Carina Reads ASOS: Oh, Sam

First of all, Jon + Satin's Crossbow Challenge may have been one of my favourite chapters in ASOS thus far...Is Satin a person people talk about? Can we talk about him? I must confess, I didn't think I would be so taken by the Northern/Wall story lines of the series, as I am now. Maybe it's because of all plot lines in the book, this is the one that I am least spoiled for. I don't know. Send help. 

Moving forward with "Bran in the Nightfort": 

The footfalls sounded heavy to Bran, slow, ponderous, scraping against stone. It must be huge...

But the thing that came in the night was screaming too, and thrashing wildly in the folds of Meera's net...

Meera stood over him, the moonlight shining silver off the prongs of her frog spear. "Who are you?" she demanded.

I'm SAM," the black thing sobbed. "Sam, Sam, I'm Sam, let me out, you stabbed me..." He rolled the the puddle of moonlight, flailing and flopping in the tangles of Meera's net..."  

Bran was suddenly uncertain. "Are you the three-eyed crow?" He can't be the three-eyed crow...

The fat man's chins jiggled when he nodded. His skin looked pale and saggy. "Only a steward. I took care of Lord Mormont's ravens." For a moment he looked like h was going to cry. "I lost them at the Fist, though. It was my fault. I got us lost too. I couldn't even find the Wall. It's a hundred leagues long and seven hundred feet high and I couldn't find it!" 

Oh, SAM. 

And speaking of slow and ponderous:  

Me and you both, Strong Belwas 

"Strong Belwas needs no tinkly bells." The eunuch ate Brown Ben's plum in four big bites and tossed aside the stone. "Strong Belwas needs liver and onions." 

I feel you, bro 

I am Strong Belwas, Strong Belwas is me 

I had my first real "OMG" moment reading ASOS...

...considering that I'm mostly spoiled for the entire series...

BUT JON WAS LITERALLY A FEW HUNDRED FEET AWAY FROM BRAN. RIGHT THERE. IN THE SAME VICINITY. HE KNEW ABOUT QUEENSCROWN HE KNEW ABOUT ALYSANNE HE KNEW ABOUT THE CAUSEWAY JUST LIKE BRAN. HE COULD'VE CLIMBED THE TOWER AND SEEN THAT BRAN WAS SAFE AND SOUND AND ALIVE

It was literally all I could do to keep from throwing the book down and pulling my hair, right there on the bus. Like they were so close. I pretty much started freaking out the very first page of the Jon POV  

I hate GRRM

And hands down, Summer is the best direwolf

And I totally get Bran x Meera now. 

With regards to Lady's death....

I've been reading A Storm of Swords (yes, I know what happens, ha ha *cries*), and I came upon a passage in Bran I that really caught my eye. Bran I starts with Bran dreaming as Summer. What we read is, technically, Summer's "point-of-view". 

In the same thought, Summer (or Bran, or Summer-Bran), the "wolf prince", remembers both the sister he lost i.e. his direwolf sister Lady, as well as the sister that still lives. Now, obviously that sister can't be Lady, nor can it be Nymeria or his human sister Arya, as they are both in the wilds right now. So that leaves Sansa, who indeed is in a castle of man-rock, being hunted. Remember, we are reading the POV of Summer. So somehow, Summer was aware of where his sister Lady was going to the halls of man-rock (and exclusively Lady, not Nymeria, even though they were actually both headed to King's Landing) and still sensed his "sister" as being lost from the path. Sense, you ask? How does Summer know where Sansa is? Why, you might say, Bran knows where Sansa is and Bran is dreaming as Summer, right? This is true, but Bran knows that Sansa AND Arya went to the halls of man-rock; we know that Arya isn't there anymore (and I'm pretty sure Bran doesn't know that...). Therefore, we can conclude that Summer, the direwolf, is somehow aware of his human sister. 

Why is this important? Well, because so many people use Lady's death as a way to characterize Sansa, usually in a negative way i.e. Lady dying means that Sansa's going to die (which we know is complete crap, so I'm not even going to talk about that), Lady dying means that Sansa isn't a Stark anymore, blah blah blah. If Sansa weren't a Stark anymore, would Summer be aware of her? I don't know if Lady's spirit ~transcended into Sansa's or if it's simply the blood of the Old Men running through Stark veins that keeps Sansa "connected" to her brothers and sisters, but Sansa is still a Stark because, well, the direwolves say so. Or maybe this is complete BS *shrugs* I really wish I could expand on this but I'm not as knowledgeable of ASOIAF as others, or able to express myself coherently. 

So. Please. Look at Lady's death as a symbolic event in Sansa's character growth. None of this "Sansa isn't a Stark!!!!111!1"

And then there's the whole "and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out." This reads almost as ominously as Jon's visions of Arya in A Game of Thrones. Obviously, Sansa's has been tied to the political game from early on, but what is going to happen? Is this Sansa's ultimate purpose, to find the way back out?

This is why I don't write...anything really, but no one talks about this and it's been bothering me. So.