#samwell iii

[an-artist-who-loves-got]

Whitetree, Sam thought. Please, let this be Whitetree. He remembered Whitetree. Whitetree was on the maps he'd drawn, on their way north. If this village was Whitetree, he knew where they were. Please, it has to be.

(ASOS, Samwell III)

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

AFFC: Samwell III (Chapter 26)

Night belonged to the bravos and the courtesans. Dareon's new friends, Sam thought bitterly. They were all the singer could talk about of late. He was trying to write a song about one courtesan, a woman called the Moonshadow who had heard him singing beside the Moon Pool and rewarded him with a kiss. "You should have asked her for silver," Sam had said. "It's coin we need, not kisses." But the singer only smiled. "Some kisses are worth more than yellow gold, Slayer." That made him angry too. Dareon was not supposed to be making up songs about courtesans. He was supposed to be singing about the Wall and the valor of the Night's Watch. Jon had hoped that perhaps his songs might persuade a few young men to take the black. Instead he sang of golden kisses, silvery hair, and red, red lips. No one ever took the black for red, red lips.

Don't ask me about the moon, silver, or red lips.

This plan is dumb. Who in Braavos is going to pay for a ship that takes them to another continent, where they can't speak the language, so they can join a celibate military order in some frozen barren land? I'd rather be broke and starving on a lagoon.

+.+.+

"All that weeping makes me want to slap her," he complained, "and I can scarce sleep for her sobbing."

You would weep as well if you had a son and lost him, Sam almost said. He could not blame Gilly for her grief. Instead, he blamed Jon Snow and wondered when Jon's heart had turned to stone. 

+.+.+

Once he asked Maester Aemon that very question, when Gilly was down at the canal fetching water for them. "When you raised him up to be the lord commander," the old man answered.

Yeah, Aemon had nothing to do with it.

+.+.+

A hollow rumbling echoed off the roofs of Braavos, like the sound of distant thunder; the Titan, sounding nightfall from across the lagoon.

The Titan makes thunder!

+.+.+

Some days he did not seem to know where he was. Some days he would lose his way when saying something and begin to ramble on about his father or his brother. He is one hundred and two, Sam reminded himself, but he had been just as old at Castle Black and his wits had never wandered there.

Man, Jon really did kill this guy, huh? That's fantastic.

Don't even think about judging me.

+.+.+

I should have used our coin for wood, Sam chided himself every time. I should have had the sense to keep him warm.

Instead he had squandered the last of their silver on a healer from the House of the Red Hands, a tall pale man in robes embroidered with swirling stripes of red and white. All that the silver bought him was half a flask of dreamwine. 

[...]

A chill had gotten inside Maester Aemon during the voyage and settled in his chest. By the time they got to Braavos, he had been so weak they'd had to carry him ashore. They'd still had a fat bag of silver then, so Dareon had asked for the inn's biggest bed. The one they'd gotten was large enough to sleep eight, so the innkeep insisted on charging them for that many.

Samwell is quickly cheated out of all their money. Hindsight is 20/20, but Jon probably should have seen that one coming.

+.+.+

"Oldtown," Maester Aemon wheezed. "Yes. I dreamt of Oldtown, Sam. I was young again and my brother Egg was with me, with that big knight he served. We were drinking in the old inn where they make the fearsomely strong cider."

If I read the words 'Oldtown' or 'fearsomely strong cider' in one more chapter, I'm cancelling the reread.

+.+.+

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. 

I'm including this because I'm paranoid.

+.+.+

"There's no more wood." Dareon had paid the innkeep double for a room with a hearth, but none of them had realized that wood would be so costly here. Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty. Nor would the Braavosi cut the pines that covered the outlying islands around their great lagoon and acted as windbreaks to shield them from storms. Instead, firewood was brought in by barge, up the rivers and across the lagoon. Even dung was dear here; the Braavosi used boats in place of horses.

Sounds like a great trading opportunity for a lumber baron.

Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty.

Why does the lemongate theory exist? The explanation is right there. It's sitting right there on the page. Who the hell convinces themselves a lemon tree can't exist in Braavos? As if Braavos is in the middle of Siberia or something.

+.+.+

"Not this time, Sam. I dreamed . . . in the black of night a man asks all the questions he dare not ask by daylight. For me, these past years, only one question has remained. Why would the gods take my eyes and my strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old done man like me?" Aemon's fingers trembled, twigs sheathed in spotted skin. "I remember, Sam. I still remember."

He was not making sense. "Remember what?"

"Dragons," Aemon whispered. "The grief and glory of my House, they were."

Aemon Targaryen believes he's being kept alive for some greater purpose.

After the gods are finished tossing the coin, they decree every Targaryan must also be an imbecile.

+.+.+

"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 . . .

Red like the red door? Red like the Red Keep? Red like blood? Maybe it’s Jon’s shadow you’re seeing.

My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one.

Kill them all!

I'm guessing this is why we believe that Egg guy caused Summerhall?

+.+.+

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. The Stranger waits outside my door and will not be denied. Steward, you have served me faithfully. Do this one last brave thing for me. Go down to the ships, Sam. Learn all you can about these dragons."

Damn, not a Targaryen saying this.

Fire good, ice bad. Traitor.

+.+.+

His swordbelt hung from a peg on the wall, beside the old cracked horn that Jon had given him.

Horn!

+.+.+

His swordbelt kept threatening to fall down about his ankles, so he had to keep tugging it back up as he went. 

George was tired of being criticized for Samwell not losing weight while ranging.

+.+.+

Dareon . . . I should not think ill of him. He could be hurt, perhaps that is why he did not come back. He could be dead, lying in some alley in a pool of blood, or floating facedown in one of the canals.

Keep this same energy for Jon, please.

+.+.+

In the Seven Kingdoms nobles draped themselves in velvets, silks, and samites of a hundred hues whilst peasants and smallfolk wore raw wool and dull brown roughspun. In Braavos it was otherwise. The bravos swaggered about like peacocks, fingering their swords, whilst the mighty dressed in charcoal grey and purple, blues that were almost black and blacks as dark as a moonless night.

Will this be important later?

+.+.+

The other one, the dark-haired bravo in the burgundy brocade and yellow cloak whose name would appear to have been Terro, made some comment in Braavosi, and his fair-haired friend laughed, and said, "My friend Terro says you dress above your station. Are you some great lord, to wear the black?"

"He is not a lord," a child's voice put in. "He's in the Night's Watch, stupid. From Westeros." A girl edged into the light, pushing a barrow full of seaweed; a scruffy, skinny creature in big boots, with ragged unwashed hair.

Who is this?

+.+.+

"He has no coin," mocked the fair-haired bravo. His dark-haired friend grinned and said something in Braavosi. "My friend Terro is chilly. Be our good fat friend and give him your cloak."

"Don't do that either," said the barrow girl, "or else they'll ask for your boots next, and before long you'll be naked."

"Little cats who howl too loud get drowned in the canals," warned the fair-haired bravo.

"Not if they have claws." And suddenly there was a knife in the girl's left hand, a blade as skinny as she was. The one called Terro said something to his fair-haired friend and the two of them moved off, chuckling at one another.

She reminds me of someone, I just can't quite put my finger on it.

+.+.+

"The bravos never bother anyone without a sword. Not even stupid camel cunts like Terro and Orbelo."

Excuse me, do you kiss your mother with that mouth!?

You will.

+.+.+

"Who are you?"

"No one." She stank of fish. "I used to be someone, but now I'm not. You can call me Cat, if you like. Who are you?"

"Samwell, of House Tarly. You speak the Common Tongue."

"My father was the oarmaster on Nymeria. A bravo killed him for saying that my mother was more beautiful than the Nightingale. Not one of those camel cunts you met, a real bravo. Someday I'll slit his throat. The captain said Nymeria had no need of little girls, so he put me off. Brusco took me in and gave me a barrow." 

Hmmm.

At first glance that looks like a completely fabricated story, but there might be something hiding here.

+.+.+

She looked up at him. "What ship will you be sailing on?"

"We bought passage on the Lady Ushanora."

The girl squinted at him suspiciously. "She's gone. Don't you know? She left days and days ago."

I know, Sam might have said. He and Dareon had stood on the dock watching the rise and fall of her oars as she beat for the Titan and the open sea. "Well," the singer said, "that's done." If Sam had been a braver man, he would have shoved him into the water. When it came to talking girls out of their clothes Dareon had a honeyed tongue, yet in the captain's cabin somehow Sam had done all the talking, trying to persuade the Braavosi to wait for them. "Three days I have waited for this old man," the captain had said. "My holds are full, and my men have fucked their wives farewell. With you or without, my Lady leaves on the tide."

[...]

Even worse, he had refused to return the passage money they had paid him, the silver that was meant to see them safe to Oldtown. "You bought my finest cabin. It is there, awaiting you. If you do not choose to occupy it, that is no fault of mine. Why should I bear the loss?"

I don't know, maybe we should have sent Grenn along too.

+.+.+

"You said you saw a singer . . ."

"At the Happy Port. He's going to wed the Sailor's Wife."

"Wed?"

"She only beds the ones who marry her."

You hear that? Always get dinner first.

+.+.+

Dareon cannot wed! He said the words! "I have to go."

You're the one that keeps cloaking Gilly.

It's fine, kill Dareon, and bring him back.

+.+.+

He ran. It was a long way over slick cobbles. 

PATE?!

+.+.+

Behind them a purple galleas had been painted on the wall, crewed by women clad in thigh-high boots and nothing else. 

An immature person would make an Arya joke.

+.+.+

"I'll go," said Sam, "but you'll come with me."

"No. I'm done with you. I'm done with black." Dareon tore his cloak off his naked bride and tossed it in Sam's face. "Here. Throw that rag on the old man, it may keep him a little warmer. I shan't be needing it. I'll be clad in velvet soon. Next year I'll be wearing furs and eating—"

Sam hit him.

He did not think about it. His hand came up, curled into a fist, and crashed into the singer's mouth. Dareon cursed and his naked wife gave a shriek and Sam threw himself onto the singer and knocked him backwards over a low table. They were almost of a height, but Sam weighed twice as much, and for once he was too angry to be afraid. He punched the singer in the face and in the belly, then began to pummel him about the shoulders with both hands. When Dareon grabbed his wrists, Sam butted him with his head and broke his lip. The singer let go and he smashed him in the nose. Somewhere a man was laughing, a woman cursing. The fight seemed to slow, as if they were two black flies struggling in amber. Then someone dragged Sam off the singer's chest. He hit that person too, and something hard crashed into his head.

Samwell is ✨ stressed. ✨

+.+.+

The next he knew he was outside, flying headfirst through the fog. For half a heartbeat he saw black water underneath him. Then the canal came up and smashed him in the face.

[...]

I'm going to drown, he thought, in a blind black panic. He thrashed, trying to claw his way back to the surface, but instead his face bumped the bottom of the canal. I'm upside down, he realized, I'm drowning. Something moved beneath one flailing hand, an eel or a fish, slithering through his fingers. I can't drown, Maester Aemon will die without me, and Gilly will have no one. I have to swim, I have to . . .

There was a huge splash, and something coiled around him, under his arms and around his chest. The eel, was his first thought, the eel has got me, it's going to pull me down. He opened his mouth to scream, and swallowed more water. I'm drowned, was his last thought. Oh, gods be good, I'm drowned.

Hyle Hunt is teleporting across the map faster than you can say season 7.

What is dead may never die, Samwell. Rise again, harder and stronger.

+.+.+

His rescuer leaned over him, huge and black and dripping. "You owe Xhondo many feathers. The water ruined Xhondo's fine cloak."

It had, Sam saw. The feathered cloak clung to the black man's huge shoulders, sodden and soiled. "I never meant . . ."

". . . to be swimming? Xhondo saw. Too much splashing. Fat men should float." He grabbed Sam's doublet with a huge black fist and hauled him to his feet. "Xhondo mates on Cinnamon Wind. Many tongues he speaks, a little. Inside Xhondo laughs, to see you punch the singer. And Xhondo hears." A broad white smile spread across his face. "Xhondo knows these dragons."

Yay! Xhondo of the Cinnamon Wind!

"Not for a year or more, I fear. From here the Cinnamon Wind sails east, to make the trader's circle round the Jade Sea."

"I see," said Dany, disappointed. "I wish you fair winds and good trading, then. You have brought me a precious gift."

"I have been amply repaid, great queen."

She puzzled at that. "How so?"

His eyes gleamed. "I have seen dragons."

Dany laughed. "And will see more of them one day, I hope. Come to me in King's Landing when I am on my father's throne, and you shall have a great reward." - Daenerys II, ACOK

Final thoughts:

We know he'll eventually meet Sansa, but I think it's important he meet Rickon and Lady Stoneheart too.

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[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ASOS: Samwell III (Chapter 46)

Night was coming on, and it would be good to sleep beneath a roof for once. He was so tired. It seemed as though he had been walking half his life. His boots were falling to pieces, and all the blisters on his feet had burst and turned to callus, but now he had new blisters under the callus, and his toes were getting frostbitten.

But it was either walk or die, Sam knew. Gilly was still weak from childbirth and carrying the babe besides; she needed the horse more than he did. 

Aw.

+.+.+

Sam heard a rustling of rats from a dark corner, but otherwise there was nothing in any of them but old straw, old smells, and some ashes beneath the smoke hole.

I'm now programmed to include every mention of rats.

+.+.+

"Old gods, hear my prayer. The Seven were my father's gods but I said my words to you when I joined the Watch. Help us now. I fear we might be lost. We're hungry too, and so cold. I don't know what gods I believe in now, but . . . please, if you're there, help us. Gilly has a little son." That was all that he could think to say. The dusk was deepening, the leaves of the weirwood rustling softly, waving like a thousand blood-red hands. Whether Jon's gods had heard him or not he could not say.

Samwell prays three times in this chapter.

Gods don't hear prayers in this story, but someone else might.

+.+.+

Sam blushed. "I . . . I know some songs. When I was little I liked to sing. I danced too, but my lord father never liked me to. He said if I wanted to prance around I should do it in the yard with a sword in my hand."

"Could you sing some southron song? For the babe?"

"If you like." Sam thought for a moment. "There's a song our septon used to sing to me and my sisters, when we were little and it was time for us to go to sleep. 'The Song of the Seven,' it's called." He cleared his throat and softly sang:

[...]

The Seven Gods who made us all,

are listening if we should call.

So close your eyes, you shall not fall,

they see you, little children,

Just close your eyes, you shall not fall,

they see you, little children.

I'm not going to include the entire song, because tumblr is still broken. The Maiden part is cute.

Samwell's now singing a hymn about a different set of gods. Gods don't hear hymns in this story, but I can't help but notice little children are listening.

+.+.+

Gilly gave him a puzzled look. "Did you only sing of six gods? Craster always told us you southrons had seven."

"Seven," he agreed, "but no one sings of the Stranger." The Stranger's face was the face of death. Even talking of him made Sam uncomfortable.

I bet she does.

Arya IX ->

Stranger, the Hound called him. Arya had tried to steal him once, when Clegane was taking a piss against a tree, thinking she could ride off before he could catch her. Stranger had almost bitten her face off. 

+.+.+

After they had finished, Sam begged her pardon and went out to relieve himself and look after the horse. A biting wind was blowing from the north, and the leaves in the trees rattled at him as he passed.

Can't a man get a little privacy?

+.+.+

She kept saying how she'd be his wife if he wanted, but black brothers didn't keep wives; besides, he was a Tarly of Horn Hill, he could never wed a wildling. 

[...]

His cloak was big enough to cover all three of them and keep in the warmth of their bodies.

Sam covers Gilly in his cloak almost immediately after thinking he can't wed her.

+.+.+

He liked sleeping next to her. It made him remember times long past, when he had shared a huge bed at Horn Hill with two of his sisters. 

While cuddled next to Gilly, under his cloak, Sam thinks of his sisters.

If that doesn't make you laugh, nothing will.

+.+.+

His dreams were strange that night. He was back at Horn Hill, at the castle, but his father was not there. It was Sam's castle now. Jon Snow was with him. Lord Mormont too, the Old Bear, and Grenn and Dolorous Edd and Pyp and Toad and all his other brothers from the Watch, but they wore bright colors instead of black. Sam sat at the high table and feasted them all, cutting thick slices off a roast with his father's greatsword Heartsbane. There were sweet cakes to eat and honeyed wine to drink, there was singing and dancing, and everyone was warm. When the feast was done he went up to sleep; not to the lord's bedchamber where his mother and father lived but to the room he had once shared with his sisters. Only instead of his sisters it was Gilly waiting in the huge soft bed, wearing nothing but a big shaggy fur, milk leaking from her breasts.

I know Heartsbane has to be important in the future, I just don't know how yet. The show bungled it.

More laughs: Sam finds Gilly in a state of undress, in the bedchamber he shares with his sisters.

+.+.+

Then, by the door, one of the shadows moved. A big one.

This is still a dream, Sam prayed. Oh, make it that I'm still asleep, make it a nightmare. He's dead, he's dead, I saw him die. "He's come for the babe," Gilly wept. "He smells him. A babe fresh-born stinks o' life. He's come for the life."

The huge dark shape stooped under the lintel, into the hall, and shambled toward them. In the dim light of the fire, the shadow became Small Paul.

"Go away," Sam croaked. "We don't want you here." Paul's hands were coal, his face was milk, his eyes shone a bitter blue. Hoarfrost whitened his beard, and on one shoulder hunched a raven, pecking at his cheek, eating the dead white flesh.

My first reaction was that I was happy to see Small Paul finally get a raven.

Is that Mormont's raven? That seems impossible. I'll go with no.

+.+.+

"Small Paul. Do you know me? I'm Sam, fat Sam, Sam the Scared, you saved me in the woods. You carried me when I couldn't walk another step. No one else could have done that, but you did." Sam backed away, knife in hand, sniveling. I am such a coward. "Don't hurt us, Paul. Please. Why would you want to hurt us?"

It's kind of sweet his first instinct is to reason with it. Hey, you never know, it could work in the future.

+.+.+

Across the longhall, Gilly reached the garron. Gods give me courage, Sam prayed. For once, give me a little courage. Just long enough for her to get away.

There's Sam praying to the gods one final time. Gods don't give you courage Sam, you have that all on your own.

+.+.+

He clutched the dagger with both hands to hold it steady. The wight did not seem to fear the dragonglass. Perhaps he did not know what it was. 

Yeah, I bet that's it.

+.+.+

There was no time to think or pray or be afraid. Samwell Tarly threw himself forward and plunged the dagger down into Small Paul's back. Half-turned, the wight never saw him coming. The raven gave a shriek and took to the air. "You're dead!" Sam screamed as he stabbed. "You're dead, you're dead." He stabbed and screamed, again and again, tearing huge rents in Paul's heavy black cloak. Shards of dragonglass flew everywhere as the blade shattered on the iron mail beneath the wool.

Sam's wail made a white mist in the black air. He dropped the useless hilt and took a hasty step backwards as Small Paul twisted around. 

Oops, there's that dragonglass being completely useless against wights. A fact that's well established in these books.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

The children of the forest used to give the Night's Watch 100 obsidian weapons a year. One hundred. For the White Walkers, not wights.

Now suddenly the show needs you to believe the largest army ever needs to be equipped with these useless fucking weapons to battle a wight army.

Stupid.

+.+.+

Sam wrenched himself sideways, pulling Paul with him . . . his arms flailed against the dirt floor, groping, reaching, scattering the ashes, until at last they found something hot . . . a chunk of charred wood, smouldering red and orange within the black . . . his fingers closed around it, and he smashed it into Paul's mouth, so hard he felt teeth shatter.

[...]

The wight was burning, hoarfrost dripping from his beard as the flesh beneath blackened. Sam heard the raven shriek, but Paul himself made no sound. When his mouth opened, only flames came out. 

Wights/White Walkers keep getting the dragon treatment in Samwell's chapters, and it's not subtle.

+.+.+

He ducked from the long hall. "Gilly?" he called. "Gilly, I killed it. Gil—"

She stood with her back against the weirwood, the boy in her arms. The wights were all around her. 

[...]

Sam made a whimpery sound. "It's not fair . . ."

"Fair." The raven landed on his shoulder. "Fair, far, fear."

Fair, far, fear? Help?

+.+.+

It flapped its wings, and screamed along with Gilly. The wights were almost on her. He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know. The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked. 

SAVE THEM BRAN.

Tongue he did not know? True Tongue? Wait, is it the children of the forest?

+.+.+

Sam Tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates. Ravens! They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands, perched on the bone-white branches, peering between the leaves. He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings. Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds. They swarmed round Chett's face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake's shattered head. There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon.

The gods may not answer prayers, but Bran sure does!

Or the children? Or Bloodraven?

Oh no, I'm second guessing myself.

+.+.+

"Go," said the bird on his shoulder. "Go, go, go."

There's a theory that every talking raven in the story is Bloodraven, but isn't it well established the children of the forest use ravens to communicate?

+.+.+

"But where?" Gilly hurried after him, holding her baby. "They killed our horse, how will we . . ."

"Brother!" The shout cut through the night, through the shrieks of a thousand ravens. Beneath the trees, a man muffled head to heels in mottled blacks and greys sat astride an elk. "Here," the rider called. A hood shadowed his face.

He's wearing blacks. Sam urged Gilly toward him. The elk was huge, a great elk, ten feet tall at the shoulder, with a rack of antlers near as wide. The creature sank to his knees to let them mount. "Here," the rider said, reaching down with a gloved hand to pull Gilly up behind him. Then it was Sam's turn. "My thanks," he puffed. Only when he grasped the offered hand did he realize that the rider wore no glove. His hand was black and cold, with fingers hard as stone.

Coldhands aka Not Benjen Stark, welcome to the story.

This is what's throwing me off. Coldhands will guide Bran to Bloodraven, giving me the impression he's assisting Bloodraven. So maybe Bloodraven sent Coldhands to save Samwell?

I know, I know, why would Bloodraven care about saving Samwell? Well, Coldhands instructs Samwell to bring Bran to the Black Gate, so there's that to consider.

So is it Bloodraven? Or is Coldhands helping the children? Maybe he's helping the children. The chapter seems to be pointing to the children.

Or is it Bran? Bran's been interfering for three books now.

Ughhh, my brain. Help. It's getting harder.

Final thoughts:

Many people pointed it out last Samwell chapter, but it's such a fantastic point, it's worth repeating:

If Samwell is to write A Song of Ice and Fire, all of these clashes with wights and White Walkers will have to mirrored with dragons.

Samwell's lost a lot of brothers to the White Walkers.

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