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Small Questions v 10020


Stubby

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The biggest in Westeros are King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, and White Harbor. Maybe not in that order, but that would be my guess. Essos works a little differently. Either Tyrion or Quentyn comes across a walled town in Essos that he says would be a city in Westeros. the nine Free Cities are all probably bigger than any city in Westeros.

Jamie notes that White Harbour is hardly a city compared to Lannisport and KL, and Pate thinks that while KL is bigger Oldtown is superior as it is all stone buildings and whatnot
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How big city in Essos in Westeros are? And which are the biggest?

The biggest in Westeros are King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, and White Harbor. Maybe not in that order, but that would be my guess. Essos works a little differently. Either Tyrion or Quentyn comes across a walled town in Essos that he says would be a city in Westeros. the nine Free Cities are all probably bigger than any city in Westeros.

Jamie notes that White Harbour is hardly a city compared to Lannisport and KL, and Pate thinks that while KL is bigger Oldtown is superior as it is all stone buildings and whatnot

To expand on this, it's noted in the books or SSM (probably SSM) that Westeros only has five cities: KL, Oldtown, White Harbour, Gulltown and Lannisport. Oldtown and KL are significantly larger than Lannisport, which is in turn much bigger than WH and Gulltown.

Only city whose population is mentioned is King's Landing, which numbers around 500 000 inhabitants.

Since we have no exact numbers; we can only speculate about size of Essosi cities. Most of Free Cities are probably larger than Lannisport, and largest of them (like Braavos or Volantis) are easily much more populous than KL and Oldtown, as is presumably Qarth.

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Is the Alyn Velaryon that fathered Elaena Targaryen's two bastards Jon and Jeyne Waters and was her true love the same that almost got eaten by Sheepstealer during the Dance of the Dragons? If so, isn't it strange that Elaena's true love would be 35 years older than her?

Yes, Ran has confirmed they are one and the same.

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During Robert's reign, it is said that the Kingsguard is purely a political station. The only two knight's who appear to be worth their salt are Jamie and Barristan (Arys Oakheart doesn't seem like a terrible fighter but not on par with Jamie and Barristan.) So my question is; what political purpose did having Meryn Trant, Preston Greenfield, Mandon Moore, Boros Blount and Arys Oakheart serve?


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Maybe it was a way to binding houses Trant, Greenfield, Moore, Blount and Oakheart more closely to the Iron Throne. Robert gained favour with various houses in various ways - Lannisters by marriage, some by increasing their land and/or rights, and some by putting their scions into Kingsguard. Perhaps more powerful Houses were not willing to commit their member into KG, and Robert had to settle with Trants, Greenfields and others.


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Is the Alyn Velaryon that fathered Elaena Targaryen's two bastards Jon and Jeyne Waters and was her true love the same that almost got eaten by Sheepstealer during the Dance of the Dragons? If so, isn't it strange that Elaena's true love would be 35 years older than her?

Yes, Ran has confirmed they are one and the same.

And the fact that he is 35 years older than her also explains why they didn't get married (Elaena's third marriage was for love). He would most likely be death by then.

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From the Hedge Knight:





Of Prince Maekar he saw no sign, but he recognized Prince Baelor at Lord Ashford's side. Sunlight slashed golden off the shoulder clasp that held his cloak and the slim coronet about his temples, but otherwise he dressed far more simply than most of the other lords. He does not look a Targaryen in truth, with that dark hair. Dunk said as much to Egg.


"It's said he favors his mother," the boy reminded him. "She was a Dornish princess."




Would that indicate that Myriah died either before Egg was born, or when he was too little to remember (so before Egg was about 3)?


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We know Valyrian steel is harder than standard steel and so can be made into thinner blades with sharper edges, but is Valyrian steel actually lighter than standard steel, or the same weight? Valyrian steel swords are lighter than normal ones but is this purely because they're thinner, or does Valyrian steel actually weigh less?

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Chemically speaking, steel is alloy of materials (specifically - iron with few supplements) whose density can't be changed (apart from cooling or heating - liquid iron is obviously less dense then solid iron). Two steel swords with exactly same size and shape will always weigh more or less the same - so I guess the answer to your question lies in thinness of Valyrian blades.



Then again, Valyrian swords were forged with the help of sorcery, which can potentially throw all of chemistry laws out of the window. One could easily speculate that Valyrian swords were somehow magically lightened.


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From the Hedge Knight:

Would that indicate that Myriah died either before Egg was born, or when he was too little to remember (so before Egg was about 3)?

I don't know. But the "was" could be referring to what she was before she became queen.
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There was a really interesting thread about Stark/Targ marriages going way back... where did the thread go? Can anyone please link me? I forget what it was called but it supposed that Targs married into Starks and Starks married into Targs... way back.


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There was a really interesting thread about Stark/Targ marriages going way back... where did the thread go? Can anyone please link me? I forget what it was called but it supposed that Targs married into Starks and Starks married into Targs... way back.

I don't have time to comb through them all but try HERE

Sometimes Google by itself is more efficient than our own search function.

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But it's also about the "it's said that he favours his mother". I feel like if Egg had known his grandmother, he would simply have said "he favours his mother", right?

You are probably, but not necessarily, right (as usual :))
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But it's also about the "it's said that he favours his mother". I feel like if Egg had known his grandmother, he would simply have said "he favours his mother", right?

Wasn't that before he(Egg) wanted anyone to know who he really was though?

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“Through the trees, I [bloodraven] see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them.”

Bloodraven says that he cannot talk with the people in the past. He says they only hear the wind when he speaks. But Ned asked who was there when Bran spoke. That means he heard a word not some wind. Theon hears him the same. Does that mean Bran is a prodigy well beyond Bloodraven?

Along with the quote that you cite above; Leaf also warns Bran "Do not seek to him (Ned Stark) back from death, boy"… This made me wonder, why does Leaf feel that it is necessary to give voice to this warning?

-- Does Leaf fear that Bran will succeed at warning his father of the impending doom associated with going South? Is Leaf concerned with how this would alter the events of the past?

-- Or, Does Leaf fear that Bran will waste a lot of time trying to communicate with his father & thus impede his own progression? This seems more likely as it also fits with Bloodraven's warning - Bloodraven, at some point, was apparently obsessed with communicating with the past, though he never succeeded.

I do believe that Bran has far greater natural abilities than Bloodraven ever had. This has been foreshadowed ever sense the crow was blocking bran's vision in Bran's coma-dream in aGoTs.

Does this mean that Bran will be able to communicate with people in the past? I don't know. Though I have no doubt that Bran will be able to communicate with people in the present - he already has. To Theon, Bran said: "THEON"… later in that chapter (or a subsequent chapter), Theon says "They knew my name, The Old Gods knew my Name." This tells me that Bran can communicate via the trees in real-time.

Osha recalls an old story where the Trees actually fought fought alongside the CotF (not unlike Tolkin's Ents). I would not be surprised if Bran is eventually able to maneuver the Weirwoods - sorta like remote-controlled Ents - at least the foreshadowing is in place.

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Along with the quote that you cite above; Leaf also warns Bran "Do not seek to him (Ned Stark) back from death, boy"… This made me wonder, why does Leaf feel that it is necessary to give voice to this warning?

-- Does Leaf fear that Bran will succeed at warning his father of the impending doom associated with going South? Is Leaf concerned with how this would alter the events of the past?

-- Or, Does Leaf fear that Bran will waste a lot of time trying to communicate with his father & thus impede his own progression? This seems more likely as it also fits with Bloodraven's warning - Bloodraven, at some point, was apparently obsessed with communicating with the past, though he never succeeded.

I do believe that Bran has far greater natural abilities than Bloodraven ever had. This has been foreshadowed ever sense the crow was blocking bran's vision in Bran's coma-dream in aGoTs.

Does this mean that Bran will be able to communicate with people in the past? I don't know. Though I have no doubt that Bran will be able to communicate with people in the present - he already has. To Theon, Bran said: "THEON"… later in that chapter (or a subsequent chapter), Theon says "They knew my name, The Old Gods knew my Name." This tells me that Bran can communicate via the trees in real-time.

Osha recalls an old story where the Trees actually fought fought alongside the CotF (not unlike Tolkin's Ents). I would not be surprised if Bran is eventually able to maneuver the Weirwoods - sorta like remote-controlled Ents - at least the foreshadowing is in place.

Theon and Lord Eddard are different, Theon is alive the moment takes place in the present. Leaf's quote takes place before Bloodraven tells him how time works with the trees and how they view the past. He even tells Bran once he masters his gift he can look wherever he wants when he wants. But unlike trees "Men live their lives trapped in the eternal present." Bran eventually will see well beyond the trees themselves. To see what he wants, as Bloodraven pointed out, all the trees basically are is recorded memory.

More than likely Bloodraven just wants him to avoid the pain of the past. But who knows, I don't think Martin will give Bran the ability to communicate with the past just because you end up altering everything and would have to change the books, butterfly effect. The other theoretical alternative is that you don't want to call back the dead. Maybe Bran wakes a Ghost, maybe people like Bloodraven can see ghosts or some such thing. Though I think Brans dream of his father may be a past recollection he and Ric picked up on. One of Eddard in the Crypts. Or just a dream. Either way changing the past has just to big of an impact on a book series this large, to much change involved, so I doubt Martin goes there.

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“Through the trees, I [bloodraven] see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them.”

Bloodraven says that he cannot talk with the people in the past. He says they only hear the wind when he speaks. But Ned asked who was there when Bran spoke. That means he heard a word not some wind. Theon hears him the same. Does that mean Bran is a prodigy well beyond Bloodraven?

Another line of reasoning is that Bran is trying to talk to people closer to the present: Theon being alive and Ned being only recently dead. Whereas Bloodraven might be trying to talk to people long dead.

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