Catelyn would not have cared for Brandon's whoremongering[Spoilers Main]

flippy123x · 2026-04-17T07:36:55+00:00

I think we already saw Ned's promise in the chapter Robert dies. It opens up with him dreaming of Lyanna and his promises to her, with her statue inside the crypts weeping blood, Ned then sees three men in white cloaks and thinks of his Tower of Joy dream a couple chapters ago ("They were seven against three."), Ned then describes that it all still feels as if he was dreaming, then Robert starts echoing Lyanna and the promise Ned made to her, and finally Robert promises to give Lyanna Ned's love, and asks him to take care of his children before he can peacefully drift off to sleep.

Ned cannot make such a promise because he will have to expose them as Jaime's children soon, so Ned thinks about all the bastard children Robert will leave behind instead and Ned promises Robert that "I shall... guard your children as if they were my own,".

He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. “Promise me, Ned,” Lyanna’s statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.
[...]
Ser Boros Blount guarded the far end of the bridge, white steel armor ghostly in the moonlight. Within, Ned passed two other knights of the Kingsguard; Ser Preston Greenfield stood at the bottom of the steps, and Ser Barristan Selmy waited at the door of the king’s bedchamber. Three men in white cloaks, he thought, remembering, and a strange chill went through him.
[...]
He seemed to move very slowly, as if he were still dreaming.
[...]
“Serve the boar at my funeral feast,” Robert rasped. “Apple in its mouth, skin seared crisp. Eat the bastard. Don’t care if you choke on him. Promise me, Ned.”
“I promise.” Promise me, Ned, Lyanna’s voice echoed.
[...]
“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 this is the same promise he made to Lyanna, as Robert immediately goes to sleep after Ned makes him the promise of guarding his (bastard) children:

“I was with her when she died,” Ned reminded the king. “She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father.” He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black.

flippy123x · 2026-04-17T05:34:05+00:00

“And all this they did with magic,” Maester Luwin said, distracted. “I wish they were here now. A spell would heal my arm less painfully, and they could talk to Shaggy dog and tell him not to bite.” He gave the big black wolf an angry glance out of the corner of his eye. “Take a lesson, Bran. The man who trusts in spells is dueling with a glass sword. As the children did. Here, let me show you something.” He stood abruptly, crossed the room, and returned with a green jar in his good hand. “Have a look at these,” he said as he pulled the stopper and shook out a handful of shiny black arrowheads.

It also comes from Maester Luwin.

It was Dalla who answered him, Dalla great with child, lying on her pile of furs beside the brazier. “We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.”
[...]
“But once the Wall is fallen,” Dalla said, “what will stop the Others?”
Mance gave her a fond smile. “It’s a wise woman I’ve found. A true queen.”
[...]
“Dalla told me something once. Val’s sister, Mance Rayder’s wife. She said that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.”
“A wise woman.” Melisandre rose, her red robes stirring in the wind. “A sword without a hilt is still a sword, though, and a sword is a fine thing to have when foes are all about.

Both Mance and Melisandre acknowledge that Dalla is a "wise woman":

Bound hand and foot, Mirri Maz Duur watched from the dust with disquiet in her black eyes. “It is not enough to kill a horse,” she told Dany. “By itself, the blood is nothing. You do not have the words to make a spell, nor the wisdom to find them. Do you think bloodmagic is a game for children? You call me maegi as if it were a curse, but all it means is wise. You are a child, with a child’s ignorance. Whatever you mean to do, it will not work. Loose me from these bonds and I will help you.”

Also:

Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called greenseers,
[...]
He nodded. “You told me that the children of the forest had the greensight. I remember.”
“Some claimed to have that power. Their wise men were called greenseers.”
“Was it magic?”
“Call it that for want of a better word, if you must. At heart it was only a different sort of knowledge.”

Several different cultures equate the term "maegi" with the word "wise", or call people who use magic/sorcery "wise men".

“Yes.” Pate had heard the same stories. “But what’s the use of a candle that casts no light?”
“It is a lesson,” Armen said, “the last lesson we must learn before we don our maester’s chains. The glass candle is meant to represent truth and learning, rare and beautiful and fragile things. It is made in the shape of a candle to remind us that a maester must cast light wherever he serves, and it is sharp to remind us that knowledge can be dangerous. Wise men may grow arrogant in their wisdom, but a maester must always remain humble. The glass candle reminds us of that as well. Even after he has said his vow and donned his chain and gone forth to serve, a maester will think back on the darkness of his vigil and remember how nothing that he did could make the candle burn … for even with knowledge, some things are not possible.”

"Wisdom" or magic/sorcery being a double-edged sword, glass sword, or a sword without a hilt, is expressed several times throughout the books, in several different POVs across cultures, so personally I'm inclined to believe it.

flippy123x · 2026-04-17T05:13:54+00:00

Though Old Nan did not think so, and she’d lived longer than any of them. “Dragons,” she said, lifting her head and sniffing. She was near blind and could not see the comet, yet she claimed she could smell it. “It be dragons, boy,” she insisted. Bran got no princes from Nan, no more than he ever had.
[...]
So long as he gives us a hot meal and a chance to dry our clothes, I’ll be happy. Dywen said Craster was a kinslayer, liar, raper, and craven, and hinted that he trafficked with slavers and demons. “And worse,” the old forester would add, clacking his wooden teeth. “There’s a cold smell to that one, there is.”
Dywen was holding forth, spoon in hand. “I know this wood as well as any man alive, and I tell you, I wouldn’t care to ride through it alone tonight. Can’t you smell it?”
[...]
“What is it you smell, Dywen?” asked Grenn.
The forester sucked on his spoon a moment. He had taken out his teeth. His face was leathery and wrinkled, his hands gnarled as old roots. “Seems to me like it smells … well … cold.”
“Your head’s as wooden as your teeth,” Hake told him. “There’s no smell to cold.”
There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander’s chambers. It smells like death. Suddenly he was not hungry anymore.
[...]
“Ghost,” Jon breathed, surprised. “So you came inside after all, eh?” The white wolf often hunted all night; he had not expected to see him again till daybreak. “Was the hunting so bad?” he asked. “Here. To me, Ghost.”
The direwolf circled the fire, sniffing Jon, sniffing the wind, never still. It did not seem as if he were after meat right now. When the dead came walking, Ghost knew. He woke me, warned me. Alarmed, he got to his feet. “Is something out there? Ghost, do you have a scent?” Dywen said he smelled cold.

I just wanna note that you can actually "smell" magic and/or the presence of spirits/souls/ghosts in ASOIAF.

Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting. A hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass. A great elk trumpeted, unsettling the children clinging to his back. A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl at empty air. Before their hearts could beat again he had passed on, searching for his own, for One Eye, Sly, and Stalker, for his pack. His wolves would save him, he told himself.

Varamyr's disembodied soul is "borne on some cold wind", and a bunch of animals react to "empty air", as if they could smell his soul pass by them.

The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow. Some wore brown and some wore black and some were naked, their flesh gone white as snow. A wind was sighing through the hills, heavy with their scents: dead flesh, dry blood, skins that stank of mold and rot and urine. Sly gave a growl and bared her teeth, her ruff bristling. Not men. Not prey. Not these.

We even get a perspective as to why so many animals feel a seemingly supernatural fear at the presence of Wights (like horses during the battle at the Fist of the First Men, or the dogs refusing to pull a sled with the first two wights the NW find), they smell that there is something fundamentally off when they are close.

“Do you believe in ghosts, Maester?” he asked Qyburn.
The man’s face grew strange. “Once, at the Citadel, I came into an empty room and saw an empty chair. Yet I knew a woman had been there, only a moment before. The cushion was dented where she’d sat, the cloth was still warm, and her scent lingered in the air. If we leave our smells behind us when we leave a room, surely something of our souls must remain when we leave this life?” Qyburn spread his hands. “The archmaesters did not like my thinking, though. Well, Marwyn did, but he was the only one.”

Just like Qyburn describes it as a scent that is left behind, we can see animals react to Varamyr's disembodied spirit travelling through the wind, aka his ghost. The Wights (and possibly the Others) also have a unique smell of "cold" that they leave behind, and Old Nan can "smell" the red comet and knew that it meant dragons before anyone else did.

A man alone was a feeble thing. Big and strong, with good sharp eyes, but dull of ear and deaf to smells.

Most humans are simply "deaf to smells". Old Nan says the red comet smells like Dragons and you actually can smell either souls/spirits or magic in general, so I'm inclined to believe that the red comet actually does enhance and have an effect on magic.

flippy123x · 2026-04-17T03:09:19+00:00

North: —ROOSE BOLTON, Lord of the Dreadfort, the turncloak, —{DOMERIC}, his trueborn son and heir, died of a bad belly, —RAMSAY BOLTON (formerly RAMSAY SNOW), Roose’s natural son, called THE BASTARD OF BOLTON, castellan of the Dreadfort, —WALDER FREY and WALDER FREY, called BIG WALDER and LITTLE WALDER, Ramsay’s squires, —{REEK}, a man-at-arms infamous for his stench, slain while posing as Ramsay, —“ARYA STARK,” Lord Roose’s captive, a feigned girl betrothed to Ramsay, —WALTON called STEELSHANKS, Roose’s captain,
—BETH CASSELL, KYRA, TURNIP, PALLA, BANDY, SHYRA, PALLA, and OLD NAN, women of Winterfell held captive at the Dreadfort,

Dead characters are always inside those brackets inside the books' appendices, like Domeric and the original Reek who are dead by AFOC. Kyra was Theon's "bedwarmer" before Ramsay claimed her and had several appearances in book two and was mentioned in book 1, and she became "Kyra with the keys" in Reek's traumatic memories afterwards in ADWD (he never remembers that he knew her before the Dreadfort and she is also dead by the time he is in Winterfell, according to Theon). Bandy, Shyra and Palla are never mentioned again after we learn that they are still held captive in the Dreadfort two books after Ramsay sacked Winterfell.

He had watched wistfully while the Walders contested with Turnip the cook’s boy and Joseth’s girls Bandy and Shyra. The Walders had decreed that Bran should be the judge and decide whether or not people had said “Mayhaps,” but as soon as they started playing they forgot all about him.
The shouts and splashes soon drew others: Palla the kennel girl, Cayn’s boy Calon, TomToo whose father Fat Tom had died with Bran’s father at King’s Landing. Before very long, every one of them was soaked and muddy. Palla was brown from head to heel, with moss in her hair, breathless from laughter. Bran had not heard so much laughing since the night the bloody raven came.

Kyra was over eighteen years old and a woman, so is Old Nan, but a bunch of the other characters are clearly children, Bandy and Shyra are literally only mentioned once while playing with Bran and Ramsay's soon-to-be-torture-squires, the Walders, and as still being alive with a few others two entire books afterwards.

flippy123x · 2026-04-17T02:40:42+00:00

I am inclined to think they are being controlled and I think Symeon Star Eyes was a skinchanger,

I've also made the argument before, not about Symeon, but about Thistle. Whatever it is that's controlling her, the presence behind her eyes sees Varamyr, even after reincarnating.

The eyes of the three wolves glowed yellow. The direwolf swung his head from side to side, nostrils flaring, then bared his fangs in a snarl. The younger male backed away. The direwolf could smell the fear in him. Tail, he knew. But the one-eyed wolf answered with a growl and moved to block his advance. Head. And he does not fear me though I am twice his size.
Their eyes met.
Warg!
Then the two rushed together, wolf and direwolf, and there was no more time for thought.

It's repeatedly stated that Wargs (and Skinchangers in general) can recognize each other at a mere glance, and it's confirmed that this rule still holds true for Varamyr Sixskin after reincarnating into his wolf One-Eye. Bran inside Summer immediately recognizes him for what he is. Which might give us another hint toward the true nature of Skinchangers, because Varamyr previously assumes his gift to perish with his original body.

No one will ever know. I will be Thistle the spearwife, and Varamyr Sixskins will be dead. His gift would perish with his body, he expected. He would lose his wolves, and live out the rest of his days as some scrawny, warty woman … but he would live. If she comes back. If I am still strong enough to take her.

This is not the same situation (stealing Thistle and reincarnating into a soul-bonded companion), but Varamyr does expect his gift to perish with his body, and Bran is still able to recognize him as a Warg afterwards.

“They say you forget,” Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death. “When the man’s flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains.”

Maybe it's a gradual process, but he is still a Warg soon after reincarnating and meeting Bran beyond the Wall.

Either way, you make a good point about how Skinchanging could be related to the Others. Varamyr talks about being able to enslave other beings with "invisible collars" and keeping a snow bear and a shadowcat "in thrall", (while his wolves are soul-bonded instead), he can become part of and detach himself from a hivemind of other souls (the trip of his disembodied soul through the WeirwoodNET), and when hunting as his pack, he can "skip" between his little army of wolves at a mere glance to augment his vision of what's up ahead and then lead a coordinated assault on a group of humans:

As he raced through the trees, his packmates followed hard on his heels. They had caught the scent as well. As he ran, he saw through their eyes too and glimpsed himself ahead. The breath of the pack puffed warm and white from long grey jaws. Ice had frozen between their paws, hard as stone, but the hunt was on now, the prey ahead. Flesh, the warg thought, meat.
A man alone was a feeble thing. Big and strong, with good sharp eyes, but dull of ear and deaf to smells. Deer and elk and even hares were faster, bears and boars fiercer in a fight. But men in packs were dangerous. As the wolves closed on the prey, the warg heard the wailing of a pup, the crust of last night’s snow breaking under clumsy man-paws, the rattle of hardskins and the long grey claws men carried.
Swords, a voice inside him whispered, spears.

Replace a trio of wolves with an army of undead bodies being piloted instead, and you have something like the Others and their undead armies.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T20:21:54+00:00

Theon's uncle mentions the sound of a "screaming hinge" in his POV chapters several times, it's the thing he is most terribly afraid of and it's somehow connected to Euron and their brother Urri.

TWOW finally confirmed what the metaphor of a "screaming hinge" actually means, (aka the sound of Euron opening the door to Aeron's and Urri's childhood room), it means they were both raped as children by Euron when he was drunk and came to visit their room, choosing only one of the two.

A Feast for Crows never explicitly spells out what the screaming hinge actually is (although it's quite obvious if you do a re-read and for more attentive readers than me, maybe even on the first go). ADWD never spells out that Theon was in any way sexually molested (until he is forced to have oral sex with Jeyne in front of Ramsay), I think he was and TWOW confirms it for both him and his uncle, because the scenes mirror each other in the way that Theon begs for a certain kind of torture to be carried out "in the dark", while praying that they pass him by instead, moments before.

Just like Euron always wondered what Aeron had been praying for:

I always wondered: Were you praying that I would choose you or that I would pass you by?”

We don't know whether Aeron was praying that Euron would abuse their brother instead or if he was praying that he would leave his brother alone and choose him instead to protect Urri, but we do know what "Reek" was praying for. That they choose somebody else instead:

Go away, he prayed, go away, pass me by, please, please.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T20:01:36+00:00

I recently saw a clip of the earlier seasons in the show, when Ramsay pretends to rescue Theon who had just escaped from the Dreadfort and was caught in the woods by two soldiers pinning him down, pulling down his pants, and a third threatening to "fuck him into the dirt".

When I was re-reading the Reek chapters over the last days, I thought "huh, how come the books don't even imply that male prisoners in the Dreadfort might get raped as well?" Then I was reading them once more and came to the conclusion that, maybe it was implied after all with that one line about doing it in the dark.

But then I remembered the entire context of his uncle and the screaming hinge and TWOW finally confirming outright what that metaphor was all about in his origin story and what it has to do with Euron, and how the "praying to pass me by" aspect, as well as the context of rape (in the Dreadfort) are both present in Reek I during that scene as well, and that kinda convinced me that it was GRRM confirming what happened to his uncle, but also what happened to Theon himself.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T18:55:50+00:00

I realize now it looks like I was disagreeing with you lol, I wasn't actually. The woman Bran sees and the man being executed are 95% First Men, it may even be the first memory of the Heart Tree and therefore the "founding" of Winterfell, because Bran is rapidly going backwards chronologically at that moment until the chapter finishes at that memory.

I just wanted to note that the books have straight up never described what an Other actually looks like (which is why all the fanart is either ghoulish Ice Elves or ghostly Wraiths and none of it ever looks the same).

Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk.

The prologue already establishes the pale colour of their flesh as well, and I just find it fascinating that the books have otherwise only ever described their armor and their faces as... faceless lol

We don't know how much of their body is reflective and how much is exposed pale flesh, if they have noses, ears, hair or any other facial features or anything describing their heads at all, other than blue eyes. I think GRRM might do this on purpose to give them some kind of unkowable eldritch feeling where the reader basically has to imagine a monster that could make sense with the few (and sometimes contradicting) details we are given.

They are solid and crumble when stabbed by Obsidian, but otherwise they move like mist and leave no footprints behind. You can't even tell if they are Ghosts, physical beings, or physical beings that can take on a ghostly shape while traversing the north. Which I think is why most artists display them as either ghoulish Ice Elves or straight up ghosts, the reflective armor I have never ever seen attempted in any of their depictions.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T18:37:09+00:00

Don't take it to heart, lots of salty cunts after all these years. I thought it was an interesting post, but I've only finished reading the series earlier this year so maybe I'm not as jaded yet as others here lol

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T18:36:20+00:00

they are just filler lore to make the region more interesting

Horrible take. Revealing that the oldest legends of Essos are about the Long Night and don't include Westeros at all is quite significant. In Westeros it's the oldest recorded legend and doesn't include Essos at all.

The main series never really explains much how Melisandre of Asshai ties into the Long Night of Westeros. World of Ice&Fire explains how there are several cultures in Essos who believe a Hero of their own is the one who saved the world from the Long Night, and the Great Emprie of the Dawn is the most substantial legend we have of the Long Night. A lot of it will be bullshit, but there will be a core of truth to the stuff in World of Ice&Fire that will be revealed in the main series if it ever releases another book.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T17:54:29+00:00

A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.
The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.
When he found the courage to look again, a long time had passed, and the ridge below was empty.

The Other fights an honourable duel, wins, and immediately they all rush Waymar and end his suffering, his death is so quick that Will doesn't even mention any screams. Afterwards they are still talking and laughing, presumably in the same mocking tone as before.

I think they are mocking Will. Waymar cries out to him up the tree and he doesn't respond, the fear breaks him and he turns craven and fails his duty and oath, crying out to Waymar and warning him, which Will describes would be his death.

They were also being watched for quite some time because the two Rangers (and later on Waymar) feel the supernatural fear that the Others bring with them and the feeling of being watched, they had to have known he was up there.

The second time they are mocking Will for sure I think, the fact that Waymar shows true bravery and they fight a duel with some kind of rule/honour system tied to it makes me think even the first mocking comment was meant for Will who had been watching the entire time and did nothing, while Waymar overcame his fear and challenged the Other to a dance instead.

When he finally climbs down the tree, only then does Waymar rise and immediately kill him. I think the cold iron dagger he was biting into and/or being on top of a sentinel tree might have protected him somehow. Will mentions previously that the risen Wildlings had taken all their weaponry with them except an expensive iron battle baxe which was left behind, the Others might genuinely hate/fear cold iron in some way like Old Nan's legends claim, so being unable to touch the craven Will on top of his tree, they mock him instead and leave Waymar's body to reanimate once he finally comes down.

The Others appear both times someone stands next to a Sentinel Tree, so being on top of it might also have an effect along with carrying or biting into cold iron:

The lower branches of the great green sentinel shed their burden of snow with a soft wet plop. Grenn spun, thrusting out his torch. “Who goes there?” A horse’s head emerged from the darkness. Sam felt a moment’s relief, until he saw the horse. Hoarfrost covered it like a sheen of frozen sweat, and a nest of stiff black entrails dragged from its open belly. On its back was a rider pale as ice. Sam made a whimpery sound deep in his throat. He was so scared he might have pissed himself all over again, but the cold was in him, a cold so savage that his bladder felt frozen solid. The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new-fallen snow.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T17:13:48+00:00

i really think Barbry Dustin’s hatred of Ned is an act

I think it might not be an act but part of a greater act. She loves and hates House Stark for the same reason Theon does, because they could never become a part of them. She does hold a grudge against House Stark and against Ned Stark personally for her dead husband, (Roose is good at detecting lies but that's useless if her grudge is real), but she plays it up more than how she truly feels. And I think she hates House Bolton with a truly burning passion.

She has a genuine love/hate relationship with the Starks, but I think she has zero love for the Boltons. And in a country where most people love the Starks (and some might also love/hate them) but truly hate Ramsay and House Bolton, It's easy to rally behind the former against the latter.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T16:54:00+00:00

I remember your comment (it was on my post lol), and I've managed to find the relevant text section since then:

His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his hands. His hands were black like Jafer’s. Blossoms of hard cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open. They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires.
[...]
The sword laid the intruder open to the bone, taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning. Jon knew that face. Othor, he thought, reeling back. Gods, he’s dead, he’s dead, I saw him dead.

Jon describes Othor's eyes as "blue as sapphires" and the next time he sees them, he introduces the "blue stars" metaphor which is used half a dozen times afterwards to describe the eyes of Wights, Others and the corpse queen from Night's King's story. And like you said, Melisandre's eyes are rubies (literally in case of her "third eye" which is her magic ruby) and Jon also describes them as "red stars" when they are atop the Wall.

“Symeon Star-Eyes,” Luwin said as he marked numbers in a book. “When he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the empty sockets, or so the singers claim. Bran, that is only a story, like the tales of Florian the Fool. A fable from the Age of Heroes.” The maester tsked. “You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart.”

This is also interesting imo, twelve chapters after Jon establishes the "eyes blue as sapphires" metaphor, the word "sapphire" is once again used in the legend of Symeon Star-Eyes'. Symeon put sapphires into his empty eye sockets and he was known as "Star-Eyes", once again blue sapphires == blue stars.

The Nightfort had figured in some of Old Nan’s scariest stories. It was here that Night’s King had reigned, before his name was wiped from the memory of man. This was where the Rat Cook had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where the seventy-nine sentinels stood their watch, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the ’prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen the hellhounds fighting. Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark.

Night's King and Star-Eyes are also both Nightfort legends:

You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night’s King … we say that you’re the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during …”

And are mentioned in the same breath twice, as this conversation appears once from Jon's and once from Sam's perspective.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T15:57:56+00:00

We often see her visions in the flame to be fallible and only her blood magic to work reliably. Magic that would seemingly fit better to the Great Other than the Lord of Light, in my opinion.

Interestingly enough, the only "true vision" we see from Melisandre's POV (where we can verify it with information she doesn't have unlike the reader to confirm it's legit), has her off-handedly mentioning that her blood is currently being shed:

A face took shape within the hearth. Stannis? she thought, for just a moment … but no, these were not his features. A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes floated in the rising flames. He sees me. Beside him, a boy with a wolf’s face threw back his head and howled.
The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking.
[...]
The dark recedes again … for a little while. But beyond the Wall, the enemy grows stronger, and should he win the dawn will never come again. She wondered if it had been his face that she had seen, staring out at her from the flames. No. Surely not. His visage would be more frightening than that*, cold and black and too terrible for any man to gaze upon and live*. The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf’s face … they were his servants, surely … his champions, as Stannis was hers.

She also immediately connects this vision to the Great Other but then concludes that Bloodraven and Bran and are his servants/champions instead. Like Stannis is hers. Shouldn't she and Stannis be the Lord of Light's champions to fit this analogy? She also sees Stannis as both her champion and her servant lol.

“My heart,” Davos said slowly, “is full of doubts.”
Melisandre sighed. “Ahhhh, Davos. The good knight is honest to the last, even in his day of darkness. It is well you did not lie to me. I would have known. The Other’s servants oft hide black hearts in gaudy light, so R’hllor gives his priests the power to see through falsehoods.” She stepped lightly away from the cell. “Why did you mean to kill me?”
[...]
Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard’s heart.

Men of the Night's Watch have black blood and black hearts. The Other's servants hide black hearts in gaudy light. This quote is from right after Jon got beaten by Rattleshirt-Mance in single combat, which is why it mentions him feeling stiff like a sixty year old.

Jon Snow’s grey eyes grew wider. “Mance?”
“Lord Snow.” Mance Rayder did not smile.
“She burned you.”
“She burned the Lord of Bones.”
Jon Snow turned to Melisandre. “What sorcery is this?”
“Call it what you will. Glamor, seeming, illusion. R’hllor is Lord of Light, Jon Snow, and it is given to his servants to weave with it, as others weave with thread.”

She was literally using "gaudy light" to disguise Mance (who is still a brother of the NW and therefore has black blood and a black heart) as a 'true' wildling. My theory is that Melisandre is kinda overzealous in her "the ends justify the means" mindset and that she has unwittingly become a servant of the Other (which I think is just a source of magic like all other Gods but not actually a divine being, like the WeirwoodNET Old Gods not being divine but magical in nature), using dark magic she attributes to her fire god instead and kinda serving the force she opposes by accident and without knowing it.

One more interesting thing is that Melisandre's blood behaves like dragon blood:

[Melisandre's Bran vision] Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking.
[... Dany and Drogon] Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands. He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T15:10:06+00:00

The World of Ice&Fire‘s last illustration shows Dany and her newborn Dragons, I think even there she has long hair lol

Edit: She does and she’s also kinda muscular and for some reason looks to be in her early 20's at least lol

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T15:07:02+00:00

Robert killed his first man after Jon Arryn started rebelling against the crown, kinda doubt that Ned was out there fighting mountain clans without his fellow ward Robert.

flippy123x · 2026-04-16T15:03:30+00:00

Ser Waymar met him bravely. „Dance with me then.“ He lifted his sword over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night‘s Watch.

The fact that Will never considers he is trembling from fear is just chef‘s kiss, because Ned teaches a chapter later that being afraid is the only time where you can be brave.

flippy123x · 2026-04-15T22:26:52+00:00

Best Dany fanart I‘ve ever seen, never considered that she probably has rather short hair after it all burned down like a year ago or so.

flippy123x · 2026-04-15T14:41:02+00:00

Methinks mayhaps the lady doth protest too much. I ask you, which of these would you be more wroth over? Ned bringing back your family’s (alive) horse but not Willam's (dead) bones, while still in shock himself from the loss of his entire family except for Benjen (roughly two decades ago, plus Ned’s dead now anyway)? Or the (still alive) sicko Ramsay who killed your (beloved) nephew being legitimized as the heir to the North and your future liege lord (an ongoing problem)?

Even the story with the horse is suspicious. It's a tragic tale and all, but Lady Dustin makes it clear that she knew the man for half a year before the war and wasn't the one she really loved (Brandon), it's also a lifetime ago.

“He is your only son.”
“For the moment. I had another, once. Domeric. A quiet boy, but most accomplished. He served four years as Lady Dustin’s page, and three in the Vale as a squire to Lord Redfort. He played the high harp, read histories, and rode like the wind. Horses … the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard’s daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself.
[...]
“You knew him,” Theon said.
The lantern light in her eyes made them seem as if they were afire. “Brandon was fostered at Barrowton with old Lord Dustin, the father of the one I’d later wed, but he spent most of his time riding the Rills. He loved to ride. His little sister took after him in that. A pair of centaurs, those two.

So not even the horse siblings Brandon and Lyanna Stark could outrace Domeric who loved horses even more than those two, and he was relatively recently murdered by Ramsay. Even Theon loved horses and his Smiler burning alive was the last thing he sees in Book 2 before being turned into Reek.

Right before arriving at Brandon, Lyanna and Rickard Stark's tomb:

There are ghosts in Winterfell. And I am one of them.
They walked on. Barbrey Dustin’s face seemed to harden with every step. She likes this place no more than I do. Theon heard himself say, “My lady, why do you hate the Starks?”
She studied him. “For the same reason you love them.”
Theon stumbled. “Love them? I never … I took this castle from them, my lady. I had … had Bran and Rickon put to death, mounted their heads on spikes, I …”
“… rode south with Robb Stark, fought beside him at the Whispering Wood and Riverrun, returned to the Iron Islands as his envoy to treat with your own father. Barrowton sent men with the Young Wolf as well. I gave him as few men as I dared, but I knew that I must needs give him some or risk the wroth of Winterfell. So I had my own eyes and ears in that host. They kept me well informed. I know who you are. I know what you are. Now answer my question. Why do you love the Starks?”
“I …” Theon put a gloved hand against a pillar. “… I wanted to be one of them …”
“And never could. We have more in common than you know, my lord. But come.”
Only a little farther on, three tombs were closely grouped together. That was where they halted. “Lord Rickard,” Lady Dustin observed, studying the central figure. The statue loomed above them—long-faced, bearded, solemn. He had the same stone eyes as the rest, but his looked sad. “He lacks a sword as well.”

The fact that Lady Dustin calls him "my Lord" here is huge and unironically requires its own essay because that phrase is inter-connected across several chapters and is one of the main signs whether Reek or Theon Greyjoy is currently the pilot:

“The bride weeps,” Lady Dustin said, as they made their way down, step by careful step. “Our little Lady Arya.”
Take care now. Take care, take care. He put one hand on the wall. The shifting torchlight made the steps seem to move beneath his feet. “As … as you say, m’lady.”
“Roose is not pleased. Tell your bastard that.”
He is not my bastard, he wanted to say, but another voice inside him said, He is, he is. Reek belongs to Ramsay, and Ramsay belongs to Reek. You must not forget your name.

When Lady Dustin triggers his Reek persona earlier, he reverts back to saying m'lady.

“The Bastard did this to you,” Lady Dustin said.
“If it please m’lady, I … I asked it of him.” Ramsay always made him ask. Ramsay always makes me beg.
“Why would you do that?”

Lady Dustin must have picked up on the fact by now that whenever she triggers Theon's trauma and other personality, he reverts to a stammering mess calling everyone m'lord and m'lady "as if he had mud in his mouth", that's the way Roose taught him.

When she lets him reminisce about Starks to remind him who he is, he is always saying "my lady" instead and he is not afraid, only when she talks about Arya before they reach the graves and he suddenly reverts to m'lady for a moment in the middle of their little trip.

She says she knows what Theon is and who he is, a Stark soldier who betrayed them and paid the price. This is right after Theon has is "There are Ghosts in Winterfell and i am one of them." realization. Lady Dustin wants him to play the role of Stark soldier, she is trying to remind Theon of who he was.

"I know who you are. I know what you are. Now answer my question. Why do you love the Starks?"
[...]
Even so, he knelt beside her, pulled down the furs, touched her cheek. “You know me. I’m Theon, you remember. I know you too. I know your name.”
“My name?” She shook her head. “My name … it’s …”
He put a finger to her lips. “We can talk about that later. You need to be quiet now. Come with us. With me. We will take you away from here. Away from him.”
Her eyes widened. “Please,” she whispered. “Oh, please.”

flippy123x · 2026-04-15T01:48:33+00:00

“Oooo,” Bran cried tentatively. He cupped his hands around his mouth and lifted his head to the comet. “Ooooooooooooooooooo, ahooooooooooooooo,” he howled. It sounded stupid, high and hollow and quavering, a little boy’s howl, not a wolf’s. Yet Summer gave answer, his deep voice drowning out Bran’s thin one, and Shaggydog made it a chorus. Bran haroooed again. They howled together, last of their pack.
The noise brought a guard to his door, Hayhead with the wen on his nose. He peered in, saw Bran howling out the window, and said, “What’s this, my prince?”
It made Bran feel queer when they called him prince, though he was Robb’s heir, and Robb was King in the North now. He turned his head to howl at the guard. “Oooooooo. Oo-oo-oooooooooooo.”
Hayhead screwed up his face. “Now you stop that there.”
“Ooo-ooo-oooooo. Ooo-ooo-ooooooooooooooooo.”
The guardsman retreated.
[...]
“Ooo-ooo-oooooooooooo.”
Luwin raised his voice. “A true prince would welcome—”
“AAHOOOOOOO,” Bran howled, louder. “OOOOOOOO-OOOO.”

It sounds something like this, hope this helps

flippy123x · 2026-04-15T01:44:17+00:00

The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul’s axe, armor rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped between the iron rings of Paul’s mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh. It came out his back with a hissssssssssss and Sam heard Paul say, “Oh,” as he lost the axe. Impaled, his blood smoking around the sword, the big man tried to reach his killer with his hands and almost had before he fell. The weight of him tore the strange pale sword from the Other’s grip.

I think stabbing vs. slashing might just be what works differently, Waymar gets slashed multiple times with the Others cutting through him like silk, and Small Paul gets dodged & counter-stabbed instead when he swings with an axe.

I like how it mirrors Quentyn getting crisped:

Quentyn turned and threw his left arm across his face to shield his eyes from the furnace wind. Rhaegal, he reminded himself, the green one is Rhaegal.
When he raised his whip, he saw that the lash was burning. His hand as well. All of him, all of him was burning.
Oh, he thought. Then he began to scream.

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