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Help needed.Some confused Thoughts on Bran/Brandon the builder.


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12 hours ago, Seams said:

I like this. I came across a line a few days ago that intrigued me anew. Theon has just learned the name of his sister's longship:

Theon did not need to be told that Black Wind was Asha's longship. He had not seen his sister in ten years, but that much he knew of her. Odd that she would call it that, when Robb Stark had a wolf named Grey Wind. "Stark is grey and Greyjoy's black," he murmured, smiling, "but it seems we're both windy." (Clash, Theon I)

This could be an example of your inversion at work (although this is a regular Theon chapter): black (stark) is grey and grey(joy) is black.

But it's the "we're both windy" line that caught my eye. Your mention of the god of wind, and of magic entering the human gene pool through Elenei, made me think that maybe wind is a code word for magic. When Khal Drogo gives Dany her horse, she says he has given her the wind. Robert Baratheon's parents die when the ship Windproud foundered in a storm within sight of Storm's End. (Sounds like revenge from the God of Wind, even after all these years.) Osha tells Bran that the Old Gods speak to him through winds.

Maybe we'll know more when TWoW blows our way....

Yes. I had noticed the name of Asha's longship when I worked on The Kraken's Daughter - AFFC chapter 11. I think her ship sounds eerily like Balerion the Black Dread, one of the Targaryen dragons. The longships of the ironborn are symbolically their dragons. They ride the wind to harry and raid. Asha does seem to mirror a few different Targaryens. I saw parallels to Rhaella (Rhaegar's mother), Rhaenyra (Queen during the Dance of the Dragons) and even Shiera Seastar.

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14 hours ago, Duncan_The_Short said:

Hello all.  Thought this might be a good time for me to jump in to this thread.

@Feather Crystal

I was wondering if you've ever looked at how the actual Wars of the Roses fits in to your repeating cycle theory.  The Lancaster and York dynasties in fact fit really well into this theory.  Each dynasty flows through the same process.

Dynasty Founder - A shrewd political manipulator who deposes a weak king that was a minor when he took the throne. (Henry IV - Lancaster, Richard Duke of York - York)

Warrior Son - Son of the founder and a celebrated but short lived warrior who dies before his heir is grown (Henry V - Lancaster, Edward IV - York)

Weak Child King - Inherits the throne as a child and is used as a front for others who exercise power through them ( Henry VI - Lancaster, Edward V - York)

Interestingly the cycle is broken when Henry Tudor takes the throne and represents himself and his wife, Elizabeth of York, as the reunification of the Plantagenet line that was broken when Henry IV deposed Richard II.

I've also noticed that GRRM likes to split some historical figures into two characters in the book, a younger idealized version and an older less idealized one.  Robb Stark/Robert Baratheon as Edward IV, Ned Stark/Stannis Baratheon as Richard III, and Margery Tyrell/Cersei Lannister as Margaret of Anjou. I was wondering how you think this might fit in to your inversion theory. 

 

 

Well GRRM has made it common knowledge that he has drawn inspiration from the War of the Roses. I'm ashamed to admit that what I know of part of this historical tale is from watching the White Queen television series. 

I do think there are historical character profiles on the wheel of time, for example The Reader is mirrored by Rhaegar Targaryen and Asha Greyjoy's uncle Rodrik Harlaw. There's always someone pious in each generation, like Baelor I and Aeron Damphair. Rhaegar thought he was supposed to be the Warrior, but he turned out to be the Reader.

My inversion theory focuses more so on how a certain character mirrors a previous generation. The Targaryen family tree has been the biggest source. If you read through all their bios in the World book you'll start to get deja vu. So when we get to the current story and now all the Greyjoys start mirroring Targaryens and Backfyres you cannot help but wonder why.

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15 hours ago, Duncan_The_Short said:

Hello all.  Thought this might be a good time for me to jump in to this thread.

@Feather Crystal

I was wondering if you've ever looked at how the actual Wars of the Roses fits in to your repeating cycle theory.  The Lancaster and York dynasties in fact fit really well into this theory.  Each dynasty flows through the same process.

Dynasty Founder - A shrewd political manipulator who deposes a weak king that was a minor when he took the throne. (Henry IV - Lancaster, Richard Duke of York - York)

Warrior Son - Son of the founder and a celebrated but short lived warrior who dies before his heir is grown (Henry V - Lancaster, Edward IV - York)

Weak Child King - Inherits the throne as a child and is used as a front for others who exercise power through them ( Henry VI - Lancaster, Edward V - York)

Interestingly the cycle is broken when Henry Tudor takes the throne and represents himself and his wife, Elizabeth of York, as the reunification of the Plantagenet line that was broken when Henry IV deposed Richard II.

I've also noticed that GRRM likes to split some historical figures into two characters in the book, a younger idealized version and an older less idealized one.  Robb Stark/Robert Baratheon as Edward IV, Ned Stark/Stannis Baratheon as Richard III, and Margery Tyrell/Cersei Lannister as Margaret of Anjou. I was wondering how you think this might fit in to your inversion theory. 

 

 

I watched half of the video that was posted up thread and I came back to ask you, since you seem to have a grasp of the War of the Roses, do you think that the "official" historical record is the unvarnished truth?

The World Book is supposed to be an in-world history book written by maesters and presented to Robert Baratheon as a gift. Would such a tomb of knowledge be gathered and written with the utmost scrupulous true account of what happened or would it be written in a way that would be pleasing to the king?

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15 hours ago, Cowboy Dan said:

Have you read The Once and Future King? It's a grey re-telling of the Arthurian myth and Arthur goes from a young, idealistic, even naive kid into a complex, intelligent man dealing with all the problems and trappings of ruling. GRRM has plugged it himself and it's pretty clear he uses it as a strong influence to his writing the more I read of it.

Can't speak for Feather Crystal's inversion theory but GRRM has a lot going on in a great many ways so it's certainly possible! With the Lit. side I focus on there's some serious complexity involved. He encodes concepts with colors yet will use color compositions to represent characters/roles. He will use food as a concept but the food is also color-encoded and has its own separate concept associated. Sometimes he will describe something as a color unnatural to the object described like red gold, white hart (hart is usually a red deer), black marble, etc. Other times he will use a concept for one object then equate it with another object. He's also combining the concepts the objects represent, not just the objects themselves. That's just for the literary side of things and is barely scratching the surface.

If you read LmL's essays or Schmendrick's R+L=Lightbringer the heavy mythological influence GRRM draws from is readily apparent. There's the War of the Roses as you mentioned and other real-world history/politics he draws on as well, which bryndenbfish really nails down in his wordpress. Then to top it off there's the in-world history that the inversion theory is steeped in.

Seems plausible to me but I can't say I'm well versed in medieval English history.

Speaking of the use of color to communicate, I would invite you to reread The Reaver - AFFC chapter 29. GRRM repeats various colors over and over. Below is an excerpt of an essay I'm still working on of this chapter. I draw some parallels with Victarion to Aegor River's account of the First Blackfyre Rebellion:

The drums were pounding when Victarion’s ship rammed the smaller ship ahead that had roses streaming upon her banners. Fore and aft were white roses upon a red escutcheon (shield). Atop her mast a golden one on a field as green as grass.

Daemon III Blackfyre’s sigil is a black dragon on red. His biggest supporter was Aegor Rivers, aka Bittersteel, whose own personal arms was the combined of the red stallion of House Bracken breathing flames with the black dragon wings of House Blackfyre on a golden shield. Daemon was further supported by Aegor’s famed group of exiled sellswords, the Golden Company who carried solid gold banners with no designs or devices upon it. They later also carry Bittersteel’s skull dipped in gold, and afterward the captains-general who have since led have added their own and followed his example.

The Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion began on Massey’s Hook when Daemon III Blackfyre and Aegor Rivers landed there, but suffered a shattering defeat in the Battle of Wendwater Bridge, with their casualties filling the river and Daemon slain by Ser Duncan the Tall of Aegon’s Kingsguard whose white cape is the inversion to Victarion’s golden one. I say this because Ser Duncan could be said to be King Aegon V’s paid shield just as the Golden Company was Daemon’s. Victarion is ironborn, however…he’ll pay the iron price for whatever he takes.

The rebellion had little support as people thought the Blackfyres to be done and tattered as their black on red banners. King Aegon V, accompanied by his sons, princes Duncan, Jaehaerys, and Daeron, led the loyalists of House Targaryen, and lost less than a hundred men, yet one of those lost was Ser Tion Lannister whose banner was gold on red. Daemon’s ally, Aegor Rivers was forced to retreat back across the Narrow Sea, and the war was quickly over.

The use of these colors, white on red, black on red, and gold on green, are meant to echo various identities from the past. Bloodraven’s sigil is a white dragon on black, Daemon’s is a black dragon on red, Bittersteel is a red stallion on gold, while Tion Lannister’s was gold lion on red.

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2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I watched half of the video that was posted up thread and I came back to ask you, since you seem to have a grasp of the War of the Roses, do you think that the "official" historical record is the unvarnished truth?

The World Book is supposed to be an in-world history book written by maesters and presented to Robert Baratheon as a gift. Would such a tomb of knowledge be gathered and written with the utmost scrupulous true account of what happened or would it be written in a way that would be pleasing to the king?

Absolutely, you hit on a great point here.  I think one of the reasons GRRM may have chosen the WoR as his historical backdrop is because the re-examination of this period has been a pretty hot topic, in historical circles.  Essentially, what we are starting to understand is that the general historical narrative that we have been fitting the WoR into was a PR narrative that Henry Tudor, the proverbial last man standing, was putting out into the public to back up his claim to the throne.  A narrative that does fit rather well into your cycle theory.  Basically, the Tudor PR machine cast the Lancastrian and Yorkist dynasties as doomed attempts to achieve political stability after casting off divine favor by deposing the rightful Plantagenet ruler, Richard II, and that Henry Tudor would succeed where the others had failed because his marriage to Elizabeth of York represented the unification of the Lancaster and York lines that made the Plantagenet line whole again (Lancaster and York both being cadet branches of the Plantagenet family).  So, the historical narrative that has existed for approximately 500 years is one that casts Henry Tudor in a suspiciously positive light.  GRRM, however, is pointing this out to us. 

 

In my earlier post I pointed out how he has split certain historical figures into two characters and I summarized those characters as being a young idealized version and an older less idealized one.  However, it would be just as accurate to say that the two versions represent the pro and con perception of those figures.  For example a Yorkist loyalist would tend to view Edward IV and Richard III more in the vein of Robb and Ned Stark, while they would view Margaret of Anjou as a Cersei and Lancastrian/Tudor loyalists would tend toward the opposite perspective, seeing Edward IV and Richard III as Robert and Stannis Baratheon, while viewing Margaret of Anjou more like Margery Tyrell.

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One more think I forgot to add.  I mentioned that Henry Tudor cast himself as a the heir to the Lancastrian claim, but this is a tenuous claim at best.  He was distantly connected to the Lancasters in more ways than one, but to call himself a true Lancaster is a bit of a stretch, however he did have plenty of royal blood it was just bastard blood.  Which, as I'm sure you can guess, fits in pretty well with your suspicions of a Blackfyre victory on the horizon.

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18 minutes ago, Cowboy Dan said:

That's awesome, even more parallels to the Targaryen return and their "diving right to rule," as Targaryens are often stated to be above the laws of average men. Sometimes even to the point of being half-god. I definitely agree with your idea that the two sides are really similar and it's all about which side of the conflict you support. Jon said something similar about First Men and Wildlings. That it really depended on your perspective and where you stood when the Wall went up.

I know right?  One of the things I like about viewing the story through an historical lens is when you realize that a marriage/alliance between Dany, Jon, and Tyrion would be the perfect parallel to the historical narrative of healing the breach between the two main protagonists of the war and a return to the ascendency of the line of the Conqueror. 

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On July 15, 2016 at 3:10 PM, Macgregor of the North said:

 

As to Durran, perhaps it's not always him who introduces magic to the human gene pool. Or maybe he did in one time loop but it happened another way in another, and that is what the problem is in the first place. Men merging with magic is not doing the world any favours. 

I know this is not specific to the OP but involves your idea on man merging with magic.  But I have been formulating a theory that I want to expand on in the future:

Perhaps a different form of the Long Night occurred previously in Essos due to the incursion of magic.  I have begun to hypothesize that maybe the first Long Night (or first couple) involved blood magic in asshai that created Others based on Shadows (similar to the current others and Ice).  Like the shadow that killed Renly from Mel of Asshai. Edric Shadowchaser as an original Hero of the Long Night is part of my theory, and the fact that the Long Night and Azor Ahai are Essos based. 

They dabbled too deep in magic as those did in Westeros.  

Even maybe the First Men fled the original Long Night across the arm and to Westeros and thus had some ability vs magic and the CotF and Others to start.  

 

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4 hours ago, Rob Storm said:

I know this is not specific to the OP but involves your idea on man merging with magic.  But I have been formulating a theory that I want to expand on in the future:

Perhaps a different form of the Long Night occurred previously in Essos due to the incursion of magic.  I have begun to hypothesize that maybe the first Long Night (or first couple) involved blood magic in asshai that created Others based on Shadows (similar to the current others and Ice).  Like the shadow that killed Renly from Mel of Asshai. Edric Shadowchaser as an original Hero of the Long Night is part of my theory, and the fact that the Long Night and Azor Ahai are Essos based. 

They dabbled too deep in magic as those did in Westeros.  

Even maybe the First Men fled the original Long Night across the arm and to Westeros and thus had some ability vs magic and the CotF and Others to start.  

 

Do you reckon that the story of the night king was actually about a ice priestess birthing the ice form of shadow babies ; the Others? In an echo of the shape babies of Asshai... 

 

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5 hours ago, Rob Storm said:

I know this is not specific to the OP but involves your idea on man merging with magic.  But I have been formulating a theory that I want to expand on in the future:

Perhaps a different form of the Long Night occurred previously in Essos due to the incursion of magic.  I have begun to hypothesize that maybe the first Long Night (or first couple) involved blood magic in asshai that created Others based on Shadows (similar to the current others and Ice).  Like the shadow that killed Renly from Mel of Asshai. Edric Shadowchaser as an original Hero of the Long Night is part of my theory, and the fact that the Long Night and Azor Ahai are Essos based. 

They dabbled too deep in magic as those did in Westeros.  

Even maybe the First Men fled the original Long Night across the arm and to Westeros and thus had some ability vs magic and the CotF and Others to start.  

 

Hey Rob Storm,

I look forward to the theory. Of course we can be sure the first men(Essosi) messed about with magic and in the ensuing loops  caused chaos due to this.

its a crazy (and) plausible thought that they fled and took their crazy magic west with them during one timeloop! There are giant bones and historic references to little singer type people's in the east I believe. The history isn't just a Westeros thing, it does seem to be a world thing.

They could have taken all sorts of weird capers west or east until they hit Westeros  lands. 

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Hey to all,

Was thinking this weekend about time loops and what resets them. Be it reaching a certain day or a certain year, or someone's death, in some stories this seems to be what always resets it back to a certain start point. 

If it's a death, who's death? If it's a certain calendar day or year then when? is it after the war for the dawn? 

Still thinking here on Bran Stark growing to be Bran the builder. What if it's his death that resets the loop. And simultaneously his death that can break the cycle?. 

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3 hours ago, Macgregor of the North said:

Still thinking here on Bran Stark growing to be Bran the builder. What if it's his death that resets the loop. And simultaneously his death that can break the cycle?. 

That's along the lines I've been thinking. Bittersweet, for sure.

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It's the cataclysmic event that resets the wheel or loop. Death and destruction is the end so that resurrection and rebirth are the beginning of the new turning. Although it seems that there have been a few loops that got reset before a cataclysmic event happened.

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Was gonna post a new thread on this but since this thread is on topic I'll just throw it here. @Feather Crystal @Seams @Manderly's Rat Cook @Cowboy Dan.

Guys, ive been thinking about a saying I've seen scattered through the books and I wonder if it carries more meaning than it appears to. I know that especially when it's said by a member of house Stark it is meant to imply the sayer has been through so much in the story that their memories literally seem to have happened a thousand years ago.

But, I also wonder if it is a cheeky wee clue or nod to the idea we have been discussing, that there are time loops and that these things have 'happened before' a long time ago, if you get my meaning. 

In spare time I gathered together the quotes. See below.

AGOT JON IV:

"Jon told the story of how he and Robb had found the pups newborn in the late summer snows. It seemed a thousand years ago now."

AGOT CAT XI:

"It seemed a thousand years ago that Catelyn Stark had carried her infant son out of Riverrun, crossing the Tumblestone in a small boat to begin their journey north to Winterfell."

ACOK ARYA IV:

"It seemed a thousandyears ago now, something that had happened to a different person in a different life . ."

ACOK JON III:

"On the way back to Winterfell, Jon and Robb had raced, and found six direwolf pups in the snow. A thousand years ago."

ASOS PROLOGUE (Mormont):

"Die," screamed Mormont's raven, flapping its black wings. "Die, die, die."

"Many of us," the Old Bear said. "Mayhaps even all of us. But as another Lord Commander said a thousand years ago, that is why they dress us in black."

(Perhaps you were that LC, Mormont! Who said the same thing a thousand years ago.)

ASOS CAT III:

"The north is hard and cold, and has no mercy, Ned had told her when she first came to Winterfell a thousand years ago."

ASOS SANSA V:

"The king was dead, the cruel king who had been her gallant prince a thousand years ago."

ADWD BRAN III:

"I was going to be a knight, Bran remembered. I used to run and climb and fight. It seemed a thousand years ago"

ADWD THE UGLY LITTLE GIRL:

"A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya."

ADWD DAENERYS X

"North they flew, beyond the river, Drogon gliding on torn and tattered wings through clouds that whipped by like the banners of some ghostly army. Dany glimpsed the shores of Slaver's Bay and the old Valyrian road that ran beside it through sand and desolation until it vanished in the west. The road home. Then there was nothing beneath them but grass rippling in the wind.
Was that first flight a thousand years ago? Sometimes it seemed as if it must be."

 

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25 minutes ago, Macgregor of the North said:

Was gonna post a new thread on this but since this thread is on topic I'll just throw it here.

Guys, ive been thinking about a saying I've seen scattered through the books and I wonder if it carries more meaning than it appears to. I know that especially when it's said by a member of house Stark it is meant to imply the sayer has been through so much in the story that their memories literally seem to have happened a thousand years ago.

But, I also wonder if it is a cheeky wee clue or nod to the idea we have been discussing, that there are time loops and that these things have 'happened before' a long time ago, if you get my meaning. 

In spare time I gathered together the quotes. See below.

AGOT JON IV:

"Jon told the story of how he and Robb had found the pups newborn in the late summer snows. It seemed a thousand years ago now."

...

Nice catch! And great timing! In the car, I am listening to the audiobook of Feast again. Yesterday, I listened to a chapter where Lady Genna Lannister Frey is telling Jaime about his father. She described him as someone who comes along once in a thousand years (Emmon Frey said the same thing earlier in the chapter) and I immediately thought of this thread.

"A man such as Tywin Lannister comes but once in a thousand years," declared her husband.

Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years." (AFfC, Jaime V)

When you run the phrase, "a thousand years" through the SearchoIaF site, it does seem to be a code phrase to call attention to the plot elements and characters that echo ancient legends. I'm looking at examples from Feast now, but many of the uses of the phrase occur in those "inversion" chapters listed by Feather Crystal and identified as characters reliving scenes from ancient history or legend.

I like the "Lann the Clever is a woman" theory, but maybe Genna believes that Tywin was the contemporary embodiment of Lann? Or maybe she is unaware of the meaning of this line that GRRM has planted for readers to notice. Maybe it has nothing to do with Lann.

Immediately before Emmon Frey utters the phrase, Genna is asking Jaime whether he will get a "gold father" to replace the one he lost, like the gold hand he had made. Is there a character in legend who is made of gold? Are we supposed to think of King Midas? In the second example, she is talking about Tyrion being Tywin's son (or being more like him than Jaime is). I get this weird feeling that maybe we are supposed to think of Tywin and Tyrion as two different types of monsters. Maelys the Monstrous? It hasn't been a thousand years since he came along, though. But Genna also calls Tywin a "thundering great fool." Is this a storm god reference?

Lots of possibilities here, but that phrase might help us to know where to begin looking, at least. Nice job.

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3 minutes ago, Seams said:

Nice catch! And great timing! In the car, I am listening to the audiobook of Feast again. Yesterday, I listened to a chapter where Lady Genna Lannister Frey is telling Jaime about his father. She described him as someone who comes along once in a thousand years (Emmon Frey said the same thing earlier in the chapter) and I immediately thought of this thread.

"A man such as Tywin Lannister comes but once in a thousand years," declared her husband.

Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years." (AFfC, Jaime V)

When you run the phrase, "a thousand years" through the SearchoIaF site, it does seem to be a code phrase to call attention to the plot elements and characters that echo ancient legends. I'm looking at examples from Feast now, but many of the uses of the phrase occur in those "inversion" chapters listed by Feather Crystal and identified as characters reliving scenes from ancient history or legend.

I like the "Lann the Clever is a woman" theory, but maybe Genna believes that Tywin was the contemporary embodiment of Lann? Or maybe she is unaware of the meaning of this line that GRRM has planted for readers to notice. Maybe it has nothing to do with Lann.

Immediately before Emmon Frey utters the phrase, Genna is asking Jaime whether he will get a "gold father" to replace the one he lost, like the gold hand he had made. Is there a character in legend who is made of gold? Are we supposed to think of King Midas? In the second example, she is talking about Tyrion being Tywin's son (or being more like him than Jaime is). I get this weird feeling that maybe we are supposed to think of Tywin and Tyrion as two different types of monsters. Maelys the Monstrous? It hasn't been a thousand years since he came along, though. But Genna also calls Tywin a "thundering great fool." Is this a storm god reference?

Lots of possibilities here, but that phrase might help us to know where to begin looking, at least. Nice job.

Cheers Seams. It was a good while back the thousand years thing stood out to me. I remember thinking, this is said a lot, is there some significance? 

But like you, it wasn't til I read one of the passages recently that I instantly thought of this thread and wondered if this phrase is a clue for us. When you skim through all the times it's mentioned, it can certainly seem so. 

I had typed into the search 'thousand years ago' and got like 50 something results, but I will now have a look at 'thousand years' and have a skim through the results to see any standout passages. 

It does seem to me it's possible this is a clue reference to time repeating itself in the story.

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1 hour ago, Seams said:

Nice catch! And great timing! In the car, I am listening to the audiobook of Feast again. Yesterday, I listened to a chapter where Lady Genna Lannister Frey is telling Jaime about his father. She described him as someone who comes along once in a thousand years (Emmon Frey said the same thing earlier in the chapter) and I immediately thought of this thread.

"A man such as Tywin Lannister comes but once in a thousand years," declared her husband.

Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years." (AFfC, Jaime V)

When you run the phrase, "a thousand years" through the SearchoIaF site, it does seem to be a code phrase to call attention to the plot elements and characters that echo ancient legends. I'm looking at examples from Feast now, but many of the uses of the phrase occur in those "inversion" chapters listed by Feather Crystal and identified as characters reliving scenes from ancient history or legend.

I like the "Lann the Clever is a woman" theory, but maybe Genna believes that Tywin was the contemporary embodiment of Lann? Or maybe she is unaware of the meaning of this line that GRRM has planted for readers to notice. Maybe it has nothing to do with Lann.

Immediately before Emmon Frey utters the phrase, Genna is asking Jaime whether he will get a "gold father" to replace the one he lost, like the gold hand he had made. Is there a character in legend who is made of gold? Are we supposed to think of King Midas? In the second example, she is talking about Tyrion being Tywin's son (or being more like him than Jaime is). I get this weird feeling that maybe we are supposed to think of Tywin and Tyrion as two different types of monsters. Maelys the Monstrous? It hasn't been a thousand years since he came along, though. But Genna also calls Tywin a "thundering great fool." Is this a storm god reference?

Lots of possibilities here, but that phrase might help us to know where to begin looking, at least. Nice job.

Fabulous just fabulous!

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2 hours ago, Seams said:

Nice catch! And great timing! In the car, I am listening to the audiobook of Feast again. Yesterday, I listened to a chapter where Lady Genna Lannister Frey is telling Jaime about his father. She described him as someone who comes along once in a thousand years (Emmon Frey said the same thing earlier in the chapter) and I immediately thought of this thread.

"A man such as Tywin Lannister comes but once in a thousand years," declared her husband.

Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years." (AFfC, Jaime V)

When you run the phrase, "a thousand years" through the SearchoIaF site, it does seem to be a code phrase to call attention to the plot elements and characters that echo ancient legends. I'm looking at examples from Feast now, but many of the uses of the phrase occur in those "inversion" chapters listed by Feather Crystal and identified as characters reliving scenes from ancient history or legend.

I like the "Lann the Clever is a woman" theory, but maybe Genna believes that Tywin was the contemporary embodiment of Lann? Or maybe she is unaware of the meaning of this line that GRRM has planted for readers to notice. Maybe it has nothing to do with Lann.

Immediately before Emmon Frey utters the phrase, Genna is asking Jaime whether he will get a "gold father" to replace the one he lost, like the gold hand he had made. Is there a character in legend who is made of gold? Are we supposed to think of King Midas? In the second example, she is talking about Tyrion being Tywin's son (or being more like him than Jaime is). I get this weird feeling that maybe we are supposed to think of Tywin and Tyrion as two different types of monsters. Maelys the Monstrous? It hasn't been a thousand years since he came along, though. But Genna also calls Tywin a "thundering great fool." Is this a storm god reference?

Lots of possibilities here, but that phrase might help us to know where to begin looking, at least. Nice job.

@Macgregor of the North that's an amazing find. Although i had noticed the thousand years recurring, I never realised it's used so often! Awesomeness! I'm quite sure it's meant as a history repeating itself hint. 

I haven't figured out the Lann the Clever Sister thing either. I don't think Cersei would be the best reincarnation of Lann the Clever. But neither is Tywin; he never planned to have the Baratheons replaced by Lannisters. That was Cersei.

Right now I think Cersei might be the best candidate. She actually is quite clever,  but she focuses on the wrong thing,  and she's the one who took the crown from the Baratheons without many people noticing. 

The Lannister women we've been introduced to seem to be quite strong and smart. Genna completely overpowers her husband and seems intelligent, Joanna was said to rule at home,  and we all know it's not at all easy to rule over Tywin, and Cersei's ambition is endless, and she didn't seem stupid at all before the paranoia took over. 

There's also the peculiar fact that besides Lann the Clever, there's no other Lann to be found in all of Lannister's known history. There is one official Lanna, and a few bastards named Lanna (one at the brothel in Stoney Sept,  and one in a brothel in Braavos) though. I really want to find out,  but together with the video this is all the evidence I have right now. :(

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24 minutes ago, Manderly's Rat Cook said:

@Macgregor of the North that's an amazing find. Although i had noticed the thousand years recurring, I never realised it's used so often! Awesomeness! I'm quite sure it's meant as a history repeating itself hint. 

I haven't figured out the Lann the Clever Sister thing either. I don't think Cersei would be the best reincarnation of Lann the Clever. But neither is Tywin; he never planned to have the Baratheons replaced by Lannisters. That was Cersei.

Right now I think Cersei might be the best candidate. She actually is quite clever,  but she focuses on the wrong thing,  and she's the one who took the crown from the Baratheons without many people noticing. 

The Lannister women we've been introduced to seem to be quite strong and smart. Genna completely overpowers her husband and seems intelligent, Joanna was said to rule at home,  and we all know it's not at all easy to rule over Tywin, and Cersei's ambition is endless, and she didn't seem stupid at all before the paranoia took over. 

There's also the peculiar fact that besides Lann the Clever, there's no other Lann to be found in all of Lannister's known history. There is one official Lanna, and a few bastards named Lanna (one at the brothel in Stoney Sept,  and one in a brothel in Braavos) though. I really want to find out,  but together with the video this is all the evidence I have right now. :(

I had a hunch that maybe the Rohanne Webber connection to the Lannisters might have something to do with the Lann the Clever legend. I was looking for a bloodline that would show an older Lannister connection in the Webber line, but it appears that we don't know anything further back than Rohanne's father, Wyman, and maybe one generation before that, Reynard. But the name Reynard may be a clue: it is associated with the trickster, Reynard the Fox, in European folk tales. It's not a lot to go on, but it might be a little hint that red-haired Lady Rohanne is the Lann the Clever representative for her generation. She does follow the pattern of working her way up to the Lannister marriage and then taking over as Lady of Casterly Rock. The next person who tried this was Ellen Reyne (another Reynard allusion?) but she was defeated by Tywin, who "outfoxed" her. Like Lady Rohanne, Tywin diverts a waterway to defeat an enemy - giving them too much water, though, instead of taking too much.

Genna is another good example. Maybe one of her sons will end up taking over The Twins. When GRRM described her in AFfC, he said she was like two of her husband put together (something like that), referring to her size. So maybe she embodies the Twins, like the good Lannister that she is.

It might not be her work to supplant the Baratheon line that represents Cersei's Lann the Clever behavior (although it does fit) but her claim to rule at Casterly Rock when that is rightfully Tyrion's seat (probably arguable, I realize, since he was sentenced to death). I've been waiting to see how GRRM would make use of Tyrion's expertise with the Casterly sewer system. I would not be at all surprised if Cersei tries to drown him or someone else who is holding the castle, and Tyrion prevents the flooding by opening up key drains to keep the water flowing. Or it could be the other way around - Tyrion knows how to block the sewers and floods Cersei, holed up in the mines under the castle.

The examination of House Webber caused me to think about a possible connection between House Webber - Rohanne's father was Wyman - and Wyman Manderly. The wiki reminds me that it is Rohanne who tells Dunk (and the reader) that House Manderly was driven out of the Reach a thousand years ago. If Macgregor's discovery holds, does this mean that the Manderlys will be returning to the Reach in this generation? Look for a Manderly vs. Peake grudge match. It might also mean that the Webbers and the Manderlys are distantly related and both have Lann the Clever bloodlines.

And just to tie everything neatly in one bow - the merman sigil of House Manderly is probably a sign that the Lannister's favorite murder technique, drowning, will not work on the Manderlys. We already know that Septon Chayle told Bran he grew up on the White Knife and that he is a strong swimmer. Theon threw him in a well, but I am guessing that he swam out through the underground hot springs at Winterfell. If he was born a Manderly, the swimming ability is a sign of the lack of power any new Lann the Clever would exercise over that noble House.

One other thought on Lann the Clever: I haven't explored it much on the Puns and Wordplay thread, but I've wondered whether there is any relationship between the use of a cleaver and Lann the Clever. Dany's butcher King Cleon uses a cleaver, and he might be a symbolic echo of Lann the Clever. Of course, Arya's friend Mycah, who is the first human casualty of the Stark vs. Lannister war, was the butcher's boy. I think there are a few other small references to cleavers that could clarify the meaning or symbolism.

I hope we don't have to wait a thousand years for the next book!

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