Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
It’s hard to say. Sometimes dragons are metaphorical – the prophecies in Dunk and Egg, for example. However, with Dany, the dragons are quite physical.
So the stone dragon under Winterfell could well be real. It may be the case that one of Dany’s dragons doesn’t make it to the final battle either because of Victarion or the Dance with Aegon. In which case the dragon under Winterfell may be Drogon’s opposite number.
Yes, I think it did. I think Brandon the Builder was the Lone Hero, Azor Ahai, etc. who befriended the giants, learned the earth-magic of the Children, and used it to build a big fortress which could withstand the Long Night, and prevent the Others from over-running all of Westeros by making them besiege Winterfell.
The protected heart tree acted as a tap into the weirwood.net, giving Brandon access to the combined powers of all of the greenseers. That gave Brandon the power/knowledge/whatever he needed to make Lightbringer, which he used to throw back the Long Night with the help of the Night’s Watch.
When the Battle for the Dawn was over, Brandon decided to put a giant Wall between his people and the Others, and enchant that wall so that the Others couldn’t cross it again (at least not without permission; there’s some vampiric thing going on with the Night’s King and Queen). And my guess is that the Free Folk on the other side were either collateral damage and/or people who had survived the omnicidal Others by giving them human sacrifices.
It’s a strong possibility. Esp. given Melisandre’s vision of a stone dragon awakening.
Yep. Winterfell is where Winter (i.e, the Others) Fell. Brandon the Builder built it with the help of the Giants and the Children of the Forest, around the same time he built the Wall. My guess is that Winterfell came first, because you don’t need Winterfell if you have the Wall. (although it could be a Plan B)
Consider certain things about Winterfell: it’s got two massive walls, with the inner having more guard towers than the other; the outer wall is lower than the inner wall, and there’s a giant moat between the walls, not outside the first wall. This is really, really weird as castle-building goes. As far as I can tell, there’s only one reason you’d build it that way (and no, I don’t think the outer walls were built later – the Maesters are wrong about that): because you’re preparing to fight an enemy that you know will not break, will absorb all the losses you can throw at it and swarm over the walls, so that you’re already thinking about fighting at the second line.
Then add on to it that the whole castle is built around a godswood with a big fucking weirwood tree at the middle, and right on top of giant hot springs that have been piped into the walls so that no matter how cold it gets, the people inside will stay warm and alive.
Then add on to that this:
”hot springs such as the one beneath Winterfell have been shown to be shown to be heated by the furnaces of the world – the same fires that made the Fourteen Flames or the smoking mountain of Dragonstone…the smallfolk of Winterfell…claim that the springs are heated with the breath of a dragon that sleeps beneath the castle,” and that “the dragon Vermax left a clutch of eggs somewhere in the depths of Winterfell’s crypts, where the waters of the hot springs run close to the walls.”
Winterfell is not so much a building as it is a giant engine for fighting the Others.
My prediction, from the TWOW predictions post, is that the Others will be stopped at Winterfell. Because that’s what Winterfell was built to do.
Nope. At least in the books, potatoes do not exist in Westeros, nor do any other “New World” flora.
The Vale does grow a lot of food – but that’s in the Vale (i.e, “the val(l)e(y)”), not up in the mountains.
Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if he pulls some bullshit trick and wins like some heel whacking a guy over the head with a chair when the ref is distracted. I wouldn’t consider it to be very good writing tho.
But given the Ironborn track record with the Old Way, yeah, I think he’s probably due for a hideous death.
Steve, I’ll bet you a $25 donation to your political campaign/charity of choice that the Ironborn defeat the Redwyne Fleet in TWOW.
As for tactics (and not part of the bet haha), I wonder whether the Ironborn will engage in Stannis-esque tactics of drawing the fleet into a narrow body of water (the Mander), closing the mouth of the river to cut off their retreat and then smashing them inside the river. Stormsinging would be my first guess as to how they accomplish it; but the river constrains movement and mitigates the numerical advantage the Redwynes have as well.
Plus, Oldtown seems in for a sacking. Can’t accomplish this as easily from a narrative perspective if the Ironborn are crushed and fleeing back to the Iron Islands.
I’ll take that bet. Sucker though I may be.
That’s a good question. I’m guessing there’s a fair degree of food imports (mostly from Reach, Riverlands) – the Westerlands are pretty hilly, which tends to mean less arable in terms of grains and vegetables (Westerlands seems to tend more towards cattle-herding). Wines, definitely, both from Dorne and the Reach. Wool and probably timber from the North, tin from the Isles, linen or flax from the Reach, Dornish silks and citrus fruits and olive oil.
Lots of luxury goods from Essos, I imagine – chiefly textiles (lace, tapestries, carpets, fine woolens), but also perfumes, dyes, spices, advanced manufactures from Myr, furs from Qohor (I’m guessing there’s a heavy tariff on steel to protect strategically important industry), hard alcohol, glassware, etc.
Ok, slight rethink. So, yeah, the southern Westerlands especially are fairly fertile.
However…given that so much of the population isn’t working the fields and is working in mines or workshops instead, it may be a case where there aren’t enough laborers to intensively cultivate enough to feed the non-farming population, hence the need for imports.
Yeah. You’d think at some point they’d notice that the Lannisters keep getting blamed for murders that benefit them but they know they didn’t commit, and wonder whether someone was setting them up. But Cersei’s lazy and not very good at it, and Tyrion didn’t have the time to go after LF.
Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if he pulls some bullshit trick and wins like some heel whacking a guy over the head with a chair when the ref is distracted. I wouldn’t consider it to be very good writing tho.
But given the Ironborn track record with the Old Way, yeah, I think he’s probably due for a hideous death.
RFTIT Tumblr Backup 