#acok summary

CHAPTER TRANSITIONS

Prologue -> Arya I

Her name was Shireen. She would be ten on her next name day, and she was the saddest child that Maester Cressen had ever known. - Prologue, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa I -> Tyrion I

Lady Ermesande a babe seated on her wet nurse’s lap. The talk was she would soon be wed to one of the queen's cousins, so the Lannisters might claim her lands. - Sansa I, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion I -> Bran I

Mercy for Tyrion Lannister?

"And Chella told him only cowards kill the vanquished."

"Braver to leave the man alive, with a chance to cleanse his shame by winning back his ear," explained Chella - Tyrion I, ACOK

x

"So what will you do, m'lord, now that you're the Hand of the King?" Shae asked him as he cupped that warm sweet flesh.

"Something Cersei will never expect," Tyrion murmured softly against her slender neck. "I'll do . . . justice." - Tyrion I, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya II -> Jon I

"Well, you’re nothing but a bastard boy!" Or maybe he was only pretending to be a bastard boy. "What's your true name?" - Arya II, ACOK

+.+.+

Theon I -> Daenerys I

The Old Way!

Once I would have kept her as a salt wife in truth, he thought to himself as he slid his fingers through her tangled hair. Once. When we still kept the Old Way, lived by the axe instead of the pick, taking what we would, be it wealth, women, or glory. In those days, the ironborn did not work mines; that was labor for the captives brought back from the hostings, and so too the sorry business of farming and tending goats and sheep. War was an ironman’s proper trade. The Drowned God had made them to reave and rape, to carve out kingdoms and write their names in fire and blood and song. - Theon I, ACOK

+.+.+

Theon I -> Daenerys I

Does anyone else hear an echo?

It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. - Theon I, ACOK

x

"I fear no ghosts. Dragons are more powerful than ghosts." - Daenerys I, ACOK

///

"Nine years, is it?" Lord Balon said at last.

"Ten," Theon answered, pulling off his torn gloves. - Theon I, ACOK

x

Ten years we were wed, or near enough as makes no matter. - Daenerys I, ACOK

///

That was where Robert had made his breach, swarming in over the rubble and corpses with his warhammer in hand and Ned Stark at his side. Theon had watched from the safety of the Sea Tower, and sometimes he still saw the torches in his dreams, and heard the dull thunder of the collapse. - Theon I, ACOK

x

The final battle was on Pyke. When Robert's stonethrowers opened a breach in King Balon's wall, a priest from Myr was the first man through, but I was not far behind. - Daenerys I, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys I –> Jon II

"I am Quaithe of the Shadow. We come seeking dragons."

"Seek no more," Daenerys Targaryen told them. "You have found them." - Daenerys I, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys I -> Jon II

Parallels drawn between dragons and weirwood.net.

Balerion … his fire was as black as his scales, his wings so vast that whole towns were swallowed up in their shadow when he passed overhead. - Daenerys I, ACOK

x

It was the biggest tree Jon Snow had ever seen, the trunk near eight feet wide, the branches spreading so far that the entire village was shaded beneath their canopy. - Jon II, ACOK

x

He knelt and reached a gloved hand down into the maw. The inside of the hollow was red with dried sap and blackened by fire. Beneath the skull he saw another, smaller, the jaw broken off. It was half-buried in ash and bits of bone. - Jon II, ACOK

///

Credit to @minitafan for spotting another future parallel.

The size did not disturb him so much as the face … the mouth especially, no simple carved slash, but a jagged hollow large enough to swallow a sheep.

Those are not sheep bones, though. Nor is that a sheep’s skull in the ashes. - Jon II, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys I -> Jon II -> Arya IV

Our trio all explore white abandoned towns.

+.+.+

Arya IV -> Tyrion III

Arya and Tyrion both find themselves travelling through secret passageways underneath a barn and castle. I suggest reading Arya IV if you'd like to know the biggest takeaway.

+.+.+

Tyrion III -> Bran II

Chain metaphors?

"Why, surely I have the king's love, as he has mine. And this chain I believe he may one day treasure above all others." - Tyrion III, ACOK

x

"For the audience. And your chain. The Hand's chain." - Tyrion III, ACOK

x

A demon's head, Tyrion thought ruefully, now what does that say of me? "Master Salloreon, I plan to fight the rest of my battles from this chair. It's links I need, not demon horns. So let me put it to you this way. You will make chains, or you will wear them. The choice is yours." - Tyrion III, ACOK

x

Tyrion let the eunuch help him mount. "Lord Varys," he said from the saddle, "sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King's Landing, and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy."

"How odd. I think quite the same of you." - Tyrion III, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa II -> Arya V

Don't hold your breath, Sansa.

Ser Dontos placed a hand on the gnarled bole of the heart tree. He was shaking, she saw. "I vow, with your father's gods as witness, that I shall send you home." - Sansa II, ACOK

x

He was going to take me home, she thought as they dug the old man's hole. There were too many dead to bury them all, but Yoren at least must have a grave, Arya had insisted. He was going to bring me safe to Winterfell, he promised. - Arya V, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa II -> Arya V

Stark daughters have ugly altercations with Clegane brothers.

+.+.+

Catelyn II -> Jon III

Three hundred years ago, a Stark king knelt to Aegon the Dragon, when he saw he could not hope to prevail. That was wisdom. Your son must be wise as well. - Catelyn II, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon III -> Theon II -> Tyrion VI

@ladyqueenofwinter, @agentrouka-blog, and @sansaissteel are quick to notice we have three chapters in a row where George, ahem, keeps it in the family.

Sam looked dubious. "Dolorous Edd says Craster's a terrible savage. He marries his daughters and obeys no laws but those he makes himself. - Jon III, ACOK

x

All he could do was stand and gape at her. Asha. No. She cannot be Asha.

[...]

She unlaced my breeches, he thought, outraged, and she said … oh, gods, and I said … He groaned. He could not possibly have made a more appalling fool of himself. - Theon II, ACOK

x

"Very well." The harpist and the piper bowed and hurried out, while Cersei kissed her cousin chastely on the cheek. - Tyrion VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Theon II -> Tyrion VI

A harp appears, hinting at something more.

He'd decided that he liked this wench, whoever she was; her sharp wit was a welcome respite from the damp gloom of Pyke. "Shall I name my longship after you, and play you the high harp, and keep you in a tower room in my castle with only jewels to wear, like a princess in a song?" - Theon II, ACOK

x

"Very well." The harpist and the piper bowed and hurried out, while Cersei kissed her cousin chastely on the cheek. - Tyrion VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion VI -> Arya VI

A glimpse into Littlefinger's future?

He was the one I'd hoped to trust. Varys and Littlefinger were no more loyal, he suspected … only more subtle, and thus more dangerous. Perhaps his father's way would have been best: summon Ilyn Payne, mount three heads above the gates, and have done. And wouldn't that be a pretty sight, he thought. - Tyrion VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion VI -> Arya VI

Tyrion's gifted a less than desirable parallel.

Pycelle shrieked and wet the bed, urine spraying in all directions as he tried to scramble back out of reach. - Tyrion VI, ACOK

x

"Tickler makes them howl so hard they piss themselves," old stoop-shoulder Chiswyck told them. - Arya VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion VI -> Arya VI

The people fondly remember a Targaryen king.

"One even dared to say that the gods were punishing us because Jaime murdered the rightful king," Cersei declared. - Tyrion VI, ACOK

x

"It's a sin and a shame," an old man hissed. "When the old king was still alive, he'd not have stood for this."

"King Robert?" Arya asked, forgetting herself.

"King Aerys, gods grace him," the old man said, too loudly. - Arya VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya VI -> Daenerys II

We open and close on the same note.

Fear cuts deeper than swords, Arya would tell herself, but that did not make the fear go away. - Arya VI, ACOK

x

When I sniff you, all I want to smell is fear. - Arya VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya VI <- Daenerys II -> Bran IV

Daenerys is surrounded by two dead Starks. Is one of them the dragonslayer?

"No," he admitted. "There is more of Rhaegar in you, I think, but even Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved that on the Trident, with no more than a warhammer. Even dragons can die."

"Dragons die." She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. "But so do dragonslayers." - Daenerys II, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys II -> Bran IV

Credit to @ladyqueenofwinter for noticing a beast with golden eyes is being hunted in Bran's opening.

Beneath Dany's gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. - Daenerys II, ACOK

x

Meera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching, watching . . . - Bran IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya VII -> Catelyn III

The ghost in Harrenhal gets a taste of vengeance. Sadly, Catelyn would like her daughter back, preferring justice be left to the gods.

It wasn't Harren, Arya wanted to say, it was me. She had killed Chiswyck with a whisper, and she would kill two more before she was through. I'm the ghost in Harrenhal, she thought. And that night, there was one less name to hate. - Arya VII, ACOK

x

How they loved to promise heads, these men who would be king. "Your brother promised me the same. But if truth be told, I would sooner have my daughters back, and leave justice to the gods. - Catelyn III, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa III -> Catelyn IV -> Jon IV

AGOT rewind:

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

Full credit to the brilliant @ladyqueenofwinter for noticing Sansa's stories are coming to life.

"Let me beat her!" Ser Dontos shoved forward, tin armor clattering. He was armed with a "morningstar" whose head was a melon. My Florian. She could have kissed him, blotchy skin and broken veins and all. - Sansa III, ACOK

x

Brienne looked up from her king's body. The rainbow cloak that hung from her shoulders had turned red where the king's blood had soaked into the cloth. "I . . . I . . ." - Catelyn IV, ACOK

x

"Maester Aemon thinks you clever." Mormont moved the raven to his shoulder. The bird tilted its head to one side, little eyes a-glitter. - Jon IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa III -> Catelyn IV -> Jon IV

@fedonciadale, @eonweheraldodemanwe, @ladyqueenofwinter and @dontbipanicjonsa all spot the heavy green and black Dance of the Dragons imagery.

We start with Tyrion, jump to two brothers at war, and end with Jon Snow.

She stared at the dwarf's brutal bulging brow, the hard black eye and the shrewd green one, the crooked teeth and wiry beard. "I only want to be loyal." – Sansa III, ACOK

x

She thought she glimpsed movement, but when she turned her head, it was only the king's shadow shifting against the silken walls. She heard Renly begin a jest, his shadow moving, lifting its sword, black on green, candles guttering, shivering, something was queer, wrong, and then she saw Renly's sword still in its scabbard, sheathed still, but the shadowsword . . . – Catelyn IV, ACOK

x

The trees stood beneath him, warriors armored in bark and leaf, deployed in their silent ranks awaiting the command to storm the hill. Black, they seemed … it was only when his torchlight brushed against them that Jon glimpsed a flash of green. – Jon IV

+.+.+

Catelyn IV -> Jon IV

There's more Jon and Catelyn similarities found in these chapters than shown below.

The nightfires had burned low, and as the east began to lighten the immense mass of Storm's End emerged like a dream of stone while wisps of pale mist raced across the field, flying from the sun on wings of wind. Morning ghosts, she had heard Old Nan call them once, spirits returning to their graves. And Renly one of them now, gone like his brother Robert, like her own dear Ned. - Catelyn IV, ACOK

x

One moment Jon was striding beneath the trees, whistling and shouting, alone in the green, pinecones and fallen leaves under his feet; the next, the great white direwolf was walking beside him, pale as morning mist. - Jon IV, ACOK

///

Ned must have known, and Lord Arryn before him. Small wonder that the queen had killed them both. Would I do any less for my own? Catelyn clenched her hands, feeling the tightness in her scarred fingers where the assassin's steel had cut to the bone as she fought to save her son. - Catelyn IV, ACOK

x

Jon fed fresh wood to the fire and put the kettle over the flames to reheat. He flexed his fingers as he waited, squeezing and spreading until the hand tingled. - Jon IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion VIII -> Theon III

"It would appear Renly was murdered most fearfully in the very midst of his army. His throat was opened from ear to ear by a blade that passed through steel and bone as if they were soft cheese." - Tyrion VIII, ACOK

x

Aeron Damphair's voice cut through the insults like a sword through cheese. "Now you must kill him." - Theon III, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya VIII -> Catelyn V

A ghost continues to haunt the living.

"It's Harren's ghost, that's what it is," said Goodwife Amabel. "I'll not sleep here another night, I swear it." - Arya VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Catelyn V -> Daenerys III

A widow with her bones.

Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned’s hands, so strong and full of life. - Catelyn V, ACOK

x

A widow brought the dried corpse of her husband, covered with a crust of silvered leaves; such remnants were believed to have great power, especially if the deceased had been a sorcerer, as this one had. - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys III -> Tyrion IX

Ships, please.

"Yes," Dany said. "But it was ships and soldiers I wanted." – Daenerys III, ACOK

x

It made Tyrion more than a little uneasy to detach so great a part of their already inadequate fleet, depleted as it was by the loss of all those ships that had sailed with Lord Stannis to Dragonstone and never returned, but Cersei would hear of nothing less. – Tyrion IX, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys III -> Tyrion IX

Do kings and queens cry? Tommen and Sansa cry, Daenerys and Myrcella don't. Credit to @ladyqueenofwinter.

"Did you weep?"

"The blood of the dragon does not weep," she said testily. - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

The girl never wept. Young as she was, Myrcella Baratheon was a princess born. - Tyrion IX, ACOK

x

Prince Tommen sobbed. "You mew like a suckling babe," his brother hissed at him. "Princes aren't supposed to cry."

"Prince Aemon the Dragonknight cried the day Princess Naerys wed his brother Aegon," Sansa Stark said, "and the twins Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk died with tears on their cheeks after each had given the other a mortal wound." - Tyrion IX, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion IX -> Davos II

Watch the heart.

"Friends," said Varys, "quarreling will not serve us. I beg you both, take heart."

"Whose?" asked Tyrion sourly. He could think of several tempting choices. - Tyrion IX, ACOK

x

Only Melisandre kept pace, bearing the great standard of the fiery heart with the crowned stag within. As if it had been swallowed whole. - Davos II, ACOK

+.+.+

Davos II –> Jon V

He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who'd cast it. - Davos II, ACOK

+.+.+

Davos II –> Jon V

Try under.

"There was no need," she said. "He was unprotected. But here . . . this Storm's End is an old place. There are spells woven into the stones. Dark walls that no shadow can pass—ancient, forgotten, yet still in place."

[...]

The tunnel opened on a cavern under the castle, where the storm lords of old had built their landing. - Davos II, ACOK

x

"Patrols, aye. Twice a day, if we can. The Wall itself is a formidable obstacle. Undefended, it cannot stop them, yet it will delay them. The larger the host, the longer they'll require. From the emptiness they've left behind, they must mean to bring their women with them. Their young as well, and beasts . . . have you ever seen a goat climb a ladder? A rope? They will need to build a stair, or a great ramp . . . it will take a moon's turn at the least, perhaps longer. Mance will know his best chance is to pass beneath the Wall. Through a gate, or . . ." - Jon V

+.+.+

Jon V <- Tyrion X

Nice catch, @ladyqueenofwinter.

"After he was done with her, my father had the marriage undone. It was as if we had never been wed, the septons said." - Tyrion X, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion X -> Catelyn VI

Dueling prayers.

Tyrion lingered after his cousin had slipped away. At the Warrior's altar, he used one candle to light another. Watch over my brother, you bloody bastard, he's one of yours. He lit a second candle to the Stranger, for himself. - Tyrion X, ACOK

x

She knelt before the painted marble image of the Warrior and lit a scented candle for Edmure and another for Robb off beyond the hills. Keep them safe and help them to victory, she prayed, and bring peace to the souls of the slain and comfort to those they leave behind. - Catelyn VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Catelyn VI -> Bran VI

She would have been happier riding to war with Edmure, no doubt, but even walls as strong as Riverrun's required swords to hold them. - Catelyn VI, ACOK

x

Outside he could hear the faint barking of dogs. The sea has come. It's flowing over the walls, just as Jojen saw. Bran grabbed the bar overhead and pulled himself up, shouting for help. No one came, and after a moment he remembered that no one would. They had taken the guard off his door. Ser Rodrik had needed every man of fighting age he could lay his hands on, so Winterfell had been left with only a token garrison. - Bran VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Catelyn VI -> Bran VI

Howling, never a good thing.

He closed with the song he had written about Robb's victory at Oxcross. "And the stars in the night were the eyes of his wolves, and the wind itself was their song." Between the verses, Rymund threw back his head and howled, and by the end, half of the hall was howling along with him, even Desmond Grell, who was well in his cups. - Catelyn VI, ACOK

x

His brother sat back on his haunches and lifted his voice in a ululating howl, his song black with mourning. - Bran VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Bran VI -> Arya IX

Two stealth missions capture a castle.

+.+.+

Bran VI -> Arya IX

Someone has bloody hands. (In more ways than one)

Nice one, @ladyqueenofwinter.

"Hodor," he sobbed between cracked lips as he lifted Bran in huge strong arms and bloody hands and carried him back out into the rain. - Bran VI, ACOK

x

The Lorathi brought the blade to Arya still red with heart's blood and wiped it clean on the front of her shift. "A girl should be bloody too. This is her work." - Arya IX, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya IX -> Daenerys IV

Words that seemingly follow Daenerys around.

She whispered her names to her pillow, and when she was done she added, "Valar morghulis," in a small soft voice, wondering what it meant. - Arya IX, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya IX -> Daenerys IV

Arya the cupbearer. Daenerys is served.

Nan, you shall be my cupbearer, and serve me at table and in chambers. - Arya IX, ACOK

x

They had rattish pointed faces and tiny pink hands, like the servitor who had brought her the glass of shade. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya IX -> Daenerys IV

A caged black bear, like Yoren? Watch yourself, Jorah Mormont. Credit to @ladyqueenofwinter.

Arya withdrew a little deeper into the shadows, and watched as a huge black bear rolled by, caged in the back of a wagon. [...] The bear is all in black, Arya thought. Like Yoren. She filled Roose Bolton's cup, and did not spill a drop. - Arya IX, ACOK

x

+.+.+

Daenerys IV -> Tyrion XI -> Theon IV -> Jon VI -> Sansa IV

Everyone wants to get their hands on a winter rose.

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness - Daenerys IV, ACOK

x

Tyrion had only the vaguest memory of Theon Greyjoy from his time with the Starks. A callow youth, always smiling, skilled with a bow; it was hard to imagine him as Lord of Winterfell. The Lord of Winterfell would always be a Stark.

He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood had been even by day. That wood was Winterfell. It was the north. I never felt so out of place as I did when I walked there, so much an unwelcome intruder. He wondered if the Greyjoys would feel it too. The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood. Not in a year, or ten, or fifty. - Tyrion XI, ACOK

x

His father thought only in terms of conquest, but what good was it to take a kingdom if you could not hold it? Force and fear could carry you only so far. A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame. - Theon IV, ACOK

x

'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 IV

+.+.+

Theon IV -> Jon VI

Oops?

Theon knew the mill. He had even tumbled the miller's wife a time or two. There was nothing special about it, or her. "Why there? There are a dozen villages and holdfasts just as close." - Theon IV, ACOK

x

"Aye," she said, "but the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. - Jon VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Theon IV -> Jon VI

Can anyone find Bran and Rickon?

When the woods began to darken, Theon Greyjoy knew he was beaten. Either the crannogmen did know the magic of the children of the forest, or else Osha had deceived them with some wildling trick. - Theon IV, ACOK

x

"Bael had brought her back?"

"No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. - Jon VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon VI -> Sansa IV

Spot the difference between foils Jon Snow and Sandor Clegane.

On the ground the sleeper sat up beneath his furs. 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

"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

///

Even so, he did not think of the foes who were waiting for him, all unknowing, but of his brother at Winterfell. Bran used to love to climb. I wish I had a tenth part of his courage. - Jon VI, ACOK

x

"The little bird thinks she has wings, does she? Or do you mean to end up crippled like that brother of yours?" - Sansa IV, ACOK

///

Jon lowered his sword. "Go," he muttered.

Ygritte stared.

"Now," he said, "before my wits return. Go."

She went. - Jon VI, ACOK

x

Sansa backed away from him. "You're awful."

"I'm honest. It's the world that's awful. Now fly away, little bird, I'm sick of you peeping at me."

Wordless, she fled. - Sansa IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon VI <- Sansa IV -> Jon VII

Where could Prince Aemon be?

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

+.+.+

Sansa IV -> Jon VII

Will the author validate Cersei Lannister? No, of course not.

"Everyone wants to be loved."

"I see flowering hasn't made you any brighter," said Cersei. "Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same." - Sansa IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon VII <- Tyrion XII

"I still hold Sansa!" the queen declared.

"We still hold Sansa," he corrected her - Tyrion XII, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion XII -> Catelyn VII

"A boy who wants to be part of this battle, and for once he's showing some sense. I don't intend to put him in the thick of the fighting, but he needs to be seen. Men fight more fiercely for a king who shares their peril than one who hides behind his mother's skirts." - Tyrion XII, ACOK

x

"Did the old Kings of Winter hide behind their mothers' skirts as well?" - Catelyn VII, ACOK

+.+.+

Catelyn VII -> Theon V

Robb's blade is dull as a cudgel compared to Ice. It will not be easy for him to get Theon's head off, I fear. The Starks do not use headsmen. Ned always said that the man who passes the sentence should swing the blade, though he never took any joy in the duty. - Catelyn VII, ACOK

x

"M'lord Eddard always did his own killings." Theon had to take the axe himself or look a weakling. His hands were sweating, so the shaft twisted in his grip as he swung and the first blow landed between Farlen's shoulders. It took three more cuts to hack through all that bone and muscle and sever the head from the body, and afterward he was sick, remembering all the times they'd sat over a cup of mead talking of hounds and hunting. I had no choice, he wanted to scream at the corpse. The ironborn can't keep secrets, they had to die, and someone had to take the blame for it. He only wished he had killed him cleaner. Ned Stark had never needed more than a single blow to take a man's head. - Theon V, ACOK

+.+.+

Theon V -> Sansa V

A sister needs an escort through the north.

"Ten," Asha corrected. "The others return with me. You wouldn't want your own sweet sister to brave the dangers of the wood without an escort, would you? There are direwolves prowling the dark."

+.+.+

Theon V -> Sansa V

Talk of burnt castles and heads on spikes. Who's cleaning up?

+.+.+

Theon V -> Sansa V

The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. - Theon V, ACOK

x

"You look pale, Sansa," Cersei observed. "Is your red flower still blooming?"

"Yes."

"How apt. The men will bleed out there, and you in here." - Sansa V, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa V -> Davos III -> Tyrion XIII -> Sansa VI -> Tyrion XIV -> Sansa VII

Battle of the Blackwater.

+.+.+

Davos III -> Tyrion XIII

Davos and Stannis are made of different stuff.

A jagged piece of wood flew past his head, sharp as any spear. Davos flinched. "Board her!" he shouted. Grappling lines were flung. He drew his sword and led them over the rail himself. - Davos III, ACOK

x

Somewhere in that seething mass of men south of the Blackwater, Stannis was watching too, Tyrion knew. He'd never had his brother Robert's thirst for battle. He would command from the rear, from the reserve, much as Lord Tywin Lannister was wont to do. - Tyrions XIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa VII -> Daenerys V

What could the bells mean?

How long she stayed there she could not have said, but after a time she heard a bell ringing, far off across the city. The sound was a deep-throated bronze booming, coming faster with each knell. Sansa was wondering what it might mean when a second bell joined in, and a third, their voices calling across the hills and hollows, the alleys and towers, to every corner of King's Landing. She threw off the cloak and went to her window.

The first faint hint of dawn was visible in the east, and the Red Keep's own bells were ringing now, joining in the swelling river of sound that flowed from the seven crystal towers of the Great Sept of Baelor. They had rung the bells when King Robert died, she remembered, but this was different, no slow dolorous death knell but a joyful thunder. - Sansa VII, ACOK

x

Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. "I have won no victories," she tried telling her handmaid when the bell tinkled softly.

Jhiqui disagreed. "You burned the maegi in their house of dust and sent their souls to hell.

"That was Drogon's victory, not mine, Dany wanted to say, but she held her tongue. The Dothraki would esteem her all the more for a few bells in her hair. She chimed as she mounted her silver mare, and again with every stride, but neither Ser Jorah nor her bloodriders made mention of it. - Daenerys V, ACOK

+.+.+

Sansa VII <- Daenerys V

A lady might feel more comfortable in seed pearls. Bwahaha.

Bravo, @ladyqueenofwinter.

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

+.+.+

Daenerys V -> Arya X

Is this the best one? Thank you @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir, for first bringing it to my attention.

A Sorrowful Man, who belongs to a society of assassins, hands Daenerys a deadly gift, right before uttering their famous words. She drops to her knee.

What happens next?

A Qartheen stepped into her path. "Mother of Dragons, for you." He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.

Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, "I am so sorry," but she hardly heard.

The scarab unfolded with a hiss.

Dany caught a glimpse of a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom . . . and then the box flew from her hand in pieces, turning end over end. Sudden pain twisted her fingers. As she cried out and clutched her hand, the brass merchant let out a shriek, a woman screamed, and suddenly the Qartheen were shouting and pushing each other aside. Ser Jorah slammed past her, and Dany stumbled to one knee.

[...]

Dany snapped her hand to shake the sting from her fingers. "It was the other one, the Qartheen." When she looked around he was gone. "He was a Sorrowful Man. There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand." - Daenerys V, ACOK

x

He'd left his dagger on the table as well, so she took that too, just in case Gendry lost his courage.

[...]

Arya took out the dagger and sharpened it to keep her hands busy. Long smooth strokes, the way Syrio had taught her. The sound calmed her.

[...]

She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear, and it felt as though Syrio Forel walked beside her, and Yoren, and Jaqen H'ghar, and Jon Snow. She had not taken the sword Gendry had brought her, not yet. For this the dagger would be better.

[...]

"Silver, you say?" He did not believe her, but he wanted to; silver was silver, after all. "Give it over, then."

Her fingers dug down beneath her tunic and came out clutching the coin Jaqen had given her. In the dark the iron could pass for tarnished silver. She held it out . . . and let it slip through her fingers.

Cursing her softly, the man went to a knee to grope for the coin in the dirt, and there was his neck right in front of her. Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. His blood covered her hands in a hot gush and he tried to shout but there was blood in his mouth as well.

"Valar morghulis," she whispered as he died. - Arya X, ACOK

+.+.+

Arya X -> Sansa VIII

Kings are breaking betrothals, and we have opposing plans for Harrenhal and Castle Darry.

+.+.+

Arya X -> Sansa VIII

Not a nephew or a bastard, but a trueborn son meant to marry a princess.

"You do it." Elmar could be friendly when he needed help, but afterward he would always remember that he was a squire and she was only a serving girl. He liked to boast how he was the son of the Lord of the Crossing, not a nephew or a bastard or a grandson but a trueborn son, and on account of that he was going to marry a princess. - Arya X, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys V -> Arya X -> Sansa VIII

What does a scarab, a coin, and a hair net have in common? Thank you, @agentrouka-blog.

+.+.+

Theon VI -> Tyrion XV

Burn it all -> a walk through the ruins of King's Landing.

Nice catch, @agentrouka-blog and @albarossa26.

"Save me the Freys," the Bastard was shouting as the flames roared upward, "and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it all." - Theon VI, ACOK

x

He found himself outside the city, walking through a world without color. Ravens soared through a grey sky on wide black wings, while carrion crows rose from their feasts in furious clouds wherever he set his steps. White maggots burrowed through black corruption. The wolves were grey, and so were the silent sisters; together they stripped the flesh from the fallen. There were corpses strewn all over the tourney fields. The sun was a hot white penny, shining down upon the grey river as it rushed around the charred bones of sunken ships. From the pyres of the dead rose black columns of smoke and white-hot ashes. My work, thought Tyrion Lannister. They died at my command. - Tyrion XV, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion XV -> Jon VIII

They would kiss for hours, and spend whole days doing no more than lolling in bed, listening to the waves, and touching each other. Her body was a wonder to him, and she seemed to find delight in his. Sometimes she would sing to him. - Tyrion XV, ACOK

+.+.+

Tyrion XV -> Jon VIII

"Dead? You're, certain? Dead?"

He shuffled his feet, sheepish. "Drowned." - Tyrion XV, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon VIII -> Bran VII

Mentors and horses are dying in back-to-back chapters.

+.+.+

Jon VIII -> Bran VII

Under a burning castle, Bran and Rickon will rise from the graves.

Sleep came at last, and with it nightmares. He dreamed of burning castles and dead men rising unquiet from their graves. - Jon VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Prologue (Open) -> Bran VII (Close)

Credit to @sansaissteel for this beauty.

We open ACOK with King Stannis displaying little compassion for the maester who raised him, and is about to die for him.

Maester Cressen blinked. Stannis, my lord, my sad sullen boy, son I never had, you must not do this, don't you know how I have cared for you, lived for you, loved you despite all? Yes, loved you, better than Robert even, or Renly, for you were the one unloved, the one who needed me most. Yet all he said was, "As you command, my lord, but . . . but I am hungry. Might not I have a place at your table?" At your side, I belong at your side . . . - Prologue, ACOK

We close ACOK with King Bran sharing a touching final moment with his own maester.

Tears filled Bran's eyes. When a man was hurt you took him to the maester, but what could you do when your maester was hurt? - Bran VII, ACOK

+.+.+

SANSA STARK, QUEEN IN THE NORTH

The author loves his clever wordplay: there will be a marriage to the queen's cousin.

The talk was she would soon be wed to one of the queen's cousins, so the Lannisters might claim her lands. - Sansa I, ACOK

+.+.+

Anon delivers a great historical parallel.

Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . . - Sansa II, ACOK

x

+.+.+

Is it a metaphor for the monotony of ruling? A commentary on the lack of freedom a monarch enjoys? Are they practicing before the real thing?

An interesting parallel is established between a future king and future queen. Credit to @agentrouka-blog.

Sansa was allowed to go riding too, but only in the bailey, and it got boring going round in a circle all day. - Sansa II, ACOK

x

Bran sat strapped to her back in the oversize saddle the Imp had drawn up for him, but for the past fortnight he had been riding her on his own, trotting her round and round, and growing bolder with every circuit. - Bran V, AGOT

x

If I'm the prince, why won't you heed me? I wanted to ride Dancer, but Alebelly wouldn't let me past the gate. - Bran I, ACOK

+.+.+

Desperately searching for a hero, Sansa appears to symbolically knight Dontos Hollard, a custom reserved only for knights and monarchs.

He licked his lips nervously. "Will you put away your blade?"

Sansa slipped the knife beneath her cloak. "Rise, ser." - Sansa II, ACOK

x

+.+.+

Keep your hands off the queen.

"Nothing to say, Your Grace?" his uncle went on. "Good. Learn to use your ears more and your mouth less, or your reign will be shorter than I am. Wanton brutality is no way to win your people's love . . . or your queen's." – Sansa III, ACOK

+.+.+

Some things don't require an introduction. 🙂

"Another lesson you should learn, if you hope to sit beside my son. Be gentle on a night like this and you'll have treasons popping up all about you like mushrooms after a hard rain. The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy."

"I will remember, Your Grace," said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people's loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me. - Sansa VI, ACOK

+.+.+

In a speech that's unquestionably describing Sansa's journey, we're reminded of what Cersei Lannister became.

Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime's lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood."

"But you were queen of all the Seven Kingdoms," Sansa said. - Sansa VII, ACOK

+.+.+

A queen bails on her duties. Somebody was a quick study, and assumed the role.

"You asked them here, Your Grace."

"Certain things are expected of a queen. They will be expected of you should you ever wed Joffrey. Best learn." - Sansa VI, ACOK

x

"Get out of my way." Cersei slammed her open palm into his wound. Ser Lancel cried out in pain and almost fainted as the queen swept from the room. She spared Sansa not so much as a glance. She's forgotten me. Ser Ilyn will kill me and she won't even think about it.

"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 VII, ACOK

+.+.+

The Traitor Queen.

Sire, your councillors beg you, for the good of your realm, set Sansa Stark aside. The Lady Margaery will make you a far more suitable queen."

Like a pack of trained dogs, the lords and ladies in the hall began to shout their pleasure. "Margaery," they called. "Give us Margaery!" and "No traitor queens! Tyrell! Tyrell!" - Sansa VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Nobody bothered to figure it out.

"Yes. But if I'm not to be queen, what will become of me?"

"That will need to be determined. For the moment, you shall remain here at court, as our ward." - Sansa VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

JON SNOW, KING IN THE NORTH

Jon Snow visits the King's Tower.

Lord Commander Mormont had taken up residence in the King's Tower after the fire had gutted his own. Jon left Ghost with the guards outside the door. - Jon I, ACOK

x

The Lord Commander had given him rooms in the King's Tower—so-called, though no king had visited it for a hundred years - Jon III, AGOT

+.+.+

Pay close attention to talking birds.

"King," croaked the raven. The bird flapped across the solar to land on Mormont's shoulder. "King," it said again, strutting back and forth.

"He likes that word," Jon said, smiling.

"An easy word to say. An easy word to like."

"King," the bird said again.

"I think he means for you to have a crown, my lord."

"The realm has three kings already, and that's two too many for my liking." Mormont stroked the raven under the beak with a finger, but all the while his eyes never left Jon Snow. - Jon I, ACOK

x

The Old Bear snorted. "He'll regret that. Damned things make a lot of noise, but they never say a thing worth hearing." - Jon II, ACOK

+.+.+

Are you sure about that?

"I've always known that Robb would be Lord of Winterfell."

Mormont gave a whistle, and the bird flew to him again and settled on his arm. "A lord's one thing, a king's another." He offered the raven a handful of corn from his pocket. "They will garb your brother Robb in silks, satins, and velvets of a hundred different colors, while you live and die in black ringmail. He will wed some beautiful princess and father sons on her. You'll have no wife, nor will you ever hold a child of your own blood in your arms. Robb will rule, you will serve. Men will call you a crow. Him they'll call Your Grace. Singers will praise every little thing he does, while your greatest deeds all go unsung. Tell me that none of this troubles you, Jon . . . and I'll name you a liar, and know I have the truth of it." - Jon I, ACOK

+.+.+

AGOT Rewind.

We receive a bit more clarification on what those nine weirwoods in a circle might symbolize. Small problem, is this Bran or Jon foreshadowing? We're putting it in both.

The ancient crown of the Kings of Winter had been lost three centuries ago, yielded up to Aegon the Conqueror when Torrhen Stark knelt in submission. What Aegon had done with it no man could say. Lord Hoster's smith had done his work well, and Robb's crown looked much as the other was said to have looked in the tales told of the Stark kings of old; an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. Of gold and silver and gemstones, it had none; bronze and iron were the metals of winter, dark and strong to fight against the cold. - Catelyn I, ACOK

x

The sun was sinking below the trees when they reached their destination, a small clearing in the deep of the wood where nine weirwoods grew in a rough circle. - Jon VI, AGOT

+.+.+

Kings don't have mothers, eh?

He wants me gone, Catelyn thought wearily. Kings are not supposed to have mothers, it would seem, and I tell him things he does not want to hear. - Catelyn I, ACOK

+.+.+

Gilly asks Jon for help.

"No." He could hear the defeat in her voice. "Sorry to be of trouble, m'lord. I only . . . they said the king keeps people safe, and I thought . . ." Despairing, she ran, Sam's cloak flapping behind her like great black wings. - Jon III, ACOK

+.+.+

Three monarchs are served a very similar dish.

Credit to @minitafan for first spotting this trend in AGOT.

The rabbit had been a scrawny thing, but as it cooked it smelled like a king's feast. - Jon III, ACOK

x

He served you the king's cut off the roast, the meat rare and bloody, but with a savory smell that made everyone's mouth water. - Bran IV, ACOK

x

And when the meat course was brought out, he served her himself, slicing a queen's portion from the joint, smiling as he laid it on her plate. - Sansa II, AGOT

+.+.+

Rightful king -> Rhaegal.

"Then I grieve for you, Dragonmother, and for bleeding Westeros, bereft of its rightful king."

Beneath Dany's gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. - Daenerys II, ACOK

+.+.+

Black on black, cold crowns of snow.

The sky was cloudless, the jagged mountains rising black on black until the very top, where their cold crowns of snow and ice shone palely in the moonlight. - Jon VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Mance Rayder and Jon Snow appear to have a lot of things in common.

Why did he desert?

"She even claimed we were kin. She told me a story . . ." ". . . of Bael the Bard and the rose of Winterfell. So Stonesnake told me. It happens I know the song. Mance would sing it of old, when he came back from a ranging. He had a passion for wildling music. Aye, and for their women as well." "You knew him?" "We all knew him." His voice was sad. They were friends as well as brothers, Jon realized, and now they are sworn foes. "Why did he desert?" "For a wench, some say. For a crown, others would have it." - Jon VII, ACOK

+.+.+

What comes immediately after death?

"If you like." Their voices blended as one beneath the rising moon, while Ghost listened and the mountains themselves bore witness. "Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come." - Jon VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

JON (AEMON?) SNOW

This could only be more obvious if you turned the page and saw JON in big bold letters.

"Well, you're nothing but a bastard boy!" Or maybe he was only pretending to be a bastard boy. "What's your true name?" - Arya II, ACOK

+.+.+

Are Aemon and Aemon both the younger son?

"Blind he may be, but Aemon knows what he's about. I pray the gods let us keep him another twenty years. Do you know that he might have been king?"

Jon was taken by surprise. "He told me his father was king, but not . . . I thought him perhaps a younger son." - Jon I, ACOK

+.+.+

Are Aemon and Aemon both named after the Dragonknight?

"Maester Aemon was named for the Dragonknight." - Jon I, ACOK

+.+.+

Does Aemon refuse a king, not wanting to usurp his sister's claim to Winterfell?

The new king summoned all his sons to court and would have made Aemon part of his councils, but he refused, saying that would usurp the place rightly belonging to the Grand Maester. - Jon I, ACOK

+.+.+

Was there a Great Council? Did Aemon quietly refuse the throne? Was his little brother, Aegon the Broken, chosen instead?

Jon was not entirely innocent of the history of the realm; his own maester had seen to that. "That was the year of the Great Council," he said. "The lords passed over Prince Aerion's infant son and Prince Daeron's daughter and gave the crown to Aegon."

"Yes and no. First they offered it, quietly, to Aemon. And quietly he refused. The gods meant for him to serve, not to rule, he told them. He had sworn a vow and would not break it, though the High Septon himself offered to absolve him.

[...]

they had no choice but to turn to Aemon's younger brother—Aegon, the Fifth of His Name. Aegon the Unlikely, they called him, born the fourth son of a fourth son. Aemon knew, and rightly, that if he remained at court those who disliked his brother's rule would seek to use him, so he came to the Wall.

x

"I didn't catch anything," Bran said, "but Jon gave me his fish on the way back to Winterfell. Will we ever see Jon again?" - Bran V, AGOT

+.+.+

Which brother?

"Must I have a reason?" Mormont shifted in his seat, frowning. "Your brother Robb has been crowned King in the North. You and Aemon have that in common. A king for a brother." - Jon I, ACOK

+.+.+

JON THE BUILDER & HIS GIFT

Fear not, friends. Currently most of Jon's foreshadowing revolves around RJL, kingship, the dance, and Sansa Stark. The good news is, we've finally made it to ASOS, and Jon the Builder is about to get loud.

Bran would like to gift some land to the bastard Snow.

"Then let Lord Hornwood's bastard be the heir," Bran said, thinking of his half brother Jon.

[...]

Ser Rodrik commanded the man to set aside a fifth, and questioned the steward closely about Lord Hornwood's bastard, the boy Larence Snow. In the north, all highborn bastards took the surname Snow. This lad was near twelve, and the steward praised his wits and courage.

"Your notion about the bastard may have merit, Bran," Maester Luwin said after. "One day you will be a good lord for Winterfell, I think." - Bran II, ACOK

+.+.+

AHOY MATEY! ARYA STARK SAILS THE OCEAN BLUE

Listen to him, Arya. Board that ship.

He spat out the old sourleaf. "A ship now, might have been wiser. No chance o' finding more men on the way, but still . . . clever man, he'd go by ship, but me . . . thirty years I been taking this kingsroad." He sheathed his dirk. "Go to sleep, boy. Hear me?" - Arya III, ACOK

+.+.+

Answer the call.

Some days, as they made their slow way up the muddy shore (Gendry wanted no part of any roads, and even Hot Pie and Lommy saw the sense in that), Arya felt as though the lake were calling her. She wanted to leap into those placid blue waters, to feel clean again, to swim and splash and bask in the sun. - Arya V, ACOK

+.+.+

I see you, Quaithe.

To go north, you must journey south -> Sansa

To reach the west, you must go east -> Arya

To go forward you must go back -> Bran

To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow -> Jon

"To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

I bet it's a beautiful song.

He sang of Jonquil and Florian, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his love for his brother's queen, of Nymeria's ten thousand ships. - Sansa VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Maybe you could see it all.

Might be it's from Robb, come to say it wasn't true about Bran and Rickon. She chewed on her lip, hoping. If I had wings I could fly back to Winterfell and see for myself. And if it was true, I'd just fly away, fly up past the moon and the shining stars, and see all the things in Old Nan's stories, dragons and sea monsters and the Titan of Braavos, and maybe I wouldn't ever fly back unless I wanted to. - Arya X, ACOK

+.+.+

The brilliance of @aegor-bamfsteel on full display.

"What did you think I would do?" Her fingers were sticky with blood, and the smell was making her mare skittish. It's no matter, she thought, swinging up into the saddle. The rain will wash them clean again. - Arya X, ACOK

x

+.+.+

BRAN THE BROKEN, KING OF WESTEROS

Credit to @agentrouka-blog for noticing Bran prefers an uncomfortable seat, unlike his counterparts.

Bran preferred the hard stone of the window seat to the comforts of his featherbed and blankets. - Bran I, ACOK

x

And the people … there is no end of them. I sit on that damnable iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. - Eddard I, AGOT

x

By midday Daenerys was feeling the weight of the crown upon her head, and the hardness of the bench beneath her.

[...]

The slippers the Butcher King had sent her had grown too uncomfortable. Dany kicked them off and sat with one foot tucked beneath her and the other swinging back and forth. It was not a very regal pose, but she was tired of being regal. The crown had given her a headache, and her buttocks had gone to sleep. - Daenerys I, ADWD

+.+.+

Prince Bran moans over what he should be allowed to do, and sounds more like a king in the process.

"Summer would save me," Bran insisted stubbornly. "Princes should be allowed to sail the sea and hunt boar in the wolfswood and joust with lances." - Bran I, ACOK

x

"Let me tell you a secret, Ned. More than once, I have dreamed of giving up the crown. Take ship for the Free Cities with my horse and my hammer, spend my time warring and whoring, that's what I was made for. - Eddard VII, AGOT

x

Robert loved to hunt boar. I have seen him take a thousand of them. - Eddard XIII, AGOT

x

Now everybody heard him. "No," he thundered in a voice that drowned out all other speech. Sansa was shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was drunk as a man could be. "You do not tell me what to do, woman," he screamed at Queen Cersei. "I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!" - Sansa II, AGOT

+.+.+

AGOT Rewind.

We receive a bit more clarification on what those nine weirwoods in a circle might symbolize. Small problem, is this Bran or Jon foreshadowing? We're putting it in both.

The ancient crown of the Kings of Winter had been lost three centuries ago, yielded up to Aegon the Conqueror when Torrhen Stark knelt in submission. What Aegon had done with it no man could say. Lord Hoster's smith had done his work well, and Robb's crown looked much as the other was said to have looked in the tales told of the Stark kings of old; an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. Of gold and silver and gemstones, it had none; bronze and iron were the metals of winter, dark and strong to fight against the cold. - Catelyn I, ACOK

x

The sun was sinking below the trees when they reached their destination, a small clearing in the deep of the wood where nine weirwoods grew in a rough circle. - Jon VI, AGOT

+.+.+

Bran doesn’t find governing quite as tedious as Queen Daenerys or King Robert.

"As you will, my prince," said Ser Rodrik. "You did well." Bran flushed with pleasure. Being a lord was not so tedious as he had feared - Bran II, ACOK

x

Laws are a tedious business and counting coppers is worse. And the people … there is no end of them. - Eddard I, AGOT

x

The rest was a tedium the queen knew well. She sat upon her cushions, listening, one foot jiggling with impatience. - Daenerys VII, ADWD

+.+.+

Three monarchs are served a very similar dish.

Credit to @minitafan for first spotting this trend in AGOT.

She paid that no heed. "You were sitting at supper, but instead of a servant, Maester Luwin brought you your food. He served you the king's cut off the roast, the meat rare and bloody, but with a savory smell that made everyone's mouth water. - Bran IV, ACOK

x

The rabbit had been a scrawny thing, but as it cooked it smelled like a king's feast. - Jon III, ACOK

x

And when the meat course was brought out, he served her himself, slicing a queen's portion from the joint, smiling as he laid it on her plate. - Sansa II, AGOT

+.+.+

That's not the only meal shared by kings.

Bran was almost afraid to sit to supper that night, but when he did, it was pigeon pie they set before him. - Bran IV, AGOT

x

"My uncle hasn't eaten his pigeon pie." Holding the chalice one-handed, Joff jammed his other into Tyrion's pie. "It's ill luck not to eat the pie," he scolded as he filled his mouth with hot spiced pigeon. "See, it's good." - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

A Great Council, so Bran can tell his tale.

"Robb will set aside his crown if you and your brother will do the same," she said, hoping it was true. She would make it true if she must; Robb would listen to her, even if his lords would not. "Let the three of you call for a Great Council, such as the realm has not seen for a hundred years. We will send to Winterfell, so Bran may tell his tale and all men may know the Lannisters for the true usurpers. Let the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms choose who shall rule them." - Catelyn IV, ACOK

+.+.+

A crown sits atop the broken tower.

Behind him the broken tower stood, its summit as jagged as a crown where fire had collapsed the upper stories long ago. - Theon VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Lie with Kings?

Their footsteps echoed through the cavernous crypts. The shadows behind them swallowed his father as the shadows ahead retreated to unveil other statues; no mere lords, these, but the old Kings in the North. On their brows they wore stone crowns. Torrhen Stark, the King Who Knelt. Edwyn the Spring King. Theon Stark, the Hungry Wolf. Brandon the Burner and Brandon the Shipwright. Jorah and Jonos, Brandon the Bad, Walton the Moon King, Edderion the Bridegroom, Eyron, Benjen the Sweet and Benjen the Bitter, King Edrick Snowbeard. Their faces were stern and strong, and some of them had done terrible things, but they were Starks every one, and Bran knew all their tales. He had never feared the crypts; they were part of his home and who he was, and he had always known that one day he would lie here too. - Bran VII, ACOK

+.+.+

HIGH SEPTON RICKON? PLEASE?

Kudos to @fedonciadale for noticing a boy goes missing for the entire series... along with the High Septon's crown.

Tyrek was still missing, as was the High Septon's crystal crown. - Tyrion IX, ACOK

+.+.+

Rickon sighting in the Great Sept! Thank you, @minitafan.

Sansa visited each of the Seven in turn, lighting a candle at each altar, and then found herself a place on the benches between a wizened old washerwoman and a boy no older than Rickon, dressed in the fine linen tunic of a knight's son. - Sansa V, ACOK

+.+.+

Here sits Lord Barth between Lord Jonnel and Lord Brandon. Lord Barth, the fourth born son, has a notable history with Skagos. Even more interesting, he shares a name with a famous septon.

Coincidence or conspiracy?

When the shadows moved, it looked for an instant as if the dead were rising as well. Lyanna and Brandon, Lord Rickard Stark their father, Lord Edwyle his father, Lord Willam and his brother Artos the Implacable, Lord Donnor and Lord Beron and Lord Rodwell, one-eyed Lord Jonnel, Lord Barth and Lord Brandon and Lord Cregan who had fought the Dragonknight. - Bran VII, ACOK

+.+.+

THE TWINS MEET THEIR END IN CASTERLY ROCK? KING’S LANDING? I DON’T KNOW ANYMORE

(Me thinks we're going to need their POVs to get to the bottom of this.)

There's cells of sand underneath King's Landing, set to be released if fire is detected. Tyrion is most interested, and wouldn't mind taking a look at the end of the war. He might not have a choice.

@fedonciadale notes that being smothered by sand might be considered a poetic end for a family that has a lot of unfinished business with House Martell. Heh.

Above each work cell is a room filled entirely with sand. A protective spell has been laid on the floors, hmmm, most powerful. Any fire in the cell below causes the floors to fall away, and the sand smothers the blaze at once."

"Not to mention the careless acolyte." By spell Tyrion imagined Hallyne meant clever trick. He thought he would like to inspect one of these false-ceilinged cells to see how it worked, but this was not the time. Perhaps when the war was won. - Tyrion V, ACOK

+.+.+

Ashes in her mouth... literally?

"I have never liked you, Cersei, but you were my own sister, so I never did you harm. You've ended that. I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid." - Tyrion XII, ACOK

+.+.+

Maybe one day you will show us the bowels of Casterly Rock.

"You brought this on yourself," she reminded him. "We granted you the comfort of a tower cell befitting your birth and station. You repaid us by trying to escape."

"A cell is a cell. Some under Casterly Rock make this one seem a sunlit garden. One day perhaps I'll show them to you." - Catelyn VII, ACOK

+.+.+

TYRION LANNISTER, (PRISONER?) HAND OF THE KING

Whatever.

His sister had taken the king's seat for herself—he gathered Joffrey did not often trouble to attend council meetings, no more than Robert had—so Tyrion climbed up into the Hand's chair. It seemed only appropriate. - Tyrion I, ACOK

+.+.+

Mercy for the vanquished Lannister? A chance to cleanse his shame?

"And Chella told him only cowards kill the vanquished."

"Braver to leave the man alive, with a chance to cleanse his shame by winning back his ear," explained Chella - Tyrion I, ACOK

+.+.+

Why not both?

A demon's head, Tyrion thought ruefully, now what does that say of me? "Master Salloreon, I plan to fight the rest of my battles from this chair. It's links I need, not demon horns. So let me put it to you this way. You will make chains, or you will wear them. The choice is yours." - Tyrion III, ACOK

+.+.+

DARK DAENERYS HIGHLIGHTS & LAUGHS

Azor Ahai must have a great public relations team, because this doesn't sound like much of a hero to me. Salladhor Saan and Davos seem to agree.

Below, @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir and @a-maid-with-sunset-in-her-hair further examine the three attempts to forge Lightbringer.

Dragonstone was grim beyond a doubt, a lonely citadel in the wet waste surrounded by storm and salt, with the smoking shadow of the mountain at its back. - Prologue, ASOS

x

When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone. - Davos III, ASOS

x

"A sword plucked from fire, yes. Men tell me things, it is my pleasant smile. How shall a burnt sword serve Stannis?"

"A burning sword," corrected Davos.

"Burnt," said Salladhor Saan, "and be glad of that, my friend. Do you know the tale of the forging of Lightbringer? I shall tell it to you. It was a time when darkness lay heavy on the world. To oppose it, the hero must have a hero's blade, oh, like none that had ever been. And so for thirty days and thirty nights Azor Ahai labored sleepless in the temple, forging a blade in the sacred fires. Heat and hammer and fold, heat and hammer and fold, oh, yes, until the sword was done. Yet when he plunged it into water to temper the steel it burst asunder.

"Being a hero, it was not for him to shrug and go in search of excellent grapes such as these, so again he began. The second time it took him fifty days and fifty nights, and this sword seemed even finer than the first. Azor Ahai captured a lion, to temper the blade by plunging it through the beast's red heart, but once more the steel shattered and split. Great was his woe and great was his sorrow then, for he knew what he must do.

"A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. 'Nissa Nissa,' he said to her, for that was her name, 'bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.' She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes. - Davos I, ACOK

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

A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost . . . When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay. - Davos I, ACOK

x

"They are mine," she said fiercely. They had been born from her faith and her need, given life by the deaths of her husband and unborn son and the maegi Mirri Maz Duur. Dany had walked into the flames as they came forth, and they had drunk milk from her swollen breasts. "No man will take them from me while I live." - Daenerys I, ACOK

x

When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." - Daenerys III, ADWD

x

& @a-maid-with-sunset-in-her-hair's thoughts here.

+.+.+

Moses wanders the red desert with her people, and daydreams of mountaintops.

@aegor-bamfsteel provides some necessary background into this Moses fellow.

For more great biblical references, I suggest reading the comments of Daenerys I, ACOK.

Dany looked at the horizon with despair. They had lost a third of their number, and still the waste stretched before them, bleak and red and endless. The comet mocks my hopes, she thought, lifting her eyes to where it scored the sky. Have I crossed half the world and seen the birth of dragons only to die with them in this hard hot desert? She would not believe it. - Daenerys I, ACOK

x

If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought. The Targaryens of old had ridden upon dragonback when they went to war. She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to straddle a dragon's neck and soar high into the air. It would be like standing on a mountaintop, only better. The whole world would be spread out below. - Daenerys I, ACOK

x

+.+.+

The author abandons all subtlety.

Yet even as her dragons prospered, her khalasar withered and died. - Daenerys I, ACOK

+.+.+

Amusing language used to describe a hostile party burning down a small village in Arya IV, ACOK.

She saw a roof go up, flames licking at the belly of the night with hot orange tongues as the thatch caught.

[...]

Over the roar of the flames, she could hear shouts.

[...]

One carried a banner on a tall lance. She thought it was red, but it was hard to tell in the night, with the fires roaring all around. Everything seemed red or black or orange.

[...]

Every time Arya looked up, more torches were flying, trailing long tongues of flame that lingered behind her eyes.

[...]

The fire beat at her back with hot red wings as she fled the burning barn.

[...]

Smoke was pouring out the open door like a writhing black snake, and she could hear the screams of the poor animals inside, donkeys and horses and men.

[...]

A dozen feet down the tunnel she heard the sound, like the roar of some monstrous beast, and a cloud of hot smoke and black dust came billowing up behind her, smelling of hell. - Arya IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Robert died, and snakes slid forth from his belly. Prepare to be bathed in fire.

When the boar did open him, a great stench rose to heaven and a thousand snakes slid forth from his belly, hissing and biting!" He jabbed his bony finger back at comet and castle. "There comes the Harbinger! Cleanse yourselves, the gods cry out, lest ye be cleansed! Bathe in the wine of righteousness, or you shall be bathed in fire! Fire!" - Tyrion V, ACOK

+.+.+

A beautiful paradise turns to ash in a heartbeat.

The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

But before she could do that she must conquer.

[...]

How could she hope to overthrow such men? When Khal Drogo had lived, men trembled and made him gifts to stay his wrath. If they did not, he took their cities, wealth and wives and all. But his khalasar had been vast, while hers was meager. Her people had followed her across the red waste as she chased her comet, and would follow her across the poison water too, but they would not be enough. Even her dragons might not be enough. Viserys had believed that the realm would rise for its rightful king . . . but Viserys had been a fool, and fools believe in foolish things.

Her doubts made her shiver. Suddenly the water felt cold to her, and the little fish prickling at her skin annoying. - Daenerys II, ACOK

+.+.+

Dragons plant no trees.

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. - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

Previously doubting the existence of hired knives, Daenerys now appears to be giving into the paranoia. The same thing that made Viserys go mad, she says.

Yet even crowned, I am a beggar still, Dany thought. I have become the most splendid beggar in the world, but a beggar all the same. She hated it, as her brother must have. All those years of running from city to city one step ahead of the Usurper's knives, pleading for help from archons and princes and magisters, buying our food with flattery. He must have known how they mocked him. Small wonder he turned so angry and bitter. In the end it had driven him mad. It will do the same to me if I let it. - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper's hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one. - Daenerys I, AGOT

+.+.+

Where do we begin with Daenerys IV, ACOK? Otherwise known as the House of the Undying chapter.

Friends, I can't possibly summarize that chapter here without copying and pasting the entire thing, so instead let me direct you to three reviews, and give you a preview.

@ladyofasoiaf's HotU analysis

@ladyqueenofwinter's HotU analysis

@istumpysk's HotU analysis

Who wants to be Bran's foil? Not me!

Scatology metaphors, aka Daenerys is a piece of shit.

Daenerys heads left, because she could never be right.

Drogon has a lot to say about someone being king of the ashes.

The prince that was promised and the lies we tell ourselves.

Sexual expression fires in King's Landing.

It's okay to laugh if you meet someone who believes the 'mounts to ride' are men she'll bed.

All things treason.

The bride of fire burns her husband, and selects her next lover.

Come look at all the dead Targaryens, and ignore the larger implication.

Azor Ahai and the lies we tell ourselves.

Smell the Greyjoy.

Drogon won't let mommy have her moment with the slaves.

Cold, dead things have bad intentions.

Beating in unison with a corrupt heart is good, actually.

There's rats in the walls!

Look! The words howl, knife, and dance. Rip.

+.+.+

Randyll Tarly doesn't bend. Let's see how much father and daughter have in common.

"Aerys accused them of treason and summoned their fathers to court to answer the charge, with the sons as hostages. When they came, he had them murdered without trial. Fathers and sons both." - Catelyn VII, ACOK

x

Varys gave him a simpering smile. "You would win, my lord. Lord Alester was indeed the first to bend the knee. Many others followed."

"Many," Tyrion said pointedly, "but not all?"

"Not all," agreed the eunuch. "Not Loras Tyrell, nor Randyll Tarly, nor Mathis Rowan. - Tyrion VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

The funniest parallel ever created.

"My uncle's the one who will need mercy, but I won't give him any." Joffrey drew his sword. The pommel was a ruby cut in the shape of a heart, set between a lion's jaws. Three fullers were deeply incised in the blade. "My new blade, Hearteater." - Sansa V, ACOK

x

I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself as she took the stallion's heart in both hands, lifted it to her mouth, and plunged her teeth into the tough, stringy flesh. - Daenerys V, AGOT

+.+.+

Amusing language used to describe an attack on King's Landing. Thanks to @dontbipanicjonsa for the good eyes.

Across the sea warhorns boomed, deep throaty moans like the calls of monstrous serpents, repeated ship to ship. - Davos III, ACOK

x

Wooden wings had sprouted from the Wraith and Lady Marya as well. - Davos III, ACOK

x

Glowering down from Aegon's High Hill, the Red Keep commanded the approaches. Its iron-crowned battlements, massive towers, and thick red walls gave it the aspect of a ferocious beast hunched above river and streets. - Davos III, ACOK

x

A flight of flickering orange birds took wing from the castle, twenty or thirty of them; pots of burning pitch, arcing out over the river trailing threads of flame. - Davos III, ACOK

x

Ahead, the first line was within bowshot of the enemy; flights of arrows flew between the ships, hissing like striking snakes. - Davos III, ACOK

x

Swordfish and the hulk were gone, blackened bodies were floating downstream beside him, and choking men clinging to bits of smoking wood. Fifty feet high, a swirling demon of green flame danced upon the river. - Davos III, ACOK

x

Davos saw green gushing from a thousand broken jars, poison from the entrails of a dying beast, glistening, shining, spreading across the surface of the river - Davos III, ACOK

x

The low clouds caught the color of the burning river and roofed the sky in shades of shifting green, eerily beautiful. A terrible beauty. Like dragonfire. Tyrion wondered if Aegon the Conqueror had felt like this as he flew above his Field of Fire. - Tyrion XIII, ACOK

x

A groaning filled the air, like the death cries of some enormous beast. - Tyrion XIV, ACOK

+.+.+

That doesn't sound good.

Well, perhaps it was time. The people of her khalasar had welcomed the chance to recover from the ravages of the red waste, but now that they were plump and rested once again, they began to grow unruly. Dothraki were not accustomed to staying long in one place. They were a warrior people, not made for cities. - Daenerys V, ACOK

+.+.+

What's happening here? We're going to keep our eye on this one.

The throne rejects Joffrey the Hearteater, dressed like a Targaryen, and sounding a lot like one as well.

King Joffrey sat above them all, amongst the blades and barbs of the Iron Throne. He was in crimson samite, his black mantle studded with rubies, on his head his heavy golden crown.

[...]

A monster sits the Iron Throne, an abomination born of incest!"

"Be silent," Ser Kevan Lannister bellowed.

The knight raised his voice instead. "Joffrey is the black worm eating the heart of the realm! Darkness was his father, and death his mother! Destroy him before he corrupts you all! Destroy them all, queen whore and king worm, vile dwarf and whispering spider, the false flowers. Save yourselves!" One of the gold cloaks knocked the man off his feet, but he continued to shout. "The scouring fire will come! King Stannis will return!"

Joffrey lurched to his feet. "I'm king! Kill him! Kill him now! I command it." He chopped down with his hand, a furious, angry gesture . . . and screeched in pain when his arm brushed against one of the sharp metal fangs that surrounded him. The bright crimson samite of his sleeve turned a darker shade of red as his blood soaked through it. "Mother!" he wailed. - Sansa VIII, ACOK

x

"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." - Daenerys II, ACOK

x

She lifted her head. "And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo." - Daenerys IX, AGOT

x

At the end of the war council, Maegor remained behind alone in the throne room to brood. He was found dead the next morning by Queen Elinor, seated on the Iron Throne with his robes covered in blood and his wrists slashed. A spike from one of the swords on the throne behind him was impaled through the back of his neck. How Maegor died was never discovered. Some say he had been killed by Queen Elinor, others that he had been killed by a knight of his own Kingsguard. Yet others say he had been killed by a builder who escaped the slaughter three years earlier and desired revenge, and many believe that Maegor had been killed by the throne itself. Others believe that Maegor killed himself by opening his wrists on the blades of the Iron Throne. - ASoIaF wiki

x

"Have you ever seen the Iron Throne? The barbs along the back, the ribbons of twisted steel, the jagged ends of swords and knives all tangled up and melted? It is not a comfortable seat, ser. Aerys cut himself so often men took to calling him King Scab, and Maegor the Cruel was murdered in that chair. - Davos IV, ASOS

x

They say the Iron Throne can be perilous cruel to those who were not meant to sit it. - Sansa VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Devastating chapter transition for Team Daenerys. Burn it all, followed by a walk through the ruins of King's Landing.

"Save me the Freys," the Bastard was shouting as the flames roared upward, "and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it all." - Theon VI, ACOK

x

He found himself outside the city, walking through a world without color. Ravens soared through a grey sky on wide black wings, while carrion crows rose from their feasts in furious clouds wherever he set his steps. White maggots burrowed through black corruption. The wolves were grey, and so were the silent sisters; together they stripped the flesh from the fallen. There were corpses strewn all over the tourney fields. The sun was a hot white penny, shining down upon the grey river as it rushed around the charred bones of sunken ships. From the pyres of the dead rose black columns of smoke and white-hot ashes. My work, thought Tyrion Lannister. They died at my command. - Tyrion XV, ACOK

+.+.+

A direwolf tours a burnt castle, and spots a dragon made of smoke.

The ashes fell like a soft grey snow.

[...]

The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. – Bran VII

+.+.+

A DAGGER IN THE FLESH: STARK vs. TARG

The princess of dragonstone dreams of dragons killing her. Thank you, @shieldofrohan.

"The princess would see the white raven." Ever correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king.

[...]

"I had bad dreams," Shireen told him. "About the dragons. They were coming to eat me." - Prologue, ACOK

+.+.+

The shadows are dancing.

"The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord," he sang, hopping from one foot to the other and back again. - Prologue, ACOK

+.+.+

Sounds familiar.

They were all looking at her, even the three chained and manacled in the back of the wagon. The fat one snapped his pointy teeth together and hissed, but Arya ignored him. - Arya I, ACOK

x

The black dragon hissed, smoke seeping out between his sharp teeth. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Sounds familiar 2.0.

"You scream now. You scream loud."

I won't, Arya thought stubbornly, but when Yoren laid the wood against the back of her bare thighs, the shriek burst out of her anyway. - Arya I, ACOK

x

"You will not hear me scream," Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing.

"I will," Dany said

[...]

The fires swept over Mirri Maz Duur. Her song grew louder, shriller … then she gasped, again and again, and her song became a shuddering wail, thin and high and full of agony. - Daenerys X, AGOT

+.+.+

The Rabbitkiller.

Arya was given a whole leg, since it was her rabbit. She shared it with Gendry. The rest of them each got a spoonful, even the three in manacles. Jaqen H'ghar thanked her politely for the treat, and Biter licked the grease off his dirty fingers with a blissful look, but Rorge, the noseless one, only laughed and said, "There's a hunter now. Lumpyface Lumpyhead Rabbitkiller." - Arya III, ACOK

x

The queen of the rabbits must not be wed without her floppy ears. - Daenerys VI, ADWD

+.+.+

Is somebody in King's Landing when Daenerys goes boom? Arya IV.

+.+.+

Steel in place of kisses.

The white horse and the black one wheeled like lovers at a harvest dance, the riders throwing steel in place of kisses. - Catelyn II, ACOK

+.+.+

An entire fandom forgets how to read.

Dany smiled. "Perhaps it's the camels you're smelling. The Qartheen themselves seem sweet enough to my nose."

"Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones." - Daenerys II, ACOK

x

A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

x

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

The Usurper's Dogs.

They said Robert Baratheon was strong as a bull and fearless in battle, a man who loved nothing better than war. And with him stood the great lords her brother had named the Usurper's dogs, cold-eyed Eddard Stark with his frozen heart, and the golden Lannisters, father and son, so rich, so powerful, so treacherous. - Daenerys II, ACOK

x

"Ned Stark a traitor?" Ser Jorah snorted. "Not bloody likely. The Long Summer will come again before that one would besmirch his precious honor."

"What honor could he have?" Dany said. "He was a traitor to his true king, as were these Lannisters." It pleased her to hear that the Usurper's dogs were fighting amongst themselves, though she was unsurprised. - Daenerys II, ACOK

+.+.+

Rhaegal has needle(s).

"Then I grieve for you, Dragonmother, and for bleeding Westeros, bereft of its rightful king."

Beneath Dany's gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth gleamed like black needles. - Daenerys II, ACOK

+.+.+

Bad news Daenerys: Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, and Bran Stark are all dead.

"No," he admitted. "There is more of Rhaegar in you, I think, but even Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved that on the Trident, with no more than a warhammer. Even dragons can die."

"Dragons die." She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. "But so do dragonslayers." - Daenerys II, ACOK

+.+.+

Tastes like death.

"Your head's as wooden as your teeth," Hake told him. "There's no smell to cold."

There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander's chambers. It smells like death. - Jon IV, ACOK

x

The light of the half-moon turned Val's honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. "The air tastes sweet."

"My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold." - Jon VIII, ADWD

+.+.+

Daenerys is denied after visiting the Keeper of the Long List, the Opener of the Door, and the Hall of a Thousand Thrones. Beautiful, @agentrouka-blog.

Descendants of the ancient kings and queens of Qarth, the Pureborn commanded the Civic Guard and the fleet of ornate galleys that ruled the straits between the seas. Daenerys Targaryen had wanted that fleet, or part of it, and some of their soldiers as well. She made the traditional sacrifice in the Temple of Memory, offered the traditional bribe to the Keeper of the Long List, sent the traditional persimmon to the Opener of the Door, and finally received the traditional blue silk slippers summoning her to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones. - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

Suppose you did send an assassin.

"Suppose a Sorrowful Man came to my palace one night and killed you as you slept," said Xaro. The Sorrowful Men were an ancient sacred guild of assassins, so named because they always whispered, "I am so sorry," to their victims before they killed them. - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could feel Robert's eyes on his back. As he strode from the council chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. "On Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men," Grand Maester Pycelle offered.

"Do you have any idea how costly they are?" Littlefinger complained. - Eddard III, AGOT

+.+.+

Something will cut it.

"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

Mean Rhaegal.

Rhaegal hissed and dug sharp black claws into her bare shoulder as Dany stretched out a hand for the wine. Wincing, she shifted him to her other shoulder, where he could claw her gown instead of her skin. - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

She stroked Rhaegal. The green dragon closed his teeth around the meat of her hand and nipped hard. - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

Near the trident, we spot a storm of fire arrows hissing, and dancing.

The Mallister bowmen sent a storm of fire arrows hissing across the river, strangely beautiful from afar. One man, pierced through a dozen times, his clothes afire, danced and whirled in the knee-deep water until at last he fell and was swept downstream. By the time his body came bobbing past Riverrun, the fires and his life had both been extinguished. - Catelyn VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Dragons vs. Weirwood.

She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Careful in there. Thank you, @ladyqueenofwinter.

When they reached the door—a tall oval mouth, set in a wall fashioned in the likeness of a human face—the smallest dwarf Dany had ever seen was waiting on the threshold. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

x

And the seventh face . . . the Stranger was neither male nor female, yet both, ever the outcast, the wanderer from far places, less and more than human, unknown and unknowable. Here the face was a black oval, a shadow with stars for eyes. It made Catelyn uneasy. She would get scant comfort there. - Catelyn IV ACOK

+.+.+

Howling, he drew a knife and danced towards her.

When she spilled out into the sun, the bright light made her stumble. Pyat Pree was gibbering in some unknown tongue and hopping from one foot to the other.

[...]

Howling curses, Pyat Pree drew a knife and danced toward her, but Drogon flew at his face. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

A cold, steel kiss.

Ebben drew his dagger. "A steel kiss will keep her quiet."

Jon's throat was raw. He looked at them all helplessly. "She yielded herself to me."

[...]

He touched the edge of the blade to mark where the blow must fall, and Ygritte shivered. "That's cold," she said. - Jon VI, ACOK

x

"Kiss her?" Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.

"A steel kiss," said Littlefinger. - Eddard VIII, AGOT

+.+.+

An dragon eagle attacks Ghost.

Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun . . . - Jon VII, ACOK

x

Thrice that day she caught sight of Drogon. Once he was so far off that he might have been an eagle, slipping in and out of distant clouds, but Dany knew the look of him by now, even when he was no more than a speck. - Daenerys X, ADWD

+.+.+

The best chapter transition of all time.

A Qartheen stepped into her path. "Mother of Dragons, for you." He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face. Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, "I am so sorry," but she hardly heard. The scarab unfolded with a hiss. Dany caught a glimpse of a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom . . . and then the box flew from her hand in pieces, turning end over end. Sudden pain twisted her fingers. As she cried out and clutched her hand, the brass merchant let out a shriek, a woman screamed, and suddenly the Qartheen were shouting and pushing each other aside. Ser Jorah slammed past her, and Dany stumbled to one knee. [...] Dany snapped her hand to shake the sting from her fingers. "It was the other one, the Qartheen." When she looked around he was gone. "He was a Sorrowful Man. There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand."

- Daenerys V, ACOK -> Arya X, ACOK

x

He'd left his dagger on the table as well, so she took that too, just in case Gendry lost his courage.

[...]

Arya took out the dagger and sharpened it to keep her hands busy. Long smooth strokes, the way Syrio had taught her. The sound calmed her.

[...]

She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear, and it felt as though Syrio Forel walked beside her, and Yoren, and Jaqen H'ghar, and Jon Snow. She had not taken the sword Gendry had brought her, not yet. For this the dagger would be better.

[...]

"Silver, you say?" He did not believe her, but he wanted to; silver was silver, after all. "Give it over, then." Her fingers dug down beneath her tunic and came out clutching the coin Jaqen had given her. In the dark the iron could pass for tarnished silver. She held it out . . . and let it slip through her fingers. Cursing her softly, the man went to a knee to grope for the coin in the dirt, and there was his neck right in front of her. Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. His blood covered her hands in a hot gush and he tried to shout but there was blood in his mouth as well. "Valar morghulis," she whispered as he died. - Arya X, ACOK

+.+.+

Thank you @magiclovingdragon for pointing out this is probably a Melisandre reference. Still, in the interest of being fair, when Jon kills and the word ruby shows up, I have to include it.

Even when Ghost's teeth closed savagely around the ranger's calf, somehow Qhorin kept his feet. But in that instant, as he twisted, the opening was there. Jon planted and pivoted. The ranger was leaning away, and for an instant it seemed that Jon's slash had not touched him. Then a string of red tears appeared across the big man's throat, bright as a ruby necklace, and the blood gushed out of him, and Qhorin Halfhand fell. - Jon VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Summer doesn't like that dragon.

The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. - Bran VII, ACOK

+.+.+

The trees will endure. They always have.

The air was sweeter under the trees. A few pines along the edge of the wood had been scorched, but deeper in the damp soil and green wood had defeated the flames. "There is a power in living wood," said Jojen Reed, almost as if he knew what Bran was thinking, "a power strong as fire." - Bran VII, ACOK

+.+.+

STORM x STORM 🦑🖤🐉

Parallels that make us laugh: fire & blood edition.

Once I would have kept her as a salt wife in truth, he thought to himself as he slid his fingers through her tangled hair. Once. When we still kept the Old Way, lived by the axe instead of the pick, taking what we would, be it wealth, women, or glory. In those days, the ironborn did not work mines; that was labor for the captives brought back from the hostings, and so too the sorry business of farming and tending goats and sheep. War was an ironman's proper trade. The Drowned God had made them to reave and rape, to carve out kingdoms and write their names in fire and blood and song. - Theon I, ACOK

+.+.+

Euron -> bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing -> Daenerys.

She threw up her hands. "And where we end. Esgred is yours, sweet prince. Take me to your castle. Let me see your proud towers rising from the sea." - Theon II, ACOK

x

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky. - Melisandre I, ADWD

+.+.+

A perfect complement to a Dothraki army.

Most of the islanders were indifferent riders at best, more comfortable on the deck of a longship than in the saddle. - Theon II, ACOK

+.+.+

Parallels that make us laugh: uncle & aunt edition.

In the islands it was scarce unheard of for a strong, ambitious uncle to dispossess a weak nephew of his rights, and usually murder him in the bargain. - Theon II, ACOK

+.+.+

Parallels that make us laugh: Silence & Drogon edition.

"Euron Croweye has no lack of cunning, though. I've heard men say terrible things of that one."

Theon shifted his seat. "My uncle Euron has not been seen in the islands for close on two years. He may be dead." If so, it might be for the best. Lord Balon's eldest brother had never given up the Old Way, even for a day. His Silence, with its black sails and dark red hull, was infamous in every port from Ibben to Asshai, it was said. - Theon II, ACOK

x

His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting … and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. - Daenerys IX, ADWD

+.+.+

Parallels that make us laugh: pilfering, pillaging, and plundering edition.

The rest of his men were looting the corpses. Gevin Harlaw knelt on a dead man's chest, sawing off his finger to get at a ring. Paying the iron price. My lord father would approve. Theon thought of seeking out the bodies of the two men he'd slain himself to see if they had any jewelry worth the taking, but the notion left a bitter taste in his mouth. - Theon III, ADWD

+.+.+

Amethyst Empress.

Dany's tight silver collar was chafing against her throat. She unfastened it and flung it aside. The collar was set with an enchanted amethyst that Xaro swore would ward her against all poisons. - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

Daenerys Targaryen spends a whole chapter whining about ships. Be like the rest of the fandom, and pretend like you don't see where this is going.

Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a man of gold, she thought, and gold will buy me all the ships and swords I need. - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

"Give me ships, and I will make you rich again." - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

"Nothing," she said, wishing she was as certain as she sounded. "If each of the Thirteen would lend me ten ships—" - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

"Yes," Dany said. "But it was ships and soldiers I wanted." - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. "Will the Asshai'i give me an army?" she demanded. "Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? - Daenerys III, ACOK

x

"He is rich," she said. "Not so rich as Xaro, perhaps, but rich enough to hire ships for me, and men as well." - Daenerys III, ACOK

+.+.+

Victarion Greyjoy to the rescue? (Yes.)

A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

x

It was well known that the cheapest place to buy a slave was right off the ship, and the banners floating from her masts proclaimed that the Sunblaze had just arrived from Astapor on Slaver's Bay. - Daenerys V, ACOK

+.+.+

Would be unfortunate if the Greyjoys were to keep showing up in your big prophetic chapter.

A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Parallels that make us laugh: soulmates travel the same road edition.

"Take and drink," urged Pyat Pree.

"Will it turn my lips blue?"

"One flute will serve only to unstop your ears and dissolve the caul from off your eyes, so that you may hear and see the truths that will be laid before you."

Dany raised the glass to her lips. The first sip tasted like ink and spoiled meat, foul, but when she swallowed it seemed to come to life within her. She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother's milk and Drogo's seed, like red meat and hot blood and molten gold. It was all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them . . . and then the glass was empty. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

x

The captain took the cup Euron had not offered, sniffed at its contents suspiciously. Seen up close, it looked more blue than black. It was thick and oily, with a smell like rotted flesh. He tried a small swallow, and spit it out at once. "Foul stuff. Do you mean to poison me?"

"I mean to open your eyes." Euron drank deep from his own cup, and smiled. "Shade-of-the-evening, the wine of the warlocks. I came upon a cask of it when I captured a certain galleas out of Qarth, along with some cloves and nutmeg, forty bolts of green silk, and four warlocks who told a curious tale. - The Reaver, AFFC

+.+.+

Parallels that make us laugh: Dothraki lingo edition.

You are blood of my blood, Theon, whatever else you may be. - Theon V, ACOK

+.+.+

Lessons she'll forget.

"Blue lips speak only lies, isn't that what Xaro told you? - Daenerys V, ACOK

x

A smile played across Euron's blue lips. "I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria." - The Reaver, AFC

+.+.+

Totally normal to randomly insert this into a Greyjoy chapter.

The crows came in the blue dusk, with the evening stars. "The Dothraki believe the stars are spirits of the valiant dead," Theon said. Maester Luwin had told him that, a long time ago.

"Dothraki?"

"The horselords across the narrow sea."

"Oh. Them." Black Lorren frowned through his beard. "Savages believe all manner of foolish things." - Theon VI, ACOK

+.+.+

GREATEST UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, THE FOSTERING OF SWEETROBIN

George R. R. Martin thinks he's smarter than me. George R. R. Martin thinks he can fool me. George R. R. Martin thinks that if he starts teasing the possibility of highborn girls being sent to the Eyrie, that I'll lose the scent.

George R. R. Martin is wrong. This will not deter me.

"Be that as it may, my lord," Maester Cressen said gently. "Great wrongs have been done you, but the past is dust. The future may yet be won if you join with the Starks. There are others you might sound out as well. What of Lady Arryn? If the queen murdered her husband, surely she will want justice for him. She has a young son, Jon Arryn's heir. If you were to betroth Shireen to him—"

"The boy is weak and sickly," Lord Stannis objected. "Even his father saw how it was, when he asked me to foster him on Dragonstone. Service as a page might have done him good, but that damnable Lannister woman had Lord Arryn poisoned before it could be done, and now Lysa hides him in the Eyrie. She'll never part with the boy, I promise you that."

"Then you must send Shireen to the Eyrie," the maester urged. "Dragonstone is a grim home for a child. Let her fool go with her, so she will have a familiar face about her." – Prologue, ACOK

+.+.+

He had the pleasure of seeing a look of genuine surprise in Petyr Baelish's grey-green eyes. "Myrcella?"

"When she comes of age, she can wed little Lord Robert. Until such time, she'll be Lady Lysa's ward at the Eyrie." - Tyrion IV, ACOK

+.+.+

JONSA 🐺❤️❄️

The dragon's heir. Not a new discovery, but full credit to @butterflies-dragons for a legendary find.

"Glory to your betrothed," Ser Arys answered at once. "See how it flames across the sky today on His Grace's name day, as if the gods themselves had raised a banner in his honor. The smallfolk have named it King Joffrey's Comet."

Doubtless that was what they told Joffrey; Sansa was not so sure. "I've heard servants calling it the Dragon's Tail."

"King Joffrey sits where Aegon the Dragon once sat, in the castle built by his son," Ser Arys said. "He is the dragon's heir—and crimson is the color of House Lannister, another sign. This comet is sent to herald Joffrey's ascent to the throne, I have no doubt. It means that he will triumph over his enemies." - Sansa I, ACOK

+.+.+

Those snowy knights Sansa loves so much.

The white cloak of the Kingsguard was draped over his broad shoulders and fastened with a jeweled brooch, the snowy cloth looking somehow unnatural against his brown roughspun tunic and studded leather jerkin. - Sansa I, ACOK

x

Ser Meryn entered from the west side of the yard, clad in gleaming white plate chased with gold and mounted on a milk-white charger with a flowing grey mane. His cloak streamed behind him like a field of snow. He carried a twelve-foot lance. - Sansa I, ACOK

x

What was the name of that bastard he fathered?"

Catelyn took a step backward. "Brienne."

"No, that wasn't it." Jaime Lannister upended the flagon. A trickle ran down onto his face, bright as blood. "Snow, that was the one. Such a white name . . . like the pretty cloaks they give us in the Kingsguard when we swear our pretty oaths." - Catelyn VII, ACOK

+.+.+

The Starks are assigned a statue in Davos I, ACOK.

The Maiden lay athwart the Warrior, her arms widespread as if to embrace him. - Davos I, ACOK

x

She was a maiden now, three-and-ten and flowered. All her nights were full of song, and by day she prayed for silence. - Sansa I, AFFC

x

The Warrior was Renly and Stannis, Robb and Robert, Jaime Lannister and Jon Snow.

x

I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my gaze. - Jaime IV, AFFC

x

At the Warrior's altar, he used one candle to light another. Watch over my brother, you bloody bastard, he's one of yours. - Tyrion X, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon rides past the white roses.

As he rode past a lightning-blasted chestnut tree overgrown with wild white roses, he heard something rustling in the underbrush. - Jon III, ACOK

x

"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."

[...]

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

+.+.+

Succession Things Part I (Spot the Stealth Jonsa):

The Story of Lady Hornwood.

Many claimants contending for the Hornwood lands. Bran suggests making the bastard the heir.

Maester Luwin answered. "With no direct heir, there are sure to be many claimants contending for the Hornwood lands. The Tallharts, Flints, and Karstarks all have ties to House Hornwood through the female line, and the Glovers are fostering Lord Harys's bastard at Deepwood Motte. The Dreadfort has no claim that I know, but the lands adjoin, and Roose Bolton is not one to overlook such a chance."

[...]

"Then let Lord Hornwood's bastard be the heir," Bran said, thinking of his half brother Jon.

Ser Rodrik said, "That would please the Glovers, and perhaps Lord Hornwood's shade as well, but I do not think Lady Hornwood would love us. The boy is not of her blood."

[...]

Ser Rodrik commanded the man to set aside a fifth, and questioned the steward closely about Lord Hornwood's bastard, the boy Larence Snow. In the north, all highborn bastards took the surname Snow. This lad was near twelve, and the steward praised his wits and courage.

"Your notion about the bastard may have merit, Bran," Maester Luwin said after. "One day you will be a good lord for Winterfell, I think." - Bran II, ACOK

///

Perhaps Beren Tallhart could take his uncle's name? He is half Hornwood after all.

Maester Luwin liked him better, though. "Beren Tallhart may well be our best answer," he told them when Leobald had gone. "By blood he is half Hornwood. If he takes his uncle's name . . ." - Bran II, ACOK

///

Let's let Robb decide who marries Lady Hornwood. He might want to secure an alliance in the riverlands.

"It may come down to practicalities," said Maester Luwin. "Which lord he most needs to court. The riverlands are part of his realm, he may wish to cement the alliance by wedding Lady Hornwood to one of the lords of the Trident. A Blackwood, perhaps, or a Frey—" - Bran II, ACOK

x

Lord Tywin's look was scornful. "Send her to Riverrun and her mother will match her with a Blackwood or a Mallister to shore up her son's alliances along the Trident. Send her north, and she will be wed to some Manderly or Umber before the moon turns. Yet she is no less dangerous here at court, as this business with the Tyrells should prove. She must marry a Lannister, and soon." - Tyrion III, ASOS

///

Uh oh. Lady Hornwood is captured and forced to marry a Bolton. Her cousin, Lord Manderly, who previously expressed a desire to marry her, takes over the castle to protect the Hornwood castle.

The old knight was off east, trying to set to rights the trouble there. Roose Bolton's bastard had started it by seizing Lady Hornwood as she returned from the harvest feast, marrying her that very night even though he was young enough to be her son. Then Lord Manderly had taken her castle. To protect the Hornwood holdings from the Boltons, he had written, but Ser Rodrik had been almost as angry with him as with the bastard. - Bran IV ACOK

///

Is Lady Hornwood married or not? The northern lords differ in opinion.

"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."

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

+.+.+

Succession Things Part II (Spot the Stealth Jonsa):

A problem with only one solution -> Catelyn's worst fears make another appearance.

Catelyn read the letter again after the maester was gone. "Lord Meadows says nothing of Robert's bastard," she confided to Brienne. "I suppose he yielded the boy with the rest, though I confess, I do not understand why Stannis wanted him so badly."

"Perhaps he fears the boy's claim."

"A bastard's claim? No, it's something else . . . what does this child look like?" - Catelyn VI, ACOK

x

Benjen Stark was a Sworn Brother. Jon would be a son to him, the child he would never have. And in time the boy would take the oath as well. He would father no sons who might someday contest with Catelyn's own grandchildren for Winterfell. - Catelyn II, AGOT

+.+.+

Succession Things Part III (Spot the Stealth Jonsa):

The queen's cousin is set to marry, so he might claim some lands.

Lady Ermesande a babe seated on her wet nurse's lap. The talk was she would soon be wed to one of the queen's cousins, so the Lannisters might claim her lands. - Sansa I, ACOK

+.+.+

Succession Things Part IV (Spot the Stealth Jonsa):

The Lannisters want to take land away from a bastard cousin.

A more significant lordship by far was granted to Ser Lancel Lannister. Joffrey awarded him the lands, castle, and rights of House Darry, whose last child lord had perished during the fighting in the riverlands, "leaving no trueborn heirs of lawful Darry blood, but only a bastard cousin." - Sansa VIII, ACOK

+.+.+

Pleasant thoughts, happy memories.

So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he'd dreamed of them last night. 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, ACOK

x

"I don't even know your name."

"Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower."

"That's pretty." He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. - Jon III, ACOK

+.+.+

Jon and Sansa share something in common. Good job, @minitafan.

Jon spitted the carcass, banked the fire with a pair of rocks, and balanced their meal atop them. The rabbit had been a scrawny thing, but as it cooked it smelled like a king’s feast. - Jon III, ACOK

x

And when the meat course was brought out, he served her himself, slicing a queen's portion from the joint, smiling as he laid it on her plate. - Sansa II, AGOT

+.+.+

A stretch to suggest this is jonsa. We're including it because it made me laugh.

The Old Bear was particular about his hot spiced wine. So much cinnamon and so much nutmeg and so much honey, not a drop more. Raisins and nuts and dried berries, but no lemon, that was the rankest sort of southron heresy - Jon IV, ACOK

+.+.+

Sisters talking to the dead. Good eye, @fedonciadale.

The women in grey bowed their heads. The silent sisters do not speak to the living, Catelyn remembered dully, but some say they can talk to the dead. - Catelyn V, ACOK

+.+.+

The Blood of Winterfell.

"Then you must do what needs be done," Qhorin Halfhand said. "You are the blood of Winterfell and a man of the Night's Watch." - Jon VI, ACOK

x

I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. - Sansa I, AFFC

+.+.+

Children of the mountain. Great find from @butterflies-dragons.

"The mountain is your mother," Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. "Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won't drop you." Jon had made a joke of it, saying how he'd always wondered who his mother was, but never thought to find her in the Frostfangs. - Jon VI, AFFC

x

Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain's daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won't fall." - Alayne II, AFFC

+.+.+

One more step you two.

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. - Jon VI, ACOK

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

+.+.+

Is Jon Snow about to bed his kin?

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

+.+.+

King Mance, the Night's Watch deserter, likes a good wildling song and the odd wildling woman.

Why did he desert?

"She even claimed we were kin. She told me a story . . ."

". . . of Bael the Bard and the rose of Winterfell. So Stonesnake told me. It happens I know the song. Mance would sing it of old, when he came back from a ranging. He had a passion for wildling music. Aye, and for their women as well."

"You knew him?"

"We all knew him." His voice was sad.

They were friends as well as brothers, Jon realized, and now they are sworn foes. "Why did he desert?"

"For a wench, some say. For a crown, others would have it." - Jon VII, ACOK

+.+.+

Pleasant thoughts, happy memories 2.0.

It made Jon remember cold nights long ago at Winterfell, when he'd shared a bed with his brothers. - Jon VI, ACOK

x

For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

A Girl In Grey.

"You may sleep here tonight. I'll give you some of my own men as a guard, some Stone Crows perhaps—"

"No," Sansa blurted out, aghast. If she was locked in the Tower of the Hand, guarded by the dwarf's men, how would Ser Dontos ever spirit her away to freedom?

"Would you prefer Black Ears? I'll give you Chella if a woman would make you more at ease."

"Please, no, my lord, the wildlings frighten me."

He grinned. "Me as well. But more to the point, they frighten Joffrey and that nest of sly vipers and lickspittle dogs he calls a Kingsguard. With Chella or Timett by your side, no one would dare offer you harm." - Sansa III, ACOK

x

"I never knew a wolf to run up a streambed for miles," said Reek. "A man might. If he knew he was being hunted, he might. But a wolf?" - Theon IV, ACOK

x

"I saw water. Deep and blue and still, with a thin coat of ice just forming on it. It seemed to go on and on forever."

"Long Lake. What else did you see around this girl?"

"Hills. Fields. Trees. A deer, once. Stones. She is staying well away from villages. When she can she rides along the bed of little streams, to throw hunters off her trail." - Melisandre I, ADWD

x

"The others return with me. You wouldn't want your own sweet sister to brave the dangers of the wood without an escort, would you? There are direwolves prowling the dark."

- Theon V -> Sansa V

+.+.+

Prince Aemon keeps following Sansa around the story.

"Father, I only just now remembered, I can't go away, I'm to marry Prince Joffrey." She tried to smile bravely for him. "I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies."

"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

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

x

He sang of Jonquil and Florian, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his love for his brother's queen, of Nymeria's ten thousand ships. - Sansa VI, ACOK

x

They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out - Jon XII, ASOS

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Everyone wants to get their hands on a Winter Rose.

Daenerys IV -> Tyrion XI -> Theon IV -> Jon VI -> Sansa IV

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness - Daenerys IV, ACOK

x

Tyrion had only the vaguest memory of Theon Greyjoy from his time with the Starks. A callow youth, always smiling, skilled with a bow; it was hard to imagine him as Lord of Winterfell. The Lord of Winterfell would always be a Stark.

He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood had been even by day. That wood was Winterfell. It was the north. I never felt so out of place as I did when I walked there, so much an unwelcome intruder. He wondered if the Greyjoys would feel it too. The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood. Not in a year, or ten, or fifty. - Tyrion XI, ACOK

x

His father thought only in terms of conquest, but what good was it to take a kingdom if you could not hold it? Force and fear could carry you only so far. A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame. - Theon IV, ACOK

x

'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 IV

x

"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."

I am a Stark of Winterfell, she longed to tell him. - Sansa VII, ASOS

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Dancy with the blue flowers.

The freckled one wore a chain of blue flowers in her honeyed hair. - Tyrion III, ACOK

x

Tyrion had no doubt that Dancy would be a lively handful. She was pug-nosed and bouncy, with freckles and a mane of thick red hair that tumbled down past her waist. - Tyrion VII, ACOK

x

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

"You will love Highgarden as I do, I know it." Margaery brushed back a loose strand of Sansa's hair. - Sansa I, ASOS

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Uncomfortable foreshadowing appears.

He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood. - Eddard X, AGOT

x

When she threw back the blanket and saw the blood, all she could think was that her dream had somehow come true.

[…]

Then she remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in horror at the dark red stain and the tale it told. - Sansa IV, ACOK

x

"So now you are a woman. Do you have the least idea of what that means?"

"It means that I am now fit to be wedded and bedded," said Sansa, "and to bear children for the king." - Sansa IV, ACOK

x

"Different how?"

"I don't know. Less . . . less messy, and more magical."

Queen Cersei laughed. "Wait until you birth a child, Sansa. A woman's life is nine parts mess to one part magic, you'll learn that soon enough . . . - Sansa IV, ACOK

x

The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna

- Theon V, ACOK -> Sansa V, ACOK

x

"You look pale, Sansa," Cersei observed. "Is your red flower still blooming?"

"Yes."

"How apt. The men will bleed out there, and you in here." The queen signaled for the first course to be served. - Sansa V, ACOK

x

She knew the hymn; her mother had taught it to her once, a long time ago in Winterfell. She joined her voice to theirs.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy - Sansa V, ACOK

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Men are off at war, while women fight a different battle.

Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war with promises on his lips. - Catelyn X, AGOT

x

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. . . . - Daenerys IV, ACOK

x

"His Grace was not with you?"

"Robert? Robert was hunting. That was his custom. Whenever my time was near, my royal husband would flee to the trees with his huntsmen and hounds. When he returned he would present me with some pelts or a stag's head, and I would present him with a baby. - Sansa IV, ACOK

x

Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. - Alayne II, AFFC

x

The guests laughed, but it was a joyless laughter, the sort of laughter that can turn into sobbing in half a heartbeat. Their bodies are here, but their thoughts are on the city walls, and their hearts as well. - Sansa VI, ACOK

x

Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. "As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them."

"Children are a battle of a different sort." Catelyn started across the yard. - Catelyn VI, ACOK

x

Cersei observed. "Is your red flower still blooming?"

"Yes."

"How apt. The men will bleed out there, and you in here." The queen signaled for the first course to be served. - Sansa V, ACOK

x

Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime's lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood." - Sansa VI, ACOK

x

Oof.

Hell of a observation, @foggylandpieneck.

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Jon Snow and Sandor Clegane get the foil treatment in back-to-back chapters.

On the ground the sleeper sat up beneath his furs. 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

"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

///

Even so, he did not think of the foes who were waiting for him, all unknowing, but of his brother at Winterfell. Bran used to love to climb. I wish I had a tenth part of his courage. - Jon VI, ACOK

x

"The little bird thinks she has wings, does she? Or do you mean to end up crippled like that brother of yours?" - Sansa IV, ACOK

///

Jon lowered his sword. "Go," he muttered.

Ygritte stared.

"Now," he said, "before my wits return. Go."

She went. - Jon VI, ACOK

x

Sansa backed away from him. "You're awful."

"I'm honest. It's the world that's awful. Now fly away, little bird, I'm sick of you peeping at me."

Wordless, she fled. - Sansa IV, ACOK

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Sansa sings a song.

She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. - Sansa V, ACOK

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Sandor doesn't get his song.

"I'll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said." His dagger was out, poised at her throat. "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. - Sansa VII, ACOK

x

She smiled again, a flash of white teeth. "And she never sung you the song o' the winter rose?"

"I never knew my mother. Or any such song." - Jon VI, ACOK

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Jon hears the songs of fierce birds. Amazing, @minitafan.

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

x

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

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A snowy cloak stained by fire and blood.

When she crawled out of bed, long moments later, she was alone. She found his cloak on the floor, twisted up tight, the white wool stained by blood and fire. The sky outside was darker by then, with only a few pale green ghosts dancing against the stars. A chill wind was blowing, banging the shutters. Sansa was cold. She shook out the torn cloak and huddled beneath it on the floor, shivering. - Sansa VII, ACOK

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Last words.

Sansa backed away from the window, retreating toward the safety of her bed. I'll go to sleep, she told herself, and when I wake it will be a new day, and the sky will be blue again. The fighting will be done and someone will tell me whether I'm to live or die. "Lady," she whimpered softly, wondering if she would meet her wolf again when she was dead. - Sansa VII, ACOK

x

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. - Jon XIII, ADWD

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Kissed by fire, first used to describe a blade. Nice catch, @ladyqueenofwinter.

Tyrion lifted his axe and shouted, "King's Landing!" Other voices took up the cry, and now the arrowhead flew, a long scream of steel and silk, pounding hooves and sharp blades kissed by fire. - Tyrion XIV, ACOK

x

He'd owned a sword named Lion's Tooth once, Sansa remembered. Arya had taken it from him and thrown it in a river. I hope Stannis does the same with this one. "It is beautifully wrought, Your Grace."

"Bless my steel with a kiss." He extended the blade down to her. "Go on, kiss it." - Sansa V, ACOK

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Not a nephew or a bastard, but a trueborn son set to marry a princess.

He liked to boast how he was the son of the Lord of the Crossing, not a nephew or a bastard or a grandson but a trueborn son, and on account of that he was going to marry a princess.

- Arya X, ACOK -> Sansa VIII, ACOK

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Shy maids on their wedding night.

The moon was rising behind one mountain and the sun sinking behind another as Jon struck sparks from flint and dagger, until finally a wisp of smoke appeared. 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. The warmth spread through his fingers like melting butter. - Jon VIII, ACOK

x

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. - Sansa III, ASOS

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CHAPTER TRANSITIONS

Touch me.

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