Re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire

I planned to get myself a kindle for my birthday, but what’s the point to wait for it? This is the fourth kindle I bought and finally it is for myself. Apparently I have reached a life stage that reading is relaxing to both my eyes and mind.

As the new season and book coming soon, I decide to reopen the series of A Song of Ice and Fire. I got the kindle on the end of March and now I get to 30% of the first book. I don’t know if I can finish all in time before the new book’s release.

Anyway, knowing plots from later of the timeline gives me a new perspective, which makes rereading quite interesting. Some seemingly trivial dialogues and details become meaningful.

Here I’m going to keep records of my progress and favorite quotes.

• A Game of Thrones: 2017-03-27 ~ 2017-05-21
• A Clash of Kings: 2017-05-21 ~ 2017-11-04
• A Storm of Swords: 2017-11-04 ~ 2018-08-15
• A Feast for Crows: 2018-08-15 ~ 2022-01-01
• A Dance with Dragons: 2022-01-01 ~ 2024-05-10

A Dance with Dragons: 2022-01-01 ~ Ongoing

A little honest loathing might be refreshing, like a tart wine after too much sweet.
Tyrion’s thought on the prostitute’s despise over him.

“Man wants to be the king o’ the rabiits, he best wear a pair o' floppy ears."
(Daenerys wore tokar in Meereen.)

“Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born”
(Maester Aemon’s final words to Jon Snow.)

The best lies are seasoned with a bit of truth.
(Tyrion pretending to be Hugor.)

“The gods are blind. And men see only what they wish."
(Tyrion’s response to Jorah’s accusation of his crimes.)

A Feast for Crows: 2018-08-15 ~ 2022-01-01

A prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is…and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy.
(Gorghan told Sam his opinion on prophecy.)

A Storm of Swords: 2017-11-04 ~ 2018-08-15

His father had spent his life grubbing in other men’s fields and collecting leeches. He’d strip down bare but for a thick leather clout, and go wading in the murky waters. When he climbed out he’d be covered from nipple to ankle. Sometimes he made Chett help pull the leeches off. One had attached itself to his palm once, and he’d smashed it against a wall in revulsion. His father beat him bloody for that. The maesters bought the leeches at twelve-for-a-penny.

“My sister has mistaken me for a mushroom. She keeps me in the dark and feeds me shit.
(By Tyrion Lannister)

“All men are fools, if truth be told, but the ones in motley are more amusing than ones with crowns."
(By Lady Olenna)

Thoros tell the king that he became a red priest because the robes hid the winestains so well. Robert had laughed so hard he’d spit ale all over Cersei’s silken mantle.
(The perfect irony)

“You freed hime without my knowledge or consent… but what you did, I know you did for love. For Arya and Sansa, and out of grief for Bran and Rickon. Love’s not always wise, I’ve learned. It can lead us to great folly, but we follow our hears… wherever they take us. Don’t we, Mother?"
(Robb knew what he did was great folly.)

He looked her in the eyes, proud and miserable all at once. “It was the only honorable thing to do. She’s gentle and sweet, Mother, she will make me a good wife."
(Honor)

“Now why would you doubt a mighty man like me? It was winter and I was half a boy, and stupid the way boys are. I went too far and my horse died and then a storm caught me. A true storm, not no little dusting such as this. Har! I knew I’d freeze to death before it broke. So I found me a sleeping giant, cut open her belly, and crawled up right inside her. Kept me warm enough, she did, but the stink near did for me. The worst thing was, she woke up when the spring come and took me for her babe. Suckled me for three whole moons before I could get away. Har! There’s times I miss the taste o’ giant’s milk, though.”
“If she nursed you, you couldn’t have killed her”
“I never did, but see you don’t go spreading that about. Tormund Giantsbane has a better ring to it than Tormund Giantsbabe, and that’s the honest truth o’ it."
……
“Well, here’s a tale for you. It were another winter, colder even than the one I spent inside that giant, and snowing day and night, snowflakes as big as your head, not these little things. It snowed so hard the whole village was half buried. I was in me Ruddy Hall, with only a cask o’ mead to keep me company and nothing to do but drink it. The more I drank the more I got to thinking about this woman lived close by, a fine strong woman with the biggest pair of teats you ever saw. She had a temper on her, that one, but oh, she could be warm too, and in the deep of winter a man needs his warmth.
“The more I drank the more I thought about her, and the more I thought the harder me member got, till I couldn’t suffer it no more. Fool that I was, I bundled meself up in furs from head to heels, wrapped a winding wool around me face, and set off to find her. The snow was coming down so hard I got turned around once or twice, and the wind blew right through me and froze me bones, but finally I come on her, all bundled up like I was.
“The woman had a terrible temper, and she put up quite the fight when I laid hands on her. It was all I could do to carry her home and get her out o’ them furs, but when I did, oh, she was hotter even than I remembered, and we had a fine old time, and then I went to sleep. Next morning when I woke the snow had stopped and the sun was shining, but I was in no fit state to enjoy it. All ripped and torn I was, and half me member bit right off, and there on me floor was a she-bear’s pelt. And soon enough the free folk were telling tales o’ this bald bear seen in the woods, with the queerest pair o’ cubs behind her. Har!” He slapped a meaty thigh. “Would that I could find her again. She was fine to lay with, that bear. Never was a woman gave me such a fight, nor such strong sons neither."
“What could you do if you did find her?” Jon asked, smiling. “You said she bit your member off."
“Only half. And half me member is twice as long as any other man’s.” Tormund snorted.

Jaime had decided that he would return Sansa, and the younger girl as well if she could be found. It was not like to win him back his lost honor, but the notion of keeping faith when they all expected betrayal amused him more than he could say.
(Men are just children.)

“It’s not music he hates,” said Lem. “It’s you, fool."
“Well, he has no cause. The wench was willing to make a man of him, is it my fault he drank too much to do the deed?"
Lem snorted through his broken nose. “Was it you who made a song of it, or some other bloody arse in love with his own voice?"
“I only sang it the once,” Tom complained. “And who’s to say the song was about him? ‘Twas a song about a fish."
“A floppy fish,” said Anguy, laughing.
(A dirty joke.)

I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from the terror.
(So it might be Nymeria who drag Lady Stoneheart out of water.)

There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him.
(Jorah Mormont to Daenerys.)

“Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought noble, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died."
(Jorah Mormont to Daenerys.)

If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good?
(Jon felt about laying with Ygritte in the cave.)

In the Seven Kingdoms it was said that the Wall marked the end of the world. That is true for them as well. It was all in where you stood. And where do I stand?
(Jon had doubt on his identity.)

Sometimes I think everyone is just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending is how you get brave, I don’t know.
(Grenn to Samwell, about people calling him “slayer”.)

“Be careful how you bark, dog. We hold your life in our hands."
“Best wipe the shit off your fingers, then.” The Hound laughed.
(Did the Hound mean his life was shit, or “Don’t hold my life with your shitty hands”?)

Life would be much simpler if men could fuck themselves, don’t you agree.
(Tyrion to Bronn.)

In battle a captain’s lungs were as important as his sword arm.
(Eddard Stark once told Jon.)

There are old sellswords and bold sellswords, but no old bold sellswords.
(Brown Ben to Daenerys.)

He’s me, Jaime realized suddenly. I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young.
(Jaime felt about Loras Tyrell.)

“I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is."
(Tyrion’s rant on his trial.)

It all goes back and back, Tyrion thought, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads.

“You fought us hard here.” Tormund turned his garron back toward the wildling camp. “You and your brothers. I give you that. Two hundred dead, and a dozen giants. Mag himself went in that gate o’ yours and never did come out."
“He died on the sword of a brave man named Donal Noye."
“Aye? Some great lord was he, this Donal Noye? One of your shiny knights in their steel smallclothes?"
“A blacksmith. He only had one arm."
(Jon met Tormund after the battle.)

“Well, the hottest fires burn out quickest."
(Surprisingly poetic words from Tormund, commenting on Ygritte’s death.)

A Clash of Kings: 2017-05-21 ~ 2017-11-04

Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."
“So power is a mummer’s trick?"
“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

Dany was horrified. “Do you hate her?"
“Almost as much as I love her,” Ser Jorah answered.
(Ser Jorah told Dany about his wife and why he was exiled.)

Mother only promised that when she was older she might have her own hawk. She was older now, but if she had a hawk she’d eat it.
(Arya on the road.)

“What if the wolves come?"
“Yield,” Arya suggested.
(Arya answered Lommy who always said to yield.)

“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.

Pity filled Catelyn’s heart. Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman?
(When Catelyn met Brienne the first time. Yes there would be a more unfortunate woman.)

It is all a game to them still, a tourney writ large, and all they see is the chance for glory and honor and spoils. They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal.
(Catelyn’s comment on Renly’s host)

Ser Boros Blount harrumphed. “No man threatens His Grace in the presence of the Kingsguard."
Tyrion Lannister raised an eyebrow. “I am not threatening the king, ser, I am educating my nephew. Bronn, Timett, the next time Ser Boros opens his mouth, kill him.” The dwarf smiled. “Now that was a threat, ser. See the difference?”

“Sorcery is the sauce fools spoon over failure to hide the flavor of their own incompetence.” (Tyrion Lannister)

“Do it,” she urged him after a moment. “Bastard. Do it. I can’t stay brave forever.” When the blow did not fall she turned her head to look at him.
Join lowered his sword. “Go,” he muttered.
Ygritte stared.
“Now,” he said, “before my wits return. Go."
She went.

“Lovelier than you know, sweet child. It’s magic, you see. It’s justice you hold. It’s vengeance for your father.” Dontos leaned close and kissed her again. “It’s home."
(Dontos gave Sansa the hair net.)

No beast was as noisy as man.

A Game of Thrones: 2017-03-27 ~ 2017-05-21

Bran thought about it. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?"
“That is the only time a man can be brave,” his father told him.
(Bran Stark and Eddard Stark)

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you."
(Tyrion Lannister to Jon Snow)

A man could not always be where he belonged, though.

“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge."
(Tyrion Lannister to Jon Snow)

Every flight begins with a fall.
(Bran Stark’s dream)

“As I was saying… why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know that’s on the other side?"
(Tyrion Lannister to Jon Snow)

“Let them see that their words can cut you, and you’ll never be free of the mockery."
(Tyrion Lannister to Jon Snow)

“If a man paints a target on his chest, he should expect that sooner of later someone will loose an arrow at him."
(Tyrion Lannister commenting)

“We all need to be mocked from time to time, Lord Mormont, lest we start to take ourselves too seriously."
(Tyrion Lannister to Lord Mormont)

Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, the dwarf had told him, grinning. The world was full of cravens who pretended to be heroes; it took a queer sort of courage to admit to cowardice as Samwell Tarly had.

He had found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than questions.

No doubt he was smiling. He smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was clever enough to understand.
(Bran’s observation on Theon)

Folly and desperation are ofttimes hard to tell apart.

“Myrish. ‘The Seasons of My Love.’ Sweet and sad, if you understand the words. The first girl I ever bedded used to sing it, and I’ve never been able to put it out of my head."
(Tyrion told Bronn about the music he was whistling.)

“Go ahead, call me all the names you want,” Sansa said airily. “You won’t dare when I’m married to Joffrey. You’ll have to bow to me and call me Your Grace.” She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet squish and plopped down into her lap.
“You have juice on your face, Your Grace,” Arya said.

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."
(Cersei’s response to Eddard’s advice of her leaving the city with her children)

“Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow,” they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. “Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.”

“Watching is not seeing, dead girl."
(Syrio Forel to Arya)

“Hear me. The ships of Braavos sail as far as the winds blow, to lands strange and wonderful, and when they return their captains fetch queer animals to the Sealord’s menagerie. Such animals as you have never seen, striped horses, great spotted things with necks as long as stilts, hairy mouse-pigs as big as cows, stinging manticores, tigers that carry their cubs in a pouch, terrible walking lizards with scythes for claws. Syrio Forel has seen these things.
“On the day I am speaking of, the first sword was newly dead, and the Sealord sent for me. Many bravos had come to him, and as many had been sent away, none could say why. When I came into his presence, he was seated, and in his lap was a fat yellow cat. He told me that one of his captains had brought the beast to him, from an island beyond the sunrise. ‘Have you ever seen her like?’ he asked of me.
“And to him I said, ‘Each night in the alleys of Braavos I see a thousand like him,’ and the Sealord laughed, and that day I was named the first sword."
Arya screwed up her face. “I don’t understand."
Syrio clicked his teeth together. “The cat was an ordinary cat, no more. The others expected a fabulous beast, so that is what they saw. How large it was, they said. It was no larger than any other cat, only fat from indolence, for the Sealord fed it from his own table. What curious small ears, they said. Its ears had been chewed away in kitten fights. And it was plainly a tomcat, yet the Sealord said ‘her,’ and that is what the others saw. Are you hearing?”

In the songs, the knights never screamed nor begged for mercy.

“They say the king loved to hunt. The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that. My son loved that young wife of his. Vain woman. If not for her, he would never have thought to sell those poachers."
(Commander Mormont talking about his son, Jorah Mormont)

“In the north, only a few of the great houses worship the Seven. The rest honor the old gods, and name no knights… but those lords and their sons and sworn swords are no less fierce or loyal or honorable. A man’s worth is not marked by a ser before his name."
(Maester Luwin told Bran)

She did not realized that Ser Jorah had returned until she heard the knight say, “No.” His voice was strange, brusque. (Afterwards) He seemed to know what had happened without a word being spoken.
(Jorah just got back from the captain for messages. It is possible that Varys had sent a message to undo the previous one.)

“Your father is not fearless,” Catelyn pointed out. “He is brave, but that is very different.”

The thought of Jon filled Ned with a sense of shame, and a sorrow too deep for words.
(On Eddard’s last POV chapter)

“The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that’s true, Lord Eddard, tell me… why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?"
(Varys to Eddard)

“So they will not love,” the old man answered, “for love is the bane of honor, the death of duty.
…
“Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms… or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.
…
“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose."
(Maester Aemon answered why the Night’s Watch take no wives and father no children)