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istumpysk · 2 years ago

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Operation Stumpy Re-Read

A STORM OF SWORDS

Summary & Foreshadowing Smorgasbord (Part II)

You can ignore this post, or you can open it and find out how Daenerys dies.

It is up to you to make the right decision.

ASOS Part II: UNDER THE CUT

Dark Daenerys Highlights & Laughs

Let's Dance: Stark vs. Targ

Showdown at the Trident

A Rat in a Maze 🐀🔪

The Usurper's Knife

Bran the Dragonslayer?

Storm x Storm 🦑🖤🐉

ASOS Part I: CLICK

Sansa Stark, Queen in the North

Jon Snow, King in the North

Jon (Aemon?) Snow

Jon the Builder & His Gift

Ahoy Matey! Arya Stark Sails the Ocean Blue

Bran the Broken, King of Westeros

High Septon Rickon?

Pick Your Poison: The Twins Meet Their End in the Mines of Casterly Rock . . . or King's Landing

Tyrion Lannister, (Prisoner?) Hand of the King

In Remembrance: A Look Back at Sandor Clegane's & Ygritte's Greatest Moments

ASOS Part III: CLICK

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

ASOS Part IV: CLICK

Chapter Transitions

Previous books:

AGOT Summary & Foreshadowing: CLICK

ACOK Summary & Foreshadowing: PART I & PART II

Stumpy note:

If I didn't to give you credit for discovering something or if I missed any foreshadowing, please contact me and I'll rectify that.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone that participated in the reread project. All of you have great observations and comments, I wish I could highlight them all. 🙂

DARK DAENERYS HIGHLIGHTS & LAUGHS

Davos recalls the time King's Landing burned, and gives us some fun language in the process.

And then some vast beast had let out a roar, and green flames were all around them: wildfire, pyromancer's piss, the jade demon.

[...]

The sight of it seemed to stop his heart for a moment, and he could still remember the sound of it, the crackle of flames, the hiss of steam, the shrieks of dying men, and the beat of that terrible heat against his face as the current swept him down toward hell.

[...]

In his dreams the river was still aflame and demons danced upon the waters with fiery whips in their hands, while men blackened and burned beneath the lash. - Davos I, ASOS

+.+.+

The gargoyles ripped apart, and the Targaryen fleet crumbled when Daenerys Stormborn entered the world.

No squall could frighten Dany, though. Daenerys Stormborn, she was called, for she had come howling into the world on distant Dragonstone as the greatest storm in the memory of Westeros howled outside, a storm so fierce that it ripped gargoyles from the castle walls and smashed her father's fleet to kindling. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

A choice she'll always make.

Captain Groleo was an old Pentoshi like his master, Illyrio Mopatis, and he had been nervous as a maiden about carrying three dragons on his ship. Half a hundred buckets of seawater still hung from the gunwales, in case of fires. At first Groleo had wanted the dragons caged and Dany had consented to put his fears at ease, but their misery was so palpable that she soon changed her mind and insisted they be freed. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

And never full.

He was always hungry, her Drogon. - Daenerys I, ASOS

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. - Daenerys X, ADWD

+.+.+

Balerion was useless in calm.

But the great cog Balerion was a song of a different key; a ponderous broad-beamed sow of a ship with immense holds and huge sails, but helpless in a calm. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

The jokes are writing themselves.

"I cannot see Drogon," said Ser Jorah Mormont as he joined her on the forecastle. "Is he lost again?"

"We are the ones who are lost, ser. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

I'll take Things You'd Never Hear Bran Say, for $500.

"He could be very harsh to those he thought his enemies."

"A wise man never makes an enemy of a king," said Dany. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

Daenerys, the Third of Her Name.

Whitebeard bowed his head. "It is not my place to question the words of Prince Viserys."

"King," Dany corrected. "He was a king, though he never reigned. Viserys, the Third of His Name. But what do you mean?" - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

The third-born aunt better hope the real heir isn't out there somewhere.

She tried to imagine what it would feel like, when she first caught sight of the land she was born to rule. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

A brother tries to steal a prize from Drogon's jaws.

As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal's head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother's jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: "Oh" edition.

The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul's axe, armor rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped between the iron rings of Paul's mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh. It came out his back with a hissssssssssss and Sam heard Paul say, "Oh," as he lost the axe. - Samwell I, ASOS

When he raised his whip, he saw that the lash was burning. His hand as well. All of him, all of him was burning.

Oh, he thought. Then he began to scream. - The Dragontamer, ADWD

+.+.+

Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: smoking blood edition.

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked. - Samwell I, ASOS

The dragon gave one last hiss and stretched out flat upon his belly. Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands. He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I. - Daenerys IX, ADWD

+.+.+

Thunder is crashing and booming, and a kingdom is falling.

Outside the thunder crashed and boomed, so loud it sounded as if the castle were coming down about their ears. Is this the sound of a kingdom falling? Catelyn wondered. - Catelyn III, ASOS

Finally the crone opened her eye and lifted her arms. "I have seen his face, and heard the thunder of his hooves," she proclaimed in a thin, wavery voice. - Daenerys V, AGOT

He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. - Daenerys IX, ADWD

+.+.+

Azor Ahai reborn.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

She talks of prophecies . . . a hero reborn in the sea, living dragons hatched from dead stone . . . she speaks of signs and swears they point to me. - Davos V, ASOS

"The frightened child who sheltered in my manse died on the Dothraki sea, and was reborn in blood and fire. This dragon queen who wears her name is a true Targaryen. - Tyrion II, ADWD

Stone, she told herself. They are only stone, even Illyrio said so, the dragons are all dead. - Daenerys III, AGOT

It is written in prophecy as well. When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone. - Davos III, ASOS

Dany looked and saw it, low in the east. The first star was a comet, burning red. Bloodred; fire red; the dragon's tail. She could not have asked for a stronger sign. - Daenerys X, AGOT

Dragonstone was grim beyond a doubt, a lonely citadel in the wet waste surrounded by storm and salt, with the smoking shadow of the mountain at its back. - Prologue, ACOK

"Burnt," said Salladhor Saan, "and be glad of that, my friend. Do you know the tale of the forging of Lightbringer?

[...]

It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel.

[...]

A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost . . . When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay. - Davos I, ACOK

"He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi," the Lysene girl said. "Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. - Daenerys III, AGOT

"I wish I had a flaming sword." Arya could think of lots of people she'd like to set on fire. - Arya IV, ASOS

When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." - Daenerys III, ADWD

+.+.+

A warning or a prophecy? Despite George R. R. Martin's best efforts, the readers of the book still don't get it.

"An ant who hears the words of a king may not comprehend what he is saying," Melisandre said, "and all men are ants before the fiery face of god. If sometimes I have mistaken a warning for a prophecy or a prophecy for a warning, the fault lies in the reader, not the book. But this I know for a certainty—envoys and pardons will not serve you now, no more than leeches. You must show the realm a sign. A sign that proves your power!" - Davos V, ASOS

+.+.+

Fire consumes her.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

"I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning . . . burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?" - Davos V, ASOS

"Fire consumes." Lord Beric stood behind them, and there was something in his voice that silenced Thoros at once. "It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing." - Arya VIII, ASOS

"Did you know that my brother set the Blackwater Rush afire? Wildfire will burn on water. Aerys would have bathed in it if he'd dared. The Targaryens were all mad for fire." - Jaime V, ASOS

That hair she had. Well, the hottest fires burn out quickest. - Jon X, ASOS

The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children. - Daenerys X, AGOT

+.+.+

Harpy or Daenerys? Old Ghis or House Targaryen?

In the center of the Plaza of Pride stood a red brick fountain whose waters smelled of brimstone, and in the center of the fountain a monstrous harpy made of hammered bronze. Twenty feet tall she reared. She had a woman's face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion's curled and venomous tail.

The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, its brick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so too its people.

Yet the symbol of the Old Empire still endured here, though this bronze monster had a heavy chain dangling from her talons, an open manacle at either end. The harpy of Ghis had a thunderbolt in her claws. This is the harpy of Astapor.

[...]

Kraznys mo Nakloz bobbed his head. He smelled as if he'd bathed in raspberries, this slaver, and his jutting red-black beard glistened with oil. - Daenerys II, ASOS

"An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them." - Daenerys II, ASOS

And above it all, frowning down from Aegon's high hill, was the Red Keep; seven huge drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts, an immense grim barbican, vaulted halls and covered bridges, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls studded with archers' nests, all fashioned of pale red stone. Aegon the Conqueror had commanded it built. His son Maegor the Cruel had seen it completed. Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, woodworker, and builder who had labored on it. Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed. - Catelyn IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Missandei, the best slave.

No older than ten, she had the round flat face, dusky skin, and golden eyes of Naath. The Peaceful People, her folk were called. All agreed that they made the best slaves. - Daenerys II, ASOS

+.+.+

I don't know, maybe we shouldn't use this army.

"They are chosen young, for size and speed and strength," the slave told her. "They begin their training at five. Every day they train from dawn to dusk, until they have mastered the shortsword, the shield, and the three spears. The training is most rigorous, Your Grace. Only one boy in three survives it. This is well known. Among the Unsullied it is said that on the day they win their spiked cap, the worst is done with, for no duty that will ever fall to them could be as hard as their training."

[...]

"To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother's eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them." - Daenerys II, ASOS

+.+.+

Viserys returns to the story.

Kraznys waited for that to be rendered in the Common Tongue, and then continued. "This beggar queen must understand, such wonders do not come cheaply. - Daenerys II, ASOS

"Only lies offend me, never honest counsel." Dany patted Arstan's spotted hand to reassure him. "I have a dragon's temper, that's all. You must not let it frighten you." - Daenerys II, ASOS

She had not meant to be so sharp with Ser Jorah, but his endless suspicion had finally woken her dragon. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Daenerys gets into bed with the wrong man.

Thank you, @sherlokiness!

Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow. - Daenerys II, ASOS

"A shadow on the wall," Varys murmured, "yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow." - Tyrion II, ACOK

His bruises had mostly faded by now, and the swelling in his face had largely subsided, so Mormont looked almost human once again … though only vaguely like himself. The demon's mask the slavers had burned into his right cheek to mark him for a dangerous and disobedient slave would never leave him. Ser Jorah had never been what one might call a comely man. The brand had transformed his face into something frightening.

Tyrion grinned. "As long as I look prettier than you, I will be happy." - Tyrion XII, ADWD

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice. - Daenerys VII, ADWD

It was Lemore who forced the water from your lungs after Griff had pulled you up. You were as cold as ice, and your lips were blue. - Tyrion VI, ADWD

+.+.+

The grip is too tight.

Drogon raised his head and screamed, pale smoke venting from his nostrils, and Viserion flapped at her and tried to perch on her shoulder, as he had when he was smaller. "No," Dany said, trying to shrug him off gently. "You're too big for that now, sweetling." But the dragon coiled his white and gold tail around one arm and dug black claws into the fabric of her sleeve, clinging tightly. Helpless, she sank into Groleo's great leather chair, giggling. - Daenerys II, ASOS

+.+.+

Joffrey, Ramsay, Weese. Dogs have a habit of turning on their masters in this story.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

"A word from me and these sheep would spill his stinking old bowels on the bricks," he said, "but do not say that. Tell them that these creatures are more dogs than sheep. Do they eat dogs or horse in these Seven Kingdoms?" - Daenerys II, ASOS

[...]

"The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh," Dany told the girl, "but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me . . ." - Daenerys II, ASOS

+.+.+

George slips something in.

"I saw King's Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. - Daenerys II, ASOS

+.+.+

Never intending to part with a dragon, Daenerys is willing to pay the price of death and destruction.

Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice.

[...]

Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no matter the price, she told herself. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Does history repeat itself in this story?

"Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire."

"I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own." - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Some choose to learn from their mistakes, while others . . .

If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Dragonbone whip, with a woman's head.

Dany handed the slaver the end of Drogon's chain. In return he presented her with the whip. The handle was black dragonbone, elaborately carved and inlaid with gold. Nine long thin leather lashes trailed from it, each one tipped by a gilded claw. The gold pommel was a woman's head, with pointed ivory teeth. "The harpy's fingers," Kraznys named the scourge. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

You are mine.

"IT IS DONE!" she cried at the top of her lungs. "YOU ARE MINE!" She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the first rank, holding the fingers high. "YOU ARE THE DRAGON'S NOW! YOU'RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE! IT IS DONE!" - Daenerys III, ASOS

And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo's. - Daenerys X, AGOT

+.+.+

Kraznys or Viserys? She did not pause to contemplate the ruin, and never will.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver's face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy's fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. "Drogon," she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. "Dracarys."

[...]

A lance of swirling dark flame took Kraznys full in the face. His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks, and the oil in his hair and beard burst so fiercely into fire that for an instant the slaver wore a burning crown twice as tall as his head. The sudden stench of charred meat overwhelmed even his perfume, and his wail seemed to drown all other sound. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Children.

"Unsullied!" Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. "Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." She raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside. "Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" - Daenerys III, ASOS

"The blood of children?" Robb pointed at the corpses. "How old were they? Twelve, thirteen? Squires." - Catelyn III, ASOS

+.+.+

Daenerys forgets who holds whips.

Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip - Daenerys III, ASOS

One man kept his saddle long enough to draw a sword, but Jhogo's whip coiled about his neck and cut off his shout. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Sobbing, begging, and dying while Daenerys sings her favourite song.

"Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!"

"Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Lem Lemoncloak and Arya don't approve of the Mad Huntman's brand of justice.

A few feet away, a dozen iron cages hung from creaking wooden posts. Crow cages, Arya knew. The crows were mostly outside the cages, splashing in the water or perched atop the bars; inside were men. Lem reined up scowling. "What's this, now?"

"Justice," answered a woman at the fountain. - Arya V, ASOS

She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood . . .

Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did it for the children.

[...]

Dany remembered the horror she had felt when she had seen the Plaza of Punishment in Astapor. I made a horror just as great, but surely they deserved it. Harsh justice is still justice. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: visions of fire paired with visions of ice edition.

"With mine own eyes. After the battle, when I was lost to despair, the Lady Melisandre bid me gaze into the hearthfire. The chimney was drawing strongly, and bits of ash were rising from the fire. I stared at them, feeling half a fool, but she bid me look deeper, and . . . the ashes were white, rising in the updraft, yet all at once it seemed as if they were falling. Snow, I thought. Then the sparks in the air seemed to circle, to become a ring of torches, and I was looking through the fire down on some high hill in a forest. The cinders had become men in black behind the torches, and there were shapes moving through the snow. For all the heat of the fire, I felt a cold so terrible I shivered, and when I did the sight was gone, the fire but a fire once again. But what I saw was real, I'd stake my kingdom on it." - Davos IV, ASOS

+.+.+

If at first you don't succeed, add more wildfire and call Daenerys.

"I heard tell you almost burned the city down."

"A filthy lie. I only burned the river." - Tyrion XI, ASOS

So His Grace commanded his alchemists to place caches of wildfire all over King's Landing. Beneath Baelor's Sept and the hovels of Flea Bottom, under stables and storehouses, at all seven gates, even in the cellars of the Red Keep itself. - Jaime V, ASOS

We have sealed them with wax and pumped the lower vault full of water, but even so . . . by rights they ought to have been destroyed, but so many of our masters were murdered during the Sack of King's Landing, the few acolytes who remained were unequal to the task. And much of the stock we made for Aerys was lost. Only last year, two hundred jars were discovered in a storeroom beneath the Great Sept of Baelor. - Tyrion V, ACOK

+.+.+

What is happening to the other slaves?

"If battle is joined, let Grey Worm show wisdom as well as valor," Dany told him. "Spare any slave who runs or throws down his weapon. The fewer slain, the more remain to join us after." - Daenerys IV, ASOS

"Very well," Dany said. "Sellsword or slave, spare all those who will pledge me their faith. If enough of the Second Sons will join us, keep the company intact." - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Like locusts in sandals.

The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit. Perhaps one in a hundred had a donkey, a camel, or an ox; most carried weapons looted from some slaver's armory, but only one in ten was strong enough to fight, and none was trained. They ate the land bare as they passed, like locusts in sandals. Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me. She gazed at the smoke rising from their cookfires and swallowed a sigh. She might have the best footsoldiers in the world, but she also had the worst. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Mad.

"I say, you are mad."

"Am I?" Dany shrugged, and said, "Dracarys." - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

That's not how you parley, Stannis.

"To mount our attack."

Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. "You told the sellswords—"

"—that I wanted their answers on the morrow. I made no promises about tonight. The Stormcrows will be arguing about my offer. The Second Sons will be drunk on the wine I gave Mero. And the Yunkai'i believe they have three days. We will take them under cover of this darkness." - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Like a whip.

Drogon looped his neck around to nip at her hand. His teeth were very sharp, but he never broke her skin when they played like this. Dany laughed, and rolled him back and forth until he roared, his tail lashing like a whip. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Try Not to Think of Randyll Tarly Challenge.

Thank you, @aegor-bamfsteel!

This place was put to the torch a long time ago."

"Who did it, then?" asked Gendry.

"Hoster Tully." Notch was a stooped thin grey-haired man, born in these parts. "This was Lord Goodbrook's village. When Riverrun declared for Robert, Goodbrook stayed loyal to the king, so Lord Tully came down on him with fire and sword. After the Trident, Goodbrook's son made his peace with Robert and Lord Hoster, but that didn't help the dead none." - Arya VIII, ASOS

"When he did," Davos repeated. "They were his men. His sworn men. What choice were they given?"

"Every man has choices. They might have refused to kneel. Some did, and died for it. Yet they died true men, and loyal." - Davos IV, ASOS

+.+.+

The now extinct, once powerful family, that held Harrenhal, and had a great black bat as their sigil.

He found an old shield in the armory, battered and splintered, the chipped paint still showing most of the great black bat of House Lothston upon a field of silver and gold. The Lothstons held Harrenhal before the Whents and had been a powerful family in their day, but they had died out ages ago, so no one was likely to object to him bearing their arms. He would be no one's cousin, no one's enemy, no one's sworn sword . . . in sum, no one. - Jaime VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: breathing fire edition.

The wight was burning, hoarfrost dripping from his beard as the flesh beneath blackened. Sam heard the raven shriek, but Paul himself made no sound. When his mouth opened, only flames came out. - Samwell III, ASOS

+.+.+

More fun with language during the Red Wedding (Arya XI, ASOS).

+.+.+

A hero wouldn't kill a child.

And Robert's relief was palpable. As stupid as he was, even he knew that Rhaegar's children had to die if his throne was ever to be secure. Yet he saw himself as a hero, and heroes do not kill children." His father shrugged. - Tyrion VI, ASOS

+.+.+

The stallion or the horns of a dragon?

Thank you, @a-maid-with-sunset-in-her-hair!

Jon sat between two merlons with only a scarecrow for company and watched the Stallion gallop up the sky. Or was it the Horned Lord? - Jon VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Her captain forgets to play along.

There will be more if we remain. The slaves are weak from the march."

"Freedmen," Dany corrected. "They are slaves no longer." - Daenerys V, ASOS

+.+.+

No subtext required.

"If I let Meereen's old brick walls defeat me so easily, though, how will I ever take the great stone castles of Westeros?"

"As Aegon did," Ser Jorah said, "with fire. By the time we reach the Seven Kingdoms, your dragons will be grown. - Daenerys V, ASOS

"If you were grown," she told Drogon, scratching him between the horns, "I'd fly you over the walls and melt that harpy down to slag." - Daenerys V, ASOS

+.+.+

Freudian slip.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

High on the walls of Meereen, the jeers had grown louder, and now hundreds of the defenders were taking their lead from the hero and pissing down through the ramparts to show their contempt for the besiegers. They are pissing on slaves, to show how little they fear us, she thought. They would never dare such a thing if it were a Dothraki khalasar outside their gates. - Daenerys V, ASOS

+.+.+

We require a man and a woman.

Collio began with his version of "The Dance of the Dragons," which was more properly a song for two singers, male and female. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

More fun with language during the battle at the Wall (Jon VIII, ASOS).

+.+.+

Other & dragon parallels that make us laugh: the mouth of a dragon edition.

The ice pressed close around them, and he could feel the cold seeping into his bones, the weight of the Wall above his head. It felt like walking down the gullet of an ice dragon. - Jon VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

A god.

Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.

Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Unpleasant rape metaphors, during the sacking of a city.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden cock, in less than a day. Poor Groleo. He still grieved for his ship, she knew. If a war galley could ram another ship, why not a gate? That had been her thought when she commanded the captains to drive their ships ashore. Their masts had become her battering rams, and swarms of freedmen had torn their hulls apart to build mantlets, turtles, catapults, and ladders. The sellswords had given each ram a bawdy name, and it had been the mainmast of Meraxes—formerly Joso's Prank—that had broken the eastern gate. Joso's Cock, they called it. The fighting had raged bitter and bloody for most of a day and well into the night before the wood began to splinter and Meraxes' iron figurehead, a laughing jester's face, came crashing through. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Her sewer rats.

Her dragons had roared as one in that moment, filling the night with flame. The slaves are rising, she knew at once. My sewer rats have gnawed off their chains. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

I'll take Things You'd Never See Bran Order, for $500.

She had decreed that murderers were to be hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls, and the Unsullied had filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and soft red worms, but Meereen was calm again. But for how long? - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Sly shade from the author.

I have given Astapor a butcher king. Dany felt ill, but she knew she must not let the envoy see it. "I will pray that King Cleon rules well and wisely. What would he have of me?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS

"You see that at the end of the ['Lord of the Rings'] books, when Sauron has been defeated and Aragorn is king," Martin told the Advance. "It's easy to type, 'he ruled wisely and well,' but what does that constitute?" - George R. R. Martin

+.+.+

If I look back I am lost.

All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Right over her head.

"If blood is what you wish, let it flow. I am told you have freed your eunuchs. Freedom means as much to an Unsullied as a hat to a haddock." He smiled at Grey Worm, but the eunuch might have been made of stone. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

"My queen?" Daario stepped forward. "The riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the flies."

Dany was shocked. "They want to be slaves?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

A principled stance.

"I see." Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. "Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman." She raised a hand. "But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife."

"In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each time a slave changed hands," Missandei told her.

"We'll do the same," Dany decided. Wars were won with gold as much as swords. "A tenth part. In gold or silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or zorse hides." - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

There's maggots, flies, and death in her stomach.

Yet the thought of seeing Jorah Mormont again made her feel as if she'd swallowed a spoonful of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing round her belly.

[...]

"Flies are the dead man's revenge." Daario smiled, and stroked the center prong of his beard. "Corpses breed maggots, and maggots breed flies." - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

The Mad King's blood.

"Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was a . . . a good knight . . . chivalrous, brave . . . he spared my life, and the lives of many others . . . Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and . . . forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth . . . even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did."

[...]

". . . my father's daughter?" If she was not her father's daughter, who was she? - Daenerys VI, ASOS

Your father always had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise . . . but as the years passed, the lapses grew more frequent, until . . ." - Daenerys VI, ASOS

He thought for a moment of the boy Viserys, fled to Dragonstone, and of Rhaegar's infant son Aegon, still in Maegor's with his mother. A new Targaryen king, and my father as Hand. How the wolves will howl, and the storm lord choke with rage. For a moment he was tempted, until he glanced down again at the body on the floor, in its spreading pool of blood. His blood is in both of them, he thought. - Jaime II, ASOS

+.+.+

I'm not worried about Jon or Aegon, are you?

"I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace. Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Avoiding the history.

The fat leather-bound volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms. Children's stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful to be true history.

[...]

"Viserys was a child, and the queen sheltered him as much as she could. Your father always had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise . . . but as the years passed, the lapses grew more frequent, until . . ."

Dany stopped him. "Do I want to hear this now?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS

+.+.+

A change of heart regarding bed slaves.

Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed with her, for the first time since the ship. But even as she shuddered in release and wound her fingers through her handmaid's thick black hair, she pretended it was Drogo holding her . . . only somehow his face kept turning into Daario's.

[...]

Irri slept soundly beside her, her lips slightly parted, one dark brown nipple peeping out above the sleeping silks. For a moment Dany was tempted, but it was Drogo she wanted, or perhaps Daario. Not Irri. The maid was sweet and skillful, but all her kisses tasted of duty. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

Dany stepped away from her. "No. Irri, you do not need to do that. What happened that night, when you woke . . . you're no bed slave, I freed you, remember? You . . ."

"I am handmaid to the Mother of Dragons," the girl said. "It is great honor to please my khaleesi."

"I don't want that," she insisted. "I don't." - Daenerys II, ASOS

+.+.+

In the middle of Jorah betrayal talk, Daario takes a moment to caress two women + the funniest bouquet you'll ever see.

"The queen has a good heart," Daario purred through his deep purple whiskers, "but that one is more dangerous than all the Oznaks and Meros rolled up in one." His strong hands caressed the hilts of his matched blades, those wanton golden women. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

On the road from Yunkai, Daario had brought her a flower or a sprig of some plant every evening when he made his report . . . to help her learn the land, he said. Waspwillow, dusky roses, wild mint, lady's lace, daggerleaf, broom, prickly ben, harpy's gold . . . - Daenerys V, ASOS

+.+.+

Little Missandei keeps interrupting.

Thank you, @sherlokiness!

She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood at her elbow wrapped in a bedrobe, wooden sandals on her feet. "I woke, and saw that you were gone. Did you sleep well? What are you looking at?" - Daenerys VI, ASOS

"I remember the Undying. Child of three, they called me. Three mounts they promised me, three fires, and three treasons. One for blood and one for gold and one for …"

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" - Daenerys II, ADWD

+.+.+

LET'S DANCE: STARK vs. TARG

The smell of death.

There was a smell of death about that room; a heavy smell, sweet and foul, clinging. - Catelyn I, ASOS

"Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones." - Daenerys II, ACOK

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Nymeria hunts down a Dothraki, and paints the world black and red.

Thank you, @dontbipanicjonsa!

Her dreams were red and savage. The Mummers were in them, four at least, a pale Lyseni and a dark brutal axeman from Ib, the scarred Dothraki horse lord called Iggo and a Dornishman whose name she never knew.

[...]

They thought they were hunting her, she knew with all the strange sharp certainty of dreams, but they were wrong. She was hunting them.

[...]

Only the belled man stood his ground. His horse kicked in the head of one of her sisters, and he cut another almost in half with his curved silvery claw as his hair tinkled softly.

Filled with rage, she leapt onto his back, knocking him head-first from his saddle. Her jaws locked on his arm as they fell, her teeth sinking through the leather and wool and soft flesh. When they landed she gave a savage jerk with her head and ripped the limb loose from his shoulder. Exulting, she shook it back and forth in her mouth, scattering the warm red droplets amidst the cold black rain. - Arya I, ASOS

+.+.+

Daenerys believes Rhaegal is trying to steal the prize from Drogon.

Drogon moved quicker than a striking cobra. Flame roared from his mouth, orange and scarlet and black, searing the meat before it began to fall. As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal's head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother's jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

Clever men hatch ambitious schemes.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

Ser Jorah snorted. "That wineseller who tried to poison you was a clever man as well. Clever men hatch ambitious schemes." - Daenerys I, ASOS

"Maester Aemon thinks you clever." Mormont moved the raven to his shoulder. - Jon IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Mance or the Conqueror?

Three hundred men could not hope to kill a hundred times their number, of course, but Jon did not think they would need to. He need not slay a thousand, only one. Mance is all that keeps them together. - Jon II, ASOS

+.+.+

A Targaryen stain.

When he touched it his black gloves came away stained with red. - Jon II, ASOS

+.+.+

Snow snuffed the fire out.

Yesterday he begged for them to let him be one of the torchbearers, even if it meant walking outside of the column with the darkness pressing close. He wanted the fire, dreamed of the fire. If I had the fire, I would not be cold. But someone reminded him that he'd had a torch at the start, but he'd dropped it in the snow and snuffed the fire out. - Samwell I, ASOS

+.+.+

Arya the Kingslayer?

"No," the old man said. "Northmen, they were. Savages who worship trees. They wanted the Kingslayer, they said."

Arya heard him, and chewed her lip. She could feel Gendry looking at her. - Arya IV, ASOS

+.+.+

A Faceless Man kills a king.

I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. - Arya IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Words that keep haunting Daenerys.

"Valar morghulis," said Missandei, in High Valyrian.

"All men must die," Dany agreed, "but not for a long while, we may pray." - Daenerys III, ASOS

"You know nothing, Jon Snow," Ygritte would have told him. I know that I am going to die, he thought. I know that much, at least. "All men die," he could almost hear her say, "and women too, and every beast that flies or swims or runs. It's not the when o' dying that matters, it's the how of it, Jon Snow." - Jon X, ASOS

+.+.+

Garnets lack fire.

As he entered his lord father's solar a few moments later, he heard a voice saying, ". . . cherrywood for the scabbards, bound in red leather and ornamented with a row of lion's-head studs in pure gold. Perhaps with garnets for the eyes . . ."

"Rubies," Lord Tywin said. "Garnets lack the fire." - Tyrion IV, ASOS

The pommel was a hunk of pale stone weighted with lead to balance the long blade. It had been carved into the likeness of a snarling wolf's head, with chips of garnet set into the eyes. - Jon VIII, AGOT

Ghost was curled up asleep beside the door, but he lifted his head at the sound of Jon's boots. The direwolf's red eyes were darker than garnets and wiser than men. Jon knelt, scratched his ear, and showed him the pommel of the sword. "Look. It's you." - Jon VIII, AGOT

+.+.+

Jon and Daario are hiding their true colours in back-to-back chapters.

"He must die," Styr the Magnar said. "Do it, crow."

The old man said no word. He only looked at Jon, standing amongst the wildlings. Amidst the rain and smoke, lit only by the fire, he could not have seen that Jon was all in black, but for his sheepskin cloak. Or could he? - Jon V, ASOS

And her knight dressed plainly while this other made a peacock look drab, though he had thrown a heavy black cloak over his bright yellow finery for this visit. He carried a heavy canvas sack slung over one shoulder. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Catelyn slices up a fool in a crown, ornamented with bells, with a Targaryen name. A younger version of the father.

The eighth Lady Frey stood beside Lord Walder's high seat. At his feet sat a somewhat younger version of himself, a stooped thin man of fifty whose costly garb of blue wool and grey satin was strangely accented by a crown and collar ornamented with tiny brass bells. The likeness between him and his lord was striking, save for their eyes; Lord Frey's small, dim, and suspicious, the other's large, amiable, and vacant. Catelyn recalled that one of Lord Walder's brood had fathered a halfwit long years ago. During past visits, the Lord of the Crossing had always taken care to hide this one away. Did he always wear a fool's crown, or is that meant as mockery of Robb? It was a question she dare not ask.

[...]

"Sire," Lord Walder said, "forgive my Aegon the noise. He has less wits than a crannogman, and he's never met a king before. One of Stevron's boys. We call him Jinglebell." - Catelyn VI, ASOS

+.+.+

While mostly sitting on the sidelines, Jon observes a dance.

The dance has moved on, he thought.

[...]

The dance has moved on, and we're watching from the gallery, he thought as he hobbled back. - Jon VII, ASOS

+.+.+

It's fire against ice.

The heat of the fires was making the Wall weep, and the flames danced and shimmered against the ice. - Jon VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Shades of Arya during an assassination attempt.

The old man feinted with one end of the staff, pulled it back, and whipped the other end about faster than Dany would have believed. The Titan's Bastard staggered back into the surf, spitting blood and broken teeth from the ruin of his mouth. Whitebeard put Dany behind him. Mero slashed at his face. The old man jerked back, cat-quick. The staff thumped Mero's ribs, sending him reeling. Arstan splashed sideways, parried a looping cut, danced away from a second, checked a third mid-swing. - Daenerys V, ASOS

+.+.+

Doubtful the queen will have many kind things to say about the Usurper's Dog and his children.

The north. "I . . . my brother Robb was King in the North . . ."

"Your brother was the rightful Lord of Winterfell. If he had stayed home and done his duty, instead of crowning himself and riding off to conquer the riverlands, he might be alive today. Be that as it may. You are not Robb, no more than I am Robert."

The harsh words had blown away whatever sympathy Jon might have had for Stannis. "I loved my brother," he said. - Jon XI, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon is unsettled by the beautiful red lady, who burns men alive, and smells of fire & blood.

Thank you, @magiclovingdragon!

He had glimpsed Melisandre at her nightfires, and coming and going about the castle, but never so close. She's beautiful, he thought . . . but there was something more than a little unsettling about red eyes. "My lady."

[...]

In the close confines of the iron cage, he was acutely aware of the red woman's presence. She even smells red. The scent reminded him of Mikken's forge, of the way iron smelled when red-hot; the scent was smoke and blood. - Jon XI, ASOS

+.+.+

The raiders and slavers from Valyria better hope that never happens.

Thank you, @astraphysical!

Stannis put a thin, fleshless hand on Jon's shoulder. "Say nothing of what we've discussed here today. To anyone. But when you return, you need only bend your knee, lay your sword at my feet, and pledge yourself to my service, and you shall rise again as Jon Stark, the Lord of Winterfell." - Jon XI, ASOS

Even before the coming of the Andals, the Wolf's Den had been raised by King Jon Stark, built to defend the mouth of the White Knife against raiders and slavers from across the narrow sea (some scholars suggest these were early Andal incursions, whilst others argue they were the forebears of the men from Ib, or even slavers out of Valyria and Volantis). - TWoIaF

+.+.+

SHOWDOWN AT THE TRIDENT

Jon and Daenerys stand on opposite sides.

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened. - Daenerys III, ASOS

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared. - Jon XII, ADWD

+.+.+

Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon. The die is cast.

Thank you, @nusaran and @northernpack!

Dany mounted her silver. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest. She felt desperately afraid. Was this what my brother would have done? She wondered if Prince Rhaegar had been this anxious when he saw the Usurper's host formed up across the Trident with all their banners floating on the wind.

[...]

It is time to cross the Trident, Dany thought, as she wheeled and rode her silver back. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

A trip down memory lane that definitely won't be happening again.

"Torrhen had brought his power south after the fall of the two kings on the Field of Fire," said Jaime, "but when he saw Aegon's dragon and the size of his host, he chose the path of wisdom and bent his frozen knees." - Jaime II, ASOS

A terrible beauty. Like dragonfire. Tyrion wondered if Aegon the Conqueror had felt like this as he flew above his Field of Fire. - Tyrion XIII, ACOK

"Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire."

"I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own." Dany turned away from him - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Ned never taught young Robb when to kneel.

-> Jon VIII, AGOT

It would not do to make him feel as if his mother were usurping his place. Did you teach him wisdom as well as valor, Ned? she wondered. Did you teach him how to kneel? The graveyards of the Seven Kingdoms were full of brave men who had never learned that lesson. - Catelyn IX, AGOT

Suddenly Catelyn was full of dread. "Wars need not be fought until the last drop of blood." Even she could hear the desperation in her voice. "You would not be the first king to bend the knee, nor even the first Stark."

His mouth tightened. "No. Never."

"There is no shame in it. Balon Greyjoy bent the knee to Robert when his rebellion failed. Torrhen Stark bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror rather than see his army face the fires." - Catelyn IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Or perhaps someone else?

"Yes," the maester said, "but this battle he cannot win. It is time he lay down his sword and shield. Time to yield."

To yield, she thought, to make a peace. Was it her father the maester was speaking of, or her son? - Catelyn III, ASOS

+.+.+

An older wolf might not have believed himself immortal. (Rest in peace, 5 year gap.)

"Won every battle, while losing the Freys, the Karstarks, Winterfell, and the north. A pity the wolf is so young. Boys of sixteen always believe they are immortal and invincible. An older man would bend the knee, I'd think. After a war there is always a peace, and with peace there are pardons . . . for the Robb Starks, at least. Not for the likes of Vargo Hoat." - Jaime V, ASOS

+.+.+

Davos understands some men don't have a choice. Stannis is less forgiving.

"When he did," Davos repeated. "They were his men. His sworn men. What choice were they given?"

"Every man has choices. They might have refused to kneel. Some did, and died for it. Yet they died true men, and loyal." - Davos IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Crowns won't help when the dragons come.

"Some would say it's a poor king who crowns himself with bronze, Your Grace."

"Bronze and iron are stronger than gold and silver," Robb answered. "The old Kings of Winter wore such a sword-crown."

"Small good it did them when the dragons came. Heh." - Catelyn VI, ASOS

+.+.+

In back-to-back chapters, Jon regretfully finds himself riding off with the rebel host, while Rhaegal tries to make an escape before Daenerys massacres a city.

I should have tried to kill Mance Rayder on the Fist, even if it meant my life. That was what Qhorin Halfhand would have done. But Jon had hesitated, and the chance passed. The next day he had ridden off with Styr the Magnar, Jarl, and more than a hundred picked Thenns and raiders. He told himself that he was only biding his time, that when the moment came he would slip away and ride for Castle Black. The moment never came. - Jon III, ASOS

Rhaegal could sense something wrong as well. Thrice he tried to take wing, only to be pulled down by the heavy chain in Jhiqui's hand. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

A RAT IN A MAZE 🐀🔪

Did you know it's believed that smaller harbour rats from the Free Cities carry the Shivers?

Rats who bring cold.

Rest in peace, Princess Daenerys Targaryen.

And then the Shivers came, and the Stranger walked the land.

The maesters knew the Shivers. They had seen its like before, a century ago, and the course of the contagion was written in their books. It was believed to have come to Westeros from across the sea, from one of the Free Cities or lands more distant still. Port cities and harbor towns always felt the hand of the disease first and hardest. Many of the smallfolk believed that it was carried by rats; not the familiar grey rats of King's Landing or Oldtown, big and bold and vicious, but the smaller black rats that could be seen swarming from the holds of ships at dock and scurrying down the ropes that held them fast. Though the guilt of rats was never proved to the satisfaction of the Citadel, suddenly every house in the Seven Kingdoms, from the grandest castle to the humblest hut, required a cat. - Fire & Blood

It was the hour of the owl when Queen Alysanne was awoken by her daughter shaking her gently by the arm. "Mother," Princess Daenerys said, "I'm cold."

[...]

The princess was six, and years past being weaned, but a wet nurse was summoned, for there were some who believed that mother's milk could cure Shivers. Maesters came and went, septons and septas prayed, the king commanded that a hundred new ratcatchers be hired at once, and offered a silver stag for every dead rat, grey or black.

[...]

None of it matter. A day and a half after she had woken her mother from sleep complaining of feeling cold, the little princess was dead. - Fire & Blood

Brrrrr!

The marks of the disease were well-known. It began simply enough, with a chill. Victims would complain of being cold, throw a fresh log on the fire, huddle under a blanket or a pile of furs. Some would call for hot soup, mulled wine, or, against all reason, beer. Neither blankets nor soups could stay the progress of the pestilence. Soon the shivering would begin; mild at first, a trembling, a shudder, but inexorably growing worse. Gooseprickles would march up and down the victim's limbs like conquering armies. By then the afflicted would be shivering so violently that their teeth would clatter, and their hands and feet would begin to convulse and twitch. When the victim's lips turned blue and he began to cough up blood, the end was nigh. Once the first chill was felt, the course of the Shivers was swift. - Fire & Blood

+.+.+

Arya the Rat.

Lord Renly stifled his laughter. "My brother is too kind. I can find the door myself." He bowed to Joffrey. "Perchance later you'll tell me how a nine-year-old girl the size of a wet rat managed to disarm you with a broom handle and throw your sword in the river." - Eddard III, AGOT

The old fat septa moved forward. "Boy, how did you come here? You have no business in this part of the castle."

"You can't keep this sort out," one of the red cloaks said. "Like trying to keep out rats." - Arya III, AGOT

The older scowled. "Who's this father of yours, boy, the city ratcatcher?" - Arya III, AGOT

"You be keepin' your filthy hands off. The gold cloaks know how to deal with thieving little gutter rats, that they do." - Arya V, AGOT

When he laughed he brayed like the donkeys they were riding. "Where's a gutter rat like Lumpyhead get him a sword?" - Arya I, ACOK

The Bull scowled at her. "Why should she want you? You're nothing but a little gutter rat!" - Arya II, ACOK

Porridge at least seemed to know he was alive, and there was a queer sort of kindness to the man. Davos suspected that he fed the rats; that was why there were so many. Once he thought he heard the gaoler talking to them as if they were children, but perhaps he'd only dreamed that. - Davos III, ASOS

[Stumpy note: I refuse to track a certain type of foreshadowing, so you're going to have to trust me that the following is an Arya reference.]

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

Every man shall reap what he has sown, from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat. And some will lose more than the tips off their fingers, I promise you. - Davos IV, ASOS

Once the direwolf bolted through a dark door and returned a moment later with a grey rat between his teeth. The Rat Cook, Bran thought, but it was the wrong color, and only as big as a cat. The Rat Cook was white, and almost as huge as a sow . . . - Bran IV, ASOS

He probably won't even know me. She looked more like a drowned rat than a lord's cupbearer these days. A drowned boy rat. - Arya X, ASOS

+.+.+

There's rats in the walls of the Red Keep.

Part of her wanted to run, but she was afraid of snuffing out her candle. She heard the faint squeaking of rats and glimpsed a pair of tiny glowing eyes on the edge of the light, but rats did not scare her. - Arya IV, AGOT

In the Red Keep a man did best to hold his tongue. There were rats in the walls, and little birds who talked too much, and spiders. - Tyrion I, ASOS

"You will bring Shae to me through the walls, hidden from all these eyes. As you have done before."

Varys wrung his hands. "Oh, my lord, nothing would please me more, but . . . King Maegor wanted no rats in his own walls, if you take my meaning. He did require a means of secret egress, should he ever be trapped by his enemies, but that door does not connect with any other passages. - Tyrion II, ASOS

"It had to be the godswood. No other place in the Red Keep is safe from the eunuch's little birds . . . or little rats, as I call them. There are trees in the godswood instead of walls. Sky above instead of ceiling. Roots and dirt and rock in place of floor. The rats have no place to scurry. Rats need to hide, lest men skewer them with swords." - Sansa V, ASOS

I arrived here a King's Hand, riding through the gates at the head of my own sworn men, Tyrion reflected, and I leave like a rat scuttling through the dark, holding hands with a spider. - Tyrion XI, ASOS

She imagined Tyrion creeping between the walls like some monstrous rat. No. You are being silly. The dwarf is in his cell. - Cersei I, AFFC

"Cheese knew the Red Keep better than the shape of his own cock," Mushroom tells us. The hidden doors and secret tunnels that Maegor the Cruel had built were as familiar to the rat-catcher as to the rats he hunted. Using a forgotten passageway, Cheese led Blood into the heart of the castle, unseen by any guard. - Fire & Blood

Years later, when these events had passed into legend, the smallfolk would tell each other that "rats in the walls" had overheard the lords talking and rushed to the princess with the news. - Fire & Blood

It is oft said that the Red Keep has no secrets, that there are rats in the walls who hear everything and whisper in the ears of sleepers by night. - Fire & Blood

+.+.+

Arya learns the secret passageways of the Red Keep, and makes some new friends along the way. Twice.

The dungeon was under the Red Keep, deeper than he dared imagine. He remembered the old stories about Maegor the Cruel, who murdered all the masons who labored on his castle, so they might never reveal its secrets. - Eddard XV, AGOT

She wondered where she was. When they had first come to King's Landing, she used to have bad dreams about getting lost in the castle. Father said the Red Keep was smaller than Winterfell, but in her dreams it had been immense, an endless stone maze with walls that seemed to shift and change behind her. She would find herself wandering down gloomy halls past faded tapestries, descending endless circular stairs, darting through courtyards or over bridges, her shouts echoing unanswered. - Arya III, AGOT

The monsters were still there, but the fear was gone.

Arya got to her feet, moving warily. The heads were all around her. She touched one, curious, wondering if it was real. Her fingertips brushed a massive jaw. It felt real enough. The bone was smooth beneath her hand, cold and hard to the touch. She ran her fingers down a tooth, black and sharp, a dagger made of darkness. It made her shiver.

"It's dead," she said aloud. "It's just a skull, it can't hurt me." Yet somehow the monster seemed to know she was there. She could feel its empty eyes watching her through the gloom, and there was something in that dim, cavernous room that did not love her. She edged away from the skull and backed into a second, larger than the first. For an instant she could feel its teeth digging into her shoulder, as if it wanted a bite of her flesh. Arya whirled, felt leather catch and tear as a huge fang nipped at her jerkin, and then she was running. Another skull loomed ahead, the biggest monster of all, but Arya did not even slow. She leapt over a ridge of black teeth as tall as swords, dashed through hungry jaws, and threw herself against the door. [...] If the room with the monsters had been dark, the hall was the blackest pit in the seven hells. Calm as still water, Arya told herself, but even when she gave her eyes a moment to adjust, there was nothing to see but the vague grey outline of the door she had come through. [...] Her fingers brushed against rough unfinished stone to her left. She followed the wall, her hand skimming along the surface, taking small gliding steps through the darkness. All halls lead somewhere. - Arya III, AGOT

This time the monsters did not frighten her. They seemed almost old friends. Arya held the candle over her head. With each step she took, the shadows moved against the walls, as if they were turning to watch her pass. "Dragons," she whispered. She slid Needle out from under her cloak. The slender blade seemed very small and the dragons very big, yet somehow Arya felt better with steel in her hand.

The long windowless hall beyond the door was as black as she remembered. She held Needle in her left hand, her sword hand, the candle in her right fist. Hot wax ran down across her knuckles. The entrance to the well had been to the left, so Arya went right. Part of her wanted to run, but she was afraid of snuffing out her candle. She heard the faint squeaking of rats and glimpsed a pair of tiny glowing eyes on the edge of the light, but rats did not scare her. - Arya IV, AGOT

"I warn you, Arya, if you're spinning this thread of air—"

"No, I told you, it was in the dungeons, by the place with the secret wall. I was chasing cats, and well …" - Arya III, AGOT

+.+.+

Secret tunnels, and an escape through sewers. Daenerys is told a familiar story.

She must have crept after them for miles. Finally they were gone, but there was no place to go but forward. She found the wall again and followed, blind and lost, pretending that Nymeria was padding along beside her in the darkness. At the end she was knee-deep in foul-smelling water, wishing she could dance upon it as Syrio might have, and wondering if she'd ever see light again. It was full dark when finally Arya emerged into the night air.

She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and crawled out shivering. - Arya III, AGOT

"I know a way." Brown Ben Plumm stroked his speckled grey-and-white beard. "Sewers."

"Sewers? What do you mean?"

"Great brick sewers empty into the Skahazadhan, carrying the city's wastes. They might be a way in, for a few. That was how I escaped Meereen, after Scarb lost his head." Brown Ben made a face. "The smell has never left me. I dream of it some nights."

Ser Jorah looked dubious. "Easier to go out than in, it would seem to me. These sewers empty into the river, you say? That would mean the mouths are right below the walls."

[...]

There's things down there too. Biggest rats you ever saw, and worse things. Nasty." - Daenerys V, ASOS

+.+.+

Daenerys hears rats in the walls during her truth-seeking journey. Drogon isn't a happy boy.

What remained served to muffle her footfalls, but that was not all to the good. Dany could hear sounds within the walls, a faint scurrying and scrabbling that made her think of rats. Drogon heard them too. His head moved as he followed the sounds, and when they stopped he gave an angry scream. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Aerys believes there's traitors inside the walls, right before he's killed.

But when he closed his eyes, it was Aerys Targaryen he saw, pacing alone in his throne room, picking at his scabbed and bleeding hands. The fool was always cutting himself on the blades and barbs of the Iron Throne. Jaime had slipped in through the king's door, clad in his golden armor, sword in hand. [...]

+.+.+

The Iron Throne kills Maegor the Cruel . . . or was it someone else?

All day the lords made plans, and late into the night. It was the hour of the wolf when at last Maegor allowed them to take their leave. The king remained behind, brooding on the Iron Throne as they departed. Lord Towers and Lord Rosby were the last to see His Grace.

Hours later, as dawn was breaking, the last of Maegor's queens came seeking after him. Queen Elinor found him still upon the Iron Throne, pale and dead, his robes soaked through with blood. His arms had been slashed open from wrist to elbow on jagged barbs, and another blade had gone through his neck to emerge beneath his chin.

Man to this day believe it was the Iron Throne itself that killed him.

[...]

It might also have been a person or persons unknown, entering and leaving the throne room through some hidden passage. The Red Keep has its secrets, known only to the dead. - Fire & Blood

+.+.+

The Iron Throne rejects Rhaenyra Targaryen.

Septon Eustace tells us that the ceremony went on all through that night. It was well past dawn when Rhaenyra Targaryen rose and made her descent. "And as her lord husband Prince Daemon escorted her from the hall, cuts were seen upon Her Grace's legs and the palms of her left hand," wrote Eustace. "Drops of blood fell to the floor as she went past, and wise men looked at one another, though none dared speak the truth aloud: the Iron Throne had spurned her, and her days upon it would be few." - Fire & Blood

+.+.+

Was it the Rat or the Iron Throne?

They say the Iron Throne can be cruel to those who were not meant to sit it.

Ned could feel cold steel against his fingers as he leaned forward. Between each finger was a blade, the points of twisted swords fanning out like talons from arms of the throne. Even after three centuries, some were still sharp enough to cut. The Iron Throne was full of traps for the unwary. The songs said it had taken a thousand blades to make it, heated white-hot in the furnace breath of Balerion the Black Dread. The hammering had taken fifty-nine days. The end of it was this hunched black beast made of razor edges and barbs and ribbons of sharp metal; a chair that could kill a man, and had, if the stories could be believed. - Eddard XI, AGOT

"Joffrey is the black worm eating the heart of the realm! Darkness was his father, and death his mother! Destroy him before he corrupts you all! Destroy them all, queen whore and king worm, vile dwarf and whispering spider, the false flowers. Save yourselves!" One of the gold cloaks knocked the man off his feet, but he continued to shout. "The scouring fire will come! King Stannis will return!"

Joffrey lurched to his feet. "I'm king! Kill him! Kill him now! I command it." He chopped down with his hand, a furious, angry gesture . . . and screeched in pain when his arm brushed against one of the sharp metal fangs that surrounded him. The bright crimson samite of his sleeve turned a darker shade of red as his blood soaked through it. "Mother!" he wailed.

With every eye on the king, somehow the man on the floor wrested a spear away from one of the gold cloaks, and used it to push himself back to his feet. "The throne denies him!" he cried. "He is no king!" - Sansa VIII, ACOK

Sansa felt limp with exhaustion as she made her way down from the gallery. She wondered how badly Joffrey had cut himself. They say the Iron Throne can be perilous cruel to those who were not meant to sit it. - Sansa VIII, ACOK

"Have you ever seen the Iron Throne? The barbs along the back, the ribbons of twisted steel, the jagged ends of swords and knives all tangled up and melted? It is not a comfortable seat, ser. Aerys cut himself so often men took to calling him King Scab, and Maegor the Cruel was murdered in that chair. By that chair, to hear some tell it. It is not a seat where a man can rest at ease. Ofttimes I wonder why my brothers wanted it so desperately." - Davos IV, ASOS

"And to mount a dragon . . . I remember the first time my father took me to court, Robert had to hold my hand. I could not have been older than four, which would have made him five or six. We agreed afterward that the king had been as noble as the dragons were fearsome." Stannis snorted. "Years later, our father told us that Aerys had cut himself on the throne that morning, so his Hand had taken his place. It was Tywin Lannister who'd so impressed us." His fingers touched the surface of the table, tracing a path lightly across the varnished hills. "Robert took the skulls down when he donned the crown, but he could not bear to have them destroyed. Dragon wings over Westeros . . . there would be such a . . ." - Davos V, ASOS

By the end the Mad King had become so fearful that he would allow no blade in his presence, save for the swords his Kingsguard wore. His beard was matted and unwashed, his hair a silver-gold tangle that reached his waist, his fingernails cracked yellow claws nine inches long. Yet still the blades tormented him, the ones he could never escape, the blades of the Iron Throne. His arms and legs were always covered with scabs and half-healed cuts. - Jaime II, AFFC

+.+.+

Cold, chilling words.

"I will not be part of murder, Robert. Do as you will, but do not ask me to fix my seal to it."

[...]

Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could feel Robert's eyes on his back. As he strode from the council chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. "On Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men," Grand Maester Pycelle offered. - Eddard VIII, AGOT

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run. - Daenerys IX, AGOT

"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." - Daenerys III, ACOK

Next you will be offering me a suit of magic armor and a palace in Valyria. "If Daenerys is no more than a sweet young girl, the Iron Throne will cut her into sweet young pieces." - Tyrion II, ADWD

"My lord is good to care so much, but I am well protected." Dany gestured toward where Barristan Selmy stood with one hand resting on his sword hilt. "Barristan the Bold, they call him. Twice he has saved me from assassins." - Daenerys III, ADWD

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

Nobody can figure out who killed King Renly! Was it a shadow?

"Cold," said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat. - Catelyn IV, ASOS

"Oh, very good." Jaime laughed. "Your wits are quicker than mine, I confess it. When they found me standing over my dead king, I never thought to say, 'No, no, it wasn't me, it was a shadow, a terrible cold shadow.'" - Jaime II, ASOS

Now at last she had him. High walls pressed close on either side, and ahead was a blank windowless mass of stone. Quiet as a shadow, she repeated, sliding forward, light as a feather. - Arya III, ASOS

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

Snow is falling on King's Landing when Kevan Lannister is assassinated by children in the walls.

The snow had been falling on King's Landing most of the night [...]

The chill in the throne room was palpable. [...]

Behind the table where the five members of the king's small council were seated, the Iron Throne crouched like some great black beast, its barbs and claws and blades half-shrouded in shadow. Kevan Lannister could feel it at his back, an itch between the shoulder blades. It was easy to imagine old King Aerys perched up there, bleeding from some fresh cut, glowering down. [...]

"Aye, if we had gold," Ser Harys Swyft said. "Alas, my lords, our vaults contain only rats and roaches. I have written again to the Myrish bankers. [...]

Outside the snow was swirling round the outer ward, a caged beast howling to be free. "Have you ever felt such cold?" asked Ser Harys. [...]

"An old black tomcat with a torn ear," Cersei told him. "A filthy thing, and foul-tempered. He clawed Joff's hand once." She made a face. "The cats keep the rats down, I know, but that one... he's been known to attack ravens in the rookery." [...]

Ser Kevan had always found them uncomfortably hot. Not tonight. Once past the chamber door, the chill was palpable. Black ash and dying embers were all that remained of the hearthfire.

The rest was shrouded in shadow … except beneath the open window, where a spray of ice crystals glittered in the moonlight, swirling in the wind. [...]

"Winter," said Ser Kevan. The word made a white mist in the air. He turned away from the window.

Then something slammed him in the chest between the ribs, hard as a giant's fist. It drove the breath from him and sent him lurching backwards. [...]

"Tyrion?" he called. "Where …?"

"Far away," a half-familiar voice replied.

He stood in a pool of shadow by a bookcase, plump, pale-faced, round-shouldered, clutching a crossbow in soft powdered hands. Silk slippers swaddled his feet. [...]

Pain washed over him. He closed his eyes, opened them again. "There are … there are hundreds of Lannister guardsmen in this castle."

"But none in this room, thankfully. [...]

A gust of wind blew up. Ser Kevan shivered violently.

"Are you cold, my lord?" asked Varys. [...]

Ser Kevan was cold as ice, and every labored breath sent a fresh stab of pain through him. He glimpsed movement, heard the soft scuffling sound of slippered feet on stone. A child emerged from a pool of darkness, a pale boy in a ragged robe, no more than nine or ten. Another rose up behind the Grand Maester's chair. The girl who had opened the door for him was there as well. They were all around him, half a dozen of them, white-faced children with dark eyes, boys and girls together.

And in their hands, the daggers. - Epilogue, ADWD

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

Panic! Daenerys can't see who's there.

This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a football on the deck above her head. And something else.

Someone was in the cabin with her.

"Irri? Jhiqui? Where are you?" Her handmaids did not respond. It was too black to see, but she could hear them breathing. "Jorah, is that you?"

"They sleep," a woman said. "They all sleep." The voice was very close. "Even dragons must sleep."

She is standing over me. "Who's there?" Dany peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the faintest outline of a shape. "What do you want to me?"

[...]

"Khaleesi, are you unwell?" asked Jhiqui.

"A dream." Dany shook her head. "I dreamed a dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to sleep." Yet try as she might, sleep would not come again. - Daenerys III, ASOS

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

After another surprise visit that catches Daenerys off guard, Daenerys asks Quaithe how she got past her guardsmen.

A soft rustle made her open them again. She sat up with a soft splash. "Missandei?" she called. "Irri? Jhiqui?"

"They sleep," came the answer.

A woman stood under the persimmon tree, clad in a hooded robe that brushed the grass. Beneath the hood, her face seemed hard and shiny. She is wearing a mask, Dany knew, a wooden mask finished in dark red lacquer. "Quaithe? Am I dreaming?" She pinched her ear and winced at the pain. "I dreamt of you on Balerion, when first we came to Astapor."

"You did not dream. Then or now."

"What are you doing here? How did you get past my guards?"

"I came another way. Your guards never saw me." – Daenerys II, ADWD

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

Arya IV, ACOK (click) -> using a secret tunnel found underground, Arya escapes a burning barn, and ends up in a river. Did dragons set the barn on fire? It's hard to tell.

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

Davos III, ASOS (click) -> After failing to kill the fire lady, Davos (or is that Jon Snow?) finds himself locked in the cells underneath Dragonstone. His only friends are the rats.

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

Tyrion XI, ASOS (click) -> Sibling Jaime manages to free Tyrion from the cells underneath King's Landing. Throw in several references to rats, Maegor the Cruel, spooky warnings about the dangers of secret tunnels, and you have a pretty fun chapter!

Oh, and the murder. I forgot the murder. While in the tunnels he takes a detour and does some murder.

+.+.+

Uh oh, parallels:

Bran IV, ASOS (click) -> Bran explores the abandoned Nightfort, and finds a sewer that might as well be Arya's favourite sewer in King's Landing. He's not alone though, he has his friends, and a castle filled with rats in the walls and floors.

+.+.+

Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:

ACOK: Arya IX -> Daenerys IV

Arya the cupbearer. Daenerys is served.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

Nan, you shall be my cupbearer, and serve me at table and in chambers. - Arya IX, ACOK

They had rattish pointed faces and tiny pink hands, like the servitor who had brought her the glass of shade. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:

ACOK: Daenerys V -> Arya X

A man from a society of assassins attempts to kill Daenerys. Arya Stark provides the echo, and shows us how it's done.

Thank you, @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir!

A Qartheen stepped into her path. "Mother of Dragons, for you." He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.

Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, "I am so sorry," but she hardly heard.

The scarab unfolded with a hiss.

Dany caught a glimpse of a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom . . . and then the box flew from her hand in pieces, turning end over end. Sudden pain twisted her fingers. As she cried out and clutched her hand, the brass merchant let out a shriek, a woman screamed, and suddenly the Qartheen were shouting and pushing each other aside. Ser Jorah slammed past her, and Dany stumbled to one knee.

[...]

"They were defending me." Dany snapped her hand to shake the sting from her fingers. "It was the other one, the Qartheen." When she looked around he was gone. "He was a Sorrowful Man. There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand." - Daenerys V, ACOK

He'd left his dagger on the table as well, so she took that too, just in case Gendry lost his courage.

[...]

"I could catch you if I wanted," she called to it softly, "but I have to go, cat." The cat hissed again and ran off.

[...]

Arya took out the dagger and sharpened it to keep her hands busy. Long smooth strokes, the way Syrio had taught her. The sound calmed her.

[...]

She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear, and it felt as though Syrio Forel walked beside her, and Yoren, and Jaqen H'ghar, and Jon Snow. She had not taken the sword Gendry had brought her, not yet. For this the dagger would be better.

[...]

"He told me to give all his guards a silver piece, for their good service." The words seemed to come out of nowhere.

"Silver, you say?" He did not believe her, but he wanted to; silver was silver, after all. "Give it over, then."

Her fingers dug down beneath her tunic and came out clutching the coin Jaqen had given her. In the dark the iron could pass for tarnished silver. She held it out . . . and let it slip through her fingers.

Cursing her softly, the man went to a knee to grope for the coin in the dirt, and there was his neck right in front of her. Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. His blood covered her hands in a hot gush and he tried to shout but there was blood in his mouth as well.

"Valar morghulis," she whispered as he died. - Arya X, ACOK

+.+.+

Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:

ASOS: Davos II -> Jaime II -> Tyrion II -> Arya II

After King's Landing burns, the sailor returns to Dragonstone, with a gifted dagger, and one goal: assassinate the fire lady who burns people alive.

She would be waiting on Dragonstone as well, waiting in all her beauty and all her power, with her god and her shadows and his king. The red priestess had always seemed loyal to Stannis, until now. She has broken him, as a man breaks a horse. She would ride him to power if she could, and for that she gave my sons to the fire. I will cut the living heart from her breast and see how it burns. He touched the hilt of the fine long Lysene dirk that the captain had given him. [...] A knife in the heart, though . . . even demons can be killed by cold iron, the singers say. [...] "Yes, just so, someone. But not you. You are weak as a child, and no warrior. Stay, I beg you, we will talk more and you will eat, and perhaps we will sail to Braavos and hire a Faceless Man to do this thing, yes? But you, no, you must sit and eat." - Davos II, ASOS

Jaime the Kingslayer describes the Mad King's last moments. He wished he could have vanished once it was done.

When Aerys saw the blood on his blade, he demanded to know if it was Lord Tywin's. "I want him dead, the traitor. I want his head, you'll bring me his head, or you'll burn with all the rest. All the traitors. Rossart says they are inside the walls! He's gone to make them a warm welcome. Whose blood? Whose?" [...] Ser Elys Westerling and Lord Crakehall and others of his father's knights burst into the hall in time to see the last of it, so there was no way for Jaime to vanish and let some braggart steal the praise or blame. - Jaime II, ASOS

Tyrion searches for hidden passageways in the Red Keep while waiting for Shae. Varys appears disguised as another person.

"He's gone," Shae said.

Tyrion turned to look. It was true. The eunuch had vanished, skirts and all. The hidden doors are here somewhere, they have to be. - Tyrion II, ASOS

Arya pulls a Davos.

Her hand went under the table to touch the hilt of her dagger, and make sure it was still there. - Arya II, ASOS

+.+.+

Wait, there's more!

THE USURPER'S KNIFE

Daenerys is running.

Thank you, @kadarakey and @aegor-bamfsteel!

The Usurper's hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one. - Daenerys I, AGOT

She hated it, as her brother must have. All those years of running from city to city one step ahead of the Usurper's knives, pleading for help from archons and princes and magisters, buying our food with flattery. - Daenerys III, ACOK

She was no pampered lady, blind to such things. She had seen cutpurses aplenty in the streets of the Free Cities, during the years she'd spent with her brother, running from the Usurper's hired knives. - Daenerys III, ACOK

He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. "Illyrio protected us from the Usurper's knives, and he believed in my brother's cause." - Daenerys III, ACOK

She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother's womb, and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper's hired knives? - Daenerys V, ACOK

The narrow sea was often stormy, and Dany had crossed it half a hundred times as a girl, running from one Free City to the next half a step ahead of the Usurper's hired knives. - Daenerys I, ASOS

+.+.+

Except there were no knives chasing her. Like so many others in the story, Daenerys believes in a threat that was never there.

The king's mouth twisted in a bitter grimace. "No, gods be cursed. Some pox-ridden Pentoshi cheesemonger had her brother and her walled up on his estate with pointy-hatted eunuchs all around them, and now he's handed them over to the Dothraki. I should have had them both killed years ago, when it was easy to get at them, but Jon was as bad as you. More fool I, I listened to him." - Eddard II, AGOT

And now she's running towards the knife.

+.+.+

A dagger in the flesh.

"Daenerys Targaryen has wed some Dothraki horselord. What of it? Shall we send her a wedding gift?"

The king frowned. "A knife, perhaps. A good sharp one, and a bold man to wield it." - Eddard II, AGOT

"Kiss her?" Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.

"A steel kiss," said Littlefinger. - Eddard VIII, AGOT

Her words were a knife through Dany's breast. What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

Mirri Maz Duur chanted words in a tongue that Dany did not know, and a knife appeared in her hand. Dany never saw where it came from. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

Another pain grasped her, and Dany bit back a scream. It felt as if her son had a knife in each hand, as if he were hacking at her to cut his way out. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew. - Daenerys IX, AGOT

"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." - Daenerys III, ACOK

Pyat Pree was gibbering in some unknown tongue and hopping from one foot to the other. When Dany looked behind her, she saw thin tendrils of smoke forcing their way through cracks in the ancient stone walls of the Palace of Dust, and rising from between the black tiles of the roof.

Howling curses, Pyat Pree drew a knife and danced toward her, but Drogon flew at his face. Then she heard the crack of Jhogo's whip, and never was a sound so sweet. The knife went flying, and an instant later Rakharo was slamming Pyat to the ground. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

"A craven's knife can slay a queen as easily as a hero's. I would sleep more soundly if I knew my heart's delight had kept her fierce horselords close around her. In Qarth, you had three bloodriders who never left your side. Wherever have they gone?" - Daenerys III, ADWD

Their father, her brother Rhaegar, perished even earlier, slain by the Usurper on the Trident. Her brother Viserys had died screaming in Vaes Dothrak with a crown of molten gold upon his head. They will kill me too if I allow it. The knives that slew my Stalwart Shield were meant for me. - Daenerys I, ADWD

Nine. The word was a dagger in her heart. - Daenerys II, ADWD

+.+.+

Arya loves her daggers.

He'd left his dagger on the table as well, so she took that too, just in case Gendry lost his courage. - Arya X, ACOK

Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. - Arya X, ACOK

Her sword was still in its sheath across her back, and she kept a hand close to the hilt of the dagger she had stolen from Roose Bolton, in case she didn't like whatever they found within. - Arya II, ASOS

I knew they were outlaws, Arya thought, listening. Her hand went under the table to touch the hilt of her dagger, and make sure it was still there. If they try to rob us, they'll be sorry. - Arya II, ASOS

She yanked Greenbeard's dagger from its sheath and spun away before he could catch her. Gendry made a grab for her as well, but she had always been too fast for Gendry. - Arya VI, ASOS

The Hound sliced the meat with his dagger, and narrowed his eyes when he caught Arya looking at the knife. "Don't even think about it." - Arya IX, ASOS

There were two silver stags in the archer's purse, and almost thirty coppers. His dagger had a pretty pink stone in the hilt. The Hound hefted the knife in his hand, then flipped it toward Arya. She caught it by the hilt, slid it through her belt, and felt a little better. It wasn't Needle, but it was steel. - Arya XII, ASOS

They're killing him. Arya had no more cups, but there was something better to throw. She drew the dagger they'd robbed off the dying archer and tried to fling it at the Tickler the way he'd done. - Arya XIII, ASOS

Gather your belongings, the captain had said, but there were few enough of those. Only the clothes she was wearing, her little pouch of coins, the gifts the crew had given her, the dagger on her left hip and Needle on her right. - Arya I, AFFC

In the black of night she rose again, donned the clothes she'd worn from Westeros, and buckled on her swordbelt. Needle hung from one hip, her dagger from the other. - Arya II, AFFC

The Tickler hung on the wall as well, the black holes that were his eyes swimming with malice. The sight of him brought back the feel of the dagger in her hand as she had plunged it into his back, again and again and again. - The Ugly Little Girl, ADWD

"Dragons," she whispered. She slid Needle out from under her cloak. The slender blade seemed very small and the dragons very big, yet somehow Arya felt better with steel in her hand. - Arya IV, AGOT

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Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:

AGOT: Jon II -> Daenerys II

"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end." Arya gave him a whap on the arm with the flat of her blade. The blow stung, but Jon found himself grinning like an idiot. "I know which end to use," Arya said. - Jon II, AGOT

AGOT: Arya II -> Daenerys III

"Arya, what did you think to do with this … Needle? Who did you hope to skewer? Your sister? Septa Mordane? Do you know the first thing about sword fighting?"

All she could think of was the lesson Jon had given her. "Stick them with the pointy end," she blurted out. - Arya II, AGOT

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Uh oh, parallels:

Jon recalls something while being stabbed to death by daggers.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold … - Jon XIII, ADWD

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Tracking the Usurper's Knife:

Robert -> Joffrey

Instead he went poking among his father's weapons. Robert Baratheon was a man of careless generosity, and would have given his son any dagger he wanted . . . but Tyrion guessed that the boy had just taken it. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

Joffrey -> Catspaw

Instead the boy found his catspaw among the unsavory lot of freeriders, merchants, and camp followers who'd attached themselves to the king's party as they made their way north. Some poxy lackwit willing to risk his life for a prince's favor and a little coin. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

Catspaw -> Catelyn

He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. - Bran III, AGOT

Catelyn -> Ned

Catelyn slid a dagger out from under her cloak and placed it in his hand. "This blade was sent to open Bran's throat and spill his life's blood."

[...]

"Very well," he said, thrusting the dagger into his belt. - Eddard IV, AGOT

Ned -> Littlefinger

"You forget," Ned told him. "You forget Jon Arryn. You forget Jory Cassel. And you forget this." He drew the dagger and laid it on the table between them; a length of dragonbone and Valyrian steel, as sharp as the difference between right and wrong, between true and false, between life and death. "They sent a man to cut my son's throat, Lord Baelish." - Eddard XIII, AGOT

As his men died around him, Littlefinger slid Ned's dagger from its sheath and shoved it up under his chin. His smile was apologetic. "I did warn you not to trust me, you know." - Eddard XIV, AGOT

Littlefinger -> ???

Petyr cut a pomegranate in two with his dagger, offering half to Sansa. "You should try and eat, my lady."

[...]

"Tell me, Alayne—which is more dangerous, the dagger brandished by an enemy, or the hidden one pressed to your back by someone you never even see?"

"The hidden dagger." - Sansa VI, ASOS

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Who will get the Usurper's Knife next?!

Tune in next time to find out!

right weapon, wrong villain, right weapon, wrong villain, right weapon, wrong villain

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BRAN THE DRAGONSLAYER?

Bran can be brave.

Bran thought about it. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"

"That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him. "Do you understand why I did it?" - Bran I, AGOT

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Chapter transitions that make you go hmmm:

AGOT: Daenerys III -> Bran IV

"No dragon," Irri said. "Brave men kill them, for dragon terrible evil beasts. It is known." - Daenerys III, AGOT

ACOK: Daenerys II -> Bran IV

"Dragons die." She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. "But so do dragonslayers." - Daenerys II, ACOK

ASOS: Daenerys II -> Bran II

It was too dangerous to let them fly freely over the city; the world was all too full of men who would gladly kill them for no better reason than to name themselves dragonslayer. - Daenerys II, ASOS

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Dragonslayers die?

"Dragons die." She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. "But so do dragonslayers." - Daenerys II, ACOK

"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead - Arya X, ACOK

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Dragon or eagle?

Thrice that day she caught sight of Drogon. Once he was so far off that he might have been an eagle, slipping in and out of distant clouds, but Dany knew the look of him by now, even when he was no more than a speck. The second time he passed before the sun, his black wings spread, and the world darkened. - Daenerys X, ADWD

Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun . . . - Jon VII, ACOK

Something was moving atop one of them, he saw. A dragon, but which one? At this distance, it could as easily have been an eagle. A very big eagle. - Tyrion II, TWOW

She had a woman's face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion's curled and venomous tail. - Daenerys II, ASOS

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Bran attempts to slip into an eagle.

<- Daenerys II, ASOS

"Look," she said, pointing at the sky with her frog spear, "an eagle."

Bran lifted his head and saw it, its grey wings spread and still as it floated on the wind. He followed it with his eyes as it circled higher, wondering what it would be like to soar about the world so effortless. Better than climbing, even. He tried to reach the eagle, to leave his stupid crippled body and rise into the sky to join it, the way he joined with Summer. The greenseers could do it. I should be able to do it too. He tried and tried, until the eagle vanished in the golden haze of the afternoon. "It's gone," he said, disappointed.

"We'll see others," said Meera. "They live up here."

"I suppose." - Bran II, ASOS

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Practice makes perfect.

<- Daenerys I, ASOS

"No," said Jojen, "only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world. Bran I, ASOS

"If we were eagles we might fly," said Jojen sharply, "but we have no wings, no more than we have horses." - Bran I, ASOS

The skinchanger was grey-faced, round-shouldered, and bald, a mouse of a man with a wolfling's eyes. "Once a horse is broken to the saddle, any man can mount him," he said in a soft voice. "Once a beast's been joined to a man, any skinchanger can slip inside and ride him. Orell was withering inside his feathers, so I took the eagle for my own. - Jon X, ASOS

"A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lord Brynden said, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly."

He chose one bird, and then another, without success, but the third raven looked at him with shrewd black eyes, tilted its head, and gave a quork, and quick as that he was not a boy looking at a raven but a raven looking at a boy. The song of the river suddenly grew louder, the torches burned a little brighter than before, and the air was full of strange smells. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own broken body. The raven was unhurt. It flew to him and landed on his arm, and Bran stroked its feathers and slipped inside of it again. Before long he was flying around the cavern, weaving through the long stone teeth that hung down from the ceiling, even flapping out over the abyss and swooping down into its cold black depths. - Bran III, ADWD

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All men die, and every beast that flies.

"All men die," he could almost hear her say, "and women too, and every beast that flies or swims or runs. It's not the when o' dying that matters, it's the how of it, Jon Snow."

[...]

The sound was shocking, ear-piercing, thick with agony. Varamyr fell, writhing, and the 'cat was screaming too . . . and high, high in the eastern sky, against the wall of cloud, Jon saw the eagle burning. For a heartbeat it flamed brighter than a star, wreathed in red and gold and orange, its wings beating wildly at the air as if it could fly from the pain. Higher it flew, and higher, and higher still. - Jon X, ASOS

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STORM X STORM 🦑🖤🐉

Parallels that make us laugh: storm edition.

A smile played across Euron's blue lips. "I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria." - The Reaver, AFFC

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Parallels that make us laugh: Silence vs. Drogon edition.

"Euron. Crow's Eye, they call him, as black a pirate as ever raised a sail. He's been gone for years, but Lord Balon was no sooner cold than there he was, sailing into Lordsport in his Silence. Black sails and a red hull, and crewed by mutes. - Catelyn V, ASOS

Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting … and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. - Daenerys IX, ADWD

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Parallels that make us laugh: the iron price edition.

Daario had plundered himself a whole new wardrobe in Meereen, and to match it he had redyed his trident beard and curly hair a deep rich purple. It made his eyes look almost purple too, as if he were some lost Valyrian. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

Her bloodriders were waiting for her. Silver bells tinkled in their oiled braids, and they wore the gold and jewels of dead men. - Daenerys VI, ASOS

In the Old Way, women might decorate themselves with ornaments bought with coin, but a warrior wore only the jewelry he took off the corpses of enemies slain by his own hand. Paying the iron price, it was called. - Theon I, ACOK

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She even liked the sailors.

She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well. She liked the dolphins that sometimes swam along beside Balerion, slicing through the waves like silvery spears, and the flying fish they glimpsed now and again. She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. Once on a voyage to Braavos, as she'd watched the crew wrestle down a great green sail in a rising gale, she had even thought how fine it would be to be a sailor. - Daenerys I, ASOS

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Krakens vs. Dragons.

"In the Seven Kingdoms, there are tales of dragons who grew so huge that they could pluck giant krakens from the seas."

Dany laughed. "That would be a wondrous sight to see." - Daenerys I, ASOS

"There are dangers at sea as well. Corsairs and pirates hunt the southern route, and north of Valyria the Smoking Sea is demon-haunted. The next storm could sink or scatter us, a kraken could pull us under . . . - Daenerys I, ASOS

The eunuch drew a parchment from his sleeve. "A kraken has been seen off the Fingers." He giggled. "Not a Greyjoy, mind you, a true kraken. It attacked an Ibbenese whaler and pulled it under. There is fighting on the Stepstones, and a new war between Tyrosh and Lys seems likely. Both hope to win Myr as ally. Sailors back from the Jade Sea report that a three-headed dragon has hatched in Qarth, and is the wonder of that city—"

"Dragons and krakens do not interest me, regardless of the number of their heads," said Lord Tywin. - Tyrion III, ASOS

Then she saw it: an uprooted tree, huge and dark, coming straight at them. A tangle of roots and limbs poked up out of the water as it came, like the reaching arms of a great kraken. - Arya IX, ASOS

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Daenerys dreams of banners.

I ought to have a banner sewn, she thought as she led her tattered band up along Astapor's meandering river. She closed her eyes to imagine how it would look: all flowing black silk, and on it the red three-headed dragon of Targaryen, breathing golden flames. A banner such as Rhaegar might have borne. - Daenerys III, ASOS

A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

Tyrion I, TWOW:

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Drowning in his eyes.

"A great talker, you mean."

"He brings us the Stormcrows." And he has blue eyes. - Daenerys IV, ASOS

The dragon has three heads, but I have only one. She thought of Daario. If ever there was a man who could rape a woman with his eyes . . .

To be sure, she was just as guilty. Dany found herself stealing looks at the Tyroshi when her captains came to council, and sometimes at night she remembered the way his gold tooth glittered when he smiled. That, and his eyes. His bright blue eyes. - Daenerys V, ASOS

Euron was the most comely of Lord Quellon's sons, and three years of exile had not changed that. His hair was still black as a midnight sea, with never a whitecap to be seen, and his face was still smooth and pale beneath his neat dark beard. A black leather patch covered Euron's left eye, but his right was blue as a summer sky. - The Iron Captain, AFFC

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Daenerys yearns for a dangerously cruel man.

Dany tried to imagine what it would be like if she allowed Daario to kiss her, the way Jorah had kissed her on the ship. The thought was exciting and disturbing, both at once. It is too great a risk. The Tyroshi sellsword was not a good man, no one needed to tell her that. Under the smiles and the jests he was dangerous, even cruel. - Daenerys V, ASOS

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ASOS: PART III

Touch me.

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

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#operation stumpy re-read #foreshadowing smorgasbord #asos summary #anti daenerys #anti jonerys #jon snow #arya stark #bran stark #stark vs. targ #storm x storm #asoiaf

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