Fanfic / A Different Weasel Makes A Difference

A Different Weasel Makes a Difference is an A Song of Ice and Fire fanfiction story by Antony444 (being their first and currently only story to be completed) where Walder Frey dies on the eve of The War of the Five Kings (or the War of the Eight Kings in this universe), with massive ripple effects. The story is told as a Scrapbook Story in-universe historical document, and gradually transitions from just a retelling of the war against the Lannisters and the Ironborn to covering the Long Night and many other conflicts outside of the Westeroes borders. The story has an epic scope where Anyone Can Die (with many people being Spared by the Adaptation while others get a Death by Adaptation), the quotes at the beginning of each chapter often provide some levity, and battles get bigger and wilder as things progress.

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Tropes:

• Anyone Can Die: Major characters like all of the Lannisters besides Myrcella and some of her minor cousins of varying degrees, Sam Tarly and his father and brother, Brienne of Tarth, Jorah Mormont, Daario, all of the Greyjoys besides Asha, Moqorro, Paxter Redwyne, Aegon, Arianne and Quentyn Martell, Beric Dondarrion, Queen Selyse, Melisandra, Qyburn, Stannis, Mance Rayder, and all but about thirty of the original Black Brothers gradually die across the course of the story, along with dozens if not hundreds of other canon characters.
• Armor of Invincibility: Euron Greygoy eventually dons black armor that is rumored to have been worn by the former Night's King. Most weapons shatter uselessly against it, though Valyrian Steel weapons can get through. It also makes him even crazier.
• Bolivian Army Ending: There are two interludes showing people reading the in-universe document centuries into the future, and the second one shows them halting their work to meet an invasion of the gradually replenished forces of surviving Others.
• Commander Contrarian: Ser Loras Tyrell in the Last Alliance. He doesn't just question every order and strategy, he also questions the honor and courage of everyone else as well.
• Deadly Distant Finale: One of the last chapters shows the surviving commanders from the war against the Others gradually dying of natural causes (with Edd Tollett, who lives to over a hundred, being the last, despite his pessimism). Most are solemn and dignified moments, although a few are played for comedy, such as Justin Massey drunkenly or deliriously saying, "I am the prettiest stallion in all of Masseica" (with Masseica being a presumably imaginary lost continent that Justin funded an unsuccessful search for and hoped to name after himself) as he dies.
• Death by Irony: Ageon Targaryen is killed by his own sword Blackfyre. This counts on multiple levels, if he was the real Aegon then a Targaryen king was killed by the sword of House Blackfyre, even if was too late to do them any good. If he was a Blackfyre pretender, then the last Blackfyre king was killed by the sword they based their right to the throne on.
• Demoted to Extra: Many important canon characters get much smaller roles. Brienne of Tarth is a particularly tragic example, as Catelyn isn't at Bitterbridge when Renly dies, so Brienne goes home rather than going into Caetlyn's service, refuses to bend her knee to Stannis after he solidifies his power base, and dies in battle while going down as a little-respected historical footnote.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: When a character dies, they rarely go out with a whimper (unless they're a character the author hates), and there are lots of characters who die, but a few moments stand out.
  • Mace Tyrell is fatally poisoned by dark magic Euron unleashes on his army, but, despite coughing up blood and having half of his body paralyzed, he dons his armor and rides out onto the battlefield to calm his panicking troops and get them to stand firm against the charging Ironborn army and inflict heavy casualties that Euron can't afford to take.
    "But for the first time in his life, the courage of the man many had named "Lord Puff-fish" could not be mocked."
    "I will have all the time to rest after today. Before that, the Reach cavalry is going to charge a last time!"-from the man himself.
  • Tyrion Lannister shoots an ice dragon with a siege weapon and is killed when its body crashes into him as he yells out "HEAR ME ROAR!"
  • After Danaerys demands his death, Jaime Lannister insists on facing Drogon the dragon the single combat with nothing but a sword rather than spend his last moments hiding. He says (or rather writes since his tongue has been torn out) that if Tyrion fought and killed a dragon, "what sort of knight and brother would I be if I refuse to face one?" He dies without harming a scale on the dragon, but his death is such a powerful moment that the Seven Who Are One choose that moment to first show themselves to their worshippers in the pyre of Jaime's destruction. In fact, it is indicated the Warrior himself personally came to collect Jamie's soul.
  • Shagga and Chella lead an attack on the Others in order to allow the Northmen and Valemen to retreat, and rack up a massive killcount despite the Mountain Clans having no dragonglass weapons. The Night Queen has to kill them herself after everything else she throws at them fails.
  • In the Battle of the Last Alliance, Stannis, Thoros of Myr, and an unknown knight each wield Lightbringer. All three die from it, but they caused terrible destruction to the White Walkers and bought humanity a chance.
• The Elites Jump Ship: While most elites stand their ground during the invasion of the White Walkers, Lord Torrent of Littlesister and his family try to abandon their lands and vassals "without a care in the world." Unfortunately for the family, a Manderly warship stops them as they try to sail to the comparatively safer Riverlands. The male members of the family are escorted back to the Three Sisters islands and placed in a particularly dangerous beachhead position to meet the approaching zombies.
• Final Battle: Different final battles for different climaxes.
  • Downplayed with The Second Battle of King's Landing/The Battle of the Four Armies. The Lannister cause is completely destroyed, and Robb achieves all of his objectives (he didn't want to conquer the entire seven kingdoms after all), so the Starks and Tullys withdraw from the rest of the war. The other factions however keep fighting, the Martells and Aegon haven't even joined yet, leading to:
  • The Battle of Highgarden (also known as the Doom of Kings) is the true final battle of the War of the Eight Kings.
  • Interestingly played with for the Long Night. The Battle of the Bloody Gate (also known as the Battle of the Last Alliance) is acknowledged as the battle that will one way or another decide the war. Humanity wins and the Night's Queen is killed...but since the Others aren't a Keystone Army that doesn't actually end the war.
  • A few days later the Others' Iceberg Fleet is destroyed, and this is dubbed 'the Last Battle' as it was the last largescale engagement between humanity and the Others.
  • Even then, reclaiming the North still needs to happen. Officially, the retaking of Last Hearth is considered the last battle of the War.
• The Good Chancellor: In addition to various canon characters like Missandei and Maester Luwin, newly elected Volantene triarch Saena Lavenyr fits this role after being Demoted to Dragon after Danaerys conquers Volantis. She shows open respect for the rights of citizens of a lower caste than her even before becoming triarch and, after the triarchy is left to run the city while Danaerys goes to fight the Others, is the only triarch to continue serving Danaerys rather than try betraying her.
• Irony
  • Dolorous Edd outlives everyone and lives to die of old age.
  • Tyrion Lannister was hated by most of his family, and widely viewed as the least of the Lannisters. He dies a heroes death fighting for all of humanity, and is eventually elevated to godhood.
• Keystone Army Zigzagged with the Others.
  • Wights need Others around them to be wights, otherwise they're just corpses. This is taken advantage of a few times.
  • The Second Battle of Winterfell suddenly ends when the Others inexplicably retreat. It is theorized that someone killed the commanding Other, causing the others to flee in panic.
  • Killing the Night's Queen is enough to break the cohesion of the Others and ensure humanity's victory, but it doesn't kill all the Others. Many survive to cause problems for humanity for years.
• The Load: Loras Tyrell takes being a Commander Contrarian to the extent that he becomes this. The text even states he becomes an outright hinderance.
• Miles Gloriosus: A few of the 'summer knights'
  • The worst part of Loras Tyrell being a Commander Contrarian is that his contributions to the War of the Eight Kings was to murder two of his brothers in the Rainbow Guard, charge straight into an obvious trap, and then spend the rest of the war in a dungeon.
  • Justin Massey is a downplayed case. He is a brave knight and competent commander, but he still has an overinflated sense of his own importance.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Euron Greyjoy. Dear God, Euron Greygoy.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Walder Frey dies before Robb Stark calls the Banners, so when Catelyn Stark has to negotiate for crossing rights at the Twins, she ends up dealing with Walder's successor, who is far less talented at negotiating. The Armies of the North cross into the Riverlands without Robb being promised to a Frey, and everything else in the story proceeds from there.
• Pretender Diss: Euron Greygoy tells Aegon "You boy, are no dragon" before killing him. If Aegon was in fact a Blackfyre pretender, this is doubled.
• Spoiler Opening: Many of the quotes the open the chapters are said to be Bond One-Liners or Famous Last Words, telling readers that certain characters will die in this chapter.
• The Unreveal: History within the story regards Aegon VI as a Blackfyre, but it is never revealed for certain. (Even in author's notes).
• Too Dumb to Live: There are few moments through the story such as...
  • Oberyn Martell. Leading Dornish troops to war when Dorne and Aegon's troops weren't prepared to conquer Westeros? Well, maybe he thought Westeros was more vulnerable than it was. Splitting the troops because Connington was being an ass? Harder to defend, but if Connington was actively putting the Dornish troops in danger with his poor leadership, that's one thing. But his actions become less and less defensible, culminating in him evicting the lord of the castle his forces were holed up in to sleep with the man's wife. Stannis captures Oberyn and his forces while the Dornish prince is having an orgy. In the final battle, Oberyn gets himself and one hundred men killed in a reckless/desperate charge against the Wall Crusher, seemingly having not realized that he lacked enough force to break through the Others' army. Even granting that the defenders needed to prevent the Wall Crusher from firing, attacking it with insufficient men got them all needlessly slaughtered. And then it fired anyway.
  • When the Others attack the Vale, Jon Snow leads an effort to burn as many of the corpses in the Vale as possible, but the Valemen object, believing the Others won't be able to raise bodies buried on consecrated ground. Jon tells them they are this. When the Others come, the Valemen turn out to be right. The Others really can't raise the dead buried on consecrated ground. But if that hadn't been the case, the Others likely would have won.
  • Daenerys tries to draw Lightbringer, but fails and is greatly weakened because she is not Azor Ahai. Undeterred by this, another seventy-nine random people try and all die horribly. It really shouldn't have taken that many failures before people stopped trying to draw it.
  • When the forces of the Vale were ordered to muster at Ronnel's Pass, Lord Lyonel Corbray refused and mustered his forces at his castle instead. He and his men didn't realize until too late that number of weapons they had that could harm an Other could be counted on hand; and they also didn't seem to realize that a dragon would have a bird's... er dragon's eye view of the battlefield and see them anywhere. Curb-Stomp Battle really doesn't begin to cover what happens next.
• Undead Author: The Scrapbook Story describes Euron Greyjoy and his newly hatched dragon’s erratic behavior on the eve of the Battle of Highgarden even though Euron's army is slaughtered to the last man during the battle. Word of God clarifies that several of Euron's soldiers desert before the battle, and the story comes from them.
• Undying Loyalty: Several leaders get this.
  • Stannis, surprisingly, actually gets this from his forces. The historical text speculates this is in part because, if nothing else, he was a good general who marched in the mud with the men and ate the same food, as opposed to feasting while they ate rations.
  • Danaerys' forces practically worship her as their savior.
  • As in canon, most of the lords of the North to House Stark. Even House Bolton is loyal this time, only Lady Dustin is disloyal. After he saves them from the Lannisters, the Riverland Lords become absolutely loyal as well.
  • Deconstructed with Brienne of Tarth. The historical text notes that while originally following Renly could perhaps be excused (though not by Stannis), continuing to follow him after he was dead and his cause abandoned by everyone else, was foolish. And it leads to her death and the destruction of her house.
• Villain Ball: Similar to canon, Tywin Lannister's pride proves to be his undoing. This is most apparent when, without defeating them first, he sends the Starks a message informing them that he has destroyed Ice and forced Sansa to marry Tyrion. This destroys any chance the Starks will accept peace, and makes Robb Stark give a single order for battle: "The West must burn".

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