Last time on Test Your Political IQ, we were reminded that Varys is a eunuch, often and loudly. Now we're back to Tyrion, whom in case you've forgotten, is a dwarf. This won't be brought up every other page or so...
Tyrion, Lord Commander Mormont (hey, what happened to that whole "hold no titles" thing?) and Alliser Thorne are eating crabs. We learn that Thorne's secret weakness is laughter. And that Mormont's raven wants to watch Thorne duel a dwarf with a fork.
We meet Bowen Marsh, the Lord Stewart. He's fat. Spoiler alert: fat people are notoriously untrustworthy in this 'verse.
Wait, how is he fat? They're at the Wall. Food can't be that easy to come by.
We learn that both Thorne and Ser Jaremy Rykker both fought for the Targaryens during Robert's Rebellion and were sent to the Wall. That's a nice touch that, of course, the show completely left out.
Aemon is blind and calls Tyrion a giant. Then things turn more serious. Mormont sent Benjen Stark after the three stooges from the Prologue, only how he's gone missing as well.
Tyrion has seen eight or nine winters. Um, that would seem to present us with a problem if he's supposed to be 24. The longest winter lasted three years, which is as long as the entire seasonal cycle would have had to last in order for him to have seen eight winters and be 24. And the last summer has lasted nine years. Meaning that Tyrion would have had to have seen eight winters in 15 years. George didn't put a scale on the map because he didn't want to have to do the math. I think I know why now. So, normally, winter lasts something like a year, maybe.
Tyrion goes up to the top of the wall, where there are catapults (dammit, HBO, you couldn't raid your Titty Fund for a decent catapult, could you?) and Jon Snow, who's become slightly less of an entitled brat since his last chapter. Now he's working with the other recruits. Yay. But he's also clearly got signs of a family attachment, because he talks about going off to find Uncle Benjen. Gee, that won't be significant later on.
The climate isn't much better in King's Landing. Sure, you might not lose an extremity to frostbite, but you could just as easily lose your head or your entire family. Sansa is all googly-eyes about going to the tourney and seeing Joffrey. I like reading about Sansa in Arya chapters, because Sansa's an idiot
and Arya doesn't cut her any slack for it. (I also like reading about
Sansa in Alayne chapters because, well, those are actually pretty fun to
read.)
Weirdly, Arya doesn't want to watch people get their heads bashed in. We learn that Ned keeps a spare place at his table for a random underling, a practice Robb will follow later on.
Arya storms away from dinner in a huff and hides in her room. When Ned shows up, she has Needle out. Ned remarks that he can't very well be expected to be a good Hand if he didn't know his own daughter was armed from his own forge, and I'm inclined to agree with him. Arya reveals that she had to throw rocks at Nymeria in order to make her direpuppy go away.
Later, Syrio Forel shows up. There's a surprising lack of "just so" or "not today." But he does call her a boy a lot.
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