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Small Questions v 10022


Stubby

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(edited the quote in later)

"It will be good to see the children. The youngest was still sucking at the Lannister woman's teat the last time I saw him. He must be, what, five by now?"
"Prince Tommen is seven," she told him. "The same age as Bran. ..." AGoT p. 24

"Ned had last seen the king nine years before during Balon Greyjoy's Rebellion, ..." AGoT p. 37

I find it very odd that Ned would have traveled all the way south to see Cersei and Tommen seven years ago without taking the opportunity to see Robert as well.

@Xandrios: Ned is mixing things up, he is thinking of Joffrey who is indeed the eldest, not the youngest, and the only child 9 years ago. He must have heard of the other children and now has false memory.

ETA: I think this is meant to tell us Ned has not been following closely with Robert's family life and not taken an interest. It probably is part of the tale that Ned sought reclusion and a distance after the baby-killings at the Sack of Kings Landing and the Tower of Joy tragedy. The only time he left his mother country in the mean time was for the Greyjoy Rebellion.

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After the hunt had ridden out, he wandered through the castle with his wolf at his side, intending to visit the ones who would be left behind, Old Nan and Gage the cook, Mikken in his smithy, Hodor the stableboy who smiled so much and took care of his pony and never said anything but "Hodor," the man in the glass gardens who gave him a blackberry when he came to visit . . . --Bran II, Game

How many other times is blackberry or blackberries mentioned in ASOIAF & D&E & TP&TQ?

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After the hunt had ridden out, he wandered through the castle with his wolf at his side, intending to visit the ones who would be left behind, Old Nan and Gage the cook, Mikken in his smithy, Hodor the stableboy who smiled so much and took care of his pony and never said anything but "Hodor," the man in the glass gardens who gave him a blackberry when he came to visit . . . --Bran II, Game

How many other times is blackberry or blackberries mentioned in ASOIAF & D&E & TP&TQ?

Here they are. In the books/D&E stories I didn't list, they aren't mentioned. I don't have tPatQ on my computer, so I couldn't check that one for you.

A Game of Thrones:

Yet now that the last day was at hand, suddenly Bran felt lost. Winterfell had been the only home he had ever known. His father had told him that he ought to say his farewells today, and he had tried. After the hunt had ridden out, he wandered through the castle with his wolf at his side, intending to visit the ones who would be left behind, Old Nan and Gage the cook, Mikken in his smithy, Hodor the stableboy who smiled so much and took care of his pony and never said anything but "Hodor," the man in the glass gardens who gave him a blackberry when he came to visit..

Bran

Before he could answer, the servants returned with a plate of food fresh from the kitchen. There was much more than she’d asked for: hot bread, butter and honey and blackberry preserves, a rasher of bacon and a soft-boiled egg, a wedge of cheese, a pot of mint tea. And with it came Maester Luwin.

Catelyn

A wooden platform had been built to elevate Robert’s chair; there the Lord of the Eyrie sat, giggling and clapping his hands as a humpbacked puppeteer in blue-and-white motley made two wooden knights hack and slash at each other. Pitchers of thick cream and baskets of blackberries had been set out, and the guests were sipping a sweet orange-scented wine from engraved silver cups. A fool’s festival, Brynden had called it, and small wonder.

Across the terrace, Lysa laughed gaily at some jest of Lord Hunter’s, and nibbled a blackberry from the point of Ser Lyn Corbray’s dagger. They were the suitors who stood highest in Lysa’s favor... today, at least.

Catelyn

A Clash of Kings:

Forced to live off the land, Yoren turned to Koss and Kurz, who’d been taken as poachers. He would send them ahead of the column, into the woods, and come dusk they would be back with a deer slung between them on a pole or a brace of quail swinging from their belts. The younger boys would be set to picking blackberries along the road, or climbing fences to fill a sack with apples if they happened upon an orchard.

Arya

Yesterday Gendry had caught a frog and shared it with Lommy, and, a few days before, Hot Pie had found blackberries and stripped the bush bare, but mostly they had been living on water and acorns. Kurz had told them how to use rocks and make a kind of acorn paste. it tasted awful.

Arya

Of food there was plenty. The war had not touched the fabled bounty of Highgarden. While singers sang and tumblers tumbled, they began with pears poached in wine, and went on to tiny savory fish rolled in salt and cooked crisp, and capons stuffed with onions and mushrooms. There were great loaves of brown bread, mounds of turnips and sweetcorn and pease, immense hams and roast geese and trenchers dripping full of venison stewed with beer and barley. For the sweet, Lord Caswell’s servants brought down trays of pastries from his castle kitchens, cream swans and spun-sugar unicorns, lemon cakes in the shape of roses, spiced honey biscuits and blackberry tarts, apple crisps and wheels of buttery cheese.

Catelyn

The sound was the faintest of clinks, a scraping of steel over stone. He lifted his head from his paws, listening, sniffing at the night. The evening’s rain had woken a hundred sleeping smells and made them ripe and strong again. Grass and thorns, blackberries broken on the ground, mud, worms, rotting leaves, a rat creeping through the bush. He caught the shaggy black scent of his brother’s coat and the sharp coppery tang of blood from the squirrel he’d killed. Other squirrels moved through the branches above, smelling of wet fur and fear, their little claws scratching at the bark. The noise had sounded something like that.

Bran

They plunged under the heart tree and around the cold pool, through the blackberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks and ash and hawthorn scrub, to the far side of the wood... and there it was, the shadow he’d glimpsed without seeing, the slanting tree pointing at the rooftops. Sentinel, came the thought.

Bran

Serving men cleared away the swan, hardly touched. Cersei beckoned for the sweet. "I hope you like blackberry tarts."

"I love all sorts of tarts."

Tyrion

A Storm of Swords:

"His ship burned," Davos agreed, "but he lived, and here he stands. Is Jate still captain of the gate?"

"Who?"

"Jate Blackberry. He knows me well enough."

"I never heard of him. Most like he’s dead."

Davos

In his dreams the dead came burning, gowned in swirling green flames. Jaime danced around them with a golden sword, but for every one he struck down two more arose to take his place.

Brienne woke him with a boot in the ribs. The world was still black, and it had begun to rain. They broke their fast on oatcakes, salt fish, and some blackberries that Ser Cleos had found, and were back in the saddle before the sun came up.

Jaime

When they woke the next morning, the fire had gone out and the Liddle was gone, but he’d left a sausage for them, and a dozen oatcakes folded up neatly in a green and white cloth. Some of the cakes had pinenuts baked in them and some had blackberries. Bran ate one of each, and still did not know which sort he liked the best. One day there would be Starks in Winterfell again, he told himself, and then he’d send for the Liddles and pay them back a hundredfold for every nut and berry.

Bran

In the Queen’s Ballroom they broke their fast on honeycakes baked with blackberries and nuts, gammon steaks, bacon, fingerfish crisped in breadcrumbs, autumn pears, and a Dornish dish of onions, cheese, and chopped eggs cooked up with fiery peppers.

Sansa

The Bastard of Nightsong joined them at the cellar door. They walked quickly, across a shadowed yard and down some steps, under the stone tail of a frozen dragon. Lewys the Fishwife and Omer Blackberry waited at the postern gate, two guards bound and trussed at their feet. "The boat?" Davos asked them.

Davos

Beneath the castle ruins, the lower slopes of the hill were so thickly forested that half a hundred outlaws could well have been lurking there. They could be watching me even now. Merrett glanced about, and saw nothing but gorse, bracken, thistle, sedge, and blackberry bushes between the pines and grey-green sentinels. Elsewhere skeletal elm and ash and scrub oaks choked the ground like weeds. He saw no outlaws, but that meant little. Outlaws were better at hiding than honest men.

Epilogue

A Feast for Crows:

They found it on the north side of the castle, half-hidden behind a huge blackberry bramble. The berries had all been picked, and half the bush had been hacked down to cut a path to the door. The sight of the broken branches filled Brienne with disquiet. "Someone’s been through here, and recently."

Brienne

She shouldered through the blackberries and pulled at a rusted iron ring. The postern door resisted for a moment, then jerked open, its hinges screaming protest. The sound made the hairs on the back of Brienne’s neck stand up. She drew her sword. Even in mail and boiled leather, she felt naked.

Brienne

Riding at the front of the host with Ser Ilyn silent by his side, Jaime felt almost content. The sun was warm on his back and the wind riffled through his hair like a woman’s fingers. When Little Lew Piper came galloping up with a helm full of blackberries, Jaime ate a handful and told the boy to share the rest with his fellow squires and Ser Ilyn Payne.

Jaime

A Dance with Dragons

He had drunk too much last night. His head was pounding, and even the gentle swaying of the

litter was enough to make his gorge rise in his throat. Though he said no word of complaint, his distress

must have been plain to Illyrio Mopatis. “Come, drink with me,” the fat man said. “A scale from the

dragon that burned you, as they say.” He poured for them from a flagon of blackberry wine so sweet

that it drew more flies than honey. Tyrion shooed them off with the back of his hand and drank deep.

The taste was so cloying that it was all he could do to keep it down. The second cup went down easier,

however. Even so, he had no appetite, and when Illyrio offered him a bowl of blackberries in cream he

waved it off. “I dreamed about the queen,” he said. “I was on my knees before her, swearing my

allegiance, but she mistook me for my brother, Jaime, and fed me to her dragons.”

Tyrion

The Sworn Sword:

"Aye, and why not? Who's to tell him any different? The flies?" Bennis grinned a wet red grin. "Ser Useless never leaves the tower, except to see the boys down in the blackberries."

"Up, ser" The old woman was so hunched that her head was lower than her shoulders. "He just come back from visiting the boys, down in the blackberries".

The boys were Eustace Osgrey's sons: Edwyn, Harrold, Addam. Edwyn and Harrold had been Knights, Addam a young squire. They had died on the Redgrass Field fifteen years ago, at the end of the Blackfyre Rebellion, "They died good deaths, fighting bravely for the king," Ser Eustace told Dunk, "and I brought them home and burried them among the blackberries."

The path took them around the back of the hill, past the graves where the old knight had laid his wife and sons to rest in a thicket of blackberry bushes.

He wanted a castle with a lion on the gatehouse, but all he got were graves among the blackberries.

"His father put him in the blackberries, with his brothers," Dunk said. "He was fond of blackberries."

"I remember. Hu used to pick them for me, and we'd eat them in a bowl of cream."

She knelt before the blackberries and began to weep, and he was so moved that he went to comfort her.

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Thanks R_T. Blackberries after summer are often moldy and an old wives' tale says they're kissed by the devil after Michaelmas. I noticed that line I quoted from Game and thought there might be something more sinister behind it, but it doesn't look like it. Thanks again!

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Thanks R_T. Blackberries after summer are often moldy and an old wives' tale says they're kissed by the devil after Michaelmas. I noticed that line I quoted from Game and thought there might be something more sinister behind it, but it doesn't look like it. Thanks again!

In Dunk and Egg they are a foreshadowing that the graves contain Blackfyre rebels. In the books the only places I can see they may be Blackfyre linked are when Bran can't tell the difference between nut and blackberry biscuits and Tyrion being served up blackberries by Illyro.

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In Dunk and Egg they are a foreshadowing that the graves contain Blackfyre rebels. In the books the only places I can see they may be Blackfyre linked are when Bran can't tell the difference between nut and blackberry biscuits and Tyrion being served up blackberries by Illyro.

It's not consistent enough for a pattern.
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Viserys scrambled back to his feet. "When I come into my kingdom, you will rue this day, slut." He walked off, holding his torn face, leaving her gifts behind him.

Drops of his blood had spattered the beautiful sandsilk cloak. Dany clutched the soft cloth to her cheek and sat cross-legged on her sleeping mats.

"Your supper is ready, Khaleesi," Jhiqui announced.

"I'm not hungry," Dany said sadly. She was suddenly very tired. "Share the food among yourselves, and send some to Ser Jorah, if you would." After a moment she added, "Please, bring me one of the dragon's eggs."

Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands. Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside.

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her . . . as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

The red door, Pentos, or the 7K?

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Is it ever stated how Littlefinger got his council seat?

"... My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man. ..."
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The red door, Pentos, or the 7K?

The red door I would think. At one point doesn't she say it's the only home she's ever known?

Is it ever stated how Littlefinger got his council seat?

Ten years ago, Jon Arryn had given him a minor sinecure in customs, where Lord Petyr had soon distinguished himself by bringing in three times as much as any of the king’s other collectors. King Robert had been a prodigious spender. A man like Petyr Baelish, who had a gift for rubbing two golden dragons together to breed a third, was invaluable to his Hand. Littlefinger’s rise had been arrow-swift. Within three years of his coming to court, he was master of coin and a member of the small council, and today the crown’s revenues were ten times what they had been under his beleaguered predecessor... though the crown’s debts had grown vast as well. A master juggler was Petyr Baelish.

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(edited the quote in later)

@Xandrios: Ned is mixing things up, he is thinking of Joffrey who is indeed the eldest, not the youngest, and the only child 9 years ago. He must have heard of the other children and now has false memory.

ETA: I think this is meant to tell us Ned has not been following closely with Robert's family life and not taken an interest. It probably is part of the tale that Ned sought reclusion and a distance after the baby-killings at the Sack of Kings Landing and the Tower of Joy tragedy. The only time he left his mother country in the mean time was for the Greyjoy Rebellion.

I'm not so sure. Catelyn also makes it clear that she had seen her sister's son Robert as infant. Since all these people were in KL, the implication is that Ned and Cat went to KL at some point after Bran's birth.

And although I am well aware that show =/= books, I find it interesting that they retained that same detail in the show, changing the time frame to fit with the show ages of the children-- when Cat arrived in KL she mentioned having been there last nine years previously, or just after show Bran was born.

What to make of it? :dunno: but I don't think we should dismiss it as an error by either Ned or GRRM.

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@Lady Gwynhyfvar: Tully family reunions would more probably happen at Riverrun, given nobody seemed eager to see Kings Landing. It's worth noting Cat had seen Robert Arryn.

Lysa and Jon lived in KL for all the years of their marriage (SR had never seen the Eyrie until they fled there after Jon's death) Iirc, it is stated that Lysa never returned to RR after her marriage to Jon. So it would seem if Cat saw SR it was at KL (I suppose we can't rule out WF completely, it seems unlikely though)

Eta- Lord Egeman I concur that Robert was elsewhere. Hunting seems a stretch, but absent certainly ;)

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Is it stated in the books that Lysa poisoned Jon Arryn? I remembered it as some Lannister/Pycelle deed.

Yeah right before Lysa gets pushed out the moon door in Storm of Swords

“Tears, tears, tears,” she sobbed hysterically. “No need for tears... but that’s not what you said in King’s Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon’s wine, and I did. For Robert, and for us!

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