Heresy 142 [World of Ice and Fire spoilers]

[wolfmaid7]

Yes, but what I'm also saying is that just as the Stark children each took one of the pups, so each of the children may be being taken by different parties.

Yeah for sure !

[WhitewolfStark]

Not necessarily. I don't really see the Dothraki as conscious players in the game of Ice and Fire but rather as tools to be manipulated. I think their purpose is to add yet more moral ambiguity to Danaerys and underscore her possible role not as saviour of mankind but as Destroyer of Worlds - all for the best possible motives.

Hello, I'm new to heresy but I discovered something while doing some outside research that reminded me directly of the series (purposely) and I think better casts House Targaryen in the light you see Dany filling.

It comes from Philippe Contamine's War in the Middle Ages, which is a longer detailed book about the evolution in warfare from the fall of the Roman Empire to the emergence of the Renaissance. It's often considered the definative book on such matters I've been told.

Anyway, as to the quote. It comes from a chapter which focuses on the evolution of war from the legal, ethical, and religious aspects.

Reflections of this type led to the contrasting of two kinds of war, according to the outward bearing of the combatants. In opposition to 'moral' war, waged with fire and blood (de feu et de sang), where all sorts of 'cruelties, killings and inhumanities' were tolerated, or even systematically prescribed, there was that form of war described as guerroyable: regular war, loyal war, honourable, bonne guerre, fought by 'good fighters' in conformity with the law of arms (droituriere justice d'armes), or according to the 'discipline of chivalry'. Not to respect the lives of messengers and heralds, says Philippe de Vigneulles, was 'an unaccustomed thing in a righteous quarrel or in a just war'. (Contamine pp 288 - 289)

Thought it might color House Targaryen a bit differently. But anyway to what this means, if Dany has come to accept her house words at the end of ADWD (which GRRM seems to have lifted from a phrase which describes one of two types of warfare during the Hundred Years War period), then gods preserve the smallfolk as they both freeze and melt all at once. :(

[Black Crow]

I think that's a fair description of the Targaryen way of war and ample justification for their house words - and we also know that GRRM has a strong [if occasionally erratic] interest in mediaeval warfare so I'd be surprised if he hasn't come across Contamines.

[WhitewolfStark]

I think that's a fair description of the Targaryen way of war and ample justification for their house words - and we also know that GRRM has a strong [if occasionally erratic] interest in mediaeval warfare so I'd be surprised if he hasn't come across Contamines.

Agreed, and Contamine goes on to further describe over the course of the next two pages how chivalry and lords/nobles attempted to reign in the more cruel aspects of their knights through the code of chivalry--with of course the understanding between knights that chivalry only applied to them and their fellow knights, not to any of the peasantry.

And then he mentions how by the end of the Medieval period this was becoming increasingly more difficult to continue to even get the knights to agree to use chivalry, as the types of combatants changed. Contamine goes on to describe that the lords imagined warfare being "humanized" into "great tourneys."

The two biggest changes come from city-states/communes beginning to wage warfare, and the introduction of the paid mercenary to fight for those city-states/communes.

Many elements, however, conspired to thwart efforts to humanize war. They may be divided into three principal tendencies:

1. States were often anxious to wage as total a war as possible, not sparing the enemy. The notion of lese-majeste, in particular, served to justify large-scale massacres carried out in cold blood. On various occasions during the course of the Hundred Years War the English monarchy displayed implacable cruelty. Later Louis XI, like Charles the Bold, ordered his troops to carry out systematic devastations and had those who resisted them executed without pity. Similar atrocities on at least a comparable scale may be encountered during the crusade against the Hussite heresy.

2. The law of arms, the discipline of chivalry, with its more or less self-imposed constraints on combatants, could only apply to armies which were feudal and chiefly recruited from the nobility. But the late Middle Ages saw the appearance of a mass of adventurers who were scarcely amenable to this code - mercenaries including the great companies and Ecorcheurs in France, the Companies of Adventure in Italy, the Lansquentets in Germany, and the Albanian Estradiots during the Italian wars. They were content to let their bestial and sadistic instincts run riot without any restriction, but, more importantly, they contributed to a modification of the general atmosphere of war even when this was being waged by the traditional military cadres.

3. In contrast to aristocratic warfare, which easily changed to a sort of great tourney, half serious, half frivolous, a series of adventures and 'apertises d'armes' sought after and experienced for themselves, the warfare of communes, popular war, offered behaviour that was incontestably more violent. The Flemish communes systematically massacred the vanquished and refused the practice of ransoms, seen by them as cowardly and likely to lead to deception. Inevitably in battles where they faced the communes, nobles adopted a similar attitude. After the massacre of French knights during the battle of Courtrai, there was a massacre of Flemish craftsmen at Cassel and Roosebeke. One might link to this style of warfare, devoid of all courtesy, the warlike customs of the Irish and Swiss. The Kriegsordnung of Lucerne in 1499 stipulated that no prisoners were to be taken; all the enemy should be put to death. That of Zurich in 1444 thought it necessary to prohibit combatants from tearing out the hearts of their dead enemies and cutting up their bodies. Froissart attests, for his part, that the Irish 'never leave a man dead until they have cut his throat like a sheep and slit open his belly to remove the heart, which they take away. Some who know their ways, say that they eat it with great relish. They take no man for ransom...'.

Considering that Dany is building an army of sellswords, fighting companies aka mercenaries for hire, and Dothraki... she'll be bringing a Late Medieval type of army which was know to be rather ruthless and violent (in real life) to Westeros. That's not to say that Westeros hasn't dabbled in pretty viscious acts themselves (Gregor's scowering of the Riverlands, the sacking of King's Landing, etc.), but they haven't jumped in whole heartedly like Dany will have to considering the type of men she's gathering about her.

[Black Crow]

Well once again we have the old heresy that it may not be a question of Danaerys and her Amazing Dragons saving westeros from the Others, but of the Others saving Westeros from Danaerys.

[Armstark]

I'm not sure Littlefinger had that kind of access to Joffrey, but then again who knows. However the problem I have with the notion of Littlefinger getting Ned shuffled off in order to set Arya on the road to Braavos is the uncertainty of the outcome. Littlefinger may be Loki but as such he doesn't strike me as a team player.

Littlefinger does it for his own purpose of course. Sansa is his price . I argued before that all his moves against the Starks are not for revenge but to isolate the pup from the pack. Of course the other pups get freed in the process as well. It's an interesting question wether he had any plans made for them. I could see him trying to secure an additional payment by a third party for actions he would have done anyway for his own reasons.

One of Littlefingers main tactics used is to have people ready when someone else needs them. When Bronn was looking for swords he gets the Kettleblack's.

When Eddard looks for a swordplay teacher he gets Syrio...

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

I'm not sure Littlefinger had that kind of access to Joffrey, but then again who knows. However the problem I have with the notion of Littlefinger getting Ned shuffled off in order to set Arya on the road to Braavos is the uncertainty of the outcome. Littlefinger may be Loki but as such he doesn't strike me as a team player.

I do think there are several clues that Littlefinger was the ultimate mover behind Ned's execution. The clearest being Varys' attempt to communicate that fact to Tyrion, just after Slynt is arrested and relieved of his command of the City Watch.

But I'm not suggesting Littlefinger had Arya's path in mind at all. You and I agree on that point - I was just highlighting Littlefinger's potential involvement as another connection to Braavos.

[Phillip Frye]

Go back and read Joffrey's little speech. It's all Littlefinger's words, poured into Joffrey's empty skull. You can almost see Littlefinger's hand up Joffrey's back, manipulating him. It would be easy as Master of Coin to meet with Joffrey, feed his ego, convince him that the weak women and eunuchs about him are making a huge mistake, that a real man would execute the traitor and win the people's love. It would also put these weaklings in their place who are forever saying no to the next Daeron the Young Dragon.

Remember that Joffrey is a teenage boy. Incidentally, a study came out within the last week that showed that certain parts of a teenager's brain shuts down when they hear the voice of their mother criticizing them.

[Black Crow]

Only last week? :rofl:

[MaesterSam]

Or perhaps its a matter of once the She-Wolf is dead there's a scramble to lay claim to each of the pups

Ah, so this leads us back to the question of whether their gifts are substantially different from one another. Which of course is hard to answer since their situations are so different, with Bran having not one but two teachers with 3rd eyes, Arya being tricked into figuring it out, and the rest receiving no help at all. Sansa lost her wolf, which may have delayed things for her. So what I am really asking is: if you have a specific purpose in mind (i.e. BR or the FM), do you need a specific Stark 'pup', or will any of them do?

Littlefinger does it for his own purpose of course. Sansa is his price . I argued before that all his moves against the Starks are not for revenge but to isolate the pup from the pack. Of course the other pups get freed in the process as well. It's an interesting question wether he had any plans made for them. I could see him trying to secure an additional payment by a third party for actions he would have done anyway for his own reasons.

One of Littlefingers main tactics used is to have people ready when someone else needs them. When Bronn was looking for swords he gets the Kettleblack's.

When Eddard looks for a swordplay teacher he gets Syrio...

I forgot that LF procured Syrio for Ned. Also, as Snowfyre Chorus pointed out, LF is originally from Braavos. It seems there should be a connection, but I'm having a hard time making it fit.

On another note, it seems strange that in the free-for-all grabbing of Starks, the one major player who doesn't seem to have one is... Varys. I wonder why that is. Yes, he has Aegon, but still. If he intends to support team Fire, he could have helped them out by eliminating two Stark "nukes" when he had the chance. Sansa was in KL for years, it would have been so easy to manipulate Joffrey into having her killed. So either Varys is not aware of their potential magical abilities (unlikely IMO), or... he is allied with someone who already has a Stark.

[Armstark]

Ah, so this leads us back to the question of whether their gifts are substantially different from one another. Which of course is hard to answer since their situations are so different, with Bran having not one but two teachers with 3rd eyes, Arya being tricked into figuring it out, and the rest receiving no help at all. Sansa lost her wolf, which may have delayed things for her. So what I am really asking is: if you have a specific purpose in mind (i.e. BR or the FM), do you need a specific Stark 'pup', or will any of them do?

I forgot that LF procured Syrio for Ned. Also, as Snowfyre Chorus pointed out, LF is originally from Braavos. It seems there should be a connection, but I'm having a hard time making it fit.

On another note, it seems strange that in the free-for-all grabbing of Starks, the one major player who doesn't seem to have one is... Varys. I wonder why that is. Yes, he has Aegon, but still. If he intends to support team Fire, he could have helped them out by eliminating two Stark "nukes" when he had the chance. Sansa was in KL for years, it would have been so easy to manipulate Joffrey into having her killed. So either Varys is not aware of their potential magical abilities (unlikely IMO), or... he is allied with someone who already has a Stark.

I don't think there is any conclusive evidence that Syrio was procured by Littlefinger, although it would fit his modus operandi. I was just throwing it out there because of the discussion about how exactly Arya ended up in Bravos. On an somewhat unrelated note: I have been wondering if this tactic of procuring people when they are needed is not done much more often by Littlefinger. E.g. Catelyn looks for swords in the Crossroads Inn or Tyrion looks for a whore.

As to Varys; His moves are hard to analyze because up until the murder of Tywin he is totally on the defensive. Littlefinger is driving the plot and all Varys can do is to react. And I think it is obvious that Varys can't move directly against Littlefinger for some reason. Killing Sansa would constitute a major move against Littlefinger since she is his main goal.

I hold the man’s balls in the palm of my hand ... or would, if he were a man, or had any balls. You see, if the pie is opened, the birds begin to sing, and Varys would not like that.

[Black Crow]

Hmmm...

I can't help but feel we're missing something here in so far as a game is being played which we can only catch glimpses of and although we can speculate as to the players, their motives and just as importantly their allegiances are uncertain. Bear with me on this one because it needs a lot more thinking through.

Varys

Comes from somewhere in Essos and professes to be a eunuch. The latter may be true, but there are plenty of real world precedents of individuals pretending to be eunuchs in order to rise high in the service of sultans and other eastern potentates employing eunuchs as their civil service, and we also have that curious detail of his voice deepening as he explains to Kevan Lannister why it is necessary for him to die. I have a strong suspicion that Rugen is his true face and everything else calculated to make others despise and underestimate him.

He behaves, in short, as if he might be a faceless man and this is strengthened by his link [as Rugen] to Jaqen H'gar.

He is apparently in alliance with Illyrio Mopatis and thereby connected to both the Aegon and the Danaerys Targaryen plots and ultimately perhaps to the dragons. Are Aegon and Danaerys the children Varys speaks of, or are the constant setbacks experienced by the Fat Man down to Varys secretly frustrating him at every turn just as he once brought about the downfall of the Targaryens.

Illyrio

Playing the game but not I think understanding what's really going on.

Littlefinger

A reputed connection to Braavos, which may not be what it appears. His grandfather was supposedly a Braavosi sellsword and who are we to doubt it, but given the cosmopolitan nature both of Braavos and of the sellsword business that is not to say he didn't originally come from Westeros and when we're talking about the Fingers we're also talking very much of the Sistermen and the web-fingered lot. Fingers seem to figure a lot.

His connection to Varys appears to boil down to hated rivalry, but is it too ostentatious? On the whole, given that we do know of his immediate origins and history from childhood upwards, I'm inclined to see him as Loki, the trickster - out for himself but exploiting the hidden game as well as the game of Thrones - and therefore inclined not to place much importance on the Braavos angle except perhaps in some kind of equally opportunistic link to the Iron Bank rather than to the Faceless Men.

Mance Rayder

And then there's Mance, of whom all I think we can say with any confidence is that he isn't who he pretends to be. He was picked up by the Watch as a young boy, the only survivor of a Wildling raiding party intercepted by the Crows. However that's not to say he was a Wildling born and Osha iis pretty scathing about this, making it very clear that he was not a Wildling born. So was he kidnapped? Most unlikely because then the Watch would have been rescuing him. Hence my suggestion he might have been a fugitive fleeing north and his apparent age would be consistent with his being a lost Blackfyre.

So why then his interest in Winterfell?

Is there a connection somewhere, or are all three rivals for a prize we know nothing about?

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

<< snip >>

Hmm... intriguing.

[Armstark]

I think what connects them is that they realized something long before Leo Tyrell did

Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes.

They are not playing the game of thrones but a much older game.

[Black Crow]

Oh unquestionably, or at least Mance and Varys are, I still think Loki is the outsider exploiting the game.

[PrettyPig]

I've recently been wondering if Littlefinger and Varys are actually feigning animosity and working together. (We see an example of this "bitter enemy" tactic with LF and Lyn Corbray.) There's just too much involvement with/utilization of the same players at the same times, and some little hints dropped from time to time that make me suspect they're a team - the one that comes to mind is the LF/Lysa/Jon Arryn poisoning plot. We are told in-universe by Lysa that she poisoned Jon on LF's behalf, yet later Pycelle tells Cersei "I was your lord father’s man, and a friend to you in the matter of Lord Arryn.” Wait, what? Couple that with the earlier Varys/Illyrio convo re: "If one Hand can die, why not another?", it makes me think that these two are running a long game together.

There are many, many more 'coincidences' between them that seem minor or merely opportune, but when you begin to string them together, a different picture begins to emerge.

[PrettyPig]

The short answer is yes and I think your observations are consistent with this - and yes I think once again that the Winterfell crypts may be significant in this regard rather than as a depository for mouldy parchments, old wedding cloaks, busted harps and so on.

Slightly digressing, but I finished a reread of Feast not long ago, and in one of Dany's chapters when she wants to bury the dead of Meereen, Missandei tells her it is Ghiscari custom to bury their honored dead in crypts beneath their manses, first cleaning the bones before returning them to kin - same as current-day practice in the North. I have yet to go through the World Book but I have to wonder how much Old Ghis and the First Men have in common.

[QueenOfVibe]

Sansa could very well be the dark horse in all of this...The fact that she doesn't have Lady could turn out to be that she doesn't really even need/"require" her.Forget "little bird",think she might wind up being the Big Bird aka Brit-slang Lady,NOT Sesame Street...

[QueenOfVibe]

Sometimes nukes,or missiles if you will,miss their targets or turn out to be duds...Hmm....

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

Speaking of Mance, and the notion that these children of Winterfell are "powers" sought after and/or collected by various players...

I was rereading a bit of ASOS, and got to this bit here:

Jon had joined the wildlings at Qhorin Halfhand's command. "Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them," the ranger had told him, the night before he died. "And watch." But all his watching had learned him little. The Halfhand had suspected that the wildlings had gone up into the bleak and barren Frostfangs in search of some weapon, some power, some fell sorcery with which to break the Wall... but if they had found any such, no one was boasting of it openly, or showing it to Jon. Nor had Mance Rayder confided any of his plans or strategies...

And it suddenly occurred to me: what if Mance really had gone up into the Frostfangs seeking, or waiting for, "some weapon, some power, some fell sorcery... to break the Wall" -- and that weapon was Jon?

Wouldn't that fit with the way we know prophecy and/or dreaming seems to work - at least in terms of how decisions made on the basis of such visions often seem to backfire, or precipitate just the scenario one hopes to avoid?

Mel gazes into her fires, and tells Stannis that if he sails to Storm's End, he'll win the best part of Renly's power. But that if he sails to King's Landing, "Renly would ride out of the south in his green armor to smash his host beneath the [city] walls." So Stannis sails to Storm's End... and ends up getting smashed beneath the walls of King's Landing by Renly's green-armored ghost.

Jeor Mormont takes his rangers north to the Fist, because he fears that "the cold winds are rising," "the darkness is coming," and he has "seen darker shapes in [his] dreams." He takes Jon with him because he's come to believe that Jon was "meant to be [t]here," and Qhorin takes the boy into the Frostfangs because "the old gods are still strong beyond the Wall. The gods of the First Men... and the Starks." Meanwhile, the entire ranging is organized, as a practical matter, to find out where Mance Rayder had taken the wildlings, and what they were up to. Eventually Qhorin commands Jon to yield himself to Mance - to join the wildling host, to learn what they sought in the mountains and whether they found it.

Turns out - Mance was looking (or waiting) for something in those mountains. And in the end, the only thing we know for sure they found up there was... Jon Snow himself.

.