storm of swords: just omfg

[verbicide]

I. I mean. OMFG.

I can't believe Catelyn Stark survived. I remember reading the Red Wedding (and writing something about how Robb and Catelyn's death seemed confirmed since we saw it from her POV) and wondering because often GRRM will spell it out when someone dies. But saying they died. And all we saw was Catelyn feeling a knife at her throat. But I figured it was real enough. And then the whole 'threw her body into the river' --How could she have survived that?? How could they have not known she lived??

Backing up a bit--Tyrion escapes, as I thought. With Jamie's help, which I also thought. But man. Hearing about Tysha. OUCH. That poor girl. One thing that always made me wonder--we heard that all of Tywin's men had her, with Tyrion having her at the end. I always wanted to hear about her perspective from Tyrion. Was she crying as they took her. Was she laughing at having made a fool of him. And now I wonder even more. I guess I wonder why she wasn't screaming that she wasn't a whore? Maybe Tywin threatened her with 'worse' than being raped by 50 solders (or however many)?

AND HE KILLED SHAE AND TYWIN. So sad to see him betrayed by Shae, though I suppose we'll never know how she felt about it all. If she did it out of fear or greed. And TYWIN WAS FUCKING HER? That surprised the hell out of me. I figured that guy never wasted time with carnal goodtimes.

Sorry to see the rift between Jamie and Tyrion. Not sure Jamie should have told him--mostly because of the grief it brought Tyrion. And now Jamie is somewhat responsible for his own father's death, before they could mend their rift, and I suppose Tyrion has turned out to be a kinslayer after all. I do wish Tyrion hadn't lied to Jamie about whether or not he killed Joffrey. That bothered me the most.

My head is spinning from all the shit that went down.

SO CLOSE TO SEEING THE MOUNTAIN DIE. SO SAD THAT DIDN'T WORK OUT. Though it seemed a little too close to the earlier escape for Tyrion for this to work. Silly Dornish Prince--never drop your guard until the guy is actually DEAD.

Even though I saw it coming, reading about Petyr kissing Sansa made me EWWWWWWWWWWWW out loud. I wasn't at all surprised to see Petyr toss Lysa out the Moon Door. (Not sorry to see her go, either.) I was surprised it happened so soon. (Not even see the rape-y Marillion get sacked with her murder. I hated that son-of-a-bitch.) And it was LYSA who killed Jon Arryn and lied to Catelyn. What a fucking psychopath.

All the crazy meetups--Sam and Bran. Sam not being able to tell Jon. I would have asked for permission to tell JON. (Maybe he did.) Stannis riding to the Wall made sense, but I do hate his Red Woman and Red God. Glad he listed to Davos, who I love! He's lucky to have that guy on his side. I wish Jon could have had Winterfell without being asked to give up his father's gods. It's sort of hard to take him as Lord Commander, though. He's such a young kid. I suppose he was older than Robb or Tommen--Kings. But young kings have advisers to rule in their stead--a Lord Commander doesn't really, right? I mean, I'm sure he'll listen to the men and Maester Aemon, but still.

Now there's fake Arya. Real Arya has just taken off on The Hound. Not even sure where she can go. Would really like to see her reunited with Nymeria, please.

How can Petyr continue to use Sansa, when he's not supposed to have her? Will he claim he 'found' her and demand her as his bride as payment? Annulling the never-consummated marriage to runaway Tyrion?

It was so great to see Jamie shut Cersei down, who of course only came to him when she needed something. I see that Feast for Crows has a Cersei pov--can't wait to see THAT.

Bran and Rickon are off to see the wizardthree-eyed-crow. I wonder still if it's a real crow or a man of the black.

And Daenerys is going to rule Meereen (sp?). (Sorry for the appalling spellings of things in this post. In a hurry before my trainer gets here! I'll fix later!) I was sorry to see her kick her Bear out. I can't believe he was still selling her secrets as far as Qarth though! I do believe he loved her and wouldn't totally sell her out. But he was never going to be okay with her being with any other man, and that wasn't good. Damn. OH AND SER BARRISTON OMFG. So glad to see him again. I love that guy! Glad he found a place where he can be so useful. Fuck Joffrey and Cersei for dismissing him so dishonorably. Creeped out by the Daario guy, as much as he makes Dany horny. He sounds like one of those be-colored creatures from the Capitol (in Hunger Games).

Can't wait to start reading Feast for Crows. Just, damn. (Will come back and proofread/edit this post later. Alexis is here!)

Comments

[richboye.livejournal.com]

Catelyn "survived" ..... did you catch what Nymeria saw? The two events are related.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

So, I swear I didn't see what Nymeria saw. I kept looking for it in Arya's chapters, but I didn't see anything. I'm going to go back and re-read it. Are you sure it was in SoS and not FfC?

Also, I need to add this above: IT WAS LYSA WHO POISONED JON ARRYN.

Man. I did not see that coming at all. DAMN.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

So I just checked out Tower of the Hand, and found a reference for where it was in the Arya chapters. I can't believe I missed that! I've been reading so damn fast, I know I'll need to re-read these when I'm done to get all that I've missed.

She was dead. Thoros revived her!

[richboye.livejournal.com]

Note: I didn't type this out - it happened to be here on this site:

That night she went to sleep thinking of her mother, and wondering if she should kil the Hound in his sleep and rescue Lady Catelyn herself. When she closed her eyes she saw her mother’s face against the back of her eyelids. She’s so close I could almost smell her...

. . and then she could smell her. The scent was faint beneath the other smel s, beneath moss and mud and water, and the stench of rotting reeds and rotting men. She padded slowly through the soft ground to the river’s edge, lapped up a drink, the lifted her head to sniff. The sky was grey and thick with cloud, the river green and full of floating things. Dead men clogged the shallows, some still moving as the water pushed them, others washed up on the banks. Her brothers and sisters swarmed around them, tearing at the rich ripe flesh.

The crows were there too, screaming at the wolves and filling the air with feathers. Their blood was hotter, and one of her sisters had snapped at one as it took flight and caught it by the wing. It made her want a crow herself. She wanted to taste the blood, to hear the bones crunch between her teeth, to fill her belly with warm flesh instead of cold. She was hungry and the meat was all around, but she knew she could not eat.

The scent was stronger now. She pricked her ears up and listened to the grumbles of her pack, the shriek of angry crows, the whirr of wings and sound of running water. Somewhere far off she could hear horses and the cal s of living men, but they were not what mattered. Only the scent mattered. She sniffed the air again. There it was, and now she saw it too, something pale and white drifting down the river, turning where it brushed against a snag. The reeds bowed down before it.

She splashed noisily through the shallows and threw herself into the deeper water, her legs churning. The current was strong but she was stronger. She swam, fol owing her nose. The river smel s were rich and wet, but those were not the smells that pulled her. She paddled after the sharp red whisper of cold blood, the sweet cloying stench of death. She chased them as she had often chased a red deer through the trees, and in the end she ran them down, and her jaw closed around a pale white arm. She shook it to make it move, but there was only death and blood in her mouth. By now she was tiring, and it was al she could do to pull the body back to shore. As she dragged it up the muddy bank, one of her little brothers came prowling, his tongue lol ing from his mouth. She had to snarl to drive him off, or else he would have fed. Only then did she stop to shake the water from her fur. The white thing lay facedown in the mud, her dead flesh wrinkled and pale, cold blood trickling from her throat. Rise, she thought. Rise and eat and run with us. The sound of horses turned her head. Men. They were coming from downwind, so she had not smel ed them, but now they were almost here. Men on horses, with flapping black and yellow and pink wings and long shiny claws in hand. Some of her younger brothers bared their teeth to defend the food they’d found, but she snapped at them until they scattered. That was the way of the wild. Deer and hares and crows fled before wolves, and wolves fled from men. She abandoned the cold white prize in the mud where she had dragged it, and ran, and felt no shame. When morning came, the Hound did not need to shout at Arya or shake her awake. She had woken before him for a change, and even watered the horses. They broke their fast in silence, until Sandor said, “This thing about your mother. .”


Arya as Nymeria found her mother's body and pulled it out of the river - the men with flapping yellow, black and pink wings are the Brotherhood without Banners (Lem Lemoncloak, et al, including Thoros the Red Priest, whose red cloak has faded down to pink rags.

[richboye.livejournal.com]

see what I mean?

How fucking brilliant is GRRM? How chilling that Arya was dreaming of Catelyn and her wolf-mind found her....

I didn't piece all of that together for days and it still makes me sad.

[richboye.livejournal.com]

if you re-read these books at some point, you can actually watch as the Red Wedding is being planned, now that you know what to look for.

Did you catch who it was that actually killed Robb?

[richboye.livejournal.com]

....anyway, yes, so Thoros revived her. However, she was dead and in the river for three days. Evidently, Thoros didn't read Stephen King's Pet Cemetary. Let's just say that the best parts of Catelyn didn't make the transition.

[pinkminx.livejournal.com]

I KNOW RIGHT?!?!

This is pretty much my reaction to everything you've posted re: AGOT, because damn is that series evil and lovely.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

Was it Roose Bolton?? I can't remember now, but I remember knowing at the time. (My memory is ...um horrible.)

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I do see what you mean! That is so brilliant! And I love that it takes some careful reading and thought to get that type of detailwork. He's amazing and it's very chilling.

I love the part after, where Sandor says something about her mom, and she's like, "Yeah. I had a dream. I get it."

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I AM SO GLAD YOU LOVE IT TOO! I am so fully insanely in love with it, it's nice to have you guys to squee about it with!!

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I imagine. Though Beric seems like a pretty good guy still... However, the horrors Catelyn's been through, that would fuck a girl up, even if she hadn't just been revived from the dead.

I don't remember now if this is in the books or just in the HBO show, but it gives me chills thinking of Catelyn telling Robb that they'll get the girls back and then KILL THEM ALL.

[muffet.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you realized that Catelyn is not exactly alive. You were happy she was alive in your other post and I'm like. . ."I hate to disappoint you. . ." But that's spoiler territory and didn't want to ruin the shock/surprise of it.

What I thought was brilliant about Catelyn coming back is how she's not the same person and really. . .how realistic is that? I think if you're going to be ressurrected from the dead, chances are you're not the same. I love/cringe how GRRM doesn't sugar-coat things. . .sometimes I crawl into a ball, wishing he would, but overall it's why I think it's so brilliant.

All this talk of the series is making me want to re-read it.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

You should totally re-read it!