Episode 39: A GAME OF THRONES, EDDARD X: "Fevre Dream" SHOW NOTES!

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn. 

Welcome to our thirty-ninth episode of the Not A Cast entitled: “Fevre Dream: An Analysis of AGOT, Eddard X,” in which Ned Stark gets his job back. Oh, and he also has a completely meaningless dream that has no bearing on anything whatsoever. This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: Hand of the King WolfmanZack, Grand Maester Timothy W, Jancy O, Lady Commander of the Night’s Watch, Lords Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N and Hayden J, and Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! 

Spoiler warning: All published books - 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Emmett intro to Chloe

• Ies and arbor @ twitter and tumblr 
• Girls gone canon
• Patreon ep last week - > “every day is halloween” about identity and disguise, and this month’s episode on Dance of the Dragons in depth when Fire and Blood drops
  • Yea boi

Question

Ser Manu the saddle-maker asks:

We know that the Battle of Ice and Battle of Fire will be two early events in TWOW, but I’m curious as to how you think they will be laid out structurally in the book itself. Do you think we will get a chunk of consecutive chapters that’s basically one battle, and then a chunk that’s the other (kinda like with Blackwater but twice)? Or do you see George writing them as concurrent events and our POVs jumping between the two battles? How would you structure it if it was up to you? Are there any key thematic similarities between the two battles that can be made evident with some thoughtful juxtaposition? As always thanks for taking the question and keep up the excellent work!

A question after my own heart! First, we know something of GRRM’s original intent when he was writing ADWD:

My original intent was to end DANCE with the two big battles, yes… intercutting between the two of them, each told through several different points of view. And both battles were partially written. But NOT COMPLETE, which became the issue. Also, maybe even more to the point, not yet good enough in my estimation. Battles are bloody hard, and I wanted these to be great. - GRRM Comment, May 2018

The question now is whether he still intends to do that. My suspicion is yes.

Jeff’s order for the battles:

1. Theon I: Re-intro to Stannis, Theon, stakes
2. Victarion I: Hi, here’s Victarion. He’s stupid, lol. Oh, and this hell horn: Vic is going to blow it. Literally, figuratively. Both.
3. Tyrion I: Cyvasse, foreshadowing of Brown Ben Plumm’s turn
4. Barristan I: Listen to the GGC patreon episode
5. Asha I: The Freys arrive, and the battle commences.
6. Bran?: Bird’s eye view of the battle (Remember the cut Bran ADWD chapter caveat)
7. Barristan II: Barristan goes apeshit on Yunkai. AKA Let Barristan be Barristan (listen to GGC)
8. Tyrion II: Shit’s going bad for Yunkai, Second Sons and Windblown turncloak on Yunkai
9. Victarion II: The horn is blown, Victarion receives his dragon.
10. Barristan III: The Skahaz or Harpy betrayal
11. Think after this, we’re going to leave Winterfell and Meereen for a dozen or more chapters. Probably pick back up with Tyrion in the Great Pyramid of Meereen and maybe a Theon post-battle chapter where Stannis is having his men dress up in Frey and Karstark surcoats for some odd reason. I really don’t think Stannis will actually take Winterfell until mid-way through TWOW.

Agreed, and the advantage to jumping away then is to give the other storylines nearby the battles time and space to catch up: Dany and the Dothraki in the east, Jon and Melisandre in the north. 

• Blackwater-esque
• Bran:Theon
  • Bran is the reveal to the pink letter?
• What’s great about TWOW is not only the structure in battles, but also thematics - the build up! The action! Even Sansa in the Vale, eventually giving room to her rallying the Vale Troops to go home to Winterfell at the end of the story as well

Themes: 

War is so central to fantasy... and yet it's these bloodless wars where the heroes are killing unending Orcs, and the heroes are not being killed... I think that if you're going to write about war and violence then show the cost - show how ugly it is, show both sides of it. There's also the other side (which sometimes gets me in trouble with the opposite side of the political spectrum): the glory of war. Those of us who are opposed to war tend to try to pretend it doesn't exist, but if you read the ancient historical sources... people are always talking about the banners that 'stirred the heart'... I think that if you're going to write about that period then you should reflect honestly what it's about and capture both sides of it… - GRRM, 2012

You can’t read the Barristan II chapter summary and come away not hooting and hollering when Barristan does his It’s like Baelor Breakspear and Prince Maekar. The hammer and the anvil. We have them! We have them!

And yet, I can’t help but read the summary where Barristan is about to attack and notices the slave soldiers known as the herons, thinking: The slaves chosen to be herons were freakishly tall before they were put on stilts, and wear pink scales and feathers and steel beaks and not feel sad for them. They didn’t choose to be here to fight for Yunkai. They’re here, because they’re slaves and Yunkai forced them into the army. And I get that Barristan’s making a smart tactical decision in attacking them. But he’s making that decision, because the slavers have made the herons a grotesque and horrific part of their army - they are going into battle wearing stilts for R’hllor’s sake - and Barristan, his squires and the Stormcrows slaughter them. And really, It’s a huge gut-punch when you consider that Dany’s mission in Slaver’s Bay was to free the slaves, and now her Hand is killing them.

Is this the hour long segment about Lil Pigeon?

Announce our video F&B collab with GGC after the GRRM event in Jersey City?

Synopsis

Vayon Poole wakes Ned Stark up from an inconsequential dream to … Wait, did I skip something in the synopsis?

...

Oh, right. Yes. I guess we should talk about that dream, yeah? 

He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.

So starts one of the most iconic and consequential chapters in all of ASOIAF. Ned Stark dreams of his friends riding with him. Martyn Cassel: Jory’s father, Theon Wull: a faithful clansmen, Ethan Glover: his brother Brandon’s squire. Ser Mark Ryswell: a gentle and kind man. Howland Reed: a crannogman and Lord Dustin: Barbrey’s husband. He’d known these men so well by that point, knew their faces. And pledged never to forget them. But now, fifteen years later, their faces had faded to shadowy wraiths, their horses into mist.

They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three.

No, they were not. They were men of the Kingsguard. And unlike his own companions, Ned remembers their faces oh-so-clear. There, Arthur Dayne smiling sadly. Here, Oswell Whent on one knee sharpening his blade. And between them both, Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Elsie of the Kingsguard. 

And look as much as you all probably think I should summarize, you’re not the boss of me. I’m not gonna, and you can’t make me. This is going to be a radio theater moment, everyone. I need all hands on-deck for this. I’m the narrator and Ned, a hero. Obviously. Chloe, you get to be Arthur Dayne and Lyanna Stark of course and Emmett, you’re Gerold Hightower and Oswell Whent. Are we ready?

“I looked for you on the Trident,”

“We were not there,” Ser Gerold answered.

“Woe to the Usurper if we had been,” added Ser Oswell.

“When King’s Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were.”

“Far away,” Ser Gerold said, “or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells.”

“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege, and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them.”

”Our knees do not bend easily,” said Ser Arthur Dayne.

“Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him.”

“Ser Willem is a good man, and true,” said Ser Oswell.

“But not of the Kingsguard,” Ser Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”

“Then, or now,” said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.

”We swore a vow,” explained old Ser Gerold.

Ned’s wraiths moved up beside him, shadow swords in their hands. They were seven against three. 

“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

“No,” said Ned with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.”

They came together in a rush of steel and shadow. Ned could hear Lyanna screaming.

“Eddard!” A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

“Lord Eddard.”

“I promise,” Ned whispered. “Lya, I promise …”

Holy shit. I don’t care how many times I read this. It makes me feel real emotions like a real human being, guys and gals. It just does.

Anyways, have we wiped enough tears from our eyes? Okay, let’s get back at it, you wrecks.

Well, the last “Lord Eddard” may not have been Lyanna Stark. (Sorry Chloe) It may have been Vayon Poole. He calls for Ned again, and he wakes up after having been out for three days since the brawl with Jaime’s men. And his leg still hurt like hell.

Vayon offers Ned water, and Ned drinks, thinking it tastes like honey. But that sweetness is soured when Vayon tells Ned that Robert Baratheon had left instructions that when Ned woke, he wanted to chit-chat. Ned tells Vayon to let it wait until the morning, but no such luck. The king’s instructions were clear. Ned curses Robert and hopes that the message wakes Big Bob up. But first, summon … Ned’s about to say Jory, but then he remembers … Summon the captain of my guard.

The new Captain of the Winterfell guard Alyn steps in. Ned asks after the status of things. And it’s all going south. Jaime’s gone, probably headed out for Casterly Rock to join up with Tywin. Oh, and everyone knows that Catelyn has taken Tyrion prisoner. Ned asks after Sansa and Arya, and Alyn informs him that they’ve been at Ned’s bedside day and night with Sansa praying and Arya in fury-mode. Alyn had never seen such anger in a girl before witnessing Arya’s reaction to what happened to Ned.

Ned tells Alyn to keep the girls safe, fearing that it’s only the beginning. Alyn says no harm will come to the girls, and that he’d stake his life on that (of course). And what about Jory and the men who had died on the streets? They’re with the silent sisters, Alyn informs Ned. Jory would probably want to be buried by his grandfather.

Now for another dose of sadness. Ned thinks that’s true as Martyn Cassel had been buried at the Tower of Joy. Ned had taken the tower down stone by stone and built eight cairns on the ridge. Rhaegar had called it the Tower of Joy, but it was only a bitter memory for Ned. 

They had been seven against three, yet only two had lived to ride away.

Only Ned and Howland Reed survived the battle, and it’s not a good sign that Ned is dreaming that dream again after so many years. Ned thanks Alyn for his service, but Vayon Poole returns to inform Ned that Robert and Cersei are outside the door. Uh-oh.

Ned pushes himself upwards as pain shoots through his leg. Cersei’s appearance was unexpected and unwelcome. Ned orders Vayon to send the king and queen in, and the motley coupled marches in. Robert had actually dressed and brought a cup of wine. And Cersei, because she’s Cersei, is wearing her tiara.

Eddard apologizes for not rising to their presence, but Robert doesn’t care. Some wine? Ned says sure. A small cup. His head’s still not right from all the milk of the poppy he’s been drinking. 

A man in your place should count himself fortunate that his head is still on his shoulders, Cersei helpfully declares.

Robert tells her shut her mouth and then asks Ned if his leg still hurts. Uh, yeah. It hurts, but Ned’s not about to admit weakness in front of Cersei. Robert says that Pycelle had told him that the wound would heal, but Ned, you know what Catelyn has done right? He knows. Catelyn is blameless (because she has only done one thing wrong in her entire life). You see, Ned had ordered Tyrion arrested, he lies.

Well, Robert’s not happy about that. And Cersei less so. By what right do you dare lay hands on my blood? Cersei demands. Who do you think you are? He’s the Hand of the King, and he keeps the king’s peace. You were the Hand, but now-. Robert tells her to shut up again. Ned answered Robert’s question. But he’s also displeased with Ned.

Keep the king’s peace, you say. Is this how you keep my peace, Ned? Seven men are dead.

No, actually, it’s eight, Cersei corrects. Another Lannister bro had died this morning. Robert grumbles a bit about the troubles in the realm and declares that he’s tired of all of it. When Ned tries to tell Robert that Catelyn had good reason to imprison Tyrion, Robert cuts him off.

I will not have it! To hell with her reasons. You will command her to release the dwarf at once, and you will make your peace with Jaime.

Uh, no, Robert. Three of Ned’s men had been murdered at Jaime’s command. He’s not going to forget that. My brother was not the cause of this quarrel, Cersei retorts. Ned was drunk and coming from a brothel and attacked Jaime. Yeah. That’s the story!

You know me better than that, Robert. Ned replies. Ask Lord Baelish if you doubt me. He was there.

Well, that slimy fuck known as Creepyfinger hadn’t backed Ned up. Littlefinger’s story is that he’d ridden off before the fighting had started after Ned had gone to a brothel and hadn’t seen anything. Oh boy. Ned’s angry now. He wasn’t in a brothel to frequent sex workers. He was there to see Robert’s daughter who BTW looks like Robert’s first bastard daughter from the Vale. 

Ned looks over to Cersei whose face is icy mask. Robert’s not happy either. He thought that Barra’s mother had more sense. Uh, how could she have more sense, Robert? The girl was maybe fifteen, and she’s in love with you, you goddamn moron. Aren’t you like 35? Gross, immoral and stupid, dude.

Robert tries to do his “not for the queen’s ears” routine, but Ned’s not done. Nothing he says is going to make Cersei or anyone happy. Jaime has fled, and he must be brought to justice. Robert tells him no, that the quarrel is finished. Is that your notion of justice? Ned intones. If so, he’s glad he’s not the Hand of the King anymore. 

And then Cersei decides to make things worse.

If any man had dared speak to a Targaryen as he has spoken to you.

Wait, Robert interrupts. I’m Aerys in this scenario? No, you’re supposed to be king, Cersei corrects. But really, what’s up my Lord Husband? Stark dishonors you, takes your in-laws hostage, and you stand there like a big baby asking if Ned’s leg hurt. Robert tells her for the third? Fourth? Time to shut up which causes Cersei to do the opposite:

What a jape the gods have made of us two. By all rights you ought to be in skirts and me in mail.

Oh no. Robert purples with rage and backhands her hard sending her spiraling towards a table behind her. She hits the table and falls, a red mark spreading across her face. Ned thinks that by tomorrow, a purple bruise will cover half her face.

I shall wear this as a badge of honor, Cersei announces.

Wear it in silence, or I’ll honor you again, Robert growls.

Robert orders Ser Meryn Trant to take Cersei away which he does so silently. Hm, Aerys’ kingsguard much? Robert complains that it’s not really his fault that he just brutally smacked his wife. She pushes him to do these things. But it’s not kingly for him to hit her.

I was always strong .. no one could stand before me, no one. How do you fight someone if you can’t hit them? Confused, the king shook his head. Rhaegar … Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned. I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have her.

Ned tries to talk to Robert, but he’s done with talking. He’s off to go on a perfectly normal, not-at-all dangerous hunt where no one will be out to kill him in the kingswood. Whatever Ned wants to say can wait. What? No. Ned’ll be gone by the time he’ll be back if the gods are good. Robert had commanded him to return to Winterfell.

Robert retrieves the Hand clasp from a pocket and hands it to Ned. The gods are seldom good. Like it or not, you are my Hand, damn you. I forbid you to leave. Ned takes the clasp, thinking he has no choice. (No, Ned. Run, Ned.) His leg throbs, and he feels helpless as a child. He tries one last thing. The Targaryen girl …

Goddammit, Ned. Can’t you see I’m done with talking, Robert groans. It’s done. When Ned asks why Robert would want him as Hand if he’s not going to listen to him, Robert gets into good ol’ boy Robert mode.

Why? Why not? Someone has to rule this damnable kingdom. Put on the badge, Ned. It suits you. And if you ever throw it in my face again, I swear to you, I’ll pin the damn thing on Jaime Lannister.

And that, my friends, Romans and countrymen is AGOT, Eddard X: one of those chapters that just stays with you. Forever. Obviously the best Eddard chapter until his final one. That’s my take on it. And now, I’m going to recede into the background for about 9 hours and let you two chatty cathys get sad for a while.

Depth

No one could withstand him.

Whew. Where to begin? Like the GGC, I’m intimidated by this chapter; we’re only staring down the barrel of the most iconically capital-F Fantasy scene of our lifetimes! The Tower of Joy sequence is absolutely critical to both the backstory and endgame of ASOIAF, ties the Robert’s Rebellion era to the modern day more than any other scene in the books, serves as the Rosetta Stone for Ned Stark’s overall character arc, and is just an incredibly well-written scene that is frequently held up as the one to show people who are considering reading the series.

But before we get into all it is, it’s worth noting one thing that Eddard X is not. It’s not actually representative of the series as a whole. Most of ASOIAF doesn’t feel like this: the strict rhythm of the dialogue with neither snarky asides nor revealing inner monologue, the lush romanticism of the imagery with no gritty deconstruction. The Tower of Joy sequence is written to stand out from everything around it, just as the Others’ attack in the Prologue is meant to haunt the back of your mind as you read the political machinations that follow. It enhances the sense that what we’re seeing is a secret--that which both Ned and George RR Martin have kept hidden. 

FIRST THOUGHTS??? Where are the first thoughts 

• This chapter is the penultimate build up of Eddard’s trauma
  • We’ve been removed from it so many times, and the way George writes about it is so simple but interesting
    • We assume we know what happened to Lyanna, but we don’t know exactly how he knew/what happened, until we get to this chapter 
    • He gives us hints, and small bits, peppered throughout the book and ramping up, from EDDARD I:
      • He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. 
      • And of course:
      • "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was … fond of flowers."
    • CATELYN II:
      • They whispered of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, deadliest of the seven knights of Aerys's Kingsguard, and of how their young lord had slain him in single combat. And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur's sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea.
    • EDDARD IV:
      • His hand left powder stains on Ned's sleeve, and he smelled as foul and sweet as flowers on a grave.
    • EDDARD IX, WHERE NED MEETS A ROYAL KING’S ‘BASTARD’:
      • Littlefinger shook the rain from his hair and laughed. "Now I see. Lord Arryn learned that His Grace had filled the bellies of some whores and fishwives, and for that he had to be silenced. Small wonder. Allow a man like that to live, and next he's like to blurt out that the sun rises in the east."

There was no answer Ned Stark could give to that but a frown. For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.

• Romance rotting like rose petals
  • Ned’s flashback to Lyanna in Eddard IX was clearly the appetizer to Eddard X’s entree, both in the mournful focus on her…
    • He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood. 
  • ...and the tone of disillusioned romanticism
    • Ned had known their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget.
  • ASOIAF is always, always, about this fall from grace, “the moment all the smiles died,” from the knights of summer to Quentyn’s quest to the Long Night
  • Ned is flashing back to the moment he lost that innocent faith in dreams and songs, the romanticism he expressed to Lyanna about Robert in Eddard IX
  • (I mean, it’s literally about Joy coming crashing down...very subtle, George...) 
  • (and rhaegar NAMED IT) (CMON)
  • Lyanna is herself the Fantasy Reader Forced To Grow Up Too Quickly a la both Sansa and Arya *Chloe points out how Lyanna combines the two* 
  • As such, her “bed of blood” undercuts the intensely vivid high-fantasy trappings of the scene: this is what making a messiah really looks like, and it is devastating
  • The Tower of Joy sequence is therefore the meeting point of “blood and roses,” the equivalent of the bloody smear on a smiley face that defines Watchmen 
• The Ye Olde Times When Knights Were True 
  • But in order for the deconstruction to stick the tragedy landing, GRRM really does have to sell that shiny fantasy surface as compelling, and boy does he ever
  • The three Kingsguard stand out as medieval fantasy paragons even more than the projected image of the Undying (with the pointy wizard hats and whatnot)
    • Yet these were no ordinary three.
  • This reaches back past Frodo and Conan to the source material for Western fantasy: Arthurian legends. Literally an Arthur here, again very subtle, George
  • The way they speak is not only metrically precise but spookily intuitive; like intimate romantic partners, they finish each other’s sentences
  • (Or like a hivemind? As LML says, the Kingsguard have a lot of imagery in common with the Others--look at Dawn, compared to milkglass just like white walker bones--and now a resurrected corpse wears a white cloak…)
  • Their responses to Ned reaffirm their loyalty and devotion, framing his questions as a fundamental misunderstanding of how seriously they take their oaths
  • They contrast themselves along those lines with not only their enemies (Jaime is a “false brother” who deserves hellfire) but also their allies (Willem Darry is “a good man and true,” but “not of the Kingsguard”) 
  • When Ned tells Bran (as the latter recalls in ACOK), that the Kingsguard used to be the greatest knights in the realm, before the fall, he’s talking about these three
  • This is a separate question from whether they really deserve such accolades, because Ned’s nostalgia is linked to everything he lost during the Rebellion
  • So Ned’s personal fall from grace, the Kingsguard’s institutional fall from grace, and fantasy’s metatextual fall from grace--they are all one big fall
    • GRRM has indicated that Ser Arthur Dayne’s storyline is more complex than is presented in the text:
      
      Arthur Dayne has been presented as the quintessential chivalrous knight. How could he support the atrocities of Aerys, that even Jaime was horrified by?
      
      GRRM: Well... keep reading.
• Will it be likewise for Oswell and Gerold?
• And that brings us to two excellent question from one of our Sworn Swords Ser James RW who says: When sir Gerald says the Kingsguard does not flee isn’t this giving it away that the king is there with him? And is there a historical precedent for a kingsguard?
  • “Three Wise Men” imagery, and the bringing of gifts
    • Contra Celsum: "gold, as to a king; myrrh, as to one who was mortal; and incense, as to a God."
    • gold as a symbol of kingship on earth, frankincense (an incense) as a symbol of deity, and myrrh (an embalming oil) as a symbol of death
    • Marco Polo claimed he was shown the three tombs of the Magi at Saveh south of Tehran in the 1270s:
  • In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three Magi set out and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is a square building, beautifully kept. The bodies are still entire, with hair and beard remaining.

— Marco Polo, Polo, Marco, The Book of the Million, book i.

• Talk about Cairns here - Ned and Howland hand bury not only the “three kings” but also bury the other men who came to fight against the Kingsguard 
  • We see these numbers pop up consistently in the ASOIAF series - seven against three, three, five against three, they were seven, etc.
  • Five against three in Jaime’s battle, five against three (minus Ned and Howland) in the TOJ
  • We similarly get a lot of this three wise men and adoration of the seeker imagery in Daenerys’ plot, in Qarth (a comparable desert setting)
• Let’s shift to these pawns and players as individuals: 
• Ned’s companions at the Tower of Joy - they were seven against three.
• Jory Cassel is Martyn Cassel’s only living and surviving son
  • Rodrik is his brother
  • Weird loyalty from families that lost people that were with Ned
  • Theo Wull - presumably related to Hugo (Big Bucket), since Theo was nicknamed “Buckets”
• Willem Dustin and Mark Ryswell - Barbrey discussion
• Living Legends: The Stories Come To Life
  • Arthur Dayne
    • What role the Daynes played in the rebellion
    • Who told Ned that Lyanna was in the tower and why it was Ashara Dayne
    • House Dayne? Ned Dayne being named after Edric
    • Wylla
    • Born under a bleeding star…… amidst salt (or sand) and smoke (or rubble from the towers)
    • Something his father had told him once when he was little came back to him suddenly. He had asked Lord Eddard if the Kingsguard were truly the finest knights in the Seven Kingdoms. "No longer," he answered, "but once they were a marvel, a shining lesson to the world."
      
      "Was there one who was best of all?"
      
      "The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed." Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant. 
    • Gerold Hightower
    • Oswell Whent
    • Listen all y’all this is Harrenhal
  • Where do these men’s loyalties actually lie? With Aerys due to Gerold’s “or Aerys might still sit the Iron Throne” line to Ned or with Rhaegar due to them protecting his progeny and heir?
• Some memories fade, some burn bright
  • Ned cannot recall the faces of his companions…
    • In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
  • ...but he can recall those of the Kingsguard
    • And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. 
  • This gets at the double-edged sword of legacy, a frequent topic in ASOIAF
  • As with Ser Hugh of the Vale, no songs will be sung of Ned's companions; time has ruined his memories of them, despite pledging to never forget them
  • But songs are sung of Arthur Dayne, and as such his “sad smile” lingers in Ned's mind; they are “no ordinary three,” unlike Ned’s six
  • On the other hand, the KG end up in graves alongside most of Ned's companions
  • So remember kids, no difference between the two when the Stranger shows up
• The wheel of time
  • The core of this scene is Arthur Dayne’s declaration…
    • “And now it begins.”
  • ...and Ned’s response:
    • “No...now it ends.” 
  • They’re both right. This is both a beginning and an ending, in many ways
  • This is the end of the bloodshed of Robert’s Rebellion, and the beginning of the aftershocks that will continue throughout ASOIAF
  • This is the end of Ned Stark’s innocent youth, and the beginning of his world-weary adulthood
    • The final awakening of the adult Ned Stark who witnessed the horrors of war, the brutal Lannister sack of King’s Landing, the laying of the Targaryen children’s bodies in front of Robert and Robert’s “I only see dragon spawn.”
    • When Robert says he’ll hear no more of this Targaryen girl, you know all Ned can think is and what of the Targaryen boy
    • It all harkens back to Eddard II:
      • "Unspeakable?" the king roared. "What Aerys did to your brother Brandon was unspeakable. The way your lord father died, that was unspeakable. And Rhaegar … how many times do you think he raped your sister? How many hundreds of times?" His voice had grown so loud that his horse whinnied nervously beneath him. The king jerked the reins hard, quieting the animal, and pointed an angry finger at Ned. "I will kill every Targaryen I can get my hands on, until they are as dead as their dragons, and then I will piss on their graves."
        
        Ned knew better than to defy him when the wrath was on him. If the years had not quenched Robert's thirst for revenge, no words of his would help. "You can't get your hands on this one, can you?" he said quietly.
    • You can feel Ned’s quiet here when you read this passage, you can almost feel the flicker of the corner of his mouth as he says it.
  • This is the end of Tolkienesque fantasy and the beginning of its deconstruction
  • And of course, this is the end of Lyanna’s life, and the beginning of Jon’s 
  • So while this scene functions as a ravishing origin story of the Prince that was Promised, these lines acknowledge that neither life nor (good) stories actually function in terms of such delineations. “Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.” 
  • It’s an ouroboros, the dragon eating its own tail (as Arianne points out to Arys in AFFC), so new life contains death within it and classic fantasy images give way to harsh messy realities of which the songs do not speak
• Snap back to reality (whoop there goes gravity)
  • The transition really is so crucial:
    • “I promise,” he whispered. “Lya, I promise . . . ”
  • That’s the heart of Ned’s characterization right there, whispered in feverish delusion in between sleeping and waking, almost giving away his secret
  • The structuring absence of course here is Jon, and that’s what Ned took away from his tragic romantic backstory: a child and a promise to protect it
  • Ironically, The Honorable Ned Stark’s most noble act is the one he kept hidden (see also Jaime’s line to Catelyn), but that only makes it all the more heroic
  • And then the grief that links the past and present: Jory has died and his body sent north, causing Ned to remember the Cassel he left behind dead in Dorne
  • It all keeps going back like that, puppets on strings, as Tyrion will say
• Harsh light of (D)awn
  • If the dream sequence was the origin story of an (arguable) heir to the Iron Throne, the scene with Robert and Cersei is what the royalty has come to
  • Robert is drunk and just wants this over and done with (as in Darry), Cersei snaps at him relentlessly, and then he hits her
  • After she leaves, he describes his disillusionment and self-loathing to Ned with a very pointed turn of phrase: 
    • “I should not have hit her. That was not . . . that was not kingly.”
  • That resonates after the birth-of-a-king imagery that soaked the ToJ sequence. What is kingly, especially in the context of the fall from grace Robert describes?
    • He stared down at his hands, as if he did not quite know what they were. "I was always strong … no one could stand before me, no one. How do you fight someone if you can't hit them?" 
  • This is life after the songs, after you grow up, when merely riding at the head of fancy banners and being able to punch the hardest isn’t enough anymore
  • Robert simply isn’t prepared for this. But will Jon be? Will he learn better?
  • Even more poignant and pointed is this: 
    • Confused, the king shook his head. "Rhaegar … Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have her." The king drained his cup. 
  • “They made up songs about it.” But those songs don’t help Robert make it through the day, nor preventing him from beating his wife. What does it mean to win?
  • Everything Robert thought and felt for Lyanna, it turns out it was just fake in the end, like those songs, like his kingship.  Robert is no true king; is this what would’ve happened to Lyanna, if she lived and they had wed?
    • You do have to wonder whether that accounts for Ned’s total non-emotional reaction to brutal physical abuse. 
    • Spending years ignoring the world so you don’t have to deal with the harsh reality that the king you put on the throne led to brutal death, loss, and all for nothing, because he’s become a drunk, fat, abusive sot?  Never heard of it.  Spending years doing all that and then realizing you would seat your sister with him, and that he would kill your nephew? Yikes.
    • Someone get this man a xanax.
  • Part of the problem is associating the “black armor” with a “black heart,” confusing the surface with the depths, another genre critique
  • He did the same with Lyanna, after all, but we are supposed to know better when it comes to Jon Snow and his black cloak--his heart is like Ned’s
  • The best in Robert remains his relationship with and love for Ned Stark: 
    • "Like it or not, you are my Hand, damn you. I forbid you to leave." 
  • But he hasn’t changed his mind on what they were fighting about: Dany’s fate
    • "The Targaryen girl—"

The king groaned. "Seven hells, don't start with her again. That's done, I'll hear no more of it."

• And of course, he drops the mother of all ironic “we’ll talk about it later” lines:
  • “Your Grace," Ned Stark said, "we must talk …"

Robert pressed his fingertips against his temples. "I am sick unto death of talk. On the morrow I'm going to the kingswood to hunt. Whatever you have to say can wait until I return."

• What can we say about these scenes taken together, the birth of a king and the decay of another, except that “the gods are seldom good?” The dream is dead, and while it can live again in the next generation, for now we’re left with ghosts
• Ned causes Barra’s death indirectly in this scene by discussing Barra and her Mother in front of Cersei
  • Much like we see Ned directly reveal his plan to bring just Ruling (you’re welcome Jeff) to the Kingdom to Cersei
  • And of course Sansa indirectly revealing Ned’s plan to spirit them away 

Likes/Dislikes

Like: Arthur Dayne's sad smile. He knows what’s coming, all of it. There's your bittersweet ending. 

Dislike: “I’ll pin the damn thing on Jaime Lannister” is a cheap-ass punchline on which to end this chapter of all chapters. By comparison, you end the Red Wedding with NED LOVES MY HAIR, not Walder Frey snarking about how his sons and grandsons will screw all of this up. 

I am going to defend this line. It was one against two.

LIKES: Everything. But to narrow it down…

The language in several ways.  First way: 

The king swirled the wine in his cup, brooding. He took a swallow. "No," he said. "I want no more of this. Jaime slew three of your men, and you five of his. Now it ends." vs “They were Seven against Three” in the same chapter

And of course, how could you not like this:

"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

• This is the best of all imagery, in history, of earth
  • Like the sheer amount of things this reminds me of
    • Is very metal yes
    • Is also anime
    • Is also DC Comics--red sky for multiverse problems
    • Is also romance novels (kinda)(more blood)
    • And of course it is a vision of what will happen in TWOW: everything turns red for Euron’s “sea of blood,” and the blue eyes of death are the Others
  • But also, once more, it’s not especially representative--gritty realistic GRRM doesn’t usually plunge headfirst into such abstract imagery 
  • He wants you to notice when he does, from here to HOTU to Bran and Bloodraven to “The Forsaken,” because it’s symbolically significant
  • A splash of color in a Noir world for Ned and his investigations

This chapter tells so many stories within one passage.  Ned’s arc heavily revolves around the trauma of Lyanna in the tower and his promise to her, and we get it from his very first pages to the very end: honorable Eddard Stark, protecting the children, promise me, she cried.

DISLIKES We don’t know Mark Ryswell’s relation to Barbrey, but Barbrey doesn’t bring him up in her griefs with Lord Eddard - I find that surprising, that might actually be my dislike… a distant cousin maybe? Not even a mention from her? He’s a knight of house Ryswell! 

Early gardening ***

Like: Like Tyrion said in the prior chapter, Cersei has a low cunning, and we see this in spades here. Her constant provocations of Robert show the amount of manipulation she’s willing to utilize to steer Robert away from Ned’s accusations against Jaime. But I think she loses it when Ned brings up Barra and Mya Stone. And that’s when we get the “I should be mail and you in the skirts” line. That line reads more like anger than manipulation, and I like that the “arch-conspirator” (so far as the first time reader knows in reading AGOT) is not so arch.

Dislike: There’s not enough Stannis in this chapter. Storm’s End siege is mentioned, buddy, cool your jets. Not ENOUGH Stannis. I chose my words deliberately. Cut to Ned in the middle of the Tower of Joy sequence “I wonder what Stannis Baratheon, Robert’s younger brother, would make of all this” lol

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

The Harrenhal Conspiracy: A Rat in the Dungeon by KingLittlefinger

One of the more intriguing recent theories put forward is one that involves a character that receives exactly TWO name-drops in all of ASOIAF (one of them in this chapter). Ethan Glover. Now, who is Ethan? He’s Brandon Stark’s squire and the only survivor when Brandon came to King’s Landing:

"Ethan Glover was Brandon's squire," Catelyn said. "He was the only one to survive. The others were Jeffory Mallister, Kyle Royce, and Elbert Arryn, Jon Arryn's nephew and heir." It was queer how she still remembered the names, after so many years. "Aerys accused them of treason and summoned their fathers to court to answer the charge, with the sons as hostages. When they came, he had them murdered without trial. Fathers and sons both." (ACOK, Catelyn VII)

So, the theory goes something like this: Aerys Targaryen was murdering everyone in Brandon’s party left and right, but Ethan wasn’t killed. Why? Because he ratted out the southron ambitions conspiracy to Aerys. So, Aerys spared him, threw him into a dungeon and Ned Stark rescued him from the dungeons when he entered King’s Landing.

SOMEONE ALWAYS TELLS

My personal take is that I really love this theory. There are certain parts of the Harrenhal Conspiracy that I disagree with, but this part reads true to me. My own little twist on it is that the reason that Ethan Glover accompanied Ned to the Tower of Joy was to atone for his betrayal of Brandon Stark.

• Foreshadowing of Jaime’s weirwood stump dream
  • Lush vivid imagery
  • Theme of duty, protection, death
  • Shimmery shadowy swords
  • Rhaegar
  • KG knights
• Speaking of Jaime, the drums of war are beating
  • He’s gone back to the Rock to join Tywin, and as we learn in Catelyn VII, they’re mustering their forces
• Ned v. Robert is yet more Davos v. Stannis foreshadowing
  • Compare Ned saying “why am I Hand if you won’t listen” to Stannis telling Davos “why did I make you Hand, if not to speak” 
• Varys’ appeal to Ned in the black cells
  • Make peace with your attackers, as Robert urges here
• AND OF COURSE, THE STORM OF BLUE ROSE PETALS, RUSHING THE BOOKS BIGGEST SECRET RIGHT ACROSS THE SCREEN - BUT IF YOU BLINK, YOU MISS IT! 
  • Promise me
  • Promise me
  • Promise me

Theory/Discussion

Separating the reality from the dreamscape: The Tower of Joy. In 2002, GRRM responded to a fan who asked him about the Tower of Joy by saying:

You'll need to wait for future books to find out more about the Tower of Joy and what happened there, I fear.

I might mention, though, that Ned's account, which you refer to, was in the context of a dream... and a fever dream at that. Our dreams are not always literal.

We can independently establish that Ned and his companions did indeed fight the Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy. The Tower of Joy is a real place as depicted in TLOIAF. Eight men (five of Ned’s, the three Kingsguard) died there. Lyanna died there too. Howland Reed saved Ned Stark from being killed by Ser Arthur Dayne per what Ned told Bran as recorded in ACOK, Bran III. 

But what about the rest? The action? The dialogue? 

The call-and-response sentence-finishing rhythm of the conversation seems likely to be an inflated product of Ned’s memories and the fever itself

Eliana from GGC and I discuss in Eddard X the iambic and troaich nature of the passage; “to be or not to be” , when it goes from “our knees do not bend easily” to iambs “not it begins” :”now it ends”

Also: eight cairns with a crying baby right there, really bud, not very practical, did you actually do that (think of Catelyn wanting to bury the men in the Mountains of the Moon but not having time)

I find the cairns possible! That Ned thinks about it after his dream means that we’ve left the dreamscape. But again, I concede the possibility that we’re in a fascinating land where memory and emotion interweave with reality and create a patchwork of false and true memories for Ned.  

Conclusion

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