Vacation in Westeros: Day 18

Day 3 is here, Day 12 is here.

The continuing adventures of royals doing royally stupid things in fantastic adventure land times!

What's Happened So Far:

Now in list format because I made a lot of stupid, glaring errors last time.

• Jon is still up north at the wall, hanging out. Since he pissed off the people in charge last time, he's made friends with the normies. His last chapter saw him making friends with a fat lordling who was kicked out of his rightful hold for not being deemed worthy by his father. Something about being fat and cowardly and not worthy of the family sword. And so Jon Snow's menagerie of black clad misfits (who will likely all die) grew by one.
• Meanwhile, Catelyn concluded her business in the south and headed back to Winterfell, except that she ran into Tyrion on the way up north. He had actually missed the party. She took the opportunity to capture him, and then decided to head to where her sister lords over. They get into scraps with bandits, and Tyrion manages to improve his position considerably over time, to the point where it's questionable if he's yet a prisoner. Cate then goes up to meet with her sister, the widowed wife of the old Hand of the king, who had been assassinated at the beginning of the book. She's a bit crazy pants, and her six year old son is beset with randomm tremors and an attraction to his dolls. Also he still sups from her breast. That... is a broken household.
• Finally, in the South, the Tournament of the Hand is held. Sansa is enthralled with the competition, and especially so with one of the knights, not Joffrey. Meanwhile, Eddard Stark completely ignores the tourney that's been thrown in his favor in order to do a bit more investigating into what the old Hand was doing that got him killed. He finds, in order: A book on the geneology of the major ruling families, a bastard, and the poison that was used to kill his predecessor. Meanwhile, Arya is still training to be a fencer, escapes some ridiculous prince and princess, and learns of the plot to kill Eddard. The king learns that Dany, one of the last of the Targaryens, is pregnant, and so wants to have her killed and the fetus/babe/whatever smashed. Eddard refuses to be part of this game, and turns in his Handship. As he's making his preparations to leave town, Jaime Lannister corners Stark and some of his men, intending to kill Eddard to send a message to Cate with regards to Tyrion. Stark talks some sense into the incestuous knight, who decides that advice is sound (Kill me and she'll kill the Imp), and so decides to kill Stark's men instead. Eddard is injured fairly grievously in the process, and the last we see is him taking the milk of the poppy after passing out and waking up a few times.

 Thoughts

At this point, we're slightly past halfway through the book, and we're just starting to get some details into the plot at large and what's actually being set up. As of yet, we've largely been focused on the ex-Hands' death, with some hints that the Lannisters were behind it all. And while the Lannisters are assholes, and indeed go as high up in the organization as the Queen, that's still a fairly petty dispute between two royal families, one that wants revenge, and one that wants power. It doesn't concern the world at large.

However, thanks to Arya's chapter, we've had some linkage with what's been going on over in Dany's story, because I'm fairly certain that one of the shady figures discussing the "game [of thrones]" and the assassination of Eddard was the wealthy merchant that's so far been a fixture in the Targaryen's chapters. Suddenly, the world isn't so big, and we're beginning to see the workings of a plot that will embroil the whole world, not just Westeros, into war.

Or rather, the world as we know it. There's been hintings at another continent, but whatever. I'll cross that ocean when I get there.

Even more, we've gotten clues into what the old hand was looking into. A king's bastard, who looks just like the king. A book on genealogy, which has a direct link to the ex-Hand. A queen, who's popped out kids who don't really look like their supposed papa. A knight, whose sword gets unsheathed for his sister if you know what I mean (Sex. I mean sex.). We are finally seeing into the seedy underworkings of Westeros and the new king's court. Eddard sure as hell doesn't like what he sees. I doubt anyone else does.

This is how you slowly reveal mysteries and plot hooks. This is a natural progression of a story. Other authors should feel bad that they can't do as well as a fantasy novel.