sweetsunray

5 hours ago, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:

July baby  I'll have to order my calendar soon because this one sounds lovely. Would this be a king of House Mudd? Their sigil was a golden crown studded with emeralds on a red-brown field.

Apparently it is supposed to be Bael at the Stark court.

5 hours ago, Springwatch said:

No privacy, remember? That won't work.

Besides, Jon isn't a celibate by conviction. That was forced on him by circumstances too.

He does have a conviction - he does not want to father bastards. He deliberately avoids brothels, even those in Mole town. He uses his vows of the NW as a cloak to explain why he chooses not to bed a woman and give in to lust. It doesn't mean he cannot have lustful reactions or physical needs. But he does want to be above those.

If Ygritte had not insisted he had to make her lie to Mance true, he would not have slept with her, out of conviction.

The circumstance of the NW and celibacy was very much of his own choosing.

On 10/20/2023 at 9:50 PM, Craving Peaches said:

It depends. My issue with it is that Jon was really pressured into doing it since he was ordered to do everything he could to integrate himself with the wildlings and he ran a high risk of dying if he didn't. Without these 'pressure factors', I don't see Jon sleeping with Ygritte...

Same issue.

Btw checked Jon's age at the time he met Ygritte: he was 16 then already. He turns 15 in aGoT: Benjen promised to be back before Jon's 15th name day, but never did, and Tyrion left the Wall after Jon's 15th name day

(curious timeline effect: Jon's name day would then be early june or late May, if you follow the consistency that by the end of 298 they claim Benjen is nearly half a year gone, and Cressen's claim that Stannis prevented ships to leave Dragonstone for half a year, just as the comet had appeared. It's weird, but once you try to move timeline events around, you get major inconsistencies with those and other name days of other characters, as well as moon phase descriptions or references)

Anyhow, regardless on how you fiddle with the aGoT timeline, Jon was 14 at the start, but turned 15 in 298. Sam's already 16 at the start of the Great Ranging. The comet's in the sky. Jon knows Robb is KitN and the white raven arrived. So the great ranging commences in 299, when he's 15, and he doesn't meet Ygritte until the end of aCoK, which is the Battle of the Blackwater. By then Jon is 16 and so is Robb.

But yeah, Ygritte's use of coercion is problematic. A yes must be enthusiastic to be consensual. If this is true between partners from a man towards a woman, it also works the other way around. Their sexual relation does not start with full consent, even if his body wants to. A man having an erection is not good enough an argument to claim he wasn't coerced into it. Nor is him developing feelings for her. Her threatening to kill him herself if he ever left her...  But I do respect that he does remember her with a fondness.

On 7/25/2023 at 11:42 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

Whoa...

Samwell, Storm, In which Sam meets Cold Hands

Made me think of this...

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/150780-soldier-pines-and-sentinels/

It always makes me think that Sam's hearing the language of those that sing the song of earth, True Tongue. And that greenseers can speak via tree... but there might be limitations, such as only ww trees where an ancestor's soul of yours lives in. And BR doesn't know this ability, because his ancestral ww tree has been dead for at least a thousand years at Raventree, and the ww of WF is very much protected against a non-Stark using it for communication. Might have to do with bones that remember, and most of the bones of the descendants of the last Stark-Blackwood union have failed to either return or if they did unlikely in any other form than ashes.

10 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I said I thought I was more sympathetic towards him than most, not that I like him.

I think we just interpret the scene differently. I always saw it as Arya being angry at how blatantly he was breaking his vows. Given that no age gap is made clear, and we do no know Dareon's age, I will continue with this interpretation. Thanks for the good and civil discussion though.

I will repeat what I had added as edit

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The allusion to LF is not in this scene for Arya's benefit, but for ours. You get symbolism and parallelism. A 14 year old child-woman being prostituted for thrice the profit of others, a man who wed her mother and thereby in a sense becomes her stepfather/foster father, the dillusion of innocence believing in love songs about suicidal ladies, towers, princes and knights, and the sexual subtext of pulling in laps and tickling. George definitely is trying to bring LF and Sansa to the mind of the reader, through Dareon and Lanna.

And then I haven't even mentioned we're introduced to Lanna's hair being taken care of, as we see with Sansa so often. You have to completely ignore these clues to maintain the interpretation it's only about desertion.

Of course, I aim to remain civil. And thank you for clarifying "sympathetic"

44 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

on was 14 and Ygritte was 19. Therefore, Ygritte is a paedo by modern standards.

Ygritte was born in 280 AC and Jon was born in 283 AC. She died when she was 19 and Jon was 16. Jon was 15 about to turn 16 when they had intercourse, not 14.

Nevertheless, I agree that their sexual relationship is disturbing. For me, less about the age, because Jon thinks of her in terms as "girl" rather than "woman". For me, the coercion at the threat of death is disturbing.

54 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

 I am not convinced by your reasoning re Arya's reaction. That can easily be read as being the final straw for his blatant disregard of his Watch vows. Arya knows little about marriage or sexual relations so the idea that she reacts this way because she thinks Dareon outside some 'five year gap' (which also doesn't seem to appear anywhere) and is therefore is a paedo is a stretch to me. She never thinks about an age difference or anything like that. If there was significant/substantial age difference I think it would be made more explicit.

I didn't claim Arya determines an explicit age difference. I'm comparing her response to Gendry with Bella to her response to Dareon and Lanna, and Sansa's declaration that Beric was "old" in her mind, or Cersei concluding Aurane is a boy while Rhaegar was a man. In fact Rhaegar was younger than Aurane is when Cersei comes with that conclusion. The huge difference is Cersei's age when she mooned over the living Rhaegar and when she moons over dashing Aurane. She was a minor child between 10-14 when she first met him and last saw him (and yes, deflowered already by the time Tywin took her away from the Red Keep), but she's a fully adult woman in her 30s when Aurane is 22.

George does not deny either prebuscent or teens a sexual inner world where they are attracted to someone or even have their first sexual experiences, including being deflowered. It's part of human development. And it is indeed recognized that even though there may be age differences between first time sexual partners at such an age, that there is an acceptable age gap and then there is a disturbing one. George seems to be using the Canadian and European view of the 5 year gap. A 16 year old can give sexual consent to any adult, but a 14 year old can only consent to someone who is no older than 5 years to them. Though George does not make this an explicit thing in the series, he uses a minor's response to sexual interactions between two people as a guide for that. When the minor responds fearful, or thinks "how old", or "a man" or repulsed, he's depicting a gap in power and/or age that is not reconcilable for a minor.

Now the scene may not convince you. You've admitted to liking Dareon. But just because it doesn't convince you, you cannot project putting the cart before the wagon onto me when it comes to claiming whether or not the text convinced me.

Now here is the actual scene

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When Cat slipped inside the brothel, though, she found Merry sitting in the common room with her eyes shut, listening to Dareon play his woodharp. Yna was there too, braiding Lanna's fine long golden hair. Another stupid love song. Lanna was always begging the singer to play her stupid love songs. She was the youngest of the whores, only ten-and-four. Merry asked three times as much for her as for any of the other girls, Cat knew.

It made her angry to see Dareon sitting there so brazen, making eyes at Lanna as his fingers danced across the harp strings. The whores called him the black singer, but there was hardly any black about him now. With the coin his singing brought him, the crow had transformed himself into a peacock. Today he wore a plush purple cloak lined with vair, a striped white-and-lilac tunic, and the parti-colored breeches of a bravo, but he owned a silken cloak as well, and one made of burgundy velvet that was lined with cloth-of-gold. The only black about him was his boots. Cat had heard him tell Lanna that he'd thrown all the rest in a canal. "I am done with darkness," he had announced.

He is a man of the Night's Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the Wall. When Dareon had first appeared at the Happy Port, Arya had almost asked if he would take her with him back to Eastwatch, until she heard him telling Bethany that he was never going back. "Hard beds, salt cod, and endless watches, that's the Wall," he'd said. "Besides, there's no one half as pretty as you at Eastwatch. How could I ever leave you?" He had said the same thing to Lanna, Cat had heard, and to one of the whores at the Cattery, and even to the Nightingale the night he played at the House of Seven Lamps.

I wish I had been here the night the fat one hit him. Merry's whores still laughed about that. Yna said the fat boy had gone red as a beet every time she touched him, but when he started trouble Merry had him dragged outside and thrown in the canal. Cat was thinking about the fat boy, remembering how she had saved him from Terro and Orbelo, when the Sailor's Wife appeared beside her. "He sings a pretty song," she murmured softly, in the Common Tongue of Westeros. "The gods must have loved him to give him such a voice, and that fair face as well."

He is fair of face and foul of heart, thought Arya, but she did not say it. Dareon had once wed the Sailor's Wife, who would only bed with men who married her. The Happy Port sometimes had three or four weddings a night. Often the cheerful wine-soaked red priest Ezzelyno performed the rites. Elsewise it was Eustace, who had once been a septon at the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea. If neither priest nor septon was on hand, one of the whores would run to the Ship and fetch back a mummer. Merry always claimed the mummers made much better priests than priests, especially Myrmello.

The weddings were loud and jolly, with a lot of drinking. Whenever Cat happened by with her barrow, the Sailor's Wife would insist that her new husband buy some oysters, to stiffen him for the consummation. She was good that way, and quick to laugh as well, but Cat thought there was something sad about her too. [...]

Dareon's song was finally ending. As the last notes faded in the air, Lanna gave a sigh and the singer put his harp aside and pulled her up into his lap. He had just started to tickle her when Cat said loudly, "There's oysters, if anyone is wanting some," and Merry's eyes popped open. "Good," the woman said. "Bring them in, child. Yna, fetch some bread and vinegar."

The swollen red sun hung in the sky behind the row of masts when Cat took her leave of the Happy Port, with a plump purse of coins and a barrow empty but for salt and seaweed. Dareon was leaving too. 

 

Arya has watched and heard Dareon sing to Lanna completely. There had been ample time for her to interrupt and announce there are oysters. No, instead she chooses to do so after Dareon pulls Lanna into his lap and started to tickle her. And it takes a long while before she departs or Dareon departs. In other words, the pulling of Lanna into his lap and tickling her is an isolated scene that provokes Arya into acting for the very first time during all the time she watches and ponders Dareon's fair face and foul heart.

Arya has a better understanding about marriage and consummation than she had prior. She knows these marriages are sham weddings, not "real" marriages, and yet, she also understands up to a level that the Sailor's Wife asks this of her clients in relation to having been truly wed once. Arya realizes that the Sailor's Wife is a prostitute because she needs to survive, but trying to make peace with her occupation by wedding her customers. And she knows Lanna is very young, so young that Merry who runs the brothel asks thrice the price of any other prostitute. She knows the basics of consummation too, and that oysters are regarded as an aphrodisiac.

And if this level of understanding in Arya disturbs you, because of her age, then that is exactly what this whole scene is meant to instill in us. We should be disturbed at Arya grasping these things as well as the prostitutes living it. Furthermore Lanna is also linked to Sansa via her having a fondness for "stupid" love songs. George depicts Lanna as a young innocent girl full of illusions about love songs and stories, despite the fact she's a bona fide prostitute. And we should be disturbed at Dareon ogling such a young child-woman prostitute, pulling her into his "lap" (a sexual reference) and tickling her (also sexual subtext).

The allusion to LF is not in this scene for Arya's benefit, but for ours. You get symbolism and parallelism. A 14 year old child-woman being prostituted for thrice the profit of others, a man who wed her mother and thereby in a sense becomes her stepfather, the dillusion of innocence believing in love songs about suicidal ladies, towers, princes and knights, and the sexual subtext of pulling in laps and tickling. George definitely is trying to bring LF and Sansa to the mind of the reader, through Dareon and Lanna.

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

No it doesn't, there is nothing clear about the situation at all.

We don't know how old Dareon is, we don't know whether Lanna has had her period (statistics say likely but there is no way to be sure). So calling him a paedo relies on a lot of assumptions, and to be honest, seems to be motivated by a dislike of the character, since Ygritte gets a pass with Jon, who was only 14. If Dareon is a paedo, so is Ygritte.

I said what it's based on: Arya's responses to Dareon when she sees him handling Lanna and her interrupting him, which is in the text. You don't have to insert or project invented beliefs onto my reasoning. I stated it already: it's based on Arya's response to these scenes. But please do not project your own motivations for disbelief (you admitted to liking him) onto why readers have a very different opinion of him. 

Arya has seen and met Dareon interact with other whores before and for a while already. In fact, when she first learned of him she almost wanted to reveal herself to him and ask him to help her get to the Wall. But then she learned he had deserted. She knows of his wedding to the Sailor's Wife and the fight with Sam. She knows what honeyed flattery he tells to other prostitutes and courtesans, and his full wardrobe. None of that is enough to provoke her into acting yet. It is him taking Lanna into his lap and trying to tickle her that spurs her into action. In other words, that was the final drop. And then we can infer, despite not knowing his actual age, that the age difference between Lanna and Dareon disturbs Arya a lot, in a way that by comparison does not disturb her about the potential Gendry-Bella hook up at the Peach (though she's upset about it, because she has a thing for Gendry).

I very much did NOT give Ygritte a pass! Her coercion tactics make her a rapist.

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

At best, the situation is ambiguous by in-world standards.

You haven't read George's words closely. He makes clear that the general view is one where it would be considered "perverse" to bed a flowered maiden under 16.

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In the "general Westerosi view," well, girls may well be wed before their first flowerings, for political reasons, but it would considered perverse to bed them.

Which is exactly what I said from the start, and that even flowered girls under 16 are still considered to be innocent child-women, aka maidens, not just "women".

I respect you bowing out of this discussion.

17 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

She was thirteen, a woman flowered and wed, the heir to Winterfell.

That quote are Sansa's own thoughts, who's being groomed. That's like 10-year old Arya claiming she's a grown woman almost.

When I was 10 I said I wasn't a child anymore, but a teen now. And when I was 14 I believed I could pass for a 16 year old and was mad at my parents for not allowing me to go to a club with two friends of mine (one 16, the other 15) on holiday in Italy. They allowed me to go to a fair with them instead as a compromise. At the fair we rode bumper cars, but since we were three, one of us had to take a turn to stand to the side and watch. That's when I was approached by a handsome friendly woman (a true adult) who chatted me up and how mature I appeared and could be a model. I felt slightly uncomfortable, and then she introduced me to her "friend", a guy that looked 40 in my mind then (like Sansa thinks Beric looks old). He took over the chatting up and while doing so, shuffle by little shuffle, was edging me out of sight and the crowd. I knew something was wrong, but trying to remain polite, I didn't know how to get out of that situation. I was one step away from disappearing completely out of sight behind the boomer boxes, when the bell rang, which I used to quickly jump into the bumper car with one of my two friends (the 16 year old one), whom I immediately told about these two weirdos. We looked around and they had disappeared like some puff of smoke. I never ever was angry with my parents again after that for deeming me too young yet for this or that.

Notice that Tyrion does not refer to her as a woman grown, but as a maiden. Here are a few other quotes

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Lyanna had only been sixteen, a child-woman of surpassing loveliness. (aGoT, Eddard I)

..

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The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she'd been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well. "I named her Barra," she said as the child nursed. "She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair …" [...] "And tell him I've not been with no one else. I swear it, milord, by the old gods and new. Chataya said I could have half a year, for the baby, and for hoping he'd come back. So you'll tell him I'm waiting, won't you? I don't want no jewels or nothing, just him. He was always good to me, truly."

Good to you, Ned thought hollowly. "I will tell him, child, and I promise you, Barra shall not go wanting." (aGoT, Eddard IX)

...

Quote

Robert flushed. "Barra," he grumbled. "Is that supposed to please me? Damn the girl. I thought she had more sense."

"She cannot be more than fifteen, and a whore, and you thought she had sense?" Ned said, incredulous. His leg was beginning to pain him sorely. It was hard to keep his temper. "The fool child is in love with you, Robert." (aGoT, Eddard X)

...

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"She is no more than a child."

"Your sister swears she's flowered. If so, she is a woman, fit to be wed. You must needs take her maidenhead, so no man can say the marriage was not consummated. After that, if you prefer to wait a year or two before bedding her again, you would be within your rights as her husband." (aSoS, Tyrion III)

...

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Woman? Child, you mean. "Has a spider been whispering in your ear, or do I have my sweet sister to thank?" Considering the things that went on beneath Cersei's blankets, you would think she'd have the decency to keep her nose out of his. "Tell me, why is it that all of Sansa's maids are women in Cersei's service? I am sick of being spied upon in my own chambers."

"If you mislike your wife's servants, dismiss them and hire ones more to your liking. That is your right. It is your wife's maidenhood that concerns me, not her maids. This . . . delicacy puzzles me. You seem to have no difficulty bedding whores. Is the Stark girl made differently?"

"Why do you take so much bloody interest in where I put my cock?" Tyrion demanded. "Sansa is too young."

"She is old enough to be Lady of Winterfell once her brother is dead. Claim her maidenhood and you will be one step closer to claiming the north. Get her with child, and the prize is all but won. Do I need to remind you that a marriage that has not been consummated can be set aside?" (aSoS, Tyrion IV)

Tywin is not the norm or a moral reference. He's a machiavellan monster. Quite clearly Tyrion and Eddard agree that age is part of the equation, and having flowered is not enough, to consider a flowered girl a woman already. They're not pedos. Tywin isn't either, but people are utter tools to him.

11 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

We don't know Dareon's age, and by Westeros standards Lanna may very well be a woman since she could have had her period. I do not think that is a good standard to judge maturity by, but that is how people in that world do it.

Also, if Dareon is a paedo, then so is Ygritte. Jon was only 14. Yet people give Ygritte a pass because they like her.

Lanna is a child prostitute: she not only has flowered; she has been deflowered already. The Westeros moral standard for an adult man with a flowered underage girl is to hold off on the consummation until she's 16. More allowance is made for young men within a 5 year age gap: teens fooling around with another, even if one of them is under age is within the normal.

Arya's dark response and dislike of him handling Lanna makes it clear that Dareon falls outside of this 5 year gap. He's older than 19.

Is a 14 year old prostitute less of a child? Or is she being marketed for pedos?

Ygritte is indeed a problematic character. The issue though isn't her age (3 years older than Jon, and thus falls within the 5 year gap), but her coercive tactics in getting Jon to sleep with her. If he doesn't, he would get killed for being a crow.

2 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think that one of the girls he wanted to have sex with was 14. So underage in our modern society. Though bear in mind people in-universe seem to think a girl becomes a woman as soon as she has her period (not a great metric). The Romans thought that girls of 12 were women...

Lanna (Happy Port) - A Wiki of Ice and Fire (westeros.org)

Lanna is 14 and he pulls her onto his lap, using the same line that he used to other prostitutes and courtesans. He is about to tickle her, when Arya who has been watching silently for a while, decides to interrupt Dareon by shouting "Cockles!". Not only is Lanna 14, Dareon also had wed Lanna's mother the Sailor's Wife. So, basically Dareon is a stepfather to Lanna.

Yes, it is very much implied that Arya considers Dareon a perv who lusts after girls who aren't adults yet. More, there's a clear allusion made to LF in that sense. George creates an allusion to Sansa in the lustful grasp of LF with that scene.

What the Romans believed doesn't matter. In Westeros adult men lusting after under age girls is depraved. Ned believed his own sister Lyanna of 16 a mere girl in comparison to an adult Rhaegar of 21. Cat may have been betrothed at 12, but she was not to be wed before 17-18. Arranged marriages to a child (a girl under 16) are not expected to be consummated until she comes off age. Even Tywin and Kevan argue to Tyrion that he can wait with regularly bedding Sansa until she's older. They only demand the deflowering of Sansa, so that Sansa or a Stark supporter could not appeal for annulment on account of non-consummation.

1 hour ago, SaffronLady said:

LRT has a long history of being against any and every type of violence IIRC. And your current line is driving this conversation down "morality vs legality" lane, which ... technically speaking you are both correct. Dareon should die (let's just say sic semper deserters), but Arya is not a legal dispenser of justice.

I never claimed she was a legal dispenser of justice. In fact, I stressed I wasn't . I have always referred to her as a vigilante. What Ser Duncan and I and others have pointed out though that the legal dispense of justice is a mockery to begin with and even that has been abandoned by the state and rulers. Hence we have BwB and Arya springing up left and right. So, it's also a sociological issue. In a legal sense the BwB and Arya are "criminals" and "murderers", but that label becomes utterly meaningless when "L'etat" is absent or criminal both legally and morally. Where Les Miserables makes the reader contemplate the human right to not starve, George drove that up to 11 for both Arya and the BwB to the right of justice. Brienne belongs to the vigilante justice too: she's not an actual knight and while she's on a royal mission, her mission was not arresting or killing outlaws either.

A real modern example that I know of this phenomenon were the murders of bandits in Guatemala, which was a military dictatorship for decades the latter half of the 20th century and civil war, and with the one year under Montt ('82-'83) being the bloodiest. He created genocidal death squads who targeted the Indigenas especially. Montt's death squads compare to Tywin's Mountain, Amory Lorch and Bloody Mummers (truly). Eventually a peace treaty was signed in '96, and government was back in the hands of elected parliament. In order to get this though, there was an agreement not to pursue either Montt or those of the death squads for crimes against humanity. Early 21st century Montt tried to get elected president, but failed and retired. His immunity (of the peace treaty) expired in 2012. One court did find him guilty in 2013 for genocide and crimes against humanity, but the constitutional court squashed that verdict. He died in 2018. But what happened to his Bloody Mummers do you think? They became the bandits for which Guatemala is still considered one of the most dangerous countries to go to when it comes to crimes. They were not brought before courts either and didn't have to return their weapons. What do you do, if you have military grade automatic weapon arsenal, are used to killing civilians for fun with the approval of the state, but now you're out of a "job"? They turned bandit. The summer I traveled there (2005) and visited the area of Tikal these former-death-squads-turned-bandits had been known to commit murderous robberies in the area for a few years already. Whether tourists who drove in a minivan to Tikal at dawn made it to their destination was partially being lucky. It depended on which minivan these bandits would hold up. In the summer of 2005 though, they even robbed the till of the entrance of Tikal, shortly after it opened. They shot the cashier and two other people. As it was still very early, they did so for a few hundred dollars. That was all there was in the till. The villagers of communities in the jungle were so outraged over this and fed up that when they ended up catching some of these "Bloody Mummers" they performed lynchings. These lynchings were murders in a literal legal sense, and yet I could not but see it as a form of brutal attempt at creating some form of justice that was otherwise absent.

11 hours ago, SerDuncan said:

For the damnth fucking time, they don't live in 21st century Scandinavia. 

Exactly!

In my own society I absolutely abhor vigilante proposals and absolutely am against capital punishment. I would never advocate for even the state killing the worst individuals. It's not even about "advocating" that whatsoever, or even "defending" it, or believing it's "right to murder".

It's about to whom we as readers extend our empathy and understanding. Funny, how the OP demands nuance and empathy, but when we have it for an actual traumatized child, instead of a pedophile deserter who knows what's at stake, we're the amoral ones? Me, I prefer to feel empathy for a 10-year-old who witnessed the worst horrors humanity can inflict upon others for over a year, than a lying self-pitying pedophile like Dareon who doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. If he cares for nobody else but himself, then I don't see why I should care whether he's alive or dead. 

On 10/18/2023 at 1:34 AM, Alester Florent said:

I think there was a reward for returning Jaime to Robb after his escape, but I might misremember.

Karstark promised anyone who caught Jaime the hand of Alys Karstark in marriage.

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

So he's aborting his child. Big deal. This would be a child of questionable parentage anyway. She literally bedded Daario the night before the wedding. As I've already explained, the purpose is to delay any pregnancy so the world will have no cause to suspect it is not his.

Not buying it. Dany didn't ingest any abortificant at the pit. This society has no idea when or how (the inner workings of it) exactly one gets pregnant or gestation time even. Dany's not showing any signs whatsoever. It's illogical and has no textual basis, and I know you cannot provide any allusions or literary evidence for it. Absurd tinfoil case closed for me.

And yes, as I said, Hizdahr is supposed to the patsy suspect. And so yes, the intent is for Dany to suspect him.

18 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

What would that accomplish if there is no clear suspect, though?

Hizdahr is the patsy suspect

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Really? He's perfectly fine with her bearing someone else's child -- a child who could very well become king after him, displacing his own trueborn sons and handing the throne to the descendants of some commoner?

Really? He's been bedding her several times already. Nobody knows she's pregnant. Not even Dany herself. Combine it, and Hizdahr might as well be aborting his own child.

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Make her think about what?

Make her think that someone attempted to poison her.

3 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Brienne also eliminates several of the more dangerous outlaws in the region

I'd say the BwB outlaws have eliminated most of the dangerous outlaws. Brienne dealt with 3 in the Crownlands at the Whispers, and Rorge at the inn. Gendry killed Biter.

28 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

but then again that's also a large part of what Jaime is doing in AFfC, mopping up the outlaws and rebels that the Riverlords can't manage themselves

There's lots of talk of wanting to mop up the outlaws and rebels by Jaime and the men who accompanied him to Darry and/or RR, but so far he failed to mop up any of them, instead ending up taken himself; the man he sent after wolves ended up fleeing the wolf pack, etc... So, Jaime only succeeded in mopping up the remainder of the Mountain's men at HH by taking them with him, and using some as escorts such as Raff. Tarly complains later that he had to punish two for raping once they arrived at Maidenpool.

3 hours ago, Nevets said:

Actually, Arya did not save Sam from drowning.  That was Xondo, off the Cinnamon Wind.  I suppose you could give her credit for the bravos, but it's not clear Sam was in mortal danger.

It's also not clear what would have happened to Hot Pie and Gendry either. Anyway, I think she took them more for their company than any perceived future danger.

[...] And while I am not sorry they are dead, I am sorry that it's Arya that made them dead.

You are correct: it was Xondo, though she did threaten the bravos away from Sam.

With Vargo Hoat taking over and how the Mountain killed most servants who worked for Roose and Vargo, at least one would have been killed to serve as food for the prisoners he kept there. Arya left herself, because she felt unsafe there. She did not want to abandon them to a danger, while attempting to flee to safety herself. They were her pack, and that means more than companionship alone.

I never claimed to be happy with her becoming a vigilante. I understand it, but it still breaks my heart.

3 hours ago, LongRider said:

I find this to be very interesting.  Very Jaqen H'ghar, to come out even on the death giving and lifesaving score.  Puts a rather different perspective on Arya, she's not just a homicidal maniac as some seem to hope for.   Without overt awareness to do so, she has balanced her kills and saves. 

Yes. We see Jaqen's "teachings" being applied by Arya in relation to Dareon and Samwell. When she saved Sam from drowning, she stole a life/death of the Drowned God. Arya may have slit Dareon's throat, but she dumps his body into the canals (where he himself threw in all of his NW gear except his boots)

8 minutes ago, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:

As of now, her kill count is around 10 I believe?

• Stable boy (self defense)
• Bolton guard
• the squire and the Tickler at the Inn (defense of herself and Sandor)
• Dareon
• The insurance man
• Raff

She killed 7 men personally.

She also saved 7 lives personally

• Jaquen, Biter and Rorge (from being burned alive in a cage)
• Gendry and Hot Pie (with her escape from HH)
• Sandor (in the Inn)
• Samwell (from drowning)

19 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

But wouldn't you agree that he has a vested interest in making sure she is not carrying anyone else's child? And that it would be best if she did not become pregnant until at least several months after their wedding, so that no one else can claim it's a bastard?

Nope.

19 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Furthermore, if he or someone else did want to kill her, wouldn't it make sense to use a much more lethal poison -- one that didn't require ingesting a certain amount based on size or weight or any other factor? There are such poisons, after all. 

I don't think someone wanted to kill her, just make her think it.

BTW, it just struck me... Remember Thoros complaining how he cannot see in the flames anymore to Brienne? Like he never could at High Heart?

Initially he could see things in flames beneath the hollow hill, despite the weirwood roots. This is one of those indicators against hollow hill being beneath High Heart, since Thoros cannot see anything in flames there. After Beric's death and the resurrection of Cat, Thoros lack of seeing anything in fires anymore is taken to believe the gods have abandoned the BwB. But it's just Thoros' ability that doesn't work anymore. Instead it might indicate that other old powers have grown strong enough in the hollow hill, as they do in High Heart.

16 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

It's an interesting premise.  One of the first strangled victims we hear about is Brandon Stark.  And George goes out of his way to show that Brandon ultimately strangled himself.

ETA: going down a rabbit hole here.  Is GRRM creating a parallel between the two Brandon Starks in the story?

The first Brandon Stark strangles himself to try to reach his sword.

The second Brandon Stark is in GRRM's version of the Yggdrasil, the tree from which Odin was hung.  So is there a parallel?  Bran the broken needs to metaphorically hang or strangle himself to reach his "sword".  My suspicion is that George's "magical swords" are actually characters in the series.  And one of the characters with the most sword imagery up North is Jon Snow.

Yes, I think uncle Brandon Stark's manner of strangulation is a choice of the author to have him stand-in for Brandon the Greenseer, both the ancient founder as well as Bran now.

Beric has the hanged markings too, and the one-eye. First dying Beric was put on a horse by Green Gergen (and Gergen is a variation of the name George... we never see or hear about Gergen again). And when people talk about him being killed, they mention him being attacked through the eye (one-eye) or that he was hanged. And when Arya arrives in the hollow hill, he's a scary crow on a weirwood throne. Green, sleipnir, one-eyed and hanged Odin, and weirwood thrones.

Uncle Brandon's statue on a throne with a sword in its lap and a wolf is heavily featured in the crypt visit where Shaggy with "wildfire green eyes" attacks Luwin. And this is how the lords and kings have always been portrayed: in a hollow hill, on a throne with a wolf by their side and a magical sword in their lap. At the lowest levels, the oldest parts, there are imo no statues of thrones, but real weirwood thrones and bones, many many many bones.