Mistakes/Contradictions in the books?

[Daecon Dayne]

Tyrion can apparently somersault off high walls and execute a perfect landing. But only once.

 

 

[Walda]

@Nittanian I would just like to add, in concurrence with your post on the polyamorous Lady Glover, the mention of Galbart's marital status in the appendix of ADwD (that I posted in this thread a little while back)

@Daecon Dayne Twice, if you count all tumbling and not somersaults specifically

Halfway down the steps, he lost his footing. Somehow he managed to break his tumble with his hands and turn it into a clumsy thumping cartwheel. The whores in the room below looked up in astonishment when he landed at the foot of the steps. Tyrion rolled onto his feet and gave them a bow. “I am more agile when I’m drunk.”(ADwD, Ch.22 Tyrion VI)

And there might have been another, from his memories of capering for Uncle Gerion at Casterly Rock, that I can't find at the moment. But this post is about Brienne's unreliable memory.

They will laugh at me, as they laughed at Highgarden. A blush stole up her cheeks as she remembered...Three of the younger knights had started it, he told her: Ambrose, Bushy, and Hyle Hunt, of his own household.(AFfC, Ch.14 Brienne III)

In the very next Brienne chapter:

the woman had said. “You’ll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.” It was a harsh lesson, one that left her weeping, but it had stood her in good stead at Harrenhal when Ser Hyle and his friends had played their game.(AFfC, Ch.20 Brienne IV)

Later, she dreams of Ser Jaime pinning a rainbow cloak to her shoulders.

[Walda]

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stocks were hammered together for pretty Pia and the other women who’d shared their favors with Lannister soldiers. Stripped and shaved, they were left in the middle ward beside the bear pit, free for the use of any man who wanted them.(ACoK,Ch.64 Arya X)

Stocks:http://i.imgur.com/64dElxh.jpg

Pillory:http://imgur.com/ZTgf0WA

[Pr1ncessAw3some]

The thing that always gets me is when reading AGOT - ASOS, when referring to a character's age over ten they say "twelve, thirteen, fourteen, etc". . .  But then in AFFC they start using the phrasing "ten-and-two, ten-and-three, ten-and-four, etc."

I don't know if GRRM forgot that he didn't start off that way, or maybe he just decided he liked that phrasing better and thought no one would notice, and maybe it doesn't bother anyone but me, but I find it very jarring whenever I'm rereading the series and they start saying that in AFFC. I always end up flipping back through the books I had just read to make sure that I'm not losing my mind and they weren't speaking like that from the start . . . .

 

[Walda]

As his death approaches, Maester Aemon muses

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Will I talk with Egg again, find Dareon whole and happy, hear my sisters singing to their children?(AFfC, Ch.35 Samwell IV)

At first I thought it was a typo, obviously, from the context he means his long dead dragon-dreaming Targaryen brother,  Daeron Prince of Dragonstone, who he maestered for before he was sent to the wall.

But maybe he has somehow sensed that Dareon the Black Singer is at the bottom of a canal in Braavos with his throat cut, and is hoping that when they meet in the afterlife his ability to sing is restored to him?

[Nevets]

On 6/14/2016 at 3:11 PM, Pr1ncessAw3some said:

The thing that always gets me is when reading AGOT - ASOS, when referring to a character's age over ten they say "twelve, thirteen, fourteen, etc". . .  But then in AFFC they start using the phrasing "ten-and-two, ten-and-three, ten-and-four, etc."

I don't know if GRRM forgot that he didn't start off that way, or maybe he just decided he liked that phrasing better and thought no one would notice, and maybe it doesn't bother anyone but me, but I find it very jarring whenever I'm rereading the series and they start saying that in AFFC. I always end up flipping back through the books I had just read to make sure that I'm not losing my mind and they weren't speaking like that from the start . . . .

 

I think that has to do with whose POV it is.  I noticed Brienne uses the three-and-ten term, but, iirc, Sansa, for example uses thirteen.  Probably just a reflection of how different people use it.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

10 hours ago, Walda said:

As his death approaches, Maester Aemon muses

At first I thought it was a typo, obviously, from the context he means his long dead dragon-dreaming Targaryen brother,  Daeron Prince of Dragonstone, who he maestered for before he was sent to the wall.

But maybe he has somehow sensed that Dareon the Black Singer is at the bottom of a canal in Braavos with his throat cut, and is hoping that when they meet in the afterlife his ability to sing is restored to him?

I really think that that is just a small error.

[Walda]

Yes, most probably a tiny typographic error, not a deliberate ambiguity. Only noticed because of my own constant spelling mistakes.

And wouldn't have bothered noting it, except it was oddly metaphorical to talk of Daeron being "whole" again, when we have reason to believe he left the world with all his parts attached.

Also odd, he imagines talking with Egg, and hearing his sisters sing to their children - if he expects Daeron to be restored to some earlier state, why would he not suppose his eyesight would return, too?

Dareon can't sing with his throat cut, and his remarkable voice matches the auditory theme of the sentence.

Although Maester Aemon would not only be psychic, but  taking his NW vows very strictly to heart, to include the brother he had only known a few months among the siblings he had left behind sixty-five years ago. But "Some were bound to me by vows, and some by blood, but they were all my brothers"(AFfC, Ch.26 Samwell III) might justify it.

He had taken dreamwine, and was bothered by Dragon Dreams and memories of Daeron:

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My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend (AFfC, Ch.26 Samwell III)

but then, it was Dareon who first brought news of the dragons to him, and Aemon that has taken a turn for the prophetic while awaiting his return.

But enough of that.

Arya was paired with plump young Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than hers.(AGoT, Ch.05 Jon I)

Jaime turned to Tommen. Though he had Joffrey’s golden curls and green eyes, the new king shared little else with his late brother.(ASoS, Ch.72 Jaime IX)

Has Tommen's hair got darker, or is Jaime seeing what he wants to see?

Odd that Jaime appears to have more faith in Joffrey's ability to rule the realm with Cersei as Queen Regent, than Tommen's. Although it isn't the same - Cersei was marginally less paranoid and at least made a pretence of listening to Jaime, before he freed Tyrion.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

4 hours ago, Walda said:

Yes, most probably a tiny typographic error, not a deliberate ambiguity. Only noticed because of my own constant spelling mistakes.

And wouldn't have bothered noting it, except it was oddly metaphorical to talk of Daeron being "whole" again, when we have reason to believe he left the world with all his parts attached.

I don't think the "whole and happy" part is to suggest Daeron was missing a body part or two when he died. I think it refers to is mental state. Daeron's prophetic dreams are, according to Aemon, what killed him, eventually. Not literally, of course, as we know he died of the pox. But in the sense that his dreams caused him to lives certain lifestyle, and because of that, he caught pox of a whore, and died.

 

You can already tell in The Hedge Knight. Daeron drinks heavily in order to cope with his dreams, and I think it is implied that, of the four brothers, Daeron's dreams were most frequent, much more frequent than those of Aerion, Aegon and Aemon. Look at what that did to his (mental) health.

 

"whole and happy" therefore refers to Daeron in a state where is is happy and healthy, untroubled by his frequent prophetic dreams, I think.

 

4 hours ago, Walda said:

Also odd, he imagines talking with Egg, and hearing his sisters sing to their children - if he expects Daeron to be restored to some earlier state, why would he not suppose his eyesight would return, too?

Does he ever imply he does not expect this?

 

4 hours ago, Walda said:

Arya was paired with plump young Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than hers.(AGoT, Ch.05 Jon I)

Jaime turned to Tommen. Though he had Joffrey’s golden curls and green eyes, the new king shared little else with his late brother.(ASoS, Ch.72 Jaime IX)

Has Tommen's hair got darker, or is Jaime seeing what he wants to see?

Perhaps it is similar to Jeyne's hips, but perhaps Tommen's hair colour has darkened a little.. Tommen's hair, IIRC, is described as golden a few more times in Feast, by Cersei.

[Walda]

On 22/06/2016 at 7:48 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Does he ever imply he does not expect this?

It is implied because (as you can see in the quote) he describes only audible phenomena- talking and singing. If he imagined his sight restored, why not anticipate seeing the smiles of those loved ones, who never knew him as a blind man?

*

This contradiction is no doubt intentional, but I haven't worked it out yet. 

Lady Mellario finds it unconscionable to foster out her children, it isn't something Norvoshi do:

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Quentyn had been very young when he was sent to Yronwood; too young, according to their mother. Norvoshi did not foster out their children, and Lady Mellario had never forgiven Prince Doran for taking her son away from her. “I like it no more than you do,” Arianne had overheard her father say, “but there is a blood debt, and Quentyn is the only coin Lord Ormond will accept.”
“Coin?” her mother had screamed. “He is your son. What sort of father uses his own flesh and blood to pay his debts?”
“The princely sort,” Doran Martell had answered.(AFfC, Ch.21 The Queenmaker)

Her precious children that she can't bear to be parted from - oh, hang on:

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She considered appealing to her own mother, but Lady Mellario was far away in Norvos.(AFfC, Ch.40 The Princess In TheTower)

Well, it wouldn 't happen in Norvos - oh, hang on:

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Another mouth to feed, a big boy who ate too much and soon outgrew his clothes. Small wonder they had sold him to the bearded priests.(AFfC, Ch.02 The Captain Of Guards)

Well, that is nothing to do with Lady Mellario - oh, hang on:

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Norvos, where I first met Mellario. The bells were ringing, and the bears danced down the steps. Areo will recall the day.”
“I remember,” echoed Areo Hotah in his deep voice. “The bears danced and the bells rang, and the prince wore red and gold and orange. My lady asked me who it was who shone so bright.”(AFfC, Ch.40 The Princess In The Tower)

So what is the go here? Is it that Prince Doran has exiled his wife, that Mellario was forcibly parted from her beloved children, that even in Dorne, patriarchy gives the prince the right to send his wife away, and even deep, patient, apparently compassionate Doran can act in a way that seems cruel and abrupt and tyrannical to his wife, the mother of his children, when he tires of her?

Or did Mellario, who raises her voice and never forgives, return to Norvos of her own accord? This seems more likely - but she leaves her children in Dorne, and her shield-man. And this objection to having her children fostered out - is it that this doesn't happen in Norvos, or is it that it only happens to poor people in Norvos, and very handy it is too, when it comes to finding good help.

Mellario seems to have the hide of a rhinoceros, to protest against her son being sent to squire for no more than half a dozen years, when she has taken Hotah (after his brutal training with the priests) away from his family for good. Moving even further away from Quentyn, leaving the care of her heir and of her youngest son to servants or whatever surrogate-mother Doran can find (like Hotah, who apparently serves Doran for life now) seems a strange way to object to being parted from her second child.

[Joy Hill]

On 22 juin 2016 at 11:48 AM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

 

 

Perhaps it is similar to Jeyne's hips, but perhaps Tommen's hair colour has darkened a little.. Tommen's hair, IIRC, is described as golden a few more times in Feast, by Cersei.

 

I noticed that too! This is probably a mistake, but since some kids' hair color darken as they age I suppose this isn't a problem (but in ACOK Varys says Tommen was born "golden as the sun". . .).

 

 

In AGOT, Ned thinks that Renly was a boy of eight when Robert won the throne. But Renly is 20 in AGOT, and Robert won the throne 14-15 years before that. Of course, Ned might simply not remember the exact age Renly was at the time.

 

 

 

[Walda]

Found a couple of typos. Maybe just my edition of Storm of Swords?

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She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a football on the deck above her head. (ASoS, Ch.27 Daenerys III)

or maybe GRRM was distracted.

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Arya squirted past Greenbeard so fast he never saw her. (ASoS, Ch.34 Arya VI)

skirted, surely?

[Maester of Valyria]

1 hour ago, Walda said:

Found a couple of typos. Maybe just my edition of Storm of Swords?

or maybe GRRM was distracted.

skirted, surely?

Football is actually a fairly old sport, dating from at least medieval times (albeit with very different rules, and the use of the actual word 'football' is possibly anachronistic).

As for 'squirted', you may be correct in that GRRM meant 'skirted' but it could also be a way to illustrate how fast Arya was moving. I think both words would be valid.

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Walda said:

Found a couple of typos. Maybe just my edition of Storm of Swords?

or maybe GRRM was distracted.

skirted, surely?

The first is "footfall." The second is indeed "squirted."

[Walda]

2 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

The first is "footfall."

But does your edition say 'footfall' ?

It clearly is what is meant in the context - Daenarys is hearing sounds outside her darkened cabin at the time and there is nothing to suggest it is the sound of a football that the Jets or the Giants had kicked so high and far over the posts that it somehow landed on the poop deck of the Balerion. The fact that she is awake when it happens makes that impossible.

It is the only time the word is used in the whole series (so far. The Winds of Winter could be entirely devoted to football, for all I know.) Footfalls, singular and plural, are heard about a dozen times in the series.

My edition is the Bantam Spectra mass market edition / March 2003 published by Bantam Dell

ETA: I guess squirt meaning 'move suddenly or unpredictably' is more common in places where baseball is followed obsessively. Where I come from the term applies almost exclusively to the release of compressed liquids. It is the second use of the word in the series. The first is the usage I'm more familiar with, when Pyp squirts wine from a skin into Jon's face.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Walda said:

Found a couple of typos. Maybe just my edition of Storm of Swords?

or maybe GRRM was distracted.

skirted, surely?

Those two are funny.

[Raisin' Bran]

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 1:41 AM, Walda said:

And there might have been another, from his memories of capering for Uncle Gerion at Casterly Rock, that I can't find at the moment. But this post is about Brienne's unreliable memory.

They will laugh at me, as they laughed at Highgarden. A blush stole up her cheeks as she remembered...Three of the younger knights had started it, he told her: Ambrose, Bushy, and Hyle Hunt, of his own household.(AFfC, Ch.14 Brienne III)

In the very next Brienne chapter:

the woman had said. “You’ll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.” It was a harsh lesson, one that left her weeping, but it had stood her in good stead at Harrenhal when Ser Hyle and his friends had played their game.(AFfC, Ch.20 Brienne IV)

Later, she dreams of Ser Jaime pinning a rainbow cloak to her shoulders.

Perhaps a little late to weigh in on this, but I had posed this question in another thread a while back and the consensus was that the castle name was an editing mistake rather than misremembering.

Also I think her infatuation with Jaime caused her to think about him and the rainbow cloak. Replacing Jaime with Renly as her object of affection had changed.

Also reminiscent of Sansa's dream in ASoS, where she dreams of Tyrion in bed with her who then transforms into Sandor Clegane.

On ‎6‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 10:32 PM, Walda said:

Arya was paired with plump young Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than hers.(AGoT, Ch.05 Jon I)

Jaime turned to Tommen. Though he had Joffrey’s golden curls and green eyes, the new king shared little else with his late brother.(ASoS, Ch.72 Jaime IX)

Has Tommen's hair got darker, or is Jaime seeing what he wants to see?

Yes children's hair can darken as they age. However the difference, in my experience, is not significant between the ages of 7 and 10.

There are two other explanations I can come up with:

1) Blonde hair tends to be lighter colored in summer when children play outside giving it a sun bleached look. In fall, and during war time, Tommen likely would have spent more time in-doors. The sun bleached coloring would grow out over time.

2) The POV should be taken into account. Jon lives in the North where most have dark colored hair (black, brown) hair with some red here and there. Jon would likely be one to consider any light-colored hair to be "white". Whereas Jaime is much more accustomed to the various nuanced tones of blonde hair, as he grew up a Lannister.

[Walda]

@Raisin(g) Bran 2 Greenseer re point 2, part 2: I don't think Jon's PoV makes him perceive Tommen's golden hair as white. The paragraph immediately before he observes Tommen and Arya includes his observations of Robb and Myrcella. He is quite capable of noticing:

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 her [Myrcella's (w.)]hair a cascade of golden curls under a jeweled net. (AGoT, Ch.05 Jon I)

even if he hasn't grown up with the nuanced tones of blond that Jaime Lannister knew. And Jaime Lannister doesn't seem that nuanced when it comes to noticing Lannister hair.

Looking at all the kinds of hair Jaime notices, I have:

his own golden curls, Briennes limp flaxen hair, random Blond lyseni hair, generally hairy Ibbenese, Dothraki with bells in their braids, Urswyck's thin and dry hair, Qyburn's grey hair, Briennes thick blonde bush, Dream Lannisters of the Rock (including Joffrey) as dark shapes with golden hair, Rhaegar Targaryen's long hair, his own golden hair that will grow back, Cersei's hair undressed and unkempt, his short bristly hair, Ser Meryn's rust-red hair, Ser Loras's soft brown tumble, Cersei's golden hair, Jeyne Poole's long brown hair, Cersei's golden hair, Cersei's golden curls, her tumbled hair, her hair rebounded, the white hairs on Longwaters's chin, himself with a sword as golden as his hair,Osmund Kettleblack's black chest hair and the coarser thatch between his legs.Cersei's spun gold. Cersei's golden hair, Lancel's dry white hair (after his illness), Cersei's golden hair, Lord Merryweather's dark-haired Myrish wife, King Aerys silver-gold tangle, his own gold beard (that Cersei plucks a grey hair out of, observing 'All the color is draining out of you', Josmyn Peckledon's greasy mouse-brown hair, Sansa's auburn hair, Raff's sandy hair,Hoat's absurd beard, Orton Merryweather's carrot-hair, Lady Mariya Frey's hair streaked with grey,Lancel's white hair (only around the ears, since he got his tonsure), Ser Daven's tangled yellow thicket (on his head), Lysa's long auburn hair,the few white wisps of Emmon Frey, Brynden's stiff grey hair, Edwyn Frey's lank dark hair,Lord Piper's bush of wild red hair, the straw-haired queen of whores, Edmure's auburn hair, Jeyne Westerling's chestnut brown curls, Tom 'o Seven's thin brown hair, Lady Joanna Lannister's spun gold hair.

So far, in Jaime's point of view, Lancel has white hair, Daven has yellow hair. Lannisters of the rock invariably have golden or gold hair. Tommen is the only possible exception, but only in a hypothetical future:

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the Iron Throne belongs to Tommen now. I mean for him to sit on it until his hair turns white (ASoS, Ch.67 Jaime VIII)

Really, not so nuanced.

All your other points may well be so.

[Walda]

Bran

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liked the way the air tasted way up high, sweet and cold as a winter peach.(AGoT, Ch.08 Bran II)

and 

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It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran’s life. (AGoT, Ch.01 Bran1)

Sweet summer child that he is, what does Bran know of winter peaches?

Even in the real world, peaches are a summer fruit (as early as May, as late as September). The sweetest are the late summer varieties. They don't store well.

A winter peach is one that has been shipped from the opposite side of the globe in cold storage. Usually somewhat tasteless, as they are picked a bit early so they are hard and won't bruise in transit. Or maybe Bran is thinking about canned peaches, sweetened with sugar syrup, stored in the fridge and served with icecream. Escoffier eat your heart out.

ETA: Thinking on it, it is especially odd that GRRM has a winter peach here (or anywhere in the Song of Ice and Fire), given his 'taste the peach'/knights of Summer motif. He knows very well that the late summer/early autumn is the time for tasting peaches, that there won't be any fresh peaches in the Winds of Winter.

[Walda]

 

Drogon's eyes are red (AGoT, Ch.72 Daenerys X; ADwD, Ch.50 Daenerys VIII), Viserion's (ADwD, Ch.02 Daenerys I; ADwD, Ch.68 The Dragontamer) molten gold like his namesake's crown. Matching their horns, wingbones, spinal plates and crests, consistent with the colour scheme we are given when we first see their eggs. 

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One egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and went depending on how Dany turned it. Another was pale cream streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea, yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls.(AGoT, Ch.11 Daenerys II)

In ADwD Ch.68, Quentyn notices a couple of times that Rhaegal has bronze eyes:

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The dragon’s head was larger than a horse’s, and the neck stretched on and on, uncoiling like some great green serpent as the head rose, until those two glowing bronze eyes were staring down at him.
Green, the prince thought, his scales are green. “Rhaegal,” he said.(ADwD, Ch.68 The Dragontamer)

and Daenarys, who identified them to him, seems to confirm this is the case from her PoV too, when she makes a solitary visit to them:

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Daenerys Targaryen stepped into the hot heart of darkness and stopped at the lip of a deep pit. Forty feet below, her dragons raised their heads. Four eyes burned through the shadows—two of molten gold and two of bronze.(ADwD, Ch.11 Daenerys II)

Yet, in Qarth, when Quhuru Mo tells Dany that Robert Baratheon is dead, and Dany tells him that Viserys is also dead:

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“Then I grieve for you, Dragonmother, and for bleeding Westeros, bereft of its rightful king.”
Beneath Dany’s gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. (ACoK, Ch.27 Daenerys II)

Given the subject of their conversation, I don't think it is really the eye colour that is wrong here, but the dragon. White Viserion is the logical choice.