List of mistakes in the books

[Lord Varys]

That is going to change to 'Qhorin'. Also, we won't have to read the travesty of 'Quarth' anymore. I really hated that.

[ríomhaire]

I would think that place names that mean something in English should be translated when the books are. People say that if you translate them you're making things up or changing what the author intended. I think that the names are in English because the readers are supposed to be able to understand them and take meaning from them. Storms End has a meaningful name to do with the story of how it was built. Not translating it is changing how the book and names interact with the reader. In a more nessisary example Littlefinger's nickname has an explained origin. The little has to be translated and the finger has to be the same name that is used for the geographical location the Fingers which also has a meaning (it pertains to their shape). Not translating names makes all this information confusing or unavailable to the readers.

But I don't condone the changing of people's names (other than nicknames like Littlefinger and Blackfish) or the changing of Lord to Prince. Don't you think there might be a reason that they're not refered to as Prince? Perhaps that's because they don't like to be refered to as prince. They are each men grown after all and probably prefer to be refered to by the titles that refer to their own duties rather than one that refers to their brother.

[Mad Monkey]

I myself am not familiar enough with Medieval England to see a particular 'Medieval English feeling' in the series.

I am, and Westeros barely resembles Medieval England.

I thought Renly and Stannis's "lord" title was derived from the fact that they, like Varys, have honorary lordships simply as a result of being on the small council. They are also styled lords because they are lords of castles. There is no precedent for the way styles are handled in the series; Martin borrowed the words "lord", "king", and "prince" but he didn't borrow the rules that usually came with those titles in most of the countries that used them, so you really could go either way with calling them princes, lords, dukes...

[cybroleach]

While thinking about a proper German name for the secret love of my life, Joy Hill (not making any progress on that front), I remembered the whole problem of Tywin promising her to some Frey guy (ASoS) and to the Westerling clan (AFfC). Can this be resolved somehow? I'm inclined to eliminate the Frey deal - if she has to suffer, she should suffer a spicy Westerling, not a cowardly weasel - from ASoS, but of course I'm open to suggestions.

I would recomend holding here since it could be a planed thing where Tywin is/was doing some double dealing if in ADWD or onward, other volumes a Frey starts talking about that match, you've now have eliminated that element and you definately can't take a whole chunk of conversation out from Jaime & Sybell. Unless this is already an established error I never heard of <_< .

[Lord Varys]

Were really all six White Swords at Harrenhal when Jaime took his oath? Ned remembers it that way, and I remember that Jaime later remembers that Aerys send him at once back to KL to protect Rhaella and Viserys, but does this really mean that until this time no KG member was at KL to watch over the Queen and the young Prince?

[Ran]

That seems likely, yes. Clearly, in times of peace, people aren't too concerned about the Kingsguard always being present around every member of the royal family.

[Lord Varys]

I really hope I'll have ADwD in my hands when I start to revise ASoS (the Joy Hill stuff would be in the 6th German and 8th German volume), and I'm really going to scan this book on Joy Hill talk, but I'd be really surprised if the Freys are ever going to mention any Lannister marriage contracts. They won't get the time or the opportunity to do so. But it is still possible. I've to think about that. But it is unlikely that Tywin made a mistake here. He made his deal with Walder Frey pretty much at the same time when he exchanged letters with Sybell. So one should expect him to be able to realize that he has just one bastard born niece with the name Joy.

The KG thing I'm going to look up eventually - it has to be in that Jaime passage about his stop at that inn.

Oh, and by the way, it is really, really difficult to maintain/create the same translation for phrases mentioned during various volumes, as the guys always translate them anew. Stuff like 'Stick them with the pointy end', Old Nan's story about the Others and the Last Hero, or Ned remembering Jon's line about the direwolf pups. They honestly translated that one as 'These pups were made for your children'. And the Others 'fed their dead servants the flesh of dead children (instead of 'human children'). Manticores and sphinxes became sphinxes - I only caught that one by accident, and would not really care about it, if Dany would not be attacked by a manticore in ACoK.

One really should make a new translations of these books. But I'm doing the best I can.

[ríomhaire]

I was always curious about that manitcore attack, seeing as manticores are supposed to have lions' bodies. Is a manticore just a scorpion in these books?

[Lord Varys]

Apparently, yes. But 'real world' manticores supposedly have scorpion tails as well, so I gather there could be greater manticores in Martinworld as well. That is actually pretty likely, I think, as manticores are once mentioned as 'prowling'. I'm not sure if that verb is regularly used in connection to creatures of insect-size. But the manticore used in the attack on Daenerys was of scorpion size.

[Lord Varys]

Oh, and Daenerys identifies herself as being of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel, although she is only of the blood of Aegon and Aenys - at least, if Maegor really did not father any children, which seems to be the case.

Do we know if there was at least a daughter whose children could have married into Jaehaerys' line?

[Guest Other-in-Law]

I don't really see what the confusion about Joy Hill is. The (lack of) capitalisation tells it all:

"Mention was made of a match for him as well. A bride from Casterly Rock. Your lord father said Raynald would have joy of him, if all went as we hoped."

Even from the grave, Lord Tywin's dead hand moves us all. "Joy is my late uncle Gerion's natural daughter. A betrothal can be arranged if that is your wish, but any marriage will need to wait. Joy was nine or ten when last I saw her."

"His natural daughter?" Lady Sybelle looked as if she had swallowed a lemon. "You want a Westerling to wed a bastard?"

"No more than I want Joy to marry the son of some scheming turncloak bitch. She deserves better." Joy was a sweet child, albeit a lonely one; her father had been Jaime's favorite uncle.

Clearly Sybelle has no idea of who Joy Hill was when she first said the non-proper noun "joy". When she learns she is predictably offended, as a social climber would be when given anything that could be perceived as an insult when they expect a reward. The idea completely originates with Jaime jumping to an false conclusion, much like Emmon Frey assuming he would be Lord Paramount of the Trident.

Combine this with the actual fact that Tywin has definitely arranged a more socially appropriate wedding for Joy (bastard to bastard):

"The price was cheap by any measure. The crown shall grant Riverrun to Ser Emmon Frey once the Blackfish yields. Lancel and Daven must marry Frey girls, Joy is to wed one of Lord Walder's natural sons when she's old enough, and Roose Bolton becomes Warden of the North and takes home Arya Stark."

The detail oriented Tywin would not have promised Joy twice, nor have insulted the newly important Westerling/Spicer faction with a bastard marriage. It's all Jaime's error, thinking "joy" must refer to his cousin. And yet we see a similar use of "joy" from him, when he speaks to the fake Arya:

"I am to wed Lord Bolton's son, Ramsay. He used to be a Snow, but His Grace made him a Bolton. They say he's very brave. I am so happy."

Then why do you sound so frightened? "I wish you joy, my lady."

Obviously Jaime isn't recommending his sweet eleven year old cousin for a ménage à trois with a sadistic fiend. He's just hoping (unrealistically) that fake Arya will find happiness.

The interesting question remains as to which Casterly Rock girl Tywin did have in mind for Raynald. Ser Stafford Lannister had two daughters named Cerenna and Myrielle, both apparently older than their brother Daven, but unwed. Either of those seem more likely than Kevan's two year old daughter Janei, both for age reasons and for Kevan's prior objection to the tainted Westerlings marrying his children. Stafford's daughters are far enough down the line that a Westerling union doesn't matter too much, but they're far enough up that they're still fairly prestigious...more so than Joy would be.

Oh, and Daenerys identifies herself as being of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel, although she is only of the blood of Aegon and Aenys - at least, if Maegor really did not father any children, which seems to be the case.

That fits with Ned calling Jon "of my blood", if R+L=J is true. "Of the blood" can mean a collateral relationship, not only direct descent. Targaryen blood flowed in Maegor's veins and it also flows in Dany's.

[Lord Varys]

Well, OiL, then the question is if Jaime is the guy who misinterprets everything, or if Sybell really thought Joy was a trueborn Lannister girl. But the fact that 'joy' is spelled that way in the chapter really points to the former.

Another question: Is the face mentioned in this sentence 'She found Robb beneath the green canopy of leaves, surrounded by tall redwoods and great old elms, kneeling before the heart tree, a slender weirwood with a face more sad than fierce' supposed to be the face of the weirwood tree or the face of Robb. I always assumed the former, and the present translation also indicates that, but neither 'sad' nor 'fierce' do seem to me like words to describe the tree faces. They fit much more as descriptions to Robb's feelings at that particular time. He has recently heard of his father's death, and has thus a good enough reason to be either sad or determined.

[Ran]

The faces being described as possessing emotion is not new. The face of Winterfell's heart tree is described as "long and melancholy". Now, "more sad than fierce" is interesting because it's not just suggesting an emotion the weirwood could be expressing, but an alternative that it's really not, and I can see where the confusion comes from. But I suppose what's being implied here is that the expression of the tree is sort of ambiguous -- it could be read as being fierce or perhaps grim, but really it looks more sad than anything.

[Lord Varys]

My real question actually is if it is beyond any doubt the tree face which is described there, not Robb's face. We once discussed the heart trees in the south, and I'm still somewhat irritated by the fact that there should be any weirwoods with trees in the south. Is Riverrun's tree face mentioned anywhere else? I never was that convinced that Cat would be that uncomfortable in Winterfell's godswood if the situation was not that different in Riverrun.

And I'm not that familiar with the subtleties of English punctuation to decide that.

[Ran]

It's definitely the weirwood. There's no comma or pronoun suggesting the face described is Robb's.

While Catelyn claims the last weirwoods were cut down in the south in her first chapter, later it seems pretty clear that GRRM qualifies this -- the Andals destroyed any standing weirwood groves, but little more is said than than that by Luwin in his brief history of Westeros, while we have a number of weirwoods in the south. The exceptions must be weirwoods that survived in castles belonging to First Men who submitted, or in some cases to Andals who seized those castles, wed First Men daughters, and kept the trees to please their brides or their new subjects. Of course, Riverrun seems a relatively new castle, but one can suppose it was built on the site of previous castles. Eventually, the Andals and First Men mingled enough that we come to our present state where there's really very little religious tension to speak of.

The riverrun heart tree is mentioned again in ASoS and the carved weirwood heart tree of the Storm's End godswood is also referred to. The Blackwood arms feature an image of the great white weirwood at Raventree Hall.

Catelyn is uncomfortable in Winterfell's godswood not because of the heart tree, but because it's a dense, primordial, ancient wood that's very closed-in and dark. Riverrun's godswood has been more carefully managed, and is more like a garden than a dense grove.

[Guest Other-in-Law]

I never for a single second read the face that was more sad than fierce as being Robb's.

It's clearly the tree that's being described that way. "a slender weirwood with a face more sad than fierce" is a self contained and unambiguous clause. If she was referring back to Robb from way at the beginning of the sentence, that would have read something like "a slender weirwood, his more sad than fierce". But even that would have been clunky and tortuous sentence construction. Better to put the description of Robb's face closer to Robb instead of after the tree.

And a sculpture can have any facial expression a live human can, there's no conflict there either.

[cybroleach]

Well, OiL, then the question is if Jaime is the guy who misinterprets everything, or if Sybell really thought Joy was a trueborn Lannister girl. But the fact that 'joy' is spelled that way in the chapter really points to the former.

But if it is only Jaime's mistake, Sybell jumps on this unintended info completely not clarifing that she was to get X Lannister girl. Tywin is the cold calculator enough to realise that hiding Joy's last name from Sybell, then know her gaining that knowledge and foresee her refusing the match, thus leaving her still open for a bastard.

[Guest Other-in-Law]

But if it is only Jaime's mistake, Sybell jumps on this unintended info completely not clarifing that she was to get X Lannister girl.

Or she was never told a name at all. She merely says "a bride from Casterly Rock".

Tywin is the cold calculator enough to realise that hiding Joy's last name from Sybell, then know her gaining that knowledge and foresee her refusing the match, thus leaving her still open for a bastard.

I'm positive Tywin never intended Joy Hill for the Westerlings in any sense. The word "joy" also means happiness, exactly as Jaime wished toward the fake Arya.

[georgeforeman]

As the sentence reads, the face being described is clearly the tree's. Had a comma been added ('She found Robb beneath the green canopy of leaves, surrounded by tall redwoods and great old elms, kneeling before the heart tree, a slender weirwood, with a face more sad than fierce') then allofasudden we're talking about Robb's face.

Interestingly, I think it works well both ways.

[Mad Monkey]

Or she was never told a name at all. She merely says "a bride from Casterly Rock". I'm positive Tywin never intended Joy Hill for the Westerlings in any sense. The word "joy" also means happiness, exactly as Jaime wished toward the fake Arya.

Hmm...

Joy Hill + Jeyne Poole = :love: