Warning!!!

This Blog is for readers who have completed all five books of the Song of Ice and Fire Series, have also read the three published 'Dunk and Egg' novellas and have seen season 1 and 2 of the HBO series.

Therefore it contains numerous spoilers!!!!. If you are still reading, or haven't read the books and do not want to lose the suspense..... please do not read my posts!!!.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Rat Cook - Is this the fate of the Freys?

In A Storm of Swords, Bran Stark, Jojen Reed and Meera Reed are still on their quest to go beyond the wall and find the three eyed crow, Robb is dead, as well as Grey wolf. Bran and his companions have just reached the Nightfort.

The Nightfort is an old Night Watch fort, older even than Castle Black. Bran, courtesy of old Nan, has heard a lot of scary stories about it, one of which is the story of the Rat Cook.

The Rat Cook was a cook in the Night Watch, who, in revenge for something an Andal king had done to him(?)butchers the King’s son and cooks him in a pie for his father. 

 The Rat Cook had cooked the son of the Andal king in a big pie with onions, carrots, mushrooms, lots of pepper and salt, a rasher of bacon, and a dark red Dornish wine. Then he served him to his father, who praised the taste and had a second slice. Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young. He had roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but still his hunger was not sated. “It was not for murder that the gods cursed him,” Old Nan said, “nor for serving the Andal king his son in a pie. A man has a right to vengeance. But he slew a guest beneath his roof, and that the gods cannot forgive.”
The Freys, by killing Robb Stark, have also killed a guest beneath their roof. (Remember that at the beginning of this chapter, Bran was thinking about a dream he had through Summer, in which it seems he has been made aware that Robb has been killed). So, first GRRM brings Robb’s death into the conversation, and then he uses the story of the Rat Cook to show us that the old gods really do take vengeance when the laws of hospitality are violated.

So is he giving us a hint? Are the Freys going the way of the Rat Cook?