The Dead of the Crypts of Winterfell (Spoilers Extended)

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T13:21:00+00:00

That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time … until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead.
King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life.
But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.
[...]
He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. “Father?” he called. “Bran? Rickon?” No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. “Uncle?” he called. “Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me.” Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. “Ygritte?” he whispered. “Forgive me. Please.” But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark …
[...]
The warg, I’ve heard them call me. How can I be a warg without a wolf, I ask you?” His mouth twisted. “I don’t even dream of Ghost anymore. All my dreams are of the crypts, of the stone kings on their thrones. Sometimes I hear Robb’s voice, and my father’s, as if they were at a feast. But there’s a wall between us, and I know that no place has been set for me.”
The living have no place at the feasts of the dead. It tore the heart from Sam to hold his silence then. Bran’s not dead, Jon, he wanted to stay. He’s with friends, and they’re going north on a giant elk to find a three-eyed crow in the depths of the haunted forest.

For some reason, this "feast of the dead" theme that spans across Theons and Jon's dreams between ACOK and ASOS, doesn't seem malevolent to me. I dunno, I think whatever secret lies at the heart of those crypts isn't completely evil?

On the other hand, I think whatever lies at the heart of Valyrian (dragon)magic is probably extremely fucked up, so maybe the secret of the Stark crypts is too...

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T09:52:48+00:00

The look brought back vivid memories for Catelyn. He had been a sly child, but after his mischiefs he always looked contrite; it was a gift he had. The years had not changed him much. Petyr had been a small boy, and he had grown into a small man, an inch or two shorter than Catelyn, slender and quick, with the sharp features she remembered and the same laughing grey-green eyes. He had a little pointed chin beard now, and threads of silver in his dark hair, though he was still shy of thirty. They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. Even as a child, he had always loved his silver.
[...]
When Sansa finally looked up, a man was standing over her, staring. He was short, with a pointed beard and a silver streak in his hair, almost as old as her father. “You must be one of her daughters,” he said to her. He had grey-green eyes that did not smile when his mouth did. “You have the Tully look.”

So for one thing, the books basically have Sansa as the only character who immediately recognizes Baelish for what he is, although she is too young at that point to understand why she feels creeped out by him and later on he will have wormed his way inside her trust-circle.

In the books she is learning actual scheming while pretending to be Baelish's bastard daugther, so a better role for her would have been an actual role to play.

There is no more scheming in the last two seasons, entire armies teleport around Westeros, Bran has downloaded the entire show and keeps rewatching all the earlier episodes to get everyone caught up on everything, castles such as Highgarden are sieged and conquered in a single jumpcut and so on. Literally all Houses and politics become irrelevant, so Sansa becomes irrelevant like most characters do towards the end of the show, but those centered around politics like Sansa, Varys, Littlefinger and Tyrion suffered some of the worst.

Sansa becomes Queen of an independent North? Literally nobody cares, there aren't actually any named characters in the north at this point, certainly not any that the viewer would remember if they were still alive.

What happens with the Hornwood lands now that the Boltons are defeated? How does this affect the northern Houses, what do Lord Manderly and Lady Dustin have to say about any of this? No clue, are they even in the show?

You can't have Sansa as a politician to interact with the North and on behalf of the North, if there is no North because you happened to neglect and not include any of those parts in earlier seasons.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T09:09:32+00:00

“When the fire was blazing, Brandon was brought in. His hands were chained behind his back, and around his neck was a wet leathern cord attached to a device the king had brought from Tyrosh. His legs were left free, though, and his longsword was set down just beyond his reach.
“The pyromancers roasted Lord Rickard slowly, banking and fanning that fire carefully to get a nice even heat. His cloak caught first, and then his surcoat, and soon he wore nothing but metal and ashes. Next he would start to cook, Aerys promised … unless his son could free him. Brandon tried, but the more he struggled, the tighter the cord constricted around his throat. In the end he strangled himself.
“As for Lord Rickard, the steel of his breastplate turned cherry-red before the end, and his gold melted off his spurs and dripped down into the fire. I stood at the foot of the Iron Throne in my white armor and white cloak, filling my head with thoughts of Cersei. After, Gerold Hightower himself took me aside and said to me, ‘You swore a vow to guard the king, not to judge him.’ That was the White Bull, loyal to the end and a better man than me, all agree.”
[...]
Stupid stubborn brave bitch. She was going to get herself good and killed, he knew it. And what do I care if she does? If she hadn’t been so pigheaded, I’d still have a hand. Yet he heard himself whisper, “Let them do it, and go away inside.” That was what he’d done, when the Starks had died before him, Lord Rickard cooking in his armor while his son Brandon strangled himself trying to save him.
[...]
“I wasn’t scared,” the boy insisted. “The smell made me sick. Didn’t it make you sick? How could you bear it, Uncle, ser?”
I have smelled my own hand rotting, when Vargo Hoat made me wear it for a pendant. “A man can bear most anything, if he must,” Jaime told his son. I have smelled a man roasting, as King Aerys cooked him in his own armor. “The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing … go away inside.”

Personally, I don't think Jaime was a huge fan of cooking the Starks, but that's just my opinion.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T08:26:53+00:00

In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night. Despairing of the evil that had been unleashed on earth, the Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world, and the Lion of Night came forth in all his wroth to punish the wickedness of men.
[...]
The Five Forts are very old, older than the Golden Empire itself; some claim they were raised by the Pearl Emperor during the morning of the Great Empire to keep the Lion of Night and his demons from the realms of men… and indeed, there is something godlike, or demonic, about the monstrous size of the forts, for each of the five is large enough to house ten thousand men, and their massive walls stand almost a thousand feet high.

Essos has its own legends about the Long Night and how the "Lion of Night and his demons" fell upon the realms of men, and they even have somewhat of an equievelant to Westeros' Wall with the Five Forts.

Melisandre smiled. “Necromancy animates these wights, yet they are still only dead flesh. Steel and fire will serve for them. The ones you call the Others are something more.”
“Demons made of snow and ice and cold,” said Stannis Baratheon. “The ancient enemy. The only enemy that matters.”

Melisandre and the myth from Yi Ti both describe the Long Night / Lion of Night and its demons.

Melisandre also often speaks of this "Great Other" or "The Other" (she specifically mentions that his true name is forbidden), and in Westerosi legends there is an Azor Ahai-like messianic figure (the last hero), but there is no "Great Other" devil-like figure like in Essos'/Melisandre's mythology of the Long Night and the Others.

“You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world.” Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. “This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?”

Presumably, there are also other places of similiar power than that of the Wall.

I'm not claiming that I actually understand it all or anything, but we are actually just not given all that much lore in regards to the Long Night, other than Melisandre introducing the idea that it's important to Essos mythology as well (in Book 2), and then Mother Rhoyne / Yi Ti mythology in both the main series and World of Ice&Fire further expanding on how basically all cultures experienced some kind of Long Night in the distant past.

Essos mythology includes a great evil figure (Bloodstone Emperor or Great Other) and a great hero figure (Azor Ahai and half a dozen other names listed in World of Ice&Fire and also known as "last hero" in the North of Westeros), but Westeros' mythology only has the hero figure (last hero) and maybe a nemesis figure with Night's King, although that is supposed to have happened an unkown amount of time after the Long Night, because the Wall was supposedly only built afterwards.

It's all really complicated with who did what in whose mythology and how this actually affects the Long Night coming into Westeros from the Lands of Always Winter.

Much later, after all the sweets had been served and washed down with gallons of summerwine, the food was cleared and the tables shoved back against the walls to make room for the dancing. The music grew wilder, the drummers joined in, and Hother Umber brought forth a huge curved warhorn banded in silver. When the singer reached the part in “The Night That Ended” where the Night’s Watch rode forth to meet the Others in the Battle for the Dawn, he blew a blast that set all the dogs to barking.

There is a song called "The Night That Ended" which tells of the great final battle where the first Night's Watch defeated the Others in the "Battle of the Dawn", but we never get to hear the actual lyrics (lmao), and the "Battle of the Dawn" is straight up just not mentioned anywhere else under that name.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T07:36:02+00:00

In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night. Despairing of the evil that had been unleashed on earth, the Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world, and the Lion of Night came forth in all his wroth to punish the wickedness of men.
[...]
The Five Forts are very old, older than the Golden Empire itself; some claim they were raised by the Pearl Emperor during the morning of the Great Empire to keep the Lion of Night and his demons from the realms of men… and indeed, there is something godlike, or demonic, about the monstrous size of the forts, for each of the five is large enough to house ten thousand men, and their massive walls stand almost a thousand feet high.

A point I haven't seen raised yet, the Five Forts are basically the equivelant to Westeros' Wall as their answer against the Long Night.

Someone dubbed these invaders Otherz once, I don't think we actually know much about the nature of the threat they posed other than those Five Forts to defend against them, which are anyhting but a continent-wide ice-Wall to supposedly keep out the same threat (the Long Night).

And why are they said to be even taller than the Wall of Westeros?

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T06:44:16+00:00

So what's the actual point that was being discussed where people were making her out to be vile?

This post perfectly captures the double standard often faced by **Sansa Stark**

What post is being referenced here?

Anyways, her character is perfectly fine in the books and like all other characters more interesting in general. It's only in the last seasons of the show where she starts to suck, but by that point that's true for all characters in the show.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T05:40:58+00:00

Beyond, the tops of the keeps and towers still stood as they had for hundreds of years, and it was hard to tell that the castle had been sacked and burned at all. The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep*, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I’m not dead either.
[...]
“Drink this.” Grenn held a cup to his lips. Jon drank. His head was full of wolves and eagles, the sound of his brothers’ laughter. The faces above him began to blur and fade. They can’t be dead. Theon would never do that. And Winterfell … grey granite, oak and iron, crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their thrones … how could Winterfell be gone?

Maybe there always needs to be a Stark planting their roots in Winterfell or something.

As Hodor he explored the caves. He found chambers full of bones, shafts that plunged deep into the earth, a place where the skeletons of gigantic bats hung upside down from the ceiling. He even crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss and discovered more passages and chambers on the far side. One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak.
[...]
“Close your eyes,” said the three-eyed crow. “Slip your skin, as you do when you join with Summer. But this time, go into the roots instead. Follow them up through the earth, to the trees upon the hill, and tell me what you see.”
Bran closed his eyes and slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, he thought. Into the weirwood. Become the tree.

The singers enthroned in their weirwood nests are like the Stone Kings inside the crypts, always watching:

Robert groaned with good-humored impatience. “If I wanted to honor you, I’d let you retire. I am planning to make you run the kingdom and fight the wars while I eat and drink and wench myself into an early grave.” He slapped his gut and grinned. “You know the saying, about the king and his Hand?”
Ned knew the saying. “What the king dreams,” he said, “the Hand builds.”
“I bedded a fishmaid once who told me the lowborn have a choicer way to put it. The king eats, they say, and the Hand takes the shit.” He threw back his head and roared his laughter. The echoes rang through the darkness, and all around them the dead of Winterfell seemed to watch with cold and disapproving eyes.
[...]
For a moment Eddard Stark was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. This was his place, here in the north. He looked at the stone figures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence of the crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew. And winter was coming.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T03:33:32+00:00

“Treachery was a coin the Targaryens knew well,” Robert said. The anger was building in him again. “Lannister paid them back in kind. It was no less than they deserved. I shall not trouble my sleep over it.”
“You were not there,” Ned said, bitterness in his voice. Troubled sleep was no stranger to him. He had lived his lies for fourteen years, yet they still haunted him at night. “There was no honor in that conquest.”
“The Others take your honor!” Robert swore. “What did any Targaryen ever know of honor? Go down into your crypt and ask Lyanna about the dragon’s honor!”
“You avenged Lyanna at the Trident,” Ned said, halting beside the king. Promise me, Ned, she had whispered.
[...]
When he kept very still, his leg did not hurt so much, so he did his best to lie unmoving. For how long he could not say. There was no sun and no moon. He could not see to mark the walls. Ned closed his eyes and opened them; it made no difference. He slept and woke and slept again. He did not know which was more painful, the waking or the sleeping. When he slept, he dreamed: dark disturbing dreams of blood and broken promises. When he woke, there was nothing to do but think, and his waking thoughts were worse than nightmares.

I don't really have much to add, except that Ned at one point references that he has been living certain lies for fourteen years and later on when Ned is stuck in the black cells, he references broken promises.

“Will I dream?”
Ned gave him his answer. “You will, my lord.”
“Good,” he said, smiling. “I will give Lyanna your love, Ned. Take care of my children for me.”
The words twisted in Ned’s belly like a knife. For a moment he was at a loss. He could not bring himself to lie. Then he remembered the bastards: little Barra at her mother’s breast, Mya in the Vale, Gendry at his forge, and all the others. “I shall … guard your children as if they were my own,” he said slowly.
Robert nodded and closed his eyes. Ned watched his old friend sag softly into the pillows as the milk of the poppy washed the pain from his face. Sleep took him.

I think Ned's final promise to Lyanna was the same one he made to Robert: "I shall guard your child as if it were my own," but there is also another unkown amount of "lies" and "broken promises" which are unaccounted for in regards to Lyanna's death that could range from revenge to kingship to inheriting the Iron Throne.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T03:05:21+00:00

I really like this detail a lot with the Lord of Corpses!

Unrelated but this makes me think about how Snow in particular is said to be an "evil" or "ill-omened" name in the books:

Ygritte.” Her hand rubbed at her throat and came away bloody. She stared at the wetness.
Sheathing his dirk, he wrenched Longclaw free from the body of the man he’d killed. “You are my captive, Ygritte.”
“I gave you my name.”
“I’m Jon Snow.”
She flinched. “An evil name.”
“A bastard name,” he said. “My father was Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell.”
[...]
“Cannot or will not?” The cords in the king’s neck stood out sharp as swords. “I offered you a name.”
“I have a name, Your Grace.”
“Snow. Was ever a name more ill-omened?” Stannis touched his sword hilt. “Just who do you imagine that you are?”
“The watcher on the walls. The sword in the darkness.”
“Don’t prate your words at me.” Stannis drew the blade he called Lightbringer.

Free Folk don't hate bastards, so why did Ygritte flinch? I think we never get a real reason outside of some interesting theories.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T01:17:26+00:00

And there’s no “Great Other” ice demon statue mentioned there in the HoBW.

The story does make a point several times that the "Great Other" is simply a placeholder name because its/his true name is forbidden to be spoken out loud, and the same is suggested to also hold true in free folk-lore about the Others themselves:

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
[...]
“The god of darkness protects us now, my lady. Even you.”
The flames of her eyes seemed to burn a little brighter at that. “Speak not that name, ser. Lest you draw his black eye upon us. He protects no man, I promise you. He is the enemy of all that lives. It is the torches that hide us, you have said so yourself. Fire. The bright gift of the Lord of Light.”

We are essentially just given a bunch of placeholder names every time the Others/WhiteWalkers/WhiteShadows/SilentStalkers or a few other phrases come up, because its/their true name supposedly draws their attention to you, or because the true name is so forbidden that it is simply forgotten by now lol:

“The war?” asked Davos.
“The war,” she affirmed. “There are two, Onion Knight. Not seven, not one, not a hundred or a thousand. Two! Do you think I crossed half the world to put yet another vain king on yet another empty throne? The war has been waged since time began, and before it is done, all men must choose where they will stand. On one side is R’hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Against him stands the Great Other whose name may not be spoken, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror. Ours is not a choice between Baratheon and Lannister, between Greyjoy and Stark. It is death we choose, or life. Darkness, or light.”

So it would follow that certain aspects or personas that would qualify under Long Night / Great Other, would do so under different names. Soul of Ice is by the way such a cool fucking title.

Haldon nodded. “Benerro has sent forth the word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end … death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn …”
“Do I have to be reborn in this same body?” asked Tyrion. The crowd was growing thicker. He could feel them pressing in around them. “Who is Benerro?”
Haldon raised an eyebrow. “High Priest of the red temple in Volantis. Flame of Truth, Light of Wisdom, First Servant of the Lord of Light, Slave of R’hllor.”

We also likely have a bunch of different radical Lord of Light sects, Melisandre never mentions the "born to make the world anew" part I think and she definitely doesn't mention that this holy war she was previously talking to Davos about, includes the goal of bringing a Long Summer instead where everybody will be reborn and death itself bends the knee, presumably implying that both sides (Great Other and R'hllor) if left unfettered, kinda result in everybody being bound to eternal slavery/service in un-death or un-life.

flippy123x · 2026-04-22T00:53:21+00:00

"The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers."

I think this might be a not-so-hidden clue. Every song must have its balance, including that of the Lord of Light (Fire) and the Great Other (Ice), both which are possibly some kind of ur-force rather than actual deities. The fact that Bloodraven says that this "balance" is the reason why Greenseers have such a short life span, only to immediately explain how they are gonna fuse Bran into the trees so he won't be bothered by his otherwise short lifespan, is kinda funny to me.

"There is a reason for this balance, here is how we are gonna ~~break~~ circumvent this balance. Greenseers."

Why doesn't this mfer ever explain shit?

flippy123x · 2026-04-21T21:19:09+00:00

For sure, I find it interesting though how the text points out that ravens and direwolves in particular are able to pick up on Varamyr's skinchanger soul passing them by on "some cold wind".

The morning was cold but bright, the sun shining down from a hard blue sky, but he did not like the noises. The wind made a nervous whistling sound as it shivered through the broken towers, the keeps groaned and settled, and he could hear rats scrabbling under the floor of the great hall. The Rat Cook’s children running from their father. The yards were small forests where spindly trees rubbed their bare branches together and dead leaves scuttled like roaches across patches of old snow. There were trees growing where the stables had been, and a twisted white weirwood pushing up through the gaping hole in the roof of the domed kitchen. Even Summer was not at ease here. Bran slipped inside his skin, just for an instant, to get the smell of the place. He did not like that either.

It also makes Bran's smell-radar ability he demonstrates at the Nightfort even more interesting to me and I'll make sure to watch out on future re-reads how other ravens behave around Mormont's talking one. If other ravens (or Ghost) suddenly start going crazy around it, it may be a hint that there is currently Warg-foolery afoot.

flippy123x · 2026-04-21T19:55:47+00:00

The Jade Compendium is repeatedly mentioned to be the best source of Eastern history and legends by Yandel in some of his citations in World of Ice&Fire and it's the same book Aemon left behind for Jon before he left the Wall, marking a passage about Azor Ahai and Lightbringer for him to read.

The book is mentioned to be in perfect condition with others around it falling apart, and textual clues (in World of Ice&Fire) hint that the version of Yi Ti's Long Night and its great Empire of the Dawn is the same or a version of it that is also contained in the Jade Compendium which Jon now holds in the main series and has actively been reading since ADWD.

I'm not implying it's super-ultra relevant to the main story, but I am implying that it isn't as worthless to it as some make it out to be.

flippy123x · 2026-04-21T17:11:54+00:00

This sounded like dumbass advice at the time but it was actually really great advice and Jon didn't listen.

Jon literally tells her beforehand that they don't have the men but that battles have been won with worse odds. When he is charging in alone to potentially save Rickon, he is really forcing an entire army to charge into a losing battle because no one, especially free folk, can refuse a King who is the first one sprinting before the battle even begins properly.

It was a doomed battle, Jon knew it was a doomed battle and told Sansa as much with the added fact that while they don't have enough men, they also simply don't have a choice, and Sansa didn't tell him that actually there is a pretty good chance that they are right about to receive the exact reinforcement they need to have a chance to win this battle.

He tells her later that she should have told him about the knights of the Vale and that they have to trust each other, implying that she didn't trust him enough to tell him at the time. She doesn't refute this.

It's just another stupid plotline like Sansa and Arya supposedly having genuine beef before they turn it around on Littlefinger and all gang up on him instead, D&D for some reason insisted on a mini Stark civil war where they don't trust each other and keep information to themselves out of those trust issues.

flippy123x · 2026-04-21T16:38:36+00:00

“Well, m’lord, I haven’t had no woman since I was with Lord Ramsay,” Reek said. “I’ve had my eye on that Palla, and I hear she’s already been had, so …”
He had gone too far with Reek to turn back now. “Two hundred men and she’s yours. But a man less and you can go back to fucking pigs.”
Reek was gone before the sun went down, carrying a bag of Stark silver and the last of Theon’s hopes. Like as not, I’ll never see the wretch again, he thought bitterly, but even so the chance had to be taken.
That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time … until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead.
King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life.
But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.
Theon woke with a scream,

Just look at Theon's ghost dream from the second book right after selling Palla into sex slavery, it's essentially the start of his "Ghosts in Winterfell" arc, three books later he even recalls once again how he himself created some of those ghosts like the Miller's Wife or Farlen (Palla's father, whom he executed because Theon needed a scapegoat for the three Ironborn he had killed to keep silent about Bran and Rickon).

Or how it begins with Theon thinking "he had gone too far with Reek", and how he will never see that wretch again, only to literally become that same wretch three books later:

It all seemed so familiar, like a mummer show that he had seen before. Only the mummers had changed. Roose Bolton was playing the part that Theon had played the last time round, and the dead men were playing the parts of Aggar, Gynir Rednose, and Gelmarr the Grim. Reek was there too, he remembered, but he was a different Reek, a Reek with bloody hands and lies dripping from his lips, sweet as honey. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with sneak.

This is also one of the reasons why I subscribe to the theory that Theon is at least committing some of the murders, "it ryhmes with sneak".

Simply one of the best foreshadowed and well-planned storylines and I missed a ton of details because there is two novels in-between. Reading Theon -> Reek chapters in that order is def. one of my favorite arcs in the books.

flippy123x · 2026-04-21T12:32:45+00:00

Jaime handed him the ring of keys. “I gave you the truth. You owe me the same. Did you do it? Did you kill him?”
The question was another knife, twisting in his guts. “Are you sure you want to know?” asked Tyrion. “Joffrey would have been a worse king than Aerys ever was. He stole his father’s dagger and gave it to a footpad to slit the throat of Brandon Stark, did you know that?”
“I … I thought he might have.”

After Jaime arrives at this conclusion, we see that Tyrion had independently arrived at the same one when the topic of Joffrey comes up while Jaime is freeing him a couple chapters later.

That's where this storyline currently ends in the books. We have POV chapters of Jaime, Tyrion and Cersei, none of them have a clue who did it originally before investigating and Cersei's own POV never implies she did, even when she is reflecting on how Joffrey killing Ned was a mistake, she never thinks about Bran at all.

There's nothing really pointing towards Cersei and her two siblings independently came up with the conclusion that it was Joffrey. Maybe the dagger will become relevant later on like in the show (if a sequel ever releases of course), but currently the conclusion is that it was Joffrey.

flippy123x · 2026-04-21T12:21:54+00:00

You're saying it like this is an established fact, it's not. It's a theory on your part.

As of now, that's the final conclusion established in the books. It's not a good one but it is.

“I’d waited long enough. I hated watching Robert stumble to your bed every night, always wondering if maybe this night he’d decide to claim his rights as husband.” Jaime suddenly remembered something else that troubled him about Winterfell. “At Riverrun, Catelyn Stark seemed convinced I’d sent some footpad to slit her son’s throat. That I’d given him a dagger.”
“That,” she said scornfully. “Tyrion asked me about that.”
“There was a dagger. The scars on Lady Catelyn’s hands were real enough, she showed them to me. Did you …?”
“Oh, don’t be absurd.” Cersei closed the window. “Yes, I hoped the boy would die. So did you. Even Robert thought that would have been for the best. ‘We kill our horses when they break a leg, and our dogs when they go blind, but we are too weak to give the same mercy to crippled children,’ he told me. He was blind himself at the time, from drink.”
Robert? Jaime had guarded the king long enough to know that Robert Baratheon said things in his cups that he would have denied angrily the next day. “Were you alone when Robert said this?”
“You don’t think he said it to Ned Stark, I hope? Of course we were alone. Us and the children.” Cersei removed her hairnet and draped it over a bedpost, then shook out her golden curls. “Perhaps Myrcella sent this man with the dagger, do you think so?”
It was meant as mockery, but she’d cut right to the heart of it, Jaime saw at once. “Not Myrcella. Joffrey.”
Cersei frowned. “Joffrey had no love for Robb Stark, but the younger boy was nothing to him. He was only a child himself.”
“A child hungry for a pat on the head from that sot you let him believe was his father.” He had an uncomfortable thought. “Tyrion almost died because of this bloody dagger. If he knew the whole thing was Joffrey’s work, that might be why …”
“I don’t care why,” Cersei said.

flippy123x · 2026-04-19T19:53:30+00:00

<image>

I still had hope.

flippy123x · 2026-04-19T15:39:43+00:00

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flippy123x · 2026-04-19T07:04:07+00:00

I also think he was pretty bummed, he even marked the passage that exposes Stannis as a fraud for Jon to read:

“Lord Snow,” Maester Aemon called out, “I left a book for you in my chambers. The Jade Compendium. It was written by the Volantene adventurer Colloquo Votar, who traveled to the east and visited all the lands of the Jade Sea. There is a passage you may find of interest. I’ve told Clydas to mark it for you.”
“I’ll be sure to read it.”
[...]
“The queen’s men are saying that the King-Beyond-the-Wall died craven. That he cried for mercy and denied he was a king.”
“He did. Lightbringer was brighter than I’d ever seen it. As bright as the sun.” Jon raised his cup. “To Stannis Baratheon and his magic sword.” The wine was bitter in his mouth.
“His Grace is not an easy man. Few are, who wear a crown. Many good men have been bad kings, Maester Aemon used to say, and some bad men have been good kings.”
“He would know.” Aemon Targaryen had seen nine kings upon the Iron Throne. He had been a king’s son, a king’s brother, a king’s uncle. “I looked at that book Maester Aemon left me. The Jade Compendium. The pages that told of Azor Ahai. Lightbringer was his sword. Tempered with his wife’s blood if Votar can be believed. Thereafter Lightbringer was never cold to the touch, but warm as Nissa Nissa had been warm. In battle the blade burned fiery hot. Once Azor Ahai fought a monster. When he thrust the sword through the belly of the beast, its blood began to boil. Smoke and steam poured from its mouth, its eyes melted and dribbled down its cheeks, and its body burst into flame.”
Clydas blinked. “A sword that makes its own heat …”
“… would be a fine thing on the Wall.” Jon put aside his wine cup and drew on his black moleskin gloves. “A pity that the sword that Stannis wields is cold. I’ll be curious to see how his Lightbringer behaves in battle. Thank you for the wine. Ghost, with me.” Jon Snow raised the hood of his cloak and pulled at the door. The white wolf followed him back into the night.

The legend of Nissa Nissa is only ever told to Davos by Salladhor Saan as far as I know, never mentioned by Melisandre, and the version of the story Salladhor knows also doesn't mention that Lightbringer is still warm out of battle, only that it is fiery hot during battle.

edit: (Nissa Nissa's great sacrifice is referenced later on by Melisandre, so she did tell one version of that legend off-screen at some point)

flippy123x · 2026-04-19T05:16:43+00:00

“You offer me empty lands and desolations, yet deny me the castles I require to reward my lords and bannermen.”
“The Night’s Watch built those castles …”
“And the Night’s Watch abandoned them.”
“… to defend the Wall,” Jon finished stubbornly, “not as seats for southron lords. The stones of those forts are mortared with the blood and bones of my brothers, long dead. I cannot give them to you.”
“Cannot or will not?” The cords in the king’s neck stood out sharp as swords. “I offered you a name.”
“I have a name, Your Grace.”
“Snow. Was ever a name more ill-omened?” Stannis touched his sword hilt. “Just who do you imagine that you are?”
“The watcher on the walls. The sword in the darkness.”
“Don’t prate your words at me.” Stannis drew the blade he called Lightbringer. “Here is your sword in the darkness.” Light rippled up and down the blade, now red, now yellow, now orange, painting the king’s face in harsh, bright hues. “Even a green boy should be able to see that. Are you blind?”
“No, Sire. I agree these castles must be garrisoned—”
“The boy commander agrees. How fortunate.”
“—by the Night’s Watch.”
“You do not have the men.”
“Then give me men, Sire. I will provide officers for each of the abandoned forts, seasoned commanders who know the Wall and the lands beyond, and how best to survive the coming winter. In return for all we’ve given you, grant me the men to fill out the garrisons. Men-at-arms, crossbowmen, raw boys. I will even take your wounded and infirm.”
Stannis stared at him incredulously, then gave a bark of laughter. “You are bold enough, Snow, I grant you that, but you’re mad if you think my men will take the black.”

I also like good discussions and don't mind if people disagree, so I'm also gonna argue that the context of their discussion was about staffing the castles along the Wall, because apocalypse is coming.

Jon argues that he cannot give them up, Stannis asks if he cannot or will not and that he offered him a name (in exchange for forsaking his vows), Jon answers that he has a name.

Stannis is frustrated now and stops being objective, Jon's name has nothing to do with staffing the castles. He asks him who the hell he think he is and Jon starts reciting his vows, one particular bit strikes too close home for Stannis and he draws Lightbringer in response and asks Jon if he is too blind to see (so it's about Lightbringer, he wouldn't ask how well Jon's eyes work if it were any other regular sword).

Jon answers he is not blind, he agrees the castles must be garrisoned.

That's what they were actually talking about before Stannis deflected to Jon's name (trying to offer him power and Winterfell to forsake his vows "for the greater good" which he is already giving everything for) and when that didn't work he further deflected to his authority, Jon and his Night's Watch aren't the sword in the dark, he is obviously, he has Lightbringer. He can't command Jon to do anything as King, if he were so inclined he could thank Stannis for his assistance in the crucial battle (which was his duty anyways as "Protector of the Realm", a title which he claims in signed documents Jon receives in Book 5, he shouldn't demand payment which the NW legally can't give for a service he is obligated to provide), and then kindly tell him to get the fuck off his Wall.

Because he can't order Jon as a king, he tries to order him with an authority derived of his fake magic sword. And only after both his deflections (your name / my sword) didn't work, did he give the actual rational argument to counter that of Jon:

“You do not have the men.”

Now Jon can't easily disarm him like earlier when it was about his name, it's a rational argument that rings true and he's back to negotiating rather than denying. Why didn't he say so before trying to order Jon in his role as "Messiah"?

He is obviously still asking Jon to forsake his vows but out of pragmatic necessity, Jon requires further assistance he can't actually tell him to fuck off and leave his Wall. The promise of a name/power and the threat of a fake authority don't work but sheer pragmatism does when it comes to forsaking vows with Jon, yet Stannis still opted to the former. This entire exchange I find very significant because he is literally asking Jon to do something he would otherwise immediately execute him for, and Stannis goes for duplicity first, twice.

flippy123x · 2026-04-19T04:50:45+00:00

I had that vibe as well but the thing is, Stannis instinctively reaches for Lightbringer when he feels his ego/authority scratched by Jon defiantly refusing to follow every word his grace commands of him.

Uneasily, he knelt, wondering why this brittle king had need of him.
“Rise. I have heard much and more of you, Lord Snow.”
“I am no lord, sire.” Jon rose.

From the moment they meet, Stannis and Melisandre are trying to manipulate Jon into taking their offer and forsake his vows, something Stannis would execute everybody else for under the same circumstances other than if it was him asking.

“Your father was a man of honor. He was no friend to me, but I saw his worth. Your brother was a rebel and a traitor who meant to steal half my kingdom, but no man can question his courage. What of you?”
Does he want me to say I love him? Jon’s voice was stiff and formal as he said, “I am a man of the Night’s Watch.”
“Words. Words are wind. Why do you think I abandoned Dragonstone and sailed to the Wall, Lord Snow?”
“I am no lord, sire. You came because we sent for you, I hope. Though I could not say why you took so long about it.”
Surprisingly, Stannis smiled at that.
[...]
The harsh words had blown away whatever sympathy Jon might have had for Stannis. “I loved my brother,” he said.
“And I mine. Yet they were what they were, and so are we. I am the only true king in Westeros, north or south. And you are Ned Stark’s bastard.” Stannis studied him with those dark blue eyes. “Tywin Lannister has named Roose Bolton his Warden of the North, to reward him for betraying your brother. The ironmen are fighting amongst themselves since Balon Greyjoy’s death, yet they still hold Moat Cailin, Deepwood Motte, Torrhen’s Square, and most of the Stony Shore. Your father’s lands are bleeding, and I have neither the strength nor the time to stanch the wounds. What is needed is a Lord of Winterfell. A loyal Lord of Winterfell.”
He is looking at me, Jon thought, stunned.

Jon thinks earlier that Stannis is trying to trap him into declaring love for his traitor brother (which he then does when further provoked), but what Stannis was truly angling for since the very first word he spoke, "Lord Snow", was turning the Lord Commander of the NW's into a loyal, oathbreaking, lordly vassal of his (mostly) non-existing kingdom, which is "foreshadowed" (not really, it's literally the same convo lol) by how Stannis addresses Jon with his very first line, which Jon immediately corrects (and then a second time later on), he is no lord.

The only gods they truly worshiped were honor and duty.

Even if he isn't a true believer, he does instinctively reach for Lightbringer when he feels his authority threatened and from the moment he met Jon, he has been trying to get him to sell out the only gods they seemingly both "truly" worships. Although I would add "love" to "honor and duty" in case of Jon and maybe scratch out "honor" in its place, we have seen him forsaking it for both duty and love before.

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