History Headscratchers / ASongOfIceAndFire

* In the beginning of A Clash of Kings, we meet Maester Cressen, who serves at Dragonstone because of his old age and his bad hip the Order of Maester sent Maester Pylos to help him and take over when he croaks. So I wonder, why hasn't the same been done for Maester Aemon? Aemon is 100 years old which the Archmaesters must be aware of, which means that even if he hadn't had to go to Oldtown to escape Melisandre he was due to die sooner than later. One could say that he is in a better mental condition than Cressen so maybe there wasn't an urgent need for a replacement but he's also blind which must severely hamper his role, especially as a doctor. He does have two aides at the beginning of the story but none of them are Maesters so what was the plan for when he'd died? Did Mormont just hope that he wouldn't need a Maester for the time it would take for one to come all the way from Oldtown? I realize that Martin probably intended for Sam to become the Watch's new Maester but I feel like he could have easily introduced and killed of a character who was suposed to be Aemon's replacement? Also, in the same line of thought why didn't Jon tell Sam to ask the Archmaesters for a new Maester? Was he really thinking that the wall could make do without one for however long it will take for Sam to forge his chain despite everything going to hell in a handbasket nort of the wall?

** First of all, many lords (even from ”good” Houses like Stark or Tully) think that smallfolk essentially belong to them and they can freely sacrifice commoners' lives to achieve their goals (completely forgetting that they are obliged to protect them). Secondly, Westeros has a very militaristic culture in which making decisions that in short-term bring military benefits despite having disastrous long–term economic and social consequences are considered to be “the right thing to do” because most nobles either don’t see this consequences or think that defending your honour, taking revenge or simply not accepting enemy’s terms not to look weak is more important. Characters who don’t follow this rules are considered weak, cowardly and lack will to make “ruthless but necessary” actions and thus – unfit to rule (for example-Torrhen Stark or Doran Martell ).

* Multiple characters bemoan Edmure Tully's decision to let his smallfolk shelter in Riverrun during a siege as a blunder, as they're only "useless mouths" who will waste food, and the more sensible characters like Catelyn and the Blackfish are presented as smarter for wanting to leave them to be slaughtered by the Lannisters, and Edmure letting them in is supposed to showcase his foolish sentimentality. The thing is, protecting peasants in your castle is exactly what a medieval lord was supposed to do (it's arguably the entire point of even having castles) as

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*** Areas further South seem to experience a "long summer" (the regions near Valyria are actually named for this) and global trade seems to be secure enough for crops from this area to be regularly traded with places expeeiencing winter.

*** Most importantly, the 20+ year winter is a legendary catastrophe, not the norm. The Long Night lasted that long according to traditional accounts, but this may not even be accurate, and the Long Night nearly wiped out humanity. If a normal winter is like the Year Without A Summer following the 1815 eruption of Tambora, the Long Night would be like the Toba Catastrophe. A long winter is 5 years.

** Stannis wouldn't believe a word of that story and Theon knew it; he has a reputation as a liar and a turncoat, and any spin of "actually I didn't ''really'' commit that heinous crime" just sounds like a desperate lie to save (what's left of) his skin.

** There is no situation where Jon would "automatically" become king without being placed in a line of succession first and then inheriting the throne. He's not a contender in his own right, and if he does prove to be Dany's nephew [[spoiler:or Aegon's brother]] his claim is wholly dependent on her army and dragons winning the throne back in the first place. Marriage or co-rule is still in the cards, but no matter how much Westeros loves male-preference primogeniture, no one is going to say "Great job winning the war Dany! Now step aside for this nephew you didn't know you had because he's a boy and so his claim is better." She'd feed them to a dragon.

** Also, it may well be that Ned had help coming to that conclusion - [[spoiler: it is fairly heavily implied that a lot of House Lannister at least have suspicions (Tyrion has known for years and Kevan hints to Cersei that he does). It is even more heavily implied that Varys and Littlefinger already knew.]]

** The Lannisters can't be solely based on incest - leaving aside that they would mostly be horrifically deformed, Tyrion makes it clear that he views Cersei's and Jaime's relationship with distaste, which would make no sense if they were all incestuous. Kevan also hints that he knows to Cersei, which again would make no sense if all of them were incestuous. Also, Kevan is married to Dorna Swyft, and in [[spoiler: his fatal POV chapter before he dies, makes it clear she is the real mother of his kids and that he loves her deeply]].

* Maybe I'm just entirely missing the point, but how did [[spoiler: Arya kill the old insurer in Braavos for the Faceless Men?]] The chapter mentioned something about a cutpurse, a heart attack, and a "valar morghulis" coin...

** It isn't for us but for the God of Many Faces to decide who deserves the Gift. In aCoK, [[spoiler:Arya got her three deaths by making a direct trade with the God, from Jaqen's perspective]]. They're expensive... but not necessarily in ''gold''.

* Okay, so, in book three we find out that Littlefinger arranged for [[spoiler: Jon Arryn's death, knowing that it would bring the Starks to King's Landing and, once they were there, subtly led Ned to discovering the whole {{Twincest}} thing, then played off his HonorBeforeReason tendencies so he'd get himself arrested and sent to the Wall]]. Of course, this didn't work out exactly how he planned. However, the going theory is that he did this, at least in part, [[spoiler: so Ned's marriage vows would be anulled, making Cat single.]] But, in ADWD, Cersei mentions that, even before the whole [[spoiler: beheading]] thing, he'd asked her if he could [[spoiler: marry Sansa Stark, his ReplacementGoldfish. So had he given up on Cat already? Did he view Sansa as an equal, if not superior, substitute, and only kept after Ned out of revenge? Or did the whole StalkerWithACrush thing not factor in at all, and it was just convenient that the Starks were caught up in it?]] Pretty minor, but it occurred to me the other day and has been bugging me since then.
** This occurred to me too, except my bone to pick with it was that it was a very stupid action in Petyr's part and he is not stupid. Not only does it not make any sense re:his love/obsession with Catelyn but it declares his hand to Cersei and by extension the other Lannisters way too early. At that point [[spoiler:he hadn't gained any social standing at all and Sansa has just turned twelve. And surely Cersei would have suspected Petyr when Sansa vanished from King's Landing?]] I view this as a bad RetCon. I can't fit it into canon at all. However, when Petyr is demanding a large but unspecified reward for recruiting that Tyrells at a council meeting in A Clash Of Kings, I now think [[spoiler:he was asking for Sansa at some point in the future. Like, when she's not a child.]]
** OP here. Maybe the fan-theory that his plan was to get Ned sent to the wall is wrong. My guess now is that he was exclusively after revenge. He had no designs to win Cat; he wanted to take everything away from her, and all the Starks. Which also explains why he didn't try to stop or appear to react to [[spoiler: her death]]. When he saw Sansa, he saw her as a second chance, a way to get the girl, except he'd be getting a version of the girl who hadn't scorned him. So, in summary, my new theory: Littlefinger hates Adult!Catelyn, but he's still in love with Child!Catelyn, and looks at Sansa as a kind of reincarnation of that. [[{{Squick}} Yeah, I know.]]
** This theory holds a lot of water, but it still needs to be proved. My impression is that Petyr's an opportunist who has already shown readers that, often, he'll take what he can get and make it work. I think he viewed [[spoiler:Sansa as an equal substitute for Cat, especially since he's already eyeing her up earlier in the book. Notably, Sansa would have, at that point, been a gateway to less prestige, given her position at court (agree: stupid). It would also be disadvantageous given the necessity of eliminating the other Starks before he could get a political payoff from her (which gives water to the "abandoning Cat" theory).]] [[{{SarcasmMode}} Or maybe it's really just true love.]]

** He intended to [[spoiler: send Ned to the Wall and marry Sansa. However when Cersei denied him Sansa's hand, he got pissed off and convinced Joffrey to execute Ned, thus throwing the Lannisters into a war with the Starks and Tullys whose Houses he already hated.]]

** To expand on that: look at what happened to Lysa Arryn. She was presumably fertile in her teens, when she [[spoiler:slept with Littlefinger and was given tansy to induce an abortion]]. Afterwards, she suffered repeated miscarriages, and the one child she did bring to term was weak and sickly. There's no reason to assume Jon Arryn had any unusual genetic defects, and Lysa's sister had five healthy babies, so the most likely explanation is that what happened to Lysa affected her ability to bear children. Since having healthy children is a key to social status for Westerosi noblewomen, it would be VERY risky to do anything that might endanger that. So most women don't make the choice that [[spoiler:Hoster Tully forced on Lysa]], even given the opportunity.

* Maester Pycelle said he [[spoiler:poisoned Jon Arryn with Tears of Lys]] because it seemed clear to him the Cersei wanted him to. Then Lysa admitted that she did the exact same thing so she could be with Petyr (whose idea it was in the first place.) Did they both do it, unknowing of the other, for separate reasons? Was Petyr acting on Cersei's orders, and Pycelle just happened to pick up on it as well? Did GRRM make a mistake, or I just read something wrong?

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* Why does Stannis bother with having Courtnay Penrose killed by Melisandre? If he needs to have Robert's bastard to prove the incest, then wouldn't it be a lot easier to just tell Courtnay as opposed to besieging the castle and taking a hit to his own health in order to have it done?

** Stannis and Melisandre wanted Edric as a HumanSacrifice to call forth a dragon, as he had the blood of the king. Courtnay wouldn't have known that, but he clearly suspected Stannis' motives, and wasn't prepared to trust him.

** The explanation could be actually quite mundane: 1) Stannis does use black magic, but he isn't the type who just straight up lies and 2) he just became the rightful lord of the Stormlands and shouldn't need to explain to his castellan why he wants to see his own nephew nor ask for permission to enter his own castle. Besides, Courtnay would have called BS right away anyway, since Shireen is a half Florent herself just like Edric so she could have been used for the same purpose.

** Just guessing here, but while killing [[spoiler:Robb]] did have an effect, killing Joffrey and Balon just led to other people stepping up to take their place. Maybe she thinks that will only happen again?

** Another point from later books, about the purpose of the Wall: [[spoiler:a 700-foot-high, 100-league-long wall is not what you build when you want to keep out a few tribes of raiders.]]

** Well, the Starks are known to have almost gone extinct as a family name on the century before the start of the series, when the only living Starks were women. One could assume one of these Stark women had her husband take her surname (instead of the other way around, as is usual) in order to continue the legacy, while the others didn't, so the family was extremely reduced in numbers, and is just now recovering [[spoiler:(or would be, if this wasn't ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', where major characters die like flies). As of now, the family may be heading to a similar bottleneck, with Robb dead and Bran probably incapable of reproduction. Only Rickon, Jon (if he's alive and gets legitimised) and the females are left]].

** Mass extinguishing of houses is not unheard of; consider that Balon Greyjoy himself lost five brothers (Harlon, Quenton, Donel, Urrigon and Robin) and two sons (Rodrik and Maron). His surviving brothers themselves have not had any issue to add to the family nor are in route to do so anytime soon (though them being who they are and considering the Iron Law, they must have had numerous salt wives and bastard kids by the truckload); Theon is most certainly [[spoiler: castrated]] and Asha is not on the track of maternity, so one can say that the line is close to being extinguished if someone doesn't do something soon.

* There has been long talk about the identity of Coldhands, and it's greatly speculated that he might be an undead Benjen Stark. This is a very good theory, except from the fact that [[spoiler: the Children of the Forest refer to his state as being dead a long time ago]]. Considering that they can live for hundreds of years, the two years that Benjen has been missing/dead would not be a ''long time'' for a Child of the Forest. As such, who is a suitable candidate for the identity of Coldhands? My money is on someone from between the days of Aegon the Conqueror (age 1) and the Dunk and Egg stories (80-something years before ASOIAF).

* What were Robert's relations with Tyrion like? I've only seen the show but don't mind spoilers from the books.

** They actually think that they can control him. Tywin seems to have a tendency to overlook people who aren't born great lords, Cersei vastly overestimates how much power she has over anyone, Kevan is a follower, Pycelle's hardly incompetent at plotting but he's not a genius either and Genna isn't around to point out the dangers. Varys and Tyrion are probably two of the very few who have a sense of Littlefinger's real nature and Tyrion's lost all power by this point while Varys has his own angle. [[spoiler: Weakening the Lannister monarchy even further for Aegon VI]]. And Harrenhal's reputation for being cursed and under the control of enemies at the time would make it a pretty minor reward. Or if you mean the stated reason why Tywin gave him it, Petyr's work in creating the Lannister-Tyrell alliance.

** Actually Show!Stannis had a point in that regard. Long before he actually took action he made sure that he "let no man claim ignorance".

** Even if you consider mental suffering to be 'a bad way of punishing your characters', Daenerys has also been maimed following a bad decision. Her naivete in trusting a witch to bring back Drogo has left her sterile following the stillbirth of a half-human half-reptile baby. Even if she finds a way to have children, she's not unique in 'undoing' the physical punishment for her actions (ie. Jon Snow [[spoiler: getting brought back from the dead]]).

* While it is known that Lysa sent her warning message to Catelyn at Winterfell, the message itself was placed in Maester Luwin's quarters. Of the known characters in the King's party (if possible), who could have sneaked the message to Luwin's quarters unnoticed? Did Lysa [[spoiler:or Littlefinger]] have any creatures of theirs within the known characters at that moment? For that matter, could have Luwin (a Tully creature) made up that someone sneaked into his quarters, considering that he used to be a Maester at Riverrun when Robb was born?
** Everything seen about Luwin has always suggested that he's been loyal to the lord he's assigned to, nothing more and there doesn't seem to be much suggesting that he has special loyalties to the Tully's (or that he would have reason to lie about the origin of the message). In any case the details of the message, being hidden in a false bottom of a box hinted at by a lens sounds like something [[spoiler: Littlefinger would mastermind and have Lysa carry out]]. As for exactly who, there were three hundred people in Robert's party. Any one of them could have been used.

** It also works as another layer of commentary, as, for example, Sen Bonifer Hasty ("the Good") has all the men under his command ride geldings instead of stallions. Presumably he noticed that they are easier to discipline than stallions. At the same time, he accepts little plundering and no rapes from the men under his command--their reputation is so sterling that people joke he gelds his men as well as his horses, ''as if not raping people is something unmanly''.

** First: They actually are taught by household maesters. Second: Distance, westeros is a continent the size of South America with medieval level technology. Traveling there would be a pain for house at the edge of the reach, let alone well off or great house like Manderly and Stark who would have to travel thousands of miles to get to the Citidel. Which feeds into the next point. The of sending nobility off and paying for not just the education but their lodging, transportation, and making sure the money actually gets to where its going. Would be absurdly difficult for even the great houses and a nightmare to well off houses to outright impossible to lesser nobility and middling nobility. Fourth: The time it takes to send a heir off and learn means their could be little time for them to actually know how to govern the lands they inherit. The reason noble house have a maester on staff aside form medicinal purposes is to educate their children. The real question is honestly why is the Citidel the only place of learning and study in westeroes.