[ADwD Spoilers] All of the little things

[Fire Eater]

Tyrion I

A he did, he saw some mushrooms growing up from a cracked paving tile. Pale white they were, with speckles, and red-ribbed undersides dark as blood. The dwarf snapped one off and sniffed it. Delicious, he thought, and deadly.

Tyrion XI

Watered wine and lemonsweet and some nice hot dogtail soup, with slivers of mushroom in the broth Drink it down, Nursey, that shit water squirting from your arse needs to be replaced. The last word Nurse ever said was, "No." The last words he ever heard were, "A Lannister always pays his debts."

[Fire Eater]

I just finished re-reading the first Jon Connington chapter, and there's an interesting little tidbit in there when the subject of the Tyrells comes up:

Laswell Peake is related to Lord Titus Peake of Starpike, one of Mace Tyrell's bannermen.

[Shahrizai]

Noticed during a current reread of ASOS-- when Arya is taken to the underground cave of the Brotherhood Without Banners, it has white weirwood roots writhing in and out of the walls and ceiling. The first time she spots UnBeric (a few pages before he actually comes out and identifies himself), here's the description:

"[...T]he roots formed a kind of stairway up to a hollow in the earth where a man sat almost lost in the tangle of weirwood."

Like Bloodraven, UnBeric is a not-quite-dead guy who's lost one eye. Could he have been hooked into the WeirWoodWeb too?

Whoa. That is cool.

[Lurker of the Forest]

I noticed that Young Griff is described as "the prince" before Tyrion has his revealing dialogue with "Aegon". Was this intended to make the reader wonder or was it a mistake. It could be that Tyrion has realized who it might be but it's a bit weird that GRRM uses "prince" before it's explained.

Tyrion won his game of cyvasse with Haldon and got to find out a secret.

[mhenrique]

I understand Mendelian genetics. I said that non-dwarf parents can have dwarf children. If it is purely Mendelian, that means dwarfism is recessive. Denote D for the dominant dwarf allele, and d for the recessive "normal" allele. A non-dwarf parent must have the dd genotype. Therefore, two non-dwarf parents, both with the dd genotype must a have a non-dwarf child with the gg genotype. This is a contradiction since non-dwarves can beget dwarves, so dwarfism must be recessive. I then corrected myself when I read that a mutation can cause dwarfism in the offspring of non-dwarves. However, that is not pure Mendelian genetics. Your explanation is irrelevant to what I had posted.

How can 2 parents with dwarfism have a child that is of average height?

-A high school teacher from Pennsylvania

June 23, 2006

This is a great question. It can be hard to think about how this could happen. If the parents have dwarfism, the kids should too, right?

Well, no. This is only true of recessive traits. Dwarfism is most commonly a dominant trait.

Very useful answer, huh? Let's dig a little deeper to find out what the answer really means.

We have two copies of most of our genes -- one from mom and one from dad. And our genes can come in different versions called alleles.

For example, there is a gene called FGFR3. Most people have versions of this gene that result in average height. But some versions can lead to dwarfism.

People with dwarfism have one copy of FGFR3 that causes dwarfism and one that does not*. In genetics speak, this means that the dwarfism version is dominant to the other, more common version.

Now imagine two parents with dwarfism. Which copy of a gene we get from our parents is random. So for this discussion, each parent has a 50-50 shot of passing down a copy that does not lead to dwarfism.

Genes can change because they are written in DNA and not stone.

What this means is that 25% of the time, the child will get a copy of the average height gene from both parents. The result will be a child of average height.

So that explains that. Two parents with dwarfism can have a child of average height because the parents are carriers of that trait.

But wait a minute. If dwarfism is dominant, where does it come from in the first place? Do people with dwarfism always have little people as parents? No.

Around 7 out of 8 cases of dwarfism result from DNA changes in the FGFR3 gene that appear out of nowhere. Literally. These changes (or mutations) happen in the sperm or the egg or very early on in development.

This brings up the very important point that genes are not written in stone. They are written in DNA. And DNA can change.

DNA is made up of four letters that spell out, in three letter words, the instructions found in a gene for making a protein. A mutation happens when something in that series of letters changes.

Either one or more letters go missing, an extra letter or more is added, or the letters are changed to a different letter. These changes alter the instructions giving a different version of the protein.

Where do these changes come from? DNA can change because of something in the food we eat or the air we breathe, from sunlight, or a host of other environmental factors.

Or our cells can change the DNA accidentally. This happens occasionally when our cells copy our DNA. The copying process is incredibly efficient but still our cells occasionally put in the wrong letter. All the cells that come from that cell will now have that mistake.

Incidentally, mistake may be the wrong word to use. These "mistakes" are the stuff of all of the wonderful variety we see around us. They are responsible for big things like evolution and for little things like red hair, blue eyes, or dark skin. Thank goodness genes are made of DNA and not stone!

So there you have it. Two parents with dwarfism can have a child of average height because dwarfism is a dominant trait.

And the parents probably did not inherit their dwarfism from their parents. At some point early in development, their FGFR3 gene picked up a DNA change that led to dwarfism.

*If both copies lead to dwarfism, then the baby will be either stillborn or die shortly after birth.

Source: http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=179

[Galen M]

ok, so there we have it. As I mentioned above, I did not realize that there was a possibility of mutation leading to dwarfism. I was only talking about pure Mendelian genetics, which does not account for mutations. That minor catch makes my assumptions irrelevant, so Dwarfism being dominant is not a contradiction.

[wombat1138]

This may not mean much but Wyman Manderly's daughter Wylla, baring the same name of a potential mother of Jon Snow, is strongly defending vengeance for the death of Eddard Stark and Lady Leona goes on to say "Hush!. You know nothing." That spanked my mind a bit, if nothing else.

Actually, I wonder if she's Someone Else (i.e., not really a Manderly)-- her older sister has a brown braid; Wylla has blond eyebrows and a green-dyed braid. Eyebrows are usually somewhat darker than the main crop of head hair.

Could Wylla's real hair color be Dayne ash-blond? Targ silver-blond? Lannister golden-blond?

Her age isn't given in the ADWD appendices, but AFFC's said she was fifteen years old, FWIW.

[Dolorous Red]

In Jamie's chapter, he indicates he's planning to tell Myrcella that she's his daughter, and he worries about what the Dornish will think. Does that mean Jamie is planning to confess his incest to the realm? How does he plan to get out of that one?

[Jagermaester]

I'm sure its mentioned other places on this forum, but Tyrion mentions a book "The Death of Dragons" which has only one surviving copy locked in the Citadel. I am guessing this is what Syrio/Jaquen/Alchemist/Pate is looking for in the Citadel, maybe so the faceless men can learn to kill dragons?

[omegaStark]

That was a contention that never made sense to many people, but was accepted as gospel as a longtime poster on these boards had attributed that statement to GRRM after a reading(So Spake Martin).

The original poster recently admitted that when asked the question as to whether AA and TPwwP meant the same person, George had replied with "no comment", not "yes".

The answer on the boards that George had said "yes" was simply wrong and a lie. The poster admitted his lie about a month ago with great regret.

End result: Your recollection is right, but you missed the intervening disclaimer that George never said any such thing. AA and TPwwP might be the same -- and might not be. It is muddled and it isn't clear.

My personal belief is that the prophecies are referring to two separate people and there has been a muddling of their identities over time.

what is the ptwwp or whatever?

[omegaStark]

Two things I just noticed:

1) One of Tormund's sons was killed during the battle for the Wall by a knight with moths on his shield. Later, during the march to Winterfell, we see that Ser Richard Horpe has three death's-head moths as his livery.

2) The Connington/Aegon/Golden Company contingent has a spy in their midst. In the Epilogue, the Small Council is discussing Connington's return, and it's mentioned that Connington is planning on attacking Storm's End. The only way to know that is through a (probably highly-placed) spy.

Or it could just be conjecture, and sound tactis/strategy seeing as how they took conningtons old castle, idk.

[Miriel]

what is the ptwwp or whatever?

The Prince Who Was Promised. A prophecy that several characters refer to throughout the series. Off the top of my head I can think of Rhaegar talking w/ Elia in Dany's vision in the House of Undying in ACoK: ("He has a song, he is the PWWP and his is the song of ice and fire.") Also, Maester Aemon discusses it with Meisdnadre up at the Wall ("It is the war for the Dawn you speak of my lady, but where is the Prince Who Was Promised?")

And later in Feast Maester Aemon comes to believe it was Dany all along who is the PWWP.

There is also a character who seems similar but maybe is not the same person,but we don't know for sure apparently one way or the other, Azor Ahai. Daovs talks of him a lot with Saalador Saan. Meslisandre does as well.

[Brigid]

So Tyrion killing Nurse with the mushrooms- that was a mercy killing? What debt did he owe to Nurse?

[L13]

Just something that struck me after reading about the Blackfyre Rebellion in The Mystery Knight:

When legitimised bastards in Westeros pick their coats of arms, they usually invert their Houses' colours.

House Stark's sigil is a grey direwolf on a white field. Inverting the colours would give us a white direwolf on a grey field.

White direwolf.

Grey. Scale. (This one is more of a reach, I admit, but even just the white direwolf is enough of a coincidence.)

DUN DUN DUN

Makes too much sense.

[the Scorpion Knight]

the Captian of the ship jorah hired to sail to dany was Asha's first one

[ViennaGirl]

Actually, I wonder if she's Someone Else (i.e., not really a Manderly)-- her older sister has a brown braid; Wylla has blond eyebrows and a green-dyed braid. Eyebrows are usually somewhat darker than the main crop of head hair.

Could Wylla's real hair color be Dayne ash-blond? Targ silver-blond? Lannister golden-blond?

Her age isn't given in the ADWD appendices, but AFFC's said she was fifteen years old, FWIW.

Ha! She's the real Dany!! Kidding, but still. Why the green braid? We haven't heard of any other northerners who dye their hair green. I would love for her to be someone interesting - she rocks.

Editing to say - of course she could also just be interesting on her own ;)

[Galen M]

In Jamie's chapter, he indicates he's planning to tell Myrcella that she's his daughter, and he worries about what the Dornish will think. Does that mean Jamie is planning to confess his incest to the realm? How does he plan to get out of that one?

yes, that is plan. He wants to stop lying, and be open about these things and start repenting. Maybe he is hoping that the power of Casterly Rock will keep him alive.

I'm sure its mentioned other places on this forum, but Tyrion mentions a book "The Death of Dragons" which has only one surviving copy locked in the Citadel. I am guessing this is what Syrio/Jaquen/Alchemist/Pate is looking for in the Citadel, maybe so the faceless men can learn to kill dragons?

There is a whole thread on this theory, you may have to go back a few pages to find it.

So Tyrion killing Nurse with the mushrooms- that was a mercy killing? What debt did he owe to Nurse?

Nurse was his slaver, his overseer; Tyrion did not appreciate that.

[serbrc]

One little thing that jumped out at me, maybe just because I was thinking about disease and plague (what with all the greyscale and flux in this book):

Pycelle pointed with a spotted hand. Where the sleeve of his robe rode up, a flap of pale flesh could be seen dangling beneath his forearm.

It's mooted by the rest of the epilogue, obviously, but what was up with Pycelle's skin sloughing off in chunks? Kevan didn't seem to reflect on it at all.

[Rinso]

One little thing that jumped out at me, maybe just because I was thinking about disease and plague (what with all the greyscale and flux in this book):

It's mooted by the rest of the epilogue, obviously, but what was up with Pycelle's skin sloughing off in chunks? Kevan didn't seem to reflect on it at all.

I think it was meant just as saggy skin.

[Fez]

It's mooted by the rest of the epilogue, obviously, but what was up with Pycelle's skin sloughing off in chunks? Kevan didn't seem to reflect on it at all.

I assumed it was just a loose flap of skin, the kind that lots of old people get, and not actually a sign of plague.