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Errors in the WOIAF


Queen Rhaenyra

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2 hours ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Ned doesn't need to come up with any story beyond the basics: "we met them, they're dead, five of my friends are dead, I'm griefing that I had to kill people I respected and lost good friends doing it."

There are maybe three people who could dare to press the Lord of the North on such a hurtful story and as his best friend, foster father and father-in-law they are unlikely to do so.

It is not about being pressing Eddard Stark, it is about Eddard Stark not being stupid.

Ned may have been able to play the 'I'm grieving, don't press me about that' card when talking to Robert about Lyanna, but Ned could not do the same with the Kingsguard he killed. Those were important and famous men, and people would have wanted to know when and how they died. And Ned had virtually no direct connection to them aside from meeting/interacting with them at Harrenhal. Those men weren't his friends.

In addition, he would have to tell the families of his friends how the hell they died. If he gave Barbrey Dustin, the Cassels, Glovers, etc. just platitudes about their husbands, sons, cousins having fought bravely, etc. those people might be very irritated. I mean, it is clear that all those families must have known that those guys died fighting the three remaining Kingsguard, right? One would assume that the first question after Ned had delivered his platitudes would be something like that: 'But Lord Eddard, why didn't you take more men with you when confronting those Kingsguard? You must have known that those were very dangerous fighters and we all know that you and Howland Reed weren't exactly great swordsmen. In addition, we also know you had effectively won the war at this point, so there would have no reason for you to confront those knights only with six companions.'

The obvious answer to that would be that Ned only took so few men because he wanted to save/free his sister, and thought (or claimed he thought) that he wouldn't be seen as a threat if he came with only so few men. But to give such an answer he would already have to admit/confirm that the three Kingsguard knights and Lyanna Stark were directly connected. The idea that he could have been able to keep these two things separate just doesn't make any sense unless we assume he never talked about that at all. But this is hardly believable. The man even returned Dawn to the Daynes - surely he would also have talked to the families of his friends who died at the tower.

And at court the question about the fate of the three knights begins with obvious trivia like the questioned what their chapters in the White Book tell about their deaths. Do we really want to believe that their deaths are described that way: 'Oswell Whent died under unclear circumstances somewhere in the Red Mountains during a mission we know nothing about.' I don't think so.

Barristan Selmy would have wanted to write when, how, why, and during what mission those men died. So he would have asked, and Ned would have told him. He would have given him a date of death, a description of the battle (truth a some lies), a story why they fought, and what their mission was - assuming Selmy didn't know that already because he had talked to Prince Rhaegar. Selmy wouldn't have written any lies in the White Book, he would have written that those three Kingsguard died protecting or guarding Lyanna Stark (who had been either Prince Rhaegar's wife, his mistress, or his hostage) from a group led by her brother, Eddard Stark. I'm pretty sure something like that is written in the White Book in the sections on Dayne, Whent, and Hightower.

Inquiring about the death of the knights wouldn't be seen as hurtful, either. Especially from the point of view of people who didn't know that the knights were with Lyanna when they died. In that hypothetical scenario (I'm assuming the opposite, that the people at court - and subsequently the rebels, too, after they had taken KL - had known what the mission of those Kingsguard was) nobody interested in the fate of those famous Kingsguard would have connected them to Lyanna Stark's death, and subsequently Eddard Stark would have to deal with more questioners then he would have had he hidden behind his grief by connecting the stories about Lyanna's death and the death of the knights.

But to do that, he would have been forced to actually tell a story. A story that answered the basic questions to satisfying degree so that this whole episode could be filed away.

We have to keep in mind that the new Baratheon had a vested interest in knowing what had happened to any missing die-hard Targaryen loyalists, most notably the remaining Kingsguard. Ned could not possibly get away with 'Trust me. They are dead.' Not if he wanted to protect Lyanna's child. The whole bastard plan could only work if the whole thing looked as normal and unsuspicious as possible. Ned eagerly explaining what had happened to the Kingsguard and Lyanna would have made a much better impression than him just playing the grief card again and again. Especially combined with the shame card when asked about his bastard.

I assume the following:

1. Rhaegar and Lyanna's marriage/relationship status was no secret by the end of the Rebellion. In fact, it was known that they were married (if they were married) since the very beginning of the war. The marriage is most likely the reason why Rhaegar and Lyanna had to hide (from Aerys, not the rebels).

2. It was known at court what the mission of the three Kingsguard was, and Aerys did not countermand any of that after he had heard about it (which he would have after Rhaegar returned to court). People at court - and subsequently the rebels - might also have known that Lyanna was carrying Rhaegar's child. This would make sense because there is no good reason why Rhaegar would keep such a pregnancy a secret if we assume he actually wanted Lyanna to come to court after the war was open. And most certainly if he intended to raise her son as a royal prince at court.

3. Eddard Stark came up with a convincing story and/or possibly even evidence to back his version of events to explain the deaths of the Kingsguard, the death of Lyanna Stark, and the fate of the child she had been carrying (perhaps stillborn). I'm also pretty sure that Eddard Stark had a cover story (i.e. a person who would play the role of Jon Snow's mother convincingly should the need ever arise) in place which purpose it was to disconnect 'Jon Snow' from Lyanna Stark. I do not care about the details and the wetnurses or servants involved, but I'm sure Ned told Robert something to prevent him from ever connecting Ned's bastard and Lyanna in his mind.

Anything else would make this entire plot line very unbelievable in my opinion. And considering the fact that George still can juggle around the details on that whole thing until he finally reveals them I'm pretty sure we'll get a convincing story, and not something that is based on stuff like 'Nobody ever knew or suspected that Rhaegar and Lyanna were married, and that Lyanna was pregnant', 'Nobody ever got any details out of Ned Stark about the deaths of those Kingsguard knights', 'Nobody ever knew or ever connected the dots' and 'Nobody aside from Catelyn and Robert ever dared to ask Ned about his bastard'.

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  • 5 months later...

Not an error, but a point of clarification on the date of the Doom. In the WoIaF it reads thusly:

Quote

Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and...

I read this to mean that the event that's being described - Aenar leaving Valyria for Dragonstone - took place in 114 BC and thus the Doom takes place in 102 BC. This tracks with all previous dates given for the event (which was along the lines that the Doom took place a century before the Conquest).

However, looking online I see that about half of people agree with this and another half choose the interpretation that the Doom itself takes place in 114 BC and Aenar and Team Targaryen left Valyria in 126 BC. That's an awkward way of wording it - the event at hand is the Targaryens leaving, so the specific date being mentioned should be linked to that - but I can see how it can be read that way.

Do we know for sure which date is correct?

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10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Do we know for sure which date is correct?

I find that there are many dates left ambiguous or unsaid so the reader must fill in the blanks.

If the wording would have been something like: "In the year 114 BC, twelve years before the Doom of Valyria, Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and...", then there would be no ambiguity and we'd have a solid date to which build chronology upon.

I just had an argument about the length of time spanned between Braavos's founding and its reveal. On one hand, many people interpret the wording of "Its very existence had been a secret for a century, the girl had learned; its location had been hidden thrice that long." to mean that the location was revealed two centuries after the existence was revealed. On the other hand, I always took it to mean that it was three centuries instead.

That, if we only take into consideration that the quote is from AFfC (Cat of the Canals). If we take the World book into consideration there's still more contradiction. The World book states that the Unmasking of Uthero occurred on the 111th festival of the city's founding, further explaining that when the city paid reparations  "[t]he dragonlords proved to have little interest in the descendants of slaves who had escaped a century before", which makes it unequivocal that the founding occurred a century before the Unmasking.

ETA For the record, I can get both meanings (the Doom being in 102 BC or 114 BC) alternately, depending on how I read the passage.

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On 19-10-2016 at 9:40 PM, Werthead said:

Not an error, but a point of clarification on the date of the Doom. In the WoIaF it reads thusly:

I read this to mean that the event that's being described - Aenar leaving Valyria for Dragonstone - took place in 114 BC and thus the Doom takes place in 102 BC. This tracks with all previous dates given for the event (which was along the lines that the Doom took place a century before the Conquest).

However, looking online I see that about half of people agree with this and another half choose the interpretation that the Doom itself takes place in 114 BC and Aenar and Team Targaryen left Valyria in 126 BC. That's an awkward way of wording it - the event at hand is the Targaryens leaving, so the specific date being mentioned should be linked to that - but I can see how it can be read that way.

Do we know for sure which date is correct?

Very interested to see an answer to this question.

@Ran, might you be able to clarify this?

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Ran

I couldn't find whether this has been discussed before, but the Aerys II and False Spring sections seem to contain contradictory information, and I was wondering if you could clear some things up? The quotes from the Aerys II section state that Harlan Grandison died and Aerys offered Jaime the white cloak in 281 AC. It then says that Lord Whent announced the great tourney at Harrenhal shortly thereafter. But in the False Spring section it states that Lord Whent announced the tourney in late 280 AC.

Was the tourney announced in 281 AC as the Aerys II section implies, or was the tourney announced in late 280 AC as the False Spring section states? Was the death of Grandison and offer of the white cloak to Jaime in 281 AC or in 280 AC? Did Aerys offer Jaime the white cloak before or after the announcement of the tourney?

Below are the quotes.

The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II
"In 281 AC, however, the aged Kingsguard knight Ser Harlan Grandison passed away in his sleep, and the uneasy accord between Aerys II and his Hand finally snapped, when His Grace chose to offer a white cloak to Lord Tywin's eldest son."

"Shortly thereafter, Lord Walter Whent announced plans for a great tourney to be held at his seat at Harrenhal, to celebrate his maiden daughter's nameday. King Aerys II chose this event for the formal investiture of Ser Jaime Lannister as a knight of the Kingsguard...thus setting in motion the events that would end the Mad King's reign and write an end to the long rule of House Targaryen in the Seven Kingdoms."

The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring
"This is known: The tourney was first announced by Walter Whent, Lord of Harrenhal, late in the year 280 AC, not long after a visit from his younger brother, Ser Oswell Whent, a knight of the Kingsguard. That this would be an event of unrivaled magnificence was clear from the first, for Lord Whent was offering prizes thrice as large as those given at the great Lannisport tourney of 272 AC, hosted by Lord Tywin Lannister in celebration of Aerys II's tenth year upon the Iron Throne."

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Has there been a change between editions? In the world book Genna Lannister is said to have married Emmon Frey in 254 at the age of seven, so she was born in 247. However, the Wiki and several other sources say the marriage was in 252 so she was born in 245. I have the UK first edition of the world book.

ETA: I'm assuming that's an error corrected later on, as Tywin's age is without doubt and he was ten at the wedding, so it must have been in 252.

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3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Has there been a change between editions? In the world book Genna Lannister is said to have married Emmon Frey in 254 at the age of seven, so she was born in 247. However, the Wiki and several other sources say the marriage was in 252 so she was born in 245. I have the UK first edition of the world book.

ETA: I'm assuming that's an error corrected later on, as Tywin's age is without doubt and he was ten at the wedding, so it must have been in 252.

The betrothal announcement was confirmed to have occurred in 252 AC here.

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Cool.

Any thoughts on the age of Dorna Swyft? I think this has down the rounds before. She's old enough to be taken as a hostage by Kevan in 260 AC, but she gives birth to her daughter in 297. They fall in love and are married at some point.

The only way I can make this work is if Dorna is very young and she returns home afterwards. Then she and the much-older Kevan meet later on again and wed.

Even if she's only 10, that makes her 47 when she gives birth to her daughter. Not impossible but rather unlikely.

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19 hours ago, Werthead said:

Cool.

Any thoughts on the age of Dorna Swyft? I think this has down the rounds before. She's old enough to be taken as a hostage by Kevan in 260 AC, but she gives birth to her daughter in 297. They fall in love and are married at some point.

The only way I can make this work is if Dorna is very young and she returns home afterwards. Then she and the much-older Kevan meet later on again and wed.

Even if she's only 10, that makes her 47 when she gives birth to her daughter. Not impossible but rather unlikely.

I take it that she was indeed still a child when Kevan took her as a hostage. However, she was old enough to have been married to Kevan by 266 AC. That would imply that she had been at least in her early teens by then, if not older.

[...] She and Ser Tywin were married a year after he became Hand of the King in a lavish ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor, with King Aerys himself presiding over the wedding feast and bedding. In 266 AC, Lady Joanna gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Meanwhile, Ser Tywin's brother Ser Kevan had also wed, taking to bride the daughter of Ser Harys Swyft of Cornfield, who had once been given to him as a hostage for her father's debts.

The text continues with Tytos's death in 267 AC.

Perhaps the fact that their eldest child, Lancel, was born in 282 AC and not sooner, despite the fact that it does seem that they had been married for a while at the time, indeed is a suggestion of her youth at the time of her marriage. We know Kevan loved her after years of marriage, but had he already loved her when they got married?

If the quoted passage indeed means that they had been married by the mid 260ties, than I think that Dorna is indeed in her mid forties. Dorna could have been as young as 12 or 13 when she got married to Kevan, but even if we assume that the marriage occurred around the time of Cersei and Jaimes's births, that would still place her in her early forties when Janei was born.

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2 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

I take it that she was indeed still a child when Kevan took her as a hostage. However, she was old enough to have been married to Kevan by 266 AC. That would imply that she had been at least in her early teens by then, if not older.

[...] She and Ser Tywin were married a year after he became Hand of the King in a lavish ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor, with King Aerys himself presiding over the wedding feast and bedding. In 266 AC, Lady Joanna gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Meanwhile, Ser Tywin's brother Ser Kevan had also wed, taking to bride the daughter of Ser Harys Swyft of Cornfield, who had once been given to him as a hostage for her father's debts.

The text continues with Tytos's death in 267 AC.

Perhaps the fact that their eldest child, Lancel, was born in 282 AC and not sooner, despite the fact that it does seem that they had been married for a while at the time, indeed is a suggestion of her youth at the time of her marriage. We know Kevan loved her after years of marriage, but had he already loved her when they got married?

If the quoted passage indeed means that they had been married by the mid 260ties, than I think that Dorna is indeed in her mid forties. Dorna could have been as young as 12 or 13 when she got married to Kevan, but even if we assume that the marriage occurred around the time of Cersei and Jaimes's births, that would still place her in her early forties when Janei was born.

I think that Dorna Swyft was born around 255 AC. Then she would be 5 years old when she became hostage, around 12 years when she wed Kevan and 42 years by 297, when Janei was born, what is still acceptable age for pregnancy. 

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  • 2 months later...
2 minutes ago, Prof. Cecily said:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm new here, and was wondering- are the references to corn, native to the New World,  an oversight, or simply part of the magic?

Yours, 

Prof. Cecily

 

 

First of all, Westeros isn't medieval Europe, so even if it had maize, tomatoes and potatoes it woudn't be an 'oversight'. GRRM can choose to add anything he wants to his world. It seems that GRRM knows which plants did and which didn't grow in medieval Europe -  Westeros has no potatoes and tomatoes, but he chose to include corn for some reason.

On the other hand ,  'corn' simply means grain. For example there is mythical figure named Corn King which is often referenced in ASOIAF.

From Wiktionary:

Quote

From Middle English corn, from Old English corn, from Proto-Germanic *kurną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm ‎(“grain; worn-down”), from *ǵerh₂- ‎(“grow old, mature”). Cognate with Dutch koren, Low German Koorn, German Korn, Swedish korn; see also Russian зерно́ ‎(zernó), Czech zrno, Latin grānum, Lithuanian žirnis, Persian خرمن ‎(xarman), and English grain.

Noun:

corn (usually uncountable, plural corns)

(Britain, uncountable) The main cereal plant grown for its grain in a given region, such as oats in parts of Scotland and Ireland, and wheat or barley in England and Wales.  

(US, Canada, Australia, uncountable) Maize, a grain crop of the species Zea mays.  

A grain or seed, especially of a cereal crop.

He paid her the nominal fee of two corns of barley.

A small, hard particle.  

However, corn in American English meaning of this word is mentioned in ASOIAF:

Quote

"It's sweetcorn, better'n a stinking old black bird like you deserves," one of them answered roughly. "You get out of our field now, and take these sneaks and stabbers with you, or we'll stake you up in the corn to scare the other crows away."

They roasted the sweetcorn in the husk that night, turning the ears with long forked sticks, and ate it hot right off the cob. Arya thought it tasted wonderful, but Yoren was too angry to eat. A cloud seemed to hang over him, ragged and black as his cloak. He paced about the camp restlessly, muttering to himself.

The next day Koss came racing back to warn Yoren of a camp ahead. "Twenty or thirty men, in mail and halfhelms," he said. "Some of them are cut up bad, and one's dying, from the sound of him. With all the noise he was making, I got right up close. They got spears and shields, but only one horse, and that's lame. I think they been there awhile, from the stink of the place."

(Clash of Kings, Arya)

Turkeys live in Westeros as well:

Quote

The men traded unhappy glances. "We were following, m'lord," said Quent, the youngest of them, his beard a soft brown fuzz. "Only first we waited for Maester Luwin and his ass, begging your pardons, and then, well, as it were …" He glanced over at Theon and quickly looked away, abashed.

"I spied a turkey," Theon said, annoyed by the question. "How was I to know that you'd leave the boy alone?"

Robb turned his head to look at Theon once more. Bran had never seen him so angry, yet he said nothing. Finally he knelt beside Maester Luwin. "How badly is my brother wounded?"

(Game of Thrones, Bran)

 

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23 hours ago, Blue Tiger said:

You're welcome, but I wasn't the one to notice Corn King references in ASOIAF. 

I'm still getting through vast  amounts of posts and threads at this splendid forum. 

You were the one who took the time to tell me about them and that's why I thank you.

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  • 1 month later...

For anybody caring - I just got around taking a look at one of the later editions (I postponed getting a new copy for quite some time since there was no guarantee to actually getting one the newer prints) and @Ran and @Linda really did a fine job at weeding out the mistakes.

Aenys no longer is the Prince of Dragonstone, the Arryns got thrice honored by marrying the blood of the dragon, no confusion about how Aenys' sons are related with each other in the later parts of the book, the various tourney contradictions have been resolved, and so on.

What's still annoying is that Kevan is still marked bold as a Lord of Casterly Rock (which he never was) while Cersei (who still is the Lady of Casterly Rock) is not marked as such in the Lannister family. Cerelle is now a Lady of Casterly Rock, though.

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2 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

@Lord Varys, is the confusion regarding the date of the announcement of the tourney at Harrenhal during the false spring resolved? And Rhaegar's year of death?

Yeah, Lord Walter now first announces it only in 280 AC (that was also the route I also took for the German edition). The 281 AC version has been amended to 'shortly before' Tywin's resignation in 281 AC was the tourney announced. And the anniversary tourney of 272 AC is now definitely in KL and not in Lannisport (as claimed at one point) but we learn that it was Tywin as Hand who threw that tourney in Aerys' name.

Where was Rhaegar's year of death given wrongly?

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, Lord Walter now first announces it only in 280 AC (that was also the route I also took for the German edition). The 281 AC version has been amended to 'shortly before' Tywin's resignation in 281 AC was the tourney announced. And the anniversary tourney of 272 AC is now definitely in KL and not in Lannisport (as claimed at one point) but we learn that it was Tywin as Hand who threw that tourney in Aerys' name.

Cool, thank you!

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Where was Rhaegar's year of death given wrongly?

Towards the end of The Stormlands: House Baratheon

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