John Suburbs

Well, did Aerys lend his KG to Rhaegar? Or were they at the ToJ on Aerys' orders, to protect his sacrifice? Realize that there is no indication that Rhaegar was at the tower at all, nor is there anyone, living or dead, who says they saw him and Lyanna together at any time after Harrenhal. So just like with the Sealord's cat, we need to differentiate between what we've been told versus what we know are facts. Aerys had Rhaegar lead the host after he had secured his wife and children to use them as leverage, which wouldn't really work if Rhagar had already abandoned them for Lyanna. And Rhaegar has zero battle experience -- has never swung a sword in anger. Why choose him when he has experienced warriors like Dayne and Hightower? Answer: Aerys needs Rhaegar as a figurehead, and he has leverage over him, like he does with Martell. The more important prize is the baby in Lyanna's belly, which is why he wants his top guards there to protect him. And Aerys knows that if worse comes to worse, he can ignite the whole city and then fly to the tower in his own dragon form. He is the mad one in this little drama, after all. Aerys sent Hightower out to fetch Rhaegar, then Rhaegar is suddenly back at KL without Hightower, which is passing odd, isn't it? Who, other than Hightower, has the authority to compel Rhaegar to return to King's Landing? Why would Rhaegar voluntarily return to his father? For all he knows, he could be executed on the spot. And if Rhaegar and Aerys are best pals again, why is Rheagar telling Jaime that changes will be made once he returns? That's why I think it's more likely that Aerys had Rhaegar in captivity the whole time, along with Lyanna up until she was impregnated. That's why he covered for him when Brandon came knocking. This was the perfect opportunity to get rid of him, but instead he executes his accusers. Why? Answer: he can't because that would blow the whole ill-conceived scheme wide open.

Eh, I just can't see any rapprochement between the two after what Rhaegar has just done to Aerys. And I think Rhaegar's dragon fantasies are a little overblown. He just doesn't seem the type to pitch a newborn baby into a bonfire, not even for a dragon.

Well, I tend to think that didn't happen. Rhaegar was likely in a black cell the whole time, along with Lyanna, and the whole kidnapping thing was a ruse. The KG were at the ToJ on Aerys' orders, not Rhaegar's, awaiting the birth of the magical prince who would be the perfect sacrifice for a dragon. But we'll see.

There's no evidence that the Others are moving against the wall, or that they exist in great numbers. And even the evidence that they are the ones raising and controlling the wights is high circumstantial, and rather sketchy.

Rhaegar was planning to do this? Or Aerys?

It's an even easier thing for Littlefinger, the Master of Coin, to have his agents on the docks. Nine of every ten harbormasters and customs agents are his men. And he owns at least some of the brothels where dozens of common oarsmen with fresh silver in their hands are telling tales of the rich lady who just came into port. It was Petyr's men, after all, who first came to Cat at the inn that Moreo lined up for her.

Ships leave the harbor every day. Even if one was bound for Gulltown or Maidenpool or Braavos, that's still a safer route than the kingsroad. A raven or a rider would have been just as good as her going to Riverrun herself. And even then, there were safer, and faster, ways to go by boat -- ie, straight up to Harrenhal, where Lady Whent is both her kin and a trusted banner to her father, then to the Trident and the Red Fork. Or up the Blackwater to Stoney Sept, and then a short distance to the Red Fork again. So again, a poor decision made without considering other options, or potential ramifications. And as I recall, these were not the reasons she took the road. It was to spare Cassel another sea voyage. But you're right about Tyrion. Once he had eyeballed her, she had no choice. But if she was just a little wiser, she never would have been in that position at all.

Yes, that's what I meant. She remembered that Jaime did not join the hunt that day, but she doesn't consider incest until she hears it from Stannis. It's only an odd reaction if she had considered incest before that, since she wouldn't be surprised by it now. Yes, I know Cersei's acts are shocking. All I was saying was that at the time Cat first concluded that the Lannisters were responsible for Bran's fall, she does not think incest was the secret they were trying to hide.

No. She first revealed her identity to the captain, who would love nothing more than to trade that information for a light assessment on the value of his hold, then she handed out silver to the entire crew, who then flooded the brothels with tales of the rich lady who just arrived at port. That's not underestimating. That's sheer idiocy. And it wasn't Varys who first learned of her whereabouts, it was Petyr. Varys learned of the dagger from Cassel's conversation with Santagar, but by then their cover had been blown. Returning by boat would have been even less conspicuous, Cassel's green sickness be damned.

- Did she figure out the incest right away? She noticed that Jaime was not on the hunt the day Bran fell, and that she thinks he was pushed, but I don't see anything that suggests she made the leap to incest. When she hears it from Stannis later, she is shocked, wondering if Cersei could be that mad, which is an odd reaction if this is what she's suspected all along. - Everybody wanted Robb to keep his promise to the Freys, not just Cat. - She doesn't distrust the Westerlings, except maybe Rolph. She recognizes that it was a poor trade giving up the might of House Frey for 50 or so men. - She sensed the RW when it was just about to break. She was as naive as everyone else before that. But she misses a lot too. - She was completely blind to how loudly she announced her arrival at King's Landing. - She foolishly took the King's Road home again, and then stopped at the most popular inn in the area. - She seems to think that other people should do her bidding just because she swears to the old gods and the new. - She takes her anger for Jon's existence out on Jon, not Ned. Please don't think I'm picking on Cat, however. Nobody plays the game perfectly all the time.

He was erratic for much of his life -- big plans, no follow through, skirt-chaser -- but he didn't really lose it until after Duskendale. So it was a bad combination of a weak mind and poor character coupled with the pressures of ruling a kingdom. He was the first, or the last, to crack.

Ned is already Hand by that time, has been for months. And Ned was arrested as soon as Joffrey became king, that very day, in fact. Joffrey cannot order his execution because he is under his mother's regency. That's why he went around her back. And who might have convinced him to do that, I wonder?

He's expecting Ned not to come south. He only sent the catspaw after that didn't happen. Only Bran liked doing dangerous stuff for fun, as far as I can tell. The live steel challenge was denied by Cassel. Joffrey can't very well attack Robb and then have him die from sepsis.

Some people still point to Mance and his bag of silver trying to destabilize the realm before he launches his own attack. I don't buy it, but that's still out there in the fandom. There's people who insist that Ned is still alive too. Yes, George said we would know who sent the catspaw, and the answer is Joffrey. What we don't have is a clear rationale for why he did it. Simple cruelty? Doubtful; Joffrey had been away for more than a week. What good is cruelty when your not around to see the misery it causes? Impress his father? Equally implausible because there is no way Robert would know it was Joffrey unless he told him. And look what happened when Joffrey brought him a dead cat. What would he expect to happen when he says he killed the crippled, comatose son of his best friend in the world -- the boy Robert had been praying for day and night since the day he fell? So I point to the man who benefitted from all this as the real culprit here. People say Littlefinger could not have been involved because he didn't know about Bran's fall. But he doesn't have to. Consider: Before the royal party left King's Landing, Petyr pulls Joffrey aside and tells him that Ned becoming Hand would be very bad; bad for Robert, bad for Cersei, bad for House Lannister, bad for the realm, but most of all, bad for Joffrey's eventual ascension (a prediction that would seem prescient a short while later.) Alas, Petyr would say, the only thing that could prevent this is if some sudden tragedy were to befall House Start, oh, something like the death of one of his children. So Joffrey arrives at Winterfell with murder on his mind. And might we reconsider the folly of challenging the older, better trained Robb Stark to live steel? Maybe a little nightsoil on Joffrey's blade would have done the trick? But then Bran falls and it would appear to Joff that the problem has resolved itself. When Ned comes south anyway, however, Joffrey sends the catspaw back to kill Bran, hoping this will send Ned home, and scotch his own betrothal in the process. And when they get all the way to the Trident and word still has not reached them about Bran's death, Joff would know the catspaw failed so he set his sights on his next victim: Sansa.

Meh, that was a common saying. George talks about the rain too. It doesn't mean he's giving us hints about the Reynes.

Eh, does Tyrion ever actually contemplate killing Joffrey? Bronn suggests it, and Tyrion recoils at the idea. He has plenty of negative thoughts about Joffrey, and notes that Tommen would make a better, more pliant, king (which isn't necessarily true, btw), but I don't remember Tyrion ever thinking that Joffrey should be killed, or that he should do it. Am I wrong?

Or, it's just hyperbole, like when Thorne says Grenn is strong as an aurochs or the great lords call themselves wolves or lions or dragons. Bran certainly does not fret over this vision of Jon dying, if that's what he saw. And I don't see Jon thinking about revenge or murdering all crows. He's trying to defend himself and says "Ghost" just before his last thought (or was it his?): Stick them with the pointy end.

I don't think anyone treats "the smallfolk" as completely disposable, just individual smallfolk. If one or a hundred or even a thousand die, there are plenty more to grow crops, mine ore, drive teams and do all the other manual labor. Of course, depriving another lord of their smallfolk is an effective way to destroy rival houses, as Tywin shows. But I doubt any lord would advocate for the complete extermination of all smallfolk. And there have been a few commoner rebellions over the years, most led by the faith. But conditions aren't right for a full democratic conversion of this society, if that's what you're getting at. They are still in a pre-Renaissance state, and not even the maesters are close to a printing press or other tools to educate the masses and usher in concepts like the rights of individuals and self-rule.

I doubt it. "The shadow knows" was a common catchphrase for anyone who was asked a question, especially a rhetorical question, that they didn't know the answer to. It came from the radio show that was still popular when Martin was a boy. It opened with a sinister voice asking, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? (Dramatic pause) The Shadow knows, bwa ha ha ha ha . . ." So this was just his way of deflecting a question that he didn't want to answer.

That's kind of the point. The Riverlands at least have rivers to afford it some level of protection. The place wasn't fully conquered until the Hoares figured out that to control the riverlands you have to control the rivers, and even then they had a hard time of it. Before that, it was the scene of constant warfare, the rise and fall of petty kings, invasion from west, vale, north, storm and reach. The Reach, meanwhile, has virtually nothing in the way of natural defenses. Dorne has its deserts, vale its mountains, north its size and harsh winters . . . The Reach has only one major river and the rest is just league upon league of wide open farmland and gently rolling hills. The only defense they have is their huge army -- twice, even three times, that of any other realm -- and that can only be leveraged if there is political stability among the Reach nobility, which first the Gardeners then the Tyrells maintained through marriage. It's telling, after all, that the only time Highgarden has ever fallen was when the Gardener king at the time made a series of unwise matches for his daughters, which led to open conflict between his banners, and the Reach was invaded simultaneously by the west, stormlands and Dorne. Highgarden was sacked, and the Oaken Chair, the living seat of House Gardener that had existed since the Dawn Age, was chopped up and burned to ashes. So I don't know if I would say the Tyrells are grasping, but they do know the value of political compromise and the need to maintain control of power, for themselves.

The only source we have for this tale is Old Nan, and she was interrupted before she got to the end. So there might be more to the story, but it remains a story nonetheless. I'll bet we'll find out the truth soon enough. The trees remember . . .

I might pre-date the wall. We don't have a real good description of it, other than it's a long drop to the bottom of the gorge. But at the very least, it provides passage from one side of a largely impassible formation to another, and the most likely reason for this is trade.

I don't think it will be very good for Mace if a Targ takes the throne. He pretty much bailed on them when he got a good deal from Robert. He got to keep lands and titles while Viserys and Dany were thrown into lives of exile and penury. Maybe Aegon would let this slide, but Dany certainly won't.

Yeah, I don't see Tywin as the lovey-dovey type either. The only source we have for this is Kevan, and he's got some serious hero-worship when it comes to Tywin. And while Joanna may have been in charge of many things at home while Tywin was off running the kingdom, it's not like she could bend Tywin to her will. She got overruled regarding Cersei and Jaime's betrothals, which is probably the only thing Tywin cared about on the domestic front.

If Tywin killed Joanna because of Tyrion, then he would have killed Tyrion too. In feudal society, things like dwarfism were blamed on curses by the gods, and it's mentioned several times that Tyrion was Tywin's punishment for arrogance. So even coldly rational Tywin should have no compunction about killing Tyrion, and virtually no one would contest this. It would be seen as an act of kindness, in fact. And if he did decide to let Tyrion live, he is a curse, so this would be a very valid reason for cutting him out of the line of succession. There would also be witnesses to how Joanna died -- maesters, midewives, etc. -- and it would be very obvious that she died in childbirth, due to Tyrion's abnormally large head. So Tywin would not only have to kill Joanna, but everyone who attended the birth and prepared her body for burial. That would be a rash of sudden deaths that would be hard to explain.