ASoS 42: Daenerys 571

Dany is preparing to attack the city of Yunkai, presumably another city along the route to Westeros. She is a teenage girl with a cause, and is persuing it with the dedication that only a teenage girl with an army can. Not content with becoming a vegetarian, Dany is going to abolish slavery!

Yunkai is defended by mercenaries and slaves. She has a chat with the leaders of the mercenaries and wins them over. After that the battle is won easily. She did hurt Jorah's feelings a bit too much in the process; I wonder when that will come back to bite her?

Also, everything is going *extremely* well for Dany. She's gone from wandering in the desert with a rag tag band of nomads, to conquering two cities. It's all since this red comet flew past. Dany's god is definitely winning the god fight.

All the freed slaves are very thankful to Dany and want to call her Mother. I have a feeling this could cause her some problems later. How will they all be fed?

ASoS 41: Jon 556

Jon and the Wildlings have crossed the wall and are traipsing through the countryside to the south of it and they stumble upon... well blow me down with a feather if it isn't the very village Bran and friends are holed up in. This is exciting!

Somehow Jon has not yet gone full native and is still trying to figure out a way of escaping from the Wildlings even though he's sad it will mean some of them will die. And he wants to keep Ygritte even though she's a bit annoying and keeps telling him he knows nothing.

Jon sits by the lake and wonders whether he should swim out to the holdfast, and for a moment I imagine that he will meet Bran, have a lovely family reunion, explain everything and either take off with Bran (and Ygritte will understand and go with him) or at least send him on his way with a message for for Castle Black.

But then he is summoned to the Magnar and ordered to kill a defenseless old man. Instead he refuses and Ygritte does it for him. She's not impressed. But then Bran's wolf turns up and starts killing everyone so Jon makes his escape. He seems to have gotten away with it with only a minor flesh wound, too.

Not sure what will become of Ygritte, now. Or what Bran will think of finding his half-brother hanging out with wildlings. But I'm sure it will be dramatic.

ASoS 40: Bran 545

What a rip-roaring adventure tale this chapter was. No complicated plot developments, no politics, no war strategy, just Bran, Jojen, Meera and Hodor, like hobbits on a journey. They cross the wasteland of The Gift of land to the watch, find an abandoned village and a holdfast on an island. Bran remembers old Nan telling him about a causeway to access it, and sure enough they cross and hold up in the tower. How did Nan know about the causeway? I bet there are some good stories about her to be told...

A storm comes. Hodor gets scared but Bran discovers he can calm him by reaching out with his powers. That will be useful. Then Jojen sees men in the village. Will they try to get in the tower? Will Bran and company be able to escape in the morning? Bran becomes Summer and it turns out that whoever the men are, they are afraid.

ASoS 39: Arya 529

Lord Beric and crew are out raiding. They find some Bloody Mummers taking some villagers hostage and fight them in a battle, and hold trials of the rest of them. Roose Bolton's septon is among them and he gets hung.

We get a bit of detail about the mechanics of how Thoros heals Beric. By breathing fire into him, apparently. Thoros was as surprised as anyone that it worked, but it gets harder each time he does it. And no, he can't revive Ned's headless corpse.

The previously released Hound turns up and asks for his gold back, then goes away again. I'm not sure what that was all about.

Arya is to be taken to Riverrun. Gendry has decided to stay behind to be Beric's blacksmith, much to her dismay. I expect she will reward him when she is on the Iron Throne, though! It also occurs to me that she isn't going to like going home all that much. A lot has changed, and her mother will probably want her to be ladylike, and she will probably get married off before long.

ASoS 38: Tyrion 517

Tyrion, Bronn and a bunch of lesser lords and knights ride out to meet visiting Dornishmen, led by Prince Oberyn, who is a bit of an arsehole. He relates a lovely tale of how he visited Kings Landing back when Aerys was still king and Tyrion had just been born and was frankly disappointed by the grieving Tywin's hospitality, and by how un-monstrous baby Tyrion turned out to be. But at least Cersei was cruel to Tyrion even then.

Anyway, Dornishmen at the wedding with Tyrells is bad enough, but the head Dornishman is a bit on the, er, provocative side, and he's disgruntled about some years old murder of his sister, too. So I've said it before and I'll say it again, it'll be the best weddin' Walford's ever 'ad!

ASoS 37: Jaime 503

Jaime and Brienne do some more bonding in the bathtub. Jaime tells her some of his secrets: that he killed Aerys not only because Aerys was the kind of guy who thought boiling people in their armour was great entertainment, but because Aerys was planning to burn Kings Landing with wildfire. Jaime watched from Aerys' side as all the secret planning was done. When Tywin showed up with an army, having finally figured out who was going to win, and therefore whose side he should be on (this is why Ned moaned way back in book 1 chapter 1 about the Lannisters turning up late for the war), and Aerys instead of surrendering told Jaime to chop off his dad's head, that was the last straw.

So Jaime chose his dad over his king, punished his king for cruelty, and saved the entire city from a fiery death. He's quite the hero. Then again this is his POV so I guess it is all coloured by his opinion of himself...

Brienne and Jaime are summoned to Roose Bolton. Bolton plans to give Harrenhal to Vargo Hoat then head back to serve Robb. But he doesn't want to incur the wrath of Tywin, who might be a bit put out by the whole chopping off of his son's hand business, which he might blame on Bolton. So he gets Jaime to agree to tell Tywin that he is a top bloke, in return he frees Jaime and gives him a decent escort home. Brienne, on the other hand, is going to be handed over to Vargo. Is Jaime going to stand for that, now that they're best buddies (he's even stopped calling her Wench)?

ASoS 36: Davos 488

Davos is fetched from his cell by Ser Axell (whose own brother Alester is also in the cell, but gets no sympathy from Axell).

Axell also thinks Davos is a traitor. He wants Davos to approve the dodgy plans he's been making with Saan (who I've said all along is a bad-un) and recommend to Stannis that he be made Hand. Or else.

Davos can't be anything but honest to his beloved king Stannis, though. He comes close to being a little too honest with a dig about Stannis' disloyalty to Aerys, who was legitimately king before Robert. But Stannis appreciates the honesty. Sensible man. He also seems to have the measure of Axell and agrees that his plan is no good.

It's a wonder, then, that he doesn't see through this Melisandre and her tricks. At least GRRM is doing a good job of making them look like cheap fortune-teller tricks. Look into the fire and tell me what you see? Really? Is she channelling Madame Trelawney? Can she also bend spoons? Then again she does seem to be able to make people die, so there's that. And the vision in the fire did rather look like the Watch on that hill. Westeros is a confusing place for a skeptic.

Anyway Stannis makes Davos the Hand. I'm not quite sure why, given that he clearly had the power to get Davos out of the dungeon, he didn't do that before. But an honest Hand ought to be a good asset. So good decision, Stannis.

And now more spells, powered by either Stannis' blood or Robert's bastard Edric Storm's (he's got the blood of a king too, see). Seems like Melisandre is going to make Joffrey, and Robb die, which will be quite an upset (and Balon Greyjoy, which will be more of a footnote). Cripes.