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Small Questions v. 10105


Rhaenys_Targaryen

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On 6/18/2017 at 8:38 AM, LordImp said:

How many northern and riverlands hostages are there currently ? The ones I remember is Hos Blackwood , Greatjon , Patrek Mallister , Edmure and Roselin and Marq Piper . Any more hostages? 

There probably are many more, but I think those are the only named individuals.

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The other captives [at Harrenhal] had been better treated. Ser Wylis Manderly was amongst them, along with several other highborn northmen taken prisoner by the Mountain That Rides in the fighting at the fords of the Trident. Useful hostages, all worth a goodly ransom. (AFFC Jaime III)

 

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"Where is Marq, answer me that? What have you done with my son? He was a guest at your bloody wedding."

"And our honored guest he shall remain," said Edwyn, "until you prove your loyalty to His Grace, King Tommen."

"Five knights and twenty men-at-arms went with Marq to the Twins," said Piper. "Are they your guests as well, Frey?"

"Some of the knights, perhaps. The others were served no more than they deserved. (AFFC Jaime VI)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been reading this forum for a while and have just signed up. As you may have guessed, a lot of the subtext of the novels has gone over my head, er, under my radar perhaps? But reading this forum and links posted on it has given me a much deeper appreciation for the series so, (even though many that this is directed to probably won't read this comment), thanks so much!

On with my small question. From AGOT Dany V:

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Some of the traders have eunuchs with them, huge men who strangle thieves with wisps of silk. That way no blood is shed and the gods are not angered.

Could this be a reference to Varys and his ability to not get blood on his hands? If so, who are the thieves and what have they stolen - the Iron Throne? or am I reading too much into it?

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8 hours ago, Naive Reader said:

I've been reading this forum for a while and have just signed up. As you may have guessed, a lot of the subtext of the novels has gone over my head, er, under my radar perhaps? But reading this forum and links posted on it has given me a much deeper appreciation for the series so, (even though many that this is directed to probably won't read this comment), thanks so much!

On with my small question. From AGOT Dany V:

Could this be a reference to Varys and his ability to not get blood on his hands? If so, who are the thieves and what have they stolen - the Iron Throne? or am I reading too much into it?

Welcome to the forum, Naive Reader, from a fellow Reader!  :)

Thank you for pointing out that fascinating quote!  It shows you have a good instinct for literary analysis.  Sometimes, it's more important to have a 'good nose' for the quotes that matter, before one even succeeds in mining them for their full worth, although that may seem paradoxical, with all the hype that goes on around here surrounding the importance of only adhering to hard 'evidence' and 'Occam's razor' and dismissing the rest. 

Contrary to your humble reference to yourself in your avatar as 'naive', you're not reading too much into it -- let me show you how 'reading too much into it' is done (in fact, I'm notoriously gifted with that particular talent)!

While I don't pretend to be the ultimate expert -- there are others on this forum who are miles better versed than I when it comes to the details contained in these books -- I could wager an interpretation, given that symbolic reading is my forte.  Firstly, recall that the context in which this particular quote is uttered is in the sacred city of Vaes Dothrak, shortly before Viserys is killed via molten pot of gold applied to head, without ostensibly shedding any blood (although that is debatable, symbolically, since the blood of the dragon is described as being 'hot gold' elsewhere):

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys V

"We are in Vaes Dothrak," he reminded her. "No one may carry a blade here or shed a man's blood."

"Yet men die," she said. "Jhogo told me. Some of the traders have eunuchs with them, huge men who strangle thieves with wisps of silk. That way no blood is shed and the gods are not angered."

"Then let us hope your brother will be wise enough not to steal anything." Ser Jorah wiped the grease off his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned close over the table. "He had planned to take your dragon's eggs, until I warned him that I'd cut off his hand if he so much as touched them."

If Viserys is the victim killed 'without shedding blood' to avoid the taint of kinslaying (at Vaes Dothrak all the khalasars are supposed to set aside their petty divisions and be one people under one roof, one family; so killing one another violating the sanctity of Vaes Dothrak is akin to kinslaying, essentially);

then Dany is the murderer (and as befits 'kinslaying' without getting blood on ones hands, she is also literally the victim's sister) who gets away with it by outsourcing the killing, as it were, to the 'eunuch', the 'huge man' who must be represented by Drogo, as counterintuitive as that may seem, making the 'wisp of silk' by which he strangled Viserys (besides the shock of burning, Viserys's primary cause of death was probably secondary to the effects of suffocation, when the gold entered his mouth, nose, and throat, as he was screaming in pain and fear and gulping for air -- otherwise stated, 'drowning in gold') analogous to the molten-down medallions he took from his belt, which he unleashed like a wisp or whip for the occasion.  Additionally, it strikes me there is a mirror here between the unleashing of the belt which figuratively strikes Viserys, and the parallel event in the uncoiling of Drogo's 'flaming lash' in the funeral pyre, which contributed to the death (Viserys's death) and birth (Viserion's hatching) of a dragon, respectively:

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AGOT -- Daenerys X

...and for an instant she glimpsed Khal Drogo before her, mounted on his smoky stallion, a flaming lash in his hand. He smiled, and the whip snaked down at the pyre, hissing.

She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.

If Drogo as Dany's proxy assassin is a eunuch symbolically, that would imply that someone has or will castrate him, either literally or figuratively -- which ultimately proves to be the case when Dany usurps his power, replacing him at the head of the khalasar, again with the help of a proxy assassin in the form of Mirri wielding her sorcerous magic, the 'sword without a hilt' (perhaps yet another 'wisp of silk' that kills) rendering him impotent, in a vegetative state, without an heir (indicating the end of his reproductive potency and line) -- the heir Rhaego was 'traded' together with the lives of her brother and husband in the dragon forging 'deal made' by the 'trader' Dany, trading in 'death for life'.  The eunuch symbolism puts Drogo in a category with other eunuch soldiers / proxy assassins-for-hire such as the Unsullied, the Others, the wights, the Faceless Men, the Sorrowful Men, Jaqen and Varys, etc.

The 'theft' involved is twofold:  first, the obvious threat Viserys made to Dany, threatening to steal the dragons' eggs, but more importantly on that night threatening to steal her son 'cut out the bastard', should he not receive the army from Drogo he was promised; the less obvious, more insidious theft, however, and the one that wasn't merely left as a threat, but pursued to completion, was the usurpation by Dany of her brother's place at the head of the Targaryen line of succession.

I trust this has piqued your interest and that you've enjoyed reading so far.  You are welcome on my threads (check out my poetry thread; that's my favorite) :).

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hi everyone:  is there (is there?) a listing of errors / omissions for a 1st edition of the world of ice and fire? 

i read somewhere that there were a couple of typos or something in the text and I would like to have that all straightened up ... and i did go take a search for such before i posted this message. sadly, i didn't find any related search engine results ... does anyone know?  thanks!

 



 

 

 

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16 hours ago, syrinx said:

Is there any actual direct evidence that Varys is a eunuch? Could he be lying about this?

No direct proof. None of our POV have checked for us.

 

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I thought so. And yet nobody seems to doubt that he is in fact an eunuch, or the story about he burning of his manhood.

I mean, this guys had made a career out of deceit, why do we believe him in this?

If he he is not a eunuch, it would open even more possibilities for all the fAegon theories and Vary's motivations and actions.

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41 minutes ago, syrinx said:

I thought so. And yet nobody seems to doubt that he is in fact an eunuch, or the story about he burning of his manhood.

I mean, this guys had made a career out of deceit, why do we believe him in this?

If he he is not a eunuch, it would open even more possibilities for all the fAegon theories and Vary's motivations and actions.

There are some crackpot ideas out there involving Varys not being a eunuch. There are even ideas about Varys being a woman. 

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Ah! Completely missed them.

It dors not have to be crackpot though. The only source we have for this is Varys telling other people. And he has much to gain form people thinking he is a eunuch, and thus not a threat at and without family.

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On 01/07/2017 at 6:28 AM, ravenous reader said:

Welcome to the forum, Naive Reader, from a fellow Reader!  :)

Thank you for pointing out that fascinating quote!  It shows you have a good instinct for literary analysis.  Sometimes, it's more important to have a 'good nose' for the quotes that matter, before one even succeeds in mining them for their full worth, although that may seem paradoxical, with all the hype that goes on around here surrounding the importance of only adhering to hard 'evidence' and 'Occam's razor' and dismissing the rest. 

Contrary to your humble reference to yourself in your avatar as 'naive', you're not reading too much into it -- let me show you how 'reading too much into it' is done (in fact, I'm notoriously gifted with that particular talent)!

While I don't pretend to be the ultimate expert -- there are others on this forum who are miles better versed than I when it comes to the details contained in these books -- I could wager an interpretation, given that symbolic reading is my forte.  Firstly, recall that the context in which this particular quote is uttered is in the sacred city of Vaes Dothrak, shortly before Viserys is killed via molten pot of gold applied to head, without ostensibly shedding any blood (although that is debatable, symbolically, since the blood of the dragon is described as being 'hot gold' elsewhere):

...

I trust this has piqued your interest and that you've enjoyed reading so far.  You are welcome on my threads (check out my poetry thread; that's my favorite) :).

 

Thanks so much for the reply and the welcome! I did enjoy that analysis. I'll give you an example of why I chose my forum name. I have read and enjoyed many of your posts, and I really like your avatar picture as well. But I didn't even notice the "raven" reference in your name until you explicitly pointed it out in another post! I meant to mention in my first post, I am on my first re-read of AGOT after reading through the series fairly quickly (wanting to find out what would happen!). In between I have read a lot of this forum and other essays, and that has inspired me to read the text a lot more closely. I haven't looked at the poetry thread as yet as I am not really well versed (ha!) in poetry, but I will check it out, thanks!

 

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On 30/06/2017 at 10:46 PM, Yaya said:

hi everyone:  is there (is there?) a listing of errors / omissions for a 1st edition of the world of ice and fire? 

i read somewhere that there were a couple of typos or something in the text and I would like to have that all straightened up ... and i did go take a search for such before i posted this message. sadly, i didn't find any related search engine results ... does anyone know?  thanks!

As far as I know, only this thread.

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6 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

If Margaery is found guilty, what will be her punishment? I can't remember if it was ever specified or not. 

I did a search and the best I could find was  a thread in this very forum from 2011

 

 

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On 1-7-2017 at 3:46 AM, Yaya said:

hi everyone:  is there (is there?) a listing of errors / omissions for a 1st edition of the world of ice and fire? 

i read somewhere that there were a couple of typos or something in the text and I would like to have that all straightened up ... and i did go take a search for such before i posted this message. sadly, i didn't find any related search engine results ... does anyone know?  thanks!

 



 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Ckram said:

As far as I know, only this thread.

There's also this thread. A lot is listed in the OP, but some more (that aren't found in the OP) can be found elsewhere throughout the thread.

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5 hours ago, Prof. Cecily said:

I did a search and the best I could find was  a thread in this very forum from 2011

 

 

Thanks for the link. It's strange how this hasn't been discussed in detail since ADWD was published. I'm thinking that GRRM may go for some high drama here and have Margaery found guilty. That would make for an interesting twist. 

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6 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Thanks for the link. It's strange how this hasn't been discussed in detail since ADWD was published. I'm thinking that GRRM may go for some high drama here and have Margaery found guilty. That would make for an interesting twist. 

My pleasure!

The thread is an interesting read, though it degenerates to bickering in the last pages.

I think the references to the real crimes of Queen Margaery rather intriguing:

the lack of a maidenhead, as confirmed by a septa's examination

the use of moon tea

 

With her crimes thus defined, plus the damning confessions of the tortured men, I think GRRM is mirroring historical trials of medieval queens and noblewomen.

High drama? Oh, yes.

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1 minute ago, Prof. Cecily said:

My pleasure!

The thread is an interesting read, though it degenerates to bickering in the last pages.

I think the references to the real crimes of Queen Margaery rather intriguing:

the lack of a maidenhead, as confirmed by a septa's examination

the use of moon tea

 

With her crimes thus defined, plus the damning confessions of the tortured men, I think GRRM is mirroring historical trials of medieval queens and noblewomen.

High drama? Oh, yes.

Iirc, all the witnesses that gave testimony against Marg have recanted or died by the end of ADwD. Maybe there's one left, but that one has gone mad? I may be misremembering.

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9 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Iirc, all the witnesses that gave testimony against Marg have recanted or died by the end of ADwD. Maybe there's one left, but that one has gone mad? I may be misremembering.

I'll look into that and thanks for the comment!

In that case(and I've no doubt you're right there as I've only read ADwD twice and skimmed the trial scenes as quickly as I could) the evidence against the queen is her lack of a maidenhead and Pycell'es (now deceased) testimony about the moon tea.

In the thread I cited from 2011, it's suggested that the queen's real crime is entering the sept on Maiden Day.

I see this as a shout out to a divorce trial in ancient Rome against a noblewoman I seem to remember reading about.. 

Hmmm

:read:

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6 minutes ago, Prof. Cecily said:

I'll look into that and thanks for the comment!

In that case(and I've no doubt you're right there as I've only read ADwD twice and skimmed the trial scenes as quickly as I could) the evidence against the queen is her lack of a maidenhead and Pycell'es (now deceased) testimony about the moon tea.

In the thread I cited from 2011, it's suggested that the queen's real crime is entering the sept on Maiden Day.

I see this as a shout out to a divorce trial in ancient Rome against a noblewoman I seem to remember reading about.. 

Hmmm

:read:

Well, Pycelle is dead but his testimony was given and should be valid. I remember reading something somewhere - how helpful! :lol: - about the other witnesses and all the rest but I can't for the life of me remember where. If I find it I'll link it here.

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