Could Marwyn the Mage be a dragon?

[OuttaOldtown]

43 minutes ago, Seams said:

This is great stuff. The ship's name, Cinnamon Wind, suggests a connection to spice traders, which might mean Illyrio or a House Spicer connection, which would be really interesting. If it's House Spicer, that would suggest that Maggy the Frog might also be connected to Marwyn and his worldwide network of magic practitioners.

 

The do sail to Pentos before going to Oldtown..

[Yuzzybus]

On ‎8‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 6:42 PM, Tucu said:

In the first 3 visions we see Viserys, potential Rhaego and Rhaegar:

Viserys screamed as the molten gold ran down his cheeks and filled his mouth. A tall lord with copper skin and silver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a burning city behind him. Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. . . . mother of dragons, daughter of death

This is a list of dead family members, not fathers.

Then we get:

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire

This doesn't have to be a list of husbands. It could be a list of "fires" that are alive: Dany, Aemon and Jon. Or it could be any number of things.

I think I get what you are saying about the daughter of death section.  Because Viserys, Rhaego, and Rhaegar are not Dany's parents, the silver, corpse ship, and blue flower do not necessarily represent husbands.  Fair enough.  I never liked that Hizdar broke that pattern anyway.

However, the Death of Viserys, the Death of Rhaego, and the Death of Rhaegar could be considered metaphorical parents of the mother of dragons.  By getting these three out of the way, Death has given Dany the crisitunity to became the last dragon.  In a way, Death has created/given birth to her as the last dragon.

Following this logic, in the Bride of Fire section, the three symbols may or may not be husbands.  Since we are not all in agreement on what the symbols represent lets say the silver represents S, the corpse ship represents C, and the blue flower represents F.  The Fire of S, the Fire of C, and the Fire of F would be Dany's three metaphorical husbands.  As a parent creates a daughter, a husband copulates with/give offspring to a bride. 

So let's say S=Khal Drogo (because the silver is the mount Khal Drogo gave Dany (to bed)).  The Fire of Khal Drogo (funeral pyre) gave Dany three Dragon children.  This could be the Fire for Life.  If S=Dany she would be...masturbating. 

Now let's say C=Euron

Spoiler

because the ship Silence with Aeron could be a mount that Euron gives Dany to dread

It would be a relief if Dany does not have to marry him for transportation.  She may still end up setting Euron and ship on fire though.  A Fire for Death.  Not sure if this fire would produce any offspring.  Have to wait and see what happens.  My problem with C=Aemon, is that his role is over without even meeting Dany, unless he is resurrected by Rhuellor, or Marwyn shows up wearing face :), Or Dany lights his pyre and something goes horribly awry like burning down Meereen or Oldtown. 

Finally F=Jon Snow and the wall.  Probably some major showdown betwixt Others and Dragon fire someday I hope.  So Dany can mount the wall and or Jon and love it and light her Fire to Love.

I see so many Secret Targs I do not get why a list of three "fires" would be a meaningful vision, especially if Dany is including herself of the list.

On ‎8‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 8:16 PM, Dorian Martell said:

 but how does aeron fit in the bride of fire motif?  Her silver was given to her by a man who became her family. Aemon was part of her family, so is Jon Snow 

Aeron could become her Good brother via Euron or Victarion.  Gross but possible.  Or just burn them.

5 hours ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I take daughter of death to be about her and her parents.  Her mother died in childbirth, her father was a maniac who was responsible for a lot of death, she will be responsible for a lot of death, etc etc,

True but the house of the undying prophecy seems arranged in 2 sets of 3 groups of 3 followed by a slew of additional images.  The images with Daughter of Death do not show Aerys or Rhaella.  The difficult part is trying to figure out if the 2 sets overlap and how.  I may have overthought it though.

First set

-3 fires you must light (for life, for death, to love)

-3 mounts you must ride (to bed, to dread, to love),

3 treasons you will know (for blood, for gold, for love)

Dany doesn't understand so the undying ...help her....show her...

Second set

-3 visions(Viserys, Rhaego, Rhaegar) ... Mother of Dragons, daughter of death...

-3 visions (Stannis, fAegon, Smoking tower w/ stone beast breathing shadow fire) ...MOD, slayer of lies...

-3 visions (Silver, corpse ship, blue flower)...MOD bride of fire.

7 more jumbled visons from the past and future in no particular order...shadows in tent, red door, Mirri Maz Duur bursting dragon from brow, wine seller dragged behind silver,  whit lion in grass, crones beneath Mother of mountains, ten thousand slaves

[Tucu]

6 hours ago, Yuzzybus said:

I see so many Secret Targs I do not get why a list of three "fires" would be a meaningful vision, especially if Dany is including herself of the list.

The signifance would that those three are the last of the dragonlords and we can stop looking for secret targs under every rock.

[Light a wight tonight]

On 8/21/2016 at 3:05 PM, Yuzzybus said:

 

I thought it was pretty obvious that I was not talking about a literal dragon but the 2 legged kind.  And in case you still do not understand, I mean a human with a connection with Valyria not a wyvern.

No offense taken. 

That's very different, as Miss Emily Littella was wont to say. However the only humans referred to as dragons were specifically Targaryens, not Valyrians in general. The Targs had no physical resemblances to actual dragons, which the original post tried to show. (In the light of the glass candle, Marwyn's teeth and spit would appear to be on fire.  Seems dragonish.) Targs has silver hair and violet eyes, but not red teeth.  Likewise the allusion to charred meat being what dragons eat in reference to Marwyn's kettle. We know that Dany preferred to breakfast on fruit.

Minus the hints at Marwyn having physical resemblances to a real dragon this becomes another "Character X is a secret Targ post.

 

[King Ned Stark]

In light of some of the excellent posts in this thread, I'm starting to lean towards Marwyn being the third lie Dany must slay, that he is the stone beast breathing shadow fire.

[gregg22]

Well, let me try to complicate things further: I have always suspected he could be Gerion Lannister.

To me his persona is strongly connected to Tyrion. They say he keeps company with whores and hedge wizards. He is often seen in the underbelly of the city, in brothels, consorting with mummers, singers, and sellswords. Even his damaged nose draws parallels to Tyrion in my mind. He is fascinated by rare books, and dragons, like Tyrion. As we know Tyrion had a strong connection with his mssing uncle.

Tyrion had a strong bond with Gerion, who's trail went cold somewhere near the smoking sea.

We have no description of Gerion. Remember though, not all Lannisters look like Jamie. We get this from Cersei in AFFC about another uncle, Kevan:

Like all the Lannisters, Ser Kevan was fair-skinned and blond, though at five-and-fifty he had lost most of his hair. No one would ever call him comely. Thick of waist, round of shoulder, with a square jutting chin that his close-cropped yellow beard did little to conceal, he reminded her of some old mastiff . . . but a faithful old mastiff was the very thing that she required.

Catch that? Should have, i bolded it twice. Like Marwyn, Kevan (Gerions older brother) is described as a Mastiff.

As for the Marwyn alias? Gerions mother, who dies shortly after birthing him, was Jeyne Marbrand.

Now we'll just have to see if he can get Tyrion that dragon he begged his uncle for.

[bent branch]

3 hours ago, gregg22 said:

Well, let me try to complicate things further: I have always suspected he could be Gerion Lannister.

To me his persona is strongly connected to Tyrion. They say he keeps company with whores and hedge wizards. He is often seen in the underbelly of the city, in brothels, consorting with mummers, singers, and sellswords. Even his damaged nose draws parallels to Tyrion in my mind. He is fascinated by rare books, and dragons, like Tyrion. As we know Tyrion had a strong connection with his mssing uncle.

Tyrion had a strong bond with Gerion, who's trail went cold somewhere near the smoking sea.

We have no description of Gerion. Remember though, not all Lannisters look like Jamie. We get this from Cersei in AFFC about another uncle, Kevan:

Like all the Lannisters, Ser Kevan was fair-skinned and blond, though at five-and-fifty he had lost most of his hair. No one would ever call him comely. Thick of waist, round of shoulder, with a square jutting chin that his close-cropped yellow beard did little to conceal, he reminded her of some old mastiff . . . but a faithful old mastiff was the very thing that she required.

Catch that? Should have, i bolded it twice. Like Marwyn, Kevan (Gerions older brother) is described as a Mastiff.

As for the Marwyn alias? Gerions mother, who dies shortly after birthing him, was Jeyne Marbrand.

Now we'll just have to see if he can get Tyrion that dragon he begged his uncle for.

Marwyn is too old to be Gerion Lannister. Gerion is Tywin's youngest brother. Marwyn appears to be even older than Tywin.

[Lord Varys]

I still like the crackpot idea that Archmaester Marwyn is, in fact, Lord Leyton Hightower using a glamor. The man didn't leave his tower for a decade - perhaps because he wasn't there and the Mad Maid and his sons are running things in his name?

But even if this is crap there is a pretty strong chance that Marwyn's name actually is Hightower or that he is at least a Hightower bastard considering that he is not only interested in magic but was able to pursue that interest and eventually became archmaester of his field.

As a Hightower descendant he could also have Targaryen blood through Garmund Hightower and Rhaena Targaryen.

[gregg22]

12 hours ago, bent branch said:

Marwyn is too old to be Gerion Lannister. Gerion is Tywin's youngest brother. Marwyn appears to be even older than Tywin.

Where does it say Marwyn is older than Tywin? Gerion would be at least 45 years old. Kevan is younger than Tywin too, but even he is described as old.

Clearly Marwyn looks like he lived a hard life.

[bent branch]

2 hours ago, gregg22 said:

Where does it say Marwyn is older than Tywin? Gerion would be at least 45 years old. Kevan is younger than Tywin too, but even he is described as old.

Clearly Marwyn looks like he lived a hard life.

It doesn't say how old Marwyn is, but from his description he is at least 60.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

I enjoyed the thread and of course wonder myself who Marwyn is...

Also, just throwing it out there but I always found this quote interesting:

 

Quote

 

Jon hesitated. He wanted to say that Lord Eddard would never dishonor himself, not even for love, yet inside a small sly voice whispered, He fathered a bastard, where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of his duty to her, he will not even say her name. "He would do whatever was right," he said … ringingly, to make up for his hesitation. "No matter what."

"Then Lord Eddard is a man in ten thousand. Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us forlove. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

"The men who formed the Night's Watch knew that only their courage shielded the realm from the darkness to the north. They knew they must have no divided loyalties to weaken their resolve. So they vowed they would have no wives nor children.

 

Always seemed to me like Aemon is speaking from personal experience here... and of course that begs the question of where his baby would end up...

Who's idea was it to send Sam and the baby to Oldtown? Aemon

 "The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons. Ask yourself why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste his life upon the Wall, when by rights he should have been raised to archmaester. His blood was why. He could not be trusted. No more than I can."

Could Marwyn be Aemon's kid?

[ravenous reader]

On 8/23/2016 at 11:25 PM, gregg22 said:

Well, let me try to complicate things further: I have always suspected he could be Gerion Lannister.

To me his persona is strongly connected to Tyrion. They say he keeps company with whores and hedge wizards. He is often seen in the underbelly of the city, in brothels, consorting with mummers, singers, and sellswords. Even his damaged nose draws parallels to Tyrion in my mind. He is fascinated by rare books, and dragons, like Tyrion. As we know Tyrion had a strong connection with his mssing uncle.

Tyrion had a strong bond with Gerion, who's trail went cold somewhere near the smoking sea.

We have no description of Gerion. Remember though, not all Lannisters look like Jamie. We get this from Cersei in AFFC about another uncle, Kevan:

Like all the Lannisters, Ser Kevan was fair-skinned and blond, though at five-and-fifty he had lost most of his hair. No one would ever call him comely. Thick of waist, round of shoulder, with a square jutting chin that his close-cropped yellow beard did little to conceal, he reminded her of some old mastiff . . . but a faithful old mastiff was the very thing that she required.

Catch that? Should have, i bolded it twice. Like Marwyn, Kevan (Gerions older brother) is described as a Mastiff.

As for the Marwyn alias? Gerions mother, who dies shortly after birthing him, was Jeyne Marbrand.

Now we'll just have to see if he can get Tyrion that dragon he begged his uncle for.

I like your reasoning, connecting Marwyn to Kevan and especially Tyrion.  

Regarding the name 'Marwyn' (apart from invoking 'Merlin'), could it be a self-coined combination of his mother's and brother's names respectively, 'Mar-brand plus Ty-win'=Marwyn, perhaps?  As an aside, the 'Mar-wyn' alias is a self-referential quip of the author 'Mar-tyn' (alternative spelling of Martin), similarly a mage of sorts, being an alchemist with words, as well as constituting a tongue-in-cheek, albeit rather unflattering, description of his own physical idiosyncrasies.

Besides those similarities you mentioned, Marwyn and Tyrion are both associated with chains, namely Marwyn's maester choker (like a mastiff's collar-and-leash!) and Tyrion's Blackwater and Hand-of-the-King chains, signifying their higher learning and ingenuity.  Marwyn's physique is not only reminiscent of Kevan's, as you noted, but described as somehow deformed or out of proportion like Tyrion's:

Quote

AFFC-Samwell V

Marwyn wore a chain of many metals around his bull's neck. Save for that, he looked more like a dockside thug than a maester.  His head was too big for his body, and the way it thrust forward from his shoulders, together with that slab of jaw, made him look as if he were about to tear off someone's head. Though short and squat, he was heavy in the chest and shoulders, with a round, rock-hard ale belly straining at the laces of the leather jerkin he wore in place of robes. Bristly white hair sprouted from his ears and nostrils. His brow beetled, his nose had been broken more than once, and sourleaf had stained his teeth a mottled red. He had the biggest hands that Sam had ever seen.

'Heavy in the chest and shoulders' together with 'short and squat' implies that his legs, like Tyrion's, were stunted relative to his upper body.  Compare to descriptions of Tyrion.  For example, Cersei says of Tyrion he had 'a grotesquely large head, for one so small and stunted' (AFFC-VIII).

'He was a dwarf, half his brother's height, struggling to keep pace on stunted legs. His head was too large for his body, with a brute's squashed-in face beneath a swollen shelf of brow.(AGOT-Jon I)

Considering their descriptions, they are both mastiff- as well as sphinx-like.   Sphinxes also appear similarly deformed, short and squat, head and torso out of proportion in relation to lower body, projecting brow and/or chin, chipped or missing nose, brutish rather than human.

The sphinxes guarding the citadel -- the gatekeepers of knowledge like Marwyn himself -- are mastiffs of sorts (see my post on the threshold guardian aspect of mastiffs in history and legend, above) and described by Sam as having 'the bodies of lions, the wings of eagles, and the tails of serpents' (AFFC-Samwell V).  Could Marwyn be a Lannister-Targaryen, -Arryn,or -Martell hybrid himself (as is rumored of his possible-nephew Tyrion)?  

There's also this 'mastiff' quote connecting mastiffs (and lions) to dragons:

Quote

Tyrion had a morbid fascination with dragons. When he had first come to King's Landing for his sister's wedding to Robert Baratheon, he had made it a point to seek out the dragon skulls that had hung on the walls of Targaryen's throne room. King Robert had replaced them with banners and tapestries, but Tyrion had persisted until he found the skulls in the dank cellar where they had been stored.

He had expected to find them impressive, perhaps even frightening. He had not thought to find them beautiful. Yet they were. As black as onyx, polished smooth, so the bone seemed to shimmer in the light of his torch. They liked the fire, he sensed. He'd thrust the torch into the mouth of one of the larger skulls and made the shadows leap and dance on the wall behind him. The teeth were long, curving knives of black diamond. The flame of the torch was nothing to them; they had bathed in the heat of far greater fires. When he had moved away, Tyrion could have sworn that the beast's empty eye sockets had watched him go.

There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiff's skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long.

A matched pair of mastiffs, dwarf dragons.  Who are they?

Could the matched pair of mastiff dragons have anything to do with this enigmatic dream of Bran's in which a matched pair of gargoyles who 'were once lions' scamper from a tower which @LynnS has suggested might represent the HighTower/Citadel of Oldtown, with Marwyn and 'x'(?) rather than Jaime and Cersei as the twin gargoyle figures he witnesses?

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase. Higher and higher he climbed, through the clouds and into the night sky, and still the tower rose before him. When he paused to look down, his head swam dizzily and he felt his fingers slipping. Bran cried out and clung for dear life. The earth was a thousand miles beneath him and he could not fly. He could not fly. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding, until he could breathe, and he began to climb again. There was no way to go but up. Far above him, outlined against a vast pale moon, he thought he could see the shapes of gargoyles. His arms were sore and aching, but he dared not rest. He forced himself to climb faster. The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. Bran could hear them whispering to each other in soft stone voices terrible to hear. He must not listen, he told himself, he must not hear, so long as he did not hear them he was safe. But when the gargoyles pulled themselves loose from the stone and padded down the side of the tower to where Bran clung, he knew he was not safe after all. "I didn't hear," he wept as they came closer and closer, "I didn't, I didn't."

Perhaps the voices are described as 'stone voices' as their transmission is facilitated by 'glass candles' made of obsidian, i.e. dragon glass or dragon stone.

Quote

The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Oldtown

OLDTOWN

...

Yet mysteries remain. The stony island where the Hightower stands is known as Battle Isle even in our oldest records, but why? What battle was fought there? When? Between which lords, which kings, which races? Even the singers are largely silent on these matters.

Even more enigmatic to scholars and historians is the great square fortress of black stone that dominates that isle. For most of recorded history, this monumental edifice has served as the foundation and lowest level of the Hightower, yet we know for a certainty that it predates the upper levels of the tower by thousands of years.

Who built it? When? Why? Most maesters accept the common wisdom that declares it to be of Valyrian construction, for its massive walls and labyrinthine interiors are all of solid rock, with no hint of joins or mortar, no chisel marks of any kind, a type of construction that is seen elsewhere, most notably in the dragonroads of the Freehold of Valyria, and the Black Walls that protect the heart of Old Volantis. The dragonlords of Valryia, as is well-known, possessed the art of turning stone to liquid with dragonflame, shaping it as they would, then fusing it harder than iron, steel, or granite.

If indeed this first fortress is Valyrian, it suggests that the dragonlords came to Westeros thousands of years before they carved out their outpost on Dragonstone, long before the coming of the Andals, or even the First Men. If so, did they come seeking trade? Were they slavers, mayhaps seeking after giants? Did they seek to learn the magic of the children of the forest, with their greenseers and their weirwoods? Or was there some darker purpose?

Such questions abound even to this day. Before the Doom of Valyria, maesters and archmaesters oft traveled to the Freehold in search of answers, but none were ever found. Septon Barth’s claim that the Valyrians came to Westeros because their priests prophesied that the Doom of Man would come out of the land beyond the narrow sea can safely be dismissed as nonsense, as can many of Barth’s queerer beliefs and suppositions.

More troubling, and more worthy of consideration, are the arguments put forth by those who claim that the first fortress is not Valyrian at all.

The fused black stone of which it is made suggests Valyria, but the plain, unadorned style of architecture does not, for the dragonlords loved little more than twisting stone into strange, fanciful, and ornate shapes. Within, the narrow, twisting, windowless passages strike many as being tunnels rather than halls; it is very easy to get lost amongst their turnings. Mayhaps this is no more than a defensive measure designed to confound attackers, but it too is singularly un-Valyrian. The labyrinthine nature of its interior architecture has led Archmaester Quillion to suggest that the fortress might have been the work of the mazemakers, a mysterious people who left remnants of their vanished civilization upon Lorath in the Shivering Sea. The notion is intriguing but raises more questions than it answers.

An even more fanciful possibility was put forth a century ago by Maester Theron. Born a bastard on the Iron Islands, Theron noted a certain likeness between the black stone of the ancient fortress and that of the Seastone Chair, the high seat of House Greyjoy of Pyke, whose origins are similarly ancient and mysterious. Theron’s rather inchoate manuscript Strange Stone postulates that both fortress and seat might be the work of a queer, misshapen race of half men sired by creatures of the salt seas upon human women. These Deep Ones, as he names them, are the seed from which our legends of merlings have grown, he argues, whilst their terrible fathers are the truth behind the Drowned God of the ironborn.

...

When first glimpsed in the pages of history, the Hightowers are already kings, ruling Oldtown from Battle Isle. The first “high tower,” the chroniclers tell us, was made of wood and rose some fifty feet above the ancient fortress that was its foundation. Neither it, nor the taller timber towers that followed in the centuries to come, were meant to be a dwelling; they were purely beacon towers, built to light a path for trading ships up the fog-shrouded waters of Whispering Sound. The early Hightowers lived amidst the gloomy halls, vaults, and chambers of the strange stone below. It was only with the building of the fifth tower, the first to be made entirely of stone, that the Hightower became a seat worthy of a great house. That tower, we are told, rose two hundred feet above the harbor. Some say it was designed by Brandon the Builder, whilst others name his son, another Brandon; the king who demanded it, and paid for it, is remembered as Uthor of the High Tower.

Who are the matched pair of gargoyles?

[LynnS]

12 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Who are the matched pair of gargoyles?

Oh wonderful!  Another fabulous read!  For once somebody seems to agree with me that Sam's description of Marwyn has dwarf like characteristics. lol  I'll throw something else into the mix:  Tywin's sister confirms that Tyrion is his son when she speaks to Jaime. Why? Because Tryion has produced another bastard son who is a dwarf = Mar-wyn and all dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes.  Tywin wouldn't speak to his sister for 6 months when she confronted him about Tyrion. 

[ravenous reader]

20 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Oh wonderful!  Another fabulous read!  For once somebody seems to agree with me that Sam's description of Marwyn has dwarf like characteristics. lol  I'll throw something else into the mix:  Tywin's sister confirms that Tyrion is his son when she speaks to Jaime. Why? Because Tryion has produced another bastard son who is a dwarf = Mar-wyn and all dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes.  Tywin wouldn't speak to his sister for 6 months when she confronted him about Tyrion. 

Thanks Lynn, always nice to meet you in the 'rabbit-hole'..!  I like the irony of Tywin the big self-important 'hear-me-roar' monolith producing multiple dwarves, reflecting not his idealized, projected, gilded image but rather the internal, puny ugliness of his corrupt soul back at him!  However, wouldn't Marwyn be too old to have been fathered by Tywin?  Upthread, several were suggesting that Marwyn appeared even older than Tywin, so it might not work out according to our preferred ironic fancy!

[LynnS]

Well he is an old sea dog.  So he might look older than his actual age.  And who knows what chewing sourleaf does to a person besides turn their teeth red.  When you engage in sorcery you use up some of your own life force.  There is a price to pay.  Melisandre demonstrates this when Davos witnesses the birth of ShadowStannis. Mel glows brightly.  This is the dark and the light.  One cannot exist without the other.... and look how old Mel turned out to be.  LOL