A Thread for Small Questions X

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

I'm not sure about it, but wasn't it given to Maege Mormont as she headed north before the RW? There is nothing about the North in AFFC, so I suppose that at the beginning of ADWD it's at the same place as it was at the end of ASOS.

I thought that Mormont was supposed to go north and meet up with Howland Reed.

[Sasha Steelsong]

I'm not sure about it, but wasn't it given to Maege Mormont as she headed north before the RW? There is nothing about the North in AFFC, so I suppose that at the beginning of ADWD it's at the same place as it was at the end of ASOS.

I just did a quick re-read of the chapters before the RW and I couldn't find a mention as to what happens to the letter. One Catelyn chapter ends with Lady Mormont, the Greatjon, and Lord Malaster witnessing Robb sign the will and affixing their seals to it and the next begins with their arrival at the twins. While we are told about Lady Moremont riding north and not staying for the wedding, there is no mention of the letter after Robb has the lords and lady witness it. I might have missed something but I do feel it might still be out there somewhere if it wasn't on Robb at the Twins and therefore lost.

[tyrions sliced nose]

Robb Starks wife Jeyne never was at the RW so does anyone know what has happened to her? Any chance shes got pregnant? Where is she these days?

[Emyn Grey]

Do we know why Dolorous Edd is at The Wall?

[zmflavius]

Robb Starks wife Jeyne never was at the RW so does anyone know what has happened to her? Any chance shes got pregnant? Where is she these days?

She makes a brief cameo appearance in AFFC (and there is debate as to whether that wast he real Jeyne or a decoy). The AFFC Jeyne, in any case, is making her way to the Westerlands. If she's not returning to the Crag under guard, she's probably hiding in Riverrun, or on the run in the riverlands.

Do we know why Dolorous Edd is at The Wall?

No, but it probably is very droll.

Actually, come to it, this is one of the things which are better left unsaid.

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

Robb Starks wife Jeyne never was at the RW so does anyone know what has happened to her? Any chance shes got pregnant? Where is she these days?

she's at riverunn.

[aktarian]

2 questions.

Why does Night Watch wear black clothes when they operate in snow more often than not? Wouldn't white be more practical? OK, symbolism, Night Watch etc but there are practical issues...

How come Drogo as still single when he married Dany? He is well past marrying age, respected leader of a big khalasar yet there is no mention of him being married before (widower), no children nor his other wife if Dothraki practice polygamy.

[Saren Snow]

Before I got to the end of your post Ashara Dayne sprang to my mind as well so maybe...? Clearly she has some significant connection to Ned so that seems like a fairly plausible one to me..

If i remeber correctly, in A Game of Thrones, when Ned is thinking back to how things could have been he says that he would have joined the black and gone to the wall.

[Areo]

Did the Southron Kingdoms send their criminals to the wall before Aegon the Conqueror arrived?

No reason they shouldn't have. The NW always stays neutral and all the brothers take are some criminals from the dungeons. You don't need a united kingdom for that.

[Black Crow]

2 questions.

Why does Night Watch wear black clothes when they operate in snow more often than not? Wouldn't white be more practical? OK, symbolism, Night Watch etc but there are practical issues...

Depends where you are. Snowy forests are not uniformly white; there's an awful lot of black in there - tree trunks and the like. A man in black standing still, especially if leaning against a tree is actually pretty hard to spot and often harder to spot than somebody moving in white.

[ArtNJ]

At the beginning of book 4, why does "the alchemist" kill the apprentice to get the key to that box, and how do we know its Jacquen, as I've heard people stating?

[aspasia]

I mean we have the following marriages set up

Robert to Lyanna

Jon Arryan to Lysa

Cat to Brandon

Which conslidates 4 major houses. I know Ned is the younger son but could still marry well. Add the refusal of the "Blackfish" to marry around the same time and it would seem like someone was trying to gather some allies.

Then a rebellion just happens to break out....

No. Jon Arryn's marriage to Lysa was not set up before Robert's rebellion broke out; Arryn's need for another heir didn't make it necessary for him to wed again until his previous heir was killed by Aerys-- wasn't he one of the friends who rode into the Red Keep demanding that Rhaegar answer for Lyanna's "kidnapping", and quickly died for it? The rebellion broke out afterwards, when Jon Arryn refused the king's demand for the heads of his wards Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark. At this point I think Lysa was in Riverrun recovering from losing a child fathered by Petyr Baelish; Hoster Tully probably required Arryn to marry Lysa as the price of House Tully's allegiance. Apparently "marry my problem daughter" is a fairly standard price-tag on troops.

This series has plenty of complicated semi-hidden conspiracies... No need to work so hard trying to imagine yet more. The facts that the Baratheon heir was engaged to a Stark daughter and the Stark heir to a Tully don't require a plot to explain them; noble houses always try to marry their kids to one another. It's part of how their snotty prestige is propped up; it's supposed to be embarrassing if your offspring weds anyone a status degree lower. Apparently just about everybody in the top-rank Houses colludes to maintain this stigma-- think of Asha Greyjoy matter-of-factly thinking that her own favorite lover is "too lowborn" to marry, or Cersei Lannister refusing to let Littlefinger have Sansa on the same grounds.

[Dragonfish]

At the beginning of book 4, why does "the alchemist" kill the apprentice to get the key to that box, and how do we know its Jacquen, as I've heard people stating?

Have you read to the end of the book yet? In case you haven't, I'm going to put the following explanation in spoiler tags:

1. The alchemist is a faceless man who killed Pate in order to impersonate him. He may have also wanted the key, though some theorize that he only asked Pate to steal it because he can only kill people who admit to committing crimes (or something like that).

2. The alchemist has the same exact appearance as the man Jaqen turned into at the end of ACoK. That's how we know he's Jaqen.

[aspasia]

Does anyone have any theorys why Benjen took the black?

Are you fishing for some sort of answer like "because he had been sleeping with his sister"?

I'm pretty amused by this argument about the relative sizes of infants and reliabilities of timelines, in regard to the question of whether BENJEN could have sired Jon on Lyanna. I mean, it's one thing when Cersei Lannister thinks every pair of siblings must be incestuous; she's just that self-centered. But does no one reading this forum think that the fact that Benjen is Lyanna's little brother is a prima facie reason to suppose they aren't lovers?

snort, eye-roll.

[aktarian]

No reason they shouldn't have. The NW always stays neutral and all the brothers take are some criminals from the dungeons. You don't need a united kingdom for that.

It was mentioned that in the past NW had a fair share of knights and nobles who saw joining NW as an honourable thing to do. Only "later" did it become penal colony for both criminals and disgraced knights/nobility (though not sure when this "later" actually was).

[aktarian]

Depends where you are. Snowy forests are not uniformly white; there's an awful lot of black in there - tree trunks and the like. A man in black standing still, especially if leaning against a tree is actually pretty hard to spot and often harder to spot than somebody moving in white.

That's true and that's why winter camouflage is not pure white but has dark spots, lines, etc as well. But still, choosing all-black uniform to operate in snow?

[aspasia]

There are also theories that Tywin had the sneak door created at Chataya's because he didn't want anyone to see him entering. (Varys said that a former Hand had it built.) It is suspected that Tywin had some of the same weaknesses that his father and Tyrion had regarding prostitutes. But Tywin was more circumspect, because of the reputation it gave his father and his family. He may not particularly care if Tyrion uses prostitutes, he just doesn't want others to know about it.

GH

Essentially right, I think, with this caveat. Tywin doesn't despise Tyrion for USING prostitutes; he very specifically gets his knickers in a twist over Tyrion's being too nice to them. Tywin does know that Tyrion's first wife was just a commoner, not a prostitute, yet he seems to believe himself when he spits out how shameful he finds it for Tyrion to have "married a whore". It seems that Tywin thinks of everyone as a whore who is not either a Lannister or of equal power; everyone, in his view, can be bought and is just after the power and money that the ruling Houses control. Tywin also reacts very strongly to his own father's having treated a "mere bedwarmer" better than Tywin thinks she was entitled to be treated. It would have been fine for the elder Lannister just to have screwed a common girl, but the unforgivable weakness was that he LISTENED to her, sat her at his TABLE, and let her wear jewels that had belonged to his WIFE.

Tywin would consider it perfectly permissible to sleep with Shae, or any other low-born girl, as long as the girl was treated with the appropriate meanness and contempt; he orders Alayaya whipped just to show everyone how it's proper to treat whores, without even the pretense that she's done anything in particular to deserve it. When Cersei insists that her father wouldn't have slept with a whore, she betrays her own ignorance of his character and what his actions vis-a-vis his father's mistress really meant. "Bringing shame upon House Lannister" doesn't mean a Lannister screwing a whore; it means a Lannister "letting a whore screw him"-- as Tywin would see it-- by indulging them beyond what they have a "right to expect."

The only detail that really bothers me is that the Tywin I'm hypothesizing here would NEVER have let Shae try on the Hand's chain of office. NEVER. He would have had sex with her, sure, and felt perfectly justified about it as long as he treated her badly, which is how he thinks low-born people ought to be treated. But she must have picked up that chain and put it on herself while he was in the privy, not realizing that Tywin wouldn't see it as cute or seductive, but rather presumptuous and infuriating. If Tyrion hadn't strangled her with the thing, Tywin might have done it if he found her with it around her neck. Or, more likely, just ripped it off her and called for some guards to come take her out to the yard to be scourged and thrown in the gutter.

Tywin makes my teeth hurt. No wonder Tyrion turns into a blithering idiot around him.

[KyleLitke]

Has anyone else noticed that the Nights Watch is all about "Blah blah blah, these are your brothers now, you have no other family, you must stay here and do your duty and yadda yadda yadda", yet at the beginning of Game of Thrones, Ned is all "Oh hey, Robert's coming over, someone call up Benjen and tell him to come party with us, have him bring the beer", and Benjen totally does it! And nobody cares! We don't get any indictation that I can recall that Benjen came to beg for men. He brings a few north, sure, but boy that seems like an excuse. He didn't come south to go beg for men, Ned sent for him. They didn't need to send Benjen to go pick them up. Coulda just sent Dolorous Edd, now there's a guy who needs some party time.

What's up with that? Rules don't apply to Benjen?

[Howlin' Reed]

Has anyone else noticed that the Nights Watch is all about "Blah blah blah, these are your brothers now, you have no other family, you must stay here and do your duty and yadda yadda yadda", yet at the beginning of Game of Thrones, Ned is all "Oh hey, Robert's coming over, someone call up Benjen and tell him to come party with us, have him bring the beer", and Benjen totally does it! And nobody cares! We don't get any indictation that I can recall that Benjen came to beg for men. He brings a few north, sure, but boy that seems like an excuse. He didn't come south to go beg for men, Ned sent for him. They didn't need to send Benjen to go pick them up. Coulda just sent Dolorous Edd, now there's a guy who needs some party time.

What's up with that? Rules don't apply to Benjen?

I'd say an opportunity to treat with the king seems a good enough reason to leave the Wall. And Benjen wasn't just a Stark, he was First Ranger - a notable person within the Watch.

[Lannister Lion]

I have a small question: Can we have a thread for small questions in the ADWD section please, specifically for small questions regarding ADWD only?