[ADWD Spoilers]A Host of Small Matters

[corbaekin]

Linda was thinking that Barristan may be one of the betrayals, doing it for love of her and thinking it in her best interest, or something such.

I think it's Daario, OTOH. I think the guy actually does love her.

If it were Daario, though, what might the betrayal be? The only thing I can think of is him possibly sabotaging her queenship, to show her that he loves her for herself, not for what she can rule, since this comes up as what she thinks of him, only loving her as a queen.

[Ser Pistus]

An additional example: in the legend with the singer and the rose of Winterfell: the baby continued the name Stark, even though her mother was a Stark, not his father.

[Ran]

Elroy,

Linda was considering the same, because Barristan of course goes on about how love is dangerous, how all these decisions for love led to treason and death. So it'd be typically George to throw that back in Barristan's face and put him in a position to betray Daenerys for love.

Now, that said, I do not believe Lemore is Ashara. It was just something I considered. I think her age and appearance is wrong, though.

[Brandon the Epithetless]

An additional example: in the legend with the singer and the rose of Winterfell: the baby continued the name Stark, even though her mother was a Stark, not his father.

That kid could potentially have been legitimized but did not carry the Stark name originally.

[3LittleBirds]

Just a small question/thought. I thought I had heard or read somewhere that we might find out the words of House Clegane in aDwD...am I just misremembering? I'm guessing it's been put off to tWoW...

[Ran]

I don't recall that one, I admit. I suppose George may have been asked and he said it'd be possible.

[Maltaran]

Tanner could be the name Bronn took for himself, and gave the boy.

I have an arcane question about all those Freys: didn't {MERRETT FREY}, his ninth son, hanged at Oldstones have a daughter that was married to Lancel?

Gatehouse Ami, yes. The Frey appendix in DwD is not nearly as detailed as in earlier books - very few grandkids are mentioned (it seems to be only the ones who appear - Jared and the two Walders).

[Spring Bass]

I just realized how much Sallador Saan screwed himself over. He stuck with Stannis long enough to lose most of his fleet to battle and storms, but not long enough to collect the payments he would be getting now that Stannis has the Iron Bank of Braavos backing him.

[jxd]

An additional example: in the legend with the singer and the rose of Winterfell: the baby continued the name Stark, even though her mother was a Stark, not his father.

Speaking of singers, Abel is an anagram of Bael, and he was asking about the crypt.

[palimpsest.]

There's no way in hell Dany's third traitor is Brown Ben Plumm. WAY too easy. It's going to be someone severely close to her heart, closer than Ser Jorah, and it will be a punch in the gut. Who, though? Hmmm. Barristan? Tyrion? If Dany made Tyrion pick between her and Jaime, who knows...

As it is, it would be a cop-out. So Dany... watch out :uhoh:

I agree the third traitor is not Brown Ben Plumm. I think that somehow, Dany herself will be the last traitor, just because this is the least obvious option.

[jurble]

Reading the Appendix - did Lord Estermont die?

[Whitering]

I just realized how much Sallador Saan screwed himself over. He stuck with Stannis long enough to lose most of his fleet to battle and storms, but not long enough to collect the payments he would be getting now that Stannis has the Iron Bank of Braavos backing him.

Stannis would probably still pay him for his time.

[KyleLitke]

Little things I noticed that interested me.

1) Egg's reign was "troubled". Obviously we know how it ended (well...we don't know exactly what happened, but we know enough to say it was bad), but I didn't really realize any other part of his reign was troubled.

2) Egg married for love, and so did his 3 sons. Duncan the Small apparently really caused a problem, and actually, the fact that it claims he "set aside a crown" is REALLY interesting to me. It actually gives us a lot of information we didn't already have...Egg marries for love, Egg has three sons (as far as I can recall, we only knew of Duncan the Small, Jaehaerys, and his daughter that wed a Baratheon). The part I find particularly odd though is "setting aside a crown". It was my understanding that Prince Duncan died at Summerhall with Egg...if that's the case then he never had the crown. Barristan thinks that he loved Jenny of Oldstones so much that he cast aside a crown, and Westeros paid the bride price in corpses, but Duncan was never King. Why would he have gotten disowned for that or removed from the royal bloodline, especially as Barristan thinks directly after that Aegon allowed it? Did Egg die before Duncan, who then refused the crown? That doesn't seem right. I suppose that whole thing may be why Egg's reign was troubled, but I still don't really get Duncan setting aside the crown.

[Marcus of the South]

Maybe Duncan just said that he would never accept the crown, rather than actually being king and abdicating.

[moffy]

I was a little confused about the white raven Kevan saw in the epilogue. Am I wrong, or had it just arrived?

If so, why did it take so long for a white raven to reach KL as opposed to Riverrun? I appreciate the distance differential but surely there's a couple of weeks' lag here?

[DBaron]

Why the title A Dance with Dragons? The dragons didn't seem to have much effect on the plots aside from Danys and even then it wasn't that much. The only thing I can think of is that it's saying that Tyrion, Jon, and Dany are the three heads of the Dragons since their POV took up the majority of the book. Is there something I am missing?

[alguien]

Alliser Thorne had no ranging experience, which is quite a bit different than the TV incarnation of his character.

[wolfbird]

My impression was that "A Dance With Dragons" was meant to reference the historical event in Westeros's past where there was two rival Targs fighting over the throne, and I was fully expecting that Aegon and Dany would come into conflict with each other and maybe even battle in this novel.

However they ended up not even meeting each other. <_<

[Werthead]

Why the title A Dance with Dragons? The dragons didn't seem to have much effect on the plots aside from Danys and even then it wasn't that much.

Arguably Dany was dancing with all the different factions in Meereen and Aegon (if legit) was dancing his way from the Rhoyne to Volantis and then to Westeros. But I think the actual reason is what Barristan says to the dying Quentyn later on, "When you dance with dragons you must take care not to get burned," or whatever it was.

Though if it turns out that the conclusion to the Knot in TWoW features dragon-on-dragon battles (between Victarion's horn-controlled ones and Dany/Drogo) and this was delayed from Book 5 I think that would be quite ironic (since the Dance with Dragons wasn't in the book with the same name).

I was a little confused about the white raven Kevan saw in the epilogue. Am I wrong, or had it just arrived?

If so, why did it take so long for a white raven to reach KL as opposed to Riverrun? I appreciate the distance differential but surely there's a couple of weeks' lag here?

The white raven never went to Riverrun. Jaime assumed it had because it was snowing and someone said, "A raven's arrived," and he thought it was a white raven. Then they said no, it was the raven bearing Cersei's letter.

[Arataniello]

A point I noted last night - Tyrion mentions, in his first meeting with Duck and Haldon, the name of a brother of Aegon Targaryen at the time of the Dance of Dragons.

A couple of the dragons' names involved in that conflict are also mentioned.

However, I couldn't figure out at the time of reading (late night) whether Aemond worked out to be the brother of Aegon II, or of Aegon III (Rhaenyra's son, Aegon II's successor). We knew previously that Aegon III had a brother (Viserys) but no information about other siblings; we also knew that Aegon II has some siblings, but that they all died in the course of the Dance.