#jon brazier

[clemsfilmdiary]

Crush (1992, Alison Maclean)

9/25/22

#Crush #Alison Maclean #Marcia Gay Harden #Donogh Rees #Caitlin Bossley #William Zappa #Pete Smith #Jon Brazier #drama #90s #New Zealand #car crash #accident #traffic accident #critics #writers #neo-noir #indie #brain damage #revenge #murder #lesbian #bisexual #hot springs #landscapes #waterfall

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Jon III

Inside, Jon hung sword and scabbard from a hook in the stone wall, ignoring the others around him.

Methodically, he began to strip off his mail, leather, and sweat-soaked woolens.

Chunks of coal burned in iron braziers at either end of the long room, but Jon found himself shivering.

The chill was always with him here. In a few years he would forget what it felt like to be warm.

The weariness came on him suddenly, as he donned the roughspun blacks that were their everyday wear.

He sat on a bench, his fingers fumbling with the fastenings on his cloak.

So cold, he thought, remembering the warm halls of Winterfell, where the hot waters ran through the walls like blood through a man’s body.

There was scant warmth to be found in Castle Black; the walls were cold here, and the people colder.

No one had told him the Night’s Watch would be like this; no one except Tyrion Lannister. The dwarf had given him the truth on the road north, but by then it had been too late.

#a game of thrones #jon iii #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #jon snow #castle black #night's watch #the wall #cold #chill #swords #scabbards #armory #mail #leather #fire #braziers #weariness #tired #winterfell #house stark #warmth #hot springs #hot water #water #blood #kingsroad #truth #tyrion lannister

[fireandbloodsource]

This is madness, she told herself as she lifted the black-and-scarlet egg from the velvet. It will only crack and burn, and it's so beautiful, Ser Jorah will call me a fool if I ruin it, and yet, and yet… Cradling the egg with both hands, she carried it to the fire and pushed it down amongst the burning coals. The black scales seemed to glow as they drank the heat. Flames licked against the stone with small red tongues. Dany placed the other two eggs beside the black one in the fire. As she stepped back from the brazier, the breath trembled in her throat.

A Game of Thrones, Daenerys VI

He followed, angry, holding the torch out low so he could see the rocks that threatened to trip him with every step, the thick roots that seemed to grab at his feet, the holes where a man could twist an ankle. Every few feet he called again for Ghost, but the night wind was swirling amongst the trees and it drank the words. This is madness, he thought as he plunged deeper into the trees. He was about to turn back when he glimpsed a flash of white off ahead and to the right, back toward the hill. He jogged after it, cursing under his breath.

A Clash of Kings, Jon IV

#asoiaf #asoiafedit #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #canondany #canonjonsnow #valyrianscrolls #snowstorm #jonerys #dany #jon #gifs

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Jon III (AGOT) is such an interesting chapter because it has singularly influenced how people interpret his AGOT arc: that he was a spoiled, classist bully who needed to be brought down a peg.

I wouldn’t disagree that Jon is quite immature, but I do think that using this one chapter to solely represent Jon’s book-long psyche is a bit misguided. Especially when people completely write off and ignore a very important aspect of Jon’s feelings throughout the chapter: he was devastatingly lonely and felt completely abandoned.

Jon followed the rest back to the armory, walking alone. He often walked alone here. There were almost twenty in the group he trained with, yet not one he could call a friend.

It’s interesting that the lack of internal warmth (gained through positive relations with those around him) is mirrored by a very physical chill. Jon is constantly cold.

Chunks of coal burned in iron braziers at either end of the long room, but Jon found himself shivering. The chill was always with him here. In a few years he would forget what it felt like to be warm.

Not just that, but there is a great contrast with Winterfell which felt warm to Jon - and that’s because there were people he loved in Winterfell.

He sat on a bench, his fingers fumbling with the fastenings on his cloak. So cold, he thought, remembering the warm halls of Winterfell, where the hot waters ran through the walls like blood through a man’s body. There was scant warmth to be found in Castle Black; the walls were cold here, and the people colder.

Up to now, Winterfell has been him home. But he’s finding it difficult to call Castle Black home.

You see the thing is, Jon isn’t angry about how he’s surrounded by lower class boys in the training yard. That’s not the problem in this chapter at all. The issue is that the Wall and the Night’s Watch are not at all what he was promised.

No one had told him the Night’s Watch would be like this; no one except Tyrion Lannister. The dwarf had given him the truth on the road north, but by then it had been too late. Jon wondered if his father had known what the Wall would be like. He must have, he thought; that only made it hurt the worse.

Not only was important information withheld from him, but his uncle also abandoned him almost immediately.

Even his uncle had abandoned him in this cold place at the end of the world. Up here, the genial Benjen Stark he had known became a different person.

He has no family and no friends. If the Watch had lived up to his expectations, then it would not have been much of an issue. But that’s not the case. Jon finds out very quickly just how badly off the Night’s Watch is.

He joined the Watch so he could find a place for himself in the world, so he could make a name for himself despite his bastardy, and be accepted. But the great irony is that the exact opposite happened. While skilled, he is constantly downplayed by his instructor. His bastardy is still a defining characteristic - as evidenced by the rather unsavory nickname given to him by Ser Alliser, and the other boys also calling him “bastard” with hostility. And he has no friends. Jon made the decision to join the Watch when he was seated away from his family but then he went there….and still had to sit by himself.

It’s true that much of this is brought on by his own actions, as it’s mentioned in the text that he’s ignoring those around him. But we must appreciate and acknowledge the fact that he’s so lonely and disappointed and hurt. He has just sworn his life away to a penal colony that’s only three steps away from slavery. And for what? The very reason why he joined the Watch in the first place doesn’t even matter in the end.

And yes, Jon is immature. But he’s immature because he’s a boy! Remember, he’s only 14. But there’s an added layer of tragedy because he joined the Watch so he can be a man (as he told his Uncle Ben that he’s almost a man grown). He’s also been told that as a bastard, he has to grow up faster than others. But then what happens?

Three days after their arrival, Jon had heard that Benjen Stark was to lead a half-dozen men on a ranging into the haunted forest. That night he sought out his uncle in the great timbered common hall and pleaded to go with him. Benjen refused him curtly. “This is not Winterfell,” he told him as he cut his meat with fork and dagger. “On the Wall, a man gets only what he earns. You’re no ranger, Jon, only a green boy with the smell of summer still on you.”

Stupidly, Jon argued. “I’ll be fifteen on my name day,” he said. “Almost a man grown.”

Benjen Stark frowned. “A boy you are, and a boy you’ll remain until Ser Alliser says you are fit to be a man of the Night’s Watch. If you thought your Stark blood would win you easy favors, you were wrong. We put aside our old families when we swear our vows. Your father will always have a place in my heart, but these are my brothers now.” He gestured with his dagger at the men around them, all the hard cold men in black.

So he has to man up and fend for himself…but then no, wait! Just kidding. He’s a boy, he couldn’t possibly take on the responsibility of men!

Once again, Jon gets conflicting statements that fail to address the issue at hand. Jon isn’t just a rash youth blindly trying to puff up his feathers and sit at the grown up table. He has no where to go and nothing to be. His only option is to be a man and grow up faster as Masester Luwin says, but then to be told “no actually you can’t” is devastating.

He’s just trying to belong somewhere but it’s not working. And the more lonely he gets, the more resentful he becomes, and as the resentment builds the more he isolates himself. It’s a very tragic cycle.

[…] Afterward he sought out Ghost in the loneliness of his cell, and buried his face in his thick white fur.

If he must be alone, he would make solitude his armor.

And let me challenge the notion that Jon was a “violent classist bully” for a bit. It’s literally stated in the text that he has been keeping to himself all the time, except for when he’s in the training yard. And even in the training yard, there’s absolutely no indication that Jon is purposefully bullying the other boys. He could just be fighting exactly how he’d fight with Robb back in Winterfell, but the difference is that these boys are not castle-bred and thus cannot give as good as they get.

See Jon’s grievances with his fellow recruits are mostly about their ineptitude in the training yard, not about their class.

Most were two or three years his senior, yet not one was half the fighter Robb had been at fourteen. Dareon was quick but afraid of being hit. Pyp used his sword like a dagger, Jeren was weak as a girl, Grenn slow and clumsy. Halder’s blows were brutally hard but he ran right into your attacks. The more time he spent with them, the more Jon despised them.

And even when they have the big confrontation in the armory, it is not initiated by Jon himself. He is actually the victim there.

Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he had … yet she could always make Jon smile. He would give anything to be with her now, to muss up her hair once more and watch her make a face, to hear her finish a sentence with him.

“You broke my wrist, bastard boy.”

Jon lifted his eyes at the sullen voice. Grenn loomed over him, thick of neck and red of face, with three of his friends behind him. He knew Todder, a short ugly boy with an unpleasant voice. The recruits all called him Toad. The other two were the ones Yoren had brought north with them, Jon remembered, rapers taken down in the Fingers. He’d forgotten their names. He hardly ever spoke to them, if he could help it. They were brutes and bullies, without a thimble of honor between them.

Standing up for himself in this confrontation does NOT make him a classist bully.

And once again, Jon does not mention their class as a matter of grievance. He mentions that they are lawless boys without honor.

Now, is he being insensitive by not acknowledging the class gap? Absolutely. He is failing to realize that the reason for his fellow recruits’ lack of skill is due to the fact that they did not have the economic capital to hire a master at arms. But that does not really make him a classist bully. At most, he’s an insensitive boy who’s focusing wholly on his own problems that he fails to look around him and notice what’s going on outside his bubble. Ignorance can exist without malice.

But we see later in this chapter that Jon does make an effort to make friends (after receiving a talking to from Donal Noye).

Inside, the hall was immense and drafty, even with a fire roaring in its great hearth. Crows nested in the timbers of its lofty ceiling. Jon heard their cries overhead as he accepted a bowl of stew and a heel of black bread from the day’s cooks. Grenn and Toad and some of the others were seated at the bench nearest the warmth, laughing and cursing each other in rough voices. Jon eyed them thoughtfully for a moment. Then he chose a spot at the far end of the hall, well away from the other diners.

He was actually going to take the initiative and make friends with Grenn and the rest of them, before he thought better of it. But when the chance came, he did make the decision to bridge the gap between them and even made an enemy of Ser Alliser Thorne for Grenn’s sake.

Others were gathering around and looking at him curiously. Jon noticed Grenn a few feet away. A thick woolen bandage was wrapped around one hand. He looked anxious and uncomfortable, not menacing at all. Jon went to him. Grenn edged backward and put up his hands. “Stay away from me now, you bastard.”

Jon smiled at him. “I’m sorry about your wrist. Robb used the same move on me once, only with a wooden blade. It hurt like seven hells, but yours must be worse. Look, if you want, I can show you how to defend that.”

Alliser Thorne overheard him. “Lord Snow wants to take my place now.” He sneered. “I’d have an easier time teaching a wolf to juggle than you will training this aurochs.”

“I’ll take that wager, Ser Alliser,” Jon said. “I’d love to see Ghost juggle.”

Jon heard Grenn suck in his breath, shocked. Silence fell.

Then Tyrion Lannister guffawed. Three of the black brothers joined in from a nearby table. The laughter spread up and down the benches, until even the cooks joined in. The birds stirred in the rafters, and finally even Grenn began to chuckle.

It’s amazing to see that the notion of Jon being a classist brat really only comes from this one chapter and even then, Jon is not hostile for the entirety of it and even goes out of his way to make amends. Not only that, but there’s absolutely no indication that he made any considerable effort to violently bully the rest of the recruits. He stayed away from everyone most of the time. Donal Noye calling him a bully doesn’t truly cover what’s going on in Jon’s head this chapter and we as a fandom should do a better job of challenging some of these statements - because we have the benefit of the omniscient reader’s view so we actually know what’s been happening.

All in all, I wish readers were more empathetic with how they read Jon III. We shouldn’t just focus on his insensitivity towards the rest of the recruits, but we should also be looking at his loneliness and great desperation to fit in because goddamnit he never has belonged anywhere, no matter how hard he tried. This chapter is not about a violent bully getting a good face slapping. It’s about a lonely boy trying and failing to make a home for himself, after leaving the only one he ever knew.

#jon snow #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #my stuff #canonjonsnow

[istumpysk]

Okay, given that you think the show switched around a lot of endings (very valid, to be honest), how likely do you think it is that they gave Tommen Tyrion's ending?

The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. - Bran IV, AGOT

Stone and shattered gargoyles lay strewn across the yard. They fell just where I did, Bran thought when he saw them. Some of the gargoyles had broken into so many pieces it made him wonder how he was alive at all. - Bran VII, ACOK

Tyrion Lannister was sitting on the ledge above the door to the Great Hall, looking for all the world like a gargoyle. - Jon I, AGOT

Motionless as a gargoyle, Tyrion Lannister hunched on one knee atop a merlon. - Tyrion XIII, ACOK

I am by no means certain about Tyrion's endgame but I just came across these quotes while rereading ACOK and I am intrigued. What do you think?

I completely agree with your observation that George has intentionally connected Tyrion to the gargoyles.

"Yes. The gods have been kind to you, Sansa. You are a lovely girl. It seems almost obscene to squander such sweet innocence on that gargoyle." "What gargoyle?" Sansa did not understand. - Sansa III, ASOS

But I'm not sure what the takeaway is.

It seems quite probable that Tommen will throw himself from a window in Maegor's Holdfast.

There's the historical parallel:

Yet all these were as naught against the tragedy that descended on the court and king. On the twenty-second day of the ninth moon of 133 AC, Jaehaera of House Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the last surviving child of King Aegon II, perished at the age of ten. The little queen died just as her mother, Queen Helaena, had, throwing herself from a window in Maegor's Holdfast onto the iron spikes that lined the dry moat below. Impaled through breast and belly, she twisted in agony for half an hour before she could be lifted free, whereupon she passed from this life at once. - Fire & Blood

Plus, throughout A Feast For Crows, George consistently emphasizes the iron spikes whenever Cersei is on the drawbridge:

She paused upon the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat, gazing down at the spikes below. - Cersei I, AFFC

x

She left him on the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat with its bed of iron spikes and entered Maegor's Holdfast alone. - Cersei V, AFFC

x

"Should Ser Loras fall, Your Grace will need to find another worthy for the Kingsguard," Lord Qyburn said as they crossed over the spiked moat that girded Maegor's Holdfast. - Cersei VII, AFFC

Lastly, in the epilogue, Kevan Lannister remarks about the iron spikes, then the text quickly transitions to the lack of available Kingsguard to watch over Tommen:

The dry moat surrounding Maegor's Holdfast was three feet deep in snow, the iron spikes that lined it glistening with frost. The only way in or out of Maegor's was across the drawbridge that spanned that moat. A knight of the Kingsguard was always posted at its far end. Tonight the duty had fallen to Ser Meryn Trant. With Balon Swann hunting the rogue knight Darkstar down in Dorne, Loras Tyrell gravely wounded on Dragonstone, and Jaime vanished in the riverlands, only four of the White Swords remained in King's Landing, and Ser Kevan had thrown Osmund Kettleblack (and his brother Osfryd) into the dungeon within hours of Cersei's confessing that she had taken both men as lovers. That left only Trant, the feeble Boros Blount, and Qyburn's mute monster Robert Strong to protect the young king and royal family. - Epilogue, ADWD

It's not a lot, but it's enough for me. Lol

As much as I'd love for it to be Tyrion, Tommen feels like the safer bet. :)

#stumpy ask #wintry-ritu

[bikananjarrus]

ok someone has to say it. in percy jackson ep 3 when the fire braziers light up down the staircase to the basement and illuminate medusa’s giant cavern of statuary, it was giving treasure room reveal from the ending of national treasure (2004) dir. jon turteltaub

#this is a compliment btw! #it’s just so funny to me—it’s immediately the first thing i thought of lol #pjo #percy jackson #pjo spoilers #pjotv #pjotv spoilers

[ihaveastorminme]

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

what the FUCK is going on in this scene??? i have been reading meta for years and dont remember reading about this anywhere. the shadow of a great wolf? a man in flames? robb? jon? Staniss?

also, what IS wrong with them? because i am starting to think that they really CANNOT see what dany is seeing. that they are seeing something else entirely maybe. i dont know.

#daenerys 8 #daenerys targaryen #a game of thrones #valyrianscrolls

[eliamartel]

HoTU Visions | Kings Landing

I knew the description of Vaes Tolorro in ACOK evokes Dany walking inside a destroyed Kings Landing - A "sun washed" city (Aegon VI/ Martell imagery) bearing "scars of fire" (duh) but I didn't know that the six alleys coming together symbolises Kingslanding until I read @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir meta on Viserion & Aegon vi.

Attaching screenshot

This is significant as Daenerys encounters six passages coming together in a chamber inside the House of the Undying too. I read her HoTU chapter again and realised that, all of scenes she experiences here, when taken together, symbolises the destruction of Kings Landing

Before entering the House of the Undying, Pyat Pree instructs Dany to always choose to enter the first door on the right if she's in a room with 4 doors, and to always climb up if she encounters any stairs.

Oval room with six passages leading out from it

The fourth room was oval rather than square and walled in worm eaten wood in place of stone. Six passages led out from it in place of four. Dany chose the rightmost, and entered a long, dim, high-ceilinged hall. Along the right hand was a row of torches burning with a smoky orange light, but the only doors were to her left.

Inside the chamber with six passages (symbolising Kingslanding), after Dany makes a choice to enter the rightmost lane, she enters a long hall with many doors on the left and no doors on the right. Only torches lighting the way were on the right wall.

Walking in the hallway; sounds from the walls and closed doors

The mold-eaten carpet (...) served to muffle her footfalls, but that was not all to the good. Dany could hear sounds within the walls, a faint scurrying and scrabbling that made her think of rats. Drogon heard them too. His head moved as he followed the sounds, and when they stopped he gave an angry scream. Other sounds, even more disturbing, came through some of the closed doors. One shook and thumped, as if someone were trying to break through. From another came a dissonant piping that made the dragon lash his tail wildly from side to side. Dany hurried quickly past.

While walking, she hears rats scurrying within the walls, something is trying to break through one door, and the sounds from the third door made her dragon lash his tail wildly. What it means exactly? -> Not sure but Drogon is agitated by this

While walking forward in search for a door on the right (the correct door to proceed furthur if she wants to survive the House of the Undying), she sees some visions through the open doors in the rooms on the left.

Vision 1 - War

In one room, a beautiful woman sprawled naked on the floor while four little men crawled over her. They had rattish pointed faces and tiny pink hands, like the servitor who had brought her the glass of shade. One was pumping between her thighs. Another savaged her breasts, worrying at the nipples with his wet red mouth, tearing and chewing.

Symbolises war in Westeros

Vision 2 - War Crime

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

The Red Wedding where Robb Stark was killed under guest right by House Frey. Daenerys will commit a similar war crime in Kingslanding, attacking and killing Aegon VI and his army despite their surrender

There is also a wolf king watching with his eyes following Dany -> This is Robb at the red wedding, but I think this also symbolises Jon after KL blows up mainly because of -

Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames. - AGOT Daenerys VIII

and

What sort of man can stand by idly and watch his own brother being burned alive? - ADWD Jon IX

More here

Vision 3 - Dany's yearning for a home

She fled from him, but only as far as the next open door. I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. No sooner had she thought it than old Ser Willem came into the room, leaning heavily on his stick. “Little princess, there you are,” he said in his gruff kind voice. “Come,” he said, “come to me, my lady, you’re home now, you’re safe now.” His big wrinkled hand reached for her, soft as old leather, and Dany wanted to take it and hold it and kiss it, she wanted that as much as she had ever wanted anything. Her foot edged forward, and then she thought, He’s dead, he’s dead, the sweet old bear, he died a long time ago. She backed away and ran.

Dany's yearning for a home sparked her desire to conquer westeros and sit on the Iron throne.

After this room, Daenerys runs forward until she gets out of breath and could run no more.

The long hall went on and on and on, with endless doors to her left and only torches to her right. She ran past more doors than she could count, closed doors and open ones, doors of wood and doors of iron, carved doors and plain ones, doors with pulls and doors with locks and doors with knockers. Drogon lashed against her back, urging her on, and Dany ran until she could run no more.

Drogon urges her on as she runs past many open and closed doors -> the presence of her dragons urges her forward on her journey to conquer Westeros

Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference. - ACOK Daenerys III

Vision 4 - Burning of Kingslanding

Finally a great pair of bronze doors appeared to her left, grander than the rest. They swung open as she neared, and she had to stop and look. Beyond loomed a cavernous stone hall, the largest she had ever seen. The skulls of dead dragons looked down from its walls. Upon a towering barbed throne sat an old man in rich robes, an old man with dark eyes and long silver-grey hair.

“Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat,” he said to a man below him. “Let him be the king of ashes.” Drogon shrieked, his claws digging through silk and skin, but the king on his throne never heard,and Dany moved on.

King Aerys wants to burn Kingslanding. Aerys was prevented from blowing up KL as Jaime killed him before the orders could be passed onto the pyromancers guild. Daenerys will succeed where Aerys failed, because she has dragons unlike her father

Vision 5 - Three heads of the dragon

Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise. The man had her brother’s hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. “Aegon,” he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. “What better name for a king?”

“Will you make a song for him?” the woman asked.

“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. “There must be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. “The dragon has three heads.” He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings.

Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.

Three heads of the dragon - Aegon VI (“What better name for a king?”), Daenerys (He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s) and Jon (“There must be one more,") -> Dance of the dragons 2.0

The end of the hallway

It seemed as though she walked for another hour before the long hall finally ended in a steep stone stair, descending into darkness. Every door, open or closed, had been to her left. Dany looked back behind her. The torches were going out, she realized with a start of fear. Perhaps twenty still burned. Thirty at most. One more guttered out even as she watched, and the darkness came a little farther down the hall, creeping toward her. And as she listened it seemed as if she heard something else coming, shuffling and dragging itself slowly along the faded carpet. Terror filled her. She could not go back and she was afraid to stay here, but how could she go on? There was no door on her right, and the steps went down, not up.

There is no door on the right in the entire hall -> No right path to proceed after she makes her choice in Kingslanding (oval room with six passages)

All doors are on the left, darkness is creeping after her, and she hears something shuffling and dragging itself to her which terrorises her (It might be the thing that was trying to break through the closed door in the beginning of the hall). She chooses to enter the last door on the left.

Two more rooms - Aftermath of blowing up KL?

She blindly runs through 8 more rooms, (choosing the right door every time) until she stops to take a breath, in this room (room 9) a vision of Pyat Pree(actually a pale, wormlike creature) tries to trick her towards him. (Maybe assasination attempt? By someone disguised as a man with blue lips/or a warlock/or a priest, since this was only a pale/wormlike creature disguised as a vision of pyat pree) Daenerys' quick thinking saves her from him.

She exits that room with a door to the right, climbs the stairs and enters a door made of Weirwood & Ebony (This part may be related to Arya as the door is similar to the door of the House of Black and White). Inside that room(room 10) there are 4 people (again these 4 people try to trick her, second assasination attempt?), Dany snaps out of their haze when Drogon starts gnawing at the door(Drogon's behavior saves her) and she exits through a door on the right. In the next room she meets the undying ones, who give her visions

#text #hotu #asoiaf speculation #anti daenerys targaryen

[docpiplup]

DAENERYS TARGARYEN APPRECIATION MONTH 2022

Day 7: Underrated visions, dreams and prophecies & Day 21: Foils and parallels & Day 26: The Key Five: Jon ->

Dany and Jon's dreams about their antecesors in AGOT

Wings shadowed her fever dreams.

"You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

She was walking down a long hall beneath high stone arches. She could not look behind her, must not look behind her. There was a door ahead of her, tiny with distance, but even from afar, she saw that it was painted red. She walked faster, and her bare feet left bloody footprints on the stone.

You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

She saw sunlight on the Dothraki sea, the living plain, rich with the smells of earth and death. Wind stirred the grasses, and they rippled like water. Drogo held her in strong arms, and his hand stroked her sex and opened her and woke that sweet wetness that was his alone, and the stars smiled down on them, stars in a daylight sky. "Home," she whispered as he entered her and filled her with his seed, but suddenly the stars were gone, and across the blue sky swept the great wings, and the world took flame.

"… don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

Ser Jorah's face was drawn and sorrowful. "Rhaegar was the last dragon," he told her. He warmed translucent hands over a glowing brazier where stone eggs smouldered red as coals. One moment he was there and the next he was fading, his flesh colorless, less substantial than the wind. "The last dragon," he whispered, thin as a wisp, and was gone. She felt the dark behind her, and the red door seemed farther away than ever.

"… don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

Viserys stood before her, screaming. "The dragon does not beg, slut. You do not command the dragon. I am the dragon, and I will be crowned." The molten gold trickled down his face like wax, burning deep channels in his flesh. "I am the dragon and I will be crowned!" he shrieked, and his fingers snapped like snakes, biting at her nipples, pinching, twisting, even as his eyes burst and ran like jelly down seared and blackened cheeks.

"… don't want to wake the dragon …"

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

"… don't want to wake the dragon …"

She could feel the heat inside her, a terrible burning in her womb. Her son was tall and proud, with Drogo's copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like almonds. And he smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash. She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin.

"… the dragon …"

"… want to wake the dragon …"

Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster." She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. "Faster!" the ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward. A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew.

The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings. She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.

"… the dragon …"

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars.

A Game of Thrones, Daenerys IX

"Sometimes I dream about it," he said. "I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle." The thought of Benjen Stark saddened him; his uncle was still missing. The Old Bear had sent out rangers in search of him. Ser Jaremy Rykker had led two sweeps, and Quorin Halfhand had gone forth from the Shadow Tower, but they'd found nothing aside from a few blazes in the trees that his uncle had left to mark his way. In the stony highlands to the northwest, the marks stopped abruptly and all trace of Ben Stark vanished.

"Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked.

Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf's shaggy white fur. "Do you dream of Horn Hill?" Jon asked.

A Game of Thrones, Jon IV

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night's Watch now, not a frightened boy.

A Game of Thrones, Jon VII

#danymonth2022 #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #canonjonsnow #canondany #day 7 #day 21 #day 26 #underrated visions dreams and prophecies #foils and parallels #the key five #asoiaf parallels #agot #a game of thrones #sketches #my drawings #jonerys #snowstorm #jon x dany

[jackoshadows]

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.  - Daenerys, AGoT

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him. Melisandre had seen his danger before, had tried to warn the boy of it. Enemies all around him, daggers in the dark. He would not listen. - Melisandre, ADwD

"See that he stays safe and warm. For his mother’s sake, and mine. And keep him away from the red woman. She knows who he is. She sees things in her fires.” Arya, he thought, hoping it was so. “Ashes and cinders.” “Kings and dragons.” Dragons again.  For a moment Jon could almost see them too, coiling in the night, their dark wings outlined against a sea of flame. - Jon, ADwD

#Daenerys Targaryen #Melisandre #Jon Snow #ADwD

[magalidragon]

glowing | a Jonerys drabble (and HOtD tie-in) | 🔥

I wrote this in the immediate aftermath of the HOTD finale because: 1) I’m delaying going to sleep for some reason, 2) the table was so COOL, and 3) I just really am sad that the dragons died out and I don’t want to see it. Even if it’s still a few years off. Also 4) I love Caraxes my noodle boi. 5) Also I really want Targ Restoration. Enjoy!

Dragonstone reminded him of Winterfell.

Jon walked the corridors, feeling the same chill he felt when he was in the Northern stronghold. His home, he supposed, although lately Dragonstone was more his home than Winterfell had ever been. He enjoyed the warmth from the Dragonmont, exploring the caves, and when in need, diving into the sea to work off excess energy as they waited for news from the West.

He knew the win was in sight. They’d fly to King’s Landing soon. They’d take it and he would crown his queen on the steps of the ruined Dragonpit.

In his arms, he held the egg— one of three they had found— earlier than month, while searching the Dragonmont. He had been drawn to it for some reason, a blood red with flecks of gold. Even Ghost seemed drawn to it, sniffing it and sitting by the brazier where it warmed when it wasn’t with the other two in the incubation chamber in the Dragonmont.

The dragons in the walls whispered among themselves and he’d woken up to the whispers. He took the egg and followed the dragons, the firelight on the wall torches leading the way. He stopped in the entry to the Chamber of the Painted Table, pausing and peering in.

Torches hung on the walls and the hearth blazed, doing its best to heat the room that was otherwise open to the elements, a cold wind blowing through the wall behind his queen, whistling off the stone columns.

She was sitting at the head of the table— the North— a large ancient tome open in front of her. He walked in quietly, trying not to startle her. He needn’t have bothered. She lifted her face, smiling. “I heard you coming down the hall.”

“Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“It’s no bother. I couldn’t sleep.”

Jon held the egg up. “I wanted to bring it here. Not sure why.”

Dany nodded to the hearth. She stood and walked towards him, taking the egg and kneeling, placing it in the fire. It glowed, so red it was blinding. He walked around the table and gazed at the book she was reading. It was all in High Valyrian, but there were drawings, the colored ink faded, depicting different dragons.

“Who is this?” he asked, pointing to an egg similar in color to the one in the fire. There was a dragon next to it, with an oddly long neck and an extra set of wings on his feet.

“Ah, one of my favorites. the Blood Wyrm. Caraxes.” Dany pointed to the Valyrian. “Last seen over the God’s Eye. He took down Vhagar. One of the casualties of the Dance of the Dragons. Riders were Daemon Targaryen and his uncle Aemon, son of Jaehaerys the Wise.”

Jon knew Caraxes. He knew all the dragons. He’d never seen drawings of them though. “You’re looking at histories of the Dance of the Dragons?” He didn’t want her to do that. This war of the kingdom would have a better end for their house. He didn’t want her to think of the other outcome.

“I was looking up the dragons. They comfort me.” She hesitated and shrugged, closing the book and carried it to a side table. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

As if on cue, Rhaegal cried out. He knew it was Rhaegal because he felt the tug in his heart and mind. He glanced at the carved table, running his finger in the groove marking Castle Black. It seemed so long ago he’d been there. That that had been his home.

“Do you want to see something…for lack of a better word…” Dany trailed off, a sly, knowing smile like she had a secret she was bursting to share, “cool to see?”

“Cool?”

“It’s an idiom,” she laughed. She walked by him to the torches on the wall, taking them down and extinguishing them. The room plunged into darkness by the time she finished, at the other side of the table.

He didn’t know what that meant but he watched, intrigued, as Dany crossed to the hearth. She reached in with her bare hands and removed coals and burning embers, placing them in a box. He frowned at it. “Where did that come from?”

“Under the table. I found it the other day when I dropped my quill. It was almost sealed completely beneath it.”

She scattered some candles in it too and dragged it back to the end of the table. He watched, curious, and was about to ask again what she was going, when she shoved the box of flame beneath the table.

And as if by magic, the table slowly came to life.

The flames lit underneath the dragonglass and stone, his mouth dropping as the flames traveled up the table, the grooves glowing red and orange, like molten lava. He gaped, unable to comprehend the sheer beauty of it all.

The entire kingdom floated in fire. He glanced up and it did the same in Dany’s eyes. She had her hands folded under her belly, a small smile playing on her lips. “I don’t know why we didn’t know about this before, it makes conquering even more enjoyable.”

He barked a laugh, his hand touching the table lightly. It was still cool to the touch. He shook his head, smiling. “Our ancestors were…something else.”

“Indeed.”

When he looked up again, he was startled to see her atop the table. She was kneeling at the end, between Dorne and the Reach. He didn’t have to ask and climbed atop the table. They met in the middle, somewhere in the Riverlands

On their knees, they met in a long, gentle kiss. Jon brushed his nose against hers, his eyelashes fluttering on his cheeks when he opened his eyes, to find her blinking back tears. “What is it?” he murmured.

Dany didn’t speak and instead pushed his hands to her dress, both of them tugging at the clasps. The fabric pooled to her hips and he looked down at her naked upper body.

And saw it.

It was the way the shadows fell over her breasts and the curve of her hips. He hadn’t noticed it earlier. He certainly did now. The shadow and flame that danced on the gentle swell of her lower belly.

He covered it with his hand, meeting her teary gaze. “A babe?” he whispered, hoarse.

She nodded and grinned. “Yes.”

At the same time they turned their faces to the fire, where the egg glowed. Their babe’s egg, he thought. He grinned and touched his forehead to hers. “This is…gods Dany.”

“We will rule the Seven Kingdoms again,” she whispered. She looked down at the glowing table that Aegon the Conqueror had used, that all the Targaryens used to plan their wars. “And dragons will own the skies again.”

Jon pulled her down atop the table, their heads somewhere over Winterfell and kissed her, vowing he’d do all he could to ensure that would happen.

#jonerys #my fics #jonerys au #my moodboards #hotd tie in drabble #not really spoilers for hotd just the cool ass table

[gendrie]

sansa iii

"an army of wargs" wrong stark sibling! that would be arya

lol sansa deflects blame to arya a couple paragraphs down too.  

sandor spoke up but standing there and watching them beat sansa up will haunt him

tyrion puts joff in his place bc, apparently, he is the only one who can

it feels like sansa is more guarded with tyrion than any other character

catelyn iv

catelyn is already giving undead vibes. she thinks she died with ned, food has lost its savor, ect.

"incest was a monstrous sin to both the old gods and the new" oh word?

crazy that jaime pushed bran to conceal something that is now common knowledge

stannis wanted to have 4 living men flung from catapults for trying to surrender during a prolonged siege and was only talked out of it bc the men could serve as food........is this your king? 

catelyn calling for a "great council" and bran will be at the center of it so the lords of the 7 kingdoms can choose who shall rule. it was there the entire goddamn time lol.

the shadow assassination scene is soooo good 

catelyn wacked this dude with an iron brazier!!!!!

when catelyn said “if any man tries to stop us cut him down” yes mother!!

jon iv

this wolf does not give a fuck what jon says

ghost just happened to know where the secret stash of dragonglass + the horn of winter was buried? am i supposed to assume bloodraven was involved with this?

we got weapons to defend against the walkers and a tool that will possibly bring down the wall? im getting mixed signals. are we fighting the walkers or are we letting them thru the door?

so like. this was coldhands? 

bran v

bran working the bellows for mikken is too cute

jojen tells bran his home is gonna be taken, his people killed and bran will have a target on his back if people learn he's a warg. also him and his baby brother will get their faces skinned off. this kid’s got nothing but bad news

"your soul seeks its other half" fave warg bond description

they shouldve killed ""reek"" on the spot.....im stressed over this

#asoiaf reread #imagine any female character having 4 men tied to catapults #bc they wanted to surrender #and only backed down so they could potentially be eaten #the double standards my god lol

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Jon III

Jon stared sullenly at the smoke rising from the brazier, until Noye took him under the chin, thick fingers twisting his head around. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy.”

Jon looked. The armorer had a chest like a keg of ale and a gut to match. His nose was flat and broad, and he always seemed in need of a shave. The left sleeve of his black wool tunic was fastened at the shoulder with a silver pin in the shape of a longsword.

#a game of thrones #jon iii #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #jon snow #donal noye #castle black #armory #smoke #braziers #fire #sullen #stare #look #talking #talk #boy #head #chin #armorers #smiths #beards #arms #swords #longswords #night's watch

[thesultrybraavosibard]

“They say a man doesn’t realise how heavy a crown is until it’s placed on his head,” Arya rested the bronze-and-iron band on his crown, watching it sink low until the little black longswords pierced gentle wavy tufts of his white hair. “The weight of the north is on you now.”

Jon observed her carefully, staring at her worry at her bottom lip. “I accept the responsibility, as Robb had.”

“Good,” she said. “Hopefully you’ll live a little longer.”

“You’re a bit too late for that, don’t you think, little sister?” Eyes like fiery braziers and hair as white as Ghost’s coat was what death gifted him, lost memories and a bottomless pit for vengeance.

Yet his saving grace stood before him and rested an entire kingdom on his shoulders.

“The girl, the one with dirt on her face,” he started, pausing. “How do you know her?” Her brown eyes were full of terror, despair, and her hair was even more matted than Arya’s could get when she herself was younger. Wild curls bloomed underneath the severe tangles, he remembered.

We’ll never eat bugs or worms ever again, do you hear me, she told her. The girl nodded with tears in her eyes. They spilled and streaked clean tracks on her dirty face, and so Arya stood up in satisfaction. She wriggled her fingers, beckoning the girl to stand, taking the girl in her arms while she made a servant draw her water and another bring her food.

The thought of Arya somewhere on the verge of starvation, resorting to eating insects and whatever else just to survive set him into a burning rage, one that he struggled to even.

He said her name again, to draw her out of her thoughts. For a while, Arya didn’t answer. She only worried at her lip a little more as she seemingly fell deeper into contemplation.

“Just promise me,” she whispered, “promise me that you’ll be better to the smallfolk. The things I’ve seen…” Arya took a breath. “Promise me you’ll be good to them.”

“Arya…”

“Promise me, Jon.” The words were fierce and sharper than Needle’s edge. “They need you to do right by them.”

He edged her closer, hands on her shoulders. Jon cradled her head to his chest and kissed her dark hair, smelling the fresh soap on her skin. “I will do everything I possibly can for our people, Arya. That I promise.”

#jon snow #arya stark #jonrya #fanfiction

[thelustybraavosimaid]

@doublehex.

You asked, I shall answer on a different post (as not to clog mummersblade's activity/post):

Did GRRM always plan on Jon being resurrected, or do you think lines like that one is just a coincidence? There are times that I think GRRM always planned on it, right from the start.

Yes, I really think he did. Let me find the quotes to kind of back this up:

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. (Bran III, AGoT)

--

Chunks of coal burned in iron braziers at either end of the long room, but Jon found himself shivering. The chill was always with him here. In a few years he would forget what it felt like to be warm. (Jon III, AGoT)

--

“Yes, life,” Noye said. “A long life or a short one, it’s up to you, Snow. The road you’re walking, one of your brothers will slit your throat for you one night.” (Jon III, AGoT)

--

He saw the glint of steel, turned toward it. “No blades!” he screamed. “Wick, put that knife…”

…away, he meant to say. When Wick Whittlestick slashed at his throat, the word turned into a grunt. Jon twisted from the knife, just enough so it barely grazed his skin. He cut me. When he put his hand to the side of his neck, blood welled between his fingers. “Why?”

“For the Watch.” Wick slashed at him again. (Jon XIII, ADwD)

Jon lost his life not just for Arya, but also from growing discontent with fellow Night's Watchmen, shown early on in ADwD and it's his inflexibility—and his involvement in the matters of the realm—that led to his demise. This line of Noye's especially seems to be foreshadowing enough for me, not dissimilar to Arya's "a wolf with a fish in its mouth?" quote.

The original outline mentions that there is a deadly rivalry, between Jon and Tyrion, over Arya. The dynamic is still there, but the members have been switched around. We've seen this enacted in the series (still with) Jon, but over "Arya" and with Ramsay (as he burned Winterfell, with the sieging "assistance" from Theon. There is obviously no real love, helpless or otherwise, between Jeyne and Ramsay, but as his wife, Ramsay claims possession of her). In a way, it is Ramsay's words and letter (assuming he wrote it) that also led to Jon's death.

Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it. (Jon XIII, ADwD)

--

His fingers closed around the parchment. Would that they could crush Ramsay Bolton's throat as easily. (Jon VI, ADwD)

...

I have my swords, thought Jon Snow, and we are coming for you, Bastard. (Jon XIII, ADwD)

I cannot help but feel that George always intended to make him test his vows - unsuccessfully in the beginning, hard decisions to make but ones that would ultimately allow him to go back and realise his duty, before he gets hit really hard with the final one, the deadly one.

So I think his intention was always to die and come back. And that's the importance of Melisandre staying on the Wall. (I feel like Jon is the *stone dragon* that R'hllor wants her to wake, but that is a conversation for a different time.)

My spells should suffice. She was stronger at the Wall, stronger even than in Asshai. Her every word and gesture was more potent, and she could do things that she had never done before. (Melisandre I, ADwD)

So since we established that Jon was, in my opinion, almost designed to die, there had to be some kind of workaround for him to return. What better way than with resurrection?

As he had criticised Tolkien for with Gandalf, his idea of returning would come with a twist.

Even less likely is that he came up with Jon being killed and resurrected while he was writing ADWD. He starts to lay down the foreshadowing real thick in that book, so that could be evidence that he needed to lay the train tracks as the train was coming to town.

Yeah, I would even go so far as to say that he began the death imagery and hints for Jon in AGoT:

Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." (Jon IV, AGoT)

There's a lot waiting down there for him - Ned, Lyanna, perhaps? Information about his parentage? But also death.

There's an interesting theory that the crypts serve as an in-between of life and death, which is why Rickon and Bran dreamt of Ned down in the crypts even before the raven came with the announcement that he had died.

The names of the direwolves also are important. The fact that we know that wargs and skinchangers live on in their bonded companions gives credence to Ghost's name.

I'm not so sure about this, as I think the biggest reason he has Lady Stoneheart and Berric Dondarion is to set up Jon's resurrection, but there is still the chance he connected all those three characters together after he wrote ASOS.

Yep! He talked about this before, actually:

And, ehh, he’s more or less the same as always, except he’s more powerful. It always felt a little bit like a cheat to me. And as I got older and considered it more, it also seemed to me that death doesn’t make you more powerful. That’s, in some ways, me talking to Tolkien in the dialogue, saying, “Yeah, if someone comes back from being dead, especially if they suffer a violent, traumatic death, they’re not going to come back as nice as ever.” That’s what I was trying to do, and am still trying to do, with the Lady Stoneheart character.

And Jon Snow, too, is drained by the experience of coming back from the dead on the show.

Right. And poor Beric Dondarrion, who was set up as the foreshadowing of all this, every time he’s a little less Beric. His memories are fading, he’s got all these scars, he’s becoming more and more physically hideous, because he’s not a living human being anymore. His heart isn’t beating, his blood isn’t flowing in his veins, he’s a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice, now we’re getting back to the whole fire and ice thing.

George describes Lady Stoneheart in this same interview as "a vengeful wight who galvanizes a group of people around her and is trying to exact her revenge on the riverlands."

Jon will be different in the sense that he is a warg and has a shield against what's causing Stoneheart and Beric's deteriorations—Ghost—but being a warg has its perils as well:

"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." (Prologue, ADwD)

As Jon is the only main character warg who actually died, this passage is meant to be about him.

#ramble

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

A STORM OF SWORDS

Summary & Foreshadowing Smorgasbord (Part III)

Love is in the air.

ASOS Part III: UNDER THE CUT

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

ASOS Part I: CLICK

Sansa Stark, Queen in the North

Jon Snow, King in the North

Jon (Aemon?) Snow

Jon the Builder & His Gift

Ahoy Matey! Arya Stark Sails the Ocean Blue

Bran the Broken, King of Westeros

High Septon Rickon?

Pick Your Poison: The Twins Meet Their End in the Mines of Casterly Rock . . . or King's Landing

Tyrion Lannister, (Prisoner?) Hand of the King

In Remembrance: A Look Back at Sandor Clegane's & Ygritte's Greatest Moments

ASOS Part II: CLICK

Dark Daenerys Highlights & Laughs

Let's Dance: Stark vs. Targ

Showdown at the Trident

A Rat in a Maze 🐀🔪

The Usurper's Knife

Bran the Dragonslayer?

Storm x Storm 🦑🖤🐉

ASOS Part IV: CLICK

Chapter Transitions

Previous books:

AGOT Summary & Foreshadowing: CLICK

ACOK Summary & Foreshadowing: PART I & PART II

Stumpy note:

If I didn't give you credit for discovering something or if I missed any foreshadowing, please contact me and I'll rectify that.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone that participated in the reread project. All of you have great observations and comments, I wish I could highlight them all. 🙂

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

Once again, thank you to @ladyofasoiaf for making the manual on all things jonsa. I heavily rely on it when making these posts. :)

Chapter Transitions

Sansa I (ch. 6) -> <-Jon I (ch. 7)

Sansa visits the Queen of Thorns, while Jon has a face-to-face with the King-beyond-the-Wall. The similarities won't stop there.

Thank you, @sxpiosexualx!

Beyond the spiked moat, two dozen men were taking their practice with sword and shield. With the castle so crowded, the outer ward had been given over to guests to raise their tents and pavilions, leaving only the smaller inner yards for training. 

[...]

A fire was crackling in the hearth, and sweet-swelling rushes had been scattered on the floor. Around the long trestle table a dozen women were seated. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Elsewhere two bearded youths in boiled leather were sparring with staffs, leaping at each other over the flames, grunting each time one landed a blow. A dozen women sat nearby in a circle, fletching arrows. - Jon I, ASOS

___

Outside its tall carved doors stood two guards in gilded halfhelms and green cloaks edged in gold satin, the golden rose of Highgarden sewn on their breasts. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Here at least they found defenders; two guards at the flap of the tent, leaning on tall spears with round leather shields strapped to their arms. - Jon I, ASOS

___

Sansa knelt at the feet of her future queen. "You do me great honor, Your Grace."

"Won't you call me Margaery? Please, rise. Loras, help the Lady Sansa to her feet. Might I call you Sansa?" - Sansa I, ASOS

x

"Your Grace?" The king smiled. "That's not a style one often hears from the lips of free folk. I'm Mance to most, The Mance to some. Will you take a horn of mead?" - Jon I, ASOS

___

Pale, elegant Lady Graceford was with child, and Lady Bulwer was a child, no more than eight.

[...]

The old woman called to Butterbumps. "Fool! Give us a song. A long one, I should think. 'The Bear and the Maiden Fair' will do nicely." - Sansa I, ASOS

x

A dark young man and a pretty blonde woman were sharing a horn of mead. A pregnant woman stood over a brazier cooking a brace of hens, while a grey-haired man in a tattered cloak of black and red sat crosslegged on a pillow, playing a lute and singing - Jon I, ASOS

___

"Sansa," Lady Alerie broke in, "you must be very hungry. Shall we have a bite of boar together, and some lemon cakes?" - Sansa I, ASOS

x

"Sit, if you like," Rayder said when they were gone. "Are you hungry? Tormund left us two birds at least." - Jon I, ASOS

___

"He will," Sansa lied. "He is very . . . very comely." - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Jon had his lie all ready. "The Lord Commander sent me to the Halfhand for seasoning, so he took me on his ranging." - Jon I, ASOS

___

Sansa realized that her mouth was open again. She filled it with a spoon of broth - Sansa I, ASOS

x

He took a long draught of mead to buy time for his answer. - Jon I, ASOS

___

Courtesy is a lady's armor. You must not offend them, be careful what you say. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Guest right or no, Jon Snow knew he walked on rotten ice here. One false step and he might plunge through, into water cold enough to stop his heart. Weigh every word before you speak it, he told himself. - Jon I, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa I (ch. 6) -> Jon I (ch. 7)

Sounds like fun!

The Baratheons have always had some queer notions, to be sure. It comes from their Targaryen blood, I should think." She sniffed. "They tried to marry me to a Targaryen once, but I soon put an end to that." - Sansa I, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon II (ch. 15) -> <- Sansa II (ch. 16)

Children, shared beds, men flying eagles, and brand new clothing in back-to-back chapters.

Thank you, @sxpiosexualx!

"I might get her with child."

"Aye, I'd hope so. A strong son or a lively laughing girl kissed by fire, and where's the harm in that?" - Jon II, ASOS

x

If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya. - Sansa II, ASOS

___

Rangers often shared skins for warmth, but warmth was not all Ygritte wanted, he suspected. After that he had taken to using Ghost to keep her away. Old Nan used to tell stories about knights and their ladies who would sleep in a single bed with a blade between them for honor's sake, but he thought this must be the first time where a direwolf took the place of the sword. - Jon II, ASOS

x

They spent long afternoons doing needlework and talking over lemon cakes and honeyed wine, played at tiles of an evening, sang together in the castle sept . . . and often one or two of them would be chosen to share Margaery's bed, where they would whisper half the night away. - Sansa II, ASOS

___

"Jon Snow, you know nothing. You don't go in with clothes." - Jon II, ASOS

x

They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They've never seen a battle, they've never seen a man die, they know nothing. - Sansa II, ASOS

___

She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore. - Jon II, ASOS

x

Sister. Sansa had once dreamt of having a sister like Margaery; beautiful and gentle, with all the world's graces at her command. Arya had been entirely unsatisfactory as sisters went. - Sansa II, ASOS

___

Jon turned at the sudden sound of wings. Blue-grey feathers filled his eyes, as sharp talons buried themselves in his face. Red pain lanced through him sudden and fierce as pinions beat round his head. He saw the beak, but there was no time to get a hand up or reach for a weapon. - Jon II, ASOS

x

"Willas has the best birds in the Seven Kingdoms," Margaery said when the two of them were briefly alone. "He flies an eagle sometimes. You will see, Sansa." She took her by the hand and gave it a squeeze. "Sister." - Sansa II, ASOS

___

Jon wheeled and followed Tormund back toward the head of the column, his new cloak hanging heavy from his shoulders. It was made of unwashed sheepskins, worn fleece side in, as the wildlings suggested. It kept the snow off well enough, and at night it was good and warm, but he kept his black cloak as well, folded up beneath his saddle. 

[...]

Mance Rayder had not been blind to Rattleshirt's mistrust of the "crow-come-over," so after he had given Jon his new sheepskin cloak he had suggested that he might want to ride with Tormund Giantsbane instead. - Jon II, ASOS

x

"A new gown?" she said, as wary as she was astonished.

[...]

"More lovely than any you have worn, my lady," the old woman promised. She measured Sansa's hips with a length of knotted string. "All silk and Myrish lace, with satin linings. You will be very beautiful. The queen herself has commanded it." - Sansa II, ASOS

x

And so it was that her lord husband cloaked her in the colors of House Lannister whilst standing on the back of a fool. - Sansa III, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa VI (ch. 68) -> Jon IX (ch. 69)

Oh boy!

When it was time for the bedding, her knights carried her up to the tower, stripping her as they went and shouting bawdy jests. Tyrion spared me that, Sansa remembered. It would not have been so bad being undressed for a man she loved, by friends who loved them both. - Sansa VI, ASOS

___

You'll know that, when you have a child."

"A child?" said Sansa, uncertainly.

Lysa waved a hand negligently. "Not for many years. You are too young to be a mother. One day you shall want children, though. Just as you will want to marry." - Sansa VI, ASOS

___

How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert? - Sansa VI, ASOS

___

It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. - Sansa VI, ASOS

___

I see no reason why you should not be wed as soon as we know that your Lannister husband is dead. A secret wedding, to be sure. - Sansa VI, ASOS

x

His account introduces a young maiden, or "wolf girl" as he dubs her, with the name of Sara Snow. So smitten was Prince Jacaerys with this creature, a bastard daughter of the late Lord Rickon Stark, that he lay with her of a night. On learning that his guest had claimed the maidenhead of his bastard sister, Lord Cregan became most wroth, and only softened when Sara Snow told him that the prince had taken her for his wife. They had spoken their vows in Winterfell’s own godswood before a heart tree, and only then had she given herself to him, wrapped in furs amidst the snows as the old gods looked on. - Fire & Blood

+.+.+

Sansa VI (ch. 68) -> <- Jon IX (ch. 69)

Wind through their hair.

Thank you, @butterflies-dragons!

The wind ran salty fingers through her hair, and Sansa shivered. - Sansa VI, ASOS

x

A gust of wind sent icy tendrils wending through his long brown hair. - Jon IX, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon XII (ch. 79) -> <- Sansa VII (ch. 80)

Love and Winterfell. ❤️

Thank you, @esther-dot!

You can't be the Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born, he heard Robb say again. And the stone kings were growling at him with granite tongues. You do not belong here. This is not your place. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

"I don't want her here." Her aunt's eyes were shiny with tears. "Why did you bring her to the Vale, Petyr? This isn't her place. She doesn't belong here." - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

She remembered a summer's snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They'd each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she'd had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she'd slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn't, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

When Jon closed his eyes he saw the heart tree, with its pale limbs, red leaves, and solemn face. The weirwood was the heart of Winterfell, Lord Eddard always said . . . but to save the castle Jon would have to tear that heart up by its ancient roots, and feed it to the red woman's hungry fire god. I have no right, he thought. Winterfell belongs to the old gods. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

The snow fell and the castle rose. Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall. It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

The warmth took some of the ache from his muscles and made him think of Winterfell's muddy pools, steaming and bubbling in the godswood. Winterfell, he thought. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

"No. It was always warm, even when it snowed. Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer." - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

Would I sooner be hanged for a turncloak by Lord Janos, or forswear my vows, marry Val, and become the Lord of Winterfell? It seemed an easy choice when he thought of it in those terms . . . though if Ygritte had still been alive, it might have been even easier. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

Sansa felt sorry for her little cousin sometimes, but she could not imagine ever wanting to be his wife. I would sooner be married to Tyrion again. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell." - Jon XII, ASOS

x

"A giant," the boy whispered, weeping. "It wasn't me, it was a giant hurt the castle. She killed him! I hate her! She's a bastard and I hate her! I don't want to be leeched!" - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

In the end Halder and Horse had to pull him away from Iron Emmett, one man on either arm. The ranger sat on the ground dazed, his shield half in splinters, the visor of his helm knocked askew, and his sword six yards away. "Jon, enough," Halder was shouting, "he's down, you disarmed him. Enough!"

No. Not enough. Never enough. Jon let his sword drop. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "Emmett, are you hurt?" - Jon XII, ASOS

x

It was more than Sansa could stand. "Robert, stop that." Instead he swung the doll again, and a foot of wall exploded. She grabbed for his hand but she caught the doll instead. There was a loud ripping sound as the thin cloth tore. Suddenly she had the doll's head, Robert had the legs and body, and the rag-and-sawdust stuffing was spilling in the snow.

[...]

"It was my fault." Sansa showed them the doll's head. "I ripped his doll in two. I never meant to, but . . ."

[...]

A mad rage seized hold of her. She picked up a broken branch and smashed the torn doll's head down on top of it, then pushed it down atop the shattered gatehouse of her snow castle. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

Ygritte wanted me to be a wildling. Stannis wants me to be the Lord of Winterfell. But what do I want?

[...]

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre's. He had a weirwood's eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they'd found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow.

He had his answer then. - Jon VII, ASOS

x

I will tell my aunt that I don't want to marry Robert. Not even the High Septon himself could declare a woman married if she refused to say the vows.

[...]

I will tell her. I will! - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon XII (ch. 79) <- Sansa VII (ch. 80)

Ghostly silent, drifting snowflake. 🐺❄️

When she opened the door to the garden, it was so lovely that she held her breath, unwilling to disturb such perfect beauty. The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence, and lay thick and unbroken on the ground. All color had fled the world outside. It was a place of whites and blacks and greys. White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above. A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here.

Yet she stepped out all the same. Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming. Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.

When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa and Chett appear to have two things in common: drifting snowflakes, and Jon Snow.

AGOT:

Prologue: ice threat introduction.

Final chapter: fire threat introduction.

ACOK:

Prologue: cold-hearted King Stannis with his dying maester.

Final chapter: kindhearted King Bran with his dying maester.

ASOS:

Snow was falling. - Prologue, ASOS

vs.

Snow was falling on the Eyrie. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

What was wrong with him? He could hardly breathe. Had he gone to sleep? - Prologue, ASOS

vs.

Outside the flakes drifted down as soft and silent as memory. Was this what woke me? 

[...]

it was so lovely that she held her breath - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

It was a heavy fall, thick white flakes coming down all about him. 

[...]

The snow was drifting in to cover him. - Prologue, ASOS

vs.

The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence, and lay thick and unbroken on the ground. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

He got to his knees, and something wet and cold touched his nose. Chett looked up. - Prologue, ASOS

vs.

When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

He could feel tears freezing to his cheeks.

[...]

He felt as though he were being attacked by a cloud of pale cold bugs. They settled on his shoulders, on his head, they flew at his nose and his eyes. Cursing, he brushed them off. - Prologue, ASOS

vs.

Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks.

[...]

She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

It isn't fair, he wanted to scream. Snow would ruin everything he'd worked for, all his careful plans. 

[...]

There'd be no lord's life for the leechman's son, no keep to call his own, no wives nor crowns. 

[...]

The snow's taken it all from me . . . the bloody snow . . .

Snow had ruined him once before. Snow and his pet pig. - Prologue, ASOS

vs.

It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.

[...]

Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

A Snow Maid with her Snow Knight.

What do I want with snowballs? She looked at her sad little arsenal. There's no one to throw them at. She let the one she was making drop from her hand. I could build a snow knight instead, she thought. - Sansa VII, ASOS

x

"What are you doing?"

Petyr straightened his cloak. "Kissing a snow maid." - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Garlan Tyrell or Jon Snow?

Thank you, @rose-of-red-lake!

"It is, my lady," said Ser Loras. "Garlan often trains against three men, or even four. In battle it is seldom one against one, he says, so he likes to be prepared."

"He must be very brave." - Sansa I, ASOS

x

"Lord Commander. How may we serve you?"

"With your three best."

Emmett grinned. "Arron. Emrick. Jace."

[...]

"Which one do you want first?" asked Arron.

"All three of you. At once." - Jon VI, ASOS

___

"He is a great knight," Ser Loras replied. "A better sword than me, in truth, though I'm the better lance." - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Jon swelled with pride. "Robb is a stronger lance than I am, but I'm the better sword, and Hullen says I sit a horse as well as anyone in the castle." - Jon I, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa daydreams of dancing.

Joffrey and Margaery led in their place. How can a monster dance so beautifully? Sansa wondered. She had often daydreamed of how she would dance at her wedding, with every eye upon her and her handsome lord. In her dreams they had all been smiling. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

When the musicians began to play, she timidly laid her hand on Tyrion's and said, "My lord, should we lead the dance?"

His mouth twisted. "I think we have already given them sufficent amusement for one day, don't you?"

"As you say, my lord." She pulled her hand back. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

"Lady Sansa." Ser Garlan Tyrell stood beside the dais. "Would you honor me? If your lord consents?" - Sansa III, ASOS

x

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon. - Jon XII, ADWD

+.+.+

The Winter Rose.

Sansa is not his rose.

"At the Hand's tourney, don't you remember? You rode a white courser, and your armor was a hundred different kinds of flowers. You gave me a rose. A red rose. You threw white roses to the other girls that day." It made her flush to speak of it. "You said no victory was half as beautiful as me."

Ser Loras gave her a modest smile. "I spoke only a simple truth, that any man with eyes could see."

He doesn't remember, Sansa realized, startled. He is only being kind to me, he doesn't remember me or the rose or any of it. She had been so certain that it meant something, that it meant everything. A red rose, not a white. - Sansa I, ASOS

___

Ygritte is not his rose.

Jon sat up. "Ygritte, I never stole you."

"Aye, you did. You jumped down the mountain and killed Orell, and afore I could get my axe you had a knife at my throat. I thought you'd have me then, or kill me, or maybe both, but you never did. And when I told you the tale o' Bael the Bard and how he plucked the rose o' Winterfell, I thought you'd know to pluck me then for certain, but you didn't. You know nothing, Jon Snow." - Jon III, ASOS

___

Ygritte doesn't like flowers.

"Men can build a lot higher than this. In Oldtown there's a tower taller than the Wall." He could tell she did not believe him. If I could show her Winterfell . . . give her a flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and show her the stone kings on their thrones. We could bathe in the hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods watched over us.

[...]

"Then I'd push him in a stream or throw a bucket o' water on him. Anyhow, men shouldn't smell sweet like flowers."

"What's wrong with flowers?"

"Nothing, for a bee. For bed I want one o' these." Ygritte made to grab the front of his breeches. - Jon V, ASOS

___

But Sansa does.

"Sweet lady," he said, "no victory is half so beautiful as you." Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. - Sansa II, AGOT

___

Sweet-smelling Sansa.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

Sansa Stark, he mused. Soft-spoken sweet-smelling Sansa, who loved silks, songs, chivalry and tall gallant knights with handsome faces. - Tyrion III, ASOS

x

And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don't they? Especially when there are so many of them. - Tyrion V, ASOS

___

The Roadside Rose.

"Do you require guarding?" Marillion said lightly. "I am composing a new song, you should know. A song so sweet and sad it will melt even your frozen heart. 'The Roadside Rose,' I mean to call it. About a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her." - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

The rose and the direwolf.

"I will not have the rose and the direwolf in bed together," declared Lord Tywin. - Tyrion III, ASOS

___

Tywin steals a rose before it blooms. Better a Lannister than a Tyrell, eh?

The Conclave met in Oldtown behind closed doors, Tyrion knew; its deliberations were supposedly a secret. So Varys has little birds in the Citadel too. "I see. So my father decided to nip the rose before it bloomed." He had to chuckle. "Pycelle is a toad. But better a Lannister toad than a Tyrell toad, no?" - Tyrion II, ASOS

___

ACOK: Jon IV (ch. 51) -> <- Sansa IV (ch. 52)

The winter roses had only then come into bloom.

'All I ask is a flower,' Bael answered, 'the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell.'"

"Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o’ the winter roses be plucked for the singer’s payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished … and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. - Jon IV, ACOK

x

"The blood is the seal of your womanhood. Lady Catelyn might have prepared you. You've had your first flowering, no more."

Sansa had never felt less flowery.  - Sansa IV, ACOK

___

Plucked.

"But not deflowered, one can hope." Young Lord Hunter's bushy mustache hid his mouth entirely.

"Yet," said Lyn Corbray, as if she were not there. "But ripe for plucking soon, I'd say." - Alayne I, AFFC

___

Sansa and Jon don't forget the glass gardens.

"No. It was always warm, even when it snowed. Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer." She stood, towering over the great white castle. "I can't think how to do the glass roof over the gardens." - Sansa VII, ASOS

x

Glass, Jon mused, might be of use here. Castle Black needs its own glass gardens, like the ones at Winterfell. - Jon VII, ADWD

+.+.+

Tyrion Lannister is a jealous man.

After all his planning, after the sortie and the bridge of ships, after getting his face slashed in two, Tyrion had been eclipsed by a dead man. - Tyrion I, ASOS

x

Tyrion had seen her only yesterday, climbing the serpentine steps with a pail of water. He had watched as a young knight had offered to carry the heavy pail. The way she had touched his arm and smiled for him had tied Tyrion's guts into knots. 

[...]

It doesn't matter, he told himself as he waited for moonrise. Whatever you wear, you're still a dwarf. You'll never be as tall as that knight on the steps, him with his long straight legs and hard stomach and wide manly shoulders. - Tyrion II, ASOS

x

"Chataya's?" Tyrion said, annoyed.

"It's good to be a knight. No more looking for the cheaper brothels down the street." Bronn grinned. "Now it's Alayaya and Marei in the same featherbed, with Ser Bronn in the middle."

Tyrion had to bite back his annoyance. Bronn had as much right to bed Alayaya as any other man, but still . . . I never touched her, much as I wanted to, but Bronn could not know that. He should have kept his cock out of her. - Tyrion II, ASOS

x

"Young lady," Shae repeated, savoring the words. "You're half right, m'lord. I'm young."

Eighteen, Tyrion thought. Eighteen, and a whore, but quick of wit, nimble as a cat between the sheets, with large dark eyes and fine black hair and a sweet, soft, hungry little mouth . . . and mine! Damn you, eunuch.

"M'lord Varys complimented Chella on her ears and said she must have killed many men to have such a fine necklace," Shae explained. It grated on him to hear her call Varys m'lord in that tone; that was what she called him in their pillow play. - Tyrion I, ACOK

x

He's getting taller, Tyrion realized as Pod stood in his stirrups for a better look. He'll soon tower over me like all the rest. - Tyrion V, ASOS

x

She fiddled nervously with her hair and looked down the table to where Joffrey sat with his Tyrell queen.

Does she wish it were her in Margaery's place? Tyrion frowned. Even a child should have better sense. He turned away, wanting distraction, but everywhere he looked were women, fair fine beautiful happy women who belonged to other men. 

[...]

And there was one woman, sitting almost at the foot of the third table on the left . . . the wife of one of the Fossoways, he thought, and heavy with his child. Her delicate beauty was in no way diminished by her belly, nor was her pleasure in the food and frolics. Tyrion watched as her husband fed her morsels off his plate. They drank from the same cup, and would kiss often and unpredictably. Whenever they did, his hand would gently rest upon her stomach, a tender and protective gesture.

He wondered what Sansa would do if he leaned over and kissed her right now. Flinch away, most likely. Or be brave and suffer through it, as was her duty. She is nothing if not dutiful, this wife of mine. If he told her that he wished to have her maidenhead tonight, she would suffer that dutifully as well, and weep no more than she had to. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

A man with a few parallels with Petyr Baelish sings a song.

The Dornishman's wife was as fair as the sun, and her kisses were warmer than spring. But the Dornishman's blade was made of black steel, and its kiss was a terrible thing.

The Dornishman's wife would sing as she bathed, in a voice that was sweet as a peach, But the Dornishman's blade had a song of its own, and a bite sharp and cold as a leech.

As he lay on the ground with the darkness around, and the taste of his blood on his tongue, His brothers knelt by him and prayed him a prayer, and he smiled and he laughed and he sung,

"Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done, the Dornishman's taken my life, But what does it matter, for all men must die, and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife!" - Jon I, ASOS

x

Abel rubbed the sleep from his eyes, took up his lute, and launched into "The Dornishman's Wife," whilst one of his washerwomen beat time on her drum. The singer changed the words, though. Instead of tasting a Dornishman's wife, he sang of tasting a northman's daughter. - The Turncloak, ADWD

x

When they break, they break hard, Jon Snow thought as he watched them reel away. The drums had all gone silent. How do you like that music, Mance? How do you like the taste of the Dornishman's wife? - Jon VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

But another Bael did.

"Would that I were. I will not deny that Bael's exploit inspired mine own . . . but I did not steal either of your sisters that I recall. Bael wrote his own songs, and lived them. I only sing the songs that better men have made. More mead?" - Jon I, ASOS

+.+.+

A direwolf doesn't like Petyr.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

Instead the direwolf leapt forward, snarling.

Ser Ryman's palfrey shied off with a whinny of fear, and Petyr Pimple's reared and threw him. - Catelyn VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Petyr Baelish sounding a lot like Jon Snow at a Winterfell feast.

Thank you, @kadarakey!

Petyr tried to kiss your mother, only she pushed him away. She laughed at him. He looked so wounded I thought my heart would burst, and afterward he drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that. - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

The Sun.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog and @that-plo-koon!

Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. - Arya II, AGOT

x

The arms of Tarth were quartered rose and azure, and bore a yellow sun and crescent moon. - Brienne II, AFFC

x

When he thought of his daughters, he would have wept gladly, but the tears would not come. Even now, he was a Stark of Winterfell, and his grief and his rage froze hard inside him.

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. - Eddard XV, AGOT

x

The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. - Sansa VI, ASOS

x

Petyr studied her eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. "You have your mother's eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little older, many a man will drown in those eyes." - Sansa I, AFFC

x

"You cannot come with me," Jon said, cupping the wolf's head in his hands and looking deep into those eyes. "You have to go to Castle Black. Do you understand? Castle Black. Can you find it? The way home? Just follow the ice, east and east, into the sun, and you'll find it. - Jon III, ASOS

x

Ygritte wanted me to be a wildling. Stannis wants me to be the Lord of Winterfell. But what do I want? The sun crept down the sky to dip behind the Wall where it curved through the western hills. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

"Snow," the moon insisted.

The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. - Jon I, ADWD

+.+.+

Jon and Tyrion use shoddy substitutes for the sun. Who's the sun?

"Not necessary, but some find it pleasant. What of love?"

"When the sun has set, no candle can replace it."

"Is that from a song?" Tyrion cocked his head, smiling. - Tyrion II, ASOS

x

His dusky woman was enough to satisfy his appetites until he could reach Meereen and claim his queen. No man had need of candles when the sun awaited him. - Victarion I, ADWD

___

Bronn laughed, and Tyrion had to smile. "Into the tent, Shae, if you would be so kind." He lifted the flap and held it for her. Inside, he knelt to light a candle. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

x

A single candle lit the gloom, spicing the air with the scent of jasmine.

[...]

"Shae," he groaned, "it is not safe."

For a time she said nothing at all. Tyrion tried to speak of other things, but he met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he'd once walked in the north. Gods be good, he thought wearily as he watched the candle burn down and begin to gutter, how could I let this happen again, after Tysha? Am I as great a fool as my father thinks?

[...]

When the candle burned out, Tyrion disentangled himself and lit another. - Tyrion II, ASOS

x

All the sweet innocence of the world was in her voice. Innocence? Fool, she's a whore, all she knows of men is the bit between their legs. Fool, fool. "Better you than me." Tyrion sat. "We have a long day before us, both of us. You shouldn't have blown out that taper. How are we to find our clothing?" - Tyrion VII

___

Ygritte had brought a torch, but there was no other light. She stood beside a little waterfall that fell from a cleft in the rock down into a wide dark pool. The orange and yellow flames shone against the pale green water.

[…]

Smiling, she set the torch carefully in a notch of rock, and came toward him. "There's naught to eat in the dark but flesh," she whispered, biting at his neck.

[…]

The light was shifting all about her, Jon noticed suddenly. He looked around. "We had best go up. The torch is almost done."

[…]

"What?" he prompted, as the torch began to gutter.

[…]

By the time the torch burned out, Jon Snow no longer cared. – Jon III, ASOS

+.+.+

Ygritte or Sansa Stark?

Sounds familiar.

At a lord's court the girl would never have been considered anything but common, he knew. She had a round peasant face, a pug nose, and slightly crooked teeth, and her eyes were too far apart. Jon had noticed all that the first time he'd seen her, when his dirk had been at her throat. Lately, though, he was noticing some other things. When she grinned, the crooked teeth didn't seem to matter. And maybe her eyes were too far apart, but they were a pretty blue-grey color, and lively as any eyes he knew. Sometimes she sang in a low husky voice that stirred him. And sometimes by the cookfire when she sat hugging her knees with the flames waking echoes in her red hair, and looked at him, just smiling . . . well, that stirred some things as well. - Jon II, ASOS

___

Tears would fill her eyes.

Oooooooh, I am the LAST of the giants, so learn well the words of my song. For when I am gone the singing will fade, and the silence shall last long and long.

There were tears on Ygritte's cheeks when the song ended. – Jon II, ASOS

x

Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all. -Jon III, ASOS

x

Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid. - Arya VIII, ASOS

___

Those easy Tully smiles.

She bit his neck and he nuzzled hers, burying his nose in her thick red hair. Lucky, he thought, she is lucky, fire-kissed. - Jon III, ASOS

x

Ygritte had been pretty in her own way, with her red hair kissed by fire, but it was her smile that made her face come alive. - Jon III, ADWD

x

Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickon all took after the Tullys, with easy smiles and fire in their hair. - Arya I, AGOT

___

Half fish, you say?

Ygritte punched his arm. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. I'm half a fish, I'll have you know." - Jon V, ASOS

___

Jon imagines a girl that does not exist . . . or does she?

He could tell she did not believe him. If I could show her Winterfell . . . give her a flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and show her the stone kings on their thrones. We could bathe in the hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods watched over us. - Jon V, ASOS

x

"Who is Ygritte?" Donal Noye asked pointedly.

"A woman of the free folk." How could he explain Ygritte to them? She's warm and smart and funny and she can kiss a man or slit his throat. - Jon VI, ASOS

x

When his eyelids fluttered open, he was wrapped in thick wool and floating. He could not seem to move, but that did not matter. For a time he dreamed that Ygritte was with him, tending him with gentle hands. Finally he closed his eyes and slept. - Jon VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Ygritte and Jon have a conversation about Sansa Stark.

"And what if they do? I'd sooner be stolen by a strong man than be given t' some weakling by my father."

"You say that, but how can you know? What if you were stolen by someone you hated?"

"He'd have t' be quick and cunning and brave t' steal me. So his sons would be strong and smart as well. Why would I hate such a man as that?"

"Maybe he never washes, so he smells as rank as a bear."

"Then I'd push him in a stream or throw a bucket o' water on him. Anyhow, men shouldn't smell sweet like flowers."

[...]

Jon caught her wrist. "What if the man who stole you drank too much?" he insisted. "What if he was brutal or cruel?" He tightened his grip to make a point. "What if he was stronger than you, and liked to beat you bloody?" - Jon V, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon lays with his kin, avoids answering a question, and contemplates whether Arya was ever truly his sister.

"She [Ygritte] even claimed we were kin. She told me a story . . ." - Jon VII, ACOK

x

She punched him. "That's vile. Would you bed your sister?"

"Longspear's not your brother." - Jon III, ASOS

x

Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. Is she still my sister? he wondered. Was she ever? - Jon III, ASOS

+.+.+

Wedding bells for Sansa and her cousin.

How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?" - Sansa VI, ASOS

+.+.+

A moody bastard, pretending to be Arya's brother, almost sleeps with his sister.

"Why did you say that?" Arya hopped to her feet. "You're not my brother."

"That's right," he said angrily. "I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high."

Arya was taken aback by the fury in his voice. "That's not the way I meant it."

"Yes it is." He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. "Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I'll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her." - Arya V, ASOS

+.+.+

Targaryens lusting for their sisters.

Lord Mace Tyrell and his entourage had been housed behind the royal sept, in the long slate-roofed keep that had been called the Maidenvault since King Baelor the Blessed had confined his sisters therein, so the sight of them might not tempt him into carnal thoughts. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

The Dragonknight once won a tourney as the Knight of Tears, so he could name his sister the queen of love and beauty in place of the king's mistress. - Bran II, ASOS

x

Why shouldn't I marry Cersei openly and share her bed every night? The dragons always married their sisters. - Jaime III, ASOS

x

"I am sick of being careful. The Targaryens wed brother to sister, why shouldn't we do the same? Marry me, Cersei. Stand up before the realm and say it's me you want. We'll have our own wedding feast, and make another son in place of Joffrey." - Jaime VII ASOS

x

She pulled her hands away. "You are talking madness again. Would you have us ripped apart, as Mother did that time she caught us playing? Tommen would lose the throne, Myrcella her marriage . . . I want to be your wife, we belong to each other, but it can never be, Jaime. We are brother and sister."

"The Targaryens . . ."

"We are not Targaryens!" - Jaime IX, ASOS

+.+.+

Mance or Jon? Mance deserts for a cloak.

"You will have heard stories of my desertion, I have no doubt."

"Some say it was for a crown. Some say for a woman. Others that you had the wildling blood."

[...]

"It was for this."

"A cloak?" - Jon I, ASOS

x

+.+.+

Fertility and Children

The Tyrells have their sights set on Sansa.

"The Tyrells can trace their descent back to Garth Greenhand," was the best she could manage at short notice.

The Queen of Thorns snorted. "So can the Florents, the Rowans, the Oakhearts, and half the other noble houses of the south. Garth liked to plant his seed in fertile ground, they say. I shouldn't wonder that more than his hands were green." - Sansa I, ASOS

___

Three girls, with three different eggs.

An immense round fat man, as big as three Moon Boys, he came cartwheeling into the hall, vaulted onto the table, and laid a gigantic egg right in front of Sansa. "Break it, my lady," he commanded. When she did, a dozen yellow chicks escaped and began running in all directions. "Catch them!" Butterbumps exclaimed. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

"He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi," the Lysene girl said. "Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return." - Daenerys III, AGOT

x

Dany gazed at her eggs sadly. What had she expected? A thousand years ago they had been alive, but now they were only pretty rocks. They could not make a dragon. - Daenerys VI, AGOT

x

To break her fast the queen sent to the kitchens for two boiled eggs, a loaf of bread, and a pot of honey. But when she cracked the first egg and found a bloody half-formed chick inside, her stomach roiled. - Cersei III, AFFC

___

Dornish eggs, and a bat in Sansa's stomach.

For herself, she tried a little of the Dornish eggs, but the peppers burned her mouth. Otherwise she only nibbled at the fruit and fish and honeycakes. Every time Joffrey looked at her, her tummy got so fluttery that she felt as though she'd swallowed a bat. - Sansa IV, ASOS

___

Sons, and daughters.

Should you ever have a son, Sansa, beat him frequently so he learns to mind you. I only had the one boy and I hardly beat him at all, so now he pays more heed to Butterbumps than he does to me. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

You'll know that, when you have a child."

"A child?" said Sansa, uncertainly.

Lysa waved a hand negligently. "Not for many years. You are too young to be a mother. One day you shall want children, though. Just as you will want to marry." - Sansa VI, ASOS

x

"I might get her with child."

"Aye, I'd hope so. A strong son or a lively laughing girl kissed by fire, and where's the harm in that?" - Jon II, ASOS

___

She added a third.

She pushed two of her snowballs together, added a third - Sansa VII, ASOS

___

Pearls.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

"The pearls symbolize fertility. The more pearls Your Worship wears, the more healthy children she will bear." - Daenerys VI, ADWD

x

Cersei Lannister ignored the question. "The cloak," she commanded, and the women brought it out: a long cloak of white velvet heavy with pearls. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

He showed them how each face bore the sigil of one of the great houses: ruby lion, emerald rose, onyx stag, silver trout, blue jade falcon, opal sun, and pearl direwolf. - Sansa IV, ASOS

x

The bodice was decorated with freshwater pearls, though. The cloak will cover them. The cloak was a deep green, with a large hood. She slipped the dress over her head, and donned the cloak, though she left the hood down for the moment. - Sansa V, ASOS

ACOK: Sansa VII (ch. 62) <- Daenerys V (ch. 63)

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

She was breaking her fast on a bowl of cold shrimp-and-persimmon soup when Irri brought her a Qartheen gown, an airy confection of ivory samite patterned with seed pearls. "Take it away," Dany said. "The docks are no place for lady's finery." - Daenerys V, ACOK

___

Jeyne Westerling or Sansa Stark?

Queen. Yes, this pretty little girl is a queen, I must remember that. She was pretty, undeniably, with her chestnut curls and heart-shaped face, and that shy smile. Slender, but with good hips, Catelyn noted. She should have no trouble bearing children, at least. - Catelyn II, ASOS

x

And at Winterfell, Sansa was a little girl with auburn hair. My daughter is a maiden tall and fair, and her hair is chestnut. Men see what they expect to see, Alayne. - Alayne I, ASOS

x

"Your bosom will be as lovely as the queen's," the old woman said as she looped her string around Sansa's chest. "You should not hide it so."

The comment made her blush. Yet the last time she'd gone riding, she could not lace her jerkin all the way to the top, and the stableboy gaped at her as he helped her mount. Sometimes she caught grown men looking at her chest as well, and some of her tunics were so tight she could scarce breathe in them. - Sansa II, ASOS

x

"Jeyne," she called after, "there's one more thing Robb needs from you, though he may not know it yet himself. A king must have an heir."

The girl smiled at that. "My mother says the same. She makes a posset for me, herbs and milk and ale, to help make me fertile. I drink it every morning. I told Robb I'm sure to give him twins. An Eddard and a Brandon. He liked that, I think. We . . . we try most every day, my lady. Sometimes twice or more." The girl blushed very prettily. "I'll be with child soon, I promise. I pray to our Mother Above, every night." - Catelyn III, ASOS

x

If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya. - Sansa II, ASOS

x

Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. - Arya I, AGOT

x

The girl did seem to have a good heart, just as Robb had said. And good hips, which might be more important. - Catelyn III, ASOS

x

Lady Tanda had been fleeing as well. "You have a good heart, my lady," she said to Sansa. - Sansa V, ASOS

___

Don't worry about Roslin, the mother was plenty fertile.

When she told him of Edmure's concerns about Lady Roslin's fertility, he chuckled. "Your lord brother need have no fear, Lady Catelyn. She's small, I'll grant you, and narrow in the hips, but her mother was the same, and Lady Bethany gave Lord Walder a child every year."

"How many lived past infancy?" she asked bluntly.

"Five." He ticked them off on fingers plump as sausages. - Catelyn VI, ASOS

___

For the one hundredth time: Mance or Jon?

The boy did not have a name yet, no more than Gilly's did. That was the wildling way. Not even Mance Rayder's son would get a name till his third year, it would seem, though Sam had heard the brothers calling him "the little prince" and "born-in-battle." - Samwell IV, ASOS

___

But what do they want?

He watched the child nurse at Gilly's breast, and then he watched Jon watch. Jon is smiling. A sad smile, still, but definitely a smile of sorts. Sam was glad to see it. It is the first time I've seen him smile since I got back. - Samwell IV, ASOS

x

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

I don't want any Lannister, she wanted to say. I want Willas, I want Highgarden and the puppies and the barge, and sons named Eddard and Bran and Rickon. - Sansa III, ASOS

+.+.+

Her Florian.

Sansa smoothed down her skirts and sat. "I think . . . fools, my lady? You mean . . . the sort in motley?"

"Feathers, in this case. What did you imagine I was speaking of? My son? Or these lovely ladies? No, don't blush, with your hair it makes you look like a pomegranate. All men are fools, if truth be told, but the ones in motley are more amusing than ones with crowns. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

"A fool and a knight?" said Jonquil. "I have never heard of such a thing."

"Sweet lady," said Florian, "all men are fools, and all men are knights, where women are concerned." - The Hedge Knight

x

The pool from which the town took its name, where legend said that Florian the Fool had first glimpsed Jonquil bathing with her sisters, was so choked with rotting corpses that the water had turned into a murky grey-green soup. - Jaime III, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa hears a dreadful song, and looks to the wrong people for help.

"I CALLED FOR A KNIGHT, BUT YOU'RE A BEAR! A BEAR! A BEAR! ALL BLACK AND BROWN AND COVERED WITH HAIR!" - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Would he command his Kingsguard to strip her naked once again? The last time he had done that his uncle Tyrion had stopped him, but the Imp could not save her now. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

No one can save me but my Florian. Ser Dontos had promised he would help her escape, but not until the night of Joffrey's wedding. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

I wish the Hound were here. The night of the battle, Sandor Clegane had come to her chambers to take her from the city, but Sansa had refused. Sometimes she lay awake at night, wondering if she'd been wise. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

The words came tumbling out of her. "Yes. I will. I would like that more than anything. To wed Ser Loras, to love him . . ."

"Loras?" Lady Olenna sounded annoyed. "Don't be foolish, child. Kingsguard never wed. Didn't they teach you anything in Winterfell? We were speaking of my grandson Willas. He is a bit old for you, to be sure, but a dear boy for all that. Not the least bit oafish, and heir to Highgarden besides." - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Thankfully the dreadful song ends, and the cheese finally arrives.

Thank you, @karynlibrarian and @minitafan!

x

Tyrion broke off a nibble of the cheese. It was sharp indeed, and veined with wine; very choice. "Whoever the king names will not have an easy time stepping into your armor, I can tell. Lord Mormont faces the same problem."

Lord Janos looked puzzled. - Tyrion II, ACOK

+.+.+

A little bear cub.

Tormund gave a shrug, as if to say he would never understand such madness. "Well, you are a free man now, but if you will not have the girl, best find yourself a she-bear. - Jon II, ASOS

x

"I do. Lysa has no cause for complaint." He smiled. "I wish you could see yourself, my lady. You are so beautiful. You're crusted over with snow like some little bear cub, but your face is flushed and you can scarcely breathe. - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Jonnel (One-Eye) Stark, son of Lynara Stark, married to Sansa Stark.

Thank you, @occupyvenus!

"A blind boy, must be. Who ever heard of a king without ears? Why, his crown would fall straight down to his neck! Har!" - Jon I, ASOS

x

He could still hear wings, though the eagle was not in sight. Half his world was black. "My eye," he said in sudden panic, raising a hand to his face.

"It's only blood, Jon Snow. He missed the eye, just ripped your skin up some."

His face was throbbing. Tormund stood over them bellowing, he saw from his right eye as he rubbed blood from his left. 

[...]

Ygritte said, "Orell tried to take his eye out."

"It was him I asked. Has he lost his tongue? Perhaps he should, to spare us further lies."

Styr the Magnar drew a long knife. "The boy might see more clear with one eye, instead of two."

"Would you like to keep your eye, Jon?" asked the King-beyond-the-Wall. - Jon II, ASOS

x

Were there twenty or twenty thousand? In the dark there was no way to tell. This is a battle of blind men, but Mance has a few thousand more of them than we do. - Jon VIII, ASOS

x

Pyp turned aside to retch, and Jon found himself envying Maester Aemon his blindness. - Jon VIII, ASOS

x

"Aye," Slynt said. "A blind man with a chain about his neck, who does he think he is?"

Aemon Targaryen, Jon thought, a king's son and a king's brother and a king who might have been. But he said nothing. - Jon X, ASOS

x

The first time he had seen the Wall he had been younger than Devan, serving aboard the Cobblecat under Roro Uhoris, a Tyroshi known up and down the narrow sea as the Blind Bastard, though he was neither blind nor baseborn.  - Davos V, ASOS

+.+.+

Two Hearts that Beat as One: Jon and Sansa are forced into unwanted marriages.

Thank you, @esther-dot!

Mance nodded. "Good. You'll go with Jarl and Styr on the morrow, then. Both of you. Far be it from me to separate two hearts that beat as one." - Jon II, ASOS

x

Two hearts that beat as one. Mance Rayder's mocking words rang bitter in his head. Jon had seldom felt so confused. - Jon III, ASOS

___

"Here in the sight of gods and men," he said, "I do solemnly proclaim Tyrion of House Lannister and Sansa of House Stark to be man and wife, one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever, and cursed be the one who comes between them."

She had to bite her lip to keep from sobbing. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

If Tyrion did it, they will think I was part of it as well, she realized with a start of fear. How not? They were man and wife, and Joff had killed her father and mocked her with her brother's death. One flesh, one heart, one soul. - Sansa V, ASOS

+.+.+

It doesn't compare to kissing a king.

They spent long afternoons doing needlework and talking over lemon cakes and honeyed wine, played at tiles of an evening, sang together in the castle sept . . . and often one or two of them would be chosen to share Margaery's bed, where they would whisper half the night away. Alla had a lovely voice, and when coaxed would play the woodharp and sing songs of chivalry and lost loves. Megga couldn't sing, but she was mad to be kissed. She and Alla played a kissing game sometimes, she confessed, but it wasn't the same as kissing a man, much less a king. - Sansa II, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa keeps hearing stories about favors.

As for Elinor, she was promised to a young squire, a son of Lord Ambrose; they would be wed as soon as he won his spurs. He had worn her favor in the Battle of the Blackwater, where he'd slain a Myrish crossbowman and a Mullendore man-at-arms. "Alyn said her favor made him fearless," said Megga. "He says he shouted her name for his battle cry, isn't that ever so gallant? Someday I want some champion to wear my favor, and kill a hundred men." Elinor told her to hush, but looked pleased all the same. - Sansa II, ASOS

x

Your mother did not deserve him. She would not even give him her favor to wear when he fought Brandon Stark. I would have given him my favor. I gave him everything. He is mine now. - Sansa VII, ASOS

x

He grinned. "I will hold you to that promise, my lady. Until that day, may I wear your favor in the tourney?"

"You may not. It is promised to...another." She was not sure who as yet, but she knew she would find someone. - Alayne I, TWOW

+.+.+

A Girl in Grey.

The Liddle took out a knife and whittled at a stick. "When there was a Stark in Winterfell, a maiden girl could walk the kingsroad in her name-day gown and still go unmolested, and travelers could find fire, bread, and salt at many an inn and holdfast. But the nights are colder now, and doors are closed. There's squids in the wolfswood, and flayed men ride the kingsroad asking after strangers." - Bran II, ASOS

x

"No. I mean, yes." He blushed. "The colors. Our arms are purple and white chequy, my lady. With gold coins. In the checks. Purple and white. Both." He studied her feet.

"There's a tale behind those coins," said Tyrion. "No doubt Pod will confide it to your toes one day. Just now we are expected at the Queen's Ballroom, however. Shall we?" - Sansa IV, ASOS

x

Arya XII, ASOS -> <- Tyrion IX, ASOS

"There's frost above us and snow in the high passes," the village elder said. "If you don't freeze or starve, the shadowcats will get you, or the cave bears. There's the clans as well. The Burned Men are fearless since Timett One-Eye came back from the war. And half a year ago, Gunthor son of Gurn led the Stone Crows down on a village not eight miles from here. They took every woman and every scrap of grain, and killed half the men. They have steel now, good swords and mail hauberks, and they watch the high road—the Stone Crows, the Milk Snakes, the Sons of the Mist, all of them. Might be you'd take a few with you, but in the end they'd kill you and make off with your daughter." - Arya XII, ASOS

x

He could send Podrick Payne questing after Shagga, he supposed, but there were so many hiding places in the deep of the kingswood that outlaws often evaded capture for decades. And Pod sometimes has difficulty finding the kitchens when I sent him down for cheese. Timett son of Timett would likely be back in the Mountains of the Moon by now.  - Tyrion IX, ASOS

x

A groom led a fine grey mare out the stable door. On her back was mounted a skinny hollow-eyed girl wrapped in a heavy cloak. Grey, it was, like the dress beneath it, and trimmed with white satin. The clasp that pinned it to her breast was wrought in the shape of a wolf's head with slitted opal eyes. The girl's long brown hair blew wild in the wind. She had a pretty face, he thought, but her eyes were sad and wary. - Jaime IX, ASOS

+.+.+

The Wall defends Jon and Sansa.

"I hate this Wall," she said in a low angry voice. "Can you feel how cold it is?"

"It's made of ice," Jon pointed out.

"You know nothing, Jon Snow. This wall is made o' blood."

Nor had it drunk its fill. By sunset, two of the Thenns had fallen from the ladder to their deaths, but they were the last. It was near midnight before Jon reached the top. The stars were out again, and Ygritte was trembling from the climb. "I almost fell," she said, with tears in her eyes. "Twice. Thrice. The Wall was trying t' shake me off, I could feel it." One of the tears broke free and trickled slowly down her cheek. - Jon IV, ASOS

x

He had always had a yen to see the Titan of Braavos. Perhaps that would please Sansa. Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. It made him weary. Then and now. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

x

"Courtesy is a lady's armor," Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that.

"I am your husband. You can take off your armor now." - Sansa III, ASOS

+.+.+

Cold courtesy.

Perhaps that would please Sansa. Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. It made him weary. Then and now. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

x

Jon Snow sat up suddenly, and the three men froze at the sound of the slosh. "My lords," he said with cold courtesy. - Jon XII, ASOS

+.+.+

The Wall is yours, Jon.

The Wall is mine, Jon reminded himself whenever he felt his strength flagging. - Jon VII, ASOS

x

 The Wall is mine, he reminded himself. - Jon IX, ASOS

x

Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon and Sansa are left in charge, and reassure terrified people during a battle.

Thank you, @aegor-bamfsteel!

He looked around the ring of firelit faces. "I need two bows and two spears to help me hold the tunnel if they break the gate." More than ten stepped forward, and the smith picked his four. "Jon, you have the Wall till I return."

For a moment Jon thought he had misheard. It had sounded as if Noye were leaving him in command. "My lord?"

"Lord? I'm a blacksmith. I said, the Wall is yours."

There are older men, Jon wanted to say, better men. I am still as green as summer grass. I'm wounded, and I stand accused of desertion. His mouth had gone bone dry. "Aye," he managed. [...] "The Wall will stop them," Jon heard himself say. He turned and said it again, louder. "The Wall will stop them. The Wall defends itself." Hollow words, but he needed to say them, almost as much as his brothers needed to hear them. "Mance wants to unman us with his numbers. Does he think we're stupid?" He was shouting now, his leg forgotten, and every man was listening. "The chariots, the horsemen, all those fools on foot . . . what are they going to do to us up here? Any of you ever see a mammoth climb a wall?" He laughed, and Pyp and Owen and half a dozen more laughed with him. "They're nothing, they're less use than our straw brothers here, they can't reach us, they can't hurt us, and they don't frighten us, do they?" - Jon VIII, ASOS

x

"Oh, gods," an old woman wailed. "We're lost, the battle's lost, she's running." Several children were crying. They can smell the fear. Sansa found herself alone on the dais. Should she stay here, or run after the queen and plead for her life?

She never knew why she got to her feet, but she did. "Don't be afraid," she told them loudly. "The queen has raised the drawbridge. This is the safest place in the city. There's thick walls, the moat, the spikes . . ."

[...]

Sansa raised her hands for quiet. "Joffrey's come back to the castle. He's not hurt. They're still fighting, that's all I know, they're fighting bravely. The queen will be back soon." The last was a lie, but she had to soothe them. She noticed the fools standing under the galley. "Moon Boy, make us laugh."

[...]

Sansa went to Ser Lancel and knelt beside him. His wound was bleeding afresh where the queen had struck him. "Madness," he gasped. "Gods, the Imp was right, was right . . ."

"Help him," Sansa commanded two of the serving men. One just looked at her and ran, flagon and all. Other servants were leaving the hall as well, but she could not help that. Together, Sansa and the serving man got the wounded knight back on his feet. "Take him to Maester Frenken." - Sansa VII, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon the Gargoyle.

Thank you, @dontbipanicjonsa and @minitafan!

When the moonstones hung from Sansa's ears and about her neck, the queen nodded. "Yes. The gods have been kind to you, Sansa. You are a lovely girl. It seems almost obscene to squander such sweet innocence on that gargoyle."

"What gargoyle?" Sansa did not understand. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

He raised his eyes to gaze up at the walls. In place of merlons, a thousand grotesques and gargoyles looked down on him, each different from all the others; wyverns, griffins, demons, manticores, minotaurs, basilisks, hellhounds, cockatrices, and a thousand queerer creatures sprouted from the castle's battlements as if they'd grown there. - Davos V, ASOS

x

Ser Garlan laughed. "I was a plump little boy, I fear, and we do have an uncle called Garth the Gross. So Willas struck first, though not before threatening me with Garlan the Greensick, Garlan the Galling, and Garlan the Gargoyle." - Sansa III, ASOS

x

Again he had the answer. "It's been snowing on your castle, my lady," he pointed out. "What do the gargoyles look like when they're covered with snow?" - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Tyrion, the Targaryen groom.

Thank you, @butterflies-dragons!

Tyrion wore a doublet of black velvet covered with golden scrollwork, thigh-high boots that added three inches to his height, a chain of rubies and lions' heads. - Sansa III, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa, the Targaryen wedding guest.

Sansa wore a gown of silvery satin trimmed in vair, with dagged sleeves that almost touched the floor, lined in soft purple felt. Shae had arranged her hair artfully in a delicate silver net winking with dark purple gemstones. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

Laughing despite everything.

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

It was so sweet and silly that Sansa had to laugh, despite everything. Afterward she was absurdly grateful. Somehow the laughter made her hopeful again, if only for a little while. Smiling, she let the music take her, losing herself in the steps, in the sound of flute and pipes and harp, in the rhythm of the drum . . . and from time to time in Ser Garlan's arms, when the dance brought them together. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

Jon had to laugh. Even now, even here. Ygritte had been fond of Longspear Ryk. He hoped he found some joy with Tormund's Munda. Someone needed to find some joy somewhere. - Jon X, ASOS

+.+.+

A shy maid on her wedding night.

Her hands trembled as she began fumbling at her clothes. She had ten thumbs instead of fingers, and all of them were broken. Yet somehow she managed the laces and buttons, and her cloak and gown and girdle and undersilk slid to the floor, until finally she was stepping out of her smallclothes. Gooseprickles covered her arms and legs. She kept her eyes on the floor, too shy to look at him, but when she was done she glanced up and found him staring. There was hunger in his green eye, it seemed to her, and fury in the black. Sansa did not know which scared her more. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

Qhorin came and stood over him as the first flame rose up flickering from the shavings of bark and dead dry pine needles. "As shy as a maid on her wedding night," the big ranger said in a soft voice, "and near as fair. Sometimes a man forgets how pretty a fire can be."

He was not a man you'd expect to speak of maids and wedding nights. So far as Jon knew, Qhorin had spent his whole life in the Watch. Did he ever love a maid or have a wedding? He could not ask. Instead he fanned the fire. When the blaze was all acrackle, he peeled off his stiff gloves to warm his hands, and sighed, wondering if ever a kiss had felt as good. - Jon VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Two imprisoned husbands? Quickly after Tyrion is arrested, Jon Snow joins him.

"Hush, you'll be the death of us. I did nothing. Come, we must away, they'll search for you. Your husband's been arrested."

"Tyrion?" she said, shocked.

"Do you have another husband? The Imp, the dwarf uncle, she thinks he did it." He grabbed her hand and pulled at her. "This way, we must away, quickly now, have no fear." - Sansa V, ASOS

x

Slynt purpled. "Murder? You insolent pup. King Robert was not even cold when Lord Eddard moved against his son." He rose to his feet; a shorter man than Mormont, but thick about the chest and arms, with a gut to match. A small gold spear tipped with red enamel pinned his cloak at the shoulder. "Your father died by the sword, but he was highborn, a King's Hand. For you, a noose will serve. Ser Alliser, take this turncloak to an ice cell." - Jon IX, ASOS

+.+.+

A dragon knight shows up all over Sansa's chapter.

They continued down the serpentine and across a small sunken courtyard. Ser Dontos shoved open a heavy door and lit a taper. They were inside a long gallery. Along the walls stood empty suits of armor, dark and dusty, their helms crested with rows of scales that continued down their backs. As they hurried past, the taper's light made the shadows of each scale stretch and twist. The hollow knights are turning into dragons, she thought. - Sansa V, ASOS

___

Sansa dared not look down. She kept her eyes on the face of the cliff, making certain of each step before reaching for the next. The stone was rough and cold. Sometimes she could feel her fingers slipping, and the handholds were not as evenly spaced as she would have liked. The bells would not stop ringing. Before she was halfway down her arms were trembling and she knew that she was going to fall. One more step, she told herself, one more step. She had to keep moving. If she stopped, she would never start again, and dawn would find her still clinging to the cliff, frozen in fear. One more step, and one more step.

The ground took her by surprise. She stumbled and fell, her heart pounding. When she rolled onto her back and stared up at from where she had come, her head swam dizzily and her fingers clawed at the dirt. I did it. I did it, I didn't fall, I made the climb and now I'm going home. - Sansa V, ASOS

x

One step and then another, Jon told himself. One step and then another, and I will not fall. [...]

One step and then another, he resumed when the gale subsided. One step and then another, and I will not fall. [...]

One step and then another, he thought, clinging tight. [...]

Don't look down. Keep your weight above your feet. Don't look down. Look at the rock in front of you. There's a good handhold, yes. Don't look down. I can catch a breath on that ledge there, all I need to do is reach it. Never look down. - Jon VI, ACOK

+.+.+

A ghostly shape appears at the hint of dawn.

The eastern sky was vague with the first hint of dawn when Sansa finally saw a ghostly shape in the darkness ahead - Sansa V, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon and Sansa are drowning.

Thank you, @minitafan!

Ser Loras in white silk, so pure, innocent, beautiful. The dimples at the corner of his mouth when he smiled. The sweetness of his laugh, the warmth of his hand. She could only imagine what it would be like to pull up his tunic and caress the smooth skin underneath, to stand on her toes and kiss him, to run her fingers through those thick brown curls and drown in his deep brown eyes. A flush crept up her neck. - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Longclaw seemed heavier than lead in his hand, too heavy to lift. The man kept staring at him, with eyes as big and black as wells. I will fall into those eyes and drown. - Jon V, ASOS

x

Petyr studied her eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. "You have your mother's eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little older, many a man will drown in those eyes." - Sansa I, AFFC

+.+.+

Sam, Gilly, and weird sister thoughts while sleeping.

He liked sleeping next to her. It made him remember times long past, when he had shared a huge bed at Horn Hill with two of his sisters. - Samwell III, ASOS

x

When the feast was done he went up to sleep; not to the lord's bedchamber where his mother and father lived but to the room he had once shared with his sisters. Only instead of his sisters it was Gilly waiting in the huge soft bed, wearing nothing but a big shaggy fur, milk leaking from her breasts. - Samwell III, ASOS

+.+.+

The blood of Winterfell.

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father's face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn't, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night's Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. - Jon VI, ASOS

x

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. - Sansa I, AFFC

+.+.+

Sons and daughters of Winterfell.

Lord Commander Mormont made you his steward. You are a son of Winterfell, a nephew of Benjen Stark. It must be you or no one. The Wall is yours, Jon Snow. - Jon VIII, ASOS

x

I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. - Arya XIII, ASOS

+.+.+

Stone and Snow are north of the Neck.

Lord Redwyne laughed. "What is there north of the Neck that any sane man would want? If Greyjoy will trade swords and sails for stone and snow, I say do it, and count ourselves lucky." - Tyrion III, ASOS

+.+.+

I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you.

It was not as though he was the first man ever to keep a concubine. Sansa's own oh-so-honorable father had given her a bastard brother. - Tyrion VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon and Ygritte open and close like their foils.

Jon slid his dirk free, grabbing the man by the hair and jamming the point of the knife up under his chin as he reached for his—no, her—

His hand froze. "A girl." - Jon VI, ACOK

x

"I never meant to steal you," he said. "I never knew you were a girl until my knife was at your throat." - Jon III, ASOS

x

"Just as if I was one of those true knights you love so well, yes. What do you think a knight is for, girl? You think it's all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold plate? Knights are for killing." He laid the edge of his longsword against her neck, just under her ear. Sansa could feel the sharpness of the steel. - Sansa IV, ACOK

___

"Oh." Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she sighed, dying. - Jon VII

x

Some instinct made her lift her hand and cup his cheek with her fingers. The room was too dark for her to see him, but she could feel the stickiness of the blood, and a wetness that was not blood. "Little bird," he said once more, his voice raw and harsh as steel on stone. Then he rose from the bed. Sansa heard cloth ripping, followed by the softer sound of retreating footsteps. - Sansa VII, ACOK

+.+.+

Prince Aemon keeps following Sansa around the story.

ASOS: Jon XII (ch. 79) -> Sansa VII (ch. 80)

They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne." - Jon XII, ASOS

x

"Sweet one," her father said gently, "listen to me. When you're old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me." - Sansa III, AGOT

x

The gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as Longclaw, did not make him a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen. - Jon IX, AGOT

x

AGOT: Sansa IV (ch. 51) -> Jon VII (ch. 52)

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother's queen. - Sansa IV, AGOT

x

ACOK: Jon VI (ch. 51) <- Sansa IV (ch. 52) -> Jon VII (ch. 53)

She called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard. - Sansa IV, ACOK

x

"No doubt you're right. So why don't you just eat your broth like a good girl and wait for Symeon Star-Eyes and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight to come rescue you, sweetling. I'm sure it won't be very long now." - Sansa V, ACOK

+.+.+

The theme of wanton behaviour suddenly explodes for two characters who have never exhibited wanton behaviour.

He was a bastard, after all. Everyone knew that bastards were wanton and treacherous by nature, having been born of lust and deceit. - Jon VII, ASOS

x

Bastard children were born from lust and lies, men said; their nature was wanton and treacherous. - Jon X, ASOS

x

Where are you going? Are you afraid? Such wanton behavior must be punished, but I will not be hard on you. - Sansa VII, ASOS

x

"So you admit it now? It was you, just as I thought. You are as wanton as your mother." - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

Most succumb to their baser selves.

"I have heard that in the Sunset Kingdoms men take solemn vows to keep chaste and father no children, but live only for their duty. Is it not so?"

"It is," Arstan said, when the question was put. "There are many such orders. The maesters of the Citadel, the septons and septas who serve the Seven, the silent sisters of the dead, the Kingsguard and the Night's Watch . . ."

"Poor things," growled the slaver, after the translation. "Men were not made to live thus. Their days are a torment of temptation, any fool must see, and no doubt most succumb to their baser selves. Not so our Unsullied. They are wed to their swords in a way that your Sworn Brothers cannot hope to match. No woman can ever tempt them, nor any man." - Daenerys II, ASOS

+.+.+

Cinderella, her evil step-mother, and the glass slipper. Where's Prince Charming?

Thank you, @agentrouka-blog!

Up in the gallery the musicians took up their pipes and horns and fiddles again, and began to play "The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, the King Took Off His Crown." - Catelyn VII, ASOS

x

They brought her new shoes as well, slippers of soft grey doeskin that hugged her feet like lovers. "You are very beautiful, my lady," the seamstress said when she was dressed. - Sansa III, ASOS

x

Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar. She could feel her heart pounding. There was snow in her hair and her right shoe was missing. It must have fallen. She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter. - Sansa VII, ASOS

x

Irri slid the slippers onto Dany's feet. They were gilded leather, decorated with green freshwater pearls. Does the butcher king believe a pair of pretty slippers will win my hand? "King Cleon is most generous. You may thank him for his lovely gift." Lovely, but made for a child. Dany had small feet, yet the pointed slippers mashed her toes together. - Daenerys I, ADWD

x

One of her sandals had slipped off during her wild flight from Meereen and she had left the other up by Drogon's cave, preferring to go barefoot rather than half-shod. - Daenerys X, ADWD

+.+.+

Will it be a Dornish princess for Aegon, and a northern girl for Aemon? Double ouch.

"Viserys said once that it was my fault, for being born too late." She had denied it hotly, she remembered, going so far as to tell Viserys that it was his fault for not being born a girl. He beat her cruelly for that insolence. "If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would not have needed the Stark girl." - Daenerys IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Sansa and Jon are all alone in bed.

Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black, or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone. - Jon V, ASOS

x

She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.

Her lord husband was not beside her, but she was used to that. Tyrion was a bad sleeper and often rose before the dawn. - Sansa IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Loopholes.

"By the High Septon or a Council of Faith. Our present High Septon is a trained seal who barks prettily on command. Moon Boy is more like to annul my marriage than he is." - Tyrion IV, ASOS

x

Robb's fingers brushed the pommel of his sword. "If I could I'd take his ugly head off. Sansa would be a widow then, and free. There's no other way that I can see. They made her speak the vows before a septon and don a crimson cloak." - Catelyn IV, ASOS

x

I wonder what the High Septon would have to say about the sanctity of oaths sworn while dead drunk, chained to a wall, with a sword pressed to your chest? Not that Jaime was truly concerned about that fat fraud, or the gods he claimed to serve. - Jaime I, ASOS

x

"You gave her to him?" she cried, dismayed. "You swore an oath to Lady Catelyn . . ."

"With a sword at my throat, but never mind. Lady Catelyn's dead. I could not give her back her daughters even if I had them. And the girl my father sent with Steelshanks was not Arya Stark." - Jaime IX, ASOS

x

"Vows made at sword point are not valid," the maester argued. - Bran V, ACOK

x

"She is old enough to be Lady of Winterfell once her brother is dead. Claim her maidenhood and you will be one step closer to claiming the north. Get her with child, and the prize is all but won. Do I need to remind you that a marriage that has not been consummated can be set aside?" - Tyrion IV, ASOS

x

Jaime sighed. "Then let them wed. It will be years before Tommen is old enough to consummate the marriage. And until he does, the union can always be set aside. Give Tyrell his wedding and send him off to play at war." - Jaime I, AFFC

x

"The monster has tied us a thorny knot," the old knight told Maester Luwin. "Like it or no, Lady Hornwood was his wife. He made her say the vows before both septon and heart tree, and bedded her that very night before witnesses. She signed a will naming him as heir and fixed her seal to it." - Bran V, ACOK

x

Septon Cellador cleared his throat. "Lord Slynt," he said, "this boy refused to swear his vows properly in the sept, but went beyond the Wall to say his words before a heart tree. His father's gods, he said, but they are wildling gods as well."

"They are the gods of the north, Septon." Maester Aemon was courteous, but firm. - Jon IX, ASOS

x

(A vow sworn in a sept . . .)

"Jon." Melisandre was so close he could feel the warmth of her breath. "R'hllor is the only true god. A vow sworn to a tree has no more power than one sworn to your shoes. Open your heart and let the light of the Lord come in. Burn these weirwoods, and accept Winterfell as a gift of the Lord of Light." - Jon XI, ASOS

+.+.+

Her claim.

"The girl's happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark." - Tyrion III, ASOS

x

The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. - Sansa VI, ASOS

x

"How can I lose men I do not have? I had hoped to bestow Winterfell on a northman, you may recall. A son of Eddard Stark. He threw my offer in my face." Stannis Baratheon with a grievance was like a mastiff with a bone; he gnawed it down to splinters.

"By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa." - Jon I, ADWD

+.+.+

Tyrion wants Winterfell and Sansa. Jon wants Winterfell and . . .

I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is. I want to comfort her. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to come to me willingly, to bring me her joys and her sorrows and her lust. - Tyrion IV, ASOS

x

When Jon had been very young, too young to understand what it meant to be a bastard, he used to dream that one day Winterfell might be his. - Jon XI, ASOS

x

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister's son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly's boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We'd find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance's son and Craster's would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. - Jon XII, ASOS

+.+.+

Count on Jon and Sansa to always forget someone.

Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead . . . It doesn't matter, there's still Robb, he's a man grown now, and soon he'll wed and have a son. - Sansa II, ASOS

x

She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now. - Sansa IV, ASOS

+.+.+

They have the look.

"I see it now," the Lady Lysa said, as she set the core aside. "You look so much like Catelyn."

"It's kind of you to say so."

"It was not meant as flattery. If truth be told, you look too much like Catelyn. - Sansa VI, ASOS

x

Stannis snorted. "I know Janos Slynt. And I knew Ned Stark as well. Your father was no friend of mine, but only a fool would doubt his honor or his honesty. You have his look." - Jon XI, ASOS

+.+.+

He's no Loras, but I don't think she'll be disappointed.

She could never hold a picture of Willas long in her head, though; her imaginings kept turning him back into Ser Loras, young and graceful and beautiful. You must not think of him like that, she told herself. Or else he may see the disappointment in your eyes when you meet, and how could he marry you then, knowing it was his brother you loved? - Sansa II, ASOS

x

She remembered her own childish disappointment, the first time she had laid eyes on Eddard Stark. She had pictured him as a younger version of his brother Brandon, but that was wrong. Ned was shorter and plainer of face, and so somber. - Catelyn V, ASOS

+.+.+

Throwaway lines that make us smile.

Dress warmly, Ser Dontos had told her, and dress dark. She had no blacks, so she chose a dress of thick brown wool. - Sansa V, ASOS

+.+.+

Shades of Jon.

"The dwarf's wife did the murder with him," swore an archer in Lord Rowan's livery. "Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws." - Sansa VII, ASOS

x

"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head." - Arya XIII, ASOS

+.+.+

Jon hears a familiar song.

Thank you, @minitafan!

Yet still the drums beat on, the trebuchets shuddered and thumped, and the sound of skinpipes came wafting through the night like the songs of strange fierce birds. Septon Cellador began to sing as well, his voice tremulous and thick with wine.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy - Jon VIII, ASOS

x

"Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life."

Her throat was dry and tight with fear, and every song she had ever known had fled from her mind. Please don’t kill me, she wanted to scream, please don’t. She could feel him twisting the point, pushing it into her throat, and she almost closed her eyes again, but then she remembered. It was not the song of Florian and Jonquil, but it was a song. Her voice sounded small and thin and tremulous in her ears.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy - Sansa VII, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya's sister catches a crow.

Thank you, @decadelongsummer!

The crows were there too, screaming at the wolves and filling the air with feathers. Their blood was hotter, and one of her sisters had snapped at one as it took flight and caught it by the wing. It made her want a crow herself. She wanted to taste the blood, to hear the bones crunch between her teeth, to fill her belly with warm flesh instead of cold. She was hungry and the meat was all around, but she knew she could not eat. - Arya XII, ASOS

+.+.+

Alayne Stone or Jon Snow?

"I have no gallant knights in my service, Alayne. Such a tale would draw unwanted questions as a corpse draws crows. It is rude to pry into the origins of a man's natural children, however." He cocked his head. "So, who are you?"

"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?" - Sansa VI, ASOS

+.+.+

Samwell Tarly or Sansa Stark?

Sobbing, he took another step. The snow swirled down around him. [...]

Sobbing, he took another step. The crust was broken where he set his feet, otherwise he did not think he could have moved at all. [...]

Sobbing, he took another step. - Samwell I, ASOS

x

One more step, she told herself, one more step. She had to keep moving. If she stopped, she would never start again, and dawn would find her still clinging to the cliff, frozen in fear. One more step, and one more step. - Sansa V, ASOS

___

Maslyn screamed for mercy. Why had he suddenly remembered that? It was nothing he wanted to remember. The man had stumbled backward, dropping his sword, pleading, yielding, even yanking off his thick black glove and thrusting it up before him as if it were a gauntlet. He was still shrieking for quarter as the wight lifted him in the air by the throat and near ripped the head off him. The dead have no mercy left in them, and the Others . . . no, I mustn't think of that, don't think, don't remember, just walk, just walk, just walk.

[...]

Why must he remember the fight at the Fist? He didn't want to remember. Not that. He tried to make himself remember his mother, or his little sister Talla, or that girl Gilly at Craster's Keep. - Samwell I, ASOS

x

Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. - Sansa II, ACOK

___

Sam knew a hundred songs, but when he tried to think of one he couldn't. The words had all gone from his head. He sobbed again and said, "I don't know any songs, Grenn. I did know some, but now I don't." - Samwell I, ASOS

x

Her throat was dry and tight with fear, and every song she had ever known had fled from her mind. Please don't kill me, she wanted to scream, please don't. - Sansa VII, ACOK

___

Whatever pride his lord father might have felt at Samwell's birth vanished as the boy grew up plump, soft, and awkward. Sam loved to listen to music and make his own songs, to wear soft velvets, to play in the castle kitchen beside the cooks, drinking in the rich smells as he snitched lemon cakes and blueberry tarts. His passions were books and kittens and dancing, clumsy as he was. But he grew ill at the sight of blood, and wept to see even a chicken slaughtered. - Jon IV, ASOS

+.+.+

Remembering Robb.

She had last seen snow the day she'd left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. - Sansa VII, ASOS

x

He remembered Robb as he had last seen him, standing in the yard with snow melting in his auburn hair. - Jon IX, AGOT

+.+.+

Jon's better at sums.

Thank you, @trins-trins!

She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at swords or sums or most anything. - Jon XII, ASOS

x

It hurt that the one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. Well, that and manage a household. Sansa had never had much of a head for figures. If she did marry Prince Joff, Arya hoped for his sake that he had a good steward. - Arya I, AGOT

x

"Matthar, to the rangers. Dareon, to the stewards. Todder, to the rangers. Jon, to the stewards."

The stewards! For a moment Jon could not believe what he had heard. - Jon VI, AGOT

+.+.+

Oh no, does Willas have a bad leg?

"Willas has a bad leg but a good heart," said Margaery. "He used to read to me when I was a little girl, and draw me pictures of the stars. You will love him as much as we do, Sansa." - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Suddenly he was too weary to stand, and his leg was agony from knee to groin. He fumbled for his crutch. - Jon VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

Ashford alert: Willas was supposed to be another Leo.

The Fat Flower thrust him into tourneys at too tender an age, just as he did with the other two. He wanted another Leo Longthorn, and made himself a cripple. - Tyrion V, ASOS

+.+.+

Here we go again! A plot device does her best Sansa Stark impression.

Val looked at him with pale grey eyes. "He always climbed too fast." She was as fair as he'd remembered, slender, full-breasted, graceful even at rest, with high sharp cheekbones and a thick braid of honey-colored hair that fell to her waist. - Jon X, ASOS

x

Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue - Jon XI, ADWD

vs.

Worse, she was beautiful. - Arya I, AGOT

x

"Your bosom will be as lovely as the queen's," the old woman said as she looped her string around Sansa's chest. "You should not hide it so." - Sansa II, ASOS

x

"I had heard that Lord Littlefinger's daughter was fair of face and full of grace, but no one ever told me that she was a thief." - Alayne I, TWOW

x

Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones - Arya I, AGOT

x

"OH, SWEET SHE WAS, AND PURE, AND FAIR! THE MAID WITH HONEY IN HER HAIR!" - Sansa I, ASOS

x

Petyr studied her eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. "You have your mother's eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little older, many a man will drown in those eyes." - Sansa I, AFFC

___

Then Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him.

They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely. - Jon XI, ADWD

vs.

She donned silken smallclothes and a linen shift, and over that a warm dress of blue lambswool. Two pairs of hose for her legs, boots that laced up to her knees, heavy leather gloves, and finally a hooded cloak of soft white fox fur.

[...]

He smiled. "I wish you could see yourself, my lady. You are so beautiful. You're crusted over with snow like some little bear cub, but your face is flushed and you can scarcely breathe. How long have you been out here? You must be very cold. Let me warm you, Sansa. - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

ASOS: PART IV

Touch me.

Chapter Transitions

+.+.+

#operation stumpy re-read #foreshadowing smorgasbord #asos summary #sansa stark #jon snow #jonsa