The bear and the maiden fair - an analysis of all bear related themes in aSoIaF

[sweetsunray]

Great reconstruction, good sir.

 

There's some fantastic literature out there concerning the PIE societal equating of a class of young, unmarried men fulfilling a culturally mandated period of a few years of horse-raiding and taking captives with roving packs of wolves. There is further speculation that particularly violent or unwieldy members of this class of society were seen as conduits of the divine bear, and that wearing the skin of either animal was something only these men would do as it was next to giving up your humanity and membership in the community. Donning the skin in 'peace time' would have been absolutely taboo and punished severely, akin to the ancient Roman proscription against swords or armored tunics beyond the Rubicon.

I recently read an antropological website on war culture and feuding at least from the neolithic. What was interesting was that which marriage partner went to live with the other depended on the clan or tribe having an internal or external war culture. The husband would go live with the woman and her village if it was a war culture against external enemies (enemies far away, totally different tribe) - matrilocal. But if the war culture was internal with raids and feuds with the neighbouring villages then the woman would go and live with the men, which makes sense since the "warrior class" would become a permanent necessity, both for raiding and protection, and so they didn't want to lose their men. It also had as a consequence that women would get banned from metalurgy and carrying weapons. Because if the village would raid the cattle or stocks of the neighbours, and this was a woman's kin, she might turn on her marriage family if she carried weapons to protect the family she grew up with. With external warfare women would of course  have as much investment in defending or attacking the enemy as the men. There would still be a minority of female warriors (having a toddler to nurse or being pregnant would pose a problem), but they'd participate. This is why most theories regarding moving to a peace culture promotes egalitarian gender roles, not because women are necessarily more peaceful, but it hampers regional gang or warband warfare, while warfare against external enemies occurs more infrequent (though often more deadly when it happens).

[sweetsunray]

Thank you so much for sharing this brilliant analysis, sweetsunray! 

Nice to learn you found it interesting. I am reworking and expanding the essays on my blog for the moment, and will update these ones in the future.

[asimetrikal]

I recently read an antropological website on war culture and feuding at least from the neolithic. What was interesting was that which marriage partner went to live with the other depended on the clan or tribe having an internal or external war culture. The husband would go live with the woman and her village if it was a war culture against external enemies (enemies far away, totally different tribe) - matrilocal. But if the war culture was internal with raids and feuds with the neighbouring villages then the woman would go and live with the men, which makes sense since the "warrior class" would become a permanent necessity, both for raiding and protection, and so they didn't want to lose their men. It also had as a consequence that women would get banned from metalurgy and carrying weapons. Because if the village would raid the cattle or stocks of the neighbours, and this was a woman's kin, she might turn on her marriage family if she carried weapons to protect the family she grew up with. With external warfare women would of course  have as much investment in defending or attacking the enemy as the men. There would still be a minority of female warriors (having a toddler to nurse or being pregnant would pose a problem), but they'd participate. This is why most theories regarding moving to a peace culture promotes egalitarian gender roles, not because women are necessarily more peaceful, but it hampers regional gang or warband warfare, while warfare against external enemies occurs more infrequent (though often more deadly when it happens).

Do you have links? I had a short phase where my primary area of research was PIE kinship systems, family structure and marriage practices, and every so often I try to keep apprised of new ideas in the field.

[sweetsunray]

 

Do you have links? I had a short phase where my primary area of research was PIE kinship systems, family structure and marriage practices, and every so often I try to keep apprised of new ideas in the field.

http://culture-of-peace.info/books/history/prehistory-culture-2.html

http://culture-of-peace.info/women/chapter3-3.html

There you go. When I checked out their references, they've written for personal reasons, rather than scientific reasons, though they are scientists who have worked for UN and Unesco on war culture and peace culture, regarding a theoretical model how we might achieve 'world peace'. But they do refer to scientific data and essays.

 

[YclGlr]

This song is a master-piece. Sansa and her relationships come to mind. The song is good at demeaning the concept of love as it should. 

[asimetrikal]

http://culture-of-peace.info/books/history/prehistory-culture-2.html

http://culture-of-peace.info/women/chapter3-3.html

There you go. When I checked out their references, they've written for personal reasons, rather than scientific reasons, though they are scientists who have worked for UN and Unesco on war culture and peace culture, regarding a theoretical model how we might achieve 'world peace'. But they do refer to scientific data and essays.

 

Writing for whatever reason is acceptable as academic and informative as long as it's intellectually honest and properly sourced. Many accomplished researchers and well-known whitecoats will gather with colleagues and friends at cafes and bars and discuss ideas in their fields that may not be the focus of any of their current work. These informal gatherings not only lead to small run prints that often aren't peer-reviewed, they sometimes serve as inspiration for future long-term research.

 After all, never judge a book by its cover.

Thanks!

[sweetsunray]

Writing for whatever reason is acceptable as academic and informative as long as it's intellectually honest and properly sourced. Many accomplished researchers and well-known whitecoats will gather with colleagues and friends at cafes and bars and discuss ideas in their fields that may not be the focus of any of their current work. These informal gatherings not only lead to small run prints that often aren't peer-reviewed, they sometimes serve as inspiration for future long-term research.

 After all, never judge a book by its cover.

Thanks!

Oh, I don't. I actually valued the personal ideas shared on the websites. I was just explaining what kind of source the website was. And I think at least these are valuable gathered essays by someone with expertise and whose lifework is related on the international level on a subject that is easy to wish for on pageants, but really hard to come up with ideas and proposals on how to even start achieving it. It is indeed properly sourced, both on the war culture segment as well as the peace culture segment. And it gives a great overview and synthesis of sutdies and conclusions gathered since the 50's and 60's until the first decade of the millenium.

[WhitewolfStark]

Well done on the essays! I do have to wonder now about how the Riverlands house, House Piper and its dancing naked woman fits into all of this. I'm sure there's something to tease out there.

Additionally I was thinking about this as I was reading with context to AGOT. I know you mentioned you don't think GRRM had done enough bear research before this to realize what he had done with regards to breaking taboos. And yet I couldn't help but wonder at how your description of a "proper bear hunt" to some extent played out with Ned playing the part of a bear, being tricked by hunters to leave his "den" of Winterfell and come down to "the fair" of King's Landing (where an actual fair occurs in the place of the Hand's Tourney). In that play of the story, Cersei gets to play the part of the Maiden fair in theory--but she reveals her secret when in private with Ned. Then rather than fighting like a "maiden" ought to, she tries to seduce him and make it "easy" for him. The dance between "bear" and "maiden fair" goes awry and then Ned is then treated as an extorted bear by being locked up and forced to "dance" to the tune that Cersei wants him to--ultimately being given a "mercy" of a quick death by Joffrey.

Ned would be a protector sort of bear, and even though he's a "wolf", he acts like a "bear" in this context, especially as it's high summer during most of Ned's reign.

It's nothing formalized, but I couldn't help but notice all the similarities to the plot of AGOT as I read your theory and I wanted to add that to the pot to stew and consider as a kind of thanks for giving me an afternoon and evening of enjoyable reading.

[sweetsunray]

Well done on the essays! I do have to wonder now about how the Riverlands house, House Piper and its dancing naked woman fits into all of this. I'm sure there's something to tease out there.

Additionally I was thinking about this as I was reading with context to AGOT. I know you mentioned you don't think GRRM had done enough bear research before this to realize what he had done with regards to breaking taboos. And yet I couldn't help but wonder at how your description of a "proper bear hunt" to some extent played out with Ned playing the part of a bear, being tricked by hunters to leave his "den" of Winterfell and come down to "the fair" of King's Landing (where an actual fair occurs in the place of the Hand's Tourney). In that play of the story, Cersei gets to play the part of the Maiden fair in theory--but she reveals her secret when in private with Ned. Then rather than fighting like a "maiden" ought to, she tries to seduce him and make it "easy" for him. The dance between "bear" and "maiden fair" goes awry and then Ned is then treated as an extorted bear by being locked up and forced to "dance" to the tune that Cersei wants him to--ultimately being given a "mercy" of a quick death by Joffrey.

Ned would be a protector sort of bear, and even though he's a "wolf", he acts like a "bear" in this context, especially as it's high summer during most of Ned's reign.

It's nothing formalized, but I couldn't help but notice all the similarities to the plot of AGOT as I read your theory and I wanted to add that to the pot to stew and consider as a kind of thanks for giving me an afternoon and evening of enjoyable reading.

You are correct you could see Ned's storyline in aGoT as a lure and sacrifice. But it does not prove he had a bear hunt in mind. Meanwhile we have symbolism of the Fisher King with Ned (and Robb) and Hades and Orpheus. aGoT contains no hints of the bear-folklore motifs at all. If there is a bear motif in aGoT, it are two of the three bear bachelors for Jon "Silverlock" (a Goldilocks adaption worked in). Even Dany does not consider Jorah "her bear" yet in aGoT. Bear folklore allusions are completely absent before aGoT, but are gradually worked in throughout aCoK: Jorah's story about Lynesse (bear and swan maiden), the mentioning of the title of the song at the Harvest Fest at WF, the bear skull and ram skull at Craster's and Craster extorting Jeor (bear revenge), Jeor mentioning his sister's claim about having taken a bear for a lover (totemic bear ancestry), the bear Vargo cought and brought to Harrenhal (bear revenge), Theon saying out loud while hunting for Bran and Rickon he wishes he had a bear in the middle of a forest (bear revenge), Dolorous Edd mentioning the bear teeth protection. We know it's deliberate then because Edd says, "There's always a bear". And from aSoS on, there is. The bear folklore allusions are present in almost every chapter. So, there is evidence that George started to set up the bear-motif in aCoK in preparation of the actual bear-in-your-face book of aSoS. But he did it in such a way that he could use it for storylines and plots he had set up and in mind in aGoT. 

For example, readers are correct that there is a Beauty and the Beast theme going on between Sandor-Sansa, Dany-Jorah, and Brienne-Jaime. And at the very least the first two he had already in mind since aGoT. And he did choose the bear-maiden song with the bear as a representative of the beast, which works for Jorah because he already had a bear sigil, and it works for Sandor, because one of the bear eptiteths was "god's dog" (with the god being Odin, and the tie to Berserker warriors). But once he had chosen the bear as the emblemic symbol of the beast, he incorporated as much of the folklore in whichever arc he could. Instead of the Mormonts having a bear sigil as rulers of Bear Island, he incorporates the totemic ancestry in it. He works the bear in as a revenge symbol. But in order to have the bear-revenge themes work, he also needs to provide a codex, and so the song became half a bear hunt codex. That I'm correct in my interpretatin of that first half as a bear hunt codex is evidenced how much George has a bear hunt come to life on the book pages when Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie are captured by the BwB. And of course the bear as beast was easily introduced for Brienne-Jaime, because Jaime had no POV before aSoS and only got to know and journey with Brienne in that bear-book. IMO, there were useful writing inspirations in aGoT (as a gardener) which he then maximized, once he hit the bear-folklore goldmine. And to make the song work as a link to aGoT, he had the maiden exclaim she wished for a knight, not a bear (because aGoT introduced characters as "knights" or "no-knights"). The knight versus bear allusion is not tied to bear-folklore really. But it creates a bridge between aGoT that is devoid of bear folklore and aCoK and aSoS that are loaded with it. The main reason why the bear-folklore themes are much less present in aFfC and aDwD (they are still present, but less so) is because almost every main character is separated from their bear. Jorah is banished, Brienne is sent on a search for Sansa, Sandor is dead (aka Quiet Isle) and Sansa in the Vale, Arya is in Braavos, ...

[Dulcinea]

This thread is amazing. I love everything about it.

[sweetsunray]

Just recently had a sudden insight about the bear song and Gendry as a hidden bear and Arya, the maiden of the tree and swan maiden.

Arya shaves her head, right, while with the HoBaW? So, she has no hair currently. George gave a practical reason for it, but I think symbolically it also means that no bear will be licking any honey from her hair in Braavos. Yes, I know that she's of course far too young for that, but her Mercy chapter does include her in a situation where she uses sexuality as a lure, nevertheless. And it's specifically mentioned again in that chapter that she shaves her head. In a way, it's as if George is saying - sure, she may seduce a man to kill him, but she's not sexually mature and nothing actually sexual will happen to her.

And then there is Gendry making a sword. Swords have a double entendre too. In part four of the Chthonic cycle I pointed out how Ice has that double entendre for Cat - Ned cleaning the blood from the sword, stroking and polishing it, while Cat thinks it has its own beauty, and then Ice being missing when Ned's bones are laid out to her (a reference to Isis-Osiris with his missing phallus) and LS getting a transformed Ice with a golden pommel instead (another reference to Isis-Osiris when Isis replaces the missing phallus with a magical golden one). Dustin points this double entendre out specifically to Theon: bloody sword, a beautiful thing. There's Daario with his golden wanton naked naked ladies. And of course there's Sandor often pointing his sword at Sansa. I think this double entendre also applies to Gendry.

We have the bear-hunting stanzas with Gendry as the hidden bear in Arya's chapter when caught by the BwB. We then have the Bear-Maiden fight in the smithy of the Acorn Hall. Then he's propositioned at the Peach, which he declines and leaves the Peach for a while. Arya wanted him to make swords for her brother (and thus other men), and Gendry truly doesn't want to be making swords for other men... as in, he doesn't want other men to marry her. He jumps at the chance to become a knight, for his own reasons but also to make something out of himself for her. Ultimately I think he wants to be her knight. And last we saw him, he's working on his sword, but it isn't yet finished, while there's a bossy Arya copy with a tree name walking around the premisses. We know he started on a sword at King's Landing, but he was made to join Yoren. He stole a sword from HH, but it's not really his sword. And despite all that time smithing for the BwB, his own sword is still a work in progress. So, thinking of the double entendre, I think it means he's not sexually a man yet, but is nearing the brink between boy and man.

Arya's shaved head is an authorial symbol of her being plot-protected from it, just as having her own sword Needle given to her by Jon was a symbol of protection on the KR too. With her having a sword, she does not need a man or knight to protect her from other men. Her fear of sexual harm and her actually witnessing rape appears in her chapters once Needle is taken from her in aCoK. Then several men protect her, such as Jaquen. Gendry by lying to Hot Pie, and stealing a sword for her, but it's not really her sword. Both Gendry and Arya, each carrying a stolen sword (required to act older than their age), team up to protect each other and remain safe. Then the men of the BwB guard her safety and next the Hound. It is only at the Inn, where the Hound is wounded in a manner that Arya will soon be without make protection, that she finds Needle again.

SPECULATION

Despite the original outline and the possible hints of Jon-Arya, I think the shaved head, the bear motif and the not-yet finished sword of Gendry, together with Arya's ghosts at the orphans' inn, is George's way of telling us that both Gendry and Arya are still to be seen as not yet sexually mature, and that the maturation is related to one another... whereas Jon already has a bastard sword and is not just a sexually mature man, but a sexually experienced man. His arc is heavily loaded with 'stealing a woman'. I think that put together George planned for a triangle, and stills seems to have that intent, between Jon - Arya - Gendry. Together with other links (such as Nymeria) I think it is most likely that Arya will re-emerge in Westeros in the Riverlands, and it looks to me that Gendry very likely would offer his knightly sword to her, literally, but also with the double entendre of desiring her and fallingin love with her. It's unlikely that Arya would know of Jon being alive again if and when he is resurrected, but she will most likely learn of the assassination, and most likely would believe him dead. This would create room for Arya to develop romantic feelings for Gendry, while her hair still has to grow. But then Jon comes back into Arya's life, and you'd have a triangle situation, and a Targ-Stark-Baratheon echo to boot, and pretty much set up by Ned Stark who reared Jon at WF and seems the impetus behind sending Gendry along with Yoren with the aid of Varys and unwittingly sacrificed his life for Arya. I'm not predicting the outcome of that triangle, but I think that's where George is indeed going.

 

[Seams]

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

... Arya wanted him to make swords for her brother (and thus other men), and Gendry truly doesn't want to be making swords for other men... as in, he doesn't want other men to marry her. He jumps at the chance to become a knight, for his own reasons but also to make something out of himself for her. Ultimately I think he wants to be her knight. And last we saw him, he's working on his sword, but it isn't yet finished, while there's a bossy Arya copy with a tree name walking around the premisses. We know he started on a sword at King's Landing, but he was made to join Yoren. He stole a sword from HH, but it's not really his sword. And despite all that time smithing for the BwB, his own sword is still a work in progress. So, thinking of the double entendre, I think it means he's not sexually a man yet, but is nearing the brink between boy and man.

...

SPECULATION

...I think that put together George planned for a triangle, and stills seems to have that intent, between Jon - Arya - Gendry.

My reading of the wrestling scene with Gendry and Arya in the Smallwood blacksmith's forge was that Arya IS the sword. Gendry is helping to reforge her - while she may also be reforging him.

But your added piece of the bear/maiden fair analysis does help to explain an interesting turn of phrase that I have kept in the back of my mind. Jon had run away in the middle of the night, deserting the Night's Watch and riding south to join Robb Stark after hearing about the death of Ned Stark. The next morning, Mormont scolds him:

Like as not, my sister is marching in your brother’s host, her and those daughters of hers, dressed in men’s mail. Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to be around the wretched woman, but that does not mean my love for her is any less than the love you bear your half sisters. . . . Or perhaps it does. Be that as it may, I’d still grieve if she were slain, yet you don’t see me running off. . . .

("Hoary old snark" has a lot of the same letters as Arya Stark, I just noticed. "Stubborn" some kind of reference to being born? "Short-tempered" would be a sword or warhammer reference - steel is tempered as it is forged. And "willful" has the word "will" in it, which seems to be a component of names for a lot of characters who are mysterious and important.)

But the use of the word "bear" is what intrigued me in Mormont's little sermon. If Jon is a bear and Arya is a maiden fair, then the love he feels for his half sister would be different than the love Mormont feels for Maege.

Like your insight about Gendry wanting to make his own sword, and not to make swords for other men or for Arya's brothers, Jon also comes to a turning point where he decides not to be someone else's sword (he may have more than one of these turning points) but to be his own sword. There are several references in the desertion chapter to the sword Long Claw, which Jon has left behind in his bed when he rides south. When he thinks of it, he always notes that it will be found in his bed - almost like those prison breaks where the escapee leaves a fake body in the bed so people will think he's still there, asleep. Then he imagines presenting himself to Robb and the implication is that he would be wearing a hooded cloak until he gets close and would then take off his hood for the big reveal. I associate the hood removal with the unsheathing of a sword. In other words, Jon would be presenting himself as a sword for Robb to use - except he can't quite picture this in his mind. When he returns to Mormont, he gets the scolding and is told that his blood and wolf are needed to look for Benjen and to fight the war against the dead. He agrees to stay with the Night's Watch after all, and Mormont gets the last line of the chapter: “Good. Now go put on your sword.”

 

[sweetsunray]

Well I don't think Jon is a bear. He's Silverlocks who visits and messes up the homes of 3 bachelor bears - little bear (Tyrion), middle bear (Thormund) and old bear (LC Jeor Mormont) and only the life of the little bear suits him. But he doesn't need to be to have double entendres about swords.

I would be careful with regarding 'to bear' as having a pun, because it is a common verb and appears a lot on in the books, more so than the times the animal is mentioned: 'to bear children/arms/responsibility/resemblance/...' If you accept the verb as being used as a pun in relation to the animal then basically every character is a bear and then it loses all significance. And what to do with the past tense 'bore'. Does that make the character a 'boar'?

It's not that George isn't able to use a very common word symbolically. I've made a case that he does with the scene about Lysa's letter, where the verb is absent for a full page in a conversation, and then used 7 times in a row in the next page. But it's very case and situational specific, and other alternative verbs that mean 'to say' as well are also absent on that page. Even the imagery and thoughts are about not daring to speak in the first section adn all about seeing, looking, etc, while the second half is about communicating, speaking, writing and haering and looking away, instead of seeing.

[Equilibrium]

@sweetsunray I read it finally, you mentioned this of hand like it's some cute little theory, not Russian novel worth of analysis

Great analysis, I can't think of anything important to add here. I am well versed into the thematic here but not that well versed. It is really tightly written and there isn't much open for dispute, really great read.

Just two short comments, when Hound (bear) makes Sansa (swan) sing for him, it brought to mind expression "swan song", can that scene signify death of Sansa's innocence or something along those lines, think about it.

And Maege Mormont, as far as we know she left with Glover to find Howland Reed and she bears Robb's will. Given that she is probably in the Neck at present, she has means, motive and opportunity to take vengeance on Frays.

[sweetsunray]

49 minutes ago, Equilibrium said:

I read it finally, you mentioned this of hand like it's some cute little theory, not Russian novel worth of analysis

Well there's ALWAYS a bear... bears coming out of our ears, and sometimes we don't even realize it. And it's not actually finished either. (I still need to do a Jon one, and more on Sansa), and yes the swan-song... In my Valkyrie of the FM thread the latter half is about swan maidens too, and we found evidence for Arya as being portrayed as a swan of the Swan Lake ballet, certainly in aGoT, where she learns "water dancing" and part of her training as "water dancer" is standing on one leg, on the tips of her toes and maintaining balance (whic is soooooooooo ballet). And then she goes down into the vaults of KL and overhears talk of a man who's referred to as a "wizard" (Varys), which she emphasizes on when she tells it to Ned. And then she's a captive in a huge castle at the rim of a giant lake where she saw 3 black swans floating. 

And if we consider Sansa a swan: thrice Tyrion is offered Swans for food. First time in aCoK when he has dinner with Cersei, and he just feels swan is "too rich for him". The second time it's offered as one of the dishes in aSoS during the Purple Wedding, together with "peas"  and "chopped nuts" (peas was what Tyrion and Sansa as wedded couple talked about, and Sansa blue balls him). Tyrion passes on the swan dish. The third time he's offered swan at Illyrio's in Pentos and Tyrion immediately says he never wants any swan.

Bears and swans!

[Cridefea]

LoL I must read this, it's a bit long, it will take some time but I must read it!

[Equilibrium]

@sweetsunray I actually read the Valkyrie of FM some time ago, I thought it was very good, can't say I recall particular stuff about swans. Now have you thought about symbolism of black swans specifically, as unexpected and unpredictable event. Swans are black and white and so is the House of Black and White and FM are pretty unpredictable bunch. Granted I am talking of top of my head and I will definitely have to read the whole thing again when I muster some time.

I will definitely dream of bears tonight.

 

 

[sweetsunray]

23 minutes ago, Equilibrium said:

@sweetsunray I actually read the Valkyrie of FM some time ago, I thought it was very good, can't say I recall particular stuff about swans. Now have you thought about symbolism of black swans specifically, as unexpected and unpredictable event. Swans are black and white and so is the House of Black and White and FM are pretty unpredictable bunch. Granted I am talking of top of my head and I will definitely have to read the whole thing again when I muster some time.

I will definitely dream of bears tonight.

 

 

@Manderly's Rat Cook brought it up:

And then we discussed it with @LmL joining in.

Gathered swan-lake reference quotes for Arya

Lake references and quotes, summer isles (and islanders), and the quotes with Tyrion being served "swan":

 

[Equilibrium]

11 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

@Manderly's Rat Cook brought it up:

And then we discussed it with @LmL joining in.

I read only your essays, last year, can't say I followed entire discussion, I will certainly read it all.

[sweetsunray]

51 minutes ago, Cridefea said:

LoL I must read this, it's a bit long, it will take some time but I must read it!

Enjoy