The facts on the basis fandom especially her antis accused Sansa of poisoning Robert Arryn are
Sansa being used as pawn in poisoning Joffrey.
Lysa poisoning Jon Arryn with the help of Petyr Baelish.
Fandom forget Grrm is not going to repeat a single plot just twice. What is used of Sansa again being used as pawn for poisoning Robin? How it's going to affect her arc?
Some accused her being the active participant in poisoning like Lysa did with to Jon LF help. If Sansa is actively trying to poison him then LF would have told her about this plot since beginning. Why would he hide it from her?
I agree, Sansa unwittingly poisoning Sweetrobin would be a sad and boring waste. Mainly because GRRM is absurdly blatant about the danger of the poison. We learn how dangerous is it from Arya's chapters, after all.
Which is where, incidentally, a poison plot also happens. Who is it that Arya eventually kills by the way of a poisoned coin, knowing he would test it with a bite? The clever business man, counting coins?
He has no courtesy, she thought, watching him go. His face is hard and mean. The old man's nose was pinched and sharp, his lips thin, his eyes small and close-set. His hair had gone to grey, but the little pointed beard at the end of his chin was still black. Cat thought it must be dyed and wondered why he had not dyed his hair as well. One of his shoulders was higher than the other, giving him a crooked cast.
"He is an evil man," she announced that evening when she returned to the House of Black and White. "His lips are cruel, his eyes are mean, and he has a villain's beard."
(ADWD, The Ugly Little Girl)
Who does he reminds us of?
Petyr had been a small boy, and he had grown into a small man, an inch or two shorter than Catelyn, slender and quick, with the sharp features she remembered and the same laughing grey-green eyes. He had a little pointed chin beard now, and threads of silver in his dark hair, though he was still shy of thirty.
(AGOT, Catelyn IV)
Hmm.
Ser Harrold studied her face. "You are comely enough, I grant you. When Lady Anya first told me of this match, I was afraid that you might look like your father."
"Little pointy beard and all?" Alayne laughed.
(TWOW, Alayne)
I'm not saying they'll poison Littlefinger together. But we might want to consider when these parallels in the text show up, whether GRRM basically yelling "Oh NO, look at the DANGEROUS POISON that is SWEETSLEEP!!! LOOK AT IT!!!" maybe we should not be looking at other clues instead.
Thank you so much for always giving insightful answers to our questions! What do you think are the odds of Sweetrobin succumbing to sweetsleep? Part of me will be crushed if he’s killed...I so hope he survives LF’s machinations. What do you predict?
You're very welcome. If you look through my sweetsleep tag, you'll find more detailed things I've written on that. I'm 60/40 that he'll live. His life is definitely in peril, but there are hints that it is at least possible he can survive sweetsleep abuse if a competent healer can accurately diagnose the cause and intervene. The side effects of being small and stunted with a childlike appearance will likely be permanent, but the waif is in her mid-thirties (allegedly). If the story of her childhood sweetsleep poisoning is true, and I have no reason to think she's lying about that part, then we are given a case where the victim survived to adulthood. I don't think GRRM included this for no reason whatsoever.
I really do feel like this on a regular basis. #figuratively #CHILDRENOFANKH #childrenofankhseries #QUOTES #quotes #bookcollector #bookstoresofinstagram By the end of next month the entire series will be available on #Ingram three books left to be released. #SweetSleep #Enlightenment #LetThereBeDragons #WildThing and #BringOutYourDead are available now. I've been a busy girl this year. 🌻❤ There is a proof on the way for #HandlersOfDragons on the way. The working title for book five is #TragicFools The release date shall be announced by the end of 2019. 🌻 https://www.instagram.com/p/B3iWgjpHV-U/?igshid=5y1rniws63wv
Знаете, я только сейчас поняла, почему не стоит возвращаться к бывшим. Это больно и мучительно. Знать, что было во время расставания у него(в данном случае)и когда он узнаёт, что было у меня.. Остаётся очень не приятный осадок. Если вы хоть раз возвращались к своим бывшим, вы меня поймёте. Сейчас пишу это и снова заболело сердце, последнее время я слишком много нервничаю и переживаю, мама это заметила и мы сейчас стали часто общаться по душам, так сказать, это классно.. если честно)
Но сейчас не об этом. Я очень люблю своего парня, мы многое пережили, как я считаю, именно вдвоём. И надеюсь это того стоит. Мне всего 16,но уже было несколько отношений. Да, они совсем не были серьёзными, это дружба и переписки по ночам, но этот человек так запал мне в душу что-ли.. Я пытаюсь сделать как лучше для него,но иногда это только я так считаю, что будет лучше. Не буду углубляться) нет сейчас желания.. В одних из моих прошлых отношений, я была с мальчиком из-за которого у меня появилось огромное желание учится готовить для него. Он не был прям уж из какой то богатой семьи, вовсе нет.. Но он часто ходил и ездил куда до с родителями или родственниками. Первый раз я захотела готовить..для него.. Я вообще не очень то люблю готовить. Но сама бросила этого мальчика, до сих пор не знаю толком причину. Единственное, что могу сказать это то, что он начал перед нашим расставанием общаться с несколькими девушками (ну ладно, девочками), я очень боялась того, что он меня оставит. И решила отступить и оставить его.. Глупый поступок.. Но за то теперь я снова с человеком, которого так любила ещё лет с 13-14. И, теперь, когда ему плохо, я часто виню себя в этом. Я не сдерживала свои обещания, думала будет лучше, если он чего то не узнает, но совсем забыла о том, что всегда говорила.. Лучше правда, какая бы она не была, чем ложь и тем более, что то скрывать. И когда мы говорили об этом, я поняла, что очень виновата. Я клялась жизнью это человека, зная, что говорю не всё и где то скажу не много другое. И потом после этого обещания я долго терзала себя за это, но сейчас ещё сильнее) жаль нельзя забрать свои слова обратно. И время не повернуть вспять.. Я бы многое не сделала). Но я очень благодарна людям с которыми я когда либо общалась, я стала такой именно из-за них. Очень надеюсь, что через каких нибудь 10 лет, мы будем с тобой жить вместе и вспоминать все трудности через которые мы прошли. Я очень тебя люблю. Прости меня, я тебя давно за всё простила ✨
GRRM’s Chekhov’s guns - how can we tell what they are?
yeyaboya asked:
I love the way you analyze ASOIAF and its mysteries and how you made me enjoy them even more by revealing the “Chekhov’s guns”. The last list you made is amazing! I hope this question doesn’t bother you but how can we be sure that some minor mysteries are Chekhov’s guns and not just worldbuilding? Is there something as a literary rule to distinguish them? After all, not every story needs to be told in the books and some things may work better if left open…
Thanks so much! Regarding GRRM’s Chekhov’s guns, the most important thing to remember is where the term came from:
Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there. –Anton Chekhov
That principle can be understood in several ways: 1) if you intend to have something happen later in the story, you should set it up earlier in the story; and 2) if you mention a significant object or other element, it must be important to the plot, otherwise you shouldn’t mention it.
Therefore, deciding whether something is a Chekhov’s gun (for a plot point that hasn’t happened yet) is very similar to deciding whether something is foreshadowing (for a plot point that hasn’t happened yet). If you want to do literary analysis properly, you can’t look at an unfinished work and say definitely that things are foreshadowing or Chekhov’s guns – you need to wait until the work is complete, otherwise you’re only guessing. Sometimes you can guess in a way that turns out to have been pretty accurate, but sometimes the author was not going where you thought he was, sometimes the object was not significant at all, and you end up being just plain wrong.*
*(To step away from ASOIAF, consider the Harry Potter series: some thought that Neville’s parents giving him bubble gum wrappers was a Chekhov’s gun, and built theories about what the letters on the wrappers signified. Others thought that Lily Potter having been skilled at potions and charms was significant foreshadowing for Harry discovering that a potion or charm was needed to defeat Voldemort. Still others believed Harry and Hermione’s flight on the hippogriff was foreshadowing for their future romance, based on alchemical symbolism. While there were many arguments about the validity of these speculative Chekhov’s guns and foreshadowing during the time the story was unfinished, by the end they all turned out to be extremely wrong.)
However, even in an incomplete work, you can analyze pieces of foreshadowing where the thing they foreshadowed happened already, because there you can be definite. For example, the stag killing the mother direwolf, which foreshadowed conflict between the Starks and Baratheons, or all the visions and such foreshadowing the Red Wedding. (Sandor’s “maybe we’ll even be in time for your uncle’s bloody wedding” also counts as foreshadowing, though GRRM was extremely unsubtle by that point. Not that the visions were especially subtle, not at all.) To shift that to Chekhov’s guns (which are often but not always physical objects): for example, at the end of ACOK when Dontos gave Sansa the black amethyst hairnet, that was GRRM hanging the gun upon the wall (and we knew it was a gun because we had been told that strangler crystals looked like dark amethysts at the start of ACOK) – and then the gun was fired in ASOS at Joffrey’s wedding, with one of the “amethysts” in the hairnet used to poison his wine.
Another baseline to check the significance of potential Chekhov’s guns is GRRM’s own words regarding the direwolf Nymeria and her pack of wolves, where he stated that “you don’t hang a giant wolf pack on the wall unless you intend to use it.” He explicitly referred to them as a Chekhov’s gun – and we can see by the many times that Nymeria and the wolfpack have been mentioned in the story, ranging from frightening lords and peasants in the Riverlands, to killing the Brave Companions chasing Arya and her friends, to dragging Catelyn’s body from the river, to being a focus of Arya’s wolf dreams allowing her to keep her identity despite the Faceless Men’s attempts to make her “no one” (again even in TWOW), that GRRM considers them a very important and significant gun that will go off hard. What exact role they’ll play in endgame, we don’t know yet, but it is definite that they will have one.
Therefore we can consider things that have been referred to often, whose ultimate purpose is mysterious or as yet unknown, to be very probable Chekhov’s guns. Valyrian steel, for example, has been hinted to be one of the few things that can destroy the Others – therefore Valyrian steel swords are definite “guns” (Chekhov’s swords?), even specific swords that have not been mentioned much. (Widow’s Wail, not mentioned since Joffrey’s death, but in the Red Keep waiting for Tommen to grow up; the Targaryen swords Blackfyre and Dark Sister, as yet unnamed within the main books but significant within D&E/TWOIAF/F&B; and so on.) The powers of the Wall to repel the Others and focus or block magic have also been referred to often, therefore it seems very likely that the “gun” in this case is the fall of the Wall via the Horn of Joramun, allowing the Others into Westeros to raise the dead and begin the new Long Night. Jaime described how Aerys and his pyromancers planted thousands of jars of wildfire within King’s Landing, even in the cellars of the Red Keep – and while Tyrion and his pyromancers found many of those jars while preparing for the Battle of the Blackwater, significantly they did not discover the ones within the castle – so it seems probable that Aerys’s “fruits” are a huge Chekhov’s gun that’s not just going to be fired, it’s going to explode. It’s technically possible that this might not be a gun; it could be that the Blackwater was all the plot that the wildfire jars were needed for… but at this moment (especially with wildfire playing a major role in a KL explosion in the show), I’d take any bet.
And as for certain major or minor mysteries (Jon’s parentage, Ashara’s suicide, Tyrek’s disappearance, Benjen’s disappearance, Jaqen’s actions, Patchface, the many prophecies, etc, etc), whether they can be defined as a “Chekhov’s gun” or not… it’s kind of a matter of semantics. However, GRRM is definitely following Chekhov’s principle here, in that he is establishing these plot elements within the story, “hanging them on the wall”, so that when they are resolved or become relevant later, it won’t come out of nowhere. (Note GRRM has said he avoids looking at fan theories in case they’re right, because then he might be tempted to change things up to surprise people – but if it were a surprise, then it wouldn’t be based on the work he’s done that led people to figure things out in advance, which would be bad writing.) Also, we know that these plot elements are significant, otherwise he wouldn’t be mentioning them.
That leads to your question about worldbuilding, and whether elements of ASOIAF worldbuilding can be considered a Chekhov’s gun or if they’re just “flavor text” to give depth to the world of ASOIAF. And the answer is… it depends. Worldbuilding like the cannibals of Skagos seems like it will become very relevant to future events, as Rickon is on Skagos and Davos is heading there in order to bring him home. The mystery of Hardhome is another element of worldbuilding that may become relevant, if Jon needs to rescue the Night’s Watchmen and wildlings there. The mysteries of Asshai… alas, GRRM has said nobody’s going to Asshai, but it will still be significant through the people who have been there. The Deep Ones, the black stone, all that weirdness from TWOIAF – as they appear to be relevant to the ironborn and to the Hightower at Oldtown, as there will soon be a huge confluence of ironborn at Oldtown with whatever weird magical ritual Euron’s planning – well, that seems like a pretty big potential Chekhov’s gun to me. The demon roads of Valyria and the monsters of Mantarys might just be worldbuilding… or they might be relevant when Dany (probably) travels to Volantis.
But the mystery of whether the dragon Vermax laid a clutch of eggs by the hot springs of Winterfell? While that’s briefly hinted to in TWOIAF, that rumor is noted as being extremely dubious within the text, and nothing within ASOIAF itself has referred to the story. Not even any tales by Old Nan, who you’d think would mention it if anyone would. Though it’s possible that it will be related as one of her tales in TWOW (and the TWOIAF-only thing is just ‘cos GRRM’s so late with that book), and the crypts of Winterfell are surely significant for many reasons (Jon’s parentage, secret passages, the mystery of why the statues have swords, what might happen when the Others make the dead rise). So there could be a Chekhov’s gun involved here… or maybe not.
And there’s also the fact that GRRM doesn’t always follow Chekhov’s principle. Besides him being a gardener-writer and not an architect-writer, not everything he writes in detail is significant to the plot of the story. Sometimes he just wants to show the grim-n-grittiness of the world, therefore the constant mentions of pee. Sometimes he’s just showing the pageantry of the medieval era, or the mysteries of “here be dragons” in lands beyond common knowledge. Sometimes he’s making private jokes, including references to writer friends or fan friends or comic books or Harry Potter or the Three Stooges. Sometimes GRRM just wants to describe amazing food, because he loves food. Though once in a rare while, food actually is relevant to the plot. ;)
So, the question of whether something’s a Chekhov’s gun or not, and how you can distinguish a mystery that’s intended to stay a open mystery, from one that will be resolved and/or significant to the events of the story? Well, for things that haven’t come to a conclusion yet… you can do your best at guessing, but honestly, you can’t know. The proof is in the pudding. When the story’s over, we’ll know. Even if you take lots of English classes, even if you study classics of literature and fantasy, even if you read GRRM’s favorite books, even if you read other GRRM works and try to figure out his patterns, you may have become a better educated guesser, but it’s still no guarantee. I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is. In the end, some fans who tried to make predictions will be right and some will be wrong and many will have never even guessed where GRRM was going; some things we thought were Chekhov’s guns or foreshadowing won’t be; and some things we’ll go back and see that GRRM had been laying the groundwork all along and we never noticed. (Though it’s a big fandom, I’d bet at least someone would have noticed.)
And really, I think the possibilities of being wrong, the possibilities of being not quite right – that’s half the fun of writing about this series. If we figured out everything that was going to happen before it did, what would be the point of reading, after all? Though if it turns out you did figure things out correctly… you can be glad you did. :)
Hiiiiiiii :3 I’m here with another stupid (😎) ask :33
What do you think of Sansa’s line “my father and I have other concerns” when she and Maester Colemon are talking about giving Sweetrobin sweet milk. Maester Colemon objects to Sansa’s demand that SR be given sweetmilk again when going down the mountain. She’s pretty adamant about SR sweetmilk even as Maester Colemon shows concerns about nosebleeds. Many have theorised this as Sansa knowingly poisoning SR and has been touted as the Sansa = villain (🙄) theory by the antis pretty steadfastly. Does Sansa know about poisoning SR? What other concerns do she and LF have? Is she actually poisoning SR or is she just irritated with him and wants him to shut up?
Hello!
Neither. She's genuinely concerned with Sweetrobin's future as Lord of the Vale, after GRRM has taken care to insert not one but two shaking fits into the previous chapters that leave him incapacitated and soiled, and which are generally treated with "medicine" just as harsh or worse, like high level narcotics, alcohol or leeching and bleeding. .
This stuff is rightfully seen as an improvement. He's awake, calm, not losing blood or ingesting addictive substances.
And while he hedges and mutters, Colemon never comes right out and states "It could kill him". He lets a distracted Alayne cut him off or trails off by himself. And he eventually relents, giving the appearance that his concerns are not that serious.
And Alayne is rightfully distracted. After a peacefully resolved siege against the rule of Littlefinger (guardian of Sweetrobin), they are coming down to spend the winter with Lord Nestor, accessible to the Vale lords (his future subjects who need to respect him) for the first time in a long time. And the descent itself is also very dangerous, as we will be shown.
“The Lord of the Eyrie cannot descend from his mountain tied up like a sack of barleycorn.” Of that Alayne was certain. They dare not let the full extent of Robert’s frailty and cowardice become too widely known, her father had warned her. [...]
“It was too soon. My lady, you do not understand. As I’ve told the Lord Protector, a pinch of sweetsleep will prevent the shaking, but it does not leave the flesh, and in time …”
“Time will not matter if his lordship has a shaking fit and falls off the mountain. If my father were here, I know he would tell you to keep Lord Robert calm at all costs.”
“I try, my lady, yet his fits grow ever more violent, and his blood is so thin I dare not leech him any more. Sweetsleep … you are certain he was not bleeding from the nose?” [...]
“Very well.” They paused at the foot of the stairs. “But this must be the last. For half a year, or longer.”
“You had best take that up with the Lord Protector.” She pushed through the door and crossed the yard. Colemon only wanted the best for his charge, Alayne knew, but what was best for Robert the boy and what was best for Lord Arryn were not always the same. Petyr had said as much, and it was true. Maester Colemon cares only for the boy, though. Father and I have larger concerns.
(AFFC, Alayne II)
That's his future she is trying to protect. Not to mention, this is before she ever learns about Harry the Heir. Why on earth would she support poisoning him, when Littlefinger's protection of her depends on his role as Sweetrobin's guardian?
This is the same Sansa that is planning his new bodyguard crew in her TWOW sample chapter, who considers what his future wife will love about him, the same Sansa whose gentle care even Colemon acknowledges helps Sweetrobin calm himself without medicine. No, she is not knowingly poisoning the kid.
(Also, Maester Colemon may well be playing his own game, giving him antidotes or refusing to administer doses, depending on how you want to interpret the fact that Sweetrobin still suffers a shaking spell on the mountain, and the "vile" substance mixed into his milk without explanation.)
I don't think Sansa is poisoning Sweetrobin and he will likely gonna survive in the end. Sansa was used as a pawn to poison Joffery the king. I don't think Grrm will gonna repeat this track. She was already facing problems because of kingslaying so why would another poison plot will be needed. Moreover Robin is true heir unlike Joffery and is innocent. I think it will be foil to Lysa poisoning Jon because Sansa wanted Robin to survive.
Hi anon!
I agree with you, I don't think that Sweetrobin will die. And GRRM has made it clear in the text that Sansa isn't knowingly poisoning him, there are even hints that maester Colemon is protecting the kid by withholding doses or administering antidotes. Furthermore, there's little reason to expect that Littlefinger actually wants the pliable young heir dead instead of the adult young knight he can't control at all. (He merely made sure to present Sweetrobin as physically fragile to the lords, and then introduced a slow-acting toxin that can or cannot end up being blamed for any future death should it suit him down the line, implicating the maester and anyone else involved in administering it.)
I think GRRM's reason for introducing the Sweetsleep plot is to
as you say, create a mirror to Joffrey's poisoning, thus emphasising that Sansa is a pawn in yet another plot
remind the reader that Littlefinger is indeed a villain and not let him be woobified like the Hound
obscure where he may be taking the Vale plot by suggesting this poison scandal only to ambush the reader with something entirely else
emphasize the fragility of Sweetrobin, a chronically ill young boy everyone expects to die, in order to set him up for a triumphant arc of surviving and ruling in spite of his "imperfections". You know, like Bran.
give Sansa a morally ambiguious "task" to grow on: i.e. stop being in denial about the way Littlefinger's supposed plan would hinge on Sweetrobin's death, while making plans for his adult life as if it's not mutually exclusive to the goal he has set up for her with Harry. Finally understanding the poisonous nature of Sweetsleep and then reacting to that would be a very concrete way to depict that.
show how Sansa needs to question her environment more actively, in general. If the maester is making nervous noises, even if he never actually explains what would happen, she should not be pulling a Cersei move and ignore it.
subtly set up the agency of "the help", i.e. the influence a maester can wield, or any other trusted servant, even though their perspective is not given much room in the political scheming of the higher ups. GRRM has been consistent in showing us the influence of the maesters especially, Luwin, Pycelle, Cressen, Walys (supposedly), Qyburn (though disgraced), the Frey-born maester Willamen at House Hunter (Roslin's brother btw), even the distrusted Manderly maester. With things heating up in Oldtown, this will become more relevant.
There are, basically, lots of reasons for GRRM to introduce this Sweetsleep plotpoint that don't lead to Sweetrobin's death or Sansa's complicity.
