Don't Be a Sword

Opening midway through A Game of Thrones, Don't Be a Sword relates to "the worthless lives of fighters" theme. A series wide theme, it one of a cluster of themes that anchor Brienne's storyline.

31 AGOT Eddard VII: Ser hugh was just a boy when he died. "The King knighted him before he rode north, in Jon's memory. The lad wanted it desperately, yet I fear he was not ready." 305 Selmy also says Hugh was Jon Arryn's squire for four years. A long time to train just to die playing at war with blunted lances. Sansa thinks (30 AGOT Sansa II) Hugh's name will be forgotten and there will be no songs sung for him and is saddened.

70 AGOT Tyrion IX: "Crossing a river at night on a crude raft, wearing armor, with an enemy waiting on the other side--if that was gallantry, he would take cowardice every time. He wondered if Lord Brax had felt especially gallant as the weight of his steel pulled him under the black water." 765

A Clash of Kings

77 ACOK 4 Tyrion I: When Cersei balks at tyrion being names acting Hand, she says he'd be of better use in the field of battle.

He laughed. "No, I'm don with fields of battle, thank you. I sit a chir better than a horse, and I'd sooner hold a wine goblet than a battle-axe. All that about the thunder of the drums, sunlight flashing on armor, magnificent destriers snorting and prancing? Well, the drums gave me headaches, the sunlight flashing on armor cooked me up like a harvest goose, and those magnificent destriers shit everywhere." 55

113 ACOK 40 Catelyn V: "Renly's death was no fault ofyours. You served him valiantly, but when you seek to follow him into the earth, you serve no one." 561

119 ACOK 46 Catelyn VI: Catelyn doesn't understand why Edmure must go himself to defnd the fords. When she hears Rymund the Rhymer singing of the Bloody Meadow, she thinks it must be singers who corrupt boys into dreaming of battle. But later, at dinner, she sees how the songs give the men courage. Stuill, she has had dresses made for Brienne, who prefers her boiled leather and mail and would rather be off fighting than made to wait in the castle.

135 ACOK 62 Tyrion XIV: Battle is o dangerous you can be seriously injured without coming into contact with a foe. Every sword on the ground is in major danger and contributes less to the overall effort than those on the walls at the trebuchet.

136 ACOK 63 Sansa VII: The Hound's desertion argues that even a loyal man can be broken by war or may even have become a soldier due to motivations war changes. The concept of broken men is being introduced.

140 ACOK 67 Theon VI: "Theon watched a wounded man drag himself painfully across the ground, smearing his life's blood in the dirt as he struggled to reach the wall that stood at the center of the market square. He died before he got there. He wore a leather jerken and conical halfhelm, but no badge to tell which side he'd fought on." 927

141 ACOK 68 Tyrion XV: The chapter opens with Tyrion's memory posed as a dream: the smoking battlefield littered with corpses and injured. His fault for commanding men to their deaths. The dead will not be celebrated or sung of. All credit will go to those who waited until the battele was decided before wading in to loot, appearing heroic.

A Storm of Swords

148 ASOS 5 Tyrion I: "What madness possessed you?" Tywin asks Tyrion why he rode into battle. "The foe was at the gates with a battering ram. If Jaime had led the sortie, you'd call it valor." 62 "Jaime would never have been so foolish as to remove his helm in battle." This references Joffrey's repeated lifting his visor on the battlements and Jaime's being taken helmetless in the Whispering Wood. But Tywin is telling Tyrion he doesn't have to do battle, though Jaime does.

149 ASOS 6 Davos I: It was never Davos's intention that he or his sons become swords. He only meant to operate within the law after a life of smuggling. But beingh taken into Stannis's service did not only mean the elevation it seemed. His life and his sons' were treated as forfeit to Stannis's unsupportable claim.

162 ASOS 19 Samwell I: It's Samwell's book learning and Jon's warg gift that kill the wight. Be a reader, not a sword?