History Headscratchers / ASongOfIceAndFire

** Horrifically deformed? You mean, like a crippled dwarf with heterochromia? ;) Jokes aside, Ned knows that Jaime and Cersei are close (them being twins and all). Maybe their children has some trait that makes them look really similar to Jaime (remember, he and Cersei are not identical twins, since they're brother and sister) and that with the other evidence makes Ned draw the right conclusion. Also, any civilization that knows how to breed animal knows about dominant and recessive traits. They don't have to know about genes to know about breeding.

** That's not a sufficient answer. (I'm not the original question-asking-person--what do you call that, by the way?) Carrier pigeons are raised in the location they fly to, and only fly to that one location. They need to be carried by someone else to wherever they're going to leave from. The possibilities for the ravens are: A. One fixed route; B. Two or more fixed routes; or C. The ability to synthesize new routes. Evidence for A would be the two cages of ravens that Sam releases-- the Shadow Tower cage and the Castle Black cage. That indicates that the ravens function like homing pigeons. Then again, when Stannis is going all-out on his propaganda, he sends out 117 ravens everywhere, without duplicates (if there were duplicates, then it would be only fifty-eight and one half destinations, and in that case, there would be significantly less thorough coverage than Stannis wants). Whereas when Tyrion sends a letter to Dorne, it doesn't raise any alarms that he wants it sent by two ravens, and Pycelle doesn't object that they don't have two Sunspear ravens (not that he actually sends them both out, but...), indicating that either the Red Keep is more amply provisioned than Dragonstone (quite plausible) or the ravens can be directed to go different places. (Or that Stannis doesn't want to waste birds in case he needs to send more messages.) The only thing that I would think indicates that the ravens can synthesize new routes is the white ravens. They are said to be more intelligent than ordinary ravens, though. Intelligent enough to read maps? Maybe not. But maybe they follow an ordinary raven, and that part's not mentioned.
** The [[BuffySpeak original question-asking-person]] is usually called the original poster or OP, FYI (at least on most sites/boards). As to the matter at hand, I think we're just meant to take it that these ravens are smarter than the average bird (perhaps something like dog-smart or maybe even dolphin-smart). The fact that they can learn to recite a few words, which real-world ravens cannot do, may be meant to showcase this. They even seem to be aware of what the words mean on a basic level, such as Mormont's raven begging for corn, or Sam's ravens saying "Snow" before a snowstorm (could be wrong about that one). Of course, what would be involved in training and using such birds is beyond me.

** If Joffrey is killed before his wedding night with Lyssa, then Lyssa can still plausibly claim to be a virgin, thus retaining a lot more of her marriageability than she would if the wedding night was allowed to happen first.

** Joff's true nature was not really that well known to Ned, either. He was clearly a spoiled little brat but most of the damage he was causing while still a prince was through his "enablers" (e.g. Cersei demanding Lady's pelt and the Hound running down Michah). Also keep in mind that Renly wasn't offering this plan as a way to prevent Joff from ascending but rather to keep Cersei and the Lannisters in check, implying he had another agenda. We later find out that agenda and Ned would certainly have balked the moment Renly made it clear he intended to usurp.

* In ''A Game of Thrones'', a group of mostly experienced rangers of the Night's Watch (including officers), find two bodies in the woods in a very strange state of non-decay: their hair pulls out easily and is brittle, their skin is milk-white, they have dried blood on their wounds and even in their veins (these are described as looking like "iron worms" and the blood as black dust.) [[UpToEleven Oh, and their eyes are blue now although they didn't used to be.]] But they are not rotting. This group containing experienced fighters and, presumably, hunters (all nobles hunted), notices ''only that last fact'' and stands around saying the men must have been recently killed, rather than being [[UncannyValley royally creeped out by the weird symptoms,]] and it is Samwell Tarly the wimp who shows his smarts by pointing these out, complete with a detailed description of the different stages of blood drying, which he knows from watching his father gut deer. Way to go Samwell and all, but seriously, does George R. R. Martin (who normally gives us so much realism) really believe that only geeks notice things? Hunters and fighters who don't notice things get killed.

** To answer the original question: because it's a feudal system. Functionally, it isn't "in the hands of the throne itself" unless you decide to park the throne on it and govern directly. By the conventions of the land, removing the Freys and placing a new vassel to control the Twins just means that you've got exactly the same situation, except the names are different. For all the effort it takes, you might as well leave the Freys so long as they are loyal because otherwise, unless you wipe them out comletely, you're going to create unnecessary aristocratic tensions between the Freys and the new guys for generations (like what happened in the Reach, which was much more relevent to control because it was a breadbasket, ''and'' because the original owners didn't yield).

** I think the definition of a King would basically be someone who doesn't have a liege Lord. The ruler of Dorne could have kept the title as Prince is a more ambiguous term. As for Renly saying he will allow Robb to keep the title King in the North, Renly isn't a particularly thoughtful person and just wants to do what he can to usurp rule of the Seven Kingdoms. Also, Aegon had done what the other rulers of the Seven Kingdoms had done. If you look at the history of Westeros, such as in the days of the Hundred Kingdoms, you'll see that many Kings were forced to submit to other Kings and became Lords, eventually forming the Seven Kingdoms. Aegon then conquered six of them and did the same thing, making the Kings into Lords Paramount or setting up new LPs.

* I don't think I've ever fully understood knighthoods in Westeros. It's clear that the position has religious dimensions (Dany first sees Ser Jorah, Illyrio describes him as having been "Anointed with the Seven Oils by the High Septon himself"). Luwin tells Bran, "To be a knight you must stand your vigil in a sept, and be anointed with seven oils to consecrate your vows. In the north, only a few of the great houses worship the Seven. The rest honor the old gods, and name no knights" Yet he still estimates 300 knights in the host that Robb rides south with, which seems a lot, considering, but perhaps the Seven have more sway in some parts of the North than others. But how would a man like Rodrik Cassel (from Winterfell, where there are a apparently so few followers of the Seven that Ned built a small sept specifically for Catelyn) end up being a ser?

** You're wrong, actually. They accept male children when they're very young, for example: Mance Rayder and Qhorin Halfhand. But I understand if you missed that fact, they're completely unimportant characters who have no baring on the story.
*** This is not a page meant for snide remarks.

* Okay, so, in book three we find out that Littlefinger arranged for 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, so Ned's marriage vows would be anulled, making Cat single. But, in ADWD, Cersei mentions that, even before the whole beheading thing, he'd asked her if he could 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 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 he was asking for Sansa at some point in the future. Like, when she's not a child.

* Fuedal Europe had a formal Noble hierarchy that was codified with multiple Noble titles (such as Baron, Count/Earl, Marquis/Margrave, Duke), each with their own role and level of prestige, yet in Westeros the hundreds of Houses only have the title of Lord; the one exception being the Martels of Dorne who use Prince. Westeros absolutely does have a hierarchy of Houses, but to me it's very strange that Tywin Lannister would have the same title as Varys or Rickard Karstark. Anyone have any idea why GRRM decided to eschew a system of multiple titles in favor of just one?
** Yes, I believe Martin has commented on this to say that he initially chose it for simplicity's sake and for the ease of understanding of his intended audience (Americans, since we don't know a baron from a marquess but we can wrap our heads around lords vs. kings). He has also gone on to say that he ultimately came to regret this decision especially when it comes to the distinction between a "great lord" (e.g. Ned, Tywin) as opposed to a "small lord" (e.g. Littlefinger, Roose Bolton). The hierarchy itself seems to be much simplified, too, where in Westeros you just have landed knight (guy with lands but no vassals), small lord (guy with lands and vassals but no "sub-lords"), great lord (guy with lands and vassals that include one or more small lords among them) and king (guy to whom the great lords report).

* Joffrey is shown as being uncontrollable by the small council and Cersei, and Tywin sends Tyrion to be the King's Hand for him and rein Joffrey in. When Joffrey has Eddard Stark executed, wouldn't it have been a smart move for Robb to send a message to Joffrey challenging him to single combat? It seems to me that Joffrey has such bad judgement and is so quick to anger that he would accept. Granted Cersei would probably try to sabotage it so Robb loses...

** It occured to me that the Baratheon Kingsguard's main duty was to protect Cersei and the children, not necessarily Robert himself. He constantly wants/tries to do activities that could be lethal for him given (or because of) his physical shape, yet he never really has them around for safety reasons. Actually it seems even like both Cersei and Robert are content with this arrangement as she's paranoid about protection and he thinks he can handle himself. It would also be safe to assume that he trusted actual Baratheon bannermen more than anyone that could even have the slightest connection to the Lannisters.

* Why didn't Littlefinger help the Starks win the war? After all, he wanted Catelyn Stark as his wife. It seems to me that there was a lot he might have done to help the Starks defeat the Lannisters, and he could have negotiated for Catelyn's hand in marriage as his price. I suppose that if Catelyn and Robb were aware that he had betrayed Ned, that would have prevented any such deal, but it's not clear to me that that was common knowledge.

* What did Littlefinger have against the Lannisters? It seems to me that he aimed to hurt them just as much as he did with the Starks and Tullys, even considering that they were just mere accessories to his plans to exploit. Was it because of his witnessing of their treatment of Sansa?

** Sure, I know they trust him, but that still doesn't explain why Tywin wouldn't try to give his own family another kingdom instead of handing it over to a lackey (besides, if they trusted him, would they really be that worried about him betraying them just because they didn't give him an entire ''kingdom''?). Seems to me that if they really trusted him, they should have assumed he would have been content with a castle (or a few castles, for forging the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, if he complained that Harrenhal wasn't enough), especially considering his low birth (pretty much any castle would be better in comparison to his own holdings, I would think). It just seems like Tywin wasted a great opportunity to expand his family's influence just to give what he saw as a loyal crony an unreasonably large reward and indirectly humiliating his sister's family - let's remember Tywin resented how Genna was married to a Frey who would be unlikely to inherit anything. Well, here was the perfect opportunity to give her something big and important to compensate for their father's blunder.

** I understand the value of Valyrian Steel swords, which is part of why I feel it would have been more important to leave it behind. So long as Ned's acting as Hand of the King, Robb is the defacto Lord of Winterfell, even if Ned still has that title. Given the symbolic purposes of the blade, it seems to me that it would be better to leave it with Robb to further legitimize his authority in the North while Ned's away.

** All the below have failed to mention the real reason Robb let Catelyn off the hook: Robb used his mother's mistake to his own personal advantage. When she sees Robb next, he has already married Jeyne Westerling, thus breaking the marriage pact to the Freys that Catelyn had been ordered to broker for him. He knew she would be furious with him, but he also knew that she would be afraid of how he would react to her releasing Jamie. In front of his bannerman, where they can't speak frankly (e.g., he praises Edmure's "folly of the fords" in front of the other high lords), he mentions more than once that he understands why his mother did it. "''You freed him without my knowledge or consent . . . but what you did, I know you did for love. For Arya and Sansa, and out of grief for Bran and Rickon. Love’s not always wise, I’ve learned. It can lead us to great folly, but we follow our hearts . . . wherever they take us. Don’t we, Mother?''” He gets her to agree with these statements and lets her know that he is not angry with her... and then turns the tables on her by introducing Jeyne Westerling as his lady wife. Catelyn even realizes that he just played her like a fiddle: "''Follies done for love? He has bagged me neat as a hare in a snare. I seem to have already forgiven him.'' Mixed with her annoyance was a rueful admiration; the scene had been staged with the cunning worthy of a master mummer . . . or a king." ~~~~
** Which is why a percentage of his army left him. It's a plot point. -wedekit

* I need to know this: Exactly how long has the war been going on? The official faq is saying that it has been going on for about 2 years by the time the war starts and the Red Wedding happens. However, I have recently been rereading A Storm of Swords, and in an Arya chapter she says that she made her first kill (the kid who was trying to capture her when she escaped while her father was being captured, meaning right at the beginning of the war) when she was eight. But then, there is another chapter where she is questioned on her age, and she claims she is twelve. Can someone explain this to me?

[[folder: Why didn't Ned tell Robert about Cersei & Jaime?]]

* In ''A Game of Thrones'', a group of mostly experienced rangers of the Night's Watch (including officers), find two bodies in the woods in a very strange state of non-decay: their hair pulls out easily and is brittle, their skin is milk-white, they have dried blood on their wounds and even in their veins (these are described as looking like "iron worms" and the blood as black dust.) [[UpToEleven Oh, and their eyes are blue now although they didn't used to be.]] But they are not rotting. This group containing experienced fighters and, presumably, hunters (all nobles hunted), notices ''only that last fact'' and stands around saying the men must have been recently killed, rather than being [[UncannyValley royally creeped out by the weird symptoms,]] and it is Samwell Tarly the wimp who shows his smarts by pointing these out, complete with a detailed description of the different stages of blood drying, which he knows from watching his father gut deer. Way to go Samwell and all, but seriously, does George R. R. Martin (who normally gives us so much realism) really believe that only geeks notice things? Hunters & fighters who don't notice things get killed.

* Something I read on the character page stuck me: Jaime frets a lot about his [[ShootTheDog killing of Aerys]], but one of his very first actions in the series is to try to kill an 8 year old boy. Now, I'm pretty sure, if it was brought up in the series now, [[CharacterDevelopment he'd rightly feel like crap]], but the fact he's cut up more over killing a batshit-crazy king than an innocent kid (well, ''attempted'' killing, but still) is a bit odd. What do other tropers reckon? Maybe the fact everyone keeps going on about Aerys? I dunno...

** Though it's worth noting that Tyrion didn't hesitate to send a special force team (an assassin, a lockbreaker & a mummer) under cover of envoys to break out Jaime while negotiations for hostage exchange were being conducted. This is an utter violation of the neutrality & sanctity of envoys & cast doubts on whether Tyrion really intended to exchange anyone at all, swearing in open court or no. He even thinks about keeping Ser Cleon Frey ride to & fro carrying offers & counter offers to buy time for Tywin to trap the Starks between 2 hosts. Additionally, Tyrion was only an acting Hand. Whether he had the authority to return any Stark hostages without the sanction of the real Hand & Regent (Tywin), & the Queen Mother( Cersei) is debatable. Add to that the fact that no matter what Catelyn thinks, a lone retainer transporting a prisoner in secret to the enemy stronghold is hardly how a true & formal exchange of hostages is supposed to work. You need the faction heads to decide on a neutral ground, & both parties to accompany their hostages to this location simultaneously on a per-arranged date. Otherwise, it's very logical for the Lannisters to claim that either Jaime escaped or this is a sign of capitulation from a sub-faction of the Starks & thus they are under no legal bindings to release any of their own hostages.

* I have been wondering about this for a while,but just what the hell is wrong with Cersei? In a GOT she was cruel, malicious and overall a Grade-A bitch,but she seemed to be pretty intelligent and competent. Yet by the time of AFFC & ADWD she is making decisions that even a complete novice in politics would hesitate to make,and is so obsessed with Margaery that she can't think about her without feeling that the girl needs to be attended to by a headsman. Doesn't she realize that the moment Margaery dies,she and her offsprings(and likely the whole of House Lannister) is doomed?(Because from what we have seen of Mace Tyrell,I don't think he is one to accept the execution of his daughter quietly,and House Lannister is definitely not strong enough to take on the Reach and win right now).Then we find out that she was planning to have Doran Martell's son killed,which would have dashed all hopes of a Dornish alliance to bits. I realize that Joffrey's and Tywin's deaths made her paranoid,and also that she wants to hog all the power,but these moves seem to be bordering on outright lunacy.

** On top of all of that, it would kind of be a dick thing to say, "Oh, by the way, those kids you've claimed as your own are the result of your wife and her brother fucking each other stupid behind your back." Not exactly the thing you say to your best friend on his deathbed.

** It's cute that everyone wants to defend breast feeding dragons, but it's really not adding up. The only way that maesters can tell a male dragon from a female is if the dragon had been known to lay clutches of eggs. Surely if a dragon has some mechanism for nursing their young then we would have more to go on regarding their gender. Furthermore, there is no indication that dragons even parent their young. In reality, the breastfeeding was just another excuse to call attention to her naked body. Throughout all Daenerys chapters we have to read about sweat dripping between her breasts (rather than down her back or or face like a normal person), how wet she is during the night thinking about Jorah's kiss or Drogo, lesbian sex with Irri, etc. So why not call attention to the milk from her breasts too? We don't know the biology of dragons but we ''do'' know GRRM is fixated on her sexuality in his narrative.

** It helps that Ned had a very well-known crush on Ashara Dayne that pre-dated Robert's Rebellion. Folk both great and small love juicy gossip, and Mr. More-Honorable-Than-Thou being NotSoDifferent from any other randy young lordling and tragically driving a beautiful highborn maiden to suicide through his careless love is almost as juicy a story as what really (maybe) happened.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Ned Raising Jon]]
* There's a lot of discussion about genetics and looks in the books. Ned was damned lucky that Jon turned out to look like Lyanna. What was he going to do if that hadn't been the case? It would have been so obvious that he was a Targaryan and word would surely have gotten back to Robert.

** I'm not convinced that Margaery ''wasn't'' actually asking for moon tea, and then doing nothing with it, specifically to fuel Cersei's paranoia. I wouldn't put it past her to set herself up, and then get herself declared innocent as part of a plan to rid herself of Cersei. But because she was playing the long game, she couldn't account for the new High Septon being especially militant, and Loras (whom she would would clearly have chosen as her champion in her trial) running off to Dragonstone and getting himself wrecked.

** While it isn't an excuse for his actions, it should also be remembered that, on top of Jaime's belief that he, Cersei and their children would all be put to death if the truth was discovered (which we know would have probably been the case), Jaime himself was knighted at an uncommonly young age, and was fathered and raised by the man who ordered the deaths of Rhaegar's infant son and young daughter and then ''proudly'' presented their corpses to the new king as if they were some kind of trophy. While having a shitty father obviously doesn't absolve you of your own actions, a large part of who a person is is how they are brought up.

*** On top of all of that, it would kind of be a dick thing to say, "Oh, by the way, those kids you've claimed as your own are the result of your wife and her brother fuvking each other stupid behind your back." Not exactly the thing you say to your best friend on his deathbed.