#farerb

He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.  –AGOT, Bran III

The three shadows in Bran’s dream, looming over Sansa and Arya, are certainly Sandor, Jaime, and Gregor. It was uncertain who the third was until ASOS/AFFC/ADWD, but since Ser Robert Strong has no head and his blood has turned black, it’s pretty much a given. And Gregor is certainly connected to Arya (as she was his prisoner and his men are on her list) and Sansa (via Sandor, and via the fact that Cersei will use Robert Strong to destroy her enemies). You can see my further analysis of this subject in this post and in this tag.

Many do theorize that the “savage giant” from the Ghost of High Heart’s prophecy could be Littlefinger, due to the fact that the original House Baelish sigil is the head of the Titan of Braavos. Nevertheless, if that prophecy has not already been fulfilled by Sansa destroying Sweetrobin’s “giant” doll in her snow castle Winterfell,I still believe it’s Gregor. Petyr Baelish is not particularly savage (even when he personally killed Lysa it was in entirely cold blood); and the fact that neither the Ghost’s prophecy nor Bran’s dream has any mention of the giant having fiery eyes, which the Titan and the Baelish sigil have, leads me to put Littlefinger as a very low probability.

I also theorize the “castle built of snow” may be Harrenhal. I am sure Sansa will get to Winterfell eventually, probably in ADOS or by the end of TWOW, but I think she may have some detours for most if not all of TWOW; plus, she has connections to Harrenhal through her Whent grandmother, through Petyr’s lordship, and through potential Arya parallels, and Harrenhal has seen the fiery death of Strongs before. Winterfell is still a very strong snow castle option of course, but I doubt Littlefinger will ever make it to Winterfell, and it’s a long long way for Robert Strong to travel even if he is a tireless zombie on a mission. (A marvelous fic concept, though!)

Well, what does outrunning the Eclipse mean? Superficially, it means that Abner wants to win a steamboat race, but on a symbolic level, it alludes to a contest between light and darkness, and Abner Marsh won that symbolic race and achieved the greater victory.

Similarly, what does the Iron Throne mean to Dany? Is is just a place to sit “high above them all” or is it something more? 

“a king protects his people, or he is no king at all.”

“Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?“

Like Abner Marsh, I don’t think the superficial victory is in Dany’s future. I don’t think she will ever sit on that “monstrous uncomfortable chair” because I think #chekhov’s wildfire will be set off, melting down the Iron Throne before she ever gets to sit in it. 

But the far more meaningful symbolic victory … Like Abner, I think that is something Dany will achieve. She is a True Queen, not because she won a game of musical chairs, but because she will have protected and saved everyone. 

Almost all of the ones I’ve seen, which is most of them. :) 

(well, I’m not that much of a fan of the live action movies. I don’t mean the recent live action remakes of cartoons as I haven’t seen those, but rather old movies like The Shaggy Dog and stuff like that. There’s a lot of Disney movies, y’know.)

No, they’re not, sorry. According to GRRM, “only Westeros extends to the far north” – north of Essos is the Shivering Sea only, with no connection to the pole.

And according to ancient tales from Yi Ti, the demons of the Lion of Night came from the Grey Waste, beyond the line of hulking structures of fused black stone called the Five Forts. (The same kind of fused black stone that forms the base of the Hightower.)

It is interesting that wyverns look like dragons (both reptiles with wings and two legs) but don’t breathe fire, whereas firewyrms are reptiles that don’t have wings but do breathe fire. And according to TWOIAF, in his book Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History, Septon Barth speculated that the bloodmages of Valyria created dragons from wyvern stock.

No. There are some theories that Bronze Yohn Royce recognized her, but I don’t think they’re true. And he’d be the only one with a chance of recognizing her, the other lords wouldn’t have any clue at all. Like, if Lady Waynwood had any idea, Littlefinger wouldn’t have needed to buy up her debt to blackmail her into betrothing Harry to his bastard, she’d’ve jumped at the chance.

Thanks so much! <3 

Necessary? I suppose it depends on how you define “necessary”. If you cut down the story to the core plot and not much else, then technically very little GRRM has done to any character is “necessary”. If, however, literary devices such as theme and character and foreshadowing are important to you as a writer, as well as comparisons to and commentary on other works of literature, then yes, Catelyn’s death and her resurrection into Stoneheart were very necessary.

Some examples of the above narrative elements re Lady Stoneheart:

“Tell me again what you saved.”“Your life.”Mirri Maz Duur laughed cruelly. “Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone.”

–AGOT, Daenerys X

“Fire consumes.” Lord Beric stood behind them, and there was something in his voice that silenced Thoros at once. “It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing.”

–ASOS, Arya VIII

The steel was polished to such a high sheen that she could see her reflection in the breastplate, gazing back at her as if from the bottom of a deep green pond. The face of a drowned woman, Catelyn thought. Can you drown in grief? She turned away sharply, angry with her own frailty. She had no time for the luxury of self-pity.

–ACOK, Catelyn II

I am become a sour woman, Catelyn thought. I take no joy in mead nor meat, and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me. I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings. There is an empty place within me where my heart was once.

–ACOK, Catelyn VII

She clutched tight at his hand. “Nothing will happen to you. Nothing. I could not stand it. They took Ned, and your sweet brothers. Sansa is married, Arya is lost, my father’s dead… if anything befell you, I would go mad, Robb. You are all I have left. You are all the north has left.”

–ASOS, Catelyn IV

Death does change a person. No, I do not think Catelyn is as she was, no more than Lord Beric… And by the way, there will no Catelyn POVs in future volumes, which may tell you something. –GRRM

“Lady Stoneheart does have a role in the books,” Martin said. “Whether it’s sufficient or interesting enough… I think it is, or I wouldn’t have put her in. One of the things I wanted to show with her is that the death she suffered changes you.”

Continues Martin: “I’ve talked about Gandalf [in The Lord of the Rings], and how the impact of his death was enormous. When I was a 12-year-old kid reading The Fellowship of the Ring and ‘Fly, you fools!’ and he goes into the chasm…  it was ‘Holy shit! [J.R.R. Tolkien] killed the wizard! That’s the guy who knew everything. How are they going to destroy the ring without him?’ And now the ‘kids’ have to grow up because their ‘daddy’ is dead. If Gandalf could die, anybody could die. And then just a few chapters later Boromir goes down. Those two deaths created in me the ‘anyone could die’ thing. At that point I was expecting [Tolkien] to pick off the whole Fellowship one by one. And then we also think in The Two Towers that Frodo is dead, since Shelob stung him and wrapped him up. I really bought it because he set me up with those other deaths. But then, of course, he brings Gandalf back. He’s a little strange at first, but then he’s basically the same old Gandalf. I liked the impact we got from him being gone.”

Martin’s explanation initially sounds like an argument against including Lady Stoneheart, but Martin then noted: “Lady Stoneheart is not Catelyn. I’ve tried to set it up beforehand with Beric Dondarrion and his repeated [resurrections]. There’s a brief appearance by Beric in Book One and he rides into the city and he’s this flamboyant Southern knight. That’s not that man we meet later on.”

– interview

See also this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and also especially this.