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 II: CLICK
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 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. 🙂
SANSA STARK, QUEEN IN THE NORTH
The lady of the house has duties to perform.
"In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you've planned for them. Mark that well, Alayne. It's a lesson that Cersei Lannister still has yet to learn. Now, don't you have some duties to perform?"
She did indeed. She saw to the mulling of the wine first, found a suitable wheel of sharp white cheese, and commanded the cook to bake bread enough for twenty, in case the Lords Declarant brought more men than expected.
[...]
The solar next. Its floor was covered by a Myrish carpet, so there was no need to lay down rushes. Alayne asked two serving men to erect the trestle table and bring up eight of the heavy oak-and-leather chairs. For a feast she would have placed one at the head of the table, one at the foot, and three along each side, but this was no feast. She had the men arrange six chairs on one side of the table, two on the other.
[...]
It might be that the lords would talk late into the night. They would need fresh candles. After Maddy laid the fire, she sent her down to find the scented beeswax candles Lord Waxley had given Lady Lysa when he sought to win her hand. Then she visited the kitchens once again, to make certain of the wine and bread. All seemed well in hand, and there was still time enough for her to bathe and wash her hair and change.
[...]
Alayne met them in the Crescent Chamber beside a warming fire, where she welcomed them in Lord Robert's name and served them bread and cheese and cups of hot mulled wine in silver cups.
Petyr had given her a roll of arms to study, so she knew their heraldry if not their faces. - Alayne I, AFFC
x
"Then he has none to throw at me. Isn't there some work you should be doing? And you, Maddy . . . are all the windows closed and shuttered? Have all the furnishings been covered?"
"All of them, m'lady," said Maddy.
"Best make certain of it." - Alayne II, AFFC
x
"Lord Robert is feeling stronger," Alayne told the serving women. "Fetch hot water for his bath, but see you don't scald him. And do not pull on his hair when you brush out the tangles, he hates that." One of the squires sniggered, until she said, "Terrance, lay out his lordship's riding clothes and his warmest cloak. Gyles, you may clean up that broken chamber pot." - Alayne II, AFFC
x
Petyr Baelish was clear across the Vale, though, attending Lord Lyonel Corbray at his wedding.
[...]
Alayne understood all that well enough, but it meant that the burden of getting Sweetrobin safely down the mountain fell on her. - Alayne II, AFFC
+.+.+
JON SNOW, KING IN THE NORTH
Are you sure?
Mance's blood is no more royal than mine own. He has never worn a crown nor sat a throne. He's a brigand, nothing more. There's no power in brigand's blood. - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
Jon's acting like a king.
Lord Janos would have sent Snow ranging naked on a mule. 'Scamper on up to Craster's Keep,' he would have said, 'and fetch me back the Old Bear's cloak and boots.' We saved him from that, but now he has too many duties to drink a cup of mulled wine by the fire?"
Grenn agreed. "His duties don't keep him from the yard. More days than not, he's out there fighting someone."
[...]
Jon, he'd said, but Jon was gone. It was Lord Snow who faced him now, grey eyes as hard as ice. "You have no father," said Lord Snow. - Samwell I, AFFC
x
Only Robb and baby Rickon were still here, and Robb was changed. He was Robb the Lord now, or trying to be. He wore a real sword and never smiled. His days were spent drilling the guard and practicing his swordplay, making the yard ring with the sound of steel as Bran watched forlornly from his window. At night he closeted himself with Maester Luwin, talking or going over account books. Sometimes he would ride out with Hallis Mollen and be gone for days at a time, visiting distant holdfasts. Whenever he was away more than a day, Rickon would cry and ask Bran if Robb was ever coming back. Even when he was home at Winterfell, Robb the Lord seemed to have more time for Hallis Mollen and Theon Greyjoy than he ever did for his brothers. - Bran IV, AGOT
+.+.+
Many monarchs are implicated, so we'll put it everywhere.
Should Jon fear his black brothers?
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 VI, AFFC
+.+.+
Sounds like a steward with royal blood.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
Did you know the Darklyns were kings in Duskendale before the Andals come? You'd never know t'look at me, but I got me royal blood. Can you see it? 'Your Grace, another cup of ale,' I ought to make them say. 'Your Grace, the chamber pot needs emptying, and fetch in some fresh faggots, Your Bloody Grace, the fire's going out.'" She laughed again and shook the last drops from the pail. - Brienne II, AFFC
x
"There is no shame in being a steward," Sam said.
"Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life washing an old man's smallclothes?" - Jon VI, AGOT
+.+.+
Looks can be deceiving.
"Looking for mermaids, Slayer?" asked Dareon when he saw Sam staring off across the bay. Fair-haired and hazel-eyed, the handsome young singer out of Eastwatch looked more like some dark prince than a black brother. - Samwell II, AFFC
+.+.+
Sworn to protect the realm.
"The Iron Throne must defend the Faith," growled a hulking lout with a seven-pointed star painted on his brow. "A king who does not protect his people is no king at all." - Cersei VI, AFFC
+.+.+
JON (AEMON?) SNOW
Sounds familiar.
"He was a good man," he began . . . but as soon as he had said the words he knew that they were wrong. "No. He was a great man. A maester of the Citadel, chained and sworn, and Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch, ever faithful. When he was born they named him for a hero who had died too young, but though he lived a long long time, his own life was no less heroic. No man was wiser, or gentler, or kinder. At the Wall, a dozen lords commander came and went during his years of service, but he was always there to counsel them. He counseled kings as well. He could have been a king himself, but when they offered him the crown he told them they should give it to his younger brother. How many men would do that?" Sam felt the tears welling in his eyes, and knew he could not go on much longer. "He was the blood of the dragon, but now his fire has gone out. He was Aemon Targaryen. And now his watch is ended." - Samwell IV, AFFC
+.+.+
Little Aemon Steelsong (he has a song!) with the royal blood will be passed off as a bastard.
Thank you, @sherlokiness!
"Maester is not a name. You could call him Aemon, though."
Gilly thought about that. "Dalla brought him forth during battle, as the swords sang all around her. That should be his name. Aemon Battleborn. Aemon Steelsong." - Samwell IV, AFFC
x
"I do," said Sam, "but I could lie in a letter. I'm better with a quill in hand. I had a . . . a thought. When things are more settled here, I thought maybe the best thing for Gilly . . . I thought I might send her to Horn Hill. To my mother and sisters and my . . . my f-f-father. If Gilly were to say the babe was m-mine . . ." He was blushing again. "My mother would want him, I know. She would find some place for Gilly, some kind of service, it wouldn't be as hard as serving Craster. And Lord R-Randyll, he . . . he would never say so, but he might be pleased to believe I got a bastard on some wildling girl. At least it would prove I was man enough to lie with a woman and father a child. He told me once that I was sure to die a maiden, that no woman would ever . . . you know . . . Jon, if I did this, wrote this lie . . . would that be a good thing? The life the boy would have . . ."
"Growing up a bastard in his grandfather's castle?" Jon shrugged. "That depends in great part on your father, and what sort of boy this is. If he takes after you . . ." - Samwell IV, ASOS
+.+.+
AHOY MATEY! ARYA STARK SAILS THE OCEAN BLUE
Did Princess Nymeria do anything other than sail on ships? It's hard to tell.
There were two seats on the dais, near twin to one another, save that one had the Martell spear inlaid in gold upon its back, whilst the other bore the blazing Rhoynish sun that had flown from the masts of Nymeria's ships when first they came to Dorne. - The Captain of the Guards, AFFC
x
He rolled off of her to sprawl staring at the ceiling. A great crack ran across it, from one wall to the other. He had not noticed that before, no more than he had noticed the picture on the tapestry, a scene of Nymeria and her ten thousand ships. - The Soiled Knight, AFFC
x
She leaned her back against a fluted pillar and wondered if her brother was looking at the same stars tonight, wherever he might be. Do you see the white one, Quentyn? That is Nymeria's star, burning bright, and that milky band behind her, those are ten thousand ships. She burned as bright as any man, and so shall I. - The Queenmaker, AFFC
x
We are in part, Your Grace. Nymeria's blood is in me, along with that of Mors Martell, the Dornish lord she married. On the day they wed, Nymeria fired her ships, so her people would understand that there could be no going back. Most were glad to see those flames, for their voyagings had been long and terrible before they came to Dorne, and many and more had been lost to storm, disease, and slavery. - The Queenmaker, AFFC
x
Arianne would have given much and more for a copy of Ten Thousand Ships or The Loves of Queen Nymeria, anything to occupy her thoughts and let her escape her tower for an hour or two, but such amusements were denied her. - The Princess in the Tower, AFFC
+.+.+
We could be like Nymeria, and sail beyond the Sunset Sea.
Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. "Make me your king, and I shall lead you there," he cried. "We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen." - The Drowned Man, AFFC
+.+.+
The ship has a name.
"Just so. Your father was oarmaster on a galley. When your mother died, he took you off to sea with him. Then he died as well, and his captain had no use for you, so he put you off the ship in Braavos. And what was the name of the ship?"
"Nymeria," she said at once. - Arya II, AFC
+.+.+
Arya dreams of home while on a ship.
His father was shouting orders. Sailors scrambled up and down the three tall masts and moved along the rigging, reefing the heavy purple sails. Below, oarsmen heaved and strained over two great banks of oars. The decks tilted, creaking, as the galleas Titan's Daughter heeled to starboard and began to come about.
The star of home. Arya stood at the prow, one hand resting on the gilded figurehead, a maiden with a bowl of fruit. For half a heartbeat she let herself pretend that it was her home ahead. - Arya I, AFFC
+.+.+
Like any other person who seeks adventure.
Arya never seemed to find the places she set out to reach. - Arya I, AFFC
+.+.+
Arya prefers the boat.
She had crossed the narrow sea to get here, but if the captain had asked she would have told him she wanted to stay aboard the Titan's Daughter. Salty was too small to man an oar, she knew that now, but she could learn to splice ropes and reef the sails and steer a course across the great salt seas. Denyo had taken her up to the crow's nest once, and she hadn't been afraid at all, though the deck had seemed a tiny thing below her. I can do sums too, and keep a cabin neat. - Arya I, AFFC
+.+.+
Arya likes the sailors and harbors best of all.
Only Braavosi were permitted use of the Purple Harbor, from the Drowned Town and the Sealord's Palace; ships from her sister cities and the rest of the wide world had to use the Ragman's Harbor, a poorer, rougher, dirtier port than the Purple. It was noisier as well, as sailors and traders from half a hundred lands crowded its wharves and alleys, mingling with those who served and preyed on them. Cat liked it best of any place in Braavos. She liked the noise and the strange smells, and seeing what ships had come in on the evening tide and what ships had departed. She liked the sailors too; the boisterous Tyroshi with their booming voices and dyed whiskers; the fair-haired Lyseni, always trying to niggle down her prices; the squat, hairy sailors from the Port of Ibben, growling curses in low, raspy voices. Her favorites were the Summer Islanders, with their skins as smooth and dark as teak. They wore feathered cloaks of red and green and yellow, and the tall masts and white sails of their swan ships were magnificent. - Cat of the Canals, AFFC
+.+.+
No matter where she goes, Arya always comes back to the harbor.
Some days she rolled her barrow past the towers of the mighty to offer baked clams to the guardsmen at their gates. Once she cried her catch on the steps of the Palace of Truth
[...]
Customs officers from the Chequy Port would buy from her, and paddlers from the Drowned Town
[...]
One time, when Brea took to her bed with her moon blood, Cat had pushed her barrow to the Purple Harbor
[...]
Other days she followed the sweetwater river to the Moon Pool.
[...]
But she always returned to the Ragman's Harbor. – Cat of the Canals, AFFC
+.+.+
A young man hurts his hand, and has to become an oarsmen. I don't want to get into it, so you'll have to trust me that the Arya is strong on this one.
"You come work with me, Cat," urged Tagganaro as he was sucking mussels from their shells. He had been looking for a new partner ever since the Drunken Daughter put her knife through Little Narbo's hand. "I give you more than Brusco, and you would not smell like fish."
"Casso likes the way I smell," she said. The King of Seals barked, as if to agree. "Is Narbo's hand no better?"
"Three fingers do not bend," complained Tagganaro, between mussels. "What good is a cutpurse who cannot use his fingers? Narbo was good at picking pockets, not so good at picking whores."
"Merry says the same." Cat was sad. She liked Little Narbo, even if he was a thief. "What will he do?"
"Pull an oar, he says. Two fingers are enough for that, he thinks, and the Sealord's always looking for more oarsmen. I tell him, 'Narbo, no. That sea is colder than a maiden and crueler than a whore. Better you should cut off the hand, and beg.' Casso knows I am right. Don't you, Casso?"
The seal barked, and Cat had to smile. She tossed another cockle his way before she went off on her own. - Cat of the Canals, AFFC
+.+.+
BRAN THE BROKEN, KING OF WESTEROS
I bet they trade places.
"A letter to King Tommen?"
"At Winterfell Tommen fought my brother Bran with wooden swords. He wore so much padding he looked like a stuffed goose. Bran knocked him to the ground." Jon went to the window. "Yet Bran's dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls." - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
The five year gab is abandoned, and the author immediately produces new history of a 10-year-old Stark chosen to rule.
"My lord, when I was looking through the annals I came on another boy commander. Four hundred years before the Conquest. Osric Stark was ten when he was chosen, but he served for sixty years. That's four, my lord. You're not even close to being the youngest ever chosen. You're fifth youngest, so far." - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
He meant to call a council.
Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return." - Jaime I, AFFC
+.+.+
A man who sounds a bit like Bran tries to win an election.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
The Farwynds there were even queerer than the rest. Some said they were skinchangers, unholy creatures who could take on the forms of sea lions, walruses, even spotted whales, the wolves of the wild sea.
Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. "Make me your king, and I shall lead you there," he cried. "We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen." - The Drowned Man, AFFC
+.+.+
Many monarchs are implicated, so we'll put it everywhere.
(Three-eyed?) Crows are dining on kings.
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
+.+.+
Jaime Lannister slays kings, and makes kings.
"They belonged to Criston Cole, who served the first Viserys and the second Aegon." Jaime closed the White Book. "They called him Kingmaker." - Jaime II, AFFC
x
The man looked over at the woman. "The things I do for love," he said with loathing. He gave Bran a shove.
Screaming, Bran went backward out the window into empty air. There was nothing to grab on to. The courtyard rushed up to meet him. - Bran II, AGOT
+.+.+
Crowns switched to bells, then passed to a cripple.
Jaehaerys and his queen slept there during their journeys, it is said. For a time the inn was known as the Two Crowns in their honor, until one innkeep built a bell tower, and changed it to the Bellringer Inn. Later it passed to a crippled knight named Long Jon Heddle, who took up ironworking when he grew too old to fight. - Brienne VII, AFFC
+.+.+
HIGH SEPTON RICKON?
An eight-year-old boy is selected as High Septon.
"After that one died, an eight-year-old boy was elevated, once more at King Baelor's urging. The boy worked miracles, His Grace declared, though even his little healing hands could not save Baelor during his final fast."
Lady Merryweather gave a laugh. "Eight years old? Perhaps my son could be High Septon. He is almost seven." - Cersei VI, AFFC
+.+.+
Any number of boys.
Cersei did not doubt that there were any number of boys who would do more honor to the crystal crown than the wretch on whom the Most Devout had chosen to bestow it. - Cersei VI, AFFC
+.+.+
Might not have to look too hard.
Are you a priest or a greengrocer? "And what might I do to make it . . . riper?" If he dares mention gold, I will deal with this one as I did the last and find a pious eight-year-old to wear the crystal crown. - Cersei VI, AFFC
+.+.+
PICK YOUR POISON: THE TWINS MEET THEIR END IN THE BOWELS OF CASTERLY ROCK . . . OR KING'S LANDING
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:
Jaime and Cersei will intentionally drink poison as a castle crumbles above them.
The valonqar prophecy.
The old woman was not done with her, however. "Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds," she said. "And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei wakes from her valonqar nightmare choking in the same manner as Joffrey. . . when he drank poison.
The valonqar shall wrap his hands about your throat, the queen heard, but the voice did not belong to the old woman. The hands emerged from the mists of her dream and coiled around her neck; thick hands, and strong. Above them floated his face, leering down at her with his mismatched eyes. No, the queen tried to cry out, but the dwarf's fingers dug deep into her neck, choking off her protests. She kicked and screamed to no avail. Before long she was making the same sound her son had made, the terrible thin sucking sound that marked Joff's last breath on earth. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Like what?
Father found no better man. Instead he gave me Robert, and Maggy's curse bloomed like some poisonous flower. - Cersei V, AFFC
x
He touched one of the crystals lightly with the tip of his little finger. Such a small thing to hold the power of life and death. It was made from a certain plant that grew only on the islands of the Jade Sea, half a world away.
[...]
Cressen no longer recalled the name the Asshai'i gave the leaf, or the Lysene poisoners the crystal. In the Citadel, it was simply called the strangler. - Prologue, ACOK
+.+.+
The twins are dry, and need some wine.
It's ill luck not to eat the pie," he scolded as he filled his mouth with hot spiced pigeon. "See, it's good." Spitting out flakes of crust, he coughed and helped himself to another fistful. "Dry, though. Needs washing down." Joff took a swallow of wine and coughed again, more violently.
[...]
The boy's only thirteen. Joffrey was making a dry clacking noise, trying to speak. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS
x
The little queen is making excuses for her brother. Cersei's mouth was dry. I need a cup of Arbor gold. - Cersei VII, AFFC
x
"I was just . . . remembering." Her throat was dry. "You are a good friend, Taena. I have not had a true friend in . . ." - Cersei VII, AFFC
x
"It was. I know it was." Cersei shuddered. "My throat is raw. Be a sweet and pour me some wine." - Cersei IX, AFFC
x
So passed the longest night that Cersei Lannister had ever known, save for the night of Joffrey's wedding. Her throat was so raw from shouting that she could hardly swallow. - Cersei X, AFFC
x
"I've sent him wine."
"Wine?" Brienne was lost. "Robb? Or . . . Theon Greyjoy?"
"The Kingslayer." The ploy had served her well with Cleos Frey. I hope you're thirsty, Jaime. I hope your throat is dry and tight. "I would like you to come with me." - Catelyn VII, ACOK
+.+.+
Ser Ilyn keeps mocking Jaime.
The boy's only thirteen. Joffrey was making a dry clacking noise, trying to speak. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS
x
Ser Ilyn opened his mouth and made a clacking sound. A laugh, Jaime realized. Something twisted in his gut. - Jaime III, AFFC
x
The pockmarks on Ser Ilyn's face were black holes in the torchlight, as dark as Jaime's soul. He made that clacking sound.
He is laughing at me, realized Jaime Lannister. - Jaime IV, AFFC
x
He made that clacking sound that might have been a laugh and drew his sword up Jaime's throat till the point came to rest between his lips. Only then did he step back and sheathe his steel. - Jaime V, AFFC
x
"If I keep at this for another year, I may be as good as Peck," Jaime declared, and Ser Ilyn made that clacking sound that meant he was amused. "Come, let's drink some more of Hoster Tully's good red wine." - Jaime VII, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei's feeling tight.
It is blood I need, not water. Tyrion's blood, the blood of the valonqar. The torches spun around her. Cersei closed her eyes, and saw the dwarf grinning at her. No, she thought, no, I was almost rid of you. But his fingers had closed around her neck, and she could feel them beginning to tighten. - Cersei I, AFFC
x
Seated on her gold-and-crimson high seat beneath the Iron Throne, Cersei could feel a growing tightness in her neck. - Cersei VII, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei's going to have Jaime kill the younger and more beautiful queen.
Cersei is the younger and more beautiful queen. (Next section)
Anger flashed across the child's face. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
x
She did. I knew it all along, she thought. Even in the tent. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Jaime Lannister, The Kinslayer.
He never said he meant to kill our father. If he had, I would have stopped him. Then I would be the kinslayer, not him. - Jaime I, AFFC
x
The height of folly was reached when a plump fool came capering out in gold-painted tin with a cloth lion's head, and chased a dwarf around the tables, whacking him over the head with a bladder. Finally King Renly demanded to know why he was beating his brother. "Why, Your Grace, I'm the Kinslayer," the fool said.
"It's Kingslayer, fool of a fool," Renly said, and the hall rang with laughter. - Catelyn II, ACOK
+.+.+
A dragon's coming for the twins.
"The puppet lions grow greedy and arrogant as this treasonous tale proceeds, until they begin to devour their own subjects. When the noble stag makes objection, the lions devour him as well, and roar that it is their right as the mightiest of beasts."
"And is that the end of it?" Cersei asked, amused. Looked at in the right light, it could be seen as a salutary lesson.
"No, Your Grace. At the end a dragon hatches from an egg and devours all of the lions."
The ending took the puppet show from simple insolence to treason. "Witless fools. Only cretins would hazard their heads upon a wooden dragon." - Cersei V, AFFC
+.+.+
But where will it happen: King's Landing or Casterly Rock?
King's Landing
Cersei's asking 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. - Cersei III, AFFC
x
"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
+.+.+
God forbid dragonfire enters into the equation.
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
+.+.+
Cersei's front row seat.
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
+.+.+
Who's going to die beneath the Red Keep?
Unless my brother murdered Varys too, and left his corpse to rot beneath the castle. Down there, it might be years before his bones were found. - Jaime I, AFFC
x
Tyrion hung back a moment. Varys had already betrayed him once. Who knew what game the eunuch was playing? And what better place to murder a man than down in the darkness, in a place that no one knew existed? His body might never be found. - Tyrion XI, ASOS
+.+.+
A dragon has been waiting for Jaime beneath the Red Keep.
He remembered the sullen orange glow of the coals in the iron dragon's mouth. The brazier warmed a chamber at the bottom of a shaft where half a dozen tunnels met. On the floor he'd found a scuffed mosaic of the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen done in tiles of black and red. I know you, Kingslayer, the beast seemed to be saying. I have been here all the time, waiting for you to come to me. And it seemed to Jaime that he knew that voice, the iron tones that had once belonged to Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone. - Jaime I, AFFC
+.+.+
Jaime's going to have some problems if he's ever down there again.
Jaime had led a dozen guards below, with torches and ropes and lanterns. For hours they had groped through twisting passages, narrow crawl spaces, hidden doors, secret steps, and shafts that plunged down into utter blackness. Seldom had he felt so utterly a cripple. A man takes much for granted when he has two hands. Ladders, for an instance. Even crawling did not come easy; not for nought do they speak of hands and knees. Nor could he hold a torch and climb, as others could. - Jaime I, AFFC
+.+.+
Casterly Rock
Tywin's under the Rock. Is he asking for company?
Her brother was growing his beard again as well. The stubble covered his jaw and cheeks, and gave his face a rough, uncouth look. He might at least have waited till Father's bones were interred beneath the Rock. - Cersei II, AFFC
x
There were watery caverns deep below Casterly Rock, but this one was strange to him. "What place is this?"
"Your place." The voice echoed; it was a hundred voices, a thousand, the voices of all the Lannisters since Lann the Clever, who'd lived at the dawn of days. But most of all it was his father's voice, and beside Lord Tywin stood his sister, pale and beautiful, a torch burning in her hand. - Jaime VI, ASOS
+.+.+
Cersei's place.
Her uncle was unmoved. "If you are resolved against another marriage, I will not force it on you. As to the other, though . . . you are the Lady of Casterly Rock now. Your place is there." - Cersei II, AFFC
+.+.+
Rolling thunder echoed off the Rock.
She was ten when she finally saw her prince in the flesh, at the tourney her lord father had thrown to welcome King Aerys to the west. Viewing stands had been raised beneath the walls of Lannisport, and the cheers of the smallfolk had echoed off Casterly Rock like rolling thunder. - Cersei V, AFFC
+.+.+
Jaime practically asks for it.
Harrenhal had seen more horror in its three hundred years than Casterly Rock had witnessed in three thousand. - Jaime III, AFFC
+.+.+
Makes for a big target.
She's known no home but Harrenhal, he reflected. Every castle in the realm will seem small to her, except the Rock.
Josmyn Peckleton was saying the same thing. "You must not judge by Harrenhal. Black Harren built too big." - Jaime IV, AFFC
+.+.+
What will the queen do?
"This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock."
"That would be an even greater folly than burning the Tower of the Hand. So long as Tommen sits the Iron Throne, the realm sees him as the true king. Hide him under the Rock and he becomes just another claimant to the throne, no different than Stannis."
"I am aware of that," the queen said sharply. "I said that I wanted to move the court to Lannisport, not that I would. Were you always this slow, or did losing a hand make you stupid?" - Cersei's III, AFFC
+.+.+
YOUNGER AND MORE BEAUTIFUL CERSEI
Thank you for the theory, @agentrouka-blog!
The prophecy.
"I will be queen, though?" asked the younger her.
"Aye." Malice gleamed in Maggy's yellow eyes. "Queen you shall be . . . until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
One more time.
The younger her.
"I will be queen, though?" asked the younger her. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
While dreaming of her encounter with Maggy the Frog, Cersei frequently switches to third-person narration, giving the impression the girl is someone else.
She dreamt an old dream, of three girls in brown cloaks, a wattled crone, and a tent that smelled of death.
[...]
Cersei watched the girls huddling, whispering to one another. Go back, she tried to tell them. Turn away. There is nothing here for you. But though she moved her mouth, no words came out.
[...]
Lord Tywin's daughter was the first through the flap, with Melara close behind her.
[...]
Leave her be, the queen wanted to cry out. You little fools, never wake a sleeping sorceress. Without a tongue, she could only watch as the girl threw off her cloak, kicked the witch's bed, and said, "Wake up, we want our futures told."
[...]
The girl with the golden curls put her hands upon her hips. "Give us our foretelling, or I'll go to my lord father and have you whipped for insolence."
[...]
Beneath her golden curls, the girl's face wrinkled up in puzzlement.
[...]
Anger flashed across the child's face. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her." Even then she would not stop, willful child as she was.
[...]
"What is a valonqar? Some monster?" The golden girl did not like that foretelling. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
One more time.
"Begone," she told the girls, in a croaking whisper.
"We came for a foretelling," young Cersei told her. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Are there two queens present?
"Here," she whispered, "give it here." When Cersei offered her hand, she sucked away the blood with gums as soft as a newborn babe's. The queen could still remember how queer and cold her mouth had been.
"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."
Go, the dreaming queen thought, hold your tongue, and flee. But the girl did not have sense enough to be afraid. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
In the middle of the dream, we're told Maggy the Frog was young(er) and (more) beautiful when she arrived at Lannisport, but age and evil had left their marks on her.
Sounds familiar.
The old woman's eyes were yellow, and crusted all about with something vile. In Lannisport it was said that she had been young and beautiful when her husband had brought her back from the east with a load of spices, but age and evil had left their marks on her. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
x
"You are being foolish. I am only here to help you."
"To help me to my grave. I asked for you to leave. Will you make me call my gaolers and have you dragged away, you vile, scheming, evil bitch?"
Cersei gathered up her skirts and dignity. - Cersei X, AFFC
+.+.+
In a later chapter, Taena Merryweather reassures Cersei by telling her she was young(er) and (more) beautiful than the hateful Maggy.
Taena took her hand and stroked it. "This was a hateful woman, old and sick and ugly. You were young and beautiful, full of life and pride. She lived in Lannisport, you said, so she would have known of the dwarf and how he killed your lady mother. This creature dared not strike you, because of who you were, so she sought to wound you with her viper's tongue." - Cersei IX, AFFC
+.+.+
Immediately after waking from her dream, Cersei calls on old Pycelle. Younger Pycelle used to be a magnificent man, but the cells and razor ruined him.
Sounds familiar.
Pycelle had been old as far back as Cersei could remember, but there was a time when he had also been magnificent: richly clad, dignified, exquisitely courteous. His immense white beard had given him an air of wisdom. Tyrion had shaved his beard off, though, and what had grown back was pitiful, a few patchy tufts of thin, brittle hair that did little to hide the loose pink flesh beneath his sagging chin. This is no man, she thought, only the ruins of one. The black cells robbed him of whatever strength he had. That, and the Imp's razor.
"How old are you?" Cersei asked, abruptly.
"Four-and-eighty, if it please Your Grace."
"A younger man would please me more." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
x
She screamed and kicked and howled until her throat was raw, at the door and at the window. No one shouted back, nor came to rescue her. The cell began to darken. It was growing cold as well. Cersei began to shiver. How can they leave me like this, without so much as a fire? I am their queen. - Cersei X, AFFC
x
They brought lye soap, a basin of warm water, a pair of shears, and a long straightrazor. The sight of the steel sent a shiver through her. They mean to shave me. A little more humiliation, a raisin for my porridge. She would not give them the pleasure of hearing her beg. I am Cersei of House Lannister, a lion of the Rock, the rightful queen of these Seven Kingdoms, trueborn daughter of Tywin Lannister. And hair grows back. - Cersei II, ADWD
+.+.+
Another prophecy.
The old woman was not done with her, however. "Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds," she said. "And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
Cersei and Jaime will intentionally drink poison.
+.+.+
Cersei says she'll have her brother kill the younger and more beautiful queen. In other words, Cersei will have Jaime kill Cersei.
Anger flashed across the child's face. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
x
She did. I knew it all along, she thought. Even in the tent. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei wakes from her valonqar nightmare choking in the same manner as Joffrey. . . when he drank poison.
The valonqar shall wrap his hands about your throat, the queen heard, but the voice did not belong to the old woman. The hands emerged from the mists of her dream and coiled around her neck; thick hands, and strong. Above them floated his face, leering down at her with his mismatched eyes. No, the queen tried to cry out, but the dwarf's fingers dug deep into her neck, choking off her protests. She kicked and screamed to no avail. Before long she was making the same sound her son had made, the terrible thin sucking sound that marked Joff's last breath on earth. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei fears the prophecy because Maggy foretold Melara's death, yet it was Cersei who chose to kill Melara that evening. Cersei's actions are making the prophecy come true.
Cersei did not want to hear that. "This maegi made certain prophecies. I laughed at them at first, but . . . she foretold the death of one of my bedmaids. At the time she made the prophecy, the girl was one-and-ten, healthy as a little horse and safe within the Rock. Yet she soon fell down a well and drowned." Melara had begged her never to speak of the things they heard that night in the maegi's tent. If we never talk about it we'll soon forget, and then it will be just a bad dream we had, Melara had said. Bad dreams never come true. The both of them had been so young, that had sounded almost wise. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
x
A young girl sat beneath a fountain, drenched in spray, and stared at her with Melara Hetherspoon's accusing eyes. - Cersei II, ADWD
+.+.+
Cersei is destroying herself.
"You would not believe half of what is happening in King's Landing, sweetling. Cersei stumbles from one idiocy to the next, helped along by her council of the deaf, the dim, and the blind. I always anticipated that she would beggar the realm and destroy herself, but I never expected she would do it quite so fast. It is quite vexing. I had hoped to have four or five quiet years to plant some seeds and allow some fruits to ripen, but now . . . it is a good thing that I thrive on chaos. - Alayne II, AFFC
+.+.+
The beginning of the end.
In her final chapter, Cersei is imprisoned, but not before claiming the younger and more beautiful queen is finished.
Maggy the Frog should have been in motley too, for all she knew about the morrow. Cersei prayed the old fraud was screaming down in hell. The younger queen whose coming she'd foretold was finished, and if that prophecy could fail, so could the rest. No golden shrouds, no valonqar, I am free of your croaking malice at last. - Cersei X, AFFC
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 II: CLICK
Dark Daenerys Highlights & Laughs
Let's Dance: Stark vs. Targ
A Rat in a Maze 🐀🔪
The Usurper's Knife
Storm x Storm 🦑🖤🐉
Squid Game
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. 🙂
CHAPTER TRANSITIONS
Damn that man for breaking up this book, and ruining the chapter transition foreshadowing.
Prologue -> <- The Prophet
The storm is coming.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
"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
+.+.+
Brienne I -> <- Samwell I
Two protagonists want to live up to their swords.
"A sword is only as good as the man who wields it."
[...]
When she slid Oathkeeper from the ornate scabbard, Brienne's breath caught in her throat. Black and red the ripples ran, deep within the steel. Valyrian steel, spell-forged. It was a sword fit for a hero. When she was small, her nurse had filled her ears with tales of valor, regaling her with the noble exploits of Ser Galladon of Morne, Florian the Fool, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, and other champions. Each man bore a famous sword, and surely Oathkeeper belonged in their company, even if she herself did not. - Brienne I, AFFC
x
Once, when Jon came to consult with Maester Aemon, Sam had asked him why he spent so much time at swordplay. "The Old Bear never trained much when he was Lord Commander," he had pointed out. In answer, Jon had pressed Longclaw into Sam's hand. He let him feel the lightness, the balance, had him turn the blade so that ripples gleamed in the smoke-dark metal. "Valyrian steel," he said, "spell-forged and razor-sharp, nigh on indestructible. A swordsman should be as good as his sword, Sam. Longclaw is Valyrian steel, but I'm not. The Halfhand could have killed me as easy as you swat a bug." - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
Brienne I -> <- Samwell I
Encounters with mice.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
"Ser Shadrich of the Shady Glen. Some call me the Mad Mouse." He turned his shield to show her his sigil, a large white mouse with fierce red eyes, on bendy brown and blue. - Brienne I, AFFC
x
Sam was reading about the Others when he saw the mouse. - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
Samwell I -> <- Arya I
Three characters are on a collision course.
Dareon will join you at Eastwatch. My hope is that his songs will win some men for us in the south. The Blackbird will deliver you to Braavos. From there you'll arrange your own passage to Oldtown. - Samwell I, AFFC
x
Braavos might not be so bad. Syrio was from Braavos, and Jaqen might be there as well. - Arya I, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei II -> <- Jaime I
Play-by-play on the state of Tywin Lannister's rotting corpse.
+.+.+
Jaime I -> <- Brienne II
Royal blood in back-to-back chapters.
"I see you wonder, what sort of name is that?" the man had cackled when Jaime went to question him. "It is an old name, 'tis true. I am not one to boast, but there is royal blood in my veins. I am descended from a princess. My father told me the tale when I was a tad of a lad." Longwaters had not been a tad of a lad for many a year, to judge from his spotted head and the white hairs growing from his chin. - Jaime I, AFFC
x
"Well, there's Darkes, I'm one myself. My husband says I was Darke before we wed, and darker afterward." She laughed. "Can't throw a stone in Duskendale without you hit some Darke or Darkwood or Dargood, but the lordly Darklyns are all gone. Lord Denys was the last o' them, the sweet young fool. Did you know the Darklyns were kings in Duskendale before the Andals come? You'd never know t'look at me, but I got me royal blood. Can you see it? 'Your Grace, another cup of ale,' I ought to make them say. 'Your Grace, the chamber pot needs emptying, and fetch in some fresh faggots, Your Bloody Grace, the fire's going out.'" She laughed again and shook the last drops from the pail. - Brienne II, AFFC
+.+.+
Jaime I -> <- Brienne II
Crows are feasting.
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?
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. Every crow in the Seven Kingdoms should pay homage to you, Father. From Castamere to the Blackwater, you fed them well. - Jaime I, AFFC
x
The looters come with the carrion crows after every battle.
[...]
Lord Tarly's own striding huntsman appeared on many a badge and brooch and doublet. Friend or foe, the crows care not. - Brienne II, AFFC
+.+.+
Brienne II -> <- Sansa I
Blood calls to blood. Somebody is noticeably missing the second time we get the rundown.
Or would she seek her own blood instead? Though all of her siblings had been slain, Brienne knew that Sansa still had an uncle and a bastard half brother on the Wall, serving in the Night's Watch. Another uncle, Edmure Tully, was a captive at the Twins, but his uncle Ser Brynden still held Riverrun. And Lady Catelyn's younger sister ruled the Vale. Blood calls to blood. Sansa might well have run to one of them. Which one, though? - Brienne II, AFFC
x
She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King's Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she'd hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. - Sansa I, AFFC
+.+.+
Brienne II -> <- Sansa I
Sansa's hoarding gods.
But when Brienne asked about Sansa, she said, "I'll tell you what I told Lord Tywin. That girl was always praying. She'd go to sept and light her candles like a proper lady, but near every night she went off to the godswood. She's gone back north, she has. That's where her gods are." - Brienne II, AFFC
x
They hadn't, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent. - Sansa I, AFFC
+.+.+
Sansa I <- The Kraken's Daughter
Asha's hilarious reunion with a fostered ghost from her past.
"Asha?" A shadow stepped out from behind the well.
Her hand went to her dirk at once . . . until the moonlight transformed the dark shape into a man in a sealskin cloak. Another ghost. "Tris. I'd thought to find you in the hall."
"I wanted to see you."
"What part of me, I wonder?" She grinned. "Well, here I stand, all grown up. Look all you like."
"A woman." He moved closer. "And beautiful."
Tristifer Botley had filled out since last she'd seen him, but he had the same unruly hair that she remembered, and eyes as large and trusting as a seal's. Sweet eyes, truly. That was the trouble with poor Tristifer; he was too sweet for the Iron Islands. His face has grown comely, she thought.
[...]
"If you like. It's nought to me. You look so lovely in the moonlight, Asha. A woman grown now, but I remember when you were a skinny girl with a face all full of pimples."
Why must they always mention the pimples? "I remember that as well." Though not as fondly as you do. Of the five boys her mother had brought to Pyke to foster after Ned Stark had taken her last living son as hostage, Tris had been closest to Asha in age. He had not been the first boy she had ever kissed, but he was the first to undo the laces of her jerkin and slip a sweaty hand beneath to feel her budding breasts.
I would have let him feel more than that if he'd been bold enough. Her first flowering had come upon her during the war and wakened her desire, but even before that Asha had been curious. He was there, he was mine own age, and he was willing, that was all it was . . . that, and the moon blood. Even so, she'd called it love, till Tris began to go on about the children she would bear him; a dozen sons at least, and oh, some daughters too. - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC
+.+.+
Brienne III <- Samwell II
Someone gets an escort to Eastwatch with one of Brienne's ancestors.
He sent me north aboard the Golden Dragon, and insisted that his friend Ser Duncan see me safe to Eastwatch. - Samwell II, AFFC
+.+.+
Brienne III -> <- Samwell II
Where's little Dickon Tarly? Not at Horn Hill.
"Mooton's daughter, she's a maid," the man went on. "Till the bedding, anyways. These eggs, they're for her wedding. Her and Tarly's son. The cooks will need eggs for cakes."
"They will." Lord Tarly's son. Young Dickon's to be wed. She tried to recall how old he was; eight or ten, she thought. - Brienne III, AFFC
x
"I am a man now, Mother," I could tell her, "a steward, and a man of the Night's Watch. My brothers call me Sam the Slayer sometimes." He would see his brother Dickon too, and his sisters. "See," I could tell them, "see, I was good for something after all." - Samwell II, AFFC
+.+.+
Brienne III -> <- Samwell II
Two sides of Hyle Hunt.
They had a wager.
Three of the younger knights had started it, he told her: Ambrose, Bushy, and Hyle Hunt, of his own household. As word spread through the camp, however, others had joined the game. Each man was required to buy into the contest with a golden dragon, the whole sum to go to whoever claimed her maidenhead. - Brienne III, AFFC
x
Looking at the water only made him think of drowning. When he was small his lord father had tried to teach him how to swim by throwing him into the pond beneath Horn Hill. The water had gotten in his nose and in his mouth and in his lungs, and he coughed and wheezed for hours after Ser Hyle pulled him out. - Samwell II, AFFC
+.+.+
Jaime II -> Cersei IV
Kingsguard having affairs with their queen.
"Who?" Ser Loras craned his head around to see. "Ten black pellets on a scarlet field. I do not know those arms."
"They belonged to Criston Cole, who served the first Viserys and the second Aegon." Jaime closed the White Book. "They called him Kingmaker." - Jaime II, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei IV -> <- The Iron Captain -> <- The Drowned Man
Who is smart enough to give Asha some land for her help?
"Could we make use of the ironmen?" asked Orton Merryweather. "The enemy of our enemy? What would the Seastone Chair want of us as the price of an alliance?"
"They want the north," Grand Maester Pycelle said, "which our queen's noble father promised to House Bolton."
"How inconvenient," said Merryweather. "Still, the north is large. The lands could be divided. It need not be a permanent arrangement. Bolton might consent, so long as we assure him that our strength will be his once Stannis is destroyed." - Cersei IV, AFFC
x
"To end this war before this war ends us. We have won all that we are like to win . . . and stand to lose all just as quick, unless we make a peace. I have shown Lady Glover every courtesy, and she swears her lord will treat with me. If we hand back Deepwood Motte, Torrhen's Square, and Moat Cailin, she says, the northmen will cede us Sea Dragon Point and all the Stony Shore. Those lands are thinly peopled, yet ten times larger than all the isles put together. An exchange of hostages will seal the pact, and each side will agree to make common cause with the other should the Iron Throne—" - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
"Peace," said Asha. "Land. Victory. I'll give you Sea Dragon Point and the Stony Shore, black earth and tall trees and stones enough for every younger son to build a hall. We'll have the northmen too . . . as friends, to stand with us against the Iron Throne. Your choice is simple. Crown me, for peace and victory. Or crown my nuncle, for more war and more defeat." She sheathed her dirk again. "What will you have, ironmen?" - The Drowned Man, AFFC
+.+.+
The Iron Captain -> <- The Drowned Man
Fun times at the kingsmoot.
+.+.+
Arya II -> <- Alayne I
Two sisters have new names.
She bit her lip. "Could I be Cat?"
"Cat." He considered. "Yes. Braavos is full of cats. One more will not be noticed. You are Cat, an orphan of . . ." - Arya II, AFFC
x
As the rising sun came streaming through the windows, Alayne sat up in bed and stretched. - Alayne I, AFFC
+.+.+
Alayne I -> <- Cersei V
Time to pluck the roses.
"How old are you, child?" asked Lady Waynwood.
"Four-fourteen, my lady." For a moment she forgot how old Alayne should be. "And I am no child, but a maiden flowered."
"But not deflowered, one can hope." Young Lord Hunter's bushy mustache hid his mouth entirely.
"Yet," said Lyn Corbray, as if she were not there. "But ripe for plucking soon, I'd say." - Alayne I, AFFC
x
"Only?" The queen let a hint of anger edge her words. "I must confess, I am running short of patience with dear Osney. It is past time he broke in that little filly. I named him Tommen's sworn shield so he could spend part of every day in Margaery's company. He should have plucked the rose by now. Is the little queen blind to his charms?" - Cersei V, AFFC
+.+.+
Samwell IV -> <- Cersei IV
Summer Islanders and the Faith have very different views on sex.
"You do not understand. Last night we . . ."
". . . honored your dead, and the gods who made you both. Xhondo did the same. I had the child, else I would have been with him. All you Westerosi make a shame of loving. There is no shame in loving. If your septons say there is, your seven gods must be demons. In the isles we know better. Our gods gave us legs to run with, noses to smell with, hands to touch and feel. What mad cruel god would give a man eyes and tell him he must forever keep them shut, and never look at all the beauty in the world? Only a monster god, a demon of the darkness." Kojja put her hand between Sam's legs. "The gods gave you this for a reason too, for . . . what is your Westerosi word?"
"Fucking," Xhondo offered helpfully. - Samwell IV, AFFC
x
Septon Raynard assumed a regretful tone. "His High Holiness sent me in his stead, and bade me tell Your Grace that the Seven have sent him forth to battle wickedness."
"How? By preaching chastity along the Street of Silk? Does he think praying over whores will turn them back to virgins?"
"Our bodies were shaped by our Father and Mother so we might join male to female and beget trueborn children," Raynard replied. "It is base and sinful for women to sell their holy parts for coin." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Brienne VII -> <- Jaime VI
Talk of diverting the Trident.
The innkeep never hung another sign, so men forgot the dragon and took to calling the place the River Inn. In those days, the Trident flowed beneath its back door, and half its rooms were built out over the water. Guests could throw a line out their window and catch trout, it's said. There was a ferry landing here as well, so travelers could cross to Lord Harroway's Town and Whitewalls."
"We left the Trident south of here, and have been riding north and west . . . not toward the river but away from it."
"Aye, my lady," the septon said. "The river moved. Seventy years ago, it was. Or was it eighty? - Brenne VII, AFFC
x
When the castle falls, all those inside will be put to the sword. Your herds will be butchered, your godswood will be felled, your keeps and towers will burn. I'll pull your walls down, and divert the Tumblestone over the ruins. - Jaime VI, AFFC
+.+.+
Jaime VI -> <- Cersei IX
Cersei's titles.
On her head a circlet of hammered bronze sat askew, graven with runes and ringed with small black swords. When she saw Jaime, she laughed. "Who in seven hells is this one?"
"The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard," Jaime returned with cold courtesy. "I might ask the same of you, my lady."
"Lady? I'm no lady. I'm the queen."
"My sister will be surprised to hear that."
"Lord Ryman crowned me his very self." She gave a shake of her ample hips. "I'm the queen o' whores."
No, Jaime thought, my sweet sister holds that title too. - Jaime VI, AFFC
x
"We waited long enough." He thrust his fingers inside the bodice of her gown and yanked, and the silk parted with a ripping sound so loud that Cersei was afraid that half of the Red Keep must have heard it. "Take off the rest before I tear that too," he said. "You can keep the crown on. I like you in the crown." - Cersei IX, AFFC
+.+.+
Alayne II -> <- Brienne VIII
Brienne won't show her fear.
And yet the thought of leaving frightened her almost as much as it frightened Robert. She only hid it better. Her father said there was no shame in being afraid, only in showing your fear. "All men live with fear," he said. Alayne was not certain she believed that. Nothing frightened Petyr Baelish. - Alayne II, AFFC
x
I will not be afraid, she told herself, but it was too late for that. I will not let them see my fear, she promised herself instead. - Brienne VIII, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei X -> <- Jaime VII
Cersei's ripping up her clothes.
I will teach them what it means to put a lion in a cage, Cersei thought. She tore the shift into a hundred pieces, found a ewer of water and smashed it against the wall, then did the same with the chamber pot. - Cersei X, AFFC
x
Jeyne never saw him at all. The widow rode with downcast eyes, huddled beneath a hooded cloak. Underneath its heavy folds, her clothes were finely made, but torn. She ripped them herself, as a mark of mourning, Jaime realized. That could not have pleased her mother. He found himself wondering if Cersei would tear her gown if she should ever hear that he was dead. - Jaime VII, AFFC
+.+.+
Cersei X -> <- Jaime VII
Right before walking into a disaster (a book delays Jaime), the twins are cold as ice.
Cersei could feel the eyes of the Seven staring at her, eyes of jade and malachite and onyx, and a sudden shiver of fear went through her, cold as ice. I am the queen, she told herself. Lord Tywin's daughter. Reluctantly, she followed. - Cersei X, AFFC
x
He woke in darkness, shivering. The room had grown cold as ice. Jaime flung aside the covers with the stump of his sword hand. The fire in the hearth had died, he saw, and the window had blown open. He crossed the pitch-dark chamber to fumble with the shutters, but when he reached the window his bare foot came down in something wet. Jaime recoiled, startled for a moment. His first thought was of blood, but blood would not have been so cold.
It was snow, drifting through the window. - Jaime VII, AFFC
+.+.+
Prologue -> <- Samwell V
AGOT
Prologue: ice threat introduction.
Final chapter: fire threat introduction.
ACOK
Prologue: cold-hearted King Stannis with his dying maester.
Final chapter: kindhearted King Bran with his dying maester.
ASOS
Prologue: Cursed snowflakes, and Jon Snow.
Sansa VII: Drifting snowflakes, and Jon Snow.
AFFC
Prologue: Pig boy Pate.
Samwell V: Pig boy Pate, back from the dead.
The alchemist pulled his hood down.
He was just a man, and his face was just a face. A young man's face, ordinary, with full cheeks and the shadow of a beard. A scar showed faintly on his right cheek. He had a hooked nose, and a mat of dense black hair that curled tightly around his ears. It was not a face Pate recognized. "I do not know you."
"Nor I you."
"Who are you?"
"A stranger. No one. Truly."
[...]
The cobblestones rushed up to kiss him. Pate tried to cry for help, but his voice was failing too.
His last thought was of Rosey. - Prologue, AFFC
x
"My thanks." There was something about the pale, soft youth that he misliked, but he did not want to seem discourteous, so he added, "My name's not Slayer, truly. I'm Sam. Samwell Tarly."
"I'm Pate," the other said, "like the pig boy." - Samwell V, AFFC
+.+.+
JONSA 🐺❤️❄️
Once again, thank you to @ladyofasoiaf for making the manual on all things jonsa. I heavily rely on it when making these posts. :)
Where would a girl in grey go?
If Dontos and this northern girl helped murder our sweet king, it seems to me that they would want to put as many leagues as they could betwixt themselves and justice. Look for them in Oldtown, if you must, or across the narrow sea. Look for them in Dorne, or on the Wall. Look elsewhere. - Brienne II, AFFC
x
But when Brienne asked about Sansa, she said, "I'll tell you what I told Lord Tywin. That girl was always praying. She'd go to sept and light her candles like a proper lady, but near every night she went off to the godswood. She's gone back north, she has. That's where her gods are." - Brienne II, AFFC
x
As they were making their way to the next pier, Podrick shuffled his feet, and said, "Ser? My lady? What if my lady did go home? My other lady, I mean. Ser. Lady Sansa."
"They burned her home."
"Still. That's where her gods are. And gods can't die." - Brienne V, AFFC
+.+.+
Coming after a Brienne chapter, we learn Brienne's ancestor once escorted a royal to Eastwatch.
He sent me north aboard the Golden Dragon, and insisted that his friend Ser Duncan see me safe to Eastwatch. - Samwell II, AFFC
+.+.+
Not yet.
She's a clean ship, 'Strider, not so many rats as most, and we'll have fresh eggs and new-churned butter aboard. Is m'lady seeking passage north?"
"No." Not yet. She was tempted, but . . . - Brienne V, AFFC
+.+.+
The same breakdown appears in back-to-back chapters, only Sansa forgets someone.
Or would she seek her own blood instead? Though all of her siblings had been slain, Brienne knew that Sansa still had an uncle and a bastard half brother on the Wall, serving in the Night's Watch. Another uncle, Edmure Tully, was a captive at the Twins, but his uncle Ser Brynden still held Riverrun. And Lady Catelyn's younger sister ruled the Vale. Blood calls to blood. Sansa might well have run to one of them. Which one, though? - Brienne II, AFFC
x
She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King's Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she'd hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. - Sansa I, AFFC
+.+.+
A stag won't find Sansa, but a dragon might.
"Where?" Brienne slapped another silver stag down.
He flicked the coin back at her with his forefinger. "Someplace no stag ever found . . . though a dragon might." - Brienne III, AFFC
+.+.+
Of course it could never be.
There's a new High Septon, did you know? Oh, and the Night's Watch has a boy commander, some bastard son of Eddard Stark's."
"Jon Snow?" she blurted out, surprised.
"Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose."
She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise. - Alayne II, AFFC
+.+.+
Someday a man will drown in her eyes.
Petyr studied her eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. "You have your mother's eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little older, many a man will drown in those eyes." - Sansa I, AFFC
x
The man kept staring at him, with eyes as big and black as wells. I will fall into those eyes and drown. - Jon V, ASOS
+.+.+
Coming after a Sansa chapter, Asha has an amusing reunion with an old ghost who was fostered at Pyke.
"Asha?" A shadow stepped out from behind the well.
Her hand went to her dirk at once . . . until the moonlight transformed the dark shape into a man in a sealskin cloak. Another ghost. "Tris. I'd thought to find you in the hall."
"I wanted to see you."
"What part of me, I wonder?" She grinned. "Well, here I stand, all grown up. Look all you like."
"A woman." He moved closer. "And beautiful."
Tristifer Botley had filled out since last she'd seen him, but he had the same unruly hair that she remembered, and eyes as large and trusting as a seal's. Sweet eyes, truly. That was the trouble with poor Tristifer; he was too sweet for the Iron Islands. His face has grown comely, she thought.
[...]
"If you like. It's nought to me. You look so lovely in the moonlight, Asha. A woman grown now, but I remember when you were a skinny girl with a face all full of pimples."
Why must they always mention the pimples? "I remember that as well." Though not as fondly as you do. Of the five boys her mother had brought to Pyke to foster after Ned Stark had taken her last living son as hostage, Tris had been closest to Asha in age. He had not been the first boy she had ever kissed, but he was the first to undo the laces of her jerkin and slip a sweaty hand beneath to feel her budding breasts.
I would have let him feel more than that if he'd been bold enough. Her first flowering had come upon her during the war and wakened her desire, but even before that Asha had been curious. He was there, he was mine own age, and he was willing, that was all it was . . . that, and the moon blood. Even so, she'd called it love, till Tris began to go on about the children she would bear him; a dozen sons at least, and oh, some daughters too. - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC
+.+.+
Newly flowered Asha had an awakening during the war.
Her first flowering had come upon her during the war and wakened her desire, but even before that Asha had been curious. He was there, he was mine own age, and he was willing, that was all it was . . . that, and the moon blood. - The Kraken's Daughter's, AFFC
+.+.+
Fourteen-year-old Arianne loses her maidenhead to a bastard.
My father is many things, but no one has ever said he was a fool. The Bastard of Godsgrace had my maidenhead when we were both fourteen. - The Soiled Knight, AFFC
+.+.+
Experienced but still green after taking the black white.
It was her turn to flush. Her seduction of Ser Arys had required half a year. Though he claimed to have known other women before taking the white, she would never have known that from the way he acted. His caresses had been clumsy, his kisses nervous, and the first time they were abed together he spent his seed on her thigh as she was guiding him inside her with her hand. - The Princess in the Tower, AFFC
+.+.+
The Dornish (Aegon), the ironborn (Daenerys), and the north (Jon) are wedding dragons.
Thank you, @decadelongsummer!
Oh, but they must, or see the realm riven once more, as it was before we wed the dragons. - The Captain of the Guards, AFFC
x
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 Reaver, AFFC
x
"Why shouldn't we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead!" - Catelyn XI, AGOT
+.+.+
The blood of Winterfell.
I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. - Sansa I, AFFC
x
Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn't, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night's Watch. - Jon VI, ASOS
+.+.+
She likes them bold.
If not for Petyr Baelish it would have been Sansa who went spinning through a cold blue sky to stony death six hundred feet below, instead of Lysa Arryn. He is so bold. Sansa wished she had his courage. - Sansa I, AFFC
x
Surprisingly, Stannis smiled at that. "You're bold enough to be a Stark. Yes, I should have come sooner. If not for my Hand, I might not have come at all. - Jon XI, ASOS
+.+.+
Sister and brother, Maiden and Warrior (more).
"Why would Cersei need the Warrior? She has me." Jaime turned his horse about, his white cloak snapping in the wind. - Jaime II, AFFC
x
I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my gaze. - Jaime IV, AFFC
x
The Maiden lay athwart the Warrior, her arms widespread as if to embrace him. - Davos I, ACOK
+.+.+
Radiant sisters.
"How is Cersei? As beautiful as ever?"
"Radiant." Fickle. - Jaime V, AFFC
x
He was twelve, younger than Jon or Robb, but taller than either, to Jon's vast dismay. Prince Joffrey had his sister's hair and his mother's deep green eyes. A thick tangle of blond curls dripped down past his golden choker and high velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she walked beside him, but Jon did not like Joffrey's pouty lips or the bored, disdainful way he looked at Winterfell's Great Hall. - Jon I, AGOT
+.+.+
The author gives Snow & Stone some space.
She could see Sky six hundred feet below, and the stone steps carved into the mountain, the winding way that led past Snow and Stone all the way down to the valley floor. - Alayne I, AFFC
x
Steep stone steps crept up the mountainside past the waycastles Stone and Snow, but they came to an end at Sky. - Alayne I, AFFC
+.+.+
Jon's heart is all Stone.
Thank you, @winkydinkle!
He could not blame Gilly for her grief. Instead, he blamed Jon Snow and wondered when Jon's heart had turned to stone. - Samwell III, AFFC
+.+.+
Sansa has a crush.
"Bronze Yohn knows me," she reminded him. "He was a guest at Winterfell when his son rode north to take the black." She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl. - Alayne I, AFFC
x
Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife. - Prologue, AFFC
x
Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.
[...]
Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. - Bran I, AGOT
+.+.+
The princess in the tower wishes she had wings.
A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well. - Alayne I, AFFC
x
"The little bird thinks she has wings, does she? Or do you mean to end up crippled like that brother of yours?" - Sansa IV, ACOK
x
The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. - Arya XIII, ASOS
+.+.+
Sansa gets the head, but still needs flowers.
One of the Mountain's men had tried to rape the girl at Harrenhal, and had seemed honestly perplexed when Jaime commanded Ilyn Payne to take his head off. "I had her before, a hunnerd times," he kept saying as they forced him to his knees. "A hunnerd times, m'lord. We all had her." When Ser Ilyn presented Pia with his head, she had smiled through her ruined teeth. - Jaime IV, AFFC
x
"Ser Harwyn says those tales are lies." Lady Amerei wound a braid around her finger. "He has promised me Lord Beric's head. He's very gallant." She was blushing beneath her tears.
Jaime thought back on the head he'd given to Pia. He could almost hear his little brother chuckle. Whatever became of giving women flowers? Tyrion might have asked. - Jaime IV, AFFC
x
Frog-faced Lord Slynt sat at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth-of-gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence. Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head. - Sansa VI, AGOT
x
The smile that Lord Janos Slynt smiled then had all the sweetness of rancid butter. Until Jon said, "Edd, fetch me a block," and unsheathed Longclaw. - Jon II, ADWD
x
"What's wrong with flowers?" - Jon V, ASOS
+.+.+
A ghost wolf.
There was ice underfoot, and broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains. - Alayne II, AFFC
+.+.+
Roses kissed by frost.
"When he is a man grown," said Cersei.
Their smiles withered like roses kissed by frost. - Cersei V, AFFC
+.+.+
Children of the mountain.
Thank you, @butterflies-dragons!
She pushed her hair back. "Then one day he wasn't. Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain's daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won't fall." - Alayne II, AFFC
x
"The mountain is your mother," Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. "Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won't drop you." Jon had made a joke of it, saying how he'd always wondered who his mother was, but never thought to find her in the Frostfangs. - Jon VI, ACOK
+.+.+
Ser Byron enters Sansa's story.
"Dutiful and beautiful," said an elegant young knight whose thick blond mane cascaded down well past his shoulders.
[...]
"Knights they are," said Petyr. "Their gallantry has yet to be demonstrated, but we may hope. Allow me to present Ser Byron, Ser Morgarth, and Ser Shadrich. Sers, the Lady Alayne, my natural and very clever daughter . . . with whom I must needs confer, if you will be so good as to excuse us."
The three knights bowed and withdrew, though the tall one with the blond hair kissed her hand before taking his leave. - Alayne II, AFFC
x
The character I'm probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I'd want to be? Well who wouldn't want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. - George R. R. Martin
+.+.+
A fool or a knight?
"Ser Galladon was a champion of such valor that the Maiden herself lost her heart to him. She gave him an enchanted sword as a token of her love. The Just Maid, it was called. No common sword could check her, nor any shield withstand her kiss. Ser Galladon bore the Just Maid proudly, but only thrice did he unsheathe her. He would not use the Maid against a mortal man, for she was so potent as to make any fight unfair."
Crabb thought that was hilarious. "The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. - Brienne IV, AFFC
x
"A fool and a knight?" said Jonquil. "I have never heard of such a thing."
"Sweet lady," said Florian, "all men are fools, and all men are knights, where women are concerned." - The Hedge Knight
+.+.+
Who's the pig boy?
Thank you, @fedonciadale!
Spotted Pate the pig boy was the hero of a thousand ribald stories: a good-hearted, empty-headed lout who always managed to best the fat lordlings, haughty knights, and pompous septons who beset him. Somehow his stupidity would turn out to have been a sort of uncouth cunning; the tales always ended with Spotted Pate sitting on a lord's high seat or bedding some knight's daughter. But those were stories. In the real world pig boys never fared so well. - Prologue, AFFC
x
His face darkened. "I am. I'm your father, and I can marry you to whoever I like. To anyone. You'll marry the pig boy if I say so, and bed down with him in the sty." His green eyes glittered with amusement. - Sansa III, ACOK
+.+.+
Jon and Sansa know the power of song.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
Dareon will join you at Eastwatch. My hope is that his songs will win some men for us in the south. - Samwell I, AFFC
x
A harp can be as dangerous as a sword, in the right hands. - Sansa VI, ASOS
+.+.+
King Robert liked to play with his cousin.
There had been a female cousin too, a chunky little widow with breasts as big as melons whose husband and father had both died at Storm's End during the siege. "Her father was good to me," Robert told her, "and she and I would play together when the two of us were small." It did not take him long to start playing with her again. - Cersei V, AFFC
+.+.+
Sansa wants to dance.
What would she do when the music began to play? It was a vexing question, to which her heart and head gave different answers. Sansa loved to dance, but Alayne . . . - Alayne II, AFFC
x
When the musicians began to play, she timidly laid her hand on Tyrion's and said, "My lord, should we lead the dance?"
[...]
Perhaps she ought to have remained beside her husband, but she wanted to dance so badly . . . - Sansa III, ASOS
x
"You could dance with me, you know. It would be only courteous. You danced with me anon."
"Anon?" teased Jon.
"When we were children." She tore off a bit of bread and threw it at him. "As you know well."
"My lady should dance with her husband." - Jon X, ADWD
x
A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon. - Jon XII, ADWD
+.+.+
Prince Aemon's back.
"And the Dragonknight?" She flung the bedclothes aside and swung her legs to the floor. "The noblest knight who ever lived, you said, and he took his queen to bed and got her with child." - The Soiled Knight, AFFC
+.+.+
Who could ever love a bastard?
Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. - Alayne II, AFFC
+.+.+
Poisoned gifts.
Petyr arched an eyebrow. "When Robert dies. Our poor brave Sweetrobin is such a sickly boy, it is only a matter of time. When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn's bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon . . . and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back . . . why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa . . . Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. That's worth another kiss now, don't you think?" - Alayne II, AFFC
x
"Jon." Melisandre was so close he could feel the warmth of her breath. "R'hllor is the only true god. A vow sworn to a tree has no more power than one sworn to your shoes. Open your heart and let the light of the Lord come in. Burn these weirwoods, and accept Winterfell as a gift of the Lord of Light."
[...]
Stannis gave him a measuring look. "Does this mean you will not wed the girl? I warn you, she is part of the price you must pay, if you want your father's name and your father's castle. This match is necessary, to help assure the loyalty of our new subjects. Are you refusing me, Jon Snow?"
[...]
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
+.+.+
Lancel Lannister's story continues to raise eyebrows.
Lancel had taken to quartering the lion of Lannister with the Darry plowman, it would seem. He saw his uncle's hand in that, as in Lancel's choice of bride. House Darry had ruled these lands since the Andals cast down the First Men. No doubt Ser Kevan realized that his son would have an easier time of it if the peasants saw him as a continuation of the old line, holding these lands by right of marriage rather than royal decree. - Jaime IV, AFFC
x
Maybe he is praying for his cock to harden. In King's Landing it had been rumored that Lancel's wounds had left him incapable. Still, he ought to have sense enough to try. His cousin's hold on his new lands would not be secure until he fathered a son on his half-Darry wife. - Jaime IV, AFFC
x
When his coz did not answer, Jaime sighed. "You should be sleeping with your wife, not with the Maid. You need a son with Darry blood if you want to keep this castle." - Jaime IV, AFFC
+.+.+
More men marrying into houses.
When he was not singing, Nimble Dick would talk, regaling them with tales of Crackclaw Point. Every gloomy valley had its lord, he said, the lot of them united only by their mistrust of outsiders. In their veins the blood of the First Men ran dark and strong. "The Andals tried t' take Crackclaw, but we bled them in the valleys and drowned them in the bogs. Only what their sons couldn't win with swords, their pretty daughters won with kisses. They married into the houses they couldn't conquer, aye." - Brienne IV, AFFC
+.+.+
Val does cosplay. Again.
King Stannis had plans for Val, he knew; she was the mortar with which he meant to seal the peace between the northmen and the free folk. - Samwell I, AFFC
x
"Whoever?" Stannis gave him a measuring look. "Does this mean you will not wed the girl? I warn you, she is part of the price you must pay, if you want your father's name and your father's castle. This match is necessary, to help assure the loyalty of our new subjects. Are you refusing me, Jon Snow?" - Jon XI, ASOS
x
"The girl's happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark." - Tyrion III, ASOS
+.+.+
Sansa -> Bolton requires a Stark daughter to claim Winterfell -> Jon.
"Your Grace has forgotten the Lady Sansa," said Pycelle.
The queen bristled. "I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf." She refused to say the girl's name. "I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder my son. When we find the Imp, we will find the Lady Sansa too. She is not dead . . . but before I am done with her, I promise you, she will be singing to the Stranger, begging for his kiss."
An awkward silence followed. Have they all swallowed their tongues? Cersei thought, with irritation. It was enough to make her wonder why she bothered with a council.
"In any case," the queen went on, "Lord Eddard's younger daughter is with Lord Bolton, and will be wed to his son Ramsay as soon as Moat Cailin has fallen." So long as the girl played her role well enough to cement their claim to Winterfell, neither of the Boltons would much care that she was actually some steward's whelp tricked up by Littlefinger. "If the north must have a Stark, we'll give them one." She let Lord Merryweather fill her cup once again. "Another problem has arisen on the Wall, however. The brothers of the Night's Watch have taken leave of their wits and chosen Ned Stark's bastard son to be their Lord Commander." - Cersei IV, AFFC
+.+.+
The author's constant reminder.
Jaime sighed. "Then let them wed. It will be years before Tommen is old enough to consummate the marriage. And until he does, the union can always be set aside. Give Tyrell his wedding and send him off to play at war." - Jaime I, AFFC
x
"I said some words and gave her a red cloak, but only to please Father. Marriage requires consummation. King Baelor was made to wed his sister Daena, but they never lived as man and wife, and he put her aside as soon as he was crowned." - Jaime IV, AFFC
x
"She is old enough to be Lady of Winterfell once her brother is dead. Claim her maidenhood and you will be one step closer to claiming the north. Get her with child, and the prize is all but won. Do I need to remind you that a marriage that has not been consummated can be set aside?" - Tyrion IV, ASOS
+.+.+
Jon vs. Tyrion Pregame.
"Well," said Sam, "he will not want it said that Stannis rode to the defense of the realm whilst King Tommen was playing with his toys. That would bring scorn down upon House Lannister."
"It's death and destruction I want to bring down upon House Lannister, not scorn." Jon lifted up the letter. - Samwell I, AFFC
+.+.+
Big brothers.
My betrothal was announced at a feast with half the west in attendance. Ellyn Tarbeck laughed and the Red Lion went angry from the hall. The rest sat on their tongues. Only Tywin dared speak against the match. A boy of ten. Father turned as white as mare's milk, and Walder Frey was quivering." She smiled. "How could I not love him, after that? That is not to say that I approved of all he did, or much enjoyed the company of the man that he became . . . but every little girl needs a big brother to protect her. Tywin was big even when he was little." - Jaime V, AFFC
+.+.+
That uncomfortable subject.
"How old are you, child?" asked Lady Waynwood.
"Four-fourteen, my lady." For a moment she forgot how old Alayne should be. "And I am no child, but a maiden flowered."
"But not deflowered, one can hope." Young Lord Hunter's bushy mustache hid his mouth entirely.
"Yet," said Lyn Corbray, as if she were not there. "But ripe for plucking soon, I'd say." - Alayne I, AFFC
___
"A child?" said Sansa, uncertainly.
Lysa waved a hand negligently. "Not for many years. You are too young to be a mother. One day you shall want children, though. Just as you will want to marry." - Sansa VI, ASOS
x
"I will." He cuddled close and laid his head between her breasts. "Alayne? Are you my mother now?"
"I suppose I am," she said. If a lie was kindly meant, there was no harm in it. - Sansa I, AFFC
___
She studied Alayne's face and chest. "You are prettier than me, but my breasts are larger. The maesters say large breasts produce no more milk than small ones, but I do not believe it. Have you ever known a wet nurse with small teats? Yours are ample for a girl your age, but as they are bastard breasts, I shan't concern myself with them." - Alayne II, AFFC
___
"The gods made men to fight, and women to bear children," said Randyll Tarly. "A woman's war is in the birthing bed." - Brienne III, AFFC
x
"How apt. The men will bleed out there, and you in here." The queen signaled for the first course to be served. - Sansa V, ACOK
___
Jeyne Westerling had been Robb Stark's queen, the girl who cost him everything. With a wolf in her belly, she could have proved more dangerous than the Blackfish. - Jaime VI, AFFC
x
"A child born of traitor's seed will find that betrayal comes naturally to her," said Grand Maester Pycelle. "She is a sweet thing now, but in ten years, who can say what treasons she may hatch?" - Sansa IV, AGOT
___
To break her fast the queen sent to the kitchens for two boiled eggs, a loaf of bread, and a pot of honey. But when she cracked the first egg and found a bloody half-formed chick inside, her stomach roiled. - Cersei III, AFFC
vs.
An immense round fat man, as big as three Moon Boys, he came cartwheeling into the hall, vaulted onto the table, and laid a gigantic egg right in front of Sansa. "Break it, my lady," he commanded. When she did, a dozen yellow chicks escaped and began running in all directions. - Sansa I, ASOS
+.+.+
A king must have an heir.
And Cersei … I have Jon Arryn to thank for her. I had no wish to marry after Lyanna was taken from me, but Jon said the realm needed an heir. - Eddard VII, AGOT
x
"Jeyne," she called after, "there's one more thing Robb needs from you, though he may not know it yet himself. A king must have an heir." - Catelyn III, ASOS
x
"Young, and a king," he said. "A king must have an heir. If I should die in my next battle, the kingdom must not die with me. - Catelyn V, ASOS
x
He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. I will need to take a wife when I am king. A true wife, to be my queen and bear me sons. A king must have an heir. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Victarion was turning to go when the Crow's Eye said, "A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
Many promised him their voices: Fralegg the Strong, clever Alvyn Sharp, humpbacked Hotho Harlaw. Hotho offered him a daughter for his queen. "I have no luck with wives," Victarion told him. His first wife died in childbed, giving him a stillborn daughter. His second had been stricken by a pox. And his third . . .
"A king must have an heir," Hotho insisted. "The Crow's Eye brings three sons to show before the kingsmoot."
"Bastards and mongrels. How old is this daughter?"
"Twelve," said Hotho. "Fair and fertile, newly flowered, with hair the color of honey. Her breasts are small as yet, but she has good hips. She takes after her mother, more than me." – The Iron Captain, AFFC
+.+.+
Does the moon tea have anything to do with jonsa? I'll include it, and let you decide.
She had surrendered her virtue at six-and-ten, to a beautiful blond-haired sailor on a trading galley up from Lys. He only knew six words of the Common Tongue, but "fuck" was one of them—the very word she'd hoped to hear. Afterward, Asha had the sense to find a woods witch, who showed her how to brew moon tea to keep her belly flat. - The Kraken's Daughter, AFFC
x
"I swore a vow . . ."
". . . not to wed or father children. Well, I have drunk my moon tea, and you know I cannot marry you." She smiled. "Though I might be persuaded to keep you for my paramour." - The Soiled Knight, AFFC
x
"The little queen has appetites that Tommen is as yet too young to satisfy." That was always a danger, when a grown woman was married to a child. Even more so with a widow. She may claim that Renly never touched her, but I will not believe it. Women only drank moon tea for one reason; maidens had no need for it at all. - Cersei IX, AFFC
x
"As you will." Jaime turned to the daughter. "I am sorry for your loss. The boy had courage, I'll give him that. There is a question I must ask you. Are you carrying his child, my lady?"
Jeyne burst from her chair and would have fled the room if the guard at the door had not seized her by the arm. "She is not," said Lady Sybell, as her daughter struggled to escape. "I made certain of that, as your lord father bid me." - Jaime VII, AFFC
x
"You're bastard-born yourself. And if Ygritte does not want a child, she will go to some woods witch and drink a cup o' moon tea. You do not come into it, once the seed is planted." - Jon II, ASOS
x
Tears ran down her aunt's puffy red face. "I gave you my maiden's gift. I would have given you a son too, but they murdered him with moon tea, with tansy and mint and wormwood, a spoon of honey and a drop of pennyroyal. It wasn't me, I never knew, I only drank what Father gave me . . ." - Sansa VII, ASOS
+.+.+
Two prophetic conversations have Sansa and Cersei on the same path.
"When will I wed the prince?" she asked.
"Never. You will wed the king." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
x
"No," Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. "Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king's council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon."
[...]
Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?"
"You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon."
Arya screwed up her face. "No," she said, "that's Sansa." - Eddard V, AGOT
+.+.+
Ashford Tournament!
Thank you @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly for the theory! (lol)
Thank you @butterflies-dragons for the additional parallels!
"Will there be another champion in Ser Humfrey's [Hardyng] place?"
"Lord Ashford had a mind to grant the place to Lord Caron, or perhaps the other Ser Humfrey, the one who gave Hardyng such a splendid match, but Prince Baelor told him that it would not be seemly to remove Ser Humfrey's shield and pavilion under the circumstances. I believe they will continue with four champions in place of five."
Four champions, Dunk thought. Leo Tyrell, Lyonel Baratheon, Tybolt Lannister, and Prince Valarr [Targaryen]. - The Hedge Knight
___
Lyonel Baratheon
Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. - Catelyn II, AGOT
x
___
Leo Tyrell
The words came tumbling out of her. "Yes. I will. I would like that more than anything. To wed Ser Loras, to love him . . ."
"Loras?" Lady Olenna sounded annoyed. "Don't be foolish, child. Kingsguard never wed. Didn't they teach you anything in Winterfell? We were speaking of my grandson Willas. He is a bit old for you, to be sure, but a dear boy for all that. Not the least bit oafish, and heir to Highgarden besides." - Sansa I, ASOS
x
Willas Tyrell was green as his surcoat and had no business riding in such company. The Fat Flower thrust him into tourneys at too tender an age, just as he did with the other two. He wanted another Leo Longthorn, and made himself a cripple. - Tyrion V, ASOS
___
Tybolt Lannister
"Yes. You are a ward of the crown. The king stands in your father's place, since your brother is an attainted traitor. That means he has every right to dispose of your hand. You are to marry my brother Tyrion." - Sansa III, ASOS
x
The Baratheon and Lannister defeat the maiden's brother(s).
Tybolt Lannister and Androw Ashford rode against each other thrice more before Ser Androw finally lost shield, seat, and match all at once. The younger Ashford lasted even longer, breaking no less than nine lances against Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm. Champion and challenger both lost their saddles on their tenth course, only to rise together to fight on, sword against mace. Finally a battered Ser Robert Ashford admitted defeat, but on the viewing stand his father looked anything but dejected. Both Lord Ashford's Sons had been ushered from the ranks of the champions, it was true, but they had acquitted themselves nobly against two of the finest knights in the Seven Kingdoms. - The Hedge Knight
___
Humfrey Hardyng
When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn's bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon . . . and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back . . . why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa . . . Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. - Alayne II, AFFC
x
A lady's armor is her courtesy. Alayne could feel the blood rushing to her face. No tears, she prayed. Please, please, I must not cry. "As you wish, ser. And now if you will excuse me, Littlefinger's bastard must find her lord father and let him know that you have come, so we can begin the tourney on the morrow." And may your horse stumble, Harry the Heir, so you fall on your stupid head in your first tilt. - Alayne I, TWOW
x
At the last possible instant, Ser Humfrey's stallion reared away from the oncoming point, eyes rolling in terror, but too late, Aerion's lance took the animal just above the armor that protected his breastbone, and exploded out of the back of his neck in a gout of bright blood. Screaming, the horse crashed sideways, knocking the wooden barrier to pieces as he fell. Ser Humfrey tried to leap free, but a foot caught in a stirrup and they heard his shriek as his leg was crushed between the splintered fence and falling horse. - The Hedge Knight
___
Prince Valarr Targaryen
Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. - Alayne II, AFFC
x
But they were all dead now, even Arya, everyone but her half-brother, Jon. Some nights she heard talk of him, in the taverns and brothels of the Ragman's Harbor. The Black Bastard of the Wall, one man had called him. - The Blind Girl, ADWD
x
Six pups they'd found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow. - Jon XII, ASOS
x
He was a shorter, slimmer, handsomer version of his sire, without the twice-broken nose that had made Baelor seem more human than royal. Valarr's hair was brown, but a bright streak of silver-gold ran through it. - The Hedge Knight
x
The last pavilion was Prince Valarr's. Of black silk it was, with a line of pointed scarlet pennons hanging from its roof like long red flames. The shield on its stand was glossy black, emblazoned with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen. One of the Kingsguard knights stood beside it, his shining white armor stark against the black of the tentcloth.
[...]
And the black-and-white knight, Lord Gawen Swann, challenged the black prince with the white guardian. - The Hedge Knight
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
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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: teats edition.
"I govern the realm."
Seven save us all, you do. His sister liked to think of herself as Lord Tywin with teats, but she was wrong. Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cersei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted. - Jaime II, AFFC
x
"Must?" Tyrion made a tsking sound. "That is not a word queens like to hear. You are her perfect prince, agreed, bright and bold and comely as any maid could wish. Daenerys Targaryen is no maid, however. She is the widow of a Dothraki khal, a mother of dragons and sacker of cities, Aegon the Conqueror with teats. She may not prove as willing as you wish." - Tyrion VI, ADWD
+.+.+
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
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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: the wolf girl edition.
If she had only married Rhaegar as the gods intended, he would never have looked twice at the wolf girl. Rhaegar would be our king today and I would be his queen, the mother of his sons. - Cersei V, AFFC
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
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The dreams killed them, every one.
"The last dragon died before you were born," said Sam. "How could you remember them?"
"I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend . . . or . . ." - Samwell III, AFFC
+.+.+
A preview?
Three hundred years ago, when Aegon the Dragon landed beneath this very hill, the High Septon locked himself within the Starry Sept of Oldtown and prayed for seven days and seven nights, taking no nourishment but bread and water. When he emerged he announced that the Faith would not oppose Aegon and his sisters, for the Crone had lifted up her lamp to show him what lay ahead. If Oldtown took up arms against the Dragon, Oldtown would burn, and the Hightower and the Citadel and the Starry Sept would be cast down and destroyed. Lord Hightower was a godly man. When he heard the prophecy, he kept his strength at home and opened the city gates to Aegon when he came. And His High Holiness anointed the Conqueror with the seven oils. I must do as he did, three hundred years ago. I must pray, and fast." - Cersei VI, AFFC
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Just because you give something a different name. . .
"Who are they?" he asked the men who helped tie up their boat.
"Widows and orphans. They're to be sold as slaves."
"Sold?" There were no slaves in the Iron Islands, only thralls. A thrall was bound to service, but he was not chattel. His children were born free, so long as they were given to the Drowned God. And thralls were never bought nor sold for gold. A man paid the iron price for thralls, or else had none. "They should be thralls, or salt wives," Victarion complained.
"It's by the king's decree," the man said.
"The strong have always taken from the weak," said Nute the Barber. "Thralls or slaves, it makes no matter. Their men could not defend them, so now they are ours, to do with as we will." - The Reaver, AFFC
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Are you sure they believed in the cause?
"When I died in the Battle of the Trident. I fought for Prince Rhaegar, though he never knew my name. I could not tell you why, save that the lord I served served a lord who served a lord who had decided to support the dragon rather than the stag. Had he decided elsewise, I might have been on the other side of the river. The battle was a bloody thing. The singers would have us believe it was all Rhaegar and Robert struggling in the stream for a woman both of them claimed to love, but I assure you, other men were fighting too, and I was one. - Brienne VI, AFFC
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
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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: they're everywhere edition.
The far end of the hall was lost in darkness, and Cersei could not but feel that the shadows were closing around her too. My enemies are everywhere, and my friends are useless. - Cersei VII, AFFC
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
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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: bed slaves edition.
She twisted Taena's other nipple too, pulling until the other woman gasped. "I am the queen. I mean to claim my rights." - Cersei VII, AFFC
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
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What fools they were! Aemon has the prophecy all figured out.
Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth in that.
On Braavos, it had seemed possible that Aemon might recover. Xhondo's talk of dragons had almost seemed to restore the old man to himself. That night he ate every bite Sam put before him. "No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." - Samwell IV, AFFC
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
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Poor Melisandre, deceived herself because she wanted to believe, unlike Aemon Targaryen. . .
"No," the old man said. "It must be you. Tell them. The prophecy . . . my brother's dream . . . Lady Melisandre has misread the signs. Stannis . . . Stannis has some of the dragon blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg's little girl, she was how they came by it . . . their father's mother . . . she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl. I remembered that, so I allowed myself to hope . . . perhaps I wanted to . . . we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that . . . light without heat . . . an empty glamor . . . the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam. Daenerys is our hope. Tell them that, at the Citadel. Make them listen. They must send her a maester. Daenerys must be counseled, taught, protected. - Samwell IV, AFFC
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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: bored to tears edition.
"May I have the honor of accompanying Your Grace to court?"
"If you can bear the tedium," said Cersei. "Robert was a fool about most things, but he was right in one regard. It is wearisome work to rule a kingdom." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
x
The rest was a tedium the queen knew well. She sat upon her cushions, listening, one foot jiggling with impatience. - Daenerys VII, ADWD
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Mad Queen & Mad Queen parallels that make us laugh: bad ideas come in three edition.
The girls wandered for a long while before they found the crone's tent. By the time they did all the torches were guttering out. Cersei watched the girls huddling, whispering to one another. Go back, she tried to tell them. Turn away. There is nothing here for you.
[...]
She dreamt an old dream, of three girls in brown cloaks, a wattled crone, and a tent that smelled of death.
The crone's tent was dark, with a tall peaked roof. She did not want to go in, no more than she had wanted to at ten, but the other girls were watching her, so she could not turn away. They were three in the dream, as they had been in life.
[...]
"Three questions may you ask," the crone said, once she'd had her drink. "You will not like my answers. Ask, or begone with you." - Cersei VIII, AFFC
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
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Wait for the payoff.
Lord Hallyne of the Guild of Alchemists presented himself, to ask that his pyromancers be allowed to hatch any dragon's eggs that might turn up upon Dragonstone, now that the isle was safely back in royal hands. "If any such eggs remained, Stannis would have sold them to pay for his rebellion," the queen told him. She refrained from saying that the plan was mad. Ever since the last Targaryen dragon had died, all such attempts had ended in death, disaster, or disgrace. - Cersei VIII, AFFC
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A Griffin King is slayed by someone flying on a falcon.
The Winged Knight was Ser Artys Arryn. Legend said that he had driven the First Men from the Vale and flown to the top of the Giant's Lance on a huge falcon to slay the Griffin King. There were a hundred tales of his adventures. - Alayne II, AFFC
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Lady Stoneheart shows no mercy.
"Judgment?" She frowned. "Podrick Payne is just a boy."
"He says he is a squire."
"You know how boys will boast."
"The Imp's squire. He has fought in battles, by his own admission. He has even killed, to hear him tell it."
"A boy," she said again. "Have pity." - Brienne VIII, AFFC
x
Within he found a boy of twelve laying out clothing on the bed; his squire, such that he was. - Tyrion III, ACOK
x
"Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." - Daenerys III, ASOS
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That's the thing about prophecies.
"Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy." Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. "Not that I would trust it. Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time." He chewed a bit. "Still . . ." - Samwell V, AFFC
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LET'S DANCE: STARK vs. TARG
Thank you, @aegor-bamfsteel and @agentrouka-blog!
The Moonsingers led the slaves to a place where the dragonlords couldn't find them.
"The Moonsingers led us to this place of refuge, where the dragons of Valyria could not find us," Denyo said. - Arya I, AFFC
x
When a shipment of slaves of the Valyrian Freehold bound for Sothoryos revolted, seized the slave ships transporting them, and fled north, a group of enslaved women from the lands of the Jogos Nhai prophesied where they would find shelter: a lagoon behind a wall of pine-clad hills and sea stones, where frequent fogs would help hide the refugees from the eyes of dragonlords passing overhead. These women were moonsingers and, according to Braavosi history, their prophecy proved true. For that reason, the Temple of the Moonsingers is the largest in Braavos. - A Wiki of Ice and Fire
x
In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her. - Jon I, ADWD
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
+.+.+
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
+.+.+
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
+.+.+
Euron wants his bride.
"A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver's Bay and bring my love to me?"
[...]
"So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that's worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware."
[...]
"The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver's Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me." - The Reaver, AFFC
+.+.+
Victarion's highly skilled at making deliveries.
When Balon was wed, it was me he sent to Harlaw to bring him back his bride. - The Drowned Man, AFFC
+.+.+
Ironborn dressed like hunky Daario.
"My apologies," the captain said when his inspection was complete. "It grieves me that honest men must suffer such discourtesy, but sooner that than ironmen in Oldtown. Only a fortnight ago some of those bloody bastards captured a Tyroshi merchantman in the straits. They killed her crew, donned their clothes, and used the dyes they found to color their whiskers half a hundred colors. Once inside the walls they meant to set the port ablaze and open a gate from within whilst we fought the fire. Might have worked, but they ran afoul of the Lady of the Tower, and her oarsmaster has a Tyroshi wife. When he saw all the green and purple beards he hailed them in the tongue of Tyrosh, and not one of them had the words to hail him back." - Samwell V, AFFC
+.+.+
Euron's banner is smoke-stained.
Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!
Xhondo pointed at a half-sunken longship in the shallows. The remnants of a banner drooped from her stern, smoke-stained and ragged. The charge was one Sam had never seen before: a red eye with a black pupil, beneath a black iron crown supported by two crows. "Whose banner is that?" Sam asked. Xhondo only shrugged.
+.+.+
SQUID GAME
Join me, as we try to piece together how the story ends for Victarion and Euron Greyjoy.
What do we know about Vicky Greyjoy?
He's a fearsome warrior, loyal to a fault, and has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal (wink, wink).
"Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet, and a fearsome warrior. I have heard them sing of him in the alehouses."
"During my lord father's rebellion, he sailed into Lannisport with my uncle Euron and burned the Lannister fleet where it lay at anchor," Theon recalled. "The plan was Euron's, though. Victarion is like some great grey bullock, strong and tireless and dutiful, but not like to win any races. No doubt, he'll serve me as loyally as he has served my lord father. He has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal." - Theon II, ACOK
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
+.+.+
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
+.+.+
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
+.+.+
He beat his wife to death, and gave her to the crabs.
Actions like that are never met with poetic justice in this story.
Victarion knew that to mean the girl did not have a hump. Yet when he tried to picture her, he only saw the wife he'd killed. He had sobbed each time he struck her, and afterward carried her down to the rocks to give her to the crabs. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
"She was only a salt wife." He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. - The Reaver, AFFC
+.+.+
And he will absolutely positively never ever kill his brother.
No man is as accursed as the kinslayer, got it?
Euron Greyjoy, King of the Isles and the North. The thought woke an old rage in his heart, but still . . .
"Words are wind," Victarion told them, "and the only good wind is that which fills our sails. Would you have me fight the Crow's Eye? Brother against brother, ironborn against ironborn?" Euron was still his elder, no matter how much bad blood might be between them. No man is as accursed as the kinslayer. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Victarion's hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he had ever been, with a bull's broad chest and a boy's flat belly. The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men, Balon had reminded him on the day he sent the Crow's Eye off to sea. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Victarion would not speak of kinslaying, here in this godly place beneath the bones of Nagga and the Grey King's Hall, but many a night he dreamed of driving a mailed fist into Euron's smiling face, until the flesh split and his bad blood ran red and free. I must not. I pledged my word to Balon. - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
Balon had commanded them not to speak of it, but Balon was dead. "He put a baby in her belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return . . ." - The Iron Captain, AFFC
x
The only blow he landed completed the ruin of Victarion's shield, but the cut the captain dealt in answer split his head in two. Would that I could deal with the Crow's Eye as simply. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
He drank in the darkness, brooding on his brother. If I do not strike the blow with mine own hand, am I still a kinslayer? Victarion feared no man, but the Drowned God's curse gave him pause. If another strikes him down at my command, will his blood still stain my hands? - The Reaver, AFFC
x
"I placed the crown upon his head," said the priest, seaweed dripping in his hair, "and gladly will I wrest it off again and crown you in his stead. Only you are strong enough to fight him."
"The Drowned God raised him up," Victarion complained. "Let the Drowned God cast him down." - The Reaver, AFFC
x
His oarsmen bent their backs toward Oakenshield, and the iron captain went belowdecks once again. "I could kill him," he told the dusky woman. "Though it is a great sin to kill your king, and a worse one to kill your brother." He frowned. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
He would give half his teeth for the chance to try his axe against the Kingslayer or the Knight of Flowers. That was the sort of battle that he understood. The kinslayer was accursed in the eyes of gods and men, but the warrior was honored and revered. - The Reaver, AFFC
x
One day I shall drink your wine, Crow's Eye, and take from you all that you hold dear. But was there anything Euron held dear? - The Reaver, AFFC
x
"A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver's Bay and bring my love to me?"
I had a love once too. Victarion's hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter on the floor. I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. - The Reaver, AFFC
+.+.+
But let's say the unthinkable happens, and Vicky does kill Euron - please understand drowning doesn't really count.
"Euron is elder," the priest said, "but Victarion is more godly."
"Will it come to war between them?" asked the maester.
"Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn."
"A pious sentiment, Damphair," said Goodbrother, "but not one that your brother shares. He had Sawane Botley drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to Theon."
"If he was drowned, no blood was shed," said Aeron. - The Prophet, AFFC
