Small Questions v. 10096

[Maester Mando]

I just opened a thread on this one, but it didnt get much attention, so im posting it here:

In the Arya V chapter from AGOT, we learn that she visits all 7 city gates of KL because she wants to escape the city. The Mud Gate is mentioned as a gate where at this time people can only enter the city, not leave. However, later, in that very chapter she decides to go to the riverfront to look after a ship.

But how did she get through the gate?

I also wonder why she thinks that the riverside is on the way to the gate, when all maps clearly show the riverside and the fishmarket beyond, outside the walls. First i thought grrm may have changed his mind on the geography of the city, but then i saw that even on the first maps of KL the mud gate leads to the fishmarket, the riverside and the harbor.

I cant get my head round this. Would be nice if someone had a clarification for this. Im generally bothered by inconsistencies so i hope theres a solution for it.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

I just opened a thread on this one, but it didne get much attention, so im posting it here:

In the Arya V chapter from AGOT, we learn that she visits all 7 city gates of KL because she wants to escape the city. The Mud Gate is mentikned as a gate where at this time people can only enter the city, not leave. However, laternin that very chapter she decides to go to the riverfront to look after a ship.

But how did she get through the gate?

I also wonder why she thinks that the riverside is on the way to the gate, when all maps clearly show the riverside and the fishmarket beyond, outside the walls. First i thought grrm may have changed his mind on the geography of the city, but then i saw that even on the first maps of KL the mud gate leads to the fishmarket, the riverside and the harbor.

I cant get my head round this. Wouod be nice if someone has a clarification for this. Im generally bothered by inconsistencies so i hope theres a solution for it.

It's magic :)

In all seriousness, this is simply an error, with no solution to it, as far as I am aware.

[Maester Mando]

Well, thats annoying.

[Oafkeeper]

One thing I am unsure of:

Is The Long Night a singular event or is it something that happens every winter?

Because The Long Night something that happened during the original war against The Others. But other times it people talk about it in ways that make me think it happens frequently, "When the long night comes" I think is something said even by the maester in AWOIAF.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Well, thats annoying.

It's the same gate the Mallisters used to beat Yoren to King's Landing, and Sandor usedvit to leavr King's Landing with 9,000 gold coins stuffed into his pockets.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Can someone point me to an SSM whe the George tells us that Daenerys has found no purpose or something like that in her last chapter? Or am I imagining he said this?

[Mychel_Redfort]

It's magic :)

In all seriousness, this is simply an error, with no solution to it, as far as I am aware.

Well, I tried to provide one, but Maester Mando didn't seem to like it. I agree it's not ideal, but it could work, no ?

[RumHam]

...or the Company of the Rose, formed by wild men (and, according to some accounts, women) from the North who refused to bend the knee, after Torrhen Stark gave up his crown, and instead chose exile across the narrow sea.

Do you think these were people who knelt for Torrhen but would not for Aegon, or do you think these were people who the Starks could never bring to heel realizing they could not continue to basically be wildlings south of the Wall against dragons? Though the mountain clans of the Vale managed to continue to exist.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Do you think these were people who knelt for Torrhen but would not for Aegon, or do you think these were people who the Starks could never bring to heel realizing they could not continue to basically be wildlings south of the Wall against dragons? Though the mountain clans of the Vale managed to continue to exist.

Those who wouldn't bend the knee to Aegon, I think.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

One thing I am unsure of:

Is The Long Night a singular event or is it something that happens every winter?

Because The Long Night something that happened during the original war against The Others. But other times it people talk about it in ways that make me think it happens frequently, "When the long night comes" I think is something said even by the maester in AWOIAF.

It's not something that happens every winter. The Long Night was one event, which happened long ago, during the Age of Heroes. Darkness fell over Westeros, in the middle of a terrible long winter. The Long Night lasted a generation.

Can someone point me to an SSM whe the George tells us that Daenerys has found no purpose or something like that in her last chapter? Or am I imagining he said this?

No purpose? Are we talking about Dance? It seems clear that she finds herself in that chapter again, doesn't it?

Well, I tried to provide one, but Maester Mando didn't seem to like it. I agree it's not ideal, but it could work, no ?

Could work, I guess.

[Lost Melnibonean]

It's not something that happens every winter. The Long Night was one event, which happened long ago, during the Age of Heroes. Darkness fell over Westeros, in the middle of a terrible long winter. The Long Night lasted a generation.

No purpose? Are we talking about Dance? It seems clear that she finds herself in that chapter again, doesn't it?

Could work, I guess.

It's not clear to me...

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

It's not clear to me...

Dany "lost" herself, forgetting who she was, trying to force a peace in Meereen, being a person she was not. She begins to realize when still in Meereen..

He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I.

But the full realisation of who she is comes later.

Part of an essay which describes it well, I think. (I might not agree with all the essays on that site say, but Dany's realisation on who she is, yeah, I mostly agree with that).

Reborn in the Dothraki Sea (outtake from Dany essay from the Meereenese Blot)

Removed from the city, and left alone with her thoughts, her visions, and her dragon in the Dothraki Sea, Dany’s psychological transformation completes. She spends the first few pages trying to walk back to Meereen, telling herself she has to, that it’s her duty, for her people:

Her home was back in Meereen, with her husband and her lover. That was where she belonged, surely…

…On Drogon’s back she felt whole. Up in the sky the woes of this world could not touch her. How could she abandon that? It was time, though. A girl might spend her life at play, but she was a woman grown, a queen, a wife, a mother to thousands. Her children had need of her. (DANY X)

It’s important that, though the reader knows Meereen is now falling apart, Dany has no idea. As far as she knows, everything is still peaceful there:

By now the Yunkai’i will be marching home. That was why she had done all that she had done. For peace. (DANY X)

However, Drogon is keeping her away. He is again behaving symbolically, representing her dragon side keeping her away from the peace, until she is ready for war:

She would sooner have returned to Meereen on dragon’s wings, to be sure. But that was a desire Drogon did not seem to share. (DANY X)

Soon the visions start. All of the visions have the same purpose — to criticize what she did in Meereen, and tell her to be a dragon. First is Quaithe:

“Remember who you are, Daenerys,” the stars whispered in a woman’s voice. “The dragons know. Do you?” (DANY X)

Then Dany eats some bad berries and sees Viserys — surely a great role model for how to responsibly use a dragon — making the same point — that she has forgotten who she is, and what her words mean.

“Why did they give the dragon’s eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I’d had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words.” (DANY X)

Now, the following exchange is crucial:

“I am the blood of the dragon,” she told the grass, aloud.

Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark.

“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. “I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.”

Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children. (DANY X)

This is a turning point for Dany. The book started with Dany finding out her dragon had killed the little girl Hazzea. The girl’s name haunted her throughout the book, so it’s immensely significant that her name has been forgotten now — in favor of the dragons. Dany’s vision seems to be saying that innocent little Meereenese girls aren’t your real children — the dragons are. The clear suggestion being that Dany needs to abandon or seriously reduce her concern for innocent life, in favor of using her own dragonpower to do what she wants.

Which leads us to the long sequence where Dany has her final realizations, concluding her arc in the book:

The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home.

Except it wouldn’t, not truly.

Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy’s city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you. (DANY IX)

Here again, what finally pushes Dany to the breaking point is her distaste for Meereenese culture — not injustice per se. Simply leaving and going to Westeros — an option she had earlier rejected as immoral and awful — is now presented as the answer to her problems.

“I am alone and lost.”

Lost, because you lingered, in a place that you were never meant to be, murmured Ser Jorah…

…I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen.

“I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march.” Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. “I had to take Meereen to feed my people.”

You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. “To be a queen.”

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros.

“It is such a long way,” she complained. “I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war.I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl.” (DANY X)

Note Dany’s account of why she had stayed in Meereen. As mentioned in Part III, she was motivated to stay by both the fate of Astapor, and her fear of her own dragon nature and potential madness. Neither is mentioned here. Instead she now seems to view her decision to stay in Meereen as the whims of a young girl, rather than a responsible moral crusade.

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

“Fire and Blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass. (DANY X)

And there it is. A rejection of Meereen. A rejection of peace. A rejection of bending over backward to protect innocent life. A rejection of “planting trees.” And instead, an embrace of vague, violent rhetoric about who she is “made to be” — and her words, “fire and blood.”

Since the first book, Dany has been tormented by the innocent lives lost when she unleashes violence and war. Now, she has apparently resolved to stop letting all this bother her. Her new “fire and blood” approach just seems likely to lead to many more Astapors and thousands more Hazzeas. But in this chapter Dany seems prepared to write them off, as sad but necessary collateral damage of her embracing her true “dragon” self and who she was “made to be.” The dragons, and Dany’s own violent impulses, will no longer be chained. She has given into her greatest fear — herself.

This is not to say Dany will become some cackling, one-dimensional “evil” villain. She will surely continue to care about those she loves, use violence against some people who legitimately deserve it, and free some more slaves if she happens to come across them.

But now she wants to go to Westeros. And that’s particularly interesting because, so far in the series, Dany’s violent methods and ignoble tactics have often been palatable to the reader because they were used against brutal and murderous slavers, for seemingly noble ends. But there are no slaves to free in Westeros. It seems that Martin started off by giving Dany a seeming moral justification for her violence, that he always later planned to undercut. Now, Dany’s in it for herself — for her own power, for her own throne, and for becoming who she’s made to be, and woe to anyone who gets in her way.

This is the tragedy of Dany. She achieved peace. And then she decided war felt better to her.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

No, the boy whispered, we have another pack. Lady’s dead and maybe Grey Wind too, but somewhere there’s still Shaggydog and Nymeria and Ghost. Remember Ghost?

At first I thought that this might be because Summer had crossed the Wall before the Red Wedding, but Bran at the Nightfort dreams of the Red Wedding, showing that it occurs before they cross the Wall. So is Summer not sure about Grey Wind's death?

[Mychel_Redfort]

It's Bran speaking here, not Summer. And I'm not sure Bran always feel the link Summer has with his pack. Would Bran ask if Summer remembers Ghost if he had felt the link between them ?

[Ramsay's Penguins]

I think people were allowed out to the harbour (otherwise the city would be crippled) but not to leave the city. Hence the guards watching on the boats and probably up the river.

[The Wolves]

It's Bran speaking here, not Summer. And I'm not sure Bran always feel the link Summer has with his pack. Would Bran ask if Summer remembers Ghost if he had felt the link between them ?

Bran does feel the link Summer has with his pack that's why he's reminding Summer that he has another pack. Summer had just subdued the head wolf and claimed his pack that quote is Bran telling Summer that that's not his pack that he has a pack Grey Wind, Ghost,Lady,Nymeria, and Shaggy Dog.

It's Bran reminding Summer and kinda himself that they have brothers/sisters. Bran telling Summer he had a pack is Bran kinda reminding himself also that he has a pack as well Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya, and Rickon even though they might be dead and separated.

[Mychel_Redfort]

By link I mean the "live" link, the one Summer doesn't feel with Lady because she's dead. If Grey Wind has died before the Nightfort, then Summer knows he's dead, but if Bran doesn't always feel the link, then he doesn't know.

[Bob Sacamano]

No, the boy whispered, we have another pack. Lady’s dead and maybe Grey Wind too, but somewhere there’s still Shaggydog and Nymeria and Ghost. Remember Ghost?

At first I thought that this might be because Summer had crossed the Wall before the Red Wedding, but Bran at the Nightfort dreams of the Red Wedding, showing that it occurs before they cross the Wall. So is Summer not sure about Grey Wind's death?

I think the Nightfort is an extension of the Wall itself. IIRC, Bran can't warg/sense Summer with Bran and Co. are inside and Summer is outside. Not sure how this answers your question, but I just think the Nightfort messes with Bran's magic and possibly Summer's understanding of the Red Wedding.

[Ser Leftwich]

Is there any known volcanic activity in Westeros, besides Dragonstone?

[RumHam]

Is there any known volcanic activity in Westeros, besides Dragonstone?

Possibly Hardhome?