A strong king acts boldly

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, Seams said:

Was the sword part of the deal? Tyrion infers that Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail were made from Ice, but Tobho Mott never confirms that. And Tywin would be unlikely to share the details of the Westerling deal because he doesn't want people to know just how treacherous he was. Maybe the Westerling sword was repurposed to make the new Lannister swords. Could it be that Ice has not melted after all?

If so, then Isis-Catelyn has a fake golden phallus to replace the lost phallus of Osiris-Ned.

Jaime claims Oathkeeper stems from Ice as well, which he would have been told by Tywin. So, as far as Tywin is concerned, Ice was reforged. It had to be a greatsword to make 2 longswords out of them. Widow's Wail is a 2 fuller longsword. Oathkeeper a 3-fuller one.

And how would the Westerlings have gotten the sword to KL so fast, while they're still stuck inside RR,together with the Blackfish, being besieged by Freys. More, Lord Westerling does not seem to have been in on it all. It was his wife's doing. Can she make such a decision over her lord husband's sword without his knowledge?

[Curled Finger]

3 hours ago, Seams said:

Like Joffrey's "no stranger" line, Sansa's line, “What has Ser Ilyn done with my father’s sword?” may be one of those masterfully vague or layered lines that GRRM is so good at crafting, that carries multiple meanings. On the surface, it sounds as if she is asking how Ser Ilyn has disposed of her father's sword. But I don't know that Sansa would be alarmed that the sword is not in Ser Ilyn's hands. She might have assumed that it has been set aside for eventual return to the Stark family, which may be standard protocol (except among the Ironborn) when a VS sword is captured. But you could also read her line as, "Why has Ser Ilyn messed with my father's sword?" It has been coated with silver and the pommel has been made into a death's head! Who would do that to my family's sword?

On the "Let's Find the Swords" thread, @Curled Finger had the brilliant idea of searching on the phrase "impoverished house," to see if he could figure out the houses Tywin approached with the hope of buying a Valyrian steel sword. One of the houses may be the Westerlings, where we know Tywin has just completed a very sweet deal to advance their interests as well as his own. Was the sword part of the deal? Tyrion infers that Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail were made from Ice, but Tobho Mott never confirms that. And Tywin would be unlikely to share the details of the Westerling deal because he doesn't want people to know just how treacherous he was. Maybe the Westerling sword was repurposed to make the new Lannister swords. Could it be that Ice has not melted after all?

 

I think our swords in question are a confirmed long sword, but we have no detail on the description of the other.   It would take a greatsword to make 2 new blades the sizes of OK & WW.   I have no problem at all envisioning that slippery Sybel Spicer selling anything she could get her hands on to improve her station in life.   I get the distinct impression she wears the pants in the Westerling family.  

I know you searched the term and I thought of your questions about Ilyn Payne's sword from a previous topic.   Interesting these 2 houses fit Tywin's search and Tyrion's description.   I hope the prologue from Winds is Sybel's POV.   Now that would be one certain fate I could get behind.

[sweetsunray]

4 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

I have no problem at all envisioning that slippery Sybel Spicer selling anything she could get her hands on to improve her station in life.   I get the distinct impression she wears the pants in the Westerling family.  

Her husband would be carrying that sword while he's at RR, that's being besieged. The BF was not going to allow the Westerlings to send riders out or something, not with him keeping the Wolf banner on top of RR.

And Lord Westerling was not going to leave his VS sword home while riding out to war with his son in law and the rest of his family (two daughters, two sons). Ned Stark took Ice with him to KL. He didn't leave it at WF despite his heir staying at WF.

It doesn't matter whether Sybel wears the pants. She organized the betrayal with Tywin by herself without the knowledge of her husband, her sons, her daughters. Heck, Sybel was not so informed herself even, because she sent her eldest son with Robb, and the Freys think he lies at the bottom of the Green Fork, after he fought and freed Grey Wind.

Why would Tywin deceive Jaime about the origin of Oathkeeper? Jaime tells to Brienne she'll be saving Sansa with the sword of Sansa's father. He wasn't told that by Tyrion.

And then Ice itself: where did it go then? Jaime was at Payne's. And what's the poetry of having half a Westerling sword end up with LS, together with Robb's crown, etc...

[Curled Finger]

4 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Her husband would be carrying that sword while he's at RR, that's being besieged. The BF was not going to allow the Westerlings to send riders out or something, not with him keeping the Wolf banner on top of RR.

And Lord Westerling was not going to leave his VS sword home while riding out to war with his son in law and the rest of his family (two daughters, two sons). Ned Stark took Ice with him to KL. He didn't leave it at WF despite his heir staying at WF.

It doesn't matter whether Sybel wears the pants. She organized the betrayal with Tywin by herself without the knowledge of her husband, her sons, her daughters. Heck, Sybel was not so informed herself even, because she sent her eldest son with Robb, and the Freys think he lies at the bottom of the Green Fork, after he fought and freed Grey Wind.

Why would Tywin deceive Jaime about the origin of Oathkeeper? Jaime tells to Brienne she'll be saving Sansa with the sword of Sansa's father. He wasn't told that by Tyrion.

And then Ice itself: where did it go then? Jaime was at Payne's. And what's the poetry of having half a Westerling sword end up with LS, together with Robb's crown, etc...

Chances are WW & OK were derived from Ice.  We still have 2 very MIA swords and WW & OK do complete our 12 count.   There is a lot of fondness among the fandom for the swords having hidden identities.   The Westerlings would have had to held Truth and Truth would have to be a greatsword to have enough material to make OK & WW. The underside of Ice's alternate identity is in Ilin Payne's fancy new sword.  @Seams created a topic about it and it was an interesting conversation.  If that is how it came down we figured it out.   If not it was a fun idea to play with.  We're always trying to figure things out.  Word and phrase searches could be as Marwyn describes prophesy.  

I think the poetry as you so nicely put it, is in Ice having survived Tywin.   I think we all know Tywin had Ice and this is what happened, but we aren't comfortable with the utter devastation of Starks, extending to their ancient sword being mutilated and reforged.   Let's call this a more emotional scenario than GRRM actually gave us.   

Reynald Westerling, right?   He was the oldest?  Yowza.  I thought he was little like Olyvar Frey!  Ah the mysteries in this story never end do they? 

[Neds Secret]

On 22/01/2017 at 9:23 AM, Lord Varys said:

Indeed it is. And the fact that Joffrey phrases it way he does makes it pretty clear that it was Cersei who said it, not Robert. Robert most likely never tried to teach what a good or a strong king should do. The person trying to teach Joffrey about his kingship was Cersei.

What do you expect of him? Cersei is a woman and thus per definition weak and secondary in this world. She is his mother which means she can sort of lecture him but only up to a point, and that point is drawing ever more closer in the books. Joff would have dealt with Cersei as Nero dealt with Agrippina.

Robert was the boy's father and the great warrior-king. Joffrey wanted his respect and affection. His mother already loved him, that was a given. But Robert was pretty much absent, and the only way he saw to impress his father was to act 'manly' he the way he thought Robert wanted him to act. Part of that would have been to prove that he wasn't a momma's boy.

In addition, Joff (and his siblings) should also have been aware of the abusive relationship between their parents. Robert may not have hit Cersei so that she kept any bruises while Jaime was still in KL but he certainly would have yelled at her, and shown her his contempt (and she hers for him) in front of the children. Little children see more often than their parents realize, and it seems as if Joffrey tended to take his father's side rather than his mother's.

That's as good a summation of Joff and his abominable behaviour as I have seen.

[Seams]

13 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Her husband would be carrying that sword while he's at RR, that's being besieged. The BF was not going to allow the Westerlings to send riders out or something, not with him keeping the Wolf banner on top of RR.

And Lord Westerling was not going to leave his VS sword home while riding out to war with his son in law and the rest of his family (two daughters, two sons). Ned Stark took Ice with him to KL. He didn't leave it at WF despite his heir staying at WF.

It doesn't matter whether Sybel wears the pants. She organized the betrayal with Tywin by herself without the knowledge of her husband, her sons, her daughters. Heck, Sybel was not so informed herself even, because she sent her eldest son with Robb, and the Freys think he lies at the bottom of the Green Fork, after he fought and freed Grey Wind.

Why would Tywin deceive Jaime about the origin of Oathkeeper? Jaime tells to Brienne she'll be saving Sansa with the sword of Sansa's father. He wasn't told that by Tyrion.

And then Ice itself: where did it go then? Jaime was at Payne's. And what's the poetry of having half a Westerling sword end up with LS, together with Robb's crown, etc...

I know this isn't the focus of this thread, and I suspect the thinking is correct that Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail were made from Ice. The I = O + WW notion also fits the "Theon is Ice" theory that I like so much, so I am being the devil's advocate when I speculate about a Westerling sword in place of Ice.

However.

It's possible Lord Westerling had already bestowed the family sword on his oldest son, Raynald. So the sword probably would have been outside on the ground at the Twins after the Red Wedding, especially if Raynald dropped it when he was hit with the crossbow quarrels. On the other hand, the Freys believe his body is in the river. The Elder Brother tells us that swords have washed up on the Quiet Isle, and we know that Catelyn's body washed up on the river bank, so it's possible that Raynald's sword and/or body were also washed up.

The possible poetry of having half a Westerling sword end up with Lady Stoneheart is that the sword would represent her grandchild:

She looked at her son, watched him as he listened to the lords debate, frowning, troubled, yet wedded to his war. He had pledged himself to marry a daughter of Walder Frey, but she saw his true bride plain before her now: the sword he had laid on the table.

(AGoT, Catelyn XI)

Maybe it's not the golden phallus of Osiris that she has before her, but a newborn Horus. Sort of like Asha's suckling babe.

I think it's also significant that Raynald's bloody footsteps lead to the stone stairs at the river side. It sounds as if he was not so wounded that he was unable to walk, for one thing. It also sounds as if he saw the river as an avenue for escape. But it also ties into some of my pondering of the "Theon = Ice" symbolism: after the Battle of the Whispering Wood, Theon arrives with Catelyn and Robb and Grey Wind at Riverrun. Theon vaults out of the boat onto the stone steps, getting his foot wet. I interpreted this as a "whet stone" allusion, with Theon's blade needing sharpening after the battle. (He also takes Catelyn by the waist and lifts her out of the boat, which is interesting foreshadowing, now that I think of it - she crossed the river Styx with Robb and Grey Wind, but she is lifted out of the boat - perhaps a metaphor for her rebirth as Lady Stoneheart. Maybe she IS the whet stone.) Maybe GRRM isn't trying to open the possibility that the O + WW = the Westerling sword, but that the Westerling sword (if there is one) is aligned with, and working in concert with, Ice.

One of Robb's conditions in his attempt to negotiate with the Lannisters (using a Frey go-between) was that his father's sword be returned to him at Riverrun. I wonder whether the Westerling presence at Riverrun is one of those literary ironies (Doh! Iron!) that GRRM likes to throw in when he's not busy writing fifteen other layers of meaning into every clause of every sentence.

As for Robb's crown, maybe it needs to be reunited with the crown he gave to Jeyne Westerling. Catelyn is strongly associated with the Inn at the Crossroads, which seems to be a metaphor for royal dynasties or succession in Westeros:

Jaehaerys and his queen slept there during their journeys, it is said. For a time the inn was known as the Two Crowns in their honor, until one innkeep built a bell tower, and changed it to the Bellringer Inn.

(AFfC, Brienne VII)

So the crowns could be something about the cycle of kings repeating in new variations on old themes over the centuries.

As @Curled Finger points out, though, this is just interesting conversation and a fun idea to play with.

Back on the subject of Joffrey's mindset about what it means to be a king, I wonder how this line from the Battle of the Blackwater fits with the analysis:

"... he needs to be seen. Men fight more fiercely for a king who shares their peril than one who hides behind his mother's skirts"

(ACoK, Tyrion XII)

I just explored kings hiding behind women's skirts in the Direwolf re-read thread - Joffrey was not alone in this. (Or, at least, people perceived that other kings behaved in a similar way.) Of course, Tyrion's attempt to give Joffrey some experience and visibility in combat involves flinging the Antler Men over the walls in trebuchets. Tyrion does not consider the task to be real or useful to the battle. And Joffrey makes the point of saying that Cersei gave him permission to use the Whores, the nickname for the trebuchets. If the wordplay around horse and whores is accurately interpreted, this might undermine the point made earlier that Cersei always tried to keep her children from "riding."

 

[sweetsunray]

19 minutes ago, Seams said:

The possible poetry of having half a Westerling sword end up with Lady Stoneheart is that the sword would represent her grandchild:

 

19 minutes ago, Seams said:

Maybe it's not the golden phallus of Osiris that she has before her, but a newborn Horus. Sort of like Asha's suckling babe.

According to Sybel Jeyne has been drinking a contraceptive (unbeknowest ot Jeyne who drank it faithfully believing it would aid in conceiving). I doubt Sybel was sloppy with that. George explicitly split the 3 Horus stages of growth across 3 Stark sons, to avoid having a baby heir.

The golden phallus is Osiris's, not Horus's, since Horus is conceived with the golden phallus. Both Them Bones and Catelyn remarking on Ice being missing make it far more ironic that Ice recirculates back into LS's hands in another form.

25 minutes ago, Seams said:

It's possible Lord Westerling had already bestowed the family sword on his oldest son, Raynald.

Very unlikely. Ned didn't give Ice to Robb either, even though he left Robb as ruler of WF with Catelyn as regent. He still took Ice with him. Lord Westerling would have kept his sword with him, which may still fall in BwB hands in the case Edmure's escort comes under attack.

And again, I ask why would Tywin lie to Jaime about the reforged sword's origin? The Starks are utterly defeated in his eyes, so no point in returning it. More, it is perfectly Tywinesque to destroy something of value to his enemies, especially when it was already in his possession via Ilyn Payne. Robb demanded his sister, his father's sword, etc. Tywin forced Sansa to wed Tyrion (the one who contemplated returning her) and he in his mind destroyed Ice. But then his son gives half of Ice to Brienne and it ends up in LS's hands, and Sansa was used as a pawn to have Joffrey poisoned, which leads eventually to his own death by Tyrion's own hands. The same recirculation we witness with Robb's crown. Laughed at by Walder Frey for being mere bronze and iron, representing First Men and Andals. Aside from the Falcon crown, the Crown of Winter is the sole dynastic crown. Everybody else has crowns, but all fashioned to the personal taste of that particular ling, and his heir wears another one. Even the driftwood crown is surrendered to the sea at the death of each king, and a new one is made for each new king of the Iron Islands. The sole crowns in hystory to have been passed on generation after generation was the Falcon Crown of the Arryns and the Crown of Winter of the Starks. Both were surrendered to Aegon the Conquerer. Robb's crown is a newly made one, but made to look like the heriditary Crown of Winter. It may not have material value, but it has far more symbolical value when it comes to establishing dynasties. It basically gets pulled through the mud by Ryman when he crowns the whore with it, not unlike Tywin having Ice reforged and wedding Sansa to the Imp (a son he does not even consider worthy of inheriting CR), and yet ends up back in LS's hands. Recirculation, again! And finally, LS gets her hands on Tywin's son, also recirculation.