New Blog: Discovering Cosmere

I have decided to start reading (and Blogging about) Brandon Sanderson books. See Discovering Cosmere.

Summary of the First Five Books

And that is that. GRRM had better finish Winds of Winter soon because now I don't know what to do with myself.

Where are we, then?

• Arya Stark is still across the sea in Braavos learning to be an assassin. Eventually she'll come back and kill everyone and avenge the Starks and take the Iron Throne. Stands to reason.
• Sansa Stark is hanging out at the Eyrie with Petyr Littlefinger Baelish who is plotting... something. Is he on the same side as Varys, Ilyrio and Jon Connington? I'm not sure.
• Jon Snow was commander of the Watch and was going to reform it and stop Others from invading. But now he's possibly dead. (I suppose the kingdom being in disarray would suit forces north of the wall, too. Is Varys working with the Children? Are they working not to restore Aegon to the throne but to return south themselves?)
• Bran Stark is hanging out with Children of the Forest learning to supernaturally spy on everyone. And possibly also influence events.
• Catelyn Stark is a zombie and hanging out near the riverlands.
• Tywin Lannister was killed by Tyrion.
• Tyrion Lannister is across the sea trying to get to Dany by way of getting Brown Ben Plumm to overthrow the Yunkai'i.
• Jaime Lannister was last seen capturing castles in the riverlands, but is now heading off to see Catelyn with Brienne.
• Cersei Lannister is about to face trial.
• Kevan Lannister was killed by Varys and weird pale children.
• Robert Baratheon the usurper of the Targaryens is dead.
• Renly Baratheon was killed by his brother Stannis Baratheon's sorceress friend Melisandre.
• Stannis Baratheon was last seen trying to capture Winterfell with a very cold and starving army but there is one unreliable report that he's dead.
• Doran Martell wants vengeance on the Lannisters and is about to meet at least one Targaryen to help restore to the throne.
• Quentyn Martell died trying to steal a dragon.
• Danaerys Targaryen is across the sea riding a dragon and running into Dothraki. Maybe if she can get her act together she can come and claim the Iron Throne of Westeros and in doing so find out it's not hers to claim any more since Aegon is still alive.
• Barristan Selmy has, rightly or wrongly, restarted a war against the Yunkai'i.
• Aegon Targaryen is off trying to capture Storm's End and ultimately the whole kingdom and the iron throne.
• Theon Greyjoy was last seen in the snow somewhere near Stannis, having bumped into his sister Asha who was going to be burned by Stannis to appease the red god. 
• Euron Greyjoy is sailing across the sea to rescue Dany from various attackers and steal her back to Westeros. He has a dragon taming horn that might be handy.

At a guess, a succession of people will win the throne and get overthrown by the next disaster. Connington and Aegon will overthrow the Lannisters in time for scary monsters from the north and general wintry mass starvation. Dany will come along at the end with dragons to help out. Aegon will die leaving her in charge. Somehow Littlefinger will end up with Winterfell. Arya will turn up and kill him and all the other people on her list. The kingdom will be at peace until Arya usurps Dany by warging the dragons. Or something.

Yep, I have absolutely no idea where this is going next, but it's been quite a ride.

AdwD Epilogue 1100

Ser Kevan Lannister is no longer the hand of the King Tommen, he's given that job to Mace Tyrell for some reason. The Tyrells seem to be rather successfully taking over the kingdom from the Lannisters, notwithstanding the small matter of Margaery's pending trial by the faith for treason by way of fornication.

Ser Ronnet Connington, Jon's nephew, is having to pledge his loyalty to Tommen but neither Mace nor Kevan trust him. Jaime gave him a bunch of GREGOR's men (probably some still on Arya's list), but Ronnet gets confined to his quarters for now. Reports are that Jon Connington is going to try to take Storm's End. And that Prince Aegon Targaryen is back. Kevan thinks this is possible because the dead boy he saw all those years ago was so badly injured as to not be recognisable. Tywin Lannister claimed it was Aegon but Kevan is not sure.

The power balance with the High Septon is a real problem since Cersei gave them arms. That's partly why Margaery needs to face a trial.

The crown is broke. They're begging Myrish bankers to pay of their Braavosi loans. They can't raise more taxes because they're over the Laffer curve. Kevan is worried he's going to have to bail them out with Lannister gold.

Cersei's trial is in 5 days. Kevan means to give her those few days with Tommen. Ser Robert Strong will be her champion at trial and Kevan thinks he knows what Strong is (i.e. a resurrected zombie GREGOR). If Cersei survives Kevan is going to send her back to Casterly Rock where she can do no further harm to Tommen. Her queen days are over now everyone has seen she's just a middle-aged woman like any other, and Kevan reflects how Cersei brought that on herself, since it was the High Septon who, now suddenly more powerful, needed to be appeased.

There is concern that Doran Martell will join up with Jon Connington. The plan is to ask him to attack Connington instead. Good luck with that!

Kevan is worried that Randyll Tarly, now on the council, is shrewd and therefore dangerous, should he take the Tyrell's side. Pycelle is worried about Tyrells too. Lady Nym of Dorne is on her way (sent by Doran Martell to infiltrate and spy, if I remember correctly). Kevan wants to unify everyone.

We get treated to yet another what-if moment: what if Rhaegar had married Cersei instead of the sickly Elia? He might not have done whatever it was with Lyanna Stark, she would not have died (I'm still not sure how she died) and the rebellion might not have happened.

Kevan goes to dinner with Cersei and Tommen. Tommen only cares about his kittens. Our friend the black tomcat with a torn ear pays a visit. Is it *just* a cat? It keeps showing up. Is someone warging it? Varys, perhaps? That would explain how he knows so much!

The Kettleblacks are in the dungeon now. Cersei admits she was wrong to raise them up.

Kevan receives a message to go to Pycelle's tower for a raven. It's cold outside so Kevan sends the messenger boy to go and warm up by a fire and gives him some money too. What a decent bloke Kevan is.

Uh oh.

Kevan is a decent bloke. He can't be long for Westeros, then, I think as I read that line.

Sure enough, he almost immediately gets shot in the chest by Varys (haven't seen him in a while). Apparently Kevan is doing too good of a job unifying everyone. Varys needs the kingdom in disarray so that it will be easier for Jon Connington and Dorne to re-take the kingdom and put Aegon Targaryen back on the throne.

And you know what, it might even be for the best. The Lannisters and the Tyrells are just ordinary feudal lords. Tommen is a spoilt brat. Aegon has been raised to understand how to serve the people and be a Good King.

Having delivered his speech, the villain/hero Varys summons his weird pale children to finish Kevan off. For now I'll assume they're just ordinary pale children and not Children of the Forest or somesuch. Because that would be too weird.

ADwD 71: Danaerys 1083

So we find out what happened to Dany! She's at Drogon's house. On a hill in the Dothraki sea. She doesn't know how to train her dragon, though. Maybe she needs that horn that Victarion has. I think she should persevere, though. Drogon seems to be able to find food enough for the both of them, and he cooks it too.

But no, bloody Meereen again. Off she goes on a walk home, since Drogon doesn't want to go there (he's the smart one). Except she gets sunstroke and eats the wrong berries and ends up with stomach trouble and delerious. She starts hearing voices giving her surprisingly good advice like: forget Meereen and go to Westeros.

In the end she's rescued by Drogon just as a Dothraki outrider finds her. Drogon catches a horse and they have supper. Then Khal Jhaqo (Dany's ex-husband's ex-bloodrider) and 50 Dothraki turn up. 50 Dothraki and a dragon. Which is better? Only one way to find out.

ADwD 70: The Queen's Hand 1065

Ser Barristan Selmy is sort of in charge now that Dany's husband is locked up, pending either Dany's return and/or proof that he wasn't the one who poisoned her.

Quentyn Martell is definitely dead, pending magical resurrection. He's definitely not immune to dragon breath, anyhow. The dragons have taken up residence in a couple of pyramids, much to the char-grin of their previous occupants. The Sons of the Harpy are back at it. Stong Belwas is back from his locust poisoning, but not so strong for now.

Selmy wants to make a truce with the Yunkish and return all the hostages and send Galazza Galare to talk to them. In the meantime he prepares for war against them. He's going to send Quentyn's Dornish friends back to the Windblown free company to get the Tattered Prince to help out (including the promise to give him Pentos in return). How it is Barristan Selmy's or even Meereen's to give is still unclear to me.

But Galazza Galare returns the the Yunkish are not doing anything until those dragons are dead. Well, actually they are doing something: they're hurling corpses, presumably corpses of people who died of dysentery, over the city walls. Nice. War it is then. With added disease and dragons for good measure. Meereen is really not a pleasant place to be right now. No wonder Dany is out of there.

ADwD 69: Jon 1048

Jon intends to lead the land party to Hardhome to rescue more wildlings. Queen Selyse and Melisandre think this is a bad idea, but Jon has had it with Melisandre and her predictions that don't come true (or are at least slightly wrong, or delayed). Bowen Marsh also thinks it's a bad idea, because who cares about wildlings?

There's a meeting about which wildlings should command which castles. Bowen Marsh thinks they are bad and should be hung. This is not going well.

Jon has a chat with Tormund Giantsbane. He gets on much better with him and finds him far more agreeable. Then a letter from Ramsay Bolton arrives. According to it, Stannis is dead, Mance Rayder is captured, Theon and Jeyne Pool (who Jon thinks is Arya) have escaped, and Ramsay wants them back or else he'll kill Jon.

Jon calls a new meeting in which he announces that Tormund Giantsbane will rescue the wildlings in Hardhome and Jon will go and face Ramsay. Alone, if needs be, since the Watch are not supposed to meddle in the affairs of kings and he doesn't want to make anyone break an oath. But he's skirting awfully close to oathbreaking himself. The wildlings don't care, but the other Watchmen do. In fact Jon seems to be getting on too well with the wildlings and not well enough with the Watch.

So it shouldn't really be a surprise that mutiny is in the air. Though it does come so very suddenly. I suppose it is always the way: everything is fine, until it isn't. Jon gets stabbed 4 times. Will he survive? Ghost can't help him because Ghost is locked up to stop him from attacking Borroq the warg's boar.

If someone doesn't rescue Jon, whether he survives or not, his Watch-reforming days are over. I guess he just tried to do too much, too quickly. And was too concerned with helping Arya, who was not even Arya.

ADwD 68: The Dragontamer 1034

Quentyn Martell is determined to steal the dragons and take them back to Dorne. His heart is not really in it, and he's relying on the fact that he absolutely must be the hero of his own story and fate. This does not bode well.

So they disguise themselves as Brazen Beasts, a free company that conveniently wears masks, and armed with yesterday's password set off for they pyramid. Somehow they get inside, presumably because the outer guards just want to go home, but the dragon guards aren't having it and need to be killed. By this point Quentyn is way out of his depth.

The dragons are amused by sheep treats for a while, but one Brazen Beast gets his head bitten off. Then it is Quentyn's turn. He is somewhat miffed to discover that he is on fire. End of chapter. So either Quentyn is toast, or thanks to his Targaryen blood he will find out he is immune to dragon flames. The screaming might mean the former, or he might just be screaming from fear. Can't quite be sure with GRRM.

ADwD 67: The Kingbreaker 1016

Ser Barristan Selmy is plotting with Skahaz mo Kandaq the shavepate to remove Hizdahr from power, on the grounds that he is probably going to kill the dragons and Dany won't like that. All that business with the Yunkai'i throwing the head of a hostage at the foot of King Hizdahr was, according to the shavepate, all pre-arranged between Hizdahr and the Yunkai'i to give Hizdahr reason to kill the dragons as demanded by the Yunkai'i, who are rightly afraid of them.

In other words, Hizdahr has been working for the Yunkai'i all along. Evidence against him includes his urging Dany to eat the locusts which turned out to be poisined.

Selmy gains access to Hizdahr's quarters in the middle of the night and challenges him on the locusts. He says it was the Dornishman who did it, but we know it was not (or at least, when we have been inside Quentyn's head he hasn't thought about it). He also challenges him on being in charge of the Sons of the Harpy, the terrorist group who were causing Dany all the trouble that caused her to marry Hizdahr in the first place.

Selmy kills Hizdahr's guard, then arrests him. Just then a boy turns up to announce the dragons have escaped. Uh oh!

We also get treated to some reminiscing. Selmy lost a tourney against Prince Rhaegar and so Rhaegar got to choose Lyanna Stark as the "queen of love and beauty". This is presumably how he started wooing her or whatever. Was he married to Elia at the time? Anyway, Selmy thinks if that hadn't happened, then not only might Robert Baratheon not have been annoyed causing him to usurp Mad King Aerys, but since he would have chosen Ashara had he won, she might not have had an affair with Ned Stark and thrown herself off a tower. This Ashara business has been mentioned before. Could she be Jon Snow's mother? Or is it, as Davos was told, some fisherman's daughter? Which tower did Ashara jump from?

Oh here it is, in Storm of Swords Arya is travelling with Edric "Ned" Dayne, the lord of Starfall, nephew of Lady Ashara. "She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword." Because "her heart was broken". Because, "aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal". Or was it simply that, as in this chapter, "Ashara's daughter had been stillborn". Was the daughter also Ned's bastard? How many women did honourable Ned Stark have? According to Edric Dayne, Jon's mother is Wylla, who was Edric's wet nurse who had served the Daynes for years. Was her father a fisherman, or was she another notch on Ned's bedpost? Could there be other Stark bastards about?

ADwD 66: Tyrion 1002

Tyrion promises Brown Ben Plumm of the free company The Second Sons lots of gold in return for the right to join up and, presumably, have some influence in what they do, though this is not clear. He's given a job helping Inkpots, aka Tybero Istarion, the treasurer, to manage the funds. He had this job in King's Landing and was good at it, I seem to remember. Plumm plans to stick around until Meereen is taken and then head to Westeros.

Penny is annoyed with Tyrion about abandoning the pig and the dog. Escaping slavery is not the end of her problems, either. Maybe one day Tyrion will regain some power, or else find some quiet life in a cottage somewhere, and can give Penny a comfortable life. Because that's how things work out in GRRM stories...

Jorah Mormont is still with them too and will probably make a good sellsword. He notices that the Yunkai'i, who plan to attack Meereen, are unlikely to win if Dany returns with her dragon. Tyrion thinks he can get them to switch sides.

ADwD 65: Cersei 987

Well played, GRRM, now you have me feeling sorry for Cersei. She has to do a naked walk of shame through the city to atone for sins she confessed to before standing trial for the ones she didn't. Then again, they include having people tortured and killed, so...

She has to do the walk of shame. She does pretty well at first, resolving to hold her head high since none of this really matters and words yelled by onlookers are wind. After falling over a couple of times (and I'm kind of worried about infections from stepping in poo with a wounded foot) she comes to the realisation that the real cost is that she is revealed as just another woman: the facade of royalty is gone. She realises that doing the walk of shame was a mistake.

Wait, what? She had a choice? Ah yes, in the last Cersei chapter Kevan told her that the High Septon "will not release you until you have atoned for your sins." So I suppose she could have avoided this by staying prisoner, presumably forever. In any case she wanted to get back to her son. Who, by the way, Cersei reflects, could have avoided a lot of trouble by not having Ned beheaded. Because the Starks would still be on their side in Winterfell and the other Baratheons would have been disposed of easily. Though presumably it would not have stopped Joffrey from being poisoned, or Tyrion from shooting Tywin. Whatever Cersei thinks, Littlefinger would still be playing his games.

Some boy is shouting about hot pies. What became of Hot Pie?

She goes a bit mad, sees the old hag who made the prophecy about the other, younger and more beautiful queen who will take everything she holds dear. That would be Margaery I suppose.

Then she gets to the castle. Kevan has hidden Tommen away somewhere, but there is a new 8-foot-tall mute in armor to scoop her up. It's Ser Robert Strong, Qyburn's monster (or just a plain resurrected GREGOR), who will be her champion at the trial.

ADwD 64: The Ugly Little Girl 972

Arya moves on to the next phase of her training. She, partly magically, partly by literally sticking a dead person's removed face onto her face, gets a new face in the style of that bloke she helped who killed all those people for her back in Harrenhal. Jaqen H'ghar, that was him.

Anyway the rule is that to become an acolyte and get all these cool new powers and skill she's got to give up her identity and become no-one. Her heart's not really in it so I'm hoping she can fool them enough to get the cool new powers and eventually go back to being Arya, have a big Stark family reunion (what's left of them) and get revenge on whoever is still left out of GREGOR (turned into a Frankenstein's monster, presumably), Dunsen (who?), Raff the Sweetling (dead, or still hanging out with the Boltons?), Ser Ilyn Payne (off with Jaime in the Riverlands), Ser Meryn (killed by Pod in battle of the Blackwater trying to kill Tyrion, was it? No that was Mandon Moore. Meryn Trant was the kingsguard who beat up Sansa) and Queen Cersei. This level of dishonesty seems fair enough when dealing with a weird cult that turns children into assassins.

Oh yeah, because Arya has to kill an insurance guy who hasn't been paying out on claims. She does this using the poisoned coin trick seen way back in the prologue of the last book: swaps out coin by pretending to fail at robbing a sea captain. Captain pays coin to insurance guy. Insurance guy bites it to make sure it's real gold. An old trick.

That done, she's now an acolyte and is being sent off to Izembaro, wherever that is, for an apprenticeship.

ADwD 63: Victarion 962

Victarion captures a bunch of ships, in positions all perfectly predicted by Moqorro the red priest. Victarion is getting pretty enamoured with this rather (and unusually, for a god) well-performing red god. But he hasn't given up on his sea-god yet. So when he captures some maidens being trafficked for the sex industry he sends them off on a boat and burns it so they can burn *and* drown and be sacrificed to both gods at once. Nice. Clever, though.

It's not just the predictions. His arm has gone all bionic, too, so he can pick people up by the neck Darth Vader style. Oh, and we also learn that he has Euron's magic horn. It's not just good for winning kingsmoots, it's can seduce dragons, too! So we can see where this is going, as much as we ever can in these books. Oh but he can't blow the horn himself because the blower dies. He's got to become the master of the horn by doing some sort of blood sacrifice, natch.

ADwD 62: The Sacrifice 946

Asha Greyjoy presumably thinks of herself as a sacrifice since burning cannibals at the stake hasn't brought the red god to their aid, so she might be next. They're still stuck in the snow. Some bloke called Suggs is particularly keen to burn her, the weirdo.

Her only friend is Ser Justin Massey. Do we know him much? He mainly seems to shout about the futility of it all and get in trouble with Karstark (who turned up and joined Stannis, as predicted, a few days ago), so I'm not sure how much use he would be.

Anyway it's all moot because who should turn up but Tycho Nestoris. Get's about a bit, that banker, I hope he has a company horse. He's brought some of Asha's friends including her boyfriend Tris, who he ransomed from Deepwoode Motte for some reason. He want's to talk to Stannis, presumably about winning the war so he can get paid.

Oh, and he's brought Theon and Jeyne Poole along. Blimey, a family reunion!

ADwD 61: The Griffin Reborn 931

Oh so *that's* why Jon Connington called himself Griff? Should I have figured that out before? Anyway it seems like a bit of an obvious secret name, in retrospect.

Anyway, so far so good. Golden Company have landed a fair number of their ships in the right place. Ancestral home retaken nice and easy on account of the surprise and the fact that the owner of the place, Ronnet Connington, is off fighting with Jaime in the Riverlands. Communication lines cut off so no-one knows Jon's arrived yet. Men have been sent to nearby castles like Crow's Nest and Rain House to capture those. Other ships are straggling in. Some turn up at other places like Eastermont, another island. Word will probably get around, which might explain Kevan Lannister's reports of free companies landing a few chapters back, assuming the timelines are a bit muddled up.

Jon Connington worries about his past: how he failed Mad King Aerys by searching for Robert Baratheon instead of burning the town down and killing everyone like Tywin Lannister would have done. Come on Jon, sometimes things just happen. Don't berate yourself too much. Our choices are half chance.

There is a cache of intelligence documents at Griffin's Roost. They're very well informed. They know:

• Cersei and Margaery are fighting over Tommen
• Mace Tyrell has stopped trying to capture Storm's End (is he back at King's Landing? I forget).
• Lannisters are weakend, depending on treacherous Boltons and Freys in the North and Riverlands.
• "No-one ever seems to mention the vale." What *is* Littlefinger up to right now?
• Doran Martell's son is betrothed to Myrcell, suggesting they are working with Lannisters. But hedging their bets because they have armies hanging around waiting ominously.

There's a strategic debate about what to do next, the upshot of which is that Connington realises again that Harry Strickland is mostly worried about avoiding blisters, and decides to attack Storm's End. Griff Jr a.k.a the very much not dashed-against-a-wall as a baby Prince Aegon Targaryen turns up and says cool, but he's leading the battle. Oh boy!

ADwD 60: The Spurned Suitor

Quentyn doesn't take Selmy's advice. He's trying to hire the Tattered Prince of the Windblown to help him steal a dragon, since now he thinks that his traces of Targaryen blood are enough to help him tame it. His friends think this is a barmy idea, but Quentyn thinks it's better than going home empty handed to be mocked. Plus, it's his destiny...

In return, The Tattered Prince wants Pentos which if Quentyn does get a dragon he might well be able to deliver. But Dany won't like it. So there could yet be some sort of Dragon War.

ADwD 59: The Discarded Knight 911

Barristan Selmy attends court. The Yunkish are getting a bit big for their boots. They have returned the head of a hostage, Admiral Groleo (exiled by Cersei? Or just ran away from her?). Hizdahr doesn't really know what to do about that. They want the dragons destroyed.

Selmy has the brainwave that the poisoned locusts might have been intended for Hizdahr, rather than being evidence of Hizdahr attempting to do away with Dany (still missing).

Selmy has a word with Quentyn Martell and tells him to get out of there before Hizdahr has him killed.

ADwD 58: Jon 895

It is the day Jon lets the wildlings through the wall. In the morning, Mormont's Raven says "Jon Snow" instead of "Snow". Is that Bran at work again?

The whole transfer is fraught with the worry that everyone will start fighting. In the end it goes off without a hitch. Boys to be used as hostages including sons of important people, warriors, Men of the Frozen Shore, Spearwives, you name it.

At one point Jon goes into the tunnel to see to a stuck cart. What's the matter with him? Shouldn't he try a bit harder to subvert Melisandre's prophecy of daggers in icy tunnels? He gets away with it, though.

Tormund tells him that Mance Rayder's big wall-destroying horn was a fake. I'm pretty sure Mance used that as the bargaining chip to get himself south of the wall. Until now I'd been buying the whole working together to fight the common enemy line. But could Mance really be up to something more clever?

Jon wonders if his Valyrian steel sword longclaw will be good at slaying Others. He's looking more and more like Azor Ahai The Chosen One every chapter.

Borroq the skin-changer seems to be interested in Jon. Can he tell that Jon has been warging with Ghost?

And we get a letter from Cotter Pyke who went to Hardhome with 11 ships and has 6 left. Things are not going well with the rescue of wildlings and he's begging for help via land. Does Jon have the ability to do anything? He seems to see it as the start of his war.

ADwD 57: Tyrion 877

The master of Tyrion and Penny, Yezzan zo Qaggaz, is dying from dyssentry (it's going around the Yunkish camp). Luckily Nurse, the cruel slave handler, is dead too (surprisingly before we got to see any of his cruelty on screen). Tyrion sees an opportunity here and when the master needs water he sees his chance.

We learn that Tyrion knew about the lions but didn't tell Penny. It's unclear whether he knows it was Dany who called off the lions. He also missed the dragon, being inside a tent when all that was going on. Also Tyrion spotted Ser Barristan Selmy with Dany and almost revealed himself to him, which would have been interesting.

He goads the guards into sending him and Penny to fetch water, manages to bring Jorah Mormont along too, and after getting the water (it makes good cover for a slave with bells on his collar to walk around freely), heads straight to Brown Ben Plumm's tent. He convinces Ben that he's Tyrion Lannister, and reminds him that house Plumm is pledged to house Lannister. Have we come across any Plumm family antics before now? There's something about dragon blood running in the family: I remember the jailer at King's Landing going on about that.

It's beginning to look like Tyrion will get to meet Dany and possibly help her defend the city in spite of her husband. By being clever, by thinking of things like poisoning wells, for example, and perhaps helping with the dragon training. And even riding a dragon himself. I'm still hoping for that!

ADwD 56: The Iron Suitor 862

Victarion is on his way to find Dany. He takes loads of ships but with the storms, only a proportion of them make the rendezvous. He waits but he can't wait too long, he wants to get to Dany before the Volantenes attack her, rumour of which he's heard in some port or other. His mission is to bring Dany back so she can marry Euron, but he plans to take her for himself. I'm pretty sure they've both got delusions of grandeur except that she can probably make use of the ships. And if he takes the Volantenes from the rear as he plans it will be pretty handy.

He's got a gammy hand and his maester isn't very good at curing it. Luckily, who should show up but Moqorro, the red priest from Tyrion's ship. Seems he didn't fail to predict his own death after all. Moqorro does some magic and presumably cures Victarion's hand because the maester gets thrown overboard.

I think this is symbolic of the decline of science and the rise of magic, which has been hinted at before, and is the opposite of the situation in The Lord of the Rings. Or perhaps it is an eternal struggle between the two. Perhaps instead of a  good god and an evil god, as Melisandre would have it, there are the gods and there is science. I don't think the maesters are entirely good, though. I think that bitter old lady at Winterfell might well be onto something.

ADwD 55: The Queensguard 849

We get a Barristan Selmy POV chapter. Interesting!

Dany has been missing since she flew off on her dragon. A lot of people think she is dead but not Selmy. Hizdahr has been replacing Dany's people with friends and pit fighters. But he's rather vulnerable and short on friends without Dany, it turns out.

Stong Belwas is still sick: it turns out that the honeyed locusts were poisoned. Not sure how I missed that: I did think it odd that he should be throwing up just because a woman got gored by a boar, even if he was complaining about the screams.

Shakaz the shavepate has been relieved of his command of the Brazen Beasts, but they are still loyal to him. He meets Selmy in secret and is plotting to attack the Yunkai'i before Hizdahr capitulates to the Volantenes, who are threatening to attack. Selmy is not sure about all this and neither am I. Dany's disappearance has led to a power vacuum and people are trying to fill it. She'll turn up in the nick of time and toast some people, no doubt.

ADwD 54: Cersei 834

It's been a while since we saw Cersei!  She's locked up. We get a potted summary of the situation:

She thinks Jaime is coming;

• Loras the flower knight, Margaery's brother, is wounded on Dragonstone (has he woken any dragons?);
• Osney Kettleblack has been tortured into spilling all Cersei's secrets;
• Admiral Aurane Waters has buggered off with all the ships (what is he doing with them?);
• Harys Swift, Grand Maester Pycelle and Kevan Lannister are running the realm;
• The Merryweathers, including Cersei's friend (of dubious loyalty, imo) Taena have buggered off home;
• Cousin Lancel has betrayed her.

She's locked up and deprived of sleep by the septon until she confesses. She manages to confess to only a few of her crimes. Seems the septon knows everything (her children are Jaime's, she plotted to kill Robert, she plotted to kill Margaery, she had the previous high septon bumped off. Cersei makes excuses for some of it and denies the rest. The septon doesn't care but says she will face trial. He lets her choose visitors.

Kevan Lannister visits her and brings her up to speed on Jaime, who has disappeared with Brienne (to be murdered by Catelyn's men?), Stannis (who is presumed to have hired the sellswords who are landing), and Myrcella (who is missing an ear). Cersei is still obsessed with blaming everything on Tyrion and the Tyrells and ignoring real threats like Stannis. Kevan also talks about sellswords from a free company landing all over the south and wonders where Stannis got the money from. Possibly from Tycho Nestoris I suppose, although it seems too quick for that.

Looks like Cersei is going for a trial by combat, and so she has asked Qyburn to choose a kingsguard replacement for Ser Arys. Which presumably means the Frankenstein's monster he's been cooking up out of GREGOR's body parts or whatever it is.

ADwD 53: Jon 815

Jon does a deal with Tormund Giantsbane. Gold and a number of boys as wards/hostages and you can pass through the wall to escape the Others. And also help the Night's Watch with manning the castles and guarding the wall. It's all very amicably done. We'll also help look after your sick and wounded, of which there seem to be many.

"If every woman had a direwolf, men would be much sweeter," says Val. That's what I call feminism: a direwolf for every woman. Why not?

Val meets queen Selyse (who wants the wildlings to accept her red god, but Jon is having none of it) and her daughter Shireen. Val is totally freaked out by Shireen's greyscale, but Jon thinks it can be harmless in children. Who is right?

Some of Jon's lieutenants are not at all happy about letting more wildlings past the wall. Bowen Marsh delivers a blunt speech about how it is against the oath. Jon says, "I am the shield that guards the realms of men. Those are the words. So tell me, my lord--what are these wildlings if not men?" It's proper rousing stuff; Jon is good at this. And he is completely reforming the Watch to its true purpose: defense against Others, not wildlings. It's pretty lucky he was chosen as lord commander: none of the other candidates would have had the wherewithall to do it. Jon could be saving the world her.

In fact, now I think of it, where was he born? Could he have been born on Dragonstone? There was a Davos chapter where we learned something of that. Let me see... Here is what I wrote in chapter 9: "Jon Snow's mum is the daughter of a fisherman who gave him a lift from Sweetsister to the Eyrie". Looking at the map, Sweetsister is North of the Fingers, the Eyrie is in the middle (and inland, or down a fjordj), and Dragonstone is well south of the fingers and south of Cracklaw Point. Maybe if the fisherman and his daughter ranged quite widely after their encounter with Ned, Jon could be the prophesied chosen one...

ADwD 52: Daenerys 800

Well, that was the best chapter in a long while. Wow!

Dany is forced to go to the big fighting pit to attend the grand opening. Hizdahr keeps going on about how cool it is, seemingly completely oblivious that Dany hates it.

Tyrion and Penny do their jousting act. There's a plan to set lions on them, but since it is a cruel trick and they haven't signed up for it, Dany refuses. Tyrion and Dany do not meet. Now I am not sure how they ever will.

Instead, a fighting woman is gored horribly by a boar. I'm not quite sure how this is so much worse than the rest of the fighting (to the point that strong Belwas is puking); perhaps it is the screaming and the the entrail-eating. Dany has had enough, and is about to walk out, when Drogon returns.

I mean, how awesome is that? The whole city is out having a nice afternoon watching some gladiator action when a dragon swoops down, barbecues the competitors, and eats them. People start doing a runner. It's pretty hilarious. The dragon gets a spear in its back. There's going to be a fight between fighting pit guards and the dragon: it's not entirely certain who will win.

Then Dany vaults into the pit, and does a dragon-whispering act. She hops on Drogon's back to get the spear out, and ends up going for a test flight.

Finally, a Targaryen is riding a dragon. This changes everything. She could probably just fly to Westeros right now and start torching castles. She could probably deal with those Yunkish. It's a shame this didn't happen before the wedding, really.

I suspect she will be more cautious, though. Assuming the Meereenese are happy to have a queen flying around on a dragon (and why not, if she's on their side), she'll probably stick around and hone her flying skills, and maybe find some people to ride the other two.

Here's an evil thought: I don't know how it could happen, but what if Tyrion became master of one of the dragons? Being small would not be such a problem then, would it?

ADwD 51: Theon 783

Little Walder (who is big, but still a boy) turns up dead. Wyman Manderley makes rude jokes about it to Hosteen Frey. Does he have a death wish? He gets a slice through his chin for his troubles, and the ensuing fracas leaves seveal men dead. None of this seems to interrupt breakfast too much, though.

Still, Roose Bolton can see that the men are getting a bit antsy for blood so sends some of them out of the castle to attack Stannis. Not great strategy but tactically necessary, perhaps.

Anyway, all this activates Abel's plan to rescue Jeyne Poole. Theon goes to fetch hot water for her bath, taking five handmaidens who are actually Abel's spearwives. They do a switch in Jeyne's room then make for a gate. One of the women kills a guard, which makes Jeyne scream, so more guards start chasing them. After this it's all a bit of a shambles. Most of Abel's women are either dead or missing. Theon jumps over the wall.

The last person who went over the wall broke his leg and got shot by a crossbow. I wonder how Theon and Jeyne will faire? Will they go to the wall so Jon can be disappointed that it's not Arya and Theon can take the black? What will happen to Abel who is probably Mance Rayder?

For that matter, this whole operation was hugely risky. Why were Abel and these women so determined to take such a big risk? Quietly failing the rescue mission seems like it would have been a much better option for them.

ADwD 50: Daenerys 769

It's Dany and Hizdahr's wedding reception! Nobody dies, which makes it a success.

Dany is still grumpy about the so-called peace with the Yunkai. They are trading slaves right outside her city walls and otherwise being threatening and annoying. Hizdahr says reassuring things that just make me more suspicious of him.

There has been an exchange of hostages. Daario is now hanging out with Yunkish people.

Dany is trying to recruit the Windblown, which shouldn't be too hard since the Tattered Prince is keen on working with her anyway. Only trouble is he seems to want to rule Pentos. Dany isn't having that since her friend Illyrio lives there.

She chats to Brown Benn at the party. He's now on the Yunkish side, having betrayed her. He alludes to having attempted to bring her the head of an old foe, but she doesn't follow up by asking who it is. I guess Tyrion had a lucky escape, there. Benn tells a story about how money is no use if you're dead: he seems to be motivated by keeping himself on the winning side.

Dany takes Quentyn downstairs to meet her two dragons (the other one being AWOL). She explains that she will ride exactly one of them one day. No-one has ever ridden more than one dragon. So she will need two more riders. I don't think it can be all that good for the dragons being cooped up like this, though. Don't they need to exercise their wings?

Hizdahr tries to make a son. Dany does not tell him about Mirri Maz and her prohecy that Dany would not have any children.

ADwD 49: Jon 753

In order to prevent Alys Karstark from having to marry her evil uncle Cregan, Jon arranges for her to marry the Magnar of Thenn (the Thenns being distinct from the Free Folk in that they have lords and fit in with the kneelers south of the wall a bit better). He's also locked up the evil uncle in an ice cell, so there seems to be a bit of redundancy there, though I suppose he'll have to be released at some point.

A raven has been sent to warn Stannis of the Karstarks double-crossing, but it might not reach him.

Melisandre reminds us the the saviour of the universe is supposed to be born amidst smoke and salt and wake dragons. So far that does sound more like Dany than Stannis. She admits having been fallible with regard to Alys not being Arya.

Jon's meddling with the Karstarks is arguable about protecting a maiden, but also could just be meddling. There is something in it for the watch, though: he's hoping Alys will send winter-starved old men and boys to the wall. There might actually be more food at the wall, too, if Jon's import business takes off.

Eleven ships have set sail for Hardhome to rescue wildlings. Hopefully they get there before the slave ships do. Glendon Hewitt has been left in charge of Eastwatch by the Sea and he's friends with Alliser Thorne (most likely person to start a mutiny).

Val returns with Tormund Giantsbane.

ADwD 48: Jaime

We have now officially caught up with the timeline from A Feast for Crows. I suppose we did with the Arya chapter, in fact. Anyway, the last time we saw Jaime, he had successfully taken Riverrun by convincing Caitlin's brother Edmure that he'd be better off living comfortably as a hostage of the Lannisters than any other option. To make the decision easy for him, Jaime cleverly threatened to do all kind of awful things to his family. The castellan Blackfish escaped, however. And soldiers sent out to search for him got attacked by wolves (probably a warging Arya).

Jaime now sets out to take Raventree Hall. The tree literally has thousands of ravens roosting in it. The hall is held by Tytos Blackwood, and besieged by Jonos Bracken. The Blackwoods and Brackens hate each other, but otherwise everything is sorted out in a very calm and civilised manner. Jaime divides up the land between them, extracts hostages from each, and generally knocks their heads together for being so silly. Everyone is now allied to the Lannisters. Hurrah!

We learn that grain mills are taxed at a rate of 10%. I wish I was taxed at a rate of 10%.

Jaime makes clear that he is not Ryman Frey. But now I can not remember what Ryman Frey did. Presumably nothing good, being a Frey.

So long as men remember the wrongs done to their forebears, no peace will ever last.

Yes, yes, put that on your instagram page, Hoster. Jaime points out the alternative is genocide. Nice. Personally I think both sides getting rich and comfortable enough to not care about it any more seems to work best. Or at least they fight it out on the football pitch instead. Have people in Westeros discovered the fun of inflating pigs' bladders, yet?

They march off towards Riverrun, or possibly King's Landing, I'm not sure. They camp in a village between two hills and leave the people alone and don't steal from them. Jaime seems to care a bit about Sansa. He hopes she stays in hiding so knights don't have to kill her.

Then again, didn't he send Brienne to fetch her? Or was it just to protect her? In any case, who should turn up at the end of the chapter but Brienne herself! The last time we saw her she was about to be hanged by undead!Caitlin. But she screamed a word. Now she wants to lure Jaime into what looks suspiciously like a trap (especially as we have no reason to believe Sansa really is a day's ride away). But Brienne likes Jaime, so she wouldn't lead him to his death, would she?

ADwD 47: Tyrion 719

Tyrion and Penny are sold at a slave auction as entertainers. There is some amusement when he tries to get himself sold to a sellsword in order to try to turn the sellsword like he did Bronn (hopefully before his head got delivered to his sister). He makes jokes about how good he is with a crossbow and how he always pays his debts, but it doesn't work and a fat, rich Yunkai called Yezzan zo Qaggaz buys him. Tyrion manages to get Jorah Mormont bought as well, though he's not much use since he found out Dany got married.

The Yunkish are all camped outside Meereen. Tyrion and Penny perform at a party. The sellsword is there and he turns out to be Ben Plumm. Tyrion recognises the family name but apart from beating Plumm at cyvasse not much becomes of the encounter.

The party is in honour of the Yunkish high commander Yurkhaz zo Yunzak and he's impressed enough with Tyrion and Penny that he decides they should perform at the peace signing ceremony. Dany will almost certainly be there. That's an awesome stroke of luck. Will Tyrion manage to get her to buy him?

ADwD 46: A Ghost In Winterfell 704

Theon is mostly ignored and takes to wandering around the castle. There are rumours that Stannis has friends inside the castle. Probably it is Abel who is probably Mance Rayder, though that means he's more Melisandre's friend than Stannis'. Or probably he has aims of his own. Anyway, people start turning up dead and it confounds the Boltons, so it's probably him doing it.

It snows. A *lot*. And this is supposed to be still autumn? Surely everyone is going to starve when winter comes?

Theon gets questioned in case he is the one doing the killing but no-one believes it is really possible. He has to take his gloves off to show his mutilated hands. He keeps worrying that he will have to take more clothes off in front of people. Between that and his lack of interest in Abel's washerwomen it seems likely Ramsay has done a Lorena Bobbit on him.

He goes to the heart tree (which says "Theon" and "Bran", so Bran is obviously still trying to communicate). He implores the gods to give him a sword so he can die honourably, but is overheard by Holly, Rowan and someone else. They offer to give him a quick death in return for giving information to Abel. I don't think Theon will die yet, though. Hopefully he will get some of his mojo back, join forces with Abel and meet up with his sister, who arrives along with Stannis right at the end of the chapter. A revenge scene with Ramsay might be fun.

ADwD 45: The Blind Girl 690

Arya is blinded by a poison she takes every day to prolong the condition. This is for training purposes. When she sleeps she telepathically links to her wolf in Westeros. Mostly she does wolf-things. It's not entirely clear to me why she doesn't use her powers to have some effect on events: possibly there is little she could do, or possibly when being a wolf she doesn't feel like doing anything other than wolf things. I suppose an assassination attempt would be risky anyway: a wolf near a large enough group of people would soon be killed. She does learn things, at least. She knows it is snowing in the riverlands (which narrrows down where her wolf can be). Also, looking back at my notes, Ser Dermont, looking for Arya's escaped uncle Blackfish, was complaining about wolf attacks, and Jaime was wondering about Arya's direwolf. Arya remembers feasting on the flesh of man, but no mention is made about whether or not this is deliberate targeting of specific men.

She makes money for the temple by dressing up as an urchin and begging around inns. She keeps up with gossip this way, too. We learn that some of those wildlings who made it to Hardhome have been captured as slaves (thinking the slave ships are the promised rescue ships).

She gets a new power: she can now see through the eyes of a cat that has befriended her. It seems there has always been a connection between Arya and cats: back when she was sneaking around Winterfell there was a particular cat that never seemed far away. This seems like a very useful power.

She uses this power to figure out who it is that keeps attacking her with a stick (for training purposes). It's the kindly man. When she tells him she knows (but not how) this is enough for him to deem that her blindness training is over and she is given some other potion and wakes with her sight restored.

I have absolutely no idea what will happen next. Hopefully she will use her cat powers to some great effect.

ADwD 44: Jon 674

Snooty Queen Selyse, annoying Ser Axell Florent, heir to the iron throne Shireen, probably cleverer than he makes out Patchface and assorted hangers on come to Castle Black on their way to the Nightfort (where Bran found a tunnel under the wall). Also with them is the Braavosi banker Tycho Nestoris. Jon does a deal with him to borrow some ships (to rescue the wildlings from Hardhome so they don't die and turn into wights) and some gold (to buy food). Paying it back is a problem for the spring. Tycho is also planning to lend Stannis money to hire sellswords to ensure that Stannis wins the war so Stannis will pay him back.

Which means it is clear that Cersei not paying back the Braavosi will cause real trouble, since the bankers will support Stannis or basically anyone who is more likely to pay them back. How money makes the world go around!

The prophesied girl arrives but she is neither Arya nor Jeyne. She is Alys Karstark, on the run from her uncle who doesn't sound much better than the Boltons. Help me, Jon Snow, you're my only hope, she says. She also has news that he is going to betray Stannis, which we already knew from the Theon point of view. But now Jon knows it, too and can perhaps warn him.

ADwD 43: Daenerys 657

Dany spends the final nights before her wedding to whats-his-name with Daario. I suppose she might as well have some fun.

Quentyn Martell has arrived. Dany holds court to meet him. It turns out there was a pact signed years ago that Viserys should marry one of Doran Martell's daughters and join forces and defeat the usurper Robert Baratheon and put a Targaryen back on the iron throne. With Viserys dead, the marriage can be between Dany and Quentyn and Dany instead.

The only slight snag is she is marrying what's-his-name in the morning. So Dany says, maybe one day, if I don't die in the meantime from Yunkish invaders or old age.

She goes through with it, too, despite wishing Daario would sweep her away like Rhaegar did Lyana (which I think caused a lot of the usurper trouble, although there's a small aside about Mad King Aerys pissing off Tywin by groping his wife at their wedding, which also won't have helped. And we know what else he got up to, that guy really did have an usurping coming).

The wedding was all straightforward. So I presume we will shortly find out what the trouble with what's-his-name is. How he plans to keep the peace really. What sort of an awful husband he will be. Presumably whatever it is will finally persuade Dany to abandon Meereen for Westeros.

Hizbahr. That's his name.

ADwD 42: The King's Prize 640

In this chapter we observe Stannis's progress to Winterfell from the point of view of Asha Greyjoy, who is not dead, only captured. To what purpose is a bit unclear, since she's not worth much as a hostage, is too tainted by failure to rule the Iron Islands on Stannis' behalf, and capturing a woman won't impress the northmen.

Asha is watched over by a big strong woman, Alysane Mormont the she-bear. I wondered briefly if it might be Brienne, but we last saw Brienne about to be hanged by Catelyn. It does seem as if Brienne might do well to move to Bear Island, though, where warrior women are less unusual.

Asha thinks Theon is dead. She's in for a nice surprise, then! Perhaps when they meet she will be able to snap him out of his funk and they will team up and kill some Boltons.

It snows, and good grief, it is grim. Horses die. Men die. The food is depleted. They really are not going to be fit for a hard battle when they arrive. But if they don't arrive they'll die anyway from cold and starvation.

ADwD 41: The Turncloak 625

Theon mopes around Winterfell. He's back to being Reek. None of the Northmen like him because of his cloak turning. He can't save Jeyne. She's in her room crying all the time. Theon has to arrange for her daily baths.

There are still references to Manderley's pork pie eating. Mmmm, pork. Are those Freys still missing?

Abel sings slightly modified versions of songs. One of his women questions Theon about how he captured Winterfell, but Theon is paranoid and does a runner. Is she trying to make friends with him for the benefit of whatever scheme Abel is really up to?

Another of Abel's women is walking around barefoot in the snow. Who could put up with that amount of cold? A wildling, perhaps?

Things don't look great for Stannis. Winterfell's walls and moat are pretty impregnable, and there is a storm coming. His horses can't go fast in the snow. Neither side is likely to have much food, though. I'm starting to think the Dornish could win the throne just by being the only ones with any food left. Or will the snow get to them, too?

Lady Dustin goes down to the crypt, mainly to make long expositionary speeches at Theon. The crying fake Arya is not winning the loyalty of the northmen. The Freys hold the Greatjon captive (did we know that? I suppose he was at the red wedding). There are swords missing from the crypt. I think Bran and company must have taken some. Lady Dustin was wanting to marry Brandon Stark (Ned's brother) but Ned's dad Rickard arranged (with advice from his Maester, presumably) a marriage with Catelyn instead (but not before Lady Dustin gave her maidenhead to Brandon). But Brandon was killed in battle, Catelyn married Ned (who Lady Dustin would have settled for) and she was left with Lord Dustin, who then died in battle for Ned. Now she wants to intercept Ned's bones, presumably on their way from Deepwood Motte, so she can feed them to his dogs.

I'm not really sure of the significance of this sub-plot, to be honest. I fully expect an Aha! moment any chapter now.

ADwD 40: Tyrion 611

Sea travel is pretty grim in GRRM-world. I'm not sure why anyone ever bothers trying it. Tyrion and friends are alternately becalmed and bestormed. He's resorting to riding a pig to make the sailors laugh to keep them friendly. He's hoping they don't eat the pig, since food is getting short. He continues to avoid becoming romantically involved with Penny.

He manages to annoy Jorah Mormont by figuring out that Mormont was exiled and he's using Tyrion to try to buy Dany's favour.

A storm kills half the crew (including the red priest Moqorro who should have seen it coming) and destroys the mast. They drift for 19 days. Then rescue is in sight...but it's a slave ship. I am not sure this is good news.

ADwD 39: Jon 600

Jon sends Val off to treat with Tormund (leader of the remnants of Mance Rayder's army). He wants them to not attack the wall and instead unite against the greater foe. Seems like it will be worth a try although Stannis will be cross if she does not make it back.

Jon is keeping dead bodies in the ice cells in the hope that they will turn into wights and he can study them. Know you enemy! The men are not too keen on this new-fangled scientific method lark, though.

Rumours are that a lot of the wildlings have gone off to a place called Hardhome to get on ships to cross the sea and escape the cold and the wights. Makes sense, except apparently Hardhome is a place that had doom of Valyria type natural disaster at some point in the past and is now haunted and evil. Which sounds like a load of old rubbish except that in this world supernatural stuff happens all the time. In any case there are likely to be no ships and since there is little shelter, all the wildlings will die and thus expand the wight army. Not great. There are caves like the ones Melisandre saw in one of her visions. Jon is hoping this is one of those prophesied futures that can be avoided.

ADwD 38: The Watcher 584

As Areo Hotah, we once again watch the goings on at the court of Doran Martell in Dorne. Timeline-wise we must be joining up with the end of A Feast for Crows, if not now then soon.

Ser Balon Swann has finally arrived with GREGOR's head. Except it probably isn't, because Qyburn has the real GREGOR, I think. But it will do for now. Balon Swann looks a bit suspicious and uncomfortably. Myrcella is not around; she's hanging out in the Water Gardens, playing in the water with all the other naked children, presumably. He's going to be a bit annoyed when he finds out about her missing ear.

However, Doran and Arianne have cooked up some story about how Ser Gerold Dayne aka Darkstar was the one who attacked her. I suppose this somehow absolves the Martells of blame. Somehow they have got Myrcella to believe this, too. Meanwhile they have got wind that Cersei, having invited Myrcella and her betrothed Trystane to King's Landing, was planning to have them ambushed on the road so that Trystane could be killed. So they're going to subvert all that by sending Balon Swann off to avenge Myrcella and send Nymeria (Oberon Martell's daughter, not the wolf or the god) to King's Landing as a spy, and Tyene (her sister) to the sept at King's landing to spy on the new High Septon and his army.

Presumably they will get there and find that Cersei is no longer in charge anyway, so that will be fun! I quite like these Martells. They're pretty clever and not so nasty as some of the other factions. Apparently the point of the naked children in the swimming pool is you can't tell the high-born from the commoners, which teaches a noble lesson about equality. And it seems like they're a bit nicer to their women, too. But it's not all political correctness gone mad: they're expecting Dany to turn up with an army to wipe out the Lannisters any day now: ships may be on their way.

But we know it's not Dany, it's probably Price Aegon. Maybe that's just as good for their purposes, though.

ADwD 37: The Prince of Winterfell 565

Reek is now Theon again, for a while at least. It is the wedding of Fake Arya aka Jeyne Pool to Ramsay Bolton. Jeyne wants Theon to help her escape but he's too scared to help her. He's there to give the bride away, to make it look more like she's the real Arya. He considers speaking up but is too scared.

The wedding is in the godswood and afterwards Theon hangs around by the weirwood and hears the tree whisper "Theon". That will be Bran, then.

We learn that when Roose Bolton turned up at Winterfell, which had been abandoned, he put the squatters to work mending the roof and then hanged them. Evicting them might have been okay, but this is too much! Theon imagines that he had tried to protect the people of Winterfell. That's not quite how I remember it.

A singer called Abel turns up. He's not all that great at singing. He's definitely a spy! Oh hang on, he's got six women with him. That'll be Mance Rayder and the spearwives, then.

Everyone thinks Manderley is going to betray Roose Bolton any second now. Bolton knows it and won't eat food until Manderley eats it. Lady Dustin has got Roose's number: she thinks he's a psychopath who's just having a bit of fun. That explains why he is less concerned with his legacy than other lords. Then again she thinks he fancies himself the King of the North, once he has dispatched Stannis.

She also voices some suspicions about the Maesters that I've always shared. All this reading of people's mail: you can't tell me they aren't using that ability to influence events. Lady Dustin thinks "the Tully Marriage", presumably between Ned and Catelyn, was the doing of the Maester Walys Flowers.

Everyone is waiting for Stannis to turn up so they can finally defeat him. At the end of the wedding we learn there that Stannis is only two weeks away. Karstark is with him, but will supposedly switch sides in favour of the Boltons.

Ramsay Bolton eschews the traditional "bedding". Instead he makes Theon undress Jeyne Pool. Then he makes Theon help out in the bedroom department more generally. What a weirdo.

ADwD 36: Daenerys 552

Dany does her Florence Nightingale bit. I hope she doesn't catch any diseases. She thinks Targaryens don't get sick, which may even be true. This might not bode well for the rest of her men, though.

She meets with Reznak mo Reznak, who explains all the small print Dany didn't read when when agreed to marry Hizdahr. Weddings really aren't that great for the bride on GRRM's planet, are they? Luckily Hizdahr himself doesn't care for all the weird rituals; he just wants to get married ASAP. Apparently this will solve everything and there will be peace and tranquility throughout the land, including New Ghis and Yunkai.

So it's probably really bad timing for him when Daario turns up. He brings news that Astapor is defeated (we already knew that), and that some Westerosi have defected to Dany's side. Some of these will be Quentyn Martell and his friends. Apparently Brown Ben Plumm has defected the other way, although I'm a bit suspicious of Daario: I would not be surprised if he is telling lies to get Dany's favour.

Dany decides to finally sleep with Daario. This is probably a bad move. Is it more of a bad move than marrying Hizdahr? Not sure, though he eats dogs which can't be a good sign.

ADwD 35: Jon 537

Jon arranges an expedition to the grove of weirwoods two hours' ride north of the wall so that six men can make their vows. A band of half-dead wildlings and a giant are there already, but the situation is diffused and in the end the wildlings come back with the watch. More mouths to feed but more hands to fight, perhaps. The giant could be useful.

Jon is planning to open more castles, including one manned entirely by women. He daydreams about building greenhouses to grow veggies, if only he had enough gold to buy the glass. I'm not sure the comparative advantage is there, to be honest. It would take a lot of glass to grow enough veg to feed the watch. Food can be grown more cheaply further south. The problem is trade is being disrupted and supply lines are unreliable. And people do not value the wall enough to pay for more than a handful of men. As soon as people realise the men are needed to fend off a real threat, then the watch will be able to charge a decent amount of money for their services and buy enough food.

Jon seems to be collecting dead bodies. I have no idea why. Is in league with Qyburn? No, he wanted live bodies. Probably this is something for Melisandre.

Stannis sends Jon a lengthy intelligence report, the gist of which is that he's taken Deepwood Motte (we know), has destroyed or captured all the ironmen's ships (bad luck, Asha) and is now going to attack the Boltons at Winterfell (or, as they would have it , take the bait). He's also planning to rescue fake-Arya, thinking her to be real-Arya. Jon feels bad for caring about his sister and also for sending off Mance Rayder to rescue her, given that he can't really trust Mance or Melisandre and it might all go very wrong and he shouldn't really be trying to save his sister anyway, given his vows.

ADwD 34: Bran 521

Bran is learning to become a greenseer. He can already do skin-changing/warging/posessing the bodies of most animals. Greenseeing seems to involve being able to see at any distance and even into the past. Into the future? I don't think so.

The three-eyed-crow man used to be called Brynden before he wandered into a cave beyond the wall and became one with a tree. That's quite a Stark name. Or is it a Tully name? Was there a Brynden Stark or Tully who went missing a long time ago?

Bran keeps posessing Hodor and is keeping it a secret from everyone. It's a bit weird and no good can come of it, I'm sure. Bran is in love with Meera and even at one point considers using Hodor to comfort her when she is upset about her brother.

Speaking of Jojen, he's not doing much, seems a bit depressed, wants to go home, but isn't. And he's having green dreams but I'm not sure what they're about, but they are what is upsetting Meera.

The Children of the Forest call themselves "those who sing the song of the earth". They live for hundreds of years, and when they die they store their memories in the trees. GRRM has been watching Avatar, hasn't he? The singers have been living in these caves for a million years. There are holes in the caves that go to the centre of the earth. Bran had better watch out for balrogs! The singers taught men how to use ravens to send messages, except that back in the day they used to speak the messages instead of having them written down and tied to their feet. I'd like to know more about the ravens. How do they know where to go? Or are they like homing pigeons, in which case once all the ravens are "home" presumably someone has to ride all over taking them away again. So why is this never mentioned?

While learning his new telepresence powers, Bran tries to talk to his dad in the past, and Ned calls out, "who's there?" I searched the first book and only Jon says "who's there" when Mormont is attacked by a zombie.

Soon Bran will be able to see anything anywhere, at least within range of a weirwood. It is less clear to me how he will be able to influence events. Animal attacks? Talking Ravens (Mormont's raven could be useful)? Or can Bran maybe make images appear in fires? Wooooo that would be interesting.

ADwD 33: Tyrion 505

Tyrion is travelling to Meereen with Ser Jorah Mormont. They are on a ship. They have taken the dwarf woman, Penny, with them. She slowly forgives Tyrion for her brother's death and starts being friendly with him. I'm not sure whether she really likes him or sees him as a way of attaining a bit of class mobility by mixing with the nobility. It seems a bit unlikely that GRRM will write a genuine friendship storyline. Or maybe that is the surprise! Tyrion thinks Penny either wants to recruit him into her travelling jousting show or sleep with him. He's not keen on either of these ideas.

By the way Penny tells Tyrion she was recruited for Joffrey's wedding not by Cersei but by some guy called Oswald of Osmund (Kettleblack?). It occurs to me that Tyrion doesn't know yet that Varys is behind so much of that. Presumably Oswald was working with him (or was him) or Illyrio.

Not much happens otherwise. We learn a bit more about the doom of Valyria. It's all full of molten lava now, so much that the sky glows red above it. Tyrion's uncle Gerion Lannister sailed there in search of treasure and never came back, so he's sure to turn up at some point!

There's a red priest on the ship. Moqorro, who seems to be in charge of the expedition and is trying to get to Dany before others do. He's seen shadows of the others in his flames, inlcuding one who is tall, twisted and has lot of arms. Is that Bran's half-tree three-eyed-crow guy?

ADwD 32: Reek 489

Ramsay and his men have been out looking for missing Freys. There is a suspicion that Wyman Manderley has killed them, because they were travelling with him. He says they rode on ahead. Maybe he has killed them, but I would have thought he would be better at pretending to be friends with the Boltons than that.

Ramsays's dad Roose comes to visit. We get a bit of father-son dynamic. Dad doesn't think much of his son, but he's the only one he's got. He could have more sons but the bastard one would probably kill them to secure his inheritance. What a family!

Roose is worried about one of Ned Stark's sons turning up. Overhearing this, Theon is confused because he thinks he had Bran and Rickon killed, which is odd because he knows it was the miller's sons whose heads were dipped in tar. And of course it was Ramsay, posing as Reek at the time, who had the idea to do it, if I remember correctly. So that's why the Boltons are worried. Incidentally Roose wants everyone to think that their supposed deaths were all Theon's work in order to keep friends. Ramsay does not seem to be as good at politics as that.

Roose is also a bit disapproving of Ramsay doing all his raping and murdering so publicly. He thinks he should keep it a bit more secret. Lovely family, they are.

The Boltons are aware that the mountain clans have joined Stannis and he has marched on Deepwood Motte. Roose's plan is to go to Winterfell for Ramsay's wedding with fake-Arya, forcing Stannis to attack them at Winterfell, which should have good defenses even if it is a bit tumbledown lately.

He also takes Theon to visit Lady Barrowton. She is friends with the Boltons because she thinks Ned Stark was responsible for her husband's death. Do we know how he died? I do not remember the name Barrowton. He introduces Theon to her as the rightful lord of the Iron Islands. If he does turn up there I suppose he could declare the kingsmoot illegal by the same logic Asha realised might work. But Theon still thinks he is Reek so it is hard to see what use he will be. As a hostage, perhaps.

ADwD 31: Melisandre 474

Good grief a Melisandre chapter! I was not expecting that. All this magic and sorcery has been very mysterious up until now, so it will be interesting to get inside her head and find out what is really going on with her

We learn:

• She really does think that Stannis is the chosen one, is Azor Ahai reborn, will bring about an endless summer and so on. It's not all just a trick by her on Stannis. If the real Azor Ahai picks up his magic sword and it glows hot, then we she will be as surprised as everyone else.
• She is trying to get Jon on her side, and using predictions to help with that. But she knows less than she would like to make the predictions impressive enough. So there are limits to what she can predict
• In the fire she sees real images, but they are open to interpretation, and she is not always certain about the correct interpretation because it is an art not a science.
• There is an enemy beyond the wall. There is also a wooden man with a boy with a wolf's face, probably Bran and the three-eyed crow, who is working with Melisandre's enemy.
• Melisandre sees a battle involving flaming arrows and wights beneath a cliff. After talking to Jon about it she decides it must be Eastwatch on the Sea. But I am certain she is wrong about that. She's running with it and making what look like confirmation-bias errors about how even if Eastwatch looks different, visions are often wrong in these details.
• She know Jon Snow is a warg because he appears as both wolf and man in her visions.
• She used to be a slave girl called Melony from Lot 7. 
• When she prays to see Azor Ahai, she sees Jon Snow instead. Could that be a subtle hint? Is he the real one
• She's not actually a horrible person. She keeps one of Davos's sons around her so he doesn't get killed in battle because she doesn't want Davos to suffer any more grief.
• She does not fear death because R'hllor will protect her, and also she could see if she was going to die in her visions of the future.
• She thinks she has the weight of the world on her shoulders.
• She does not need to eat and only needs to sleep a little. She does not like dreaming because she thinks dreams come from the other, bad god.
• She has hidden pockets to do fire tricks with, but she doesn't need them so much near the wall because it is easier to do real sorcery.
• Melisandre gets hot enough to melt nearby ice.

Three rangers heads turn up on spikes outside the gates, almost exactly as predicted by Melisandre.

The big reveal is that the Lord of Bones is in fact Mance Rayder with a magical disguise (a glamor, just like the one Arya's friend had). The real lord of bones was the one who was burned. That might explain the shrieking, wailing and begging that seemed rather unbecoming of Mance, at the time. Apparently the trick was expensive for Melisandre and made her ruby really hot. Jon is pretty surprised by all this. But at least someone is going looking for Arya. But is it fake Arya? Or Sansa? Or real Arya? Or someone else?

ADwD 30: Danaerys 460

Dany is *still* beset upon all sides by enemies. Even most of her friends are probably enemies. Skahaz the Shavepate thinks her betrothed Hizdahr is the highborn one in charge of the terrorist Sons of the Harpy, but Dany does not believe it, although Hizdahr has managed to stop the murders for 26 days (74 to go, I think).

There is a new disease in town, the bloody flux, It sounds awful. There are refugees with it from Astapor coming because they have been attacked by Yunkai. They are being rounded up from the countryside. It's only a matter of time before Quentin and his people turn up, too. The trouble is the Yunkai are now heading for Meereen and they have large numbers. And the Golden Company is coming too (though Dany does not know they are on her side yet).

She decides they are going to have to meet the Yunkai in the field rather than wait in the city. To win the battle she needs to be married to Hizdahr zo Loraq, so she's going to bring the date of that wedding forward, I think.

I do wish she'd sort out the business with the dragons. There is not much point having them at all, which is a problem given that most of her power derives from them. I think Tyrion will know what to do when he turns up.

ADwD 29: Davos 445

Of course it was all a trick! Manderley, who it turns out is a thoroughly decent bloke, just had to make everyone *think* he wanted Davos dead to trick the Freys and make sure he got his son back. In reality he hates the Freys and their wedding butchery. Poor old Davos thinks he's going to be beheaded and get his hands chopped off, hopefully in that order, and it turns out there is a grand conspiracy. He might have guessed, though, given his dungeon had an en suite and the food was decent.

Anyway, Robett Glover (formerly of Deepwood Motte, now taken from Asha by Stannis) and Wyman Manderley are now plotting to build a navy and help out Stannis, as long as Davos brings Rickon to him. Because Rickon is now the true heir of Winterfell (apart from Bran). And Manderley has a boy who saw Rickon and knows something of where he's gone. Wherever it is, Davos doesn't want to go there because there are cannibals, apparently. But go he will. And Manderley is going to Winterfell to do whatever Ramsay Bolton wants him to, for now, to keep up the charade.

Incidentally we learn in this chapter a little bit more about how awful Ramsay is. He really is not a very nice man. Fake Arya really needs to get away from him, as does everyone else near him.

ADwD 28: Jon 434

Jon sends Ser Alliser and some rangers out on a ranging. He loses a fight with Rattleshirt. He finds out that fake-Arya is marrying Ramsay Bolton, but he doesn't know it's fake Arya. Melisadre tells him that if he joins with her they will have great power. This must be the schtick she used on Stannis! Jon isn't having it for now, but Melisandre tells him Arya will escape the marriage and come to find him (but does she mean real Arya or fake Arya? Does she know the difference?) She predicts two of the rangers will be killed, which will prove to Jon her powers and presumably then he'll want to make sorcery with her. Or something.

ADwD 27: Tyrion 409

Tyrion has a new captor, and it's Jorah Mormont. Which means Tyrion is probably going to be taken to Dany instead of Cersei, but it takes him the whole chapter to figure that out. They go to Volantis. Tyrion hopes Griff and crew will find him there, but of course they have abandoned that idea and gone off to Dorne instead. Tyrion figures this out when he hears rumours of an exiled lord hiring the Golden Company.

They meet some weird old ex-slave woman to ask for passage to Meereen. At first she doesn't want to help them. Then Tyrion gets attacked by someone I briefly took for Asha but was in fact the dwarf who rode the pig at Joffrey's wedding. She blames him for her brother's death, since like many dwarves he's been mistaken for Tyrion and killed for the lordship promised by Cersei for Tyrion's head. After this the ex-slave-widow decides she likes Tyrion after all and grants him passage to Meereen, saying she wants Dany to come to Volantis and free the slaves there.

ADwD 26: The Wayward Bride 387

Asha is at Deepwood Motte. I guess she got left behind too when everyone left for the kingsmoot, and with only a handful of men to defend the place. She learns that Moat Cailin has been taken (by Ramsay Bolton a few chapters back). We learn that she has been married in absentia, which is apparently a thing with Ironmen. But her husband, Erik Ironmaker, is old and far away and she has a boyfriend called Qarl. With a Q.

We learn that Damphair has gone AWOL since the kingsmoot. Was the last we heard of him?

Asha's Nuncle the reader once advised her to read a book about Haereg, pointing out that she is a danger to Euron while she is alive for having a stronger claim to the throne than him (since she is the previous king's daughter, rather than brother). But then Tris, who is in love with her and also full of advice, reminds her of some old king called Torgon who came home and declared a previous kingsmoot unlawful since he was absent. And of course Asha was absent from the kingsmoot... So Tris gets a kiss for that genius idea.

But it all might be moot (heh) since the castle is under attack. Presumably by Stannis' men, including mountain clan men whom Jon advised Stannis to recruit. After some debate they scarper from the castle and make for the ships. When they stop for a rest they are attacked and a short fight ensues, and we end the chapter with Asha about to get her head staved in wondering why a trumpet is blowing. I'm at a bit of a loss, too.

ADwD 25: The Windblown 372

Quentyn Martell and friends did indeed join a free company of soldiers, though not the Golden Company. They recently raided Astapor. It was a bloodbath. Now they are heading for Meereen.

The Yunkai are in charge of all this. They don't seem very well organised, but they do have the free companies.

Quentyn and friends need to desert and go and join Dany before the battle starts against her. Luckily they get sent on a secret undercover mission to pretent to go and join Dany. That's pretty convenient!

ADwD 24: The Lost Lord 356

Griff aka Jon Connington aka Mad King Aerys's exiled hand laments losing Tyrion. So Tyrion did not get away. Haldon came back without him and has been in the doghouse ever since.

Haldon buys some horses and they all ride off to meet the Golden Company. We learn that Connington was second in command there when Varys came up with the ploy of pretending to steal stuff from the company to be exiled again to raise Aegon in secret. The new commander of the company, Homeless Harry Strickland is mainly worried about his feet and seems to be avoiding battles. But he's already told everyone about Young Griff's secret identity.

Everyone is dismayed that Dany is just loafing about in Meereen, which is a bit far away. Young Aegon comes up with the oh-so-original idea of ignoring her, going to Dorne, and declaring himself. Their main worry is that Cersei Lannister is powerful and has lots of friends. Ha ha. The Golden Company bigwigs go for the idea anyway. Connington is impressed with Aegon's ability to persuade and come up with cool ideas. Plus it suits him since he is in a bit of rush now that he's caught Greyscale and will be a stone man and only has a few years to live. Ouch.

ADwD 23: Daenerys 341

Galazza Galare the Ghiscari thinks Dany should marry Hizdahr zo Loraq so that there's a king and somehow that will make her more powerful. She agrees to have a chat with him about it. She doesn't fancy him, but she does set him the challenge of keeping peace in the city for 90 days. If he succeeds, then she'll marry him.

Ser Barriston doesn't approve. He thinks they should abandon this place and head to Westeros and conquer it. There is talk of marrying without love. Apparently Dany's parents got marries because a witch called Jenny of Oldstones said they would beget a "prince who was promised". Is she the same old woman that Arya met on top of a hill with Lord Beric and who got freaked out because Arya had an aura of death about her? That would have been before the red wedding.

Anyway, then Dany's true love Daario turns up and she considers having some fun with him but thinks better of it when he suggest she pull a red wedding stunt of her own to kill all her probable enemies. She's not up for that at all.

ADwD 22: Tyrion 321

Tyrion (not drowned; doesn't seem to have caught greyscale) learns some more from Young Griff aka Aegon Targaryen about how he came to survive. Varys bought a baby from a poor man and made a swap. Tyrion tells Griff he should just go to Dorne and take over Westeros himself. Once Dany hears about it she'll bring her dragons, he thinks, and this will be better than going begging to her.

Tyrion and Haldon the Halfmeister go off in search of news in Selhorys. Dothraki are lurking about in the wilderness. A red god preacher is preaching support for Dany being the chosen one. They go to the local bar and play cyvasse, which is chess but with cooler pieces. Tyrion loses on purpose but they get to hear some rumours about Dany. Apparently she feeds her dragons on newborn babies. It was one time! And by accident! C'mon, give her a break! Most dramatically they learn Dany is still holed up in Meereen and not heading for Westeros at all. This comes as quite a surprise to them.

Then Tyrion does the usual Tyrion thing of thinking with his dick. He visits a brothel, gets drunk, doesn't find Tysha, does find someone who recognises him and means to take his head to Cersei. So predictable, Tyrion.

ADwD 21: Jon 310

Jon goes off to visit the wildlings liviing in Moletown. They don't have much food. Jon recruits a bunch of them by promising them food, even though the Watch are going to run out too, sooner or later.

The days are getting shorter. Just how do these decade long winters work anyway? I'd assumed some sort of climatic oscillation, but now it seems astronomical. Is something tilting the planet on its axis? Or is it just magic?

Also, this wall. How long is it? I'm having a hard time seeing how 63 extra people can help Jon keep watch over it in any significant way. And he wants to open extra forts. The map says there are 18 forts. I think about 5 are open now (Castle Black, Shadow Tower, Eastwatch by the Sea, and two others that Jon opened a few chapters ago). There must still be many miles of unwatched wall. I'm really worried.

ADwD 20: Reek 294

Ramsay the Bastard of Bolton has sent Theon, of all people, into Moat Cailin to secure the surrender of the Ironmen troops there. I'm surprised Theon is functional enough to do the job.

But Theon who thinks he is Reek does manage to persuade the men that he is really Theon, and the Ironmen are all half-dead or drunk by this point anyway, and aware that they have been abandoned by Victarion after the kingsmoot did not go his way. Presumably a similar situation awaits Stannis, or the Boltons (whoever gets there first) at Deepwood Motte. Theon manages to walk away with all the men (an axe in the head of the one who did not want to surrender helped).

Theon is grateful to to Ramsay for letting him keep his remaining fingers and is allowed to eat and sleep with the dogs, which is quite an upgrade from the dungeon. The surrendering ironmen are all killed, natch.

Ramsay's dad Roose turns up with a new step-mother for Ramsay (a Frey woman) and his bride, fake Arya, who Theon recognises as Sansa's rather sill friend Jeyne Poole. Did we know it was Jeyne? Not sure. But anyway: poor Jeyne! Will Theon say anything about this? Is it possible that he and Jeyne will end up helping each other?

ADwD 19: Davos 282

Davos has been held prisoner at Manderley's castle in White Harbour for over two weeks. His ride home has long since sailed.

Manderley finally agrees to see him. Davos tries to appeal to Manderley's sense of honour to stick with supporting Stannis because he is Robert Baratheon's true heir, but Manderley knows a losing side when he sees one. The Freys try to claim that Robb caused the red wedding by turning into a wolf. Manderley knows this is nonsense but is going along with it anyway. Being on the winning side is more importance than truth!

Manderley's daughter Wyllis can see through all this and calls him out on it. She is young enough to be honest. But it doesn't do any good.

Manderley gets annoyed and sends Davos off to be beheaded as a traitor. It doesn't look like he is going to miraculously suvive after all.

ADwD 18: Tyrion 269

The little boat is making its way through a foggy part of the river which is the domain of "Stone Men", who are basically lepers but cooler. The meet a friendly boat first, then they get attacked by stone men.

While preparing for that fight, everyone suddenly wants to protect young Griff. With this information and by the colour of his eyes, Tyrion figures out that young Griff is in fact Prince Rheagar's son, previously thought to have been killed by Tywin. Rheagar is Mad King Aerys's son and would have been heir to the throne, except he had an affair or something with Lyanna (Robert's girlfriend) and sparked a rebellion after which Jaime killed Aerys and Tywin and other Lannisters tried to kill all the other children to end the dynasty.

But Varys must have been up to something even way back then to start trying to put Targaryens back on the throne and somehow saved this young prince whose name I have forgotten. He is probably the heir of the throne. He's also Dany's nephew, is that right? That won't stop him marrying her. She might not like giving up the thone, though. Also by Dornish law she might be heir to the throne, so Quentyn could help out there. I have a feeling this could get even more complicated yet...

Oh, and now the boat has been mysteriously turned around and stone men have attacked again and now Tyrion is drowning. After the ad break we'll find out how he gets out of that one.

ADwD 17: Jon 253

With all the king's men, queen's men and wildlings, the night's watch are going to run out of food. Maybe they can get help from the Vale of Arryn, which should have lots more food. Knowing this, I would not be surprised if the vale ends up being of more strategic importance when the winter comes and food starts to run out everywhere.

Melisandre gives Jon the bone-shirted wildling and claims she can keep him loyal with a magic gem. Stannis means to attack the Dreadfort but Jon thinks this is a bad idea. He says Stannis should leave the wildlings with Jon to help defend the wall (presumably against monsters, not other wildlings) and go and find 3000 men from clans who live in the north-west. Jon thinks he should take these men and attack Deepwood Motte and defeat the Ironmen who hold it. (Or have they in fact abandoned it by now to have their Kingsmoot? Hmmm.) That suits Jon because he does not like Ironmen. But he is not taking sides in politics, oh no. He's a completely neutral defender of the realm.

How is Jon so good at strategy? He left Winterfell a boy and he's been in a handful of battles. I guess he learned a lot from Ned, including how to cut people's heads off and that "The Map is not the Land", which is pretty important advice.

ADWD 16: Daenerys 235

Dany still has lots of problems, including generally being blamed for freeing the slaves causing poverty. Xaro is back, and reminding her of all of them. "If all men must grub in the dirt for food, how shall any man lift his eyes to contemplate the stars?", he asks. That definitely needs solving. But he has the cause all wrong. "If each of us must break his back to build a hovel, who shall riase the temples to gorify the gods? For some men to be great, others must be enslaved." Which is typical mercantilisy fixed-quantity-of-wealth thinking. The answer is exactly the sort of productiviy improvements and innovations that come from people having ownership of their enterprises. The answer is division of labour, specialisation and mechanised farming.

Xaro thinks Dany is going to be attacked and wants her to depart for Westeros, so he gives her some ships if she'll promise to leave soon. She smells a rat, and besides doesn't want to abandon her city. This annoys Xaro so he declares war on her. Well escaped, Dany!

ADwD 15: Davos 223

Davos has rocked up in White Harbour to convince Manderley to fight for Stannis. He was supposed to have a fleet of ships with him; instead he's ended up going down the less impressive pretending-to-be-a-common-sailor approach.

White Harbour seems like a pretty wealthy town. Its houses are made of stone. The Lannister ship Lionstar is in dock. I can't find any previous mention of this ship.

Davos plays the computer-RPG-game game of talking to random people. He learns that people are worried about the Bastard of Bolton, and that Manderley is recruiting for his army. He visits an inn with such bad food and wine that customs officials won't go in. There he learns all the latest news, including that one of Manderley's sons is still alive and held hostage by Lannisters. it all looks pretty hopeless for getting Manderley to fight Lannisters. Except obviously he's going to come to some agreement with Manderley to fake his own death to trick them into giving Manderley's son back. That would fit in with what we know from the preivous book.

He also hears rumours of Dany from a sailor on the Sloe-eyed Maid. He knows what happened to that ship. I had to search all the way back to ACoK to find reference to it: Back when Dany was planning to head straight back to Westeros she and Xaro were searching for ships and it was a ship that was too small for her needs, which differs from the captain's steward's version of the captain refusing because he was worried about dragons burning his sails. Anyway, at this point Davos is better informed than Cersei.

ADwD 14: Tyrion 208

Tyrion is travelling on a barge with Griff and little Griff, a nun called Lemore who swims naked every day, a husband and wife called Yandry and Ysilla, Duck and Halfmeister Haldon. They have plenty of scones and bacon to eat and spend their days swimming, playing board games, writing a book about dragons, learning foreign languages and maths and history, and admiring the local wildlife. Seems to me they have it pretty good. Why are they risking life and limb venturing into pirate-infested waters on some hair brained quest mostly for Ilyrio's benefit, exactly?

Tyrion is a maltheist: "And when I die, please let them bury me with a crossbow, so I can thank the Father Above for his gifts the same way I thanked the father below."

We learn of the existence of a rare book called "Blood and Fire", which sounds an awful lot like something Melisandre has probably read.

Tyrion thinks Ilyrio sacrificed Viserys. I had assumed that was a bit of a fortunate accident from Ilyrio's point of view, rather than something deliberate.

At the end of the chapter a giant turtle appears, which everyone thinks is good luck. We shall see.

ADwD 13: Bran 196

Ages ago, Bran set out to find the three-eyed-crow, the greenseer, who could help him to master his superpower. It was a long journey. On the way, he had a series of adventures. In this chapter, he successfully finds and meets the three-eyed-crow. How often does that happen in Game of Thrones, I ask? He didn't get kidnapped. He didn't become any more disabled than he already was. He didn't abandon his quest and go off and do something else. He didn't even change direction every chapter and randomly roam around the map getting distracted by various side-quests. He's gone in a more or less straight line from Winterfell to the three-eyed-crow. It has to mean something. Either Bran is the true hero of this series and is going to end up on the iron throne, or else this is GRRM's biggest dummy yet, and he's going to die in a freak boating accident in the next chapter.

In this chapter we meet a real life Child of the Forest, who talks and everything. And is over 200 years old ("Men, they are the children") so probably knows a thing or two. We also find out that the three-eyed-crow (who can't move on account of having tree roots embedded in his skull) has been spying on Bran and influencing his dreams ever since he was a baby. Oh, and either Hodor or Bran loves Meera; I'm not sure which. And Jojen is suddenly very weak; I don't remember why. Hopefully the underground colony of Children of the Forest can fix him up.

ADwD 12: Reek

The last person we met going by the name of Reek was back in ACoK. He was really Ramsay Snow the bastard of Bolton, in disguise as his former servant. Ramsay was pursued by some enemy or other and swapped clothes with his servant, then went to Winterfell which was held by Theon at the time. Bran and Rickon escaped from Winterfell and when Theon couldn't find them he killed a miller and his family and tarred and hung up his sons to make people think they were Bran and Rickon. That's why everyone thinks Bran and Rickon are dead. After that Theon finds himself in need of more men and Reek says he can get some and goes off. Robb Stark's castellan Ser Rodrick turns up to beseige Winterfell, calling Theon a childkiller. Theon threatens to kill Rodrick's daughter.

Theon is saved, briefly, when a new army turns up and slaughters the Stark army and kills Rodrick. The leader enters Winterfell. Theon is thankful at first. The leader takes off his helmet and it's Reek. Except he reveals himself as Ramsay in disguise, then whacks Theon round the head and burns winterfell. That's the last we heard of Theon; everyone presumes him burned at Winterfell.

At first it's unclear who this Reek is. Perhaps Ramsay's servant escaped after all. But whoever this Reek is, he has been imprisoned and tortured by Ramsay, so that would not make sense. Reek is brought before Ramsay and some other lords, one of whom recognises him as Ned Stark's ward. So *that's* what became of Theon. He is not dead, as is usual for presumed-dead people in ASoIaF. He has been imprisoned for quite a while.

Now Ramsay wants to clean him up and take him along to meet his wife-to-be Arya, who is in fact fake Arya. Theon should be able to recognise her as such (which is, perhaps, why he is being taken along). Either that or Ramsay has more cruelty planned.

A pox on both their houses, methinks; they're all bad guys. I feel bad for the fake Arya girl, though. I wonder if this could be the undoing of Petyr's plans. The Boltons won't be happy when they find out.

ADwD 11: Danaerys 170

Dany still has 99 problems. The Sons of the Harpy are still killing her people, including her handmaiden's brother, so she's retreating all her people into her pyramid and letting the Meereenese police themselves. I'm not sure that will end well.

Because she felt so guilty about one of her dragons probably having eaten a child, she's locked two of them in a dungeon but the other one has escaped. Not much point in being a dragon queen if you can't control your dragons.

Quaith pays Dany a visit by holographic conferencing. Dany doesn't understand the tech and thinks she is either dreaming or going mad. Quaithe speaks in riddles. I think the general gist is that Dany is going to be betrayed again, possibly by Renak. Also she is going to be visited by a bunch of dudes all wanting to marry her, and she shouldn't trust any of them. In fact, trust no one. Quaith is Mulder; now it all makes sense.

Even the local trades unions are kicking up a fuss because stone carving isn't a closed shop any more. Dany is forced to channel her inner Maggy Thatcher.

Hizdahr zo Loraq is still trying to get the fighting pits opened. He has some fighting slaves with him who want to be freelance fighters. It'll be like UFC but with actual deaths. Dany is quite rightly coming around to the idea that if that's what they want she has no business stopping them.

We get some Barristan Selmy backstory. He was booted out of the kingsguard by Joffrey after Robert was killed. He loitered around Kings Landing in disguise for a while and when he saw the Lannisters kill Ned Stark he realised he was best off out of it and he ought to find a real king to serve. Who ended up being Dany.

ADwD 10: Jon 154

Poor old Mance Rayder is being burned to death by Melisandre. I rather liked him. He's not going quietly, either, he's having a good old shout about it. Can't say I blame him. At least Jon has the courtesy of shooting him with some arrows. I'm not sure if that's what Melisandre had in mind, but there we are.

They open the gates and let through wildlings who are prepared to bend the knee to Stannis. I'm not sure what good it will do, since it's that or starve or get killed by wights; they're hardly going to be very loyal. They're also now on the right side of the wall for plotting revenge against the Watch or Stannis, should they fancy that idea. If I was a wildling I'd think settling the gift and taking control of the wall would be a pretty nice outcome. By the time people down south notice it'll be time to defend against white-faced blue-eyed monsters from the north anyway, not to mention something of a convenient fait accompli.

Bowen Marsh reckons they should just block up the tunnels through the wall. This sounds far too obvious. Should have done it years ago.

Jon wins the chapter: "Men love to complain about their lords and their wives. Those without wives complain twice as much about their lords." Hee hee.

Or is it Bowen Marsh: "What's a god compared to a nice bowl of onion soup?"

Jon is avoiding his friends because he's got some idea that in order to kill the boy and become a man and be a proper lord commander he can't just hang out with his mates any more. This seems daft enough that it's sure to come back and bite him. Why can't he just promote his friends so they can all hang out in the officers' mess? There's a lot to be said for a bit of nepotism. Instead he sends Pyp and Grenn to Eastwatch-by-the-sea.

Maester Aemon has left him a book that says the sword of light should be hot. But Stannis's sword is cold, which bothered Aemon. I have a new theory that it's the right sword, but it won't be hot until wielded by the right person. Such as someone who can get dragon eggs to hatch...

ADwD 9: Davos 141

As far as I know, Lord Manderley is going to kill Davos to get his son back, but that hasn't happened yet. Davos arrives by boat on the island of Sweetsister, having been abandoned by Salladhor Saan who is fed up because half his ships have sunk in storms in service to Stannis who does not pay his bills.

It's a bit of a dump: the lord's castle has a leaky roof and he can't afford proper lighting. Davos just wants to be sent on his way to White Harbor to have a chat with Manderley about maybe helping Stannis, but Lord Godric doesn't want to be seen to be helping Stannis. They come up with the rather obvious idea of just not mentioning that Davos was ever there.

During this conversation we learn that Stannis is pretty desperate at this point for someone, *anyone*, to bend their knee. Preferably someone with some gold. Godric also reckons Manderley's son is already dead, killed by Freys, but I seem to remember jaime rescuing him from Harenhall. Despite this, Wyman and Freys are making marriage pacts, which doesn't make much sense on the face of it. In general, if while reading ASoIaF I notice I am confused, it is a sign that I do not have complete information. Either I've forgotten it, or misread it, or GRRM hasn't told me yet.

Oh, we also learn that Jon Snow's mum is the daughter of a fisherman who gave him a lift from Sweetsister to the Eyrie to visit Jon Arryn, who he's named after. So there's that mystery solved, then. It's not the most earth-shattering revelation, though.