I found the greatest blog post ever the other day. Actually, the post itself is pretty meh, it’s the comments that are great:
An author can kill characters: it is easy. Fooling a reader is simple–the author owns the world. But a good writer understands that plot flows from something. Marting breaks the Checkov gun corollary: if there was never a mention of something, then making it happen isn’t suprising or edgy, it is just poor plotting and writing.
Well, besides that vision in the House of the Undying, the Ghost of High’s Heart prophecy, and what was clearly established about the personalities of Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton, and Walder Frey, you mean.
The only thing I find unbelievable is that Roose, Walder, and Lothar expected Catelyn to be a Neutral Female during said events. (I’m of the opinion that they originally intended to let her live: as the widow of Ned Stark and daughter of Hoster Tully, she would have been quite valuable as a hostage and a potential marriage prospect.) Though, I suppose they didn’t know that she’d already faced off with an assassin in defense of Bran, so.
Dany found herself stealing looks at the Tyroshi when her captains came to council, and sometimes at night she remembered the way his gold tooth glittered when he smiled. That, and his eyes. His bright blue eyes. On the road from Yunkai, Daario had brought her a flower or a sprig of some plant every evening when he made his report … to help her learn the land, he said. Waspwillow, dusky roses, wild mint, lady’s lace, daggerleaf, broom, prickly ben, harpy’s gold … He tried to spare me the sight of the dead children too. He should not have done that, but he meant it kindly. And Daario Naharis made her laugh, which Ser Jorah never did. - Daenerys V, aSoS
Meant to draw Daario again :) pose is probably subconsciously inspired by the show version of the same scene…
“[One] of the floating logs they passed turned out to be a dead man, bloodless and swollen. His cloak was tangled in the roots of a fallen tree, its color unmistakably Lannister crimson.”
“Brienne was lumbering along the clifftop well ahead of them, having cut across a finger of land while they were following the bend in the river. She threw herself off the rock, and looked almost graceful as she folded into a dive.”
Brienne (and Cleos) and Jaime’s adventures along the Trident as illustrated by Charles Vess in the Subterranean Press editionofA Storm of Swords
This is a Brienne of Tarth Looking Awkward In Dresses appreciation post.
(funny story: one of these was actually sketched while I was waiting at the doctor’s office, and this guy walks by, looks down and goes “IS THAT THE TOUGH CHICK FROM GAME OF THRONES? AWESOME!”)
Minor Game of Thrones spoilers! Well you’ve seen the dress now and it was in the trailer for next week’s episode anyway.
I drew a little (ok a major) over-exaggeration of Brienne’s ill fitting pink dress of doom based upon personal experience as a tall girl. Shoulders too narrow and skirt too short and waistline does not sit where it’s meant to.(Plus for added bonus, shoes that are too small, the bane of my life)
Upon meeting Brienne in A Clash of Kings I was a happy bunny. Here was a girl who was abnormally tall, like me, not stereotypically pretty pretty, like me, but who instead of wallowing, got off her arse and did something with her life anyway. Thank you Mr Martin for giving me a woman I could identify with, who, rather than moaning about her lack of having a man, just went out and did her own thing anyway.
Half her gown was hanging off in tatters, and her left arm dripped blood where the bear had raked her.
At least they gave her a sword.
Brienne inside the Harrenhal bear pit (and Jaime preparing to vault in) as illustrated by Charles Vess in the Subterranean Press editionofA Storm of Swords
Day 4 - Birds Fly North | an Alayne Stone fanmix (by Tam)
“They have offered a hundred stags for word of her whereabouts, and a hundred dragons for the girl herself. If the girl can be found, she will be found.”
there’s a pain the west, a sinking feeling deep down in their chests. a little girl, a town with her name, her daddy died before she had came. to see the place and just how it laid to waste. the rain it came and did not stop
when she was just a girl she expected the world but it flew away from her reach and the bullets catch in her teeth. life goes on, it gets so heavy and the wheel breaks the butterfly. in the night, the stormy night, she closed her eyes… away she flies
but i kept my eyes closed, i’ll never know where the shadows are these days. i stood in the room of a house divided, ah, and it washed away from me. - back home what do i hold? for the maid or the mother i’ll be, if only the loom and a thread will hold. it is work too but as that i hear it, tomorrow i’ll mend it: the empty bones
i see the winter, she’s crawling up the lawn. i feel her breathing beneath my palms - but we’re all out of time, nothing left to decide. pack your things up quick, this one can’t be fixed. leave the rest of it behind
he said, “my lady looks perturbed - (the light is in your eyes, colleen.)“ i said, "whatever can you mean?” he leaned in and said, “you ain’t forgotten everything."
if the light takes you in will you know where you’ve been all this time, at the edge of a cliff you could almost just slip down the side. when there’s so much to do don’t you wish you could make up your mind? but it know it’s elusive, it grows and it burns you inside
my broken hearts, my fabulous dance, my fleeting song. my twist and shout. i am ice and dust and light. i am sky and here. i can hear people, i think you are near me now, and the world is so loud. keep falling. i’ll find you.
“Mykhaleesi is sad?” “Yes,” Dany admitted. Sad and lost. “Should I pleasure the khaleesi?” Dany stepped away from her. “No. Irri, you do not need to do that. What happened that night, when you woke… you’re no bed slave, I freed you, remember? You…” “I am handmaid to the Mother of Dragons,” the girl said. “It is great honor to please my khaleesi.” “I don’t want that,” she insisted. “I don’t.” She turned away sharply. “Leave me now. I want to be alone. To think.” -George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
“Not bad at all,” he said when he paused for a second to catch his breath, circling to her right.
“For a wench?”
“For a squire, say. A green one.” He laughed a ragged, breathless laugh. “Come on, come on my sweetling, the music’s still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?”
“And you want your own reward, is that it? Very well. What is it you would have of me? Lands, a castle, some office?”
“A little bloody gratitude would make a nice start.”
Lord Tywin stared at him unblinking. “Mummers and monkeys require applause. So did Aerys, for that matter. You did as you were commanded, and I am sure it was to the best of your ability. No one denies the part you played.”
“The partI played?” What nostrils Tyrion had left must surely have flared. “I saved your bloody city, it seems to me.”
“Most people seem to feel that it was my attack on Lord Stannis’s flank that turned the tide of battle. Lords Tyrell, Rowan, Redwyne, and Tarly fought nobly as well, and I’m told it was your sister Cersei who set the pyromancers to making the wildfire that destroyed the Baratheon fleet.”
“While all I did was get my nosehairs trimmed, is that it?” Tyrion could not keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“Your chain was a clever stroke, and crucial to our victory. Is that what you wanted to hear? I am told we have you to thank for our Dornish alliance as well… if there is nothing else…”
“You have important letters, yes.” Tyrion rose on unsteady legs, closed his eyes for an instant as a wave of dizziness washed over him, and took a shaky step toward the door. Later, he would reflect that he should have taken a second, and then a third. Instead he turned. “What do I want, you ask? I’ll tell you what I want. I want what is mine by rights. I want Casterly Rock.”
His father’s mouth grew hard. “Your brother’s birthright?”
“The knights of the Kingsguard are forbidden to marry, to father children, and to hold land, you know that as well as I. The day Jaime put on that white cloak, he gave up his claim to Casterly Rock, but never once have you acknowledged it. It’s past time. I want you to stand up before the realm and proclaim that I am your son and your lawful heir.”
Lord Tywin’s eyes were a pale green flecked with gold, as luminous as they were merciless. “Casterly Rock,” he declared in a flat cold dead tone. And then, “Never.”
“Why?” he made himself ask, though he knew he would rue the question.
“You ask that? You, who killed your mother to come into the world? You are an ill-made, devious, disobedient, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning. Men’s laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine. To teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father’s sigil and his father’s before him. But neither gods nor men shall ever compel me to let you turn Casterly Rock into your whorehouse.”
-George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
Clothing CC: By @ts4got (Personal recolor pictured).
Stannis- Heard you were dead. Davos- Not yet. I had hoped to speak to you alone, your grace. Stannis- We are alone. Davos- Your Grace, you are the rightful king. Not only by blood. You’re an honorable man, a just man, and there is still a war to fight. Stannis- I am fighting. Davos- By burning prisoners alive? Melisandre- How would you punish the infidels, Ser Davos? Davos- I do not judge people for the gods they worship. If I did, I’d have thrown you in the sea before you ever set foot on Dragonstone. Melisandre- I’m not your enemy. Davos- You are my enemy. Melisandre- Was it me you fought on Blackwater bay? Did I set your ships ablaze? I wasn’t there when the wildfire killed our men by the thousands. I could have saved those men. If you would have taken the city, Stannis would sit upon his rightful throne and you would stand beside him. But I wasn’t there because you convinced your king to leave me behind. Do you hear them screaming? All those burning men in the water? Crying for their mothers, for their gods, for help until the moment that the black water swallowed them? Don’t despair Ser Davos. What I told your son is true. Death by fire is the purest death. Davos- (Lunging at Melisandre) This woman is evil! She’s the mother of demons! Stannis- Take him to the dungeon. Lock him in a cell.
“Tell the Westerosi whore to lower her eyes,” the slaver Kraznys mo Nakloz complained to the slave girl who spoke for him. “I deal in meat, not metal. The bronze is not for sale. Tell her to look at the soldiers. Even the dim purple eyes of a sunset savage can see how magnificent my creatures are, surely.”
“The good Master Kraznys asks, are they not magnificent?” The girl spoke the Common Tongue well, for one who had never been to Westeros.
“They might be adequate to my needs,” Dany answered. “Tell me of their training.”
“The Westerosi woman is pleased with them, but speaks no praise, to keep the price down,” the translator told her master. “She wishes to know how they were trained.”
“Are all Westerosi pigs so ignorant?” he complained. “All the world knows that the Unsullied are masters of spear and shield and shortsword.” He gave Dany a broad smile. “Tell her what she would know, slave, and be quick about it. The day is hot.”
“They are chosen young, for size and speed and strength,” the slave told her. “They begin their training at five. Every day they train from dawn to dusk, until they have mastered the shortsword, the shield, and the three spears. The training is most rigorous, Your Grace. Only one boy in three survives it. This is well known. Among the Unsullied it is said that on the day they win their spiked cap, the worst is done with, for no duty that will ever fall to them could be as hard as their training.”
Kraznys mo Nakloz supposedly spoke no word of the Common Tongue, but he bobbed his head as he listened, and from time to time gave the slave girl a poke with the end of his lash. “Tell her that these have been standing here for a day and a night, with no food nor water. Tell her that they will stand until they drop if I should command it, and when ninety-nine have collapsed to die upon the bricks, the last will stand there still, and never move until his own death claims him. Such is their courage. Tell her that.”
“Bad men wanted to come into the city and do terrible things, but your father stopped them… You should be proud. Under King Joffrey’s leadership, your fathers saved the city. They saved us all. From now on, we’re going to take care of you.”
“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” She gave him a shy smile. “You might be learning some, though.”
“Let’s not go back t’ Styr and Jarl. Let’s go down inside, and join up with Gendel’s children. I don’t ever want t’ leave this cave, Jon Snow. Not ever.”
This is my version of Dany’s more intricate blue dress. I also got a little carried away making versions for those playing post finale resurrection story lines. There are 11 variations with different detailing. Please let me know if there are any problems! There are unfortunately some clipping issues in the back. I hope you guys like it!!
“Let the kings of winter have their cold crypt under the earth, Catelyn thought. The Tullys drew their strength from the river, and it was to the river they returned when their lives had run their course…
‘Now,’ her uncle urged. Beside him, her brother Edmure— Lord Edmure now in truth, and how long would that take to grow used to?—nocked an arrow to his bowstring. His squire held a brand to its point. Edmure waited until the flame caught, then lifted the great bow, drew the string to his ear, and let fly. With a deep thrum, the arrow sped upward. Catelyn followed its flight with her eyes and heart, until it plunged into the water with a soft hiss, well astern of Lord Hoster’s boat.
Edmure cursed sofly. ‘The wind,’ he said, pulling a second arrow. ‘Again.’ The brand kissed the oil-soaked rag behind the arrowhead, the flames went licking up, Edmure lifted, pulled, and released. High and far the arrow flew. Too far.”
When she opened the door to the garden, it was so lovely that she held her breath, unwilling to disturb such perfect beauty. The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence, and lay thick and unbroken on the ground. All color had fled the world outside. It was a place of whites and blacks and greys. White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above. A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here.Yet she stepped out all the same. (A Storm of Swords)
It was short walk to the bathhouse, where he took a cold plunge to wash the sweat off and soaked in a hot stone tub. The warmth took some of the ache from his muscles and made him think of Winterfell’s muddy pools, steaming and bubbling in the godswood. Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.
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