Fourth Meeting

I'm glad everyone could make it tonight! Thanks for bringing pizza, Candie :)

We've changed the schedule a little bit. Our next meeting will be Wednesday July 10th in the Conference Room at 8pm. Eileen volunteered to bring Greek food for us. Then, instead of meeting on the 17th, we'll meet on July 31st in the Winn Room. I'll update with reminders when it gets closer to the dates. After the 31st, we'll go back to meeting every 2 weeks.

Here's the gist of what we talked about:

• Littlefinger and Varys: Do we trust them? What are their motives? Other characters are easy to understand, but these two characters seem to be on different wavelengths than everyone else. We can only guess their endgames and motivations.
• Our opinions change about certain characters, such as the Hound, the more we get to know them.
• We talked about the history of the Wall (possibly built by Bran the Builder), and about the White Walkers (what exactly they are).
• Tyrion was kidnapped by Catelyn and taken East, after Catelyn had been given explicit instructions by Ned to go North and prepare for war. Was she justified in her actions, or did she make the wrong decision?
• Dany stood up to her brother for the first time, in a sense "dethroning" Viserys and becoming more powerful than him.
• Robert enjoyed fighting towards a goal, but now that he is on the throne, he has nothing to fight for. He is miserable, and he is stuck with Cersei while he is still in love with Lyanna.
• Sansa vs Arya: Sansa is perfectly trained to be a lady, she's been taught what to do in nearly every conceivable social situation and excels at courtesies and manners. But she has been thrown into a pit of vipers in King's Landing. She doesn't quite realize yet that she's a victim, but is building up a resentment towards her situation and lets this out by blaming Arya for everything. Arya has been belittled her whole life, being called "horseface" and bullied by others. She knows she will never be as good at being a lady as Sansa, and has stopped trying. Instead she is making her own path.
• We compared medieval cultures to life in Westeros

The next reading assignment is to page 514, stopping before Jon's chapter.

For anyone interested in the Game of Thrones food blog, it's The Inn at the Crossroads and it's totally awesome.

If you've read ahead and need a reminder of where we left each character at the end of this week's reading, click the button:

• Dany: She finally finds her footing in the khalasar, stands up to Viserys for the first time, and becomes pregnant.
• Bran: Tyrion gives him a design for a saddle.
• Jon: He meets and befriends Sam, and helps him find his place at the Wall.
• Catelyn: She kidnaps Tyrion at the Inn at the Crossroads.
• Sansa: She goes to the Hand's Tournament, meets Littlefinger for the first time, and the Hound tells her how his face was burned.
• Tyrion: He is being taken to the Eyrie.
• Arya: She overhears two men scheming in the dungeons by the dragon skulls.
• Ned: Robert wants to send an assassin to find and kill Dany and her unborn child. Ned resigns as Hand. Petyr offers to take Ned to the brothel he's been looking for.

See you next time!

House Targaryen
"Fire and Blood"