Wow, I Never Noticed That, v. 14

[Winter Rose Crown]

   A spotted bitch followed them through the camps barking and growling until one of the Lyseni impaled her on a lance and galloped to the front of the column. ”I am bearing Kingslayer's banner," he shouted,

This always confused me, until I noticed these:

 “You are under my protection,” she said, her voice so thick with anger that it was almost a growl. He had to laugh at such fierceness.  

She’s the Hound with teats, he thought. Or would be, if she had any teats to speak of. “Then protect me, wench. Or free me to protect myself.”

And

 … her features were broad and coarse, her teeth prominent and crooked, her mouth too wide, her lips so plump they seemed swollen. A thousand freckles speckled her cheeks and brow, and her nose had been broken more than once. Pity filled Catelyn’s heart. Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman?

And

 After the second time he fell from the saddle, they bound him tight to Brienne of Tarth and made them share a horse again ... They made Brienne wash the vomit out of his beard, just as they made her clean him up when he soiled himself in the saddle.

 

IMO, he is mocking Jaime and Brienne.

[Lost Melnibonean]

11 hours ago, Walda said:

Drinkwater's excursion to the loucher part of Meereen put me in mind of Biter, and Rorge.

According to Martin

So, was Rorge already familiar with places where naked slaves with filed teeth fought to the death? Or did the tooth-filing evolve organically, the way the use of Biter appeared to? It is still a bit of a mystery why those two are found in the company of a faceless man, in the black cells. Could Rorge be a Meereenese ex-pat? We hear of fighting pits in Astapor, but nobody claims that those are far-famed, and we hear of bulls and bears rather than men (although that seems to have been the style of fighting that Biter did, too.)

However, 

And the faceless men are also profoundly religious in nature, dispensing the gift of the many-faced god in a way that is no mere butchery, that displays courage, strength and (especially) skill.

Interesting observations. But I suspect Rorge and Biter are Kingslanders. And I suspect the mortal art of Ghis is an allusion to the similar defense of bullfighting from that spectacle's aficionados. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Winter Rose Crown said:

 

 

This always confused me, until I noticed these:

 

 

And

 

 

And

 

 

 

IMO, he is mocking Jaime and Brienne.

I think you're right. 

[Isobel Harper]

On 8/23/2016 at 2:17 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

Compare this...

To this...

 

Also, Egg's eyes are large, whereas Young Griff...

This beardless boy could have any maiden in the Seven Kingdoms, blue hair or no. Those eyes of his would melt them. -ADwD

Consider also this:

Dunk led the way on the ascent, with Bennis just behind. He could see Egg above them, standing on a jut of rock in his floppy straw hat. -TSS

"Duck!" came a shout. "Haldon!" Tyrion craned his head to one side, and saw a boy standing on the roof of a low wooden building, waving a wide-brimmed straw hat. -ADWD

Greenbloods and poleboats are also mentioned just before and after the description of Egg's eye color.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Quote

She had spoken of Arya too, her younger daughter, but Arya was lost, most likely dead by now. Sansa, though . . . I will find her, my lady, Brienne swore to Lady Catelyn's restless shade. I will never stop looking. I will give up my life if need be, give up my honor, give up all my dreams, but I will find her.

Brienne II, Feast 9

I wonder whether Catelyn’s restless shade heard this?  

[Lost Melnibonean]

So, do you think Alayne feels really guilty for framing Marillion and allowing him to be tortured and mutilated by her father? Is that why she is haunted by Marillion's music? Or is his music just annoying? 

[Isobel Harper]

Total Illyrio/JonCon/Aegon 2.0 about to happen

Manderly + Illyrio = Scheming, ambitious men.  Often ridiculed because of their weight.

Davos + JonCon = Former hands of a king, presumed dead

Rickon + Aegon = In hiding, thought to be dead. (Soon to be) in the care of said Hand of the King when he is 5 years old.

Talk about a parallel!

I wonder who the "Varys of the North" is supposed to be.

[Thuckey]

In AFFC : When Mya Stone is helping Alayne and Robert get ready for the journey down to Sky, Lord Robert says something like 

"I dont want to go with you, you smell like mules"

And the response from Stone is "Her face was expressionless"

 

edit. it was "Mya's face showed no emotion"

Sort of like saying, "Eyes are STONE cold" ? , "Like STONE"? etc. 

 

idk but I thought maybe that was a play at her name.

[AdesteFideles]

I think Quaithe can visit Dany via her Glass Candle because she has had physical contact with her, unlike Marwyn who can only spy on Sam with his as they have never met. Plausible? 

So, are Quaithe and Marwyn aware of each other through their respective candles?

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

18 minutes ago, AdesteFideles said:

I think Quaithe can visit Dany via her Glass Candle because she has had physical contact with her, unlike Marwyn who can only spy on Sam with his as they have never met. Plausible? 

So, are Quaithe and Marwyn aware of each other through their respective candles?

 

That would explain the scene where Quaithe touches Daenerys. 

[AdesteFideles]

On 18/09/2016 at 11:04 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

That would explain the scene where Quaithe touches Daenerys. 

I think that was the whole reason for that scene. 

I can't recall the exact wording, but Dany felt something strange when Quaithe touched her. That, I think, was the moment of the magical link between them which enabled the later communication.

[Lost Melnibonean]

5 hours ago, AdesteFideles said:

I think that was the whole reason for that scene. 

I can't recall the exact wording, but Dany felt something strange when Quaithe touched her. That, I think, was the moment of the magical link between them which enabled the later communication.

I like it. Here's the passage...

Quote

 

"A fine trick," announced Jhogo with admiration.

"No trick," a woman said in the Common Tongue.

Dany had not noticed Quaithe in the crowd, yet there she stood, eyes wet and shiny behind the implacable red lacquer mask. "What mean you, my lady?"

"Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets."

Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty. "And now?"

"And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it."

"Me?" She laughed. "How could that be?"

The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany's wrist. "You are the Mother of Dragons, are you not?"

"She is, and no spawn of shadows may touch her." Jhogo brushed Quaithe's fingers away with the handle of his whip.

The woman took a step backward. "You must leave this city soon, Daenerys Targaryen, or you will never be permitted to leave it at all."

Dany's wrist still tingled where Quaithe had touched her. "Where would you have me go?" she asked.

"To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."

Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. "Will the Asshai'i give me an army?" she demanded. "Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?"

"Truth," said the woman in the mask. And bowing, she faded back into the crowd.

Rakharo snorted contempt through his drooping black mustachios. "Khaleesi, better a man should swallow scorpions than trust in the spawn of shadows, who dare not show their face beneath the sun. It is known."

"It is known," Aggo agreed.

Xaro Xhoan Daxos had watched the whole exchange from his cushions. When Dany climbed back into the palanquin beside him, he said, "Your savages are wiser than they know. Such truths as the Asshai'i hoard are not like to make you smile." Then he pressed another cup of wine on her, and spoke of love and lust and other trifles all the way back to his manse.

 

Daenerys III, Clash 40

And that's the last time she is in Quaithe's physical presence. 

[Walda]

I'm not sure if this should go here or in the Mistakes/Contradictions thread:

Note Quathie's exchange with Jhogo. It begins

Quote

When he reached the top, the ladder was gone and so was he.
“A fine trick,” announced Jhogo with admiration.
“No trick,” a woman said in the Common Tongue.(ACoK, Ch.40 Daenerys III)

No real surprise that Quaithe speaks the common tongue, it was pointed out quite clearly when we first met her that she spoke the common tongue, while Pyat Pree spoke Dothraki, and Xaros, 'Free Cities' Valyrian (I'm not sure if this is because Dany is fluent enough in Valyrian to understand the variations spoken in the Free cities and Slave cities without difficulty, unlike Quentyn, and Tyrion, and even Aegon, or if GRRM came to the conclusion that free cities should speak "nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues" in the first chapter of Dance, to beef up the academic challenge of it for Tyrion, when Dany and Grazdan have no difficulty understanding each other, only requiring Missandei to inform her that the Valyrian of the Yunkai is not that different from that of Astapor.)

Does Jhogo understand the Common Tongue? For the above exchange, it is enough that Quaithe understands Dothraki. But the exchange doesn't end there:

Quote

“You are the Mother of Dragons, are you not?”
“She is, and no spawn of shadows may touch her.” Jhogo brushed Quaithe’s fingers away with the handle of his whip.(ACoK, Ch.40 Daenerys III)

clearly, unless Quaithe has changed her language, Jhogo hears her speak the common tongue, and understands her.

We know that Jhogo did not speak the common tongue when Dany first entered the Dothraki Sea:

Quote

The one with the whip, young Jhogo, rasped a question. Dany did not understand his words, but by then Irri was there, and Ser Jorah, and the rest of her khas. “Jhogo asks if you would have him dead, Khaleesi,” Irri said.
“No,” Dany replied. “No.”
Jhogo understood that...
“Tell them I do not wish him harmed,” Dany said. Irri repeated her words in Dothraki. Jhogo gave a pull on the whip, yanking Viserys around like a puppet on a string.(AGoT, Ch.23 Daenerys III)

Dany had been teaching Drogo the common tongue, which he spoke only falteringly, when he crowned Viserys at Vaes Dothrak, and

Quote

There were five thousand men in the hall, but only a handful who knew the Common Tongue.(AGoT, Ch.46 Daenerys V)

Assuming a handful means five  - and Jorah, Viserys, and Drogo are three, it seems unlikely that Jhogo would be one of that number. There is no mention of anyone chatting to him, or attempting to teach him.

In the show, Dany claims 'Valyrian is my mother tongue', but in the book, there is no such emphatic statement, and it seems more likely her first language was the common tongue, and Valyrian a second language, as much for the Targaryens as the Lannisters and the Starks.

So, is Quaithe really speaking in the common tongue, or is she speaking so whomever hears her hears their native tongue?

And what is it about Asshai? Does everyone there speak the common tongue? Or has Marwyn spent the last eight years running a common-tongue school for the maegi of Assahai? Quaithe seems to speak more fluently than Mirri, who we know learnt from Marwyn.

Also, given the time frames, it seems like Quaithe and Mirri left Asshai at around the same time...coincidence? Mirri didn't have much choice about being on the pyre, but she did choose to sing her shadow-binding song while she burnt, which might have been necessary for the dragons to hatch, and was really very nice of her even if it wasn't essential.

Anyway, I'm 50/50 about Jhogo answering Quaithe being a slip of the pen, or foreshadowing.

[Lost Melnibonean]

9 hours ago, Walda said:

I'm not sure if this should go here or in the Mistakes/Contradictions thread:

Note Quathie's exchange with Jhogo. It begins

No real surprise that Quaithe speaks the common tongue, it was pointed out quite clearly when we first met her that she spoke the common tongue, while Pyat Pree spoke Dothraki, and Xaros, 'Free Cities' Valyrian (I'm not sure if this is because Dany is fluent enough in Valyrian to understand the variations spoken in the Free cities and Slave cities without difficulty, unlike Quentyn, and Tyrion, and even Aegon, or if GRRM came to the conclusion that free cities should speak "nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues" in the first chapter of Dance, to beef up the academic challenge of it for Tyrion, when Dany and Grazdan have no difficulty understanding each other, only requiring Missandei to inform her that the Valyrian of the Yunkai is not that different from that of Astapor.)

Does Jhogo understand the Common Tongue? For the above exchange, it is enough that Quaithe understands Dothraki. But the exchange doesn't end there:

clearly, unless Quaithe has changed her language, Jhogo hears her speak the common tongue, and understands her.

We know that Jhogo did not speak the common tongue when Dany first entered the Dothraki Sea:

Dany had been teaching Drogo the common tongue, which he spoke only falteringly, when he crowned Viserys at Vaes Dothrak, and

Assuming a handful means five  - and Jorah, Viserys, and Drogo are three, it seems unlikely that Jhogo would be one of that number. There is no mention of anyone chatting to him, or attempting to teach him.

In the show, Dany claims 'Valyrian is my mother tongue', but in the book, there is no such emphatic statement, and it seems more likely her first language was the common tongue, and Valyrian a second language, as much for the Targaryens as the Lannisters and the Starks.

So, is Quaithe really speaking in the common tongue, or is she speaking so whomever hears her hears their native tongue?

And what is it about Asshai? Does everyone there speak the common tongue? Or has Marwyn spent the last eight years running a common-tongue school for the maegi of Assahai? Quaithe seems to speak more fluently than Mirri, who we know learnt from Marwyn.

Also, given the time frames, it seems like Quaithe and Mirri left Asshai at around the same time...coincidence? Mirri didn't have much choice about being on the pyre, but she did choose to sing her shadow-binding song while she burnt, which might have been necessary for the dragons to hatch, and was really very nice of her even if it wasn't essential.

Anyway, I'm 50/50 about Jhogo answering Quaithe being a slip of the pen, or foreshadowing.

Well, since Quaithe is Shiera Seastar, she learned the Common Tongue from birth, or at least an early age.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

9 hours ago, Walda said:

Also, given the time frames, it seems like Quaithe and Mirri left Asshai at around the same time...coincidence? Mirri didn't have much choice about being on the pyre, but she did choose to sing her shadow-binding song while she burnt, which might have been necessary for the dragons to hatch, and was really very nice of her even if it wasn't essential.

Do you perhaps have the quotes for this?

[Walda]

@Rhaenys_Targaryen No, there are no quotes linking Quaithe to Mirri in any way at all. But things can be proven to have taken place in the story without being explicitly stated. On the other hand, dammit, not Quaithe and Mirri leaving Asshai at the same time, or near the same time. (They still might have, but they might just as easily not have).

I was looking at the time frames, but having looked a bit closer, in order to lay it out for you, I realise I've miscalculated. I was misled by the apparent novelty of Marwyn's Book of Lost Books, and Pate's knowledge of the history and origins of Marwyn's nick-name 'the mage', to suppose that Marwyn had returned from his eight year sabbatical and written his book within the five years previous to 300AC (ie. within the time Pate had been at the Citidel).

But apparently not.

Marwyn was eight years away from Oldtown:

Quote

Marwyn had returned to Oldtown, after spending eight years in the east mapping distant lands, searching for lost books, and studying with warlocks and shadowbinders (AFfC, Prologue)

But Mirri Maz Duur drops a clue about when she learnt anatomy and the common tongue from him:

Quote

“My mother was godswife before me, and taught me all the songs and spells most pleasing to the Great Shepherd, and how to make the sacred smokes and ointments from leaf and root and berry. When I was younger and more fair, I went in caravan to Asshai by the Shadow, to learn from their mages. Ships from many lands come to Asshai, so I lingered long to study the healing ways of distant peoples. A moonsinger of the Jogos Nhai gifted me with her birthing songs, a woman of your own riding people taught me the magics of grass and corn and horse, and a maester from the Sunset Lands opened a body for me and showed me all the secrets that hide beneath the skin.”
Ser Jorah Mormont spoke up. “A maester?”
“Marwyn, he named himself,” the woman replied in the Common Tongue. “From the sea. Beyond the sea. The Seven Lands, he said. Sunset Lands. Where men are iron and dragons rule. He taught me this speech.”
“A maester in Asshai,” Ser Jorah mused. “Tell me, Godswife, what did this Marwyn wear about his neck?”
“A chain so tight it was like to choke him, Iron Lord, with links of many metals.”
The knight looked at Dany. “Only a man trained in the Citadel of Oldtown wears such a chain,” he said, “and such men do know much of healing.”(AGoT, Ch.61 Daenerys VII)

 "and dragons rule" was the bit I missed.

Even if Marwyn was the most bigoted Targaryen loyalist, if he had met Mirri any time within the previous fifteen years, he would have known Robert Baratheon was King on the Iron Throne, and the Targaryens were all dead or in hiding in Essos. If Marwyn had left Westeros around the time of the Battle of the Trident or later, he would have been able to correct or at least qualify Mirri's impression that 'dragons rule'.

Until just before the Battle of the Bells in 283, he would or might not, though. Robert's Rebellion was just that, a rebellion, that would seem to many, particularly in the South, as likely to end like the Duskendale defiance. The first outbreak of fighting was in the Vale, where half the rebels bannermen fought against the other half rather than the crown. At Summerhall, Robert was beaten back to Storms End, and at Ashford had retreated, a wounded fugitive, unable to return to besieged Storm's end, far from the Northern forces that were allied to him and that were not enough to win against the forces of the King and the Westerlands. The only wonder was that nobody had yet been able to bring Robert down and his rebellion with him. So the latest Marwyn could have left Westeros was 283, when the dragons still ruled.

In the same chapter, we are given Mirri's age:

Quote

a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years (AGoT, Ch.61 Daenerys VII)

  Fifteen years ago, she would have been twenty-five, a bit on the old side for GRRM's definition of 'young' but as he allows women to continue 'fair' to almost their mid-thirties (upon which, the fair become at best a fading 'handsome', while their breasts begin to sag like withered wineskins against their chests) and as she only claims to be younger and fairer, she could have met Marwyn (at the latest) sometime between 283 and 290 (not depending on her youthful good looks, but on it taking Marwyn nearly a year to get back from Asshai, assuming he books his passage on a ship taking the trader's circle, and doesn't tarry at any of the various ports longer than his ship, which completes it's voyage with no more than the usual number of misadventures and delays.  It is probably a bit more than 15 years ago, as his book and the reports of his adventures imply that he travelled all over the east, while, in order to get to Asshai in 283 and not hear of the death of Aerys, he could not have tarried at any port on his way to Asshai, or the news would have caught up with him before he tutored Mirri Maz Duur).

The earliest, based on Mirri Maz Duur's age, would be about  dozen years before then - 271 or thereabouts. I'm basing that on the notion that she would not be a 'woman', allowed to leave her mother and the temple, and travel to Asshai and participate in birthing rites, learn birthing songs, before the age of thirteen.  

I had not taken this into account when I made my calculations, which started with a three year window (294-297) for Marwyn, Mirri and Quaithe to leave Asshai and settle into their respective stations at Oldtown, Lhazar, and Qarth, and was whittled down futher by the press of the present (things like Euron's capture of Pyat Pree, and Hotho's obtaining Marwyn's book before the scribes ink was fully dry), but allowing for Mirri's account of it, my timeline is pushed back between seven and twenty-six years from the present, and will comfortably accommodate all the months and years it takes for the various events to happen in, giving Marwyn more time to publish his book than even his author has ever required, plenty of time for Mirri to return to her temple and settle back in to Godswiving for her community, far more than enough time for Quaithe to become connected enough in Qarth to secure her place on the welcoming committee, and find herself a camel.

So my bad. Sorry.

[Lost Melnibonean]

What do Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, and Arys Oakheart have in common? 

[Clegane'sPup]

36 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

What do Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, and Arys Oakheart have in common? 

what do they have in common

[Lost Melnibonean]

5 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

what do they have in common

Each of them tried, and failed, to push away their lady love. But once again the special snowflake's case was a bit more special in that Ygritte was the only who seemed to requite the love truly. 

[Walda]

Forbidden mistresses? Frustrated ambitions? Treason?