Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.
Today’s entry is Part 27 of A Feast for Crows, in which we cover Chapter 37 (“Brienne”) and Chapter 38 (“Jaime”).
Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.
And now, the post!
Chapter 37: Brienne
What Happens
Brienne, Podrick, Meribald, and Hyle Hunt encounter dozens of hanged corpses, their mouths stuffed with salt, and Hyle realizes that these are the men who raided Saltpans. Brienne is more concerned that they may mean that Beric Dondarrion’s men are near. She tells herself that the hanged corpses were evil men who deserved their fate, but it still makes her sad. They had tried to stop at the ruins of Saltpans itself, but the castle there had refused them admittance. Meribald tells them of the history and many names of the inn at the crossroads they now hope to shelter at, and as they approach Brienne hears the noise of a forge at work.
They find the inn entirely populated by a horde of orphaned children, led by a ten-year-old girl named Willow, who agrees to put them up for the night in exchange for food. Brienne is deeply shocked to see the young blacksmith, Gendry, who looks so similar to Renly that she mistakes him for Renly for a moment. He doesn’t want to allow them to stay, but Willow overrides him. Once they are alone, Brienne tells Podrick that they will leave early the next day, leaving Meribald to continue on his pilgrimage, and leaving Hyle Hunt as well, whom Brienne still does not trust. Podrick asks where they will go; Brienne thinks of her options (the Vale, Riverrun, Winterfell, or even back to King’s Landing), but doesn’t answer the question.
They eat in the common room, and Brienne wonders whether Willow could possibly be Arya Stark. Hyle Hunt crudely proposes marriage to Brienne, and offers to deflower her; she tells him if he comes into her room that night he’ll leave it a eunuch, and walks away. She takes some food to Gendry, who had left without eating, and again observing his uncanny resemblance to both Renly and Robert, asks who his mother and father were. Gendry says he doesn’t know who his father is, and Brienne is on the verge of telling him her theory about his parentage when there is a disturbance in the courtyard.
They emerge to see seven riders enter, and Brienne recognizes the last as Rorge, who is wearing the Hound’s helm. Rorge threatens Willow, and Brienne draws her sword and tells him to try her instead. Rorge recognizes her and laughs, and says he’ll cut her legs off and make her watch him rape Willow. Brienne taunts him that he has nothing to rape her with, and Rorge attacks. The duel is fierce, but Brienne allows him to underestimate her and tire himself, until she has an opening. She impales him, and whispers “Sapphires” at him as he falls. But then Biter attacks her unprepared, and she loses her sword. She fights him furiously, but he seems undeterred by the injuries she inflicts upon him. He breaks her cheekbone and then her arm, and then he bites her face.
Biter’s mouth tore free, full of blood and flesh. He spat, grinned, and sank his pointed teeth into her flesh again. This time he chewed and swallowed. He is eating me, she realized, but she had no strength left to fight him any longer. She felt as if she were floating above herself, watching the horror as if it were happening to some other woman, to some stupid girl who thought she was a knight. It will be finished soon, she told herself. Then it will not matter if he eats me. Biter threw back his head and opened his mouth again, howling, and stuck his tongue out at her. It was sharply pointed, dripping blood, longer than any tongue should be. Sliding from his mouth, out and out and out, red and wet and glistening, it made a hideous sight, obscene. His tongue is a foot long, Brienne thought, just before the darkness took her. Why, it looks almost like a sword.
Commentary
Well, it better look like a sword because someone just stabbed him through the fucking skull and saved Brienne, because otherwise I am going to LOSE MY SHIT.
Jesus H. Christ on a rusty pogostick.
So, I’m going to assume Brienne survives, because… because I’m going to assume Brienne survives. Yes.
With that assumption firmly in place, I guess I am forced to then wonder how well a person’s face can heal from having chunks bitten out of it. Judging from that picture of Hannibal Lecter’s nurse they carefully didn’t show us in Silence of the Lambs, I’m guessing… not so well.
Fuck.
So I suppose Brienne and Tyrion can sit down and form a club now, of Characters Who Apparently Need Horrific Disfiguring Facial Injuries On Top Of Their Already Existing Culturally Stigmatized Body Issues, because why not. They’ll probably want to come up with a snappier name for the club than that, though. Maybe it should be the Help, George R.R. Martin Is In Control Of My Fate Club, but then that gets a little broad in eligible membership terms. So perhaps specificity is called for! Or something!
Ugh, whatever.
I just hope it’s Gendry who saved her and not Hyle Hunt, who (a) I apparently cannot refer to without using both his names, because it just doesn’t sound right otherwise, and (b) has also apparently decided to thoroughly obliterate any Non-Douchetard points he may have built up since the bet thing by making to Brienne what was possibly the grossest marriage proposal in the history of ever. Seriously, what the fuck was that? As far as I am concerned, he’s lucky Brienne only threatened to castrate him for that horseshit.
But hey, Gendry! Is still alive! And apparently hot! And still oblivious to his parentage! And of course Brienne didn’t get a chance to enlighten him before having to go and get her fucking face torn off, after which I imagine Gendry’s possible genealogy will probably be rather low on her list of Shit She’s Worried About. Sigh.
In any case, I imagine Beric and Co. are going to ride up in here at any moment (I left it out of the summary, but that’s obviously who Gendry expected the riders to be), so I suppose I can hope that they will look kindly on Brienne for killing the real main perpetrators of the Saltpans Massacre and, like, give her a bandage or something. Yay?
Honestly, in retrospect I don’t know why I didn’t suspect that the remnants of Hoat’s Mummers were behind the Saltpans thing from the beginning. Because I knew the atrocity of it wasn’t Sandor Clegane’s style, but I should have also realized it was SO these assholes’ style. But, I suppose hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that.
…Oh, shit, is Undead!Catelyn going to be with Beric et al? Because that’s… not a reunion I see going well. Catelyn Part Deux doesn’t seem like she’s the forgiving type, and Brienne has basically failed the task Catelyn set her, even if that’s not really her fault. So yeah, that could get ugly. Especially considering that Brienne may not be in any condition to defend herself, verbally or otherwise.
Great.
And… yeah, this chapter sucked. Moving on!
Chapter 38: Jaime
What Happens
Jaime has a disastrous parley with the Blackfish, who clearly considers Jaime to be devoid of honor and untrustworthy in the extreme. He reminds Jaime of his failed oath to Catelyn, and Jaime considers pointing out that her daughters were gone from King’s Landing before he ever got there, or the quest he’d given Brienne, but then doesn’t bother. He does point out that that oath was gotten from him at swordpoint, but then Ser Brynden asks, what of his oath to Aerys?
Jaime offers to exchange Edmure for Sybelle Westerling and her children, and promises no harm will come to them, but Ser Brynden doesn’t believe him, and refuses. Jaime promises the castle’s inhabitants will be let free if he surrenders, and Brynden himself allowed to take the black, but Brynden doesn’t believe that either. Jaime points out that Robb Stark is dead and his kingdom with him, and that Riverrun is the last holdout, but Brynden doesn’t care. He offers to meet Brynden in single combat to resolve the fight, but Brynden laughs and calls him a cripple, and says all that would achieve is Jaime’s death, which isn’t worth it. Jaime asks why Brynden agreed to parley if there are no terms he will accept, and Brynden tells him it amused him to listen to whatever feeble excuses Jaime had for his “latest enormities.” Brynden goes back to the castle, and Jaime knows he will have to storm it. He tells himself that one more broken vow means nothing to the Kingslayer.
He calls a war council. Ser Ryman Frey sends his son Edwyn in his place, by which Jaime infers that Ryman is too drunk to attend. Everyone argues over how best to deal with the Blackfish, until Lord Piper takes the opportunity to call the Freys “treacherous lying weasels” and demands the return of his son, who was a guest at the Red Wedding and remains there still. Edwyn Frey calls him a traitor in return, and it nearly comes to blows before Jaime shuts them up. Piper leaves the tent, and Edwyn calls for his head, but Jaime reminds him that the Freys were allies of Robb Stark as well before they betrayed him, and kicks everyone out, saying they will attack at first light.
Jaime takes Ser Lyle and Ser Ilyn Payne with him to the Freys’ camp, where he notes in passing that Ryman is evidently not too drunk to have entertainment in his tent. He goes to the gallows where Edmure Tully is on display. Edmure is shocked to see him, and then Ser Ilyn, but declares a sword is better than a rope, and urges Ser Ilyn to get it over with. Jaime has Ilyn cut Edmure’s rope instead. Ryman Frey and his son Edwyn dash up, protesting, Ryman in company with a half-naked prostitute who laughs at Jaime. Jaime tells Ryman that only a fool makes threats he is not prepared to carry out, and backhands him in the mouth. He tells Ryman he has done nothing by drink and whore since he got here, and kicks him out of camp. He gives Edwyn his father’s command, and bids him send word to Lord Walder that the crown requires all his prisoners.
They leave the Frey camp, and Edmure asks why Jaime spared him. Jaime says it’s a wedding gift. Edmure protests that he didn’t know what was happening that night, and that Lady Roslin was coerced into distracting him. He says Roslin is carrying his child, but Jaime thinks to himself that she is carrying Edmure’s death. At his own tent, Jaime has Edmure bathed and brought fresh clothes, food and wine. He tells Edmure that he is returning him to Riverrun unharmed, and that the fate of the castle is in his hands. Jaime says that Ser Brynden has nothing to live for, but Edmure does, and as Lord Tully he can overrule Bryden and surrender the castle. Jaime promises amnesty for his smallfolk if he does, and Edmure himself can either take the black or go to Casterly Rock as a hostage, where he will be well-treated and allowed to reunite with his wife if he wishes, and his children provided for. If he doesn’t yield the castle, Jaime promises him he will raze it to the ground and send Edmure’s child to him when it is born—via trebuchet. Edmure is silent a while, and then threatens to kill him. Jaime says he can try.
“I’ll leave you to enjoy your food. Singer, play for our guest whilst he eats. You know the song, I trust.”
“The one about the rain? Aye, my lord. I know it.”
Edmure seemed to see the man for the first time. “No. Not him. Get him away from me.”
“Why, it’s just a song,” said Jaime. “He cannot have that bad a voice.”
Commentary
Damn, Jaime. That was cold.
The tragedy of Jaime Lannister is that I think he’s always wanted to be the good guy, and has never been allowed to be by circumstance. The question was how long could he stand being treated like a villain before deciding to say “fuck it” and go ahead and become one?
Well, you could say that it happened right about now, but I suspect Bran would disagree.
Although, I suppose it’s also a question of scale. Torturing Edmure with That Song is a supreme dick move (like, ultra supreme with extra cheese and guacamole), true, but a True Villain would probably not be offering options other than razing and baby-hurling, and Jaime is. Offering other options, I mean.
Though he’s got prior experience at the baby-hurling thing, doesn’t he. Ugh.
So what this chapter primarily did, it seems, is make me forget some of Jaime’s own Non-Douchetard points he built up in this book, and remind me of how much I hated him after his spectacular incest-avec-child-defenestration debut, approximately seven million years ago. Even though I still sympathize with him for the impossible position he’s been put in. So well done, narrative, moral dissonance achieved, as per the usual.
“I will permit you to take the black. Ned Stark’s bastard is the Lord Commander on the Wall.”
The Blackfish narrowed his eyes. “Did your father arrange for that as well? Catelyn never trusted the boy, as I recall, no more than she ever trusted Theon Greyjoy. It would seem she was right about them both.”
Hey! No ragging on Jon!
So Brynden didn’t win many Non-Douche points from me in this chapter either. Though I suppose it’s a bit much of me to expect him to trust Jaime’s word and not trust Catelyn’s. But it’s hard to remember that when you happen to know that on this particular occasion, it’s Jaime who’s sincere re: terms and Catelyn who was full of crap re: Jon.
But Brynden has no way to know that, of course. From his point of view, his actions are perfectly reasonable, and Jaime aside, asking a Tully to voluntarily surrender to a force mainly composed of Freys post-Red Wedding is probably the definition of Not Happening.
Unless Edmure does it, of course. I honestly don’t know which way he’s going to jump on this. I honestly don’t know which way I would jump on it, if it were me. Because the problem with “death before dishonor” is all the death—and not just your own death, which is one thing, but Jaime’s promising a wholesale massacre of his people if he doesn’t give in. Technically, one’s duty as a liege lord is to protect your people, after all. From a certain point of view, honor demands that he must surrender, as the lesser of two evils.
From another point of view, of course, honor demands that Edmure let every last one of his people die before besmirching them with the shame of a surrender to a horde of traitors led by an oathbreaker.
Tis a puzzlement, is what I’m saying. Quite the querulous quandary, she quoth, quizzically.
Also, apparently Edmure is still in love-ish with his wife? Even though their marriage was—was THAT? I cannot even wrap my brain around this. Even if Roslin was coerced—and I’m sure she was—I don’t think that would ultimately matter to me. How can he even stand to think about her, much less make excuses for her? Much less want to be with her?
Well, but blah blah something something love is blind cliché blah, I guess. Still isn’t going to keep me from side-eyeing it to hell and back. Man.
The one unmitigatedly fun thing that happened in this chapter was Jaime getting to oust that moron Ryman, which was lovely to behold. But as things go on the “fun” scale, that’s still… pretty lame.
So I guess this chapter is fired too. I will say, though, that both of them made me want to know what happens next. So while I am not exactly having a rollicking good time with this story at the moment, I have yet to utter the Eight Deadly Words about it. (Don’t click that.) So, I am keeping on keepin’ on.
But not until next time, Gadget, next time! So stroke your evil cat evilly until next Thursday!
Leigh, I disagree (slightly) with you about Jaime. I believe that he made those (absolutely horrific) threats to Edmure, not because he’s going into “Mwahaha” villain mode, but because he desprately wants to not raid the castle and still uphold his oath. He makes these threats so severe so that Edmure will do as he asks, and he’s using his “Oathbreaker/Kingslayer” persona so that Edmure won’t call his bluff. So, I don’t think he’s going back on his moral progress, just trying to walk a line where he doesn’t actually have to regress.
What Jaime did to Edmure was cold. Not as cold as what had been done to him before, so I still give Jaime points. He’s TRYING to do this in a way with the least amount of bloodshed, and that means making extreme threats in this world. For those threats to work, you have to demonstrate that you WILL do them. Jaime is now using his villainous history to his advantage here, but honestly his attempts to save Edmure here are among the more heroic things he’s done.
And as far as Brienne goes, well the last time a POV character was saved by someone with a blade through the back of the head….
Okay, yes, Brienne’s chapter is overall a bummer, but it did have that awesome line/moment where Brienne, true to her paladinic nature, sees the odds are hopeless, and steps up anyway: “Seven…she had no chance against seven, she knew. No chance, and no choice.”
Jaime, I think Jaime is being less douchetard than you’re giving him credit for here. Yes, his performance with Edmure is cold, but it’s meant to be. It’s Jaime adopting the cold-eyed assassin persona in the service of a (relatively) more humanitarian goal. I think he probably recognizes the stress points both of Edmure’s personality and his situation, and he’s hitting them hard in the hopes that the bloodbath of an assault can be avoided.
@1, Exactly
@1 – Absolutely right. Jaime is full of win in this chapter. Strategic, thoughtful, decisive and he knows that Edmure is his last hope of getting out of this without violating his oath to Cat.
The other chapter, on the other hand, is full of suckitude. Brilliantly written but painful all over.
I agree with the others above about not giving Jaime enough credit. They won’t let him be a good guy, so he’s using his bad guy reputation to achieve the same honorable results, the only way left to him. As far as he can see, using Edmure is the only way to avoid a lot of pointless bloodshed. Because even if he renounced command of the army to avoid breaking his vow, Riverrun would still be defeated and a lot of people would die.
I fully agree with “hihosilver28“. This is not a case of Jamie becoming his more arrogant self again. Instead he is using his negative image to play a desperate gambit. Since the Blackfish has refused his terms, Jamie’s last chance in preventing a bloody siege with a huge loss of life is bullying Edmure into a surrender.
@1 – I hadn’t thought about it that way, but it makes sense.
My view on Jaime is not that circumstance keeps him from being the hero he wants to be, but early poor decision-making (i.e. the initial Cersei relationship). As a result, he’s lost a lot of his will for self-determination, and has chosen to be reactive instead of proactive. Being reactive often leads to taking the best of many bad options, instead of seizing a true best option.
Can and will he break through that wall and take control of his life? I see that as his overarching quest for the series.
About Jaime’s threat to Edmure – Jaime’s threat to destroy Riverrun is at odds with the fact that Riverrun is given to his uncle ( and aunt that he loves ) and that this uncle is running around crying that nobody puts even a scratch to it.
Also, in this chapter or a chapter before, Jaime thinks that if he doesn’t manage to take the castle without bloodshed, he will atack it on the next day and be himself among the first lines and likely will die first. And these thoughts are at odds with basically everything Jaime told to Edmure.
So I believe that Jaime was never actually planning to realize those threats that he told Edmure. Jaime just tries to end all this without bloodshed and uses his reputation to do so. Him being nice already failed with Blackfish.
I can feel for Jaime a little – trying to do the right thing in a hard situation, AND will dealing with the fact that nobody gives him the benefit of the doubt or thinks he’s trying to do the right thing at all (not that I blame them, necessarily).
For Edmure, one can try to think on what is left for him. Last of his father’s children and the rest of his house are attainted for a war they didn’t even start, while he gets to be humilliated on a gibbet and not hung. In addition to the fact that at one point he actually blames himself for his role in the Battle of the Fords (when his father finally dies he is a miserable mess before Cat and says as much) and the wars result, and we find him at a pretty low point in life. He met Rosolin on the day that they married on the Red Wedding, so his attachment to her and the unborn kid might be better explained as “I need just something”.
Now here’s Gendry back again. When last we saw him he was staying with the Brotherhood to make weapons for them, which begs the question: Does he know who Lady Stoneheart is? I’m wondering if they keep things compartmentalized, in that Gendry can’t spill info he doesn’t have. I think this because in my mind there’s no way he wouldn’t think, “You’re Lady Stark? What a coincidence. I know your daughter!”
Unless… Here’s a thought, when they hear riders, Gendry says they are friends, which of course they are not. But Gendry was expecting someone else. I have a feeling that Gendry didn’t leave the prayer service because of religions objections, but rather to send either a message or a signal to the Brothers, something like “Hey you know that woman, who’s been asking in every town about Sansa Stark, well guess where she is?”
The Freys in this scene remind me of the story about Tywin told in Cersei’s first chapter. Tywin’s father Tytos had a mistress after his wife died and she was the power behind the seat. After his father’s death, he made her walk nude through the streets. Now here we have a son who clearly resents his father running around with a whore in a crown. (Is that… Robb’s crown?)
Good to see the Frey love continuing. I have a mental picture of the bridge with a line of Freys on the edge with robes around their necks. Once by one eachg one is pushed off until they get to Old Walder. This is what I think is going to go down before this is over. Either that or Bridge on fire.
And it’s a pain to keep all these Freys apart. From what I understand, Stevron amd Emmon are brothers, the two oldest sons from Old Walder’s first wife. Stevron died when they were still with Robb, so Stevron’s son Ryman will inhereit the Twins (because a son will inherit before a younger brother) and that’s the nitwit with the whore. Stevron’s younger brother Emmon is the one married to Gemma Lanister. So I imagine the deal with Tywin was for Riverrun to go to Emmon so it would keep a Lannister in charge there.
So really this is Westeros version of a deal he can’t refuse, and I have to say that Jamie’s terms are much more reasonable than I would have expected, and certainly better than they ever would have received from Tywin. Something to think about, Tywin rid himself of the Starks with a pen, Jamie ended the seige with prsenting a choice. In each case they made others do the work for them. maybe he learned something from the old man after all. I will also say the old Jamie would have fought Blackfish then and there.
Chapter 37 is so rough. Brienne fading as she’s being EATEN ALIVE by Biter at the end of the chapter is just horrifying. Man, the Bloody Mummers really frigging suck.
Hyle Hunt was a total dick to Brienne in this chapter, but at least he was brutally honest. He doesn’t find her attractive and he admits it, but he still wants to marry her (for her lands and castle), proving himself a fairly honest douchebag. There are worse qualities than greed, and he was still kinda funny in his comments about Willow and Gendry, and all the orphans.
Chapter 38- we have reached the culmination of Jaime’s journey through the riverlands. Now he’s met with Brynden, and still nothing has been resolved or even progressed. The Blackfish only has input on the Starks through his neice Catelyn, so of course his perception is colored by Cat’s hatred of Jon, I don’t blame him for that. He’s still 100% pure awesomeness in my book.
Edmure was never very likeable; from his introduction he has been full of bad ideas and weak character, so I wasn’t at all surprised that he still loves Roslyn (who was surprisingly beautiful for a Frey, and who apparently really loves him, too. Which is just wierd. ) As you said once (I believe during ASOS): Shut up, Edmure.
One thing I’m not sure you caught, Leigh, was that the whore with Ryman Frey was wearing Robb’s crown. That really offended and disgusted me, just that the Freys could keep that as their own little plaything.
Yeah, Jaime is still an asshole, but at least he now feels somewhat bad about it. I always read it as he actually scared himself a bit with the trebuchet threat there for a moment (Wow, I really sound like my old fine self. Ew. But hey if it works better than parleying with honorable men so be it.)
Maybe I’m a bit warped myself because Leigh’s (and many others in fandom) reaction to Hunt’s marriage proposal shocks me a bit, cause I found that totally sweet in it’s brutal honesty and eagerness (considering the man’s backround and all). Then I’m often accused to think and act like a tactless dude more than a lady, with some aspergers like honesty thrown in that doesn’t bode well in polite social settings. Not that I don’t get Briennes refusal, but I still was like, come oooon he’s trying so hard here.
@MDNY
HOLY SHIT! I can’t believe I missed that about Robb’s crown. That is vile. Jeez, like we need more reasons to hate the Freys.
Is Jaime threatening to trebuchet Edmure’s baby if Riverrun didn’t surrender any worse than Ned keeping Theon as a hostage for Balon’s good behavior?
What I find interesting about Jaime in this chapter (and the last few in general) is that it’s becoming readily apparent that he always could have been the heir that Tywin wanted, if he were so inclined.
He doesn’t have the raw intelligence that Tyrion does, but he’s far from being a dummy, and he’s showing a lot more caution and judgement than he probably ever has in his entire life. For all his angsting about losing his swordhand, it turns out he’s actually had quite a few strategic/political talents all along. He just never cared about them.
In defense of Blackfish, it actually is kind of suspicious that 16 year-old Jon would be named Lord Commander. He doesn’t have access to the information that we do (namely, that Tywin maneuvered to have Janos Slynt named LC instead of Jon), so he reaches a perfectly logical conclusion that Jon is Tywin’s puppet, put in that position as a means of pacifying the North.
I’m hoping Biter was taking small bites to make her last longer. Part of me hopes that the scars Brienne and Jaime have will help them when they get back together if they ever do. I really want them to hook up and keep each other warm during the long winter though I know the chances of Martin letting them live is probably zero.
@@@@@ 15
Major spoilers, so you might not want to look:
Don’t miss the crown when you see it again in Brienne’s next chapter.
Sometimes it might seem like we get too many reasons to dislike the Freys. Could be because GRRM builds up the visceral feeling we can get if something bad happens to them, as was the case at teh time Dany sacks Astapor, but there is a mention in the last two Jaime chapters that there are some actually decent Freys out there (full brothers to Roslin) that didn’t take part in the massacre.
(Moderator note: whited out the spoilers. SR)
I’ve actually read that human bites are among the worst kinds of animal bites in terms of infection. Dog bites are relatively clean, while cat bites are pretty damned awful.
I rather enjoyed the whole Jaime chapter. I felt the threats were just to take advantage of his reputation (since politeness totally didn’t work on the last Tully he parlayed with) and was perfectly ok with that. But I think you are also missing one other point. His favourite aunt just told him “…but Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you.” (basically slighting both of them in a single breath in the way Lannisters do even when not trying). I think that must still rankle and might go a long way towards explaining why he is making a threat worthy of Tywin.
And I was soooo hoping you’d quote this little exchange:
“I’m the queen o’ whores.”
No, Jaime thought, my sweet sister holds that title too.
~lakesidey
Oh, I’m stroking my evil voyeuristic/sympathetic blog-follower sadism evilly here.
My first responses to Chapter 37 on a first read:
1. Nooooo, not my Brienne!!!
2. Good grief, people. Stay away from the Crossroads Inn if you value your life, limbs, and/or liberty.
3. Ireally hope Arya never learns that Rorge and Biter – whose lives she’d saved – went on to massacre and torture a town full of people (probably more than once) as brutally as Gregor ever did. If she still has the capacity for guilt, it’ll be a torment.
4. I wish I’d read this before that real-life guy made headlines for eating that other guy’s face, because then I could’ve responded with “BITER LIVES!”
Hyle seems to be trying for Tyrion’s (currently) former post of Quip-Master of Westeros. But his marriage proposal is amusingly pathetic. The great folks of the UNspoiled Podcast of Ice and Fire (who I’ll probably quote regularly now that I’ve listened to them) likened it to someone at a job interview going “I know you need hands. I’ve got two. I’d rather not use them, but I need the money…”
Also, he called Podrick “as squeamish as a girl” when the boy refused a corpse-wormy helmet. Hello, you’re traveling with a girl whose non-squeamishness has been very thoroughly demonstrated at length.
Still, it was wonderful to see her kill Rorge while whispering sapphires. And then Biter jumped her because GRRM hates happiness. A bit like Oberyn stabbing Gregor and then getting crushed, though Brienne isn’t as conclusively dead at this point.
At the first mention of salt in the corpses’ mouths, I thought they were Lannister/Frey soldiers hanged in revenge for murdering guests who had eaten of their “bread and salt.”
Reputation vs. Honor
Reputation is what people know about you.
Honor is what you know about yourself.
Aral Vorkosigan ~ Lois McMaster Bujold.
Perfect chapter for this quote. Jamie trying to hold onto his honor, while his reputation is shit.
Sorry this Bri chapter has left you with such thoughts. But happy you have not said the Eight Deadly Words, either.
@19: Yep. because the human mouth is full of bacteria that is bad. I’m guessing Bitters mouth is worse than the normal human mouth.
Cat bites are so bad because their sharp teeth act as needles driving any bacteria right into your blood stream. Better to get a cat scratch then a bite
“Honestly, in retrospect I don’t know why I didn’t suspect that the remnants of Hoat’s Mummers were behind the Saltpans thing from the beginning. Because I knew the atrocity of it wasn’t Sandor Clegane’s style, but I should have also realized it was SO these assholes’ style. But, I suppose hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that.”
Words to live by. This is why GRRM is so fun. He puts all of these pieces out there and they make complete sense after the fact BUT are hard to figure out in medias res.
@13: From Clash of Crowns:
“[…] Robb’s crown looked much as the other was said to have looked in the tales told of the Stark kings of old; an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surrounded by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. Of gold and silver and gemstones, it had none; bronze and iron were the metals of winter, dark and strong to fight against the cold.”
From Feast for Crows:
“On her head a circlet of hammered bronze sat askew, graven with runes and ringed with small black swords.”
@22 Bujold FTW. Everyone should be reading her, IMO. Incredibly fun and great books. Wonder if Jaime can use his belly button as an honor reset button, like Miles did.
@1. hihosilver28
I agree. I still think he deserves an electric chair for throwing Bran out a window but he’s earned enough respect from me somehow to believe that he’s mostly trying to get Edmure to capitulate, but he also in this very chapter says you must follow through on your threats, so you know…I think if it came to it, he would throw the kid with a trebuchet.
Ah well, we can’t have nice things.
Brienne is a hero. She’d get a medal and some French doctors willing to do their magic on her face in our western world, but Westeros sucks.
No commentary about who the singer is that Edmure doesn’t want to be around?
Is it a spoiler to point out that //the singer is Tom O’Sevens, who once wrote a song about a floppy fish, thus explaining Edmure’s reaction//?
@27 – JINX!!!
I pretty strongly disagree that Jaime earlier tried to be good but circumstances wouldn’t let him. That said, I think the comments here have analyzed his words and actions perfectly.
Along the same lines, I’ll suggest that the Blackfish may also have ulterior motives for many of the things he says.
Ireally hope Arya never learns that Rorge and Biter – whose lives she’d saved – went on to massacre and torture a town full of people (probably more than once) as brutally as Gregor ever did. If she still has the capacity for guilt, it’ll be a torment.
Arya really can’t win. She gets criticized all the time for killing too many people, now she’s “guilty” for saving lives during a fire. I say she did the right thing to save them, because nobody can foresee the future.
@29: I don’t know if Arya would see it that way, though.
Like a lot of people, I was surprised at how negative Leigh’s reaction was to Jamie in this chapter. I actually gave him a lot of credit after reading this chapter. After negotiations with the Blackfish failed, he though about it and came up with a way to possibly end the siege without more bloodshed and allowed him to keep his oath.
I’ll grant that his threat wasn’t exactly nice but that’s kind of the point of making a threat. In regards to the singer (possible minor spoiler):
it’s the identity of the singer that Edmure has a problem with more than the song since Tom O’Sevens wrote that song about Edmure’s floppy fish
End Spoiler
(Moderator note: whited out the spoiler)
Another Frey chapter, another excuse for genealogy perusal. Of the bannermen mentioned here, lessee…Old Walder’s current wife is an Erenford, his third wife was a Crakehall, his eldest daughter married a Haigh, and his granddaughter (Ryman sister) married a Vance. Though kinship doesn’t guarantee fealty; of those mentioned last chapter, one of his granddaughters married a Goodbrook (present) but two of his sons married women of House Paege (absent). Also, the Greyjoy Boys had a Piper stepmother at one time, but never mind that.
I don’t share the opinion that All Freys Must Die before Old Walder does, even though the ones in this chapter are pretty sorry specimens. The family is full of babies, little children, and adults who have so far been minding their own business in various professions.
Robb has a crown of swords? Like in WOT? Cool. Fun fact: the ASOIAF series titles (counting future books, which I won’t name if that would be spoilery) collectively contain 6 nouns in common with the WOT series titles.
Honor, honor, honor. Narratively speaking, I feel like Ned Stark single-handedly turned “honor” into a dirty word for misplaced priorities and lack of self-preservation. The same narrative repeatedly mocks what Terry Pratchett dubbed “homeopathic warfare” – the belief that the smallest fighting force is the most potent, a common fantasy trope.
@27 and 28: That’s revealed in the next Jaime chapter, so yes, it is a spoiler now.
It’s Tom O’Sevens! He wrote a song about Edmure’s “floppy fish”.
Edmure can’t stand him because he stole a girl from him and then wrote a song about how he can’t get it up. It’s not endless bouts of the Reigns of Castamere that Edmure objects to, it’s Tom himself and his rampant erections.
(Moderator note: spoiler whited out. The identity of this person is a spoiler for now, so let’s either white it out or save it for the appropriate chapter or the spoiler thread. Please and thank you, your tired moderators.)
@30: She probably would have earlier on. I’m not sure how she’d react now.
I will send your son to you. By trebuchet.
I must be a bastard, because I just grinned when I read that 9 years ago, and I still do. Maybe because I noticed that Jaime wasn’t actually going to do it, but he was making the threat that would end the siege with the mininal amount of loss of life. And still looking like a smug bastard while doing so. That’s Jaime for you. Doing good, while appearing to do evil.
Leigh, your talk about honor touches one of the main poins in ASOIAF story. Basically one of the main points in the story is that, yes, you should surrender and let the smallfolk live. That’s it. When people put desire for vengeance or honor before desire for general life improvement, then bad things happen. It goes all the way back to Catelyn trying to talk Robb into going back to Winterfell and bending the knee to Joffrey, after Joffrey had decapitated Ned. And Robb, and the northern lords and the river lords, didn’t go with that. And for that they are all horrifically dead. This is GRRM making a point about not only how war sucks (all Arya chapters in the Riverlands are there to show it), but how good people can have a desire for war. And a war that isn’t necessary at all. The true war is against the Others (war for survival against an unreasonable enemy), and people aren’t preparing for that. Instead they’re fighting each other for honor and who killed their ancestors or relatives, or for greed. The series isn’t finished yet, but I think GRRM is making a point of how a few Others can defeat the whole 7 Realms of Men in Westeros, even when outnumbered badly: infighting between men that seems reasonable at the time, but is incredibly stupid when you look at the larger picture.
Men could easily defeat the Others if all 7/8 realms of Westeros united and stood their ground at the Wall, with all that magic shit it has. Like, if you look at the forces the realms have at their disposal at the beginning of the war of the 5 kings, half a million fighting men and women could be there. And one man in the Wall is worth like 20 in the field, if we look at how Mance’s siege turned out. So the Others would need something like 10 million zombies to get past the wall. But for all Westeros to be united, after AGOT, Robb and Joffrey would’ve to make peace with each other. And they don’t want to. For reasons that seem incredibly reasonable at the time (he killed my father!), but aren’t when you look at the big picture.
This will come back again later, all throughout the story. See if you (and other readers) can find it in other POVs.
Oh shit, I totally fogot that we don’t know that yet and also millions of people posted about it while I was reading.
I keep trying to figure out at any point in the books how many Freys are left between Old Lord Walder and Big Walder. Ever since big and little Walder going on in book 2 about how far down in the line of sucession they are, I’ve decided that one of them will end up the next lord of the crossing.
I still think he deserves an electric chair for throwing Bran out a window
DougL, you aren’t the only person saying this, but you’re the most recent comment, so it’s the one I’m quoting.
I STILL don’t get this antipathy for Jaime, while many people who do that, continue to hold up Ned Stark as this epitome of honorability. He made the same choice as Jaime, to save his children, at the expense of someone else’s.
Ned knew Stannis knew the truth, as he was Jon’s confidante, and he had to know that Stannis would rebel. Which would be war, and the death of lots of children. But that didn’t matter to Ned. His actions allowed him to “save” Sansa and Arya.
And if you think Ned made the right decision, that’s fine, but I don’t understand how you can feel that way, and fail to acknowledge that Jaime did the same thing.
@38 Aeryl, I guess most people look at it as the difference between killing someone and letting someone die.
~lakesidey
Yep, the spoiler’d out bit started with #27 was one of the more neat aspects of that chapter alongside Jaime using his horrible reputation to good use in order to avoid breaking an oath and entering into a bloodly, long-lasting siege (while working with people who don’t really like each other one bit).
I mean, you have all these Freys and Lannisters, alongside people they’re forcing to work with them through the “we hold your loved ones hostage” card. And then you add in that spoilerific wild card to the mix, just strolling around and keeping tabs on everyone there and what they’re doing.
Leigh – your unspoiled, first-time read salted with your top-notch turn of phrase will have me smiling all week!
Since people brought up the Vorkosiverse, this also reminded me about how assorted characters leveraged their reputations, no matter how erroneous; ‘afterall, they paid for them.’ Of course, if we got books about the Komarr revolt and the 2nd Cetagandan War, we might get a better view of how certain reputations were employed. *grumble grumble*
Kudos to the moderators who indubitably are working overtime whiting out spoilers this week! Much appreciated.
Aeryl, I don’t see the desire to save children as being the important factor when comparing Ned and Jaime. Two reasons:
1. We know for certain that Ned confessed to save Sansa and Arya. We don’t actually know that Jaime pushed Bran to save his kids. We have to speculate that. It’s plausible, but it’s also plausible that Jaime never cared much about the kids and did it to save himself and Cersei.
2. In order to save Sansa and Arya, Ned sacrificed himself. Jaime did the opposite: he sacrificed someone else’s kid.
@14 I felt the same way about the proposal. Sure, it was still objectionable, but I really felt Hyle was honestly trying to be realistic, in his douchey way. I guess it’s just hard for some people to admit reality, even when it’s not their own.
@16 Good points about Jaime. This is one of those chapters that really shows he’s a lot smarter (tactically) than he’s given credit for. But as you state, I think it’s because he himself doesn’t value these traits as much as his father would.
@22 Great quote.
A lot of people have already talked about the reaction to Jaime so I don’t think I need to add more to that exactly – but I think it all adds to Jaime’s character of (to use the quote) reputation vs honor. His one defining act, kingslaying, is disparaged by so many. And I don’t think Leigh has really talked about it at length (I could be wrong though) but it strikes me as somewhat odd that everyone condemns him for it. Because it’s made painfully clear that Aerys was mad as hell. There was already a war going on because of it. So why is he condemned so handidly for essentially saving the kingdom?
The obvious answer is because he betrayed the king. And I suppose since the Westeros society places so much emphasis on those kinds of things (the hospitality right, for example) that breaking ones oath could be an unforgiveable crime.
But I don’t get that impression from the rest of the series, honestly. It seems more to me that people in Westeros just play simple politics and it has nothing to do with “honor” or oathbreaking to most people (Brienne might be an exclusion since she does value honor so highly). I get the feeling that they condemned Jaime more out of a “can’t let him get too good” political way. After all he was the best swordsman there was at age 17? Maybe younger? Easier to condemn Jaime as a kingslayer (ignoring the fact that he saved all your butts) than let him rise to more power.
After all, Jaime has pointed out that it was either betray the king or betray his father – and I believe Jaime would have been spit upon no matter what choice he made.
So yea I feel a lot of sympathy for Jaime. He’s constantly been in a state of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. This chapter was simply the latest incident in a long chain of “People see me as a bastard no matter what I do”. And I get the impression that he really honestly has been trying to do the “right” thing. Maybe his moral compass isn’t the best, but he did have good intentions. I know that doesn’t excuse anything, but I think it gets him into the “he gives me feelz” category.
@43: I think Aeryl was referring more to sacrificing Cersei’s kids for Ned’s own. Because after all Ned was proclaiming that they were of incest, and I believe it was made clear that she and her kids would likely be executed because of it. Or at least that’s how I equate it.
@44: I didn’t read it that way, but fair enough. However, Ned gave Cersei the chance to leave for exactly that reason. And if Ned had prevailed, I see every reason to believe that he would have protected the kids.
@37: Little Walder is the only son of Old Walder’s deceased ninth son, and Big Walder is the firstborn of his thirteenth son. I’m not quite how many of the males before them could qualify as heirs, or in what order…but there.are many.
@naupathia, Sophist,
No, I am stating that when Ned made the choice to SAVE his kids, he condemned thousands of others. And everybody seems to be okay with that, while reviling Jaime for sacrificing one kid to save his own.
To continue the thoughts as to WHY Jaime is reviled, again, this lies with Ned Stark. The story never was “Jaime killed the king, ended the war and saved the city” because Ned got there first, and found Jaime sitting on the throne, the throne Ned intended to see Robert sit upon, it instead became “Jaime killed the king to usurp Robert’s glory and try to steal the throne”.
Sad thing about all of this is, Ned and Jaime are two men who truly would have seen eye to eye on many things, and probably been much truer friends than Ned and Robert ever were, if it weren’t for the prejudice they both had imprinted on them for one another.
The read made me want to post a Vorkosigan quote, and I get down to the comments and find the party’s already started. Have this one, then:
“Useful! Have you found the name of the Butcher of Komarr a handy prop, then, sir?” Miles said indignantly.
His father’s eyes narrowed, partly in grim amusement, partly in appreciation. “I’ve found it a mixed … damnation. But yes, I have used the weight of that reputation, from time to time, to lean on certain susceptible men. Why not, I paid for it.”
(Edit: aaaand noblehunter beat me to that one while I was typing. Curses.)
I can’t say I’d really expected to be drawing parallels between Jaime and Aral Vorkosigan, of all people, but the more I think about it, the more I can see it. Both have sordid pasts (but are incorrectly blamed for what they’re most infamous), socially unacceptable exes (who are spectacularly vile people), formidable love interests, conflict with stern fathers over expectations, formidable romantic interests on the opposite side of the battle lines (and must team up to get to safety)… there’s a lot.
(A more obvious comparison, Tyrion and Miles, I find just kind of depressing; it really drives home how totally shit Tyrion’s immediate family is. Though I admit, I did find a smile in seeing Jaime as the gritty grimderp incarnation of that-idiot-Ivan.)
Aeryl @38: Regarding Jaime: When Cersei thinks you’ve been excessively murderous in your coverup attempt, you may wish to re-evaluate your decisionmaking process.
Regarding Ned: At any rate, (IIRC) the only point at which Ned bent his honor for the sake of his family was in his final compromise after being imprisoned- lie, be allowed to take the black, his kids are hostages, etc. At that point, no decision he could make was going to prevent war with Stannis. Arguably, absent the little blond psycho’s intervention, the decision Ned made might (or might not) have forestalled the general melee that wrecked most of central and northern Westeros, thereby saving lives.
(The point at which Ned truly screwed the pooch was earlier- when he tried to have his cake (by revealing Cersei’s treason) and eat it too (by giving Cersei’s family the chance to get out of town). I don’t think that attempted compromise was particularly dishonorable, just really dumb.)
–
Man, I really want to use square brackets sometimes, but they always seem to break things.
What are you people doing to make cats want to bite you? Shame on you!
Aeryl, I don’t follow how Ned condemned thousands of other kids. From where he was at the time he made the choice to confess, it’s hard to see how any decision he made would have changed the outcome of Joffrey on the throne.
In any case, I’d draw a distinction between direct causes and indirect ones. Jaime was the direct cause of Bran’s fall. Ned was a very indirect cause of the WOTFK, I guess, but there are so many others who participated directly that I can’t place the fault on him.
As for Jaime becoming the Kingslayer, it’s not like it was a secret. Ned was hardly the only one who knew, and Jaime never told his side of things, apparently to anyone, for 17 years.
As for Ned’s reaction to Jaime, remember that Ned found Jaime sitting on the throne. And that, as Ned pointed out to him face to face, Jaime may have saved King’s Landing by killing Aerys, but he did wait until it was perfectly safe for him personally.
@48, does that make Brienne ‘a font of honour’ then? Bothari would fit in right in Westeros though and Cordelia would be frightening. I say we send her to the Twins to go shopping.
Jaime-as-Ivan would fit in some ways. Hasn’t Jaime been deliberately living down to his reputation since the fall of King’s Landing? He has to be smart enough to know that being politically toxic helps allay fears he might be amenable to repeating his kingslaying performance. Similarly, Ivan plays the idiot to keep plotters from moving him up the line of succession.
@sophist, But Ned’s story is the one that was told about Jaime. Jaime never bothered to tell Ned the truth, because of their prejudices, they never would have believed one another. Ned would never have believed Jaime did it for a good reason, to prevent the fire, and Jaime would never believe Ned would believe him.
And again, Ned was willing to allow a sadist, perhaps WORSE than Aerys, to remain on the throne, to protect his family. Again, how does this make him ANY BETTER than anyone else in this story. He may not have been able to stop the war, but he could have told the truth when they had him on the steps, and started a stronger rebellion. Instead his actions allowed the Lannisters to appear righteous. IMO, that’s worse than trying to kill a kid painlessly.
Like I said, I don’t judge Ned badly for doing what he did. I just don’t judge Jaime either.
@48,
When Cersei thinks you’ve been excessively murderous in your coverup attempt,
Spoilers to explain further, but I don’t believe that Cersei was that upset, I think this was Jaime not seeing her clearly.
Just a point on Brienne (roll over for spoilers) meeting the bwb. It was my understanding that Lord Beric passed on his gift of resurrection to Lady Stoneheart, so he’s no longer with us, and Brienne will not be meeting up with him in the future.
(Moderator note: whited out possible spoilers. SR)
@53
That is not knowledge that we have right now. Mod, could you white it out?
EDIT: Thanks, Stefan.
@54 Done! Thanks for flagging it.
@38. Aeryl
What are you talking about? I would execute Jaime for throwing Bran out a window, not for killing Aerys.
Stannis was going to war no matter what Ned did, as soon as Robert was dead the realm was at war, just a matter of time.
I like reading Jaime’s chapters, but he threw a kid out a window.
Also to save his kids Ned decided to tell the realm he was a traitor. He did send a letter inviting Stannis to take the throne but the letter never got there. Regardless, Stannis would not have even been grateful and the Lannisters still would have put up a fight. He could have put Stannis on the throne if he had seized Joffrey and the other two kids when Renly wanted to. It was his honour that doomed Westeros to war there, is that what you are talking about?
Doing a right thing that leads to problems is not the same thing as doing the wrong thing to protect yourself, which is what Jaime did. Ned didn’t grab the kids because it’s not the kids fault or some stupid thing. I do not hold up Ned as a paragon of virtue, but he was a pretty good man who made a series of comedically dumb decisions there at the end.
@52: But even if Ned had some influence on the result, which I doubt, he had no way to know what kind of sadist Joffrey really was; Joffrey’s the one responsible for that, not Ned and not anyone else. Plus, he would have expected a regent.
Could he have told the truth on the steps? Well, maybe. But it’s not clear anyone would have believed him, nor that he’d have been allowed to finish his sentence. That seems pretty thin compared to Jaime’s actual, direct, intentional push of a 9 year old boy.
As for the Kingslaying, maybe it was Ned’s story, maybe it was the story lots of people told. There was no secret to it. But Jaime had it within his power to tell the truth and didn’t. Even if Ned’s accusation against Jaime was false, that hardly had the same consequence as the push of Bran (or the death of Jory, etc.).
@@@@@ Mods
Thanks for whiting out that spoiler in my post. It was whited out on the preview…
I always have trouble when it comes to Jaime and Bran. It’s obviously a reprehensible act but it’s not too hard to extrapolate what the consequences would be if Bran told anyone what he saw. If Robert had discovered what was going on, I’m pretty sure he would have put the death sentence on Jaime, Cersei, and their kids. On the other hand, I’m not aware of any evidence that Jaime actually thought about it in that way before defenstrating Bran.
While it’s a terrible choice brought on by his own poor choices, it’s hard for me not to see Jaime throwing Bran out the window as choosing between Bran’s life and the life of his 3 children, the life of his true love (as he would have seen it then), and his own life.
@58. MorsManwoody
Neither myself, nor Stannis have any sympathy for Jaime in that situation, no matter what his thought process was.
Well, it is true that Jaime and Cercei (and probably the children too) would have lost their lives if Bran told everyone what he saw, but it doesn’t make it any less a horrible crime. What was the right thing to do in that situation is another question. I would say the right choice was what Ned offered later: run away to the Free Cities. Of course we know that Cercei would have never agreed to it, and Jaime probably knew it too. (And I think Cercei was actualy lieing when she told Jaime that he did not have to do it, she would have done the same in his place.)
Back to the actual chapter I definitely agrre that Jaime’s intentions are good. He wants to keep his oath and prevent more bloodshed, and when all other ways fails he make a last desperate attempt making that threat to Edmure. At the same time it is a very dangerous game.
IF Edmure agrees to Jaime’s terms everything is fine: Jaime takes Riverrun, keeps his oath and no more blood is shed. But what if not? Jaime makes a point that one must be able to back up his threat with actions if necessary. So by that logic, if Edmure doesn’t yield the castle then Jaime go on with the siege AND the trebuchet. I would say it is a very risky gamble with Jaime’s honor (and thousands of lives) at stake.
BTW there is a lot of parallel between Jaime’s story in AFFC and Tyrions in ACOK. Both brothers get power (Tyrion as King’s Hand and Jaime as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard) and attempt to use it for good purpose, but at the same time both often achieve their good goals using Tywin’s methods (which causes more and more complications as time goes).
Grrrrrrrrr, me hate Walder Frey so much! He’s a big, old, stinking bastard! Reading about his deeds in this chapter only ticked me off again after I thought the Red Wedding was the thing that would anger me the most in these books! I’ve just read the RW chapter and my wrath has made me terrible to behold! I’m just angry, FURIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!! WALDER YOU HUGE PIECE OF #$%%%%%%%%%%&!!!!!!!! ###########################!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ###############!!!!!!!!!!! #################!!!!!!!! ######!!!! I’m gonna ##################%%%%% YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!! I’LL $#$#%#$&#$%#$& YOU AND THEN I’LL #$&%/&/$%#%%/$#%#%$ AGAIN IN THE $%#$%!!!!!!! I’M GONNA %#$#$%%$&#$%&#$$%$ YOUR V$%#%&%$&#$&3 OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND THEN I’LL #”&#$&#$%”&%# YOU $%#$%”%#$%”$&$%&#&%/$&!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU $#&$%!!! “$$%#$%#$$#!!!!!!!!! $#%#$&$%/%$&”!!!!!!!!!!! #$&$%/%$&%! %$#%/&/#$%&%&#$%&/%$##############!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*deep, fast breathing* No, you know what? I’m too angry right now to bother to keep expressing it. I’ve just realized that this is not enough. So, *giggling* I’ve decided to stop ranting *giggling getting unsettling* and in the spirit of the moment *giggling even more* I’ve decided to instead dedicate Walder Frey this little song: **fights to suppress snorts and giggles**
How Do You Sleep? (Dedicated to…*)
So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better through that mother’s eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
You suck my blood like a leech
You break the law and you breach
Screw my brain ’til it hurts
You’ve taken all my money and you want more
Misguided old mule
With your pig-headed rules
With your narrow-minded cronies who are fools of the first division
Death on two legs
You’re tearing me apart
Death on two legs
You never had a heart of your own
How do y0u sleep?
Ah how do you sleep at night?
Kill joy, bad guy,
Big talking, small fry,
You’re just an old barrow-boy
Have you found a new toy to replace me?
Can you face me?
You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your mamma tell you anything
The only thing you did was yesterday
And since you’re gone you’re just another day
But now you can kiss my ass goodbye
Feel good, are you satisfied?
How do you sleep?
Ah how do you sleep at night?
Do you feel like suicide (I think you should)?
Is your conscience all right?
Does it plague you at night?
Do you feel good? Feel good!
A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they’ll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something all those years
You talk like a big business tycoon
But you’re just a hot-air balloon
So no one gives you a damn
You’re just an overgrown schoolboy
Let me tan your hide
A dog with disease
You’re the king of the ‘sleaze’
Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Know-all
Was the fin on your back part of the deal? (shark!)
Death on two legs
You’re tearing me apart
Death on two legs
You never had a heart (you never did) of your own
(right from the start)
How do you sleep?
Ah how do you sleep at night?
Insane you should be put inside
You’re a sewer rat decaying in a cesspoool of pride
Should be made unemployed
Then make yourself null and void
Make me feel good
I feel good
*But you already know who it is dedicated to.
(I could’ve made it better, but these were the only “anti” songs that I could think of.)
I know, I’m sorry. I’m a bit late to post something like this, but since we are place somewhat fit for once again indulge in a bit of anti-Frey vitriol, I thought this would be a good time. For better effect read the Red Wedding chapter and post and also remember the things old Walder and his brood did after that.
Also, I like song parodies, and while I appreciate the humor that appears through the site, I think there should be more song parodies in Tor.com, both by bloggers and commenters. For example, I would like to see commenters on this post make their own anti-Walder songs, or improved versions of the song I’ve just posted above.
Well, lets forget just for a moment that Jaime threw Bran out of a window.
His only other villanous act was killing Aerys and, well, considering that the Mad King was going to burn an decimate an entire city, that’s hardly villanous at all, but the most honourable rhing to do.
Jaime hasn’t Grown as a Person, he was always a hero. His only problem is Cersei.
@32 AeronaGreenjoy I must be very dim. Six nouns in common? I reckon you need to get to book seven and then it is seven in common
1. Winter’s Heart = Winds of Winter (Winter)
2. Crown of Swords = Storm of Swords = The Sworn Sword (Sword)
3. The Gathering Storm = Storm of Swords (Storm)
4. The Dragon Reborn = Dance of Dragons (Dragon)
5. Crown of Swords = Clash of Crowns (Crown)
6. New Spring = A Dream of Spring (Spring)
7. Knife of Dreams = A Dream of Spring (Dream)
Or am I missing something bloody obvious?
This is absoloutely not a troll. I like Ned. I didn’t like Jaime and could not figure out how you could but (Damn you GRRM) he grew on me and is now one of my favourites.
Child defenestration is not cool (and I hated him for it as Bran was very sympathetic character – I liked him dammit). But that is one kid balanced against the lives of your lover/sister, your three children and yourself.
Ned, whom I liked, I considered an absolute tool. He valued his honor above the lives of himself and everyone else but his children. Ned’s actions led directly to the suffering and loss of life that Westeros experiences.
All he had to do was put the welfare of the realm first. And that alas was a bridge too far for poor, honorable, likeable, killer Ned.
I have this argument with one of my sons fairly regularly (two of the others agree with me and one is ambilvalent). Ned is an arse – but he still is likeable.
@57, All I’m saying is that Ned decided, to him, his children were more important than someone elses. It’s the same decision Jaime made. I’ve never understood why people don’t judge Ned the same.
And I’m not saying that Jaime should have told the truth in re Aerys, all I’m saying is that it wouldn’t have mattered if he did, he knew Ned would never believe him. It really has no bearing on my argument about Jaime, just a sad piece of the reality of this story, that this obsession with bloodlines and dynasty forced two men who could truly have been “blood brothers” as Ned imagined he and Robert were, to open disdain and hatred of one another.
@64: It’s A Clash of Kings, not Crowns.
Aeryl @66:
Well, actually, Ned’s false confession was supposed to lead to peace. So, it might have saved lives in the short term, if everything had happened as planned by Varys.
It was Ned’s intention to put Stannis on the throne that was guaranteed to result in war and thousands of casualities, but Ned put his honor above such considerations.
I have always wondered what would have happened if Joff had been a decent kid, though. Would Ned still have opted for removing him from succession on very flimsy evidence and causing a massive civil war, not to mention long-term negative reprecussions for any kind of inheritance disputes in cases where kids didn’t inherit paternal looks in the future?
BTW, Jaime not making wildfire caches in KL public is actually also a serious stain on his honor (in the sense of internal honor). Yes, he prevented them from being ignited on purpose at the cost of his reputation, but they still could have gone up in the years since due to mundane fires and people generally being clueless about them. Yet Jaime apparently didn’t care about the loss of life _that_ might have caused. So, yea, his noblest act wasn’t as noble as it could have been, as inhabitants of KL lived under the Damocles sword unbeknowest to themselves and still may be doing so. All thanks to Jaime’s pride and his snit over being “judged”, when he didn’t even bother to explain himself.
And I like Jaime…
Chapter 37 — Brienne:I read this last night, so this is after reading. So, it is Rorge and the Mummers remnants who were doing the Hound impersonation. That makes sense based on the savagery of the attacks. I am sure that Brienne will survive, but having some fairly sizable bites taken out of your face by someone with poor dental hygeine could leave some horrific scars. I don’t think I approve of that if that is what happens. It feels like a step towards erasure of Brienne. Sure, people get injured in battles, but where and how they get injured is a purely authorial decision. We’ll have to see how that plays out. I wonder who Willow is? We know she isn’t Arya, but she does seem to have a commanding presence. I would rather like it if she turns out to be some peasant girl we haven’t seen who is naturally commanding. A well led popular uprising could be interesting.
Oh yeah, and it is cool that Gendry is still around. Apparantly he’s going to make himself a knight.
@@@@@ 65: “Ned’s actions led directly to the suffering and loss of life that Westeros experiences.”
No blame for Littlefinger, who’s behind almost everything from Jon Arryn’s murder to Jofferey’s, including Ned’s own downfall? He was deliberately manipulated into a situation where his only two options were 1) changing his entire character and 2) failure. When he was told that Jon Arryn was murdered, should he have shrugged and decided it wasn’t worth investigating because it might get him into trouble? Or refused Robert, who he’d loved like a brother since their youth? Because those were pretty much the only ways he could have avoided getting tangled up in the whole mess. He was set up to be the focal person in this plot precisely because his actions were so easy to predict. That isn’t to say that he could not have bettered his situation by, say, telling Robert without giving Cercei a chance to escape, or seizing power himself, or not trusting Littlefinger, but none of those would be in keeping with his character. Living by his honor had never been a serious drawback before: he stood by Robert in the Rebellion, avenged his father and brothers’ deaths, found his sister (though she died), married his brother’s fiance and came to love her, and was well-reguarded as the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. Also, hadn’t Stannis already found out about Joffery’s parentage? And wasn’t Renly ready to make a grab for the throne despite knowing nothing about Cercei’s adultery? There would have been war after Robert’s death no matter what.
Perhaps if he’d thrown his honor out the window as carelessly as Jaime threw Bran, he might have gotten out of King’s Landing with his family intact, but the North would’ve been caught up in the war anyway.
Chapter 38 — Jaime:Talking with the Blackfish went about as well as I expected. Blackfish & co. really have no reason to trust anything Lannisters or Freys have to say. Not much basis for negotiation there. And as the afterparty among the commanders shows:
there isn’t much love or trust among the people on the outside of the walls either. Jaime shows some sense as he backhands the Frey and then tells Edmure to choose the fate of Riverrun. That plan has a pretty good chance of working I would say. He really doesn’t leave him with any choice other than surrender and I will guess that Edmure will choose surrender. The only question is if the Blackfish will go along with it.
@68, Well, actually, Ned’s false confession was supposed to lead to peace.
Which just makes it worse. Ned knows what “peace” under a murderous tyrant means.
As far as the wildfyre, my understanding from COK was that they gathered it back up and stored it, and that’s where what Tyrion used came from. So I don’t think it remained it caches, the pyromancers took it back. But yes, you are correct that they didn’t let the public know of the danger.
@70, LF is TOTALLY at fault for a lot of things, but the discussion isn’t whether LF is terrible person, but whether there is much daylight between what Jaime did at the beginning of GOT and what Ned does at the end.
It’s the same decision Jaime made.
I can’t agree with this. I see the 2 decisions as very different, as explained above.
I’m not saying that Jaime should have told the truth in re Aerys, all I’m saying is that it wouldn’t have mattered if he did, he knew Ned would never believe him.
I can’t see why it matters much whether Ned, a single person, believed Jaime. If everyone else believed Jaime, that might have been important. And Jaime had that within his control. But regardless, I don’t see how this is relevant to Jaime’s defenestration of Bran.
It was Ned’s intention to put Stannis on the throne that was guaranteed to result in war and thousands of casualities, but Ned put his honor above such considerations.
This strikes me as an odd claim, for several reasons: 1. Stannis was determined to take the throne and Ned was irrelevant to that. 2. Ned didn’t want to put Stannis on the throne for his own honor, but because Stannis was the legitimate heir, Joffrey was illegitimate (and insane, but Ned didn’t realize just how crazy), and he felt he owed it to his dead friend Robert. 3. As my mother said, it takes 2 to fight. It’s hard to blame the war on Ned any more than on the Lannisters, less so, in fact, because they had no legitimate claim.
I don’t equate Ned’s actions with what Jaime did in any way. Jaime WAS an egotistical, self-centered arrogant brat at the beginning of the series. He may have started out as somewhat honorable, wanting to join the Kingsguard because he was inspired by the tales of knightly grandeur, but he liked sleeping with Cersei too much, and ended up serving under a tyrant who would murder the whole city, then under a drunken buffoon. I think Jaime’s own self-worth was eroded by his service under Aerys and Robert, and by his new moniker “The Kingslayer”. Then he had his hand cut off, and travelled through peril with Brienne at his side, and rediscovered his early ideals of knighthood. I have no doubt that Brienne played a large role in Jaime’s growth, and continues to do so even when he’s no longer in her presence.
Ned valued honor so highly, and every decision he made was according to his conscience. He did not tell Robert about Cersei’s incest because Robert was dying by the time he could tell him, but he attempted to settle things in favor of Stannis using the tools at his disposal. Unfortunately, Cat vouched for LF and so Ned relied on LF in his bid to declare for Stannis. Ned’s declaration at the end, when he publicly declared for Joff, was a mistake, but remember that he had been tortured and starved, and Varys knew the right buttons to push (implying that Sansa and Arya were in danger and that Ned could take the black and save them if he compromised his values). I feel bad for Ned, who in the end compromised his own honor, something he valued so highly, on the misdirection of Varys.
@@@@@ Sophist,
I can’t see why it matters much whether Ned, a single person, believed Jaime.
Because Ned is whose story was told. That’s important. That’s why it was important that he repudiate the incest rumors, and why the “official” story is that Stannis is a rebel, not the legit heir. The spin is everything.
But regardless, I don’t see how this is relevant to Jaime’s defenestration of Bran.
It’s not, as I’ve stated twice now. It’s just an interesting sidetrack.
@@@@@MDNY
He did not tell Robert about Cersei’s incest because Robert was dying by the time he could tell him, but he attempted to settle things in favor
of Stannis using the tools at his disposal.
Yeah, and telling Robert on his deathbed so he could summon the entire Small Council, which was right outside, and repudiate Cersei and her children wouldn’t have helped more than changing one word on his final statement?
but remember that he had been tortured and starved,
And Jaime had been emotionally and psychologically tortured for years, by Aerys’ abuse of Rhaella, by Robert’s abuse of Cersei.
@Aeryl: What you’re saying about Ned slandering Jaime and essentially causing everyone else to hate him is exactly what I meant when I said it’s all politics. It really has nothing to do with the fact that he killed a king.
About the back and forth over Ned vs Jaime: well so far I agree with @65 – I’ve never really liked Ned. He’s a likeable guy but his decisions were so terrible, and really, imo, not for any legitimately “right” reasons.
Obviously this argument is going to hinge on your own personal philosophy. But as I see it, all the decisions Ned made were to protect his own family – not the realm or the people of it. The only decisions you might argue Ned made “for the good of the realm” was to confess to treason – but A) he didn’t really want to (again being convinced by Varus to do it to save his daughters) and B) this was already after all his other terrible decisions that put the realm in that precarious position to begin with. So no I don’t think he gets a pass on that for having “good intentions”.
Jaime made decisions re: Bran for the exact same reasons – to protect his own family. And yet he gets condemned for that more than Ned. And I think the only reason that’s so is because his actions had more immediate and apparent consequences. You can tie almost every bad thing in this book to Ned being an idiot (or if you want to get really technical, to Catelyn for forcing Ned go to KL and for mucking up everything else in the book), but he gets a pass because people are so intent on slandering Jaime and upholding Ned as “honorable”.
Which is hilarious really, because that’s exactly how it goes down in-universe.
And I think this idea that Ned is so much better mostly stems from the Ned POV being so much about rationalizing his actions as being “honorable” because, really, Ned’s a nice guy and he thinks what he is doing is for the greater good. He’s also our first “main character” that people saw as the protagonist – so on first read you’re already predisposed to be on his side. By the time we get to Jaime though, his POV is less sympathetic because he’s much more of a realist. He knows what he does is for his own good and admit that instead of rationalizing it.
Yea Jaime threw a kid out the window. If he were on trial for it I’d vote to convict. But the meat of the issue is really whether, morally and philosophically, if he is much different than Ned and I would give a resounding “No”. Ned is pretty much exactly the same, just with better PR.
Because Ned is whose story was told.
As I said before, I don’t think Ned was the only person telling the Kingslayer story. Lots of people knew what Jaime did. But in any case, Jaime’s the one who let that become the dominant narrative by his failure to tell anyone what actually happened.
@70. I disagree. Had Ned gotten him and his family out of King’s Landing and holed up in the North, then the North would never had gotten involved. Robb only raised his banners once Ned was arrested. He could have sailed home and kept his forces at Moit Cailin and White Harbor and stayed out of the war until the Baratheons and Lannisters decimated each other. With the North at full strength, Greyjoy would never have left his rock
Jaime made decisions re: Bran for the exact same reasons
As I and others have pointed out, this is not necessarily true. And see below for why intent isn’t the controlling factor anyway.
And yet he gets condemned for that more than Ned. And I think the only reason that’s so is because his actions had more immediate and apparent consequences.
It’s not the only reason — Ned sacrificed himself, Jaime tried to kill an innocent kid — but it’s a very good reason. Society doesn’t judge people for remote and indirect consequences, it judges them for direct and proximate ones. That’s because in the former case unforseeable events and the actions of other moral actors all combine to produce the result. In the latter case, we can pin it on a single person.
As I said before, I don’t think Ned was the only person telling the Kingslayer story.
Ned was first “on the scene” so to speak. We all know that the first “facts” that are told after a tragedy are the ones that stick. Ned didn’t see Jaime as a man who had to do something terrible, to do something great. He saw him as an oathbreaker to his king, who did it for his own enrichment. And that’s the story that was told. Because Jaime knew Ned would never believe otherwise. Which is sad and tragic, because in all honesty, Ned and Jaime are more alike than not. And that is all I’m saying.
Ned sacrificed himself, Jaime tried to kill an innocent kid
Ned did not “sacrifice himself”. He thought what he was doing was saving his life, not sacrificing it, which again, is why you are giving him to much credit for altruistic motives, when they are no different than Jaime’s.
Ned sacrificed himself because (a) he confessed to a treason he didn’t commit; and (b) he accepted banishment to the Wall. Now, those aren’t as great as sacrificing one’s life, but they’re still sacrifices.
As for the motives, we know, to a certainty from the text, what Ned’s motives were. We don’t know Jaime’s motives from the text. Those putting forth Jaime’s “motives” are making guesses. They’re plausible guesses, but they aren’t certain. Personally, I doubt Jaime gave a thought about the kids when he pushed Bran. He most likely thought of himself and Cersei. But we don’t know for sure. I’m reluctant to compare their respective motives because the lack of certainty about Jaime’s makes that questionable.
In any case, I don’t see motive as the relevant factor. I see the deeds as much more important. Jaime’s deed was to push an innocent kid out window. Ned’s deed was to say false things about himself and Joffrey. I can’t see those as comparable.
“Though he’s got prior experience at the baby-hurling thing, doesn’t he. Ugh.”
I lost it reading this. Like I’m still laughing now. Great review this week.
Yea Jaime threw a kid out the window. If he were on trial for it I’d vote to convict. But the meat of the issue is really whether, morally and philosophically, if he is much different than Ned and I would give a resounding “No”. Ned is pretty much exactly the same, just with better PR.
Did Ned and Jaime commit immoral acts to save the lives of their children? Depends . We don’t even know if Jaime was thinking about his children at the time. Considering his lack of mourning for Joffrey and his thoughts at his funeral, he doesn’t seem to consider Cersei’s kids as his. He probably tried to murder Bran due how it would affect Cersei and him, but let’s for a time consider he did think about his children at that moment and that’s why he decided to try to murder Bran.
So both Ned and Jaime committed immoral acts to try to save their children. What act did Jaime commit? Toss a kid out of a window to make him die. What act did Ned commit? He lied in public about the legitimacy of Joffrey. There’s a lot of difference regarding how bad the two actions are. One is attempted murder (that failed and resulted in crippling, but still it was attempted murder). The other is a lie, that was intended to actually save a lot of lives, both of Ned’s family and of the general population (avoiding the continuation of warfare between Lannister and Stark).
Would Ned Stark telling the truth at Baelor’s steps have made a difference? I doubt. The population already sees him as a traitor that was arrested in his attempted coup and has no reason to love him or believe in him more than they do Joffrey. The population would turn against Joffrey in ACOK, when the hunger due to the closing of the Rose Road would make them angry, especially after Joffrey fires at them with a crossbow when they come asking for bread at the Red Castle. In AGOT, Joffrey’s psychopathic behavior is known only to Arya and dead Mycah. Sansa makes herself blind to his faults (until he killed her father she was still swooning over Joffrey), and Ned hasn’t spent any amount of time with the little fucker. There’s no train of thought in Ned’s POV chapters about how horrible king Joffrey would be (or wondering if Tommen or Myrcella would make better rulers), just that Cersei’s kids are illegitimate and therefore should not be on the throne. He doesn’t know that Joffrey will be a terrible king, and doesn’t seem to care about it when he attempts his coup. He only cares about what’s right according to tradition.
Anyway, both men might resemble each other in how they cross moral lines when their children’s lives are at stake (it depends on whether Jaime even thought of his children at that time). But they clearly differ in at which line they’re willing to cross. Jaime is OK with killing a kid. Ned, throughout a lot of chapters of AGOT, is against this, even when the kids aren’t his (like Daenerys Targarien and her unborn child). He’s OK with a lie that would end a war and save lives, but I don’t know if Ned would say yes if Varys went to the dungeons and proposed freedom to Ned and his daughters if he would track down and kill personally all Robert’s bastards. I think that’s a line he wouldn’t cross, and that does tell us a difference in the morality of both characters.
@Aeryl: I’m not sure that Ned’s ever told anybody except possibly his closest friends and maybe Catelyn how he found Jaime on the Iron Throne. I’m pretty sure that most of Westeros only knows that Jaime killed Aerys. Jaime may have decided that trying to explain himself would be futile, and he was probably proud enough to prefer infamy over being seen as a whiner. Even if he could tell everybody in Westeros exactly what had happened, there was no way he could make them believe it, so he decided to act as if he didn’t care. (Which, honestly, I like.)
I’m not sure that Ned’s ever told anybody except possibly his closest
friends and maybe Catelyn how he found Jaime on the Iron Throne.
He may not have mentioned that part, but it certainly colored his perceptions of how he tells the story to everyone else.
We don’t even know if Jaime was thinking about his children at the
time. Considering his lack of mourning for Joffrey and his thoughts at
his funeral, he doesn’t seem to consider Cersei’s kids as his.
But he does see them as hers, which counts for something here.
One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier commentary was that the inn where Brienne et al arrived in this chapter is the same Crossroads Inn that has been seen in previous chapters. Most notable, it’s the inn that Catelyn remembered from her youth, run by Masha Heddle, where she had Tyrion seized, which helped precipitate the Stark-Lannister conflict. Afterward,Tywin had Masha put in a gibbet as punishment. Then later, Masha Heddle’s nephew brought whores to the inn, and Arya and Sandor encountered and killed Poliver and the Tickler there, resulting in Sandor being wounded and possibly ending up on the Quiet Isle, and Arya leaving him to end up in Bravos. And now it’s being run by Masha’s neices, and home to all these orphaned children (and Gendry). In addition to Septon Meribald’s long history of the Inn, it’s had quite an interesting history just within the scope of these books.
@87: Yep. Same place.
The Westeros as a Underground map that came out a few months / year ago, made Crossroads Inn a major junction point. Like King’s Landing.
But I think the map would still be spoiler for those who haven’t read ADwD.
@88 Braid_Tug- yes, the map would be spoilery at this point in the read. But the reason there’s been an inn for so long is, as you pointed out, that it’s at a major crossroads. The road to the Vale (to the Eyrie and beyond), the main road into the Riverlands (eventually to Riverrun), and the Kingsroad north to Winterfell/the Wall and South to Kings Landing all intersect at the inn. It’s quite a central intersection, which explains why so much has happened there, especially since the bulk of the fighting/action has been in the Riverlands.
Actually, two Lannister bannermen were the first on the scene. Jamie looked at their expressions, saw that they disapproved of his killing Aerys (even though they had just come into to the with the intention of doing the same thing). In reaction to this, Jamie decided that he wouldn’t try to explain since there would be point- all before Ned entered.
In my opinion, part of Jamie’s reason was also that he himself felt conflicted and somewhat guilty about his actions, as we saw in his dream of Casterly Rock. He didn’t want to avoid others condemnation entirely since he felt that he deserved at least some of it.
What do you all think of my song?
Aeryl, I agree with you a lot, but I can’t say I agree with you here regarding Ned and Jaime. I do agree that Ned is not perfect in his honor, or unflawed – as discussed, he’s had prejudices/assumptions about Jaime, and he did lie to save his children (and he definitely was not savvy enough with the truth to really do anything, but I don’t think that’s a moral failing).
I don’t really hold Jaime’s kingslaying against him as much as others in Westeros do (I think he was right to do so and the oath was worth breaking) but I do think throwing Bran out of a window was primarily for more selfish reasons. I don’t think he was thinking of his kids at all. Even if he was protecting his kids, it was from the fallout of his own bad/selfish choices. Maybe he was protecting Cersei but I still don’t see that as justifying trying to kill a kid.
I also have a bit of a problem with the idea that Ned is somehow that responsible for all the atrocities instead of the people actually doing them. I agree he was dumb about it and contributed, but I think things would have gone pear shaped even if he hadn’t lied about it.
~~~”All these children,” Brienne said to the girl Willow. “Are they your . . . ” Willow: “They’re just . . . I don’t know . . . the sparrows bring them here, sometimes. Others find their own way.”~~~
It is possible the little naked 2-year-old is Weasel – though unlikely that she could be the daughter Hugh Hyle mentions.
Mods-apologies. I whited out portions of @93 just in case but it did not work. I know, I know…TTB…sorry…
Also, Hyle Hunt, not Hugh Hyle. As you can see, I am far more accustomed to lurking than posting…ugh.
Once again, what do you all think of my song?
It’s fitting. Did you just read the RW chapter for the first time, or is this a reprise of an earlier response? I haven’t written any anti-Frey songs, though a certain musical may or may not contain some songs which could be appropriate later.
@87: Like I said, the inn is a death trap.
@88: SQUEE! I hadn’t known about the subway map, and just now looked it up on winteriscoming.net. It’s wonderful.
Dear Leigh,
so, I’m in my first read of ASOIAF too, and while I read the books I also followed your commentary. At this exact moment, I finally catched up with you. I don’t think I can be as patient as you, though, so I will probably have finished AFFC in a few hours. I really enjoyed your blog so far and you often remarked thoughts and connections I didn’t notice. It really added to my read and I will for sure continue enjoying your remarks regarding this series. Thank you very much.
Jaime is awesome, Ned not so much.
I was going to state why I disagree with Leigh about the Jaime chapter but then I saw that hiho already beat me to it with the first comment.
All this talk about Ned and Jaime reminds me of a lesson that a teacher taught in one of the film classes I took at art school on writing. First impressions are very important on how an audience will feel about a character. You want the audience to like a character? Then the first thing you should show needs to be something likeable. You want a character to be a hero? Better have him do something heroic right away. You want the audience to know who the villain is? You have him walk into a shot up space ship, pick up a rebel soldier in a one handed choke hold and then throw the useless body into a wall after the poor sucker dies!
Now of course the way to subvert the whole first impression thing is to show the exact opposite of what you want the character to be. If you have your character do something horrific in the first scene he or she is in, like brutally murder and/or rape somebody? Then you can have that character spend the rest of the story doing heroic things, even save the day in the end, and your average person will still see that character as a murderer/rapist.
And of course the opposite is also true. Want the audience to like a horrible character? Have them do something likeable in their first scene. A great examble of this, and a specific one my teacher used, is in Pulp Fiction. John Travolta’s Vincent Vega is a terrible person. He is a smack addicted hit man who works for a crime boss. He gets paid to kill people and then uses the money to buy heroine. But we the audience like him. Why? Beacause in the first scene we see him in he is talking to Samuel L Jackson’s Jules about ‘Royal with cheese’! He makes us laugh. He can spend the rest of the movie doing horrible things, and he does, but we are rooting for him because he made us laugh at first.
All of that was to illustrate what GRRM did with Jaime. The first thing we saw him do was push Bran off of a very high window sill. That first impression is a hard one to get past. Jaime could spend the rest of the story doing heroic things, like jumping into a bear pit to save someone else, or killing an insane king to save an entire city, and most people will not be able to get past that first horrific act. Their first impression is the one that sticks.
I was able to get past Jaime pushing Bran out of the window, but I can see how some people can’t let that go. For me, a lot of it has to do with the fact that Bran didn’t die. If Bran had, died that is, then I’m not sure if I could ever like Jaime. The fact that Jaime is such a smartass, much like myself, certainly didn’t hurt either. I see Jaime as very similar to Han Solo. Only without the whole child defenestration thing on Han’s part. Although, in one of Han’s first scenes we do see him shoot Greedo in the face (okay, he doesn’t actually shoot him in the face, lol, but it sounded cool). And he did shoot first, no matter what George says nowadays.
As for Ned, it is obvious that he was not a happy person. He was haunted by his past, for sure, and it is obvious that he was living with a lot of guilt about the whole rebellion. The events leading up to the rebellion, the things he did during the war, and of course the tragic event in the immediate aftermath of the rebellion had left him pretty broken. It seems like it would be pretty depressing just to live in the cold, gray north of Westeros, let alone with all that guilt and sorrow too. It was the thing that Sean Bean did so well in his portrayal of Ned in the show. You could see the depression and sorrow weighing him down. He looked and acted like a person who was haunted by their past.
And do you remember the first thing we see Ned do in AGoT? We see him execute somebody. So, are we supposed to like Ned from that initial impression? Some people might not be bothered by it, the guy was a deserter after all, but it certainly didn’t endear Ned to me. Sure, it showed what kind of a man he was, all honor and duty and upholding the law and such, but it was too black and white for me. Just like Stannis, another character I just can’t like.
And Ned made bad decision after bad decision. He did some good too, not wanting to assassinate Dany and getting Arya a ‘dancing trainer’ were a couple of the best in my opinion. But the way he fumbled the ball over the whole succession thing? Argh! I yelled at the book for him to listen to Renly (literally I think it was something like, ‘No, you stupid fucking idiot! What are you doing? Listen to what he is saying!’) Would it have made a difference? Probably not, Little Finger wanted his war and all the chaos that would ensue after all and was damn sure gunna make it happen, but still.
One last thing, about the whole throne room incident with Ned and Jaime after the sack of King’s Landing. It was absolutely Ned that was responsible for the tale of the Kingslayer. He was the first of the rebels on the scene and judged Jaime without even knowing what had really happened. As to why Jaime didn’t try to defend himself? Do you really think Ned would have listened to anything Jaime had to say? And who do you think everybody else was going to believe? The honorable Ned Stark or the guy that just broke his vow and murdered the king he was supossed to protect?
Anyways, I think I’ve gone on enough. Later days all.
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but the line about the trebuchet was probably influenced by the childhood of one William Marshall. He was captured as a child by King Stephen, and his father supported Queen Matilda. Stephen was besieging one of William’s father’s castles, and threatened to send William to his father in a catapult. William’s father responded by saying he had the hammer and irons to mage more sons and better.
William was not catapulted.
In fact, William went on to become basically the paragon of knightly bad ass. He made his rep as a tournment superstar, served Eleanor, Henry II, Richard and John, fought in the Crusades, turned into a great statesman in his old age, married the richest woman in England in what was apparently a love match, and was leading the charge against French armies in his late sixties. Also, a signatory to the revised Magna Carta in lieu of the king.
@Lisa Marie
I also have a bit of a problem with the idea that Ned is somehow that
responsible for all the atrocities instead of the people actually doing
them.
I’m not saying Ned is reponsible for that. I’m saying that Ned knew that after he sent the letter to Stannis stating he was the king, then publicly recanting that, would lead to rebellion and would lead to dead children, and that he was okay with that, because it meant his children would be alright(debatable). I just don’t see much difference between what he did, with a lot more time to think about what he should do, and Jaime’s momentary decision.
The letter to Stannis never got delivered (Cercei showed that letter to Sansa as “proof” of Ned’s treason) and Ned probably knew about it. When Varys talked to Ned he specificaly urged him to bend the knee for the sake of peace. We know that Stannis knew about the incest anyway, but Ned could not know that for sure. He was although in delirium because of the leg injury and that clouded his judgement. IMO the choice for Ned was (his own life) + (the life of his daughters) + (peace for the realm) vs. honor (i.e. supporting the legitimate claimant). He chose the former, but of course got cheated by Varys, which is not his fault. The morality of Ned’s final choice is debatable, but i honestly don’t see how it can be even remotely compared to an outright evil act commited by Jaime.
I personaly believe that Ned’s final choice was absolutely right and moral, but unfortunately too late to have any effect. The entire purpose of Ned’s confession was to show that Ned finaly realized what a horrible mistake it was to stick to his strict honor code. “Fair play” is not honorable when loosing will lead to deaths of thousand innocents. Ned realized it, but it was too late.
@Aeryl – see, to me, that’s kind of what you’re saying though – but I accept there is room for all sorts of interpretations – when you say there is little difference between what Jaime did and what Ned did. I’m not saying Ned was totally RIGHT or that all his actions to that point were the right decisions, but I still think there is a lot more difference between indirect actions (with some good motives – not to mention that were I in that position, I might possibly hope that recanting would prevent a war, although of course by then, things were in full swing, and then further fueled by his own execution, which he didn’t anticipate. But I’m still not quite following how refusing to recant at that point would have prevented the rebellion/deaths) and direct actions (with questionable motives that probably didn’t extend too far beyond the wellfare of himself and Cersei. Not to mention that, if them getting caught having sex would be so dangerous for themselves and their children, there was always the choice to not do it while at Winterfell and truly ensure the safety of their children).
I’m not even sure at that point what the right decision would have been – in some ways it may be more selfish to stick to your own honor at the expense of others being killed. I’m not even sure if I believe that or not, but faced with the death of my children who had nothing to do with it…it would be hard to do the honorable thing, especially if there didn’t seem to be a big chance it would actually matter (again, not sure how much would have changed if he hadn’t recanted. The North would probably still have rebelled, Stannis would have still rebelled, presumably Renly too…). Obviously, if Ned were smarter/more active things wouldn’t have gotten to that state in the first place…
I agree with you regarding Jaime/Ned though, and the Kingslaying narrative.
Also, I hate to be that guy, and this is unrelated to the post, but some other people have done it too and it is a bit of an eye twitchy thing for me: My name is Lisamarie. One word, little m. :)
@103. Lighten up, Francis. (LOL)
Excuse me?
(Honestly. I can’t tell if you’re dismissing my thoughts re: Ned, making fun of my preference that my name be spelled correctly, or referencing the Pope, ha. Or some other pop culture reference I am completely oblivious to…)
Lisamarie@105:Context — RobMRobM is quoting from the comedy movie Stripes (1981) where a character named Francis wants to be called Psycho in the following exchange, which ends with the line, “Lighten up, Francis.”
As you note, pop cultural references aren’t necessarily shared the farther back you go.
(Comment slightly edited by mods, for clarity and in the interest of not opening up a whole other can of worms–thanks!)
Lisamarie – SH is on point. Just a joke.
@103, Lisamarie(sorry about that)
At the end of the day, when you have enough foreknowledge to know the consequences of your actions, yes, I feel you can be held somewhat responsible for those consequences.
For example, during a recent controversy over a Captain America comic, several artists and writers came to another creators defense. Now, the accusation was mistaken, but at the end of the day, the creators knew they were calling a misogynistic shitstorm down on the woman who made the mistaken accusation. I can understand their desire to defend their friend, but when that defense comes at the cost of forcing a person who made a mistake to endure a storm of rape and death threats, you shouldn’t enact that defense, especially as the fan community was already addressing the mistaken accusation.
So at the end of the day, even though Ned didn’t start force Stannis to rebel, knowing that Stannis’ legitimate rebellion was inevitable, empowering the Lannisters makes him somewhat culpable for what happened afterward.
Thanks all, I have never heard of that movie! It is a tiny bit before my time (but only just).
I agree with you in principle, I think maybe we just aren’t on the same page regarding how much knowledge/control/influence Ned may have had about what was going to happen. But I also am not nearly as nuanced of a reader of these books as some other people have been (nor am I politically minded at all and would probably fare about as well as Ned in a place like King’s Landing…).
LM and others – first half of Stripes is one of the funniest silly comedies ever. Bill Murray at his comic peak, and very strong ensemble cast (including pre-fame John Candy, John Larroquette and Sean Young). Second half is meh at best. That’s the fact, Jack.
@110 – That describes an awful lot of comedies. The first half is hilarious, but the back half struggles as the writers suddenly realize they need to resolve plot points instead of just throwing more and more jokes out there.
The wreck at the beginning of Stripes was filmed about 30 minutes from my house, and the training parts 30 minutes the other.
Stripes, what a great movie. It takes me back to being a kid during the summers in the early 80s, able to watch R rated movies on cable while my parents were at work (or sleeping, even as a kid I was a night owl). Stripes, Animal House, Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Blade Runner, oh yeah. And MTV when they actually showed music videos, lol. My brother and I quote Stripes all the time. God I wish I was a loofah!
Why I like Ed Stark more than Jaime?
One word: Incest.
Incesting it up disqualifies you for being-liked-by-me.
Also, as for@99: Brutal murder or rape at a character’s introduction makes me dislike a character not because it is at his/her introduction introduction, but because it is a brutal murder or rape.
Aeryl, I fail to see how Ned recanting could have been responsible for war.
On the contrary, it was Ned’s insistance that Stannis was the rightful heir and his attempt to put him on the throne that led to war. And, given that without Cersei’s idiotic confession, he only had very circumstantial evidence concerning the illegitimacy of her children, if successful, it would have also set a massive negative precedent for all future inheritance disputes.
Re: Jaime, the caches of wildfire _weren’t_ all found and removed after the Sack of KL. People kept coming across them years later – under the sept of Baelor, for instance. And cache under the Dragonpit was found only immediately prior to Stannis’s attack in ACoK! So, yes, thanks to Jaime’s pride and selfishness KL continued to remain in acute danger of conflagration by wildfire for _a decade and half_! And they were extremely lucky that it didn’t actually happen. Which is something to keep in mind when thinking of Jaime’s “noblest deed”. And he did know where some of them were, so “nobody would have believed him!” isn’t accurate either.
I love Jaime as a character, but that just wasn’t cool. Also, I can’t help but wonder if we are seeing Jaime’s competence through rose glasses, somewhat, just because we are sympathising with his motives. At first Jaime seems much more competent than Cersei, but is he really that much better, or is he committing some fateful mistakes? More on that when re-read reaches his later chapters.
@@@@@ 114
But a character that is built up as heroic or likeable throughout the narrative can brutally murder the villian at the stories end and not only will the audience not care but will cheer him or her on.
@@@@@ 115
Was KL ever in any real danger from the caches of wildfire? As long as the pyromancers didn’t set it off it wasn’t going to do any harm. Who was going to tell the pyromancers to light the stuff off? Other than Jaime and the pyromancers who even knew about it?
@116 billiam
Couldn’t an ordinary city fire ignite the wildfire? City fire was very common at a time when constructions were made of wood and people needed candles and torches for light and fireplaces for warmth and cooking.
@115, I’m not saying he’s responsible for the war, he’s responsible for empowering the Lannisters in the war, for helping them to construct the narrative that Stannis wasn’t the legitimate heir, which led to the war lasting longer. Just as Renly is responsible for diving the Baratheon support, empowering the Lannisters, which led to the war lasting longer. Now Renly’s actions are completely indefensible, because they were solely for his own enrichment, vs Ned and Jaime, who took terrible actions to protect their families.
@116, 117
Yeah I can’t remember for sure, but I too am pretty sure plain old fire will spark wildfyre, which means yes it was very bad for Jaime to not tell anyone.
However, it seems as if he did tell someone, because caches were discovered and stored by the pyromancers, so it’s concievable he didn’t know about are the ones that were found right?
@116: Jamie’s first act of defiance against the king was to kill his Hand. Who had just accepted orders from the king to light the city on fire.
While the king was still in shock, Jamie then killed him. And any King’s Guard that had to follow the king the days he visited the pyromancers would know about the stores. If any were more loyal than compassionate, they could still carry out the order. Thankfully, Jamie was the only KG around, and he did not want to die in a fiery pyre of KL so that Aerys’ could have the world’s best Viking Funeral.
And I just realized that the King’s Guard might also be called the White Cloaks and I’m have a strange ASoIaF / WOT cross over moment.
It’s nice to have these longer discussions, as fewer things become spoilers.
Ryamano @117:
Couldn’t an ordinary city fire ignite the wildfire?
It absolutely can, but that’s not the extent of it – aged wildfire can self-ignite if it is too warm, according to the head pyromancer who talked to Tyrion.
Thanks to Jaime’s pride KL lived under the Damocles sword of possible conflaagration for 15 years or so. Heck, there still may be undiscovered caches around, for all we know. The ones in the Sept of Baelor and in the Dragonpit have been found by pure chance.
Aeryl @118:
Stannis wouldn’t have been accepted peacefully in any case, he was too divisive. And Ned wanted to prevent Robb from being drawn into the war too – he was horrified by the news that his son called northern banners. Actually, the war would have been over the soonest and with least losses if Ned’s confession had gone down as planned or if he hadn’t tried to enthrone Stannis in the first place.
Re: Renly, he wasn’t entirely selfish. He wanted justice for Robert and he didn’t want Cersei ruling. He also rightly knew that Cersei would be gunning for him next. So, a mixture of justice/revenge/self-defense. It isn’t like Renly even knew that Stannis intended to rebel against Joffrey. Stannis had been sitting on his keister for months without announcing his intentions, after all.
Stannis wouldn’t have been accepted peacefully in any case, he was too divisive.
I’m not saying he should have, I’m saying that by publicly supporting the Lannisters, Ned cut off the popular supportFOR Stannis that could have brought a quicker end to the war.
It isn’t like Renly even knew that Stannis intended to rebel against Joffrey.
IIRC, yes he did, because Ned calls him on not supporting him as the legit heir, which is what Renly should have done if he was truly concerned about justice for Robert and didn’t want Cersei to rule. By deciding the Baratheon force, he strengthened Cersei.
I can’t fault Ned for his confession; I can fault him for:
1. Revealing his knowledge to Cersei instead of Robert. I get that he was trying to protect her children, but he put their lives above those of everyone else in the Kingdoms at that point.
2. Doing #1 before securing his own children. There was no ticking time bomb; all he had to do was wait a couple days until they were safely on a ship to White Harbor.
3. Doing #1 before Robert returned from his hunting trip. Cersei is the Queen, and has been fore fifteen years; Ned is a hairy, unwashed northern barbarian who’s just arrived in King’s Landing. All of Ned’s authority comes from Robert, who can’t be reached.
4. Not revealing the truth to Robert on his deathbed, when he still had a modicum of power. Giving his friend an undeserved peace was more important to him than protect the integrity of the Kingdoms.
And do you remember the first thing we see Ned do in AGoT? We see him execute somebody. So, are we supposed to like Ned from that initial impression? Some people might not be bothered by it, the guy was a deserter after all, but it certainly didn’t endear Ned to me.
But if most people like and defend Ned, that seems to contradict your claim about first impressions. I’m dubious about the point anyway. There are plenty of examples of characters introduced as villains who become popular favorites (Spike from Buffy being a paradigm case).
Also, fwiw, defenestrating Bran was hardly Jaime’s only bad action. Let’s not forget attacking Ned in the streets, leading to the deaths of many innocents. There were other dubious acts too.
It was absolutely Ned that was responsible for the tale of the Kingslayer. He was the first of the rebels on the scene and judged Jaime without even knowing what had really happened. As to why Jaime didn’t try to defend himself? Do you really think Ned would have listened to anything Jaime had to say? And who do you think everybody else was going to believe? The honorable Ned Stark or the guy that just broke his vow and murdered the king he was supossed to protect?
At the Sack, Ned was IIRC 18. He had been third in line for Winterfell (Rickard, Brandon). Nobody really even knew who he was, and he didn’t have the reputation for honor at that time that he later acquired. People took Jaime as the Kingslayer because (a) they had twisted notions of honor that allowed them to overlook such minor incidents as Aerys abusing his wife on the basis of “honor”; (b) Jaime indisputably did kill Aerys; and (c) Jaime never told anyone why (and never gave an explanation why he waited until he was personally safe in order to kill Aerys).
I think I’ve already addressed your other points previously, so I won’t burden the thread by repeating them.
@124
Nobody really even knew who he was, and he didn’t have the reputation for honor at that time that he later acquired.
True, yet who were they going to believe, the poor orphaned Lord of Winterfell, true friend to the gallant handsome and courageous new King and the one lord in all Westeros most greviously injured by the Targaryen dynasty, or the man who betrayed his vows.
Ned didn’t have his current reputation, yes, but I feel you are still ignoring the optics on this.
True, yet who were they going to believe, the poor orphaned Lord of Winterfell, true friend to the gallant handsome and courageous new King and the one lord in all Westeros most greviously injured by the Targaryen dynasty, or the man who betrayed his vows.
Jaime and Ned are roughly the same age and have roughly the same social status (and did at the end of the war). Jaime’s looks compared favorably to Robert’s. There’s no reason based in status which explains the “Kingslayer” tag.
The reason the “Kingslayer” tag stuck had nothing to do with any comparison between Ned and Jaime, but was precisely that Jaime had, indisputably, betrayed his vow and never gave an explanation why. IOW, it’s all on Jaime.
never gave an explanation why
Do you honestly believe Ned would believe his explanation?
Because I happen to believe Jaime is 1000% correct when he says that to Brienne, because Ned is a prejudiced shortsighted person, who couldn’t look past the Lannister gold to see a genuine comrade in Jaime.
I thought we were discussing Jaime’s overall reputation among all the people of Westeros. It’s not Ned, a single individual, whom he needs to convince. Jaime could have tried to convince lots of people. But he kept quiet not just to Ned, but to everyone.
I agree that Ned probably wouldn’t have accepted Jaime’s explanation. But that’s not to say everyone else would have reacted the same, and it’s certainly not to say that Ned had such extraordinary influence that he, sitting by himself in the North for 17 years, could have controlled Jaime’s reputation.
Sure, but at the same time, I can see how Ned being the first person he had to face about what had happened soured his whole attitude towards coming clean at all.
And I’m not saying Jaime was right to act that way, it’s just after the abuse he’d already endured by this time, I can understand it.
Count me as somebody else who thinks Renly was selfish, childish and a big part of prolonging the whole war.
Also, IndependentGeorge@123, I agree too – going to Cersei was such a bonehead move, especially before getting his kid the heck out of there.
Hey, it could have been worse than Ned — it could have been Stannis.
I do get that Jaime was probably insecure about what he’d done, but I think it’s a step too far to blame Ned.
I also agree with
FrancisLisamarie in 130.@130, 123
To be fair to Ned(SEE I CAN DO IT), they stood a good at getting out clean if someone else hadn’t blabbed to Cersei(not that it’s her fault either).
Aeryl @@@@@ 122:
I’m saying that by publicly supporting the Lannisters, Ned cut off the popular supportFOR Stannis
Huh? “Popular support” and Stannis in one sentence? Surely, you jest!
IIRC, yes he did, because Ned calls him on not supporting him as the legit heir,
Nope, never happened in the books. Ned has never even told Renly about the kids’ bastardy or his own intention to enthrone Stannis. You must be thinking of the show.
which is what Renly should have done if he was truly concerned about justice for Robert and didn’t want Cersei to rule.
Why? If Joff had been legitimate (and Renly didn’t know that he wasn’t when he proclaimed himself and wasn’t sure about it until his death)
Stannis wouldn’t have had any superior right to the throne. And nobody wanted him for a king on his personal merits. Not to mention that Stannis sat on his keister for months, without declaring his intentions – for all Renly could know, he intended to support Joff.
Re: “nobody would have believed Jaime!” – of course they would have, once told about the wildfire caches and shown location of those that he knew about. Oh, but he didn’t want to have to explain himself and defend his actions, so instead he let KL remain in deadly danger for 15+ years, from hidden wildfire caches that nobody knew to search for. At any moment the city Jaime supposedly saved could have gone up in flames, because he chose to sulk rather than warn other people of the danger. But what did he care? Ned had been mean to him and waaaah.
The book makes a very big point at how Stannis allegations played publicly. They would not be there, if it wasn’t meant to demonstrate how much Ned’s testimony impacted public opinion.
And I always got the impression, that the fact that Cersei’s children were illegitimate was kind of an open secret amongst the nobles in KL, it’s just that everyone feared to challenge the Lannisters and Robert accepted the lie, so why rock the boat? So I don’t see why Renly wouldn’t know, so we’ll just have to disagree about that.
And again, there is no evidence that Jaime didn’t tell anyone about the wildfyre, and plenty that he did, because the pyromancers had stored all they had retrieved from the city, this is stated to Tyrion in ACOK. It’s just by this point, the spin was spun.
And to be honest, I’m kind of bothered by that last line. I mean, it’s a well known fact that certain crimes are way underreported in this country, because the victims are treated terribly when they do report, and by your logic, if the criminal commits again, that’s on them, not the criminal(in this case, the pyromancers who knew the stuff was buried and Aerys himself)? I mean, Jaime was horrifically psychologically abused in the years he served under Aerys, but no one ever seems to care that his ability to mentally cope with some of this stuff was severely compromised, but a few weeks in the Black cells is enough to excuse Ned from whatever poor decisions he made after.
I think there were rumors of Cersei’s infidelity but they were quite weak. Jaime and Cersei really did not (and still don’t) want a confirmed incestuous report getting out.
I mean, it’s just that without that suspicion, there really is no plausible reason for Renly to rebel, and to get the popular support he did get amongst non-Stormland nobles.
Sure, thrones are overthrown, but there tends to be at least some inkling of a justifiable narrative to support it, like you know, the King is insane and likes to burn people.
Interesting stuff at the link at the end of Leigh’s post. The eight deadly words were created by a person that was reading book 2 of the Wheel of Time Series. It’d be kind of ironic if Leigh, that is such a huge fan of Wheel of Time, uttered them while reading the A Song of Ice and Fire.
I still want to see Leigh make a try at the Malazan series later. I know I’ve come several times near uttering those eight words when reading that series, and I wonder if she would too.
There’s already a Malazan re-read on this site. I can’t see Tor sponsoring another re-read of the same series just to get another blogger’s perspective.
Yes . . . this Brienne chapter was the one where I almost freaked out. And that’s saying a lot in this series, especially after I read the A Dance with Dragons Reek chapters. (that’s not a spoiler right?)
Because BITING OFF SOMEONE’S FACE and EATING IT alive just isn’t right. That’s all I’m going to say. Poor Brienne.
Oh? I guess you must not live here in Florida. : )
Jaime’s stuck between his vows, as always. Threatening to fling a baby over the walls is his best chance of being able to keep his vows both to Catelyn and Tommen, but as he says, once you make a threat…
Of course, his plan is to do his best to die in the Forlorn Hope, so there’s that…
Really have no idea what you’re saying there at the end. These two chapters are what makes this series so good, the sheer tension of it all, the stakes. As Biter was eating Brienne alive I was sitting in my couch gasping. That’s what we read books for ain’t it? Not so that whenever something other than a 2-page meal description pops up we’ll be all *sad face* and oh no I don’t like this now because it turned it up a notch.
That moment when you think if the boy is so like Renly, he might be one of royal bastards, and then hear him be called Gendry =D
I also liked Brienne threatening Hyle for his oh-so-much-not-so-chivalrous offer.