Saturday, June 27, 2009

Catelyn • Jon

Catelyn is upset that Lysa consented to Tyrion's trial by combat. Arresting Tyrion was a huge gamble, resulting in the death of several of Winterfell men, Eddard’s injury, and near war with the Lannisters. Now, it might all be for nothing because of Lysa’s stubbornness and stupidity. Also, isn’t Tyrion on trial for two separate crimes? Shouldn’t he have to go through two trials to fully vindicate himself from Jon Arryn’s death and the attempt on Bran? Does this TBC completely clear him of all charges? If that’s the case, Tyrion might as well commit a few more murders before the TBC starts.

Lysa and her knights seem quite sure Ser Vardis will win, since LeBronn went straight from high school to sellsword, skipping Knight College. However, men that fight for money are usually (a) very good at fighting and (b) very self-interested. While Bronn is obviously doing this to score points with Tyrion, he’s not going to throw away his life recklessly. Obviously Bronn thinks he will beat Vardis, or he wouldn’t have volunteered.

After wearing out the older and dumber Vardis, Bronn wins the TBC. Tyrion is innocent! Little Robert Arryn, who grows more annoying every chapter, freaks out and wants to execute Tyrion anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, the rulers of the Vale: a weak, breast milk sucking kid with no sense of justice, and a fat, paranoid, stupid widow who falsely accuses people of murder. Because the gods judged Tyrion innocent, Lysa is forced to allow him and Bronn to leave the Eyrie. However, she has them take the mountain clan infested high road. Tyrion doesn’t seem to mind, probably because anything is better than being chucked off a cliff.
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Jon Snow and his merry men are finally out from under Ser Alliser’s boot. The guest speaker at their graduation is Ser Alliser himself, who inspires them with motivational truths like “when the winter comes you will die like flies.” They have become brothers of the Night’s Watch, and now officially can’t own lands or have sex. The only person who is still in training from their group is Sam, who will no longer benefits from Jon's friendship and protection.

Jon's worried that pedo Thorne will start the Sam-spankings again, so he asks Maester Aemon if Sam can graduate anyway, arguing that Sam’s skills at math and reading are far better suited for a steward than for a ranger. Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with Aemon’s current steward Chett, who is as ugly as Sam is fat. The Night’s Watch should really have an admissions office that determines specialization for the new recruits. For example, the thieves should not be put in charge of the treasury, the rapists should not be near women, and fat softies like Sam should be given some sort of desk job. Then again, maybe we shouldn’t expect that level of efficiency from the guys who thought it’d be a good idea to build a 700-foot wall that’s only used once every thousand years.

29 comments:

  1. God damnit i won`t ge tthe image of an pedo thorne out of my head.

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  2. Just came back from my workout to this.... best entry yet, in my opinion. =]

    I don't know what's scarier... you're analogies, or me reading this at 5 in the morning.

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  3. Sorry, your*. (haha, stupid trolls; Me:1, You:0)

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  4. Good analysis of the Vardis/Bronn fight. I was really worried that Tyrion would die when I first read that chapter, but it's kind of obvious that he won't. :P

    Loved the graduation bit.

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  5. What I found most interesting about the Vale was Catelyn's reaction to it. At some point she reflects on Eddard's description of growing up there, and he described it as happy and fun, etc. Point being, it isn't the place that's fucked up, it's just crazy Lysa ruining the atmosphere.

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  6. Well, using that logic, any place with nice people would be a great place to go. I mean, the reason Eddard likes it was because the atmosphere was better; polar opposite for Catelyn.

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  7. Not at all. A great place can be ruined by horrible people, but that doesn't mean that good people can completely mitigate the horribleness of a shithole.

    The point I was making is that the atmosphere of the Vale lends itself just as well to a happy fairytale place of joyous childhoods as it does to a bad acid trip. Don't blame the place itself and the bad trip, blame Lady Crazy.

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  8. To be fair, I think a bad trip would probably contribute pretty strongly to negative impressions of a place, if the place itself did not provide a relief from the horror of the trip. (Of course, if it DOES, then the place gets major bonus points and will always be remembered fondly, or at least until the memory of the bad trip wears of.)

    And all this talking about bad trips is getting sixtiesish...

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  9. You're telling me the atmosphere doesn't ruin a place? Well, if not, I was simply using your logic, and if you're disagreeing with yourself...

    Anyway, no offense, I was just pointing out what you said.

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  10. What I'm reading from AnonyKim is that neither atmosphere nor people can completely overcome the effects of the other. Although maybe she seems to be favoring 1) pessmism (e.g., it's easier to ruin stuff than make it good) and 2) people (e.g., people can sometimes overcome atmosphere, but atmosphere can never overcome people).

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  11. What I'm saying is that the Vale is not a dreary crap pile because it is a dreary crap pile, but because Loony Lysa is making it a dreary crap pile. She's not necessarily the product of her surroundings as the cause of their current condition.

    Often people comment on poor Lysa, far away in the Vale, isolated and married to a guy a gazillion years old, but before she showed up, the Vale was a jolly place. Pity the Vale for having to deal with Lysa, not Lysa for having to deal with the Vale.

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  12. Well, the "isolated and married to a guy a gazillion years old" still holds. Those have nothing to do with the Vale itself -- isolated, because her family and friends (and LOVAHBOY) are all somewhere else... and the marriage bit is self-explanatory. From Cat we know that Lysa used to be real pretty and happy -- and if I remember correctly, a bit shyer than Cat. Not exactly the insane/overprotective person that was now making the Vale dreary.

    Conclusion? I blame Petyr :D

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  13. Jesus, you people need to argue about things a little more interesting.

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  14. Like your lack of a sex life?

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  15. I'm in favor of the Vale not being completely to blame. Especially since Lysa hasn't really spent that much time there. She was in King's Landing for a damn good portion since her husband was Hand and she couldn't have had all those miscarriages without him. (Ok, yes, she could have, but then one would think they wouldn't be quite so well known.)

    That being said, I can see why Cat would originally think it is a bad place for Lysa. Having to deal with the death of her husband and a sickly child, in a fairly isolated place where she hasn't spent a whole lot of time, away from friends (I'm not sure who they are) and family doesn't really sound like a good idea. Yes, there are people there, but supposedly none that she knows all that well. Or at least none that would want to comfort her because they care, as opposed to jumping her bones because they want the Vale, itself.
    (I'm really tired, so I'm not sure if I made my points very clear. If anyone actually bothers to respond to me, I'll make sure I've had more sleep before I reply.)

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  16. That's a good point about King's Landing, slyhell! I hadn't even thought about the locational implications of Arryn being Hand.

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  17. Letter to jon:

    "Some mercenary killed one of Lysas knight. It should have been you."

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  18. Thanks for the laugh ;)

    I just wanna add something - the Wall was not build to be used in once a thousand years. In the past, the Others were an imminent danger all the time.

    After beating them with the help of the Children of the Forest, the Watch forgot his real purpose.

    Sorry for my mistakes, just learning English.

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  19. New subscriber here; fucking great blog.

    Dude's killing me. Plus he mixes in a little snark variety - rap references, NBA references, Star Wars references, super hero references...

    And more. Kudos, man. I'm getting as many of my ASoIaF friends over here as I can.

    LeBronn. Lawl.

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  20. I guess you're one of those fools against volcano monitoring?

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  21. It actually stems from a misinterpretation of efficiency. The definition of efficiency for prevention-type projects needs to factor in the severity of the damage should no such project be in place when the time comes, on top of the frequency of use and all that junk. In this case, the Wall has proven itself quite efficient.

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  22. But seriously, it's funnier his way >.>

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  23. Yeah. It's pretty obvious the Wall's a dying institution here, crushed by the weight of bureaucracy... or lack thereof.

    I second the LeBronn lawl.

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  24. To who ever said that Lysa was shy, needs to reread some parts of the book.(lol) No Lysa is quite bold and promiscuous and can be easily controlled. I think she was always just jelous of Cat in the hat. And that turned into a kinda hatred for her sister. And she obviously has some mental issues that needs to be taken care of.

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  25. this blog is slowly dying unfortunately

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  26. July 5th Anonymous:
    Actually, Lysa being shy is canon -- when she was a child.

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  27. July 6th Aoede:
    Actually, Lysa was not all that shy when she was a child. Shy people don't sneek in other people's rooms. She was always jealous of Cat and the way everybody treated her.

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