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.