Brienne's word of salvation

[Anushka Mokosh]

I haven't been on the forum for very long so I'm uncertain as to if there is already a thread about this, but this thing has been bugging me ever since I read it. That word that Brienne shouted just before she was to be hanged, any guesses on what it was? And any theories why in the world does she think the Hound has Sansa?

 

[Ursa major]

There are at least two. I know this because I've posted in one and it wasnt this thread: http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/42472-word-of-brienne-ware-thar-be-spoilers-dargh.html.

Actually, this thread points to that other one (which search wouldn't find because Brienne's name is misspelt in the title): http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/9423-briennas-last-word.html.

The good news, if you haven't yet read A Dance with Dragons, is that the last post in each of these threads was posted before ADwD was published (removing, at least for the moment, the risk of seeing ADwD spoilers).

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Thank you. You have been most helpful

 

[The Imp]

Thank you. You have been most helpful

Feel free to bump one of the old threads, or take cocme guesses here

My guess based on what we read in aDWD is...............

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

We don't have many facts from ADwD to guess on it though since Brienne is only mentioned once or twice and there was nothing that even winked at the right word. Oathkeeper, Winterfell, Catelyn, Sansa, Arya, sword, Ned, Shadow, Yes, Renly, Jaime,... So many options that have or haven't been explored but why would any of them make Stoneheart spare her? But a simple word, apart from Yes, has been bugging me for quite some time. Catelyn is mostly portrayed through the fact that she is a mother (letting Jaime go to save Sansa and Arya, staying with Bran day and night). I think that whatever Brienne said had to appeal to her emotions besides revenge and almost all of the words above remind Stoneheart of something to take revenge for, except Renly who ment nothing to her. So I was thinking Mother, or perhaps Children? We know that each time Thoros revived Beric, Beric lost some of his memories. It is safe to assume the same happened to Catelyn, but being a mother is something she didn't, couldn't forget. This is just a feeling I have though.

 

[The Imp]

We don't have many facts from ADwD to guess on it though since Brienne is only mentioned once or twice and there was nothing that even winked at the right word. Oathkeeper, Winterfell, Catelyn, Sansa, Arya, sword, Ned, Shadow, Yes, Renly, Jaime,... So many options that have or haven't been explored but why would any of them make Stoneheart spare her? But a simple word, apart from Yes, has been bugging me for quite some time. Catelyn is mostly portrayed through the fact that she is a mother (letting Jaime go to save Sansa and Arya, staying with Bran day and night). I think that whatever Brienne said had to appeal to her emotions besides revenge and almost all of the words above remind Stoneheart of something to take revenge for, except Renly who ment nothing to her. So I was thinking Mother, or perhaps Children? We know that each time Thoros revived Beric, Beric lost some of his memories. It is safe to assume the same happened to Catelyn, but being a mother is something she didn't, couldn't forget. This is just a feeling I have though.

The fact that she was sent to bring Jaime back is to me a big clue. I think the word/name Jaime would immediately get Un-Cat's attention, followed by something like "I can bring him to you"

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Yes, but she had been asked to kill Jaime for them and she refused saying he didn't forgot his oath. If she was frightened by Poderic's death and faced with her own death and decided to betray him, 'Yes' would have been a more appropriate choice. If she were to shout Jaime in her final moments in front of Stoneheart, she would probably hang since her loylaties had already been questioned and shouting a person's name when faced with death shows how close we are to them. Somehow I think that Martin used 'word' deliberately and not only to obscure the possibility of it being a name (even though names are also words). That word keeps me rereading every chapter with Brienne and Cat in it. I must have reread everything about five times this August only. xD

 

[Needle]

I it most likely is "Sword" She was asked something like (been awhile since I read the exact wording) rope or sword?

Still not sure how that got her to come get Jaime? Maybe she is to fight him, doesnt sound like her but she might do it to save Pod?

 

[juleska]

I don't think she said Jaime. As others pointed out in the other threads, GRRM chose to write "a word" rather than "a name". Just as whenever he describes Rhaegar's dying words he says "the name of the woman he loved" and not "Elia" or "the name of his wife".

Had she said "Jaime" I think UnCat would've been angered. Remember that the reason she was hanging Brienne was because she believed Brienne had broken her oath to Cat and fallen in league with the Kingslayer. Had she yelled out Jaime under those circumstances I think UnCat would've taken that as evidence of her betrayal.

I don't think she said "sword" either. They told her to choose between the noose and the sword, it's true. But they already had her in the noose. To say "sword" at that point would've been too late. It couldn't have been the simple words of the choice they gave her.

She had to say something that would make UnCat break free of her thirst for vengeance long enough to want to hear what Brienne had to say. So I think she was talking *about* a sword, but didn't use the word sword.

I think she said "Ice".

 

[Koopa]

george confirmed that the word brienne screamed was “sword"

 

[Ursa major]

george confirmed that the word brienne screamed was “sword"

When and where was that?

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

When and where was that?

I'd also like to know that. I've been tracking GRRM's spoilers of TWOW quite carefully and I cannot believe that I missed something this big. I'm quite angry with myself. But if it is sword and she joined BWB, than what will happen to Jaime? I've started liking him since the end of the second book and I would hate for something bad to happen to him. Is she really leading him into a trap or is there more to it? UnCat is no longer reasonable and thus quite unpredictable unlike CAt. So many new questions...

 

[Koopa]

i read the following on the westeros forum.(re-searched for you all)

so at miscon 2012, george r.r. martin read not one but two chapters from winds of winter!
he also answered a pressing and important question: what word did brienne of tarth scream in feast for crows?
SPOILERS FOR FEAST AND WINDS UNDER THE CUT!

the first chapter was from victarion’s pov.... (rest are obviously spoilers from the chapter he read, so i decided to erase this part)

the second chapter was a tyrion chapter (rest are obviously also spoilers from the second chapter he read, so i decided to erase this part too)

anyway after he finished reading the chapters, he opened the floor to some discussion about the plot of asoiaf, and some amazing genius girl said: you know my friends and i were debating this pretty heavily in the lobby just today, brienne screams “one word” as she is being hung by lady stoneheart’s men in a feast for crows - what was the word?
george turned the question on the audience and asked if anyone had figured it out - we shouted all kinds of dumb stuff, “jaime”, “sapphires”, etc. but some other genius in the second row said “sword”!
george confirmed that the word brienne screamed was “sword” ; lady stoneheart gave brienne the choice of either swearing her sword to her or being hung, saying “sword or noose”, and as brienne was being hung she screamed “sword”
the questions moved on for some time, but then a girl asked “well what about podrick payne? he was getting hung with brienne!” and george confirmed that brienne had made the decision to swear her sword to stoneheart in order to save the innocent podrick payne from the noose

Ofcourse the one who wrote could have just pulled a fast one on the forum.
If not, we have our answer.

 

[Ursa major]

Thanks for that, Peeves.

I heard GRRM reading out those same two chapters at Eastercon 2012, but no-one asked that question.

 

[The Imp]

I just went back and re-read that section of aFFC. "Sword" seems 100% right in the context of that chapter.

Lady Catelyn's fingers dug deep into her throat, and the words came rattling out, choked and broken, a stream as cold as ice. The northman said, "She says that you must choose. Take the sword and slay the Kingslayer, or be hanged for a betrayer. The sword or the noose, she says. Choose, she says. Choose. "

She obviously wouldn't scream "noose" if she was to be saved

 

[juleska]

Interesting. Wonder why he didn't just write "sword" then. Silly, George!

 

[Ursa major]

Because - and I'm sure you already know this - we'd have known Brienne's fate.


(And perhaps, more seriously, GRRM was worried about how readers would react to Brienne and her chapters, and he was doing his best to make us care about what might happen to her.)

 

[The Imp]

Interesting. Wonder why he didn't just write "sword" then. Silly, George!

GRRM LOVES his cliffhangers, no matter how small.