The sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler

[np1234]

Does anyone know what this actually means? 

Is it just about Sarella or is there something more to it? 

I honestly am completely baffled by it.

[Knight of Onions]

But Maester Aemon likely doesn't know about Alleras/Sarella. The Citadel gate is flanked by sphinxes, so it may be referring to the institution of the Citadel rather than just Sarella.

[dinner]

No one knows yet. 

[chrisdaw]

Nothing to do with Sarella. An ancient prophesy concerning the dragons is not about a side character pretending to be a boy who her friends call a sphinx. That's just GRRM offering a clue as to Sarella/Alleras' identity.

The dragon is made up of multiple bloodlines, different bloodlines will produce different results, sphinxes. Rhaego was Targ/Valyrian and one would suppose Dothraki, end result is the nice sleek dragon Drogon. The Dothraki blood may not even have any particular effect, rather its just dilution making Drogon half what he could be. But the dragon that's going to end the Long Night is going to be more, the riddle is what bloodline(s). Either its going to require many more bloodlines sacrificed to the dragon, greenblood, ironborn and First Men. Or sacrifice of one particularly good and pure bloodline, that of Dany herself or hers and Jon's child. End result will be super dragon, Balerion style, the super mix.

[Elisabetta Duò]

There are whole threads about this riddle here, in case you cant to check them out

[Aryya Stark]

I think in order to try to figure this out we need to look at Greek Mythology, I got the info below from a website on Greek mythology:

Quote

 

The Sphinx was a frightful monster who was spreading death to mankind with a cunning riddle:

Appearance of the Sphinx:

The Sphinx had long hair, the body of a lion, the chest and wings of a bird and the head of a woman.The Sphinx was a winged monster of Anatolian origin. It had heavenly powers and was settled near the city of Ancient Thebes, spreading destruction and bad luck to the entire district. 

The Riddle of the Sphinx:

The Sphinx used to sit outside of Thebes, asking the same riddle to anyone who passed by. The riddle was going as follows:

"What goes on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?" 

Would the traveler fail to solve the riddle, he was cursed to die.

Oedipus and the Solution to the Riddle :

No one was ever capable of answering correctly... until one day, Oedipus came along. Oedipus was promised the hand of the princess should he interpret the riddle correctly. 
As he was famous for his wisdom, Oedipus found the answer to the riddle with ease, replying: 

"Man, who as a baby crawls on four legs, then walks on two legs as an adult and in old age walks with a cane as his third leg..." 

The Sphinx became so frustrated about this answer that it committed suicide immediately , throwing herself from a high rock.

 

So now we need to invert things I suppose, since the sphinx itself is the riddle and not riddler. I am assuming it has something to do with the sphinx's appearance, which is part lion, part woman and part falcon? I guess it might have something to do with the Lannisters and Arryns? Cersie and LF?

Who knows, it's all just guesswork at this point.

[Manderly's Rat Cook]

1 hour ago, Aryya Stark said:

I think in order to try to figure this out we need to look at Greek Mythology, I got the info below from a website on Greek mythology:

So now we need to invert things I suppose, since the sphinx itself is the riddle and not riddler. I am assuming it has something to do with the sphinx's appearance, which is part lion, part woman and part falcon? I guess it might have something to do with the Lannisters and Arryns? Cersie and LF?

Who knows, it's all just guesswork at this point.

So... Sweetrobin is actually the son of Cersei and Jon Arryn? Lol. He does look like a girl... 

[Aryya Stark]

2 minutes ago, Manderly's Rat Cook said:

So... Sweetrobin is actually the son of Cersei and Jon Arryn? Lol. He does look like a girl... 

[BricksAndSparrows]

I would not dismiss Alleras/Sarella's involvement in this prophecy. It may be that she is a Red Herring, but still, don't count her out.

She is the Sphinx we have and tied up the the current plot for Sam, Marwyn, and a Faceless Man. Dismissing her as a "side character" is complete folly. Beric Dondarion, Gendry, Barristan Selmy, Brienne of Tarth, Aeron Damphair,were all side characters when they first appeared.

Anyway, I'm just saying not to rule her out.

[Lost Melnibonean]

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After that the old man spent more time sleeping than awake, curled up beneath a pile of furs in the captains cabin. Sometimes he would mutter in his sleep. When he woke hed call for Sam, insisting that he had to tell him something, but oft as not he would have forgotten what he meant to say by the time that Sam arrived. Even when he did recall, his talk was all a jumble. He spoke of dreams and never named the dreamer, of a glass candle that could not be lit and eggs that would not hatch. He said the sphinx was the riddle, not the riddler, whatever that meant.He asked Sam to read for him from a book by Septon Barth, whose writings had been burned during the reign of Baelor the Blessed. Once he woke up weeping. "The dragon must have three heads, he wailed, but I am too old and frail to be one of them. I should be with her, showing her the way, but my body has betrayed me."

Samwell IV, Feast

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The Sphinx looks slight, but theres strength in those slim arms, he reflected, as Alleras threw a leg across the bench and reached for his wine cup. "The dragon has three heads," he announced in his soft Dornish drawl.

 

"Is this a riddle?" Roone wanted to know."Sphinxes always speak in riddles in the tales."

 

"No riddle."Allras sipped his wine. The rest of them were quaffing tankards of the fearsomely strong cider that the Quill and Tankard was renowned for, but he preferred the strange, sweet wines of his mothers country. Even in Oldtown such wines did not come cheap. It had been Lazy Leo who dubbed Alleras the Sphinx. A sphinx is a bit of this, a bit of that: a human face, the body of a lion, the wings of a hawk. Alleras was the same: his father was a Dornishman, his mother a black-skinned Summer Islander.His own skin was dark as teak. And like the green marble sphinxes that flanked the Citadels main gate, Alleras had eyes of onyx.

Prologue, Feast

I believe that Aegon is Aemon's sphinx, a chimera just like the manticore noted below with the griffin and the dragon. The classical Greek sphinx would not allow anyone to pass unless he could solve the riddle posed by the sphinx. But in this case the sphinx, Aegon, is the riddle, being a Blackfyre. And if Daenerys doesn't guess the riddle Aegon will destroy her.

As Daenerys enters Qarth, she passes under an arch of green, black, and blue snakes...

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All the colors that had been missing from Vaes Tolorro had found their way to Qarth; buildings crowded about her fantastical as a fever dream in shades of rose, violet, and umber. She passed under a bronze arch fashioned in the likeness of two snakesmating, their scales delicate flakes of jade, obsidian, and lapis lazuli. Slim towers stood taller than any Dany had ever seen, and elaborate fountains filled every square, wrought in the shapes of griffins and dragons and manticores.

Daenerys II, Clash

Elsewhere in the text, we see dragons likened to snakes, and notice the colors of these three snakes, green, black, and blue. Hey Patchface, what color does smoke rise in bubbles under the sea? And Rhaegar, how many heads did you say that dragon has? Daenerys is riding the black dragon. Aegon was the leader of the greens that fought against the blacks. A Jon is a blue flower growing from a chink in a wall of ice. 

Notice that Daenerys observes fountains wrought in the shapes of griffins and dragons and manticores. The griffin and dragon allusions are easy, of course, Jon Connington and Aegon. But the manticore allusion is much more elusive.

In case you dont know, the manticore is a chimera, a fantastical beast comprised of the body parts of more than one animal or other mythical beast. The manticore most commonly consisted of a human head, a lions body, a bats wings, and a scorpions tail, but there were other variations. In ASOIAF, the manticore was much smaller, with a malign, black face and an arched, venomous tail, with the ability to fold itself into a scarab.

In the real world, the manticore and chimeras were depicted in the art of the Romanesque and Renaissance periods to symbolize fraud. So, we have Jon Connington, Aegon, and fraud.

And consider the manticore that attacked Daenerys, disguised as...

Quote

a glittering green scarab, carved from onyx and emerald.

Daenerys V, Clash

[The Sleeper]

Sarella - Alleras is a pretty good bet. Targaryens do get the occasional prophetic which is heavy on the symbolism. And her assumed name is an anagram, an actual riddle of her assumed name ...

[Aryya Stark]

36 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Samwell IV, Feast

Prologue, Feast

I believe that Aegon is Aemon's sphinx, a chimera just like the manticore noted below with the griffin and the dragon. The classical Greek sphinx would not allow anyone to pass unless he could solve the riddle posed by the sphinx. But in this case the sphinx, Aegon, is the riddle, being a Blackfyre. And if Daenerys doesn't guess the riddle Aegon will destroy her.

As Daenerys enters Qarth, she passes under an arch of green, black, and blue snakes...

Daenerys II, Clash

Elsewhere in the text, we see dragons likened to snakes, and notice the colors of these three snakes, green, black, and blue. Hey Patchface, what color does smoke rise in bubbles under the sea? And Rhaegar, how many heads did you say that dragon has? Daenerys is riding the black dragon. Aegon was the leader of the greens that fought against the blacks. A Jon is a blue flower growing from a chink in a wall of ice. 

Notice that Daenerys observes fountains wrought in the shapes of griffins and dragons and manticores. The griffin and dragon allusions are easy, of course, Jon Connington and Aegon. But the manticore allusion is much more elusive.

In case you dont know, the manticore is a chimera, a fantastical beast comprised of the body parts of more than one animal or other mythical beast. The manticore most commonly consisted of a human head, a lions body, a bats wings, and a scorpions tail, but there were other variations. In ASOIAF, the manticore was much smaller, with a malign, black face and an arched, venomous tail, with the ability to fold itself into a scarab.

In the real world, the manticore and chimeras were depicted in the art of the Romanesque and Renaissance periods to symbolize fraud. So, we have Jon Connington, Aegon, and fraud.

And consider the manticore that attacked Daenerys, disguised as...

Daenerys V, Clash

This was really good. I really enjoyed it. Thanks.

[Lost Umber]

It means that Aemon knows about Sarella. It means that when he told Jon that he "made his choice" long ago between the NW and family loyalties, he chose family. He's working with Marwyn (a very Martell sounding name) and Doran in the hopes of re-establishing the Targaryans and getting revenge on those who destroyed them.