#lizard lions

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Sansa I

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

Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it.

The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow the could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad.

Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus.

Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth.

None of which stopped Arya, of course.

[theladymeera]

Okay but like, what does The Neck actually look like? We know there’s trees and that those trees can get pretty tall. But aside from that? What sort of agriculture do the people in the Neck participate in? Do they have similar gardening to the Aztecs with set beds that are cultivated? Do they just fish and forage? If so, what do they do to influence their environment that way? Is the Neck cold or temperate? We know it’s too far north to be tropical but it could still get quite warm during summers. Considering that there’s a population of crocodilians it has to be at least warm enough for the animals to breed and incubate their eggs, which means it can’t get that cold in winter, which wouldn’t make sense with the worldbuilding George has done. Meaning these crocodilians are either uniquely adapted to survive in cold climates, there’s some way for them to incubate their eggs and survive long-term hibernation like a mutation to store extra fat and maybe a change in behavior where they have to live near the eggs. Or maybe they’ve got a symbiotic relationship with the people there, who have to take and keep the eggs incubated. Or there’s warm spots where they can gather. Or all breeding and egg-laying would be during high summer which would make their population much less stable. I mean, all populations of animals and people would realistically be changed significantly by this season thing what with animals no longer being able to have regular annual breeding, birthing, growing, etc seasons like they do irl. But also are there parts of the Neck that are more marshy? How do you know you’ve entered the Neck as that hasn’t really been described further than the prescence of Moat Cailin? Is there a change in types of trees? A switch to marshland. It can’t just be that it gets muddier and muddier. How does Greywater Watch move? Is it human-driven or just floating on a lake? Why does Meera have sheepskin breeches? Is there trade between the Neck and the riverlands/north? Since there’s no large cities on either side do crannogmen have to go downstream to large markets to trade? Is the animosity the Frey family shows towards crannogmen shared by their vassals and peasants? Or are they pretty much the same people due to so much trade and marriages and cultural sharing that inevitably happens in borderlands? There are things I need to know, George.

[joannalannister]

Lizard-lions, described in Tuf Voyaging, “A Beast for Norn”

Tuf lifted his rented binoculars to his eyes, and saw the lizard-lion scrabble forward—two meters of scaled green reptile with a whiplike tail thrice its own length and the long snout of an Old Earth alligator. Its jaws opened and closed soundlessly, displaying an array of impressive teeth.

The lizard-lion [...] came waddling forward, its short scaled legs kicking in the sand while the long impossible tail arched above it like the stinger of some reptilian scorpion. [...] the lizard-lion brought the tail down hard. With a bone-breaking crack the whip made contact