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Pennytree or why the Pink Letter mystery won't be solved


rotting sea cow

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shocked? I hope so. Read what I found last night.

 

Quote

Between a duck pond and a blacksmith’s forge, he came upon the tree that gave the place its name, an oak ancient and tall. Its gnarled roots twisted in and out of the earth like a nest of slow brown serpents, and hundreds of old copper pennies had been nailed to its huge trunk.

...

Jaime ate sparingly and shared a skin of wine with Peck and Hos the hostage. He tried to count the pennies nailed to the old oak, but there were too many of them and he kept losing count. What’s that all about? The Blackwood boy would tell him if he asked, but that would spoil the mystery.

- Jaime, aDwD

Granted. It doesn't say anything about the dammed PL.

But you are warned, no all mysteries of the series will be solved. There are too many of them and the limitations of world building and storytelling won't allow to give clear answer to many of them. On the other hand it will spoil the fun.

Nice meta moment. The Blackwood boy here is of course GRRM.

Edit: too many pennies, too many to count :)

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My two cents:

Awesome find! I had always been curious what this scene meant. I always thought it would have something to do with Dunk/Ser Arlan. I like your answer better! I think you nailed it! ;)

In hopes of having all the answers to the mysteries, I have wondered if George would write an "Answer Book" when the series is through. I doubt it though. It would take away from the series. Although I'm sure it would make a lot of pennies.

 

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The Pink Letter is one of those things where there is a clear default answer.  If no alternative explanation is given, the assumption will be that Ramsay wrote it.  This is different from, say "What happened to Benjen", where there is no obvious answer.and it could therefore remain a complete mystery.    

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It's always irked me that Jamie never cared much for history unless it pertained to the kingsguard. Well, it didn't until he didn't find out the answer to this. 

I doubt we ever find out the answer to the pennytree mystery. But I'd bet the whole damn tree we find out who wrote the PL in TWOW. (I'm still extremely unsure who wrote it of the 3 main suspects btw)

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1 hour ago, KingMance said:

I doubt we ever find out the answer to the pennytree mystery. But I'd bet the whole damn tree we find out who wrote the PL in TWOW. (I'm still extremely unsure who wrote it of the 3 main suspects btw)

 

6 hours ago, DarkSister1001 said:

Cool find!  But I would like to know all of them.  Momma needs closure.  LOL

 

7 hours ago, Nevets said:

The Pink Letter is one of those things where there is a clear default answer.  If no alternative explanation is given, the assumption will be that Ramsay wrote it.  This is different from, say "What happened to Benjen", where there is no obvious answer.and it could therefore remain a complete mystery.    

 

11 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

George has said that most of the mysteries actually will be revealed.

But I certainly agree that not all of them will, so that's a pretty cool find

Well, the scene is telling us that if we politely ask GRRM about some mysteries, he will answer us, but he is also arguing that it will spoil the fun for us. Just imagine this forum if we knew all answers. It will be pointless

On the other hand, there are also limitation on the world building. This is not the real world and one person cannot account for everything we see. So if for example we ask GRRM about the five forts, he will probably unable to answer, because he haven't though too much about it.

There are also problems related to the storytelling. How do you logistically pull out the revelation when you don't have a PoV around to show it. You can give hints using symbolism but in this way you cannot reveal the true answer. For example, if the Shavepate pulls out a 'night of long knives' whilst Barristan is battling the slavers, we may never know the true answer to the poisoned locusts mystery.

Finally, the continuation of the story is more important that the clear cut resolution of many mysteries. This is also quite explicit in Jaime scene. While is frowning at the Pennytree mystery, shortly Brienne shows up.

All of this doesn't mean we cannot get answers to the PL mystery in particular.

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I am sorry if I somewhat derail this thread - but I had stumbled about that very same paragraph with the penny tree in Pennytree some days ago - and found the whole chapter rather curious. So I use this opportunity to ask for your help and opinions here.

There is a lot there in this single chapter:

On the surface the chapter shows Jaime's growth - having become a responsible problem-solver and maybe even king material. First unbloodily ending the Riverrun siege - and then in this chapter unbloodily ending the Raventree siege as well and even managing to successfully balance the Bracken vs Blackwood interests which is quite a feat.

The chapter also serves as a means for GRRM to give us a lot of Bracken and Blackwood history - which comes in handily for the Bloodraven connection up north and the Bittersteel connection in the young Griff, Golden Company storyline. And it made me wonder if that conflict is still going on somehow.

Also the chapter is the opening for the Brienne luring Jaime to Lady Stoneheart yet unresolved mystery.

But what I stumbled about mostly is the following:

Curiously we get a very thorough description of a nude woman who is with Lord Jonos Bracken when Jaime enters Braken's tent at the beginning of the chapter. The woman is called Hildy (meaning 'battle valley' in old german - I looked it up) and her nude breasts and nipples and name are repeatedly called to our attention in that meeting. I mean: they aren't just mentioned once or so. This whole breasts things goes on like for a page and her cleft also plays a role of course.

I still might have pushed the scene away as random decoration with no deeper meaning - but then shortly thereafter Jaime and Jonos Bracken and Tytos Blackwood discuss these border hills called the Teats. So the breasts theme is picked up again. And guess where Pennytree lies: right between the Teats.

It is as if the landscape is modeled after a female body. Or as if Hildy the battle valley is a metaphor for the Bracken-Blackwood border. However - that still does not explain the role of Pennytree. Why did GRRM find it necessary to put the village of Pennytree right between the teats? And put this huge mysterious oak with its nailed-on pennies there?

Any ideas?

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Amris said:

I am sorry if I somewhat derail this thread - but I had stumbled about that very same paragraph with the penny tree in Pennytree some days ago - and found the whole chapter rather curious. So I use this opportunity to ask for your help and opinions here.

There is a lot there in this single chapter:

On the surface the chapter shows Jaime's growth - having become a responsible problem-solver and maybe even king material. First unbloodily ending the Riverrun siege - and then in this chapter unbloodily ending the Raventree siege as well and even managing to successfully balance the Bracken vs Blackwood interests which is quite a feat.

The chapter also serves as a means for GRRM to give us a lot of Bracken and Blackwood history - which comes in handily for the Bloodraven connection up north and the Bittersteel connection in the young Griff, Golden Company storyline. And it made me wonder if that conflict is still going on somehow.

Also the chapter is the opening for the Brienne luring Jaime to Lady Stoneheart yet unresolved mystery.

But what I stumbled about mostly is the following:

Curiously we get a very thorough description of a nude woman who is with Lord Jonos Bracken when Jaime enters Braken's tent at the beginning of the chapter. The woman is called Hildy (meaning 'battle valley' in old german - I looked it up) and her nude breasts and nipples and name are repeatedly called to our attention in that meeting. I mean: they aren't just mentioned once or so. This whole breasts things goes on like for a page and her cleft also plays a role of course.

I still might have pushed the scene away as random decoration with no deeper meaning - but then shortly thereafter Jaime and Jonos Bracken and Tytos Blackwood discuss these border hills called the Teats. So the breasts theme is picked up again. And guess where Pennytree lies: right between the Teats.

It is as if the landscape is modeled after a female body. Or as if Hildy the battle valley is a metaphor for the Bracken-Blackwood border. However - that still does not explain the role of Pennytree. Why did GRRM find it necessary to put the village of Pennytree right between the teats? And put this huge mysterious oak with its nailed-on pennies there?

Any ideas?

 

The border isn't important. The Teats were named Barba's Teats after Barba Bracken...until she started making snide comments about Missy Blackwood and Aegon IV renamed them Missy's Teats. The mountains themselves are symbolic of the Blackwood-Bracken/Rivers-Rivers conflict, and Pennytree being smack in the middle of the Teats may indicate that Jaime (cause he's there), or Brienne (rumored Dunk descendant), or anybody else is going to get caught in the middle between Bloodraven and someone representing Bittersteel, or the Gold Company itself.

The pennies actually might symbolize the smallfolk. They're always the ones who get the shortest end of the stick when the nobles start warring.

OR, maybe they'll find out something about Arlan that will help solve some mystery or other. But honestly I think that's the least likely of these options.

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On 2/17/2017 at 2:39 AM, rotting sea cow said:

shocked? I hope so. Read what I found last night.

Quote

Between a duck pond and a blacksmith’s forge, he came upon the tree that gave the place its name, an oak ancient and tall. Its gnarled roots twisted in and out of the earth like a nest of slow brown serpents, and hundreds of old copper pennies had been nailed to its huge trunk.

...

Jaime ate sparingly and shared a skin of wine with Peck and Hos the hostage. He tried to count the pennies nailed to the old oak, but there were too many of them and he kept losing count. What’s that all about? The Blackwood boy would tell him if he asked, but that would spoil the mystery.

- Jaime, aDwD

Granted. It doesn't say anything about the dammed PL.

But you are warned, no all mysteries of the series will be solved. There are too many of them and the limitations of world building and storytelling won't allow to give clear answer to many of them. On the other hand it will spoil the fun.

Nice meta moment. The Blackwood boy here is of course GRRM.

Edit: too many pennies, too many to count :)

 

I like this theory, but I'm not so sure about it.  Jaimie is quite frustrating in his lack of interest in the mystery of the pennies, for sure.  But in this case I suspect that GRRM simply wants to reveal the history of the the pennies on the tree in an upcoming Dunk and Egg story.  Sir Arlan of Pennytree was the old knight who Dunk squired for before the books began and GRRM probably just wants to reveal the mystery in those stories. 

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