Wow, I never noticed that v.17

[HexMachina]

Some of the surviving Bloody Mummers we’re heading to Oldtown to look for a ship to return to Essos. The Bloody Mummers are a notoriously depraved and hateful sellsword company. Oldtown is about to be attacked by someone I think they would get along with wonderfully!  

[Jô Maltese]

10 hours ago, Ckram said:

This quick "join and leave" is precisely why I think it was a plot demand.

And leaving kingsguard makes it all even worse for Sandor (and House Clegane). No wise ruler would pardon him.

Only Sansa would have an personal reason to accept him... Well, and maybe there we have it, a reasonable use for the unkiss: setting things up so Sansa have a reason to intercede for the Hound.

If so, I see three possible scenarios:

1. Sansa saves the Hound, and we'll have an at least platonic love story;
2. Sansa intercedes for the Hound but he gets killed anyway, and then she'll hate the person who murdered him;
3. Sansa recall that she have already did something similar for Dontos and it turned out that he sold her to Littlefinger, and then Sansa, in a similar fashion of Jon Snow's "kill the boy" demeanor, won't intercede for the Hound - and the love story expectancy will turn into ashes.

Ok, enough with fanfics.

Or Sansa becomes THE Queen and Sandor becomes a KG again...

[Seams]

3 hours ago, Jô Maltese said:

Or Sansa becomes THE Queen and Sandor becomes a KG again...

I think this is right.

Sandor is Sansa's Brienne or Ser Duncan the Tall or Areo Hotah.

(But he is also the Long Night!)

[Ckram]

5 hours ago, Jô Maltese said:

Or Sansa becomes THE Queen and Sandor becomes a KG again...

This fits scenario #1

[Ivan Tsarevich]

18 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Sandor did not say the vows.

He was given the cloak anyway.

A Game of Thrones - Sansa V     "How do you like that, dog?" King Joffrey asked.   The Hound's scarred face was hard to read. He took a long moment to consider. "Why not? I have no lands nor wife to forsake, and who'd care if I did?" The burned side of his mouth twisted. "But I warn you, I'll say no knight's vows."    "The Sworn Brothers of the Kingsguard have always been knights," Ser Boros said firmly.    "Until now," the Hound said in his deep rasp, and Ser Boros fell silent./

If I may...

I don't think the oath of the Kingsguard and and the vows of knights are same thing. Rather sure they're not.

I refer you to Jaime and Barristan. Both are already knights

Quote

At fifteen, I rode with Ser Arthur Dayne against the Kingswood Brotherhood, and he knighted me on the battlefield.

Quote

Yet it seemed like only yesterday that he had been raised to knighthood, after the tourney at King's Landing. He could still recall the touch of King Aegon's sword upon his shoulder, light as a maiden's kiss. His words had caught in his throat when he spoke his vows.

yet both say more vows when they join Kingsguard.

Quote

King Aerys made a great show of Jaime's investiture. He said his vows before the king's pavilion, kneeling on the green grass in white armor while half the realm looked on. When Ser Gerold Hightower raised him up and put the white cloak about his shoulders, a roar went up that Jaime still remembered, all these years later.

Quote

Sansa watched as the knight peered up at his new king. She had never seen him look his years before, yet now he did. "Your Grace," he said. "I was chosen for the White Swords in my twenty-third year. It was all I had ever dreamed, from the moment I first took sword in hand. I gave up all claim to my ancestral keep. The girl I was to wed married my cousin in my place, I had no need of land or sons, my life would be lived for the realm. Ser Gerold Hightower himself heard my vows . . . to ward the king with all my strength . . . to give my blood for his . . . I fought beside the White Bull and Prince Lewyn of Dorne . . . beside Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. Before I served your father, I helped shield King Aerys, and his father Jaehaerys before him . . . three kings . . ." 

So having pointed that out, do note that Sandor does not seem to oppose forsaking lands or wife, it's knightly vows he refuses to say. And given he's listed as 'sworn shield to Prince Joffrey' in AGoT appendix, it might be reasonable to say that he does not necessarily have a problem with vows in general.

I'm not saying he definitely must have taken the Kingsguard oath. Haven't seen him do. I'm saying he might have. GRRM sometimes does things off page without necessarily bothering to spell them out for us, like, I think, Jon learning of the Red Wedding. And like Jaime says...

Quote

"So many vows . . . they make you swear and swear.

 

[HexMachina]

@TsarGrey

Quote

So having pointed that out, do note that Sandor does not seem to oppose forsaking lands or wife

Hardly the greatest sacrifice since he had neither  

[Ivan Tsarevich]

31 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Hardly the greatest sacrifice since he had neither

Doesn't rule out him perhaps having stirring interest on certain girl, or implication possibility of him giving up such prospects for the future.

[Clegane'sPup]

20 hours ago, TsarGrey said:

If I may... 

Sure you may.  Ideas open conversation.

20 hours ago, TsarGrey said:

I don't think the oath of the Kingsguard and and the vows of knights are same thing. Rather sure they're not.

Okee dokee I'm expressing a personal opinion but I dunna comprehend why readers and posters are so hung up the VOWS.

Usually when I post textual information I include the book and chapter so that individuals who are interested in reading the context may do so.

 

[Ckram]

21 hours ago, TsarGrey said:

I'm not saying he definitely must have taken the Kingsguard oath.

Neither we are stating the opposite. However, Hound's admission was not done by the standard procedure, then any duebity, lack of confirmation makes room for speculation.

As many have pointed out, Sandor expected to have to give up his right to lands and wife. So he consciously removed himself from House Clegane. But, since he wasn't a knight, and by tradition only knights can be kingsguard, people (us and the characters) can argue forever about if his admission was an unlawful act or not. And so on.

[Ivan Tsarevich]

3 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Okee dokee I'm expressing a personal opinion but I dunna comprehend why readers and posters are so hung up the VOWS.

Well I am the guy like that.

2 hours ago, Ckram said:

Neither we are stating the opposite. However, Hound's admission was not done by the standard procedure, then any duebity, lack of confirmation makes room for speculation.

Seems to me Clegane'sPup did, so I reopened the case. Allowing the possible existence of such an oath actually allows more speculation, no?

[Ckram]

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

Seems to me Clegane'sPup did

You're right. Sorry.

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

Allowing the possible existence of such an oath actually allows more speculation, no?

I don't understand. Mind to elaborate?

[Ivan Tsarevich]

10 minutes ago, Ckram said:

I don't understand. Mind to elaborate?

I'm arguing that Sandor's refusal to say knight's vows doesn't equate refusing the Kingsguard oath, therefore making it possible that he is, in fact, legally bound to celibacy/landlessness/any limitation coming with the white cloak, if he actually undertook that latter vow. So, when you for example said on previous page that 'GRRM made Sandor join the Kingsguard in order to remove him from the sucession line', you may be correct.

On the contrary, if he did not take that vow, he is not bound by any of that, but simply a fugitive.* Tommen might have actually judicially outlawed him, but I'm not sure.** It may be one of the decrees he is made to sign.

See?

*If him being listed as sworn shield in AGoT appendix indicates what I think does, there may third vow, which he also would naturally have broken when he deserted.

**I have more than half a mind to say that that should follow automatically from breaking the King's Peace. So I may be mistaken here.

[Ckram]

27 minutes ago, TsarGrey said:

See?

I see but I fail to understand why "allowing the possible existence of such an oath actually allows more speculation". Would you mind further elaboration?

[Ivan Tsarevich]

2 minutes ago, Ckram said:

I see but I fail to understand why "allowing the possible existence of such an oath actually allows more speculation". Would you mind further elaboration?

I just meant that rather than closing the possibility that Sandor undertook the KG oath, we should keep it open. More possible paths leads to more outcomes kind of thinking.

I'm not hinting I have some speculation of my own to disclose.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

In case you needed more reason to believe the Others will not like dragons...

I just noticed this on a re read of F & B.

Quote

...Her Grace grew ever more grey and haggard. She could not sleep and would not eat. Nor would she suffer to be parted from Prince Aegon, her last living son; day and night, the boy remained by her side, “like a small pale shadow.”

Aegon III, the Dragonbane, known for his dislike of dragons, is described as a "pale shadow".

I don't need to post all the times the Others are described as "pale shadows", right? 

[Bael's Bastard]

A score or more of Walder Frey's sons and grandsons began to bang their cups again, shouting, "To bed! To bed! To bed with them!" Roslin had gone white. Catelyn wondered whether it was the prospect of losing her maidenhead that frightened the girl, or the bedding itself. With so many siblings, she was not like to be a stranger to the custom, but it was different when you were the one being bedded. On Catelyn's own wedding night, Jory Cassell had torn her gown in his haste to get her out of it, and drunken Desmond Grell kept apologizing for every bawdy joke, only to make another. When Lord Dustin had beheld her naked, he'd told Ned that her breasts were enough to make him wish he'd never been weaned. Poor man, she thought. He had ridden south with Ned, never to return. Catelyn wondered how many of the men here tonight would be dead before the year was done. Too many, I fear. (ASOS: Catelyn VII)

Lady Barbrey can't seem to catch a break re: Catelyn.

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

A score or more of Walder Frey's sons and grandsons began to bang their cups again, shouting, "To bed! To bed! To bed with them!" Roslin had gone white. Catelyn wondered whether it was the prospect of losing her maidenhead that frightened the girl, or the bedding itself. With so many siblings, she was not like to be a stranger to the custom, but it was different when you were the one being bedded. On Catelyn's own wedding night, Jory Cassell had torn her gown in his haste to get her out of it, and drunken Desmond Grell kept apologizing for every bawdy joke, only to make another. When Lord Dustin had beheld her naked, he'd told Ned that her breasts were enough to make him wish he'd never been weaned. Poor man, she thought. He had ridden south with Ned, never to return. Catelyn wondered how many of the men here tonight would be dead before the year was done. Too many, I fear. (ASOS: Catelyn VII)

Lady Barbrey can't seem to catch a break re: Catelyn.

At least she probably wouldn't have heard him say that, since, if she had been there, she woulda been stripping the Ned. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

In Jon's first chapter, when he and Benjen observe Jon's, um... father, the author tells us that the Ned sits among Robert and the Lannisters with "hooded eyes, seeing nothing." Sets the theme  for the Ned's short arc, doesn't it? 

[Bael's Bastard]

9 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

At least she probably wouldn't have heard him say that, since, if she had been there, she woulda been stripping the Ned. 

Yeah, I doubt Barbrey would have been present for Ned and Catelyn's wedding and bedding, since they occurred at Riverrun after the Battle of the Bells, in the midst of Robert's Rebellion. Although not explicitly stated, my impression is that the last time Barbrey saw Lord Dustin was before he rode south.

"Lord Dustin and I had not been married half a year when Robert rose and Ned Stark called his banners. I begged my husband not to go. He had kin he might have sent in his stead. An uncle famed for his prowess with an axe, a great-uncle who had fought in the War of the Ninepenny Kings. But he was a man and full of pride, nothing would serve but that he lead the Barrowton levies himself. I gave him a horse the day he set out, a red stallion with a fiery mane, the pride of my lord father's herds. My lord swore that he would ride him home when the war was done.

"Ned Stark returned the horse to me on his way back home to Winterfell. He told me that my lord had died an honorable death, that his body had been laid to rest beneath the red mountains of Dorne. He brought his sister's bones back north, though, and there she rests … but I promise you, Lord Eddard's bones will never rest beside hers. I mean to feed them to my dogs." (ADWD: The Turncloak)

If she ever learned of the remark, which I see no reason to assume she did, it presumably would have had to reach her after the fact from some source that was present, or heard it from someone who was present.

But for the reader it's an interesting tidbit.

The only detail we hear of Lord Dustin between riding off to war after being wed to Barbrey for just half a year, and dying at the Tower of Joy months after the last major battle of the war, is his ogling at Catelyn before she was bedded by Ned.

[Seams]

5 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

. . . When Lord Dustin had beheld her naked, he'd told Ned that her breasts were enough to make him wish he'd never been weaned. Poor man, she thought. He had ridden south with Ned, never to return. Catelyn wondered how many of the men here tonight would be dead before the year was done. Too many, I fear. (ASOS: Catelyn VII)

To me, this is a clue about the fate or current whereabouts of Lord Dustin. I suspect there is a set of dairy symbols around wetnurses, nipples on a breastplate, the Milkwater and House Darry, among other references. (Maybe also cheese? Almost certainly eggs.) We are told that Ser Willem Darry took the children Viserys and Daenerys to Braavos with the help of four loyal men. I suspect Lord Dustin was one of the loyal men but his initial point of departure was the Tower of Joy (if that is truly where Ned and his posse encountered the King's Guard members), not Dragonstone. Dustin was loyal to the Starks, and I think Ned sent a baby Dany with him (and the other loyal men) before they picked up Viserys at Dragonstone. The reference to breastfeeding is a hint about Dustin's willingness to go with Lord Darry.