Myranda & Alayne

This man leaps from plausible to certain so damn fast. Like Nestor Royce is walking around out there looking for splattered dead ladies and their shoes. "Oy, m'lord! Looks like we got m'lady's brains 'ere, but we's missin' a shoe!" "Keep searching, you imbeciles! We will not bury our lady without her shoes!" wtf.

And I do question the logistics of harp-playing and/or littlefingering with broken fingers. Never seen anyone play the harp with one hand, anyway.

But the rest of it is pretty solidly reasoned. I had forgotten, if ever I knew, that Royce wanted to marry his daughter to Harry. Only natural that he'd be extra vigilant regarding the man who usurped him, Littlefinger. Jacobs' whole read of the Randa/Alayne conversation strikes me as spot on as well. Myranda Royce, whether in concert with her father or not, would be foolish not to try to get some info out of Alayne. So I'll agree with Mr. Jacobs that the Royces are engaged in some politiciking here.

But what do they want, and what do they hope to achieve? Nestor (and Randa herself, even) may wish to marry Randa to Harry, but he's off the table. Do they think they can somehow expose Sansa and thereby break up the marriage? It strikes me that Alayne being revealed as Sansa makes that marriage highly desirable for Harry and Lady Waynwood. So how do they get Harry back on the market? They either depose Littlefinger, or they kill Sansa, IMO.

Which makes one wonder: Is Nestor in this by himself, or is there some kind of Lords Declarant jiggery pokery going on behind the scenes? If the goal is to depose LF, Nestor's gonna need some help.

But what if Randa Royce is playing her own game of "fuck, marry, kill," and has chosen to fuck Marillion, marry *Sweetrobin,* and kill Harry? I mean, fuck Harry the Heir, right? Who is this guy and why does anyone care? He's a widow's ward! If he bites it, who's going to be especially upset? He has no one behind him but Waynwood, and he's not even her son, just her ward. And killing the heir to the Vale would stir up an epic Littlefinger-style shitstorm.

I actually like the missing shoe observation, because GRRM does seem to like to make oblique references to myths and fairy tales throughout the books (especially when he has a chance to invert them).

I thought it pretty obvious that Myranda at least was pretty suspicious of Littlefinger's cover story about Lysa's death, and I agree that Sansa has probably given away her identity in their conversation. And I agree that Nestor probably has his sights set on something higher than the Gates of the Moon. After all why be so grateful for Littlefinger giving him something that he already has.

In general I really like how Preston Jacobs goes about analyzing the books. While Martin likes to reference common myths and stories, I don't think the way to figure his mysteries out is by analogies to other well known stories. I think for Martin the devil is in the details, and Preston usually does a pretty good job of pointing out interesting details that I may have missed in my read.