The Smallfolk Council

A Dance With Dragons: Davos II (Chapter Summary)

2011-08-13T18:10:00.003-07:00

The Merry Midwife sails into White Harbor on the evening tide. The ship carries Davos Seaworth, Stannis’s envoy sent to treat with Lord Wyman Manderly. Davos spots a warship in the outer harbor. Her hull is black and gold, her figurehead a lion with an upraised paw, and Lionstar is written across her stern: the Freys are in White Harbor. Casso Mogat, captain of the Merry Midwife, tells Davos the ship will linger for three days, after which it will set sail with or without the King’s Hand.

Davos makes his way along the wharf and through the fish market. He enters the city through the Seal Gate, into a cobbled square with a fountain at its center. A twenty foot tall stone merman rises from its waters. He is sculpted in the likeness of a dead lord, but is known as Old Fishfoot by the locals. Davos purchases an apple from a cart, and gossips with the vendor: smallfolk from up the White Knife have sought refuge in the Old Mint; White Harbor is raising men; Lord Manderly’s granddaughter is betrothed to a Frey. After finishing his apple, he strolls across the yard and down a flight of steps, to a winesink called the Lazy Eel. Aside from the whores and the proprietor, Davos is alone in the Eel. He sits and waits in a shadowed alcove, drinking, his back against a wall.

Dusk falls and the benches of the Eel begin to fill with sailors. Seamen are the worst gossips in the world, Davos reflects, all I need to do is listen. He overhears that Robett Glover has been seen in White Harbour trying to raise men, without success; that the Bastard of Bolton is riding south with Hother Umber to attack Moat Cailin, accompanied by Hornwood and Cerwyn men as well; that the Lannisters are holding Wyman Manderly captive. Davos decides he has heard enough and sets out for New Castle. The gates of the castle are closed, but when Davos shouts salutation a postern opens. A guard emerges and asks his business. I need to see Lord Manderly at once, Davos replies, my business is with him, and him alone.

A Dance With Dragons: Tyrion IV (Chapter Summary)

2011-08-12T19:55:00.003-07:00

Tyrion is buried beneath a pile of musty skins, atop a heap of old sacks that serve him as a bed. He is aboard the Shy Maid, lodging atop the roof of its cabin with a coil of hempen rope for a pillow. He dresses and descends to the afterdeck, where Griff is sitting beside an iron brazier. The sellsword keeps the night watch by himself. I would kill for a cup of wine, Tyrion mutters. Since boarding, Griff has prohibited Tyrion from touching a drink. As the first pale light of day appears on the horizon, Griff rises and heads below deck. The deck is yours, he tells Tyrion.

Septa Lemore emerges in her white robes, cinched at the waist with a woven belt of seven colors. She walks to the prow of the boat. It is her custom to bathe nude in the river each morning. Tyrion notices stretch marks on her belly that could only have come from childbirth. Yandry and Ysilla appear next and go about their business, feeding woodchips into the brazier and kneading the dough for the morning biscuits. Yandry and his wife are Greenblood born, a pair of Dornish orphans come home to Mother Rhoyne. The smell of biscuits and bacon lures Duck up from the hold. Young Griff follows, stumbling up onto the deck for breakfast. The poleboat moves downstream.

Young Griff and Duck spar on the afterdeck with blunted long swords, while the rest of the morning company looks on. Young Griff lands more blows, though Duck’s are harder. Slamming a shoulder into Duck, the boy launches his sparring partner into the river. Tyrion tosses Duck a line and with Yandry’s assistance hauls the large man aboard. Ducks should swim better than that, Tyrion quips. Duck responds by grabbing Tyrion by the collar and tossing him headlong into the river. Young Griff fishes Tyrion out of the water. Back on deck, Tyrion performs a cartwheel to the crew’s amusement. His uncle had taught him tumbling when he was six or seven, but he had quickly abandoned the pastime following a scolding from his father.

After changing into dry clothes, Tyrion finds his quill and parchment. Griff has commanded him to set down all he knows of dragonlore. Tyrion recalls the books he has read on the topic of dragons. Galendro’s history of Valyria, The Fires of the Freehold, is an excellent source of information, but no complete copy is known to Westeros. Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History is another key text. Barth had been a blacksmith’s son who rose to be King’s Hand during the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. Suspecting that the author was a sorcerer, Baelor the Blessed had ordered all Barth’s writing destroyed when he came to the Iron Throne. Only fragments of the Unnatural History remain. The only copy of the anonymous blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons is supposedly hidden in a locked vault beneath the Citadel.

Haldon appears at Tyrion’s side and invites him to join him for Young Griff’s lesson. The lesson begins with languages. Young Griff speaks the Common Tongue, and is fluent in High Valyrian, the low dialects of Pentos, Tyrosh, Myr, and Lys, and the trade talk of sailors; he is now learning Volantene and Meereenese. Geometry follows languages, and afterwards history. Haldon asks Young Griff to describe the difference between a tiger and an elephant. After the Doom, the Volantene considered themselves the heirs of the Freehold and the rightful rulers of the world, but were divided as to how to rule. The Old Blood favored the sword, while the merchants and moneylenders advocated trade; the tigers and the elephants, respectively. The tigers held sway for almost a century. They conquered Lys and Myr and ruled the three cities for two generations. The tigers’ rule ended, however, when they tried to conquer Tyrosh. Pentos allied with Tyrosh, along with the Westerosi Storm King. Braavos provided a Lyseni exile with a hundred warships, Aegon Targaryen flew forth from Dragonstone on the Black Dread, and Myr and Lys rose up in rebellion. The war left the Disputed Lands a waste, and freed Lys and Myr. Volantis found herself broken, bankrupt, and depopulated. Rule passed to the elephants, who have held sway ever since for three hundred years. The current triarchs of Volantis are Malaquo, a tiger, and Nyessos and Doniphos, both elephants.

After the lesson, Haldon sets up the cyvasse table to play with Tyrion. Tyrion proposes a wager: the loser must reveal a secret. Three hours later Tyrion emerges back on deck; Haldon is still below, having taken to bed in some discomfort (presumably, he has lost the game). The boat is drifting between the ruins of Ny Sar, once the site of Nymeria’s palace. Ahead, something ripples in the water. An enormous horned turtle breaches the surface of the water. It roars louder than any war horn Tyrion has ever heard. Duck, Young Griff, and the rest of the crew hoot and holler. We are blessed, Ysilla cries aloud – tears stream down her face. It was him, cries Yandry, the Old Man of the River. Tyrion grins with approval: Gods and wonders always appear, to attend the birth of kings.

A Dance With Dragons: Bran II (Chapter Summary)

2011-08-12T16:51:00.009-07:00

They are here, Coldhands announces. The white walkers step lightly and leave no impression in the snow, yet Coldhands senses their presence. It has been twelve days since the elk has died. Jojen is too weak to walk unaided and shivers violently in Meera’s arms. Icicles hang from Hodor’s beard. The wolves are close as well, Bran warns; inside Summer’s skin, he can smell an approaching pack. The group is standing at the foot of an incline. Less than a thousand yards away, halfway up the stony hill, a cleft in the rock marks the entrance to a cave. According to Coldhands the cave is warded – the Others cannot pass. There is also a backdoor to the cave three leagues north, down a sinkhole. In his weakened state Jojen is unable to make the ascent and Meera refuses to leave his side. She instructs Bran and Hodor to go on ahead. Hodor, with Bran strapped to his back, plows through the snowdrifts up the hill and toward the concealed cave. Coldhands and Summer follow. Behind, Meera struggles up the hill, half-dragging and half-carrying her brother.

Sixty yards from the cave’s entrance Summer stops suddenly and sniffs the air. His fur bristles. Bran can see a fire in the stone cleft – a flickering, ruddy light. Without warning Hodor screams, twists, stumbles and falls, pinning Bran beneath him; something has grabbed hold of his leg. A wight comes bursting from beneath the snow. Hodor grapples with the wight, punching and clawing the creature, sliding down the hill. Bran is thrown from his basket and sprawled upon the hillside. More wights appear from beneath the snow. Bran smashes the snow with his fists and shouts out a warning to Meera and Jojen down below. A wight grabs at Bran’s face, but Summer leaps between them and tears into the assailant. Bran notices the wight is dressed in black – he was one of the Watch. Dismembered by Summer, the wight’s severed hand is still moving toward Bran. Bran rolls away and crawls in the direction of the fire, fifty yards away now.

Bran hears Hodor screaming and without thinking he leaps into the skin of the seven-foot man. Bran is now Hodor. He lurches to his feet and rips the long sword from his belt. He raises the sword and brings it down on the wights. Meera is close, driving back the creatures with her frog spear. Rushing to help, Hodor drops the long sword and gathers Jojen into his arms; Meera, Hodor, and Jojen race up the hill. Higher up a little girl has emerged from the cave. She is waving a torch, keeping the wights at bay. Bran loses control over Hodor and returns to his own body. He is still buried in the snow, where a burning wight looms over him. Before he can react the snow-laden branches of a nearby tree shake, burying Bran.

Bran wakes to find himself lying on a bed of pine needles beneath a dark stone roof. I’m in the cave, Bran thinks to himself. A fire is burning and he is surrounded by his friends, as well as the little girl with the torch. Coldhands is absent, however. The girl’s voice is high and sweet, with a strange music in it. She is like nothing Bran has ever seen: her skin is dappled like a doe’s beneath a cloak of leaves; her eyes, gold and green, are slit like a cat’s eyes; her hair is a tangle of autumn colors, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it. Who are you, Meera asks. Before the girl can answer, Bran declares she is a child of the forest. In truth, she is not a child. The First Men named her people children and the giants call them who dak nag gran, the squirrel people, but in the True Tongue, their name means those who sing the song of earth. She belongs to an ancient race, ten thousand years old. She herself is two hundred years old, born in the time of the dragon. The ancient woman tells Bran the greenseer is waiting for him.

The woman leads them through a series of cramped and twisty tunnels. Weirwood roots are everywhere, weaving in and out of the walls, holding up the roofs. They emerge in a dark chamber. The woman is waiting for them, standing on one end of a natural bridge above a yawning chasm. Down below in the darkness Bran can hear the sound of rushing water. The woman tells them to turn around. She lifts her torch higher, illuminating the cavern. Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sits dreaming in a tangled nest of roots; a woven weirwood throne embraces his withered limbs. His skin is white, save for a bloody blotch that creeps up his neck onto his cheek. Are you the three-eyed crow, Bran asks. Once I was a crow, the pale lord replies, black of garb and black of blood. He has been watching Bran the boy’s entire life, with a thousand eyes and one. Will you fix me, Bran asks. No, you will never walk again, he answers, but you will fly.

A Dance With Dragons: Reek I (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-25T21:04:00.006-07:00

A man bites into the belly of a rat. Confined within a dungeon cell, it has been two days since he has eaten. His arms and legs are as thin as reeds, his belly swollen and hollow. Impatiently chewing through the rat’s flesh, he hears two sets of footsteps approaching his cell. Two boys enter; one crouches and asks the man what his name is. The man can’t remember, but one of the boys provides an answer. Your name is Reek, he says. Reek, Reek, my name is Reek, the man thinks to himself. Reek recognizes the two boys: known as Big Walder and Little Walder, both are Walder Frey and both are eight-years-old. He has been summoned by Ramsay Bolton, the boys inform him.

Reek contemplates overwhelming the two boys and escaping from the dungeon, but decides otherwise. He is dissuaded by the memory of his last attempt to escape. Another prisoner, a woman named Kyra, had appeared at his cell door with stolen keys, and the two had slipped from the castle out a postern gate. It had all been a trap however, a game, a jape. Within the hour, both Reek and Kyra had been recaptured by Ramsay and his dogs.

Big Walder and Little Walder march Reek into the great hall. The dais is occupied by Ramsay’s favorites, the Bastard’s Boys: Ben Bones, the old man who kept his lordship’s hunting dogs; Damon, called Damon Dance-for-Me, fair-haired and boyish; Grunt, who had lost his tongue for speaking carelessly in Lord Roose’s presence; Sour Alyn; Skinner; and Yellow Dick. Also on the dais are two old men Reek does not recognize. One is gaunt, with flinty eyes, a long white beard, and a face as hard as a winter frost. The other is thin, with one shoulder much higher than the other; his eyes are grey, his teeth yellow, and his forked beard snow and silver. His cloak is fastened at the shoulder with a starburst.

Standing before the dais, Reek is recognized by the two men – he is in fact Theon Greyjoy. His hair has gone white and he his three stone thinner. Ramsay has whipped, racked, cut, and flayed Theon, and removed three fingers and four toes. Ramsay tells Theon that he is to wed Arya Stark at Winterfell, and that he has a task for Theon to complete. He needs Theon’s help to fetch home his virgin bride.

A Dance With Dragons: Daenerys II (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-23T19:51:00.005-07:00

Daenerys is shaken awake in the middle of the night by her handmaids. Skahaz, Reznak, and Grey Worm require her presence in the throne room. tThe Sons of the Harpy have struck again. Black Fist and Cetherys were slain by cross-bow bolts in Mazdhan’s Maze; Mossador and Duran were crushed by falling stones beneath the river wall; Eladon Goldenhair and Loyal Spear were poisoned at a wineshop; three freed men were murdered in their homes, a money lender, a cobbler, and the harpist Rylona Rhee. Mossador was Missandei’s brother. Before Daenerys had freed them, the two siblings had been taken from their home on Narth by raiders from the Basilisk Isles and sold into slavery in Astapor. Daenerys commands Grey Worm to pull back the Unsullied from the city; henceforth, Meereen will be guarded by a new watch, made up in equal parts of shavepates and freedmen. Moreover, she commands that two children from each of the old slaving families are to serve her at court as pages and cupbearers.

Daenerys returns to her bedchamber to comfort Missandei. When Missandei falls asleep, Daenerys sneaks out onto the terrace. She bathes in the pool and little fish nibble at her arms and legs. Under the persimmon tree – clad in a hooded robe, her face concealed behind a wooden mask – Quaithe appears. She delivers a prophecy: “The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun’s son and the mummer’s dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.” Missandei enters the terrace and Quaithe disappears.

The next day Daenerys holds court and listens to the day’s business. The stonemasons and bricklayers are angry; former slaves are stealing work from them and calling themselves journeymen and masters, titles that belong to craftsmen of the guilds. Daenerys commands that henceforth only guild members shall be permitted to name themselves journeymen or masters, provided the guilds open their rolls to any freedman. Hizdahr arrives to petition Daenerys to reopen the fighting pits. He is accompanied by seven former slaves, champions of the fighting pits. The fighting slaves had led the uprising that won the city for Daenerys. Each man implores Daenerys to reopen the pits. Daenerys promises to reflect on their counsel.

Returning to her bedchambes, Daenerys asks Ser Barristan to tell her a tale, to describe how he escaped from the Usurper. Barristan recounts how Joffrey had dismissed him from the Kingsguard, in order to allow Sandor Clegane to join the order. Barristan had thrown his sword and cloak at Joffrey’s feet and had stormed out of the throne room. To redeem himself, Barristan resolved to seek out the true king and serve him. When he reached the stables the gold cloaks had tried to seize him, but he managed to escape the city. Disguised as a peasant, he reentered the city the next morning. Outside the Great Sept he witnessed in horror Joffrey order Lord Stark’s execution. When Daenerys names Stark a traitor, Barristan tries to explain that Stark was a good man who had tried to dissuade Robert from asassinating her and her brother. Daenerys is unconvinced. Lannister or Stark, all the dogs are guilty. The name Hazzea pops into Daenerys thoughts, and she instructs Barristan to take her to the pit.

Underneath the pyramid, inside a deep pit, Rhaegal and Viserion are restrained in chains. Hazzea was the name of the four-year-old girl that Drogon had killed. After learning of her death, Daenerys had ordered her men to imprison the three dragons under the pyramid. Drogon had evaded capture and flown north across the Skahazadhan toward the Dothraki sea. He has not returned since. I am the blood of the dragon, Daenerys thinks to herself, if they are monsters, so am I.

A Dance With Dragons: Jon III (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-22T23:49:00.007-07:00

Mance Rayder’s hands are bound by hempen rope and a noose is tied around his neck. The other end of the rope is looped about the saddle horn of Ser Godry Farring’s horse. Jon has pleaded with Stannis to spare Mance’s life, but Stannis has remained unmoved. The law is plain; a deserter’s life is forfeit. Mance is dragged toward a deep pit filled with logs, leaves, and kindling. Godry, along with a dozen men-at-arms, heave Mance into a wooden cage suspended over the pit. On a wooden scaffold above the pit Melisandre addresses the wildings enclosed within the stockade. She denounces Mance as a king of lies who sought to bring down the Wall. Two of the queen’s men bring forth the Horn of Joramun. Mance had uncovered the horn high up in the Frostfangs beneath Joramun’s grave. It is black and banded with old gold, eight feet long from end to end. Runes are carved into the golden bands in the writing of the First Men. The horn bursts into flames before it is pushed into the pit. Within the cage Mance screams, claws at the noose around his neck, and denies his kingship. At Jon Snow’s command four black brothers let loose four arrows. One arrow takes Mance in the chest, one in the gut, and one in the throat. The fourth strikes the cage’s wooden bars. Mance dies before the flames consume him. And now his Watch is done, Jon murmurs softly.

On the wood scaffold Stannis unsheathes Lightbringer, to demonstrate for the wildings the strength of R’hollor. The sword glows red and yellow and orange, alive with light. Westeros has but one king, Stannis cries out. He promises food, land, and justice for those who would bend the knee, elsewise the wildings are free to return to the haunted forest. The gates of the stockade are opened and the wildings are forced to choose: go south and swear allegiance to Stannis and the Lord of Light, or return to the wild. Those who choose Stannis are each handed a piece of white weirwood; they must throw the piece of wood into the fire pit and renounce the old gods. Most of the free folk submit. Among those who kneel before Stannis is Sigorn, the new Magnar of Thenn. Rattleshirt, as well, throws his weirwood branch into the flames, followed by Halleck, brother of Harma Dogshead, and Alyfn Crowkiller’s son.

Afterwards Jon orders Bowen Marsh to break apart the stockade for firewood and to throw any corpses into the flames. The Lord Steward counsels Jon to seal the Wall’s gates; to fill the tunnels with chunks of stone and pour water through the murder holes. Jon promises to consider his proposal. Craving company, Jon decides to take supper with the men. The men of the Night’s Watch take their meals in the stone cellar below the armory. Pyp is making the men laugh with an impression of Melisandre when Jon walks into the room. Jon chastises Pyp, telling him it is dangerous and foolish to ridicule another’s religion. Grenn promises to make sure Pyp behaves himself, and asks Jon if he will join them to eat. Jon hesitates, recalling the words of his father: a lord may love the men that he commands, but he cannot be a friend to them. Another day, he replies, and leaves the dining room.

Outside again, Jon walks to the rookery. He knocks and enters. Inside he shares a cup of mulled wine with Clydas and discusses the day’s events. Jon tells Clydas about a passage he has read from the Jade Compendium, that told of Azor Ahai. Maester Aemon had instructed Jon to read the book before he left for Eastwatch. The passage described how Lightbringer was never cold to the touch – in battle the blade burned fiery hot. Jon notes that the sword that Stannis yields is cold.

Back in his bed chamber behind the armory, Jon writes two letters. The first is to Ser Denys, the second to Cotter Pyke. Halder and Toad he dispatches west to Shadow Tower, Green and Pyp to Eastwatch. He has sent away all of his friends, save the Old Bear’s raven. This is my lot, Jon realizes, from now until the end of my days.

A Dance With Dragons: Davos I (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-20T23:03:00.004-07:00

Davos Seaworth is marched between two guards into the stone keep of Breakwater and brought before Godric Borrell, Lord of Sweetsister. He is an ugly bald man, big and fleshy, with an oarsman’s thick shoulders and no neck. Coarse grey stubble, going white in patches, covers his cheeks and chin. Davos also notices that the man has a sort of webbing between the three middle fingers of his right hand. A guard produces a ribbon of black velvet trimmed with cloth-of-gold, and bearing three seals: a crowned stag, a flaming heart in red, and a hand in white. He lays it out in front of Godric. Davos has been discovered in the Belly o’ the Whale, a smuggler’s den, trying to buy passage to White Harbor. Cut him free, Gordic commands, and peel off his gloves. Davos’s gloves are removed, revealing his maimed left hand. The shortened fingers confirm his identity – he is the onion knight.

Godric inquires as to why Davos is in Sisterton. Storms, Davos explains. Storms were sacred on the Sisters before the Andals came. The gods of old were the Lady of the Waves and the Lord of the Skies, who made storms every time they mated. Davos had set sail from the Wall with twenty-nine ships, but now less than half remain afloat. Black skies, bitter winds, and lashing rains had driven their galleys onto the rocks of Skagos. Salladhor Saan’s Lysene fleet had been scattered across the narrow sea. Frustrated by the storms and Stannis’s delayed payment for his services, Salladhor had abandoned Stannis and his cause. Before returning to the Stepstones, however, Salladhor had left Davos an open boat to deliver him to the shores of Sweetsister.

Godric dismisses his guards. When they are alone, he asks Davos why he should not hand him over to Sunderland. Borrell is Lord of Sweetsister, Longthorpe Lord of Longsister, and Torrent Lord of Littlesister. All three are sworn to Triston Sunderland, the Lord of the Three Sisters. The Three Sisters itself is sworn to the Arryns of the Vale, but the allegiance is tenuous. Godric instructs a servant to bring Davos some food. As he eats, Davos asks Gordic whether there is saffron in his stew. The stew contains many eastern spices, Davos discovers; a ship, the Sloe-Eyed Maid, returning from Qarth and Volantis had smashed up against the rocks of Sweetsister, spilling forth chests of exotic goods. Davos suspects Gordic had used false lights to draw the ship to its doom.

Gordic informs Davos that his cause is hopeless: Lord Wyman of White Harbor has bent the knee for Tommen. The Lionstar, a Frey vessel, had docked on Sweetsister before continuing to White Harbor. The Freys had visited Sisterton to dine with Gordic. During the dinner Rhaegar Frey had told Gordic that he had lost his wife, but meant to get himself a new one in White Harbor; Lord Wyman and Lord Walder have made a pact, and mean to seal it with a marriage. Davos is dismayed. Without White Harbor, Stannis is lost.

Davos begs Godric to help him reach White Harbor. Godric begins to tell him of the time that Ned Stark visited Sisterton. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark’s head, but Jon Arryn had refused. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught him on the way, but the fisherman’s daughter managed to get him to the Sisters before the boat went down. Godric claims the woman was Jon Snow’s mother. Godric’s father had met with Stark when he came ashore. Godric’s maester counseled his father that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat Robert, and that they should send Stark’s head to Aerys. In this world only winter is certain, Stark had replied, we may lose our heads, it’s true, but what if we prevail? Godric’s father had allowed Stark to leave unharmed. Following in his father’s footsteps, Godric allows Davos to leave. If you lose, he tells him, you were never here.

A Dance With Dragons: Tyrion III (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-20T13:00:00.014-07:00

Tyrion wakes to find the litter halted. He steps outside and discovers Magister Illyrio talking with two riders. They introduce themselves as Haldon Halfmaester and Ser Rolly Duckfield. Haldon is older, clean-shaven, with a lined ascetic face, and his hair pulled back and tied in a knot behind his head; Duck is a brawny man with a shaggy beard and a shock of orange hair. The two men transfer six oaken chests from Illyrio’s baggage train to their pack horses. Haldon informs Illyrio that Dothraki have been seen north of Dagger Lake. Outriders from Motho and Khal Zekko’s khalasars are moving through the Forest of Qohor, fleeing from Khal Pono and his khalasar of thirty thousand. Tyrion is to continue journeying to the Rhoyne with Haldon and Duck. Illyrio introduces Tyrion as Yollo, but Tyrion interjects, adding that his real name is Hugor Hill. Yollo is a Pentoshi name, and Tyrion does not look or sound Pentoshi. Haldon tests Tyrion with a series of questions concerning dragons, all of which Tyrion answers correctly; presumably Illyrio has promised Haldon that Tyrion is a valuable resource with respect to dragon lore.

Haldon, Duck, and Tyrion continue on horseback to meet Griff at the Rhoyne. Duck regales Tyrion with his life story. His father had been an armorer at Bitterbridge and as a result he had taken to swordplay at an early age. One day he drew the eye of Lord Caswell, who offered him a place in his garrison. Later, Lord Caswell’s son Lorent stole Duck’s sword, which Duck’s father had made him for his sixteenth birthday. Duck responded by beating Lorent with a hammer, until both his arms and half his ribs were broken. After that Duck fled Westeros and traveled across the narrow sea, where he joined the Golden Company. Griff has now hired him to help train his son to arms.

The next day they reach the site of Ghoyan Drohe, hard beside the river. Beside an old stone quay they find the Shy Maid, an old ramshackle single-masted poleboat. Aboard the Shy Maid are Yandry and Ysilla, an older couple with a Rhoynish cast to their features, and Lemore, a handsome septa in a soft white robe. Griff is also aboard; his face is clean shaven and leathery, with wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, and his hair dyed blue. His son Young Griff is a lithe and well-made youth, with a lanky build and a shock of dark blue hair. He claims to dye his hair in memory of his Tyroshi mother. Griff commands Tyrion to wait in his cabin. Inside the cabin, Griff is reading a letter from Illyrio. The letter reveals Tyrion’s true identity and the manner of Tywin Lannister’s death. Tyrion promises to be a leal servant to Daenerys. He assures Griff that his knowledge of Westeros will be essential to Daenerys’s conquest of the Seven Kingdoms. Griff agrees to allow Tyrion to join their party on the condition that he holds his tongue and does as he is told. Kingdoms are at hazard here, Griff explains, this is no game we’re playing. Of course it is, Tyrion thinks to himself, the game of thrones.

A Dance With Dragons: Jon II (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-19T22:02:00.021-07:00

Jon Snow is reading a letter written by Maester Aemon and addressed to King Tommen. The letter explains that Stannis has arrived to defend the Wall, but that the Night’s Watch, as always, takes no part in the wars of the Seven Kingdoms. The letter also pleads for the throne to send additional recruits to take the black. Jon has not signed the letter. Dolorous Edd Tollett enters the room and tells Jon that Gilly is waiting outside. Jon tells Gilly that only she can save Dalla’s boy from Melisandre’s flames; she is to switch her own babe for Dalla’s, and travel far from the Wall with Sam and Maester Aemon to Oldtown. If she refuses, Jon promises to kill her baby if Melisandre burns Dalla’s boy to work some spell requiring king’s blood. Gilly rushes out and minutes later Samwell Tarly arrives. Jon hands Sam Maester Aemon’s letter. Jon is loath to ask the Lannisters for help. Sam counsels Jon to sign the letter. A paper shield is better than none, he explains. Should the Lannisters defeat Stannis, the letter may be the Watch’s only hope. Jon signs and seals the letter, and dispatches it to Maester Aemon.

Jon asks Sam what he has learnt of the Others from the books contained in the vault. The oldest histories in existence were written after the Andals came to Westeros, Sam explains, hence everything known about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. Consequently, information concerning the White Walkers is scant and unreliable: he has learnt that the children of the forest used to give the Night’s Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year, during the Age of Heroes; that the Others come when it is cold, hide from the light of the sun, and ride the corpses of dead animals; some accounts speak of giant ice spiders; men who fall in battle against the Others must be burned; the Others are vulnerable to Valyrian steel.

When Sam finishes recounting what he has learnt in the vaults, Jon informs him he is to travel with Gilly and Maester Aemon to Oldtown. First, they will travel afoot to Eastwatch, and from there sail to Braavos. In Braavos he must arrange his own passage to Oldtown. Sam is to claim Gilly’s babe as his bastard, and send her and the child to Horn Hill, elsewise Aemon will find her a servant’s place at the Citadel. Lastly, Sam is to train to become Castle Black’s new maester. Jon dismisses Sam despite his protests. After Sam has left Jon recalls the counsel Maester Aemon provided him the night before: kill the boy within you, let the man be born.

Jon makes his rounds of Castle Black. Kedge Whiteye has the Wall when Jon makes his ascent. Kedge is forty, his left eye blind, and his right eye mean. He informs Jon that a pair of knights went riding south along the kingsroad – Horpe and Massey, Jon finds out later, both queen’s men and high in the king’s councils. Recalling that Davos Seaworth and Salladhor Saan have set sail for White Harbor to treat with Lord Manderly, Jon assumes that the two knights travelling south are also acting as envoys.

The next day Jon wakes early to see off Sam, Gilly, and Maester Aemon, as they depart for Eastwatch. Aemon tell Jon he has left him a book, the Jade Compendium, written by the Volantene adventurer Colloquo – he has marked a passage for Jon to read. He wishes them a swift, safe voyage, and tells Sam to take care of Gilly and Aemon and the child.

Jon returns to the armory, where Bedwyck is waiting for him. The men call him Giant – at five feet tall, he is the smallest man in the Night’s Watch. Jon tells him that he is putting a garrison of thirty men in Icemark and assigning him command: twenty men from the Watch and ten from Stannis. Bedwyck is taken back by the news, but accepts the position. Later, Janos Slynt reports to Jon in the armory. Slynt was born a butcher’s son. He was captain of the Iron Gate when Manly Stokeworth died, and Jon Arryn raised him up, putting the defense of King’s Landing into his hands. In view of his experience, Jon decides to grant command of Greyguard to Slynt. Janos refuses the command and storms out of the armory.

The next morning Jon finds Slynt breaking his fast in the common room. Jon announces that he is giving Slynt one last chance to drop his spoon and report to the stables to depart for Greyguard. Again, Slynt refuses, and calls Jon a bastard with the mark of the beast upon him. Jon instructs Iron Emmett to take Slynt to the Wall and hang him. Edd and Emmett take hold of Slynt and drag him outside. Jon calls out for the men to stop. Slynt will not be hung, Jon says – he will execute the man himself. Edd and Emmett pin Slynt’s head to the chopping block, as Jon unsheathes Longclaw. Stannis stands watching on the steps of the King’s Tower, surrounded by his knights. Longclaw descends and Slynt’s head goes rolling across the muddy ground. Jon glances at Stannis and for an instance their eyes meet. The king nods and goes back inside his tower.

A Dance With Dragons: The Merchant's Man (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-19T15:13:00.015-07:00

Quentyn Martell and Gerris Drinkwater meet with the captain of Adventure, seeking passage from Volantis to Meereen. They have been in Volantis for twenty days and have sought passage from many captains without success. Gerris is 24-years-old, tall and fair, with blue-green eyes, sandy hair streaked by the sun, and a lean and comely body. Quentyn is 18-years-old, short-legged and stocky, thickly built, with hair the brown of new-turned earth. Concealing their true identities from the captain of Adventure, Gerris poses as a wineseller, and Quentyn as his servant. The captain advises against traveling to Slaver’s Bay. Yunkai is at war with Astapor, he explains, and has been recruiting sellswords in Volantis: the Long Lances, the Windblown, and the Company of the Cat. New Ghis has also allied with Yunkai, and the Golden Company marches east. Gerris offers the captain three times the usual fee for passage to Slaver’s Bay; the captain tells him they will leave on the morrow an hour before first light.

Quentyn had started his journey from Dorne, along with five companions, three of which are now dead. Doran Martell had summoned Quentyn to the Water Gardens and instructed him to travel to Meereen to claim Daenerys as his bride. The group left Dorne from Planky Town and sailed to Lys. From Lys, they travelled to Volantis aboard the Meadowlark. Maester Kedry, William Wells, and Cletus Yronwood were slain by corsairs aboard the Meadowlark. The corsairs had come aboard in the darkness before dawn, as the Meadowlark was anchored off the coast of the Disputed Lands. Kedry had been fluent in the tongues of all of the Free Cities, and even the mongrel Ghiscari spoken along the shores of Slaver’s Bay. Now in Volantis, the three surviving travellers seek passage to Meereen.

Gerris and Quentyn depart the pier and climb into their hathay – an ornate cart pulled by a dwarf elephant. The two men do not trust the captain and foresee treachery aboard the Adventure. They travel along the wharves on their way to the Merchant’s House where they are lodging. In Volantis, the slaves are all tattooed: their driver has a wheel tattooed upon one cheek. While riding, Quentyn spots the Black Wall, a great oval of fused stone two hundred feet high. Outlanders, foreigners, and freedmen are not allowed inside, save at the invitation of those who dwell within – scions of the Old Blood who can trace their ancestry back to Valyria. From a cross street, a triarch appears atop an elephant, escorted by a dozen Unsullied spearmen; triarchs are considered so elevated that their feet are not allowed to touch the ground. Volantis is a freehold, modeled after Valyria of old. All freeborn landholders share the rule. The three triarchs are chosen from amongst those noble families who can prove unbroken descent from old Valyria. Each serves for one year.

Outside the Merchant’s House four sellswords behind a trestle table call out to every passing man and boy. They are sellswords from the Windblown company gathering new recruits. Archibald Yronwood, called the big man, is waiting for Quentyn and Gerris inside their room within the Merchant’s House. Archibald is six-and-a-half-feet tall, broad of shoulder, huge of belly, with legs like tree trunks, and no neck to speak of. Moreover, he has been bald since childhood. Archibald listens to Quentyn and Gerris explain how they were unable to find a ship and suggests that they travel to Meereen overland; an old Valyrian road, known as the demon road, runs eastward from Volantis to Meereen. Gerris announces he has thought of a better way of reaching Meereen: it is risky and perhaps dishonorable, but it will get them to Daenerys quicker than the demon road. Tell me, Quentyn replies.

A Dance With Dragons: Tyrion II (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-18T17:47:00.011-07:00

Tyrion and Illyrio depart Pentos by the Sunrise Gate within a palanquin suspended between eight draft horses. Illyrio ensures Tyrion that no one will know he visited Pentos: the galley that delivered him is en route to Asshai, and Illyrio’s household guards and servants are loyal and discreet. They are traveling to Volantis; Illyrio tells Tyrion he will deliver him to Ghoyan Drohe, upon the Little Rhoyne, where a Westerosi sellsword named Griff will take him down the river the rest of the way. They travel on the Valyrian road: a ribbon of fused stone raised a half foot above the ground, and wide enough for three wagon to pass abreast. The roads have endured for four centuries, since the Doom of Valyria. Tyrion inquires as to Illyrio’s motives – why does a magister of Pentos care who sits the Iron Throne. Illyrio explains that Viserys had sworn to appoint him master of coin and bestow on him a lordship; he also mentions friends, and debts of affection to repay.

Tyrion asks Illyrio how he knows Varys. Illyrio describes how he met Varys when they were both young boys in Pentos. Varys slept in the sewers by day, and prowled the rooftops by night; Illyrio was a poor bravo, living by his blade. In Myr, Varys had been a prince of thieves, until a rival thief informed on him, forcing him to flee. In Pentos, Varys and Illyrio formed an arrangement: Varys would spy on lesser thieves and steal their takings, and Illyrio would offer the victims his assistance, promising to recover the valuables for a fee. Varys began to train what he called mice – orphan boys and young girls to gather secrets, stealing letters, ledgers, and charts. Later, after both men had accumulated great wealth and influence, Illyrio wed the daughter of a cousin of the Prince of Pentos and became magister, and Varys travelled to Westeros to serve Aerys Targaryen the Second.

Drinking wine and dozing off within the palanquin, Tyrion recalls his childhood: he oft dreamt of dragons; he would pretend to be some lost Targaryen princeling, or a Valyrian dragonlord, and beg his uncles for a dragon for his birthday. The next day Illyrio reports what news he possesses of Daenerys. She has left Meereen, he assumes, and heads west. She commands a ragged host of sellswords, Dothraki horselords, and Unsullied infantry. Tyrion and Griff are to wait for her in Volantis, along with the Golden Company, a company of sellswords purchased by Illyrio to fight for Daenerys. The company was founded a century ago by Bittersteel, a bastard son of Aegon the Unworthy. In Westeros, Bittersteel had allied himself with Dameon Blackfyre. Dameon launched an unsuccessful attempt to seize the Iron Throne from his trueborn half-brother. After his rebellion failed, Bittersteel, refusing to bend the knee, fled across the narrow sea and formed the Golden Company. The male line of House Blackfyre ended during the War of the Ninepenny Kings when Maelys the Monstrous died upon the Stepstones, slain by Barristan Selmy.

The palanquin arrives in Andalos, the land from where the Andals originate. Before the Andals, however, the land was held by the hairy men of Ib. The Seven had once walked the hills of Andalos in human form; the Father himself had reached his hand into the heavens and pulled down seven stars, and set them one by one on the brow of Hugor of the Hill to make a glowing crown. Tyrion reveals that he had studied to become High Septon, but in the end abandoned the faith after falling in love with Tysha. The revelation prompts Illyrio to talk about his second wife Serra, a woman with big blue eyes and pale golden hair streaked by silver. He had found her in a Lynese pillow house and brought her home to wed. Years ago she caught the grey death and passed away; he keeps her hands in his bedchamber.

Tyrion falls asleep in the palaquin thinking of Shae, of Tysha, of Tywin Lannister squatting on a privy.

A Dance With Dragons: Bran I (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-16T21:21:00.012-07:00

Bran, Hodor, Meera, Jojen, Summer, and Coldhands trudge through a forest north of the wall. Bran is strapped to Hodor’s back while Meera, Jojen, and Coldhands are mounted on an elk. Coldhands’s face is pale, his hands black and hard as iron; he is wrapped in layers of wool, boiled leather, and ringmail, and a black woolen scarf conceals the lower half of his face. The elk stops suddenly and Coldhalds vaults lightly into the snow – he announces that the group is being followed. He instructs Hodor and the children to carry on ahead where they will find a lake, and to follow its shoreline north to a fishing village; he will take care of the men following them himself and rejoin the group later. The children discuss Coldhands’s peculiarities: he does not eat or drink, he cannot feel the cold, he never sleeps, and he has no breath. Bran suspects their mysterious companion is a monster.

The children try following the lake’s shoreline, but are uncertain where the lake ends and the shore begins – they become lost. Bran enters Summer to help locate the fishing village. The direwolf smells ashes and races toward the scent; the group follows, finding a village beside the lake. Hodor and the children take shelter within the village’s longhall. Supper is a fistful of acorns, crushed and pounded into paste. Unable to sleep, Bran enters Summer. The direwolf is hunting and discovers a pack of wolves picking over the remains of five dead men dressed in black. The wolves are Old Eye, Stalker, and Sly. Old Eye challenges the direwolf and the two beasts lunge at one another. Ultimately the old wolf submits, along with his two pack-mates. Summer goes from man to man picking away the best meat; he allows the three wolves to scavenge the remains.

Fire and the smell of roasting meat waken Bran. Coldhands has returned with a pig. Bran accuses Coldhands and his ravens of killing the men he saw through Summer’s eyes, men of the Night’s Watch. Coldhands does not deny it. “Who are you? Why are your hands black,” Bran asks. Coldhands explains that after death a man’s blood runs down into his extremities, where it thickens and congeals, turning the hands and feet black. The children begin to question Coldhands: Meera asks who the three-eyed crow is – a dreamer, a wizard, the last green-seer, he answers; Bran calls him a monster – your monster, Brandon Stark. Meera asks Jojen what they should do, to which he replies “we go with Bran’s monster, or we die”.

A Dance With Dragons: Jon I (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-16T13:28:00.013-07:00

Jon Snow is dreaming. He watches the world through Ghost’s eyes, as the direwolf runs through a black wood beneath the Wall. Ghost can sense his siblings: Shaggydog is tearing through the flesh of an enormous goat, and Nymeria is howling at the moon alongside a hundred grey wolves. Over and over, the moon calls out “Snow”. The direwolf recalls that only three of his siblings are still alive, one of which he can no longer sense. The dream is interrupted when a raven lands on Jon’s chest screaming “SNOW!”.

Jon rises and shoos the raven off. He is lodging in Donal Noye’s modest rooms behind the armory. Dolorous Edd Tollet is at the door asking Jon if he wants breakfast. Jon declines and inquires about the stockade: a thousand wildings are penned up beyond the wall, the captives Stannis Baratheon had taken when his knights had routed Mance Rayder’s host. Many of the prisoners are women, and guards have been sneaking them out to bed. There has been no trouble at the stockades, Edd replies. He also tells Jon that two wildings, a mother and daughter, turned up last night to surrender; the mother was carrying a dead babe in her arms. Wildings who had fought in the battle at Castle Black have been returning to the Wall seeking refuge. The mother and daughter were fed, and the babe burned. Jon recalls the words spoken by one of the queen’s men, as Maester Aemon had cleaned his wounds: Two kings to wake the dragon. The father first and then the son, so both die kings.

Jon washes and dresses, and sets out for the King’s Tower. Before he leaves the armory, he fetches the grant that the king has presented him for signature. The grant hands over to Stannis Baratheon two forts belonging to the Night’s Watch, Queensgate and Oakenshield – Jon has not signed it. Iron Emmett, Castle Black’s new master-at-arms, is training new recruits in the yard. Two of the recruits, Horse and Hop-Robin, are sparring. Horse has the makings of a good fighter and presses Hob-Robin back toward a well. Jon directs Horse not to drop his shield too low when pressing an attack. Ser Godry Farring, one of Stannis’s knights, calls out after Jon, challenging him to spar. During the battle beneath the Wall Godry had slain a fleeing giant – the queen’s men call him Godry the Giantslayer. Jon declines and continues toward the King’s Tower. Halfway up the winding steps of the tower, Jon encounters Samwell Tarly. Samwell is returning from delivering a letter to Stannis; some lords trust their maesters to read their letters and convey the contents, but Stannis insists on breaking the seals himself.

Outside the king’s solar Jon surrenders his weapons to Stannis’s guards and enters the room. Lady Melisandre is seated near the fire, while Stannis stands behind a table covered by a large map of the north. Stannis has just received a letter from Lyanna Mormont, Lady Maege’s youngest daughter, who has rejected Stannis’s claim to the iron throne and pledges allegiance to the Starks. Karhold is the only northern house that has recognized Stannis’s claim to the throne. Jon tells Stannis and Melisandre that he is sending Gilly and her babe south on the next ship out of Eastwatch. Stannis asks Jon if he has signed the grant. The Night’s Watch has ceded Stannis the Nightfort and allowed him to settle wildings on the Gift, but Jon refuses to hand over the forts. Jon proposes to appoint seasoned commanders of the Night’s Watch to each of the abandoned forts and to fill out the garrisons with Stannis’s men. Stannis reluctantly agrees to leave the forts alone, but declines Jon’s proposal to hand his over his men. However, Stannis promises that if any of the forts remain empty by the end of the year, he will seize them from the Night’s Watch.

Melisandre escorts Jon from the King’s Tower. They cross the yard together and the red priestess takes Jon’s arm. She tells Jon that within her fires she can see the truth within men’s souls, speak with the dead, and see far into the future. She tells Jon that she has seen him in the flames: in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side; ice and daggers in the dark; blood frozen red and hard, naked steel. She tells him that it was very cold in her vision, to which Jon states, “it is always cold”. Melisandre replies, “you know nothing, Jon Snow”.

A Dance With Dragons: Daenerys I (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-15T11:12:00.009-07:00

Daenerys Targaryen is woken by Missandei and rushed to the throne room. Her bedchambers are located in the lofty apex of the Great Pyramid of Meereen, eight hundred feet in the sky. Irri and Jhiqui warn Daenerys that it is bad luck to touch a dead person you haven’t killed yourself. In the throne room Daenerys covers herself with a lion pelt, made from the head and hide of a hrakkar, the white lion of the Dothraki sea, given to her by Khal Drogo. Grey Worm enters the room wearing a bronze cap with three spikes, followed by four of the Unsullied bearing a dead man on their shoulders. Barristan Selmy, lord commander of the Queensguard, pulls back the bloodstained shroud covering the dead man’s body: a tall man, blue-eyed and fair of face; his cheeks are slashed open from ear to ear and his body covered in wounds.

The dead man is one of the Unsullied named Stalwart Shield. He had visited a brothel to pay a woman to lie with him and hold him. When he emerged from the brothel and into the alley, he was set upon by six or more attacker swarming him from all sides. On the alley’s brick walls was a harpy drawn in blood – the insignia of the suspected killers, the Sons of the Harpy. Down the victim’s throat, the killers had forced the genitals of a goat. In the past the Son have attacked unarmed freedmen, but this is the first time one of Daenerys’s soldiers has been slain. Daenerys commands the Unsullied to wash and dress the dead man and bury him with cap, shield, and spear. She sends men to the Temple of the Graces to inquire if any man has come to the Blue Graces with a sword wound, as it is suspected Stalwart wounded his attackers. Men are also sent to inquire of the butchers and the herdsmen who has been gelding goats recently. Lastly, she commands that none of her soldiers are permitted to walk alone at night. After the Unsullied have left the throne room, Barristan Selmy counsels Daenerys that the Unsullied, although fine soldiers, are ill suited to undertake investigative tasks – to unravel secrets and ask questions. Selmy has been training knights, teaching the freed slaves to fight with lance and long sword in the Westerosi fashion.

Conditions in Slaver’s Bay have worsened. Daenerys has dispatched her Khalasar to subdue the hinterlands, under the command of her three bloodriders. Brown Ben Plumm and the Second Sons are traveling south to guard against Yunkish incursions. Daario Naharis and the Stormcrows travel east to Lhazar, through the Khyai Pass, to convince the Lhazarene to reopen overland trade routes. In Meereen brothels are sprouting up, food prices are rising, storehouses are dwindling, and many of the freed slaves have been hired back as servants for meager wages. The Wise Masters of Yunkai have returned to slaving and are raising levies, hiring sellswords, and making alliances against Daenerys. King Cleon of Astapor has also restored slavery – the former slaves are now the masters and the formers masters the slaves.

Daenerys returns to her bedchamber to dress. She walks out onto the terrace where Viserion lays coiled around a pear tree. Dragons are fire made flesh, Daenerys thinks to herself, recalling the line from a book Ser Jorah had given her as a wedding gift. Viserion’s tail lashes the truck of the tree causing a pear to fall and land at Daenerys’s feet; the dragon flies off the terrace. Inside the bedchamber Irri and Jhiqui brush the tangles from Daenerys’s hair and garb her in a Ghiscari tokar – a loose shapeless sheet wound around the hips, under an arm, and over a shoulder, requiring its wearer to hold it in place with their left hand. Daenerys had wanted to ban the tokar after taking Meereen, but her advisors convince her otherwise – the Green Grace, Galazza Galare, counsels Daenerys that wearing the tokar will gain her acceptance in Meereen.

On her way to the throne room, Daenerys is joined by Reznak mo Reznak, her seneschal, and Skahaz mo Kandaq, called Shavepate. Reznak is small damp man who speaks a bastard form of High Valyrian; Skahaz has a shaved head, a beetled brow, small eyes with heavy bags, a big nose dark with blackheads, and oily yellow skin. Skahaz suggests Daenerys takes one man from each of the slaving families and kill them in retribution for Stalwart’s death, and if another is slain, to take two from each family to kill, and so on. Zhak, Hazkar, Ghazeen, Merreq, Loraq and Pahl are old Meereen slaving families who hold a grudge against Daenerys. The Pahls hold the strongest grudge: Oznak zo Pahl was slain by Strong Belwas in single combat; his father, commander of Meereen’s city watch, died defending the city gates; three of his uncles were Great Masters who were nailed up to posts by Daenerys. Daenerys declines Skahaz’s suggestion and instead increases the reward for information concerning the Sons of the Harpy from one hundred honors to one thousand.

In the throne room Missandei announces Daenerys arrival. Daenerys’s throne is an ebon bench, where she hears petitions. The Astapori envoy Lord Ghael speaks first: he has a mouth of brown and rotten teeth and the pointed yellow face of a weasel. He presents Daenerys with a gift from King Cleon the Great – slippers made of gilded leather, decorated with green freshwater pearls. On behalf of King Cleon, Lord Ghael proposes that Astapor and Meereen march on Yunkai, but Daenerys declines. The second petitioner is Hizdahr zo Loraq: a tall slender man, with flawless amber skin, wings of wiry red-black hair sprouting from his temples, and a long beard bound with rings of gold. He is a wealthy and well-connected merchant. When Daenerys had closed the city’s fighting pits, Hizdahr had purchased up most of them at low prices. For the sixth time, he petitions Daenerys to reopen the pits, but she declines. The next petitioner is Grazdan zo Galare. Grazdan is a cousin of the Green Grace. He had once owned a slave woman who was a very fine weaver. When the woman grew old, Grazdan had purchased half a dozen young girls and commanded the old weaver to instruct them in her craft. The young girls, now free, run a shop by the harbor where they sell their weavings – Grazdan petitions for a portion of their earnings. Daenerys, upset that Grazdan cannot remember the name of the old weaver, denies his petition and commands him to purchase the young girls an expensive new loom.

Daenerys listens to more petitioners. A rich woman who fled to her brother’s house during the sack of the city returned home to discover that her house had been seized and converted into a brothel. Daenerys grants the woman her jewels, which were stolen by the whores, but not the house – Daenerys rules that the house was lost when she abandoned it. A former slave accuses a noble of the Zhak of rape and wants him gelded. The former slave’s wife had served the noble as a bed-warmer before being freed – she lost her virginity to and was impregnated by the noble. Daenerys grants the man gold for raising the bastard child, but denies the gelding. A boy whose father, elder brother, and mother were killed by two household slaves during the sack demands that the perpetrators be hanged. Daenerys denies his petition – she had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack. The boy rushes at Daenerys, but trips in his tokar before he reaches her. Strong Belwas lifts the boy off the ground and shakes him violently, before Daenerys commands him to release the boy.

Later in the afternoon, a sculptor arrives and proposes to replace the head of the great bronze harpy in the Plaza of Purification with one cast in Daenerys’s image – she declines. A pike of unprecedented size is presented to Daenerys’s as a gift from a fisherman and a coppersmith gives her a suit of burnished rings to wear to war. Twenty-three farmers claim compensation for livestock eaten by Daenerys’s dragons. The compensation is granted, but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis. The final petitioner is a shabbily dressed squat man carrying a cloth sack. Beckoned by Daenerys, the man shuffles forward nervously and empties the contents of his sack on to the marble floor: the burnt bones of a child spill forth.

A Dance With Dragons: Tyrion I (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-13T21:31:00.013-07:00

Tyrion is aboard a ship crossing the narrow sea. He is confined to his cabin and not allowed to venture above deck. During the voyage he drinks heavily – red and sour wine. His thoughts are consumed by the memory of killing his father. He regrets shooting him in the belly instead of the cock. His father’s last words, “wherever whores go”, repeat in his mind. A cabin boy visits him daily to bring meals and clean vomit off the floor. Tyrion tries to speak to him, but he does not reply: he tells him that the Dornish wine reminds him of Oberyn Martell; he asks him if the pleasure houses of Lys are where the whores go; he inquires about the ship’s destination. Tyrion recalls Jamie mentioning the Free Cities during his escape from King’s Landing; nevertheless, he hopes the ship is travelling to either Dorne or the Wall. In Dorne he wants to queen Myrcella and pit her against Tommen; the Wall is a safe refuge if Mormont is still alive and Janos Slynt not in command. Tyrion remembers that each of the Nine Free Cities speak a different dialect of High Valyrian, on their way to becoming separate languages – as a child, Tyrion’s maester taught him to read High Valyrian.

Tyrion has trouble recalling the details of his escape following Tywin Lannister’s death. He remembers descending two hundred and thirty rungs into a room warmed by a fire burning within the mouth of an iron dragon; Varys dressed as a begging brother in a moth-eaten robe of brown roughspun; being escorted through tunnels and emerging beside the Blackwater. Before boarding the ship Tyrion tells Varys he murdered Tywin and Shae.

A storm rocks the ship and Tyrion falls to the ground and retches. The ship comes to port and a huge bald sailor carries Tyrion from his cabin and shoves him upside-down into an empty wine cask. The cask is delivered to Illyrio Mopatis’s cellar. Illyrio is a grotesque fat man with a forked yellow beard, and he speaks the Common Tongue. He releases Tyrion from the cask and offers him a bath, food, and a soft bed. Tyrion takes the bath and promptly falls asleep. Later, he awakens nude atop a goose-down feather bed. He urinates into a chamber pot, climbs up on to the window seat, and opens the shutters. Beneath his window are six cherry trees surrounding a marble pool. In the center of the pool is a painted marble statue of a naked boy with straight blond hair, poised to duel with a bravo’s blade in hand. The house is surrounded by a twelve foot high brick wall with iron spikes along its top. Beyond the wall Tyrion sees tiled rooftops, square brick towers, a great red temple, a distant manse upon a hill, and the sea. He concludes he is not in Braavos or Tyrosh, nor in Lys or Myr because of the cold weather; he believes he is in Pentos.

Illyrio enters the bed chamber and confirms Tyrion’s suspicion that he has been taken to Pentos. Illyrio, as magister, must leave to answer the Prince of Pentos’s summons. Tyrion is told he may explore the manse and grounds, but to not leave the property because of the risk of being discovered. He may also bed any of the serving women, notwithstanding that slavery is forbidden in Pentos, pursuant to the terms of a treaty imposed by Braavos. Illyrio promises to return in the evening for supper and to discuss their plans. Tyrion dresses in clean clothes found within a cedar chest – children’s clothing made for a small boy that don’t fit well. He first explores the kitchen, where two fat women and a potboy watch him warily. He helps himself to cheese, bread, and figs and asks the kitchen staff where the whores go, but none of them reply. The younger of the two cooks shrugs. Next, he visits the cellar where he had been the night before. The cellar contains wine from the Reach, Dorne, Pentos, Myr, the Arbor, Qarth, Yi Ti, and Asshai by the Shadow. Tyrion removes a cask of strongwine marked as the private stock of Lord Runceford Redwyne, Lord Paxter Redwyne’s grandfather. He takes the wine to the gardens behind the manse to drink. Walking alongside the wall surrounding the property, he pictures his sister’s and brother’s heads impaled upon the wall’s spikes. He locates three gates: a main entrance with a gatehouse, a postern entrance by the kennels, and a garden gate hidden behind a tangle of ivy. The garden gate is chained and the main and postern gates are guarded by plump eunuchs in spiked bronze caps. He surmises that with a rope and a grapnel he could scale the wall, and resolves to find a rope the next day.

Subsequently, he wanders into a tiled courtyard where a woman is washing clothing at a well. She is of an age with Tyrion, with dull red hair and a broad face dotted by freckles. Tyrion offers her wine, but she does not reply. Instead, he sits down on a nearby stone bench and speaks to himself aloud: he reveals he is reluctant to cooperate with Illyrio and asks the washing woman whether he should travel to Dorne to help Myrcella claim the Iron Throne or to the Wall to join the Night’s Watch. The washer woman lifts her basket and leaves the courtyard. An empty flagon slips from Tyrion’s hands and he chases it across the yard. He stops and sees pale white speckled mushrooms growing up from a cracked paving tile. He picks seven and wraps them in a glove stolen from the clothes line and stuffs them into his pocket. Afterwards, he crawls back on to the bench and falls asleep.

A blond woman shakes Tyrion awake. He is back in his bedchamber atop the feather bed. The woman is trained in the art of love, as taught in Lys, and speaks the Common Tongue. She was bought to please Viserys Targaryen and Illyrio has commanded her to scrub Tyrion’s back and warm his bed. Tyrion asks the blond woman where whores go, but she does not have an answer. Tyrion bathes while the woman washes his feet, scrubs his back, and brushes his hair. Afterwards she covers him in ointments and helps him dress. Before departing for dinner, Tyrion tells the woman to wait for him abed naked; he tries to scare her by telling her how he strangled his last whore.

Tyrion finds Illyrio reclining on a padded couch, eating hot peppers and pearl onions from a wooden bowl. The two dine together. Tyrion inquires about the prince’s summons and Illyrio tells him there are troubles in the east: the Ghiscari slave cities Astapor and Meereen have fallen. Tyrion listens to Illyrio describe the Merchant Prince of Pentos: he presides at balls and feasts and rides about the city in a palanquin; he is accompanied by three heralds, the golden scales of trade, the iron sword of war, and the silver scourge of justice; on the first day of each new year he must deflower the maid of the fields and the maid of the seas; if a crop fails or a war is lost, the prince’s throat is cut and a new prince is selected amongst the forty families. Illyrio claps his hands and a dish of mushrooms cooked in garlic and butter is placed before Tyrion. Tyrion suspects the mushrooms are poisonous and refuses to eat them. Illyrio claims that it is obvious that Tyrion wants to end his life. After staring at the plate of mushrooms, contemplating his mortality, Tyrion yells loudly that he has no wish to die. At the same time, he is uncertain what he has to live for. Illyrio informs Tyrion that Cersei has offered a lordship to the man who brings her Tyrion’s head; he also tells him that Stannis is at the Wall. Illyrio tells Tyrion that a savior beyond the sea will return to Westeros to heal its wounds and help Tyrion to become Lord of Casterly Rock: a dragon with three heads.

A Dance With Dragons: Prologue (Chapter Summary)

2011-07-13T14:42:00.027-07:00

The prologue is narrated from the point of view of Varamyr Sixskins. He is sitting in a one-room hut of mud and straw with a thatched roof and a smoke hole, and a floor of hard-packed earth. Elsewhere his spirit inhabits and the controls the wolf Stalker, who is hunting with his pack-mates, fellow wolves, One Eye and Sly. One Eye is the oldest, the biggest, and the fiercest of the three, Stalker is lean, quick, and young, and Sly, the sole female, cunning. The wolves attack and devour four humans armed with spears: two men, and a woman carrying a baby. Varamyr returns to his own body still tasting the child’s flesh in his mouth. The fire in the center of the hut has gone out and Varamyr is unable to relight it. He calls out for a woman named Thistle who he believes has been absent for days, though he is uncertain.

After the battle at Castle Black between the wildings and the Night’s Watch, and later Stannis Baratheon’s forces, the wildings scatter: Thenns, giants, Hornfoot men, cave-dwellers with filed teeth, men of the western shore who ride bone chariots. Harma is dead, Tormund and the Weeper unaccounted for, and Mance Rayder believed captured or killed. Thousands flee through the forest. A rider on a gaunt white horse tries to rally the wildings to the Milkwater, claiming that the Weeper is gathering warriors to cross the Bridge of Skulls and take the Shadow Tower; a dour warrior in fur and amber encourages people to head north and take refuge in the valley of the Thenns; Mother Mole, a woods witch, has a vision of a fleet of ships coming to carry the free folk south and leads hundreds east.

Varamyr had rode into the battle on the back of a snow bear thirteen feet tall, alongside three wolves and a shadowcat he holds in thrall. He used an eagle to survey the battlefield. The eagle is engulfed in flames, presumably as the result of Melisandre’s sorcery. Varamyr goes half-mad with pain and terror and loses control over his animals: the shadowcat races into the woods and the snow bear turns on the wildings before it is slain by a spear. As Varamyr flees the battle he contemplates inhabiting one of the twins, the big man with the scarred face, or the youth with the red hair (all unnamed), but forbears because the risk of being discovered is too great. In retreat, Varamyr is forced to leave behind all of his possessions, leading him to steal a squirrel skin cloak off of a dead woman’s body whose head has been crushed. The woman, as recounted by Thistle, has been killed by a Hornfoot man. Shortly after Varamyr removes the cloak from the woman’s body a boy appears and drives a long bone knife into his side and takes the cloak. The boy is the dead woman’s son. Thistle finds Varamyr’s body and stitches his wound. She is warty, windburnt, and wrinkled; her chin is pointed, her is nose flat, and a single mole on one of her cheeks has four dark hairs growing from it. Varamyr lies and tells Thistle his name is Haggon. She leaves Varamyr in the one-room hut and tells him she will return with food.

Unable to relight the fire Varamyr opens the door to the hut. He discovers that the hut is covered in a layer of snow and pushes through. Outside it is night. He sees other huts buried in snow and a weirwood covered in ice. He calls for Thistle but receives no reply. A wave of dizziness overcomes him and he falls to his knees; starving, he scoops snow into his mouth. Later he reaches the weirwood tree and uses a fallen branch as a crutch. He staggers toward the nearest hut, hoping to find food, but the crutch snaps and he collapses into the snow, losing consciousness.

Varamyr recalls his youth. He is born a month before his due date and no expects him to live. Until the age of ten he is called Lump, a name his sister Meha gives him when he was still inside the womb. Bump, Varamyr’s younger brother by four years, is killed when he is two, three days before his birthday – mauled to death by the family’s three dogs, Loptail, Sniff, and the Growler. It is suggested that Varamyr was controlling one or more the dogs when the death occurred. Varamyr’s father executes the three dogs; desperate, Varamyr inhabits Loptail and attempts to flee, but is struck and killed by his father’s axe. In pain, Varamyr cries out at the same moment the dog is killed, revealing his skin changing ability to his family. Two days later, Varamyr’s father drags Varamyr into the forest kicking and shrieking and delivers him to Haggon, another skin changer.

Haggon becomes Varamyr’s guardian and trainer. Haggon trades with the Night’s Watch at Eastwatch and is known as a friend of the Watch who brings news of life beyond the wall. He teaches Varamyr how to hunt and fish, to butcher a carcass, to bone a fish, to find his way through the woods, as well as the way of the warg and the secrets of the skin changer. Dogs are the easiest to bond with. Wolves are more difficult and make an impression on you for life. Haggon advises against bonding with any other beasts: cats are vain and cruel, elk are prey, and birds leave men obsessed with flight. Men who eat the flesh of men, who mate as wolf with wolf, or seize the body of another man are abominations. Haggon teaches Varamyr that following their true death skin changers have a second life, simpler and sweeter. In the second life, the skin changer’s memory slowly fades until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains. When Varamyr is ten, Haggon takes him to a gathering of skin changers: Borroq with his boar, Orell his eagle, Grisella her goat, and Briar and his shadowcat. Years later, Orell is killed by Jon Snow and Varamyr takes domain over the eagle. Varamyr notes that Jon Snow is a strong skin changer, but untrained in and unaware of his true abilities.

Varamyr eventually kills Haggon; he devours his heart while inhabiting the body of a wolf. Haggon begins his second life within his wolf Greyskin, but Varamyr takes domain over the beast and releases Haggon’s spirit. For years, Varamyr lives as a lord secluded within Haggon’s hall: a dozen villages pay him homage; he stalks women with his shadowcat, beds them, takes a hank of their hair, and releases them; he slays village heroes who oppose him. He returns to his parents to tell them he has become a lord, but finds them dead and burnt. Years later Mance Rayder recruits Varamyr to his cause.

Lying in the snow, Varamyr is shaken awake by Thistle. She warns of hundreds of approaching wights. As Thistle attempts to raise Varamyr, Varamyr leaps out of his own skin and forces himself into hers. Varamyr is unable to overwhelm Thistle’s will; she fights back, biting off her tongue and clawing at her own face. Varamyr’s spirit departs Thistle’s body and seemingly inhabits the weirwood. Next, he becomes the world itself: he becomes a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak, a horned owl, a hare, earthworms beneath the earth. He watches a hundred ravens take to the air; a great elk trumpeting, unsettling the children clinging to its back; a sleeping direwolf raising its head and snarling. His second life begins within One Eye. He prowls and stands atop a cliff with his pack, Stalker and Sly, overlooking the village where he left his body. The village is overrun with wights. One of the wights is Thistle; she stares directly at One Eye.

The Wolf and the Lion

2011-05-15T23:40:00.001-07:00

The Knight of Flowers ambles past the gallery and throws a discreet glance at Renly Baratheon. Very subtle. It plants a seed in the mind of the uninitiated viewer, while also nodding its head at the diehard fans who know the true nature of the relationship between these two men. What better way to convey the concealed intimacy between two illicit lovers? Oh, I know: a scene where two men shave each other's armpits and some tasteful off-screen slurping!

Let's rewind. The episode picks up where the last one left off with the conclusion of the Hand's Tourney. Last we saw, Ser Hugh of the Vale was choking on Ser Gregor's lance, as the result of an unsecured (or malfunctioning?) gorget. Eddard is suspicious and relays his concerns to Barristan Selmy. Barristan does not reciprocate his misgivings, but instead delivers some clunky exposition in the guise of reminiscence:

Selmy: Remember that time we were fighting on opposite sides of a war and a raving mad monarch tortured and killed your father and brother?

Eddard: Ah, yes, now I remember. The war that reshaped the entire seven kingdoms and resulted in the death of my entire immediate family. I had almost forgotten about that. Thanks for bringing that up at this extraordinarily appropriate moment.

ANYWAYS. Next, we are treated to King Robert's spherical and protruding gut, while he berates poor Lancel for having a mother who is a "dumb whore with a fat ass." Ah, poetry. Robert wants to participate in the joust until Ned reminds him that no one will try to unseat the King. All poor Robert wants is to fight, kick, and scream and stick-in-the-mud Ned Stark is there to hold him back.

We return to the joust where Ser Loras and Ser Gregor prepare to square off. The super swarthy Knight of Flowers deposits a rose in Sansa's lap before valiantly sending the Mountain crashing into the tilt. The seven-foot beast with super well-defined and menacing eyebrows is not happy and decides to go Vito Corleone on his horse before charging after Loras. Sandor swoops in to save the day and Sansa lets loose the Standing O, having just lived through a fairy-tale.

Meanwhile, Catelyn Tully is leading her prisoner through the Mountains of the Moon. I think that Dinklage's portrayal of Tyrion is too cocksure, too confident. I never pictured Tyrion as the unflappable sort. When the hood is removed from his head and it is revealed that Catelyn is taking him to the Eyrie to face judgement, he is calm and assured. Cue battle scene between the Tully band and the mountain folk and one disturbingly long head squishing.

Back in Winterfell Maester Luwin teaches Bran that Greyjoys do not sow. Curiously enough, the next scene involves some very explicit sowing on Theon's behalf. We glimpse some tandem, co-ed full frontal nudity before learning about Tyrion's incredibly deft and agile tongue/fingers. Yuck. Theon is getting a lot of characterization early on, much of which was absent from the novel. I'm surprised at how little attention Robb is receiving, but I suppose that future episodes will focus on his growing pains, as he eases into his role as the interim Lord of Winterfell.

Within the Red Keep poor neglected Arya is forced to hunt cats to feed herself, but her nimble prey continuously evade capture. Later however she feasts on the head of a dragon and we see the leftover and discarded bones discretely tucked into the corner of a dark basement. Okay, not really. The dragon skull was pretty amazing however. The cost of creating that prop probably exceeded the annual budget of most television shows (and teachers' salaries). Elsewhere, Eddard and Varys discuss Bran's recovery and Varys declares Eddard to be one of the “few men of honor in the capital," including the Spider himself (*ahem*). The Tears of Lys is identified as the poison and Ser Hugh of the Vale the poisoner. You may note that Ser Hugh is neither a woman nor a eunuch, discarding Edward’s theory about poison and proving once and for all that poisoning is an equal opportunity profession.

Later, Arya overhears two men discussing dastardly deeds and suspicious plots. In the novel Illyrio is subtly identified as one of the co-conspirators through the description of his forked beard. The Spider however is not placed at the scene until much later in the series. On the television show, the identity of both men is immediately revealed. I am noticing that the hidden details and backgrounds of certain characters are being brought to the forefront much quicker on the television show. We have already received hints of Jamie's troubled past, Loras and Renly's romantic affair, Cersei's arranged marriage, and now Varys’ history across the narrow sea. When Arya later returns to her father to recount her adventures of cat hunting, dragon excavation, and eavesdropping, he writes it off as childish whimsy. Listen to your daughter Ned, both when she tells you she’s not going to be some lord’s wife and when she tries to warn you about seditious plots.

The next scene is sure to rile the brassbound fans. In the throne room, Littlefinger informs Varys that he knows about his clandestine visitor from across the sea. It is certainly not inconceivable that Littlefinger is aware of Varys’ plotting, but this is something that has not been confirmed in the novels. Spoiler alert? What did you think of the addition of this new scene?

At the next meeting of the small council Robert makes an unexpected appearance and demands the assassination of the surviving Targaryens, including a pregnant 13-year-old girl. We also learn for the first time that Ser Jorah is working for the king and spying on Daenerys and her Dothraki husband. Ned objects to Robert’s plan, while Varys, Pycelle, Renly, and Littlefinger all side with the king. Cowed by the shadow of an unborn child, Robert lashes out at Ned, who in turn resigns his office as Hand of the King. Drama.

I have a gift for you. It was a prosthetic breast. You can all breathe a sigh of relief and take comfort in the fact that you did not have to witness a grown woman breastfeeding a nine-year-old boy. Robert Arryn has been renamed “Robin”, presumably saving the audience the trouble of having to juggle a third Robert in their head (Robb Stark, Robert Baratheon). Lysa is terrifying. Does anyone else remember her being this crazy? She becomes more undone later on in the series, but at this point in the novel I think she should be a smidge more composed. Before she even opened her mouth, her crazy eyes had penetrated my soul. Lysa is not happy with Catelyn having brought a Lannister within her walls. This is quickly remedied when Mord drags Tyrion into one of the sky cells and leaves him to enjoy the phenomenal view.

Loras and Renly discuss the latter’s prospect of seizing the Iron Throne, while the viewer is bombarded by a rash of gay stereotypes. Off screen we hear someone sucking Jell-O through a straw while Renly’s eyes roll back into his head and his breathing becomes strained. We also hear the name Stannis Baratheon for the first time, who is described as having the personality of a lobster. The scene was offensive to both homosexuals and shellfish. Not a good day to be a gay lobster. Sorry Sebastian.

Is it just me or does Mark Addy deliver all of his lines in the exact same way? He began the series strong, but now all of his scenes feel very similar. The scene between Robert and Cersei was very interesting. Again, keeping with the accelerated characterization, Cersei is humanized, as we learn about her feelings regarding her arranged marriage. The highlight of the scene however was the joke that their marriage was the one thing holding the realm together. It was such an odd sitcom moment and the laughter that followed was very strained. I love tone-breaking cringe-worthy moments in television shows.

The episode ends with a showdown between the wolves and the lions outside one of Littlefinger’s brothels. Jamie confronts Ned about Tyrion’s abduction and ruthlessly begins slaying the northmen. Watching Jamie’s dagger go through Jory’s eye and out the back of his head was one of the hardest scenes to watch so far and not only because of the graphic detail. The duel between Jamie and Ned is cut short when one of the Lannister men cowardly stabs Ned in the back of the leg. Ned falls to his knees and surveys the carnage. Cut to black.

Question of the week: what was the most explicit and difficult scene to watch in this week’s episode?

(1) Horse decapitation

(2) Greyjoy’s dingle-dangle

(3) Armpit shaving

(4) Audible oral sex

(5) Lysa breastfeeding

(6) Jory being stabbed in the eye

(7) Repeated head to shield contact

Most Surprising Character

2011-05-15T13:32:00.001-07:00

I started reading Game of Thrones knowing beforehand that the novel contained some significant deaths. I did not know specifically who was going to die, but I was warned that it was going to be devastating. So when Jory Cassel was cut down by Jamie Lannister's men, I assumed the big moment had arrived. My inaccurate assumption made the deaths that followed all the more poignant and shocking.

I liked Jory. He wasn't given a great deal of characterization and we never got to see the world through his eyes, but there was something very appealing about his character. When I first saw a promotional picture of Jamie Sives, I knew instinctively that he was Jory. But how?

My first thought was that I must be remembering his physical description in the novel, so I went back and thumbed through the book to confirm that his description on paper matched his depiction on screen. Only one problem: I could not find a single description of Jory's physical appearance. During the Hand's Tourney, Sansa describes his plain blue-grey plate and thin grey cloak that looked like a soiled rag. Obviously, he was a man unconcerned with ornament. However, I do not think it was his drab clothing that made me realize that Sives would be portraying Jory.

What do we know about Jory beyond his physical appearance? He was Winterfell's captain of the guard, he accompanied Eddard Stark to King's Landing, and he died defending his lord. He was loyal, unassuming, and a skilled fighter. He also had a sense of humor: he is described laughing at jokes during meals and exchanging wry banter with Eddard. He is self-possessed, a loyal confidant to his lord, extremely able, but not arrogant, and is able to laugh at life. I think this is why I was able to connect the picture of Sives to Jory.

I was very surprised at how well Sives portrays Jory. Were you pleasantly surprised by any particular actor or actress?

Peter Dinklage's Portrayal of Tyrion Lannister

2011-05-14T15:42:00.002-07:00

Witty, acerbic, downtrodden, dogged, and conflicted. These are five adjectives that spring to mind when I think of Tyrion Lannister. The reader is first introduced to Tyrion through the eyes of Eddard Stark. As the Lord of Winterfell surveys the royal procession streaming through his castle gates, three individuals stand out against the crowd. The three people are not identified by name. Instead, we are given the following descriptions: beaten gold hair, a terrible burned face, and a stunted little man.

The three characters are, as you may have guessed, Jamie Lannister, Sandor Clegane, and Tyrion Lannister. Beaten in this context means hammered into a desired shape. The word invokes a level of refinement obtained through both careful calculation and brute force. Terrible comes from the Latin word terrēre, to frighten. It's not merely a burned face, it is a face that is shocking and excites fear. Lastly, the little man is stunted. In other words, his growth, development, and progress has been hindered. Stunted is an accurate word if you are describing Tyrion's height, but it hardly applies to his intellect and fortitude.

All three characters are to some extent trapped by their outward appearances. They are cast into specific roles because of the way they look. It is not a new problem: people are often treated differently because of their appearance. Is intelligence judged by a person's application of reason and the breadth of their knowledge or is it measured by the length of the crease between their eyes and the slow and methodical way they stroke their chin? Is a person jolly because of their high spirits and easy laugh or is it their chubby cheeks and waddling walk? It is not surprising that all three characters experience a sense of freedom when their most blatant physical characteristics are shed or concealed: when Cleos Frey cuts off Jamie's long golden hair; when Sandor conceals his burned face under his hood; when Tyrion becomes the giant of Lannister in the darkness of Shae's bedroom.

My question for the smalkfolk is whether or not you think Dinklage's portrayal of Tyrion is true to the Tyrion encountered in the novels. Personally, I have come to think of them as two different characters. Dinklage's Tyrion is confident, his gaze is steady and his tone exacting. His pregnant and brooding eyes invite speculation. I love the character and he is exciting to watch on screen, but he is definitely not the Tyrion I have come to know through reading the novels. What does the council think? What five adjectives would you choose to describe Tyrion?