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The Black Dog at the Purple Wedding


LadyoftheNorth72

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I'm feeling stupid for asking this literally years and probably seven or eight complete read-throughs of the entire series, but I'll go nuts if I don't.

I always do a read-through prior to a new season (wish I could say prior to a new book release), and this time I noticed a detail that I have somehow never picked up on before. Just as Joffrey has died and Cersei is sitting holding his body:

"A thin black dog crept up beside her, sniffing at Joffrey's corpse. The boy is gone, Cersei,' Lord Tywin said.  He put his gloved hand on his daughter's shoulder as one of his guardsmen shooed away the dog."

I feel like my brain is exploding, partly because I never noticed this before, and partly because I have to believe there was some meaning behind this.

I'm well aware that various animals, dogs especially, were customarily as common in dining halls as the people, but I find it difficult to imagine that Cersei would have allowed that to be the case for Joff's big feast. 

Obviously the Clegane standard bears three black dogs, but there's been no hint that I can recall of Sandor being a warg. He did have a habit of oddly popping up wherever Sansa was - almost to the point of being stalkerish. But wouldn't there need to be an animal he kept close to warg into, since skinchangers in this series do not actually change their own skin, but slip into that of others? Also, Sandor never seemed to have much personal affinity for Joff.

However , he seems to have a bizarre affinity for both Stark girls (to the extent that he is able), developed independently of each other, and understood them both as they came to understand him. 

It's just pretty freaking weird that the animal on the Clegane standard would randomly show up at a formal wedding feast, wander through the crowd for a "hmm" sniff at the murdered king's body, then vanish. 

Thoughts? Mehs? 

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It's an interesting visual image/metaphor, but beyond that I don't think it holds much significance. The Red Keep isn't able to control their cat problem, so a stray dog slipping in doesn't seem that unreasonable. And since the creature is never mentioned before or since, I don't see it having any real significance. Also wargs are an exclusively First Men thing, and nothing we know about House Clegane makes them appear anything but Andal.

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47 minutes ago, The Mountain That Flies said:

Also wargs are an exclusively First Men thing, and nothing we know about House Clegane makes them appear anything but Andal.

Except, y'know, their height. Giants are fairly non-Andal, no? I don't exactly buy this theory, but it certainly tickles me! Always nice to see a new line being overexamined.

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In European folklore, there is a black dog that is a nocturnal apparition that serves as a portent of death. It could be a sign of what is to come for the Lannisters. Tywin dies shortly after, and I think the other Lannisters' days are numbered.

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How many eyes did that dog have?

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How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? the riddle ran. A thousand eyes, and one. Some claimed the King's Hand was a student of the dark arts who could change his face, put on the likeness of a one-eyed dog, even turn into a mist. Packs of gaunt gray wolves hunted down his foes, men said, and carrion crows spied for him and whispered secrets in his ear. Most of the tales were only tales, Dunk did not doubt, but no one could doubt that Bloodraven had informers everywhere.

TMK

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I wouldn't go so far as to say that I have a theory about this, insofar as Clegane being a warg - although the possibility of giant blood did set off a bit of a spark, interesting!!! -  or even whether the dog has significant meaning (and if so, what).  Perhaps there's more to the Cleganes that will be revealed, since it does *seem* that we've got FrankenGregor in the Kingsguard now. 

I would say that I do think it has some kind of meaning, if only a sort of sideways nod to the Hound. I was more curious to see what others thought. So far, some interesting things have been posted! 

The Bloodraven reference makes me think more of Gregor. I automatically thought of Sandor at first, but Gregor is a Clegane as well, and one of the most outstanding tenets of his character has always been his penchant for killing and/or hurting the young. He almost seems to seek it out, from when he was still technically a child himself. 

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1 hour ago, Fire Eater said:

In European folklore, there is a black dog that is a nocturnal apparition that serves as a portent of death. It could be a sign of what is to come for the Lannisters. Tywin dies shortly after, and I think the other Lannisters' days are numbered.

My thoughts exactly. The "Grim" from Harry Potter, basically. Also, ironic that Sandor abandoned the king he was sworn to protect and yet was there, symbolically at least, right next to Joffrey's side when he died. "Joffrey's dog", as several characters referred to him. 

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17 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

Well, since we do know that the whole story is just Bloodraven warging anything and everything, this must be him too! 

Nope. The George woulda told us it had one eye. The beast symbolized Joffrey's passing. 

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5 hours ago, LadyoftheNorth72 said:

I'm feeling stupid for asking this literally years and probably seven or eight complete read-throughs of the entire series, but I'll go nuts if I don't.

I always do a read-through prior to a new season (wish I could say prior to a new book release), and this time I noticed a detail that I have somehow never picked up on before. Just as Joffrey has died and Cersei is sitting holding his body:

"A thin black dog crept up beside her, sniffing at Joffrey's corpse. The boy is gone, Cersei,' Lord Tywin said.  He put his gloved hand on his daughter's shoulder as one of his guardsmen shooed away the dog."

I feel like my brain is exploding, partly because I never noticed this before, and partly because I have to believe there was some meaning behind this.

I'm well aware that various animals, dogs especially, were customarily as common in dining halls as the people, but I find it difficult to imagine that Cersei would have allowed that to be the case for Joff's big feast. 

Obviously the Clegane standard bears three black dogs, but there's been no hint that I can recall of Sandor being a warg. He did have a habit of oddly popping up wherever Sansa was - almost to the point of being stalkerish. But wouldn't there need to be an animal he kept close to warg into, since skinchangers in this series do not actually change their own skin, but slip into that of others? Also, Sandor never seemed to have much personal affinity for Joff.

However , he seems to have a bizarre affinity for both Stark girls (to the extent that he is able), developed independently of each other, and understood them both as they came to understand him. 

It's just pretty freaking weird that the animal on the Clegane standard would randomly show up at a formal wedding feast, wander through the crowd for a "hmm" sniff at the murdered king's body, then vanish. 

Thoughts? Mehs? 

Well, we know at least one dog was at the feast, along with a pig. My first thought was maybe it was Crunch, hanging around after his joust, but he was gray, not black. I think dogs at feasts were such a commonplace occurrence that not even Cersei would have thought to ban them from the wedding. 

As for Sandor, I think the key is there has been no indication of him being a warg. So far the only wargs we have seen are the Starks, Bloodraven, and some Wildings, which makes warging appear to be connected to the Old Gods/First Men. House Clegane is a relatively new house (Sandor and Gregor are the third generation), and their sigil comes from the three dogs that died when Grandpa Clegane saved Grandpa Lannister, there is no long-standing Clegane-dog affinity that we are aware of. Sandor was also busy traveling the Riverlands with Arya at the time of the Purple Wedding, and I think Arya may have noticed if Sandor "left" his body for awhile to go hang out at a wedding. 

Sandor despises knights, as he is fully aware how few "true knights" there are, even though he himself exhibits some true knight tendencies, especially when it comes to protecting Sansa. I do think he was following Sansa, not as her stalker but as her protector - he was the only member of the Kings Guard who refused to follow Joff's commands to abuse Sansa, he saved her during the riot, he attempted to help her flee during Blackwater. More than anyone, he knew what Joff was like, and he wanted to save Sansa from him as much as he could. So if the dog was Sandor, it would have been more interested in Sansa's wellbeing, not Joff's. 

Sometimes a black dog is just a harbinger of death.

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My theory was that Willas Tyrell attended the feast in disguise (one of the strolling players, or possibly as the singer  Collio Quaynes of Tyrosh - although, as Tyrion notes,"A haunting ballad of two dying lovers amidst the Doom of Valyria"(ASoS, Ch.60 Tyrion VIII) might be a more appropriate choice for an assassin who wanted to signal intent to kill both Joffrey and Magaery), and this hound was one of his specially bred dogs, and recognised a scent that he was trained to trail. If this were the case, Loras and Margaery would of course have recognised their brother, and very possibly his hound.

The question is, what was the scent the dog was trained to pick up? Was the hound trained to identify rare poisons? (Interesting, especially given Willas's correspondence with Oberyn, who might also recognise him.) The only poison that is explicitly described as odourless is the tears of Lys:"tasteless and odorless, hence easier to hide. The tears of Lys, men call it. Dissolved in wine or water, it eats at a man’s bowels and belly, and kills as a sickness of those parts."(AFfC, Ch.34 Cat Of The Canals) Thus a better match for Jon Arryn /Robert Bartheon /Hoster Tully 's death. The waif did not mention that dogs could or couldn't detect it.

Or perhaps the dog was trained to detect a more normal scent - eg. blood, or someone had put a trinket the dog was suppose to detect for its act on Jaime? 

Tyrion didn't observe what the clever dogs did to deserve their epithet, and their act was on around sunset (we know, because the Pyromancers conjure beasts of living flame just before they come on, meaning the room was dark enough for fireworks.) , and quite a while had passed since then - it would take at least half an hour for Galyeon of Cuy to get through his seventy-seven verses, and probably more, judging by the three courses served between his arrival and that of the dwarf jousters. 

Ser Dontos makes his belated entrance very shortly before the clever dogs (his boss had been watching for him, and starts pelting him with dates),  so maybe Collio is a Darklyn back from exile, rather than a Tyrell. Whichever, he seems (like the elderly bear) to be associated with at least one piper and one drummer, which makes me very suspicious.

But there are a lot of things going on in this chapter, things that in retrospect seem highly suspicious, and some of them must be red herrings. If the dog is a red herring, its a good one, mentioned just enough to attract the readers attention and arouse suspicion and stick in your mind, but not so much that you wouldn't be in danger of forgetting it or dismissing it as Crunch, when you reach that chapter 40 of Dance with Dragons.

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7 hours ago, LadyoftheNorth72 said:

I'm feeling stupid for asking this literally years and probably seven or eight complete read-throughs of the entire series, but I'll go nuts if I don't.

I always do a read-through prior to a new season (wish I could say prior to a new book release), and this time I noticed a detail that I have somehow never picked up on before. Just as Joffrey has died and Cersei is sitting holding his body:

"A thin black dog crept up beside her, sniffing at Joffrey's corpse. The boy is gone, Cersei,' Lord Tywin said.  He put his gloved hand on his daughter's shoulder as one of his guardsmen shooed away the dog."

I feel like my brain is exploding, partly because I never noticed this before, and partly because I have to believe there was some meaning behind this.

I'm well aware that various animals, dogs especially, were customarily as common in dining halls as the people, but I find it difficult to imagine that Cersei would have allowed that to be the case for Joff's big feast. 

Obviously the Clegane standard bears three black dogs, but there's been no hint that I can recall of Sandor being a warg. He did have a habit of oddly popping up wherever Sansa was - almost to the point of being stalkerish. But wouldn't there need to be an animal he kept close to warg into, since skinchangers in this series do not actually change their own skin, but slip into that of others? Also, Sandor never seemed to have much personal affinity for Joff.

However , he seems to have a bizarre affinity for both Stark girls (to the extent that he is able), developed independently of each other, and understood them both as they came to understand him. 

It's just pretty freaking weird that the animal on the Clegane standard would randomly show up at a formal wedding feast, wander through the crowd for a "hmm" sniff at the murdered king's body, then vanish. 

Thoughts? Mehs? 

I think it's a rather blatant nod to Les Rois Maudits (The Accursed Kings) by Maurice Druon. King Louis is killed by poison much like Joffrey, and upon his deathbed a dog gets into his bed chambers--licks the kings soiled undergarments, and then dies not long thereafter of much similar symptoms to the King--letting everyone know it was poison that truly killed the King.

GRRM is giving the nod here without completely copying from Druon.

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"But there are a lot of things going on in this chapter, things that in retrospect seem highly suspicious, and some of them must be red herrings"

This is absolutely true. IMO, the only two people we can be completely certain did not actually get the poison into Joff's system (and were present) are Tyrion and Sansa, since we have POV chapters from each of them afterwards.  Ironic, since they are the exact two people blamed. 

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9 hours ago, Dorian Martell said:

I know, I'm just being drunk and sarcastic 
The story would be really boring if it was all bloodraven all the time 

 

I have to admit I probably see a few too many Bloodraven connections. But i do think there are some. 

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