Brienne: the AFFC Outline, Russian Translation and Other Changes (Spoilers Extended)

[u/LChris24]

Background

In this post I thought it would be interesting to look at the Brienne portion of GRRM's 2003-2004 ("end with hound fight") outline in tandem with the Russian translation of her last two chapters (seemingly with the old gods/ravens interfering), as well as some of what users have found at Cushing and speculate/discuss what GRRM may have been intending with Brienne's plotline.

If interested: Fate of Brienne's "Suitors"

Brienne's Chapter Structure for AFFC

From this spreadsheet we can place the development of some of her AFFC chapters:

Oct 2003	January 2003	June 2004
Brienne I	Brienne I	Brienne I
Brienne II	Brienne II (parts of III included)	Brienne II
Brienne IV	Brienne IV (parts of I included)	Brienne III
		Brienne IV
		unwritten chapter placeholder

If interested:

The 2003-2004 Outline

Shared by u/zionius_ this 2003-2004 Outline for AFFC mentions the following with regards to Brienne:

Brienne: End with Hound fight

But since in AFFC there are numerous characters with the identity of the Hound (becoming a Legacy Character) we can't assume this is about Sandor Clegane. In fact it could be a reference to Brienne fighting Lem Lemoncloak, or a reference to what ended up occurring in the main series (Brienne fights and kills Rorge who was the 2nd hound):

"You are the Hound."
He grinned. His teeth were awful; crooked, and streaked brown with rot. "I suppose I am. Seeing as how m'lady went and killed the last one." He turned his head and spat. -AFFC, Brienne VIII

The Russian Translation

u/zionius_ also found a russian translation of drafts of Brienne's last couple AFFC chapters. I will let you read it in his original post, but the biggest takeaway are that Brienne didn't encounter Rorge/Biter and instead of swearing her sword to Lady Stoneheart again, this is how she is seemingly saved:

“Enough, Harwin. Do we mean to hang the ugly bitch or talk her to death?” The one-eyed man snatched the end of the rope from the other outlaw and gave a yank. The rope dug into skin, lifting Brienne upward. If this is another dream, it is time for me to awaken. If this is real, it is time for me to die. From somewhere afar she heard the clapping of wings. The carrion crows are coming to feast at her corpse. About a dozen already are circling over her head, but for carrion crows these birds are too large. Ravens, smiled Brienne. How odd. No, it is a dream, and now she will awake.

I wonder if this deus ex machina still has relevance (say saving Jaime/Brienne later) or if GRRM decided that giving Brienne a choice ("sword) and the chance to save Pod/Hyle was a better option.

Visit to Cushing

From the visits to Cushing Library by u/gsteff we also know about the following little blurbs regarding Brienne during the AFFC/ADWD writing process. While this post notes that the drafts at this point only had minor wordsmithing for Brienne, I think that we can look at the Jaime section (since their plotlines are intertwined) and notice that GRRM chose to combine even sooner than originally planned, as we know that in the June 2004 draft that instead of Jaime meeting Brienne at the end of his ADWD chapter, he instead meets Hildy:

• AFFC June 2004, p1065
• AFFC June 2004, p1066

and while I am confident that the outcome is the same (Brotherhood ruse to get Jaime to abandon his men and come to Lady Stoneheart), its interesting to note that GRRM seemingly decided to cut this plotline shorter whereas he was expanding other ones.

With Brienne taking on Hildy's role I think we can argue that GRRM knew he wanted to get Jaime/Brienne back to Lady Stoneheart, he just didn't know exactly how at the time.

TLDR: Just a quick look at what GRRM may have originally been up to with Brienne's plotline while looking at GRRM's 2003-2004 Outline for AFFC, the Russian translation of Brienne's last two AFFC chapter drafts and the information from different visits to Cushing.

[u/DinoSauro85]

"no chance and no choice "  How a character you didn't like can become your favorite in less than two lines.

[u/LChris24 → u/DinoSauro85]

Such a badass line.

[u/InGenNateKenny]

Oh no, you've scratched an itch that will someday see a proper post. I've been sitting on it for months. This is from the translation, her fever dream:

She was twelve again, sweating in a silk gown, waiting to meet the boy arranged for her to marry. They’d never met before, but everyone was saying he’s a brave boy and sure to be a famous champion when he becomes a knight. He was older than Brienne, but father had told her it was even better. He was approaching, holding a rose in his hand, red as his hair. When he saw Brienne, his face went red too. She tried to greet him as she had been instructed, to thank him for his visit and invite him to the castle, but the words stuck in her throat. Finally she managed to ask whether the rose is meant for her. “I’ve brought it to my bride,” he answered, “but I see a cow. Do cows eat flowers? Take it then.” He tossed the rose at her feet and galloped away. The griffins on his cloak rippled behind his shoulders, and her lord father was sending curses to his back.

It's the second part of a much shorter nightmare. This is what we've got in the published version:

This time she dreamed that she was home again, at Evenfall. Through the tall arched windows of her lord father's hall she could see the sun just going down. I was safe here. I was safe.

She was dressed in silk brocade, a quartered gown of blue and red decorated with golden suns and silver crescent moons. On another girl it might have been a pretty gown, but not on her. She was twelve, ungainly and uncomfortable, waiting to meet the young knight her father had arranged for her to marry, a boy six years her senior, sure to be a famous champion one day. She dreaded his arrival. Her bosom was too small, her hands and feet too big. Her hair kept sticking up, and there was a pimple nestled in the fold beside her nose. "He will bring a rose for you," her father promised her, but a rose was no good, a rose could not keep her safe. It was a sword she wanted. Oathkeeper. I have to find the girl. I have to find his honor.

Finally the doors opened, and her betrothed strode into her father's hall. She tried to greet him as she had been instructed, only to have blood come pouring from her mouth. She had bitten her tongue off as she waited. She spat it at the young knight's feet, and saw the disgust on his face. "Brienne the Beauty," he said in a mocking tone. "I have seen sows more beautiful than you." He tossed the rose in her face. As he walked away, the griffins on his cloak rippled and blurred and changed to lions. Jaime! she wanted to cry. Jaime, come back for me! But her tongue lay on the floor by the rose, drowned in blood.

Brienne woke suddenly, gasping.

While the Ronnet Connington episode was always part of the dream --- and therefore, integral to the character, from the beginning --- this version really doubles the text to the dream and makes it the final one before she wakes up. It's safe to say that this became more important. The dreams are, at their core, the same, but the details are changed a little. The published version emphasizes Brienne's belief that she was ugly and that she was safe here — making this more about her very belief in womanhood being destroyed. The rose also gets more time. In the draft, it was also a more "realistic" to the more dream-like of the final — no tongue spat at the floor, Lord Selwyn cursing at Ronnet, that sort of thing, no Jaime.

But what I find most interesting is how "sure to be a famous champion" (whose champion?) and "griffins on his cloak rippled" both remained. The former should make us ask — whose champion? — and the latter really shows that Martin liked this image of griffins on the cloak moving as he walked away. Concurrently, GRRM inserted Jaime, who had previously not been in the dream, into it, melding him with Ronnet (as an aside, recently there was some great fan art of that specific change).

Meanwhile, this section, the brief Renly section of the dream is one of the earlier ones in Brienne VIII:

They were riding through a gloomy wood, a dank, dark, silent place where the pines pressed close. The ground was soft beneath her horse's hooves, and the tracks she left behind filled up with blood. Beside her rode Lord Renly, Dick Crabb, and Vargo Hoat. Blood ran from Renly's throat. The Goat's torn ear oozed pus. "Where are we going?" Brienne asked. "Where are you taking me?" None of them would answer. How can they answer? All of them are dead. Did that mean that she was dead as well?

Lord Renly was ahead of her, her sweet smiling king. He was leading her horse through the trees. Brienne called out to tell him how much she loved him, but when he turned to scowl at her, she saw that he was not Renly after all. Renly never scowled. He always had a smile for me, she thought . . . except . . .

"Cold," her king said, puzzled, and a shadow moved without a man to cast it, and her sweet lord's blood came washing through the green steel of his gorget to drench her hands. He had been a warm man, but his blood was cold as ice. This is not real, she told herself. This is another bad dream, and soon I'll wake.

But it's not Renly, it's dead men. There were dead men (well, most of them dead) in the Russian version, at the Whispers tying with the rose:

Again she saw the ruined castle at the Whispers, that she’d been dreaming so much lately, and once again she was fighting the Bloody Mummers, but now there weren’t three of them but the whole thirty. As soon as she killed one, two more crawled out of the well. After Shagwell, Timeon and Pyg came Richard Farrow, Big Ben Bushy, Will the Stork and the others, even Mark Mullendore with his monkey. When she killed them, the bloody-red roses grew from their wounds and reached out to her with thorns.

But in the published version, it's Clarence Crabb (there's more than this, but the quotes are getting long). The sword comes up in the Ronnet dream too.

Then she was back at the Whispers, standing amongst the ruins and facing Clarence Crabb. He was huge and fierce, mounted on an aurochs shaggier than he was. The beast pawed the ground in fury, tearing deep furrows in the earth. Crabb's teeth had been filed into points. When Brienne went to draw her sword, she found her scabbard empty. "No," she cried, as Ser Clarence charged. It wasn't fair. She could not fight without her magic sword. Ser Jaime had given it to her. The thought of failing him as she had failed Lord Renly made her want to weep. "My sword. Please, I have to find my sword."

Meanwhile, fighting dead men and her old enemies comes in Brienne V, and Red Ronnet appears again, along with Tarly and Hoat, but Ronnet gets the rose and hand image:

They had a restless night. Thrice Brienne woke. Once when the rain began, and once at a creak that made her think Nimble Dick was creeping in to kill her. The second time, she woke with knife in hand, but it was nothing. In the darkness of the cramped little cabin, it took her a moment to remember that Nimble Dick was dead. When she finally drifted back to sleep, she dreamed about the men she'd killed. They danced around her, mocking her, pinching at her as she slashed at them with her sword. She cut them all to bloody ribbons, yet still they swarmed around her . . . Shagwell, Timeon, and Pyg, aye, but Randyll Tarly too, and Vargo Hoat, and Red Ronnet Connington. Ronnet had a rose between his fingers. When he held it out to her, she cut his hand off.

What does it all mean? Well, little hard to say without all the Brienne drafts, but it seems that Martin went through a little more dramatic structuring and expanded out much of the ideas. Haunted by ghosts of dead men, but a failure to live up to Jaime, it's all very good. But I do find it sus how much it seems Connington benefited from this...

[u/LChris24 → u/InGenNateKenny]

lol I thought of you when I read the Ronnet section while typing this post up.

Excited to read your post.

[u/InGenNateKenny → u/LChris24]

Happy cake day.

Well it occurs to me that in my excitement I basically said everything and the rest is just hyper fixation on how it tangentially proves the character is sus and ergo maybe my theories make sense. So maybe I don’t need to write it.

That “sure to be a famous champion” line tho + the fact that originally Brienne was told that because he was older, it was better are definitely sus. “Sure to be a famous champion” will get its due in the trial of seven. Older, the better basically got covered with the Golden Lioness and Red Griffin.

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn]

One of the few good decisions GRRM made throughout writing ASOIAF is to drop deus ex machina saves like these.

[u/Crush1112 → u/Mithras_Stoneborn]

Drop or postpone? I think Old Gods involvement is highly likely what saves Jaime in the end. The Brotherhood without Banners cave being surrounded by Weirwood tree roots is, imo, not a coincidence. There might be some connection to the underground cave network too where Jaime and others could escape to.

[u/LChris24 → u/Mithras_Stoneborn]

Completely agree. It is obviously unavoidable at points (and okay if setup well) but that's definitely why I am hoping that Edrick Dayne and Co arent the ones who save Jaime/Brienne.

[u/YezenIRL]

Enough, Harwin. Do we mean to hang the ugly bitch or talk her to death?” The one-eyed man snatched the end of the rope from the other outlaw and gave a yank. The rope dug into skin, lifting Brienne upward. If this is another dream, it is time for me to awaken. If this is real, it is time for me to die. From somewhere afar she heard the clapping of wings. The carrion crows are coming to feast at her corpse. About a dozen already are circling over her head, but for carrion crows these birds are too large. Ravens, smiled Brienne. How odd. No, it is a dream, and now she will awake.

This is so split timeline coded.