Ninth Meeting (9/6)

Thanks to everyone who came to the meeting tonight, and thank you Candie and Christian for making such delicious salads :) Our next meeting will be Friday September 20th at 6pm in the Winn Room. David is in charge of food. We're reading to page 507 (381 in Eileen's edition), stopping at Jon's chapter that begins with "The hill jutted above the dense tangle of forest..." Thanks Chris for bringing your awesome maps!

Here's some of what we talked about tonight:

• I think everyone agreed that Theon's chapter was totally gross to read. Theon isn't very likable, but maybe we can pity him because he doesn't fit into anyone's family, not even his own. He's not smart, but he's ambitious. He expected the Iron Born to embrace him as their long lost prince, and was very disappointed when no one even recognized him.
• Bran is beginning to remember what happened to him, but not completely.
• We don't yet know what Tyrion's chain will be fore, but we are continually reminded that he's making it.
• Everything Tyrion does in King's Landing serves a purpose. He's in his element. He is finally in a position of power and can use his intellect freely. He's a newcomer to the city but he has already figured out who is allied to whom and has outwitted one of the small council. He also knows Cersei well enough to manipulate her.
• We talked about the Others and their Wights - the Others are the "white shadows" and the wights are reanimated corpses with black hands. Both creatures have ice blue eyes.
• Does Jojen have any power to trigger Bran's memory of his fall? In Bran's wolfdream, Jojen touches Summer and Bran begins to fall in his dream. It seems that Jojen and Meera came to Winterfell to see the direwolves.
• We talked about the guest rite, a sacred rite of hospitality. When the guest eats and drinks under the host's roof, the guest rite is invoked. The guest cannot harm the host, and the host cannot harm the guest while the guest rite is in place. Jon makes a conscious decision to refuse food under Craster's roof.
• Renly's camp is biding their time, accumulating more soldiers as time goes on and possibly waiting for Martells Dorne to allign with them. Unfortunately for Renly, Prince Doran Martell has agreed to marry his son Trystane to Princess Myrcella.
• Sansa is still living in a fairy tale. As soon as Ser Dontos says he will be her Florian, she begins to think his plan will work.
• The Iron Born's plans don't seem very realistic. They are more like vikings who pillage than armies who can hold a castle.
• The Others may be a sort of religion to the wildlings, or at least to Craster. It's said that his offerings of infants are like "prayers" to the Others.

Happy reading!

House Martell
"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"