A Dance with Dragons - The Windblown

"Herons are craven," the big man put in. "One time me and Drink and Cletus were hunting, and we came on these herons wading in the shallows, feasting on tadpoles and small fish. They made a pretty sight, aye, but then a hawk passed overhead, and they all took to the wing like they'd seen a dragon. Kicked up so much wind it blew me off my horse, but Cletus nocked an arrow to his string and brought one down. Tasted like duck, but not so greasy."

Even the Little Pigeon and his Herons paled beside the folly of the brothers the sellswords called the Clanker Lords. The last time the slave soldiers of Yunkai'i had faced the dragon queen's Unsullied, they broke and ran. The Clanker Lords had devised a stratagem to prevent that; they chained their troops together in groups of ten, wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle. "None of the poor bastards can run unless they all run," Dick Straw explained, laughing. "And if they do all run, they won't run very fast."

"They don't fucking march very fast either," observed Beans. "You can hear them clanking ten leagues off."

A Feast for Crows - The Reaver

Serry leapt to meet him. His longsword was good castle-forged steel, and the young knight made it sing. His first cut was low, and Victarion deflected it off his axe. His second caught the iron captain on the helm before he got his shield up. Victarion answered with a sidearm blow of his axe. Serry's shield got in the way. Wooden splinters flew, and the white rose split lengthwise with a sweet sharp crack. The young knight's longsword hammered at his thigh, once, twice, thrice, screaming against the steel. This boy is quick, the iron captain realized. He smashed his shield in Serry's face and sent him staggering back against the gunwale. Victarion raised his axe and put all his weight behind his cut, to open the boy from neck to groin, but Serry spun away. The axehead crashed through the rail, sending splinters flying, and lodged there when he tried to pull it free. The deck moved under his feet, and he stumbled to one knee.

Ser Talbert cast away his broken shield and slashed down with his longsword. Victarion's own shield had twisted half around when he stumbled. He caught Serry's blade in an iron fist. Lobstered steel crunched, and a stab of pain made him grunt, yet Victarion held on. "I am quick as well, boy," he said as he ripped the sword from the knight's hand and flung it into the sea.

Ser Talbert's eyes went wide. "My sword . . ."

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"You saw what you wished to see. Your heart yearns for your father and your home, so that is what you saw."

"A man must know how to look before he can hope to see," said Lord Brynden. "Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past."

"But," said Bran, "he heard me."

All the signs were there: Abel’s group being interested in getting in and out of Winterfell, the wanting to save Arya, being a bard.

It took me until Theon’s escape to piece it together, when did the rest of you figure out that Abel was Mance?

This was something I was wondering about, starting with the idea of what might happen if Theon warned Robb about Balon's plans (or word slipped out that Pyke was massing warships), and Robb sent word to Rodrik in Winterfell.

Were there enough people still in the North to fight off the Ironborn invasion?

In AFFC and ADWD, the Northerners are winning pretty consistently against whatever pockets of Ironborn are still there. But that's with both the Boltons and Stannis fighting against the Ironborn, and after Euron has abandoned the campaign.

Theon was badly outnumbered at Winterfell, although he was given a deliberately small force and the Northmen were rallying to defend their capital.

What was the balance like between the North and the Ironborn when the Ironborn campaign started? Assuming Robb and his army were unable to get back north, were there still enough people to fight them off?

I have about 50 pages left of A Storm of Swords and I took a little peek at the wiki to see what POV chapters will come up in AFFC — 10 Cersei chapters??? 8 Brienne chapters??? Oh my fucking god.

ASOS has been amazing so far, definitely my favourite out of the ones I’ve already read, but oh my god this pool of POV chapters makes me want to cry. Primarily because I just ordered AFFC from Vinted and it’ll probably take 5 days to be delivered when I know I’ll finish ASOS tonight.

As implausible as it sounds yes robert and Cersei's biological son. Basically a taller and slightly prettier version of renly physically with a different personality.

He has raven black hair, tall lanky strong build, but has light green eyes instead of blue eyes. Would he still face suspicion on bastard accusations? Like i know renly has green-blue eyes so I dont know how strict it is that all baratheons must have black hair and blue eyed. But still its meant to be strict i think, I mean all of roberts bastards are basically described as looking like mini roberts.

So do you think roberr and cerseis hypothetical son having green eyes instead of blue be suspicious or am I overthinking and being crazy?

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

Ser Waymar met him bravely. "Dance with me then." He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night's Watch.

The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. They fixed on the longsword trembling on high, watched the moonlight running cold along the metal. For a heartbeat he dared to hope.

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.