Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
Well, there’s the knife game, also known as five finger fillet. And then there’s the game of mumblety-peg, where you try to throw a knife closest to your or your opponent’s foot.
So there you go. People did some very dangerous stuff before we invented video games.
Hey everyone who thinks the Others are misunderstood good guys who react to humans invading their territory or breaking a treaty or something…did that bear at the Fist of the First Men break a treaty? Did that bear stumble beyond the curtain of light at the end of the world and the Others all paused and looked up from their coffee spiced with the hot blood of infants and the bear was all “aww, shit, I went through the wrong metaphysical wormhole again, didn’t I? I’m looking for the Elder Gods!” and then the Others laughed and turned its eyes blue?
Naw but seriously, the Others are eldritch slavers. It’s not just humanity; they consider all other forms of life to be subordinate to them.
Excellent point. Seriously folks, they’re “prepar[ing] to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything we would consider life,” and they “hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins.”
These aren’t the misunderstood “Other” who are victims of xenophobia and bigotry (that would be the wildlings), they’re omnicidal demons. Emphasis on the omni-cidal – the giants, the Children, humans both adult and baby, bears, horses, sheep, etc. They might be ok with snakes, spiders, frogs, and fish, but that’s about it.
They might as well be Yrsenia Pestis walking around in ice armor.
Big questions here and not entirely easy to answer.
I’m pretty confident that Brandon the Builder was the Last Hero who made contact with the Children of the Forest, won the Battle for the Dawn, and built both Winterfell and the Wall.
Given the distances between the Wall and the fortress-cities of the Patrimony of Hyrkoon and the Five Forts of Yi-Ti, my guess is that Brandon wasn’t also Hyrkoon the Hero, or the woman with the monkey tail. I would guess that, rather, we have a bit of a “dragon has three heads” situation where there were multiple heroes in multiple regions.
This would explain how it is that Jon Snow and Dany both have key aspects of Azor Ahai/Prince Who Was Promised going on – it takes three heroes to save the world.
Tywin didn’t because of his experience as Aerys II and Robert’s moneyman – he’s spent decades giving away cash, just like his father did, in the hopes of getting his bloodline into the royal line. And now that he has it, he’s intent on making sure he gets paid back, that everyone sees that the Lannisters not only pay their debts, but that everyone pays their debts to the Lannisters.
Cersei didn’t, partially out of a desire to emulate Tywin, and partially because she doesn’t have the best control of Casterly Rock atm and is working with the resources she has to hand, which is the royal government.
Because he’d just conquered Dorne and the Tyrells had put up a third of the manpower to do it and expected a reward – the whole point of conquering Dorne was to be able to spread royal favors around and rebuild the authority of the monarchy.
In the last few pages of the World Book there is a map of the Crownlands drawn in a similar fashion to the other regions shown earlier. On this map there are five bushels of grain in the northern areas, indicating that the Crownlands produces a lot of grain.
This makes me wonder why even though there seems to be a lot of grain farms very close to the capital, during Tyion’s time as Hand there was still a dire food shortage in King’s Landing which caused the people to riot?
Does the Crownlands not produce enough food to feed the 500,000 population of King’s Landing? Or was Tyrion not able to requisition the much needed food either because the lords of the Crownlands were being uncooperative (as you’ve pointed out numerous times), or perhaps given their location those areas were affected by the war (eg. Tywin’s foragers) and couldn’t effectively send shipments down to the capital?
First of all, those maps are terrible. They have the Mountains of the Moon on top of the Vale itself, for crying out loud.
But you raise a good point. I think it’s got to be the second two things. I think A. the northern Crownlands were holding back both men and supplies, and B. I think Tywin’s army was primarily supplying itself from that region, because no way you can feed ~15-20,000 men from the foraging of a few hundred.
Yes. But, like Tywin, she chose not to.
Barrowton makes sense to me. In addition to whatever religious significance the barrows once had that once might have brought pilgrims, it’s located on a hill at the confluence of two rivers, which makes it ideal for defense. There also aren’t any other centers to rival it on the southwest, and I think Torrhen’s Square is much more recent (probably having been built as a military outpost against the Ironborn).
The Barrowlands and the Rills, being some of the more southerly regions of the North, probably are more suited for agriculture than much of the North, so they probably produce quite a bit of the region’s cereal grains. I also think, based largely on geography and the sigil of House Ryswell, that the Rills are the center of horse-breeding in the North, so Barrowton would be the logical place for a horse-fair.
As to why it never expanded into a city – I think the primary culprit is the North’s decision to destroy its naval capacity on the west coast under Brandon the Burner (one of the great mistakes in Northern history, IMO). Without a strong naval presence in the Sunset Sea, the presence of the Ironborn just over the other side of the Flint Cliffs meant that trade with the Riverlands and points south was safer to do via land (and with their seat at Moat Cailin to allow them to tax land trade, I think the Starks concurred.), or by shipping through White Harbor instead, which was protected from the Ironborn by a whole continent.
Hey folks, sorry about the two Tumblr Roundups in a row, but I don’t quite have the next chapter ready. Dany V is roughed-out and I’ve got a page written up for Arya X (which I am really looking forward to) – the former should go up on Monday, since I’ll likely be snowed-in this weekend, and the latter will follow. On the other hand, I’ve got some good Tumblr stuff for you: Robb and the…
Your thoughts on why Lord Frey got off so easy at the end of the Whitewalls tournament? Peake gets decapitated, but all Brynden Rivers aka Maynard Plumm says to Frey is “We will speak again later.” Further, why was Bloodraven so lenient with the other second-time rebels? Houses Costayne and Sunderland don’t seem to have been strongly demoted (like say, Osgrey was in the first Blackfyre) and while wouldn’t expect them to be Reyne-ized or Darklyn-ized, but how did House Peake even still exist in strong enough form to resist and kill King Maekar not too many years later?
Frey didn’t actually fight him or commit any open acts of treason, and had a plausible reason to be at the wedding. Indeed, it’s possible he was one of the informants who tipped off Bloodraven. Regardless, he now has a homeless son in law who brings nothing to the table.
Houses Sunderland and Peake are both in the category of probably not worth the effort to destroy, given that the former requires sending out the royal navy and an amphibious landing party at a time when Bloodraven needs the seas covered against Bittersteel, and the latter is a particularly hard nut to crack, given that the eventual Storming of Starpike takes out Maekar, Robert Reyne, and Tywald Lannister.
RFTIT Tumblr Backup 