, but their masters did not care. Red gold and yellow gold and silver were reckoned to be more precious than the lives of slaves, for slaves were cheap in the old Freehold. During war, the Valyrians took them by the thousands. In times of peace they bred them, though only the worst were sent down to die in the red darkness."
"Didn't the slaves rise up and fight?"
"Some did," he said. "Revolts were common in the mines, but few accomplished much. The dragonlords of the old Freehold were strong in sorcery, and lesser men defied them at their peril. The first Faceless Man was one who did."
"Who was he?" Arya blurted, before she stopped to think.
"No one," he answered. "Some say he was a slave himself. Others insist he was a freeholder's son, born of noble stock. Some will even tell you he was an overseer who took pity on his charges. The truth is, no one knows.
[...]
Arya drew back from him. "He killed the slave?" That did not sound right. "He should have killed the masters!"
"He would bring the gift to them as well . . . but that is a tale for another day, one best shared with no one." He cocked his head. "And who are you, child?" - Arya II, AFFC
x
Are the Faceless Men under contract to kill Dany's dragons?
Not yet - George R. R. Martin
+.+.+
Lots of sweet things smelling foul.
And then he was alone again with his lord father, amongst the candles and the crystals and the sickly sweet smell of death. – Jaime I, AFFC
x
All the rainbows vanished in that perfumed mist, yet the stench persisted, a sweet rotten smell that made Jaime want to gag. – Jaime I, AFFC
x
When the chief fool undid the drawstring on the sack and plunged his hand inside, the smell of decay filled her audience chamber like some rank rose. - Cersei IV, AFFC
x
"Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones." - Daenerys II, ACOK
x
A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . - Daenerys IV, ACOK
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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
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Crows are dining!
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
The smell reminded Jaime Lannister of the pass below the Golden Tooth, where he had won a glorious victory in the first days of the war. On the morning after the battle, the crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike, as once they had feasted on Rhaegar Targaryen after the Trident. How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king? - Jaime I, AFFC
x
My flesh will feed the wolves and carrion crows, she thought sadly, and worms will burrow through my womb. - Daenerys X, AFFC
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Will The Perfect Fool slay a dragon?
Crabb thought that was hilarious. "The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. What's the point o' having some magic sword if you don't bloody well use it?"
[...]
Brienne could not help but smile. "Perhaps," she allowed, "but Ser Galladon was no fool. Against a foe eight feet tall mounted on an aurochs, he might well have unsheathed the Just Maid. He used her once to slay a dragon, they say." - Brienne IV, AFFC
+.+.+
Arya's favourite words.
Winterfell is burned and fallen, Arya reminded herself. Old Nan and Maester Luwin were both dead, most like, and Sansa too. It did no good to think of them. All men must die. That was what the words meant, the words that Jaqen H'ghar had taught her when he gave her the worn iron coin. She had learned more Braavosi words since they left Saltpans, the words for please and thank you and sea and star and fire wine, but she came to them knowing that all men must die. - Arya I, AFFC
x
"Him of Many Faces."
"And many names," the kindly man had said. "In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him . . . else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?"
"No," she would answer. "All men must die." - Cat of the Canals, AFFC
+.+.+
Showdown at the Trident (link): lessons were learned after King Harren and his people burned.
Crabb gave her a sideways look. "Aegon sent his sister up to Crackclaw, that Visenya. The lords had heard o' Harren's end. Being no fools, they laid their swords at her feet. The queen took them as her own men, and said they'd owe no fealty to Maidenpool, Crab Isle, or Duskendale. - Brienne IV, AFFC
+.+.+
A RAT IN A MAZE 🐀🔪
You're going to need the original theory to make better sense of this.
If you want to read the theory in its entirety (including the new evidence below), click on the link. I strongly suggest this option.
If you're familiar with the theory and only want the AFFC additions, keep reading.
To summarize:
Arya Stark, often likened to a rat, and uniquely familiar with the secret tunnels of the Red Keep, will emerge from one of the walls to kill Daenerys with a dagger when she's alone in the throne room.
Similar to Maegor the Cruel, there will be wild speculation over who killed Daenerys. Some will say it was the Iron Throne that rejected her.
The rats are back!
Like a what?
He glanced around the bedchamber. "Whoever did this might still be lurking in the walls. It's a maze back there, and dark."
She imagined Tyrion creeping between the walls like some monstrous rat. - Cersei I, AFFC
___
What kind of rat?
And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down below. - Jaime I, AFFC
___
Your only friend is a rat when you're in the black cells.
If the Eyrie had been made like other castles, only rats and gaolers would have heard the dead man singing. - Sansa I, AFFC
___
Rats near the dungeons.
So it had been left to Rennifer Longwaters, the head undergaoler with the twisted back who claimed at tedious length to have a "drop of dragon" in him, to unlock the dungeon doors for Jaime and conduct him up the narrow steps inside the walls to the place where Ilyn Payne had lived for fifteen years.
The chambers stank of rotted food, and the rushes were crawling with vermin. As Jaime entered, he almost trod upon a rat. - Jaime III, AFFC
___
What about Arya?
A passage to the black cells had been found, and a stone well that seemed to have no bottom. They had found a chamber full of skulls and yellowed bones, and four sacks of tarnished silver coins from the reign of the first King Viserys. They had found a thousand rats as well . . . but neither Tyrion nor Varys had been amongst them, and Jaime had finally insisted on putting an end to the search. - Cersei III, AFFC
___
I think she already left.
"Do you still mean to go ahead and burn the Tower of the Hand?"
"After the feast." It was the only part of the day's festivities that Cersei thought she might enjoy. "Our lord father was murdered in that tower. I cannot bear to look at it. If the gods are good, the fire may smoke a few rats from the rubble." - Cersei III, AFFC
___
Mice work too!
"The queen is wise. These walls have ears."
"So they do." At night Cersei sometimes heard soft sounds, even in her own apartments. Mice in the walls, she would tell herself, no more than that. - Cersei VII, AFFC
+.+.+
Someone's in the walls.
Sounding like Aerys in more ways than one.
"Forever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch." He is in the walls. He killed Father as he killed Mother, as he killed Joff. - Cersei I, AFFC
___
You can never be too careful.
"Tyrion will not kill the same way twice. He is too cunning for that. He could be under the floor even now, listening to every word we say and making plans to open Tommen's throat." - Cersei III, AFFC
___
Too bad Daenerys doesn't know to be this paranoid.
She seized his arm. "Not a guardsman. You. And inside his bedchamber."
"In case Tyrion crawls out of the hearth? He won't."
"So you say. Will you tell me that you found all the hidden tunnels in these walls?" They both knew better. - Cersei III, AFFC
___
You never know who may be listening.
"Win Alla if you can, but be careful what you say. The gods may not be the only ones listening." - Cersei X, AFFC
x
Cersei gathered up her skirts and dignity. "This must be very frightening for you. I shall forgive those words." Here, as at court, one never knew who might be listening. - Cersei X, AFFC
x
Someone is listening. Even here, even now, she dare not speak freely. - Cersei I, ADWD
+.+.+
Secret tunnels, passageways, and wells - oh my!
To the sewers, Osmund.
"The guards were at their posts, Your Grace," said Osmund Kettleblack. "We found a hidden door behind the hearth. A secret passage. The Lord Commander's gone down to see where it goes." - Cersei I, AFFC
___
What about a child?
Guardsmen clustered near the hearth. The secret door that Ser Osmund had spoken of gaped open behind the ashes, no bigger than an oven. A man would need to crawl. But Tyrion is only half a man. - Cersei I, AFFC
___
With blade in hand?
There had always been talk of secret passages within the Red Keep. Maegor the Cruel was supposed to have killed the men who built the castle to keep the knowledge of them secret. How many other bedchambers have hidden doors? Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen's bedchamber with blade in hand. Tommen is well guarded, she told herself. But Lord Tywin had been well guarded too. - Cersei I, AFFC
___
You can't leave from the front door, Osfryd.
Osfryd nodded and started toward the door. "No, not through the yard." She gestured toward the secret passage. "There's a shaft down to the dungeons. That way." - Cersei I, AFFC
___
Do we need keys?
Her twin's face had a haggard look. "The shaft goes down to a chamber where half a dozen tunnels meet. They're closed off by iron gates, chained and locked. I need to find keys." - Cersei I, AFFC
___
Thanks for all the information.
"If any of them were hiding in the tower, we would have found them. I've had a small army going at it with picks and hammers. We've knocked through walls and ripped up floors and uncovered half a hundred secret passages."
"And for all you know there may be half a hundred more." Some of the secret crawlways had turned out to be so small that Jaime had needed pages and stableboys to explore them. A passage to the black cells had been found, and a stone well that seemed to have no bottom. They had found a chamber full of skulls and yellowed bones, and four sacks of tarnished silver coins from the reign of the first King Viserys. They had found a thousand rats as well . . . but neither Tyrion nor Varys had been amongst them, and Jaime had finally insisted on putting an end to the search. One boy had gotten stuck in a narrow passage and had to be pulled out by his feet, shrieking. Another fell down a shaft and broke his legs. And two guardsmen vanished exploring a side tunnel. Some of the other guards swore they could hear them calling faintly through the stone, but when Jaime's men tore down the wall they found only earth and rubble on the far side. - Cersei III, AFFC
+.+.+
Who's there!?
Cersei's not alone.
His merriment still echoed in her ears when she felt a light touch on her shoulder, and woke suddenly. For half a heartbeat the hand seemed part of the nightmare, and Cersei cried out, but it was only Senelle. The maid's face was white and frightened.
We are not alone, the queen realized. Shadows loomed around her bed, tall shapes with chain mail glimmering beneath their cloaks. Armed men had no business here. Where are my guards? Her bedchamber was dark, but for the lantern one of the intruders held on high. - Cersei I, AFFC
___
Bad dreams are becoming reality.
But that was folly. Her dwarf brother was down in the black cells, condemned to die this very day. She looked down at her hands, turning them over to make certain all her fingers were still there. When she ran a hand down her arm the skin was covered with gooseprickles, but unbroken. There were no cuts on her legs, no gashes on the soles of her feet. A dream, that's all it was, a dream. - Cersei I, AFFC
x
Someone was in the cabin with her.
[...]
She is standing over me. "Who's there?" Dany peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the faintest outline of a shape.
[...]
"A dream." Dany shook her head. "I dreamed a dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to sleep." - Daenerys III, ASOS
___
King Renly's run-in with a deadly shadow.
That night she dreamed herself in Renly's tent again. All the candles were guttering out, and the cold was thick around her. Something was moving through green darkness, something foul and horrible was hurtling toward her king. She wanted to protect him, but her limbs felt stiff and frozen, and it took more strength than she had just to lift her hand. And when the shadow sword sliced through the green steel gorget and the blood began to flow, she saw that the dying king was not Renly after all but Jaime Lannister, and she had failed him. - Brienne II, AFFC
x
Lord Renly was ahead of her, her sweet smiling king. He was leading her horse through the trees. Brienne called out to tell him how much she loved him, but when he turned to scowl at her, she saw that he was not Renly after all. Renly never scowled. He always had a smile for me, she thought . . . except . . .
"Cold," her king said, puzzled, and a shadow moved without a man to cast it, and her sweet lord's blood came washing through the green steel of his gorget to drench her hands. He had been a warm man, but his blood was cold as ice. - Brienne VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Iron Throne or Shadow?
The Iron Throne is slicing up Cersei.
Horrified, she tried to cover herself with her hands. The barbs and blades of the Iron Throne bit into her flesh as she crouched to hide her shame. Blood ran red down her legs, as steel teeth gnawed at her buttocks. When she tried to stand, her foot slipped through a gap in the twisted metal. The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they were slick and red, glistening. - Cersei I, AFFC
___
Daddy was tormented by the blades.
By the end the Mad King had become so fearful that he would allow no blade in his presence, save for the swords his Kingsguard wore. His beard was matted and unwashed, his hair a silver-gold tangle that reached his waist, his fingernails cracked yellow claws nine inches long. Yet still the blades tormented him, the ones he could never escape, the blades of the Iron Throne. His arms and legs were always covered with scabs and half-healed cuts. - Jaime II, AFFC
___
The Iron Throne's shadow.
Noho Dimittis, the Braavosi named himself. An irritating name for an irritating man. His voice was irritating too. Cersei shifted in her seat as he went on, wondering how long she must endure his hectoring. Behind her loomed the Iron Throne, its barbs and blades throwing twisted shadows across the floor. - Cersei V, AFFC
___
The shadows are closing in.
The torches on the back wall threw the long, barbed shadow of the Iron Throne halfway to the doors. The far end of the hall was lost in darkness, and Cersei could not but feel that the shadows were closing around her too. - Cersei VII, AFFC
___
A shifting shadow.
"No," said Cersei, "all is well. On the morrow Ser Loras will sail for Dragonstone, to win the castle, loose the Redwyne fleet, and prove his manhood to us all." She told the Myrish woman all that had occurred beneath the shifting shadow of the Iron Throne. - Cersei VII, AFFC
+.+.+
THE USURPER'S KNIFE
You're going to need the original theory to make better sense of this.
If you want to read the theory in its entirety (including the new evidence below), click on the link. I strongly suggest this option.
If you're familiar with the theory and only want the AFFC additions, keep reading.
To summarize:
Arya will kill Daenerys with Robert Baratheon's dagger (the usurper's knife). The same dagger the show used to kill the Night King.
With blade in hand.
There had always been talk of secret passages within the Red Keep. Maegor the Cruel was supposed to have killed the men who built the castle to keep the knowledge of them secret. How many other bedchambers have hidden doors? Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen's bedchamber with blade in hand. - Cersei I, AFFC
+.+.+
I know one girl who would agree.
". . . to remove Jon Snow from the command," Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was right to want him on my council. "That is just what we shall do." She laughed. If this bastard boy is truly his father's son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs.
[…]
This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration. - Cersei IV, AFFC
+.+.+
George casually reminds the reader the usurper's knife still travels on Littlefinger's hip.
"Your apple-eater holds a blade. Tell him to give it to you, or draw that dagger." - Alayne I, AFFC
+.+.+
STORM x STORM 🦑🖤🐉
Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: there's a storm a comin' edition.
"No," said Alleras. "It was Prince Rhaegar's young son Aegon whose head was dashed against the wall by the Lion of Lannister's brave men. We speak of Rhaegar's sister, born on Dragonstone before its fall. The one they called Daenerys."
"The Stormborn. I recall her now." - Prologue, AFFC
x
A storm was brewing, he could hear it in the waves, and storms brought naught but evil.
[…]
He was born a lord's son and died a king, murdered by a jealous god, Aeron thought, and now the storm is coming, a storm such as these isles have never known.
[…]
Aeron tugged his beard, and thought. I have seen the storm, and its name is Euron Crow's Eye. - The Prophet, AFFC
x
A smile played across Euron's blue lips. "I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria." - The Reaver, AFFC
+.+.+
Dothraki x Ironborn: the perfect complement.
Aeron shoved a bare black foot into a stirrup and swung himself onto the saddle. He was not fond of horses—they were creatures from the green lands and helped to make men weak—but necessity required that he ride. - The Prophet, AFFC
x
Savage beasts he did not fear, nor any man who had ever drawn breath, but the sea was a different matter. To the Dothraki, water that a horse could not drink was something foul; the heaving grey-green plains of the ocean filled them with superstitious loathing. - Daenerys VI, AGOT
+.+.+
Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: gods? pfft edition.
"No." Aeron Damphair did not weigh his words. "Only a godly man may sit the Seastone Chair. The Crow's Eye worships naught but his own pride." - The Prophet, AFFC
x
I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy . . . protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence." He laughed. "Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray." - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.
Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. Missandei had told her of the Lord of Harmony, worshiped by the Peaceful People of Naath; he was the only true god, her little scribe said, the god who always was and always would be, who made the moon and stars and earth, and all the creatures that dwelt upon them. Poor Lord of Harmony. Dany pitied him. It must be terrible to be alone for all time, attended by hordes of butterfly women you could make or unmake at a word. Westeros had seven gods at least, though Viserys had told her that some septons said the seven were only aspects of a single god, seven facets of a single crystal. That was just confusing. The red priests believed in two gods, she had heard, but two who were eternally at war. Dany liked that even less. She would not want to be eternally at war. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: rules & loopholes edition.
"Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn."
"A pious sentiment, Damphair," said Goodbrother, "but not one that your brother shares. He had Sawane Botley drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to Theon."
"If he was drowned, no blood was shed," said Aeron. - The Prophet, AFFC
x
Ser Jorah had explained that it was forbidden to carry a blade in Vaes Dothrak, or to shed a free man's blood. - Daenerys IV, AGOT
x
Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest, setting the scarlet silk to smoldering … yet no drop of blood was spilled. - Daenerys V, AGOT
+.+.+
Deranged Greyjoys and Targaryens love the basic elements.
Aeron crept from his little shelter into the chill of the night. Naked he stood, pale and gaunt and tall, and naked he walked into the black salt sea. The water was icy cold, yet he did not flinch from his god's caress. A wave smashed against his chest, staggering him. The next broke over his head. He could taste the salt on his lips and feel the god around him, and his ears rang with the glory of his song. Nine sons were born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and I was the least of them, as weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is drowned, and the god has made me strong. The cold salt sea surrounded him, embraced him, reached down through his weak man's flesh and touched his bones. Bones, he thought. The bones of the soul. - The Prophet, AFFC
x
No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children. - Daenerys X, AGOT
+.+.+
Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: uncles and aunts stealing birthrights edition.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
Aeron tugged his beard, and thought. I have seen the storm, and its name is Euron Crow's Eye. "For now, send only silence," he told the lord. "I must pray on this."
"Pray all you wish," the maester said. "It does not change the law. Theon is the rightful heir, and Asha next." - The Prophet, AFFC
x
Now, how do you suppose this queen will react when you turn up with your begging bowl in hand and say, 'Good morrow to you, Auntie. I am your nephew, Aegon, returned from the dead. I've been hiding on a poleboat all my life, but now I've washed the blue dye from my hair and I'd like a dragon, please … and oh, did I mention, my claim to the Iron Throne is stronger than your own?'" - Tyrion VI, ADWD
+.+.+
Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: here we go again edition.
"Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said. I think of that whenever I contemplate the Crow's Eye. Euron Greyjoy sounds queerly like Urron Greyiron to these old ears. I shall not go to Old Wyk. Nor should you." - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC
x
"Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?"
He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?"
"The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. - The Soiled Knight, AFFC
x
"And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo." - Daenerys IX, AGOT
+.+.+
Euron the dragonlord?
"I will go anywhere with you, but . . . Lord Blacktyde says this kingsmoot is a dangerous folly. He thinks your uncle will descend on them and kill them all, as Urron did."
He's mad enough. "He lacks the strength."
"You do not know his strength. He's been gathering men on Pyke.
[...]
"but if they catch you in those nets of theirs, you'll be as dead as if they had been dragonlords. And there's worse. The Crow's Eye brought back monsters from the east . . . aye, and wizards too." - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC
+.+.+
Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: their favourite black and red mounts edition.
And then he saw her: a single-masted galley, lean and low, with a dark red hull. Her sails, now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor Silence looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had no mouth. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting … and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. - Daenerys IX, AFFC
+.+.+
Euron Greyjoy, you dreamboat.
He looks unchanged, Victarion thought. He looks the same as he did the day he laughed at me and left. Euron was the most comely of Lord Quellon's sons, and three years of exile had not changed that. His hair was still black as a midnight sea, with never a whitecap to be seen, and his face was still smooth and pale beneath his neat dark beard. A black leather patch covered Euron's left eye, but his right was blue as a summer sky. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
When the exile knight delivered him, she asked herself whether two men had ever been so different. The Tyroshi was fair where Ser Jorah was swarthy; lithe where the knight was brawny; graced with flowing locks where the other was balding, yet smooth-skinned where Mormont was hairy. And her knight dressed plainly while this other made a peacock look drab, though he had thrown a heavy black cloak over his bright yellow finery for this visit. He carried a heavy canvas sack slung over one shoulder. - Daenerys IV, ASOS
x
She thought of Daario. If ever there was a man who could rape a woman with his eyes . . .
To be sure, she was just as guilty. Dany found herself stealing looks at the Tyroshi when her captains came to council, and sometimes at night she remembered the way his gold tooth glittered when he smiled. That, and his eyes. His bright blue eyes. - Daenerys V, ASOS
+.+.+
Sounds familiar.
"Just so," said Euron, "and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you who kneels to me for blessing." - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
"I will take my khalasar west to where the world ends, and ride the wooden horses across the black salt water as no khal has done before. I will kill the men in the iron suits and tear down their stone houses. I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak to bow down beneath the Mother of Mountains. This I vow, I, Drogo son of Bharbo. This I swear before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness." - Daenerys VI, AGOT
+.+.+
Those luscious blue lips.
"King Crow's Eye, brother." Euron smiled. His lips looked very dark in the lamplight, bruised and blue. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
"Not all your enemies are in the Yellow City. Beware men with cold hearts and blue lips. - Daenerys III, ADWD
+.+.+
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.
Men began to shove at one another. Someone flung a pinecone at Asha's head. When she ducked, her makeshift crown fell off. For a moment it seemed to the priest as if he stood atop a giant anthill, with a thousand ants in a boil at his feet. Shouts of "Asha!" and "Victarion!" surged back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf them all. The Storm God is amongst us, the priest thought, sowing fury and discord. - The Drowned Man, AFFC
x
Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many … - Daenerys X, ADWD
+.+.+
Red comet doomsday predictions: will the Greyjoys and Daenerys sweep over the green lands with fire and sword?
The priest had dreamed the same dream, when first he'd seen the red comet in the sky. We shall sweep over the green lands with fire and sword, root out the seven gods of the septons and the white trees of the northmen . . . - The Drowned Man, AFFC
+.+.+
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
x
No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden cock, in less than a day. - Daenerys VI, ASOS
+.+.+
No true Scotsman.
These are no ironmen, Victarion thought. They still fear drowning. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon. - Daenerys V, AGOT
+.+.+
Will Euron fly (on a dragon)?
Euron stood by the window, drinking from a silver cup. He wore the sable cloak he took from Blacktyde, his red leather eye patch, and nothing else. "When I was a boy, I dreamt that I could fly," he announced. "When I woke, I couldn't . . . or so the maester said. But what if he lied?"
[...]
"Perhaps we can fly. All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower?" - The Reaver, AFFC
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Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: precious collectibles edition.
"I once held a dragon's egg in this hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his entrails sliding through his fingers he said, 'But it has not been a year.'" He laughed.
[...]
Victarion shuddered. "Show me this dragon's egg." "I threw it in the sea during one of my dark moods." Euron gave a shrug. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce … and resting on top, nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs. Dany gasped. - Daenerys II, AGOT
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Storm x Storm parallels that make us laugh: Kool-aid edition.
"I mean to open your eyes." Euron drank deep from his own cup, and smiled. "Shade-of-the-evening, the wine of the warlocks. I came upon a cask of it when I captured a certain galleas out of Qarth, along with some cloves and nutmeg, forty bolts of green silk, and four warlocks who told a curious tale. One presumed to threaten me, so I killed him and fed him to the other three. They refused to eat of their friend's flesh at first, but when they grew hungry enough they had a change of heart. Men are meat." - The Reaver, AFFC
x
He stood no higher than her knee, his faced pinched and pointed, snoutish, but he was dressed in delicate livery of purple and blue, and his tiny pink hands held a silver tray. Upon it rested a slender crystal glass filled with a thick blue liquid: shade of the evening, the wine of warlocks. "Take and drink," urged Pyat Pree. - Daenerys IV, ACOK
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Euron wants his bride.
"A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver's Bay and bring my love to me?"
[...]
"So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that's worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware."
[...]
"The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver's Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me." - The Reaver, AFFC
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Victarion's highly skilled at making deliveries.
When Balon was wed, it was me he sent to Harlaw to bring him back his bride. - The Drowned Man, AFFC
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Ironborn dressed like hunky Daario.
"My apologies," the captain said when his inspection was complete. "It grieves me that honest men must suffer such discourtesy, but sooner that than ironmen in Oldtown. Only a fortnight ago some of those bloody bastards captured a Tyroshi merchantman in the straits. They killed her crew, donned their clothes, and used the dyes they found to color their whiskers half a hundred colors. Once inside the walls they meant to set the port ablaze and open a gate from within whilst we fought the fire. Might have worked, but they ran afoul of the Lady of the Tower, and her oarsmaster has a Tyroshi wife. When he saw all the green and purple beards he hailed them in the tongue of Tyrosh, and not one of them had the words to hail him back." - Samwell V, AFFC
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Euron's banner is smoke-stained.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
Xhondo pointed at a half-sunken longship in the shallows. The remnants of a banner drooped from her stern, smoke-stained and ragged. The charge was one Sam had never seen before: a red eye with a black pupil, beneath a black iron crown supported by two crows. "Whose banner is that?" Sam asked. Xhondo only shrugged.
+.+.+
SQUID GAME
Join me, as we try to piece together how the story ends for Victarion and Euron Greyjoy.
What do we know about Vicky Greyjoy?
He's a fearsome warrior, loyal to a fault, and has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal (wink, wink).
"Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet, and a fearsome warrior. I have heard them sing of him in the alehouses."
"During my lord father's rebellion, he sailed into Lannisport with my uncle Euron and burned the Lannister fleet where it lay at anchor," Theon recalled. "The plan was Euron's, though. Victarion is like some great grey bullock, strong and tireless and dutiful, but not like to win any races. No doubt, he'll serve me as loyally as he has served my lord father. He has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal." - Theon II, ACOK
x
Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and Victarion was the strongest of them, a bull of a man, fearless and dutiful. And therein lies our danger. A younger brother owes obedience to an elder, and Victarion was not a man to sail against tradition. He has no love for Euron, though. Not since the woman died. - The Prophet, AFFC
x
Obedience came naturally to Victarion Greyjoy; he had been born to it. - The Reaver, AFFC
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He wears lots of armor. Like, a lot of armor. All the time. Heavy, steel armor. At sea. On a ship.
"Keep line," Davos shouted. A gust of wind tugged at his old green cloak. A jerkin of boiled leather and a pothelm at his feet were his only armor. At sea, heavy steel was as like to cost a man his life as to save it, he believed. - Davos III, ACOK
x
Beneath he wore heavy grey chainmail over boiled black leather. In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Victarion loomed above all of them save Andrik. His brother wore no helm, but elsewise he was all in armor, his kraken cloak hanging golden from his shoulders. - The Drowned Man, AFFC
x
"It was good of you to bring such gifts to my queensmoot, Nuncle," she told Victarion, "but you need not have worn so much armor. I promise not to hurt you." - The Drowned Man, AFFC
x
They hacked at him from front and back, but their swords might have been willow switches for all the harm they did him. No blade could cut through Victarion Greyjoy's heavy plate, nor did he give his foes the time to find the weak points at the joints, where only mail and leather warded him. Let three men assail him, or four, or five; it made no matter. He slew them one at a time, trusting in his steel to protect him from the others. - The Reaver, AFFC
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He doesn't fear drowning.
They were clutching swords and spears and axes, but nine of every ten wore no armor, and the tenth had only a shirt of sewn scales. These are no ironmen, Victarion thought. They still fear drowning. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
Most like the man had drowned. "May he feast as he fought, in the Drowned God's watery halls." Though the men of the Shield Islands called themselves sailors, they crossed the seas in dread and went lightly clad in battle for fear of drowning. Young Serry had been different. A brave man, thought Victarion. Almost ironborn. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
"Throw the dying in the sea. If any beg for mercy, cut their throats first." He had only contempt for such; better to drown on seawater than on blood. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
A gang of sullen survivors moved amongst them, chasing off the black birds and tossing the dead into the back of a wagon for burial. The notion filled Victarion with disgust. No true son of the sea would want to rot beneath the ground. How would he ever find the Drowned God's watery halls, to drink and feast for all eternity? - The Reaver, AFFC
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He beat his wife to death, and gave her to the crabs.
Actions like that are never met with poetic justice in this story.
Victarion knew that to mean the girl did not have a hump. Yet when he tried to picture her, he only saw the wife he'd killed. He had sobbed each time he struck her, and afterward carried her down to the rocks to give her to the crabs. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
"She was only a salt wife." He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. - The Reaver, AFFC
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And he will absolutely positively never ever kill his brother.
No man is as accursed as the kinslayer, got it?
Euron Greyjoy, King of the Isles and the North. The thought woke an old rage in his heart, but still . . .
"Words are wind," Victarion told them, "and the only good wind is that which fills our sails. Would you have me fight the Crow's Eye? Brother against brother, ironborn against ironborn?" Euron was still his elder, no matter how much bad blood might be between them. No man is as accursed as the kinslayer. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Victarion's hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he had ever been, with a bull's broad chest and a boy's flat belly. The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men, Balon had reminded him on the day he sent the Crow's Eye off to sea. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Victarion would not speak of kinslaying, here in this godly place beneath the bones of Nagga and the Grey King's Hall, but many a night he dreamed of driving a mailed fist into Euron's smiling face, until the flesh split and his bad blood ran red and free. I must not. I pledged my word to Balon. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Balon had commanded them not to speak of it, but Balon was dead. "He put a baby in her belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return . . ." - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
The only blow he landed completed the ruin of Victarion's shield, but the cut the captain dealt in answer split his head in two. Would that I could deal with the Crow's Eye as simply. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
He drank in the darkness, brooding on his brother. If I do not strike the blow with mine own hand, am I still a kinslayer? Victarion feared no man, but the Drowned God's curse gave him pause. If another strikes him down at my command, will his blood still stain my hands? - The Reaver, AFFC
x
"I placed the crown upon his head," said the priest, seaweed dripping in his hair, "and gladly will I wrest it off again and crown you in his stead. Only you are strong enough to fight him."
"The Drowned God raised him up," Victarion complained. "Let the Drowned God cast him down." - The Reaver, AFFC
x
His oarsmen bent their backs toward Oakenshield, and the iron captain went belowdecks once again. "I could kill him," he told the dusky woman. "Though it is a great sin to kill your king, and a worse one to kill your brother." He frowned. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
He would give half his teeth for the chance to try his axe against the Kingslayer or the Knight of Flowers. That was the sort of battle that he understood. The kinslayer was accursed in the eyes of gods and men, but the warrior was honored and revered. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
One day I shall drink your wine, Crow's Eye, and take from you all that you hold dear. But was there anything Euron held dear? - The Reaver, AFFC
x
"A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver's Bay and bring my love to me?"
I had a love once too. Victarion's hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter on the floor. I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. - The Reaver, AFFC
+.+.+
But let's say the unthinkable happens, and Vicky does kill Euron - please understand drowning doesn't really count.
"Euron is elder," the priest said, "but Victarion is more godly."
"Will it come to war between them?" asked the maester.
"Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn."
"A pious sentiment, Damphair," said Goodbrother, "but not one that your brother shares. He had Sawane Botley drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to Theon."
"If he was drowned, no blood was shed," said Aeron. - The Prophet, AFFC
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AFFC: PART III
Touch me.
Chapter Transitions
JONSA 🐺❤️❄️
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#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
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Hey can I ask you something? TV tropes says that House Stark is the most prominently featured noble house in ASOIAF. Do you think that’s a true statement? I mean I know every member of the family, except Benjen and Rickon, have POV chapters and three of the key five are Starks. Well Jon is half Stark and half Targaryen. Dany is the other Targaryen member of the key five (they should make fan art of the five of them as a team). They also used to say that they are the de-facto protagonists but I took that off and it was never put back on. I feel like both the Starks and the Targaryens are the “protagonist Houses” of ASOIAF. They’re the most important Houses and they both have multiple members of the Key Five and they’re also the two Houses most closely associated with magic.
I think that's true, but I don't equate prominence with importance. I don't think this means George considers them his "main house" and honestly, I don't think we're supposed to be thinking of these characters in terms of their houses. Also, not all POVs are given equal importance in the narrative. Dany is the only Targaryen POV (Jon thinks of himself as a Stark) but she has one of the highest chapter counts, she's one of George's main characters, she will be incredibly important in the fight against the Others, and the Targaryens are still relevant to the story (Other houses/families want to ally themselves with Dany). Dany is uniquely representative of her house, as she's the last member, and House Targaryen is definitely one of the main houses in the story.
#ask#whitedragonwolf4961#this isn't towards you but I HATE the house vs house debate cause it's just stark=good targ=bad and some of the worst takes come out of it#stop the count I'm tired of this nonsense of people acting like the Starks are god ordained heroes and everyone else is evil
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while it makes sense in OTL for robert to keep his family name, as the targs lost their right to rule and it represents a new start / renewed feudal contract, lets say before all the harrenhal /. brandon stark stuff, Aerys does a summerhall 2.0 and gets most if not all his family killed. a great council is called, and robert has the closest blood claim through grandmother so is elected...does he keep baratheon or switch to targ? and broader question...when is it appropaite to take new name vs keeping previous family name?
I don't think so. For one, even after Jace is named Rhaenyra's heir, he keeps the Velaryon family name, he never changes it. The scenario I posited before with Aenys Blackfyre has unique social context that wouldn't be present in this scenario. Moreover, with two disastrous Summerhalls in a relatively short span of time, it might be considered a bit more auspicious to keep the Baratheon name rather than change it.
Thanks for the question, Anon.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
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Reading anti Targ people complaining about Viserys I favouring Rhaenyra and calling her his "golden child" is hilarious because the same can be said about Catelyn and the way she treated Sansa vs Arya. But those fans are never ready for the conversation which stark kid was the spoiled one by their mother.
#a post of salt and salt#i have a lot to say about Viserys I questionable way of patenting#but I also have a lot to say about Catelyn's
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GOT fandom was definitely much calmer, I've never seen such battles over Starks vs Lannisters and such divisiveness in groups because people usually loved many characters in GOT, there were many protagonists and in HOTD we basically have one protagonist from the start Rhaenyra. But Targ nation twitter was crazy and now they support team black as they are Dany ancestors and they continue what they were doing before which includes hating everyone who comes in a way of their favs, bullying and being really rude and nasty about actors.
Oh true, I do remember hearing how some Dany stans were being AWFUL to Sansa fans because of how Sansa rats to Tyrion about Jon actually being Aegon.
Like sorry but if I were in her shoes I'd have done the same thing.
But also the writing for season 8 was shit which I think 99.9% of GOT fans at least agree on.
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hey 👋🏻 i adore you blog, i must admit that at first i wasn't a person who really enjoyed blackfyre house, but you really brought to me a new perspective of them. but my “ask” isn't specifically about them. it's about aegon vi and dæny.
reading some of your metas i kinda that came to the conclusion that you think as well that it will happen a second dance of dragons. and reading your post about if - maybe - aegon will have elephants fighting for him i thought some: if aegon is a real targ maybe he can have a dragon for himself right? maybe i'm being a little bit crazy or idk lol but when i think about dæny with her dragons i can't help but think that she's just really close with one of them, so - maybe - the others two, that she doesn't have a strong bond, can make bonds with another person. so pls tell me if i being to delusional or not lmao. because in my mind this could happen and would bring sense to new dance of dragons being called dance of dragons.
Hello, anon! Thank you for the warm words about my blog; I’m glad that I could offer a new perspective.
You’re definitely not being “delusional”; people have speculated for years that since Dæny is closest to Drogon and no Targaryen has ridden more than one dragon at a time, there will be 2 (usually male, as an inversion to Aegon I and his sisters) riders for Viserion and Rhaegal. Common candidates include Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Euron Greyjoy (through dragonbinder horn blood magic), Bran Stark (through warging), and Aegon VI. It’s actually a fairly common theory among those who believe Aegon is the son of Elia&Rhaegar, that at least he has the ability to ride a dragon. But even if he were no Targaryen, that doesn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t be able to ride one; the dragonseeds during the First Dance of the Dragons never had their Valyrian ancestry proven (they were just accepted as part Targaryens simply because they could ride dragons); and even GRRM said that one of the 3 heads of the dragon “might not necessarily be a Targaryen”. At the same time, while Valyrian ancestry can give an affinity for dragons, that’s no guarantee they’ll be able to ride one; Silver Denys and his sons (widely considered to descend from Targaryens) were all eaten and Alyn Velaryon was scarred for life trying to ride the Cannibal (meanwhile his brother Addam was able to ride Seasmoke). While it might be difficult for Aegon to access a dragon if he and Dæny are being set up for immediate conflict, dragons seem to become wild without a rider and it’s up to anyone to try to tame/retame them (see again the dragonseeds, who in addition to taming wild dragons also retamed dragons who’d previously been ridden). It’s also speculated that the other possible 2 dragon riders will not be Dæny’s allies like she hopes, but instead her enemies, thus setting up a literal dragon vs dragon conflict. Even if I don’t personally believe Aegon will ride a dragon (they represent untold destruction without growth, the formation of an empire due to threat of violence, detachment from the earthly concerns of ordinary people; Aegon has a political story in which he has to rely on many “ordinary people” to gain the Iron Throne and I wouldn’t like that to change), there’s no harm speculating that he can or will, and it’s possible that could be the direction in which the story is going.
Thank you again for the ask!
#ask#asoiaf#asoiaf speculation#asoiaf theories#house targaryen#dance of the dragons#aegon vi#dragons
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