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A Thread for Small Questions II


Werthead

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Hey guys! I just have a few minor questions thats irking me like crazy.. probably OCD or something. Anyway:

1) What were all the battles that Robb Stark fought? Were there any battles that he planned to fight, but didnt due to the red wedding?

2) What's with those flashbacks that Ned Stark and some other people have been having? It's like some kind of epic battle between a few guys or something that changed the course of history apparently. What confrontation was this? Who was involved and why?

3) What's the Dance of Dragons?

4) Who's the dragonknight? I had the impression that it was Rhaegar up until a quarter into A Feast For Crows where somebody said that the dragonknight was Aemon. That just totally messed me up, seeing as I had the wrong impression the whole time. Who's Aemon? Who are all the important members of House Targaryen and why are they important?

5) What's Bittersteel?

6) What's a hedge knight?

7) Why does Lord Tarly have a host amassed (in aFFC)

8) What's so important about the Battle of Duskendale? What's Maidenpool?

THat's all I could think of so far. I would greatly appreciate any answers that can shed some light. Thanks!

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Hey guys! I just have a few minor questions thats irking me like crazy.. probably OCD or something.

Just a few? I'll do my best

Anyway:

1) What were all the battles that Robb Stark fought? Were there any battles that he planned to fight, but didnt due to the red wedding?

Robb won major battles at the Wispering Wood, Riverun and Oxcross. He had planned on having a battle at the Golden tooth, but wasn't able to because Edmure prevented Lord Tywin's host from moving west.

He was planning to retake Moat Cailin after Edmures wedding, but obviously this didn't happen.

2) What's with those flashbacks that Ned Stark and some other people have been having? It's like some kind of epic battle between a few guys or something that changed the course of history apparently. What confrontation was this? Who was involved and why?

Lots of characters have flashbacks, but I think the one you are refering to is the battle at the Tower of Joy. After the Robert's rebellion Ned was out looking for Lyanna with Howland Reed and five others whos names I can never remember. They encountered three members of the Kingsguard garding a tower on the edges of Dorne. The three were Arthur Dane, Gerold Hightower and one other. It was a fairly epic battle with 7 vs 3 and of the ten only Ned and Howland survived. I don't think the battle changed the course of history, but if we ever find out what happend there it might explain a lot. Unfortunatly on Howland is still alive so hopefully we meet him soon or maybe he has told one of his children.

3) What's the Dance of Dragons?

The Dance of the Dragons was a Civil war about 170 years before the curent series. It occured because of a dispute over which of Viserys I children should suceed him. The choices were Rhaenyra, the elder daughter, or Aegon II, the younger son.

4) Who's the dragonknight? I had the impression that it was Rhaegar up until a quarter into A Feast For Crows where somebody said that the dragonknight was Aemon. That just totally messed me up, seeing as I had the wrong impression the whole time. Who's Aemon?

Aemon the Dragon Knight lived about 140 years before the current series and was considered the greatest knight who has ever lived. He was a member of the Kingsguard and served under 4 kings. Although he is thought of as the most noble knight who ever lived irt was common knowledge that he loved his brothers Queen, some believe that he was really the father of Daeron II who would become king.

Who are all the important members of House Targaryen and why are they important?

Really, that's not a short question. If you want to find out more about the Targaryens and the family history a lot of it is told in the Dunk and Egg stories, or have a look on Wikipedia. Even after reading the books and the short stories the family tree on wikipedia was a great help to me.

5) What's Bittersteel?

Bittersteel is the nickname of Aegor Rivers, one of Aegon IV aknowledged bastards. He joined in the Blackfyre rebellion but was defeated. After the rebelion he went into exile in the free cities and formed the Golden Company, a well reputed mercenary band.

6) What's a hedge knight?

A hedge knight is an anointed knight who has not sworn fealty to a lord. They are mostly poorer knights and have to make a living in any way they can. They are called hedge knights because of the habit of sleeping in the hedges along the roads in thier travels.

7) Why does Lord Tarly have a host amassed (in aFFC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but Tarly is occupying Maidenpool after the war is over. He has an army because he was fighting in a way not so long ago and he has kept them around to keep the peace and incase fighting should errupt again. Stannis is still out there after all. But curently he is acting under orders and bringing his army to meet Mace Tyrell's forces at Kings Landing.

8) What's so important about the Battle of Duskendale?

Roose Bolton sent a failry large portion of the northmen force, all very loyal to Robb Stark to attack Duskendale knowing that Duslkendale held no significant tactical value and that many of those men would die. He later blamed the comanders of those forces for the poor decision, just before we was going to kill Robb I think.

What's Maidenpool?

It's a town, there is a fountain where some maids bathed once, it's in a song. But all that's important is that it's a town.

THat's all I could think of so far. I would greatly appreciate any answers that can shed some light. Thanks!

Hope this was helpfull.

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I have a question as well, and it is probably nothing other than an editing mistake. When GRRM refers to any other tower in Westeros it is capitalized (Tower of the Hand etc). Why then, when referring to the Tower of Joy does he not capitalize that? I've noticed that I capitalize it naturally and so do all the posters I've seen. Is this just a mistake in editing, or am I making some basic english error? Btw, its on page 427 of Game of Thrones.

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"Tower of joy" is not the official name. The only mention of that phrase is in AGOT:

It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory.

Fans capitalize it because it's catchy and memorable, I suppose. That's why I do it anyway.

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Why was Jojen so expectant that Bran would have already heard the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree? Jojen also thought Ned would have told Bran, why?

It's a true story. In fact, it's the story of the Great Tourney of Harrenhal in the Year of False Spring, the same one where Rhaegar became champion and crowned Lyanna Stark Queen of Love and Beauty and where Eddard met Ashara Dayne. The Knight of the Laughing Tree/little crannogman was (probably) Howland Reed. As this was a pretty major event, setting in motion the events that led to the War of the Usurper, Jojen thought that Eddard would have told Bran about it.

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Why was Jojen so expectant that Bran would have already heard the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree? Jojen also thought Ned would have told Bran, why?

ETA: Oops, I see Werthead scooped me, but what the heck, I've already written all this:

Because the story is deeply important to Ned, the Starks and the Reeds in many ways, and is even significant to the history of the Seven Kindgoms. It is perhaps the seed that germinated into the relationship between Ned's dearly beloved sister Lyanna and Prince Rhaegar, which may have resulted in Jon and almost certainly resulted in the civil war in which Howland Reed, extraordinarily, fought alongside Ned; it secured the deep loyalty of the crannogmen to the Starks; it demonstrated Lyanna's courage and fierce sense of justice, and more generally reflected well many values of that generation of Starks, such as justice and decency for (apparently) unimportant people, plus their honoring of the Old Gods (in common with the crannogmen). Given the love of Ned for his sister, it must have seemed incomprehensible to the Reeds that Ned hadn't told the story countless times.

First let me try to approximate the story off the top of my head: A crannogman - likely Howland Reed, just back from exploration of the mystical Isle of Faces - was visiting the tourney at Harrenhal. Being short of stature like all crannogmen, he was set upon by some squires. Lyanna Stark, about 16 at the time, saw the bullying and, probably not knowing who the victim was, attacked the squires and sent them running. Then later a mystery Knight having a shield showing a Laughing Tree entered the lists in time to joust with, and defeat, the knights that the bullying squires served. Defeating the two knights, the mystery knight demanded, in lieu of the usual payment for losing a joust, that the knights take their squires to task for abusing visitors to the tourney. Due to the similarity of the mystery knight's victory demand to Lyanna's chastisement of the same bullying squires, many think the mystery knight was in fact Lyanna; or it may have been Ned, for example. If Lyanna, Prince Rhaegar may have been attracted to Lyanna in part upon finding out of her actions in regard to the squires, and/or her achievements in the lists (Lyanna's horsemanship was almost legendary); and we know how his attraction to her, whatever its cause, led to him crowning her, rather than his wife, the Queen of ... Love and Roses? ... when he won the tourney. That may have ultimately led to Lyanna "eloping" with Rhaegar (resulting perhaps in Jon?), while Robert assumed Lyanna had been kidnapped by Rhaegar, and on that basis began his rebellion. If so the net results were, to say the least, momentous.

The precise details aren't that important to your specific questions. By going singlehandedly to the aid of a little crannogman, probably without even knowing who he was, Lyanna illustrated Stark courage, decency, and intolerance of cruelty. The illustration was made bold, italic and underlined by the Knight of the Laughing Tree publicly humiliating the knights of the squires involved, and, through them, further chastising the offending squires. Not only that, but the image of a Laughing Tree was itself a nod to the Old Gods, who are honored by the crannogmen as well as by the Starks. The Knight of the Laughing Tree is thus an extremely important story of the Starks, particularly of Lyanna Stark, and resulted in deep loyalty to the Starks by the Reeds and, I understand, all the crannogmen. Thus the story represents many of the reasons that Jojen and Meera were the ones guiding Bran in the first place.

The fact that Ned had not told Bran the story justifies the Reeds telling it (so we readers can hear it), and that makes the story all the more credible for being presented by an outside observer. Moreover, Ned's silence about the story says something poignant but hard to define about Ned's reluctance to boast about Stark exploits, and particularly implies he has difficulty talking about the things he loved best about Lyanna, even many years after her death. It might also reflect his desire not to bring up the subject for fear of raising awkward questions about the relationship between Lyanna and Rhaegar. It is the understandable surprise of the Reed kids to Ned's reticence about the story that tacitly emphasizes how important the story is, as well as raising questions about exactly why Ned could not, or did not, talk about it.

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I have a question as well, and it is probably nothing other than an editing mistake. When GRRM refers to any other tower in Westeros it is capitalized (Tower of the Hand etc). Why then, when referring to the Tower of Joy does he not capitalize that? I've noticed that I capitalize it naturally and so do all the posters I've seen. Is this just a mistake in editing, or am I making some basic english error? Btw, its on page 427 of Game of Thrones.

Probably a POV artifact. Ned wouldn't have found anything joyous about the ToJ. I'd expect that if we ever had a POV from one of Rheagar's friends, the capitalization would have been different.

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Two quick questions

1. who poisoned Jon Arryn? it's been a few years since i read GoT, but i remeber it being Cersei. On another thread someone floated the idea of it being both Littefinger and Varys separately poisoning him at the same time. (Quelle coïncidence!)

2. Did anything ever come of the sub-plot of Nymeria (Arya's direwolf) leading a huge pack of all the stray dogs and wild wolves? I know it's mentioned two or three times that they're terrorizing the countryside, but that's all I remember.

-Thanks

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I read it, just can't seem to remember anything about these to things. May have been lost in the shock of the Red Wedding, i skipped a few chapters to follow that chain of events and then went back to the others.

Read a Storm of Swords again.

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1) Jon Arryn was poisoned by Lysa because he was going to take Robert away from her. Littlefinger, of course, provided the means to do it. It's quite unclear whether Ser Hugh of the Vale had any personal hand in carrying out the poisoning, but if he did, it was at Lysa's command.

2) That's about it. They're terrorizing the riverlands. They're mentioned again in AFfC. There's no real sub-plot to it, though, it's just a background detail right now.

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