Small Questions v. 10104

[The Snow Bear]

In ASoS Janos Slynt gets to preside over Jon Snows hearing when he is acused of being a turncloak and even kind of gets the command in Castle Black. At this point he is new to the Watch (we even haven't any confirmation of him swearing the Night's Watch oath, yet) Alliser Thorne on the other hand is a rather high officer of the watch. Is there any in universe explanation for Slynt outranking Thorne? (even with the royal endorsement)

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 hours ago, The Snow Bear said:

In ASoS Janos Slynt gets to preside over Jon Snows hearing when he is acused of being a turncloak and even kind of gets the command in Castle Black. At this point he is new to the Watch (we even haven't any confirmation of him swearing the Night's Watch oath, yet) Alliser Thorne on the other hand is a rather high officer of the watch. Is there any in universe explanation for Slynt outranking Thorne? (even with the royal endorsement)

He was the Lord Commander of the City Watch in King's Landing and had Tywin's favor at the Wall. 

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

17 hours ago, RoamingRonin said:

That's a good point. Perhaps they can only breed at a certain size.

I'd sooner say it has got something to do with their age than their size. But that's just speculation, of course.

[The Snow Bear]

13 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

He was the Lord Commander of the City Watch in King's Landing and had Tywin's favor at the Wall. 

Yes, but none of this should count in the Night's Watch hierarchy.

There's a lot of fuss about that you get a carte blanche when you enter the Watch. All your crimes a wiped away but so is your status.

His former high lordery as well as Tywins favour could have been a factor in the choosing of a new Lord Commander but up to this point Slynt could imo not have been more than a simple man of the Night's Watch 

[Lost Melnibonean]

3 minutes ago, The Snow Bear said:

Yes, but none of this should count in the Night's Watch hierarchy.

There's a lot of fuss about that you get a carte blanche when you enter the Watch. All your crimes a wiped away but so is your status.

His former high lordery as well as Tywins favour could have been a factor in the choosing of a new Lord Commander but up to this point Slynt could imo not have been more than a simple man of the Night's Watch 

Where was this said? Knighthood and birth still count for a great deal in the Night's Watch.

[The Snow Bear]

45 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Where was this said? Knighthood and birth still count for a great deal in the Night's Watch.

Well as I understood it knighthood and high birth mean a lot informally. As a knight or a lord would find high regard in the watch. And would, like little lordling Royce, get a commando rather soon. But formally there should be no difference between a simple comoner and a high lord. As the differences between Cotter Pike and Denys Mallister should show. 

[Raisin' Bran]

On ‎2‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 1:06 AM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

That's a signature . You can add a signature (or, later, change it) in your profile settings. 

That was what I was trying to do. I guess I was not looking in quite the right spot.

[The Wolves]

Are there any Muslim like religions or places in the world of ASOIAF? 

And could someone tell me what kind of real world religion the Old Gods are based off of? 

Thanks. 

[RumHam]

6 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Where was this said? Knighthood and birth still count for a great deal in the Night's Watch.

 

Quote

That night he sought out his uncle in the great timbered common hall and pleaded to go with him. Benjen refused him curtly. “This is not Winterfell,” he told him as he cut his meat with fork and dagger. “On the Wall, a man gets only what he earns. You’re no ranger, Jon, only a green boy with the smell of summer still on you.”

Quote

Mormont scarcely seemed to hear him. The old man warmed his hands before the fire. “I sent Benjen Stark to search after Yohn Royce’s son, lost on his first ranging. The Royce boy was green as summer grass, yet he insisted on the honor of his own command, saying it was his due as a knight. I did not wish to offend his lord father, so I yielded. I sent him out with two men I deemed as good as any in the Watch. More fool.”

Seem to indicate as much, but also that Mormont was willing to bend the rules for political reasons, not just because Royce was a knight. 

1 hour ago, The Wolves said:

Are there any Muslim like religions or places in the world of ASOIAF? 

And could someone tell me what kind of real world religion the Old Gods are based off of? 

Thanks. 

I dunno about Islam. I think the Faith is probably the closest to the three Abrahamic religions, though it's clearly mostly based on Christianity. I'd say the Old Gods are closest to some pagan belief systems. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

7 hours ago, The Snow Bear said:

Well as I understood it knighthood and high birth mean a lot informally. As a knight or a lord would find high regard in the watch. And would, like little lordling Royce, get a commando rather soon. But formally there should be no difference between a simple comoner and a high lord. As the differences between Cotter Pike and Denys Mallister should show. 

Just because a commoner can rise high doesn't mean a knight would fall low. 

[Lommy's Shade]

8 hours ago, The Snow Bear said:

Well as I understood it knighthood and high birth mean a lot informally. As a knight or a lord would find high regard in the watch. And would, like little lordling Royce, get a commando rather soon. But formally there should be no difference between a simple comoner and a high lord. As the differences between Cotter Pike and Denys Mallister should show. 

When the Watch was larger, the knights would dine apart from the commoners. So I would say that there's always been a difference.

Quote

The Shieldhall was one of the older parts of Castle Black, a long drafty feast hall of dark stone, its oaken rafters black with the smoke of centuries. Back when the Night’s Watch had been much larger, its walls had been hung with rows of brightly colored wooden shields. Then as now, when a knight took the black, tradition decreed that he set aside his former arms and take up the plain black shield of the brotherhood. The shields thus discarded would hang in the Shieldhall.

 

Hundreds of knights meant hundreds of shields. Hawks and eagles, dragons and griffins, suns and stags, wolves and wyverns, manticores, bulls, trees and flowers, harps, spears, crabs and krakens, red lions and golden lions and chequy lions, owls, lambs, maids and mermen, stallions, stars, buckets and buckles, flayed men and hanged men and burning men, axes, longswords, turtles, unicorns, bears, quills, spiders and snakes and scorpions, and a hundred other heraldic charges had adorned the Shieldhall walls, blazoned in more colors than any rainbow ever dreamed of.

 

But when a knight died, his shield was taken down, that it might go with him to his pyre or his tomb, and over the years and centuries fewer and fewer knights had taken the black. A day came when it no longer made sense for the knights of Castle Black to dine apart. The Shieldhall was abandoned. In the last hundred years, it had been used only infrequently. As a dining hall, it left much to be desired— it was dark, dirty, drafty, and hard to heat in winter, its cellars infested with rats, its massive wooden rafters worm-eaten and festooned with cobwebs.

 

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

On 14-2-2016 at 8:50 PM, Raisin' Bran said:

That was what I was trying to do. I guess I was not looking in quite the right spot.

I see that it worked

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

Who does Bran meet in the cave on the way north in Bran II of SoS? He thinks it's a Liddle. Is that who it is? Any other theories?

[Lost Melnibonean]

59 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Who does Bran meet in the cave on the way north in Bran II of SoS? He thinks it's a Liddle. Is that who it is? Any other theories?

Since you asked...

Bran knew him for a Liddle because he wrapped some food for them in a green & white cloth and he wore a clasp of gold and bronze wrought in the shape of a pinecone. I think Bran's Liddle is marching with Stannis's host.  

The Liddle is definitely not the man murdered at Queenscrown. That man was old, 50-60. And as far as we know old characters are described as old in ASOIAF. He was also on the Gift and Jon told Stannis that the Norreys were closest to the Gift and good friends of the NW, suggesting the murdered man may have been a Norrey.

The Liddle encountered by Bran was not personally described. Since he was not old Bran's Liddle probably was not THE Liddle since THE Liddle had three sons, at least two of which were grown.

That the Liddle's clasp was gold and bronze clearly suggests that he was relatively affluent. I think it implies that he was one of the Liddle's sons. We know from the Appendix to Dance that the Liddle has three sons. The Big Liddle seems to be one of Jon's preferred brothers in the NW. We don't know anything about Little Liddle other than he's the youngest. But we do know that Morgan "Middle" Liddle was the northman who took down Asha at DW and continued on with Stannis to WF. Since he was wearing a byrnie of mail Asha assumed right away that he was a chief. Unfortunately she never notices a gold and bronze clasp. She noticed he was big, bald & bearded and fought with an axe. Unfortunately, none of those things are noted by Bran. But I did see these two similarities:

From Bran II, Storm --The Liddle took out a knife and whittled at a stick.

From The Wayward Bride, Dance --His axe was shivering her shield, cracking the wood on the downswing, tearing off long pale splinters when he wrenched it back.

I am thinking Middle Liddle will not survive the Siege of Winterfell...

 

[The Fattest Leech]

I think this is a small question. Feel free to advise me otherwise if not.

Why was Mellario of Norvos (Doran Martell's wife) so ready to leave behind her only three children half a world away just because "she didn't fit in" while in Dorne, yet one of the reasons she dislikes Dorne/Westeros is because they foster out their young children to other families. Seems kinda hypocritical.

Here is a quote from GRRM:

"It wasn't a good marriage [with Doran]. They married because of an attraction to something new and exotic. Sometimes, attraction happens when you least expect it. He was a prince of a distant country, and she was a woman full of life, who was very appealing, who came from a very different culture. When she comes to Dorne, she finds that there are customs that are different from those of Norvos, especially regarding the fostering away of children to others."

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

37 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I think this is a small question. Feel free to advise me otherwise if not.

Why was Mellario of Norvos (Doran Martell's wife) so ready to leave behind her only three children half a world away just because "she didn't fit in" while in Dorne, yet one of the reasons she dislikes Dorne/Westeros is because they foster out their young children to other families. Seems kinda hypocritical.

Here is a quote from GRRM:

"It wasn't a good marriage [with Doran]. They married because of an attraction to something new and exotic. Sometimes, attraction happens when you least expect it. He was a prince of a distant country, and she was a woman full of life, who was very appealing, who came from a very different culture. When she comes to Dorne, she finds that there are customs that are different from those of Norvos, especially regarding the fostering away of children to others."

The cultural clashes between Norvos and Dorne are a big part of what caused the problems between Doran and Mellario. Presumably, they were simply too different from one another for the marriage to work long-term. Mellario hated the fact that Quentyn was sent away, and the idea of Arianne being sent away as well was the straw that broke the camel's back. She was not happy in Dorne, and seeing her children being sent away only made that worse. In the end, she decided to return to the place where she could be a little happier, and that was Norvos.

In the same interview as you partially quoted above, GRRM clearly states that that wasn't completely what Mellario wanted either. 

There's some bitterness from Mellario about this, because as Prince of Dorne, Doran has been able to stay with his children and she has had to leave them.

Her children had to stay in Dorne. But Mellario, because it just wasn't working, could choose: stay in Dorne and remain unhappy, or return to her family in Norvos, and be a little more happy, despite the fact that it will mean no longer being able to see your children.

Neither option was a perfect solution, but in the end, Mellario had to make a choice, and live with the choice she made.

[The Fattest Leech]

1 minute ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

The cultural clashes between Norvos and Dorne are a big part of what caused the problems between Doran and Mellario. Presumably, they were simply too different from one another for the marriage to work long-term. Mellario hated the fact that Quentyn was sent away, and the idea of Arianne being sent away as well was the straw that broke the camel's back. She was not happy in Dorne, and seeing her children being sent away only made that worse. In the end, she decided to return to the place where she could be a little happier, and that was Norvos.

In the same interview as you partially quoted above, GRRM clearly states that that wasn't completely what Mellario wanted either. 

There's some bitterness from Mellario about this, because as Prince of Dorne, Doran has been able to stay with his children and she has had to leave them.

Her children had to stay in Dorne. But Mellario, because it just wasn't working, could choose: stay in Dorne and remain unhappy, or return to her family in Norvos, and be a little more happy, despite the fact that it will mean no longer being able to see your children.

Neither option was a perfect solution, but in the end, Mellario had to make a choice, and live with the choice she made.

Thank you.

I figured there would still be an alternative until the children got older. Doran went with Westerosi tradition anyway by sending Quentyn away so it kinda feels like a lose/lose. They were already set apart from marital norms to begin with and it could make sense that they would come to a mutual understanding concerning the kids and livelihood for a while, especially Mellario... a sort of "this is my half of the sofa, this is yours" type of deal until the kids were grown and off to college.

[Dr Qyburn M.D]

So in ACOK when Tyrion is preparing for Stannis's arrival he sends his mountain clans into the kingswood to harass stannis' forces. But I thought Stannis and his fleet sailed straight in from Dragonstone, so when and who did the mountain clans attack?

[TheSnowInWinterfell]

So in ACOK when Tyrion is preparing for Stannis's arrival he sends his mountain clans into the kingswood to harass stannis' forces. But I thought Stannis and his fleet sailed straight in from Dragonstone, so when and who did the mountain clans attack?

His fleet sailed, his foot and cavalry came up from Storms End after shadow baby number 2 threw Penrose from the battlements.

[Dr Qyburn M.D]

7 minutes ago, TheSnowInWinterfell said:

His fleet sailed, his foot and cavalry came up from Storms End after shadow baby number 2 threw Penrose from the battlements.

Ah yes I knew it was something simple, I really should of known that

Thanks pal