Small Questions XIII

[Spinebreaker]

What's up with this emoticon?:

:smileysex:

That's the Khal Drogo meets Danyaerys emoticon.

[Serie]

Is the armorer in Kings Landing where Grenly apprenticed associated with the Faceless men at all? The description of the weirwood and ebony doors on my second read through got me thinking...

Another faceless-man related question related to when the Alchemist kills Pate in the prologue of AFFC. Why is the Alchemist allowed to kill Pate to achieve his goal, when Arya was not allowed to kill anyone other than the specified target on her first mission?

Aren't they allowed to kill people if someone else has asked for their death???

That's the Khal Drogo meets Danyaerys emoticon.

oh... I thought it was just to keep us posting... :P

[Top Notch Balanter]

One thing that seems obvious to me but that i havent seen anyone talking about is that bran and meera reed are going to end up together but i dont know how relevant it will be in the overall scheme of things so if anyone can help it would be much appreciated

[Ashen Shugar]

^ I don't think it's that obvious, I mean, it is obvious that Bran likes her, but that doesn't mean that it is likely that they will end up together.

My question is, whats the deal with the jon/mance fight where mance keeps getting stronger as the fight goes on? Is there a thread where this is discussed anyone can point me to?

[Buckwheat]

My question is, whats the deal with the jon/mance fight where mance keeps getting stronger as the fight goes on? Is there a thread where this is discussed anyone can point me to?

Keeps getting stronger? I do not really remember that part good, but I would assume that only Jon feels as if he were getting stronger because Jon is getting tired so it is easier for Mance to beat him.

[ghost the direwolf]

and from Jon side , he was fighting rattleshirt, (mance glamoured) he expected himself to beat Rattle but it turned out differently because it was really Mance. and mance was angry as well therefore the strenght and power of each of his strikes i believe.

[Hear Us Roar]

yeah mance is stronger than rattleshirt so jon was surprised by the strength and speed with a greatsword from a guy that did not look it.

remember mance is the strongest wilding, he fought most of the wildling leaders in single combat to get the kingship

[fluffywarthog]

White walkers aren't described as looking at all zombielike (that is, in a clear state of undeath, entrails hanging out, etc) in the two instances they've been on screen. They wear odd armor and crystalline swords, and speak an unknown language in a voice that sounds like cracking ice.

Wights just look like humans as they died, with new shiny blue eyes.

I initially imagined them as kind of looking like snow-mummies, like they had been embalmed while still alive. However, hearing about what happened to Craster's boys scared me s***less. My favorite Other-theory is that they kill and resurrect adults as whites, but that a different method allows them to turn still-living infants, and lets them grow semi-naturally while adapting to the cold.

Pic related: Petty Officer John Torrington, of the 1854 Franklin Expedition to find a Northwest Passage. Torrington, dead of lead poisoning during the expedition, was naturally mummified and exhumed in this state in 1984.

CODE

http://theadventurecorner.explorerscorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/john-torrington.jpg

[Lord Calway]

^ I like your theory.

But I don't think Craster's boys are "trained" to be White Walkers. But they are surely not whights either. Maybe they are part of a dark ritual to strenghten the White Walkers, or maybe to help bring winter... I'm sure we will find out rather soon, now winter has come.

[Ashen Shugar]

Thanks for clearing that up guys, I just assumed that since Jon is fairly competent with a sword and way younger than Mance that Mance would be the first to get tired, especially since he was going on the offensive so heavily, but instead he just kept hulking up. Thought maybe there's something more to him.

[The Funion Knight]

Aren't they allowed to kill people if someone else has asked for their death???

oh... I thought it was just to keep us posting... :P

Do we know that the Alchemist is doing something for the faceless men and not a rogue agent?

[mummer]

Why is the Alchemist allowed to kill Pate to achieve his goal, when Arya was not allowed to kill anyone other than the specified target on her first mission?

Well, we don't know what the Alchemist's mission is, so for all we know he could've been specifically told to kill Pate.

Some readers have speculated that something in the Faceless Men's rules made this murder possible only after Pate had willingly done something treacherous (stealing the key) and confessed to it. The timing does seem suspicious (Pate meets his fate immediately after he's admitted to being a thief); also if the Alchemist were going to kill Pate no matter what, he could've easily gotten the key on his own after assuming Pate's identity. But so far it's just a guess.

[Aurane Lannister]

how come houses like lannister and tyrell have tons of their own armsmen, and then have additional troops from vassals, but houses like stark, baratheon and arryn barely have any of their own? I mean baratheon troops are rarely mentioned except storm's end guards, arryn has 20 ppl li,e littlefinger says, and house stark only has household guards. Like jory cassel, hayhead. I mean bran never sees hundreds of troops prepping in winterfell, but lannisters have like tons of their own soldiers in addition to vassals. I mean the warden of the north has to be able to protect his lands from disloyal bannermen right?

[zmflavius]

how come houses like lannister and tyrell have tons of their own armsmen, and then have additional troops from vassals, but houses like stark, baratheon and arryn barely have any of their own? I mean baratheon troops are rarely mentioned except storm's end guards, arryn has 20 ppl li,e littlefinger says, and house stark only has household guards. Like jory cassel, hayhead. I mean bran never sees hundreds of troops prepping in winterfell, but lannisters have like tons of their own soldiers in addition to vassals. I mean the warden of the north has to be able to protect his lands from disloyal bannermen right?

An guardsman takes time to train, and the Lannisters don't actually have extremely large numbers of Armsmen. Bear in mind that Rickard Stark took 200 men to KL only 15 years before the series start, and all were killed. Before Ned left for KL, he had the same number at Winterfell. Likely Ned was recovering from the loss. The Lannisters do not actually have that many guards. Tyrion's marriage to Tysha suggests a hundred at the time at Casterly Rock, and I believe that it is mentioned that Cersei had two hundred in KL. Three hundred, considering how much richer the Lannisters are, is not really that many. Storm's End, we don't have enough people to guess, but I think that the garrison being around three hundred, as mentioned in ASOS, is probably a good guesstimate. The Arryns are uncharacteristically low, but I suspect that Nestor Royce's three hundred men guarding the Gates of the Moon are actually Arryn men, and not Royce men.

The Lannisters do not keep thousands of men under arms except during wartime, and neither do they have a monopoly on vassals. The Lannisters have a larger army, but only by virtue of being richer. The Starks, when they want, can raise a force of perhaps 40k total, if they gathered all their forces and scraped the bottom of the barrel. Of that, perhaps 6-8k are knights and assorted northern horse. The Lannisters can probably raise half again as many, but they are very rich. In peace, I doubt they have more than 500 guardsmen under arms, with perhaps a few dozen knights attending upon them. Knights, since they must needs come from a knightly house, of which the Lannisters have a couple dozen as vassals, and also be second sons who don't stay at their own estates, can only number at most 60-75 of the Lannister permanent force, and really more as courtiers than anything else. Most knights, such as Ser Gregor Clegane, stay at their home, and leave for tourneys and wars.

Finally, when disloyal bannermen revolt, the disloyal bannerman will, unless he is a very good politician, be outnumbered at best by 5-1, if he is a very powerful bannerman. Think Reynes and Castameres.

[Aurane Lannister]

i guess i dint express myself properly. When starks march to war, most of their soldiers have been from their vassals with the stark overlord banner flying above their own. How many do u think were actually just stark men? But lannisters have their own men, with minor supplements from bannermen. And also baratheon armies are non-existant. Only their bannermen seem to hold troops like the florents if i'm not mistaken. And in the case of arryn, what to do if someone was in littlefingers position? I mean arryn has to have atleast some men in the vale which prevents bannermen from massing at the bottom of the eyrie right?

[Aurane Lannister]

if u notice, each time lannister troops are discussed, they have just the lion on their armor. But stark soldiers usually have other sigils so i think the ratio of overlord troops to vassal troops vary greatly between the north and the west. Thanks for your inputs.

[zmflavius]

if u notice, each time lannister troops are discussed, they have just the lion on their armor. But stark soldiers usually have other sigils so i think the ratio of overlord troops to vassal troops vary greatly between the north and the west. Thanks for your inputs.

i guess i dint express myself properly. When starks march to war, most of their soldiers have been from their vassals with the stark overlord banner flying above their own. How many do u think were actually just stark men? But lannisters have their own men, with minor supplements from bannermen. And also baratheon armies are non-existant. Only their bannermen seem to hold troops like the florents if i'm not mistaken. And in the case of arryn, what to do if someone was in littlefingers position? I mean arryn has to have atleast some men in the vale which prevents bannermen from massing at the bottom of the eyrie right?

Well, I think the main problem is that I haven't noticed it, since from what I can see, the Lannister armies are hardly a homogenous Lannister army. Admittedly, we spend a great deal more time with the Stark army than with the Lannister army, but the one time we get a good look at Tywin's army, the Green Fork, it's rather clear that his army has a fair scattering of troops, if the lords are anything to go by. The messenger who brings news of Riverrun wears the brindled boar of Crakehall. We see more variety with Stark, but Tyrion doesn't describe the Lannister force at all, except to say, "there's 20k of them." Gregor's forces, on the other hand, are unquestionably his. This, of course, is the consequence of having far more Stark POVs than Lannister POVs. Tyrion, the only Lannister POV during the war, is quickly spirited away from the frontlines to KL, where each courtier has guards from his/her own house.

Having said that, the Lannisters do have more troops directly sworn to them than Stark in general. I am inclined to chalk this up to Lannisters being richer in general, and because they directly control their main city, whereas the Manderlies, while of iron-clad loyalty, control the Starks' main city. Bigger pool of manpower to draw on.

But basically, the Lannisters by no means directly control the majority of their armies.

I agree with you on the Baratheon and Arryn points, but more so on the Arryn points. With Baratheon, we don't see many men with stags on their surcoats, but we don't see many Baratheons at all. By the time we get a decent description of force, most of the Baratheons seem to have re-switched their loyalty from Stannis to Renly.

As to the Arryns, yes, it is unusual. It may either be because Littlefinger never had the chance to call the local levies, or more likely, they simply never came. Or, perhaps, they were occupied by the bannermen before Littlefinger had a chance to call them up.

[Buried Treasure]

I think it may be that the Starks and Arryns hold less land directly because they have been the pre-eminent force in their areas for so long that they have granted much of their land away. The Cerwyns are important bannermen to the Starks, but they live less than a days ride from Winterfell. So they have probably grown powerful over centuries of being loyal to Stark, and the petty lords sworn to Cerwyn probably once owed fealty directly to Winterfell. Stark pre-eminence is such that they will always get support from enough of their bannerman even when a major house like Umber or Bolton is in rebellion, so they do not need to rely on armies with direct fealty to Winterfell. The Tyrells on the other hand have ruled their region for a relatively short amount of time and they only just edge out the Hightowers, so it is beneficial to have large numbers sworn directly to Highgarden.

Plus I think how many links in the chain from men-at-arms to high lord will vary depending on wars, rebellions, marriages. For instance, Tywin came down on Castermere a generation ago and though he probably granted some of the land away as rewards maybe not all of it. Some of the petty lords and landed knights once sworn to the Reynes and Tarbecks may now owe their fealty directly to Casterly Rock = one less link in the chain.

As for so many common men wearing the Lannister colours; a landed knight who musters 10 peasants is supposed to buy arms and equipment for them, but he can probably only just afford to outfit himself. So he may apply to his liege lord to provide those things, and if that liege lord is rich Tywin Lannister it is simplest to send out items from his own stores and armories in his own colours.

[Aurane Lannister]

if u notice, each time lannister troops are discussed, they have just the lion on their armor. But stark soldiers usually have other sigils so i think the ratio of overlord troops to vassal troops vary greatly between the north and the west. Thanks for your inputs.

[Aurane Lannister]

accidentally made my previous pst.i superb points frm both of u. Especially that abt manderly and the one abt links. I have a theory that since baratheon and arryn spent too much time in kl, their neglect sort of dissolved their forces. And since they dint care, robert being king and arryn guaranteed as hand, the bannermen were gifted thier own levies