#overproud bitch | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

poorquentyn · 7 years ago

Note

Thanks for the great blog - always a pleasure to read. Was Euron always planning to go to Oldtown? The facts underlying the Eldritch Apocalypse theory (which I love!) would seem to suggest he's had his eye on it for a while, but as recently as taking the Shield Islands, it seemed like his original plan was to sail to Essos. Did the plan significantly change after pushback from the ironborn, or did he simply reshuffle his agenda items and go to Oldtown earlier than he had initially planned?

(TWOW spoilers)

Euron’s initial plan was indeed to approach Dany personally. Perhaps his comment on how the Ironborn’s preference of grapes over dragons altered that plan is meant, like Littlefinger’s aside on how Cersei’s failures have forced him to sacrifice his “four or five quiet years to plant some seeds and allow some fruits to ripen,” as a direct comment from GRRM on how abandoning the five year gap changed the story. Euron might’ve been supposed to return to Essos himself for Dany at some point in the writing process, but the trajectory we’ve got given Sam V AFFC, the visions of Euron that pop up in ADWD, and of course “The Forsaken” works perfectly well on its own.

Once his followers resisted and he decided to dispatch Victarion and the Iron Fleet to Slaver’s Bay instead, Euron found himself in a position not unlike Aegon’s on the opposite coast: in need of a conquest he could brandish before his men and use as a base of operations while awaiting the silver queen and her dragons. The Griffs went with Storm’s End; at the end of AFFC, it’s revealed that the Crow’s Eye chose Oldtown.

The most perilous part of the voyage was the last. The Redwyne Straits were swarming with longships, as they had been warned in Tyrosh. With the main strength of the Arbor’s fleet on the far side of Westeros, the ironmen had sacked Ryamsport and taken Vinetown and Starfish Harbor for their own, using them as bases to prey on shipping bound for Oldtown.

“Battle here,” said Xhondo. “Not so long.”

“Who would be so mad as to raid this close to Oldtown?”

Xhondo pointed at a half-sunken longship in the shallows. The remnants of a banner drooped from her stern, smoke-stained and ragged. The charge was one Sam had never seen before: a red eye with a black pupil, beneath a black iron crown supported by two crows.

“It grieves me that honest men must suffer such discourtesy, but sooner that than ironmen in Oldtown. Only a fortnight ago some of those bloody bastards captured a Tyroshi merchantman in the straits. They killed her crew, donned their clothes, and used the dyes they found to color their whiskers half a hundred colors. Once inside the walls they meant to set the port ablaze and open a gate from within whilst we fought the fire.Might have worked, but they ran afoul of the Lady of the Tower, and her oarsmaster has a Tyroshi wife. When he saw all the green and purple beards he hailed them in the tongue of Tyrosh, and notone of them had the words to hail him back.”

Sam was aghast. “They cannot mean to raid Oldtown.”

The captain of the Huntress gave him a curious look. “These are no mere reavers. The ironmen have always raided where they could. They would strike sudden from the sea, carry off some gold and girls, and sail away, but there were seldom more than one or two longships, and never more than half a dozen. Hundreds of their ships afflict us now, sailing out of the Shield Islands and some of the rocks around the Arbor. They have taken Stonecrab Cay, the Isle of Pigs, and the Mermaid’s Palace, and there are other nests on Horseshoe Rock and Bastard’s Cradle. Without Lord Redwyne’s fleet, we lack the ships to come to grips with them.”

“What is Lord Hightower doing?” Sam blurted. “My father always said he was as wealthy as the Lannisters, and could command thrice as many swords as any of Highgarden’s other bannermen.”

“More, if he sweeps the cobblestones,” the captain said, “but swords are no good against the ironmen, unless the men who wield them know how to walk on water.”

“The Hightower must be doing something.”

“To be sure. Lord Leyton’s locked atop his tower with the Mad Maid, consulting books of spells. Might be he’ll raise an army from the deeps. Or not. Baelor’s building galleys, Gunthor has charge of the harbor, Garth is training new recruits, and Humfrey’s gone to Lys to hire sellsails. If he can winkle a proper fleet out of his whore of a sister, we can start paying back the ironmen with some of their own coin. Till then, the best we can do is guard the sound and wait for the bitch queen in King’s Landing to let Lord Paxter off his leash.”

The bitterness of the captain’s final words shocked Sam as much as the things he said. If King’s Landing loses Oldtown and the Arbor, the whole realm will fall to pieces, he thought as he watched the Huntress and her sisters moving off.

Euron and Aegon are parallels in many respects: the most significant new characters introduced in AFFC and ADWD respectively, they’re unexpected claimants who shake up the war by hijacking the story elements of the more well-established characters, particularly Dany. Of course, Euron’s motives are rather different from Aegon’s. The former has no interest in sustainable rule, so the Whispering Sound is less a rallying point for coalition-building like Storm’s End than a staging ground for his “sea of blood.” Moqorro, Melisandre, and Damphair have all seen visions of that unholy tide (Mel’s pointing at the Oldtown area specifically), and indeed it seems from “The Forsaken” that the Redwyne fleet is being set up as the climax to the mass blood sacrifices committed by Euron’s men. Basically, in the wake of his men and perhaps the author’s rewrites changing his plan, Euron’s now out to power up before his dragon arrives.

And Oldtown, my favorite setting in the world of ice and fire, makes perfect sense as the ground zero for Euron’s apocalypse. Just as his eyepatch covers up the Crow’s Eye, his Pirate King performance shielding his C’thuloid soul, Oldtown’s public face as a prosperous port city home to thriving institutions only just barely covers up what this place really is. It’s a “hinge of the world,” an eldritch city, the closest thing to a Westerosi Asshai; all the lofty monuments to the “overproud,” from the Faith to the Citadel to the Hightowers, are undercut and undergirded by tentacled roots as big as trees. Oldtown is The Death of Dragons and the Faceless Man trying to steal it. Leyton and Malora get it, but they’re thought mad, and have cut themselves off from the city’s defenses at this point. Marwyn the Mage gets it…

“The grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the mastiff sees the truth. Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes.”

The Mage was not like other maesters. People said that he kept company with whores and hedge wizards, talked with hairy Ibbenese and pitch-black Summer Islanders in their own tongues, and sacrificed to queer gods at the little sailors’ temples down by the wharves. Men spoke of seeing him down in the undercity, in rat pits and black brothels, consorting with mummers, singers, sellswords, even beggars.

“Who do you think killed all the dragons the last time around? Gallant dragonslayers armed with swords?” He spat. “The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons.”

…but he skipped town. (And is also widely thought mad.) Alongside dragons and krakens, Damphair saw a sphinx bowing to Big Brother, and such is the face the Citadel shows to the world:

The gates of the Citadel were flanked by a pair of towering green sphinxes with the bodies of lions, the wings of eagles, and the tails of serpents.

So not only is Oldtown the absolute perfect kindling for Euron’s particular fire, but he’s also the payoff for the setup regarding the Citadel. The grey sheep are certain they’ve built a world without magic, but they’re wrong and the Mage and the Mad Maid are right, because the Crow’s Eye is coming. Oldtown is where he finally tears off the mask and jumps:

“Perhaps we can fly. All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower?” The wind came gusting through the window and stirred his sable cloak. There was something obscene and disturbing about his nakedness. “No man ever truly knows what he can do unless he dares to leap.”

#eldritch apocalypse #so all that (and highgarden) is why sam is the POV I'm most looking forward to going uh forward #euron greyjoy #oldtown #asoiaf meta #twow spoilers #aegon vi targaryen #marwyn #leyton hightower #malora hightower

113 notes · View notes

readbookywooks · 8 years ago

Text

Theon

Theon wiped the spittle off his cheek with the back of his hand. "Robb will gut you, Greyjoy," Benfred Tallheart screamed. "He'll feed your turncloak's heart to his wolf, you piece of sheep dung."

Aeron Damphair's voice cut through the insults like a sword through cheese. "Now you must kill him."

"I have questions for him first," said Theon.

"Fuck your questions." Benfred hung bleeding and helpless between Stygg and Werlag. "You'll choke on them before you get any answers from me, craven. Turncloak."

Uncle Aeron was relentless. "When he spits on you, he spits on all of us. He spits on the Drowned God. He must die."

"My father gave me the command here, Uncle."

"And sent me to counsel you."

And to watch me. Theon dare not push matters too far with his uncle. The command was his, yes, but his men had a faith in the Drowned God that they did not have in him, and they were terrified of Aeron Damphair. I cannot fault them for that.

"You'll lose your head for this, Greyjoy. The crows will eat the jelly of your eyes." Benfred tried to spit again, but only managed a little blood. "The Others bugger your wet god."

Tallhart, you've spit away your life, Theon thought. "Stygg, silence him," he said.

They forced Benfred to his knees. Werlag tore the rabbitskin off his belt and jammed it between his teeth to stop his shouting. Stygg unlimbered his axe.

"No," Aeron Damphair declared. "He must be given to the god. The old way."

What does it matter? Dead is dead. "Take him, then."

"You will come as well. You command here. The offering should come from you."

That was more than Theon could stomach. "You are the priest, Uncle, I leave the god to you. Do me the same kindness and leave the battles to me." He waved his hand, and Werlag and Stygg began to drag their captive off toward the shore. Aeron Damphair gave his nephew a reproachful look, then followed. Down to the pebbled beach they would go, to drown Benfred Tallhart in salt water. The old way.

Perhaps it's a kindness, Theon told himself as he stalked off in the other direction. Stygg was hardly the most expert of headsmen, and Benfred had a neck thick as a boar's, heavy with muscle and fat. I used to mock him for it, just to see how angry I could make him, he remembered. That had been, what, three years past? When Ned Stark had ridden to Torrhen's Square to see Ser Helman, Theon had accompanied him and spent a fortnight in Benfred's company.

He could hear the rough noises of victory from the crook in the road where the battle had been fought . . . if you'd go so far as to call it a battle. More like slaughtering sheep, if truth be told. Sheep fleeced in steel, but sheep nonetheless.

Climbing a jumble of stone, Theon looked down on the dead men and dying horses. The horses had deserved better. Tymor and his brothers had gathered up what mounts had come through the fight unhurt, while Urzen and Black Lorren silenced the animals too badly wounded to be saved. The rest of his men were looting the corpses. Gevin Harlaw knelt on a dead man's chest, sawing off his finger to get at a ring. Paying the iron price. My lord father would approve. Theon thought of seeking out the bodies of the two men he'd slain himself to see if they had any jewelry worth the taking, but the notion left a bitter taste in his mouth. He could imagine what Eddard Stark would have said. Yet that thought made him angry too. Stark is dead and rotting, and naught to me, he reminded himself.

Old Botley, who was called Fishwhiskers, sat scowling by his pile of plunder while his three sons added to it. One of them was in a shoving match with a fat man named Todric, who was reeling among the slain with a horn of ale in one hand and an axe in the other, clad in a cloak of white foxfur only slightly stained by the blood of its previous owner. Drunk, Theon decided, watching him bellow. It was said that the ironmen of old had oft been blood-drunk in battle, so berserk that they felt no pain and feared no foe, but this was a common ale-drunk.

"Wex, my bow and quiver." The boy ran and fetched them. Theon bent the bow and slipped the string into its notches as Todric knocked down the Botley boy and flung ale into his eyes. Fishwhiskers leapt up cursing, but Theon was quicker. He drew on the hand that clutched the drinking horn, figuring to give them a shot to talk about, but Todric spoiled it by lurching to one side just as he loosed. The arrow took him through the belly.

The looters stopped to gape. Theon lowered his bow. "No drunkards, I said, and no squabbles over plunder." On his knees, Todric was dying noisily. "Botley, silence him." Fishwhiskers and his sons were quick to obey. They slit Todric's throat as he kicked feebly, and were stripping him of cloak and rings and weapons before he was even dead.

Now they know I mean what I say. Lord Balon might have given him the command, but Theon knew that some of his men saw only a soft boy from the green lands when they looked at him. "Anyone else have a thirst?" No one replied. "Good." He kicked at Benfred's fallen banner, clutched in the dead hand of the squire who'd borne it. A rabbitskin had been tied below the flag. Why rabbitskins? he had meant to ask, but being spat on had made him forget his questions. He tossed his bow back to Wex and strode off, remembering how elated he'd felt after the Whispering Wood, and wondering why this did not taste as sweet. Tallhart, you bloody overproud fool, you never even sent out a scout.

They'd been joking and even singing as they'd come on, the three trees of Tallhart streaming above them while rabbitskins flapped stupidly from the points of their lances. The archers concealed behind the gorse had spoiled the song with a rain of arrows, and Theon himself had led his men-at-arms out to finish the butcher's work with dagger, axe, and warhammer. He had ordered their leader spared for questioning.

Only he had not expected it to be Benfred Tallhart.

His limp body was being dragged from the surf when Theon returned to his Sea Bitch. The masts of his longships stood outlined against the sky along the pebbled beach. Of the fishing village, nothing remained but cold ashes that stank when it rained. The men had been put to the sword, all but a handful that Theon had allowed to flee to bring the word to Torrhen's Square. Their wives and daughters had been claimed for salt wives, those who were young enough and fair. The crones and the ugly ones had simply been raped and killed, or taken for thralls if they had useful skills and did not seem likely to cause trouble.

Theon had planned that attack as well, bringing his ships up to the shore in the chill darkness before the dawn and leaping from the prow with a longaxe in his hand to lead his men into the sleeping village. He did not like the taste of any of this, but what choice did he have?

His thrice-damned sister was sailing her Black Wind north even now, sure to win a castle of her own. Lord Balon had let no word of the hosting escape the Iron Islands, and Theon's bloody work along the Stony Shore would be put down to sea raiders out for plunder. The northmen would not realize their true peril, not until the hammers fell on Deepwood Motte and Moat Cailin. And after all is done and won, they will make songs for that bitch Asha, and forget that I was even here. That is, if he allowed it.

Dagmer Cleftjaw stood by the high carved prow of his longship, Foamdrinker. Theon had assigned him the task of guarding the ships; otherwise men would have called it Dagmer's victory, not his. A more prickly man might have taken that for a slight, but the Cleftjaw had only laughed.

"The day is won," Dagmer called down. "And yet you do not smile, boy. The living should smile, for the dead cannot." He smiled himself to show how it was done. It made for a hideous sight. Under a snowy white mane of hair, Dagmer Cleftjaw had the most gut-churning scar Theon had ever seen, the legacy of the longaxe that had near killed him as a boy. The blow had splintered his jaw, shattered his front teeth, and left him four lips where other men had but two. A shaggy beard covered his cheeks and neck, but the hair would not grow over the scar, so a shiny seam of puckered, twisted flesh divided his face like a crevasse through a snowfield. "We could hear them singing," the old warrior said. "It was a good song, and they sang it bravely."

"They sang better than they fought. Harps would have done them as much good as their lances did."

"How many men are lost?"

"Of ours?" Theon shrugged. "Todric. I killed him for getting drunk and fighting over loot."

"Some men are born to be killed." A lesser man might have been afraid to show a smile as frightening as his, yet Dagmer grinned more often and more broadly than Lord Balon ever had.

Ugly as it was, that smile brought back a hundred memories. Theon had seen it often as a boy, when he'd jumped a horse over a mossy wall, or flung an axe and split a target square. He'd seen it when he blocked a blow from Dagmer's sword, when he put an arrow through a seagull on the wing, when he took the tiller in hand and guided a longship safely through a snarl of foaming rocks. He gave me more smiles than my father and Eddard Stark together. Even Robb . . . he ought to have won a smile the day he'd saved Bran from that wildling, but instead he'd gotten a scolding, as if he were some cook who'd burned the stew.

"You and I must talk, Uncle," Theon said. Dagmer was no true uncle, only a sworn man with perhaps a pinch of Greyjoy blood four or five lives back, and that from the wrong side of the blanket. Yet Theon had always called him uncle nonetheless.

"Come onto my deck, then." There were no m'lords from Dagmer, not when he stood on his own deck. On the Iron Islands, every captain was a king aboard his own ship.

He climbed the plank to the deck of the Foamdrinker in four long strides, and Dagmer led him back to the cramped aft cabin, where the old man poured a horn of sour ale and offered Theon the same. He declined. "We did not capture enough horses. A few, but . . . well, I'll make do with what I have, I suppose. Fewer men means more glory."

"What need do we have of horses?" Like most ironmen, Dagmer preferred to fight on foot or from the deck of a ship. "Horses will only shit on our decks and get in our way."

"If we sailed, yes," Theon admitted. "I have another plan." He watched the other carefully to see how he would take that. Without the Cleftjaw he could not hope to succeed. Command or no, the men would never follow him if both Aeron and Dagmer opposed him, and he had no hope of winning over the sour-faced priest.

"Your lord father commanded us to harry the coast, no more." Eyes pale as sea foam watched Theon from under those shaggy white eyebrows. Was it disapproval he saw there, or a spark of interest? The latter, he thought . . . hoped . . .

"You are my father's man."

"His best man, and always have been."

Pride, Theon thought. He is proud, I must use that, his pride will be the key. "There is no man in the Iron Islands half so skilled with spear or sword."

"You have been too long away, boy. When you left, it was as you say, but I am grown old in Lord Greyjoy's service. The singers call Andrik best now. Andrik the Unsmiling, they name him. A giant of a man. He serves Lord Drumm of Old Wyk. And Black Lorren and Qarl the Maid are near as dread."

"This Andrik may be a great fighter, but men do not fear him as they fear you."

"Aye, that's so," Dagmer said. The fingers curled around the drinking horn were heavy with rings, gold and silver and bronze, set with chunks of sapphire and garnet and dragonglass. He had paid the iron price for every one, Theon knew.

"If I had a man like you in my service, I should not waste him on this child's business of harrying and burning. This is no work for Lord Balon's best man . . . "

Dagmer's grin twisted his lips apart and showed the brown splinters of his teeth. "Nor for his trueborn son?" He hooted. "I know you too well, Theon. I saw you take your first step, helped you bend your first bow. 'Tis not me who feels wasted."

"By rights I should have my sister's command," he admitted, uncomfortably aware of how peevish that sounded.

"You take this business too hard, boy. It is only that your lord father does not know you. With your brothers dead and you taken by the wolves, your sister was his solace. He learned to rely on her, and she has never failed him."

"Nor have I. The Starks knew my worth. I was one of Brynden Blackfish's picked scouts, and I charged with the first wave in the Whispering Wood. I was that close to crossing swords with the Kingslayer himself." Theon held his hands two feet apart. "Daryn Hornwood came between us, and died for it."

"Why do you tell me this?" Dagmer asked. "It was me who put your first sword in your hand. I know you are no craven."

"Does my father?"

The hoary old warrior looked as if he had bitten into something he did not like the taste of. "It is only . . . Theon, the Boy Wolf is your friend, and these Starks had you for ten years."

"I am no Stark." Lord Eddard saw to that. "I am a Greyjoy, and I mean to be my father's heir. How can I do that unless I prove myself with some great deed?"

"You are young. Other wars will come, and you shall do your great deeds. For now, we are commanded to harry the Stony Shore."

"Let my uncle Aeron see to it. I'll give him six ships, all but Foamdrinker and Sea Bitch, and he can burn and drown to his god's surfeit."

"The command was given you, not Aeron Damphair."

"So long as the harrying is done, what does it matter? No priest could do what I mean to, nor what I ask of you. I have a task that only Dagmer Cleftjaw can accomplish."

Dagmer took a long draught from his horn. "Tell me."

He is tempted, Theon thought. He likes this reaver's work no better than I do. "If my sister can take a castle, so can I."

"Asha has four or five times the men we do."

Theon allowed himself a sly smile. "But we have four times the wits, and five times the courage."

"Your father—"

"—will thank me, when I hand him his kingdom. I mean to do a deed that the harpers will sing of for a thousand years."

He knew that would give Dagmer pause. A singer had made a song about the axe that cracked his jaw in half, and the old man loved to hear it. Whenever he was in his cups he would call for a reaving song, something loud and stormy that told of dead heroes and deeds of wild valor. His hair is white and his teeth are rotten, but he still has a taste for glory.

"What would my part be in this scheme of yours, boy?" Dagmer Cleftjaw asked after a long silence, and Theon knew he had won.

"To strike terror into the heart of the foe, as only one of your name could do. You'll take the great part of our force and march on Torrhen's Square. Helman Tallhart took his best men south, and Benfred died here with their sons. His uncle Leobald will remain, with some small garrison." If I had been able to question Benfred, I would know just how small. "Make no secret of your approach. Sing all the brave songs you like. I want them to close their gates."

"Is this Torrhen's Square a strong keep?"

"Strong enough. The walls are stone, thirty feet high, with square towers at each corner and a square keep within."

"Stone walls cannot be fired. How are we to take them? We do not have the numbers to storm even a small castle."

"You will make camp outside their walls and set to building catapults and siege engines."

"That is not the Old Way. Have you forgotten? Ironmen fight with swords and axes, not by flinging rocks. There is no glory in starving out a foeman."

"Leobald will not know that. When he sees you raising siege towers, his old woman's blood will run cold, and he will bleat for help. Stay your archers, Uncle, and let the raven fly. The castellan at Winterfell is a brave man, but age has stiffened his wits as well as his limbs. When he learns that one of his king's bannermen is under attack by the fearsome Dagmer Cleftjaw, he will summon his strength and ride to Tallhart's aid. It is his duty. Ser Rodrik is nothing if not dutiful."

"Any force he summons will be larger than mine," Dagmer said, "and these old knights are more cunning than you think, or they would never have lived to see their first grey hair. You set us a battle we cannot hope to win, Theon. This Torrhen's Square will never fall."

Theon smiled. "It's not Torrhen's Square I mean to take."

#ClashofKings

0 notes