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FIRE AND BLOOD EXCERPT


Moondancer

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9 hours ago, Ran said:

If it is not a mistake, then it means one has to ferret out how it works. As I already said, we'll check with George and Anne about it when we can, but until then, seems like a reasonable place to speculate. And even if it is a mistake, we still have plenty to wonder about regarding the Citadel's organization.

If the regalia represents that you are "department head" -- or perhaps a better phrase would be "head lecturer" --  I just mean that the person is actually the one responsible for lecturing and giving exams on a given subject. Given real world academics, many academics see teaching and exams as a necessary but unfulfilling part of their job, a distraction from writing and research. One imagines it is the same with archmaesters. If the role "head lecturer" in a subject can move among different archmaesters, perhaps over a set term, this would then mean there would be itinerant archmaesters who would have no duties other than attending the Conclave and otherwise researching and writing  and experimenting to their heart's content for a time. 

This would perhaps help to explain the fact that Archmaester Marwyn had been away for eight years, for his research, if he was not compelled to remain at the Citadel to carry out his teaching duties because there was someone else who could do what he did. 

Complicating all this, we have Maester Gormon sitting in to take care of Walgrave's duties as the rod holder in ravenry. Why a maester rather than another archmaester?

I mean, an issue here is we have 21 archmaesters listed, and 15 metals known... and I can't really think of more than 2 more metals/alloys, for 17 (white gold and _maybe_ zinc). Do the 21 known archmaesters mean 21 known areas of knowledge? Or fewer than that, and some of them don't hold rods? Or are there some duplicate rod holders? And are there more archmaesters than the 21 named?

If ever there were a 2nd edition of TWoIaF, a little more detail on the organization of the Citadel and the Faith would please me.

On the metals thing, is there any wiggle room for them not to be metal? Don’t recall what is written exactly, but it would add, for example wooden masks and...well not much else actually. Oh. I suppose, theoretically, you could have something like a gold mask studded with ruby to represent subject X instead of the subject represented by plain gold :dunno: the idea there being that once you cycle through the core metals you add something on to them for a new area of knowledge

 

 

Poor Meria :( 

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You could certainly have a wooden one, I suppose, and then that leaves room for stone as well -- anything that can be carved. That would certainly increase numbers. But every maester's chain, including the enormous chain of the Grand Maester as worn by Pycelle, is only ever described as containing metals.

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Interesting tidbits I've noticed in the Russian preview:

  • After Orys Baratheon was ransomed with the sword hand cut off, Aegon meant to revenge and burnt the castles in the Red Mountains to molten stone. However, the Wyls are protected by caves and underground passages of Wyl castle. (The app says that in the Wyl entry, and now we know its source.)
  • Dornish lords killed by assasins: Lord Fowler, Lord Vaith, Lady Toland, four Lords of Hellholt.
  • TWOIAF says "Worse occurred at the hands of the Wyl of Wyl, whose deeds we need not recount; they are infamous enough and still remembered, especially in Fawnton and Old Oak." Now we know what he've done. The Wyl of Wyl came unannounced to the wedding of Ser Jon Cafferen, the heir to Fawnton, and Alice(?) Oakheart, daughter of Lord Oakheart. Lord Oakheart and almost all the guests are killed, Lady Alice herself and her servants were raped in a crowd and sold to a Myrish slave trader. (That's why later when Princess Deria brought peace teams, Lord Oakheart suggested to sent her to the brothels.)
  • Theories about the contents of Nymor Martell's letter: Some believe that the prince had only found words in his father’s heart that had touched Aegon’s father’s heart. Others claim that Nymor listed there all the lords and knights who died during the war. Some septons declare the yellow toad wrote it before death, using the blood of Queen Rhaenys instead of ink, and the king could not resist her black magic. The Grand Maester Clegg, who came to King’s Landing twenty years later, came to the conclusion that Dorne had no more strength to fight, and despairing Nymor threatened the king with something. For example, by ordering the Faceless Men to kill his son from Rhaenys.
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Also, I find the Dornish part only says Aegon slew Lord Toland's mad fool, without saying House Toland changed its sigil for him. Considering in AFFC Arianne says the dragon symbolized that time has no beginning and no end, I wonder if @Ranor GRRM introduced an inconsistency in explaining the Toland sigil, and decided to remove it in F&B.

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4 hours ago, Ran said:

Rather obvious that that's the case. Heh.

Well, considering her advanced age at that point it would still have been a pretty satisfying way to go if she was into that kind of thing... But then, probably just nonsense. It makes for a funny picture, though.

3 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Yeah I did have the chains in mind, and didn’t recall specific mention of any non-metal links, just Pycelle’s being rather luxurious, but that seems more decoration than part of the links he has earned. Just a thought. 

Actually, considering that the archmaesters could just make links for, well, ever, one wonders whether the Grand Maester chain is not actually based on the chain of the first archmaester chosen to be Grand Maester and was then just adorned with some jewels and the like.

2 hours ago, zionius said:

Google translation says that. I think it's something like "the prince says words from his father’s heart, that had touched Aegon’s heart as a father."

One assumes this means that Nymor spoke to Aegon from father to father, or something of that sort.

Being as superstitious as I am, I say the letter contained a spell. The septons are right on that one. Only magic could have bend the will of the mighty Conqueror.

The Wyl thing seems to actually be the first Red Wedding in Westerosi history. It would be interesting to see if the Marchers/Stormlanders and Dornishmen who should feature rather prominently in TWoW will bring that one up when discussing our Red Wedding. After all the Wyls and Oakhearts and Cafferens might all find each other in Aegon's armies.

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2 hours ago, zionius said:

Also, I find the Dornish part only says Aegon slew Lord Toland's mad fool, without saying House Toland changed its sigil for him. Considering in AFFC Arianne says the dragon symbolized that time has no beginning and no end, I wonder if @Ranor GRRM introduced an inconsistency in explaining the Toland sigil, and decided to remove it in F&B.

Arianne's statement is just a different take on the meaning, three hundred years on. THe first TWoW chapter actually has the Tolands say it comes from the Conquest, just as we had in TWoIaF.

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2 hours ago, Ran said:

The Russian text is not the final text. The matter is clarified in the final edition.

Well, now I am intrigued. What do you mean by "Russian text is not final" - did they get a draft or something? 

You know, we dragged Russian translator a lot over many inconsistencies of her translations (missed phrases, wrong context etc), but if she was working with draft this time, probably we were not very just. 

Sure thing, it doesn't transform stout into vodka (yep, Alysanne drank vodka on the Wall) and it doesn't mean lords sent their ugliest daughters to Aegon I as potential brides, but some other errors were not hers...

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7 minutes ago, DanaKz said:

Well, now I am intrigued. What do you mean by "Russian text is not final" - did they get a draft or something? 

You know, we dragged Russian translator a lot over many inconsistencies of her translations (missed phrases, wrong context etc), but if she was working with draft this time, probably we were not very just. 

Sure thing, it doesn't transform stout into vodka (yep, Alysanne drank vodka on the Wall) and it doesn't mean lords sent their ugliest daughters to Aegon I as potential brides, but some other errors were not hers...

Because of the pressure to get the book out at the same time as the English edition, translators were working from earlier drafts at times. Corrections that were made in the English text did not necessarily end up passed on to every foreign publisher, who in turn didn't necessarily get the edits down to the translators, especially if they were running out of time.

So in this specific case, there's no line stating Clegg arrived "twenty years later", merely that he's a Grand Maester from an unspecified later time whose opinion Gyldayn is sharing.

You would think that there'd be one "master" copy that all licensees can access, with all changes tracked, and so on, but... no.

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Tywin was innocent. I knew it.

 

Quote

Thousands of smallfolk streamed out the city gates, carrying their children and worldly possessions on their backs, to seek safety in the countryside. Others dug pits and tunnels under their hovels, dark dank holes where they hoped to hide whilst the city burned (Grand Maester Munkun tells us that many of the hidden passageways and secret subcellars under King’s Landing date from this time). Rioting broke out in Flea Bottom. When the sails of the Sea Snake’s ships were seen to the east in Blackwater Bay, making for the river, the bells of every sept in the city began to ring, and mobs surged through the streets, looting as they went. Dozens died before the gold cloaks could restore the peace.

 

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