Wow, I never noticed that v.15

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

Is this one on here already? 

A reverse foreshadowing.

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As they waded in to breast their way across, men stepped in hidden pools and went down splashing, while others stumbled over stones or gashed their feet on the hidden caltrops. The Mallister bowmen sent a storm of fire arrows hissing across the river, strangely beautiful from afar. One man, pierced through a dozen times, his clothes afire, danced and whirled in the knee-deep water until at last he fell and was swept downstream. By the time his body came bobbing past Riverrun, the fires and his life had both been extinguished. (Cat VI, CoK)

The Mallister sigil is an eagle. So, an eagle sets a person on fire.

Then the person gets revenge on the eagle.

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Then the skinchanger threw back his head and screamed.

The sound was shocking, ear-piercing, thick with agony. Varamyr fell, writhing, and the ’cat was screaming too … and high, high in the eastern sky, against the wall of cloud, Jon saw the eagle burning. For a heartbeat it flamed brighter than a star, wreathed in red and gold and orange, its wings beating wildly at the air as if it could fly from the pain. Higher it flew, and higher, and higher still. (Jon X, SoS)

 

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

On 14-9-2017 at 4:19 AM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Well Elbert died in KL long before the Battle of the Bells, so I don't think we can count him in the equation really. It's not unreasonable to assume that the other heir, if riding into battle, would be in danger and could end up dead. And most medieval men would prefer leaving their holdings to their own son regardless.

If Jon just wanted to leave everything to some random relative, I'm sure there are cousins around...Harry the Heir for one. If Jon was in the market for a wife at all, it was because he was still hoping for a son, and he'd struck out with the first two wives. Medieval knowledge being what it was, no doubt the wives were considered at fault, so a pregnant girl would look at least half-way capable of producing an heir. It just seems like an easier sell than "My daughter was pregnant, I promise." If Jon didn't want to marry the girl he could have betrothed or married her to the other heir who went into battle with him.

The match between Jon and Lysa was "hastily arranged", as Catelyn puts it, which seems to put it after Jon's last heir died. So Jon being available for marriage again and Denys dying are connected. If Denys had not died, the marriage would likely never have happened.

 

On 14-9-2017 at 4:19 AM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Then of course there's the fraud aspect of Hoster letting Jon think he's getting a perfectly fertile bride when in reality the damage done was going to prevent pregnancy for a long time to come. I don't think there was any way Hoster or anyone else could know how long, but considering she nearly died, it seems pretty obvious that her body would need time to recover.

Do we have any information about when the rebels first made contact with Hoster, or he with them? I'm wondering how that went down. Did he raven Ned and offer Catelyn? Did he ask if Ned knew a single guy who needed a wife? How did the whole make Jon Arryn marry Lysa thing come down, and when did Hoster get the idea?

We know that Catelyn knew for a while that she would marry Eddard, although they never met until their wedding day. And we know that the marriage between Jon and Lysa was arranged later, "hastily".

 

On 14-9-2017 at 4:19 AM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

I would definitely say Hoster added it without consulting the maester. Maybe chatted him up while he was working, got him to mention the ingredients and what they did, and then sneaked into the lab (or whatever) and put more tansy in. But I don't see why he'd feel the need to do that, when the moon tea is already known to work fine. I can understand him wanting to be sure. I just don't understand why he would doubt that it would work as it was.

Who knows? The honor of his house was at stake, so that could have been his motivation. He could not risk having the tea fail.

 

From the moment that Hoster learned that Lysa was pregnant, every day that she continued to be pregnant would have been a danger in his eyes. Lysa might tell someone; Servants might find out, causing news to spread throughout the castle, and eventually beyond. Her being pregnant was a risk to him, so I really can't see him allowing her to remain pregnant for much longer than absolutely necessary. And considering the kind of marriage he wanted for his daughter, he could not have any rumors being told about Lysa having been "spoiled".

[Lost Melnibonean]

The first Lannister king, Loreon the Lion, defeated the the last Hooded King, Morgon Banefort and his thralls. Do you suppose Morgon had thralls because of Ironman influence? Or maybe he was some kinda super skinchanger? 

[Tucu]

In the books "white shadow" is an expression only used in reference to Ghost, the Kingsguard and the white walkers.

Ghost protects Jon, the Kingsguard protect the royal family, the white walkers protect...the weirwoods?

[The Fattest Leech]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

In the books "white shadow" is an expression only used in reference to Ghost, the Kingsguard and the white walkers.

Ghost protects Jon, the Kingsguard protect the royal family, the white walkers protect...the weirwoods?

To the bolded, I am not sure if the White Walkers protect the Weirwoods or not, but the White Walkers show up after Waymar hits the trees with his sword and calls to the "gods". As Waymar's little sister might tease, Waymar started it!

• They were gone. All the bodies were gone.
  "Gods!" he heard behind him. A sword slashed at a branch as Ser Waymar Royce gained the ridge. He stood there beside the sentinel, longsword in hand, his cloak billowing behind him as the wind came up, outlined nobly against the stars for all to see.
  "Get down!" Will whispered urgently. "Something's wrong."

Also, Daenerys calls Barristan her white shadow. This scene is interesting because of the descriptions such as the red eyes, white shadow, dead child, and the bones as weirwoods have been described as bones/bone white, but in this case a dragon burns the child bones. This little girl was Hazzea.

• As Dany stood, her tokar began to slip. She caught it and tugged it back in place. "You with the sack," she called, "did you wish to speak with us? You may approach."
  When he raised his head, his eyes were red and raw as open sores. Dany glimpsed Ser Barristan sliding closer, a white shadow at her side. The man approached in a stumbling shuffle, one step and then another, clutching his sack. Is he drunk, or ill? she wondered. There was dirt beneath his cracked yellow fingernails.
  "What is it?" Dany asked. "Do you have some grievance to lay before us, some petition? What would you have of us?"

  His tongue flicked nervously over chapped, cracked lips. "I … I brought …"

  "Bones?" she said, impatiently. "Burnt bones?"

  He lifted the sack, and spilled its contents on the marble.

  Bones they were, broken bones and blackened. The longer ones had been cracked open for their marrow.

  "It were the black one," the man said, in a Ghiscari growl, "the winged shadow. He come down from the sky and … and …"

[Tucu]

8 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

To the bolded, I am not sure if the White Walkers protect the Weirwoods or not, but the White Walkers show up after Waymar hits the trees with his sword and calls to the "gods". As Waymar's little sister might tease, Waymar started it!

• They were gone. All the bodies were gone.
  "Gods!" he heard behind him. A sword slashed at a branch as Ser Waymar Royce gained the ridge. He stood there beside the sentinel, longsword in hand, his cloak billowing behind him as the wind came up, outlined nobly against the stars for all to see.
  "Get down!" Will whispered urgently. "Something's wrong."

Also, Daenerys calls Barristan her white shadow. This scene is interesting because of the descriptions such as the red eyes, white shadow, dead child, and the bones as weirwoods have been described as bones/bone white, but in this case a dragon burns the child bones. This little girl was Hazzea.

• As Dany stood, her tokar began to slip. She caught it and tugged it back in place. "You with the sack," she called, "did you wish to speak with us? You may approach."
  When he raised his head, his eyes were red and raw as open sores. Dany glimpsed Ser Barristan sliding closer, a white shadow at her side. The man approached in a stumbling shuffle, one step and then another, clutching his sack. Is he drunk, or ill? she wondered. There was dirt beneath his cracked yellow fingernails.
  "What is it?" Dany asked. "Do you have some grievance to lay before us, some petition? What would you have of us?"

  His tongue flicked nervously over chapped, cracked lips. "I … I brought …"

  "Bones?" she said, impatiently. "Burnt bones?"

  He lifted the sack, and spilled its contents on the marble.

  Bones they were, broken bones and blackened. The longer ones had been cracked open for their marrow.

  "It were the black one," the man said, in a Ghiscari growl, "the winged shadow. He come down from the sky and … and …"

Waymar should have known not to call the gods without having a baby to give to them :-)

Here is a similar quote about Jon and Ghost:

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Ghost ran with them, a white shadow at Jon's side.

The weirwoods rose in a circle around the edges of the clearing. There were nine, all roughly of the same age and size. Each one had a face carved into it, and no two faces were alike. Some were smiling, some were screaming, some were shouting at him. In the deepening glow their eyes looked black, but in daylight they would be blood-red, Jon knew. Eyes like Ghost's.

And this one from Tyrion and the KGs during the Battle of the Blackwater:

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 Men ran from him and he ran after them, clambering up over the rail to the next ship and then the next. His two white shadows were always with him; Balon Swann and Mandon Moore, beautiful in their pale plate.

 

[Walda]

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When they’d been brought before the Iron Throne for justice, he had promised to send them to Stannis. A man was not as heavy as a boulder or a cask of burning pitch, and could be thrown a deal farther.

(ACoK, Ch.59 Tyrion XIII)

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You’ll want your child, I expect. I’ll send him to you when he’s born. With a trebuchet.

(AFfC, Ch.38 Jaime VI)

Father and son share the same punny sense of humour.

[Carolyn]

Minor thing but, in the chapter where Meera Reed tells the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree (ASoS, Bran ?), there's an earlier conversation where she says she loves the hills, then that she hates them. Bran argues that it can't be both because they are different, like ice and fire, or night and day. Jojen tells him he is wrong.

The very next chapter is Melisandre visiting Davos in the cells (ASoS, Davos III):

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"The truth is all around you, plain to behold. The night is dark, and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful, and full of hope. One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good." She took a step toward him. "Death and life. Everywhere, opposites. Everywhere, the war."

Think the timing of these in the book is fascinating, placing these totally different world views in contrast.

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 hours ago, Carolyn said:

Minor thing but, in the chapter where Meera Reed tells the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree (ASoS, Bran ?), there's an earlier conversation where she says she loves the hills, then that she hates them. Bran argues that it can't be both because they are different, like ice and fire, or night and day. Jojen tells him he is wrong.

The very next chapter is Melisandre visiting Davos in the cells (ASoS, Davos III):

Think the timing of these in the book is fascinating, placing these totally different world views in contrast.

A lot of science fiction and fantasy literature is organized around restoring the balance between good and evil or the more morally neutral chaos and order. I expect that the prince that was promised is a child of ice and fire, and he will restore the balance between ice and fire, culminating in the Battle for the Dawn. 

[Lollygag]

Many have noticed parallels between Mya Stone and Stonesnake. Osha is also a parallel.

Mya and Osha have similar descriptions both being wiry, manish in dress, and while Mya has a bowl-cut, Osha wears a bowl helmet which hides her hair.

AGOT Bran V

"Pretty," said a woman's voice. She scarcely looked like a woman; tall and lean, with the same hard face as the others, her hair hidden beneath a bowl-shaped halfhelm. The spear she held was eight feet of black oak, tipped in rusted steel.

AGOT Catelyn VI

A wiry girl of seventeen or eighteen years stepped up beside Lord Nestor. Her dark hair was cropped short and straight around her head, and she wore riding leathers and a light shirt of silvered ringmail.

In connection to Stonesnake, Osha has a serpent on her spear (also AGOT Bran V)

Robb and Osha matched blows in midstream. Her long spear was a steel-headed serpent, flashing out at his chest, once, twice, three times, but Robb parried every thrust with his longsword, turning the point aside. On the fourth or fifth thrust, the tall woman overextended herself and lost her balance, just for a second. Robb charged, riding her down.

Mya and Stonesnake are both guides and both connect mountains to parent-figures who will keep you from falling. Above, Osha trips but does not fall.

AFFC Alayne II

Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain's daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won't fall."

ACOK Jon VI

Soon they were high enough so that looking down was best not considered. There was nothing below but yawning blackness, nothing above but moon and stars. "The mountain is your mother," Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. "Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won't drop you." Jon had made a joke of it, saying how he'd always wondered who his mother was, but never thought to find her in the Frostfangs. It did not seem nearly so amusing now. One step and then another, he thought, clinging tight.

Like Mya is guide and Stonesnake is a guide who both reference parent figures, Osha becomes a guide and parent figure to Bran and Rickon. She also tries to guide Robb North rather than South. Osha, Bran, Rickon and Hodor would later find safety in the stone crypts and Rickon is later taken to hide in Skagos which means "Stone" in the Old Tongue.

[Bitterblooms]

First time post! I've been following these boards for well over 2 years and I finally signed up for an account! I came to the ASOIAF party pretty late, only reading it within the last three years. 

I just have a pretty simple observation to break the ice, something that I never noticed until I reread GOT for something like the 4th time. When Robert offers Ned the office of Hand, he feels despair at the thought of leaving Winterfell to go south. Still in the crypts, he thinks, "THIS is my place." Contrast that with the multiple times Jon dreams about the crypts and thinks it's NOT his place. No major theories or anything: I'm just really appreciating the symmetry. And I'm shocked it took so many rereads to catch the obvious parallel! 

[Lost Melnibonean]

32 minutes ago, Bitterblooms said:

First time post! I've been following these boards for well over 2 years and I finally signed up for an account! I came to the ASOIAF party pretty late, only reading it within the last three years. 

I just have a pretty simple observation to break the ice, something that I never noticed until I reread GOT for something like the 4th time. When Robert offers Ned the office of Hand, he feels despair at the thought of leaving Winterfell to go south. Still in the crypts, he thinks, "THIS is my place." Contrast that with the multiple times Jon dreams about the crypts and thinks it's NOT his place. No major theories or anything: I'm just really appreciating the symmetry. And I'm shocked it took so many rereads to catch the obvious parallel! 

[The Fattest Leech]

2 hours ago, Bitterblooms said:

First time post! I've been following these boards for well over 2 years and I finally signed up for an account! I came to the ASOIAF party pretty late, only reading it within the last three years. 

I just have a pretty simple observation to break the ice, something that I never noticed until I reread GOT for something like the 4th time. When Robert offers Ned the office of Hand, he feels despair at the thought of leaving Winterfell to go south. Still in the crypts, he thinks, "THIS is my place." Contrast that with the multiple times Jon dreams about the crypts and thinks it's NOT his place. No major theories or anything: I'm just really appreciating the symmetry. And I'm shocked it took so many rereads to catch the obvious parallel! 

Nice catch... and I love your screen name

[The Fattest Leech]

Started a D&E The Sworn Sword relisten this evening while driving home. This part struck out to me as smelling of Euron... the whole passage, but especially the bolded... and the story does revolve around a fight for control of water.

The Sworn Sword

Dunk had met a few outlaws while squiring for the old man. He was in no hurry to meet any more. None of the ones he'd known had been especially gallant. He remembered one outlaw Ser Arlan had helped hang, who'd been fond of stealing rings. He would cut off a man's fingers to get at them, but with women he preferred to bite. There were no songs about him that Dunk knew. Outlaws or poachers, makes no matter. Dead men make poor company. He walked Thunder slowly around the cage. The empty eyes seemed to follow him. One of the dead men had his head down and his mouth gaping open.

He has no tongue, Dunk observed. He supposed the crows might have eaten it. Crows always pecked a corpse's eyes out first, he had heard, but maybe the tongue went second. Or maybe a lord had it torn out, for something that he said.

Dunk pushed his fingers through his mop of sun-streaked hair. The dead were beyond his help, and they had casks of wine to get to Standfast. "Which way did we come?" he asked, looking from one road to the other. "I'm turned around."

[The Coconut God]

My most recent revelation was realizing that the little scene with Casso King of Seals from the Ugly Little Girl chapter in ADwD might foreshadow that a more feral post-Ghost-storage Jon will be able to recognize Arya even when she's wearing someone else's face.

[Shmedricko]

Tyrion II, AGOT 13:

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"So they say," Tyrion replied. "Sad, isn't it? When I was your age, I used to dream of having a dragon of my own."

"You did?" the boy said suspiciously. Perhaps he thought Tyrion was making fun of him.

"Oh, yes. Even a stunted, twisted, ugly little boy can look down over the world when he's seated on a dragon's back." Tyrion pushed the bearskin aside and climbed to his feet. "I used to start fires in the bowels of Casterly Rock and stare at the flames for hours, pretending they were dragonfire. Sometimes I'd imagine my father burning. At other times, my sister." Jon Snow was staring at him, a look equal parts horror and fascination. Tyrion guffawed. "Don't look at me that way, bastard. I know your secret. You've dreamt the same kind of dreams."

"No," Jon Snow said, horrified. "I wouldn't …"

"No? Never?" Tyrion raised an eyebrow. "Well, no doubt the Starks have been terribly good to you. I'm certain Lady Stark treats you as if you were one of her own. And your brother Robb, he's always been kind, and why not? He gets Winterfell and you get the Wall. And your father … he must have good reasons for packing you off to the Night's Watch …"

Jon VIII, AGOT 60:

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Truly, the gods had heard Jon's prayer that night; the fire had caught in the dead man's clothing and consumed him as if his flesh were candle wax and his bones old dry wood. Jon had only to close his eyes to see the thing staggering across the solar, crashing against the furniture and flailing at the flames. It was the face that haunted him most; surrounded by a nimbus of fire, hair blazing like straw, the dead flesh melting away and sloughing off its skull to reveal the gleam of bone beneath.

Whatever demonic force moved Othor had been driven out by the flames; the twisted thing they had found in the ashes had been no more than cooked meat and charred bone. Yet in his nightmare he faced it again … and this time the burning corpse wore Lord Eddard's features. It was his father's skin that burst and blackened, his father's eyes that ran liquid down his cheeks like jellied tears. Jon did not understand why that should be or what it might mean, but it frightened him more than he could say.

[Lost Melnibonean]

7 hours ago, Shmedricko said:

Tyrion II, AGOT 13:

Jon VIII, AGOT 60:

[Seams]

7 hours ago, Shmedricko said:

Tyrion II, AGOT 13:

Jon VIII, AGOT 60:

Amazing, great catch.

Even the word "twisted" is a direct match - Tyrion as a "stunted, twisted, ugly little boy" and "the twisted thing they had found in the ashes."

The melting of Ned's eyes in the passage you cite is probably a parallel to the melting of the sword Ice.

Elsewhere in this forum, we have discussed the parallel between the Lord of Bones (Rattleshirt) and Ned Stark. Rattleshirt is burned to death while Jon watches. (Actually, Jon orders Rattleshirt killed with archers' arrows before the fire can finish him off.)

There are probably some Sandor Clegane and Viserys allusions in the details of Othor's burning hair and face, too.

There are a lot of layers of meaning in the pairing of these little excerpts. Very nice.

[GloubieBoulga]

On 29/09/2017 at 6:27 AM, Shmedricko said:

Tyrion II, AGOT 13:

Jon VIII, AGOT 60:

great !!

I was here for another, from Tyrion X, ASOS  :

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"Have you nothing to say in your defense?"

"Nothing but this: I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had." He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. "I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here. You leave me no choice but to appeal to the gods. I demand trial by battle."

 

"Pale faces" are for weirwood's faces and greenseers (especially Bloodraven). Tyrion don't see that he just can't win his godly trial this time ^^.

We have also one "poisoned" weirwood : the weirwood of Raventree.

Next chapter, when he escapes and before he kills his father (Tyrion XI ASOS):

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The eunuch was lurking in the dark of a twisting turnpike stair, garbed in a moth-eaten brown robe with a hood that hid the paleness of his face. "You were so long, I feared that something had gone amiss," he said when he saw Tyrion.

"Oh, no," Tyrion assured him, in poisonous tones. "What could possibly have gone amiss?" He twisted his head back to stare up. "I sent for you during my trial."

 

Varys as Tyrion's bad god/whisperer (like the Drowned God for Aeron the "forsaken"), who will permit to Tyrion to murder Shae and Tywin. But could it also be a foreshadowing for Varys' death ? Or is it a clue for the particular relationship between greenseer and poison (including words as poison) ? 

 

 

 

[Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn]

I didn't realize that Estermont is not Brienne's father. Estermont and Tarth are two different islands and families.