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aegor-bamfsteel · 2 years

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Top three horses in ASoIaF. Go!

Well, if you insist…

Horses are another under-explored motif in ASOIAF (though certainly more discussed than elephants), and there are few horses that are around enough to have an actual personality or be useful. While I knew what the top 2 would be fairly quickly, I actually had trouble finding a third that met these two criteria in addition to finding them likable.

So consider these honorable mentions:

Stranger is the best developed horse in the series, his ornery temper can be funny (if I had Sándor Clegane sit on my back for hours each day I’d probably also want to bite faces off) Sándor’s bond with his horse is one of his few likable qualities and could possibly provide information on warging (not that Sándor is a warg, but that it may be hard to warg an animal that’s already close to someone else without breaking their spirit), I imagine he’s Friesian/Belgian black which is a stunning breed (gentle despite their size), but he’s not very useful and I don’t really think he’s that likable.

The silver provides a lot of foreshadowing and symbolism for Dæny’s arc. She’s the foil to Drogon, the timid white Dothraki steed to his aggressive Targaryen black dragon, as Dæny compares them in her tenth ADWD Chapter. Dæny rides her amongst the Unsullied in Astapor and the freedmen in Meereen; and what could be more heroic than a liberator on a white horse? (Well…) Also, I imagine she’s an Akhal Teke, a very attractive breed due to their metallic coat. However, she has basically no personality and so isn’t likable.

However, I then realized that simple elements like foreshadowing and characterization aren’t as important as talking to you about your favorite character! So without further ado, my choices:

3) Half blind garron (ADWD)

Source photo here. I chose a Yakutian, due to their shagginess and adaptability to their Siberian home.

In a book filled with One-Eyed characters of villainous or dubious alignment, the shaggy gray garron with one blind white eye stands out. He is loaned out to Val on her mission to find Tormund Giantsbane and bring him Jon’s peace offer. Jon and Val doubt his capability/consider him a lesser horse because of his eye, but his hype-man Mully (Castle Black steward GRRM named after one of his cats), assesses him: "He's only half-blind, m'lord. Elsewise he's sound enough." He patted the garron on the neck.” (Jon 8). Clearly, Mully has faith and affection for him when nobody else does. Jon keeps fretting about how he surely led Val to die on this suicide mission, but then who turns up with Tormund Giantsbane and his men? Val, but more importantly: “She still rode the grey garron that Mully had given her the day she left the Wall, a shaggy, stunted thing blind in one eye” (Jon 11). So despite his blind eye, ridden into the bitter snow with little direction and no protection, in danger of wight attacks or becoming a wight, meeting a hostile chief to deliver a message, then being ridden back all that way, the Shaggy Little Garron that Could succeeded in his critical mission (I guess Val helped. Slightly). Mully needs to give him some preserved apples as a reward.

2) Dancer (AGOT & ACOK)

Source photo here. I chose a Quarter Horse, for their versatility, capability, and intelligence. Dancer is Bran’s horse in Winterfell, and he tells us immediately that she is special: “He touched her neck lightly, and the small chestnut filly started forward. Bran had named her Dancer. She was two years old, and Joseth said she was smarter than any horse had a right to be. They had trained her special, to respond to rein and voice and touch.” (AGOT Bran 5). An incredibly smart, smallish, responds well to commands despite Bran’s inability to use his legs, navigates difficult terrain well, named Dancer, and she’s a chestnut filly (aka juvenile female)? It’s like someone took attributes of Sansa and Arya and put them in a horse. Bran uses Dancer to get across Winterfell, not only outside beyond the castle gates (he takes her to the river where Osha’s party ambushes his group), but inside, including the Great Hall. While training horses to climb steps is difficult (ask any owner who has had to have one step up into a truck), ”the low stone steps balked Dancer only for a moment. When Bran urged her on, she took them easily.” (ACOK Bran 3) So not only is she intelligent and capable, she also trusts Bran despite initial misgivings. She even covers for Bran by staying behind in the stables, leading Theon to believe he and the others left on foot. Of course, since this is ASOIAF, intelligent, loyal characters serving our young protagonists are liable to be killed off, and this seems to be Dancer’s fate when Ramsay burns Winterfell: “Of the stables, made of wood and thatch, nothing remained but ashes, embers, and dead horses. Bran thought of his Dancer, and wanted to weep.” (ACOK Bran 5) (I feel you, Bran.) I suppose that unlike Stranger, she didn’t have Plot Horse Armor. Run free, Dancer. You were a true friend.

1) Old Piebald Rounsey (AFFC)

Source photo here. Yes, this is a pony filly whereas the piebald rounsey is old and male, but you try to find another decent swayback piebald horse photo on Google Images.

Brienne notices she is being stalked by “a broken-down old piebald rounsey with a skinny boy upon his back” (Brienne 2). Suspicious at first, she slaps the horse on the rump so he rears and tosses the boy, who turns out to be Tyrion’s Ex-squire, Podrick Payne. The horse has been worked hard to the point of disability, so Pod could buy him cheaply. But unlike the half-blind garron, it seems nobody is in this horse’s corner. Hyle Hunt says “that rounsey may be the most hideous horse I’ve ever seen” (Brienne 3) Brienne calls him a ”broken down old stot”, and Pod never even tries to defend him. Actions speak louder than words, however, and the supposedly weak, disabled, basically useless horse can keep pace with Brienne’s tall gray mare (gifted by Jaime Lannister, so she’s of top quality) and Hyle’s chestnut courser (type of horse bred for war/speed). The horse doesn’t go lame or break down, never demands more food than the other horses; like his rider Pod, while he doesn’t look much like a hero, has experienced hardship, and few people want him, he’s prepared to face the dangers ahead with little hope for reward. Is this realistic? Probably not, but GRRM breaks realism if he wants to make a thematic point. That point is probably the reason why GRRM made the horse an old rouncey in the first place: it is a reference to the famous steed of Don Quixote, Rocinante (the name roughly translates to “foremost among the rounceys”), an old, awkward work horse who accompanies Quixote on all his travels as his “noble steed”. While Cervantes meant Rocinante and Quixote to be a satire on knightly epics, GRRM seems more likely to resonate with their characterization in the 1965 play Man of La Mancha, particularly the idealism of its hit song, “The Impossible Dream”; essentially, to fight against evil and stay honorable in a world that can seem indifferent or even cruel, simply because you know it’s the right thing to do; and maybe it’s a fight you can’t win, that you might even die, but it doesn’t mean you should stop trying, because in that trying you could help others. That’s essentially the core of Pod’s quest with Brienne to find Tyrion, and of course, Brienne’s quest to find Sansa (“Seven, Brienne thought again, despairing. She had no chance against seven, she knew. No chance, and no choice.” — Brienne 7); neither of them have found who they’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean their quest was “for nothing”. The piebald rounsey doesn’t look like a noble steed any more than Pod or Brienne look like knights, but being a hero was never about appearances in ASOIAF; it involves enduring hardships to help others for little personal reward. For being a faithful, hardy steed that reflects Pod’s unlikely hero status, the old piebald rounsey gets my pick for top horse in ASOIAF.

#ask #horses #opinion #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #gif #animal significance

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