A Blog of Thrones Chapter 32 (Arya III): Yer a Wizard, Varys

Two posts in one day? You must be the luckiest sons of dogs out there.

Previously on A Blog of Thrones, we learned that Catelyn Stark can occasionally be clever and Tyrion Lannister can occasionally axe impoverished people to death. (Occupy Casterly Rock!) Now it's Arya's turn to tell us a bunch of stuff she doesn't really comprehend.

Arya is chasing the one cat she can't catch, a one-eared black tomcat that once stole a quail from Tywin Lannister. I call shenanigans. That cat is obviously Jaqen H'ghar in disguise.

She manages to catch the cat, and she kisses it. For some reason. Extremely black humor compels me to note that will be the last Cat she kisses. Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella notice her and understandably wonder if she's off her meds.  They also think she's a boy.  Foreshadowing; drink.  She manages to evade the Lannister guard but winds up in a totally unfamiliar part of the castle.  She ends up in a room with dragon skulls.

K, question. Why didn't King Hammerman have these things smashed? Why didn't King Drunkthor smash them himself? With his hammer? I mean, seriously. A good chunk of the plot misdirection in this book comes because King Ragesmash wants all the Targaryens dead dead dead dead dead frothing-at-the-mouth dead. (Fetch the breastplate stretcher. And more wine.) Right? The crux of R+L=J is the notion Robert has such a rage-on for all things Targaryen that Ned can't tell Robert that there's one Targaryen left on the continent because then Robert would just go kill him. Did Varys save these dragon skulls? How?

Aerys: Varys, what are you doing?
Varys: Hiding your dragon skulls in the basement on the off chance the city falls.
Aerys: Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to burn the city down before I let it fall.
Varys: Yes, well, about that. I would have warned you, only you got fixated on the whole me-moving-dragon-skulls thing...
Aerys: Warned me about what?
Jaime: Yo.
Aerys: Herk. Splutter. Deathrattle.

Anyway. She leaves the fossils and finds herself in a room with a giant spiral staircase.  Below, two people we're not supposed to know are Varys and Illyrio turn up. Given that Illyrio isn't in disguise and Varys - a known master of disguises by this point - is, I don't know if we're supposed to be fooled. The show certainly didn't bother trying.  Then again the show depicted Illyrio as a fat human male instead of a blue demon chick. Yes, I know it's an O instead of an A, but now you know what I think of every time the fat cheesemonger is mentioned.

So they talk about bastards and wolves and lions and hands and queens and whether Varys is a sorcerer or a juggler. Here I thought he was a spymaster.  Silly me.

And silly Ned Stark, too. If you are the Hand of the King, in a land where you know the previous Hand died under suspicious circumstances, and your daughter comes up saying she's overheard two people who may or may not be plotting to kill you, do you a) ask her detailed questions in an attempt to glean whatever information you can from her memory, or b) pat her on the head, congratulate her on her overactive imagination, and pack her off to bed?

Death's too good for him, I say.