A Game of Thrones: Notes

Notes I made while re-reading A Game of Thrones.

Character Ages:

• Eddard Stark - 35
• Brandon Stark - 20 when he died
• Lyanna Stark - 16 when she died
• Theon Greyjoy - 19
• Robb Stark - 14
• Jon Snow - 14
• Sansa Stark - 11
• Arya Stark - 9
• Bran Stark - 7
• Rickon Stark - 3
• Joffrey Baratheon - 13
• Myrcella Baratheon - almost 8
• Tommen Baratheon - 7
• Viserys Targaryen - 21
• Daenerys Targaryen - 13

Note stream:

• Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black.
• Jon is slender, dark, graceful, and quick.
• The direwolf pups did not yet have their eyes open, except for Ghost.  Ghost has red eyes.  Direwolves have not been seen south of the Wall for 200 years.
• The southern weirwood trees have all been cut down long ago except for those on the Isle of Faces where green men kept their silent watch.
• The Stark family sword Ice is made of Valyrian steel and is 400 years old.
• Benjen says the Nights Watch number less than 1000 now.
• The Children of the Forest and the Others have not been seen for 8,000 years.
• 15 years ago Ned and Jon Arryn had a double wedding with Catelyn and Lysa Tully.
• Viserys and Dany spent the last half of the year living as guests to Illyrio in Pentos.
• Viserys has pale lilac eyes.  
• Viserys was 8 years old when he and his mother fled King's Landing to Dragonstone.  9 months later, Dany was born in Dragonstone, her mother dying in her birth.
• Viserys tells Dany of their brother Rhaegar dying for the woman he loved.
• Ser Willem Darry and 4 loyal men took Viserys, Dany, and a wet nurse to Braavos.  In Braavos they live in the house with the red door with a sick Ser Darry.  Once he died, the servants took his possessions and kicked the Targs out.
• Dany has silver-pale hair and Viserys has silver-blond ... same as hers
• Illyrio to Dany: that silver-gold hair, those purple eyes
• Ned last saw Robert 9 years ago during the Greyjoy Rebellion.
• Brandon died a few days before he was to marry Catelyn Tully.  Ned married her in his place.
• Cersei and Jaime Lannister have green eyes.  Tyrion Lannister has one green eye and one black ... hair so blond it seemed white.
• Tyrion and Jon talk about being a bastard.
• Jon: You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister.  
• Tyrion: Am I? ... Do tell my lord father.  My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure.
• King Robert's assigned wardens of the kingdom:
• Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock is Warden of the West.  
• Jaime Lannister is Warden of the East after Jon Arryn died.
• Ned is Warden of the North.
• Mace Tyrell of High Garden is Warden of the South.
• Jaime was 17 when he killed Aerys Targaryen, the Mad King.
• Tyrion is reading a book on dragons: Dragonbone is black because of its high iron content.  It is strong as steel, yet lighter and fare more flexible, and of course utterly impervious to fire. ... 
• Tyrion thinks about looking at the dragon bones at King's Landing.  Tyrion had a morbid fascination with dragons.
• Tyrion to Jon: Sad, isn't it?  When I was your age, I used to dream of having a dragon of my own. ... I seldom even dream of dragons anymore.  There are no more dragons.
• Bran's dream while in a coma after being thrown from the tower: There were shadows all arond them.  One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound.  Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful.  Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood. ... his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled him.  ...  There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him.  They flew up at him like spears.  He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points.
• Varys is plump, perfumed, powdered, and as hairless as an egg.
• Donal Noye, the armorer of the Nights Watch, forged Robert Baratheon's warhammer.
• Jon to Tyrion about Benjen: They might search as far as the Shadow Tower.
• Aemon about Tyrion: Oh, I think that Lord Tyrion is quite a large man ... I think he is a giant come among us, here at the end of the world.
• Old Nan was a wet nurse to Brandon Stark (not Ned's brother, but the older one) whose mother died birthing him, but he died at age 3.
• When Tyrion comes back to Winterfell and offers Bran a saddle design, Robb is strongly suspicious of the Lannisters being involved with Bran's accident.  The direwolves HATE Tyrion.  Back when Tyrion was traveling with Jon, he inadvertently provoked Jon and Ghost attacked him.  In Winterfell, Summer and Shaggy Dog almost attack him.
• The tree marks Benjen had been leaving stopped abruptly at the stoney highlands of the northwest.
• Jaime at the Hand's Tourney was shining gold from head to foot, with a lion's head helm and a golden sword.
• Varys says Renly and the Tyrells are plotting to have Robert put Cersei aside and wed Margaery Tyrell.  Earlier Renly had shown a picture of Margaery to Ned and asked if she looked like Lyanna.
• Illyrio and Varys talk in secret:
• Illyrio: If one Hand can die, why not a second? ... You have danced the dance before, my friend.
• Varys: Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other.
• Illyrio: Perhaps so.  Nonetheless, we must have time.  The princess is with child.  The khal will not bestir himself until his sone is born.  You know how they are, these savages.
• Varys: If he does not bestir himself soon, it may be too late.  This is no longer a game for two players, if ever it was.  ... Delay, you say.  Make haste, I reply.  Even the finest of jugglers cannot keep a hundred balls in the air forever.
• Littlefinger to Ned: Robert got a pair of twins on a serving wench at Casterly Rock, 3 years ago ... Cersei had the babes killed, and sold the mother to a passing slaver.
• Ned had offered to foster Robert Arryn, but Robert said he was going to have him fostered at Casterly Rock with Tywin.  The master at the Vale said Jon was going to have him fostered at Dragonstone with Stannis.  This was also confirmed my Walder Frey.
• Jon comments that Ghost has white fur and red eyes like the weirwood heart trees.
• As Arya thinks of how to escape the Red Keep, a voice internally whispers to her Calm as still water.  She is not sure if it is herself or Syrio whispering to her.
• The 2 dead rangers of the Night's Watch that had set out with Benjen rise with blue eyes (they did not originally have blue eyes).
• Shaggy Dog has green eyes.  Grey Wind has gold eyes.
• Manderly banners are the white merman with trident in hand, rising from a blue-green sea.
• Catelyn meets Robb @ Moat Cailin.  3 of the 20 original towers remain of that ancient ruin.  Immense blocks of black basalt.  ... And the tall, slender Childrens Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called upon their nameless godes to send the hammer of the waters.  Perhaps this is referring to the bog that the once mighty wall has sunken into.
• Robb to Catelyn: I've sent word to Howland Reed, Father's old friend at Greywater Watch.  If the Lannisters come up the Neck, the crannogmen will bleed them every step of the way.
• Tywin's eyes are green flecked with gold.  He has once golden hair ... tall with long legs, broad shoulders, a flat stomach ...
• Kevin is Tywin's last surviving brother.
• Ser Barristan joined the Kingsguard at 23 and served 3 different kings.  The girl I was to wed married my cousin in my place.
• While imprisoned in the Red Keep, Ned recalls stories of Maegar the Cruel, who murdered all the masons who labored in his castle, so they might never reveal its secrets.
• Ned was 18 at the Tourney of Harrenhal.  Jaime was accepted into the Kingsguard there.  Rhaegar rocked the jousting, beating Brandon, Bronze Yohn Royce, Ser Arthur Dayne, and Ser Barristan at the final tilt.  He crowned Lyanna a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.  
• Ned about Varys: The eunuch's plump cheeks were covered with a dark stubble of beard.  Ned felt the coarse hair with his fingers.
• Varys to Ned: When I was a young boy, before I was cut, I traveled with a troupe of mummers through the Free Cities.
• Cersei has green eyes.
• Varys about Rhaenys: She had a small black kitten she called Balerion, did you know?  I always wondered what happened to him.
• Catelyn tells Rob Lord Frey's son will marry Tywin's sister.
• Jon burned his hand severely when torching the wight that attacked Mormont.
• Mormont gives Jon Longclaw, his house's Valyrian steel sword of 5 centuries.  He had the pommel remade to look like a wolf.
• The "Long Night" was 8,000 years ago.
• Mormont sends Ser Alliser Thorn to Kings Landing to show the king the wight's hand.
• Tarly house has Valyrian sword "Heartsbane".
• Aemon to Jon about Mormont's raven: He is a rare bird ... most ravens will eat grain, but they prefer flesh.  It makes them strong and I fear they relish the taste of blood.  In that they are like men ... and like men, not all raves are alike. ... The crow is the raven's poor cousin.  They are both beggars in black, hated and misunderstood.
• Mirri Maz Duur had been taught healing and Common Tongue by Maester Marwyn while she was in Asshai.
• After less than a fortnight of marriage, Ned left Catelyn for war, but had gotten her pregnant with Robb.  Robb was born in Riverrun while Ned was still away.
• Arya looks at the docks for the ship that was to take her and Sansa to Winterfell.  Her eyes start to irritate her and then suddenly Syrio's voice remind Arya to look with your eyes.
• Maester Luwen takes note of the red comet.
• Bran dreams of talking to sad Ned about Jon in the crypts.  I dreamed about the crow again last night.  The one with three eyes.  He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did.  We went down to the crypts.  Father was there, and we talked.  He was sad. ... It was something to do about Jon, I think.
• Summer refuses to follow Bran into the crypts.
• Luwin explains the children of the forest worked no metal but carried blades of obsidian.  The were the people of the Dark Age, the very first.  ... dark and beautiful, small of stature ... They carved faces in the weirwoods.  12,000 years ago the First Men appeared from the east with bronze and leather riding horses, the first seen on the land that would be the 7 kingdoms.  After long battle, the chiefs me at the weirwood groves of a small island in the grea lake called Gods Eye to forge a peace treaty.  As a "signature" of the pact, each tree was given a face and a sacred order of green men formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces.  That was the beginning of 4,000 year peace, from the Dawn Age to the Age of Heroes, then the Long Night, then the birth of the 7 kingdoms.  The Andals came with steel and fire and their 7 pointed star of the new gods.  Hundreds of years of war and 6 kingdoms fell, all except the North.  
• The Hound is gentle to Sansa after she gets beat bloody by Ser Maryn.  He encourages her to save herself some pain and do whatever Joffrey wants.
• Daenerys birthed a monster.  Mirri says: He was scaled like a lizard, blind with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat.  When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption.  He had been dead for years.
• Jorah feels guilty for bringing Dany into the tent while Mirri was "dancing".
• Dany pledges vengeance on Mago and Ko Jhaqo.
• Dany asks Mirri when Drogo will be himself again.  She says: When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.  When the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves.  When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child.  Then he will return, and not before.  She says this more like a "Fuck you, never bi-atch!"
• Dany swears to give Jorah a Valyrian longsword in return for his fealty and service.  
• As they finish building Drogo's pyre, the first star to appear in the night sky was the red comet.