Jump to content

AFFC Reread Project - Samwell (+Prologue)


cteresa

Recommended Posts

I took the reference to Cressen to be some nod by the author to warn us to expect, ya know the usual for a prologue PpV, rather than plot. Like Cressen poor Pate is way over his head and will soon die.

Oh the fearsomely strong cider, love the recurring joke on this book, how maester aemon even remembers it. About the gauntlet my bet would be Egg or Aemon himself, they were there at that inn after all.

I don´t think it was the key which mattered so much, because at the end of the book ( lovely simmetry btw) we find Jaqen still there, it seems unlikely to be improvised or the citadel being a good place for a faceless man to pass the time with no danger of discovery, so obviously it had to have been some part of a plan, to impersonate somebody - and somebody had to have been picked and surely some occasion for the killing and face taking to happen. My guess is the key was the excuse to lure Pate to some place ( or time? ) convenient for it to happen, it could not have happened in the inn crowded room.

About the glass candles there are four, not a number which seems significant except they are different, one green, three black. Can not help associating the 3 black ones to dragons or to targaryens somehow. Are they different in anything? we will see.

Leo is unsufferable but well informed. Not enough data to compute ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The glass candles reminded me of Dany's "dream" of Quaithe (the woman in the red laquered mask). Now that we know that candles transmit info, I'm better she's got one and inserted her thoughts into Dany's not-quite dream.

So if four are accounted for and Quaithe has a fifth, how much does someone want to bet that #6 and #7 are rattling around. Ilyrio? Varys?

Alleras' bow and arrow reminded me of something. When Sam will be at the citadel, he is commanded to keep up.....well, develop.....his archery skills. Maybe Alleras will be hanging out with him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good idea, Tarth King, I know that there's a couple of other times both dawn and Dawn are mentioned, so will be interesting to see what happens there.

Interesting idea with the glass candles too, I'd like to know why one is different from the other and if it has any special properties. I'm fairly certain that all of the dragonglass we've seen in the series so far has been black, although I think it was Aemon who told us it came in other colours like purple and green.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

PROPERTIES OF OBSIDIAN (for what it's worth)

The colors in obsidian result from the oxidation state of the chemical elements within the tiny minerals that are finely dispersed in the glass. Black color results chiefly from magnetite, Fe304.

If the obsidian is highly oxidized, then the glass may contain hematite, which provides a reddish hue.

Variations in the oxidation state of the iron (Fe) varieties imparts a slight greenish hue.

Some obsidian is banded, a consequence of oxidation on a flow surface being folded into the lava as it continues to move.

Apparently even more obsidian variations exist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I assumed that the green glass candle differs somehow from the fuctions of the black glass candles. (Like the one Middle Earth palintir that was kept at the Tower Hills and made for looking over water to the blessed realm.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some excellent observations, so not a lot to add. A few things...

Mollander remembers his father saying something to the effect of "There's more to the world than a lord's castle." (I don't remember the exact quote.) That sounds like the perfect sort of saying for a hedge knight. I suspect we never met his father. I like this inclusion, showing the war's had an effect even all the way down in Oldtown.

Lazy Leo seems like a young Ser Alliser Thorne - not yet embittered by old age and years of celibate servitude, but ever ready with the degrading nickname. Also, he seems like a type probably found at any university in any era: the student who could do well if he cared to, but is more interested in partying.

I agree with those who found Armen the Acolyte a bit pedantic, and agree that GRRM probably did this on purpose. Before Alleras showed up and earned "his" first link, Armen would've been the only acolyte among this group of friends. That's probably why he's called "the Acolyte".

Like many of you, I didn't catch the alleraSarella connection until I read it here on the boards. It's obvious in retrospect.

I like how the Alchemist (aka Jaqen) let Pate have one last night with his friends before killing him. That was kind.

I thought Alleras's observation that "the dragon has three heads" wasn't a reference to a prophecy. Rather, I think it was a reference to the Targaryens. Alleras is hinting that he believes a Targaryen is involved with the dragons. (Of course, this is later confirmed by Lazy Leo.)

Does Lazy Leo's dragon knowledge come from mundane sources or from what Archmaester Marwyn has seen through the glass candle?

Archmaester Walgrave's key is black iron. So are his mask, rod and ring. Do the archmaesters' keys come in different metals for the different disciplines, or do they all come in black iron?

We've known from previous appendices that there's a Frey studying at the Citadel. So, his inclusion in this appendix isn't so much new material as it is confirmation of existing material. Lorcas (the other acolyte from the appendix that we don't get to meet in the prologue) shows up in Sam's final chapter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It just occurred to me - Sallera's bow and archery skills match those of a certain Summer Isldand trader woman - Kojja Mo. Perhaps that's Sallera's mother.

As for Mollander at the Citadel , his father's identity remains a mystery. All we know is that he was a knight who died on the Blackwater.

Knights who died on the Blackwater that are listed in aFFC:

Ben, Farrow, Will the Stork (Brienne's 'suitors')

Imry Florent

A maimed knight from the Blackwater:

Mark Mullendore lost half an arm - and a monkey

Mollander...Mullendore....sounds too similar. Is this a coincidence? His monkey came from the Summer Isles, so he had to have dealings with non-Westerosi people. That'd mean he's fairly open-minded. His family are bannermen to the Hightower gang.

I'd always imagined Brienne's suitors to be younger men, but perhaps I'm wrong. A lot of men do immature things at a mature age. Well, regardless. It sounds like they're related somehow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In one of the first Brienne's chapters she mets with two hedge knights (I don't remember their names) and one of them mentions three hedge knights he killed at the Blackwater. I think Mullendor's father was one of them, specifically the one called the Kinght of the Red Chicken :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archmaester Walgrave's key is black iron. So are his mask, rod and ring. Do the archmaesters' keys come in different metals for the different disciplines, or do they all come in black iron?

I think the link for ravencraft is black iron - so presumably maybe each key is of the metal of each discipline?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From ASOS, U.S. trade paperback pg. "Forty-seven lesser lordlings and six hundred nineteen knights had lost their lives beneath the fiery heart of Stannis and his Lord of Light..."

Six hundred and nineteen knights, and Mollander's father could be any one of them. It may have been one of the handful who've been mentioned, but there's no evidence to his father's identity at all and there's a little over six hundred knights who died on the Blackwater that haven't been mentioned by name.

Might be it will be revealed in a later book, but for now you can't make anything other than a really liberal guess.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was interested in the identity of Mollander's father becauseof his Targaryen loyalty - I wondered which region they are from, where there is one loyalist there may be more. You're right that we really can't tell who it is, allthough I would rather expect it to be a character that Martin may have mentioned in passing already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Call me crazy . . . but in a way Targ loyalty doesn't seem to matter a whole lot. Consider this, when Dany returns with 3 dragons and a large army she will likely have the largest most organized force. Furthermore, we all know that since Robert was killed that politics and therefore the stability of life has been a huge mess.

So why wouldn't everyone readily switch back to Targ alliegance the moment that Dany returns?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don´t think it was the key which mattered so much, because at the end of the book ( lovely simmetry btw) we find Jaqen still there, it seems unlikely to be improvised or the citadel being a good place for a faceless man to pass the time with no danger of discovery, so obviously it had to have been some part of a plan, to impersonate somebody - and somebody had to have been picked and surely some occasion for the killing and face taking to happen. My guess is the key was the excuse to lure Pate to some place ( or time? ) convenient for it to happen, it could not have happened in the inn crowded room.

My thought on this was that maybe the faceless men need a reason or justification to kill someone (or, alternativrly, to assume their victim's form). We learn later in an arya chapter that the original FFM "victims" requested death, but maybe the victims of FFM assassinations now have to somehow deserve a death sentence. After all, the original victims' slavemasters seem to have died at the FFMs hands as well.

Pate being a thief fits the bill as a justification: Jaquen does wait for proof of Pate's transgression before killing him, even though he clearly knows where the key is. If he just wanted the key, he could have killed Pate the first time he met him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why hasn't anyone pointed out that alleras is simply sarella written backwards?

Hehe, that's a good point. I guess most of us just saw the other thread and assumed that others knew.

I caught the name backward and forward in the book and the similarities between the two but it didn't occur to me at all that they were the same person. I just assumed they were somehow related.

These are the little things that makes GRRM look like a genius in my opinion. Some of them just turn out to be dead ends but so many possibilities for exploration. It's like a giant hedge maze with candy at every crossroads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Mirri Maz Dur-connection - Another thing that blew straight past me...! :blush:

And though MMD probably caught a few tricks from Maester Marwyn, the true significance of this is probably that Marwyn learnt from HER. He really is skilled in the magical arts...

Why hasn't anyone pointed out that alleras is simply sarella written backwards?

Actually by now its been pointed out so often most people just don't bother with the most obvious proof they are the same person. I don't mean to be snooty, because I totally missed it and probably wouldn't have caught it even on the reread had I not stumpled upon this fact in an early thread. It's just that once you catch it Alleras = Sarella backwards is so OUT THERE you can't help feeling like 10 tons of Dunce!!! :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding the Faceless Men: I did not catch at first that the Alchemist was a FM (or if he was that he was Jaqen). However, I'm now convinced on both points.

Interesting that Arya bites the coin that Jaqen gave her, just as Pate bites his.

Are the FM agents of some other [individual / group], free-agents, or do they all work towards some common goal?

They are not invincible or Jaqen wouldn't have been in the black cells in King's Landing. Once he is set free by Arya it seems as if he actually has a "mission" to accomplish at Harrenhal, though the only part of it we see is that he helps Arya with the 3 wishes. When he leaves Harrenhal he tells Arya that he has duties...and promises to keep.

Are we to guess that he was headed to Oldtown all along? Was he waylaid in KL -- for surely he arrived at Harrenhal unintentionally? You can't project that outcome from being a prisoner sent to the Wall.

Once in Oldtown he has a place at the center of the action (as Pate) without being expected to be much of a participant (because Pate is not). It is a good place to observe, but what? why? What foretelling could have led him (or led someone else to send him) to the Maester's? We really know very little about the FM.

Also, it's interesting that Sam dislikes Pate/FM. We have not seen the intuitive side of Sam come to the fore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:cool: Hi all. First time poster. Hopefully I'll be around a long while to come.

I'm a self-described big GRRM fan and I have alot of theories, views on the series. I might even have one or two (possibly crackpot) ideas you may not have considered.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand.

Alleras/Sarella completely blew by me. Upon reading it here then rereading it I looked up the word sphynx at www.dictionary.com. on a whim.

I got the expected definition of the mythical beast but a second definition really sparked my interest. The word sphynx may also be used to define a mysterious person. This definition fits Alleras to a tee. Maybe Leo giving him the nickname suggests that he suspects there is more to our young archer than meets the eye.

Also I remembered that male sphynxes were called androsphynxes. Andro is the prefix to another word, androgenous which also seems to fit Sarella.

As for the key and other items in Walgraves box, I firmly believe that they will be relevant in a future Dunk and Egg story. In fact AFFC hints at the setting for two more D&E stories. The first is Oldtown. Perhaps when Aemon is first sent off to begin forging his chain. The second is Tarth. Brienne recaled seeing Ser Duncan's shield in her father's armor stores. Perhaps Tarth is the location where Egg swears Duncan into the King's Guard. Duncan would have a shiny new white shield to take his old shields place so perhaps he left the old one (and his hedge knight status) behind him on the Sapphire Isle.

Jaquen in Oldtown... The most creative theory I can come up with is also fairly flimsy but here goes. Jaquen was in KL when we first meet him. Varys was also there at the time. Varys has stated his profound hatred for magic. Perhaps Varys had hired Jaquen to take out Marwyn for some as yet unkown reason that would aid the Spider in his plans? That doesn't really answer why how he ended up in chains, but its the best I can come up with. Unless FM can also be thieves and he's there for the candles.

This next theory is pretty crackpot as well, but if the three black candles represent Dany's dragons, perhaps the green one represents the dragon's egg that Euron threw into the sea. Maybe his red priest did something to the egg to start the hatching process. When Euron kills Balon kings blood is spilt so perhaps that completed the spell, hatched the dragon, and set the green candle to burning. Pretty out there I'll admit, but it gave me a moment's pause.

Agree or disagree I hoped my input gave you some entertainment :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...