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A Thread For Small Questions VIII


mormont

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While reading the books I avoided anything online that might be related. I wanted nothing to prejudice my appreciation of the story. After finishing Feast for Crows last week I immediately started googleling. One of the first threads I came across was the R+L=J theory in which the ironically named Tower of Joy figures prominently. The theory is appealing BUT just where in the books does the term “Tower of Joy” appear? I’ve reread all the Eddard and Bran chapters but can’t find it. I’ve seen it used only online and without reference. In fact the only use of "joy" I've noticed in the books is in "Greyjoy". I've checked this site's FAQ and searched the forums but always no joy. Can someone cite the reference?

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While reading the books I avoided anything online that might be related. I wanted nothing to prejudice my appreciation of the story. After finishing Feast for Crows last week I immediately started googleling. One of the first threads I came across was the R+L=J theory in which the ironically named Tower of Joy figures prominently. The theory is appealing BUT just where in the books does the term “Tower of Joy” appear? I’ve reread all the Eddard and Bran chapters but can’t find it. I’ve seen it used only online and without reference. In fact the only use of "joy" I've noticed in the books is in "Greyjoy". I've checked this site's FAQ and searched the forums but always no joy. Can someone cite the reference?

AGOT - Page 427

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A question about "The Returning POV".

" The next largest chunk o' chapters belongs to an old POV character who has been missing for a couple of books, but now returns to us... rather the worse for wear." - GRRM

This almost must be Theon. He was last seen in ACoK, which is "two books ago", i.e. "a couple of books". He is rather the worse for wear, after the Bolton torture. Also, according to the wiki, there is no other POV seen in ACoK that's not been seen since.

But can it really be Theon? Tyrion, Dany and Jon are the ones with the most chapters, and following them Theon? What's so important about Theon, I wonder? Some connection to Bran?

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A question about "The Returning POV".

" The next largest chunk o' chapters belongs to an old POV character who has been missing for a couple of books, but now returns to us... rather the worse for wear." - GRRM

This almost must be Theon. He was last seen in ACoK, which is "two books ago", i.e. "a couple of books". He is rather the worse for wear, after the Bolton torture. Also, according to the wiki, there is no other POV seen in ACoK that's not been seen since.

But can it really be Theon? Tyrion, Dany and Jon are the ones with the most chapters, and following them Theon? What's so important about Theon, I wonder? Some connection to Bran?

His birthright, and the person in charge at the Iron Islands now is an idiot?

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His birthright, and the person in charge at the Iron Islands now is an idiot?

That should be inside spoiler tags.

He has no birthright, that's not how the ironborn do it. Besides, they had a Kingsmoot, I doubt Theon could accomplish much, what with being despised by most of the ironborn. Even so, from the dungeons of the Dreadfort, it is hard to challenge Euron for the Seastone chair. I am leaning more towards it being something about the North, perhaps insight into Ramsay's story.

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I'm re-reading GoT and have a couple of questions.

After Robb meets up with Catelyn at Moat Cailin they read the letter from Sansa and note that it makes no mention of Arya. After which their conversation exclusively talks about Ned & Sansa only. It's all "your sister" etc. etc.

Why don't they just assume that Sansa just left Arya out of the letter but that she's still there? And if they instantly jump to the conclusion that something has happened to Arya, why continue the conversation quite calmly only talking about Sansa?

It's just so wierd.

Also - when Jaime is captured at the Whispering Wood, he is captured with 3 other Lannister cousins, at least one of which is Kevans. Yet in the next conversation with Tyrion & Tywin & Kevan where they're gloomy over Jaime's capture, they're never mentioned.

Did I just miss it, or when does anyone in the Lannister camp notice that there are 3 other cousins missing??

I think the difference is that the Lannister cousins aren't well known fighters. Jaime was quite well known, famous and a feared fighter. He could lead men (not a great general, but whatever). It's a perception thing.

DK

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I'm re-reading GoT and have a couple of questions.

After Robb meets up with Catelyn at Moat Cailin they read the letter from Sansa and note that it makes no mention of Arya. After which their conversation exclusively talks about Ned & Sansa only. It's all "your sister" etc. etc.

Why don't they just assume that Sansa just left Arya out of the letter but that she's still there? And if they instantly jump to the conclusion that something has happened to Arya, why continue the conversation quite calmly only talking about Sansa?

It's just so wierd.

Also - when Jaime is captured at the Whispering Wood, he is captured with 3 other Lannister cousins, at least one of which is Kevans. Yet in the next conversation with Tyrion & Tywin & Kevan where they're gloomy over Jaime's capture, they're never mentioned.

Did I just miss it, or when does anyone in the Lannister camp notice that there are 3 other cousins missing??

The 3 cousins are Cleos Frey and Kevan's twins if I'm not mistaken. Given that Cleos is more Frey than Lannister, and that the twins are still boys (I think they're squires), it makes sense that they would only lament Jaime's capture, as he's the only one fit to command an army out of the 4 Lannisters that were taken. Besides, while Kevan's sons are hostages along Jaime, they have a greater chance of being freed. It's made clear that Jaime would never have left Riverrun alive if not for Cat, while the Lannister cousins are offered in exchange quite a bit.

As for Sansa's letter, I think Cat views that letter as Cersei's warning that should anything happen to Jaime, Sansa will die too. They don't actually think that Sansa has any input into the letter, so it could be understood she doesn't mention Arya because Cersei has already made her threat clear.

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That should be inside spoiler tags.

He has no birthright, that's not how the ironborn do it. Besides, they had a Kingsmoot, I doubt Theon could accomplish much, what with being despised by most of the ironborn. Even so, from the dungeons of the Dreadfort, it is hard to challenge Euron for the Seastone chair. I am leaning more towards it being something about the North, perhaps insight into Ramsay's story.

Here's my take:

Arya's duplicate is being wed to the Bolton's Bastard, and Theon should be able to positively identify Arya (or Sansa's friend Jeyne, if it is her).

GH

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Here's my take:

Arya's duplicate is being wed to the Bolton's Bastard, and Theon should be able to positively identify Arya (or Sansa's friend Jeyne, if it is her).

GH

Yeah, so it's something.. I don't look forward to it, though. I never liked Theon much. Lots of scenes with Theon being tortured and manipulated. Perhaps it will tie in with Jon somehow.

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I am, as of now, re-reading A Clash of Kings for the first time, so that I'll be prepared for the release of ADWD. I'm just wondering about Tyrion's plan involving sending Myrcella to Dorne.

He said that he would send Tommen to Dorne to both Littlefinger and Varys. Was this to see if Pycell

would tell Cersei of his real plans? If not then I'm confused since she knew of his plans before he'd told her and he seemed to change his plan pretty suddenly.

This must be it, right? I can't imagine that George would have messed up with who's going where.

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I am, as of now, re-reading A Clash of Kings for the first time, so that I'll be prepared for the release of ADWD. I'm just wondering about Tyrion's plan involving sending Myrcella to Dorne.

He said that he would send Tommen to Dorne to both Littlefinger and Varys. Was this to see if Pycell

would tell Cersei of his real plans? If not then I'm confused since she knew of his plans before he'd told her and he seemed to change his plan pretty suddenly.

This must be it, right? I can't imagine that George would have messed up with who's going where.

He told Pycelle, Littlefinger, and Varys slightly different versions of which child he was going to send where. When Cersei confronted him with one of the versions, he knew which one was betraying him to Cersei (Pycelle). Now this doesn't mean that Varys and Littlefinger aren't betraying Tyrion. They just didn't do it in this instance.

GH

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Has GRRM said definitively that A Dream of Spring will be the final book in this series?

Pretty sure that he did. He said that there will be 7 books and A Dream of Spring (replacing the title of Time for the Wolves) is the last book

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As far as I'm aware, no. That's what he WANTS to do but no, he isn't guaranteeing. Originally it was only going to be 3 books (before he finished the first one), then it expanded a bit. I believe it was 6 at one point, and he was insisting 6 until he finally relented and said 7. I believe he said after that he wasn't making guarantees.

I can't say until after I read Dance, but my gut has been 8 books for awhile, although I'm not sure if the HBO series will change that up at all (if it goes the distance, it's going to be very difficult to finish 3 more books before the series would finish, even if they make a couple books 2 seasons). If I recall, he was saying 7 before he officially split Book 4 into two, and even though he's added some stuff to the end of Dance to resolve some of the Feast stuff, unless there's an enormous body count in Dance (which is what I'm waiting to see), I think he's still going to have the problems of so many PoV characters. They may start coming together more if Dany invades soon, but still, if you put a gun to my head and made me guess the number of books, I'd go with 8. But as of right now he's still planning on 7.

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Question about Varys. Everybody seems to feel that he is a sort of a good guy (better than LF) and a huge Targ sympathiser and loyal to Dany.

However, as I am rereading the books, it feels that whomever Varys is, he is not loyal to Targs, Danys or anyone we met so far. He seems to be playing all sides. There is a musing from someone basically saying that Aerys reign took a much worse turn after Varys showed up at court. He followed Varys advice (which seemed to feed his paranoia) and it ruined this reign.

Varys looks to me sort of indirect cause of Targ fall. I mean, everybody was guilty and Aerys most of all, but whatever Varys been doing seem to add fuel to a fire. Either he is a bad advisor or he is running his own agenda and helping Dany at this time might be running parallel to his goals at this time, but he wouldn't hesitate to plot against her even if it means loss of last Targaenen, if his goals ask for it!

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As far as I'm aware, no. That's what he WANTS to do but no, he isn't guaranteeing. Originally it was only going to be 3 books (before he finished the first one), then it expanded a bit. I believe it was 6 at one point, and he was insisting 6 until he finally relented and said 7. I believe he said after that he wasn't making guarantees.

I can't say until after I read Dance, but my gut has been 8 books for awhile, although I'm not sure if the HBO series will change that up at all (if it goes the distance, it's going to be very difficult to finish 3 more books before the series would finish, even if they make a couple books 2 seasons). If I recall, he was saying 7 before he officially split Book 4 into two, and even though he's added some stuff to the end of Dance to resolve some of the Feast stuff, unless there's an enormous body count in Dance (which is what I'm waiting to see), I think he's still going to have the problems of so many PoV characters. They may start coming together more if Dany invades soon, but still, if you put a gun to my head and made me guess the number of books, I'd go with 8. But as of right now he's still planning on 7.

Thank you. I asked because it seems weird that these authors are going with 7. It seems like a weird odd number of books to have in a series. Same thing for Harry Potter. I guess I just like more symmetry in my numerology. :)

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I do not know if is it the right thread for this question, but I did not encountered any thread on physical aspects of the various editions of ASoIaF.

I'm about to buy this hardcover ed., and I would like to know what kind of paper is it made off, because I do not want that kind of "newspaper paper" books.

Thats the book I'm considering: http://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Song-Fire-Book/dp/0553103547/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

So, anyone?

Thanks in advancement.

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I think that questions about the physical books and properties of different editions would best be addressed in the Objects forum:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/forum/8-objects-of-ice-and-fire/

I also think that questions about the projected length of the series are probably not small. ;)

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