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Random Thoughts About ASOIAF


The Bard of Banefort
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13 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think a lot of people base their opinion on what happened during the War of the Five Kings - the Riverlands had it way worse than anyone by far because Tywin went out of his way to wreck them. By contrast the Crownlands aren't nearly as wrecked.

It's also that during every single telling of a war in Westeros, we need to make special mention of how the Brackens and Blackwoods take the opportunity to absolutely destroy each other again.

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14 minutes ago, Denam_Pavel said:

It's also that during every single telling of a war in Westeros, we need to make special mention of how the Brackens and Blackwoods take the opportunity to absolutely destroy each other again.

Yes, the Riverlands seems to have more feuding than other regions. Vassals are more disloyal too. The Riverlands also have no natural barriers to protect themselves, unlike the North, Dorne and the Vale.

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7 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

According to the AGoT appendix, the Lannisters are an Andal house, but TWOIAF says that they have First Men origin. Is this an oversight by GRRM or did he just change his mind?

Could it not be that the founder was First Men but they're more Andal now due to thousands of years of Andal marriages or something?

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9 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Could it not be that the founder was First Men but they're more Andal now due to thousands of years of Andal marriages or something?

That's definitely how the wiki seems to describe it, at least. But GRRM has said that First Men names consist of simple English words such as "stout" and "strong", while the Andal names are a bit more advanced. "Lannister" definitely falls into the latter category.

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42 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

That's definitely how the wiki seems to describe it, at least. But GRRM has said that First Men names consist of simple English words such as "stout" and "strong", while the Andal names are a bit more advanced. "Lannister" definitely falls into the latter category.

well , in aGoT in one of Ned chapters he thinks of how ancient house Lannister is and that their origin goes back almost to Bran the Bulider's . so that indicates First Man origin maybe that's why tWoIaF says that . then again, all families in Westeros must have some First Man origin which doesn't exactly make them First Man as people like Starks , Blackwoods or Royces are who have tried to intermarry themselves and preserve some of their First man culture such as religion, traditions or heirlooms .  it may be that Lannisters are more Andal now after thousands of years of marring Andals and honoring their traditions( as their surname and appearances indicate) but have kept their little legend as a way of havving more prestige  .

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So I was bored last week and started rereading the first book and some stuff just seems off to me. Like Jamie seems to be treated like he's not a member of the Kings Guard, even though he is one. Like for example Robert plans to make him Warden of the East and Ned mentions that he would would day also become Warden of the West, if something were to happen to his father. How are either of those even possible for a member of the Kings Guard? Aren't the wardens suppose to govern their regions and uphold the laws of them?

Edited by sifth
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6 hours ago, sifth said:

So I was bored last week and started rereading the first book and some stuff just seems off to me. Like Jamie seems to be treated like he's not a member of the Kings Guard, even though he is one. Like for example Robert plans to make him Warden of the East and Ned mentions that he would would day also become Warden of the West, if something were to happen to his father. How are either of those evil possible for a member of the Kings Guard? Aren't the wardens suppose to govern their regions and uphold the laws of them?

"the Kingslayer is not counted as kingsgaurd after he slayed his king" -Robb Stark to his brother Bran... but I agree with you it's weird a bit. 

I thought Warden was more of a military rank . it's not officially heredity , but it often is. 

 

 

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6 hours ago, sifth said:

So I was bored last week and started rereading the first book and some stuff just seems off to me. Like Jamie seems to be treated like he's not a member of the Kings Guard, even though he is one. Like for example Robert plans to make him Warden of the East and Ned mentions that he would would day also become Warden of the West, if something were to happen to his father. How are either of those evil possible for a member of the Kings Guard? Aren't the wardens suppose to govern their regions and uphold the laws of them?

I found that the first book has a few things like this which are a bit weird but don't seem to come up again later. Like all the warden stuff. I think at the time Robert thought it was important because he feared a Dothraki invasion.

Quote

"For the last time, I will not name the Arryn boy Warden. I know the boy is your nephew, but with Targaryens climbing in bed with Dothraki, I would be mad to rest one quarter of the realm on the shoulders of a sickly child."

Quote

He left unsaid his real concern; that the appointment would put half the armies of the realm into the hands of Lannisters.

I got the impression it was a military position, just for commanding the armies and didn't involve much ruling or holding lands. But not many people aside from Lysa seem to care later on. I think Daven Lannister ends up being warden of the west anyway. 

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On the subject of the first book I also find the foreshadowing in that book particularly interesting. I feel like some of it is foreshadowing for things that would've happened in the original outline e.g. Jaime becoming king, but because those ideas were abandoned it's quite odd because it isn't foreshadowing anything anymore.

Because of this, I find it hard to tell which parts of foreshadowing are actually foreshadowing something.

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9 hours ago, sifth said:

How are either of those evil possible for a member of the Kings Guard? Aren't the wardens suppose to govern their regions and uphold the laws of them?

I guess that since Jaime broke the most sacred of the KG vows by killing the king, Ned was afraid that he would break other rules as well. Ned even wanted to send Jaime to the Wall after Robert's rebellion, but Jon Arryn wanted to spare him in order to appease the Lannisters.

Edited by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy
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The more I'm rereading the first book, the more minor plot holes I'm noticing. Like when Sansa meets Renly and Ser. Barristan, she says that Ser. Barristan is "the Lord Commander of King Roberts Kingsguard and counselor, as he was for King Aerys". I recall Ser. Barristan only ever being a regular Kingsguard member under King Aerys though and are normal members counselors? I know, this could easily be explained as Sansa not knowing all of Ser. Barristans history very well; she is only 11 in the first novel.

Another one I noticed is, Lord Commander Mormont, says "Ser. Alliser Thorne, is one of the few knights to join the watch, since he became lord commander". Which we know isn't true, because in the third book, we learn that Lord Commander Qorgyle, was in charge of the watch, when Jon was a boy. Did Mormont simply forget when he became lord commander, since he was close to being 70 in the first book?

Another one, is when Joffrey becomes king, he asks for Doran Martell and "all of his sons" to show up at court, but as far as I recall, he only has two sons and a daughter. I wonder if Arianne was suppose to be a boy in the original version of the story. I can accept that Joff and Cersei are too ignorant about Dornish law to know that Arianne is the heir to the kingdom, but I find it strange that they asked for "all his sons" and not "both his sons". Did they simply not know that Arianne was a woman?

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34 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

For what it's worth, I have a 1997 copy of AGoT at my library, and she is listed in the appendix.

So why is the term, "all" used and not "both"? That seems strange to me. Are the Lannisters just idiots and think Doran has 3 sons, for some daft reason?

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On 6/27/2022 at 11:36 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

After Aemon’s death, Jaehaerys and Alysanne only had Baelon, Viserys, Daemon, Gael, and Rhaenys around. Then Jaehaerys alienated Rhaenys and he lost Gael and Alysanne. So by the time of his death, the only family Jaehaerys had left to comfort him was Viserys and his wife and daughter (I doubt Daemon was much of a comfort)

I know that you were trying to make a different point...but the fact that Jaehaerys only had Alysanne, Baelon, Viserys, Daemon, Gael and Rhaenys around was Jaehaerys' fault. 100%.

The way that they handled the situation with Viserra was horrendous. The situation with Saera could've been handled better...after a time, they should have invited her back to King's Landing. And what happened to Gael is a direct consequence of the piss-poor way that they handled the situations with Viserra and Serra.

 

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6 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

The way that they handled the situation with Viserra was horrendous. The situation with Saera could've been handled better...after a time, they should have invited her back to King's Landing. And what happened to Gael is a direct consequence of the piss-poor way that they handled the situations with Viserra and Serra.

 

The Viserra situation makes so little sense it borders on the comical. What exactly is the point of marrying a fifteen year old princess off to a sixty year old lord who already has several heirs? There is zero benifit in such a match since any children Viserra might have had would have gotten absolutely squat. The only explanation I can come up with for what Alysanne might have been thinking is that she was subconciously trying to punish Viserra for what her sister did. 

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55 minutes ago, Lady Misery said:

The Viserra situation makes so little sense it borders on the comical. What exactly is the point of marrying a fifteen year old princess off to a sixty year old lord who already has several heirs? There is zero benifit in such a match since any children Viserra might have had would have gotten absolutely squat. The only explanation I can come up with for what Alysanne might have been thinking is that she was subconciously trying to punish Viserra for what her sister did. 

you know, I think Jaehaerys just stopped caring about his kids after Alyssa because they were too many and Alyssane was the kind of parent who doesn't understand her kids and dismisses them as the disappointment they should get rid off (what Alyssane was trying to do with Vissera was almost certainly the same thing lady Baratheon did to the first Storm Maid to be rid of her in the wake of Daenaera's assassination attempt.) here Alyssane saw Vissera as a vain silly girl driven by her ambitions to become queen which is totally off when you consider that  Viserra was after Baelon when Aemon was pretty much alive and had a child of his own and how stressed and desperate she was when waiting in Baelon's room.

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1 hour ago, EggBlue said:

you know, I think Jaehaerys just stopped caring about his kids after Alyssa because they were too many and Alyssane was the kind of parent who doesn't understand her kids and dismisses them as the disappointment they should get rid off (what Alyssane was trying to do with Vissera was almost certainly the same thing lady Baratheon did to the first Storm Maid to be rid of her in the wake of Daenaera's assassination attempt.) here Alyssane saw Vissera as a vain silly girl driven by her ambitions to become queen which is totally off when you consider that  Viserra was after Baelon when Aemon was pretty much alive and had a child of his own and how stressed and desperate she was when waiting in Baelon's room.

 

2 hours ago, Lady Misery said:

The Viserra situation makes so little sense it borders on the comical. What exactly is the point of marrying a fifteen year old princess off to a sixty year old lord who already has several heirs? There is zero benefit in such a match since any children Viserra might have had would have gotten absolutely squat. The only explanation I can come up with for what Alysanne might have been thinking is that she was subconciously trying to punish Viserra for what her sister did. 

Saera was difficult. Most parents would struggle to manage a child like Saera. And I can appreciate how the Saera experience made Alysanne and Jaehaerys overreact to Viserra's situation.

But the situations are not the same nor do they have the same personality.

I don't think that there's anything particularly scandalous about what Viserra was trying to do. Jaehaerys and Alysanne cannot be too upset or shocked by her behavior considering that they did the exact same thing when they were fifteen. Actually what they did was worse.

Their mother Queen Alyssa handled it the best way the situation could've been handled. People as wise as Jaehaerys and Alysanne should've noted that.

 

Viserra wants to be queen? Okay, that's understandable--it's the best possible position for a woman to have in that society. Outside of the wives of lords paramount or (more rarely) ladies who rule over massive fiefs in their own right, no other woman comes anywhere near the agency and power that a queen has. I imagine it would be very freeing. So, it's not only about Viserra's ambition, it's about her wanting the freedom and autonomy that her mother and all her other female relatives before her (i.e. Rhaena, Visenya, Rhaenys, etc.) had had.

However: Baelon doesn't want her and Aemon is already off-the-market.

Fine.

There are still options that can placate Viserra and still maintain connections within the realm:

  1. she can be married to a Lord Paramount or a Warden. The wardens and lords paramount essentially still rule their lands like a king would (especially the wardens). There isn't that much of a difference between being the Lady of Casterly Rock and being the Queen of the Rock.
  2. she can be one of the lesser lords that control a major city or trade hub. A Hightower, a Redwyne, a Grafton, a Caswell, a Velaryon, a Frey, a Mooton, a Cox, even a Manderly...as long as they don't have any a bunch of children from a previous marriage.
  3. she can be married to the current or future Prince of Dorne. This is a genius way of bringing Dorne into the realm...or at least ensuring two generations of peace at the least.
  4. she can be married off to a ruler of one of the Free Cities.
  5. she can be given her own lordship like Rhaena was. Let her have an abandoned or repossessed castle or holdfast...or better yet, build a Summerhall for her to rule over. If you really want to teach her a lesson in that, give her the tools, coin and manpower so that she can build it herself. Make it a hereditary lordship so that her sons can inherit that. 

With 1-3, the key here is that these lords cannot already have had children from previous marriages. 4 is honestly the best and wisest choice.

It is strange to me that a family as powerful as the Targaryens only had two seats for the vast majority of their dynasty. Westeros is the size of South America. If the British royal family has over five seats to their name on an island as small as Britain, then...???

Summerhall was a start but, by the time of Robert's Rebellion, the Targaryen family should've had five royal seats. Granted, it would've been a lot harder for the rebellion to dislodge the Targaryens but the Targaryens should've had more fiefs and holdcasts to command.

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