Episode 43: A GAME OF THRONES, EDDARD XI: "Fifty Shades of Truth" SHOW NOTES!

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn. 

Welcome to our forty-third episode of the Not A Cast entitled: “50 Shades of Truth: An Analysis of AGOT, Eddard XI,” in which Ned Stark sits high atop the uncomfortable Iron Throne and does a bit of northern justice south of the Neck. But was this the smart play? So much to talk about …

Emmett intro to Steve Attewell 

Steve Intro

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: Hand of the King WolfmanZack, Grand Maester Timothy W, Jancy O, Lady Commander of the Night’s Watch, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N. Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves, Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes, and Ragged Michael, Warden of the North. And our newest member of the small council: Ser Keith J, master of Whisperers Thank you ladies and gentlemen! And welcome Ser Keith J!

Spoiler warning: All published books - 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Ser Jay B asks:

Hello! I have a question for the show: We know from the text that Loras deeply loved Renly, but I don't remember ever reading or hearing anything about Renly's feelings toward Loras. An idea popped into my head that given Renly's manipulative nature (that you guys have done a great job highlighting!), is it possible that Renly viewed him more as a sex partner without any deeper meaning? Or is it even possible that Renly actually used Loras in his scheming to get closer to the Tyrells and later used him as a meatshield like Brienne when Loras joined the Rainbow Guard. Thoughts?

Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves asks:

Guys:

I don't want to be pessimistic, but there is a lot of material left in Fire & Blood. We still have almost 20 years of Aegon III's reign, 10 more Targaryen kings remaining, and 147 years until Robert's Rebellion and the fall of the Mad King. How dense will Fire & Blood, Volume Two be?

Jeff Opinion: I would not be shocked if F&B, Vol 2 will actually become F&B Vol 2 and then F&B Vol 3. We know well by now that GRRM really went way over the top in the amount of material he wrote for the worldbook and Fire and Blood, Volume One. 200,000 words in TWOIAF for the Targaryen Kings from Aegon I to Aegon III that he wrote before 2014, and then an additional 100,000 just on Jaehaerys I/Alysanne Targaryen he wrote from 2017-2018.

So, I think at some point after Winds is published (inshallah), GRRM will do some expansion on the full reign of Aegon III and then he’ll get crazy with Daeron I, then Baelor, but really if I had a candidate for who GRRM might go hog-wild on (like he did with Jaehaerys), I think he’s going to go full-Jaehaerys on the reign of Viserys II. And who knows what happens after that. At some point, he’ll realize he’s written 300,000 words, and he hasn’t even gotten beyond the First Blackfyre Rebellion, and yeah. We all know what’ll happen then.

So, I think we’ll see a F&B Vol 2 covering the reigns of Aegon III-the end of the First Blackfyre Rebellion/the Death of Daeron II Targaryen that’ll publish between TWOW and ADOS (and hopefully after a Dunk and Egg or two novellas too!) and then F&B Vol 3 covering the reigns of Maekar I - Aerys II published after ADOS and more D&E. Inshallah.

Synopsis

Sad to say, but after this episode, we only have four Eddard chapters before he wargs into Ice, then skinchanges into a flock of pigeons and flies away to live on forever in our hearts. And this chapter more than anything feels like a further step towards the Lord Hand’s downfall.

On that happy note, let’s begin! 

Ned Stark sits high atop the Iron Throne as the realm dances its way towards a war footing. But it’s not the metaphorical Iron Throne. No. The actual Iron Throne. The light slants through the windows of the throne room in stripes of red while green, brown and blue hunting tapestries hang where the Targaryen dragon skulls used to lay. But the only color Ned senses is present is red: blood-red to be precise, and that is completely not ominous at all.

And how about that Iron Throne that Ned sits on. Is it comfortable? Cozy? Regal? Ha, no. You see, the chair had been intentionally designed to be that way by Aegon I Targaryen himself. A king should never sit easy, Aegon had reportedly said when the chair was constructed. But Ned’s not particularly thrilled with Aegon’s grand design:

It was, as Robert had warned, a hellishly uncomfortable chair, and never more so than now, with his shattered leg throbbing more sharply every minute. The metal beneath him and grown harder by the hour, and the fanged steel behind made it impossible to lean back.

Ned curses Aegon for his arrogance and Robert for going off to hunt with more than half the court while leaving him to this chair. But it’s not just the chair and Robert’s absenteeism that’s giving Ned a goddamn fit. There’s this little matter of Gregor Clegane and Lannister men slaughtering civilians in the Riverlands. 

Varys, sitting below Ned at council table, asks kneeling villagers if they were quite certain that the men who attacked them were more than brigands. Raymun Darry, one of the three knights who dragged the villagers to the Red Keep answers for them:

Oh, they were brigands, beyond a doubt. Lannister brigands.

Well, now everyone is uncomfortable in the Red Keep. And Ned ain’t surprised. Shit’s gone real fucking bad since Catelyn Stark took Tyrion Lannister prisoner. The Westerlands and Riverlands have called their banners, and their armies are massing near the pass at the Golden Tooth. Ned is fairly confident that blood will be shed soon, but how would he staunch the wound?

But before that, we get another report. Ser Karyl Vance gestures at the villagers and reports that these are the only survivors from the holdfast of Sherrer: where the people of Wendish Town and the Mummer’s Ford tried to flee to after the savagery began.

Ned, because he’s Ned and good, tells the villagers to get to their feet, thinking in very northmen terms that he doesn’t trust what men say on bended knee. Ser Raymun Darry tells a man named Joss to tell Ned what happened. And Joss reports that he was a bar owner until Lannister men came up onto the alehouse, drank their fill and burned the rest. Another farmer rises, talking about how the the brigands burned them out and had no interest in theft. They just wanted to watch the world burn.

And they also wanted to murder. They murdered apprentice boys, mothers and when the civilians fled to the holdfast, the raiders burned the holdfast down and shot arrows at the people trying to flee. And while they had left Sherrer’s holdfast unmolested due to it being a stouter defensive location, they were on their way to the Mummer’s Ford to inflict more horror on the smallfolk.

Once again, like last week, on behalf of Emmet and probably Steve: fuck you, Tywin.

Ned feels the cold, sharp points of steel between his fingers as he carefully leans in. Some of the blade were still sharp, even after hundreds of years. And what Ned was doing there, he would never comprehend. But he was there, and he had justice to attend to.

What proof do you have that these were Lannister? He asks, trying not to sound angry.

They didn’t wear crimson cloaks or fly lion banners, Ser Marq Piper says hotly. They weren’t that stupid. But they were all mounted and armored on up, Ser Karyl states. And they had war horses. Perhaps they stole the horses from the last place they raided, Littlefinger says, faking stupidity. When Ned asks how many there were, he gets conflicting answers. Fifty. A Hundred. Hundreds. 

Ned asks if they wore any ornamentation -- anything that would give them away? No, they were armored plainly, but there was one dude in the party who anyone would recognize. He was huge, big as an ox with a voice like stone breaking. The Mountain, Ser Marq says. Gregor Clegane.

Mutterings and whispers echo off the walls. Gregor Clegane was bannermen to Tywin Lannister. If Marq was right (and he is), then this was Tywin’s work, then things were worse than Ned previously thought. Ned realizes why the peasants seem so reticent to speak. The knights had dragged them here to name Tywin Lannister, the king’s father-in-law a murderer. Ned wonders if the peasants had any choice in the matter before Marq, Raymun and Karyl took them to King’s Landing. Probably not.

Grand Maester Pycelle gets up and does his toady work on behalf of Tywin, saying that they can’t know it was really Gregor. Everyone treats this protest as the idiocy it is. Pycelle tries a new tact:

Why should Ser Gregor turn brigand? By the grace of his liege lord, he holds a stout keep and lands of his own. The man is an anointed knight.

And besides, Tywin is the father of our gracious queen. Lol, Pycelle, you so silly. Well, that goes over as well as replacing a church pulpit with a stripper pole. Ser Marq is outraged, and Ned is all cold and Ned-like. But even if Pycelle is an idiot, Ned does notice men slipping out of the door. He thinks they’re “going to ground” or rats heading off to “nibble the queen’s cheese.” This is excellent writing, George. Just excellent!

And then George sees Septa Mordane and Sansa up on the balcony and feels angry. However, he knows that she only brought Sansa here to listen to the usual fore of petitions, disputes and boundary placement. But Ned’s thoughts on Sansa are interrupted when Littlefinger has a question for the men:

These holdfasts were under your protection. Where were you when all this slaughtering and burning was going on?

Well, they were below the Golden Tooth at Ser Edmure Tully’s order. When they got word of the butchery back home, Edmure gave the men leave to find the survivors and bring them to Robert. But by the time they got down to the villages, Gregor Clegane was gone. But if they come again, they’re going to water the ground with their blood, Ser Marq declares. Okay, Ser Marq. Sure.

But then Karyl brings up that Edmure has dispatched men to all of the villages and holdfasts within a day’s ride of the border between the Riverlands and Westerlands. You can see the military mind of Ned Stark rolling its eyes as he thinks:

And that may be precisely what Lord Tywin wants -- to bleed off the strength from Riverrun, goad the boy into scattering his swords.

Edmure was young and gallant, but not wise. He’d defend every Riverlander and inch of Tully soil, and Tywin would exploit that. 

So, what exactly do you want us to do, Littlefinger asks the river knights. Well, they’re here to keep the king’s peace. They want justice for Sherrer and Wendish Town and the Mummer’s Ford. They want to pay Gregor Clegane back for what he did. Unfortunately for them, Lord Hoster Tully had told them to get the king’s leave before they struck back.

Thank the gods for old Lord Hoster, then, Ned thinks.

Hoster had been smart enough to see that Tywin hoped to provoke the Tullys into attacking without the king’s leave. And if they attacked, Cersei and Tywin would have a plausible case that it was the Tullys, not the Lannisters, who were the aggressors. And who the fuck knew what Robert would think?

Pycelle the Pubis tries one more toady-action. My Lord Hand, if these good folk believe that Ser Gregor has forsaken his holy vows for plunder and rape, let them go to his liege lord and make their complaint. These crimes are no concern of the throne. Let me them seek Lord Tywin’s justice.

Ned rejects this. No matter the region of Westeros, it’s all the king’s justice. And they aren’t going to defer to Robert when he gets back. They need to act now. Ned sees Ser Robar Royce and calls out to him, ordering that he ride off to inform Robert of what was done and said. But the River Knights ask if they have leave to take their vengeance. And God bless Ned, because he’s having none of that:

Vengeance? I thought we were speaking of justice. Burning Clegane’s fields and slaughtering his people will not restore the king’s peace, only your injured pride.

Ned turns to the smallfolk:

People of Sherrer, I cannot give you back your homes or your crops, nor can I restore your dead to life. But perhaps I can give you some small measure of justice, in the name of our king, Robert.

All eyes are on Ned. His leg shrieks with pain. But he tries to ignore it. He gives his northern expression of what justice actually means:

The First Men believed that the judge who called for death should wield the sword, and in the north we hold to that still.

But Ned can’t do anything about Gregor Clegane in his current, broken state. He needs someone else. Loras Tyrell calls from across the Red Keep that he would love to have the honor of bringing justice to Clegane. Littlefinger chuckles and says that Gregor will kill him. But Loras isn’t afraid of Gregor. 

Ned ignores Loras for reasons he’ll explain and ones we are going to talk about and looks for others:

Lord Beric. Thoros of Myr. Ser Gladden. Lord Lothar. Each of you is to assemble twenty men, to bring my word to Gregor’s keep. Twenty of my own guards shall go with you. Lord Beric Dondarrion, you shall have the command as befits your rank.

And then Ned denounces Gregor Clegane in the Red Keep and sentences him to death. Triumphant music plays as everyone cheers … right? Ha, no. It’s quiet until Loras asks what of him. Well, Ned doesn’t doubt Loras’ courage, but Ned’s about justice, not the vengeance Loras seems to be after. And with that, Ned dismisses the men to their tasks and dismounts the Iron Throne, feeling Loras sullen stare as he climbs down.

Below, Littlefinger and Pycelle are already gone. Pycelle likely off to rat on Ned to Cersei and Littlefinger, having also seen Sansa, is off being Creepyfinger to Sansa (we’ll talk about this next week!) 

But Varys is still there to give Ned a piece of his mind:

Had it been me up there, I should have sent Ser Loras. He so wanted to go … and a man who has the Lannisters for his enemies would do well to make the Tyrells his friends.

Ned retorts that Loras is young and will outgrow his disappointment. But what about Ser Ilyn Payne? Varys presses. As king’s justice, maybe he should have gone? Maybe you insulted him by not sending him? No insult was intended, but Ilyn is a westerman and his family is sworn to Tywin. Ned’s not going to send a dude that may owe Tywin fealty after another guy who owes Tywin allegiance. 

Fair enough Varys says. But still, Ilyn wasn’t pleased.

I hope Ilyn outgrows his disappointment as well. He does so love his work … Varys says, closing Eddard XI out in a not-at-all-ominously note.

Now, look, I know that Eddard X is a fan-favorite, and I get why. It’s a masterful rendition of romantic, chivalric tropes. But even if Eddard X is the #Objective better chapter. It’s only a hair better than all of Ned’s final chapters. And really, Eddard XI is the plot picking up to run pace. And the politics! It’s so good!

So, Emmett, Steve: AGOT, Eddard XI: great or greatest AGOT Ned chapter?

Depth

Gotta admit, Eddard XI’s the odd one out for me among Ned’s later chapters; as I’ve said before, I’m more invested in the personal emotional qualities of his story than the politics of his being Hand, which for me get more interesting when Tyrion takes over the job. Eddard XI also feels like a breather before the floor really falls out from underneath Ned. 

That being said, I’d be churlish not to be excited about finally being introduced to the Iron Throne itself, and this chapter *does* have some really interesting political gamesmanship going on, as Steven has written about before.

Steven opening thoughts

• Bricks and blood built the throne room, bricks and blood its people
  • Eddard XI opens with a recurring motif in AGOT:
    • Through the high narrow windows of the Red Keep's cavernous throne room, the light of sunset spilled across the floor, laying dark red stripes upon the walls where the heads of dragons had once hung. Now the stone was covered with hunting tapestries, vivid with greens and browns and blues, and yet still it seemed to Ned Stark that the only color in the hall was the red of blood. 
  • This brings us back to the end of Eddard IX…
    • He remembered seeing the Red Keep looming ahead of him in the first grey light of dawn. The rain had darkened the pale pink stone of the massive walls to the color of blood. 
  • ...and Arya’s intense dreams in her third chapter: 
    • Father said the Red Keep was smaller than Winterfell, but in her dreams it had been immense, an endless stone maze with walls that seemed to shift and change behind her. She would find herself wandering down gloomy halls past faded tapestries, descending endless circular stairs, darting through courtyards or over bridges, her shouts echoing unanswered. In some of the rooms the red stone walls would seem to drip blood, and nowhere could she find a window.
  • This sets the scene perfectly for the meat of the chapter, a discussion of bloodshed and how the Iron Throne should respond
  • The Keep, the Throne, and the kingdom are all soaked in blood
  • The note about Robert’s colorful hunting tapestries failing to paper over this grim reality exemplifies the falling-from-grace “life is not a song” theme of AGOT
  • It also gets across how the victors of Robert’s Rebellion still have this uneasy feeling that this is Targ turf and they’re just renting it; the dragon ghosts linger
  • This sense only grows when you get to the the seat of power itself:
    • What Eddard Stark was doing sitting there he would never comprehend, yet there he sat, and these people looked to him for justice.
  • The Iron Throne, like the Red Keep itself, is a gigantic grotesque monstrosity; compare how Ned describes the Throne…
    • He sat high upon the immense ancient seat of Aegon the Conqueror, an ironwork monstrosity of spikes and jagged edges and grotesquely twisted metal.
  • ...to how Catelyn described the Keep upon our first sight of it:
    • And above it all, frowning down from Aegon's high hill, was the Red Keep; seven huge drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts, an immense grim barbican, vaulted halls and covered bridges, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls studded with archers' nests, all fashioned of pale red stone. 
  • Both are overblown grotesque monsters looming above mortal men
  • Euron expands on this in “The Forsaken,” when he frames the Iron Throne as a latter to and abattoir of the gods
  • So on the one hand, the Throne is a statement of power. Here are the swords of those who defied us, melted and beneath us. Do you wish to join them? 
  • The Targaryen kings sitting upon it were metaphorical dragons atop their hoard
  • On the other, as Ned says, the Throne has bled and even killed those who sit it
  • Claiming a crown is claiming ultimate power, but it also puts a target on your back
  • The Targs climbed too high, tried to grasp a star, overreached and fell
  • Interesting that Aegon’s insistence that a king should never be comfortable could be framed as dutiful, but Ned frames it as self-aggrandizing
    • Damn Aegon for his arrogance, Ned thought sullenly, and damn Robert and his hunting as well. 
• The “tinderbox”
  • With the tonal/thematic nature of the Iron Throne established, we can turn to the subject of the chapter: the blood the Lannisters are spilling in the Riverlands, and how the throne should respond
    • The west had been a tinderbox since Catelyn had seized Tyrion Lannister. Both Riverrun and Casterly Rock had called their banners, and armies were massing in the pass below the Golden Tooth. It had only been a matter of time until the blood began to flow. The sole question that remained was how best to stanch the wound. 
  • The war has begun, despite none of the five kings being crowned; so far, it’s a raid of the Riverlands by the Westerlands in response to Cat snatching Tyrion
  • Immediately, the conflict is framed as it will be in later books: the Riverlords are certainly more sympathetic than Tywin’s wrecking crew, but they’re still hot-headed elitists who don’t really care about their people in themselves
    • Black and white and grey, all the shades of truth. 
  • On the one hand, the atrocities described here are genuinely awful, designed to stop the heart and angry up the blood:
    • “At Wendish Town, the people sought shelter in their holdfast, but the walls were timbered. The raiders piled straw against the wood and burnt them all alive. When the Wendish folk opened their gates to flee the fire, they shot them down with arrows as they came running out, even women with suckling babes." 
    • "They rode down my 'prentice boy," said a squat man with a smith's muscles and a bandage around his head. He had put on his finest clothes to come to court, but his breeches were patched, his cloak travel-stained and dusty. "Chased him back and forth across the fields on their horses, poking at him with their lances like it was a game, them laughing and the boy stumbling and screaming till the big one pierced him clean through." 
    • The girl on her knees craned her head up at Ned, high above her on the throne. "They killed my mother too, Your Grace. And they … they …" Her voice trailed off, as if she had forgotten what she was about to say. She began to sob.
  • And when I say “designed,” I mean not only by GRRM, but by Tywin--it’s terror used strategically to destroy his enemies’ resources, overburden them with refugees, and force them to come face him, as he’ll expand upon in ACOK
  • So, right after the Tysha backstory, here’s more reason to loathe the lion lord!
  • On the other hand, Ned notes that he doubts the villagers (who thought they were here to accuse Tywin to his son-in-law’s royal face) were given a choice in coming to court by the young riverlords
  • They’re pawns, as Jorah said, and that’s emphasized when Ned wonders how a man could live so close to the Red Keep and still not know who the king is
  • That critique of a detached elite working out their disputes through the blood of peasants is implicitly contrasted with Ned’s more personal model of justice
    • He never trusted what a man told him from his knees.
  • Speaking of which...
• The Hand’s justice
  • As with the council sessions, Ned feels like the only honest man in the room
  • Pycelle is a transparent Lannister stooge, from pretending it wasn’t Gregor to insisting that Tywin of all people be allowed to settle the matter
  • Varys murmurs about the horrors of men in the background, classic Spider
    • I’d note that it’s definitely the obsequious Varys here, but it may have been a genuine expression -- is he still angling to forestall war here? Or is he just paddling at this point?
  • The young Riverlands knights (led and exemplified by Edmure) wanna strike back and scatter with no strategic forethought
  • Loras just wants his personal vengeance, uncoupled from justice for the smallfolk
  • So it falls to Ned, and since he cannot go himself, he summons a variety of men to carry out his sentence, including some of his own guards for that personal touch
  • Ned’s boldest, smartest, and most admirable move as Hand of the King?

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Rather subtle Robert death foreshadowing
 

Damn Aegon for his arrogance, Ned thought sullenly, and damn Robert and his hunting as well.

Well, yeah, the hunt will end up damning Robert. Thanks, Ned. You got Robert killed.

Tywin’s true plan

Ned is no doubt hitting on some truths about what Tywin is planning: Tywin wants to frame the Tullys as the aggressors while having the riverlords and levies spread out and unable to respond to Tywin massing his forces at the Golden Tooth before striking towards Riverrun. But there was an additional wrinkle to Tywin’s plan: 

Only six Winterfell men remained of the twenty her father had sent west with Beric Dondarrion, Harwin told her, and they were scattered. "It was a trap, milady. Lord Tywin sent his Mountain across the Red Fork with fire and sword, hoping to draw your lord father. He planned for Lord Eddard to come west himself to deal with Gregor Clegane. If he had he would have been killed, or taken prisoner and traded for the Imp, who was your lady mother's captive at the time. Only the Kingslayer never knew Lord Tywin's plan, and when he heard about his brother's capture he attacked your father in the streets of King's Landing." (ASOS, Arya III)

Ned downfall/death foreshadowing, Part 1,384,839

Obviously, the Ilyn Payne “loving his work” is setting the foundation him being Ned’s executioner at the end of AGOT. But before Ilyn can have the opportunity to chop Ned’s head off, George has to set the foundation. So, in that light, we start to see GRRM thumbing the scale against Ned. And one of the ways he chooses to thumb the scale is to scale down Ned’s military presence in King’s Landing. 

Back in Eddard VI: he sends twenty of his guardsmen to assist Janos Slynt in keeping the king’s peace in King’s Landing. In Eddard IX, he loses his captain of the guards in Jory Cassel to Lannister swords, but here in Eddard XI, Ned voluntarily sends twenty more of his household guard to accompany Lord Beric Dondarrion in his justice-quest. 

Ned’s motivations in sending his own men to help carry out the business and justice of the realm is completely understandable, but it doesn make him vulnerable as he thinks in his next chapter:

With Jory dead and Alyn gone, Fat Tom had command of his household guard. The thought filled Ned with vague disquiet. Tomard was a solid man; affable, loyal, tireless, capable in a limited way, but he was near fifty, and even in his youth he had never been energetic. Perhaps Ned should not have been so quick to send off half his guard, and all his best swords among them. (AGOT, Eddard XII)

Half of Ned’s guard being away from Ned when he enters the throneroom to confront Joffrey and Cersei in Eddard XIV is a big deal. It is worth noting though that even if Ned had his full contingent, Cersei/Littlefinger had the full contingent of Lannister sworn men and Goldcloaks in pocket when Ned comes into the throneroom. And even if Ned had the additional 40+ swords, it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference in the battle and outcome. 

Theory/Discussion

Bad-Ugly Theory Time: Ned Stark is stupid, and that is what ultimately gets him killed, right? Right? 

Wrong. We see a Ned Stark who is acting decisively and effectively within bounds of the feudal structure here. So, I’m going to turn it over to Steve to talk about how Ned’s leadership here was good, smart and then Emmett and I (or Jeff and I) will jump back in to rain down ungodly terror on all the goddamn immorals who love to slither about in their “Ned died, because he’s dumb lol” takes.

So, Steve take us away:

Conclusion

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