What did we learn from ADWD? (MAJOR SPOILERS)

[A-roc]

I've read post before about Rickon being on Skagos, but where was that hinted at? When Davos is at Manderly's court?

Why would either of them know that? Davos passing by there maybe...

 

[Utlendr]

I've read post before about Rickon being on Skagos, but where was that hinted at? When Davos is at Manderly's court?

Why would either of them know that? Davos passing by there maybe...

When asked to recover Rickon, they placed a map in front of Davos and pointed to where Rickon is. They didnt say the name of the place, but Davos thought to himself "I'd rather go back to the dungeon where I can eat porridge." obviously something along those lines and not as sloppy lol. But then he said there are some places in this world where men resort to cannibalism. So far the only place aside from North of the Wall that has cannibalism is Skagos.

 

[A-roc]

Think the seal people are cannibals, too but I catch your drift. When is that chapter, is Davos with that lord of one of the three sisters or Manderly? I just finishd ADWD and completely missed it, and I was even on the look out for it.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Eversummer]

Can anybody explain to me how Rickon and Osha found themselves in Skagos? I have forgotten... Gods! it sucks.

 

[Utlendr]

Think the seal people are cannibals, too but I catch your drift. When is that chapter, is Davos with that lord of one of the three sisters or Manderly? I just finishd ADWD and completely missed it, and I was even on the look out for it.

Thanks for the help.

It was the very last Davos chapter in a ADWD. Manderlay had just released Davos from his jail cell

 

[A-roc]

Cool, thanks utlendr, I'll go back and reread. I don't know how I missed it. I thought Davos's last scene was the farce Manderly puts on for the Freys at his court.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

GRRM can redeem ANYONE. If he can make me even kind of like Theob/Reek he's a magician.

I have to agree. After what he did in Winterfell I was certain he was the one character I would always hate. I had just been proven otherwise.

Martells don't make good dragon tamersI really feel as if GRRM wasted a whole lot of time and accomplished little if anything with that entire plot thread.

I think that the time of Martells has yet to come. We learn about Prince Doran's link to Varys and Illyrio and their scheme. And Quentyn's POVs had revealed to us a lot of Doran's plans and hopes without revealing everything which would be inevitable if those plans were incorporated into Doran's POVs or we wouldn't have been given enough if it were Arianne's or Aero's POVs. Doran trusts his son more than he trusts Arianne and Aero Hoath is never told everything.

GRRM is not above using Deus Ex Machina. Maybe it was the only way to finish the book. Aegon, Dany iexcplicably staying in Meereen and Varys showing up out of nowhere are 3 instances i can think of.

Dany I agree up to a point. Aegon and Varys? Not really. I mean, the baby's head was smashed beyond regonition and a baby is always hard to recognize for certain. As for Varys, we know he stayed in King's Landing, in his secret passageways, in shadows he always operates in. It wouldn't be his style to simply leave everything to chance. He had to make sure Cersai would screw up big time and Kevan's return would have messed up his plans. I'm not saying Varys anticipated Kevan's return, but he wouldn't simply go away and hope everything would just happen as he wants it to. He would have stayed and made sure of it.

The odds do not appear to be really good for wrapping this up in 2 books. Fingers crossed, bets hedged.

Two? Try at least three or four.

We learned (I think!) that Eddard did have a child with Ashara Dayne. A girl.
(for now!)

I would bet that the girl-child (concieved around the time of that notorious tournament) of Ashara Dayne was rather Brandon's than Eddard's. We know that Brandon wasn't above sticking his sword outside of marriage. (*caugh*Barbrey Dustin*caugh*)

Jon IS as dumb as Eddard. It proves to me, that he IS not R+L=J, since only a son of Ned Stark could be so stupid, whilst trying to hold to honour.

Jon and Dany are definitely dumber than ever. However I do not agree with the bolded part. Ned raised the stupid boy and stuffed his head with talks of honour and whatnot. Jon always believed that Ned was his father and was always seeking his approval. I still firmly believe he is R+L. Too many hints for it to turn otherwise, besides Elia couldn't give birth to another child after Aegon and Rhaegar said the dragon needs three heads so we are missing another head (presuming that the more or less confirmed heads are Dany and Aegon). Rhaegar must have concived a child with Lyanna and it would be anticlimactic if it weren't someone we know already (five books already) and haven't seen much of. Besides Jon, no one else fits. Another thing that makes me firmly believe that Jon is R+L was something Aemon said about Mel being wrong about Stannis being Azor Ahai. Aemon hinted that Mel was on the right track for Stannis had a drop of Targaryen's blood. And now, when Mel is seeking Azor Ahai in flames, she sees Jon. Suspicious, suspicious.

 

[The Imp]

I have to agree. After what he did in Winterfell I was certain he was the one character I would always hate. I had just been proven otherwise.


I think that the time of Martells has yet to come. We learn about Prince Doran's link to Varys and Illyrio and their scheme. And Quentyn's POVs had revealed to us a lot of Doran's plans and hopes without revealing everything which would be inevitable if those plans were incorporated into Doran's POVs or we wouldn't have been given enough if it were Arianne's or Aero's POVs. Doran trusts his son more than he trusts Arianne and Aero Hoath is never told everything.


Dany I agree up to a point. Aegon and Varys? Not really. I mean, the baby's head was smashed beyond regonition and a baby is always hard to recognize for certain. As for Varys, we know he stayed in King's Landing, in his secret passageways, in shadows he always operates in. It wouldn't be his style to simply leave everything to chance. He had to make sure Cersai would screw up big time and Kevan's return would have messed up his plans. I'm not saying Varys anticipated Kevan's return, but he wouldn't simply go away and hope everything would just happen as he wants it to. He would have stayed and made sure of it.


Two? Try at least three or four.


I would bet that the girl-child (concieved around the time of that notorious tournament) of Ashara Dayne was rather Brandon's than Eddard's. We know that Brandon wasn't above sticking his sword outside of marriage. (*caugh*Barbrey Dustin*caugh*)


Jon and Dany are definitely dumber than ever. However I do not agree with the bolded part. Ned raised the stupid boy and stuffed his head with talks of honour and whatnot. Jon always believed that Ned was his father and was always seeking his approval. I still firmly believe he is R+L. Too many hints for it to turn otherwise, besides Elia couldn't give birth to another child after Aegon and Rhaegar said the dragon needs three heads so we are missing another head (presuming that the more or less confirmed heads are Dany and Aegon). Rhaegar must have concived a child with Lyanna and it would be anticlimactic if it weren't someone we know already (five books already) and haven't seen much of. Besides Jon, no one else fits. Another thing that makes me firmly believe that Jon is R+L was something Aemon said about Mel being wrong about Stannis being Azor Ahai. Aemon hinted that Mel was on the right track for Stannis had a drop of Targaryen's blood. And now, when Mel is seeking Azor Ahai in flames, she sees Jon. Suspicious, suspicious.

Welcome to the forum

in retrospect, I think that you're correct about Varys. He just never left.

 

[Werthead]

Whenever someone says that Aegon's appearance was a deus ex machina, I have to laugh. People have been talking about that and predicting it since 1998 when A Clash of Kings was published (the House of the Undying clearly prefigures the rise of a rival Targaryen claimant and hints that he's a fake; with the ambiguity over Aegon's death it was almost certainly going to be him).

Beyond that, we learned:

The identity of the three-eyed crow.
The whereabouts of Rickon and Osha.
That Rhaegar was 'forced' into seducing Lyanna to fulfil the PWWP prophecy after Elia's illness got worse.
That Aegon Targaryen survived and is now invading Westeros.
That Varys has been backing Aegon all along.
That Brandon Stark was, in fact, a nasty piece of work and not the paragon Ned thought he was.
That there is absolutely no way that Ashara Dayne was Jon's mother.
That the Children of the Forest are still alive and knocking around.
That Melisandre has been completely misreading the images sent to her in the flames and that Jon Snow is almost certainly the PWWP, not Dany or Stannis.

We learned (I think!) that Eddard did have a child with Ashara Dayne. A girl.

No. We learned that Brandon Stark had sex with Ashara Dayne (maybe at Harrenhal, possibly later) and was probably the father of her child.

It's easy to miss this because you have to put it together. Barristan Selmy greatly respected Ned throughout A Game of Thrones and seemed to genuinely like him. Elsewhere in ADWD, he (almost angrily) tells Daenerys that Ned was a man of honour and he stood vigil for him in the Great Sept after his execution (albeit briefly). At no time does Barristan show anything less than respect and even admiration for Ned.

Then suddenly, whilst thinking about Ashara Dayne (within a chapter or two of his discussion with Dany), Barristan thinks of 'Stark' (no first name) dishonouring her with real anger and venom. This is completely contradictary and makes no sense at all unless he's talking about another Stark, not Ned.

Add in the scenes in Barrowton and Winterfell where we learn whan at an unrepentant arsehole Brandon was, and the fact from ASoS that Brandon went off and 'talked' to Lyanna after Ned expressed an interest in her, and it all comes together quite nicely. And of course it ramps up the tragedy quotient even more if Ned was never, ever unfaithful to Cat at all, and simply pretended to be for Jon's sake.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

No. We learned that Brandon Stark had sex with Ashara Dayne (maybe at Harrenhal, possibly later) and was probably the father of her child.

It's easy to miss this because you have to put it together. Barristan Selmy greatly respected Ned throughout A Game of Thrones and seemed to genuinely like him. Elsewhere in ADWD, he (almost angrily) tells Daenerys that Ned was a man of honour and he stood vigil for him in the Great Sept after his execution (albeit briefly). At no time does Barristan show anything less than respect and even admiration for Ned.

Then suddenly, whilst thinking about Ashara Dayne (within a chapter or two of his discussion with Dany), Barristan thinks of 'Stark' (no first name) dishonouring her with real anger and venom. This is completely contradictary and makes no sense at all unless he's talking about another Stark, not Ned.

Add in the scenes in Barrowton and Winterfell where we learn whan at an unrepentant arsehole Brandon was, and the fact from ASoS that Brandon went off and 'talked' to Lyanna after Ned expressed an interest in her, and it all comes together quite nicely. And of course it ramps up the tragedy quotient even more if Ned was never, ever unfaithful to Cat at all, and simply pretended to be for Jon's sake.

Finally someone who has the same opinion as I.

 

[C Of K]

Nowhere near on par with the original trilogy, each installment of which is stunningly good.

This made me laugh. It's almost as though an entirely different saga, writtten by another man called George, is being discussed. GRRM should probably start watching out for flying stones, thrown at him entirely by mistake, if we're going to start referring to his works in this fashion

Add in the scenes in Barrowton and Winterfell where we learn whan at an unrepentant arsehole Brandon was, and the fact from ASoS that Brandon went off and 'talked' to Lyanna after Ned expressed an interest in her, and it all comes together quite nicely. And of course it ramps up the tragedy quotient even more if Ned was never, ever unfaithful to Cat at all, and simply pretended to be for Jon's sake.

Funny how Jaime seemed to know Brandon's reputation better than Cat or any of the other Starks. I wonder what else he's famous for that hasn't been brought out yet.

 

[juleska]

Finally someone who has the same opinion as I.

Count me in that court as well. http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/536545-what-if-jon-snow-is-just-a-*******-3.html#post1613758

 

[Werthead]

Oh, I think R+L=J is almost certainly the truth, with ADWD actually shutting down one of the alternate explanations (Ned + Ashara = Jon, a theory first mooted early in AGoT, is now dead and buried) and also reinforcing it by confirming that Rhaegar's primary goal in finding a second wife (beyond Elia) was to have a child. Given that the PWWP would (presumably) have to be legitimate, it also obliquely backs up the suggestion that Rhaegar would have had to have married Lyanna (though we're still missing the smoking gun on that issue, namely a handy septon who would have known about this).

In short, after ADWD I think it would not be grossly unconvincing if R+L=J was not true, and GRRM would have to have a tremendously good alternative explanation (one that fans have somehow not stumbled upon in 16 years of trying) to make it work.

 

[juleska]

Agreed, Werthead. I posted not long ago in one of the prophecy threads what I believed to be solid evidence of R+L=J with Jon as Rhaegar's legitimate son. Dany's visions in the House of the Undying combined with a dream that Theon had during his occupation of Winterfell (ACOK) where he saw Lyanna in a "white dress spattered in gore" wearing a crown of blue roses tells me that she died as Rhaegar's bride....the anecdotal evidence of R+L=J is really overwhelming.