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[TWoW Spoilers] Barristan


Ran
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the only thing he does that I think is dumb, is how he thinks of Euron. In my mind he should either follow Euron's orders even though that has not gotten him anything good in the past, or he should revolt against Euron. But instead he does a little of both, much like Freddo Corleone who stays with Michael and his family but still does wrong by them and almost gets Michael and His wife shot to pieces in their lovely home in the Sierra nevada mountains. Victarion is sent to bring back a dragon queen for Euron, but instead he decides half way there to take the bride for himself because of the past between him, his dead wife and Euron..

TO me that shows that he is Lost and doesn't really know what his purpose is in slaver's bay. And if he is trying to win Dany over to his side, does he think she will come willingly after he blows his horn? maybe he thinks it will tame the dragons and she will go wherever her Dragons go. No matter what reason he thinks he is there for, he is stupid, because Dany is not the kind of woman some pirate just takes with him. She is not going to go willingly and she is definitely not going to take kindly to someone trying to steal her dragons.

Best case scenario he is able to sneak in and steal Dany somehow and blows the horn and is able to control the dragons......then what?? Does he plan to just take them back and hand them to Euron? Since he has done everything else Euron has requested why wouldnt he carry out the whole plan and take her and the dragons back to Euron?

But from his POV we learn that he wants it all for himself and that is what is dumb! He is becoming greedy and feeling like he has not been given his due, (another Parallel to Freddo) but history shows that it does not end well for a greedy little brother who is not only going against his family and his brother who is now the King of the Iron islands, but he is going against what he knows is right.

All in all his trip to capture dany is going to serve nothing except to make her even more wary of westeros and the ppl who live there and possibly to give someone in Slaver's Bay a lot of ships.

Becoming greedy? He served his brother (Balon) his entire lifeas a dutiful admiral. His other brother (Euron) raped his wife, and you're calling Victarion greedy for planning to screw over Euron? I'm sure Euron expects Vic to follow his orders to the letter because Victarion has always acted as the follower, past behaviour does tend to be the best predictator of future behaviour so it isn't out the realm of reason for Euron to believe this. Why did Victarion choose now to disobey? Look at the chapter names, he's the "reaver," "captain," "suitor," and finally Victarion. I believe that indicates that he is now his own person, rather than a role decided by that of his brothers. He's come to the realization that his wants and needs are important as well as possible thanks to Morquorro.

Victarion comes across as not being that bright in a couple of spots, but the part that really made me think he was dumb was when it talked about how laughter makes him uncomfortable because he always was afraid people were making fun of him but he didn't understand why or how. He's not a clever guy.

To be socially awkward is to be dumb now?

Edited by TamTam Rapley
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Becoming greedy? He served his brother (Balon) his entire lifeas a dutiful admiral. His other brother (Euron) raped his wife, and you're calling Victarion greedy for planning to screw over Euron? I'm sure Euron expects Vic to follow his orders to the letter because Victarion has always acted as the follower, past behaviour does tend to be the best predictator of future behaviour so it isn't out the realm of reason for Euron to believe this. Why did Victarion choose now to disobey? Look at the chapter names, he's the "reaver," "captain," "suitor," and finally Victarion. I believe that indicates that he is now his own person, rather than a role decided by that of his brothers. He's come to the realization that his wants and needs are important as well as possible thanks to Morquorro.

To be socially awkward is to be dumb now?

I thought his wife went to Euron willingly cause Victarion has a small you know what.

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I took a lot of notes. Huge spoilers here!

[GRRM announced that he would read two new chapters, even though he wonders why he is giving more and more of the next book away.]

SER BARRISTAN I

The chapter begins with a gory description of the bodies of plague victims being thrown into the city by the trebuchets. Only the northern districts across the river are far enough away to avoid being hit.

Barristan rides into the large market by the western gate wearing his new Queensguard armor and riding the silver horse that Drogo gave to Dany. He feels that this is presumptuous, but thinks that even while the queen is missing it is important to have some symbol of her around to improve morale. Three of his lads ride with him: Tumco Lho, Larraq, and the Red Lamb.

In the marketplace (featuring landmarks like the statue of the chainmaker and the spire of skulls), at the “hour of the wolf,” the main forces that will participate in the attack gather. There are five thousand unsullied, the Storm Crows, a ragged band of about twenty dothraki and the pitfighters. The Shavepate’s beasts are manning the city walls in place of the unsullied. They will serve as the city’s last line of protection if Barristan’s attack fails and Dany has not returned.

The attack will leave from three gates (north, south, and west), but Barristan will lead the charge against the main Yunkai’i forces directly to the west. Barristan thinks that the attack is against all of his instincts, as the basic numbers are against them and success hinges on trusting sellswords -- in particular, trusting the in the Tattered Prince’s greed.

He meets with his commanders (including the Widower, Jokin, Grey Worm, and some of the pitfighters). Their plan is to lead with the horse and flank the defending legions, taking out the trebuchets and burning the pavilions. The pitfighters will advance after the horse and focus on intimidation and slaughter. Finally, the unsullied will line up outside the gate, which should be successful if the Yunkai’i don’t mount an immediate counterattack.

Barristan reminds the commanders that they must retreat or advance when they hear the Red Lamb blow the horn. The Windower asks what to do if there is no horn blast -- that is, if Barristan and his lads are all dead. Barristan knows that this is likely, as he intends to be first through the lines of the Yunkai’i, so he just says that in that case, the Widower will be second in command. Barristan then remembers that Lord Commander Hightower had once told him to never speak of defeat before a battle, since the gods might be listening.

It will be dawn soon. Someone says “A red dawn,” and Barristan thinks “A dragon dawn.” Previously, he had prayed to each of the seven for various things, ending with a plea to the stranger for mercy. Though he knows all men must die eventually, Barristan would like to live through the day.

More bodies fall from the sky. Barristan notices Tumco Lho’s reaction and sees that the lad fears the pale more more than the foes outside the gates. Barristan then gives a stirring pep talk about how every man fears every battle. At first, the Red Lamb is defiant, saying that doesn’t fear death because at that point he’ll get to meet the Great Shepherd -- when he plans to break his shepherd’s crook in two and castigate the shepherd for creating such a peaceful people in such a violent world.

Barristan continues his lecture, saying that there is “nothing more terrible, nothing more glorious, nothing more absurd” than war. Even Barristan admits that he shat his pants in his first battle. He is interrupted by a murmur among the soldiers -- a fire is lit at the harpy on top of one of the pyramids, presumably to signal the men at each gate to begin the attack. The gate opens and Barristan sounds the call to attack.

[At this point he says there will be a Victarion and Tyrion chapter (perhaps the ones he has already read), in some order, at which point we return to...]

SER BARRISTAN II

His gut feels twisted from nervousness as he rides through the gates. He knows that the feeling will go away when time slows down in the chaos of battle. Dany’s horse is easily outpacing the lads and the rest of the cavalry; Barristan is pleased because he intends to outrun the Widower and strike the first blow. The Yunkai’i are totally unprepared and Barristan closes in on the Harridan, the largest of the trebuchets. The stormcrows take up the cry, “Daario!” and “Stormcrows, fly!” Barristan thinks that he will never again doubt the valor of sellswords.

There are only thirty yards between the horse and the Yunkai’i legions by the time any defense is mounted. The air fills with arrows. A squire for the stormcrows is killed, and a bolt pierces Barristan’s shield. There are three horn blasts and the pitfighters emerge from the gate behind them.

Barristan glances back to see the pitfighters. There are about two hundred of them, but they make enough noise for two thousand. One woman stands out, wearing nothing but greaves, sandals, a chainmail skirt, and a python. Barristan is a bit shocked and, watching her breasts bouncing around, thinks that this day is sure to be her last. The pitfighters are mostly shouting “Loraq!” and “Hizdar!” but some do call out “Danaerys!” Larraq is hit in the chest with an arrow, bringing Barristan’s attention forward, but the squire keeps the banners held high and shakes it off.

Barristan has reached the Harridan, but a Ghiscari legion six thousand strong has lined up to protect the huge trebuchet. They are six ranks deep -- the first rank kneels and holds their spears pointing out and up, the second rank stands and holds their spears out at waist height, and and the third rank holds the spears out on their shoulders. The rest have small throwing spears and are ready to step forward when their comrades fall.

Barristan knows that a maester’s chain is only as strong as his weakest link, and identifies the companies of the Yunkish lords as the weakest of his immediate foes, certainly weaker than the slave legions. In particular, Barristan targets the Little Pigeon and his herons. The slaves chosen to be herons were freakishly tall before they were put on stilts, and wear pink scales and feathers and steel beaks. But Barristan sees that they will be blind because of the dawn rising over the city, and like to break ranks easily, so Barristan turns away from the legion guarding the trebuchet at the last minute and heads for the herons.

He cuts the head off of one of the herons and his lads join the fray. Dany’s horse knocks a heron into three others and they all fall over. In a moment, the herons are scattering and running away, led by the Little Pigeon himself. Unfortunately for the Little Pigeon, he trips over the fringes of his bird armor and gets caught by the Red Lamb. The Little Pigeon begs for mercy, saying that he will fetch a large ransom. The Red Lamb just says “I came for blood, not gold” and knocks in the Little Pigeon’s head with his mace, splattering blood all over Barristan and Dany’s silver horse.

The unsullied begin marching through the gates, and Barristan sees that the Yunkai’i have missed their chance to effectively launch a counterattack. As he watches more of the slave legions get slaughtered, mostly those who were chained together and could not retreat, he wonders where the sellsword companies like the treacherous Second Sons have gone. The unsullied finish lining up outside the gates, implacable even when one of their own number falls with a crossbow bolt to the neck.

Tumco draws Barristan’s attention to the bay, asking “Why are there so many ships?” Barristan remembers that yesterday there were twenty, but now there are thrice that many. His heart sinks when he reasons that the ships from Volantis must have arrived, but then sees that some of the ships are crashing together.

He asks Tumco, whose young eyes can see more clearly, to identify the banners. Tumco says “Squids, big squids. Like in the Basilisk Isles, where sometimes they drag whole ships down.” Barristan replies, “Where I’m from, we call them krakens.”

Realizing that the Greyjoys have arrived, his first thought is “Has Balon joined with Joffrey, or the Starks?” But he realizes that he’s heard that Balon is dead, and wonders if this has something to do with the Balon’s son, the boy who was a ward of the Starks. He sees that ironmen are coming ashore, fighting the Yunkish, and says, surprised, “They are on our side!” The sellswords did not come to meet his charge because they were already preoccupied with the ironborn!

Barristan is almost gleeful. “It’s like Baelor Breakspear and Prince Maekar, the hammer and the anvil. We have them! We have them!”

[GRRM pointed out that these were, of course, Victarion's men and made a comment about Tyrion currently being quite miserable.]

There were a couple of interesting things in the Q&A session, too.

When asked if he felt guilty killing his characters, he said yes, but that stories with perfectly safe heroes are dishonest because death is a part of life.

I asked whether he would comment on his choice to call these chapters “Ser Barristan” instead of continuing with the titles from ADWD, and he replied that he has “a method to his madness” for promoting characters with descriptors to named characters but that he didn’t want to say more.

He mentioned the Wild Cards movie that Syfy and Universal are working on, being written by Melinda Snodgrass, and that he thinks they asked for the license in order to have a superhero franchise to compete with Marvel or DC.

When asked for his suggestions for Hugo nominations, he highlighted the potential for fans to nominate prominent bloggers for the fan writing award even though blogs are excluded from being nominated as “zines.” In particular, he called out John J Miller from Cheese Magnet and Alan Whitehead of the Wertzone.

Anyway, I loved hearing these chapters and I had a lot of fun at my first con! Hopefully next time I'll be free to track down some folks from the BWB.

You ser have performed a great service and my house shall forever be in your debt. :bowdown:

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again, more krakens !!

Thanks for sharing :laugh:

Oooh, shiny.

Who wants to bet that Victarion ends up blowing the dragon horn (or having it blown) during the battle, Barristan's forces hear it and assume it's the Red Lamb's call to retreat/advance, and Victarion accidentally ends up screwing up Barristan's battle plans?

Oh.My.God :bowdown:

Edited by the Prince of Thorns
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Winteriscome, thank you so much for sharing this, it's the most detail I've seen from the second barristan chapter!!!! awesome! :bowdown:

Tumco draws Barristan’s attention to the bay, asking “Why are there so many ships?” Barristan remembers that yesterday there were twenty, but now there are thrice that many. His heart sinks when he reasons that the ships from Volantis must have arrived, but then sees that some of the ships are crashing together.

What is this quote about? why would the ironnborn ships be crashing together? have they lost control?

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Winteriscome, thank you so much for sharing this, it's the most detail I've seen from the second barristan chapter!!!! awesome! :bowdown:

Tumco draws Barristan’s attention to the bay, asking “Why are there so many ships?” Barristan remembers that yesterday there were twenty, but now there are thrice that many. His heart sinks when he reasons that the ships from Volantis must have arrived, but then sees that some of the ships are crashing together.

What is this quote about? why would the ironnborn ships be crashing together? have they lost control?

probably the ironborn ships attacking the ships that were already there. :dunno:

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What is the purpose of Victarion's smoking arm? I know it's superhumanly strong now but does it serve some prophetic role? Like Jon Snow's smoking wound?

I don't believe it has been mentioned in prophesy, however many people do believe it is significant. Some believe that Moqorro killed Victarion in his chamber when he put the arm on him. This is evidenced by the fact that the POV left Victarion, the only other time this has happened was when Dany was in the tent with MDM when her son died. Others suggest that it will allow Moqorro to control the dragons in someway, since Victarion will be rubbing his blood on the horn.

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I don't believe it has been mentioned in prophesy, however many people do believe it is significant. Some believe that Moqorro killed Victarion in his chamber when he put the arm on him. This is evidenced by the fact that the POV left Victarion, the only other time this has happened was when Dany was in the tent with MDM when her son died. Others suggest that it will allow Moqorro to control the dragons in someway, since Victarion will be rubbing his blood on the horn.

What do you mean the POV left Victarion and Dany in the tent with MMD?

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In Victarions POV we were left outside the cabin and heard Victarion scream when Moqorro "fixed" his arm. When Jorah took Dany inside the tent in AGoT, it said he took her in the tent, but the POV didn't go inside. I think tis is just GRRM letting the magic remain more mysterious because it happens "off-camera."

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In Victarions POV we were left outside the cabin and heard Victarion scream when Moqorro "fixed" his arm. When Jorah took Dany inside the tent in AGoT, it said he took her in the tent, but the POV didn't go inside. I think tis is just GRRM letting the magic remain more mysterious because it happens "off-camera."

OHHHH ok. yeah that's really interesting. It's like there are some rituals/spells that no one can see if they weren't directly involved. COOL!

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Crap :frown5: I was really hoping he wouldn't release/read any more chapters from TWOW. He's giving to much away and spoiling the excitement for me of a completely new book where I don't know what will happen. I'm just going to stay away from these forums until I've read WOW.

Remember these are like the first 100 pages or so of 1000++ page book full of genius. Don't let it get you down.

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again, more krakens !!

Thanks for sharing :laugh:

snapback.pngtze, on 17 February 2013 - 02:30 PM, said:

Oooh, shiny.

Who wants to bet that Victarion ends up blowing the dragon horn (or having it blown) during the battle, Barristan's forces hear it and assume it's the Red Lamb's call to retreat/advance, and Victarion accidentally ends up screwing up Barristan's battle plans?

Oh.My.God :bowdown:

I was thinking the same thing when i was reading. that would be crazy. but i sort of feel like he will blow the dragon horn after the battle, when dany refuses to go with him.

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For what it's worth, I've been saying the same thing for a while now. Would be really surprised if Euron didn't have Vics lost ships.

I do like this theory because I can't imagine why Euron would give Vic the horn if he didn't have a plan, but I haven't seen anyone reconcile the problem of the Ironborn still being active in the Reach area and them being the way they are (every captain is a king on his own boat) following Eurons orders if they haven't seen him in over a month.

Edited by aryagonnakill
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I think it is about half of his fleet missing...

But Someone said this about the WOW Tyrion chapter :

"Someone spots sails on the horizon and they think the Volanteens have arrived, but Jorah Mormont spots the Krakens on the sails and says they are also flying dragon banners"

I do not recall Vic having Dragon banners... this sounds like Euron to me beacuse he is "godless" and abandoning his own sigil ?? I dont know. :bang:

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Someone pointed out that Barristan, in riding Dany's silver, is literally "riding the pale mare."

Just because it's a convenient contrivance doesn't mean that GRRM won't do it. He's taken Dany out of the action in Meereen in part, I suspect, that when things truly go to hell in Meereen in Dany's absence due no doubt to Victarion's boneheaded actions, Dany will be absolved of any direct responsibility for the catastrophe.

It does make sense that Dany won't abandon Meereen unless either 1) it's restored to stability and no longer "needs" her or 2) it's utterly destroyed and beyond her ability to save. Scenario 1 doesn't seem super likely, so it seems like Scenario 2 (the destruction of Meereen in Dany's absence) is the likely outcome.

I thought GRRM did independently confirm that Victarion is, in fact, as dumb as a post.

I don't see why scenario 1 is so unlikely. This should be the decisive battle between Dany and the slavers. If she wins her opposition is likely broken.

Wasn't one of the reasons she didn't initially rush out and attack the yunkish that she feared what the harpy faction would do while her forces were busy outside the city? It was said that 5000 unsullied came out of the gates, leaving what, a little less than 3k inside maintaining order? I can see the harpies trying to seize the moment, revealing themselves, and losing. Yunkish broken, harpies overthrown for good, volantenes revolting, slavers lose. It seems kind of rosy but it's certainly plausible.

I see Dany as a historical arsonist type of character, like genghis khan or napolean. In real life these people tended to die soon after disrupting everything, leaving a permanently changed political landscape. Here I could just see Dany telling the mereenese shed done enough, they'd have to figure the rest out for themselves. It wouldn't be the same as with astapor if this is truly a decisive battle and if the sons of the harpy are exposed and eliminated. And she would probably take some people with her. She'd be leaving slavers bay completely overturned, having inspired the revolt that seemed to be imminent in volantis, however that turns out.

I can see a lot of scenarios playing out, but I wouldn't call mereen being destroyed the most likely. I think its far more likely we get a middle of the road outcome that's decisive but somewhat unsatisfying.

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