I don’t agree that Sam’s father’s house is safe anymore for Gilly or the baby. His father’s hatred of wildings is too great. He might well kill her as soon as Sam leaves. At the very least, he said she could work in the kitchens, so she would essentially be the lowest level servant in the house.
Yeah, “I hate you and everything you stand for and we should kill everyone of you, but i guess you can stay” certainly does not inspire confidence in their future safety. Even if she was not in any real danger she would be treated like absolute crap, maybe not by Sam’s mother or sister but they are not the ones in charge.
I see the purloined sword as being the difference in the showdown between Sam and his father.
Given that his father was willing to kill Sam, his own firstborn son, it’s not likely he would feel bound by either guest right or the rule against kin slaying, especially if a wildling and her bastard were involved. Gilly and Little Sam would have “accidentally” fallen in the kitchen fire about two days after Sam was out of sight.
I think that’s the first time we’ve seen Horn Hill, it looks like a much nicer castle than pretty much anything so far in Westeros. Maybe that water garden place at Dorne would be close, and the gardens at King’s Landing are pretty as long as you don’t have to walk in them too often, but the rest of the castles so far seem like dark, dank, muddy, shitholes.
That part of the Reach is just as far south as Dorne, and farther south than King’s Landing. Southern castles don’t have to protect against snow or cold, so they can be more open. Horn Hill looks more like a Roman villa than Winterfell.
I don’t see anything corrupt or inconsistent in the behaviour of the Faceless Men.
They will kill anyone (presumably) for money and they will kill anyone the must be removed to bring balance. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Those that hire them are doing so, unwittingly, in service of the god. The faceless can’t be everywhere or see everything so it makes sense that others would be motivated, unwittingly, by the god. You offer gold to remove someone and the Faceless see it as manifestation of the god’s design.
The ones they kill without commission are the ones that the Faceless have observed behaving in a manner inconsistent with balance.
Either way the god’s purpose is served it’s just two different roads to the same inn.
If I had my pick of the castles we’ve seen so far, I’d take The Eyrie. The view from the “executive” suites must be spectacular.
It’s my feeling that The Sparrow will find a way around the trial by combat method. It’s what Cersei wants so it’s not going to happen.
But if it does I think it will be the Hound. Lancel is not important enough for anyone to care. It could be Loras. He will be in shape to fight if the plot needs him to be. I never liked that casting. Finn Jones always looked way too soft to be one of the best warriors in the 7 kingdoms. I hope he builds himself up when he becomes Iron Fist.
It would be the same as you saying at the dinner table, “But dad Bigfoot is real! I’ve seen him!”
The whole process of taking a corpse’s face and wearing it as a mask seems to imply supernatural influence. What do we really know about this whole thing? The well water is poison apparently. But, Arya drank some and didn’t die.
Last season when Arya first arrived at the House Of Black And White, I seem to recall a conversation where Jaquen asked (paraphrasing)“is a girl ready to lose her lips, her nose, something, something.” I thought he was telling her being a faceless man involved having one’s own face removed to be able to wear the faces from the hall. Then later Jaquen appears to be wearing a few layers of faces. I guess I just want to know the mechanics of how this whole face swapping thing works. Has the Many Faced God shown any other signs of being real that I’m forgetting?
There has never even been the slightest hint from the shows that the Hound could even possibly be alive. He is just another in a line of characters who have died off screen. All this casual thinking that the Hound will fight the Mountain seems to me at least like it may have snuck in from the books someplace.
When Arya questions Jaquen, he replies “a price has been paid.” The assumption is that they are getting money for this. However, in the past, when “price has been paid,” it’s been someone’s death they are talking about, hasn’t it? Maybe the young actress offered up a sacrifice or something.
I didn’t read the most recent book and I don’t look at much speculation. The Hound was a popular well written character who we didn’t see die. I don’t think it takes much to speculate that he will be back.
The fact that he wasn’t shown to be dead is a pretty good indication that he may be alive. And his name coming up when Arya was being grilled about her past by Jaqen, and Arya inadvertently revealing her ambiguity about her feelings toward him suggests there is still unfinished business between them.
I know zero about the books but I have gotten a strong sense from watching the show alone that the Hound’s non-death scene and the fact that Arya still cares about him means he will show up again.
Yeah I knew Sam was well off but I was surprised just how large that castle was. I suspect the only other one that would put it to shame is where the Tyrells live.
I think all of the gods in GOT are real. I’m not obsessive at all so I can’t recall a lot of details but we know the Lord of Light is real owing to the murders and resurrections.
I believe that we know the 7 gods are real (although I can’t back that up with facts).
We know, or can assume, that the Many-Faced God is real because he allows for things like wearing multiple faces without the wearer causing everything within visual distance run screaming for the hills.
The gods all exist, their manifestations depend upon the devout calling upon them.
At least that is my take on it.
I’m not sure that we know, really, that any of the gods or religions are real, particularly, just that something is going on that can be interpreted as the work of a god, so it usually is.
Resurrections - LoL
Face-changing and other magic - Faceless Men and LoL
Weirwood/heart tree/greenseeing, ice demon zombies - Old Gods?
Have we really seen anything remarkable attributed to the Seven? I think the seven aspects to it are “helpful” in attributing random everyday crap to divine intervention…“A good harvest this season, thank the Mother!” or whatever.
It seems like the Seven is the representation of a “modern” religion where magic and unexplained things have pretty much gone away, so the main purposes are for social cohesion, political power, and gaudy ceremony, rather than explaining things that people don’t know how to explain. But there’s obviously some magic left in some corners of the world, and it seems to be spreading. But nobody seems to attribute any of it to the Seven, that I recall. I can see followers of the Seven chalking it up to sorcery or alchemy, or some unnatural “science” (thinking now of Qyburn and the Mountain).
Yeah, that would make a lot of sense too. Of course we know that’s not what happened, but it would establish what the Mad King was imagining/wanting to happen as he was shouting “Burn them all!”. But if this is the case, then it means Bran’s visions can’t necessarily be trusted as reliable depictions of actual events.
Perhaps, but we’re talking about at most a 1-2 second shot that shows off some really cool visual effects. It doesn’t necessarily need to have any deep meaning besides establishing the connection that Mad King == wildfire. I like msmith’s interpretation above that it was simply an image from Aerys’ thoughts/feelings/imagination at the time.
The Hound is alive and Cleganebowl is 100% happening. I’ll bet you anything.
The stakes were a lot higher with Sam - his father felt that if Sam should take over it would result in the downfall of everything he and his ancestors had built. He might even have been right about that. It’s a tough world full of predators, and pre-wall Sam was totally incapable of making hard choices, or of fighting to keep Horn Hill. His soldiers would have had a hard time fighting and dying for a man like that.
Basically, Sam’s existence was a danger to the entire Tarley house, and he had to go. But note that his father didn’t kill him even though he clearly despises him - he just threatened to unless Sam took the black. Honor was preserved.
Men of ‘honor’ will break their oaths - if the price is high enough. Jaime broke his oath because the Mad King was destroying everything. That doesn’t mean he’d kill a king because the king annoyed him. Robb Stark broke his oath for true love - a time-tested reason for doing so.
This is a world where great houses routinely take in bastards and hostages, and there is a strong code of honor around that. I’m sure that Sam’s father would kill Gilly and the baby in a second if he thought they were a threat to his house, but I don’t think he would kill them just because he didn’t like them. Note that he could have told Sam to take his entire family and get the hell out, but he didn’t do that.
Randyll Tarley is a gigantic ass, but he’s not going to alienate his wife and children and risk his honor just to kill a meaningless wildling. He’s not Ramsay Bolton. He would have done what he said: Put her to work in the kitchens, and then probably never think of her again. He might even order that she and the baby be kept out of his sight, or forced them to live in servants quarters rather than live with the family in splendor. But I don’t think he’d kill them.
So yes, I think they were safe. More to the point, Sam also felt they would have been safe, and he knows his father better than we do. Mom and Sis certainly didn’t think Gilly and the baby were in any mortal danger.
At least, that’s the way I see it. YMMV.
That matches my interpretation exactly. The guy owns a palace with lots of servants - he can basically say “take care of them, and keep them out of my sight”, and he’s done his part. It’s not like he’s living with them in a 3 bedroom house or something.
And the fact that he gave Sam the chance to join the night’s watch instead of just killing him shows him that he’d only kill kin as his very last resort. It’s not even clear he would actually kill Sam - he was hoping the threat would work and it did.
Honor and oaths and probably a soft spot for (what he thinks is) his grandson, and the ease with which he could add them to their household without ever noticing them again, and not wanting to alienate his wife or daughter, and the taboo of killing a guest under your roof would’ve kept him to his word. Only if Gilly was taking some extreme role against his family, as he perceives Sam would have, would he be compelled to action.