Episode 25: A GAME OF THRONES, EDDARD V: "The Seed Is Strong" 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 twenty-fifth episode of the Not A Cast entitled: “The Seed is Strong: An Analysis of AGOT, Eddard V,” in which Ned investigates the death of Jon Arryn and gets a lesson in paranoia from Littlefinger. This episode is brought to you all by our Lords Commander Mark N, Timothy W, Hayden J, and WolfmanZack. Thank you, gentlemen!

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!

Questions

Ser Thomas H asks:

I wanna start by saying I continue to love your podcast and to keep up the great work. I had a question retaining to your guy’s opinions on the game of thrones show. You see I started off watching the first four seasons of the show and then after the end of Season four I just had to know what happened next so I read all ASOIAF books and novellas. Then season 5 came along and I was left dissatisfied with where the show went with certain plot lines( Dorne and Stannis) and as the show went on my disappointment only grew. Granted there were still good episodes of the show like Hardhome, and Battle of the Bastards. But I couldn’t help but think there was a sharp quality drop from season 4 to 5 and onward. So my question is do you think there was a quality drop and do you think it has anything to do with the fact that George RR Martin stopped writing episodes after season 4. Also if you could change one plot line in the show what would that be? Sorry for the long question and again keep up the great work.

Synopsis

The shortest chapter of AGOT yet opens mid-conversation to Grand Maester Pycelle stating that Jon Arryn’s death was very, very, very sad. It’s very sad, Lord Stark. Just so sad. Yeah, okay, Pycelle. Sure. Methinks thou protesteth too much.

Anyways, Pycelle says he’ll tell Ned what happened to Jon Arryn as best he can. He then asks Ned if he’d like some iced milk, sweetened with honey. Ned thinks, “Sounds tasty.” And then Pycelle puts his drink order in with a serving girl.

Possibly buying some time as he tries to think of some plausible lies he can throw at Ned, Pycelle launches into a discussion of the science of the seasons in Westeros. The smallfolk think that the last year of summer is always the hottest, but it’s not always so. It feels that way though, especially on a hot day like today. Pycelle discusses some history -- about how King Maekar’s summer was hotter than this one, and this led people think the Great Summer was at hand. But it wasn’t. In the seventh year, the summer broke and a horrible winter fell on Westeros. 

Ah, but those summers were great for Young Pycelle in Oldtown: walking in the gardens, arguing about the gods and those smells: perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom. But Pycelle intones that Ned didn’t come to hear an old man’s tales of his youth. And what was Ned here for again? Ah, yes. Jon Arryn’s death. About that …

Pycelle claims that Jon Arryn hadn’t been himself for a while, and then he got sick. But the day before he got sick, he came to Pycelle and asked after a book. The next morning, he had significant stomach pain. Jon’s maester was purging him, but eventually Pycelle himself went to Jon Arryn. He dismissed Maester Colemon (something that he feels that Lysa will never forgive him for. Fucking liar), and he tried to “care” for him. But it was “too late.” 

When Pycelle knew that the end was at hand, he gave Jon Arryn milk of the poppy to ease his passing. Ned asks whether Jon Arryn had final words, Pycelle recounts that he said “Robert” several times, not knowing whether he meant Robert Baratheon or his son Robert Arryn. And his final words were “The seed is strong.” The next morning, Jon Arryn died.

Ned then gets to the heart of his inquiries after Jon Arryn’s death: was there anything unnatural about Jon Arryn’s death? Was he poisoned? Welllllllll … that throws Pycelle and his story for a loop. Pycelle mumbles about how Jon’s death was no stranger than any other. When Ned replies that Lysa thought Jon’s death was unnatural, Pycelle states that yeah, Lysa would. She cray, especially after all those stillbirths. Editorial note: Pycelle is a fucking dick, though not altogether wrong.

But what about that poison? Pycelle says it’s possible, but he doesn’t think so. Jon Arryn was beloved by all. Only monsters would dare to murder such a beloved figure.

I have heard it said that poison is a woman’s weapon. Ned replies

Pycelle gets all conspiratorial. Women cravens and … eunuchs use poison. Hey, B-T-W Ned, did you know that Varys is a eunuch and from Lys. Don’t trust that dude. But Ned already knows. He doesn’t trust Varys anyways.

Anyways, Ned, having gotten something resembling an answer on Jon Arryn’s death, makes his way for the door. But just before he leaves, he asks if he can borrow the book that Jon Arryn wanted from Pycelle. The Grand Maester says sure. Once he finds it, he’ll send it straightway to Ned.

“You have been most courteous,” Ned told him. Then almost as an afterthought, he said, “One last question, if you would be so kind. You mentioned that the king was at Lord Arryn’s bedside when he died. I wonder, was the queen with him?”

Um, no. She was, uh, y’know away with her dad. But Pycelle will shit you not: he was very, very sad to have sent that bird to the queen to announce Jon Arryn’s death. Ned finally takes his leave, with Pycelle calling after him that he’s here to serve. This causes Ned to wonder who Pycelle actually serves.

On his way back to his chambers, Ned comes across Arya who’s balancing herself on one foot, practicing as a water dancer. Arya states that water dancers can stand for hours on any toe and never fall. And this leads to Arya asking if Bran will come and live with them in King’s Landing now that he’s awake after his fall. Not for a long time, Ned replies. But what’s Bran going to be doing now that he’s a cripple? Well, he’ll have time to figure that out.

Ned thinks back to when word arrived that Bran had woken, and how he had taken the girls out to what passed for the King’s Landing godswood: an acre of elm, ader and black cottonwood trees overlooking the Blackwater. In the middle stood the heart tree: an enormous oak. The three Starks knelt before the heat tree and gave thanks to the gods for Bran’s survival. But only Ned had made it through the whole night’s vigil. When Sansa awoke, she dreamed that she saw Bran smiling. Beautiful.

Flashing back to the present, Arya remembers that Bran was going to be a knight. Can he still be a knight. No, Ned replies. Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king’s council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother’s Faith and become the High Septon. 

But he’s never going to run beside his wolf or have sex or hold his son in his arms. Let no one accuse Ned of not close-holding his pathos in his internal narration. 

But can Arya become a king’s councilor or High Septon? Lol, no child. You’re gonna marry a king, rule his castle and your sons might become knights, princes, lords and maybe even the High Septon. 

Damn. Harsh. But Arya has a reply ready: “No, that’s Sansa.” She gets herself back into position and keeps practicing her Water Dancer moves.

Ned arrives back at his chambers and immediately, he’s told that Littlefinger requests an audience with him. Ned heads out to his solar to meet him, and sees that Lord Baelish is perched on a window seat, watching the knights of the Kingsguard practice at swords in preparation for the Hand’s tourney. Littlefinger japes about Barristan being dim (Factcheck: true), and Ned remarks about how Barristan is valiant and honorable -- the only dude Ned respects here in King’s Landing.

Ned asks why Littlefinger is in King’s Landing. Why, he’s here to help, as always. He promised Cat, he says slyly. (Fuck you, Littlefinger). So, Littlefinger proceeds to “help” Ned. He tells Ned that 4 members of Jon Arryn’s entourage stayed behind in King’s Landing when Lysa Arryn headed back to the Vale: a pregnant kitchen girl, a stablehand, a potboy and … Ser Hugh of the Vale: Lord Arryn’s squire.

Ned’s pretty happy about this. The squire would know a lot more than the average Arryn retainer would. He’ll go at once to interview him. Hm, well, not so fast, Ned. Littlefinger instructs Ned to come to the window. He points to a boy honing an oilstone and tells Ned that he reports to Varys. And there’s another man up on the wall. He reports to Cersei. You’re being watched, Ned. You can’t go to Ser Hugh. Do you have anyone you trust implicitly?

Yes, Ned replies. 

In that case, I have a delightful palace in Valyria that I would dearly love to sell you. 

Ah, Littlefinger knows Nigerian Prince E mail jokes. How nice. Anyways, Littlefinger tells Ned to send this paragon of virtue to Ser Hugh. That way, it’ll be less noticeable. Seems like good advice to Ned.

“Lord Petyr. I … am grateful for your help. Perhaps I was wrong to distrust you.”

“You are slow to learn, Lord Eddard. Distrusting me was the wisest thing you’ve done since you climbed down off your horse.”

And that is AGOT, Eddard V: a chapter that serves as a bridge from Catelyn II and Eddard IV and pushes the narrative onto the Hand’s Tourney and his investigation into Jon Arryn’s death. What’d you think Emmett?

Depth

Hate to break your heart, Jeff, but this is probably my least favorite Ned chapter. 

I’ve mentioned a couple times before that I’m not especially engaged by the murder-mystery aspect of Ned’s storyline, and of course that’s what this chapter in particular is all about. I may as well lay out why: 

• We already know about the twincest, so there’s not much suspense there
• We think we know who killed Jon Arryn (Cersei); we’re wrong, but we don’t find out about that until ASOS, and nothing in Ned’s plot contradicts it
• It’s not particularly intricate or labyrinthine like the best noir plots (for example, L.A. Confidential)
• Nor does Ned do anything especially clever like the best noir detectives
• Ned does compromise himself after learning about the twincest, but he doesn’t do anything shady or morally ambiguous along the way
• Comparison to Tyrion’s one-two-three
• Above all, I love the aesthetic of detective stories, and I don’t think that quite translates to this medieval-ish setting

That being said, this is still ASOIAF, and there’s still plenty to love here.

• The Sticky Saturating Heat
  • There was no denying the heat; Ned could feel the silk tunic clinging to his chest. Thick, moist air covered the city like a damp woolen blanket, and the riverside had grown unruly as the poor fled their hot, airless warrens to jostle for sleeping places near the water, where the only breath of wind was to be found. 
  • An appropriate atmosphere--Ned is sweating, uncomfortable, and as a Northerner so often compared to ice and cold, he’s out of place
• The Ponderous Pretentious Pontifications of Pycelle
  • I noticed on reread how he repeatedly makes these performative hand gestures whenever he talks (Jaime notes that he’s always stroking his beard)
  • Delivers his resume to Ned with no payoff but “diseases, man, there sure are a lot of them”
  • “Grand Maester Aethelmure wrote that all men carry murder in their hearts” Really, Pycelle? You’re gonna go full dinner-party-douchebag “if I may quote Milton” on the question of whether murder is a thing?
• My Li’l Water Dancer
  • Follows up on Ned and Arya’s conversation in Arya II; it’s another attempt to make her see How The World Works
  • Ned internally lists all the things Bran can’t do now, because of a physical injury…
  • ...and then reveals that Arya can’t do these things either, even though she’s physically capable, because she’s a woman
  • It’s a condemnation of Westerosi society--Bran may fail to perform masculinity in the way he wanted, but he’s still higher on the totem pole than Arya
  • Comparable to Tyrion and Cersei, perhaps?
• A Visit from the Mockingbird
  • And then Littlefinger turns up to tell Ned how the world works
  • How the world works is that the walls have eyes, a consistent motif in ASOIAF: Varys brings it up RE Tyrion and Shae in ACOK and it’s made literal by one of Qarth’s three walls
  • Multiple layers of irony here
    • For all we know, Littlefinger is naming random people--Ned has no way of confirming it, and neither do we
    • They’re facing the window, away from the walls...but there are spies in there as well!
    • Above all--Littlefinger tells Ned that he can’t be an effective player by just sending for Ser Hugh in the name of the Hand, but if Ned had done that, he might’ve actually been able to interview the dude before Gregor sent him to an early grave. Instead, he sends Jory on his own, and Hugh refuses to come
    • This needs to be kept in mind whenever Littlefinger tries to school Ned--Littlefinger hates Ned, Littlefinger wants to bring Ned down, and so everything he says should be taken with a [M]ountain-sized grain of salt

The oversweet milk symbolizes that Pycelle is a fucking liar, and he’s holding back key information to protect Cersei. We see “lies” being described as sweet in other parts of ASOIAF:

"Sweet, isn't it?" the wineseller said, smiling. "Can you smell the fruit, ser? The perfume of the Arbor. Taste it, my lord, and tell me it isn't the finest, richest wine that's ever touched your tongue."

Give me sweet lies, and keep your bitter truths. (ASOS, Tyrion XI)

Reek was there too, he remembered, but he was a different Reek, a Reek with bloody hands and lies dripping from his lips, sweet as honey. (ADWD, A Ghost in Winterfell)

And what’s Pycelle’s lying to Ned about? That he played a part in Jon Arryn’s death as we find in ACOK.

“Yes,” he wimpered, “yes, Colemon was purging, so I sent him away. The queen needed Lord Arryn dead, she did not say so, could not, Varys was listening, always listening, but when I looked at her I knew." 

...

"It was not me who gave him the poison, though, I swear it.” The old man wept. “Varys will tell you, it was the boy, his squire, Hugh he was called, he must surely have done it, ask your sister, ask her.” (ACOK, Tyrion IV)

What’s Littlefinger up to with Ned here telling him about Ser Hugh of the Vale?

Methinks Littlefinger had prepped Hugh to be as difficult as possible and was only seeming to help Ned here. (We will get in deep on Hugh come later Ned chapters!)

Likes/Dislikes

Like: That moment of Stark unity in the godswood is wonderfully heartwarming, along the same lines as Jon’s own reaction to Bran’s recovery. It’s especially moving here given the persistent divide between Arya and Sansa. Things are gonna get worse from here, but it’s a sweet respite.

Dislike: “Distrusting me was the wisest thing you’ve done since you climbed down off your horse,” as with a lot of Littlefinger lines in this book, is just a little too blunt and obvious. It’s consistent with his character, but it makes it that much less believable that Ned ultimately does trust him and that much less of a surprise for the reader when Littlefinger stabs him in the back.

Like: I enjoy Arya’s “That’s Sansa” moment in the story. It’s not said with anger or jealousy. It’s a straight-up “All well and good for Sansa, but not for me.” Arya is taking control of her destiny here, and I think that’s great. The problem is that she may have agency in her own life, but will she have it forever? Hm.

Dislike: Pycelle is just a real dummy here in unintentionally-but-not-wholly framing Cersei for killing Jon Arryn. It reads a bit clumsy on Pycelle’s part, especially when you take into account how he helped ensure Jon Arryn would die in ACOK. It’s cool that he tries to frame Varys, but to what end? Perhaps GRRM hadn’t quite figured Pycelle’s role in Jon Arryn’s death until he needed a dramatic moment when Tyrion and Shagga interrogate Pycelle in ACOK.  

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Of course, the major foreshadowing work in this chapter has to do with the truth Jon Arryn discovered before he died. “The seed is strong” and Pycelle mentioning Lord Jon’s interest in a book about lineage sets up the stakes of Ned’s investigation--the familial line and all that goes with it--which continue with his discovery of Gendry at Tobho Mott’s forge. But GRRM hides the truth from Ned by distracting him first with Lord Jon’s seed and then with Robert’s, when the reveal is that the seed was not strong (or rather nonexistent) with Robert and Cersei.

The people growing “unruly” of course foreshadows disturbances to come--Ned’s next chapter opens with Janos Slynt running down the chaos unfolding in the city, and later books will explore the KL riot and the Sparrow movement

Pycelle’s antipathy towards Varys will come up a couple times in the series…

“I have heard it said that poison is a woman’s weapon.”

Pycelle stroked his beard thoughtfully. “It is said. Women, cravens . . . and eunuchs.” He cleared his throat and spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the rushes. Above them, a raven cawed loudly in the rookery. “The Lord Varys was born a slave in Lys, did you know? Put not your trust in spiders, my lord.”

...and while he’s clueless about what Varys is actually doing (is this rift rooted in what happened at the end with Aerys?) he’s right to be concerned, because Varys murders him in ADWD.

“Ser Barristan is as valiant and honorable as any man in King’s Landing.” Ned had come to have a deep respect for the aged, white-haired Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

Barry returns the favor, both by joining Ned in his effort to save Dany from Robert’s wrath and sticking up for Lord Stark’s memory when Dany lumps him in with the Lannisters.

When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon’s breath surrounded the girls where they lay. “I dreamed of Bran,” Sansa had whispered to him. “I saw him smiling.”

Always important to take note of connections between the Starks and the dragons when they come up, given the series title. There’s some ambiguity as to the meaning of this one--does this mean one or both sisters will be victims of dragonfire? Or will they be spared/protected by the dragons, given that this is a positive healing moment? Is there a link being made here between the dragons and Bran’s rebirth and rejuvenation (shout-out to Manu’s theory)?

Very subtle hinting that Jon Arryn was poisoned by the Tears of Lys. Grand Maester Pycelle says:

“The weather had been hot, and the Hand often iced his wine, which can upset the digestion.”

This then leads into Pycelle saying that Jon Arryn grew sick shortly thereafter. A seeming throwaway line, but perhaps not! The taste of the Tears of Lys is called “sweet as water” in ASOIAF. Water-ice-Tears of Lys poison. You get me, right? But let’s get even deeper and perhaps weirder. One of the curious connections between Lysa, Lys and the Tears of Lys is what’s known as Alyssa’s Tears in the Vale. In AFFC, Sansa thinks:

When she had first come to Eyrie, there had been the murmur of Alyssa's Tears as well, but the waterfall was frozen now. (AFFC, Alayne I)

Very well might be overthinking it, but Alyssa’s tears, Lysa’s tears over her marriage to Jon Arryn and her tears over Lord Arryn’s decision to send Robert Arryn away, combined with the fact that the Tears Lys killed Jon Arryn makes this perhaps the subtlest of clues that Jon Arryn was poisoned by the Tears of Lys. 

Theories/Discussion

It’s mystery time on the NotACast podcast. Except, because you all are re-readers, you know the conclusion. But it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. So, let’s imagine you’re a first-time reader. Who are you thinking did Jon Arryn at this point in the story? Be honest. Cersei, right? It’s okay. You don’t have to feel shame for thinking this, because George wanted you to think this way.

The other significant foreshadowing here is related: the twist that it was Lysa, not the Lannisters, who poisoned the Hand. 

“If an old man may be forgiven his blunt speech, let me say that grief can derange even the strongest and most disciplined of minds, and the Lady Lysa was never that. Since her last stillbirth, she has seen enemies in every shadow, and the death of her lord husband left her shattered and lost.”

That’s the person whose word Cat and Ned have been trusting this whole time! First time through, though, that scans as “unreliable witness” more than “perp poorly covering her tracks.” 

Conclusion

• Thanks for listening!
• Rate and review us on itunes, google play, etc
• Patreon/advertise/where we can find our work/social media
• Follow us on social media (Make sure to mention @NotACastASOIAF and our e mail: NotACastASOIAF@gmail.com)
• Join us next time as Jon meets and protects his new best friend Sam in Jon IV!