The ASOIAF wiki thread

[direpupy]

3 hours ago, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

I don't remember where I heard this but I have a vague memory that the Dragonlords and Valyrian mages were the more powerful factions in the Valyrian Freehold and the practice of incest was more frequent with them compared to a common noble freedholder. I also believe those two factions intermingled at times, so that some members of Dragonlord families became mages and some mages married into dragonlord families. If any body can find a source for this it would be great; otherwise, disregard what I just said.

Is this what you where looking for?

The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aenys I

The tradition amongst the Targaryens had always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew; a boy, a cousin, aunt, or niece. This practice went back to Old Valyria, where it was common amongst many of the ancient families, particularly those who bred and rode dragons. "The blood of the dragon must remain pure," the wisdom went. Some of the sorcerer princes also took more than one wife when it pleased them, though this was less common than incestuous marriage. In Valryia before the Doom, wise men wrote, a thousand gods were honored, but none were feared, so few dared to speak against these customs.

 

This also implies that the dragonlords where sorcerers

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

"Some did," he said. "Revolts were common in the mines, but few accomplished much. The dragonlords of the old Freehold were strong in sorcery, and lesser men defied them at their peril. The first Faceless Man was one who did."

 

Edited April 17 by direpupy

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

3 hours ago, direpupy said:

Is this what you where looking for?

No but it is a good quote too. Thinking about it now, we still don't know much about how the Valyrian Freehold was organised.

[Nittanian]

7 hours ago, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

@Nittanian Where would you put the Valyrian mages ? Their own category, or more akin to firemages or to pyromancers ?

We could use "Wizard" as a catch-all for wizards, sorcerers, conjurers, enchanters, mages, etc. (with "Warlocks" having their own separate article because of the greater detail GRRM has given us). 

Edited April 17 by Nittanian

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

The distance between King's Landing and Tumbleton varies.

Which one is correct ? 50 or 60 leagues ?

Quote

The realm truly went mad during the Dance of the Dragons, but it was at King's Landing where most of the dragons lost their lives. King's Landing had fallen bloodlessly to Rhaenyra, thanks to Prince Daemon's cunning, but after the First Battle of Tumbleton, unrest spread throughout the city. Only sixty leagues away, Tumbleton had been sacked in the most savage fashion: thousands burned, thousands more drowned attempting to swim across the river to safety, girls and women were ravished until they died, and dragons feeding among the ruins.

-TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II

Quote

Ulf White and Hard Hugh Hammer would fly to Tumbleton, some fifty leagues southwest of King’s Landing, the last leal stronghold between Lord Hightower and the city, to assist in the defense of the town and castle and destroy Prince Daeron and Tessarion.

-Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Triumphant

Quote

A different sort of chaos reigned in Tumbleton, sixty leagues to the southwest. Whilst King’s Landing quailed in terror, the foes they feared had yet to advance a foot toward the city, for King Aegon’s loyalists found themselves leaderless, beset by division, conflict, and doubt.

-Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Triumphant

 

Edited May 1 by Thomaerys Velaryon

[Oneiros Drakontos]

Those two distances don't have to to be contradictory. "Sixty leagues" could be the specific measure, while "some fifty league" could be a more general phrasing.

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

4 hours ago, Oneiros Drakontos said:

Those two distances don't have to to be contradictory. "Sixty leagues" could be the specific measure, while "some fifty league" could be a more general phrasing.

Thanks that makes sense.

[The Wondering Wolf]

Two things about the Hollard family:

Ser Jon Hollard the Steward was wed to Lord Denys's sister and died with his wife, as did their young son, who was half-Darklyn. Robin Hollard was a squire, and when the king was seized he danced around him and pulled his beard. He died upon the rack.

I know the possibility is raised on Robin's wiki page, but to me it reads as Jon's young son was squire Robin for sure. 

And not only did he fight, but he struck first, taking Lord Darklyn's good-brother and master-at-arms, Ser Symon Hollard, and a pair of guards unawares, slaying them all - and so avenging the death of his Sworn Brother, Ser Gwayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard, who had been killed at Hollard's hand.

Since both Jon and Symon were Denys' goodbrothers, they must have been brothers.

[Oneiros Drakontos]

6 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

Ser Jon Hollard the Steward was wed to Lord Denys's sister and died with his wife, as did their young son, who was half-Darklyn. Robin Hollard was a squire, and when the king was seized he danced around him and pulled his beard. He died upon the rack.

I know the possibility is raised on Robin's wiki page, but to me it reads as Jon's young son was squire Robin for sure.

 

It is possible. Personally, I think the way the maester phrases the tale about Jon, Robin and also Symon (Ser Symon Hollard was slain by Ser Barristan during the king’s escape) implies that their stories are separated, with Jon's son and Robin as different characters.

 

6 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

And not only did he fight, but he struck first, taking Lord Darklyn's good-brother and master-at-arms, Ser Symon Hollard, and a pair of guards unawares, slaying them all - and so avenging the death of his Sworn Brother, Ser Gwayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard, who had been killed at Hollard's hand.

Since both Jon and Symon were Denys' goodbrothers, they must have been brothers.

 

Maybe were they cousins?

Edited May 3 by Oneiros Drakontos

[The Wondering Wolf]

44 minutes ago, Oneiros Drakontos said:

Maybe were they cousins?

I think the definition of a goodbrother is the brother of your wife or the husband of your sister. We know that Jon Hollard was Denys's goodbrother, but I don't think a cousin of Jon would referred to as a goodbrother, as well. Calling the brother of your goodbrother a goodbrother, too, already seems to defer from the definition, but calling a cousin of your goodbrother a goodbrother would render the word totally random.

58 minutes ago, Oneiros Drakontos said:

Personally, I think the way the maester phrases the tale about Jon, Robin and also Symon (Ser Symon Hollard was slain by Ser Barristan during the king’s escape) implies that their stories are separated, with Jon's son and Robin as different characters.

I would agree if Symon hadn't already been introduced by the maester some sentences earlier, so he is well connected to the story. If Robin wasn't Jon's son, his introduction would feel really random to me.

[Oneiros Drakontos]

1 hour ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

I think the definition of a goodbrother is the brother of your wife or the husband of your sister. We know that Jon Hollard was Denys's goodbrother, but I don't think a cousin of Jon would referred to as a goodbrother, as well. Calling the brother of your goodbrother a goodbrother, too, already seems to defer from the definition, but calling a cousin of your goodbrother a goodbrother would render the word totally random.

 

OK, I remembered wrongly that Denys had more than one sister. In that case, it could be that Denys had two sisters and that they married Jon and Symon respectively.

However, since there was actually one sister (Lord Denys lost his head, as did his brothers and his sister, uncles, cousins, all the lordly Darklyns), it is clear that Jon and Symon must have been brothers, as you said.

Edited May 3 by Oneiros Drakontos

[direpupy]

12 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

 If Robin wasn't Jon's son, his introduction would feel really random to me.

I always read it as sum up of Hollards who died, as such i have never read Robin as being the son of Jon. I suppose you could, but it is not the first thing that comes to mind, at least for me, so i think is ambiguous and we should be careful not to assume that Robin is Jon's son without more than one sentence to go on. I don't have the ice and fire app maybe someone who does can look there for additional information.

19 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

And not only did he fight, but he struck first, taking Lord Darklyn's good-brother and master-at-arms, Ser Symon Hollard, and a pair of guards unawares, slaying them all - and so avenging the death of his Sworn Brother, Ser Gwayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard, who had been killed at Hollard's hand.

Since both Jon and Symon were Denys' goodbrothers, they must have been brothers.

Or its one of the mistakes in WoIaF since he is only mentioned as good-brother there.

@Ran perhaps you can shed some light on the good-brother thing?

Edited May 4 by direpupy

[Ran]

Good brother always seemed to me to be the same thing as brother-in-law.

[The Wondering Wolf]

Just now, Ran said:

Good brother always seemed to me to be the same thing as brother-in-law.

Well, there's no doubt about this. ;-) The question is if Symon Hollard is indeed Denys's goodbrother, as the Worldbook says, making him Jon's (Denys's actual goodbrother) brother.

[Abjiklam]

@Ran There seems to be a problem accessing some pages. The following link leads to a database error: https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/File:Marc_Simonetti_rich_lands_and_a_keepII.jpg, but the image thumbnail can be seen here: https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?title=Category:Images_by_Ertac_Alt%3Fnoz

[Ran]

Thanks. Weird that this issue is happening with that page. Any other examples? I've put debugging on.

[Abjiklam]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Thanks. Weird that this issue is happening with that page. Any other examples? I've put debugging on.

I've seen the same database error a while ago but I don't remember where. I'll let you know if I see another one.

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Abjiklam said:

I've seen the same database error a while ago but I don't remember where. I'll let you know if I see another one.

Thanks. I think I know the issue and can try and fix it, but having some other examples will help. It's basically a collaton issue, where the columns it's trying to join are being collated with different character encoding.

[Abjiklam]

9 hours ago, Ran said:

Thanks. I think I know the issue and can try and fix it, but having some other examples will help. It's basically a collaton issue, where the columns it's trying to join are being collated with different character encoding.

This special page also shows a database error: https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Special:CategoryTree

[Ran]

All right, going to backup mw_page and try and change its collation to see if we can fix that.

 

ETA: Not as easy as I hoped, running into a duplicate that I can't track down. Once I can do that, hopefully it'll be the only example and we can move on.

Edited May 8 by Ran

[Abjiklam]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

All right, going to backup mw_page and try and change its collation to see if we can fix that.

 

ETA: Not as easy as I hoped, running into a duplicate that I can't track down. Once I can do that, hopefully it'll be the only example and we can move on.

If it's an issue of character encoding, could it be that this category page is causing the issue: https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?title=Category:Images_by_Ertac_Alt%3Fnoz

The question mark in the title looks like an encoding error