Was it always obvious that Arstan was Selmy?

[Sordelor]

Yes it was.

[Mirri Maz Durr]

I think it was pretty obvious. Too much hints.

[Harle The Handsome]

I knew something was up right away. Who starts squiring for a former pit fighter when they are that old? I never pieced it together until he talks about the maiden's favor with Jorah.

[Drowned_Man]

I did feel that it was very obvious, yes. As soon as his alias 'Arstan' is first mentioned I knew. There was quite a lot I missed first time round however

[User inactive]

I didn't pick up on it at all but I wasn't really thinking about where he'd gone. It was more of an out of sight, out of mind thing.

[MasterJack]

I think for most of us he was just another unidimensional boring and useless Essos character so we didnt care at all at first. The evidence were there but we just didnt care, as with Patchface, that dude predicted the future and nobody cared until all his bs started to make senses.

[Lord Egeman]

His name and a very old excellent fighter and his knowledge of Westeros gave it away. Also, a squire would expect being knighted and squiring at age 60~ with a non-Knight won't help the objective.

We were also reminded of Barristan's existence through ACoK and his first appearance as Arstan is at the end of that book.

[Lost Melnibonean]

That a was one of the few surprises I figured out right away the first time I read the story.

[Jairion Lannister]

I read the books after watching the show so I can't comment on if I'd have picked it up first time, but I did notice a lot of the hints. Renly wonders where he's gone in ACOK since Selmy said he was going to serve the true king, or something along those lines. When he doesn't show up to anyone in the war in Westeros, it's obvious that something is probably up.

Then, when the guy show up with Daenerys it seems obvious that he's fairly secretive and is hiding something. The hints are there, but it's fairly easy to miss out on when there are a lot of characters in this who exist and tag along with other characters just to make up the numbers.

[saltovergray]

I didn't catch on because I hadn't really cared that much about him to really wonder where he ran off to after his dismissal from the Kingsguard.

Yeah, this. When Selmy was banished I really just took it as a scene that showed how Joff was a dick and opened up a new slot in the Kingsguard. When the revelation came that Arstan = Barristan, I didn't really think too much of it. I've grown to appreciate Selmy as a character more, of course, what with all this new focus on him.

[The Wolves Will Come Again]

Thanks for the answers!

I think Lord Kevan has the right of it, once you realize what kinds of games the author is playing with the reader, you become much more alert to these details. I completely missed on Alleras/Sarella (though I might have caught it on a reread) and probably would never have realized that the alchemist of Oldtown was Jaqen, but by the fifth novel I was seasoned enough to catch that the wood witch was the ghost of High Heart, and that the knight that abducted Tyrion was Jorah. Hope we're all evolving in our mystery-finding abilities.

On the other hand, I don't think anyone could have guessed things like R+L=J, Aegon the mummer's dragon, the Great Northern Conspiracy (if it is a real thing), etc. on their own. And certainly not with only one reading. The clues are too cryptic and sparced. One might get a feeling that something's not quite right here and there, but having to simultaneously keep track of hundreds of characters, who's who and who's doing what and where, events both past and present and dozens of different and ofttimes diverging prophecies, making the right connections on the fly seems almost impossible.

I 100% had R+L = J on my first read :P i have only read the series once. I think its more because Jon is my fav character and I think about him more than the others. Since the first chapter (Brans) last paragraph i was trying to figure Jon out.

I have no idea what you are on about with "The Great Northern Conspiracy" and look forward to going and finding out about it !

[Rysler]

Had no idea, even though it was so damn obvious. Even the name, b A R r i STAN.

That clever bastard.

[NoneofYourBiz]

I picked up on R+L=J pretty early but somehow the seemingly MUCH more obvious Arstan=Barristan completely surprised me. In hindsight it's super obvious. I think I wasn't super interested in Barristan until ADWD so I probably glossed over a lot of his story. Now he's one of my favorite characters.