Not so important connections

[Mag the Mighty]

Er, sorry for butting in - I've just registered here after a while spent lurking about the place. Just wanted to be able to stick my oar into some of the ASOIAF discussions...

Regarding Jaime and the girl on the horse, I want it to be true but if Jaime saw her before he, Brienne and Cleos got to the inn (which I think is true because they were still in the boat when they saw her), then I don't think it could have been Arya, because didn't she and Hot Pie and Gendry later arrive at the same inn from the opposite direction? Unless they doubled back, I suppose, or my sense of Westerosi geography could be hopelessly out of whack...

[The Imp]

Originally Posted by Mag the Mighty

Er, sorry for butting in - I've just registered here after a while spent lurking about the place. Just wanted to be able to stick my oar into some of the ASOIAF discussions...

Regarding Jaime and the girl on the horse, I want it to be true but if Jaime saw her before he, Brienne and Cleos got to the inn (which I think is true because they were still in the boat when they saw her), then I don't think it could have been Arya, because didn't she and Hot Pie and Gendry later arrive at the same inn from the opposite direction? Unless they doubled back, I suppose, or my sense of Westerosi geography could be hopelessly out of whack...

Welcome to the forum

[Mag the Mighty]

Thanks! Good to be here.

[xLORDSNOWx]

Originally Posted by Mag the Mighty

Er, sorry for butting in - I've just registered here after a while spent lurking about the place. Just wanted to be able to stick my oar into some of the ASOIAF discussions...

Regarding Jaime and the girl on the horse, I want it to be true but if Jaime saw her before he, Brienne and Cleos got to the inn (which I think is true because they were still in the boat when they saw her), then I don't think it could have been Arya, because didn't she and Hot Pie and Gendry later arrive at the same inn from the opposite direction? Unless they doubled back, I suppose, or my sense of Westerosi geography could be hopelessly out of whack...

I am 99.9% sure that this is correct. I remembered the same thing earlier but wasn't able to articulate it, and too lazy to look it up.

Oh, and welcome!

[Young stormlord]

Originally Posted by Mag the Mighty

Er, sorry for butting in - I've just registered here after a while spent lurking about the place. Just wanted to be able to stick my oar into some of the ASOIAF discussions...

Welcome aboard! Don't worry, there are no one-handed smiths here to spoil your fun.

Regarding Jaime and the girl on the horse, I want it to be true but if Jaime saw her before he, Brienne and Cleos got to the inn (which I think is true because they were still in the boat when they saw her), then I don't think it could have been Arya, because didn't she and Hot Pie and Gendry later arrive at the same inn from the opposite direction? Unless they doubled back, I suppose, or my sense of Westerosi geography could be hopelessly out of whack...

*ugly grin* That's the point. Arya never followed rivers and streams but went over every single one. They even got lost later, with Gendry pointing at one moss-less tree and one with moss on tree sides. They also shunned roads as well... Besides, it's just a small connection if true, nothing really important . It would be fun if true (albeit, I guess we'll never know, unless some obsessed fan asks GRRM if it was so... And he replies: A wiz- maester did it! ) but otherwise it's not a big deal.

P.S. There's also one thing you failed to notice. Arya is wearing Bolton's page's doublet with Flayed Man on her chest. It's hard for Jaime not to notice it, but she is also wearing a cloak over it... so yeah.

[Mag the Mighty]

Yes, those one-handed smiths...gotta watch out for them...

I do like these small connections, though - I especially liked the one about the archer who won the competition at the tourney actually being Anguy who Arya met up with later - it made me go and get the book and try to find the bit! I never spot these sorts of things until someone points them out to me...

I also like the way some of the Night's Watch guys are relatives of people who we hear about in other parts of the story, even though Martin often doesn't bother pointing it out explicitly.

[Young stormlord]

Originally Posted by Mag the Mighty

I do like these small connections, though - I especially liked the one about the archer who won the competition at the tourney actually being Anguy who Arya met up with later - it made me go and get the book and try to find the bit! I never spot these sorts of things until someone points them out to me...

I also like the way some of the Night's Watch guys are relatives of people who we hear about in other parts of the story, even though Martin often doesn't bother pointing it out explicitly.

I sometimes imagine that GRRM lurks around this forum and finds this thread. He then proceeds to post on his "Not a blog" exactly what we got wrong, what we guessed correctly and what even he himself didn't even think about (sort of like "Ok guys, that line is left over from one of first versions of ASOS, you know, when I still didn't know how exactly that story was supposed to go, you should just ignore it 'cause it isn't important."). Or that he'll just say: "I'm glad someone noticed this little bits but, boy o boy, some of those guys are a few gods short of Seven.". Then I get a bit paranoid and start thinking that GRRM posted a few of these connections himself...

[Mag the Mighty]

I do wonder how many of the "clues" that spawn the theories are deliberate red herrings or misdirections to put us all on the wrong track...

[Young stormlord]

In ASOS, Samwell's second chapter:

"Your mother can't help you none," said the old woman on the left. "That dead old man can't neither. You take his sword and you take that big warm far cloak o' his and you take his horse if you can find him. And you go."
"The girl don't lie," the old woman on the right said. "She's my girl, and I beat the lying out of her early on. You said you'd help her. Do what Ferny says, boy. Take the girl and be quick about it.

AFFC

“A man has duties to his friends as well. If not for us, Janos Slynt might be our lord commander. Lord Janos would have sent Snow ranging naked on a mule. ‘Scamper on up to Craster’s Keep,’ he would have said, ‘and fetch me back the Old Bear’s cloak and boots.’ We saved him from that, but now he has too many duties to drink a cup of mulled wine by the fire?”

He did take it.

[Hilarious Joke]

I don't really get this one? Would you mind awfully explaining the context?

[Young stormlord]

Ok, I realise I didn't explain very well.

Just after Lord Mormont died, Ferny (Gilly's mother) told Sam to take Mormont's cloak, horse and sword before leaving for the wall. In the next Samwell chapter we realise he did just that (ok, maybe not the sword).

Then, 75% of the book later, Pyp jokes about Janos Slynt sending Jon to fetch him Old Bear's cloak and boots.
It is funny, since Sam already fetched the cloak, but Pyp doesn't know that!

Or maybe, just maybe, it's on of those things when GRRM would be fully justified to say: "Ok, guys, I think you are taking these books waaay more seriously than I expected. Better have a lie down. No, make that two lie downs."

[Hilarious Joke]

Hahaha! Either way Stormlord keep these obscure connections coming!

[Young stormlord]

This connection is tie-in with Mystery knight.

The inn in which Dunk and Egg are refused service and in front of which they caught ferry for Whitewalls is the same inn in which Brienne, Pod, Merribold and Ser Hyle Hunt are caught (the inn with the children that Rorge and Biter attacked with their gang).
From AFFC

When Podrick asked the name of the inn where they hoped to spend the night, Septon Meribald seized upon the question eagerly, perhaps to take their minds off the grisly sentinels along the roadside. “The Old Inn, some call it. There has been an inn there for many hundreds of years, though this inn was only raised during the reign of the first Jaehaerys, the king who built the kingsroad. Jaehaerys and his queen slept there during their journeys, it is said. For a time the inn was known as the Two Crowns in their honor, until one innkeep built a bell tower, and changed it to the Bellringer Inn. Later it passed to a crippled knight named Long Jon Heddle, who took up ironworking when he grew too old to fight. He forged a new sign for the yard, a three-headed dragon of black iron that he hung from a wooden post. The beast was so big it had to be made in a dozen pieces, joined with rope and wire. When the wind blew it would clank and clatter, so the inn became known far and wide as the Clanking Dragon.”
“Is the dragon sign still there?” asked Podrick.
“No,” said Septon Meribald. “When the smith’s son was an old man, a bastard son of the fourth Aegon rose up in rebellion against his trueborn brother and took for his sigil a black dragon. These lands belonged to Lord Darry then, and his lordship was fiercely loyal to the king. The sight of the black iron dragon made him wroth, so he cut down the post, hacked the sign into pieces, and cast them into the river. One of the dragon’s heads washed up on the Quiet Isle many years later, though by that time it was red with rust. The innkeep never hung another sign, so men forgot the dragon and took to calling the place the River Inn. In those days, the Trident flowed beneath its back door, and half its rooms were built out over the water. Guests could throw a line out their window and catch trout, it’s said. There was a ferry landing here as well, so travelers could cross to Lord Harroway’s Town and Whitewalls.”
“We left the Trident south of here, and have been riding north and west . . . not toward the river but away from it.”
“Aye, my lady,” the septon said. “The river moved. Seventy years ago, it was. Or was it eighty? It was when old Masha Heddle’s grandfather kept the place. It was her who told me all this history. A kindly woman, Masha, fond of sourleaf and honey cakes. When she did not have a room for me, she would let me sleep beside the hearth, and she never sent me on my way without some bread and cheese and a few stale cakes.”
“Is she the innkeep now?” asked Podrick.
“No. The lions hanged her. After they moved on, I heard that one of her nephews tried opening the inn again, but the wars had made the roads too dangerous for common folk to travel, so there was little custom. He brought in whores, but even that could not save him. Some lord killed him as well, I hear.”
Ser Hyle made a wry face. “I never dreamed that keeping an inn could be so deadly dangerous.”
“It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of thrones,” said Septon Meribald. “Isn’t that so, Dog?” Dog barked agreement.
“So,” said Podrick, “does the inn have a name now ?”
“The smallfolk call it the crossroads inn. Elder Brother told me that two of Masha Heddle’s nieces have opened it to trade once again.”

In Mystery Knight:

The sun was low in the west by the time they saw the lake, its waters glimmering red and gold, bright as a sheet of beaten copper. When they glimpsed the turrets of the inn above some willows, Dunk donned his sweaty tunic once again and stopped to splash some water on his face. he washed off the dust of the road as best he could, and ran wet fingers through his thick mop of sun-streaked hair. There was nothing to be done for his size, or the scar that marked his cheek, but he wanted to make himself appear somewhat less the wild robber knight.

The inn was bigger than he'd expected, a great gray sprawl of a place, timbered and turreted, half of it built on pilings out over the water. A road of rough-cut planks had been laid down over the muddy lakeshore to the ferry landing, but neither the ferry nor the ferrymen were in evidence. Across the road stood a stable with a thatched roof. A dry stone wall enclosed the yard, but the gate was open. Within, they found a well and a watering trough. "See to the animals," Dunk told Egg, "but see that they don't drink too much. I'll ask about some food."
He found the innkeep sweeping off the steps. "Are you come for the ferry?" the woman asked him. "You're too late. The sun's going down, and Ned don't like to cross by night unless the moon is full. He'll be back first thing in the morning."
"Do you know how much he asks?"
"Three pennies for each of you, and ten for your horses."
"We have two horses and a mule."
"It's ten for mules as well."
Dunk did the sums in his head, and came up with six-and-thirty, more than he had hoped to spend. "Last time I came this way, it was only two pennies, and six for horses."
"Take that up with Ned, it's nought to me. If you're looking for a bed, I've none to offer. Lord Shawney and Lord Costayne brought their retinues. I'm full to bursting."
"Is Lord Peake here as well?" He killed Ser. Arlan's squire. "He was with Lord Cockshaw and John the Fiddler." - 11 -
"Ned took them across on his last run." She looked Dunk up and down. "Were you part of their company?"
"We net them on the road, is all." A good smell was drifting out the windows of the inn, one that made Dunk's mouth water. "We might like some of what you're roasting, if it's not too costly."
"It's wild boar," the woman said, "well peppered, and served with onions, mushrooms, and mashed neeps."
"We could do without the neeps. Some slices off the boar and a tankard of your good brown ale would do for us. How much would you ask for that? And maybe we could have a place on your stable floor to bed down for the night?"
That was a mistake. "The stables are for horses. That's why we call them stables. You're big as a horse, I'll grant you, but I see only two legs." She swept her broom at him, to shoo him off. "I can't be expected to feed all the Seven Kingdoms. The boar is for my guests. So is my ale. I won't have lords saying that I run short of food or drink before they were surfeit. The lake is full of fish, and you'll find some other rogues camped down by the stumps. Hedge knights, if you believe them." Her tone made it quite clear that she did not. "Might be they'd have food to share. It's nought to me. Away with you now, I've work to do." The door closed with a solid thump behind her, before Dunk could even think to ask where he might find these stumps.

Similarly, Hollow Hill, outlaws' base (Brotherhood without banner ) is right below the place Dunk and Egg met hedge knights (there was cut godswood there, with grove of big white stumps). Hollow hill's 'ceiling' is crisscrossed with white roots, going deep, so strong that Lord Beric Dondarrion can walk on them with no trouble at all.

Mystery knight

The hedge knights did not prove hard to find. Egg spied their fire flickering in the woods along the lakeshore, so they made for it, leading the animals behind them. The boy carried Dunk's helm beneath one arm, sloshing with each step he took. By then the sun was a red memory in the west. Before long the trees opened up, and they found themselves in what must once have been a weirwood grove. Only a ring of white stumps and a tangle of bone-pale roots remained to show where the trees had stood, when the children of the forest ruled in Westeros.
Amongst the weirwood stumps, they found two men squatting near a cook fire, passing a skin of wine from hand to hand. Their horses were cropping at the grass beyond the grove, and they had stacked their arms and armor in neat piles.

Quote from ASOS

Her eyes had grown accustomed to blackness. When Harwin pulled the hood off her head, the ruddy glare inside the hollow hill made Arya blink like some stupid owl.
A huge firepit had been dug in the center of the earthen floor, and its flames rose swirling and crackling toward the smoke-stained ceiling. The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. People were emerging from between those roots as she watched; edging out from the shadows for a look at the captives, stepping from the mouths of pitch-black tunnels, popping out of crannies and crevices on all sides. in one place on the far side of the fire, the roots formed a kind of stairway up to a hollow in the earth where a man sat almost lost in the tangle of weirwood.
Lem unhooded Gendry. "What is this place?" he asked.
"An old place, deep and secret. A refuge where neither wolves nor lions come prowling."
****
"When we left King's Landing we were men of Winterfell and men of Darry and men of Blackhaven, Mallery men and Wylde men. We were knights and squires and men-at-arms, lords and commoners, bound together only by our purpose." The voice came from the man seated amongst the weirwood roots halfway up the wall. "Six score of us set out to bring the king's justice to your brother." The speaker was descending the tangle of steps toward the floor. "Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak." A scarecrow of a man, he wore a ragged black cloak speckled with stars and an iron breastplate dinted by a hundred battles. A thicket of red-gold hair hid most of his face, save for a bald spot above his left ear where his head had been smashed in. "More than eighty of our company are dead now, but others have taken up the swords that fell from their hands." When he reached the floor, the outlaws moved aside to let him pass. One of his eyes was gone, Arya saw, the flesh about the socket scarred and puckered, and he had a dark black ring all around his neck. "With their help, we fight on as best we can, for Robert and the realm."

[Robin Goodfellow]

Speaking of Dunk and Egg stories I noticed during my re-reading of 'A Storm of Swords' it is mentioned in the white book that Barristan the Bold once unhorsed a "Ser Duncan the Tall'. I Found this strange given the timeline but I'm pretty sure it's the same person.

(This may have been mentioned before, I haven't read the whole thread yet.)

[Tansy]

Not sure if this one has been mentioned - but reading Sam's chapters in AFFC, just before Maester Aemon dies he mentions that Melisandre has it wrong and Stannis is not the Prince which was promised its Dany, Dragons don't have a sex so it was misleading, anyway he mentions that Stanins (and Robert and Rernly) do have the blood of kings as they are descended from Egg's Daughter Rhaenna.

Just something I missed the first time round, I really need to read the Hedge Kingt