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help with some English please (2)


DirePenguin

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:blushing: I can't believe I'm on a second thread! So close to the end of book 1 now :) I appreciate all the help I've received and I thank you everyone sincerely.

Back on topics. While Luwin was telling Bran about the Children, he mentioned "the wise of both races prevailed" what does that mean? The wise became the governing power among their own race?

Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye.
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To prevail is to succeed.

In some contexts it might well be a reference to conquering political power, but here it is about the talks to stop the hostilities between Children and First Men. That fragment of text is stating both that the efforts for diplomacy were succesfull and that they were wise.

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...The wise became the governing power among their own race?

almost. Everybody listened to and decided to follow the advice of the wise people. Their voices eventually won out over those of other people.

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Martin uses the description of Dany´s voice in particular to describe her general state. Imagine Dany screaming while giving birth to the stillborn Rhaego. She wakes up with a sore throat and her voice sounds scratchy.

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Wow. How to explain...

OK have you had a cold or a cough and your throat aches and hurts from all the coughing and sneezing that you have been doing? Then your throat is sore and raw and your voice has a harsh sound because it hurts you to speak. That's what it's like.

ETA Ah-ha Lykos we meet again! :fencing:

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a score is twenty. In the bible it says that a man has three score years and ten to live (or something like that) meaning seventy years. It is an old fashioned word (like a gross for a dozen dozens = 144) not one you will normally get to say or hear but you get to read it some times.

So in context this means there are not hundreds of horses, but more than dozens of horses moving around looking for grass to eat.

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there is not enough left of his army, or the condition that it is left in is such, that no use can be made of it.

For all purposes is a fairly common idiom it's definitely worth knowing/getting used to.

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