More Harping

[YOVMO]

So I haven't really fleshed out all my ideas here and any input is welcome.

 

I have been thinking about harps quite a bit. I believe that there are (at least) two distinct types of harp. Wood Harp which I imagine to be like a lap steel guitar and high harp which I picture the way our harp is, a large, stand up and somewhat esoteric instrument.  Now loads of singers play "the harp" which I feel is the asoiaf equivalent of playing the guitar. It is a skill and some people can elevate it to an art, but it is nowhere near as esoteric as the High Harp.

How do we know the high harp is something that not everyone would play? With very few exceptions (and most of those being suspicious) it is only the very wealthy and children of nobility who are mentioned playing High Harp. Rhaegar, of course, being the most famous of them. Catelyn opines at one point that she was so happy for Sansa to get to kings landing where she could find someone to teach her how to play High Harp. So we are left to assume that even a great lord like Ned who is warden of the north, the scion of an 8000 year old line,  didn't have access to a high harp player to teach his daughter. I mean, there is no reason to think he wouldn't have paid well. Sansa specifically talks about wanting to learn (which she eventually begins with the Tyrell cousins in Kings Landing). Ned seemed like the kind of father who would gladly use his power, influence and considerable wealth to make sure his daughter had that.

 

Now two instances with the high harp bug me quite a bit. The first one is at the Quiet Island. When Brienne, Pod and Ser Hyle meet with the elder brother and have dinner there is an unnamed brother playing High Harp. Nothing else is said about him, but it is curious. The quiet island does seem to be a place where loads of interesting characters turn up, many of them high born. They have a discussion of Rhaegar's rubies right before and Rhaegar is always associated with the harp. Not saying the harpist is rhaegar, only that it would seem odd that an unnamed brother on the Quiet Island would be playing this instrument which, I believe, grrm specifically sets aside as being special and something that only the very high born would have access to. The fact is that it wouldn't matter who it is. If the person playing the high harp learned to play it because they were of noble birth, then whoever it is, whether it is a Tyrell or a Martell or a cadet branch of some Vale house or Rhaegar himself, being high born will mean he is connected to a house, researchable and able to be contextualized into the story in one way or another. There are random characters for sure, but there do not seem to be any random nobles. So if High Harp playing = noble birth (which I contend it does at least the vast majority of the time) then the nameless brother playing the high harp is SOMEONE and that matters.

The second and even more interesting one is at Winterfell when Ned feasts king Robert. There is a singer who is playing the high harp. Again, he is unnamed. I think the general assumption is that he very well might have come along with the king's entourage and this is a perfectly valid and believable scenario. Sure King Robert would have access to someone playing the High Harp. However, something strikes me as odd. Mance, who is a musician who knows all the songs both south and north (which is kind of odd) was at that feast, so he tells jon, disguised as a singer. Was he the one playing high harp? That would be really odd for someone who was born "as low as can be" who became a NW ranger and then defected to the wildlings. Why would he be able to play an ostensibly rare and expensive instrument which even the daughter of Ned Stark and Catelyn Tully didn't have access to a teacher for. The sound is described as "sad and sweet" every time (as well as describing how Rhaegar sounds in Dany's vision in the house of the undying) and after reading a post on here about the possibility that mance is rhaegar it started to get me wondering. I mean, I do understand the very logical and valid problems with that theory. However, there are just as many problems with the idea that Mance is just some NW defector who happens to play the high harp.

 

Any ideas would go a long way. I often find that my own thinking, inchoate as it is, is sparked and made me clear when I read some of the ideas here.

[Winter prince]

Looking at Mance's supposed backstory, it makes even less sense that he would know how to play the high harp.  According to tWOIAF he was a wildling child taken by the NW.  So, somehow someone who has been with the NW since a child and later defected to the wildlings found a high harp and was self taught. 

[Runaway Penguin]

2 minutes ago, Winter prince said:

Looking at Mance's supposed backstory, it makes even less sense that he would know how to play the high harp.  According to tWOIAF he was a wildling child taken by the NW.  So, somehow someone who has been with the NW since a child and later defected to the wildlings found a high harp and was self taught. 

We see the NW being interested in all skillsets, including music, as that made negotiations easier when playing host.

So not really unfeasible to see a Brother on the Shadow Tower playing even High Harp (after all plenty of high born took their part in the past). 

[Winter prince]

2 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

We see the NW being interested in all skillsets, including music, as that made negotiations easier when playing host.

So not really unfeasible to see a Brother on the Shadow Tower playing even High Harp (after all plenty of high born took their part in the past). 

True, and since Mance had a love for music I could see him taking time to learn different instruments.

Does anyone recall if Abel played the high harp?

[YOVMO]

6 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

We see the NW being interested in all skillsets, including music, as that made negotiations easier when playing host.

So not really unfeasible to see a Brother on the Shadow Tower playing even High Harp (after all plenty of high born took their part in the past). 

And this would make perfect sense if Mance played wood harp. But high harp is different. Even winterfell didn't have someone to teach Sansa high harp. This is an instrument meant for nobility. That there would be someone on the wall teaching harp to the bastards of wildlings is exceedingly unlikely.

In Shawshank Redemption the fact that Red plays harmonica doesn't surprise us. But if he up and asked Andy to get him a harpsichord and then started playing Bach on it we would have to seriously reconsider his backstory, ya know

[YOVMO]

3 minutes ago, Winter prince said:

True, and since Mance had a love for music I could see him taking time to learn different instruments.

Does anyone recall if Abel played the high harp?

This weekend I should finish my larger article on all uses of harp and high harp. Keep your eyes peeled, it will be a doosey!

[YOVMO]

13 minutes ago, Winter prince said:

Looking at Mance's supposed backstory, it makes even less sense that he would know how to play the high harp.  According to tWOIAF he was a wildling child taken by the NW.  So, somehow someone who has been with the NW since a child and later defected to the wildlings found a high harp and was self taught. 

exactly. I mean, any other instrument would be fine. Any single one. But High Harp is such an esoteric instrument which is reserved for high lords. Nearly every mention of the high harp (except 3, 2 of which being suspicious imo) shows it being played by a person of noble birth.

[Winter prince]

4 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

This weekend I should finish my larger article on all uses of harp and high harp. Keep your eyes peeled, it will be a doosey!

I'll look forward to reading it!

[Runaway Penguin]

57 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

And this would make perfect sense if Mance played wood harp. But high harp is different. Even winterfell didn't have someone to teach Sansa high harp. This is an instrument meant for nobility. That there would be someone on the wall teaching harp to the bastards of wildlings is exceedingly unlikely.

 

As unlikely as someone playing it in a hermitage/monastery?

 

Also seeing Mance, no, Watch would not go out of its way to teach anyone anything (apart from fighting/building/whatever skills) - but Mance would just annoy the guy until he got to learn something

[YOVMO]

10 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

As unlikely as someone playing it in a hermitage/monastery?

Any other instrument, no. But High Harp? Where did they even get one?

10 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

 

Also seeing Mance, no, Watch would not go out of its way to teach anyone anything (apart from fighting/building/whatever skills) - but Mance would just annoy the guy until he got to learn something

I can see it, but that is the problem again. Even if Mance was a musical prodigy who could apply his knowledge of woodharps and teach himself high harp, where did he find one on the wall? in the conservatory?

[Runaway Penguin]

Wall was full of quite noble lords still by the time of Conquest, if the history can be believed. Kinda also makes Watch issues with equipping Brothers talk about either massive theft and embezzleement by Watch leadership, or GRRM not thinking things through, as there should be at least arms and mail enough for 10k strong army... But I digress. Presence of noble trinkets on the Wall should be expected rather more than on the Quiet Isle. 

Yes, I know none is specifically mentioned in the books, but you can easily have one even in one of the abandoned castles - good music instruments can survive in reasonable conditions. And in any case we saw the insides of Castle Black only and while it may strike weird that biggest garrison does have less lxuries, remember that Daeron was sent to Eastwatch to help in trade negotiations - with direct contact with the North kinda dead, Eastwatch and Shadow Tower are probably more important trading posts and thus need more entertainment.

[YOVMO]

4 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

Wall was full of quite noble lords still by the time of Conquest, if the history can be believed. Kinda also makes Watch issues with equipping Brothers talk about either massive theft and embezzleement by Watch leadership, or GRRM not thinking things through, as there should be at least arms and mail enough for 10k strong army... But I digress. Presence of noble trinkets on the Wall should be expected rather more than on the Quiet Isle. 

Yes, I know none is specifically mentioned in the books, but you can easily have one even in one of the abandoned castles - good music instruments can survive in reasonable conditions. And in any case we saw the insides of Castle Black only and while it may strike weird that biggest garrison does have less lxuries, remember that Daeron was sent to Eastwatch to help in trade negotiations - with direct contact with the North kinda dead, Eastwatch and Shadow Tower are probably more important trading posts and thus need more entertainment.

I can't really argue your points here. I mean, they are just as plausible as any alternative (I will note that Daeron doesn't play the high harp). But with the high harpist at winterfell for King Robert's feast, with Rhaegar being so closely associated with the high harp and with the unnamed high harper on the quiet island and with Mance knowing all the southern songs I feel that there is something here. Why not just always say "harp" why even make a distinction. Chekov's harp? I don't know. Like I said, these ideas are all there and I haven't put them together well enough which is why I am asking peoples opinions here rather than putting forth a theory. I just feel deep down there there is something there.

[Winter prince]

I'm sure your essay will speak more to it, but is there a connection between the high harp's sad but sweet music and what the POV character is learning about at the time of playing?

[Runaway Penguin]

I do not really want to subscribe to Chekov's gun here - that is a rule for a simple, encapsulated drama, not for world building. Or not necessarily for stunning revelations. Kinda like the stone trolls in Fellowship of the Ring. If in the end every little detail is tied up in one huge Theory of Everything, I am going to be disappointed

[YOVMO]

1 hour ago, Winter prince said:

I'm sure your essay will speak more to it, but is there a connection between the high harp's sad but sweet music and what the POV character is learning about at the time of playing?

I think there is something. I am currently working with the idea that it is foreshadowing

[Michael Mertyns]

Ned's lack of ability to provide Sansa with high harp instruction seems to me to just be a result of the fact that even though he is a great lord, he he is a great lord in the middle of nowhere.

[Springwatch]

6 hours ago, YOVMO said:

... Catelyn opines at one point that she was so happy for Sansa to get to kings landing where she could find someone to teach her how to play High Harp....

I missed this thought of Cat's first time - I've just looked it up, and it surprises me, because I remember this quote of Arya's (AGOT):

Quote

It wasn't fair. Sansa had everything.... Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells....

A contradiction?

Looking forward to the big post!

[YOVMO]

50 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

I do not really want to subscribe to Chekov's gun here - that is a rule for a simple, encapsulated drama, not for world building. Or not necessarily for stunning revelations. Kinda like the stone trolls in Fellowship of the Ring. If in the end every little detail is tied up in one huge Theory of Everything, I am going to be disappointed

I kind of feel the same way and kind of not. I would like to say that every little detail is interconnected but won't be tied up. So a little bit of a halfway. For instance, I think it is perfectly plausible that there are some facts about the universe we simply will never get. I have often wondered if coldhands would be one of them. I mean, so what if he just remains a mystery in perpetuity. We can speculate for years and talk about it. Or Lem Lomoncloack being Richard Lonmouth. I feel that is pretty certain, but would be fine and satisfied if there was simply never a reveal. We are getting the story from character POV not gods eye POV so it stands to reason that there is stuff we will not ever know and I am totally ok with that. I am not ok with saying that that stuff is meaningless just that we won't know it.

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That said, while the list is filled with things that are on the list that we may never know there are, as a matter of fact, some thinks that we will Chekov (see what I did there). I feel that the high harp, if not one of them, will be directly related to something of importance.

[YOVMO]

1 minute ago, Springwatch said:

I missed this thought of Cat's first time - I've just looked it up, and it surprises me, because I remember this quote of Arya's (AGOT):

A contradiction?

Looking forward to the big post!

That quote is the one that is giving me the most trouble. I will be honest, it is a huge issue. Catelyn distinctly says that Kings Landing will be great for sansa and she will finally have someone to teach her high harp where she couldn't find someone at winterfell, but then we have this quote that you link. I am not ready to put an idea out there with that one. I think I can tie every other darn thing up into at least a cohesive theory with a little more work, but this one is freaking killing me.

[YOVMO]

6 minutes ago, Michael Mertyns said:

Ned's lack of ability to provide Sansa with high harp instruction seems to me to just be a result of the fact that even though he is a great lord, he he is a great lord in the middle of nowhere.

That makes sense in the way that there is a complaint that there isn't singers coming through Winterfell. But if Sansa really wanted to learn high harp it would not have been hard for ned to simply send away for someone and treat them with the hospitality of winterfell. It was a long summer, ned was a great lord and sansa really seemed to want it. If singers in general were frequently playing high harp I do not think it would have been difficult for ned to get one (especially in summer). The fact that he hadn't leads me to believe that high harp is something high born learn in castles from their mothers or older sisters etc.