Thursday, January 2, 2014

Jaime Lannister and Ned Stark, Friends? See "A Different Song"

A member of my message-board the other night started an alternate-universe Song of Ice and Fire fan-fic entitled "A Different Song." He's posted it on fanfiction.net, so people who aren't board members can read it and review it.

It diverges from canon around the time of the Battle of the Trident, in which Ned Stark becomes acquainted with the young Greatjon Umber. Rebel leader Robert Baratheon is wounded in his duel with Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen per canon and Ned takes the northern armies south to what he thinks is the undefended capital of King's Landing and his revenge on King Aerys II Targaryen for the hideous deaths of his father and brother. His scouts discover the Lannister armies approaching King's Landing and Ned heads south with his cavalry to try to delay them from entering the city, hoping to sow enough confusion for the rest of his troops to take them by surprise.

Only they arrive in King's Landing in time to witness the beginning of the infamous Lannister sack of the city. However, the Red Keep is under loyalist control and Ned heads there for a climactic encounter with none other than Jaime Lannister.

Only one kind of long chapter posted so far, but it's a lot of fun:

*Ned's interrogation of some Lannister bannermen with Jaime causes Jaime to realize his father Tywin intends to murder the entire royal family, including young children and Rhaegar's Dornish wife Elia Martell. Unlike in canon, there's now time to stop it.

*Ned takes on the infamous Gregor Clegane with Ice, a great-sword made of possibly-supernatural Valryrian Steel.

*A confrontation with the vile Amory Lorch, with the life of Princess Rhaneys at stake.

*Ned, faced with Jaime's desire to protect the rest of the royal family even though he's killed the king already, seems to have a softening attitude in regard to oaths.

And with several Targaryens still alive, Lannister common soldiers and nobles dead at the hands of the very angry Ned and his companions, and Northern soldiers in control of the Red Keep even though the rest of the city is falling to the Lannisters, the political situation is about to get really complicated.

I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one.

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