#pennytree

I'm not sure I have any thoughts, sorry? Like, I know that the story with the working title The She-Wolves of Winterfell will have a different title, but I can't think of what the title will be. (The Northern Visitor, The (Really Tall) Household Guard?) As for Summerhall, The Lord Commander is possible, since Dunk was not yet LC during the trial by combat with Lyonel Baratheon (and that story is probably The Champion).

My thing is more about speculating what stories could happen in the working titles GRRM has listed. Like, I think The Village Hero must involve the story of how Pennytree became a royal fief, and thus would involve the Blackwood-Bracken Feud and probably the first time Egg meets Betha. I have the feeling that The Sellsword involves the Third Blackfyre Rebellion, Dunk and Egg either with the Golden Company themselves (as spies for Bloodraven?) or with another mercenary group (maybe the Company of the Rose or the Second Sons?) that encounters the GC right before they invade Westeros, D&E's efforts to end the war, and Aerion (himself a former? Second Son) being a douchebag as always. (Probably he's the one who dishonorably kills Haegon Blackfyre after he surrenders.)

The Champion would have Lyonel's rebellion (and Jenny and her Prince of Dragonflies), so The Kingsguard could include the tourney that has 10-year-old Barristan the Bold as a mystery knight, or the tourney when he was 16 and unhorsed both Duncans and was knighted. Unless The Kingsguard would be Lyonel's war, in which case The Champion could be a story involving the fall of Danelle Lothston, the shift in the course of the Trident (away from the Inn of the Crossroads), and perhaps the time Ser Lymond held the bridge against Ser Maynard. And of course, The Lord Commander would be the Tragedy at Summerhall, and how Dunk saved Rhaella and baby Rhaegar, but in the end died with his king.

I adore Graham & Wood on screen but it feels like their time has sadly passed (as much as I hate to see how the actors were wasted on a flat ending storyline & poor writing decisions). And they butchered Kai's character to the point where I no longer recognize him. And besides the obvious, we know the chances of them getting together in a series/movie is slim to none but a girl can still dream. They will always be the face of bonkai for me.

It's such a shame that Hollywood is so racist because Grahamwood chemistry is one of those rare things that if people were thinking with their wallets and not with their bigotry, some smart producer would have put them in a movie together. A romcom, preferably with a Mr and Mrs Smith flavor. What a waste.

But yeah, I would love to see what new actors/fresh faces would do with these characters or at least a similar dynamic. But that would also mean finding two actors that can repeat Grahamwood chemistry which - while not impossible - will be tricky. (Is it just me or do romantic pairings on screen have less and less chemistry these days?)

“Pennytree. That was ours once too, but it’s been a royal fief for a hundred years. Leave that out. We ask only for the lands stolen by the Blackwoods. Your lord father promised to restore them to us if we would subdue Lord Tytos for him.”

ADWD, Jaime.

🤔

I think GRRM might have been inspired by the tradition of wish trees or coin trees, scattered throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. Individuals hammer coins into the trunks or stumps of trees - usually with a nearby rock, though a hammer could also be used - and make a wish - usually for curing illness, though varying on the particular local custom for wealth or children as well. The result are trees whose surfaces could be mostly or completely obscured by coins at various stages of rust, giving trees an almost reptilian, scaly appearance. 

(But, since this practice can apparently lead to metallic poisoning of the trees, I would not recommend that you do this yourself, at least with a living tree.)

Specifically, I wonder whether Pennytree was connected with Prince Duncan’s meeting Jenny of Oldstones. If Pennytree had truly been made a royal fief ~212 AC or so with the ending of a Bracken-Blackwood war over the Teats (as I think “The Village Hero” will show), then it probably stands to reason that the crown would have an interesting in periodically checking over its sworn town. Even if none of the Targaryens was specifically made Prince or Lord of Pennytree (like the Princes of Dragonstone or Summerhall), the crown might have wanted to emphasize that this Riverlands town was still its property, owing it fealty directly and paying its taxes and homage to the Iron Throne alone (especially, perhaps, if there had been bitter feelings on both sides of the Bracken-Blackwood conflict about who had the right to own Pennytree).

Yandel writes in TWOIAF that “Duncan became enamored of a strange, lovely, and mysterious girl who called herself Jenny of Oldstones in 239 AC, whilst traveling in the riverlands”. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aegon V, trying to emphasize the royal connection with Pennytree, sent his eldest son and heir, maybe having just come into his majority (Duncan was born sometime between 220 and 224 AC, which would make him anywhere from 15 to 19 when he met Jenny) to the village as a representative of the crown. It would be in keeping with the progresses made by Aegon I and the grand trip made by Jaehaerys and Alysanne to Winterfell, a means of personalizing the crown to its vassals (particularly those whom Aegon had personally had a hand in making its vassals in the first place). Pennytree’s not particularly far from Oldstones, though, so it’s not too great a leap to think that while visiting there Duncan might have met the “half-mad peasant girl” who “dwelt half-wild amidst ruins and claimed descent from the long- vanished kings of the First Men”.