This is speculation of course but I think they’re trying to get cute with ambiguity because the Bolton bastard burned down Winterfell and they’re not revealing that betrayal to us yet. It makes sense - why would the Bolton army have wandered off instead of trying to put out the fires and such? It seems like it’d be hard for 20 Iron Islanders to burn the whole village down when 500 men are surround them and could attack at any moment, which you’d think they would when they started to see the smoke.
They may have killed the rest of the Iron Islanders or they might’ve just taken Theon and let them go. It doesn’t really matter I suppose.
-They have some knowledge of what lies beyond (recognizing a direwolf when they see it, knowing that there used to be white walkers, etc..)
-They’re a very ancient house : Jon mentions in episode 2 or 3 (IIRC) that he has as much rights to the land as the wildlings, because he has the blood of the first men, like them, meaning that the family has been there essentially forever.
-Their motto, “Winter is coming” is quite evocative
-They still venerate the old gods.
-When Jon leaves to serve on the wall, Nedd mentions that there has always been Starks serving there (including, at this time, his own brother).
So, yes, the Starks seem to be the only ones in Westeros taking the Night Watch and what happens beyond the wall seriously. Of course, currently, they have other pressing concerns.
True that. That’s the reason why I’m mostly uninterested in Dany’s story. I find the actress a bit dull and none of her companions or opponents are particularly interesting characters (and besides they all tend to be short lived).
I don’t know whether this is a joke, but the Stark motto is at least partly metaphorical. They say “winter is coming” regardless of the season because there’s always winter in the future and “winter” can stand for hardships other than the actual weather.
Yeah, I don’t like that section. I remember the show, reminding me that something happened a few episodes ago just makes me know to expect a scene about it. Blah.
I don’t think doing what’s best for the realm usually coincides with the honorable thing. I don’t think Stannis even thought “I’m fighting my King because it’s for the good of the realm.” He chose family over duty.
ETA: sorry if we already talked about all this.. I didn’t realize I hadn’t read the whole thread before posting.
I think they assume that the North would respect Sansa as the last living true-born Stark. If Robb dies then the rebellion will fall apart and then when the north is essentially occupied by the south, Little Finger being in charge will cause them to bristle less as he’s wedded to a Stark.
I called the way the “slave army for dragon” thing would play out a couple of weeks ago. I think the slave trader was a bit naive not seeing or at least prepping for the possibility that Dany would pull something. If Dany had seemed unconcerned with the plight of the slaves earlier, I’d have been more convinced that he was more convinced that he was dealing with her on a business level only and wouldn’t necessarily suspect anything.
She’s sacked that city and is probably pretty stocked with supplies for now and presumably the non-army slaves she freed (remember she told them to free any slaves they came across in the city) will became camp followers and take care of the non-killing things that need taking care of.
I was really bummed when the captain of the watch was killed. I loved that guy.
I was confused as to why the Watch was still hanging out at the crazy daughter marry-er’s place. They said they had wounded that needed to heal first, but I don’t really remember seeing that many wounded in their march, let along ones that couldn’t move under their own power. Also.. how is Gilly hiding the baby? Presumably the old man knew she was pregnant and her sisters helped her give birth. Wasn’t the last time they were there a girl gave birth and he took it out into the woods immediately?
Ned also says in the first episode that he has been ‘guarding the north’ for Robert Baratheon. Part of that is beheading those who run from their duty on the Wall. Seems like having criminals serve in the Night’s Watch wouldn’t work quite so well if there weren’t houses like Stark acting as prison wardens for them.
It’s true that Littlefinger has a thing for Cat, but I doubt he’d go to all this trouble just for her. That probably does play a major role in his machinations, but even his desire for Cat is coupled with an ulterior motive. She’s a lady. If he married her, he’d rise up the social ladder. It seems like everything he does is designed to provide him upward mobility.
I think we just assume that some of the Watch were injured and that we didn’t explicitly see it on screen… certainly I don’t think we’re supposed to assume that Mormont was lying and there was some other motivation.
I think that if things were normal in incest-land, Craster would have taken the boy baby that night and left it in the forest for the white walkers.
We heard no evidence of a recent childbirth on their first visit.
The sacrifice might not happen immediately. The White Walkers might visit on a schedule, like when the moon is full. Or maybe they wait until the baby fattens up a bit.
Cat is not exactly much of a looker anymore, Sansa on the other hand. Littlefinger was in love with Cat when they were young, i think her young daughter would make just as good a focus for his obsession than her.
Does anyone think Littlefinger wants more than just to be Lord of some place? He’s the Rodney Dangerfield of Westeros. Maybe he just wants his own little realm, a place where he can relax, start a dynasty. ??
The way I see it is that he’s always been of the opinion that no one could ever afford half the army of the Unsullied, much less the entire group. He was planning to sell her a couple hundred of the 8,000, which likely isn’t far off from his usual practice. When the dragon got brought into the deal, his eyes suddenly got bigger than his stomach. He threw caution to the wind because, hey, he’ll have a fucking DRAGON! If there’s one thing that will mean “power” for him, it’s that. So he wasn’t thinking clearly, he was just focused on being the owner of one of the three dragons currently in existence. I don’t think it occurred to him that it wouldn’t take instruction or heed his command. By that time, it was too late.
Well, yeah, to start a *lasting *dynasty, and one with real power/titles/lands, he’d need a wife of child-bearing age, which seems like a likely reason for his shift of focus from Kat to Sansa.
()