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Started reading
January 14, 2024
In some of the rooms the red stone walls would seem to drip blood, and nowhere could she find a window. Sometimes she would hear her father’s voice, but always from a long way off, and no matter how hard she ran after it, it would grow fainter and fainter, until it faded to nothing and Arya was alone in the dark.
“If one Hand can die, why not a second?” replied the man with the accent and the forked yellow beard. “You have danced the dance before, my friend.” He was no one Arya had ever seen before, she was certain of it. Grossly fat, yet he seemed to walk lightly, carrying his weight on the balls of his feet as a water dancer might. His rings glimmered in the torchlight, red-gold and pale silver, crusted with rubies, sapphires, slitted yellow tiger eyes. Every finger wore a ring; some had two.
“On Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men,” Grand Maester Pycelle offered.
“Do you have any idea how costly they are?” Littlefinger complained. “You could hire an army of common sellswords for half the price, and that’s for a merchant. I don’t dare think what they might ask for a princess.”
Littlefinger shrugged. “Titles are cheap. The Faceless Men are expensive.
“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
Every man who fought beneath the dragon banner or rose with Balon Greyjoy will have good cause to fear. Seat Stannis on the Iron Throne and I promise you, the realm will bleed.
Make your peace with the Lannisters. Release the Imp. Wed Joffrey to your Sansa. Wed your younger girl to Prince Tommen, and your heir to Myrcella. It will be four years before Joffrey comes of age.
Then, should Joffrey prove troublesome, we can reveal his little secret and put Lord Renly on the throne.”
This is a perilous hour for all of us. Robert has named me Protector, true enough, but in the eyes of the world, Joffrey is still his son and heir. The queen has a dozen knights and a hundred men-at-arms who will do whatever she commands … enough to overwhelm what remains of my own household guard.
“Why would you forsake the gods of your father and your House?” wondered Ser Jaremy Rykker. “The Night’s Watch is my House now,” Sam said. “The Seven have never answered my prayers. Perhaps the old gods will.”
They had ridden past the end of the world; somehow that changed everything.
“Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow,” they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. “Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights
...more
And suddenly Ghost was back, stalking softly between two weirwoods. White fur and red eyes, Jon realized, disquieted. Like the trees …
Opening your eyes is all that is needing. The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth.”
she could feel Littlefinger staring. Something about the way the small man looked at her made Sansa feel as though she had no clothes on.
the mailed fist of the Glovers, silver on scarlet; Lady Mormont’s black bear; the hideous flayed man that went before Roose Bolton of the Dreadfort; a bull moose for the Hornwoods; a battle-axe for the Cerwyns; three sentinel trees for the Tallharts; and the fearsome sigil of House Umber, a roaring giant in shattered chains.
“My … queen,” Ser Jorah said, going to one knee. “My sword that was his is yours, Daenerys. And my heart as well, that never belonged to your brother.
Lommy had named him the Bull, on account of this horned helm he had that he polished all the time but never wore.
He was older, and big for his age, with a broad chest and strong-looking arms.
Cersei could smell weakness the way a dog smells fear.
“Be gentle, Cersei, I’m only jesting with you. If truth be told, I’d sooner have a nice whore. I never understood what Jaime saw in you, apart from his own reflection.” She slapped him.
“May I leave you with a bit of a riddle, Lord Tyrion?” He did not wait for an answer. “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?”
“She says there’s this great pack, hundreds of them, mankillers. The one that leads them is a she-wolf, a bitch from the seventh hell.”
“So he was. His father’s father was Daeron Targaryen, the Second of His Name, who brought Dorne into the realm. Part of the pact was that he wed a Dornish princess. She gave him four sons. Aemon’s father Maekar was the youngest of those, and Aemon was his third son. Mind you, all this happened long before I was born, ancient as Smallwood would make me.” “Maester Aemon was named for the Dragonknight.” “So he was. Some say Prince Aemon was King Daeron’s true father, not Aegon the Unworthy. Be that as it may, our Aemon lacked the Dragonknight’s martial nature.
“That thing’s not crimson,” Ser Brynden said. “Nor Tully red, the mud red of the river. That’s blood up there, child, smeared across the sky.”
Every child of the Trident knew the tales told of Harrenhal, the vast fortress that King Harren the Black had raised beside the waters of Gods Eye three hundred years past, when the Seven Kingdoms had been seven kingdoms,
And when at last Harrenhal stood complete, on the very day King Harren took up residence, Aegon the Conqueror had come ashore at King’s Landing.
“And King Harren learned that thick walls and high towers are small use against dragons,” the tale always ended. “For dragons fly.”
Strong it might be, but it was a dark place, and cursed.
“Why are you so helpful, my lord Varys?” he asked, studying the man’s soft hands, the bald powdered face, the slimy little smile.
“Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or … another?”
Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
The one-armed woman died at evenfall. Gendry and Cutjack dug her grave on a hillside beneath a weeping willow. When the wind blew, Arya thought she could hear the long trailing branches whispering, “Please. Please. Please.” The little hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she almost ran from the graveside.
The morning air was dark with the smoke of burning gods.
cherrywood for the scabbards, bound in red leather and ornamented with a row of lion’s-head studs in pure gold. Perhaps with garnets for the eyes …” “Rubies,” Lord Tywin said. “Garnets lack the fire.”
Hes planning the red wedding here
If you do shit gold, Father, find a privy and get busy, he wanted to say, but he knew better.
Kinda like a foreshadow of him killng him on the toilet later
“Women,” he complained. “The way they wail … I had me a fat sow once birthed a litter of eight with no more’n a grunt.”
Very sad how Craster compares women, his wives and daughters to literal pigs..... Showing of his character
“A godly man got no cause to fear such. I said as much to that Mance Rayder once, when he come sniffing round. He never listened, no more’n you crows with your swords and your bloody fires. That won’t help you none when the white cold comes. Only the gods will help you then. You best get right with the gods.”
Sometimes I think everyone is just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending is how you get brave, I don’t know.
His breathing was very shallow now, his voice a whisper. “Tell my son. Jorah. Tell him, take the black. My wish. Dying wish.”
If only they added this in the show...
“Tell Jorah. Forgive him. My son. Please. Go.”
Again, if only this was also in the show
The shifting flames painted Sandor Clegane’s burned face with orange shadows, so he looked even more terrible than he did in daylight.
Another great example of show don't tell
“Any knight can make a knight,” said the scarecrow that was Beric Dondarrion, “and every man you see before you has felt a sword upon his shoulder. We are the forgotten fellowship.”
“A knight’s a sword with a horse. The rest, the vows and the sacred oils and the lady’s favors, they’re silk ribbons tied round the sword. Maybe the sword’s prettier with ribbons hanging off it, but it will kill you just as dead.
If there were gods, why didn’t Lord Beric win? She knew the Hound was guilty. “Please,” Sandor Clegane rasped, cradling his arm. “I’m burned. Help me. Someone. Help me.” He was crying. “Please.” Arya looked at him in astonishment. He’s crying like a little baby, she thought.
