In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, so many things seem to occur as the sun is breaking over the horizon to mark the start of a brand new day. A lot of these moments also appear to include significant elements, especially foreshadowing. It seems that it might be a good idea to try to collect some of these moments in order to analyze them more closely. This is the intent of this thread. Please feel free to add any new moments at dawn that you might discover.
Last Edit: Feb 16, 2016 5:36:09 GMT by Lady Dyanna
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
The eastern sky was rose and gold as the sun broke over the Vale of Arryn. Catelyn Stark watched the light spread, her hands resting on the delicate carved stone of the balustrade outside her window. Below her the world turned from black to indigo to green as dawn crept across fields and forests. Pale white mists rose off Alyssa’s Tears, where the ghost waters plunged over the shoulder of the mountain to begin their long tumble down the face of the Giant’s Lance. Catelyn could feel the faint touch of spray on her face. Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear. So in death, the gods had decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried. Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below. Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died.
Last Edit: Feb 16, 2016 5:44:19 GMT by Lady Dyanna
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Outside, Tyrion swallowed a lungful of the cold morning air and began his laborious descent of the steep stone steps that corkscrewed around the exterior of the library tower. It was slow going; the steps were cut high and narrow, while his legs were short and twisted. The rising sun had not yet cleared the walls of Winterfell, but the men were already hard at it in the yard below. Sandor Clegane’s rasping voice drifted up to him. “The boy is a long time dying. I wish he would be quicker about it.”Tyrion glanced down and saw the Hound standing with young Joffrey as squires swarmed around them. “At least he dies quietly,”the prince replied. “It’s the wolf that makes the noise. I could scarce sleep last night.”Clegane cast a long shadow across the hard-packed earth as his squire lowered the black helm over his head. “I could silence the creature, if it please you,”he said through his open visor. His boy placed a longsword in his hand. He tested the weight of it, slicing at the cold morning air. Behind him, the yard rang to the clangor of steel on steel. The notion seemed to delight the prince. “Send a dog to kill a dog!”he exclaimed. “Winterfell is so infested with wolves, the Starks would never miss one.”Tyrion hopped off the last step onto the yard. “I beg to differ, nephew,”he said. “The Starks can count past six. Unlike some princes I might name.”Joffrey had the grace at least to blush. “A voice from nowhere,”Sandor said. He peered through his helm, looking this way and that. “Spirits of the air!”The prince laughed, as he always laughed when his bodyguard did this mummer’s farce. Tyrion was used to it. “Down here.”The tall man peered down at the ground, and pretended to notice him. “The little lord Tyrion,”he said. “My pardons. I did not see you standing there.”“I am in no mood for your insolence today.”Tyrion turned to his nephew. “Joffrey, it is past time you called on Lord Eddard and his lady, to offer them your comfort.”Joffrey looked as petulant as only a boy prince can look. “What good will my comfort do them?”“None,”Tyrion said. “Yet it is expected of you. Your absence has been noted.”“The Stark boy is nothing to me,”Joffrey said. “I cannot abide the wailing of women.”Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard across the face. The boy’s cheek began to redden. “One word,”Tyrion said, “and I will hit you again.”“I’m going to tell Mother!”Joffrey exclaimed. Tyrion hit him again. Now both cheeks flamed. “You tell your mother,”Tyrion told him. “But first you get yourself to Lord and Lady Stark, and you fall to your knees in front of them, and you tell them how very sorry you are, and that you are at their service if there is the slightest thing you can do for them or theirs in this desperate hour, and that all your prayers go with them. Do you understand? Do you?”The boy looked as though he was going to cry. Instead, he managed a weak nod. Then he turned and fled headlong from the yard, holding his cheek. Tyrion watched him run. A shadow fell across his face. He turned to find Clegane looming overhead like a cliff. His soot-dark armor seemed to blot out the sun. He had lowered the visor on his helm. It was fashioned in the likeness of a snarling black hound, fearsome to behold, but Tyrion had always thought it a great improvement over Clegane’s hideously burned face. “The prince will remember that, little lord,”the Hound warned him. The helm turned his laugh into a hollow rumble. “I pray he does,”Tyrion Lannister replied. “If he forgets, be a good dog and remind him.”
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Dawn broke as they crested a low ridge, and finally the king pulled up. By then they were miles south of the main party. Robert was flushed and exhilarated as Ned reined up beside him. “Gods,”he swore, laughing, “it feels good to get out and ride the way a man was meant to ride! I swear, Ned, this creeping along is enough to drive a man mad.”He had never been a patient man, Robert Baratheon. “That damnable wheelhouse, the way it creaks and groans, climbing every bump in the road as if it were a mountain …I promise you, if that wretched thing breaks another axle, I’m going to burn it, and Cersei can walk!”Ned laughed. “I will gladly light the torch for you.”“Good man!”The king clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve half a mind to leave them all behind and just keep going.”A smile touched Ned’s lips. “I do believe you mean it.”“I do, I do,”the king said. “What do you say, Ned? Just you and me, two vagabond knights on the kingsroad, our swords at our sides and the gods know what in front of us, and maybe a farmer’s daughter or a tavern wench to warm our beds tonight.”“Would that we could,”Ned said, “but we have duties now, my liege …to the realm, to our children, I to my lady wife and you to your queen. We are not the boys we were.”“You were never the boy you were,”Robert grumbled. “More’s the pity. And yet there was that one time …what was her name, that common girl of yours? Becca? No, she was one of mine, gods love her, black hair and these sweet big eyes, you could drown in them. Yours was …Aleena? No. You told me once. Was it Merryl? You know the one I mean, your bastard’s mother?”“Her name was Wylla,”Ned replied with cool courtesy, “and I would sooner not speak of her.”“Wylla. Yes.”The king grinned. “She must have been a rare wench if she could make Lord Eddard Stark forget his honor, even for an hour. You never told me what she looked like …”Ned’s mouth tightened in anger. “Nor will I. Leave it be, Robert, for the love you say you bear me. I dishonored myself and I dishonored Catelyn, in the sight of gods and men.”“Gods have mercy, you scarcely knew Catelyn.”“I had taken her to wife. She was carrying my child.”“You are too hard on yourself, Ned. You always were. Damn it, no woman wants Baelor the Blessed in her bed.”He slapped a hand on his knee. “Well, I’ll not press you if you feel so strong about it, though I swear, at times you’re so prickly you ought to take the hedgehog as your sigil.”
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
In the pale dawn light, the young knight looked as though he were sleeping. He had not been handsome, but death had smoothed his rough-hewn features and the silent sisters had dressed him in his best velvet tunic, with a high collar to cover the ruin the lance had made of his throat. Eddard Stark looked at his face, and wondered if it had been for his sake that the boy had died. Slain by a Lannister bannerman before Ned could speak to him; could that be mere happenstance? He supposed he would never know. “Hugh was Jon Arryn’s squire for four years,”Selmy went on. “The king knighted him before he rode north, in Jon’s memory. The lad wanted it desperately, yet I fear he was not ready.”Ned had slept badly last night and he felt tired beyond his years. “None of us is ever ready,”he said. “For knighthood?”“For death.”Gently Ned covered the boy with his cloak, a bloodstained bit of blue bordered in crescent moons. When his mother asked why her son was dead, he reflected bitterly, they would tell her he had fought to honor the King’s Hand, Eddard Stark. “This was needless. War should not be a game.”Ned turned to the woman beside the cart, shrouded in grey, face hidden but for her eyes. The silent sisters prepared men for the grave, and it was ill fortune to look on the face of death. “Send his armor home to the Vale. The mother will want to have it.”“It is worth a fair piece of silver,”Ser Barristan said. “The boy had it forged special for the tourney. Plain work, but good. I do not know if he had finished paying the smith.”“He paid yesterday, my lord, and he paid dearly,”Ned replied. And to the silent sister he said, “Send the mother the armor. I will deal with this smith.”She bowed her head.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
The next morning she woke before first light and crept sleepily to her window to watch Lord Beric form up his men. They rode out as dawn was breaking over the city, with three banners going before them; the crowned stag of the king flew from the high staff, the direwolf of Stark and Lord Beric’s own forked lightning standard from shorter poles. It was all so exciting, a song come to life; the clatter of swords, the flicker of torchlight, banners dancing in the wind, horses snorting and whinnying, the golden glow of sunrise slanting through the bars of the portcullis as it jerked upward. The Winterfell men looked especially fine in their silvery mail and long grey cloaks. Alyn carried the Stark banner. When she saw him rein in beside Lord Beric to exchange words, it made Sansa feel ever so proud. Alyn was handsomer than Jory had been; he was going to be a knight one day.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Dawn and Qhorin Halfhand arrived together. The black stones had turned to grey and the eastern sky had gone indigo when Stonesnake spied the rangers below, wending their way upward. Jon woke his captive and held her by the arm as they descended to meet them. Thankfully, there was another way off the mountain to the north and west, along paths much gentler than the one that had brought them up here. They were waiting in a narrow defile when their brothers appeared, leading their garrons. Ghost raced ahead at first scent of them. Jon squatted to let the direwolf close his jaws around his wrist, tugging his hand back and forth. It was a game they played. But when he glanced up, he saw Ygritte watching with eyes as wide and white as hen's eggs.
Darkstar will be the next Vulture King.
Craster has 19 daughters and there are 19 castles on the Wall, coincidence I think not!
Dawn was breaking in the east as Mya Stone hallooed for the guards, and the gates opened before them . Inside the walls there was only a series of ramps and a great tumble of boulders and stones of all sizes. No doubt it would be the easiest thing in the world to begin an avalanche from here. A mouth yawned in the rock face in front of them.
Last Edit: Feb 17, 2016 10:41:01 GMT by Lady Dyanna
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
The grey light of dawn was streaming through his window when the thunder of hoofbeats awoke Eddard Stark from his brief, exhausted sleep. He lifted his head from the table to look down into the yard. Below, men in mail and leather and crimson cloaks were making the morning ring to the sound of swords, and riding down mock warriors stuffed with straw. Ned watched Sandor Clegane gallop across the hard-packed ground to drive an iron-tipped lance through a dummy’s head. Canvas ripped and straw exploded as Lannister guardsmen joked and cursed. Is this brave show for my benefit, he wondered. If so, Cersei was a greater fool than he’d imagined. Damn her, he thought, why is the woman not fled? I have given her chance after chance …
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night’s Watch now, not a frightened boy.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
And two days later, as a red dawn broke across a windswept sky, Bran found himself in the yard beneath the gatehouse, strapped atop Dancer as he said his farewells to his brother. “You are the lord in Winterfell now,”Robb told him. He was mounted on a shaggy grey stallion, his shield hung from the horse’s side; wood banded with iron, white and grey, and on it the snarling face of a direwolf. His brother wore grey chainmail over bleached leathers, sword and dagger at his waist, a fur-trimmed cloak across his shoulders. “You must take my place, as I took Father’s, until we come home.”“I know,”Bran replied miserably. He had never felt so little or alone or scared. He did not know how to be a lord. “Listen to Maester Luwin’s counsel, and take care of Rickon. Tell him that I’ll be back as soon as the fighting is done.”Rickon had refused to come down. He was up in his chamber, red-eyed and defiant. “No!”he’d screamed when Bran had asked if he didn’t want to say farewell to Robb. “NO farewell!”“I told him,”Bran said. “He says no one ever comes back.”“He can’t be a baby forever. He’s a Stark, and near four.”Robb sighed. “Well, Mother will be home soon. And I’ll bring back Father, I promise.”He wheeled his courser around and trotted away. Grey Wind followed, loping beside the warhorse, lean and swift. Hallis Mollen went before them through the gate, carrying the rippling white banner of House Stark atop a high standard of grey ash. Theon Greyjoy and the Greatjon fell in on either side of Robb, and their knights formed up in a double column behind them, steel-tipped lances glinting in the sun. Uncomfortably, he remembered Osha’s words. He’s marching the wrong way, he thought. For an instant he wanted to gallop after him and shout a warning, but when Robb vanished beneath the portcullis, the moment was gone.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
That was such a sweet dream, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe. If only dreaming could make it so . . .
She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.
Her lord husband was not beside her, but she was used to that. Tyrion was a bad sleeper and often rose before the dawn. Usually she found him in the solar, hunched beside a candle, lost in some old scroll or leatherbound book. Sometimes the smell of the morning bread from the ovens took him to the kitchens, and sometimes he would climb up to the roof garden or wander all alone down Traitor's Walk.
She threw back the shutters and shivered as gooseprickles rose along her arms. There were clouds massing in the eastern sky, pierced by shafts of sunlight. They look like two huge castles afloat in the morning sky. Sansa could see their walls of tumbled stone, their mighty keeps and barbicans. Wispy banners swirled from atop their towers and reached for the fast-fading stars. The sun was coming up behind them, and she watched them go from black to grey to a thousand shades of rose and gold and crimson. Soon the wind mushed them together, and there was only one castle where there had been two.
She heard the door open as her maids brought the hot water for her bath. They were both new to her service; Tyrion said the women who'd tended to her previously had all been Cersei's spies, just as Sansa had always suspected. "Come see," she told them. "There's a castle in the sky."
They came to have a look. "It's made of gold." Shae had short dark hair and bold eyes. She did all that was asked of her, but sometimes she gave Sansa the most insolent looks. "A castle all of gold, there's a sight I'd like to see."
"A castle, is it?" Brella had to squint. "That tower's tumbling over, looks like. It's all ruins, that is." Storm, Sansa IV
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Oscar Wilde.
Pale crimson fingers fanned out to the east as the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon. The western sky was a deep purple, speckled with stars. Tyrion wondered whether this was the last sunrise he would ever see …and whether wondering was a mark of cowardice. Did his brother Jaime ever contemplate death before a battle? A warhorn sounded in the far distance, a deep mournful note that chilled the soul. The clansmen climbed onto their scrawny mountain horses, shouting curses and rude jokes. Several appeared to be drunk. The rising sun was burning off the drifting tendrils of fog as Tyrion led them off. What grass the horses had left was heavy with dew, as if some passing god had scattered a bag of diamonds over the earth. The mountain men fell in behind him, each clan arrayed behind its own leaders. In the dawn light, the army of Lord Tywin Lannister unfolded like an iron rose, thorns gleaming.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Little by little, the sounds dwindled and died, until at last there was only the wolf. As a red dawn broke in the east, Grey Wind began to howl again. Robb came back to her on a different horse, riding a piebald gelding in the place of the grey stallion he had taken down into the valley. The wolf’s head on his shield was slashed half to pieces, raw wood showing where deep gouges had been hacked in the oak, but Robb himself seemed unhurt. Yet when he came closer, Catelyn saw that his mailed glove and the sleeve of his surcoat were black with blood. “You’re hurt,”she said. Robb lifted his hand, opened and closed his fingers. “No,”he said. “This is …Torrhen’s blood, perhaps, or …”He shook his head. “I do not know.”A mob of men followed him up the slope, dirty and dented and grinning, with Theon and the Greatjon at their head. Between them they dragged Ser Jaime Lannister. They threw him down in front of her horse. “The Kingslayer,”Hal announced, unnecessarily. Lannister raised his head. “Lady Stark,”he said from his knees. Blood ran down one cheek from a gash across his scalp, but the pale light of dawn had put the glint of gold back in his hair. “I would offer you my sword, but I seem to have mislaid it.”“It is not your sword I want, ser,”she told him. “Give me my father and my brother Edmure. Give me my daughters. Give me my lord husband.”“I have mislaid them as well, I fear.”“A pity,”Catelyn said coldly. “Kill him, Robb,”Theon Greyjoy urged. “Take his head off.”“No,”her son answered, peeling off his bloody glove. “He’s more use alive than dead. And my lord father never condoned the murder of prisoners after a battle.”“A wise man,”Jaime Lannister said, “and honorable.”“Take him away and put him in irons,”Catelyn said. “Do as my lady mother says,”Robb commanded, “and make certain there’s a strong guard around him. Lord Karstark will want his head on a pike.”“That he will,”the Greatjon agreed, gesturing. Lannister was led away to be bandaged and chained. “Why should Lord Karstark want him dead?”Catelyn asked. Robb looked away into the woods, with the same brooding look that Ned often got. “He …he killed them …”“Lord Karstark’s sons,”Galbart Glover explained. “Both of them,”said Robb. “Torrhen and Eddard. And Daryn Hornwood as well.”“No one can fault Lannister on his courage,”Glover said. “When he saw that he was lost, he rallied his retainers and fought his way up the valley, hoping to reach Lord Robb and cut him down. And almost did.”“He mislaid his sword in Eddard Karstark’s neck, after he took Torrhen’s hand off and split Daryn Hornwood’s skull open,”Robb said. “All the time he was shouting for me. If they hadn’t tried to stop him—”“—I should then be mourning in place of Lord Karstark,”Catelyn said. “Your men did what they were sworn to do, Robb. They died protecting their liege lord. Grieve for them. Honor them for their valor. But not now. You have no time for grief. You may have lopped the head off the snake, but three quarters of the body is still coiled around my father’s castle. We have won a battle, not a war.”
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
the direwolf of Stark and Lord Beric’s own forked lightning standard from shorter poles
That really feels like potential foreshadowing--the direwolf and the lightning "sword" on purple. Especially as is gives Sansa hope.
Though Beric ends up taking Ned's place in the trap. Becomes the undead fire-version of the Stark Night's King??? Only then does he both protect Arya AND intend to sell her. . . he's still more "loyal" than the Night's King was to the Stark in Winterfell.
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Oscar Wilde.