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Not understanding Reek's speech


False Aegon

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I'm not sure what's wrong with my reading comprehension skills, but I've read this a dozen times and can't figure out who and what Reek is talking about at the end of the last Theon chapter:

The man laughed. "The wretch is dead." He stepped closer. "The girl's fault." (What girl?) "If she had not run so far, his horse would not have lamed," (Whose horse?)  "and we might have been able to flee." (From what?) "I gave him mine when I saw the riders from the ridge." (What riders? What ridge?) "I was done with her by then. and he liked to take his turn while they were still warm. I had to pull him off her and shove my clothes into his hands - calf-skin boots and velvet doublet, silver-chased swordbelt, even my sable cloak. Ride for the Dreadfort, I told him, bring all the help you can. Take my horse, he's swifter, and here, wear the ring my father gave me, so they'll know you came from me. He'd learned better than to question me. By the time they" (Who?) "put that arrow through his back, I'd smeared myself with the girl's filth and dressed in his rags. They might have hanged me anyway, but it was the only chance I saw."

What context am I missing? What chapter should I re-read to figure out what the hell all of Reek's pronouns mean?"

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First: know that the "Reek" who appears in the last chapter and all chapters before is actually Ramsay Snow, bastard son of Roose Bolton. His masnervant Reek was killed in his place and he pretended to be Reek instead.

The girl: A girl Ramsay and the real Reek (Ramsay's manservant) hunted down raped and killed.

The horse: The real Reek's horse. It appears it went lame when Ramsay and Reek chased the girl.

Flee from whom: Rodrik Cassel and the Stark soldiers with him. Trouble were brewing between House Bolton and House Manderly over the Honrwood lands. Ser Rodrik rode there to calms things down and take care of the Bastard of Bolton.

What riders: Again, Ser Rodrik.

What ridge: Presumably some random ridge on Hornwood lands, close to where Ramsay and Reek had just finished raping a girl.

Who put an arrow through who's back: Ser Rodrik and his men put an arrow through Reek's back, believeing Reek to be Ramsay SNow. Ramsay meanwhile was spared, since they believed him to be Reek.

Hope that helps. I believe Bran IV is the chapter were most of the information is revealed.

 

 

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This is why I'm normally such a slow reader. I plowed through this book from the excitement of it all. Bolton must just be one family too many to keep straight in my head at that pace, because I have no memory of any such family. It makes me wonder what else I must have missed ... do I need to read this whole damn book again, because that is seriously frustrating. 

Sigh. Thanks for the help. I think I'll have to take a break from all this for a while.

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The creepy Leech Lord whose cupbearer Arya becomes at Harrenhal is, as I recall, your main evident eye on the Boltons at this stage...

Sigil of the Flayed Man? OK, I suppose I recall a connection there; just didn't retain the details of the family because it was all related so quickly and second-hand. I'll re-read Bran 4. Still frustrated that what was clearly supposed to be a dramatic reveal went totally over my head.

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Here's the bit from the earlier Bran chapter. 

It was a few days after Alebelly’s bath that Ser Rodrik returned to Winterfell with his prisoner, a fleshy young man with fat moist lips and long hair who smelled like a privy, even worse than Alebelly had. “Reek, he’s called,” Hayhead said when Bran asked who it was. “I never heard his true name. He served the Bastard of Bolton and helped him murder Lady Hornwood, they say.”

The Bastard himself was dead, Bran learned that evening over supper. Ser Rodrik’s men had caught him on Hornwood land doing something horrible (Bran wasn’t quite sure what, but it seemed to be something you did without your clothes) and shot him down with arrows as he tried to ride away.

As The Holy Ghost wrote, it was actually Reek who was killed and Ramsay (pretending to be Reek) who was captured.

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Thanks to everyone for the help. I'm less embarrassed than I was. The relevant parts of the 3 Bran chapters are incredibly short, cursory accounts of the Bolton Bastard, so it's not a huge surprise that I glossed over them as unimportant side stories. Did this happen to anyone else? It's not as though the Bastard has been a major character, or even a large lurking Stannis-like presence, up to this point, so I'm not sure how the reveal can ever be all that dramatic... Maybe if I had been keeping up in the appendices. And the way it's written, I assumed that "the wretch" in my original post was Ser Rodrik, because this speech comes right after he describes how he cut Rodrik's arm off.

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Well, the implications become important in aSoS.

First we learn of Lady Hornwood telling Bran, Rodrik and Luwin that the Bolton Bastard is amassing troops at the mutual border of their lands, and then there is the problem that her husband and son were killed in the wars south. After the harvest feast she goes home with her own small escort and it is later learned that the Bolton Bastard fell upon her and forced her to marry him, sign a paper in making him heir of Hornwood. He then imprisoned her in some tower to starve, where she was found dead, having tried to feed herself on her own fingers. Rodrik goes off with a large party of soldiers to hunt the Bastard, and the Manderlys occupy Hornwood to keep it from falling in Bolton hands. So, in the absence of Robb Stark, at least the Bolton Bastard who was left in the North with 600 heavy horse is brewing trouble in the North. We know he's a cruel man who goes to extreme brash, fearless measures to take whatever he fancies.

Rodrik returns, claiming the Bastard is dead and that he captured his pet servant Reek. They lock Reek up. Then Torrhen Square is attacked, and just like before, Rodrik takes the most of the WF army to chase off the raiders of Torrhen Square. This leaves WF vulnerable for Theon to take WF by grapnel and hook with a few good men, and having Bran and Rickon as hostages, plus the two Freys and the two Reeds. Reek is found in the tower and he offers his services. When Bran and Rickon escape and Theon hunts for them in the woods, Reek is one of those coming along. He has a bag of Stark clothes and wolf pins with him and shows it to Theon when the search for Bran and Rickon looks to be failing. Theon understands Reek's suggested plan, and sends Luwin and the master-of-the-kennels away. 

Theon then goes to the miller, with three ironborn and Reek, where 'Bran' and 'Rickon' are killed and burned so they are unrecognizable, except for the pins that Reek brought with him in the sack. After kiling his valuable 'hostages', Rodrik finally attacks WF. Meanwhile Reek has promised to fetch armed help for Theon. Reek attacks Rodrik's forces in the back, slaughtering forces from House Cerwyn and WF, and then reveals to Theon that he is in fact the Bolton Bastard, Ramsay Snow. When Rodrik Cassel chased him on the lands of Hornwood, he had his servant switch clothes with him (hmmm there's the clothing again), so that the real Reek looked like Ramsay and Ramsay looked like Reek.

So, now you know that Ramsay Snow, son of Roose Bolton, killed Lady Hornwood, stirred trouble in the North from the get-go, killed the Cerwyn heir, and pretty much all the forces loyal to WF, and it was his idea to kill a fake Bran and a fake Rickon, and making the North believe Robb's male Stark heirs are dead. And he's the one who burned WF to the ground.

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Well, the implications become important in aSoS.

First we learn of Lady Hornwood telling Bran, Rodrik and Luwin that the Bolton Bastard is amassing troops at the mutual border of their lands, and then there is the problem that her husband and son were killed in the wars south. After the harvest feast she goes home with her own small escort and it is later learned that the Bolton Bastard fell upon her and forced her to marry him, sign a paper in making him heir of Hornwood. He then imprisoned her in some tower to starve, where she was found dead, having tried to feed herself on her own fingers. Rodrik goes off with a large party of soldiers to hunt the Bastard, and the Manderlys occupy Hornwood to keep it from falling in Bolton hands. So, in the absence of Robb Stark, at least the Bolton Bastard who was left in the North with 600 heavy horse is brewing trouble in the North. We know he's a cruel man who goes to extreme brash, fearless measures to take whatever he fancies.

Rodrik returns, claiming the Bastard is dead and that he captured his pet servant Reek. They lock Reek up. Then Torrhen Square is attacked, and just like before, Rodrik takes the most of the WF army to chase off the raiders of Torrhen Square. This leaves WF vulnerable for Theon to take WF by grapnel and hook with a few good men, and having Bran and Rickon as hostages, plus the two Freys and the two Reeds. Reek is found in the tower and he offers his services. When Bran and Rickon escape and Theon hunts for them in the woods, Reek is one of those coming along. He has a bag of Stark clothes and wolf pins with him and shows it to Theon when the search for Bran and Rickon looks to be failing. Theon understands Reek's suggested plan, and sends Luwin and the master-of-the-kennels away. 

Theon then goes to the miller, with three ironborn and Reek, where 'Bran' and 'Rickon' are killed and burned so they are unrecognizable, except for the pins that Reek brought with him in the sack. After kiling his valuable 'hostages', Rodrik finally attacks WF. Meanwhile Reek has promised to fetch armed help for Theon. Reek attacks Rodrik's forces in the back, slaughtering forces from House Cerwyn and WF, and then reveals to Theon that he is in fact the Bolton Bastard, Ramsay Snow. When Rodrik Cassel chased him on the lands of Hornwood, he had his servant switch clothes with him (hmmm there's the clothing again), so that the real Reek looked like Ramsay and Ramsay looked like Reek.

So, now you know that Ramsay Snow, son of Roose Bolton, killed Lady Hornwood, stirred trouble in the North from the get-go, killed the Cerwyn heir, and pretty much all the forces loyal to WF, and it was his idea to kill a fake Bran and a fake Rickon, and making the North believe Robb's male Stark heirs are dead. And he's the one who burned WF to the ground.

Magnificent post, applause! 

Im actually going to re-read this in a short time (today delivered from amazon, yayyy :) ) and this is a part I MOST enjoyed in my first time, so looking forwad to this again!

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This is why I'm normally such a slow reader. I plowed through this book from the excitement of it all. Bolton must just be one family too many to keep straight in my head at that pace, because I have no memory of any such family. It makes me wonder what else I must have missed ... do I need to read this whole damn book again, because that is seriously frustrating. 

Sigh. Thanks for the help. I think I'll have to take a break from all this for a while.

The second read was even better than the first for me. I got lost in the whole Bolton/Hornwood line, and a whole bunch of other things, but the second read came through a lot clearer -- probably because I had some foresight into what was going to happen.

In fact, I've read straight through at least three times, and then did a few POV's from start to finish, and now I run through a random chapter every once in a while, and I'm still see things for the first time.

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  • 6 months later...
25 minutes ago, rob_stark said:

Does this have any significance?

Reek-Ramsay brought direwolf pins with him in a sack. They can be used to identify disfigured child bodies as those being Rickon and Bran, even if they are not. The significance is that Reek-Ramsay planned to frame Theon into murdering children to make them look like the Stark boys, and the other significance is that Theon fully understands and agrees to this plan when Reek-Ramsay shows Theon these pins in the forest while they're searching for the escaped Rickon and Bran.

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  • 2 months later...

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