u/Woodstovia

Sorry if this is a bit of a weird post but I have a confession to make: I've never actually read the ASOIAF books front to back until now. I read them as a teen and would just pick certain storylines and read those chapters back to back. Then I'd go through the book as a re-read and just skip certain POVs that I found boring. Maybe I'm a complete psycho for reading them that way but recently I've been listening to the audiobooks at work which now means that I'm reading them as they were actually intended to be read and it's making me really appreciate GRRM's structure and how he places each chapter.

Another post here recently talked about how ASOS is a short story collection. In some ways that's true and I don't think OP meant it this way but thinking of it in that way misses how GRRM threads ideas or themes throughout the book via how he arranged the chapters.

I mentioned before how Jon's chapter immediately after Bran's escape contains Ygritte telling the story of Bael the Bard which directly foreshadows how Bran escaped by hiding in the crypts but as I'm going through ASOS I found this connection which I never would have come across before but I think is really cool reading Catelyn IV and Davos IV which on the surface have nothing to do with each other.

Catelyn IV is the chapter where Hoster dies and they hold his funeral, and then Robb and co. Negotiate Edmure's marriage to the Freys. They tell Robb about Winterfell being sacked:

>“Ser Rodrik Cassel,” said Catelyn numbly. That dear brave loyal old soul. She could almost see him, tugging on his fierce white whiskers. “What of our other people?”

>“The ironmen put many of them to the sword, I fear.”

>Wordless with rage, Robb slammed a fist down on the table and turned his face away, so the Freys would not see his tears. But his mother saw them.

>The world grows a little darker every day. Catelyn’s thoughts went to Ser Rodrik’s little daughter Beth, to tireless Maester Luwin and cheerful Septon Chayle, Mikken at the forge, Farlen and Palla in the kennels, Old Nan and simple Hodor. Her heart was sick. “Please, not all.”

Obviously with the Starks being positioned as the main characters this really hurts, we've spent a lot of time with these minor characters in Winterfell.

But straight after this chapter is the one where Axel Florent proposes sacking Claw Isle and Stannis makes Davos his Hand for arguing against it:

>“Put his castle to the torch and his people to the sword, I say,” Ser Axell concluded. “Leave Claw Isle a desolation of ash and bone, fit only for carrion crows, so the realm might see the fate of those who bed with Lannisters.”

>Stannis listened to Ser Axell’s recitation in silence, grinding his jaw slowly from side to side. When it was done, he said, “It could be done, I believe. The risk is small. Joffrey has no strength at sea until Lord Redwyne sets sail from the Arbor. The plunder might serve to keep that Lysene pirate Salladhor Saan loyal for a time. By itself Claw Isle is worthless, but its fall would serve notice to Lord Tywin that my cause is not yet done.” The king turned back to Davos. “Speak truly, ser. What do you make of Ser Axell’s proposal?”

>Speak truly, ser. Davos remembered the dark cell he had shared with Lord Alester, remembered Lamprey and Porridge. He thought of the promises that Ser Axell had made on the bridge above the yard. A ship or a shove, what shall it be? But this was Stannis asking. “Your Grace,” he said slowly, “I make it folly … aye, and cowardice.”

Obviously as readers we don't have the same familiarity with Claw Isle or it's people, but by bringing up the sack of Winterfell immediately before this we as readers are primed to understand the emotional weight of killing all these people and just how evil Axell's plan is. These aren't nameless NPCs now, we're reminded they're living breathing people who truly matter to others because we've seen how much the minor characters at Winterfell mattered.

I don't know if this is just me stating the obvious or if anyone else has had similar experiences of catching how GRRM uses seemingly unrelated plotlines to reinforce each other or add new dimensions to the chapters following the one you're reading, or if anyone has their own examples of times they caught this.

Sorry if this is a bit of a weird post but I have a confession to make: I've never actually read the ASOIAF books front to back until now. I read them as a teen and would just pick certain storylines and read those chapters back to back. Then I'd go through the book as a re-read and just skip certain POVs that I found boring. Maybe I'm a complete psycho for reading them that way but recently I've been listening to the audiobooks at work which now means that I'm reading them as they were actually intended to be read and it's making me really appreciate GRRM's structure and how he places each chapter.

Another post here recently talked about how ASOS is a short story collection. In some ways that's true and I don't think OP meant it this way but thinking of it in that way misses how GRRM threads ideas or themes throughout the book via how he arranged the chapters.

I mentioned before how Jon's chapter immediately after Bran's escape contains Ygritte telling the story of Bael the Bard which directly foreshadows how Bran escaped by hiding in the crypts but as I'm going through ASOS I found this connection which I never would have come across before but I think is really cool reading Catelyn IV and Davos IV which on the surface have nothing to do with each other.

Catelyn IV is the chapter where Hoster dies and they hold his funeral, and then Robb and co. Negotiate Edmure's marriage to the Freys. They tell Robb about Winterfell being sacked:

>“Ser Rodrik Cassel,” said Catelyn numbly. That dear brave loyal old soul. She could almost see him, tugging on his fierce white whiskers. “What of our other people?”

>“The ironmen put many of them to the sword, I fear.”

>Wordless with rage, Robb slammed a fist down on the table and turned his face away, so the Freys would not see his tears. But his mother saw them.

>The world grows a little darker every day. Catelyn’s thoughts went to Ser Rodrik’s little daughter Beth, to tireless Maester Luwin and cheerful Septon Chayle, Mikken at the forge, Farlen and Palla in the kennels, Old Nan and simple Hodor. Her heart was sick. “Please, not all.”

Obviously with the Starks being positioned as the main characters this really hurts, we've spent a lot of time with these minor characters in Winterfell.

But straight after this chapter is the one where Axel Florent proposes sacking Claw Isle and Stannis makes Davos his Hand for arguing against it:

>“Put his castle to the torch and his people to the sword, I say,” Ser Axell concluded. “Leave Claw Isle a desolation of ash and bone, fit only for carrion crows, so the realm might see the fate of those who bed with Lannisters.”

>Stannis listened to Ser Axell’s recitation in silence, grinding his jaw slowly from side to side. When it was done, he said, “It could be done, I believe. The risk is small. Joffrey has no strength at sea until Lord Redwyne sets sail from the Arbor. The plunder might serve to keep that Lysene pirate Salladhor Saan loyal for a time. By itself Claw Isle is worthless, but its fall would serve notice to Lord Tywin that my cause is not yet done.” The king turned back to Davos. “Speak truly, ser. What do you make of Ser Axell’s proposal?”

>Speak truly, ser. Davos remembered the dark cell he had shared with Lord Alester, remembered Lamprey and Porridge. He thought of the promises that Ser Axell had made on the bridge above the yard. A ship or a shove, what shall it be? But this was Stannis asking. “Your Grace,” he said slowly, “I make it folly … aye, and cowardice.”

Obviously as readers we don't have the same familiarity with Claw Isle or it's people, but by bringing up the sack of Winterfell immediately before this we as readers are primed to understand the emotional weight of killing all these people and just how evil Axell's plan is. These aren't nameless NPCs now, we're reminded they're living breathing people who truly matter to others because we've seen how much the minor characters at Winterfell mattered.

I don't know if this is just me stating the obvious or if anyone else has had similar experiences of catching how GRRM uses seemingly unrelated plotlines to reinforce each other or add new dimensions to the chapters following the one you're reading, or if anyone has their own examples of times they caught this.

I was just re-reading ACOK and finished up the part with Theon and the Miller's sons. I never really liked the theory (That Theon was the father of the younger boy) but on a re-read I was pretty convinced by it.

I read a lot of the threads posted here but I was really surprised that they didn't mention this one piece of evidence that sealed the deal for me although I'm sure other people must have caught it too.

So you have the Theon chapter where he goes to hunt Bran and Rickon but can't find them, which ends with "Reek" proposing the plan to kill the Miller's Boys and immediately after you have Jon's chapter where he captures Ygritte and Ygritte begins telling him about Bael the Bard stealing the Lord Stark's daughter:

>But when morning come, the singer had vanished … and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty,

...

>“Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o’ Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o’ Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child’s cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast.”

>“Bael had brought her back?”

>“No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle.

This seems to obviously foreshadow how Bran and Rickon escaped Theon:

>“You vanished … in the woods … how, though?”

>“We never went,” said Bran. “Well, only to the edge, and then doubled back. I sent the wolves on to make a trail, but we hid in father’s tomb.”

>“The crypts.” Luwin chuckled,

But then Ygritte's story continues:

>Thirty years later, when Bael was King-beyond-the-Wall and led the free folk south, it was young Lord Stark who met him at the Frozen Ford … and killed him, for Bael would not harm his own son when they met sword to sword.”

>“So the son slew the father instead,” said Jon.

>“Aye,” she said, “but the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael’s head upon his spear, she threw herself from a tower in her grief. Her son did not long outlive her. One o’ his lords peeled the skin off him and wore him for a cloak.”

Which seems to parallel Theon: he kills his own son without knowing it, accidentally becoming a kinslayer and ends up getting skinned.

Like I said, other people must have picked up on this, but I just think it's a really cool piece of writing I haven't seen people mention.

I was just re-reading ACOK and finished up the part with Theon and the Miller's sons. I never really liked the theory (That Theon was the father of the younger boy) but on a re-read I was pretty convinced by it.

I read a lot of the threads posted here but I was really surprised that they didn't mention this one piece of evidence that sealed the deal for me although I'm sure other people must have caught it too.

So you have the Theon chapter where he goes to hunt Bran and Rickon but can't find them, which ends with "Reek" proposing the plan to kill the Miller's Boys and immediately after you have Jon's chapter where he captures Ygritte and Ygritte begins telling him about Bael the Bard stealing the Lord Stark's daughter:

>But when morning come, the singer had vanished … and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty,

...

>“Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o’ Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o’ Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child’s cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast.”

>“Bael had brought her back?”

>“No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle.

This seems to obviously foreshadow how Bran and Rickon escaped Theon:

>“You vanished … in the woods … how, though?”

>“We never went,” said Bran. “Well, only to the edge, and then doubled back. I sent the wolves on to make a trail, but we hid in father’s tomb.”

>“The crypts.” Luwin chuckled,

But then Ygritte's story continues:

>Thirty years later, when Bael was King-beyond-the-Wall and led the free folk south, it was young Lord Stark who met him at the Frozen Ford … and killed him, for Bael would not harm his own son when they met sword to sword.”

>“So the son slew the father instead,” said Jon.

>“Aye,” she said, “but the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael’s head upon his spear, she threw herself from a tower in her grief. Her son did not long outlive her. One o’ his lords peeled the skin off him and wore him for a cloak.”

Which seems to parallel Theon: he kills his own son without knowing it, accidentally becoming a kinslayer and ends up getting skinned.

Like I said other people must have picked up on this, but I just think it's a really cool piece of writing I haven't seen people mention.

Posted this on 40klore but thought it would fit here as well

Please be aware that the following is a summary and review with spoilers, if you want to read the book unspoiled, do not continue.

**Summary**:

This is known lore but is explained throuhgout the book: Zardu Layak begins as a member of the Ashen Circle - a specialist formation within the Word Bearers that would go to worlds and seek out and kill/destroy all artifacts of knowledge/culture/religion so that the Word Bearers could build a new society on their freshly conquered worlds.

The Prologue is about how after Monarchia Layak began having dreams of Lorgar speaking to him (he does not believe this is Lorgar but is some other entity impersonating his father yet it gives him blessings so he follows it). The Lorgar instructs him that instead of destroying knowledge he should try and learn from other planets to find the truth of the universe, so Layak begins to secretly collect and hoard artifacts from the worlds he invades and questions priests before killing them. Eventually, he is renamed Zardu Layak (Eater of Wisdom)

The book is broken up into 3 parts and so I'll summarise each on it's own as they each have a central theme that I believe is meant to be both a flaw in Layak and his opponent that he has to overcome to defeat them. The premise of the book is that 3 Word Bearers known to Layak who didn't support Lorgar fled to a distant world once brought into compliance by the Word Bearers and have obtained mythical weapons called the Anakatis blades, Layak sees that he has to go and slay them. Layak steals a Imperial Army regiment called The Brotherhood of the Blessed Moon (who used to be a regular auxiliary unit of the Word Bearers that has begun to grow fanatical) led by a lieutenant he promotes called Barnhart (after Layak kills their commander and shoves a shadow snake daemon inside his body) to help him. This all takes place between Istvaan V and Calth

**Part 1 Misericordia (mercy)** is about Hebek. Hebek was a member of the Ashen Circle who found the child Layak after slaughtering the inhabitants of an orbital plate. Layak was a child who had taken fetishes from the plate's temple and began chanting prayers as Hebek approached him. Hebek showed the child mercy and brought him into the Word Bearers even though the Legion's initial tests showed his mind was damaged and others didn't know why he wanted to induct a boy not from Colchis.

Later when they were in the Ashen Circle together Hebek saw Layak studying a Xenos artifact instead of immediately smashing it and didn't report it to anyone else, again showing him mercy. Layak was told by his vision Lorgar to kill Hebek but couldn't. We later find out Layak sent all 3 of these people he needs to kill to this planet via his sorcery, knowing they were not on-board with the new Legion but not wanting them to be killed, so he sent them to an extremely remote planet.

Hebek has taken control of the civilian population of the world using the power of his blade and is trying to build a new Monarchia, sitting at the lowest level of a huge ziggurat he has the people build. Layak cannot assault it with the meagre forces at his disposal but finds a blank Imperial Army trooper who is the only survivor of a regiment sent to garrison the world, the blank can make himself invisible and has explored the ziggurat so Layak enters his body, sneaks into Hebek's lair and is vomited out (killing the blank in the process).

Layak destroys the ziggurat and kills Hebek, exorcising his mercy and re-animates Hebek as his blade-slave.

**Part 2 Dubitatio (Doubt)** is about Kulnar, the chaplain of Layak's former Chapter.

Kulnar was a scholar who never wanted to be pinned down to a certain belief. When Lorgar began distributing the Book of Lorgar to the Legion Kulnar stole a copy but was unconvinced, thinking theat Lorgar's Truth is only one sort of truth, telling Layak that the universe is not black and white but full of many different colours.

Layak himself doubts his dreams and that he has actually been chosen by the Gods. Kulnar was the one who recommended Layak be promoted from a regular legionnaire to a member of the Ashen Circle because he was a skilled fighter and there was a great emptyness inside him he needed a purpose to fill. We later learn Kulnar saw signs in his readings that he must appoint Layak but doubted what he saw, so he hedged his bets and promoted Layak but lied to everyone about the reason.

Kulnar went to investigate the ruins of a seemingly advanced Xenos city that was mysteriously destroyed and has studied the fragments of text they left behind for decades.

Layak confronts Kulnar in a dreamscape where he probes at Layak's doubts. Layak is told by the Lorgar figure to open his eyes so casts away his hesitation, turns his fingers into claws and plunger them into his own eyes and face, carving out 6 great slots which he begins to see out of. He sees the history of the world and that the Xenos here discovered Chaos and voluntarily destroyed themselves.

Layak tells Kulnar this and that he has no doubts: the universe will end with Chaos. Kulnar asks what if he's wrong and Layak replies that the universe has no room for right and wrong anymore only truth, and Chaos is strong so it is the truth. Kulnar is killed and becomes the second blade-slave

**Part 3 Fidelitas (Faith)** is about Saucan - his former Chapter Master. Saucan is less religious than other Word Bearers and hated Layak as a madman who hid his actions behind prophecy and faith. Saucanbelieves that people only follow strength, not gods because they're genuinely faithful.

A lot of this part is focused on Barnhart, the leader of the remnants of the Brotherhood of the Moon. She was never really religious, ignoring the pamphlets the other soldiers passed around but after what she's been through with Layak and all the strange goings on and coincidences she starts asking the Gods for help and praying to them. She confides her doubts in Layak but he is tender and comforting which shocks her and spurs her on to serve him.

They enter a fortress within a mountain where Saucan has been tampering with gene-seed to create savage space marines that are physically as big as astartes but unintelligent monsters. Saucan wants to create an army to go and kill Lorgar with, saying he wishes he'd been brought into another legion (even the *gasp* Ultramarines!!!!) because they could be simple soldiers with a clear purpose, rather than chasing after Gods and "The Truth".

Layak's sorcery can deal with the proto-astartes but he Saucan challenges him to single combat. Layak accepts but Saucan is a far better warrior and demolishes him. Layak tries to call upon the Gods during the fight but gets no answer, he begind to doubt but at the end surrenders himself fully to the Gods and doesn't try to resist a killing blow. Barnhart prays to the gods and hits a perfect shot with 1 round left which knocks the blade from Saucan's hand. Layak eats his face off and drags Saucan to an altar, declaring that with this sacrifice Layak will be born anew before the Gods.

**Review**:

Overall I'm sort of mixed on the book. I should preface this that I'm a Word Bearer's fan and always found Layak really cool, I have 2 copies of his mini that I've painted because I liked the little bit of him in the Black Books.

I think the focus on different flaws is interesting, and they're woven into both the antagonists and Layak in interesting ways in each part of the book and I like how weird it gets at times. There is some good body horror here and Layak comes across as very intimidating. I also like how Layak - The Eater of Wisdom has to use knowledge he's acquired to defeat his enemies (part 1 he steals knowledge from the blank to get to Hebek, part 2 he uses knowledge from the Xenos to stop Kulnar's sorcery, part 3 he has to use information gained from Kulnar to get to Saucan), it feels fitting for his background of hoarding and devouring the knowledge of different civilisations to grow in power.

However, I think a problem this book has is in justifying it's existence. Did we really need a book explaining how Layak got 6 eyes and 2 minions? He's quite a minor figure and I think the lack of overall interest and discussion on this book shows that (as of writing I can find no other reviews on reddit, no reviews on Audible and no thread on 40klore or bolter and chainsword's Black Library forum about the book).

Plus I think the fact that he was a bit of a mystery added to his appeal; this novels strips some of that away. Also as this is a novella, there isn't that much room to flesh out the relationships between Layak and his enemies, it feels a bit like a video game where you're rushing through 3 different levels and their bosses.

But ultimately it's a pretty short novella that I finished in an evening. I think if you like the Word Bearers or find Layak's character cool then you'll find the book an easy pretty enjoyable read. If you don't like the Bearers of the Word I don't think you'll get much from it.