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Reread Project: the Titled Chapters - The Prophet AFFC chapter 1


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Reread Project: the Titled Chapters

Overview

Welcome to the reread project of the titled chapters! While I am your host, there are friends that I have invited to help me get started. Amongst them are @LynnS , @ravenous reader , @Pain killer Jane , @Lady Dyanna , @Seams , @wolfmaid7 , @WeaselPie , @Mace Cooterian , @JNR , @DarkSister1001 , @Queen of Winter , @Sly Wren , @Cowboy Dan , @The Snowfyre Chorus , @Prince of Ghost , @Regular John Umber , and @Yield. Please feel free to invite anyone whom you think would enjoy this discussion.

There are currently 30 published and uniquely titled chapters (plus one leaked - The Forsaken) that for one reason or another are not named after it's point of view character. You may have wondered yourself if the titles have some significance. It is my intended purpose to specifically reread just these chapters to test out a theory that not only are these chapters rich in parallel inversions, but that there may be another second but inverted story within the "Jabberwocky". You don't have to ascribe to the parallel inversion theory to enjoy the analysis. Please bring your insight, knowledge, and manners. We aim to keep the discussion friendly, and we request that you provide textural evidence to support your views. Please keep the discussion contained to the current chapter, unless your supporting evidence is from a different chapter, then by all means provide those comparisons!

Ideally we shall aim for a chapter per week, but I also understand that people's lives are busy and I may be overly optimistic. I assure you that I am flexible and willing to make adjustments as we go along.

I also hope to create links to any completed chapters with each new thread. That will make it easier to locate and navigate in future. Here is the list of the chapters we will be rereading and analyzing:

The Prophet - AFFC - Chapter 1
The Captain of Guards - AFFC - Chapter 2
The Kraken’s Daughter - AFFC - Chapter 11
The Soiled Knight - AFFC - Chapter 13
The Iron Captain - AFFC - Chapter 18
The Drowned Man - AFFC - Chapter 19
The Queenmaker - AFFC - Chapter 21
The Reaver - AFFC - Chapter 29
Cat of the Canals - AFFC - Chapter 34
The Princess in the Tower - AFFC - Chapter 40
The Merchant’s Man - ADWD - Chapter 6
The Lost Lord - ADWD - Chapter 24
The Windblown - ADWD - 25
The Wayward Bride - ADWD - Chapter 26
The Prince of Winterfell - ADWD - Chapter 37
The Watcher - ADWD - Chapter 38
The Turncloak - ADWD - Chapter 41
The King’s Prize - ADWD - Chapter 42
The Blind Girl - ADWD - Chapter 45
A Ghost in Winterfell - ADWD - Chapter 46
The Queensguard - ADWD - Chapter 55
The Iron Suitor - ADWD - Chapter 56
The Discarded Knight - ADWD - Chapter 59
The Spurned Suitor - ADWD - Chapter 60
The Griffin Reborn - ADWD - Chapter 61
The Sacrifice - ADWD - Chapter 62
The Ugly Little Girl - ADWD Chapter 64
The Kingbreaker - ADWD - Chapter 67
The Dragontamer - ADWD - Chapter 68
The Queen’s Hand - ADWD - Chapter 70

 

The Prophet - AFFC chapter 1

Chapter summary

Aeron “Damphair” Greyjoy is drowning and resuscitating believers when three horsemen ride up to tell him his brother, King Balon Greyjoy, was dead. Aeron is described as having a tangled uncut beard and long black hair that falls past his waist. He’s often nearly naked, choosing to wear a sealskin “swimsuit”, and dons a green and blue roughspun robe when he comes out of the water. After prayer and his dip in the sea he comes to the conclusion that the Drowned God wants him to declare a Kingsmoot to gather all the ironmen to Old Wyk to choose their next king. 

The numbers three, four, and nine appear to be significant in this chapter. Perhaps we'll suss out the reasons why?

After inquiring as to how his brother died, the priest declared that “the Storm God cast him down” in a jealous rage.

 

The religious ceremony of drowning and resuscitating

His drowned men worked the boys arms until Damphair could deliver the kiss of life. The boy, Emmond, began to cough and spit, blinking his eyes full of fear. Damphair took Emmond’s return as a sign that he had the Drowned God’s favor, since he had never lost anyone with this religious ritual. “Rise. You have drowned and been returned to us. What is dead can never die.”

 

Grouping of three and four

The first three men he drowned offered themselves up willingly. The fourth struggled wildly, so much so that he needed the assistance of four other believers to help hold the naked boy down until he floated limply in the waters near Great Wyk. Damphair recognized the men, Sparr and his son Steffarion, and one of Gorold Goodbrothers sons. Gorold had three sons: Greydon, Gormond, and Gran. Aeron thinks Gorold’s family is “crabbed and queer”, because they live so far from the sea making their living mining, and he derides their preferred method of “drowning” which is performed by simply trickling water down over an infant’s head.

Aeron borrowed Goromond’s horse to ride to Lord Goodbrother’s keep, Hammerhorn. Goromond said his father had received a raven, and Aeron thinks to himself, Dark wings, dark words. The message had only four words: the King is dead. Four kings there were in Westeros, yet Aeron did not need to ask which one so he asked, “Tell me the manner of my brother’s death.”

 

Grouping of nine and four

Nine sons had been born of Quellon Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands. Quenton and Donel who died in infancy, and Harlon who died of greyscale were born of Quellon’s first wife, a woman of the Stonetrees. Balon, Euron, Victarion, Urrigon, and Aeron (the youngest) were sons of his second, a Sunderly of Saltcliffe. A third wife produced a sickly idiot boy named Robin. Aeron groups Harlon with his other brothers when he thinks, “One day we shall feast on fish together in the Drowned God’s watery halls, the four of us and Urri too.” IMO he left Euron out and substituted Harlon in. I think it’s odd that GRRM had Aeron separate his brother in this way so that he could think “the four of us”. Obviously GRRM is stressing the number four.

Again he thinks how Quellon had nine sons, but only four lived to manhood: Balon, Euron, Victarion, and Aeron. The phrase about how women bring forth “short-lived children from beds of blood and pain” is in this chapter.

Aeron climbs into the shelter his men made for him and prays. The pounding of the sea draws him out into the water until the waves crash over his head. He thinks a third time: Nine sons were born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and I was the least of them, as weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is drowned, and the god has made me strong….Bones. Balon’s bones, and Urri’s. The truth is in our bones, for flesh decays and bone endures. And on the hill of Nagga, the bones of the Grey King’s Hall…

 

Aeron associates the storm with Euron Crow’s Eye

     “Tell me the manner of my brother’s death.” 

     “His Grace was crossing a bridge at Pyke when he fell and was dashed upon the rocks below.”

     “Was the storm raging when he fell?” Aeron demanded of them.

     “Aye,” the youth said, “it was.”

     “The Storm God cast him down,” the priest announced.

Aeron said that Balon had made the ironborn great again and that is why the Storm God was wrath. Damphair did not like horses as they came from the green lands and helped make men weak, but necessity required that he ride. Dark wings, dark words. (He thinks for the 2nd time) A storm was brewing. He tells his believers to meet him at Pebbleton beneath Lord Merlyn’s tower.

Damphair thinks back on his youth as being the “last and least” and Balon as “eldest and boldest”. All Aeron wanted to do was drink, boast, and take salt wives, while his brother captained his own ship by the age of seventeen. I was weak and full of sin, and scorn was more than I deserved. Better to be scorned by Balon the Brave than beloved of Euron Crow’s Eye. Balon became bitter with years, but more determined too. A lord’s son and died a king, murdered by a jealous god. And now the storm is coming, such as the isles have never known.

When Aeron arrives at Gorold’s keep he demands a private audience and to send the maesters away. Gorold retorts that it’s his hall and that the maester stays, so Aeron says that then he shall go. It seems he’s ridden for naught. He was almost to the door when the maester informed him, “Euron Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.” And “Now he sends forth ravens, summoning the captains and kings from every isle to Pyke to bend their knees and do him homage as their king.”

When he returns to Pebbleton next to the sea to sleep, his believers have made a bed for him. That night he dreams, and the sound came softly, the scream of a rusted hinge. “Urri,” he muttered, and woke, fearful. There is no hinge here, no door, no Urri. He remembers how an axe took off half of Urri’s hand when was “ten-and-four”, playing the finger dance. Quellon’s third wife gave Urri over to her maester, who swore he could sew the fingers back on, but the wounds mortified, he took fever and died before the maester could cut his arm off. When Balon learned what happened he cut the maesters fingers off, had them sewn back on, and used the same poltices and potions that failed Urri. The maester died raving, and Quellon’s third wife soon followed when a midwife drew a stillborn daughter from her womb.

It shamed Aeron to recall that he continued to drink and dance in the years following Urri’s death, and he even once bet his own longship against a herd of goats that he could quench a hearthfire with no more than his cock. He feasted on goat for more than a year and named his longship Golden Storm.  In the end his ship went down during Balon’s first rebellion, cut in half by a war galley called Fury when Stannis caught him in a trap and smashed the Iron Fleet. He was sent to Lannisport in chains, and spent the rest of the rebellion in the bowels of Casterly Rock. He thinks to himself, That man is dead. He had drowned and been reborn from the sea, the god’s own prophet. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could…nor memories, the bones of the soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. Euron has come again. 

The king must be Victarion or the storm will slay us all.

 

The Kingsmoot

Gorold and Aeron discuss Balon’s wish that Theon die and Asha succeed him, but Aeron dismisses that idea saying that no woman has ever ruled the ironborn. The maester inserts that Euron is the elder brother, but Aeron insists that Victarion is more godly. When the maester asked if he thought Euron and Victarion would war with each other, Aeron says, “Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn.” Gorold points out that Euron had Sawane Botley drowned for saying the Seastone Chair belonged to Theon. “If he was drowned, no blood was shed.” Said Aeron.

The discussion of succession causes Aeron to declare that they must listen to the voice of god, and that the Drowned God is with him. He has shown him the way.

After his dip in the sea Aeron comes up with the old idea of a Kingsmoot to choose their new king. Merlyn informed him that he received two ravens with one summons to Pyke, the other to Ten Towers. Euron and Asha. Aeron tells everyone at Pebbleton to go to Old Wyk for a Kingsmoot and to listen to their god, to the waves. The clamor they made was so thunderous that surely the Crow’s Eye and the Storm God heard. And Aeron knew he had done well.

 

Notable Parallels

Maester Aemon stated that his vows as a man of the Watch were tested three times, and that the hardest time for him was hearing about the destruction of House Targaryen during the War of the Usurper aka Robert’s Rebellion. 

Aemon was, at this point in the story, a maester at the Wall, and the north metaphorically is a cold dark sea, and the people that die in that northern sea rise again, coming in waves out of the dark as undead wights. 

Aeron thinks the truth is in the bones, that flesh decays but bone endures. The parallel to this is the suspicion that the wights rise, because their spirit is trapped in the bones. The bones remember.

Where Aeron has long hair and an uncut beard, Aemon is bald, wrinkled, shrunken, and blind.

Aemon is like a priest of the Nights Watch where the men strain to hear his faintest whisper.

Aemon also was part of a Great Council to determine who should inheirit the Iron Throne.

We also have Patchface as a drowned prophet, and I can see how he would have a lot in common with Aeron and Aemon.

While it's humorous that Aeron's ship was basically named after his own stream of urine, (Golden Storm) there is the possible parallel connection to the Golden Company which always backed the Blackfyre Pretenders.

Aeron blamed the Storm God for bringing down Balon. Aerys II was brought down by Storm Lord Robert Baratheon.

Aeron was one of five children from Quellon’s second wife, and had a sickly idiot brother named Robin. While Aemon was one of five children of Maekar I and Dyanna Dayne. Aemon’s elder brother Prince Daeron died of the pox and his only issue was a feeble-minded daughter named Princess Vaella.

Damphair had no love of maesters and didn’t trust their healing. He thinks no proper man would choose a life of thralldom. Meanwhile Aemon unselfishly volunteered to go to the Wall, because he feared he would be used against his brother, King Aegon V who provided an honor guard of prisoners including Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers to take vows with him.

Definite parallels between the Kingsmoot and the Great Councils of the Targaryens, and both families declared that a woman would never lead their peoples even if the eldest in line of inheritance was a female.

Bloodraven deceived and executed his half brother, Aenys Blackfyre to eliminate him from succession, while Euron drowned Sawane Botley for saying the Seastone Chair belonged to Theon.

Lastly, my suspicion as to why Westeros has inverted: a squeaky, old and rusted, iron hinge has been opened.

 

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14 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

There are currently 30 published and uniquely titled chapters (plus one leaked - The Forsaken) that for one reason or another are not named after it's point of view character. You may have wondered yourself if the titles have some significance. It is my intended purpose to specifically reread just these chapters to test out a theory that not only are these chapters rich in parallel inversions, but that there may be another second but inverted story within the "Jabberwocky".

Hi Feather!  Just a short post to stimulate the discussion.  GRRM himself has confirmed in an interview that the lack of POV names for those chapters has a very specific reason -- except he's not saying...being his elusive, coy self...-- and you'll like this, he alludes to it being a 'puzzle' we have to solve!  

Quote
From the fourth book you have been uncovering some chapters with nicknames, like ‘The Prophet’ or ‘The Kraken’s Daughter’. Why do you do that?
Well… [Thinks for a long time with an enigmatic smile] I don’t know if you know Gene Wolfe, one of the best science fiction and fantasy writers, in my opinion. Well, his work is full of puzzles and enigmas and you have to put a lot of attention on what he is saying. I remember one day I asked him: “Why do you use that? Is there a deeper reason beyond?” And he didn’t say anything at the beginning. He just smiled me ironically and said to me: “What do you think it means?” And I told him my theories. Then, he answered: “Interesting…” [Laughs]. That’s all you wanna get out of me, but I have to say this is not an accident [Laughs].

Link to the interview (I couldn't find the original Adria's News site, so forgive the strange site) here.

I'm having this crazy idea, prompted by your other question regarding whether the order of the chapters is significant -- maybe the order of the chapters is a summary of a sequence of moves in a chess game?  (we should ask the chess experts @Frey family reunion , @Mace Cooterianand @JNR for some ideas as to what this 'puzzle' could represent!)

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1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

Hi Feather!  Just a short post to stimulate the discussion.  GRRM himself has confirmed in an interview that the lack of POV names for those chapters has a very specific reason -- except he's not saying...being his elusive, coy self...-- and you'll like this, he alludes to it being a 'puzzle' we have to solve!  

Link to the interview (I couldn't find the original Adria's News site, so forgive the strange site) here.

I'm having this crazy idea, prompted by your other question regarding whether the order of the chapters is significant -- maybe the order of the chapters is a summary of a sequence of moves in a chess game?  (we should ask the chess experts @Frey family reunion , @Mace Cooterianand @JNR for some ideas as to what this 'puzzle' could represent!)

Your link was very exciting to read! I did not know that he admitted that these chapters are puzzles! I am so excited!

The chess angle is worth exploring, but I'd also like to know if anyone is familiar with that other author, Gene Wolfe? 

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A Reddit poster started a thread called, "How to Read Gene Wolfe".  I especially liked number three:

3) Reread. It's better the second time. It will be even better the third time. And anyway, the books will subtly reshape themselves while you are away from them.Peace really was a gentle Midwestern memoir the first time I read it. It only became a horror novel on the second or the third reading.

While not being familiar with Gene Wolfe myself I had already suspected GRRM was writing a second inverted story within the titled chapters. So far I've been met with skepticism. The most acceptance I've gotten so far is a small handful of people that agree the parallel inversions are there, but they are so far unwilling to accept that the whole chapter can be read inverted-ly...I'm making up a word here! I don't wish to contaminate or influence everyone's own study of the current chapter, but IMO the inverted story is one about Maester Aemon Targaryen. Although it is possible that he's not the only one it's about, because we are looking for a priest-type leader, but because I believe the inverted story takes place at the Wall where the dead wights are, then it makes sense to me that it's about Maester Aemon since he's the moral leader for the men of the Watch.

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19 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

A third wife produced a sickly idiot boy named Robin.

That third wife was a member of House Piper of Pinkmaiden in the Riverlands. His name Robin combined with being sickly and an idiot would parallel him to Robert Arryn, son of Lysa Tully and Jon Arryn and nickname 'Sweet Robin'. Robin Greyjoy is also called the forgotten son by Aeron and

Spoiler

murdered by Euron in tWoW chapter, The Forsaken

 There is also another bird child, son of a woman from the Riverlands or Greenlands as Aeron would say, Bran. Robin's forgotten status can be argued to represent Rickon but Rickon is more wolf than bird. 

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1 minute ago, DarkSister1001 said:

@Feather Crystal - LOVE this idea!  I'm a bit overloaded at the moment and wouldn't feel right about committing and not being able to follow through.  Mind if I just pop in from time-to-time?  If/when my schedule frees up I'll let you know and can maybe participate a bit more. 

Absolutely!

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14 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

That third wife was a member of House Piper of Pinkmaiden in the Riverlands. His name Robin combined with being sickly and an idiot would parallel him to Robert Arryn, son of Lysa Tully and Jon Arryn and nickname 'Sweet Robin'. Robin Greyjoy is also called the forgotten son by Aeron and

  Reveal hidden contents

murdered by Euron in tWoW chapter, The Forsaken

 There is also another bird child, son of a woman from the Riverlands or Greenlands as Aeron would say, Bran. Robin's forgotten status can be argued to represent Rickon but Rickon is more wolf than bird. 

Agreed.

Part of my thoughts about the inversions is that history is a wheel and that multiple people with similar characteristics have relived similar circumstances which has led to the phrase that someone is somebody "reborn" to pop up quite often. Robin Arryn could be Robin Greyjoy reborn. Robin Arryn is a sickly, spoiled brat, but I don't think he's an idiot, and maybe that's the inversion?

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Agreed.

Part of my thoughts about the inversions is that history is a wheel and that multiple people with similar characteristics have relived similar circumstances which has led to the phrase that someone is somebody "reborn" to pop up quite often. Robin Arryn could be Robin Greyjoy reborn. Robin Arryn is a sickly, spoiled brat, but I don't think he's an idiot, and maybe that's the inversion?

hmm...it could be but remember that Robert Arryn is destined to die. I tend to subscribe to Sweetsunray's hypothesis that it will be an avalanche that takes out the Bloody Gates and thus a real storm rather than a human that calls himself a storm that kills this current robin. That's probably the inversion. 

Since we are talking about robins, what do you think about Robin Darklyn, nicknamed Dark Robin (totally a reference to the Red Hood from comics)? Curious name for a Kingsguard member. 

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12 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

hmm...it could be but remember that Robert Arryn is destined to die. I tend to subscribe to Sweetsunray's hypothesis that it will be an avalanche that takes out the Bloody Gates and thus a real storm rather than a human that calls himself a storm that kills this current robin. That's probably the inversion. 

Since we are talking about robins, what do you think about Robin Darklyn, nicknamed Dark Robin (totally a reference to the Red Hood from comics)? Curious name for a Kingsguard member. 

 

The inversions don't seem to follow and hard and fast rules. Just because Robin Greyjoy was murdered doesn't mean that Robin Arryn won't be. And not everything in the books has an inversion. They could just be straight up parallels. I'm not familiar with the theory of who would be responsible for the avalanche. Was it an act of nature, of greenseer magic, or will Sansa or Littlefinger be responsible for a loud noise that triggers it? I see Euron as the inversion of Bloodraven, so if Euron admits to murdering Robin Greyjoy, the cause of the death could be the inversion.

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24 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

They could just be straight up parallels. I'm not familiar with the theory of who would be responsible for the avalanche. Was it an act of nature, of greenseer magic, or will Sansa or Littlefinger be responsible for a loud noise that triggers it?

If I remember correctly, I think Sweetsunray posited that the mountain clans led by Timett son Timett (another one-eyed dude running around) could be the cause of the avalanches or an earthquake. 

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I'm trying to figure out the symbolism of the numbers four and nine. Added together they make thirteen. Aegon IV fathered thirteen bastards, but only four of the great bastards were notable:

Daemon Waters, the first Blackfyre

Aegor "Bittersteel" Rivers

Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers, and

Shiera Seastar

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2 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I'm trying to figure out the symbolism of the numbers four and nine. Added together they make thirteen. Aegon IV fathered thirteen bastards, but only four of the great bastards were notable:

Daemon Waters, the first Blackfyre

Aegor "Bittersteel" Rivers

Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers, and

Shiera Seastar

The thirteen thing bugs me because the Last hero, had a horse and a dog and twelve companions so the count should be 15. And Aegon IV is officially noted to have fathered 13 bastards and 2 legitimate children, Daeron and Daenerys (I refuse to believe Nerys cheated with her other brother as she begged Aegon to live as brother and sister, so it would be ooc). And he may have sired Viserys Plumm on Eleana. 

 

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On ‎1‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 5:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

The Prophet - AFFC chapter 1

Great job!  I always dig your work.  I have a few quick minutes so I'll throw some stuff out there.

Just about anytime 3s comes up in literature it calls to my mind the Holy Trinity.  Particularly in this chapter that is already deeply rooted in religion. 

4s bring to mind a few things.  Direction, North, South, East & West.  And the seasons, which is a big thing in this story. 

9s are pretty interesting.  Mathematically 9 always repsoduces itself when multiplied. 

2x9=18

3x9=27

4x9=36

etc.

I'll swing back by tomorrow and see if you made sense of my rambling.  lol  Have a great night!

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I do like that "thirteen" has caused you to think of the Last Hero and his twelve friends, because I think we can draw parallels between the drowned believers and the raised wights. You are right to point out that Aegon IV also had two legitimate children, so maybe along with the four notable bastards GRRM will include two legitimate Targaryens in the titled (inverted) chapters? If I am right that this chapter is about Maester Aemon, then he would be one of the legitimate Targaryens, even if he's not Aegon IV's son. Aemon's father is Prince Maekar. Even though Aemon went to the Wall at the same time as Bloodraven, his conversations with Sam indicated that he was in communication with Rhaegar, so I think he was an important player leading up and into the Rebellion.

In a later chapter (The Reaver) I had identified Victarion as mirroring Aegor Bittersteel Rivers, so since this is the first of the titled chapters maybe GRRM is providing a clue here? The four notable bastards of Bittersteel, Bloodraven, Daemon, and Shiera may have leading roles in the chapters to come. 

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20 minutes ago, DarkSister1001 said:

Great job!  I always dig your work.  I have a few quick minutes so I'll throw some stuff out there.

Just about anytime 3s comes up in literature it calls to my mind the Holy Trinity.  Particularly in this chapter that is already deeply rooted in religion. 

4s bring to mind a few things.  Direction, North, South, East & West.  And the seasons, which is a big thing in this story. 

9s are pretty interesting.  Mathematically 9 always repsoduces itself when multiplied. 

2x9=18

3x9=27

4x9=36

etc.

I'll swing back by tomorrow and see if you made sense of my rambling.  lol  Have a great night!

Thank you! I am blushing at your kind compliments! :wub:

Excellent observation regarding 3s and religion! Both drowned believers and raised wights could arguably be related to their respective religions. The drowned believers are of their Drowned God, and the raised wights come from sacrifices to the old gods. Well, that is my opinion anyways! I brought this up in the current Heresy discussion. I was commenting on the Old Nan story about how the Others feed their dead servants on the flesh of human children. My position is that the greenseers are the dead servants. We already suspect that the weirwoods drink blood and that blood sacrifice is necessary to work ice magic, so giving children "to the wood" is the same thing as feeding them to the weirwoods, which in turn is feeding the greenseers. 

As for 9s...that's how I learned my 9s in multiplication. Once you learn 1-5 the numbers reverse:

1x9=09 vs 10x9=90

2x9=18 vs 9x9=81

3x9=27 vs 8x9=72

4x9=36 vs 7x9=63

5x9=45 vs 6x9=54

HAR! I was learning inversions in grade school y'all! B)

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24 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Thank you! I am blushing at your kind compliments! :wub:

Excellent observation regarding 3s and religion! Both drowned believers and raised wights could arguably be related to their respective religions. The drowned believers are of their Drowned God, and the raised wights come from sacrifices to the old gods. Well, that is my opinion anyways! I brought this up in the current Heresy discussion. I was commenting on the Old Nan story about how the Others feed their dead servants on the flesh of human children. My position is that the greenseers are the dead servants. We already suspect that the weirwoods drink blood and that blood sacrifice is necessary to work ice magic, so giving children "to the wood" is the same thing as feeding them to the weirwoods, which in turn is feeding the greenseers. 

As for 9s...that's how I learned my 9s in multiplication. Once you learn 1-5 the numbers reverse:

1x9=09 vs 10x9=90

2x9=18 vs 9x9=81

3x9=27 vs 8x9=72

4x9=36 vs 7x9=63

5x9=45 vs 6x9=54

HAR! I was learning inversions in grade school y'all! B)

well if we are doing numbers I like the cannibalism of numbers why is 6 afraid of 7? because 7 ate (8) 9. This is in reference to the Faith of 7 and 9 the religious number of the North and the rampant cannibalism in the series. 

Btw, the 9 in terms of rl mythology was holy to the Norse as it represented the 9 worlds along Yggdrasil and other stuff. 

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2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I do like that "thirteen" has caused you to think of the Last Hero and his twelve friends, because I think we can draw parallels between the drowned believers and the raised wights.

We can draw parallels between the drowned men and the wights in reference to The Thing that Came in the Night. 

Quote

The sound's inside, it's in here with us, and it's getting louder. He pushed himself up onto an elbow, listening. There was wind, and blowing leaves as well, but this was something else. Footsteps. Someone was coming this way. Something was coming this way..... 

........maybe it was the thing that came in the night. The 'prentice boys all saw it, Old Nan said, but afterward when they told their Lord Commander every description had been different. And three died within the year, and the fourth went mad, and a hundred years later when the thing had come again, the 'prentice boys were seen shambling along behind it, all in chains.

-Bran IV, aSoS

On other threads, I likened the Thing that came in the Night in conjunction with Patchface's presence at the Wall to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. A guy that dressed in motley that lead rats away with a pipe. When the town of Hamlin refused to pay him, he came back dressed hunting greens and led the children of the town away and drowned them. 

While Patchface is dressed in motley of Red and Green, Aeron is also dressed in motley. 

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One of his drowned men handed him a robe of heavy roughspun dyed in mottled greens and blues and greys, the colors of the sea and the Drowned God. Aeron donned the robe and pulled his hair free. Black and wet, that hair; no blade had touched it since the sea had raised him up. It draped his shoulders like a ragged, ropy cloak, and fell down past his waist. Aeron wove strands of seaweed through it, and through his tangled, uncut beard.

And curious here, Aeron's appearance can be likened to Drogo and Drogo to Patchface. And obvious Patchface can be counted as a Drowned Man. 

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 Ink-black hair, loose and unbound, cascaded over his shoulders and down his back, well past his waist. His manhood glistened wetly.

-Dany VI, aGoT

She washed his body clean and brushed and oiled his hair, running her fingers through it for the last time, feeling the weight of it, remembering the first time she had touched it, the night of their wedding ride. His hair had never been cut. How many men could die with their hair uncut? ....

Dany braided his hair and slid the silver rings onto his mustache and hung his bells one by one. So many bells, gold and silver and bronze. Bells so his enemies would hear him coming and grow weak with fear.

-Dany X, aGoT

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Behind her, shuffling and hopping in that queer sideways walk of his, came her fool. On his head was a mock helm fashioned from an old tin bucket, with a rack of deer antlers strapped to the crown and hung with cowbells. With his every lurching step, the bells rang, each with a different voice, clang-a-dang bong-dong ring-a-ling clong clong clong.

-Prologue, aCoK

 

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Just finished looking through the chapter. I'm not sure that I have a lot of great ideas and probably  need to look at it again, but I might just ramble here for a minute or two. 

On 1/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

Nine sons had been born of Quellon Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands. Quenton and Donel who died in infancy, and Harlon who died of greyscale were born of Quellon’s first wife, a woman of the Stonetrees. Balon, Euron, Victarion, Urrigon, and Aeron (the youngest) were sons of his second, a Sunderly of Saltcliffe. A third wife produced a sickly idiot boy named Robin. Aeron groups Harlon with his other brothers when he thinks, “One day we shall feast on fish together in the Drowned God’s watery halls, the four of us and Urri too.” IMO he left Euron out and substituted Harlon in. I think it’s odd that GRRM had Aeron separate his brother in this way so that he could think “the four of us”. Obviously GRRM is stressing the number four.

The only thing that keeps popping into mind when I see that nine are the nine weirwood trees that stand in a circle in the grove where Jon says his Night's Watch Vows. The Greyjoy nine are all dedicated to the Drowned God. Were there at one time nine Starks/others that were dedicated to the Old Gods?  

Another bizarre notion. Those nine children came from three different wives. Could this also be referring to three different families? Most notably a combination of the Starks, Baratheons and Arryns? In the older generation there just so happen to be 3 Baratheon Brothers, 4 Stark siblings with the inclusion of Lyanna and one Arryn. They all end up as family by marriage or fostering bonds. 

As to the last bolded, originally I was thinking the same thing. I wonder though. Is it that Damphair is excluding Euron, or more that he is only considering the brothers that have already died? The two older brothers that he didn't know and Harlon would make up the four that he is referring to along with himself before he adds Urri.

On 1/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

Nine sons were born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and I was the least of them, as weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is drowned, and the god has made me strong….Bones. Balon’s bones, and Urri’s. The truth is in our bones, for flesh decays and bone endures. And on the hill of Nagga, the bones of the Grey King’s Hall…

Another kind of strange notion... Could this actually be comparing him to Lyanna? The only girl of that Stark, Baratheon, Arryn generation? Where are her bones? She's dead, but have they made her strong. Is she dedicated to the Old Gods? Maybe a Greenseer? The followers of the drowned god carry driftwood cudgels. Do the followers of the old gods carry weirwood swords? 

On 1/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

Damphair did not like horses as they came from the green lands and helped make men weak, but necessity required that he ride

Now this brings to mind the Dothraki. But I have no idea where if anywhere to go with that idea. 

On 1/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

Balon became bitter with years, but more determined too. A lord’s son and died a king, murdered by a jealous god. And now the storm is coming, such as the isles have never known.

Could look at this one two rather crazy ways... In inverse, Brandon Stark became a god and was murdered by a jealous king in order to bring the storm. Or in a more traditional echo  was it Robert that became a King and and was just murdered by a jealous wife?

On 1/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

“Euron Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.” And “Now he sends forth ravens, summoning the captains and kings from every isle to Pyke to bend their knees and do him homage as their king.”

Just as Joffrey sits the Iron throne instead of the actual heir Stannis? (Interesting in noting this, that Stannis also kills Renley who wrongly challenges his claim to the throne.) Or maybe its just as Aegon II sits the iron throne as opposed to Rhaenyra the true heir? 

On 1/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

He remembers how an axe took off half of Urri’s hand when was “ten-and-four”, playing the finger dance. Quellon’s third wife gave Urri over to her maester, who swore he could sew the fingers back on, but the wounds mortified, he took fever and died before the maester could cut his arm off. When Balon learned what happened he cut the maesters fingers off, had them sewn back on, and used the same poltices and potions that failed Urri. The maester died raving, and Quellon’s third wife soon followed when a midwife drew a stillborn daughter from her womb.

This is also strangely reminiscent of what happens to Victarion before he is healed by Moquorro. Or if you wnat to push it an inversion to Jaime losing his hand as well

 

On 1/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, Feather Crystal said:

It shamed Aeron to recall that he continued to drink and dance in the years following Urri’s death, and he even once bet his own longship against a herd of goats that he could quench a hearthfire with no more than his cock. He feasted on goat for more than a year and named his longship Golden Storm.  In the end his ship went down during Balon’s first rebellion, cut in half by a war galley called Fury when Stannis caught him in a trap and smashed the Iron Fleet. He was sent to Lannisport in chains, and spent the rest of the rebellion in the bowels of Casterly Rock. He thinks to himself, That man is dead. He had drowned and been reborn from the sea, the god’s own prophet. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could…nor memories, the bones of the soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. Euron has come again. 

The king must be Victarion or the storm will slay us all.

Again, to further the idea that there is some sort of inversion between Lyanna and Aeron, here it was the Baratheons that cut him in half and imprisoned him in the bowels of Casterly Rock. Did someone, maybe Rhaegar Tararyen release Lyanna from the Bowels of Casterly Rock? She spent the rest of the war running around free?

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9 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

We can draw parallels between the drowned men and the wights in reference to The Thing that Came in the Night. 

I enjoyed the connection between Damphair in his motley robe and Patchface. Great catch! And certainly the long hair connection with Drogo. A symbol of being undefeated in Drogo's case, and a declaration that he fears no man in Aeron's case.

Damphair had waking and dreaming memories of something bad when Euron came in the night for he and Urri.

 

The Forsaken suggested that Aeron and Urri were sodomized. The words used were "taken from behind", but I also wonder if he wasn't skinchanging them by force like Bran does Hodor? Hodor shrinks down inside himself, but Aeron and Urri may have been too afraid to put what happened into words. And Euron's men also may not have fully understood what he was talking about and assumed he was talking about sodomy. Just a thought.

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