OtherFromAnotherMother

6 hours ago, Crona said:

That's what I got from the text too:

Which plan? The fat man’s plan? The one that changes every time the moon turns? First Viserys Targaryen was to join us with fifty thousand Dothraki screamers at his back. Then the Beggar King was dead, and it was to be the sister, a pliable young child queen who was on her way to Pentos with three new-hatched dragons. Instead the girl turns up on Slaver's Bay and leaves a string of burning cities in her wake, and the fat man decides we should meet her by Volantis. Now that plan is in ruins as well. I have had enough of Illyrio’s plans. Robert Baratheon won the Iron Throne without the benefit of dragons. We can do the same.

 

This. 

I also think this is George telling the reader that the author has changed his mind on these plans several times as well. 

George is the fat man.

On 5/1/2022 at 3:22 AM, The Lord of the Crossing said:

The red wedding was a war strategy to get rid of a rebellious lord who got into his head to declare a portion of Westeros as his own kingdom.  It may have saved a lot of loyalists' lives.  Many more lives on both sides would have been lost if they had fought a traditional battle. 

Thousands of people lost their lives at the Red Wedding.

16 hours ago, Rondo said:

That dirty deed was done by Mance Rayder.  The wildling killed another guest.

If you're interested, I made a fairly detailed thread on this topic several years ago.

19 hours ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Cant help but wonder if they were looking for something specific in the sword, didn't find it and then cut up the kid because he wasn't who they were looking for.

They are looking for Dawn. 

Quote

He had turned to cough into his gloved hand when another small shape crashed out of the hedge and bowled right into him, knocking him off his feet.

The boy went down as well, but he was up again almost at once. “What are you doing here?” he demanded as he brushed himself off. Jet-black hair fell to his collar, and his eyes were a startling blue. “You shouldn’t get in my way when I’m running.”

“No,” Davos agreed. “I shouldn’t.” Another fit of coughing seized him as he struggled to his knees.

“Are you unwell?” The boy took him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Should I summon the maester?”

In Storm, Davos comes back to Dragonstone. He is sick. Edric runs into him. We know that Edric gets sick later. He is then leeched by Pylos.

Quote

“But you are a friend to me. She knows that as well.” He beckoned Davos closer. “The boy is sick. Maester Pylos has been leeching him.”

Melisandre, of course, uses these Leeches to do her magic show. 

Is it possible that Mel set up Edric to run into Davos in order to get him sick knowing he would be leeched? 

There is no evidence for this that I am aware of, but I found it interesting. 

The symptoms of the sickness are very similar. 

Quote

Stannis waved a hand, dismissing his concern. “It is a chill, no more. He coughs, he shivers, he has a fever. Maester Pylos will soon set him right. By himself the boy is nought, you understand, but in his veins flows my brother’s blood. There is power in a king’s blood, she says.”

Quote

"Only by fifty-two days," Little Walder objected. "And neither of us will ever hold the Twins, stupid."

 

"I will," Big Walder declared.

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

From your profile, check your activity and then filter by topic. You get this

Thanks!

How do I find a thread I created several years ago? It looks like the search parameters end at 365 days.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that George read a lot of Ursala K. Leguin.

From Rocannon's World (page 18 in the 1966 version): 

"Once you had it, it is said." 

"Much is said, up there where the sun blinks."

"And words are borne off by the winds, where there are winds to blow."

Sounds very similar to "words are wind".

This conversation is taking place in a cave. I wonder if George plays with this idea as well. This makes me want to reassess conversations which take place in caves and crypts (no wind) in ASoIaF. Is it possible that only truths are told underground? I'm going to look into this some more.

@The Fattest Leech because I think you will find this interesting. 

On 7/26/2018 at 7:02 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

Ok, I will bite. (Get it?)

How does this chapter confirm that Euron is allied with the Deep Ones? 

Either there isn't much that tells us Euron is allied with the Deep Ones or @Sensenmenn is writing and editing the longest thread in westeros.org history.

Quote

The old woman was not done with her, however. "Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds," she said. "And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you."

1 hour ago, Lady Anna said:

Does it say in the valonqar prophecy that Tommen and Myrcella will die before Cersei?

That is what the prophecy is implying.

1 hour ago, Lady Anna said:

It makes it seem like that, but there may be a loophole. If not, could a fake death still fullfill the prophecy? If someone fakes one of their deaths - and Cersei believes in it - would that still count? 

This is an interesting take! I suppose it would. As long as they have some sort of gold shroud (literally or symbolically) it would fulfill the prophecy.

Interesting idea, @Lady Anna.

3 minutes ago, Therae said:

In SoS, Davos III, Melisandre says:

Davos is locked in a cell in the dungeon at the moment. To me it sounds like she is operating on the assumption that soon enough he will be at liberty to pay her a visit, but Davos does not pick that up at all. It doesn't seem like she offering him a get-out-of-jail card if he does the shadow-baby-making deed, and I don't think he really took it that way, either, but is that what's going on?

In addition to the points you make, I have wondered if Mel is making her proposal knowing that Davos would never accept.

If true, this would require the reader to think about why Mel would make the proposal? I'm not sure. Perhaps just as a power display? Is she trying to convince Davos of her abilities to weaken his resistance to her agenda? 

Is The Ice Dragon part of the asoiaf universe?

...just kidding.  Thanks for getting this pinned. 

F & B spoiler. Page 670 (U.S.)

@The Fattest Leech

This has got to be a nod to kemmering in Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.

The greatest Leech  already let me know George was a big fan of Le Guin. This one seems spot on to me. 

Has The Left Hand of Darkness been discussed in relation to ASoIaF?

This is great stuff! You have such a gift for this!

1 hour ago, Seams said:

I'm sure it's more complex a symbol than just "apple = king," and I'm not sure why Littlefinger would be associated with a king - maybe because he's a kingmaker?

He's eating an apple. He killed a king, a king that appeared to have choked. Don't you now wish it was apple pie? Although I'm sure pigeon pie has its own sort of beautifully crafted symbolism.

1 hour ago, Seams said:

Halfpenny and smallfolk references - could allude to Penny and Groat, the little people named after coins. I think Penny functions in Tyrion's arc much the way that Ygritte functions in Jon Snow's arc.

Halfpenny alone seems to point to Penny when you associate Tyrion being called "halfman" because of his dwarfism which he shares with Penny.

Maybe this is a dumb question but I'll ask it anyway because I don't know. 

Is the Old Mint in White Harbor where Wyman would have minted Ribb's coinage? Was the Old Mint an old minting building? 

On 9/4/2016 at 0:14 PM, Seams said:

Mint / mint

This relates to the banking wordplay I was puzzling out, above (a July 10 post in this thread).

Peter Baelish is associated with the plant mint, which he likes to chew to freshen his breath, apparently. This is a habit dating back to his early days as a ward at Riverrun, if not earlier. When he comes to King's Landing, he becomes the Master of Coin, and is in charge of appointing the people who mint coins for the Iron Throne.

This came up in a discussion of whether Petyr might have set up the Antler Men, merchants in King's Landing who were said to be plotting to assist Stannis in taking over the city. (Varys reported their alleged treason and Tyrion signed an execution order without really checking into it. He was too busy preparing the defense against a seige.) I already had a dragon connection in mind for Petyr, we knew he had hired Penny and Groat to perform at Joffrey's wedding feast, and a link to the Antler Men would be a pretty good stag piece of his strategic efforts behind the scenes. So the links between Petyr Baelish, Master of Coin, and coin-related elements of the plot are pretty strong, if not yet explicit.

How young they all had been—she no older than Sansa, Lysa younger than Arya, and Petyr younger still, yet eager. The girls had traded him between them, serious and giggling by turns. It came back to her so vividly she could almost feel his sweaty fingers on her shoulders and taste the mint on his breath. There was always mint growing in the godswood, and Petyr had liked to chew it. He had been such a bold little boy, always in trouble. (AGoT, Catelyn XI)

 

I like it. White Harbor/Wyman Manderly also has a connection to mint/mint. 

Wyman offers to mint new coinage for Robb.

Quote

"King Robb needs his own coinage as well," he declared, "and White Harbor is the very place to mint it." He offered to take charge of the matter, as it please the king, and went from that to speak of how he had strengthened the port's defenses, detailing the cost of every improvement.

And there is also a location in White Harbor called the Old Mint. 

Quote

The Yard was teeming this afternoon. A woman was washing her smallclothes in Fishfoot's fountain and hanging them off his trident to dry. Beneath the arches of the peddler's colonnade the scribes and money changers had set up for business, along with a hedge wizard, an herb woman, and a very bad juggler. A man was selling apples from a barrow, and a woman was offering herring with chopped onions. Chickens and children were everywhere underfoot. The huge oak-and-iron doors of the Old Mint had always been closed when Davos had been in Fishfoot Yard before, but today they stood open. Inside he glimpsed hundreds of women, children, and old men, huddled on the floor on piles of furs. Some had little cookfires going.

 

Davos stopped beneath the colonnade and traded a halfpenny for an apple. "Are people living in the Old Mint?" he asked the apple seller.

 

"Them as have no other place to live. Smallfolk from up the White Knife, most o' them. Hornwood's people too. With that Bastard o' Bolton running loose, they all want to be inside the walls. I don't know what his lordship means to do with all o' them. Most turned up with no more'n the rags on their backs."

Same

Same

28 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

Here's another from TPatQ:

 The next morning, Ser Hobert Hightower called upon him, to thrash out the details of their assault upon King’s Landing. He brought with him two casks of wine as a gift, one of Dornish red and one of Arbor gold. Though Ulf the Sot had never tasted a wine he did not like, he was known to be partial to the sweeter vintages. No doubt Ser Hobert hoped to sip the sour red whilst Lord Ulf quaffed down the Arbor gold. Yet something about Hightower’s manner—he was sweating and stammering and too hearty by half, the squire who served them testified later—pricked White’s suspicions. Wary, he commanded that the Dornish red be set aside for later, and insisted Ser Hobert share the Arbor gold with him.

Ser Hobert Hightower's sweating cost him his life.  The sweet Arbor Gold had poison in it.  Ser Hobert tried to make himself vomit after Ulf the White fell asleep, but it was too late.  The poison (sweetsleep) had already begun to take effect.

Nice! I was trying to find something that was going to involve sweetsleep but would not have thought to look at The Princess and the Queen. I still feel like there could be more out there. But that is a great one!

22 minutes ago, Seams said:

Interesting! Sweet is a really intriguing word in ASOIAF but I hadn't recognized a connection with sweat. How do you see them relating to each other?

Sweets strokes the brow of Yezzan's sweaty hair. 

Quote

Sweets gave them both a desperate look. "Yezzan must not die." The hermaphrodite stroked the brow of their gargantuan master, pushing back his sweat-damp hair. 

Cersei, right before her walk of shame:

Quote

The morning air was thick with the old familiar stinks of King's Landing. She breathed in the scents of sour wine, bread baking, rotting fish and nightsoil, smoke and sweat and horse piss. No flower had ever smelled so sweet. 

I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, let me know if this isn't the goal here. My feelings won't be hurt.

Philology and linguistics are not my strongsuit. This is especially evident after reading through some of the other posts on here.  

@Seams

Has sweet/sweat been mentioned? 

I skimmed through and didn't see it. I could have missed it though.