A Song of Ice and Fire/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

{{work}}

 

* Why didn't Ned simply tell Robert about his wife, ''then'' stand up for the kids and protect them with his very life? The kids are innocent, but their mother isn't, and there's no reason for him to give her a chance to save herself (and cause a war with Castelry Rock). And it's not like he hadn't taken hostages before, such as Theon.

** Plus Ned was honorable, not a complete idiot. He'd seen there was remarkably little love between Robert and the children. Ned knew perfectly well that the moment Robert was told they weren't his, any and all affection he had for them would cease. If he didn't kill them himself in outrage at them being a sign of Cersei's infidelity, he certainly wouldn't have wielded any royal power to save them. Their only real hope for survival was the one Ned offered Cersei: taking them and leaving Westeros. But since it's this series, no good deed goes unpunished.

* Why did Varys put out the hit on Dany? ADWD reveals that Varys' plan, at the time, was for Viserys to join The Golden Company with Khal Drogo's khalasar (the price of which was Dany's hand in marriage), so wouldn't her death pretty much put an end to the pact? I understand he didn't want to support Ned in front of the Council so as not to draw attention/suspicion to himself, but, why not just take Robert's orders, tell him the assassin failed? Why actually ''send'' the poisoner?

** Maybe they actually do have regular seasons, but when "Winter" comes it causes summer to be shorter and much cooler, and when "Summer" comes, it causes winters to be shorter and much warmer.

** Or they could just look at the stars. If they have similar zodiac-like constellations, it would be a small matter for the maestars to construct a calendar based on which constellation is overhead at midnight, creating a very familiar year-based unit without worrying about the seasons. Since seasons can last decades, they're a rather impractical way of measuring years.

*** Then why would anyone live in Westeros?

** It's been stated that the seasons weren't always messed up. The planet and various civilizations were around long enough for the old measure of a year to stick before the cataclysm that changed the seasons happened.

** As far as I remember, the world DOES have regular seasons - I do remember one character remarking that none of the young characters have seen a ''true'' winter. The climate does change and they do have seasons (presumably normally) beyond the Great Winter/Long Summers. Methinks the Great Winter is more likely associated with the coming of the Others, who bring the chill with them, not the other way around.

* In ''A Game of Thrones'', a group of mostly experienced rangers of the Night's Watch (including officers), find two bodies in the woods in a very strange state of non-decay: their hair pulls out easily and is brittle, their skin is milk-white, they have dried blood on their wounds and even in their veins (these are described as looking like "iron worms" and the blood as black dust.) [[Up to Eleven|Oh, and their eyes are blue now although they didn't used to be.]] But they are not rotting. This group containing experienced fighters and, presumably, hunters (all nobles hunted), notices ''only that last fact'' and stands around saying the men must have been recently killed, rather than being [[Uncanny Valley|royally creeped out by the weird symptoms,]] and it is Samwell Tarly the wimp who shows his smarts by pointing these out, complete with a detailed description of the different stages of blood drying, which he knows from watching his father gut deer. Way to go Samwell and all, but seriously, does George R. R. Martin (who normally gives us so much realism) really believe that only geeks notice things? Hunters & fighters who don't notice things get killed.

** A possible explanation is that only Sam knows what to look for - the likes of these two men have not been seen in ''thousands of years''. The hunters and rangers may simply have all had a [[Weirdness Censor]] that Sam doesn't have because, unlike them, he knows what he is looking at.

 

* Something I read on the character page stuck me: Jaime frets a lot about his [[Shoot the Dog|killing of Aerys]], but one of his very first actions in the series is to try to kill an 8 year old boy. Now, I'm pretty sure, if it was brought up in the series now, [[Character Development|he'd rightly feel like crap]], but the fact he's cut up more over killing a batshit-crazy king than an innocent kid (well, ''attempted'' killing, but still) is a bit odd. What do other tropers reckon? Maybe the fact everyone keeps going on about Aerys? I dunno...

*** Sorry, you're right - I meant that he's cut up about everyone harping on about his killing of Aerys, but I wrote it wrong. It still doesn't answer though his complete dismissal of his attempted murder of a kid. That's a pretty clear indication of "no honour" if you ask me, but he hasn't even mentioned it in his POV chapters.

**** It may also be because he sees the Aerys incident as the defining moment of his life, the one which has led to the treatment he receives and his own becoming bitter and cynical and so on. He may feel that the killing of Aerys and subsequent reaction is what eventually led to him becoming the kind of man who would toss an eight year old from a window. Even if he does think that was a terrible thing to do (one would hope he does), he probably feels he never would have done something like that if it were not for Aerys, and since he appears to be in the process of reevaluating himself since his injury, he may be choosing to focus on what he sees as the root cause of him being a murderous arsehole and not specific instances of him being so. He no doubt has plenty of other things he could fret over we haven't heard yet. Although really Jaime, I know most people would probably be disinclined to believe you at the time anyway, but maybe if people knew the exact reason you killed Aerys they would have been less derisive of you.

***** It's also worth noting that Jaime goes through a hell of a Heel/Face turn in the novels, and from memory he does express regret about Bran later on. I personally feel that the author didn't plan on Jaime being more than a [[The Dragon|Dragon]]

** Haven't you read the Jon chapters? The Night's Watch is going to be attacked by an army composed of all the wildlings from beyond the Wall and they have absolutely no men to fight them off.If you have less than a thousand men to defend what amounts to hundreds or even thousands of miles of Wall, you're going to take anyone you can, even if they're complete sociopaths.

*** Um, did the Night's Watch know about this impending attack around the time they sent Yoren out recruiting, which would have been about half-way (or even earlier) through the first book? I was under the impression they only realised why the Wildlings were all disapearing from their villages when they spoke to Craster in A Clash of Kings. And as far as I can recall - I'll admit it's been a while since I've read AGoT - they only found out something odd was going on with the wildlings near the end of A Game of Thrones.

*** Just because they didn't know an assault was imminent didn't mean they weren't aware of the problems of lack of staff.

** As a military officer cadet undergoing training, I say that the decision to recruit Biter was idiocy for a large number of reasons. Being horribly under-strength isn't reason to accept ''anyone'' into armed service. Would you rather have four relatively trustworthy men at your back, or four trustworthy men and another one who you know will try to kill you when he gets the chance? The magnitude of whatever threat you're facing should never alter the answer to that question. Anyone with half a brain could tell that Biter was untrustworthy, and would almost certainly have killed again and deserted at the first opportunity. If he had done so he would likely have cost the Night's Watch a few other men in the process, and they would have been worse off than they were before. However, while Yoren made a stupid choice, it is [[Truth in Television|realistic]] that many people would simply take whatever resources were offered when faced with the perils of the Night's Watch. Its not as if the Night's Watch is made up of geniuses after all.

*** (cont'd) Plus, the world was confident that the Night's Watch wasn't doing anything, and that there was no threat beyond the wall -- they had essentially become a dumping ground for criminals, a place to put some of the worst offenders far out of the way. If Westeros took the threat beyond the wall seriously, they would be sending up a lot more qualified soldiers, rather than just criminals.

*** in addition to the above, there is training period on the wall prior to taking vows. As the above poster mentioned, The Wall is a sort of dumping ground for the worst criminals. If Biter couldn't be made to work, one of the ice oubliettes at the wall would probably be better at "restraining" him than anything any castle might offer.

** Which is why a percentage of his army left him. It's a plot point.

** Yes it's a vital plot point, but it also well explained in the first two Catelyn chapters of Storm of Swords. No one wants to punish the queen mother so the job gets passed up the food chain to King Robb. However, Robb decides that he needs his mother to forgive him for marrying a Westerling instead of a Frey, and it probably occurred to him that he would need her help in dealing with Walder Frey. He says he knows what it means to commit a folly for love, and with those words Catelyn knows that her pardon comes at the cost of supporting Robb's marriage.

** Nitpick: Devious Tyrion may be, but he actually did intend to give Lady Catelyn her daughters back, at least as many as he could manage. The reason it couldn't work on his end is because his father forced him to marry Sansa, not due to any scheming on his own part. He didn't even want the marriage himself.

** Whether or not Tyrion was trustworthy in general has nothing to do with whether Catelyn could trust him to trade Jaime for the girls. As she points out, Tyrion swore in open court while he was acting as Hand of the King for his father that he would return Sansa and Arya when Jaime was released. If he goes back on that, it means that the Lannister side will never be able to conduct a prisoner exchange again. Holding onto Sansa isn't worth it.

** He didn't need to know any of that. He just made sure Olenna Tyrell had motivation to kill Joffrey, and added the Dwarves to make sure everyone at the party got a front-row seat to Tyrion and Joffrey not liking each other. Then, he sat back and let things take their course.

 

** Up until the 1800s, stallions were considered by all to be the only manly way to ride into battle. Mares were considered frail, feminine creatures not fit for a true warrior, and geldings were a reflection of that, although sometimes used as transportation rather than warhorses. Even into the twentieth century, though, high-ranking officers were expected to ride stallions, which were harder to handle while riding, as a symbol of their stature. Seeing as geldings did make appearances as warhorses in other parts of the stories, I don't think it's too far-fetched to assume that GRRM was playing on those same presumptions for his characters' mounts.

** The above is correct, stallions were often regarded as 'superior' horses in the same way that swords were often considered 'superior' weapons, because they were simply thought to be more manly/noble/etc. Tactical knowledge was often lacking during the medieval era, as can be seen in many of Europe's most famous historical battles.

*** If Jon Snow turns out to be her nephew, he would be her natural heir. Or if he isn't actually of Targaryen blood, there are other ways to create a line of succession other than heredity. Dany could set up some kind of apprenticeship dynasty, taking in a worthy child and raising him/her to be her adopted heir. Or have an elected monarchy like in Poland and the Holy Roman Empire. Or if you like a rather whimsical solution, she could set up a constitutional republic and be done with the horrible excesses of aristocracy.

*** If Jon Snow turns out to be her Trueborn nephew, then he would become King automatically, as he has a stronger claim to the Throne than Dany. If he was still a bastard, but she intended for him to carry on the Targaryen dynasty, then he has to have his baseborn status removed, in which case he automatically becomes the rightful King over her (by being the heir of the last heir). The most sensible solution would be for Jon and Dany to marry and rule together, but Jon could have a polygamous marriage to a second wife (which the Targaryens ''did'' practice) in order to conceive heirs.

** Considering her age (fifteen), she seems to lack the maturity to fully understand what it means to rule. Until the end of ''A Storm of Swords'', her plan was to reclaim Westeros in the name of her family as soon as she could, and that was pretty much all the detail there was to that plan. No thought of what she'd do then or why she really should. If I remember correctly, she didn't even think about opposition until it was pointed out to her. And it wasn't until after she had conquered three cities and saw that the first two could not keep their peace that she realized some of the consequences to her actions. It looks like she may mature a bit more now that she's taken a break from warring to actually rule these cities. However, she still shows signs that she's a teenage girl in that, when thinking about who could be one of the other two 'dragon heads', she fancies choosing a [[Casanova|handsome, flirtatious man]] rather than someone better qualified to help her rule, which leads to another point regarding Dany and possible heirs...

** She has three dragons, and a Targaryen saying goes "the dragon has three heads". Since the dragons hatched, she's thought about who could be worthy enough to ride the other two. It's possible that she thinks that one or both of these people will be her heir in name rather than blood. But, really, I think it's that she's still too immature to have thought things through.

** I also think part of it is that she isn't absolutely certain she's barren. She acknowledges that if the Maegi was telling the truth, that's the most likely interpretation of what she was saying, but that's understandably so painful for her to contemplate that she doesn't spend a lot of time dwelling on it. Probably she's thinking "Once I find a king(s), we can at least try for a few years before it becomes a problem and we have to figure out a solution." Birthing an heir is hardly an immediate concern, after all... she has to actually get her kingdom before she can start worrying about who will rule it when she's gone.

** Many might have already married off or sold their daughters to other houses at younger ages, while the boys have more time to grow.

*** They'd still be listed in the appendices, which is where I got those numbers.

*** Because of the military focus of the series, sons bulk out lists of people on the battlefield. Since daughters tend not to be on the field, they only get mentioned (and added to the appendices) if they're actually mildly important.

*** [[Fridge Horror|Or Walder Frey takes the continuance of the family name to objectionable levels...]]

*** Rivers are very, very big and often quite difficult to cross. Also, traveling on a river is faster than travel by foot or horse. Fords and other river crossings have always been vigorously sought and defended throughout history. So the Twins is a river crossing on a very important river. Further, it's a stronghold in the middle of a narrow stretch of land, meaning that it has strategic importance as a place that can manipulate the entire region. Finally, being on the river itself means that it has easy access to resupply, making it difficult to besiege. A castle is never just a castle, it's like an aircraft carrier; it projects force a distance from itself and you ignore it at your peril.

** Why? Let's take a page from ''[[Dune]],'' which has a similar social structure to Westeros. Remember why it's a big deal that House Harkonnen has [[Elite Mooks|Sardaukar]] support when they retake Arrakis? Because ''every noble house'' fears the Sardaukar being unleashed on them. They know they can't stand against the Sardaukar on their own, which is why they banded together (as "[[The Alliance|the Landsraad]]") for mutual protection. The same is true in Westeros... except this time in the other direction because the Targaryens don't ''have'' Elite Mooks, and haven't had dragons for a century either. If King Aerys (or whoever) just arbitrarily declares, "I'm removing Walder Frey from his ancestral seat at The Twins," he not only has to ''remove'' Lord Frey ([[Storming the Castle|by force]]), but he risks every lord in Westeros saying, "Uh-oh, that could be me," and, say, [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|declaring a rebellion]]. How many high lords ''does'' it take to [[Light Bulb Joke|screw a new king into the Iron Throne]]? When the king was Robert, it only took four.

** Look at it this way- let's say that at some point in the past the Targaryens had made The Twins part of the throne's direct holdings. Of course, the king is in King's Landing, so he'd have to send one of his relatives to rule it. Now, I seem to remember lesser Targaryen siblings having this problem with rebelling...

 

** Because it's pretty much immune to being conquered, and it's the regional capital. It's easy to bottle an army up in it, but the war isn't over until you actually conquer it. The Bloody Gate is ''also'' important because of its strategic location, but to actually hold the Vale in any security you need to dig the Arryns out of the Eyrie. If it weren't the capital, an invader could simply build another castle at the foot of the mountain and wait until they convinced someone to give them the order to surrender, but it is the capital. In short, it's important for reasons unrelated to strategic value, and also is nearly impossible to take.

*** I was originally with you, but the more I think about the Eyrie the less impressive it seems. Only the castle itself is effectively immune to assault... and traveling to the castle from its support fort/town below (which is not nearly as difficult to conquer, albeit obviously heavily-defended) is an all day affair even for a small handful of people, often requiring them to ride or walk single-file. If you laid siege to the place, you wouldn't need to take the Eyrie itself... just the town at the base. Any attempt to move large amounts of troops down from the castle would 1) see a lot of them die in the descent, most likely, and 2) be pathetically easy to deal with as you sat down below plinking at them with arrows all day or just killing them as they came to the single thin windblown bridge where they'd have to walk across. At that point you could defeat the castle's force by throwing rocks. The Eyrie itself may be impregnable, but that doesn't mean much when an army can park itself outside and starve you to death at absolutely zero risk to themselves. Heck, at that point the Eyrie isn't a fortress, it's a prison.

 

* So everyone in the book keeps going on on how Valyrian steel is very rare, and there's very little of it left in the world. But Ned Stark has one, Jon Snow has one, and very early in the book someone attempts an assassination with a dagger of Valyrian steel that was cheap enough to be ''given away in a bet''... and STILL Tyrion has to remark on how unusual it is when the King's Father wants to give a sword of Valyrian steel to the upcoming king for his coronation??? Shouldn't the king's armory have most of the steel that's left in the world anyway? Shouldn't King Robert have had a few Valyrian steel swords his son could inherit?.

*** Also, it was in a bet between the King's Master of Coin and one of Tywin Lannister's children. So, in other words, two of the richest men in the Seven Kingdoms

** The Lannisters had lost their own Valyrian steel sword generations before in Valyria. At least one attempt was made in recent generations to recover it, unsuccessfully.

** Tywin had also tried to buy the ancestral Valyrian weapons of lesser, impoverished houses, who would gladly have married a son or a daughter to one of his house, but whereas there are more kids every time you look, it seems there are fewer and fewer Valyrian steel swords in the world with every passing year...

** "a dagger of Valyrian steel that was cheap enough to be ''given away in a bet''" Yeah, because nobody ever put up expensive things (or lots of money) in a bet. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that there are gambling tournaments with multi-million dollar pots or something...

** The dagger from the start of the book was probably given away without it's rarity being known. The character in question is also not known for being very smart, so they wouldn't have known the implications of giving it away.

* How, exactly, does Ned figure out that Jaime is the father of the royal children? I can see how he discovered that they were not Robert's, all Baratheon-Lannister unions having Baratheon looks. But to immediately jump to that conclusion? I mean, it may well be that he was just guessing based on his dislike and then Cersei admitted it, but I don't quite see that last bit of the jump. why didn't he guess it was a stable boy, or some random kitchen staff? Why Jaime?

*** OP here. Some of that does help, like Jaime not being out hunting, but the "non-Lannister partner" thing was actually one of the unsettling points. If every time a Lannister married the children looked like the other party, how could their be the typical Lannister appearance? This definitely does alleviate my head-scratching, but for whatever reason I still feel like a tiny note is missing.

**** First off: it's not that "Lannister + [other party] = kids that automatically look like [other party]"; it's that, in Westeros [[Truth in Television|as on Earth]], pale-hair genes are recessive to darker ones; black trumps brown trumps gold trumps red. (Where the Targaryen coloring would fall on this scale is unknown, but presumably they're ''way'' down at the recessive end, which is why Aegon used [[Brother-Sister Incest]] to "keep the bloodline pure".) Also, the Lannisters are an old family, and probably marry from within the Westerlands most of the time, where their influence (both political and genetic) has had 8,000 years to percolate. To keep the "Lannister look," Report Siht Lannister needs a blonde wife... which are likely are likely a dime a dozen 'round Lannisport and Casterly Rock. And, if that's not good enough, do what Tywin did and [[Kissing Cousins|marry your cousin]].

***** Also, it may well be that Ned had help coming to that conclusion - {{spoiler|it is fairly heavily implied that a lot of House Lannister at least have suspicions (Tyrion has known for years and Kevan hints to Cersei that he does). It is even more heavily implied that Varys and Littlefinger already knew.}}

** To answer the question of "How Ned figured out ''Jamie'' was the father" as opposed to "How Ned figured out Robert ''was not'' the father", it's possible that after he figured out Robert was raising someone else's kids he sat down, mentally took note of what he knew about Cersei, and ran through a list of likely candidates. Who does she spend time with? Who does she trust? Its possible he had a eureka moment where he recalled seeing some innocuous action between two people that gives you that feeling that "Hey, those two are fucking!" between Jamie and Cersei that he had previously written off because they were twins. How much Joff looked like Jamie might have helped clue him in, too, not that that means a whole lot given that Jamie and Cersei are twins.

**** Not only would that not prove they're all incest babies, that is the opposite of what the book says. It's explicitly pointed out that all the children of Lannister/Baratheon pairings have the Baratheon look; black hair, blue eyes. Doesn't really get into the other Lannister pairings. If that were what the book said, it would actually be strong evidence for the kids being legit; Westros doesn't have the science to know about dominant and recessive genes. Only that some traits show up more often than others. Ned would simply assume that Lannister traits were dominant over other families, not that the Lannisters were getting Targaryan behind their spouses' backs.

**** The Lannisters can't be solely based on incest - leaving aside that they would mostly be horrifically deformed, Tyrion makes it clear that he views Cersei's and Jaime's relationship with distaste, which would make no sense if they were all incestuous. Kevan also hints that he knows to Cersei, which again would make no sense if all of them were incestuous. Also, Kevan is married to Dorna Swyft, and in {{spoiler|his fatal POV chapter before he dies, makes it clear she is the real mother of his kids and that he loves her deeply}}.

* What is with the fanbase's love for Littlefinger? Seriously, he's a creepy prick whose total accomplishments so far have been switching sides a lot, and trying to pull off a little [[Wife Husbandry]]. Ooh. How magnificent.

** Because he essentially turned the internal politics ''of an entire continent'' on its head with apparently very little effort. It's the equivalent of him convincing every single nation in South America to declare war on each other, while at the same time getting rewarded by every single said nation for his supposed "help" in their cause.

**** Uh, no. Littlefinger's advantage is that, unlike most of the other players, he has kept most of his moves a secret. As far as the characters in the book know, he's a clever man without a proper household who has been perfectly loyal to the Lannisters, and has been given a cursed castle in return. He's also incredibly useful as a master of coin. He's currently residing in a place that has been, so far, kept out of the war. Littlefinger *hasn't* revealed his ambitions, beyond seemingly obvious ones that wouldn't raise anybody's eyebrow. As long as he kneels to whoever becomes king, there's no reason to go after him. He hasn't made any claim on the Vale (He's going to let it pass to Harry the Heir when Lil' Robert dies) and Harrenhal had been abandoned before the war. Riverrun, Winterfell, the Twins, and possibly a dozen other properties will be much, much bigger issues to deal with if the crown flips. Littlefinger won't be given a second thought.

*** In the books proper, he hasn't really revealed ''any'' of his ambitions. Sure, to the reader it's clear he's got big plans, but to the characters in the book he's more or less retreated to the Eyrie. Its unlikely anyone would move against him, because for starters no one really wastes much time thinking about him. As far as the Iron Throne would be concerned, they'd have much more legitimate concerns. He knows his position is shaky - most of aFfC was him working damn hard to cement it and setting up his plans for the future. And he's significently more competent than the Boltons or Greyjoys when you consider, while they have families following their rule by virtue of their blood, he has ''nothing'' other than a sly wit and...pretty sociopathic nature (and money). So while he's hardly likeable (he's a psycho creepy douche), he's damn impressive.

** Now that the TV show has aired I expect some of the love of Littlefinger comes down to two words: Aidan. Gillen.

** What the one right above says. Liking Littlefinger is not the same as thinking he's a good person, or a hero, or actually wanting him to win. It is, however, rather enjoyable to watch him thoroughly and deftly fuck over a lot of people that think they're better than he is when most of them aren't, and the reasons most of them think that are petty anyway. It's fun to watch him work. I enjoy him as a character, and I enjoy a lot of his actions (pushing psychobitch Lysa out the Moon Door was arguably one of his finest moments, especially since she was trying to kill Sansa not long before)... that doesn't mean I think he's a great person or that I want to fuck him. If George RR Martin is more interested in telling a good story than he is in driving home that storybook tales are naive, Littlefinger will likely be undone by a wonderfully sublime and subtle plot by Sansa using everything he taught her, and die half hating her and half immeasurably proud.

** It is just you. Like mentioned below, compared to other modernly written stories, especially fantasy (as in, anything after Shakespeare) these books are on the far more cynical side than most any other examples you could think of. For one thing, main protagonists do not as a rule die in modern literature. If they do, it's often in heroic fashion or natural events: not after being branded a traitor, made to give a false confession, and seeing all their loved ones and legacy thrown to the winds. Furthermore, the family of the dead protagonist is supposed to be able to rise up in the name of justice, as the lower point falsely indicates is likely to happen (there's absolutely no guarantees of this). Their wives are not supposed to go mad and carve up their own faces before being stripped naked and dumped in a river: their children are not supposed to be slaughtered and have their corpses defiled. On top of this, classic tropes are subverted left and right. Prophecies fall through with resounding crashes, noble and just men die left and right to deceit and betrayal, rape, murder and torture are commonplace, and the bad guys can WIN. While many have died, there are still over a dozen twisted, evil people who have completely avoided any negative repercussions to their acts, and in fact have even gained substantially and permanently from them. I challenge you to find a book that came out after the renaissance, BEFORE this series, that covers even half of that. It's becoming a more popular thing thanks to Martin, with many writers (like Brent Weeks, of Night Angel trilogy) outright crediting him for inspiring them to write more realistic fiction.

** By the standards of all of literature, it's not so bad as all that. By the standards of modern fantasy?

*** [[Dark Fantasy]] is actually starting to become the main form of fantasy released now a days and by the standards of the genre this is fairly average in its soulcrushing content.

*** "Karma is already catching up with the bad guys" after five books. Some of the bad guys, that is, while others are still fine so far and new ones are being introduced. Some of the heroes are climbing towards revenge and triumph, but others never will. It's clearly impossible for there to be a "straightforward" return of the heirs of the "Rightful King", since [[Late Arrival Spoiler|Robb, the only heir to Ned, is dead]], and the reader can hardly regard either Targaryen as rightful considering how the last king of that line went. Even if there does turn out to be a happy ending in the end, it will be very, very [[Earn Your Happy Ending|hard-earned]]. There is ''no'' truly ambiguously good character. (Admittedly, Jon Snow is the closest who's still alive as of aDwD, but even he is far from flawless.) All things considered, this series isn't ''completely'' bleak and may yet have a happy ending, but it really is quite a bit darker and grimmer than most.

** Agreed, it's not just you. Yes, Martin has killed a lot of significant characters, but he ''has'' [[Loads and Loads of Characters|so many significant characters]] to begin with. I can think of several modern fantasy novels significantly older than ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' that were proportionally as bloody, if not bloodier. Just to pick a couple of examples, in ''[[Shannara|Wishsong of Shannara]]'', Brooks kills off ''all'' of Jair's companions except Slanter, and also kills off Allanon, and in the ''[[Books of Swords|Second Book of Swords]]'', Saberhagen kills off all the thieves except Mark and Ben. So proportionally speaking, Martin has not killed an unprecedented number of characters.

 

* It's been a long time since I've read A Game of Thrones, but something struck me when I finished reading the last book - in [[A Go T]] Varys is spying on Daenerys through Jorah Mormont. Not only that, he actually was OK with Robert Baratheon's plan of killing her off. Now, why would he want her killed (he actually sent a poisoner) when it's later revealed that he and Illyrio were conspiring all along with the idea of Daenerys and Aegon uniting?

** Bear in mind that Varys and Illyrio's plan has been changing month-to-month, and it's still unknown what they actually want. Varys might be calculating that killing Dany might be just the thing to provoke Drogo into invading Westeros, which might be what he really wants.

** Well... then he's quite the hypocrite, since he says he's "working for the realm" and unleashing a devastating horde of [[Blood Knight|BloodKnights]] upon it is kind of counter-productive. But yeah, I guess him and Illyrio are constantly improvising. Bonus points for him if the attempted murder is actually a hoax.

**** And Aegon the Puppet is not a such king. He's Joffrey Mk.II. As about Varys' true motives and end goal, we know nothing of them yet. Varys is a liar, and his words can't be trusted in the slightest. Particularly [[Evil Gloating]].

**** I wouldn't put "Aegon" in the same league as Joffrey, the worst of his name, yet; he just seems a little bratty. However, it is interesting that Dany and Jon - even with their mistakes - have more positive qualities as leaders than the heir trained in selfless rule. It's [[Fridge Brilliance]].

** Maybe they're closely associated with the Iron Bank that became an important plot point at the tail end of Dance with Dragons. If you are going to be ruthless with collecting debts as the Iron Bank is, it would be important to have skilled assassins... wouldn't it?

** It isn't for us but for the God of Many Faces to decide who deserves the Gift. In aCoK, {{spoiler|Arya got her three deaths by making a direct trade with the God, from Jaqen's perspective}}. They're expensive... but not necessarily in ''gold''.

* So Samwell Tarly's dad considered him an [[Inadequate Inheritor]] for not being [[Badass]] enough, but bore him no hard feelings otherwise (or at least not enough to simply murder him outright), and so he got him out of the way by sending him off to the Night's Watch, who forswear all lands, titles, and inheritance, and are a group of PROFESSIONAL BADASSES. WTF? Why would he send him there as opposed to, say, the Maesters, who ALSO forswear all lands, titles, and inheritance, but are a bunch of peaceable advisers and scholars? Wouldn't that have been far more up Sam's alley?

** He obviously wanted to go with the option more likely to leave his son dead. Further, it's not like Sam thinks of himself as much more suited to being a maester than the Black -- the cutting up of dead and all that. Lastly, and probably most importantly, the maesters train in close proximity to his family's holdings, and the whole point was to get Sam far, far away.

** Randall would not accept any son that wasn't a [[Badass]]. The way he saw it, the Night's Watch would be Sam's last chance- he'd either finally become a warrior there, or die. He'd rather his son get killed than not live up to his expectations.

** Not all men of the Night's Watch are rangers. Someone's got to clean the stables, cook the food, mend the clothes, and so on.

 

* It's mentioned that the Stark family is 8000 years old, and presumably this applies to the other great houses. Because Westeros practices primogeniture, this means that these families have not failed in the male line for about 2000 years longer than all of human civilization. I understand that Westeros has some kind of temporal stasis, but this doesn't seem possible. Furthermore, there's no way that the Stark crypt is large enough to contain eight millenia's worth of leaders, and the chances of ancestral castles and artifacts surviving that long is slim to none.

** And as or the crypt: Theon mentiones in ADWD that there are many more levels beneath the crypt now in use, some already partially collapsed, so theoretically, yes, there could be room or eight millenia of rulers.

** They probably started with more houses and they've dropped to this number over time. Google Galton Watson extinction of family names which provides a statistical analysis of how the number of names drop over time. An example is China which used to have thousands of family names but is now down to 450, the rest have died out. Countries which have adopted surnames more recently still have thousands.

** The name has almost certainly descended through the female line at times. Brandon the Daughterless was succeeded by the son of Bael the Bard if Ygritte's tale is to be believed.

** The main reason is that there has not been a famine or debilitating disaster in quite a while. It seems that Robert's Rebellion did not do nearly the damage to Westros that the War of the Five Kings did - probably because Tywin Lannister spent most of it at Casterly Rock biding his time and the realm has had fourteen years of mainly summer to recover from any effects. Nobody knows about the Night Watch's importance and most bastards and younger sons would rather become masters, septons, or knights than freeze at the Wall. However, it does seem that when given the option most criminals take the Wall.

*** A lifetime of celibacy and being bored off of your ass standing on a frozen wall made of ice staring at nothing while freezing your balls off. It's like prison but hey, it's freezing. Oh, and it's a life sentence. If you run? You die. I can't for the life of me understand why this would be seen in an uncomplimentary light. Did I mention that it's cold?

***** The difference is that after some dick marches through your land and burns all your stuff that he doesn't steal, you can still theoretically rebuild. It's not a certainty, but you at least have the possibility to return to a semblance of your old life, continue your family line, maybe even better your position. (You were the assistant tanner? Good news, the chief tanner got a sword through the face! Well, "good" news.) But you go to the Wall and boom, that's it, you're done, you stay at the Wall for life and that's all you'll ever do again. Your old life is over, and if you didn't already have kids that were sure to live on and reproduce, your family line is done too. Plus while there's a lot of snickering about how the Watch just protects the realm from "snarks and grumkins", this leaves aside that 1) most people actually are aware of the Wildlings too and that they're fairly murderous, despite the snickering otherwise, and 2) on some level they actually do fear that beyond the Wall there might really be things like snarks and grumkins.

** There is no reason to assume that Westeros has a lot of crime, or at least not a lot of serious crime. It's a mostly rural society, and prior to the War of the Five Kings, a peaceful and prosperous one. Such crime as Westeros has probably runs more toward petty theft, the periodic drunken brawl, or other minor crimes likely to be punished with nothing more than a flogging or a day in the stocks. The number of crimes serious enough to invoke a penalty severe enough to make heading for the Wall attractive may have been small, at least in recent years.

**** In fact aDwD finishes with a white raven in the epilogue

 

** This occurred to me too, except my bone to pick with it was that it was a very stupid action in Petyr's part and he is not stupid. Not only does it not make any sense re:his love/obsession with Catelyn but it declares his hand to Cersei and by extension the other Lannisters way too early. At that point {{spoiler|he hadn't gained any social standing at all and Sansa has just turned twelve. And surely Cersei would have suspected Petyr when Sansa vanished from King's Landing?}} I view this as a bad [[Retcon]]. I can't fit it into canon at all. However, when Petyr is demanding a large but unspecified reward for recruiting that Tyrells at a council meeting in A Clash Of Kings, I now think {{spoiler|he was asking for Sansa at some point in the future. Like, when she's not a child.}}

** OP here. Maybe the fan-theory that his plan was to get Ned sent to the wall is wrong. My guess now is that he was exclusively after revenge. He had no designs to win Cat; he wanted to take everything away from her, and all the Starks. Which also explains why he didn't try to stop or appear to react to {{spoiler|her death}}. When he saw Sansa, he saw her as a second chance, a way to get the girl, except he'd be getting a version of the girl who hadn't scorned him. So, in summary, my new theory: Littlefinger hates Adult!Catelyn, but he's still in love with Child!Catelyn, and looks at Sansa as a kind of reincarnation of that. [[Squick|Yeah, I know.]]

* A Feast for Crows was split into two volumes, because it turned out much too long. Instead of just cutting it in half, Martin decided to split it by POV, because otherwise every character would only get two or three chapters, and there would be little progress individually. ADWD supplied the remained POV. And Martin has announced that TWOW will not be split. So... doesn't that mean we are faced with the exact same problem. The only recurring POV to die in ADWD was introduced in the same book, along with two more recurring ones. Meaning the number of POV is now actually higher than it was before. That means either:

** Some characters just don't get chapters in TWOW. They return in the next volume, but what happened between is only mentioned in passing.

** They are discontinued because they die. Well, while that could happen (to one or two, maybe), I don't think Martin would just kill off a significant number of them in the first few chapters. Yes, [[Anyone Can Die]], but so far the number of truly 'central' characters to die has not been that large.

** Nothing. All POV appear in TWOW, but the number of those who only get one or two chapters (like Melisandre or Jon Connington in ADWD) increases.

** Jaime notes several times that he's really hoping that the conflicts can just be solved straightforwardly and easily, so that he can adhere to both the spirit and the letter of the oath... negotiating on behalf of the crown with the Blackfish doesn't really violate either of those. He does probably violate the spirit of it by what he eventually does, but he feels like crap about it, even though it's actually much closer to the spirit of the agreement than just standing by and doing nothing would have been. (Sort of like killing Aerys was actually much closer to keeping the spirit of his knight's vows than letting him live would have been.) And words like understanding, logical, and compassionate have never really defined Catelyn Stark anyway, which have not been improved by her death and resurrection... even if Jaime turned up with both her daughters and Bran and Rickon for good measure, she'd probably hang him anyway because that's the sort of psycho zombie she is.

* So, on Westeros, do bears hibernate through the entire winter? because I'm pretty sure a bear would die if it tried to hibernate for 20 years.

** There is also mention of "Summer Snows" which suggests there could be 'Winter Thaws.' Just because they enter into extended cold periods doesn't necessarily mean it does nothing but snow and be cold for years on end. They might simply have greatly shortened warm spells. Short summers that never get very warm or sunny would impede crop growth while still allowing wild flora and fauna a break.

** I think it was the latter. Very disappointing, because until then Martin had been so good at demonstrating that rape was a part of Medieval life without glorifying it or playing any stupid "but then she liked it" games. Really, GRRM, why?

*** Because some women do like it? Whether or not it's PC? Considering Asha also comes on to her brother for shits and giggles she is probably not the most vanilla person by nature anyway.

** Because he was the sane pretty prince and up until the Lyanna thing (and we don't actually know if he was in any way really in the wrong there) he probably could have held the realm together once the Mad King was dead. As for "betraying his wife", given the number of obvious (by their name) bastards roaming around who are openly acknowledged, why would anyone even bat an eyelash? The only problem was his choice of whom to dally with. (If that's all it was, which seems increasingly unlikely.)

** He was handsome, accomplished both in the harp and tourneys (so both art and war), probably noble all around and liked by the common people and his peers both. Basically he was a model knight until the Lyanna thing, after which things escalated quite fast. Considering the patriarchal, feudal model, and the sheer number of acknowledged bastards around, nobody would've cared if he had a bit on the side if it wasn't Lyanna and she wasn't engaged at the time. Also, as far as I remember Aerys wasn't a bad king until the madness started getting at him hard - he'd been a decent king for years, so why would Rhaegar antagonize him?

* Something I thought of that kind of confused me, and wondered if there was evidence in-series for there being precedents. Cersei is shown having a plan dependent upon Osney Kettleblack being sent to the Wall, and had promised to pardon him afterward, something he seems to trust. Similarly, Stannis is shown promising to release Jon from his vows. While I guess royals can do whatever they want, it seems strange that you could release someone from the Night Watch, since they say a vow to serve for life. In the case of conscripts, their being pardoned/innocent of a crime is immaterial to the oath, and with someone who joined willingly, like Jon, it seems even stranger that a royal edict could cancel out their oath.

** It's exactly the "royals can do whatever they want" case. Just like Cersei dismisses the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, another station that requires a life-long oath to be taken, Stannis can dismiss a member of the Night's Watch. It's unorthodox and probably unprecedented, but well within their capabilities. Or you can see it as the oath being broken, and then the king pardoning this crime.

** The warden titles represent the person responsible for defense of the given region; traditionally but not necessarily held by the high lord of the region. Jaime can't serve as high lord, but as a member of the Kingsguard, he can serve as a general in times of war, and therefore serve as a warden. It's likely that Warden of the West is the only title that Jaime can inherit from Tywin, and it would be one he'd be far more capable at than Tyrion or Kevan, who at the time would have been Tywin's heirs-apparent.

 

** Diabetes?

** Sam's father had been trying to get him in shape for years, so it's not like he wasn't getting any exercise.

*** Sam's last POV chapter where he says he's not as fat as he was actually bothered me as well. So trudging across the wilderness and nearly starving to death for the better part of two books did nothing to help him lose weight, but sitting on a boat for awhile and eating fish was super effective. Um, okay. I imagine he'd remain pudgy despite all the training while at the wall itself, though, because night watch food would probably be fairly hearty in order to provide enough energy for the primarily already-fit night watchmen.

 

*** And that's leaving out the hints about Joanna and King Aerys that we get in Book 5.

*** Ignoring Book 5 (can't recall those hints, need to reread), but Tyrion's comment is clearly meant to be about the lack of recognition he's gotten from Tywin, not any real doubt as to his bloodline.

 

* Aeron Damphair apparently drinks nothing but sea water these days. Do that and at the very ''least'' you'd get incredibly, horribly dehydrated from all the salt in it, not to mention the effect it would have on your renal system in trying to get said salt out of you. Why has Aeron not ''died'' by now?

 

* The conclusion that Jon Snow is the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen seems so inescapable, that one is given to wonder why people don't suspect it in universe. This is not to say that it is necessarily true -- it could well turn out to be a red herring on Martin's part. The strangest part is that there seems to be no adequate explanation for how Lyanna Stark died, when you would think that's the first question anybody (Robert, first and foremost) would ask.

*** The question remains: how did Lyanna Stark die, or more precisely, how do people think she died? When Ned Stark comes back north, cagey about the details of what went on in the Tower of Joy and with a baby about whose origins he is equally cagey, I find it hard to accept that nobody, anywhere, would at least develop suspicions.

** It really comes down to the readers having lots of small pieces of information that are not, in their entirety or even at all (for some), known in-world. Rheagar being obsessed with the PTWP is one - only people close to him would have known that, and most of those people died in the war. Ned's internal oddities about Lyanna and Jon are the main clues (the bed of blood, the promise he made her, recalling all his children by name when imprisoned and leaving out Jon, etc) and not one of those was ever whispered outside of his own head. The timeline stuff helps, but it was a civil war - people were out of touch, it was chaos. So not many survivors are going to put the pieces together. Finally, it's a pretty crapsack world; no one is going to bat an eye at a great lord having a bastard around. No one. And in the end (as any trip to a Westeros forum will rapidly indicate), it's not an "inescapable" conclusion to all the readers.

*** For the record, that's "inescapable" in the sense of "cannot be safely dismissed," rather than "is certainly true."

** Also, even if we assumed Joffrey wasn't craven and would accept the challenge, there's the more pressing fact: he'd never hear about it. Pycelle would get the message, he'd tell Cersei, Cersei would burn the message (and probably anyone but her and Pycelle that had seen it). Robb could then spread it around how Joffrey was too chicken to fight him, but it would just come off as war propaganda (like they semi-successfully spun Stannis revealing Joffrey's bastardry) and Robb would also probably consider it unworthy anyway.

 

[[Category:Literature/Headscratchers]]

__NOTOC__