R asoiaf
A Song of Ice and Fire
2009.07.18 17:57 ThePowerOfGeek A Song of Ice and Fire
News and discussions relating to George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels, his Westeros-based short stories, the "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon" TV series, and all things ASOIAF - but with particular emphasis on the written series.
2014.06.18 16:54 topped2013 PureASOIAF: We do not show.
/PureASOIAF is a discussion forum devoted to the book series A Song of Ice and Fire and associated written works by George R.R. Martin. This subreddit focuses only on the written works and does not allow content from the popular HBO adaptations of GRRM's written work.
2012.04.09 16:33 Arthur_Dayne A Circlejerk of Ice and Fire
What this subreddit is about: Oh boy! Reddit Game of Thrones fans are a wacky bunch a shitsticks! Let's point and laugh. There are books too apparently, TL;DR.
2023.06.01 06:51 00283466 No Aegon directly from Aegon theory (spoilers extended)
I can't find it through my brief asoiaf search, but after 8+ years being obsessed with the books, it's awesome there's still new theories that appear and blow my mind.
One I found recently was the idea that every King Aegon (I-V) was not directly related to the previous Aegon (ie Son of son). This can be confirmed for Aegon II-V, but I couldn't find any 'evidence' about Aegon I to II. Aegon- Aenys- Jaeherys-Viserys- Aegon II right?
submitted by 00283466 to asoiaf [link] [comments]
One I found recently was the idea that every King Aegon (I-V) was not directly related to the previous Aegon (ie Son of son). This can be confirmed for Aegon II-V, but I couldn't find any 'evidence' about Aegon I to II. Aegon- Aenys- Jaeherys-Viserys- Aegon II right?
2023.05.31 19:22 M_Tootles "Cargos, Slatterns & Butchery" with Helya & Grisel (Spoilers Extended)
This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 8 left off. You can read Part 8 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:
Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":
She tells Theon…
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:
Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.
submitted by M_Tootles to asoiaf [link] [comments]
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
The Myraham's Prophetic Cargo
After Theon makes port, the captain of the Myraham announces his cargo to the people on the docks of Lordport and we read about the offloading of the Myraham:"We're out of Oldtown," the captain called down, "bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arbor, feathers from the Summer Isles. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtown woodharps sweet as any you ever heard." The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. "And I've brought your heir back to you."Most of what we read there seems to be reworked in and around Littlefinger's homecoming in ASOS Sansa VI, when the Merling King brings the Dreadfort its heir, Littlefinger, as well as the seeming heir to Winterfell, Sansa. This begins with the Arbor wine and fruit we see off-loaded from the Merling King:
Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions. Among the loads he brought ashore were several casks of wine. Petyr poured Sansa a cup, as promised. …Besides the straight repetition of Arbor wine, oranges, apples, and heirs, the repeated Oldtown motif is baldly reworked by Sansa's description of the wine, which is patently Oldtown-summer-esque, per the only substantive pre-AFFC description of Oldtown, which associates it with hot, fruity summer nights:
… The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. She only prayed that she could keep it down. Lord Petyr was being so kind, she did not want to spoil it all by retching on him.
… "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. … Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King." …
Grisel reappeared…, balancing a large platter. … There were apples and pears and pomegranates, some sad-looking grapes, a huge blood orange.
"King Maekar's summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. … [T]he heat was fierce while it lasted. Oldtown… came alive only by night. … I remember the smells of those nights, my lord—perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom." (AGOT Eddard V)The Myraham's "mirrors for milady" prefigure Sansa being figuratively groomed by Petyr and literally grooming herself in Petyr's Eyrie after he takes over:
When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. (AFFC Alayne I)The Myraham's "woodharps sweet as any you ever heard" presage Sansa being attacked by Marillion, whose "voice was strong and sweet", (AFFC Sansa I) after he sings a song (about blowjobs?) called "Milady's Supper" (supper a la the Myraham-ish fruit Sansa eats for supper when she lands) during Petyr's wedding bedding:
Lady Lysa's singer launched into a bawdy version of "Milady's Supper"….The Myraham's "woven leathers" and "Myrish lace" are reworked into the "laces unlaced" i.e. unwoven during said wedding:
By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.That it's a "bolt of Myrish lace" is interesting: After Sansa boards the Merling King, she sees a singular "bolt" from a crossbow strike Dontos, and then two more:
Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale, raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he looked up…. The others ripped into throat and belly. (ASOS Sansa V)Three crossbow bolts? What does that remind us if not… a Myrish crossbow:
"The king is playing with his new crossbow," Tyrion said. Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time…. (ACOK Tyrion VI)What about the Myraham's "pepper"? I suspect this gets box-checked first by Sansa trying not to "retch" as she is off-loaded along with the wine with which Littlefinger tries to settle her tummy, as just two chapters later peppers are tightly linked to "retching" of the sort Sansa feels like doing:
[Tyrion] found himself on his knees retching… that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (ASOS Tyrion X)GRRM seems to play off the "pepper" motif in other ways, as well. Consider that the gathering to meet the Myraham and the shouted questions that prompt her captain to announce her cargo—
A handful of Lordsport merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted questions as the Myraham was tying up.—get reworked by Petyr's household all gathering "to meet" the Merling King and by their peppering one another with questions:
Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."She's a "popper", then, in case we didn't catch that retching → peppers. (This also reworks Theon "popping one off" with the captain's daughter, who is in many ways reworked by Kella, as will be discussed below.)
… [Petyr]… gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. "Who fathered this one, Kella?"A gathering, and questions, questions, questions, as when Theon docks.
The fat woman laughed. "I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. … "How long will you be in residence?"
"As short a time as possible, Bryen, have no fear. Is the place habitable just now, would you say?"
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung." Petyr turned to Sansa. "Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now. Umfred's my steward, and Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord.…"
… Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:
The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet.This reworks the "shorehands… off-loading… casks of wine" from a Tyroshi trader docked with the Myraham—
[Theon] spied a Tyroshi trading galley off-loading…—which itself prefigures the above-quoted off-loading of the Merling King (when "Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions" including "several casks of wine", from which Petyr immediately "poured Sansa a cup, as promised").
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day's catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned God was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors.
Kella & The Slattern
What about that "slattern lean[ing] out a window" to greet "some passing… sailors" while "children ran and played"? I submit that she is one of several motifs from Theon's homecoming prefiguring Petyr's servant Kella. I'll explain.Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:
"I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."We only see one; presumably the others are off somewhere, running and playing, perhaps.
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:
"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."Consider most of all that Kella's something of a slattern herself: She's "not one for telling them no".
"I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."Indeed, something Lysa says pretty clearly codes Kella as a verbatim "slattern", underlining the recursion:
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets?" (ASOS Sansa VII)So I think the vignette with the slattern and the children in Lordsport pretty plainly prefigures Kella. But I think she's prefigured by two more pieces of Theon's homecoming.
Kella & The Captain's Daughter
Keeping in mind that Kella has a bunch of bastards ("she pops one out every few years) and that she's "not one for telling them no", consider also that she is (a) literally 'with child' — or rather, with a child—a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye—that she's (b) "fat"—
"Who fathered this one, Kella?"—and that she's (c) coded as a bit stupid:
The fat woman laughed.
"Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"All like Theon's "captain's daughter".
She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":
The girl was a shade plump for his taste…She is likely pregnant with Theon's bastard, a la Kella the bastard-popper.
She tells Theon…
"You can put it in me again, if it please you…"…and accedes to his request for a blowjob, so she's "not one for telling them no."
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:
She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.And finally, she offers to work in Theon's castle—
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
She… learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.
I'd work in your castle, milord.—just as Kella works for Petyr.
Kella: The Spreading Patch of the Smallest Finger?
Besides the "slattern" and the captain's daughter, I suspect Kella may also riff on — of all things — the "spreading patches" of "lichen" on "wet" Pyke as Theon sails by:[Pyke was] wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds.Get it? A spreading 'patch'? In combination with "lichen" a la "licking" and Pyke being "wet"? And not just wet, but "wet by… salt waves", when as we know from the captain's daughter, semen tastes "salty", "like the sea". It's like Pyke is being described as a turned-on "slattern" with her legs spread.
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:
"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"Qalen would be pronounced Kalen. Qalen → Kalen → Kale → Kela → Kella. Anyway…
Grisel & The Captain's Daughter
Something similar is going on with Petyr's servant Grisel, the "thin old woman" who was his wet nurse but who "keeps [his] castle now":"Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now.Grisel is similarly prefigured by two people from Theon's homecoming, including first the captain's daughter who wants to work in Theon's castle as Grisel works in Petyr's "castle".
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."Then there is the captain daughter's resume:
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face.
"I'd work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he's ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew."This surely prefigures what we're told about Grisel making a sea-based soup of her own (i.e. the just mentioned "seaweed soup"), baking bread, and churning butter for Petyr:
Grisel reappeared before he could say more, balancing a large platter. She set it down between them. … The old woman had brought a round of bread as well, and a crock of butter.Where Grisel used to be Petyr's wet nurse, Theon suckles the captain daughter's nipple as if she's a wet nurse:
Grisel climbed up to the bedchamber to serve the lord and lady a tray of morning bread, with butter, honey, fruit, and cream.
Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. … He took her nipple in his mouth….And finally, where Theon kisses the captain's daughter on the ear—
"You can put it in me again, if it please you," she whispered in his ear as he sucked.
[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear.—Littlefinger kisses Grisel on the cheek:
Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one.
Helya & Grisel (& Gretchel)
Grisel also rhymes with and reworks Helya, who keeps Balon's castle:A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."Get it? "Helya and Grisel", a la "Hansel and Gretel".
"And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."That's a recursive reversal of Helya's (lack of) preparation for Theon's visit: Where Grisel has a fire going even though she didn't know Petyr was coming, and where she proactively apologizes for not changing the rushes, telling him "we would have laid down fresh rushes… if we knew you were coming", Helya neither lit a fire nor changed the heavily foregrounded "old and brittle" rushes in the rooms Theon is given—
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung."
"I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. "See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."—despite having ample forewarning of his coming:
It was not as though they had no word of his arrival. Robb had sent ravens from Riverrun, and… Jason Mallister had sent his own birds to Pyke….The joke is underlined by the introduction of "Gretchel" — Gretel with a borrowed H from Helya/Hansel — who fetches washbasins of water (which, see below), "la[ys] a fire in the hearth" and "tend[s] to the fire", brings food and discusses food storage in Petyr's Eyrie in AFFC Sansa I & Alayne I. (In other words, she 'keeps his castle.')
'Rhyming' Interiors
That's just the beginning of the reversals in the many recursions between Theon's lodgings at Pyke and Sansa's in the Drearfort.Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—
"Show me to my chambers, woman," he commanded. Bowing stiffly, [Helya] led him across the headland to the bridge. …—it's Petyr who leads the way into his tower, casually inviting Grisel (and everyone else) to follow him:
Whenever he'd imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Tower, where he'd slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keep.
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.Petyr jokes about his hall being "dreary", and perhaps it is, but while it's "small" and "even smaller" within, his tower is also home to his servants, and hence very well lived-in.
Lord Petyr made a face. "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." He led them up the strand…
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber.(Note that the "mastiff", which we see as Petyr leads Grisel in, recalls Helya bowing "stiffly" before leading Theon to his rooms.)
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":
The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theon was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. [Omitted but see below.]A ton of the motifs here (including the omitted stuff, which I'll return to) get recycled and reworked in Petyr's tower.
[Omitted but see below.] It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. The wall hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, the rushes old and brittle. Years had come and gone since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep. "I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:
"Might I have a hot bath as well?" asked Sansa.Note that Kella fulfills the request, not Grisel. This 'fits', as it's not Helya who brings Theon's water, but "two thralls".
"I'll have Kella draw some water, m'lady."
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…
She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.…whereas Theon changes his clothes immediately after the quoted passages.
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.
Brittle Bryen's Brigantine, Brindled Mastiff, & Old Blind Dog
As mentioned, the motif of unchanged rushes from Theon's homecoming recurs when Petyr comes home. But Petyr's homecoming also lexically riffs on Theon's rushes being quote-unquote "old and brittle" by giving us Bryen in "brigantine" who is very "old" but not, seemingly, brittle, as he still walks watches, not with his "old blind dog", but with a "brindled mastiff":"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …Is the brindled dog a "mastiff" 'only' a wink at Theon going mast-stiff for Asha? (See Part 4.) Maybe. But it's worth mentioning that when Theon is first being stirred by Pyke's banner and it's being battered about like the shield we see in the Drearfort three sentences after the mastiff, it's also (a) flying from a very stiff "mast" and (b) juxtaposed with a very large 'dog' of sorts:
"Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
Sansa found Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps…
The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.
The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy kraken.
Musty Old Mattresses
The old, "musty-smelling and sagging" mattress (in the chamber that has just been re-opened after long periods of being closed and uninhabited) from Theon's homecoming is answered in Petyr's homecomiong by Lysa, who arrives a few pages later in the chapter, eager to finally have sex again with Petyr. "Mattress" is slang for a sexually available woman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mattress) and Lysa sags—Lady Lysa was two years younger than Mother, but this woman looked ten years older. Thick auburn tresses fell down past her waist, but beneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged.—and smells stale. (Note that Lysa is on a mattress here.)
Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell. Her cheek tasted of paint and powder.Lysa's "cheek tast[ing] of paint and powder" riffs on the line about Theon's "distaste" and "fear of ghosts":
It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste.The distaste wordplay is obvious: Lysa tastes bad. As for the "fear of ghosts", Lysa (whom Sansa fears) being covered in "powder" reminds us of Sansa being afraid of a "spirit" covered in powdery flour:
When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs…. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. (AGOT Arya IV)This line—
The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp.—is reworked by Lysa as well, who is big and well-dressed ("better furnished", so to speak)—
[B]eneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.—but cold to Sansa and horny/wet/"damp" for Petyr.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):
It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister…"I wonder whether Lysa crying and speaking to Sansa of being "bound by blood" to her—
Tears welled suddenly in Lady Lysa's eyes. "We are women alone now, you and I. Are you afraid, child? Be brave. I would never turn away Cat's daughter. We are bound by blood."—might not be in part a play on the fact that "the damp went bone deep" in the Bloody Keep. By saying that, Sansa's damp (i.e. crying) aunt "went bone deep", so to speak. (If you're "bound by blood" to someone, you have a "bone deep" bond with them. Also, bone → bound wordplay?)
Braziers → Bracing?
Did Theon's attempt to drive away "the chill" and damp of the salty sea air of Pyke using "braziers"—See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill.—inform (via wordplay: braziers → bracing) Petyr's line when the Merling King pulls up to the Drearfort?
Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite."And/or is that "sharpening" motif a recursion of Theon sharpening his dirk immediately after said braziers are lit?
After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. … While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. … He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other…. Drawing the dirk, he … pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp.
Gods Be Good!
The motifs of Theon yelling "gods be good" at his servant and of "ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom" are recursively reworked when Lysa summons Sansa (like a servant) to speak with her the morning after she weds Petyr. Sansa responds to the summons by thinking, verbatim, "gods be good", and is then told they'll be heading to the Eyrie, which we know is "so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds", i.e. it has parapets 'so high that they were lost in the clouds':Lady Lysa was still abed [like a good mattress!], but Lord Petyr was up and dressed. "Your aunt wishes to speak with you," he told Sansa, as he pulled on a boot. "I've told her who you are."The notion of a "ceiling" so high it is lost in gloom is perhaps also reworked by the story Lysa tells Sansa about Petyr's "rise" to power: She says she "always knew how high [Petyr would] rise", and it's my belief that said rise has likely seen him 'lost', spiritually, in 'darkness'. (Note that ceilings are a frequently invoked metaphor when talking about climbing the corporate ladder.)
Gods be good. "I . . . I thank you, my lord."
Petyr yanked on the other boot. "I've had about as much home as I can stomach. We'll leave for the Eyrie this afternoon."
Seven towers, Ned had told her, like white daggers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds. (AGOT Catelyn VI)
"Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath. Petyr's breath is always fresh . . . he was the first man I ever kissed, you know. My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man.(Recall that the motif of bad/fresh breath there reworks the "winey stench of the old man's [Sylas Sourmouth's] breath", which Theon thinks about roughly ¼ page prior to being shown his suite in the Bloody Keep.)
Butchered Sons & Brothers
Lysa continues to rant:"Jon did his duty in the bedchamber, but he could no more give me pleasure than he could give me children. His seed was old and weak. All my babies died but Robert, three girls and two boys. All my sweet little babies dead, and that old man just went on and on with his stinking breath. So you see, I have suffered too." Lady Lysa sniffed. "You do know that your poor mother is dead?"Those references to (a) a bunch of dead "babies", including two brothers, one of which was "murdered" when Lysa's father, Hoster Tully, who ruled the Riverlands, betrayed Lysa's trust; and to (b) foul smelling breath, a la Sylas, and finally to (c) the Red Wedding — a bloody betrayal of Sansa's brother, who was King of the Riverlands — particularly (per Sansa saying "Tyrion told me") as it's described by Tyrion—
"Tyrion told me," said Sansa. "He said the Freys murdered her at The Twins, with Robb."
Sansa did not need to hear how her brother's body had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her mother's corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in a savage mockery of House Tully's funeral customs. (ASOS Tyrion VII)—are one of the ways ASOS Sansa VI rejiggers the part of Theon's description of his Bloody Keep suite I "[omitted]" earlier, which entails betrayals, murdered brothers, a River King, slaughter, and bodies "hacked to bits".
[Theon] might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keep its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.Lysa's speech with its reference to her abortion and to the Red Wedding (and to stink-breath like Sylas's) isn't the only (or even the main) way Petyr's homecoming chapter refracts those images from Theon's homecoming, though.
But Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both dead.
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:
"How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"Note the kitchen, recalling that the Bloody Keep is paired with the Kitchen Keep as Theon first gazes on Pyke:
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home.…" … "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." … A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower…. …
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.
Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island.Note, too, that the sheep are coded as Petyr's "sons", in a way (a la the "slaughtered… sons of the River King" Theon remembers in his Bloody Tower rooms), and not just because he owns them. He says that Kella has lots of bastards and that she minds his sheep, right? And what else does he say of Kella, in jest? That she 'is' the "mother" of his "daughter," "Alayne Stone":
"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?"The joke foregrounds the notion of Petyr as the father of Kella's children. And while she supposedly has a bunch of bastards, we don't see them. We just see the one girl with the livestock-evoking eye with a sty. It's almost like the sheep she looks after are her children. And thus like Petyr is their father.
"Kella?"
"Please no," she said, mortified.
"I was teasing.
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:
[T]he sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.(They were slaughtered and hacked to bits only so as to properly preserve them against spoilage during their upcoming journey "back to their father on the mainland", you see!)
Theon's Honor Guard
The conditions in Theon's rooms are consistent with the cold welcome he receives, both from Aeron—The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered.—and Balon—
Theon pulled off his gloves. "… Why is my father not here to greet me?"—and they're thus part of a broad yin/yang 'rhyme' with Petyr's initial homecoming, which is warm and welcoming and full of familiar faces, whereas Theon knows no one, such that he thinks:
"He awaits you in the Sea Tower, m'lord. When you are rested from your trip."
And I thought Ned Stark cold.
It is as if I were a stranger here….The reversal is wryly underlined when Petyr is greeted at the shore by his "captain of the guards", Bryen:
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man.Thus Petyr ironically gets the "honor guard" welcome Theon hoped he'd get on his arrival 'home':
[Theon] saw… no honor guard waiting to escort him from Lordsport to Pyke, only smallfolk going about their small business.Notice that where no one stops what they're doing for Theon, everyone stops when Petyr arrives. And of course, everyone in his household recognizes him, whereas no one recognizes Theon. Which is telling, because in a deep sense, that's all Theon really wants, deep down: a little recognition.
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.
(SUB)SERIES CONCLUDES IN PART 10: Oswell & Aeron; Lothar & Dagmer; The Closing Twist
2023.05.31 19:07 Bard_of_Light [Spoilers Extended] LBJ: The Return of the Prince: Éowyn at the Trident
Video: Return of the King (1980) - Éowyn vs Witchking
This is part of a series exploring the hidden motives and actions of the main players during Robert's Rebellion, named LBJ in reference to the influence of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War on GRRM's views and writings on war. LBJ also indicates considerations over whether Lyanna + Bobby B = Jon Snow. Previous installments include:
As mentioned in previous parts, it is strange that Rhaegar would supposedly leave three Kingsguard with Lyanna, while leaving Elia and their children, the first two heads of the dragon and the prince that was promised, in the care of his deranged father with no Kingsguard besides Jaime, who was kept busy guarding the King. Jaime's failure to protect Rhaegar's family haunts him...
...but it ultimately fell to Rhaegar to ensure the safety of his loved ones, and the situation he left Elia and their children in was obviously dangerous, given that Aerys had to threaten Prince Lewyn with the safety of Elia and her children to convince him to command the Dornish troops. Some have argued that Rhaegar was so confident in prophecy that he underestimated the threat posed to himself and his children, but if that were the case, why bother guarding Lyanna and their alleged child? This failure, in conjunction with other evidence suggesting the abduction story was a farce, indicates that this person who returned from the south wasn't actually Rhaegar.
Recall that if Rhaegar truly abducted and impregnated Lyanna, evidence suggests he stayed with her at the tower long after she conceived. Dany claims to have been conceived soon before Rhaella fled King's Landing, and Martin stated Jon was born roughly 8-9 months before her, placing Jon's birth within a month of Rhaegar's death. Once he returned from the south, it would not have taken more than a few months tops to marshal the loyalist forces to oppose the rebel army. This implies he was at the tower for over a year, while a war raged nearby; why did he suddenly take an interest in the rebellion? Why not enter the fray sooner, when his help really could have made a difference? Walder Frey is ridiculed for arriving late to the Trident, but maybe Rhaegar is the one who truly deserves the moniker "the late lord". And if Rhaegar stayed away due to his love for Lyanna and desire to be with her, why not wait a couple more months so he could be there when she gave birth?
An obvious reason for Rhaegar to appear when he did is that Robert was starting to be taken seriously as a threat, and the crown prince gave heart to the loyalist forces during a pivotal battle; it's too bad this heart wasn't big enough to prevent the war in the first place. Crossing the Trident was also a tactically unsound move by Rhaegar, and it would have been to his advantage to draw the rebel army further south. During the War of the Five Kings, Stannis's forces also attempt to cross a river, the Blackwater Rush, but are spooked off by Renly's ghost:
Like Garlan fought in Renly's armor at the Battle of the Blackwater, an imposter fought as Rhaegar at the Trident. "Rhaegar" wore black armor crusted with rubies, like Mance uses a ruby in a black iron cuff to disguise himself as Rattleshirt via glamor magic. Dany has a vision of her own face behind Rhaegar's visor, and red light glimmers through the visor like Melisandre's glamor-producing rubies glimmer redly.
This is a world with glamor magic, skinchanging, and Faceless Men, and so it cannot be ruled out that an imposter fought as Rhaegar at the Trident. Dany seeing her own face behind Rhaegar's visor hints that someone besides Rhaegar wore his armor. Even Arya, who is said to resemble Lyanna, makes use of the face-changer Jaqen H'ghar at Harrenhal, where all this began... Jaqen H'ghar's name is near anagram for Rhaegar, incidentally. It suspends belief that soldiers would stop in the thick of battle to scoop up rubies, making it easier to accept that ruby-assisted magic was afoot.
Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence against an imposter, however, is that Jaime remembers a conversation with Rhaegar before the battle, in which there are no obvious indications of deception.
Then again, one wouldn't expect a skilled Faceless Man to give up the ruse... Actually, no, I don't think a Faceless Man impersonated Rhaegar at the Trident.
.
..
...
.....
........
..
?
.
.
.
..?
.
.
.
?!
If I hadn't lost you already, I probably have now. But hear me out.
mediachomp.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-mansplaining/
This is the first ASOIAF theory I ever thought up. I suppose I was influenced by Éowyn of The Lord of the Rings in my thinking. Éowyn means 'horse lover', like Lyanna was half a horse herself, an advantageous quality for the warrior maid who fought on horseback and injured the Demon of the Trident.
Video: Ode to Liane
Many who prefer R+L=J also reason that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree and was discovered by Rhaegar, to explain why he fell in love with her, despite the folly of returning the mystery knight's sense of honor with an ignoble crowning (I prefer the reasoning that Ned was that mystery knight). Some also assume Lyanna's heritage made her a desirable broodmare to Rhaegar, despite scant evidence that he was interested in warg blood, besides the likely assumption that dragon abilities are related to skinchanging. Lyanna fighting at the Trident is a parallel theory which uses those same elements of disguising oneself to fight for justice, with the aid of House Stark's innate skinchanging ability. Yet this outcome is more impactful, because the stakes were higher at the Trident. The very idea that Lyanna would choose to chill in a tower for over a year fucking a married prince with two very young children while her family and countrymen died in droves on her account is wildly inconsistent with her character.
Lyanna was a fighter, the type to seek justice out herself, as she did when her father's bannerman was beset by bullies at Harrenhal. Lyanna also healed the crannogman's wounds; likewise, she would do what she could to heal the wounds caused by her disappearance.
Arya is often compared to Lyanna, and Arya fought Robert's heir at the ruby ford where Rhaegar allegedly died. She practiced swordplay with Mycah using wooden sticks, like Lyanna and Benjen fought with sticks in Winterfell's godswood.
The deadly consequences of Lyanna's disappearance, based on the rebel's lies, would enrage the she-wolf, driving her to confront Robert in battle if given the opportunity. Thus, "Rhaegar's" rash decision to cross the Trident makes sense in the context of an inexperienced warrior maid chomping at the bit to avenge her father and brother. It even mirrors Arya at the Wed Redding, when she recklessly runs towards the Crossing:
Lyanna would jump at the chance to practice swordplay with her guards while in captivity, and in particular she'd be eager to learn from the legendary Sword of the Morning Ser Arthur Dayne, like Arya learned from Syrio Forel, the First Sword of Braavos. As Rhaegar's oldest and dearest friend, Arthur could teach Lyanna to pass as Rhaegar in conversation.
Consider that after hearing a song about a lady throwing herself from a tower in grief, like Ashara Dayne allegedly killed herself over her brother's death, Arya thinks the lady should have sought revenge:
As argued in the section on Kingsguard loyalty, Dornish Arthur Dayne was complicit in the betrayal of his friend and king because his sister's life was leveraged against him, like (fake) Arya's predicament leads Jon to betray the Watch. Being threatened with Ashara's death if he deserted his post is like how Arya murders Dareon the singer for deserting the Night's Watch. And yet Dareon's desertion is understandable, given that he was sent to the Wall due to a false accusation of rape, after he was caught abed with a daughter of Lord Mathis Rowan. Similarly, Robert falsely accused Rhaegar of raping Lyanna, when he was in fact guilty of raping her... only once.
It would add a haunting dimension to Robert's claim that he dreams of killing Rhaegar every night if Robert glimpsed Lyanna once the rubies were dislodged and "Rhaegar" was in the stream. Alternately, if he knew Rhaegar had been killed already, he'd understand that he was fighting an imposter, and so Robert's allusion to Rhaegar dying a thousand deaths stinks of the rage the Mountain must have felt as Beric Dondarrion kept returning from death. Robert's inexplicable rage after his successful defeat of Rhaegar indicates something was off about this event in his mind.
Not only does Dany have a vision of her own face, a woman's face, behind Rhaegar's redly glimmering visor, but she also has a vision of "Rhaegar" saying an unidentified woman's name in the stream.
The world of ice and fire app claims that Rhaegar said Lyanna's name at his death, but that source is only semi-canon. Both Jon and Robb say their direwolves names as they die, and so it's possible that "Rhaegar's" final words are related to skinchanging.
Dany also notes warrior maids with rubies, paralleling this idea that Lyanna was a warrior maid in Rhaegar's ruby-crusted armor.
Lyanna using a glamor to disguise herself is problematic, however, in that it wouldn't produce the iron tones in Rhaegar's voice that Jaime remembers, and her female body would put her at a natural disadvantage in combat, so skinchanging into a male body is a necessary component. But if Rhaegar's body wasn't available, the male she skinchanged into would then need to be glamored to resemble Rhaegar closely enough as to not arouse suspicions when she arrived in King's Landing. It also may be the case that Rhaegar's body was available, along with his armor, after torture left him comatose. Note that the ritual which leaves Drogo in a comatose state, in which Dany also goes into labor, involves shadows which parallel the shadows Bran saw in his vision of the Trident; these shadows may belong to Ned and Robert, as will be argued in a later part:
We may assume House Targaryen has access to arcane devices, which the Kingsguard would be in a position to know about, given Bloodraven's use of a moonstone glamor in The Mystery Knight (which also depicts a warrior maid in black armor):
It's also possible that Lyanna had some sort of Faceless Man training; their ability to disguise themselves appears to be related to skinchanging.
Lyanna's defense of the crannogman, who travelled to the Isle of Faces in a skin boat to visit the green men, may have something to do with her access to these abilities.
So after receiving adequate training and equipment, a disguised Lyanna may then be allowed to leave her tower to confront Robert at the Trident, contingent upon her return in service to whatever oaths held Arthur at the tower against his will. A battle wound may then be the cause of Lyanna's bed of blood... Consider Arthur Dayne's legendary sword Dawn, likely inspired by King Arthur's Excalibur. During the fight at the tower of joy, Ned describes the blade as alive with light, like King Arthur once drew Excalibur and the blade shined so bright it blinded his enemies.
Excalibur's sheath also had magical healing powers (keep in mind the dick and vagina symbolism of a sword and sheath). The legendary prowess of the Sword of the Morning thus may be related to his sword's hidden healing ability, and so after Lyanna sustained her chest wound at the Trident, she may be transported back south to be healed by Dawn. This seems unlikely, however, given how grievously wounded "Rhaegar" was.
If skinchanging was involved, then Lyanna never had to bodily leave the tower, and survived the Trident through spiritually returning to her original body, and her bed of blood was in fact caused by birthing Jon. If Lyanna had a consensual affair with her impressive guard Ser Arthur, it would dovetail nicely with another aspect of Arthurian legend, in which Sir Lancelot has an affair with Queen Guinevere at his castle Joyous Guard, despite his close friendship with King Arthur. The Sword of the Morning and the Demon of the Trident are not the only candidates for Jon's father; Oswell Whent is also a potential sire, in light of the parallel in which Cersei instructs Osney Kettleblack (who some believe is Oswell's son) to seduce Margaery to remove her as Queen; the rebels may have instructed Oswell to ensure Lyanna became pregnant, to dissuade Robert from marrying her so that he'd be free to wed Cersei to keep the Lannister's support, or to stage a death in childbirth so that Lyanna would be unable to spread the truth of her imprisonment. The idea that Lyanna became pregnant while confined also parallels Daena the Defiant's pregnancy despite her imprisonment in the Maidenvault.
On that note, unless Martin lied, it's indisputable that Lyanna gave birth to Jon... but when? Skinchanging removes the hinderance of a swollen belly and other bodily limitations, but if Lyanna did in fact fight while pregnant, she was perhaps not as far along as we're led to believe. If we accept that Jon was born roughly 8-9 moons before Dany, as Martin states, then the only way to adjust Jon's birth is to then assume Dany isn't who she thinks she is, that she wasn't born 9 moons after Rhaella's flight. Beyond typical lemongate reasons to doubt Dany's past, there's a discrepancy in which Viserys tells Dany of a midnight flight to Dragonstone, whereas Jaime recalls Rhaella and Viserys departing in the morning. This casts doubt on both Dany and Viserys's origins and allows us leeway to adjust Jon's birthdate. Lyanna giving birth before the Trident is possible, and though Robb is supposedly older than Jon, it's hard to pin down exactly when Robb was born; Jon could be older than Robb without it being noticed, as infants can differ greatly in size and development, as seen with Gilly and Mance's sons.
Speaking of Mance Rayder, I’m pretty confident he's Arthur Dayne.
So, given everything we're told about what kind of person Lyanna was, along with parallels between her and Arya involving swordplay and disguises, it's easy to see that rather than being the Knight of the Laughing Tree, Lyanna fought when it mattered most, to avenge her family at the Trident, against the man who truly dishonored her.
In the next part, we'll gaze into King Robert's magic mirror, Queen Cersei, to uncover strong evidence that he had Rhaegar tortured for the crime of crowning his betrothed. To preview where this series is headed, in its full audio/visual glory with greater detail, look here.
submitted by Bard_of_Light to asoiaf [link] [comments]
“For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die? - Aragorn about Éowyn”― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
This is part of a series exploring the hidden motives and actions of the main players during Robert's Rebellion, named LBJ in reference to the influence of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War on GRRM's views and writings on war. LBJ also indicates considerations over whether Lyanna + Bobby B = Jon Snow. Previous installments include:
- Rhaegar Had To Be A Warrior
- Why Did Rhaegar Crown Lyanna?
- The Forging of Lightbringer: Blue Flowers & Narrow Visors
- Rhaegar Mistakenly Crowned Lyanna
- I am not fond of fish, but when fish is served, I eat it.
- All is fair in love and war...
- Kingsguard Loyalty
- Southron Ambitions & Lies
The Return of the Prince: Rhaegar at the Trident
Crowning Lyanna queen of love and beauty indicated to some that Rhaegar intended to set Elia Martell aside and make a new queen. So parallel to Arianne Martell's Queenmaker plot, which led to her solitary confinement in a tower, like Lyanna was confined in the tower of joy, Rhaegar, like the Queenmaker plot conspirators, may be imprisoned at Ghaston Grey in the Sea of Dorne. The precedent of the Mad King's imprisonment at Duskendale and the fact that Dorne has an Alcatraz-style island prison called Ghaston Grey - relating to Beauty & the Beast's Gaston, who imprisoned his romantic interest and lied to incite violence against his rival - supports that Rhaegar or his friends were imprisoned there. It's possible that Rhaegar is still alive; his status as the father of Elia's children may preserve his life. Martin stated Rhaegar was cremated, as is Targaryen tradition, when asked what happened to Rhaegar's body; this statement does not negate the possibility that an imposter's body was cremated in Rhaegar's stead. Or maybe he's truly dead, but there's good reason to believe Rhaegar wasn't present at the Trident where he supposedly died.As mentioned in previous parts, it is strange that Rhaegar would supposedly leave three Kingsguard with Lyanna, while leaving Elia and their children, the first two heads of the dragon and the prince that was promised, in the care of his deranged father with no Kingsguard besides Jaime, who was kept busy guarding the King. Jaime's failure to protect Rhaegar's family haunts him...
"And the children, them as well," said Prince Lewyn.- A Storm of Swords Jaime VI
Prince Rhaegar burned with a cold light, now white, now red, now dark. "I left my wife and children in your hands."
"I never thought he'd hurt them." Jaime's sword was burning less brightly now. "I was with the king . . ."
...but it ultimately fell to Rhaegar to ensure the safety of his loved ones, and the situation he left Elia and their children in was obviously dangerous, given that Aerys had to threaten Prince Lewyn with the safety of Elia and her children to convince him to command the Dornish troops. Some have argued that Rhaegar was so confident in prophecy that he underestimated the threat posed to himself and his children, but if that were the case, why bother guarding Lyanna and their alleged child? This failure, in conjunction with other evidence suggesting the abduction story was a farce, indicates that this person who returned from the south wasn't actually Rhaegar.
Recall that if Rhaegar truly abducted and impregnated Lyanna, evidence suggests he stayed with her at the tower long after she conceived. Dany claims to have been conceived soon before Rhaella fled King's Landing, and Martin stated Jon was born roughly 8-9 months before her, placing Jon's birth within a month of Rhaegar's death. Once he returned from the south, it would not have taken more than a few months tops to marshal the loyalist forces to oppose the rebel army. This implies he was at the tower for over a year, while a war raged nearby; why did he suddenly take an interest in the rebellion? Why not enter the fray sooner, when his help really could have made a difference? Walder Frey is ridiculed for arriving late to the Trident, but maybe Rhaegar is the one who truly deserves the moniker "the late lord". And if Rhaegar stayed away due to his love for Lyanna and desire to be with her, why not wait a couple more months so he could be there when she gave birth?
An obvious reason for Rhaegar to appear when he did is that Robert was starting to be taken seriously as a threat, and the crown prince gave heart to the loyalist forces during a pivotal battle; it's too bad this heart wasn't big enough to prevent the war in the first place. Crossing the Trident was also a tactically unsound move by Rhaegar, and it would have been to his advantage to draw the rebel army further south. During the War of the Five Kings, Stannis's forces also attempt to cross a river, the Blackwater Rush, but are spooked off by Renly's ghost:
My hirelings betray me, my friends are scourged and shamed, and I lie here rotting, Tyrion thought. I thought I won the bloody battle. Is this what triumph tastes like? "Is it true that Stannis was put to rout by Renly's ghost?"- A Storm of Swords Tyrion I
Bronn smiled thinly. "From the winch towers, all we saw was banners in the mud and men throwing down their spears to run, but there's hundreds in the pot shops and brothels who'll tell you how they saw Lord Renly kill this one or that one. Most of Stannis's host had been Renly's to start, and they went right back over at the sight of him in that shiny green armor."
After all his planning, after the sortie and the bridge of ships, after getting his face slashed in two, Tyrion had been eclipsed by a dead man. If indeed Renly is dead. Something else he would need to look into. "How did Stannis escape?"
Like Garlan fought in Renly's armor at the Battle of the Blackwater, an imposter fought as Rhaegar at the Trident. "Rhaegar" wore black armor crusted with rubies, like Mance uses a ruby in a black iron cuff to disguise himself as Rattleshirt via glamor magic. Dany has a vision of her own face behind Rhaegar's visor, and red light glimmers through the visor like Melisandre's glamor-producing rubies glimmer redly.
And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.- A Game of Thrones Daenerys IX
Lady Melisandre was seated near the fire, her ruby glimmering against the pale skin of her throat.- A Dance with Dragons Jon I
The big square-cut gem that adorned his iron cuff glimmered redly. "Do you like my ruby, Snow? A token o' love from Lady Red."- A Dance with Dragons Jon IV
This is a world with glamor magic, skinchanging, and Faceless Men, and so it cannot be ruled out that an imposter fought as Rhaegar at the Trident. Dany seeing her own face behind Rhaegar's visor hints that someone besides Rhaegar wore his armor. Even Arya, who is said to resemble Lyanna, makes use of the face-changer Jaqen H'ghar at Harrenhal, where all this began... Jaqen H'ghar's name is near anagram for Rhaegar, incidentally. It suspends belief that soldiers would stop in the thick of battle to scoop up rubies, making it easier to accept that ruby-assisted magic was afoot.
When Ned had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor.- A Game of Thrones Eddard I
Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence against an imposter, however, is that Jaime remembers a conversation with Rhaegar before the battle, in which there are no obvious indications of deception.
And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down below. He remembered the sullen orange glow of the coals in the iron dragon's mouth. The brazier warmed a chamber at the bottom of a shaft where half a dozen tunnels met. On the floor he'd found a scuffed mosaic of the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen done in tiles of black and red. I know you, Kingslayer, the beast seemed to be saying. I have been here all the time, waiting for you to come to me. And it seemed to Jaime that he knew that voice, the iron tones that had once belonged to Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone.- A Feast for Crows Jaime I
The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."
Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour."
Jaime's anger had risen up in his throat. "I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the Kingsguard."
"Then guard the king," Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. "When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey."
Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."
Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom.
Then again, one wouldn't expect a skilled Faceless Man to give up the ruse... Actually, no, I don't think a Faceless Man impersonated Rhaegar at the Trident.
Lyanna fought Robert at the Trident
..
..
...
.....
........
..
?
.
.
.
..?
.
.
.
?!
If I hadn't lost you already, I probably have now. But hear me out.
mediachomp.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-mansplaining/
“And she answered: 'All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.'― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
'What do you fear, lady?' he asked.
'A cage,' she said.”
This is the first ASOIAF theory I ever thought up. I suppose I was influenced by Éowyn of The Lord of the Rings in my thinking. Éowyn means 'horse lover', like Lyanna was half a horse herself, an advantageous quality for the warrior maid who fought on horseback and injured the Demon of the Trident.
Video: Ode to Liane
Many who prefer R+L=J also reason that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree and was discovered by Rhaegar, to explain why he fell in love with her, despite the folly of returning the mystery knight's sense of honor with an ignoble crowning (I prefer the reasoning that Ned was that mystery knight). Some also assume Lyanna's heritage made her a desirable broodmare to Rhaegar, despite scant evidence that he was interested in warg blood, besides the likely assumption that dragon abilities are related to skinchanging. Lyanna fighting at the Trident is a parallel theory which uses those same elements of disguising oneself to fight for justice, with the aid of House Stark's innate skinchanging ability. Yet this outcome is more impactful, because the stakes were higher at the Trident. The very idea that Lyanna would choose to chill in a tower for over a year fucking a married prince with two very young children while her family and countrymen died in droves on her account is wildly inconsistent with her character.
“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”- A Game of Thrones Eddard IX
Lyanna was a fighter, the type to seek justice out herself, as she did when her father's bannerman was beset by bullies at Harrenhal. Lyanna also healed the crannogman's wounds; likewise, she would do what she could to heal the wounds caused by her disappearance.
"None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. 'That's my father's man you're kicking,' howled the she-wolf."- A Storm of Swords Bran II
"A wolf on four legs, or two?"
"Two," said Meera. "The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.
The rest of his father's words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Eddard Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun. Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.- A Dance with Dragons Bran III
Arya is often compared to Lyanna, and Arya fought Robert's heir at the ruby ford where Rhaegar allegedly died. She practiced swordplay with Mycah using wooden sticks, like Lyanna and Benjen fought with sticks in Winterfell's godswood.
"It has a name, does it?" Her father sighed. "Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave." Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her."- A Game of Thrones Arya II
"Mycah and I are going to ride upstream and look for rubies at the ford."_
"Rubies," Sansa said, lost. "What rubies?"
Arya gave her a look like she was so stupid. "Rhaegar's rubies. This is where King Robert killed him and won the crown."
Beyond, in a clearing overlooking the river, they came upon a boy and a girl playing at knights. Their swords were wooden sticks, broom handles from the look of them, and they were rushing across the grass, swinging at each other lustily. The boy was years older, a head taller, and much stronger, and he was pressing the attack. The girl, a scrawny thing in soiled leathers, was dodging and managing to get her stick in the way of most of the boy's blows, but not all. When she tried to lunge at him, he caught her stick with his own, swept it aside, and slid his wood down hard on her fingers. She cried out and lost her weapon.- A Game of Thrones Sansa I
Prince Joffrey laughed. The boy looked around, wide-eyed and startled, and dropped his stick in the grass. The girl glared at them, sucking on her knuckles to take the sting out, and Sansa was horrified. "Arya?" she called out incredulously.
"Go away," Arya shouted back at them, angry tears in her eyes. "What are you doing here? Leave us alone."
Joffrey glanced from Arya to Sansa and back again. "Your sister?" She nodded, blushing. Joffrey examined the boy, an ungainly lad with a coarse, freckled face and thick red hair. "And who are you, boy?" he asked in a commanding tone that took no notice of the fact that the other was a year his senior.
"Mycah," the boy muttered. He recognized the prince and averted his eyes. "M'lord."
"He's the butcher's boy," Sansa said.
"He's my friend," Arya said sharply. "You leave him alone."
"A butcher's boy who wants to be a knight, is it?" Joffrey swung down from his mount, sword in hand. "Pick up your sword, butcher's boy," he said, his eyes bright with amusement. "Let us see how good you are."
Mycah stood there, frozen with fear.
Joffrey walked toward him. "Go on, pick it up. Or do you only fight little girls?"
"She ast me to, m'lord," Mycah said. "She ast me to."
Sansa had only to glance at Arya and see the flush on her sister's face to know the boy was telling the truth, but Joffrey was in no mood to listen. The wine had made him wild. "Are you going to pick up your sword?"
Mycah shook his head. "It's only a stick, m'lord. It's not no sword, it's only a stick."
"And you're only a butcher's boy, and no knight." Joffrey lifted Lion's Tooth and laid its point on Mycah's cheek below the eye, as the butcher's boy stood trembling. "That was my lady's sister you were hitting, do you know that?" A bright bud of blood blossomed where his sword pressed into Mycah's flesh, and a slow red line trickled down the boy's cheek.
"Stop it!" Arya screamed. She grabbed up her fallen stick.
Sansa was afraid. "Arya, you stay out of this."
"I won't hurt him … much," Prince Joffrey told Arya, never taking his eyes off the butcher's boy.
Arya went for him.
The deadly consequences of Lyanna's disappearance, based on the rebel's lies, would enrage the she-wolf, driving her to confront Robert in battle if given the opportunity. Thus, "Rhaegar's" rash decision to cross the Trident makes sense in the context of an inexperienced warrior maid chomping at the bit to avenge her father and brother. It even mirrors Arya at the Wed Redding, when she recklessly runs towards the Crossing:
"Maybe we can save her . . ."- A Storm of Swords Arya XI
"Maybe you can. I'm not done living yet." He rode toward her, crowding her back toward the wayn. "Stay or go, she-wolf. Live or die. Your—"
Arya spun away from him and darted for the gate. The portcullis was coming down, but slowly. I have to run faster. The mud slowed her, though, and then the water. Run fast as a wolf. The drawbridge had begun to lift, the water running off it in a sheet, the mud falling in heavy clots. Faster. She heard loud splashing and looked back to see Stranger pounding after her, sending up gouts of water with every stride. She saw the longaxe too, still wet with blood and brains. And Arya ran. Not for her brother now, not even for her mother, but for herself. She ran faster than she had ever run before, her head down and her feet churning up the river, she ran from him as Mycah must have run.
His axe took her in the back of the head.
Lyanna would jump at the chance to practice swordplay with her guards while in captivity, and in particular she'd be eager to learn from the legendary Sword of the Morning Ser Arthur Dayne, like Arya learned from Syrio Forel, the First Sword of Braavos. As Rhaegar's oldest and dearest friend, Arthur could teach Lyanna to pass as Rhaegar in conversation.
Consider that after hearing a song about a lady throwing herself from a tower in grief, like Ashara Dayne allegedly killed herself over her brother's death, Arya thinks the lady should have sought revenge:
It made her angry to see Dareon sitting there so brazen, making eyes at Lanna as his fingers danced across the harp strings._
He is a man of the Night's Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the Wall.- A Feast for Crows Cat of the Canals
As argued in the section on Kingsguard loyalty, Dornish Arthur Dayne was complicit in the betrayal of his friend and king because his sister's life was leveraged against him, like (fake) Arya's predicament leads Jon to betray the Watch. Being threatened with Ashara's death if he deserted his post is like how Arya murders Dareon the singer for deserting the Night's Watch. And yet Dareon's desertion is understandable, given that he was sent to the Wall due to a false accusation of rape, after he was caught abed with a daughter of Lord Mathis Rowan. Similarly, Robert falsely accused Rhaegar of raping Lyanna, when he was in fact guilty of raping her... only once.
The king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. “I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her.”- A Game of Thrones Eddard I
“You did,” Ned reminded him.
“Only once,” Robert said bitterly.
It would add a haunting dimension to Robert's claim that he dreams of killing Rhaegar every night if Robert glimpsed Lyanna once the rubies were dislodged and "Rhaegar" was in the stream. Alternately, if he knew Rhaegar had been killed already, he'd understand that he was fighting an imposter, and so Robert's allusion to Rhaegar dying a thousand deaths stinks of the rage the Mountain must have felt as Beric Dondarrion kept returning from death. Robert's inexplicable rage after his successful defeat of Rhaegar indicates something was off about this event in his mind.
"In my dreams, I kill him every night," Robert admitted. "A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves."- A Game of Thrones Eddard I
Not only does Dany have a vision of her own face, a woman's face, behind Rhaegar's redly glimmering visor, but she also has a vision of "Rhaegar" saying an unidentified woman's name in the stream.
And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.- A Game of Thrones Daenerys IX
Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. . . . mother of dragons, daughter of death . . .- A Clash of Kings Daenerys IV
The world of ice and fire app claims that Rhaegar said Lyanna's name at his death, but that source is only semi-canon. Both Jon and Robb say their direwolves names as they die, and so it's possible that "Rhaegar's" final words are related to skinchanging.
Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end.- A Dance with Dragons Jon XIII
"Yes. Robb, get up. Get up and walk out, please, please. Save yourself . . . if not for me, for Jeyne."- A Storm of Swords Catelyn VII
"Jeyne?" Robb grabbed the edge of the table and forced himself to stand. "Mother," he said, "Grey Wind . . ."
"Go to him. Now. Robb, walk out of here."
Dany also notes warrior maids with rubies, paralleling this idea that Lyanna was a warrior maid in Rhaegar's ruby-crusted armor.
warrior maids from Bayasabhad, Shamyriana, and Kayakayanaya with iron rings in their nipples and rubies in their cheeks- A Game of Thrones Daenerys VI
Lyanna using a glamor to disguise herself is problematic, however, in that it wouldn't produce the iron tones in Rhaegar's voice that Jaime remembers, and her female body would put her at a natural disadvantage in combat, so skinchanging into a male body is a necessary component. But if Rhaegar's body wasn't available, the male she skinchanged into would then need to be glamored to resemble Rhaegar closely enough as to not arouse suspicions when she arrived in King's Landing. It also may be the case that Rhaegar's body was available, along with his armor, after torture left him comatose. Note that the ritual which leaves Drogo in a comatose state, in which Dany also goes into labor, involves shadows which parallel the shadows Bran saw in his vision of the Trident; these shadows may belong to Ned and Robert, as will be argued in a later part:
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn't, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.- A Game of Thrones Daenerys VIII
We may assume House Targaryen has access to arcane devices, which the Kingsguard would be in a position to know about, given Bloodraven's use of a moonstone glamor in The Mystery Knight (which also depicts a warrior maid in black armor):
Dunk whirled. Through the rain, all he could make out was a hooded shape and a single pale white eye. It was only when the man came forward that the shadowed face beneath the cowl took on the familiar features of Ser Maynard Plumm, the pale eye no more than the moonstone brooch that pinned his cloak at the shoulder._
Mad Danelle Lothston herself rode forth in strength from her haunted towers at Harrenhal, clad in black armor that fit her like an iron glove, her long red hair streaming.- The Mystery Knight
It's also possible that Lyanna had some sort of Faceless Man training; their ability to disguise themselves appears to be related to skinchanging.
"Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with.- A Dance with Dragons The Ugly Little Girl
Lyanna's defense of the crannogman, who travelled to the Isle of Faces in a skin boat to visit the green men, may have something to do with her access to these abilities.
"The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed." Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant.- A Clash of Kings Bran III
"He passed beneath the Twins by night so the Freys would not attack him, and when he reached the Trident he climbed from the river and put his boat on his head and began to walk. It took him many a day, but finally he reached the Gods Eye, threw his boat in the lake, and paddled out to the Isle of Faces."- A Storm of Swords Bran II
"Did he meet the green men?"
"Yes," said Meera, "but that's another story, and not for me to tell. My prince asked for knights."
So after receiving adequate training and equipment, a disguised Lyanna may then be allowed to leave her tower to confront Robert at the Trident, contingent upon her return in service to whatever oaths held Arthur at the tower against his will. A battle wound may then be the cause of Lyanna's bed of blood... Consider Arthur Dayne's legendary sword Dawn, likely inspired by King Arthur's Excalibur. During the fight at the tower of joy, Ned describes the blade as alive with light, like King Arthur once drew Excalibur and the blade shined so bright it blinded his enemies.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.- A Game of Thrones Eddard X
Excalibur's sheath also had magical healing powers (keep in mind the dick and vagina symbolism of a sword and sheath). The legendary prowess of the Sword of the Morning thus may be related to his sword's hidden healing ability, and so after Lyanna sustained her chest wound at the Trident, she may be transported back south to be healed by Dawn. This seems unlikely, however, given how grievously wounded "Rhaegar" was.
If skinchanging was involved, then Lyanna never had to bodily leave the tower, and survived the Trident through spiritually returning to her original body, and her bed of blood was in fact caused by birthing Jon. If Lyanna had a consensual affair with her impressive guard Ser Arthur, it would dovetail nicely with another aspect of Arthurian legend, in which Sir Lancelot has an affair with Queen Guinevere at his castle Joyous Guard, despite his close friendship with King Arthur. The Sword of the Morning and the Demon of the Trident are not the only candidates for Jon's father; Oswell Whent is also a potential sire, in light of the parallel in which Cersei instructs Osney Kettleblack (who some believe is Oswell's son) to seduce Margaery to remove her as Queen; the rebels may have instructed Oswell to ensure Lyanna became pregnant, to dissuade Robert from marrying her so that he'd be free to wed Cersei to keep the Lannister's support, or to stage a death in childbirth so that Lyanna would be unable to spread the truth of her imprisonment. The idea that Lyanna became pregnant while confined also parallels Daena the Defiant's pregnancy despite her imprisonment in the Maidenvault.
On that note, unless Martin lied, it's indisputable that Lyanna gave birth to Jon... but when? Skinchanging removes the hinderance of a swollen belly and other bodily limitations, but if Lyanna did in fact fight while pregnant, she was perhaps not as far along as we're led to believe. If we accept that Jon was born roughly 8-9 moons before Dany, as Martin states, then the only way to adjust Jon's birth is to then assume Dany isn't who she thinks she is, that she wasn't born 9 moons after Rhaella's flight. Beyond typical lemongate reasons to doubt Dany's past, there's a discrepancy in which Viserys tells Dany of a midnight flight to Dragonstone, whereas Jaime recalls Rhaella and Viserys departing in the morning. This casts doubt on both Dany and Viserys's origins and allows us leeway to adjust Jon's birthdate. Lyanna giving birth before the Trident is possible, and though Robb is supposedly older than Jon, it's hard to pin down exactly when Robb was born; Jon could be older than Robb without it being noticed, as infants can differ greatly in size and development, as seen with Gilly and Mance's sons.
Speaking of Mance Rayder, I’m pretty confident he's Arthur Dayne.
So, given everything we're told about what kind of person Lyanna was, along with parallels between her and Arya involving swordplay and disguises, it's easy to see that rather than being the Knight of the Laughing Tree, Lyanna fought when it mattered most, to avenge her family at the Trident, against the man who truly dishonored her.
In the next part, we'll gaze into King Robert's magic mirror, Queen Cersei, to uncover strong evidence that he had Rhaegar tortured for the crime of crowning his betrothed. To preview where this series is headed, in its full audio/visual glory with greater detail, look here.
2023.05.31 14:31 LChris24 The Inheritance Status of Previous Supporters of House Blackfyre (Spoilers Extended)
Inheritance Status of Major Blackfyre Supporters
BackgroundWith the return of the Golden Company, there are numerous members aka sergeants/knights that will be wanting lands/castles as a reward. In this post I thought it would be interesting to look at some of their former supporters, to see if there were any openings that popped up (lord without an heir).
The Halfmaester glanced at another parchment. “We could scarcely have timed our landing better. We have potential friends and allies at every hand.”If interested: List of Blackfyre Supporters in each Rebellion
“But no dragons,” said Jon Connington, “so to win these allies to our cause, we must needs have something to offer them.”
“Gold and land are the traditional incentives.”
“Would that we had either. Promises of land and promises of gold may suffice for some, but Strickland and his men will expect first claim on the choicest fields and castles, those that were taken from their forebears when they fled into exile. -The Griffin Reborn
While compiling this list there were numerous former Blackfyre houses that had:
- An established lord/heir, etc.: (Houses Ambrose, Crakehall, Oakheart, Sunderland, Frey, Hightower all have pretty established lineages).
- Both lord/heir unknown: (House Ball, Butterwell, Shawney, Osgrey, Cockshaw, Risley, Boggs,Vyrwel)
- Extinct Houses: (Houses Reyne, Lothston, Tarbeck, Mudd)
House Braken
- Current Lord: Jonos Bracken
- Heir: Barbara Braken
“If I may be so bold, you would do well to require a hostage from Lord Jonos too. One of his daughters. For all his rutting, he has not proved man enough to father sons.”While it is possible that Barbara is married and we don't know it yet, her hand would be a prime reward for a member of the Golden Company. And while GRRM has confirmed that Bittersteel didn't have any children, we do know of a Tristan Rivers in the Golden Company who is a bastard/outlaw. At a minimum he probably claims some ancestry to the Riverlands.
“He had a bastard son killed in the war.”
“Did he? Harry was a bastard, true enough, but whether Jonos sired him is a thornier question. A fair-haired boy, he was, and comely. Jonos is neither.” -ADWD, Jaime I
If interested: The Bracken Inheritance
House Peake
- Current Lord: Titus Peake (likely a reference to Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake)
- Heir: Unknown
If interested: Blackfyre Rebellion 3.5: The Peake Uprising
House Yronwood
- Current Lord: Anders Yronwood
- Heir: Ynys (has two sons with Ryon Allyrion)
House Caswell
- Current Lord: Lorent Caswell
- Heir: Unnamed Daughter
House Strickland
- Current "Lord": Ser Harry Strickland (Captain-General of the Golden Company)
- Heir: Unknown
House Smallwood
- Current Lord: Theomar Smallwood (Arya meets his wife Ravella)
- Heir: son died at age 7, daughter Carellen is hiding at a motherhouse in Oldtown
- Current Lord: Tommen Costayne
- Heir: Unknown
House Bulwer
- Current Lady: Alysanne Bulwer (she potentially has a brother)
- Heir: Unknown
- Current Lord: Branston Cuy
- Heir: Unknown
- Current Head (Landed Knight): Ser Bonifer Hasty (was in love with Rhaella (Dany's mom)
- Heir: Unknown
- Current Lord: Unknown (Ser Tanton Fossoway is the only known live member)
- Heir: Unknown
House Fossoway of New Barrel
- Current Lord: Unknown
- Heir: Unknown
House Cole
- Current Lord: Unknown
- Heir: Unknown
House Mandrake
- Current Lord: Unknown
- Heir: Unknown
House Mudd
- Extinct (If interested: Extinct Houses of Ice and Fire Part I)
House Strong
- Extinct (If interested: Extinct Houses of Ice and Fire Part II)
House Lothston
- Extinct
Bastard Names
Like Franklyn Flowers (associated with the Fossoways), those in the Golden Company with bastard names could always have some sort of claim. We get:
- Humfrey Stone
- Caspor Hill
- Tristan Rivers
TLDR: A mixed list of the inheritance status of houses that supported the Blackfyres previously as well as houses that have a member in the Golden Company that has a "name" associated with that house.
2023.05.31 12:00 AutoModerator (Spoilers Main) Weekly Q and A
Welcome to the Weekly Q & A! Feel free to ask any questions you may have about the world of ASOIAF. No need to be bashful. Book and show questions are welcome; please say in your question if you would prefer to focus on the BOOKS, the SHOW, or BOTH. And if you think you've got an answer to someone's question, feel free to lend them a hand!
Looking for Weekly Q&A posts from the past? Browse our Weekly Q&A archive!
submitted by AutoModerator to asoiaf [link] [comments]
Looking for Weekly Q&A posts from the past? Browse our Weekly Q&A archive!
2023.05.31 11:02 altovaliriano O fragmento na tela do computador de GRRM em 2014
Em junho de 2014, em uma aparição em um talkshow, Martin deixou um capítulo aberto na tela de seu computador e isso foi mais do que suficiente para que os fãs formassem uma força-tarefa para descobrir mais detalhes.
O fragmento já passou por vários tipos de decodificação, que acabaram "revelando" ser um capítulo de Asha.
A decodificação mais famosa é a que apresenta o seguinte texto:
https://preview.redd.it/l3ocikxg0p1b1.png?width=952&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a519295387ec64293ec18ec0692cd7bbdb834a3
Não dá para entender muita coisa, mas podemos afirmar ao menos:
Que deduções podemos tirar do rumo da batalha e dos arcos de Asha, Theon e Stannis podem tirar dessas mal traçadas linhas?
submitted by altovaliriano to Valiria [link] [comments]
O fragmento já passou por vários tipos de decodificação, que acabaram "revelando" ser um capítulo de Asha.
A decodificação mais famosa é a que apresenta o seguinte texto:
https://preview.redd.it/l3ocikxg0p1b1.png?width=952&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a519295387ec64293ec18ec0692cd7bbdb834a3
Não dá para entender muita coisa, mas podemos afirmar ao menos:
- Asha não morre antes de a Batalha começar na Vila dos Arrendatários;
- Mors Umber morre.
Que deduções podemos tirar do rumo da batalha e dos arcos de Asha, Theon e Stannis podem tirar dessas mal traçadas linhas?
2023.05.30 18:41 M_Tootles The Recursive Homecomings Of Petyr & Theon Part 8: Bovine Eyes & Eyes With Stys; Sylas Sourmouth & Silas Marner; Theon's Uncle & Petyr's Hermit; "Petyr Pan" & "Wendamyr Darling" (Spoilers Extended)
This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "prefigures" and/or "informs" and/or "is reworked by" and/or "finds a recursive 'rhyme' in".
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 7 left off. You can read Part 7 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
As Theon approaches Lordsport, he thinks of a few faces he thinks he might find waiting for him, including one Sylas Sourmouth:
When Theon makes landfall at Lordsport, none of the "smallfolk going about their small business" know him, nor does he know them:
Note that Petyr doesn't know (and isn't known by) "the child… with a sty on one eye". This conflates and reworks (a) Theon being unrecognized by the "gaunt" — i.e. decidedly un-pig-like (see: "sty" as in pigsty) — children of castle Pyke, whose eyes are flawed in their own way—
One more point of immediate interest to the hypothesis being explored here: "Marner" means sailomariner. If Petyr is in part a riff on Silas Marner, this could be yet another suggestion that he's Hoare-ish and thus ironborn.
That all 'rhymes' with the Aeron we meet during Theon's homecoming in ACOK. To wit…
Aeron's thin physique, uncut hair and "untrimmed beard" make him look like a stereotypical hermit, but where Petyr's hermit was given a "skin of wine", Aeron carries a "waterskin":
That Aeron is a priest is also consistent with his prefiguring Petyr's hermit, in that being a 'proper' hermit is a religious calling. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit)
Aeron echews the comforts of a castle, refusing Theon's offer to "stay the night and share our meat and mead":
Where the hermit was a wino, Aeron's a former drunk—
Where the hermit "had not washed in… years", Aeron is called "Damphair", as if he's just bathed—
Naturally.
One of the first things we see Theon do is 'grope' the captain's daughter. A lot.
So where Theon gropes the captain's daughter for a "cup of wine", Petyr, "for half a cup", would have been willing to say, as the wino hermit did, that he'd be "a great man"… which is not coincidentally what Theon in effect tells his just-groped captain's daughter (for free) when he implies that he's going to be a king:
Note that it makes sense that Qalen should prefigure Petyr's hermit, as the name "Qalen" recalls [Hermetic Qabala].
Meanwhile, the rest of Helya's answer prefigures Petyr having "a hermit's cave… but no hermit", as the line "Wendamyr keeps the ravens now" invites us to think this untitled Wendamyr fellow might not be a maester, but rather a 'mere' raven-keeper (a la Chett and later Sam at the Wall or Pate in Oldtown), which would mean there's a maester's tower, but no maester.
Yes, the appendix clears this up, but in the narrative itself it's as if there's now only some rando dude named Wendamyr who isn't a maester but who "keeps the ravens" so Balon doesn't lose access to rapid communication, even if (we might infer) he doesn't want those pesky maesters around now that he's brought back the Old Way.
Moreover, given that that passage comes but one page before Theon is pointedly unrecognized by the people of Pyke castle, I suspect GRRM deliberately recycled the word "mine" into the odd way Petyr talks about his smallfolk just before he shows Sansa the hermit's cave:
Note the 'perfect' pairing of their breaths: sour wine and bad cheese.
To be sure, Lysa voices these complaints in the Drearfort during Petyr's homecoming chapter, the morning after she weds Petyr, whose breath, she says, "is always fresh", thus creating another strong thread of connection between ACOK Theon I and ASOS Sansa VI. But there's something else going on here.
It's worth noting that after getting caught up in Peter's world and enjoying herself for some time, Wendy remembers who she really is and decides to return home, bringing her brothers with her.
On a totally different note: Does the foregoing suggest that Wendamyr might somehow 'belong' to Petyr?
submitted by M_Tootles to asoiaf [link] [comments]
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
Smallfolk Who Do Not Know Them
What about the rest of what we read about Petyr's sight-seeing field trip with Sansa? What about that fact that most of Petyr's smallfolk do not "know him"? And what about that hermit? I submit that all of this—Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog. "Mine own smallfolk," Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him. There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now, but when I was a boy my father took me to see him. The man had not washed in forty years, so you can imagine how he smelled, but supposedly he had the gift of prophecy. He groped me a bit and said I would be a great man, and for that my father gave him a skin of wine." Petyr snorted. "I would have told him the same thing for half a cup."—is a masterful kaleidoscopic reworking of several aspects of Theon's homecoming chapter. I'll explain.
As Theon approaches Lordsport, he thinks of a few faces he thinks he might find waiting for him, including one Sylas Sourmouth:
As the Myraham made her way landward, Theon paced the deck restlessly, scanning the shore. … [S]urely his father would have sent someone to meet him. Sylas Sourmouth the steward, Lord Botley, perhaps even Dagmer Cleftjaw. …We'll see shortly that Sylas is a dead, smelly wino, just like Littlefinger's hermit.
When Theon makes landfall at Lordsport, none of the "smallfolk going about their small business" know him, nor does he know them:
[Theon] saw no familiar faces…When he later enters Pyke castle, Theon again knows no one and no one 'seems to know him', so to speak, save the "old crone" who keeps the castle for Balon:
[The captain:] "I've brought your heir back to you."
The Lordsport men gazed on Theon with blank, bovine eyes, and he realized that they did not know who he was. It made him angry. He… strode down the gangplank. "Innkeeper," he barked, "I require a horse."
"As you say, m'lord," the man responded, without so much as a bow. … "Where would you be riding, m'lord?"
… The fool still did not know him. He should have worn his good doublet, with the kraken embroidered on the breast.
The gates stood open to him, the rusted iron portcullis drawn up. The guards atop the battlements watched with strangers' eyes as Theon Greyjoy came home at last.So clearly the smallfolk of Pyke "did not know" Theon, whereas he is at least recognized by Helya, the "old crone" with a position in Balon's castle. It's easy to imagine "Prince" Theon bitching:
A pair of gaunt children and some thralls stared at him with dull eyes, but there was no sign of his lord father, nor anyone else he recalled from boyhood. A bleak and bitter homecoming, he thought. …
A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."
"By whose bidding?"
"Your lord father, m'lord."
Theon pulled off his gloves. "So you do know who I am. …" … "And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."
"Mine own smallfolk, yet only the old crone who keeps Pyke for my father seems to know me!"That entirely true statement would, of course, neatly prefigure what's said about Petyr and his "own smallfolk" during his sight-seeing 'field trip' with Sansa:
"Mine own smallfolk," Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him.Note the recursive use of the term "know" there:
- Theon: "They did not know who he was"; "The fool still did not know him"; "So you do know who I am" → Petyr: "Only the oldest seemed to know him"
Recognition & Barnyard Eyes
Meanwhile, Theon being recognized by Helya — an (a) old crone and (b) Balon's castle-keeper — seems to be reworked when Petyr makes his landfall at the Drearfort, when he is verbatim "recognized" by all save the youngest of his castle household:Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child."GRRM's odd choice here to write, "When they recognized" him…" rather than e.g. "When they saw Lord Petyr…" or "When they realized it was Lord Petyr…" makes sense if we 'know' that GRRM is writing a 'rhyming' 'song': Theon was at least recognized by Helya, and this nods to that, even as the warm greeting and mutual recognition Petyr receives from and shares with his household is otherwise the yin to Theon's yang.
Note that Petyr doesn't know (and isn't known by) "the child… with a sty on one eye". This conflates and reworks (a) Theon being unrecognized by the "gaunt" — i.e. decidedly un-pig-like (see: "sty" as in pigsty) — children of castle Pyke, whose eyes are flawed in their own way—
A pair of gaunt children… stared at him with dull eyes…—and (b) the "blank, bovine eyes" of the Lordsport men who "did not know who [Theon] was":
The Lordsport men gazed on Theon with blank, bovine eyes, and he realized that they did not know who he was.This seems intentional: Eye styes can be spelled "sty" in the singular, as GRRM does here, but "stye" is preferred to differentiate from "sty" meaning a pig pen. The choice to spell it "sty" gives the girl who doesn't know Petyr a livestock-evoking eye and thus recursively riffs on Theon's homecoming, in which the men who "did not know who he was" had cattle-evoking eyes. The 'rhyme' is patent.
Sylas Sourmouth & Petyr's Hermit
Getting back to Theon's homecoming and its prefiguration of Sansa's 'field trip' with Petyr… Having been recognized by Helya, Theon asks her about Sylas Sourmouth, who he'd remembered when sailing into Lordsport:"Sylas was steward here. They called him Sourmouth." Even now, Theon could recall the winey stench of the old man's breath.So Sylas was a foul-smelling wino who is "dead these five years". He thus prefigures Petyr's dead, foul-smelling wino-hermit, who "had not washed in forty years". But he's not the only character in ACOK Theon I who seems to have inspired the story of Petyr's hermit.
"Dead these five years, m'lord."
"Sylas" Marner
The name "Sylas" shores up the fact that there's a connection between Theon and Petyr, if "only" via the 'rhyme' between Sylas and Petyr's hermit, as it's surely a reference to [Silas Marner by George Eliot], the plot of which massively resonates with Petyr's story.- Silas is accused of embezzling funds. (See Littlefinger.)
- The evidence against him is a knife. (See Littlefinger.)
- Silas loses his fiancee to a rival. (See Littlefinger.)
- Silas goes to live in the middle of nowhere and loses all faith in God. (See Littlefinger.)
- Silas hoards and loves gold he earns from weaving. (See Littlefinger hoarding/loving gold and weaving his webs of lies. See also the "woven leathers" on the Myraham, which 'rhymes' so comprehensively with the Merling King. This also jibes with elpadrinonegro's conviction that the Vale story is riffing on Midsummer Night's Dream, with its weaver.)
- Silas adopts a daughter sired by a highborn man and found on a snowy night, her mother dead in the snow. He names her after his deceased mother. (See Littlefinger, and AGOT's first chapter.)
- The daughter "grows up to be the pride of the village" (as Sansa is set to be the pride of the Vale?).
One more point of immediate interest to the hypothesis being explored here: "Marner" means sailomariner. If Petyr is in part a riff on Silas Marner, this could be yet another suggestion that he's Hoare-ish and thus ironborn.
Aeron & Petyr's Hermit
Sylas has something in common with the one person who does 'greet' Theon when he lands at Lordsport: Aeron, who we're quickly told twice is "sour", just like Sylas Sourmouth, the stinky dead wino who we already 'rhymed' with Petyr's hermit:He is as mad as he is sour. Theon had liked what he remembered of the old Aeron Greyjoy.Indeed, it's clear that the "sour" Aeron of ACOK Theon I & II and Sylas Sourmouth are mashed up and rejiggered into Petyr's hermit story (repeated here for reference):
Mallister… was a more amiable riding companion than this sour old priest that his uncle Aeron had turned into.
There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now, but when I was a boy my father took me to see him. The man had not washed in forty years, so you can imagine how he smelled, but supposedly he had the gift of prophecy. He groped me a bit and said I would be a great man, and for that my father gave him a skin of wine." Petyr snorted. "I would have told him the same thing for half a cup."Consider that Petyr's hermit was a drunk who "had not washed in… years", who "supposedly… had the gift of prophecy", who received a "skin of wine" for telling Petyr's father Petyr "would be a great man", and who died some unknown number of years ago.
That all 'rhymes' with the Aeron we meet during Theon's homecoming in ACOK. To wit…
Aeron's thin physique, uncut hair and "untrimmed beard" make him look like a stereotypical hermit, but where Petyr's hermit was given a "skin of wine", Aeron carries a "waterskin":
Tall and thin, …the priest was garbed in mottled robes of green and grey and blue…. A waterskin hung under his arm on a leather strap, and ropes of dried seaweed were braided through his waist-long black hair and untrimmed beard.The seaweed braided in his beard evokes the beach, where dwell… hermit crabs, who likewise pick up and make use of beach detritus.
That Aeron is a priest is also consistent with his prefiguring Petyr's hermit, in that being a 'proper' hermit is a religious calling. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit)
Aeron echews the comforts of a castle, refusing Theon's offer to "stay the night and share our meat and mead":
"Bring you, I was told. You are brought. Now I return to our god's business." Aeron Greyjoy turned his horse and rode slowly out beneath the muddy spikes of the portcullis.This prefigures Petyr's hermit being a cave-dweller,
Where the hermit was a wino, Aeron's a former drunk—
The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered. Aeron Greyjoy had been… fond of… ale….—who is now "drunk on seawater and sanctity":
"Aeron is drunk on seawater and sanctity. He lives only for his god—" - Theon (ACOK Theon II)That phrase neatly prefigures the juxtaposition of the seawater-shooting blowhole with the boulder chiseled with the sign of the Seven, which we see just before the show-and-tell around Petyr's hermit.
Where the hermit "had not washed in… years", Aeron is called "Damphair", as if he's just bathed—
As the man approached, the smallfolk bent the knee, and Theon heard the innkeeper murmur, "Damphair."—and he greets Theon by giving him a bath:
"Bow your head." Lifting the skin, his uncle pulled the cork and directed a thin stream of seawater down upon Theon's head. It drenched his hair and ran over his forehead into his eyes. Sheets washed down his cheeks, and a finger crept under his cloak and doublet and down his back, a cold rivulet along his spine.We're also told twice that Aeron was "washed" in the ocean. The first time foregrounds "memory" and letter-writing, which prefigures Littlefinger the letter-writer recounting his childhood memory of the hermit to Sansa:
A memory prodded at Theon. In one of his rare curt letters, Lord Balon had written of his youngest brother going down in a storm, and turning holy when he washed up safe on shore. "Uncle Aeron?" he said doubtfullyThe second time paints Aeron as a dry drunk again, even as Aeron tells Theon that the man Theon knew as Aeron "drowned", implying he died some years ago, as the hermit did:
"And what of you, Uncle?" Theon asked. "You were no priest when I was taken from Pyke. I remember how you would sing the old reaving songs standing on the table with a horn of ale in hand."Finally, where the prophet "supposedly… had the gift of prophecy" and used it to tell Petyr's father that Petyr "would be a great man", Aeron offers a prophetic interpretation of the red comet:
"Young I was, and vain," Aeron Greyjoy said, "but the sea washed my follies and my vanities away. That man drowned, nephew. His lungs filled with seawater, and the fish ate the scales off his eyes. When I rose again, I saw clearly."
[Theon, to Aeron:] "They say the red comet is a herald of a new age. A messenger from the gods."Everything we subsequently read about Aeron only reinforces the 'rhyme': In AFFC it's spelled out that he was a drunk, he calls himself "the prophet", and we learn that he was molested by Euron, thus 'rhyming' with Petyr being "groped… a bit" by the hermit. Then, in The Forsaken, he has an apocalyptic vision of the future while tripping on special wine.
"A sign it is," the priest agreed, "but from our god, not theirs. A burning brand it is, such as our people carried of old. It is the flame the Drowned God brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide. It is time to hoist our sails and go forth into the world with fire and sword, as he did."
Groping, Bragging, Snorting
But what about when GRRM wrote ASOS Sansa VI? Were there already things in Theon's ACOK homecoming prefiguring Petyr's quip about getting "groped" by the hermit?"He groped me a bit and said I would be a great man, and for that my father gave him a skin of wine." Petyr snorted. "I would have told him the same thing for half a cup."Or for that matter prefiguring Petyr snorting and/or his quip about "doing the same thing for half a cup" and/or the hermit saying he "would be a great man"?
Naturally.
One of the first things we see Theon do is 'grope' the captain's daughter. A lot.
Theon agreed, squeezing her breast…And how does Theon get her to let him grope her? With the same thing with which Petyr's father paid the hermit: wine!
Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple.
"As I have," he said, rolling her nipple idly between his fingers.
The captain's daughter… had come to his bed willingly enough all the same. A cup of wine, a few whispers, and there she was.(I guess Theon couldn't find a girl who'd let him do it "for half a cup.")
So where Theon gropes the captain's daughter for a "cup of wine", Petyr, "for half a cup", would have been willing to say, as the wino hermit did, that he'd be "a great man"… which is not coincidentally what Theon in effect tells his just-groped captain's daughter (for free) when he implies that he's going to be a king:
"As many times as I've fucked you, you're likely with child. It's not every man who has the honor of raising a king's bastard."Theon still more unmistakably prefigures Petyr's hermit (saying Petyr would be "a great man") when, during his ride back to Pyke from Lordsport with "Esgred" a.k.a. Asha in ACOK Theon II, he says he will be verbatim "a great man":
[Asha:] "A grievous thing when a great man grows old."What is he doing when he says this? Making even more like Petyr's hermit by 'groping' her, too:
[Theon:] "Lord Balon is but the father of a great man."
When they were well beyond Lordsport, Theon put a hand on her breast. Esgred reached up and plucked it away.In reply to Theon's groping and flirting and declarations of greatness, Asha… "snorted", just like Petyr when he talks about the hermit:
[Theon] slid his hand back up to where it had been. Her breasts were small, but he liked the firmness of them.
"I like a woman with a good tight grip."Thus it's hardly a stretch to imagine that this—
She [Asha] snorted. "I'd not have thought it, by that wench on the waterfront."
"He groped me a bit and said I would be a great man, and for that my father gave him a skin of wine." Petyr snorted. "I would have told him the same thing for half a cup."—was written as a recursive, kaleidoscopic riff on Theon's homecoming.
Qalen, Wendamyr, & Petyr's Hermit
There remains one detail regarding Petyr's hermit that is as yet unmoored/un-'rhymed':There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit.The hermit having a cave "on his land" but the cave having "no hermit" is a 'rhyming' rejiggering of what Helya says after Theon (having heard that Sylas Sourmouth is dead) asks her about a Maester Qalen:
"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?""He sleeps in the sea" is clearly a euphemism for being dead. The words "he sleeps in the sea" thus prefigure Petyr talking about a dead hermit who once lived "on his land". (sea → land)
"He sleeps in the sea. Wendamyr keeps the ravens now."
Note that it makes sense that Qalen should prefigure Petyr's hermit, as the name "Qalen" recalls [Hermetic Qabala].
Meanwhile, the rest of Helya's answer prefigures Petyr having "a hermit's cave… but no hermit", as the line "Wendamyr keeps the ravens now" invites us to think this untitled Wendamyr fellow might not be a maester, but rather a 'mere' raven-keeper (a la Chett and later Sam at the Wall or Pate in Oldtown), which would mean there's a maester's tower, but no maester.
Yes, the appendix clears this up, but in the narrative itself it's as if there's now only some rando dude named Wendamyr who isn't a maester but who "keeps the ravens" so Balon doesn't lose access to rapid communication, even if (we might infer) he doesn't want those pesky maesters around now that he's brought back the Old Way.
The Abandoned Mine
That said, there is another piece of the puzzle. About two pages before Helya tells Theon about Sylas and Qalen and Wendamyr, he sees the abandoned workings of a mine during his ride to Pyke:They kept a steady plodding pace, past a shepherd's croft and the abandoned workings of a mine.An abandoned mine pretty clearly prefigures Petyr's hermit's cave with no hermit.
Moreover, given that that passage comes but one page before Theon is pointedly unrecognized by the people of Pyke castle, I suspect GRRM deliberately recycled the word "mine" into the odd way Petyr talks about his smallfolk just before he shows Sansa the hermit's cave:
"Mine own smallfolk," Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him. There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit.(The "abandoned workings of a mine" formulation, meanwhile, foregrounds the work done at a mine, such as chiseling through rock, and thus prefigures the place on Petyr's lands where the Andals "had chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder" before abandoning it to become the desolate place it 'now' is.)
Slyas Sourmouth & Jon Arryn
Just one more thing regarding Theon's exchange with Helya, in which we read that Sylas and Qalen are dead, while someone called Wendamyr "keeps the ravens now":"Sylas was steward here. They called him Sourmouth." Even now, Theon could recall the winey stench of the old man's breath.Petyr's smelly wino-hermit aside, what does Sylas the Steward — a verbatim "old man" with terrible "breath" who died five years ago — evoke if not Lysa's complaints about the "stinking" and "foul breath" of Jon Arryn, who was, she thought when she wed him, "such an old man, how long could he live", and whose breath smelled like "bad cheese" (of the sort a "Sour" steward might serve)?
"Dead these five years, m'lord."
"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"
"He sleeps in the sea. Wendamyr keeps the ravens now."
Note the 'perfect' pairing of their breaths: sour wine and bad cheese.
To be sure, Lysa voices these complaints in the Drearfort during Petyr's homecoming chapter, the morning after she weds Petyr, whose breath, she says, "is always fresh", thus creating another strong thread of connection between ACOK Theon I and ASOS Sansa VI. But there's something else going on here.
Petyr Pan & Wendamyr Darling
Noting that we're told about Sylas and his breath just before we're told about Qalen and Wendamyr, surely we might say something like this:- Where Pyke's former keeper of the cheese, the wine-breathed "old man" Sylas the Steward, is 'out' and where Wendamyr is 'in' as raven-keeper at Pyke… the cheese-breathed "old man" Jon Arryn is 'out' and the fresh-breathed Petyr is 'in' at the Eyrie.
- much younger Petyr & Wendamyr have replaced the old men Sylas/Qalen and Jon Arryn.
- Petyr & Wendamyr ≈ Peter and Wendy
- Peter Pan and Wendy Darling → Petyr & Wendamyr
It's worth noting that after getting caught up in Peter's world and enjoying herself for some time, Wendy remembers who she really is and decides to return home, bringing her brothers with her.
On a totally different note: Does the foregoing suggest that Wendamyr might somehow 'belong' to Petyr?
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 9: "Cargos, Slatterns & Butchery" with Helya & Grisel.
2023.05.30 17:53 SchrodingersSmilodon (Spoilers Extended) A unified theory of the Others, the Long Night, the Horn of Winter, and Bloodraven, Part 4
This is the third in a series of posts, in which I present a theory on the history of the Others. You can read part one here, part two here, and part three here.
My previous posts came with a disclaimer, which I'm going to copy-paste below:
In a certain sense, I am both a new and an old fan of ASOIAF. I read the books about ten years ago, enjoyed them, and then barely thought about them ever again after putting them down. Then, HotD got me interested in the series again, and I ended up going down the rabbit hole of fan theories, speculation about future books, details that I missed on my first reading, etc., which has been a lot of fun! But I’ve only read the series once, and it was ten years ago, so a lot of my memories are pretty fuzzy. Honestly, a lot of my knowledge comes from the wiki (although I have gone back and reread certain important chapters). All of this is to say, I am not the most knowledgeable person to be coming up with fan theories, and the fact that I’m posting this at all probably indicates a certain amount of Dunning-Kruger effect. Take everything I say here with a grain of salt, and please let me know if there’s something obvious that my ignorance has caused me to miss. Other than that, let me know what you think!
But I also need to include another disclaimer: I came up with this theory before I became aware of the idea that Bloodraven wasn't the three-eyed crow, and, as such, this theory assumes that Bloodraven is the three-eyed crow. To be honest, I'm becoming increasingly sympathetic to the idea that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, but I'm still undecided. If Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, that will poke a few holes in this theory, but I ultimately think it wouldn't be too big of a problem. After all, the 3EC led Bran to Bloodraven, so they must share at least some goals. So, I ask that you assume for the purposes of this post that Bloodraven is the 3EC, with the understanding that, if it turns out that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, this theory will need some minor amending. I've already been thinking about theories on that topic, so, if and when I finish such a theory, I'll post it and discuss how it modifies this theory. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now…
I suspect that that First Men faction was none other than the Stark Kings of Winter; this would explain why it's called the Horn of Winter in the first place. Regardless of which group of First Men was responsible, however, it's easy to see why they did it: the Horn of Winter is a powerful weapon, and any faction of First Men would have been happy to have such a weapon in their possession. So the interesting question isn't, "Why did the First Men work with the CotF to create the Horn of Winter?" The interesting question is, "Why did the CotF work with the First Men to create the Horn of Winter?" Why would the CotF give the First Men a weapon capable of destroying the Wall?
Let's take a step back and recall the role that the CotF played in the events leading up to the construction of the Wall. Their lands were invaded by the First Men, and I argued in my first post that they responded by creating the Others as a race of slave soldiers to fight the First Men. After the Pact ended the war between the CotF and the First Men, the CotF kept the Others enslaved and/or hunted down the free ones in the Lands of Always Winter. Then the Long Night came, and I argued in my second post that the Others took advantage of it by attacking the First Men, killing them en masse in order to grow their power, with the ultimate goal of attacking the CotF. Eventually, the CotF participated in the peace agreement that ended the Long Night. But it's worth remembering that the CotF only interceded in the conflict between humans and Others at the urging of the Last Hero:
You may be wondering, why didn't the CotF just destroy the Wall using the Hammer of the Waters? The problem with doing that is that the Hammer of the Waters is distinctly CotF magic, so destroying the Wall with the Hammer of the Waters would have pointed right back to the CotF. The humans and the Others would have known that the CotF were trying to provoke them back into war, and they would have naturally resisted those efforts. The way around this is to give humans access to the same magic as the Hammer of the Waters. That way, when the humans use that magic near the Wall, it will be the humans who are responsible for destroying the Wall. Helping the First Men create the Horn of Winter was therefore a way for the CotF to end the peace between humanity and the Others, all while maintaining plausible deniability. And it kind of worked; the Horn of Winter did destroy the western part of the Wall. But this didn't result in the human-Other war that the CotF wanted, because, as I argued in my previous post, the Others' queen was taken captive at the same time as the destruction of the Wall, and she's been used as a hostage to keep the peace ever since.
This raises the question, if the CotF wanted humans to defeat the Others, why didn't they help the humans during the Long Night (at least, prior to the Last Hero's involvement)? Well, once again, we need to consider the psychology of the CotF. We know the CotF are willing to fight incredibly bloody wars, as they did against the First Men, but we also know that they won't keep fighting in a hopeless circumstance simply to spite their enemy, in the way that humans will. In situations where they are faced with assured destruction, they react with sad acceptance, not defiance. The fact that the CotF didn't initially participate in the war against the Others during the Long Night indicates that they must have viewed that war as hopeless. The Others were sweeping south, massacring humans, converting their boys into more Others and raising the rest as wights, constantly growing stronger; the CotF must have concluded that there was nothing they could do, no way to survive the Long Night. They didn't just roll over and die, but they weren't about to fight the Others when they had no chance of success. The CotF most likely hid, guarding themselves with magic, waiting to die a slow death—just like they're doing today.
Fortunately for the CotF, the Long Night did not end in their extinction. As I argued in my second post, Azor Ahai negotiated a peace treaty that ended the Long Night. But, as part of that peace treaty, the Others received a queen, the first female member of their species (whom I've been referring to as the Night's Queen). This allowed the Others to reproduce sexually, as opposed to their earlier method of kidnapping human children, and as a result the Others' population would have begun increasing dramatically following the Long Night. So, on the one hand, the Others were no longer benefitting from the Long Night, meaning they were more vulnerable than they had been prior to the peace treaty. But, at the same time, the Others were growing more powerful, as their population rose. For the first time since the Long Night began, the CotF could now hope for victory in a war with them and the humans on one side and the Others on the other side, but they had a very narrow window in which to act, before the Others became too powerful. That's why they only began making moves against the Others after the Long Night; during the Long Night the Others were too strong to be realistically opposed, and before the Long Night the Others weren't seen as a significant threat. Once the Long Night ended, however, the CotF got to work, by helping to make the Horn of Winter and by providing the Night's Watch with obsidian.
But, while the CotF might have successfully averted the risk posed by the Others, they failed to do the same with the humans. Leaf, and presumably the other CotF, fully recognize that humanity's expansion is going to drive them extinct. This has massive implications for the CotF's goals and motivations. The fact that the CotF are aware of and resigned to their inevitable extinction means that self-preservation is no longer a concern for them. They might have been motivated by self-preservation following the end of the Long Night, but not anymore. Whatever the CotF are doing nowadays, they're doing it because there's something they want to accomplish before they vanish as a species. And I do think that the CotF are trying to accomplish something, partly because characters that don't want anything are boring, and partly because Bloodraven is clearly up to something, and the CotF are supporting him. So, if they're not motivated by self-preservation, what are the CotF trying to do?
A common idea I've heard is that Bloodraven and the CotF want to prevent the Others from destroying the world in a second Long Night. I think there's an element of truth to this (especially considering the lengths the CotF have already gone to to oppose the Others), but I don't think it's the whole story. Consider this: if the CotF want to prevent the Others from conquering Westeros, but they're not motivated by self-preservation, then they must be motivated by some combination of altruism and guilt. They created the Others, then the Others got out of hand, to the point where they threatened all of Westeros, and now the CotF feel responsible for making sure they don't do that again. That's reasonable, even noble, but it can't be limited to merely defeating the Others in this latest confrontation. If all that comes of this current conflict with the Others is that the Others are prevented from conquering Westeros, then who's to say that the Others won't try to conquer Westeros a third time in another 8,000 years? And by the time that happens, the CotF will be extinct, so they won't be around to help with that conflict. Simply defeating the Others and thwarting their plans would be a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and, with the CotF facing their own extinction, they would see now as a time for permanent solutions. And when the problem in question is the existence of the Others, there can be only one solution: The CotF want to wipe out the Others completely. I suspect they wanted this ever since the Long Night; they probably see it as cleaning up after their mess. Now, with their extinction looming, that plan to genocide the Others has been made a priority.
I know that my logic has involved jumping around in time a lot, so, as a summary, let me present this handy timeline of the CotF's thoughts on the Others:
To grossly oversimplify a complex series of events, Winterfell's vulnerability can be traced back to two events:
More significantly, Bloodraven removed Bran's memory of Jaime pushing him from the tower:
Later, when Theon takes Winterfell, he wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night, and he gets the feeling that someone was responsible for waking him:
Of course, putting Winterfell in a vulnerable position only matters if the Others know about that vulnerability. Bloodraven must have some communication with the Others. I'm not sure what this communication looks like; if the Others can dream, then it might just mean sending them green dreams prophesying Winterfell's coming vulnerability. Alternatively, Bloodraven might be communicating with them directly by skinchanging into a raven. Maybe he's posing as a human traitor, willing to sell out the humans and the CotF, a kind of second Night's King? This is definitely the biggest missing piece in my theory, but I don't think it's too outlandish to posit Bloodraven has some means of getting information to the Others, and that he's thereby clued the Others in on Winterfell's coming vulnerability.
Given his undying Targaryen loyalty, Bloodraven must be psyched about the coming war between the humans and the Others. Daenerys is coming with three dragons, which will be humanity's best hope for defeating the Others; Westeros will naturally rally behind Daenerys, solidifying her rule. Moreover, dragons will be seen as the saviors of Westeros, rather than as dangerous weapons. If Marwyn was right that the maesters killed the dragons, then this would prevent a similar conspiracy from arising and driving the dragons back into extinction, since the dragons would now be seen as necessary for Westeros's security against the forces of evil. So while Bloodraven wants to provoke a war between humans and Others, just like the CotF do, he wants this for a different reason than they do; Bloodraven wants to use the Others to bring about a lasting Targaryen restoration.
submitted by SchrodingersSmilodon to asoiaf [link] [comments]
My previous posts came with a disclaimer, which I'm going to copy-paste below:
In a certain sense, I am both a new and an old fan of ASOIAF. I read the books about ten years ago, enjoyed them, and then barely thought about them ever again after putting them down. Then, HotD got me interested in the series again, and I ended up going down the rabbit hole of fan theories, speculation about future books, details that I missed on my first reading, etc., which has been a lot of fun! But I’ve only read the series once, and it was ten years ago, so a lot of my memories are pretty fuzzy. Honestly, a lot of my knowledge comes from the wiki (although I have gone back and reread certain important chapters). All of this is to say, I am not the most knowledgeable person to be coming up with fan theories, and the fact that I’m posting this at all probably indicates a certain amount of Dunning-Kruger effect. Take everything I say here with a grain of salt, and please let me know if there’s something obvious that my ignorance has caused me to miss. Other than that, let me know what you think!
But I also need to include another disclaimer: I came up with this theory before I became aware of the idea that Bloodraven wasn't the three-eyed crow, and, as such, this theory assumes that Bloodraven is the three-eyed crow. To be honest, I'm becoming increasingly sympathetic to the idea that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, but I'm still undecided. If Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, that will poke a few holes in this theory, but I ultimately think it wouldn't be too big of a problem. After all, the 3EC led Bran to Bloodraven, so they must share at least some goals. So, I ask that you assume for the purposes of this post that Bloodraven is the 3EC, with the understanding that, if it turns out that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, this theory will need some minor amending. I've already been thinking about theories on that topic, so, if and when I finish such a theory, I'll post it and discuss how it modifies this theory. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now…
Part 4: Bloodraven
Making First Men horny
One of the most powerful pieces of magic we're told of in ASOIAF is the Hammer of the Waters. This is a spell that causes powerful earthquakes, capable of radically reshaping the geography where it's used. The Children of the Forest are said to have used the Hammer of the Waters on at least two occasions: once to flood the Neck, and once to break the Arm of Dorne. I argued in my previous post that the Horn of Winter contains the same magic as the Hammer of the Waters, and that when Joramun blew the Horn of Winter the resulting earthquake destroyed the western section of the Wall and created the Gorge. However, while the Horn of Winter replicates the magic of the Hammer of the Waters, that doesn't mean the Horn of Winter was the original Hammer of the Waters; that is to say, I don't think that the Horn of Winter was used to flood the Neck or break the Arm of Dorne. There are a few reasons why the Horn probably wasn't responsible for these historical events:- The Horn of Winter is probably the same horn that's currently in Sam's possession (link to a series of posts that analyzes the Horn of Winter and lays out this argument), and that horn is banded in bronze. The CotF didn't work with bronze.
- TWOIAF described how the CotF brought about the Hammer of the Waters, and it had nothing to do with sounding a horn. Supposedly, it was your standard blood sacrifice deal: kill a bunch of people, and in exchange a powerful magical effect will occur. While the Horn of Winter might kill the person who blew it (in the same way Dragonbinder does), we have no reason to believe it requires a mass sacrifice.
- Creating the Gorge, while no mean feat, is much less impressive than breaking the Arm of Dorne or flooding the Neck. The Horn of Winter appears to be a weaker version of the Hammer of the Waters.
I suspect that that First Men faction was none other than the Stark Kings of Winter; this would explain why it's called the Horn of Winter in the first place. Regardless of which group of First Men was responsible, however, it's easy to see why they did it: the Horn of Winter is a powerful weapon, and any faction of First Men would have been happy to have such a weapon in their possession. So the interesting question isn't, "Why did the First Men work with the CotF to create the Horn of Winter?" The interesting question is, "Why did the CotF work with the First Men to create the Horn of Winter?" Why would the CotF give the First Men a weapon capable of destroying the Wall?
Let's take a step back and recall the role that the CotF played in the events leading up to the construction of the Wall. Their lands were invaded by the First Men, and I argued in my first post that they responded by creating the Others as a race of slave soldiers to fight the First Men. After the Pact ended the war between the CotF and the First Men, the CotF kept the Others enslaved and/or hunted down the free ones in the Lands of Always Winter. Then the Long Night came, and I argued in my second post that the Others took advantage of it by attacking the First Men, killing them en masse in order to grow their power, with the ultimate goal of attacking the CotF. Eventually, the CotF participated in the peace agreement that ended the Long Night. But it's worth remembering that the CotF only interceded in the conflict between humans and Others at the urging of the Last Hero:
"Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost." (AGOT, Bran IV)Prior to the Last Hero, the CotF seem to have been content to sit back and watch the humans and the Others kill each other—which, considering the history of those three species, is understandable. (According to Sam, the CotF did at one point give obsidian daggers to the Night's Watch, so the CotF did get involved in the conflict between the humans and the Others eventually, but this probably didn't happen until after the Last Hero made contact with them. Old Nan says that the Last Hero had to go on a quest of some difficulty to make contact with the CotF; presumably, this wouldn't have been necessary if the CotF were already giving obsidian daggers to the Night's Watch, because then the Last Hero could have just gone to the Night's Watch and gotten in contact with the CotF that way. So, for most if not all of the Long Night, the CotF did not provide humans with obsidian weapons, meaning that they truly were uninvolved in the conflict between the two species.) I argued in my second post that the peace agreement between the First Men and the Others was an essential part of ending the Long Night, and that this was facilitated by the Last Hero/Azor Ahai. The CotF's absence in the conflict between the humans and the Others prior to the Last Hero's involvement suggests that the CotF had no desire to see the humans and the Others make peace. They only facilitated a peace agreement because it was necessary in order to end the Long Night. The Long Night was an existential threat to the CotF, both because the forests can't survive in an eternal night and because the Others might eventually become powerful enough to threaten the CotF. So the CotF needed to end the Long Night, and ending the Long Night necessitated a peace agreement between humans and Others. It's very easy to imagine that the Last Hero's pitch to the CotF went something like, "Look, I know there's no love lost between you and humanity, and certainly none between you and the Others. But the Long Night isn't going to end unless all three species work together, and the Long Night will kill you guys, just as it will kill humanity. For your own sake, work with us to end this." Clearly, this argument was persuasive. But, once the Long Night ended, the CotF no longer had any reason to care about peace between the humans and the Others—a peace that only existed thanks to the Wall, which was partially destroyed by the Horn of Winter, which the CotF helped to create. The logical conclusion is that the CotF made the Horn of Winter in order to destroy the Wall and renew the war between the humans and the Others. The CotF weren't unconcerned observers to the human-Other war; they actively wanted the two species to fight.
You may be wondering, why didn't the CotF just destroy the Wall using the Hammer of the Waters? The problem with doing that is that the Hammer of the Waters is distinctly CotF magic, so destroying the Wall with the Hammer of the Waters would have pointed right back to the CotF. The humans and the Others would have known that the CotF were trying to provoke them back into war, and they would have naturally resisted those efforts. The way around this is to give humans access to the same magic as the Hammer of the Waters. That way, when the humans use that magic near the Wall, it will be the humans who are responsible for destroying the Wall. Helping the First Men create the Horn of Winter was therefore a way for the CotF to end the peace between humanity and the Others, all while maintaining plausible deniability. And it kind of worked; the Horn of Winter did destroy the western part of the Wall. But this didn't result in the human-Other war that the CotF wanted, because, as I argued in my previous post, the Others' queen was taken captive at the same time as the destruction of the Wall, and she's been used as a hostage to keep the peace ever since.
Child psychology
I've argued that the CotF wanted the humans and Others to fight, but I haven't explained why they'd want that. The easy answer is that the CotF have grievances with both the humans and the Others, so they wanted bloodshed between the two. But we shouldn't accept that easy answer too readily. If we're going to understand what the CotF want, we're going to have to get inside their heads. The books tell us about at least one way in which CotF psychology differs from human psychology:"That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us."So we're told that vengeance and spite aren't really a thing for the CotF, or at least not in the way that they are for humans. I've heard some people suggest that Leaf might be lying here, and that the CotF actually do want vengeance, but I don't think so, for a couple of reasons. First, and this is purely personal preference, I think it's a lot more interesting if the CotF don't think in the same way that humans do. If you're going to have multiple sentient species in your story, and they all think and behave in the same way, then it kind of defeats the purpose of having multiple species in the first place, doesn't it? If the CotF think and act just like humans do, I would personally find that boring. Secondly, and more importantly, we know that the CotF employ at least one human, Bloodraven, as a greenseer. This is a position of importance and confidence in CotF society, and it gives Bloodraven access to immense information. If the CotF were really planning on taking vengeance on humanity, then it's unlikely that they would be able to hide that information from Bloodraven (and any other human greenseers the CotF had; we don't know if Bloodraven was the only one), and it's unlikely that Bloodraven would help the CotF destroy or harm his own species. So the fact that the CotF rely on Bloodraven (and possibly other human greenseers in the past) suggests that the CotF genuinely don't wish any ill will on humanity, just as Leaf said. And if the CotF don't wish any ill will on humanity today, then they also probably didn't wish any ill will on humanity at the time they made the Horn of Winter—that was back when humans still held to the Pact, so the CotF would have had fewer grievances back then than they do today. So, if the CotF wanted to cause a war between the humans and the Others, and their goal wasn't to cause any long-term harm to humanity as a species, then their intent must have been to harm, weaken, or exterminate the Others. The CotF wanted the humans and the Others to go back to war, and they wanted humans to win. This explains why the CotF used to gift obsidian daggers to the Night's Watch.
She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill. (ADWD, Bran III)
This raises the question, if the CotF wanted humans to defeat the Others, why didn't they help the humans during the Long Night (at least, prior to the Last Hero's involvement)? Well, once again, we need to consider the psychology of the CotF. We know the CotF are willing to fight incredibly bloody wars, as they did against the First Men, but we also know that they won't keep fighting in a hopeless circumstance simply to spite their enemy, in the way that humans will. In situations where they are faced with assured destruction, they react with sad acceptance, not defiance. The fact that the CotF didn't initially participate in the war against the Others during the Long Night indicates that they must have viewed that war as hopeless. The Others were sweeping south, massacring humans, converting their boys into more Others and raising the rest as wights, constantly growing stronger; the CotF must have concluded that there was nothing they could do, no way to survive the Long Night. They didn't just roll over and die, but they weren't about to fight the Others when they had no chance of success. The CotF most likely hid, guarding themselves with magic, waiting to die a slow death—just like they're doing today.
Fortunately for the CotF, the Long Night did not end in their extinction. As I argued in my second post, Azor Ahai negotiated a peace treaty that ended the Long Night. But, as part of that peace treaty, the Others received a queen, the first female member of their species (whom I've been referring to as the Night's Queen). This allowed the Others to reproduce sexually, as opposed to their earlier method of kidnapping human children, and as a result the Others' population would have begun increasing dramatically following the Long Night. So, on the one hand, the Others were no longer benefitting from the Long Night, meaning they were more vulnerable than they had been prior to the peace treaty. But, at the same time, the Others were growing more powerful, as their population rose. For the first time since the Long Night began, the CotF could now hope for victory in a war with them and the humans on one side and the Others on the other side, but they had a very narrow window in which to act, before the Others became too powerful. That's why they only began making moves against the Others after the Long Night; during the Long Night the Others were too strong to be realistically opposed, and before the Long Night the Others weren't seen as a significant threat. Once the Long Night ended, however, the CotF got to work, by helping to make the Horn of Winter and by providing the Night's Watch with obsidian.
Things change
The above description probably makes it seem like the CotF were motivated to provoke a new war against the Others out of self-preservation, and there may well be some truth in that. The Others, with their new queen, were a rising power, and they still probably harbored a vendetta against the CotF. If the new war against the Others resulted in the Others' extinction, that would obviously guarantee the CotF's safety from them; if the war resulted in the Night's Queen being killed or captured (which I argued is what happened), that would remove the Others' status as a rising power. So, if the CotF were acting out of self-preservation, their plan seems to have been both well motivated and reasonably successful.But, while the CotF might have successfully averted the risk posed by the Others, they failed to do the same with the humans. Leaf, and presumably the other CotF, fully recognize that humanity's expansion is going to drive them extinct. This has massive implications for the CotF's goals and motivations. The fact that the CotF are aware of and resigned to their inevitable extinction means that self-preservation is no longer a concern for them. They might have been motivated by self-preservation following the end of the Long Night, but not anymore. Whatever the CotF are doing nowadays, they're doing it because there's something they want to accomplish before they vanish as a species. And I do think that the CotF are trying to accomplish something, partly because characters that don't want anything are boring, and partly because Bloodraven is clearly up to something, and the CotF are supporting him. So, if they're not motivated by self-preservation, what are the CotF trying to do?
A common idea I've heard is that Bloodraven and the CotF want to prevent the Others from destroying the world in a second Long Night. I think there's an element of truth to this (especially considering the lengths the CotF have already gone to to oppose the Others), but I don't think it's the whole story. Consider this: if the CotF want to prevent the Others from conquering Westeros, but they're not motivated by self-preservation, then they must be motivated by some combination of altruism and guilt. They created the Others, then the Others got out of hand, to the point where they threatened all of Westeros, and now the CotF feel responsible for making sure they don't do that again. That's reasonable, even noble, but it can't be limited to merely defeating the Others in this latest confrontation. If all that comes of this current conflict with the Others is that the Others are prevented from conquering Westeros, then who's to say that the Others won't try to conquer Westeros a third time in another 8,000 years? And by the time that happens, the CotF will be extinct, so they won't be around to help with that conflict. Simply defeating the Others and thwarting their plans would be a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and, with the CotF facing their own extinction, they would see now as a time for permanent solutions. And when the problem in question is the existence of the Others, there can be only one solution: The CotF want to wipe out the Others completely. I suspect they wanted this ever since the Long Night; they probably see it as cleaning up after their mess. Now, with their extinction looming, that plan to genocide the Others has been made a priority.
I know that my logic has involved jumping around in time a lot, so, as a summary, let me present this handy timeline of the CotF's thoughts on the Others:
- During the war between the CotF and the First Men: "We need the Others to win this war."
- After the Pact was forged: Either "We may not be at war anymore, but we need to keep the Others as our slave soldiers, just in case the humans break the Pact," or "We don't need the Others anymore now that we have the Pact. I'm sure the handful of free Others in the Lands of Always Winter won't be a problem."
- During the Long Night: "The Others are going to drive both us and the First Men to extinction, but there's nothing we can do about it. This sucks."
- After the Long Night: "The Others are vulnerable, but they won't be for long. They're a danger to both us and the humans, and they're our fault. We need to act fast to destroy them, while we still can. That means we need to get the humans and the Others to start fighting again, and then we can help the humans win that war."
- After the Night's Queen was taken prisoner: "This isn't ideal, but the Others are no longer a rising power without their queen, so we can leave well enough alone."
- After it became clear that the CotF were going extinct: "The Others are unable to act against the humans for now, but there's no guarantee that that will last, and we won't be around to oppose the Others forever. We need to genocide the Others, while we're still around to do so."
"Two hundred years?" said Meera.It has often been observed that the Others, as an existential threat that can only be dealt with if humanity puts away its petty political squabbles, serve as a metaphor for climate change. In this metaphor, the CotF are the older generations that caused climate change in the first place and now are dying off for unrelated reasons. The CotF's behavior can then be seen as an aspirational model for how older generations should behave with regards climate change. Rather than saying, "Fuck it, I'll be dead, so it's not my problem," they ought to say, "I'm partly responsible for this, so I need to fix it, and the fact that I won't be around that much longer only means I need to work harder to fix it while I still can." Sadly, the CotF only behave the way they do because of their inhuman psychology, which points to the fact that it was never realistic to hope that older generations would behave this way in real life. I doubt this theme is intentional; Martin seems to have originally not seen the Others as a climate change metaphor, although he's since come around to the idea. Still, I think it's a neat connection.
The child smiled. “Men, they are the children.” (ADWD, Bran II)
It was Bloodraven all along
If the CotF really want to wipe out the Others, then the current situation at Winterfell must seem perfect for them. I argued in my last post that the events of the series have left Winterfell vulnerable, and the Others are now planning a rescue mission to extract their queen from the Winterfell crypts. With their queen no longer held captive, there will be nothing preventing war between humans and Others (and, after the humans kept the Night's Queen imprisoned for thousands of years, the Others will definitely have cause for war), and this war will happen while the CotF are still around to support the humans. Better still, humanity has dragons again, which will surely be useful against the Others. Everything seems to be going swimmingly for the CotF's plan to provoke a war of extermination against the Others, which raises an obvious question: did the CotF cause the current situation?To grossly oversimplify a complex series of events, Winterfell's vulnerability can be traced back to two events:
- Ned going to King's Landing, and subsequently getting beheaded. This caused all of the Starks except for Bran and Rickon to leave Winterfell, and it caused the Northern army to march south, leaving Winterfell vulnerable to…
- Theon capturing Winterfell, and subsequently losing it to Ramsay. This physically damaged Winterfell, it caused Bran and Rickon to leave, and it meant that Winterfell was now under Bolton control, which put it at the center of both Stannis's war and the various Northern intrigues.
More significantly, Bloodraven removed Bran's memory of Jaime pushing him from the tower:
Bran was staring at his arms, his legs. He was so skinny, just skin stretched taut over bones. Had he always been so thin? He tried to remember. A face swam up at him out of the grey mist, shining with light, golden. "The things I do for love," it said.If Bran had kept that memory, then he presumably would have woken up and told someone, "Jaime Lannister pushed me out of the tower, after I saw him wrestling naked with Queen Cersei." How exactly this would have changed the events of the book is a matter of fanfic, but, with eye-witness evidence of Jaime and Cersei committing incest and attempted murder, it's very easy to see things going poorly for the Lannisters. Even Cersei recognized how difficult of a situation that would have been to navigate:
Bran screamed.
The crow took to the air, cawing. Not that, it shrieked at him. Forget that, you do not need it now, put it aside, put it away. It landed on Bran’s shoulder, and pecked at him, and the shining golden face was gone. (AGOT, Bran III)
If truth be told, Jaime had come to rue heaving Brandon Stark out that window. Cersei had given him no end of grief afterward, when the boy refused to die. "He was seven, Jaime," she’d berated him. "Even if he understood what he saw, we should have been able to frighten him into silence."Had Bran kept his memory of Jaime pushing him out of the window, then it likely would have been Cersei and Jaime's downfall, and that means Ned wouldn't have lost his head.
"I didn’t think you’d want—"
"You never think. If the boy should wake and tell his father what he saw—"
"If if if." He had pulled her into his lap. “If he wakes we’ll say he was dreaming, we’ll call him a liar, and should worse come to worst I’ll kill Ned Stark."
"And then what do you imagine Robert will do?" (ASOS, Jaime I)
Later, when Theon takes Winterfell, he wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night, and he gets the feeling that someone was responsible for waking him:
One moment he was asleep; the next, awake.This was the chapter where Bran and company "escape," and Theon's primary emotions throughout the chapter are anxiety and desperation. Those feelings build over the course of the day, as Theon tries and fails to find Bran and Rickon, eventually consuming him to the point where he does something stupid.
Kyra nestled against him, one arm draped lightly over his, her breasts brushing his back. He could hear her breathing, soft and steady. The sheet was tangled about them. It was the black of night. The bedchamber was dark and still.
What is it? Did I hear something? Someone?
Wind sighed faintly against the shutters. Somewhere, far off, he heard the yowl of a cat in heat. Nothing else. Sleep, Greyjoy, he told himself. The castle is quiet, and you have guards posted. At your door, at the gates, on the armory.
He might have put it down to a bad dream, but he did not remember dreaming. (ACOK, Theon IV)
"Joseth has the right of it," said Maester Luwin. "Groping through the woods by torchlight will avail us nothing."Theon woke up in the middle of the night with a sense that something was off, and then he had plenty of time to stew in his anxiety. Were it not for that, he might not have descended to the point where killing the miller's boys seemed like a good idea. Therefore, the hint that someone was responsible for waking him up is interesting; maybe Bloodraven used his psychic tree powers to wake Theon? The passage mentions the "sigh" of wind—a notably anthropomorphic phrasing—and we know that, when Bran tried to communicate with Ned in the past, it sounded like wind to him; maybe Bloodraven can do something similar, sans time travel? There's nothing explicitly pointing to Bloodraven, but there is evidence that he's messing with Theon's emotions in his next chapter:
Theon could taste bile at the back of his throat, and his stomach was a nest of snakes twining and snapping at each other. If he crept back to Winterfell empty-handed, he might as well dress in motley henceforth and wear a pointed hat; the whole north would know him for a fool. And when my father hears, and Asha …
"M’lord prince." Reek urged his horse near. (ACOK, Theon IV)
The sky was a gloom of cloud, the woods dead and frozen. Roots grabbed at Theon’s feet as he ran, and bare branches lashed his face, leaving thin stripes of blood across his cheeks. He crashed through heedless, breathless, icicles flying to pieces before him. Mercy, he sobbed. From behind came a shuddering howl that curdled his blood. Mercy, mercy. When he glanced back over his shoulder he saw them coming, great wolves the size of horses with the heads of small children. Oh, mercy, mercy. Blood dripped from their mouths black as pitch, burning holes in the snow where it fell. Every stride brought them closer. Theon tried to run faster, but his legs would not obey. The trees all had faces, and they were laughing at him, laughing, and the howl came again. He could smell the hot breath of the beasts behind him, a stink of brimstone and corruption. They’re dead, dead, I saw them killed, he tried to shout, I saw their heads dipped in tar, but when he opened his mouth only a moan emerged, and then something touched him and he whirled, shouting … (ACOK, Theon V)Theon feels guilty for faking Bran and Rickon's death, and he's afraid for his future; that guilt and fear would have existed in him no matter what, but these dreams amplify those feelings, and the presence of weirwood trees suggests that Bloodraven is actively sending them to Theon. After all, none of Theon's experiences have involved a weirwood in any significant capacity, so this wasn't a native element of his dream, and Bran often has dreams about a weirwood that are implied to be sent by Bloodraven. Theon's fear and his attempts to rationalize his guilt drive him to cling desperately to his power and authority:
"Your prize will be the doom of you. Krakens rise from the sea, Theon, or did you forget that during your years among the wolves? Our strength is in our longships. My wooden pisspot sits close enough to the sea for supplies and fresh men to reach me whenever they are needful. But Winterfell is hundreds of leagues inland, ringed by woods, hills, and hostile holdfasts and castles. And every man in a thousand leagues is your enemy now, make no mistake. You made certain of that when you mounted those heads on your gatehouse." Asha shook her head. "How could you be such a bloody fool? Children …"All of this causes Theon to reject Asha's offer to leave Winterfell for Deepwood Motte, which results in Ramsay sacking Winterfell. So, to summarize, Bloodraven provided the Lannisters with advantages so that they would triumph in their intrigues against Ned, and he psychologically manipulated Theon so that he would lose Winterfell to Ramsay. Bloodraven has actively worked to create the circumstances that have left Winterfell vulnerable, so that the Others will be able to rescue their queen and begin a new war against the humans. I don't want to fall into the trap of claiming that Bloodraven was responsible for everything; I think that most events in the story happened without his direct interference. But, thanks to his greensight giving him glimpses of the future, Bloodraven has found a few places where just a small nudge can result in things going the way he wants them to.
"They defied me!" he shouted in her face. "And it was blood for blood besides, two sons of Eddard Stark to pay for Rodrik and Maron." The words tumbled out heedlessly, but Theon knew at once that his father would approve. "I’ve laid my brothers’ ghosts to rest." (ACOK, Theon V)
Of course, putting Winterfell in a vulnerable position only matters if the Others know about that vulnerability. Bloodraven must have some communication with the Others. I'm not sure what this communication looks like; if the Others can dream, then it might just mean sending them green dreams prophesying Winterfell's coming vulnerability. Alternatively, Bloodraven might be communicating with them directly by skinchanging into a raven. Maybe he's posing as a human traitor, willing to sell out the humans and the CotF, a kind of second Night's King? This is definitely the biggest missing piece in my theory, but I don't think it's too outlandish to posit Bloodraven has some means of getting information to the Others, and that he's thereby clued the Others in on Winterfell's coming vulnerability.
A politically useful apocalypse
I've talked a lot about the CotF's motivations, but not at all about Bloodraven's, so let's do that now. I'd recommend you read this excellent series of posts on Bloodraven, which I'll be drawing from heavily. Prior to becoming the Last Greenseer, Bloodraven was primarily occupied with the Blackfyres. He played a crucial role in ending the First Blackfyre Rebellion, including but not limited to killing Daemon Blackfyre and his eldest two sons, and since then he went to every effort to foil future Blackfyre attempts to claim the Iron Throne. Some people have speculated that Bloodraven did so out of duty and a desire to keep the realm stable, but this doesn't hold up. Following Maekar I's death, a Great Council was held to determine the succession, and Bloodraven invited and then immediately killed Aenys Blackfyre. Bloodraven later claimed that this was for the good of the realm, but… how? If the Great Council had selected Aenys as the next king, the crown would have passed to him just as peacefully and rightfully as it ended up passing to Aegon V. If Bloodraven was truly motivated by duty and a desire for peace, he would have had no reason to kill Aenys. The only explanation for Bloodraven's actions is that he genuinely did not want a Blackfyre to take the throne, no matter the circumstances surrounding their accession. In fact, his anti-Blackfyre obsession was so intense that he ignored the devastation caused by Dagon Greyjoy, because addressing it would leave the throne vulnerable to the Blackfyres:"Myself, I blame Bloodraven," Ser Kyle went on. "He is the King's Hand, yet he does nothing, whilst the krakens spread flame and terror up and down the sunset sea."It's important to note that Maynard Plumm was probably a glamored Bloodraven, so this isn't mere speculation; this is Bloodraven telling us his motivation. By all accounts, Bloodraven's tenure as Hand was an awful time for Westeros, where law and order broke down and few people respected the king. The point is, Bloodraven was not a noble man fighting against a beloved brother because it was the right thing to do. Bloodraven was a Targaryen uber-loyalist, who would gladly see the realm burn, so long as a Targaryen remained on the throne. And he appears to have retained that loyalty, decades later. Bloodraven is likely in control of Mormont's raven (see the series of posts I linked earlier), and in raven form Bloodraven hints fairly clearly about wanting Jon to be king:
Ser Maynard gave a shrug. "His eye is fixed on Tyrosh, where Bittersteel sits in exile, plotting with the sons of Daemon Blackfyre. So he keeps the king's ships close at hand, lest they attempt to cross." (The Mystery Knight)
"Aemon knew, and rightly, that if he remained at court those who disliked his brother’s rule would seek to use him, so he came to the Wall. And here he has remained, while his brother and his brother’s son and his son each reigned and died in turn, until Jaime Lannister put an end to the line of the Dragonkings."Something similar happens in ADWD, but what's interesting about this instance of the raven calling Jon king is that it happens immediately after Mormont claims that the Targaryen line has ended. This suggests that this is more than just a prophetic statement of fact; this is a profession of loyalty. Jon is the rightful Targaryen king, and he has Bloodraven's support.
"King," croaked the raven. The bird appeared across the solar to land on Mormont’s shoulder. "King," it said again, strutting back and forth. (ACOK, Jon I)
Given his undying Targaryen loyalty, Bloodraven must be psyched about the coming war between the humans and the Others. Daenerys is coming with three dragons, which will be humanity's best hope for defeating the Others; Westeros will naturally rally behind Daenerys, solidifying her rule. Moreover, dragons will be seen as the saviors of Westeros, rather than as dangerous weapons. If Marwyn was right that the maesters killed the dragons, then this would prevent a similar conspiracy from arising and driving the dragons back into extinction, since the dragons would now be seen as necessary for Westeros's security against the forces of evil. So while Bloodraven wants to provoke a war between humans and Others, just like the CotF do, he wants this for a different reason than they do; Bloodraven wants to use the Others to bring about a lasting Targaryen restoration.
Continued in comments
2023.05.30 10:37 Revolutionary-Tie581 (Spoilers Extended) Stark's direwolves and Hodor in Final Fantasy XVI
The other day I did a thread where I showed an interview that said that the next Final Fantasy game was heavily influenced by Game of Thrones, and since then I've noticed that two characters are strikingly similar to Game of Thrones characters:
https://youtu.be/koxgRcyiVoQ?t=420
https://youtu.be/B1wJo3SQcqU?t=99
submitted by Revolutionary-Tie581 to asoiaf [link] [comments]
https://youtu.be/koxgRcyiVoQ?t=420
https://youtu.be/B1wJo3SQcqU?t=99
2023.05.29 23:43 dreamingofislay Feis Ile Caol Ila Day Recap (5/29)
 | Sequel to my recaps for days one and two. It's been a wonderful Feis so far, and we feel lucky and grateful to be able to return after a five-year hiatus. submitted by dreamingofislay to Scotch [link] [comments] Day Three, Monday, is Caol Ila Open Day on the island's eastern coast. Here are our impressions and advice, let me know if you guys find this helpful and interesting! The courtyard at Caol Ila at the height of their open day
Caol Ila Moch - the easy entry ramp into peated single malts, but not going to be any seasoned fan's favorite. Caol Ila Distillers Edition - Weird but super-fun scent today: chinkiang vinegar. My fellow Chinese folk will know what I'm talking about. Great with dumplings when blended with soy sauce. Maybe Caol Ila DE is a good substitute? Caol Ila Distillery Exclusive - 2018 bottling with a red-wine finish. Nose is so different than other Caol Ilas, pure vanilla and coconut, but with the spice and tannins of a red-wine finish in the late palate. Caol Ila Four Corners of Scotland, 14 y.o. - 2022 bottling that was made to emphasize the distillery's character. Core profile: ashy petrols and iodine on the nose, but a sweet, lemon/citrus palate, and a floral/smoke finish. Caol Ila Feis Ile 2023, 13 y.o. - This year's festival bottling is a marriage of 10 first-fill PX and oloroso sherry casks. Was a surprising dram because most first-fill whiskies are very intensely sherried, at the cost of some balance. For this one, the distillery character won out and there might have been too little sherry influence. Caol Ila 1996, 26 y.o. single cask - Not for sale, just for tastings like this one. This ruddy dram was so rich and unctuous it nosed like a bourbon, but the taste was all rich, old, sherry-aged, sweet-and-peat Islay goodness. An absolute stunner. My wife said cuatro leches due to the high caramel and brown sugar; I also got some pineapple juice on the finish. SMWS 53.446, "Blowtorched Mexican Mousse," 14 y.o. - This Caol Ila is more of the classic sherry-and-peat combo, really potent and meaty, like barbecue ribs slathered with some sweet Kansas City-style sauce. Bottled for this year's Feis. SMWS G16 Rare Release, "Dark n'Stormy Creme Brulee," 6 y.o. - This one-off whisky was a collab with Glasgow Distillery to make a Scottish bourbon-style whisky. Using a mashbill of 51+% corn, rye, and barley (sounds like bourbon, yeah?), aged in new American oak casks (bourbon, right?), this one tastes like ... a pretty delicious rye whisky to me, and a high-rye bourbon to my wife. Fascinating dram. SMWS 24 Rare Release, "Massive Oak Extraction," 14 y.o. - Single cask, cask-strength Macallan. Burnt matchsticks nose (a common note from sherry aging), followed by a tour-de-force palate of dark, sugary fruits and baking spices. A much more muscular Macallan than any of their own bottlings. SMWS 3 Rare Release, "The Finesse of a Fragrant Furnace," 18 y.o. - A strange Bowmore, so gentle and light and sweet that it read more like a Highland whisky to us. But maybe that's what happens when you're on your 4th cask strength whisky after leaving a 4-cask-strength-whisky tasting ... SMWS 53 Rare Release, "Honeysuckle Petrichor," 14 y.o. - Another Caol Ila, which had some similar notes to the previous one, but with an ashier and "dirtier"/farmier palate. Petrichor, for sure. Depends if you want more of that rough, earthy peat, but you can't go wrong either way. Laphroaig 2009 Cairdeas 12 y.o. - This showcases a fresh-cut fruit and light side to Laphroaig that I rarely see outside of 20-year-old-plus bottlings. Not at all the norm, but that's why I love the Cairdeas series. Laphroaig 2010 Cairdeas Master Edition - In contrast to 2009, 2010 was straight down the fairway. Ashy, smoky, medicinal, maritime, and warming. I wish I could compare this side by side with the 2015 200th Anniversary or with 2022's Warehouse 1. It sort of falls between those two bottlings. With this dram, I've made it through the entire Cairdeas lineup! Octomore 08.2 - Well, it's an Octomore, what is there to say? Wave after wave of peat, balanced out by salinity and an intense, tinned-fruit sweetness. After 15 minutes, got some chocolate wafer cookies on the nose. Ardbeg Galileo - This feels like a classic Ardbeg from a bygone golden age. I wish the juice still tasted like this. It doesn't have any of the mustiness or dirtiness of some peated whiskies; it's fruity, mellow, and citric, like a barbecued fruit skewer. Not your normal 'Beg, not sure if they lowered the peat content here. |
2023.05.29 23:41 Kingofireland777 Yandel's Archives Version II (Recs Masterlist) Theme: Time Travel
Hello all! I am happy to introduce another round of the new and improved Yandel's Archives. This time around, we will be focusing on the theme of time travel.
PLEASE READ: Any correction/concern regarding incorrect label of info/ anything you wish to add should be directed to the companion post that is now available. DO NOT comment on this post, the only comments on this post are to be new fic entries.Please here to get to mentioned post - important companion post
Here are some notes before we start:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The fics will be categorized by the following.
Title-Person(s) who time traveled- the era they time traveled to
Please note that information is correct to the best of my knowledge, but there is a chance I missed something in terms of who exactly time traveled, as summaries and tags aren't always correct. Also the era part is purposely vague, if your fic rather it belongs to you or if you just like it/know it needs correction of the information provided, I ask that you see the companion post that was referenced above. Please work with me to make this list as accurate as possible.
With all that out of the way-
Table of Contents
NAME OF FIC- PERSON(S) TIME TRAVELING-ERA OF TIME TRAVEL FOCUS
A Hundred eyes and Two- Jon Snow reborn as Robb’s twin sister- canon era
A Man without Honor- Jaime Lannister- Canon era
A Stich in Time- Rhaegar and Jon Snow- Jon to Tourney at Harrenhal, Rhaegar to canon era
Adjust for the Wind-Theon (female)- Canon era
All Mismy were the Borogroves- Melera Heathersoon- pre-Harrenhall
Ancient Fire- Jon,Sansa, Arya, Bran- Dance era
And now their watch begins- Sansa, Jon and Arya- canon era
Another life, Another Jon- Jon Snow-canon era
Around Again- Sandor Clegane- canon era
Be careful what you wish for- Jon Snow-Dance era
Blood and Waters- Arya Stark- canon era
By Her Hand- Sansa- canon era
Changing Perspective- Ser Barristan, Ser Jaime- Robert’s Rebellion era
Come Again- Jon Snow (female)- canon era
Curse of the Old Gods- Robb Stark- canon era
Duty, given chance- Jon Snow- canon era
Fate of the Red Wolf- Sansa- canon era
Fly Away- Sansa Stark- canon era
Happily Ever After- Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen- Dance era
Her Grace, Queen Rhaenyra- Rhaenyra Targaryen- Dance era
Howl of the Dragonwolves- OC children of Dany and Jon- S4
If the Summer of our lives could come again-Bran, Sansa, Arya-Canon era
If you try to break me, you will bleed- Sansa- canon era
In Her Shoes- Sansa and Dany body swap- canon era (s1)
In the North the King hides in the Snow- Jon, Jaime, Varys, Sweetrobin- canon era
Is it so far from madness to wisdom?- Jon Snow- Dance era
It’s All coming back to me now- Jaime, Brienne- Tourney at Harrenhal era
Jon Snow and the Dragonverse of Madness. Book One: The Conquest-Jon Snow-Conquest Era
Kissed by fire~ Kissed by Steel - Sansa- Dance era
Lady Sansa of House Lannister- Sansa- canon era
Lets Just Resurrect the Bitch and Make Her Fix It!-Lyanna Stark- canon era
Live as a Wolf or Die as a Dragon- Jon Snow- s8
Memories of Tomorrow- Sansa, Jon, Robb, Rickon, Bran, Arya- canon era
No matter how bright a torch may burn- Cersei and Sansa body swap- canon era before Robert dies
Not another time travel story- Ned, Robert, Ashara, Cat, Elia, Kevan Lannister - Pre-Harrenhal era
Purple Days- Joffrey- Canon era
Robb Returns- Robb- Canon era
Robert Reforged- Robert Baratheon-canon era
Snowfall- Jon Snow- canon era
Strangers Again- Daenerys Targaryen-s2
The Burning Stag- Stannis- Canon era
The Dragon’s Roar- Jaime and Jon to canon era/ between RR and canon era
The Fate of the Dowager Queen- Alicent Hightower- Dance era
The Last Hope for Westeros- Jon Snow- canon era
The Lone time traveller multiverse- Sansa Stark- canon era
The North Remembers- Sansa Stark- canon era
The Old Man of the North Saves House Targaryen and Stark-Cregan Stark, Rickon Stark, Visenya Targaryen, Joffrey, Aegon II, Aegon IV, and Aemond Targaryen- s8
The Pack survives- Eddard Stark- Canon era
The Raven’s Plan- everyone???- start of canon era
The Road to Victory-Jon, Sansa, Arya- Robert’s Rebellion era
The Stranger’s Son- Jon Snow- Dance era
The Sweetly Sung Queen- Sansa Stark- canon era
The Trials and Tribulations of Tywin Lannister, Time Traveler- Tywin- Canon era
The Wheel Unbroken- Jon Snow- Canon era
The Wolves Beneath the Weirwood- Jon Snow- s6
The cold remains the same- Book Jon back to show Jon body- s6 onwards.
There and Back again- Jon Snow- canon era
Time bows to neither man nor raven- Tywin Lannister- canon era
To go forward- Jon Snow- canon era
Twice Damned and Back again- Jon Snow- canon era
Twin Wolves of the North- Jon Snow- before Robert’s Rebellion
Valor Botis- Jon Snow-canon era
Wolves without teeth- Cat, Ned and the rest of the starks- post s8 era
You know too much, Jon Snow- Jon Snow- canon era
and give all the love that you have in your soul- Brienne, Jon Connington- Robert’s Rebellion era
submitted by Kingofireland777 to TheCitadel [link] [comments]
PLEASE READ: Any correction/concern regarding incorrect label of info/ anything you wish to add should be directed to the companion post that is now available. DO NOT comment on this post, the only comments on this post are to be new fic entries.Please here to get to mentioned post - important companion post
Here are some notes before we start:
the post will not be ready straight away, but I have to have this live as a placeholder. Check back in maybe an hour to an hour and a half, it should be done by then, and you will know as it will be unlocked, but until then, it is a work in progress.EDIT: This step is now complete!!- There is absolutely no discussion allowed on this post. It is an archive, NOT a discussion post. Therefore any concerns, corrections, etc., are to be sent to the accompanying post, which will be posted and organized in regard to categories of interest.
- It is very important to note that the vast majority of these fics are either transferred over from the previous master list/ taken from a post made about a month ago or are sourced from our discord. All the same, it took a very long time to make everything how it is now, I kindly ask for some respect here. If there is a fic you don't like, do not downvote it. Simply move on. If there is something problematic with it that you would like to raise, the correct way of doing that will be through the accompanying post that is linked above. I will then add such warnings. Work with me and show respect for the work put into this task, I am absolutely willing to listen and add in required warnings.
- Regarding problematic stuff- As I am sure you are all aware, ASOIAF is very much filled with horrible subjects throughout its books and shows. I will try my best to warn of what I can, but I have not read the majority of these fics. You need to always proceed with caution and read the tags (the majority of fics are ao3 anyways) and always expect dark themes fitting with ASOIAF, but again you are more than welcome to warn of them on the post I will be linking with this.
- Wish to add your own recs to the list? do so via using the pinned template. If you do not use the template, your comment will be deleted. Do you want to add your fics of choice anyways but don't have the time to use the template? message me with a link and details, and I will add it in for you.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The fics will be categorized by the following.
Title-Person(s) who time traveled- the era they time traveled to
Please note that information is correct to the best of my knowledge, but there is a chance I missed something in terms of who exactly time traveled, as summaries and tags aren't always correct. Also the era part is purposely vague, if your fic rather it belongs to you or if you just like it/know it needs correction of the information provided, I ask that you see the companion post that was referenced above. Please work with me to make this list as accurate as possible.
With all that out of the way-
Table of Contents
NAME OF FIC- PERSON(S) TIME TRAVELING-ERA OF TIME TRAVEL FOCUS
A Hundred eyes and Two- Jon Snow reborn as Robb’s twin sister- canon era
A Man without Honor- Jaime Lannister- Canon era
A Stich in Time- Rhaegar and Jon Snow- Jon to Tourney at Harrenhal, Rhaegar to canon era
Adjust for the Wind-Theon (female)- Canon era
All Mismy were the Borogroves- Melera Heathersoon- pre-Harrenhall
Ancient Fire- Jon,Sansa, Arya, Bran- Dance era
And now their watch begins- Sansa, Jon and Arya- canon era
Another life, Another Jon- Jon Snow-canon era
Around Again- Sandor Clegane- canon era
Be careful what you wish for- Jon Snow-Dance era
Blood and Waters- Arya Stark- canon era
By Her Hand- Sansa- canon era
Changing Perspective- Ser Barristan, Ser Jaime- Robert’s Rebellion era
Come Again- Jon Snow (female)- canon era
Curse of the Old Gods- Robb Stark- canon era
Duty, given chance- Jon Snow- canon era
Fate of the Red Wolf- Sansa- canon era
Fly Away- Sansa Stark- canon era
Happily Ever After- Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen- Dance era
Her Grace, Queen Rhaenyra- Rhaenyra Targaryen- Dance era
Howl of the Dragonwolves- OC children of Dany and Jon- S4
If the Summer of our lives could come again-Bran, Sansa, Arya-Canon era
If you try to break me, you will bleed- Sansa- canon era
In Her Shoes- Sansa and Dany body swap- canon era (s1)
In the North the King hides in the Snow- Jon, Jaime, Varys, Sweetrobin- canon era
Is it so far from madness to wisdom?- Jon Snow- Dance era
It’s All coming back to me now- Jaime, Brienne- Tourney at Harrenhal era
Jon Snow and the Dragonverse of Madness. Book One: The Conquest-Jon Snow-Conquest Era
Kissed by fire~ Kissed by Steel - Sansa- Dance era
Lady Sansa of House Lannister- Sansa- canon era
Lets Just Resurrect the Bitch and Make Her Fix It!-Lyanna Stark- canon era
Live as a Wolf or Die as a Dragon- Jon Snow- s8
Memories of Tomorrow- Sansa, Jon, Robb, Rickon, Bran, Arya- canon era
No matter how bright a torch may burn- Cersei and Sansa body swap- canon era before Robert dies
Not another time travel story- Ned, Robert, Ashara, Cat, Elia, Kevan Lannister - Pre-Harrenhal era
Purple Days- Joffrey- Canon era
Robb Returns- Robb- Canon era
Robert Reforged- Robert Baratheon-canon era
Snowfall- Jon Snow- canon era
Strangers Again- Daenerys Targaryen-s2
The Burning Stag- Stannis- Canon era
The Dragon’s Roar- Jaime and Jon to canon era/ between RR and canon era
The Fate of the Dowager Queen- Alicent Hightower- Dance era
The Last Hope for Westeros- Jon Snow- canon era
The Lone time traveller multiverse- Sansa Stark- canon era
The North Remembers- Sansa Stark- canon era
The Old Man of the North Saves House Targaryen and Stark-Cregan Stark, Rickon Stark, Visenya Targaryen, Joffrey, Aegon II, Aegon IV, and Aemond Targaryen- s8
The Pack survives- Eddard Stark- Canon era
The Raven’s Plan- everyone???- start of canon era
The Road to Victory-Jon, Sansa, Arya- Robert’s Rebellion era
The Stranger’s Son- Jon Snow- Dance era
The Sweetly Sung Queen- Sansa Stark- canon era
The Trials and Tribulations of Tywin Lannister, Time Traveler- Tywin- Canon era
The Wheel Unbroken- Jon Snow- Canon era
The Wolves Beneath the Weirwood- Jon Snow- s6
The cold remains the same- Book Jon back to show Jon body- s6 onwards.
There and Back again- Jon Snow- canon era
Time bows to neither man nor raven- Tywin Lannister- canon era
To go forward- Jon Snow- canon era
Twice Damned and Back again- Jon Snow- canon era
Twin Wolves of the North- Jon Snow- before Robert’s Rebellion
Valor Botis- Jon Snow-canon era
Wolves without teeth- Cat, Ned and the rest of the starks- post s8 era
You know too much, Jon Snow- Jon Snow- canon era
and give all the love that you have in your soul- Brienne, Jon Connington- Robert’s Rebellion era
2023.05.29 20:37 Werthead Sales of THE WHEEL OF TIME pass 100 million copies
Sales of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series have passed 100 million total books sold worldwide, according to publishers Tor via the Edelweiss Catalogue.
Last year, it was announced that Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of satirical secondary world fantasies had passed 100 million copies, putting it firmly ahead of both Jordan and Martin.
Other forms of fantasy have, of course, sold significantly more: the Harry Potter books have a likely-uncatchable tally of over 600 million copies sold. J.R.R. Tolkien has over 300 million books sold, whilst the Twilight series has sold an eye-popping quarter-billion copies. The Narnia books by C.S. Lewis have sold over 100 million copies as well.
According to the publishers, sales of The Wheel of Time have accelerated significantly, in the lead-up to the release of the Amazon television series in late 2021. The books have sold a cumulative 5 million copies globally since the end of 2020. As well as the TV series, sales have possibly been pushed by the crossover with Brandon Sanderson's enthusiastic and significantly large fanbase (Sanderson's own sales have reportedly recently crossed 30 million) - Sanderson cowrote the last three books in the series after Robert Jordan's passing in 2007 - and possibly the expansion of overseas markets, such as in India and Brazil where the television series apparently attracted significant interest.
The second season of the Wheel of Time TV series will launch on 1 September this year, and we will have to wait to see if sales are propelled further.
submitted by Werthead to Fantasy [link] [comments]
ROBERT JORDAN (1948-2007) is best known for his internationally bestselling epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time®, which has sold over 100 million copies worldwideThe Wheel of Time series was, for many years, the biggest-selling post-Tolkien epic fantasy series, with immense global sales and popularity ever since its 1990 launch (when the initial hardcover printing of its very first book sold over 40,000 copies in hardcover, figures an author would sell both kidneys and a spleen for today). Its position was eventually usurped by George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which, propelled by the incredible success of its HBO TV adaptation, Game of Thrones, sailed to over 90 million sales earlier in the 2010s. It appears that ASoIaF's sales had outperformed those of Wheel of Time by around 2018.
EXPLOSIVE SALES POTENTIAL: The Wheel of Time series sold 2.5M copies in 2021, with the release of season 1 in November-December, and followed that up with 2.3M copies sold in 2022 despite a 2-year gap between seasons 1 and 2. This number compares very favorably to sales of the Witcher in a similar time period (about 15-30% higher), and we expect to see renewed sales for season 2 in 2023.
Last year, it was announced that Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of satirical secondary world fantasies had passed 100 million copies, putting it firmly ahead of both Jordan and Martin.
Other forms of fantasy have, of course, sold significantly more: the Harry Potter books have a likely-uncatchable tally of over 600 million copies sold. J.R.R. Tolkien has over 300 million books sold, whilst the Twilight series has sold an eye-popping quarter-billion copies. The Narnia books by C.S. Lewis have sold over 100 million copies as well.
According to the publishers, sales of The Wheel of Time have accelerated significantly, in the lead-up to the release of the Amazon television series in late 2021. The books have sold a cumulative 5 million copies globally since the end of 2020. As well as the TV series, sales have possibly been pushed by the crossover with Brandon Sanderson's enthusiastic and significantly large fanbase (Sanderson's own sales have reportedly recently crossed 30 million) - Sanderson cowrote the last three books in the series after Robert Jordan's passing in 2007 - and possibly the expansion of overseas markets, such as in India and Brazil where the television series apparently attracted significant interest.
The second season of the Wheel of Time TV series will launch on 1 September this year, and we will have to wait to see if sales are propelled further.
2023.05.29 20:37 Werthead Sales of THE WHEEL OF TIME pass 100 million copies
Sales of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series have passed 100 million total books sold worldwide, according to publishers Tor via the Edelweiss Catalogue.
In 2020, it was announced that Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of satirical secondary world fantasies had passed 100 million copies, putting it firmly ahead of both Jordan and Martin.
Other forms of fantasy have, of course, sold significantly more: the Harry Potter books have a likely-uncatchable tally of over 600 million copies sold. J.R.R. Tolkien has over 300 million books sold, whilst the Twilight series has sold an eye-popping quarter-billion copies. The Narnia books by C.S. Lewis have sold over 100 million copies as well.
According to the publishers, sales of The Wheel of Time have accelerated significantly, in the lead-up to the release of the Amazon television series in late 2021. The books have sold a cumulative 5 million copies globally since the end of 2020. As well as the TV series, sales have possibly been pushed by the crossover with Brandon Sanderson's enthusiastic and significantly large fanbase (Sanderson's own sales have reportedly recently crossed 30 million) - Sanderson cowrote the last three books in the series after Robert Jordan's passing in 2007 - and possibly the expansion of overseas markets, such as in India and Brazil where the television series apparently attracted significant interest.
The second season of the Wheel of Time TV series will launch on 1 September this year, and we will have to wait to see if sales are propelled further.
submitted by Werthead to WoT [link] [comments]
ROBERT JORDAN (1948-2007) is best known for his internationally bestselling epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time®, which has sold over 100 million copies worldwideThe Wheel of Time series was, for many years, the biggest-selling post-Tolkien epic fantasy series, with immense global sales and popularity ever since its 1990 launch (when the initial hardcover printing of its very first book sold over 40,000 copies in hardcover, figures an author would sell both kidneys and a spleen for today). Its position was eventually usurped by George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which, propelled by the incredible success of its HBO TV adaptation, Game of Thrones, sailed to over 90 million sales earlier in the 2010s. It appears that ASoIaF's sales had outperformed those of Wheel of Time by around 2018.
EXPLOSIVE SALES POTENTIAL: The Wheel of Time series sold 2.5M copies in 2021, with the release of season 1 in November-December, and followed that up with 2.3M copies sold in 2022 despite a 2-year gap between seasons 1 and 2. This number compares very favorably to sales of the Witcher in a similar time period (about 15-30% higher), and we expect to see renewed sales for season 2 in 2023.
In 2020, it was announced that Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of satirical secondary world fantasies had passed 100 million copies, putting it firmly ahead of both Jordan and Martin.
Other forms of fantasy have, of course, sold significantly more: the Harry Potter books have a likely-uncatchable tally of over 600 million copies sold. J.R.R. Tolkien has over 300 million books sold, whilst the Twilight series has sold an eye-popping quarter-billion copies. The Narnia books by C.S. Lewis have sold over 100 million copies as well.
According to the publishers, sales of The Wheel of Time have accelerated significantly, in the lead-up to the release of the Amazon television series in late 2021. The books have sold a cumulative 5 million copies globally since the end of 2020. As well as the TV series, sales have possibly been pushed by the crossover with Brandon Sanderson's enthusiastic and significantly large fanbase (Sanderson's own sales have reportedly recently crossed 30 million) - Sanderson cowrote the last three books in the series after Robert Jordan's passing in 2007 - and possibly the expansion of overseas markets, such as in India and Brazil where the television series apparently attracted significant interest.
The second season of the Wheel of Time TV series will launch on 1 September this year, and we will have to wait to see if sales are propelled further.
2023.05.29 19:15 M_Tootles The Recursive Homecomings Of Petyr & Theon Part 7: Sights-Seen While Sight-Seeing (Spoilers Extended)
This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "prefigures" and/or "informs" and/or "is reworked by" and/or "finds a recursive 'rhyme' in".
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 6 left off. You can read Part 6 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE]. The other posts in this (sub)series are indexed at the link.
Here I'll just note a few highlights (all of which are further explained in the appendix):
But it also 'rhymes' with and prefigures the "hermit's cave" (another rock formation!) being all that remains of the hermit that used to live on Petyr's land:
Where Theon leaves the captain's daughter, whom he's grown bored of, to (in effect) go sight-seeing (which causes her to start crying), Petyr relieves the Hand's daughter's boredom by taking her sight-seeing (after it stops raining):
Where Theon's sight-seeing entails a keep "rebuilt in stone" that triggers memories of Robert Baratheon's invasion, Petyr's sight-seeing entails a chiseled boulder that marks the spot of the Andal invasion of the Vale.
Where the first thing Theon sees as he approaches port is a "small" stone keep with "squat" towers, the first thing Petyr points out to Sansa as they approach land is his own "small", three-story stone tower.
It also 'just so happens' that Lord Botley's sigil—
Lord Botley's name, "Sawane", reads almost like a phonetic spelling of [Samhain]. Given the 'rhyme' between the Botley and Baelish arms, this simply piles more fuel on the fire of Littlefinger being involved in some kind of religious heresy. (See my Littlefinger is Hoare-ish series.)
Finally, I wonder whether this line re: Botley's tower—
Where Botley's is a "fish-ridden little castle", the Drearfort has recently been rid of six of its sheep—
And where "few traces" of Robert's invasion "remained… after ten years", after thousands of years, "few traces" remain of the Andal invasion: just the boulder "chiseled" with "the seven-pointed star of the new gods" on Petyr's own bleak, desolate, unpopulated shore.
That chiseled holy boulder is prefigured by what Theon sees next: "cut stone" and the foundation of an abandoned sept.
(Do the "hovels" of the smallfolk here presage the "huts" of Petyr's smallfolk, as well? The "new hovels" being "built… with the stones of the old" 'rhymes' with the "huts" on the Smallest Finger being made of "piled stone". And the "fresh sod" on their roofs 'rhymes' with the "peat bog" beside the Baelish "huts".)
(Again, in what follows, "→" means "prefigures" and/or "informs" and/or "is reworked by" and/or "finds a recursive 'rhyme' in".)
How so?
Consider…
bare and barren islands → farther inland
"bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
How so?
Consider…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"
How so?
Consider…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed"
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" = the angry waves crashed among…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea … [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder"
"The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her [i.e. Sansa] around his holdings" (a rocky point)
"Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking." → "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
There's a fair bit of overdetermination here.
submitted by M_Tootles to asoiaf [link] [comments]
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE]. The other posts in this (sub)series are indexed at the link.
Theon's First Sight-Seeing Trip To The Deck of the Myraham → Petyr's Sight-Seeing Trip With Sansa
When Petyr and Sansa go on a sight-seeing tour of his lands, we read:When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said. There was one place where the tide came jetting up out of a blowhole to shoot thirty feet into the air, and another where someone had chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder. Petyr said that marked one of the places the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea to wrest the Vale from the First Men.To me, much of that language from Petyr's 'sight-seeing tour' feels immediately like a kaleidoscopic, 'rhyming' recursion of what he read when Theon is standing on the deck of the Myraham in order to take in the sight of castle Pyke as the ship sails by:
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog. "Mine own smallfolk," Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him. There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now, but when I was a boy my father took me to see him. The man had not washed in forty years…
The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.In an appendix, I attempt to map out in detail how this 'rhyming' works, but it's my hope that having read those passages, you can already 'smell' the 'rhyming', such that the appendix is skimmable overkill underlining a mostly-obvious point.
Here I'll just note a few highlights (all of which are further explained in the appendix):
- "bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" [on which the Greyjoys and their servants live] ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog"
- three bare and barren (as in infertile) islands in the sea → a blowhole where the tide "came jetting… to shoot thirty feet into the air", like a sperm whale
"three bare…" → "thirty feet…" [see: 'bare feet'] - "the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"
Even the ironborn—the fierce, sea-roving warriors who must have at first thought themselves safe upon their isles—fell to the wave of Andal conquest. (TWOIAF)
- "the angry waves foamed and crashed among… a dozen towering stacks of rock… like the pillars of some sea god's temple" created when those "angry waves… hammered at… the point of land… thousands of years past" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed… [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder", thousands of years past
All That Remained
We're told that three rock islands and twelve stacks of rock, likened to "some sea god's temple", were "all that remained" of Pyke's sword-shaped penisula after the angry waves "hammered" it:All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.This 'rhymes' first of all with Petyr's boulder "chiseled [with] the seven-pointed star of the new gods" being all that remains to "mark… the place… the Andals had landed" with their steel swords.
But it also 'rhymes' with and prefigures the "hermit's cave" (another rock formation!) being all that remains of the hermit that used to live on Petyr's land:
There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now…."Notice that the Greyjoy rock formations (a) number three and twelve, which are highly significant numbers in Christianity (twelve apostles, holy trinity), and (b) are likened to "some sea god's temple". Petyr's hermit's cave thus 'answers' Pyke's 'temple', because hermits are traditionally associated with religion, especially Christianity. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit.)
Remained → Rained?
Consider also the lines that set the stage for the sight-seeing 'field trip' Petyr takes Sansa:It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog.Compare with the line about the sea god's "temple":
All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.
- Three barren islands remained → On five days of eight it rained (such that three rain-free — i.e. 'barren' — days remained)
- Angry waves foamed and crashed → days of rain + (mad, angry) Lysa Arryn (and her "storms") arrived
- structure: "while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old dog"
"foamed and crashed" → "sat bored and restless"
"among them" → "by the fire, beside the old dog" - numbers: three, twelve → eight, five
Sight-Seeing At Lordsport
After Theon takes in the sight of castle Pyke from the deck of the Myraham, he goes below deck, where he makes the captain's daughter swallow his "seed". He then tells her he'll be leaving her behind when they reach shore and goes back up on deck to take in the sight of Lordsport:She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.Notice that Theon is pretty much explicitly sight seeing there (inasmuch as he "moved to the bow for a better view".)
The Myraham was rounding a wooded point. Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking. Theon moved to the bow for a better view.
Where Theon leaves the captain's daughter, whom he's grown bored of, to (in effect) go sight-seeing (which causes her to start crying), Petyr relieves the Hand's daughter's boredom by taking her sight-seeing (after it stops raining):
When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said.Theon's view as he comes on deck to survey the approach to Lordsport seems to (further) inform some of the things Petyr sees when walks around his rocky holding holdings with Sansa. Compare this—
The Myraham was rounding a wooded point. Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking.—and this:
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog.I'll detail this 'rhyme' in an appendix, but I hope you can already smell it. The bottom line(s):
- "The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her [i.e. Sansa] around his holdings" (where his holding are a rocky point)
- "Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking." → "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
tacking (cog) → tacky → sticky → peat bog (sticky place to get stuck)
Lords Botley & Baelish
Theon then sees the castle of Lord Botley:He saw the castle first, the stronghold of the Botleys. When he was a boy it had been timber and wattle, but Robert Baratheon had razed that structure to the ground. Lord Sawane had rebuilt in stone, for now a small square keep crowned the hill. Pale green flags drooped from the squat corner towers, each emblazoned with a shoal of silvery fish.The sight of the stone castle causes Theon to remember something from his boyhood that isn't there anymore (i.e. Lord Botley's old timber and wattle tower), much as the sight of the hermit's cave reminds Petyr of the hermit from his boyhood. And just as Petyr's hermit is missing, so is Lord Botley, who Theon think might come to meet him—
As the Myraham made her way landward, Theon paced the deck restlessly, scanning the shore. He had not thought to find Lord Balon himself at quayside, but surely his father would have sent someone to meet him. Sylas Sourmouth the steward, Lord Botley, perhaps even Dagmer Cleftjaw.—but who does not.
Where Theon's sight-seeing entails a keep "rebuilt in stone" that triggers memories of Robert Baratheon's invasion, Petyr's sight-seeing entails a chiseled boulder that marks the spot of the Andal invasion of the Vale.
Where the first thing Theon sees as he approaches port is a "small" stone keep with "squat" towers, the first thing Petyr points out to Sansa as they approach land is his own "small", three-story stone tower.
It also 'just so happens' that Lord Botley's sigil—
a shoal of silvery fish on pale green—prefigures both Petyr's current sigil—
a field of silver mockingbirds on green—and, by virtue of being "pale green", the "light green" of Petyr's grandfather's sigil as well.
Lord Botley's name, "Sawane", reads almost like a phonetic spelling of [Samhain]. Given the 'rhyme' between the Botley and Baelish arms, this simply piles more fuel on the fire of Littlefinger being involved in some kind of religious heresy. (See my Littlefinger is Hoare-ish series.)
Finally, I wonder whether this line re: Botley's tower—
Robert Baratheon had razed that structure to the ground.—may have informed this description of Baelish Tower:
A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower, grazing on the thin grass that grew between the sheepfold and thatched stable. Sansa had to step carefully; there were pellets everywhere.
Dubious Protection, Animal-Ridden, Aswarm With Sh__.
The next line of ACOK Theon I continues the prefiguration of Petyr's homecoming — including quite specifically those "pellets everywhere" — in all kinds of ways:Beneath the dubious protection of the fish-ridden little castle lay the village of Lordsport, its harbor aswarm with ships.Where Lordsport is "aswarm with ships", the Drearfort's yard is aswarm with shit, so to speak. (Sheepshit.)
Where Botley's is a "fish-ridden little castle", the Drearfort has recently been rid of six of its sheep—
How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"—and it's a 'dog-ridden little castle' for certain:
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.Where Botley's stronghold offers "dubious protection", "guard" duty at the Drearfort is carried out by the 'dubious' tandem of an eighty-year old man and his dogs—
He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …—dogs who are 'dubious protectors' of the very thing they're supposed to protect most: Petyr's "vast herds" of sheep:
"…Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
"There was nine and twenty [sheep], but Bryen's dogs killed one…."
Invasions & The Faith
As Theon's sight-seeing continues, we are told all about Robert's invasion:When last he'd seen Lordsport, it had been a smoking wasteland, the skeletons of burnt longships and smashed galleys littering the stony shore like the bones of dead leviathans, the houses no more than broken walls and cold ashes. After ten years, few traces of the war remained.The reference to "leviathans" (i.e. whales) on "the stony shore" prefigures the whale-like "blowhole" on Petyr's (verbatim) "stony shore".
And where "few traces" of Robert's invasion "remained… after ten years", after thousands of years, "few traces" remain of the Andal invasion: just the boulder "chiseled" with "the seven-pointed star of the new gods" on Petyr's own bleak, desolate, unpopulated shore.
That chiseled holy boulder is prefigured by what Theon sees next: "cut stone" and the foundation of an abandoned sept.
The smallfolk had built new hovels with the stones of the old, and cut fresh sod for their roofs. A new inn had risen beside the landing, twice the size of the old one, with a lower story of cut stone and two upper stories of timber. The sept beyond had never been rebuilt, though; only a seven-sided foundation remained where it had stood. Robert Baratheon's fury had soured the ironmen's taste for the new gods, it would seem.Just as the Faithful of the Seven have abandoned their sept, so have the holy warriors who chiseled the "star of the new gods" on Petyr's boulder long since moved on. (Nor is there any sign of the Faith at the Drearfort nor once Littlefinger accedes to rule the Eyrie.)
(Do the "hovels" of the smallfolk here presage the "huts" of Petyr's smallfolk, as well? The "new hovels" being "built… with the stones of the old" 'rhymes' with the "huts" on the Smallest Finger being made of "piled stone". And the "fresh sod" on their roofs 'rhymes' with the "peat bog" beside the Baelish "huts".)
Spiraling Recursion
Yes, I know: I'm pointing out multiple prefigurations and resonances for many things. E.g. Theon sees his dozen stacks of rock, then his dozen fishing boats, and both vignettes resonate with Petyr's dozen families and their huts, as do the hovels of Lordsport with their fresh sod roofs, perhaps. But that's the point, I think. The books are constantly recursive. Spirals upon spirals! There's a reason the triple spiral of House Massey — a house with almost no role in the story prior to ADWD — is singled out as "an ancient sigil for an ancient house" in TWOW Theon I. I suspect spirals are where it all began, in a way, in that recursivity is the core of GRRM's project in ASOIAF. The Song is all about 'rhyming'.END
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 8: Sylas Sourmouth & Silas Marner; Theon's Uncle & Petyr's Hermit; Petyr Pan & Wendamyr Darling
APPENDIX TO MAIN POST
Appendix
This appendix will further breakdown and detail a few major 'rhymes' between Theon's sight-seeing trips to the deck of the Myraham and Petyr's sight-seeing tour of his lands, as mentioned in the main body of the post. It's hopefully superfluous overkill as regards establishing the general resonance between the passages in question, but it may nevertheless be of interest to those interested in going down the rabbit-hole, so to speak.Theon's First Sight-Seeing Trip To The Deck of the Myraham → Petyr's Sight-Seeing Trip With Sansa
When Theon is standing on the deck of the Myraham in order to take in the sight of castle Pyke as the ship sails by, we read:The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.When Petyr and Sansa go on a sight-seeing tour of his lands, we read:
When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said. There was one place where the tide came jetting up out of a blowhole to shoot thirty feet into the air, and another where someone had chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder. Petyr said that marked one of the places the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea to wrest the Vale from the First Men.In what follows, I'll map some ways in which the bolded language from Petyr's homecoming feels like it could be a kaleidoscopic recursion of the bolded langauge from Theon's homecoming.
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog. "Mine own smallfolk," Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him. There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now, but when I was a boy my father took me to see him. The man had not washed in forty years…
(Again, in what follows, "→" means "prefigures" and/or "informs" and/or "is reworked by" and/or "finds a recursive 'rhyme' in".)
A Dozen Stacks of Rock, A Dozen Huts of Piled Stone
"bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."How so?
Consider…
bare and barren islands → farther inland
- islands → inland
- bar- and bar- → far-
- bare and (furthermore a.k.a. farthermore) barren → farther
- thus: bare and barren islands → farther inland
- towering ≈ towers → huts
- stacks of rock ≈ piles of stone → piled stone
- thus: towering stacks of rock → huts of piled stone
- a dozen → a dozen
- towering stacks of rock → huts of piled stone (see above)
- families (Greyjoy and servants) live on those towering stacks of rock
- thus: a dozen towering stacks of rock → a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone
- the "stacks of rock that rose from the water" ≈ the stacks of rock rose from the sea
- "huts of piled stone beside a peat bog" ≈ the huts of piled stone rose by the peat
- thus: the stacks of rock rose from the sea → the huts of piled stone rose by the peat
"bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
The Stacks of Rock Come Round Again
- "towering stacks of rock" (where 'stacks' connotes money/wealth and where it sounds like rocks are stacked like coins) → Petyr "owned a lot of rocks"
- "a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" → "the tide came jetting up… to shoot [as if fired from a gun] thirty feet into the air"
"dozen" → "thirty"
"rock" & "water" → (implied) fire & "air"
"rock that rose from the water" → "tide came jetting up… into the air"
Three & Thirty
- "three bare…" → "thirty feet…"
three → thirty
bare → feet [as in 'bare feet'] - three bare and barren (as in infertile) islands in the sea → a blowhole where the tide "came jetting… to shoot thirty feet into the air", like a sperm whale
Angry Waves & Andals
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"How so?
Consider…
- "the angry waves" → the Andals… came across the sea"
confirmed by the wave of Andal conquest in TWOIAF:
Even the ironborn—the fierce, sea-roving warriors who must have at first thought themselves safe upon their isles—fell to the wave of Andal conquest.
- "foamed and crashed" → "to wrest"
- "them" = Pyke's "towering stacks of rock" on which ironborn kings live → the mountainous Vale in which First Men kings lived
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"
Angry Waves & Andals 2
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea … [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder"How so?
Consider…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed"
- "the angry waves" → the Andals, who "came across the sea"
- "crashed" → "landed" ('crash-landed')
- thus: "the angry waves foamed and crashed" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed"
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" = the angry waves crashed among…
…a dozen towering stacks of rock… like the pillars of some sea god's temple……created when the angry waves…
…hammered at… the point of land… thousands of years past.
- the angry waves "hammered" → the Andals "chiseled"
- "point of land" → "pointed star"
- Pyke's "point of land" was "hammered" into a dozen stacks of rock → Petyr's boulder was "chiseled" with a seven-pointed star
- "some sea god" → "the new gods"
- "some sea god's temple" → the sign "of the new gods"
- one (point), three (islands), a dozen (stacks) → seven (sacred numbers)
- thus: "the angry waves… hammered… the point of land" into "a dozen… stacks of rock… like the pillars of some sea god's temple… thousands of years past…" ➔ "the Andals… chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder", thousands of years past per ADWD Jaime I:
Only no one knows when the Andals crossed the narrow sea. The True History says four thousand years have passed since then, but some maesters claim that it was only two. (ADWD Jaime I)
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea … [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder"
Sight-Seeing At Lordsport Redux
In the body of the essay, I talked about how this bit of Theon's approach to Lordsport—She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.—prefigures in particular two passages from Petyr's sight-seeing tour:
The Myraham was rounding a wooded point. Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking. Theon moved to the bow for a better view.
When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said.Consider:
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog.
"The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her [i.e. Sansa] around his holdings" (a rocky point)
- The Myraham carries Theon and the captain's daughter
- Theon & the captain's daughter (child-groomer and his prey) → Petyr & Sansa (child-groomer and his prey)
- thus: The Myraham → Petyr & Sansa
- "The Myraham was rounding…" → "Petyr walked with her [Sansa] around…"
- Petyr's "holdings" ≈ "He owned a lot of rocks" ≈ rocky, and…
- Petyr's "holdings" ≈ the Smallest Finger, and…
- the Smallest Finger ≈ a point of land, and fingers point, so…
- Petyr's "holdings" ≈ a rocky point
- a wooded point → a rocky point, so…
- "a wooded point" → "his holdings" (a rocky point)
- thus: "The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her around his holdings" (a rocky point)
"Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking." → "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
There's a fair bit of overdetermination here.
- a dozen fishing boats → a dozen families
- pulling in their nets → liv[ing] in [their] huts
- a dozen fishing boats pulling in their nets → a dozen families living in their huts
- "huts of piled stone" ≈ piled stone huts, so…
- pine-clad bluffs → piled stone huts
- a dozen fishing boats pulling in their nets below the pine-clad bluffs → a dozen families living in their piled stone huts
Given that "Bog devils" are fishing geniuses who wield nets… - fishing (boats) and/or nets → peat bogs
- pine-clad bluffs → peat bog
- thus: "a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets… below the pine clad bluffs" → a dozen families were living in their piled stone huts beside a peat bog
But also re:
The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking.
- big cog → peat bog
- b-ig c-og → bog
- tacking ≈ tacky ≈ sticky ≈ getting stuck
- bog ≈ place to get stuck:
Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. [I]f you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down…. (Note the literal rhyming wordplay: pluck/suck.) (AGOT Sansa I)
"The bogs here are impenetrable, full of quicksands and suckholes (lol)…. To assault any of the towers, an army would need to wade through waist-deep black muck…." (AGOT Catelyn VIII)
- so: big cog tacking → peat bog
- the big cog tacking "stayed well out" from the fishing boats → the peat bog being "farther inland"
but also… - The fishing boats being perforce well in (toward land) from the big cog → the families huts lying "farther inland" besides the peat bog
Thus we might say… - Well in from the tacking big cog, "a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets… below the pine clad bluffs" ➔ Farther inland, beside the peat bog, a dozen families were living in their piled stone huts
and/or… - The big cog stayed well out from the dozen fishing boats pulling in their nets below the pine clad bluffs ➔ Farther inland, a dozen families were living in their piled stone huts beside the peat bog
"Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking."—can be read as 'rhyming' with and recursively prefiguring this:
"Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
END APPENDIX
2023.05.29 19:13 M_Tootles The Recursive Homecomings Of Petyr & Theon Part 7: Sights-Seen While Sight-Seeing (Spoilers TWOW)
This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "prefigures" and/or "informs" and/or "is reworked by" and/or "finds a recursive 'rhyme' in".
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 6 left off. You can read Part 6 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE]. The other posts in this (sub)series are indexed at the link.
Here I'll just note a few highlights (all of which are further explained in the appendix):
But it also 'rhymes' with and prefigures the "hermit's cave" (another rock formation!) being all that remains of the hermit that used to live on Petyr's land:
Where Theon leaves the captain's daughter, whom he's grown bored of, to (in effect) go sight-seeing (which causes her to start crying), Petyr relieves the Hand's daughter's boredom by taking her sight-seeing (after it stops raining):
Where Theon's sight-seeing entails a keep "rebuilt in stone" that triggers memories of Robert Baratheon's invasion, Petyr's sight-seeing entails a chiseled boulder that marks the spot of the Andal invasion of the Vale.
Where the first thing Theon sees as he approaches port is a "small" stone keep with "squat" towers, the first thing Petyr points out to Sansa as they approach land is his own "small", three-story stone tower.
It also 'just so happens' that Lord Botley's sigil—
Lord Botley's name, "Sawane", reads almost like a phonetic spelling of [Samhain]. Given the 'rhyme' between the Botley and Baelish arms, this simply piles more fuel on the fire of Littlefinger being involved in some kind of religious heresy. (See my Littlefinger is Hoare-ish series.)
Finally, I wonder whether this line re: Botley's tower—
Where Botley's is a "fish-ridden little castle", the Drearfort has recently been rid of six of its sheep—
And where "few traces" of Robert's invasion "remained… after ten years", after thousands of years, "few traces" remain of the Andal invasion: just the boulder "chiseled" with "the seven-pointed star of the new gods" on Petyr's own bleak, desolate, unpopulated shore.
That chiseled holy boulder is prefigured by what Theon sees next: "cut stone" and the foundation of an abandoned sept.
(Do the "hovels" of the smallfolk here presage the "huts" of Petyr's smallfolk, as well? The "new hovels" being "built… with the stones of the old" 'rhymes' with the "huts" on the Smallest Finger being made of "piled stone". And the "fresh sod" on their roofs 'rhymes' with the "peat bog" beside the Baelish "huts".)
(Again, in what follows, "→" means "prefigures" and/or "informs" and/or "is reworked by" and/or "finds a recursive 'rhyme' in".)
How so?
Consider…
bare and barren islands → farther inland
"bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
How so?
Consider…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"
How so?
Consider…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed"
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" = the angry waves crashed among…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea … [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder"
"The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her [i.e. Sansa] around his holdings" (a rocky point)
"Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking." → "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
There's a fair bit of overdetermination here.
submitted by M_Tootles to pureasoiaf [link] [comments]
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE]. The other posts in this (sub)series are indexed at the link.
Theon's First Sight-Seeing Trip To The Deck of the Myraham → Petyr's Sight-Seeing Trip With Sansa
When Petyr and Sansa go on a sight-seeing tour of his lands, we read:When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said. There was one place where the tide came jetting up out of a blowhole to shoot thirty feet into the air, and another where someone had chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder. Petyr said that marked one of the places the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea to wrest the Vale from the First Men.To me, much of that language from Petyr's 'sight-seeing tour' feels immediately like a kaleidoscopic, 'rhyming' recursion of what he read when Theon is standing on the deck of the Myraham in order to take in the sight of castle Pyke as the ship sails by:
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog. "Mine own smallfolk," Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him. There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now, but when I was a boy my father took me to see him. The man had not washed in forty years…
The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.In an appendix, I attempt to map out in detail how this 'rhyming' works, but it's my hope that having read those passages, you can already 'smell' the 'rhyming', such that the appendix is skimmable overkill underlining a mostly-obvious point.
Here I'll just note a few highlights (all of which are further explained in the appendix):
- "bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" [on which the Greyjoys and their servants live] ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog"
- three bare and barren (as in infertile) islands in the sea → a blowhole where the tide "came jetting… to shoot thirty feet into the air", like a sperm whale
"three bare…" → "thirty feet…" [see: 'bare feet'] - "the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"
Even the ironborn—the fierce, sea-roving warriors who must have at first thought themselves safe upon their isles—fell to the wave of Andal conquest. (TWOIAF)
- "the angry waves foamed and crashed among… a dozen towering stacks of rock… like the pillars of some sea god's temple" created when those "angry waves… hammered at… the point of land… thousands of years past" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed… [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder", thousands of years past
All That Remained
We're told that three rock islands and twelve stacks of rock, likened to "some sea god's temple", were "all that remained" of Pyke's sword-shaped penisula after the angry waves "hammered" it:All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.This 'rhymes' first of all with Petyr's boulder "chiseled [with] the seven-pointed star of the new gods" being all that remains to "mark… the place… the Andals had landed" with their steel swords.
But it also 'rhymes' with and prefigures the "hermit's cave" (another rock formation!) being all that remains of the hermit that used to live on Petyr's land:
There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now…."Notice that the Greyjoy rock formations (a) number three and twelve, which are highly significant numbers in Christianity (twelve apostles, holy trinity), and (b) are likened to "some sea god's temple". Petyr's hermit's cave thus 'answers' Pyke's 'temple', because hermits are traditionally associated with religion, especially Christianity. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit.)
Remained → Rained?
Consider also the lines that set the stage for the sight-seeing 'field trip' Petyr takes Sansa:It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog.Compare with the line about the sea god's "temple":
All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.
- Three barren islands remained → On five days of eight it rained (such that three rain-free — i.e. 'barren' — days remained)
- Angry waves foamed and crashed → days of rain + (mad, angry) Lysa Arryn (and her "storms") arrived
- structure: "while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old dog"
"foamed and crashed" → "sat bored and restless"
"among them" → "by the fire, beside the old dog" - numbers: three, twelve → eight, five
Sight-Seeing At Lordsport
After Theon takes in the sight of castle Pyke from the deck of the Myraham, he goes below deck, where he makes the captain's daughter swallow his "seed". He then tells her he'll be leaving her behind when they reach shore and goes back up on deck to take in the sight of Lordsport:She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.Notice that Theon is pretty much explicitly sight seeing there (inasmuch as he "moved to the bow for a better view".)
The Myraham was rounding a wooded point. Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking. Theon moved to the bow for a better view.
Where Theon leaves the captain's daughter, whom he's grown bored of, to (in effect) go sight-seeing (which causes her to start crying), Petyr relieves the Hand's daughter's boredom by taking her sight-seeing (after it stops raining):
When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said.Theon's view as he comes on deck to survey the approach to Lordsport seems to (further) inform some of the things Petyr sees when walks around his rocky holding holdings with Sansa. Compare this—
The Myraham was rounding a wooded point. Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking.—and this:
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog.I'll detail this 'rhyme' in an appendix, but I hope you can already smell it. The bottom line(s):
- "The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her [i.e. Sansa] around his holdings" (where his holding are a rocky point)
- "Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking." → "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
tacking (cog) → tacky → sticky → peat bog (sticky place to get stuck)
Lords Botley & Baelish
Theon then sees the castle of Lord Botley:He saw the castle first, the stronghold of the Botleys. When he was a boy it had been timber and wattle, but Robert Baratheon had razed that structure to the ground. Lord Sawane had rebuilt in stone, for now a small square keep crowned the hill. Pale green flags drooped from the squat corner towers, each emblazoned with a shoal of silvery fish.The sight of the stone castle causes Theon to remember something from his boyhood that isn't there anymore (i.e. Lord Botley's old timber and wattle tower), much as the sight of the hermit's cave reminds Petyr of the hermit from his boyhood. And just as Petyr's hermit is missing, so is Lord Botley, who Theon think might come to meet him—
As the Myraham made her way landward, Theon paced the deck restlessly, scanning the shore. He had not thought to find Lord Balon himself at quayside, but surely his father would have sent someone to meet him. Sylas Sourmouth the steward, Lord Botley, perhaps even Dagmer Cleftjaw.—but who does not.
Where Theon's sight-seeing entails a keep "rebuilt in stone" that triggers memories of Robert Baratheon's invasion, Petyr's sight-seeing entails a chiseled boulder that marks the spot of the Andal invasion of the Vale.
Where the first thing Theon sees as he approaches port is a "small" stone keep with "squat" towers, the first thing Petyr points out to Sansa as they approach land is his own "small", three-story stone tower.
It also 'just so happens' that Lord Botley's sigil—
a shoal of silvery fish on pale green—prefigures both Petyr's current sigil—
a field of silver mockingbirds on green—and, by virtue of being "pale green", the "light green" of Petyr's grandfather's sigil as well.
Lord Botley's name, "Sawane", reads almost like a phonetic spelling of [Samhain]. Given the 'rhyme' between the Botley and Baelish arms, this simply piles more fuel on the fire of Littlefinger being involved in some kind of religious heresy. (See my Littlefinger is Hoare-ish series.)
Finally, I wonder whether this line re: Botley's tower—
Robert Baratheon had razed that structure to the ground.—may have informed this description of Baelish Tower:
A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower, grazing on the thin grass that grew between the sheepfold and thatched stable. Sansa had to step carefully; there were pellets everywhere.
Dubious Protection, Animal-Ridden, Aswarm With Sh__.
The next line of ACOK Theon I continues the prefiguration of Petyr's homecoming — including quite specifically those "pellets everywhere" — in all kinds of ways:Beneath the dubious protection of the fish-ridden little castle lay the village of Lordsport, its harbor aswarm with ships.Where Lordsport is "aswarm with ships", the Drearfort's yard is aswarm with shit, so to speak. (Sheepshit.)
Where Botley's is a "fish-ridden little castle", the Drearfort has recently been rid of six of its sheep—
How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"—and it's a 'dog-ridden little castle' for certain:
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.Where Botley's stronghold offers "dubious protection", "guard" duty at the Drearfort is carried out by the 'dubious' tandem of an eighty-year old man and his dogs—
He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …—dogs who are 'dubious protectors' of the very thing they're supposed to protect most: Petyr's "vast herds" of sheep:
"…Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
"There was nine and twenty [sheep], but Bryen's dogs killed one…."
Invasions & The Faith
As Theon's sight-seeing continues, we are told all about Robert's invasion:When last he'd seen Lordsport, it had been a smoking wasteland, the skeletons of burnt longships and smashed galleys littering the stony shore like the bones of dead leviathans, the houses no more than broken walls and cold ashes. After ten years, few traces of the war remained.The reference to "leviathans" (i.e. whales) on "the stony shore" prefigures the whale-like "blowhole" on Petyr's (verbatim) "stony shore".
And where "few traces" of Robert's invasion "remained… after ten years", after thousands of years, "few traces" remain of the Andal invasion: just the boulder "chiseled" with "the seven-pointed star of the new gods" on Petyr's own bleak, desolate, unpopulated shore.
That chiseled holy boulder is prefigured by what Theon sees next: "cut stone" and the foundation of an abandoned sept.
The smallfolk had built new hovels with the stones of the old, and cut fresh sod for their roofs. A new inn had risen beside the landing, twice the size of the old one, with a lower story of cut stone and two upper stories of timber. The sept beyond had never been rebuilt, though; only a seven-sided foundation remained where it had stood. Robert Baratheon's fury had soured the ironmen's taste for the new gods, it would seem.Just as the Faithful of the Seven have abandoned their sept, so have the holy warriors who chiseled the "star of the new gods" on Petyr's boulder long since moved on. (Nor is there any sign of the Faith at the Drearfort nor once Littlefinger accedes to rule the Eyrie.)
(Do the "hovels" of the smallfolk here presage the "huts" of Petyr's smallfolk, as well? The "new hovels" being "built… with the stones of the old" 'rhymes' with the "huts" on the Smallest Finger being made of "piled stone". And the "fresh sod" on their roofs 'rhymes' with the "peat bog" beside the Baelish "huts".)
Spiraling Recursion
Yes, I know: I'm pointing out multiple prefigurations and resonances for many things. E.g. Theon sees his dozen stacks of rock, then his dozen fishing boats, and both vignettes resonate with Petyr's dozen families and their huts, as do the hovels of Lordsport with their fresh sod roofs, perhaps. But that's the point, I think. The books are constantly recursive. Spirals upon spirals! There's a reason the triple spiral of House Massey — a house with almost no role in the story prior to ADWD — is singled out as "an ancient sigil for an ancient house" in TWOW Theon I. I suspect spirals are where it all began, in a way, in that recursivity is the core of GRRM's project in ASOIAF. The Song is all about 'rhyming'.END
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 8: Sylas Sourmouth & Silas Marner; Theon's Uncle & Petyr's Hermit; Petyr Pan & Wendamyr Darling
APPENDIX TO MAIN POST
Appendix
This appendix will further breakdown and detail a few major 'rhymes' between Theon's sight-seeing trips to the deck of the Myraham and Petyr's sight-seeing tour of his lands, as mentioned in the main body of the post. It's hopefully superfluous overkill as regards establishing the general resonance between the passages in question, but it may nevertheless be of interest to those interested in going down the rabbit-hole, so to speak.Theon's First Sight-Seeing Trip To The Deck of the Myraham → Petyr's Sight-Seeing Trip With Sansa
When Theon is standing on the deck of the Myraham in order to take in the sight of castle Pyke as the ship sails by, we read:The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.When Petyr and Sansa go on a sight-seeing tour of his lands, we read:
When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said. There was one place where the tide came jetting up out of a blowhole to shoot thirty feet into the air, and another where someone had chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder. Petyr said that marked one of the places the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea to wrest the Vale from the First Men.In what follows, I'll map some ways in which the bolded language from Petyr's homecoming feels like it could be a kaleidoscopic recursion of the bolded langauge from Theon's homecoming.
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog. "Mine own smallfolk," Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him. There was a hermit's cave on his land as well, but no hermit. "He's dead now, but when I was a boy my father took me to see him. The man had not washed in forty years…
(Again, in what follows, "→" means "prefigures" and/or "informs" and/or "is reworked by" and/or "finds a recursive 'rhyme' in".)
A Dozen Stacks of Rock, A Dozen Huts of Piled Stone
"bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."How so?
Consider…
bare and barren islands → farther inland
- islands → inland
- bar- and bar- → far-
- bare and (furthermore a.k.a. farthermore) barren → farther
- thus: bare and barren islands → farther inland
- towering ≈ towers → huts
- stacks of rock ≈ piles of stone → piled stone
- thus: towering stacks of rock → huts of piled stone
- a dozen → a dozen
- towering stacks of rock → huts of piled stone (see above)
- families (Greyjoy and servants) live on those towering stacks of rock
- thus: a dozen towering stacks of rock → a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone
- the "stacks of rock that rose from the water" ≈ the stacks of rock rose from the sea
- "huts of piled stone beside a peat bog" ≈ the huts of piled stone rose by the peat
- thus: the stacks of rock rose from the sea → the huts of piled stone rose by the peat
"bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" ➔ "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
The Stacks of Rock Come Round Again
- "towering stacks of rock" (where 'stacks' connotes money/wealth and where it sounds like rocks are stacked like coins) → Petyr "owned a lot of rocks"
- "a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water" → "the tide came jetting up… to shoot [as if fired from a gun] thirty feet into the air"
"dozen" → "thirty"
"rock" & "water" → (implied) fire & "air"
"rock that rose from the water" → "tide came jetting up… into the air"
Three & Thirty
- "three bare…" → "thirty feet…"
three → thirty
bare → feet [as in 'bare feet'] - three bare and barren (as in infertile) islands in the sea → a blowhole where the tide "came jetting… to shoot thirty feet into the air", like a sperm whale
Angry Waves & Andals
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"How so?
Consider…
- "the angry waves" → the Andals… came across the sea"
confirmed by the wave of Andal conquest in TWOIAF:
Even the ironborn—the fierce, sea-roving warriors who must have at first thought themselves safe upon their isles—fell to the wave of Andal conquest.
- "foamed and crashed" → "to wrest"
- "them" = Pyke's "towering stacks of rock" on which ironborn kings live → the mountainous Vale in which First Men kings lived
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals… came… to wrest the Vale from the First Men"
Angry Waves & Andals 2
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea … [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder"How so?
Consider…
"the angry waves foamed and crashed" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed"
- "the angry waves" → the Andals, who "came across the sea"
- "crashed" → "landed" ('crash-landed')
- thus: "the angry waves foamed and crashed" → "the Andals… came across the sea [and] landed"
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" = the angry waves crashed among…
…a dozen towering stacks of rock… like the pillars of some sea god's temple……created when the angry waves…
…hammered at… the point of land… thousands of years past.
- the angry waves "hammered" → the Andals "chiseled"
- "point of land" → "pointed star"
- Pyke's "point of land" was "hammered" into a dozen stacks of rock → Petyr's boulder was "chiseled" with a seven-pointed star
- "some sea god" → "the new gods"
- "some sea god's temple" → the sign "of the new gods"
- one (point), three (islands), a dozen (stacks) → seven (sacred numbers)
- thus: "the angry waves… hammered… the point of land" into "a dozen… stacks of rock… like the pillars of some sea god's temple… thousands of years past…" ➔ "the Andals… chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder", thousands of years past per ADWD Jaime I:
Only no one knows when the Andals crossed the narrow sea. The True History says four thousand years have passed since then, but some maesters claim that it was only two. (ADWD Jaime I)
"the angry waves foamed and crashed among them" → "the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea … [and] chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder"
Sight-Seeing At Lordsport Redux
In the body of the essay, I talked about how this bit of Theon's approach to Lordsport—She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.—prefigures in particular two passages from Petyr's sight-seeing tour:
The Myraham was rounding a wooded point. Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking. Theon moved to the bow for a better view.
When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. He owned a lot of rocks, just as he had said.Consider:
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog.
"The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her [i.e. Sansa] around his holdings" (a rocky point)
- The Myraham carries Theon and the captain's daughter
- Theon & the captain's daughter (child-groomer and his prey) → Petyr & Sansa (child-groomer and his prey)
- thus: The Myraham → Petyr & Sansa
- "The Myraham was rounding…" → "Petyr walked with her [Sansa] around…"
- Petyr's "holdings" ≈ "He owned a lot of rocks" ≈ rocky, and…
- Petyr's "holdings" ≈ the Smallest Finger, and…
- the Smallest Finger ≈ a point of land, and fingers point, so…
- Petyr's "holdings" ≈ a rocky point
- a wooded point → a rocky point, so…
- "a wooded point" → "his holdings" (a rocky point)
- thus: "The Myraham was rounding a wooded point" → "Petyr walked with her around his holdings" (a rocky point)
"Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking." → "Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
There's a fair bit of overdetermination here.
- a dozen fishing boats → a dozen families
- pulling in their nets → liv[ing] in [their] huts
- a dozen fishing boats pulling in their nets → a dozen families living in their huts
- "huts of piled stone" ≈ piled stone huts, so…
- pine-clad bluffs → piled stone huts
- a dozen fishing boats pulling in their nets below the pine-clad bluffs → a dozen families living in their piled stone huts
Given that "Bog devils" are fishing geniuses who wield nets… - fishing (boats) and/or nets → peat bogs
- pine-clad bluffs → peat bog
- thus: "a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets… below the pine clad bluffs" → a dozen families were living in their piled stone huts beside a peat bog
But also re:
The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking.
- big cog → peat bog
- b-ig c-og → bog
- tacking ≈ tacky ≈ sticky ≈ getting stuck
- bog ≈ place to get stuck:
Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. [I]f you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down…. (Note the literal rhyming wordplay: pluck/suck.) (AGOT Sansa I)
"The bogs here are impenetrable, full of quicksands and suckholes (lol)…. To assault any of the towers, an army would need to wade through waist-deep black muck…." (AGOT Catelyn VIII)
- so: big cog tacking → peat bog
- the big cog tacking "stayed well out" from the fishing boats → the peat bog being "farther inland"
but also… - The fishing boats being perforce well in (toward land) from the big cog → the families huts lying "farther inland" besides the peat bog
Thus we might say… - Well in from the tacking big cog, "a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets… below the pine clad bluffs" ➔ Farther inland, beside the peat bog, a dozen families were living in their piled stone huts
and/or… - The big cog stayed well out from the dozen fishing boats pulling in their nets below the pine clad bluffs ➔ Farther inland, a dozen families were living in their piled stone huts beside the peat bog
"Below the pine-clad bluffs, a dozen fishing boats were pulling in their nets. The big cog stayed well out from them, tacking."—can be read as 'rhyming' with and recursively prefiguring this:
"Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog."
END APPENDIX & END POST
2023.05.29 15:43 Kingofireland777 Come join our ASOIAF role play discord server!
We have a role play server run by some of the discord mods that I would like to advertise!
We are planning on doing a run in the Robert's Rebellion era, starting from when Rickard and Brandon die via Aerys shenanigans. The twist is that every character you play as is an SI! how would you survive in the world of Westeros without knowing that other SIs are here as well?
We are going to have a stat system as well as a character selection system where you get to order your choices on who you would like to be. So come along and change the depressing outcomes of some of the most interesting characters in this world.
The link is [here](https://discord.gg/9myFMqQFsZ)
if you are interested in becoming a bigger part of the asoiaf fanfic community, you are welcome to join TheCitadel's discord as well, link is here-https://discord.gg/asoiaffanficcommunity and as always is on the menu.
The deadline for the character selection is June the 3rd
submitted by Kingofireland777 to TheCitadel [link] [comments]
We are planning on doing a run in the Robert's Rebellion era, starting from when Rickard and Brandon die via Aerys shenanigans. The twist is that every character you play as is an SI! how would you survive in the world of Westeros without knowing that other SIs are here as well?
We are going to have a stat system as well as a character selection system where you get to order your choices on who you would like to be. So come along and change the depressing outcomes of some of the most interesting characters in this world.
The link is [here](https://discord.gg/9myFMqQFsZ)
if you are interested in becoming a bigger part of the asoiaf fanfic community, you are welcome to join TheCitadel's discord as well, link is here-https://discord.gg/asoiaffanficcommunity and as always is on the menu.
The deadline for the character selection is June the 3rd
2023.05.29 12:00 AutoModerator (Spoilers Main) Moonboy's Motley Monday
As you may know, we have a policy against silly posts/memes/etc. Moonboy's Motley Monday is the grand exception: bring me your memes, your puns, your blatant shitposts.
This is still /asoiaf, so do keep it as civil as possible.
If you have any clever ideas for weekly themes, shoot them to the modmail!
Looking for Moonboy's Motley Monday posts from the past? Browse our Moonboy's Motley Monday archive! (our old archive is here)
submitted by AutoModerator to asoiaf [link] [comments]
This is still /asoiaf, so do keep it as civil as possible.
If you have any clever ideas for weekly themes, shoot them to the modmail!
Looking for Moonboy's Motley Monday posts from the past? Browse our Moonboy's Motley Monday archive! (our old archive is here)
2023.05.29 05:21 CursedHarrenhal Will Alliser Thorne return/be elected as new Lord Commander? TWOW prediction (Spoilers Extended)
When Ser Alliser is sent off on a dangerous ranging beyond the Wall in ADWD, he warns Jon that if he is killed by the Others, he will come back for revenge as a wight. While that would make a pretty cool scene, I think it makes more sense for the story for Ser Alliser to come back. Here are my reasons:
1) GRRM could be purposely leading us to believe that Ser Alliser will die to set up readers to be surprised when he survives and is just fine.
2) Melisandre prophecizes that three of the nine rangers Jon Snow sent out will die, and that's what happens. She never predicts Ser Alliser's death.
3) Ser Alliser was a knight in King's Landing who served the Targaryens before the rebellion. Given that we all know R + L = J, its interesting that Ser Alliser may have known Rhaegar Targaryen personally. Perhaps they were even friends (or enemies). When Jon Snow learns his parentage, I think he's going to embrace his Targaryen identity (all that foreshadowing about not being welcome in the Stark's home). It could be interesting to explore this connection
4) Ser Alliser is kinda a core character. He's been in it since the first book. He's arguably Jon Snow's main antagonist, and Jon Snow is arguably the main character of the series. Snow worries about Ser Alliser and his associates even after he is sent off. Him returning as a mindless wight would eliminate all of the character drama that Alliser has.
5) Now that Jon Snow is dead, a new "choosing" will happen to pick the new Lord Commander. Cotter Pyke is in trouble at Hardhome (possibly dead), Denys Mallister is at the Shadow Tower, and Janos Slynt is dead. The most obvious choices to me are Othell Yarwyck; Bowen Marsh; maybe even Edd Tollet; and (if he returns) Se Alliser. All four of these men ran in the last election. It could be Bowen Marsh, but I think Ser Alliser would be the most interesting choice. Even though Ser Alliser is unlikeable, he might be supported by both the anti-Jon faction (because they know he hates Jon) AND the pro-Jon faction of the NW (because they know he wasn't involved in Jon's mutiny)
Some more thoughts on Alliser's Fate:
Am I way off base? Is he just gonna be gone forever? Will he return as a wight? Is it wrong to think he'd be Lord Commander since he is considered unlikeable? Is it wrong to think he might have some kind of redemption arc? You heard any good theories regarding Ser Alliser?
submitted by CursedHarrenhal to asoiaf [link] [comments]
1) GRRM could be purposely leading us to believe that Ser Alliser will die to set up readers to be surprised when he survives and is just fine.
2) Melisandre prophecizes that three of the nine rangers Jon Snow sent out will die, and that's what happens. She never predicts Ser Alliser's death.
3) Ser Alliser was a knight in King's Landing who served the Targaryens before the rebellion. Given that we all know R + L = J, its interesting that Ser Alliser may have known Rhaegar Targaryen personally. Perhaps they were even friends (or enemies). When Jon Snow learns his parentage, I think he's going to embrace his Targaryen identity (all that foreshadowing about not being welcome in the Stark's home). It could be interesting to explore this connection
4) Ser Alliser is kinda a core character. He's been in it since the first book. He's arguably Jon Snow's main antagonist, and Jon Snow is arguably the main character of the series. Snow worries about Ser Alliser and his associates even after he is sent off. Him returning as a mindless wight would eliminate all of the character drama that Alliser has.
5) Now that Jon Snow is dead, a new "choosing" will happen to pick the new Lord Commander. Cotter Pyke is in trouble at Hardhome (possibly dead), Denys Mallister is at the Shadow Tower, and Janos Slynt is dead. The most obvious choices to me are Othell Yarwyck; Bowen Marsh; maybe even Edd Tollet; and (if he returns) Se Alliser. All four of these men ran in the last election. It could be Bowen Marsh, but I think Ser Alliser would be the most interesting choice. Even though Ser Alliser is unlikeable, he might be supported by both the anti-Jon faction (because they know he hates Jon) AND the pro-Jon faction of the NW (because they know he wasn't involved in Jon's mutiny)
Some more thoughts on Alliser's Fate:
- Assuming Ser Alliser returns, it will change the story depending on when he arrives. Will he return before or after Jon's resurrection? Will he return before or after R + L = J is revealed? It's not clear when or where these events will happen. Jon could be resurrected at Castle Black, Winterfell, or the Nightfort. He could be resurrected early in TWOW, the middle, or late in the book. There are many ways R + L = J could be revealed; maybe Samwell learns in Oldtown; Bran learns via the trees; Howland Reed shows up; maybe Benjen knows. I dont know where or when that will happen, but I think it should happen in TWOW, maybe near the end of the book.
- If Alliser returns, it will have to be an event in a chapter. It won't happen "off-page"
- If Ser Alliser is going to be Lord Commander, then he will return soon, maybe in the first Melisandre chapter. They will probably be electing a new Lord Commander in the first Melisandre chapter. The NW and the Wildings will reach an uneasy stalemate in the wake of Jon's murder; this is only because the NW controls the hostages that Jon collected from the Wildling-chiefs at the end of ADWD, as I wrote in my "blood price theory" .
- If the Lord Commander is Ser Alliser, he will probably decide to hand over Selyse, Shireen, Mel, Monster, and Val to Ramsay. (But Bowen Marsh would make the same decision if he were Lord Commander)
- If Ser Alliser becomes Lord Commander, maybe he will hate Ghost. Maybe he'll want Ghost to be kicked out of Castle Black. Maybe he'll want to burn Jon's body
- I wonder if it's possible for Ser Alliser to have a redemption story. Jon Snow considers this:
- It would be cool for Alliser to have a redemption story maybe, but it would also be cool for Alliser to come back alive and do one last thing to fuck up Jon's mission somehow
- If Alliser and resurrected-Jon Snow ever meet up after R + L = J, I'd be interested to see how Ser Alliser reacts
- It's interesting that Ser Alliser is basically Jon Snow's #1 enemy, yet he's also the one guy who's definitely innocent in Jon's assassination. I wonder if GRRM did this on purpose so that he could conceivably have Jon and Alliser meet after R + L = J is revealed. The mutineers may not survive long, if Alliser is one of them than neither will he
Am I way off base? Is he just gonna be gone forever? Will he return as a wight? Is it wrong to think he'd be Lord Commander since he is considered unlikeable? Is it wrong to think he might have some kind of redemption arc? You heard any good theories regarding Ser Alliser?
2023.05.28 20:00 M_Tootles The Recursive Homecomings Of Petyr & Theon Part 6: Wallowing Tubs, The Myraham & Mia Hamm (Spoilers Extended)
This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits discussion.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 5 left off. You can read Part 5 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
(As ever, this 'rhyme' makes literary sense if Littlefinger has a connection to the Iron Islands, i.e. if he's Hoare-ish.)
After Theon's takes in the "stirring sight" of Pyke with its Sansa-esque banner overhead and 'his' comet "in the sky behind" it, we read how he got there:
It's plain that "storm" is an appropriate metaphor for Lysa's rage after Petyr gets Lysa to unhand Sansa, just a few paragraphs before he decides he would not care to be aboard her any longer, so to speak, and shoves her out the Moon Door:
Petyr giving Lysa "a short, sharp shove" feels like a physical manifestation of Theon figuratively shoving the captain's daughter away and 'out the door'.
Consider also the old dog we're shown hanging out with Sansa immediately after we read that Lysa takes "eight long days" to arrive, a la the "wallowing" Myraham taking way too long to get to Pyke, and immediately before we read about Lysa's arrival, when she looks every inch a wallowing tub:
All the dog does is "sleep… beside" — i.e. literally sleep with — Sansa. That reworks the captain's daughter spending the long voyage figuratively 'sleeping with' (i.e. boning) Theon. To this point:
The devotion the captain's daughter thereby demonstrates — refusing to give up on Theon, long after he's gone — is reworked by the dog being called Sansa's "fast friend" (i.e. loyal friend), which also works as double entendre referring back to the captain's daughter, as "fast" is a euphemism for a girl who is fast to engage in sexual activity. (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fast)
Note that the dog is never named: It's simply "Bryen's old blind dog", just as the captain's daughter is just "the captain's daughter".
Of course, Sansa does get one small break from the monotony of her time with the dog: her sight-seeing 'field trip' with Petyr:
It's only when Theon is done gazing at Pyke that the captain's daughter appears on the page and we read about the "certain other amusements" he's enjoyed during his voyage. This gets flipped around with Sansa and her dog: Where Theon found "amusement" in the sex he was constantly having, Sansa is "bored and restless" during her time with the dog; it's only the brief excursion that breaks the monotony of her time (literally) sleeping with the old toothless dog.
The story of how Sansa spent her time waiting for Lysa (with the dog) is thus a 'rhyme' for Theon's time on the Myraham with the captain's daughter. That we read about Sansa's time with the dog (a) immediately after we read that Lysa was, like the Myraham, slow to arrive and (b) immediately before Lysa's arrival, when she seems every inch the wallowing tub herself, further convinces me that Theon's treatment of the captain and captain's daughter do indeed prefigure Petyr's treatment of Lysa and the Lords Declarant, while also by dint of association suggesting that Petyr is trying to groom Sansa as surely as Theon did the captain's daughter.
Shortly after Theon thinks the captain's daughter doesn't "seem to be listening", we read that…
As I've said before, I have to think this little 'rhyme' between Sansa and the captain's daughter is there to further the suggestion that Littlefinger is per se grooming Sansa.
The thing, is, despite being the most popular and celebrated player on the US team, Mia Hamm wasn't the team captain. That was the older Carla Overbeck, a comparatively uncelebrated central defender. So it's fitting that the story of the Myraham is in large part the story not of its captain, but of its captain's daughter.
submitted by M_Tootles to asoiaf [link] [comments]
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits discussion.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
Wallowing Tubs
Let's jump back to the beginning of Theon's homecoming and consider that Theon's thoughts and actions vis-a-vis the Myraham, its captain, and the captain's daughter can be read as prefiguring the story of Petyr taking over the Vale, such that we can read Theon as Petyr, the captain's daughter and the Myraham as both Lysa and the Vale, and the captain as the Lords Declarant unhappy with Petyr's ascendency.(As ever, this 'rhyme' makes literary sense if Littlefinger has a connection to the Iron Islands, i.e. if he's Hoare-ish.)
After Theon's takes in the "stirring sight" of Pyke with its Sansa-esque banner overhead and 'his' comet "in the sky behind" it, we read how he got there:
A longship would have made the crossing in half the time as well. The Myraham was a wallowing tub, if truth be told, and he would not care to be aboard her in a storm.Lysa is likewise a "wallowing tub":
[H]er body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.Like the Myraham, she's awful to deal with "in a storm" (i.e. in her anger and/or madness), as Catelyn—
Lysa's rage had been frightening to behold. (AGOT Catelyn VIII)—and Sansa (near-fatally) discover.
It's plain that "storm" is an appropriate metaphor for Lysa's rage after Petyr gets Lysa to unhand Sansa, just a few paragraphs before he decides he would not care to be aboard her any longer, so to speak, and shoves her out the Moon Door:
"Lysa," Petyr sighed, "after all the storms we've suffered, you should trust me better. I swear, I shall never leave your side again, for as long as we both shall live." (ASOS Sansa VII)And where "a longship would have made the crossing in half the time" the wallowing tub Myraham takes, the wallowing tub Lysa, too, takes seemingly forever to get where she's going:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived.
Finding Amusement Where They Can
Having spent most of the voyage fucking the captain's daughter, Theon gets one final "amusement" in the form of a blowjob:Still, Theon could not be too unhappy. He was here, undrowned, and the voyage had offered certain other amusements. He put an arm around the captain's daughter. "Summon me when we make Lordsport," he told her father. "We'll be below, in my cabin."Like Theon vis-a-vis the captain's daughter, Petyr isn't actually interested in Lysa romantically, but all the same he beds her and finds "amusements" in the process, both in the bedding ceremony—
Lord Petyr… submitted with good grace and a wicked tongue, giving as good as he got. By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.—and seemingly in his marriage bed:
"Petyr," her aunt moaned. "Oh, Petyr, Petyr, sweet Petyr, oh oh oh. There, Petyr, there. That's where you belong." … "Make me a baby, Petyr," she screamed, "make me another sweet little baby. Oh, Petyr, my precious, my precious, PEEEEEETYR!"
Turning Over The Captain's Cabin
Back to Theon:The cabin was the captain's, in truth, but it had been turned over to Theon's use when they sailed from Seagard.This prefigures the Vale — House Arryn's Vale — being 'turned over to Littlefinger's rule when he commenced to sail the wallowing tub Lysa', so to speak, wedding her and becoming Lord Protector (i.e. de facto Lord) of the Vale:
"Petyr will soon set all that to rights, though. I shall make him Lord Protector of the Vale." -Lysa to Sansa in Littlefinger's bedchamber, the morning after their wedding
Willing Bed Companions & Wine
The captain's daughter comes "willingly" to Theon—The captain's daughter had not been turned over to his use, but she had come to his bed willingly enough all the same.—as Lysa had come willingly to Petyr back at Riverrun—
"You enticed him, just as your mother did that night in Riverrun…. You think I could forget? That was the night I stole up to his bed to give him comfort. I bled, but it was the sweetest hurt." (ASOS Sansa VII)—and as Lysa comes to him at the Drearfort:
"I am the Lady of the Eyrie, and I command you to wed me this very moment!"Theon beds the captain's daughter with the help of wine:
A cup of wine, a few whispers, and there she was.This prefigures both the way Lysa bedded Petyr the first time—
"[Petyr] drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that." (ASOS Sansa VII)—as well as Lysa's 'current' fondness for wine that's likely Petyr's:
Among the loads [Oswell] brought ashore were several casks of wine.
Her aunt's breath smelled of wine. (ASOS Sansa VII)
"That's past and done, Lysa. …" Littlefinger moved closer. Have you been at the wine again?" (ibid.)
Booby Maidens
Where the captain's daughter (whose "plump", large-breasted physique is akin to Lysa's) "had been a maiden the first time [Theon] took her"—The girl was a shade plump for his taste, with skin as splotchy as oatmeal, but her breasts filled his hands nicely and she had been a maiden the first time he took her. That was surprising at her age, but Theon found it diverting.—Lysa, too, 'had been a maiden the first time Petyr took her', so to speak, long ago at Riverrun.
Resentful, Paid-For 'Captains'
Just as Hoster Tully was not happy about Petyr bedding his daughter under his own roof, so is the Myraham captain unhappy with Theon availing himself of his daughter, and in his own cabin, no less:[Theon] led the girl away aft, while her father watched them go in sullen silence.The captain's resentment prefigures the Vale lords "resent[ing]" Petyr's marriage to Lysa and his appointment as Lord Protector:
Sansa knew that Jon Arryn's bannermen resented Lysa's marriage and begrudged Petyr his authority as Lord Protector of the Vale. (ASOS Sansa VII)Theon isn't concerned about the captain's feelings, though, because he's been bought and paid for:
He did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well, watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he'd been promised never far from his thoughts.This prefigures Littlefinger's strategy after he disposes of Lysa. Belying the beliefs of e.g. Randyll Tarly—
The promise of gold had turned the Oldtowner into a shameless lickspittle.
"Lady Lysa is dead. … Littlefinger holds the Eyrie now . . . though not for long. The lords of the Vale are not the sort to bend their knees to some upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is counting coppers." (AFFC Brienne III)—Littlefinger maintains his position in the 'captain's cabin' of the Eyrie because, just as Theon buys the Myraham's captain, so does Littlefinger buy many of the Lords Declarant:
"Belmore is corrupt and can be bought. …Bronze Yohn Royce will continue to be hostile, I fear, but so long as he stands alone he is not so much a threat." (AFFC Alayne I)The line foregrounding the notion of Anya Waynwood "sell[ing] a son for gold" reads like it could be a wink at the captain of the Myraham essentially selling his daughter to Theon for gold. Note that the Waynwood sigil is a broken wheel, a la the captain's wheel of an olde tyme sailing vessel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_wheel) Thus it's an almost perfect metaphorical representation of the captain being 'broken' by Theon's gold into "swallow[ing] his outrage".
"The Waynwoods are very old and very proud, but not as rich as one might think, as I discovered when I began buying up their debt. Not that Lady Anya would ever sell a son for gold. A ward, however . . . young Harry's only a cousin, and the dower that I offered her ladyship was even larger than the one that Lyonel Corbray just collected. It had to be, for her to risk Bronze Yohn's wroth. (AFFC Alayne II)
'Rhyming' Rejections
Finally, at the end of Theon's voyage, when he is done with the "wallowing tub" Myraham, he disposes of the captain's daughter:"Milord." Her eyes were red. When he took the pack, she made as if to embrace him, there in front of her own father and his priestly uncle and half the island.Theon's parting with the daughter of the captain of the wallowing tub Myraham is kaleidoscopically reworked when Petyr disposes of his wallowing tub, Lysa. The recursion includes the crying and hugging motifs, a declaration of love, pithy final words ("I must go" → "Only Cat"), and a parallel post-parting urgency (Theon "hurried" → "run… quick now"). And note how "deftly" Petyr deflects Lysa (to her doom):
Theon turned deftly aside. "You have my thanks."
"Please," she said, "I do love you well, milord."
"I must go." He hurried after his uncle, who was already well down the pier. Theon caught him with a dozen long strides.
Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa… crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar. …She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter."Deftly" done, indeed.
Littlefinger let Lysa sob against his chest for a moment, then put his hands on her arms and kissed her lightly. "My sweet silly jealous wife," he said, chuckling. "I've only loved one woman, I promise you."
Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. "Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?"
"Only Cat." He gave her a short, sharp shove.
Lysa stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the wet marble. And then she was gone. She never screamed. For the longest time there was no sound but the wind.
…Lord Petyr pulled Sansa to her feet. …"Run let my guards in, then. Quick now, there's no time to lose. This singer's killed my lady wife."
Petyr giving Lysa "a short, sharp shove" feels like a physical manifestation of Theon figuratively shoving the captain's daughter away and 'out the door'.
Silver Clasps
I'd be remiss not to point out that when Theon leaves the girl, his cloak is pointedly pinned "with a silver clasp":Theon swept his cloak off its peg and over his shoulders. "Fathers are like that," he admitted as he pinned the folds with a silver clasp.Who else pins his cloaks like that?
They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. (AGOT Catelyn IV)Petyr.
The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird…. (AGOT Sansa II)
The Captain's Daughter & Bryen's Toothless Licking Dog
All that said, Petyr's relationship with Lysa isn't the only thing about ASOS Sansa VI (and VII) prefigured by Theon's relationship with Myraham's captain's daughter.Consider also the old dog we're shown hanging out with Sansa immediately after we read that Lysa takes "eight long days" to arrive, a la the "wallowing" Myraham taking way too long to get to Pyke, and immediately before we read about Lysa's arrival, when she looks every inch a wallowing tub:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. He was too sick and toothless to walk guard with Bryen anymore, and mostly all he did was sleep, but when she patted him he whined and licked her hand, and after that they were fast friends.Where Theon rides out his long voyage at sea with the the oral sex-giving captain's daughter, Sansa rides out most of her long, rainy wait for Lysa with the friendly, toothless, licking dog.
All the dog does is "sleep… beside" — i.e. literally sleep with — Sansa. That reworks the captain's daughter spending the long voyage figuratively 'sleeping with' (i.e. boning) Theon. To this point:
Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps, and lay down next to him. He woke and licked her face. "You sad old hound," she said, ruffling his fur.That the dog "whine[s]" and is "sad" recalls the captain's daughter "beg[ging]" Theon to come ashore and later calling to him in a "plaintive" voice while walking "forlornly" adeck when he visits Lordsport. (ACOK Theon II)
The devotion the captain's daughter thereby demonstrates — refusing to give up on Theon, long after he's gone — is reworked by the dog being called Sansa's "fast friend" (i.e. loyal friend), which also works as double entendre referring back to the captain's daughter, as "fast" is a euphemism for a girl who is fast to engage in sexual activity. (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fast)
Note that the dog is never named: It's simply "Bryen's old blind dog", just as the captain's daughter is just "the captain's daughter".
Of course, Sansa does get one small break from the monotony of her time with the dog: her sight-seeing 'field trip' with Petyr:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. [Dog stuff.] When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. [Description of the sight-seeing 'field trip' of Petyr's lands, including all manner of things that 'rhyme' with Theon's description of Pyke, all of which I discuss in detail elsewhere.]The sight-seeing 'field trip' as a whole reworks the opening paragraphs of ACOK Theon I, in which Theon is likewise taking a break from his usual routine (sex with the captain's daughter) to do a little sight-seeing: Where Theon soaks in the "stirring sight" of castle Pyke on its wave-carved stacks of rock with its banner overhead and the fiery comet high "in the sky" behind it, which he takes to be a (verbatim) "sign", Sansa's sight-seeing tour of Petyr's holdings include a rock carved with the (verbatim) "sign" of the Seven next to a tidal blowhole shooting water high "into the air", as well as "a hermit's cave" where a hermit "groped" Petyr as Theon gropes the captain's daughter just after gazing at castle Pyke and the comet.
It's only when Theon is done gazing at Pyke that the captain's daughter appears on the page and we read about the "certain other amusements" he's enjoyed during his voyage. This gets flipped around with Sansa and her dog: Where Theon found "amusement" in the sex he was constantly having, Sansa is "bored and restless" during her time with the dog; it's only the brief excursion that breaks the monotony of her time (literally) sleeping with the old toothless dog.
The story of how Sansa spent her time waiting for Lysa (with the dog) is thus a 'rhyme' for Theon's time on the Myraham with the captain's daughter. That we read about Sansa's time with the dog (a) immediately after we read that Lysa was, like the Myraham, slow to arrive and (b) immediately before Lysa's arrival, when she seems every inch the wallowing tub herself, further convinces me that Theon's treatment of the captain and captain's daughter do indeed prefigure Petyr's treatment of Lysa and the Lords Declarant, while also by dint of association suggesting that Petyr is trying to groom Sansa as surely as Theon did the captain's daughter.
Sansa & The Captain's Daughter
Regarding Petyr grooming Sansa, when Sansa first comes before Lysa, it seems very much like an echo of what happens when Theon and the captain's daughter go below deck. Consider:Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand. "My lady, allow me to present you Alayne Stone."Notice the curtsy and bowed head, the bastard motif, and the way Lysa treats Sansa as if she isn't there. This seems a recursion of this:
Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed. "A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"
[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear. "Take off your cloak."
She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy, but did as he bid her. When the heavy garment, sodden with spray, fell from her shoulders to the deck, she gave him a little bow and smiled anxiously.
- "[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close" → "Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand"
- "she gave him a little bow" + "she dropped her eyes" → "Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed"
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.Coupled with Theon telling the captain's daughter she's likely pregnant with "a king's bastard" — i.e. his bastard — that prefigures Lysa's talking about Sansa being "a bastard" as if she's not there, i.e. as if she isn't 'listening':
"A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"(The 'rhyme' is even tighter if Littlefinger aspires to be king, like Theon. Which I believe he does.)
Shortly after Theon thinks the captain's daughter doesn't "seem to be listening", we read that…
She was timid at first, but learned quickly for such a stupid girl….As stated in earlier posts in this series, if we remove the sexual context, that's a bald-faced preview of Sansa in her Littlefinger era: initially trepidatious, but quickly warming to Littlefinger and learning to use lies and arbor gold in the service of his schemes, such that he calls the once hopelessly naive girl "clever" — i.e. the same word Theon uses when remarking of the captain's daughter:
She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.Theon forces the captain's daughter to swallow his 'seed' just before he tells her she's probably pregnant with his "bastard", thus (also) prefiguring Littlefinger's [surreptitiously making Sansa swallow moon tea to ensure she is not pregnant with Tyrion's child], i.e. to cleanse herself of any spawn of Tyrion's "seed".
As I've said before, I have to think this little 'rhyme' between Sansa and the captain's daughter is there to further the suggestion that Littlefinger is per se grooming Sansa.
The Myraham and Mia Hamm
That the Myraham's story has so much to do with its captain's daughter makes sense given that the name Myraham is almost certainly a nod to Mia Hamm, who at the time A Clash of Kings was being written was widely recognized as the best women's soccer player in the world and newly famous in the United States, having been hyped to the moon before she famously played through injury during the United States' victory in the gold medal game of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, to much media ballyhoo. (see e.g. https://vault.si.com/vault/1996/08/12/uswnt-1996-olympics-gold-medal-china-atlanta)The thing, is, despite being the most popular and celebrated player on the US team, Mia Hamm wasn't the team captain. That was the older Carla Overbeck, a comparatively uncelebrated central defender. So it's fitting that the story of the Myraham is in large part the story not of its captain, but of its captain's daughter.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 7: Sights-Seen While Sight-Seeing
2023.05.28 17:08 LChris24 The Bracken Inheritance (Spoilers Extended)
Thoughts on the Bracken Inheritance
BackgroundA couple days ago I posted The Last Greenseer & the Lord of Raventree Hall (about Tytos Blackwood's potential albeit completely unproven communication with Bloodraven). On the other side of the Blackwood/Bracken Blood Feud, we have Jonos Bracken who currently has no male heir. I thought it would be fun to look into the heritance a bit.
Related (somewhat) If interested: Aegor "Bittersteel" Rivers
The Bastard (Harry Rivers)
Lord Jonos seemingly likes to frequent other women (as we see with Hildy a potential membesupporter of the Brotherhood without Banners), but it seems he claimed someone as a bastard who looked nothing like him:
“If I may be so bold, you would do well to require a hostage from Lord Jonos too. One of his daughters. For all his rutting, he has not proved man enough to father sons.”That said Harry Rivers was killed during the War of the Five Kings:
“He had a bastard son killed in the war.”
“Did he? Harry was a bastard, true enough, but whether Jonos sired him is a thornier question. A fair-haired boy, he was, and comely. Jonos is neither.” -ADWD, Jaime I
Tom Sevenstrings took up the count. “Alyn of Winterfell, Joth Quick-bow, Little Matt and his sister Randa, Anvil Ryn. Ser Ormond. Ser Dudley. Pate of Mory, Pate of Lancewood, Old Pate, and Pate of Shermer’s Grove. Blind Wyl the Whittler. Goodwife Maerie. Maerie the Whore. Becca the Baker. Ser Raymun Darry, Lord Darry, young Lord Darry. The Bastard of Bracken. Fletcher Will. Harsley. Goodwife Nolla—” -ASOS, Arya VII considered he might have been fathered by Tom o'Sevenstreams but the appearances don't really line up.
The Nephew (Hendry Bracken)
While fighting to liberate Stone Hedge, Jonos' nephew Hendry was killed:
“Dondarrion and this red priest who rides with him are clever enough to preserve themselves, if the tales be true,” her uncle said, “but your father’s bannermen make a sadder tale. Robb should never have let them go. They’ve scattered like quail, each man trying to protect his own, and it’s folly, Cat, folly. Jonos Bracken was wounded in the fighting amidst the ruins of his castle, and his nephew Hendry slain. Tytos Blackwood’s swept the Lannisters off his lands, but they took every cow and pig and speck of grain and left him nothing to defend but Raventree Hall and a scorched desert. Darry men recaptured their lord’s keep but held it less than a fortnight before Gregor Clegane descended on them and put the whole garrison to the sword, even their lord -ACOK, Catelyn IThe Daughters
From the ADWD appendix we know that he has 5 daughters:
JONOS BRACKEN, Lord of the Stone Hedge,We also know that one of them was raped by the Mountain (or one of his men):
• BARBARA, JAYNE, CATELYN, BESS, ALYSANNE, his five daughters,
“The king has pardoned us for that. I lost my nephew to your swords, and my natural son. Your Mountain stole my harvest and burned everything he could not carry off. He put my castle to the torch and raped one of my daughters. I will have recompense.”and one of them is being sent to King's Landing as a hostage:
“How many daughters do you have, my lord?” Jaime asked him.Thoughts
“Five. Two by my first wife and three by my third.” Too late, he seemed to realize that he might have said too much.
“Send one of them to court. She will have the privilege of attending the Queen Regent.” -ADWD, Jaime I
- Barbara is likely the current heir, but we have no information on if any of his daughters are married, etc.
- Whichever daughter is sent to King's Landing becomes a potential marriage option for whoever is in control (Cersei, Aegon VI, etc.) to use for one of their supporters
- The Brackens are known Blackfyre supporters, and Jonos could marry his daughter(s) to a member of the Golden Company:
Promises of land and promises of gold may suffice for some, but Strickland and his men will expect first claim on the choicest fields and castles, those that were taken from their forebears when they fled into exile. -ADWD, The Griffin RebornTLDR: Just some thoughts on the Bracken inheritance, since the current lord (Jonos) has no male heirs.
2023.05.28 06:53 FewPage431 [No Spoiler] Where are companion guides for asoiaf books?
Note: I haven't watched HBO series or read any book about asoiaf (I was waiting for twow but I guess I have waited enough), so please keep it spoiler free.
I was watching recent interview of grrm (for update of twow) and I thought that time, if I had read description of Iron Throne before seeing that illustration, I wouldn't have imagine it the way grrm imagine it. Resently I have tried to read Malazan with companion guide (Gotm), which was very helpful for me. Therefore I tried to find similar guide for asoiaf but I couldn't find one, so can you tell me where can I get them.
You may ask, Why would I want companion guide for asoiaf?
I know asoiaf is not confusing as Malazan, so before you tell me you don't need guide for asoiaf I have something say.
Main reason I want a companion guide is not for keep tracking of character (which I also want but not the main reason because I always take notes of characters) but it is for illustrations. I am very terrible at imaging characters (their physical look (haiface/height) and clothing (for example in cloak/armour)), fantasy species (this is where I am most terrible at), places/landscape/scenery, fantasy items. It's not like I can't imagine, but many times it has turn out different from what author intended (and I am not alone in this). Because of this I am always uncertain what author is imagining and that makes reading very frustrating (because when a sentence doesn't make sense to me, I get confuse between, I am imagining things wrong or author intended that way or it's a Plot hole). (On side note I am also terrible at describing things, I always afraid of someday cop asking me for sketch of suspect and results may come out like this).
Second main reason is for summaries + commentary of chapters. Summaries, because sometime I misunderstood or miss things which are very obvious to other readers. Just for clarification, I am not talking about things that are author intended not to be understood. (Also I forgot to mention that my native language is not English, so may be it also play factor in my low comprehensive ability). Commentary/analysis because it help me understand why certain sentances have written the way they have written (sometime sentences are in unusual structure, which may implies something more than its formal meaning) and also help me understand some culture reference which I may don't know. One of site I go for this is SparkNotes.
If there is not such guide than why not make it. I am sure there are many illustrations out there about asoiaf for free on internet because of its popularity and summaries on fandom wiki. So why not make collection of all illustrations and summaries to make a companion guide which will enhance experienced of readers at no cost. If it is issue of DMCA than you can have url of original image in guide.
submitted by FewPage431 to asoiaf [link] [comments]
I was watching recent interview of grrm (for update of twow) and I thought that time, if I had read description of Iron Throne before seeing that illustration, I wouldn't have imagine it the way grrm imagine it. Resently I have tried to read Malazan with companion guide (Gotm), which was very helpful for me. Therefore I tried to find similar guide for asoiaf but I couldn't find one, so can you tell me where can I get them.
You may ask, Why would I want companion guide for asoiaf?
I know asoiaf is not confusing as Malazan, so before you tell me you don't need guide for asoiaf I have something say.
Main reason I want a companion guide is not for keep tracking of character (which I also want but not the main reason because I always take notes of characters) but it is for illustrations. I am very terrible at imaging characters (their physical look (haiface/height) and clothing (for example in cloak/armour)), fantasy species (this is where I am most terrible at), places/landscape/scenery, fantasy items. It's not like I can't imagine, but many times it has turn out different from what author intended (and I am not alone in this). Because of this I am always uncertain what author is imagining and that makes reading very frustrating (because when a sentence doesn't make sense to me, I get confuse between, I am imagining things wrong or author intended that way or it's a Plot hole). (On side note I am also terrible at describing things, I always afraid of someday cop asking me for sketch of suspect and results may come out like this).
Second main reason is for summaries + commentary of chapters. Summaries, because sometime I misunderstood or miss things which are very obvious to other readers. Just for clarification, I am not talking about things that are author intended not to be understood. (Also I forgot to mention that my native language is not English, so may be it also play factor in my low comprehensive ability). Commentary/analysis because it help me understand why certain sentances have written the way they have written (sometime sentences are in unusual structure, which may implies something more than its formal meaning) and also help me understand some culture reference which I may don't know. One of site I go for this is SparkNotes.
If there is not such guide than why not make it. I am sure there are many illustrations out there about asoiaf for free on internet because of its popularity and summaries on fandom wiki. So why not make collection of all illustrations and summaries to make a companion guide which will enhance experienced of readers at no cost. If it is issue of DMCA than you can have url of original image in guide.
2023.05.28 06:00 AutoModerator Weekly Watch Thread - What Did You Watch? - Week Ending On (May 05/28/23)
What did you watch during the last week?
Please note, that this thread may contain spoilers of a film that you have yet to see. If you are posting a comment that contains spoilers, please be sure to use the [spoiler tag](https://www.reddit.com/asoiaf/comments/i2mg6/attention_we_now_have_a_new_spoilertagging_system/).
submitted by AutoModerator to dvdcollection [link] [comments]
Please note, that this thread may contain spoilers of a film that you have yet to see. If you are posting a comment that contains spoilers, please be sure to use the [spoiler tag](https://www.reddit.com/asoiaf/comments/i2mg6/attention_we_now_have_a_new_spoilertagging_system/).