Northern attack on the Twins?

[aryagonnakill#2]

Universal Sword Donor, the Freys have subjected other lords by occupying their castles, they are projecting power in evry sense of the term, if you understood that the first time I said it I wouldn't have had to define the term for you. Since you still don't seem to get the concept, I guess there's no getting it threw.

[Universal Sword Donor]

Universal Sword Donor, the Freys have subjected other lords by occupying their castles, they are projecting power in evry sense of the term, if you understood that the first time I said it I wouldn't have had to define the term for you. Since you still don't seem to get the concept, I guess there's no getting it threw.

It's not their power. I don't know how more simply I can define that to you.

If your boss pays you to fly to LA for to work for the client, are you doing the work or is your company doing the work?

Hint: It's not you

For a real world analogy:

The US sends forces to the MIddle East to stomp ISIS. They all come from California. Is California projecting their power or is the US?

Hint: It's not California

[KINGpanther]

Jon leading an army of White Walkers marching on the Twins.

[ARYa_Nym]

Aegon already doesn't think highly of Cersei. In ADWD he said and who is left in Westeros to oppose us...a woman. He dismissed her as if she was nothing. Connington already wants to murder her children-end Robert's line.

[thehandwipes]

You don't have the definition of red herring down by the looks of it, no offense. Red herrings are explicit, and no one explicitly called Stannis in the text the NK.

thehandwipes, on 22 Oct 2014 - 4:28 PM, said:

You have straw man, and likely a form of ad hominem. That is a logically fallacious argument stating that you used red herring incorrectly is tantamount to saying that you're dumber than me. Don't get so defensive when receiving constructive criticism. Stannis isn't a red herring for the NK since no one pointed to him or related him to the NK.

I'll respond to the rest of your post a little later, but I want to answer this first. There was nothing constructive or relevant or correct about your criticism. If GRRM is deliberately drawing parallels between Stannis and the NK to mislead the reader, as I believe, than he is a red herring even if no one ever explicitly states he is the NK. This kind of nonsense is the worst part of this forum. Don't be a grammar Nazi, it's extremely irritating, and if you must be one, at least be right.

[Fire Eater]

I'll respond to the rest of your post a little later, but I want to answer this first. There was nothing constructive or relevant or correct about your criticism. If GRRM is deliberately drawing parallels between Stannis and the NK to mislead the reader, as I believe, than he is a red herring even if no one ever explicitly states he is the NK. This kind of nonsense is the worst part of this forum. Don't be a grammar Nazi, it's extremely irritating, and if you must be one, at least be right.

I still think you still don't seem to have red herring down. No one in the text is suspecting Stannis as the next NK or pointing to him as such. Otherwise, by that logic, R+L=J is a red herring. It needs to be explicitly implied for it to be a red herring. You also seem to have misused the term "grammar Nazi" given I didn't call you out on any grammatical errors.

Denigrating another's argument and calling an argument "nonsense" doesn't make you right it just shows you're being disrespectful of another's argument. If you don't show respect towards others don't expect any. This kind of arguing, IMO, was okay when we were children but not when we're adults.

[thehandwipes]

Look, if you don't wan't to admit that you don't know what a red herring is, and that you accuse people of misusing phrases that you don't understand, that's fine. I wouldn't want to admit that if I was you either.

You don't have the definition of red herring down by the looks of it, no offense. Red herrings are explicit, and no one explicitly called Stannis in the text the NK.

Your argument is nonsense because it has nothing to do with the topic. And fact checking the term "grammar Nazi" is the very definition of a grammar Nazi.

r+l=j is only a red herring if it is false, whether stated explicitly or not.

I don't expect you to be big enough to admit that you don't know what "red herring" means, but i'll post some definitions so you don't have to make this mistake again.

A red herring is a figurative expression referring to a logical fallacy in which a clue or piece of information is or is intended to be misleading, or distracting from the actual question. (Wikipedia)

Red Herring: something intended to divert attention from the real problem or matter at hand; a misleading clue. (Dictionary.com)

Exposition:

This is the most general fallacy of irrelevance. Any argument in which the premisses are logically unrelated to the conclusion commits this fallacy. (fallacyfiles.org)

red herring

noun

: something unimportant that is used to stop people from noticing or thinking about something important (meriam-webster)

If you have a definition that states a red herring must be explicitly stated by someone in order to qualify, please post it along with your source. I am done with, this is stupid.

[Universal Sword Donor]

I have yet to come across a definition of red herring that required an explicit call out by a character, and I know when I learned about red herrings in 5th grade, that was not part of it.

We were reading clue at the time.

[thehandwipes]

I learned about red herrings from watching young Scooby-doo or Scooby-do kids or whatever that show was called. there was a red-headed bully character named Red Herring and almost every episode Fred would try to solve the mystery by blaming poor Red, then Velma would step in and say: "No, Fred, you dumb" and solve the case.

It needs to be explicitly implied for it to be a red herring.

Exactly how does one "explicitly imply" something? If you're new to the English language, that's fine, but don't try to pass yourself off as an English professor.

[Universal Sword Donor]

Personally I prefer to explicitly imply that I enjoy eating jumbo shrimp and sparring with civilized barbarians.

[thehandwipes]

between "red herrings" and "projecting power" I think its safe to say we've gotten off topic. damned internet trolls.

[thehandwipes]

Was JonCon moral when he used his own relatives as hostages against his cousin? Or decides to kill Cersei's remaining children? Tyrion himself notes that Conningotn supped on hate throughout his nights, and I doubt that does anyone any good. With what do you determine them to be morally upright characters?

In this story if the worst things you've done take family members hostage and threatened to kill rival claimants to the throne, then yes, you're a saint. I do think Aegon will kill Cersei's children but they have no more reason to kill Cersei than anyone had to kill Elia Martell, a crime that has haunted the Lannisters ever since. Connington does tell Tyrion that he had known hate, but it is Tyrion who sups on hate, he's projecting his own feelings onto Connington. Tyrions POVs are littered with vengeful thoughts of past slights, Connigton's POVs show little evidence of the hate displayed by characters like Tyrion, Cersei, and Tywin. His thoughts are mostly of his own failures and pride at Aegon's emergence into a leader.

How would the HS rule KL with the Tyrell army outside it?

The HS has placed both the queen and the queen regent under arrest on his own authority. Then he released one back to her family and had the other stripped naked and paraded through the streets before releasing her as well. He clearly has no fear of the Tyrells or the Lannisters. If Margaery refused to stand trial, or Cersei decided to go on a Sparrow killing rampage, the HS clearly feels he would win. He might be a fool, a major player, or someone who overestimates his own power, but he already rules the streets of KL.

Obvious means Tyrion is a red herring. When has any character got a prophecy right on who it points to before it occurs? Your argument goes against GRRM's own words:

Quote

Tyrion is too easy and too literal. Cersei doesn't have good track record. All the quotes point to Jaime, dramatically it makes sense. Jaime and Cersei have been drifting apart since ASoS. What makes you think Jaime won't have any reasons to kill Cersei by ADoS? Except the quote of being have been mentioned several times, and why would GRRM have that repeated if it isn't hinting at anything? He is also known for irony.

that quote was referring to the hundreds of theories based off of dozens of prophecies throughout the books, it was not referring to any specific prophecy. Jaime's POVs show little sign of the hatefulness, pettiness, or cruelty of his siblings. Finding what you see as little hints in the text is cute and all but the best foreshadowing of what a person will do is that person's character. Jaime is capable of being extremely amoral, but not vengeful.

[thehandwipes]

Tyrion isn't a dragon. He isn't a Targaryen. It would just steal the thunder from Jon being a secret Targaryen.

Could be right, like I said, I don't like secret Targ theories, but there is far more textual evidence for Tyrion being a Targ than for Jaime killing Cersei.

Except I doubt the Faith will execute her. The HS admits the case is weak, and Mace wouldn't let his daughter be executed. The problem with comparing Aegon vs Lannisters is with Robert vs Aerys is Aerys didn't have any Tyrells with him while Cersei does.

Cersei is holding Tyrell's? The last we saw of her she was being stripped naked and paraded through the streets to be spat on by peasants. The Tyrell's and the HS are in much more powerful positions than Cersei is.

The Margaery Tyrell/ Anne Boleyn parallels are pretty clear, and I doubt both Cersei and Margaery will survive their trials, but I don't know how it will all play out anymore than you do.

Except Rhaegar's story is by heresay with evidence pointing against it while Luke and Aemond's is written down by a maester, and there is nothing to go against the story. SE fought on the side of Aegon despite being related to the blacks, so Aemond going to get a Baratheon betrothal makes sense to why they would fight for the greens. There is little reason to lie about such an incident if it clearly never happened

You don't think any Maesters wrote down Roberts version of his rebellion? i'm not going to speculate on why some maester hundreds of years ago might lie. The point is we don't know what kind of magic is in those walls, could simply defend against dragonfire. But i'm sure the magic in SE has a role to play in the story and Dany is the likeliest magic character to find herself there.

[Fire Eater]

Look, if you don't wan't to admit that you don't know what a red herring is, and that you accuse people of misusing phrases that you don't understand, that's fine. I wouldn't want to admit that if I was you either.

Your argument is nonsense because it has nothing to do with the topic. And fact checking the term "grammar Nazi" is the very definition of a grammar Nazi.

First, you are committing the logical fallacy of tu quoque. Second, the condescension and rudeness is uncalled for. If you don't want to argue respectfully don't argue at all.

Now you are being disrespectful. Calling something nonsense doesn't support your argument anyway except show your lack of respect. It also seems you have descended to the childish practice of name-calling, no offense. Grammar Nazi refers to spelling and grammatical mistakes being pointed out, not incorrect definition of a word or term.

I don't expect you to be big enough to admit that you don't know what "red herring" means, but i'll post some definitions so you don't have to make this mistake again.

Now you are being insulting, provocative, rude, condescending and disrespectful. Do you like it when other people talk to you this way? If not then why do you do it to others? This forum is for mature conversations not insults.

I learned about red herrings from watching young Scooby-doo or Scooby-do kids or whatever that show was called. there was a red-headed bully character named Red Herring and almost every episode Fred would try to solve the mystery by blaming poor Red, then Velma would step in and say: "No, Fred, you dumb" and solve the case.

Exactly how does one "explicitly imply" something? If you're new to the English language, that's fine, but don't try to pass yourself off as an English professor.

There you go, someone needs to point to Red Herring as a suspect in order for him to be a red herring. No one has called Stannis the NK, nor has the NK been associated with him in the text. It needs something to go on for it to be a red herring, a clearly presented implication.

Again, be respectful. You aren't being professional with comments like that. I meant it needs to be explicit, something clearly presented to the reader to lead to that assumption.

between "red herrings" and "projecting power" I think its safe to say we've gotten off topic. damned internet trolls.

Again, name calling. You're being disrespectful and calling me names, yet I'm the troll?

Could be right, like I said, I don't like secret Targ theories, but there is far more textual evidence for Tyrion being a Targ than for Jaime killing Cersei.

I provided several quotes compared to none presented for Tyrion so I doubt Tyrion being a Targaryen (would Aerys need to have married Joanna to be a Targaryen?) is more credible. Jaime killing Cersei fits dramatically and the quotes imply it.

Cersei is holding Tyrell's? The last we saw of her she was being stripped naked and paraded through the streets to be spat on by peasants. The Tyrell's and the HS are in much more powerful positions than Cersei is.

The Margaery Tyrell/ Anne Boleyn parallels are pretty clear, and I doubt both Cersei and Margaery will survive their trials, but I don't know how it will all play out anymore than you do.

Except in TWoW Mercy chapter we learn Cersei has regained the Regency, so she rules in Tommen's name.

Cersei will survive hers given the evidence pointing towards Jaime killing her I think, and she will call for a trial by combat with Robert Strong as her champion. Margaery likely won't be executed as the HS has a weak case, and Margaery wouldn't go for a regular trial unless she knew there was a good chance she would win. Besides, her father wouldn't let her be executed.

You don't think any Maesters wrote down Roberts version of his rebellion? i'm not going to speculate on why some maester hundreds of years ago might lie. The point is we don't know what kind of magic is in those walls, could simply defend against dragonfire. But i'm sure the magic in SE has a role to play in the story and Dany is the likeliest magic character to find herself there.

Everything we have been given about Aemond seems to fit this. He wouldn't forget that Luke took out his eye. If Argilac knew SE could defend against dragonflame than I doubt he would have gone to the field. If a dragon can get in SE, then I doubt SE has any defenses against it.

[thehandwipes]

Tu quoque or the appeal to hypocrisy is an informal logical fallacy that intends to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position. It is a special case of ad hominem fallacy, which is a category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of fact about the person presenting or supporting the claim or argument.^[3]To clarify, although the person being attacked might indeed be acting inconsistently or hypocritically, such behavior does not invalidate the position presented.

So which is it, are you hypocritically accusing others of misusing phrases that you don't understand or are you correct that a red herring, despite all the definitions from multiple sources I provided, must be explicitly stated?

I asked you to provide a source for your assertion that a red herring must be explicit but you still haven't. One other than A Pup Named Scooby-Doo please.

It needs something to go on for it to be a red herring, a clearly presented implication.

I meant it needs to be explicit, something clearly presented to the reader to lead to that assumption.

You are wrong on both accounts, please provide a sources for either of these assertions. Also, you are still confusing the words explicit and implicit. Something which is explicit, by definition, is not an implication. Something which is implied, by definition, is not explicit.

If I'm being disrespectful its because you've earned my disrespect. You could have admitted you made a mistake days ago, or simply let it drop, instead you've repeatedly insisted that I don't understand a phrase I used correctly, and that your personal definition, pulled entirely out of your a**, is the only correct way to use it.

Please provide a reputable source for this assertion.

[Fire Eater]

So which is it, are you hypocritically accusing others of misusing phrases that you don't understand or are you correct that a red herring, despite all the definitions from multiple sources I provided, must be explicitly stated?

I asked you to provide a source for your assertion that a red herring must be explicit but you still haven't. One other than A Pup Named Scooby-Doo please.

Tue quoque

IIRC, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is your source not mine.

If I'm being disrespectful its because you've earned my disrespect. You could have admitted you made a mistake days ago, or simply let it drop, instead you've repeatedly insisted that I don't understand a phrase I used correctly, and that your personal definition, pulled entirely out of your a**, is the only correct way to use it.

Please provide a reputable source for this assertion.

Except have you considered that I could be right? You have failed to provide a single quote pointing or characters suspecting Stannis as the NK. Red herrings need something clear to go on for the reader to believe such, Tyrion needed someone to point to him as the one who hired the footpad to be a red herring for example. That is not a good reason to be disrespectful, I have treated you with more respect than you me.

I never engaged in name calling (troll) nor was rude to you. Being disrespectful doesn't give you the moral/intellectual high ground but the opposite.

Here is my evidence, all the red herrings are clearly pointed to in text in each:

• In The Red Pyramid, Carter hears Set speak French in a vision, leading him to assume that Set is being hosted by the French speaking Desjardins. He's wrong.
• In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel First & Only, Rawne is kidnapped and tortured by Heldane. Later, Heldane thinks about how to create a "pawn" - painfully - and manipulates "the pawn" by Gaunt. Rawne reacts to Heldane and acts suspiciously about Gaunt. In the end, he is merely sensitive to Heldane, and in fact kills the actual pawn, because his sensitivity alerts him to something happening before it actually does.
• Graeme Base's book The Eleventh Hour is a lavishly-illustrated children's book filled with hidden clues and secrets in almost all the illustrations — including a few figurative and literal red herrings.
• Dan Brown uses this Once Per Book: near the beginning of each book, we are introduced to a character who is a rather unpleasant and/or sneaky fellow and has more or less the same mindset of the people orchestrating the current crisis. Naturally, they end up being completely innocent and the real Big Bad turns out to be someone that has no logical reason to do what they did and/or helped the protagonists the most. The specific examples in each book are:
  • Digital Fortress: Greg Hale
  • Angels and Demons: Maximilian Kohler
  • Deception Point: Marjorie Tench and Lawrence Ekstrom
  • The Da Vinci Code: Cardinal Aringarosa ("Red Herring" in Italian), Opus Dei and, to some extent, Bezu Fache
• Harry Potter has at least one Red Herring distraction per book. After readers started catching on that the first suspect was never the guilty party, Rowling started upping the ante with hints pointing to a second suspect... who wasn't it either. Then in the sixth book, suddenly, all the people up to something are exactly the ones Harry suspects from the start. J. K. Rowling even indulges in some Lampshade Hanging in book six, with various characters pointing out that Snape and Malfoy had been accused in the last five books.
  • In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry, Hermione and Ron are positive that Snape is trying to steal the above-mentioned stone. He's certainly nasty enough to be the villain. Harry doesn't find out the truth until the very end though, when it turns out poor, shy, stuttering Professor Quirrell had been behind everything that happened all along, and Snape had been trying to protect Harry.
  • In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets The trio once more suspects one of the obvious antagonists, Draco Malfoy, believing he has opened the Chamber of Secrets and is attacking the muggle-born students in the school. After some amateur sleuthing they are able to debunk that though, and come to suspect Red Herring #2, Hagrid. Just to keep the cleverer audience members on their toes, Percy begins acting shifty and ambitious, and fits the facts of the case strangely well. By the end of the book it turns out Ron's sister Ginny, possessed by the Diary of Tom Riddle, has been behind the events of the book.
  • In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban and is out to kill Harry. First reading it, and not knowing Rowling's formula, you wouldn't suspect anything. He betrayed Harry's parents, he's one of Voldemort's loyal Death Eaters and now is out to get the protagonist in order to avenge his fallen master. Despite a few counter-clues, the majority of the book is geared toward making the reader believe this. Turns out Sirius is completely innocent and was falsely accused, and the person that betrayed Harry's parents was Ron's pet rat, who turns out to be an animagus (shape shifter), and is really Peter Pettigrew, an old friend of his parents. Even if you were onto the fact Sirius wasn't the antagonist, you wouldn't have seen that coming.
    • One of the most brilliant red herrings involving Snape happens here too. When he discovers the trio with Sirius and Remus, Snape flat out attempts to murder Sirius, saying "Give me a reason. Give me a reason to do it and I swear I will", which seems downright evil considering we've just found out that Sirius is entirely innocent. The kids put him down, though, and it's all good. Once again, Snape's evil nature is further revealed. Then it turns out that Snape's desire to put Sirius down had nothing to do with the werewolf attacks, or the fact that he was a Death Eater, but because he still honestly believed that Sirius had caused the death of the only woman he'd ever loved, and the very plot point that saves him from being a villain.
  • In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Popularity of the books shot off like a rocket after the third book of the series became popular worldwide. With popularity comes the fanbase (Harry Potter has one of the largest web-based communities), and with millions of devoted fans comes fan speculation. Many caught on to Rowling's formula, so she adapted. The fourth book is in more of a whodunnit style, with a variety of suspects who could be working to kill Harry. Could it be the Obviously Evil headmaster of the Academy of Evil? Or maybe the Obstructive Bureaucrat who appears to be suffering Sanity Slippage? Or the possibly Affably Evil guest judge who has a vested interest in Harry's success in the tournament? It turns out to be none of these suspects, but instead the gruff-yet-lovable new professor, Mad-Eye Moody, who has been supposedly helping Harry the whole time. (Though, truthfully, it was a Death Eater disguised as Mad-Eye Moody, through the use of Polyjuice Potion.
  • In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix The red herring here is less pronounced. There are two consecutive plots occurring: the Ministry of Magic's takeover of Hogwarts, and Voldemort's search for a weapon that can win him the war. There's a possibility though that the two plots aren't so separate when the Ministry-appointed Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Dolores Umbridge makes Harry's scar burn (which only happens when Voldemort is feeling a particularly strong emotion...or is close by). Voldemort has possessed people before, and out of the last four DADA Professors, half have been directly working for the Big Bad. This theoretical connection doesn't pan out, however. It was either a coincidence Harry's scar burned when Umbridge touched him, or Umbridge's own aura of evil is just that strong. There's a reason there was a trope named after her.
  • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry suspects his two favorite nemeses, who he has falsely accused before – Snape and Malfoy – of being up to something. No one believes him, however, and there is Lampshade Hanging when various characters point out Snape and Malfoy have been falsely accused before by Harry. You are almost inclined to believe they are innocent as the obsessiveness of Harry's stalking them becomes annoying to the reader. It is obvious from his point of view that they are up to something. Everyone else gets a big slap in the face when it turns out he was right, and Malfoy lets Death Eaters into the castle and Snape kills Dumbledore. Though it turns out that Snape was acting under Dumbledore's orders.
  • The adults never explicitly tell Harry he is wrong. At least not Dumbledore. He simply tells Harry not to worry about it and that he has everything under control. Harry just assumes Dumbledore doesn't believe him. And he is right, whether or not Draco is a Death Eater is really not Harry, a 16 year old student's, problem.
  • Also in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Much effort is made to make it look like Tonks is under the Imperius curse, turns out it was actually Rosmerta. Tonks' odd and depressive behavior is simply a result of her relationship problems with Remus.
  • In the context of the entire series, Severus Snape was the ultimate Red Herring. He's presented as a potential villain in every book, and he never is.
  • In a somewhat more obscure case, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them featured a red herring, of sorts: in addition to cataloging the creatures previously mentioned, a number of (at the time) new creatures were featured to help round out the scope of the setting. One of these was the Lethifold - a shadow creature, thick as a membrane, which could slide anywhere and killed people by smothering them and digesting them in their beds. It could only be defeated with a Patronus, which was, at the time, a sort of secondary Signature Move for Harry. As a result, a lot of people expected one to show up in the final books of the franchise, probably as a weapon used by Voldemort, but it never featured.
• Lampshaded in A Series of Unfortunate Events, where the protagonists believe their friends (previously captured by the Big Bad) are hidden inside a box of Very Fancy Doilies; in reality they're hidden inside a large red fish - the red herring. A patient in the Heimlich Hospital has a name that is an anagram of red herring.
• In And Then There Were None they mention a 'red herring' right in the poem. For good reason because the killer Judge Wargrave fakes his death and then drowns his assistant Dr. Armstrong, leaving the remaining characters Vera, Philip, and William to suspect each other of being the killer.
• In Feet of Clay several characters, including Vimes himself, note the horrible green wallpaper in Vetinari's bedroom while trying to work out how he's being poisoned with arsenic. In Real Life, Napoleon was poisoned by arsenic fumes from green wallpaper, and several murder mysteries have used this as a resolution. It turns out the arsenic is in the candles; Terry Pratchett treasures letters he received saying "We were SURE it was the wallpaper, you bastard!"
• The Hound Of The Baskervilles is up to the brim (do Deerstalkers have brims?) with Red Herrings. They imply that The Butler Did It. He waits until everyone is in bed, and stalks about the mansion. He is also the only character that has a beard that matches the man glanced shadowing Sir Henry. Then there's the escaped convict, Selden, who has been lurking upon the moor, and the other mysterious man upon the moor, who wants to stay hidden. Most film adaptations, notably the Basil Rathbone film, like to make Dr. Mortimer seem extremely suspicious, but the book does not. There's also the looming idea that the threat might be supernatural, but none of these are the final solution.
• Johannes Cabal the Necromancer:
  • Johannes Cabal makes his Deal with the Devil, much fuss is made about how he has a finite amount of Satan's blood to use in his adventures. That all comes to nothing. It's mentioned a few times in the middle of the book, but by the end it's fallen out of the plot entirely. He never runs out of blood, and it's never a plot point.
  • There's another red herring at the climax, when Johannes tricks the devil into demanding the box of contracts rather than all of the contracts. Thus, Johannes saves the souls of the innocents he coerced into signing.
• In Detectives in Togas, the slave Udo tells the boys he was at a certain place where he heard sounds of swords clashing and someone shouting constantly "Ave imperator, morituri te salutant!" The boys look for one gladiator school and don't find it. And then they stumble upon a blacksmith forging swords with a parrot constantly shouting that phrase and know: Udo was here.
• The sixth Wheel of Time novel "The Lord of Chaos" introduces two new characters. One is a Forsaken named Demandred, who is a powerful channeler, can hide his identity, and betrayed the main hero's previous incarnation out of spite. Demandred is given a secret mission by The Dark One in the opening of the book. The other new character is Mazrim Taim, who is a powerful channeler with a shifty background, appears out of nowhere to offer his services to the hero, and shows no sign of the madness that male channelers who aren't aligned to Darkness suffer. When Taim first appears, the afore-mentioned previous incarnation goes mad in the hero's head and starts screaming about killing the Forsaken right now. Despite all this, Robert Jordan said in an interview that Taim is not Demandred in disguise, and indeed seemed somewhat surprised at the prevelance of the theory. Some fans believe this was Jossed, because there were just so many clues. The last book confirms that while Demandred recruited Taim for the Shadow, they're not and never were the same person.
  • Also, the character of Padan Fain, Ax-Crazy Humanoid Abomination of frightening powers with a grudge against both sides of the good vs. evil conflict, was generally assumed to be key to how the Last Battle would play out. In the last book he only appears briefly and, though his ultimate plan was pretty horrifying, was killed off before really accomplishing anything. Word of God indicates that this was entirely deliberate and that Fain had always been intended as a character whose role in the conclusion was minimnal but that readers would be drawn heavily to speculate about.
• In George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, it's almost a given that characters will lie to achieve their own ends, so there is a lot of misinformation going around. The reader is given a slight advantage as the point-of-view switches around constantly. For example, much of the main plot in the first book is driven by the murder of Jon Arryn, the previous Hand of the King (essentially, the second most powerful man in Westeros after the King). The book leads readers to believe that Cersei and Jaime Lannister are involved in the poisoning. Cersei confirms as much, as she obviously has the most to gain from his death. Jon Arryn had discovered that all three of Cersei's children were fathered by Jaime and not King Robert, and were all illegitimate heirs to the throne. The real answer is a little more complex. The third book clears things up. Jon Arryn was poisoned by his wife, Lysa, having been encouraged by Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish. Lysa then sends a letter to her sister Catelyn at Winterfell that the Lannisters had poisoned Jon Arryn.
  • The first book also has the attempted murder of Bran. This plot is not completely resolved until the third book, as well. Catelyn believes that Tyrion Lannister sent the assassin and arrests him, leading to a long chain of events. The first book never quite makes it clear who sent the assassin. The dagger was believed to have been Tyrion's, who won it from a bet from Littlefinger. Littlefinger lies to Catelyn, telling her the dagger belongs to him. The third book disproves this, as the dagger had belonged to Robert Baratheon. Joffrey had overheard the king saying that it would be more merciful to kill Bran, rather than live as a cripple. Joffrey sent the footpad, armed with the king's dagger, eager for his father's attention.
• In The Westing Game, the fact that the clues invoke America the Beautiful leads the reader (and a couple of characters) to suspect Otis Amber (i.e. Amber waves of grain). Turns out, that was just a coincidence.
• Galaxy of Fear: Ghost of the Jedi is crowded with these. People are dying of unknown causes as they find a Spooky Silent Library. Dannik Jerriko, a highly suspicious and surly character who soon proves to be an Anzati and able to kill without leaving marks, but he was actually hired to take out another assassin and promptly leaves the book. Then a curse or an angry Jedi ghost is made to look at fault.
• After Romeo kills Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, Lady Capulet tells Juliet that she plans to send someone to Mantua to give Romeo "an unaccustomed dram" (or in other words, an assassin will poison him). Because the audience knows that Romeo and Juliet are going to die, but not exactly how, this line suggests that Romeo may be murdered at the end (which, of course, is not the case).

[thehandwipes]

You are a liar!

The list you provided is from the Literature section of the Red Herring page of TVTropes. Here is the link:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHerring

You haven't read all those books, neither have I, and your claim "all the red herrings are clearly pointed to in text in each" is something that you could not possibly know, and is false.

I've read three of those books other than ASOIAF: The Hound of the Baskervilles, The DaVinci Code (it had just come out and it was all hyped up), and Romeo and Juliet. Only one of those (R&J) fit your definition of a red herring as something "explicit, something clearly presented."

In The DaVinci Code (I can't believe I have to admit to reading that garbage) Cardinal Aringarosa is never explicitly accused by any other characters of wrongdoing. In fact, he never interacts with any of the other characters until after the real culprit is discovered. The reader comes to suspect him because of his deeply conservative beliefs, the fact that he is the head of Opus Dei (as is the albino monk assassin), his close relationship with that same albino monk assassin (told in reflections from both the monk and the cardinal), and that his own thoughts and actions reveal an involvement in and knowledge of the events of the main storyline (he was desperately trying to catch up to them to stop his albino monk friend who is a simpleton that has suffered horrifying abuse all his life from doing something stupid and/or violent). Nobody can explicitly state that he's guilty because nobody is even aware of him.

In The Hound of Baskervilles nearly all the characters are red herrings and almost none of them meet your definition of something "explicit, something clearly presented." As with all Sherlock Holmes mysteries, the story is narrated by Dr. Watson telling the story years after the events. He already knows what happened by the time he's recounting the events. By your definition, almost no one in Doyle's tales would qualify. He simply tells the story, details the clues, provides the background without pointing the finger at one person or another because he already knows what happened and that would make for a real awful mystery. Holmes, on the other hand, doesn't operate like a modern homicide detective in a modern novel, laying out the evidence, talking it out with partner, making mistakes, accusing the wrong person only to later stumble on the real culprit just in time to stop him from his next murder. When he knows who the killer is (at the end of the novel) he tells you, not before. He lays out the evidence, explains his actions, and how he came to his conclusions at the end of the story after you know what happened.

Have I ever considered that you might be right? Yes, when you first accused me using it wrong, so I looked it up, then I provided you with the proper definition, which you somehow still fail to acknowledge. By the way, here is the definition of red herring from TV Tropes, the source you dishonestly cited as supporting your argument:

Red Herring

A clue that leads in the wrong direction.

A red herring is a good red herring when it interweaves itself into the story's events. For example, the murder victim may have been a philanderer. His wife has no alibi. Aha! It was the wife!

The wife's lack of an alibi is a red herring. It turns out the wife was shtupping somebody else at the time and didn't want to provide that information. However, the deceased husband's philandering is what got him killed, as it turns out, by his girlfriend's jealous husband. Philandering as a motive is introduced for good cause, not just to set up suspicions about the wife's lack of an alibi

Nowhere does it say it necessary for the misdirection to be explicit or for one character to directly accuse or suspect another, it is simply "A clue that leads in the wrong direction."

[thehandwipes]

I already provided you with the definition of tu quoque. It is a logical fallacy.

Either I correctly accused you of hypocritically accusing others of misunderstanding a phrase that you do not understand (in which case you correctly pointed out my tu quoque fallacy) or your definition of red herring is correct, despite all the facts saying its not (in which case you misused the phrase tu quoque).

I was not citing A Pup Named Scooby-Doo as a source and you know it, all the red herring talk got it in my head, and I was responding to another post about how I first learned the term. You, however, did cite it as a source.

[Stubby]

[MOD]

Please get back on topic.

Also, please refrain from accusations outside the scope of the discussion.

[/MOD]

[Fire Eater]

Jon leading an army of White Walkers marching on the Twins.

I doubt that. I don't see anything pointing to that.

You are a liar!

Please stop this name-calling, it is childish, provocative and obnoxious. Does calling someone names or denigrating/belittling them make a convincing argument? The mods have little tolerance for this kind of thing it can get you suspended or banned. I never said the source was from somewhere else.

I think you should apologize. Just to be the bigger man, I'll start first, I'm sorry if I offended you in any way, that was not my intention.

The reader needs something to go on for it to be a red herring. Nothing in the text explicitly points to Stannis paralleling the NK. That is the one thing that hasn't been provided for.

Maybe I overstated with what I was saying before.

You still haven't provided anything to point to Stannis as a red herring.