I was born the only child of an ancient House...

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

...my noble father’s heir. My mother died when I was little, I have no memory of her. When I was ??? my father wed again. His new wife treated me kindly until she gave birth to a ??? of her own. Then it was her wish that I should die, so her own blood might inherit my father’s wealth. She should have sought the favor of the Many-Faced God, but she could not bear the sacrifice he would ask of her. Instead, she thought to poison¹ me herself. It left me as you see me now², but I did not die.

1. Metaphor

2. Psychologically

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doesn't this sound a little bit like someone else we know?

[Wolf's Bane]

Spoiler

Ahah, one of the souls seeking relief at the temple of black and white

 

[King17]

Thewaif

[bilplat]

Isn't this the waif's quote? Her and Arya are playing the lying game and she says this. Are we supposed to be able to tell who the waif really is based on this? Does anyone remember off the top of their heads which parts of the sentence are true and which are false?

[The Grey Wolf]

That's the Waif in AFFC or ADWD (can't remember which) but if you tweak it a bit it almost sounds like it could describe Alicent and Rhaenyra.

[bilplat]

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

That's the Waif in AFFC or ADWD (can't remember which) but if you tweak it a bit it almost sounds like it could describe Alicent and Rhaenyra.

There's the connection. With Aegon II being the son that was born. Too bad that we know Rhaenyra was eaten by Sunfyre, otherwise I'd say we'd have an awesome theory on our hands.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

2 hours ago, bilplat said:

There's the connection. With Aegon II being the son that was born. 

That's what I was thinking too.

But I have to ask if there's a point to this other than the possibility of a great new game?

[GloubieBoulga]

7 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Doesn't this sound a little bit like someone else we know?

mmh, lets replace some words (I have replaced father with mother, and mother with father, except the very first)

 

7 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

... ..my noble father’s heir. My Father  died when I was little, I have no memory of him.  When I was ??? my Mother wed again. Her new husband treated me kindly until he gave birth to a ??? of him own. Then it was his wish that I should die, so his own blood might inherit my Mother's wealth. he should have sought the favor of the Many-Faced God, but he could not bear the sacrifice he would ask of him.  Instead, he thought to poison¹ me himself.  It left me as you see me now², but I did not die.  

That's Sweet Robin's story with LF, it seams... and Alayne as new heir of the Arryn. ^^

[ravenous reader]

8 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

...my noble father’s heir. My mother died when I was little, I have no memory of her. When I was ??? my father wed again. His new wife treated me kindly until she gave birth to a ??? of her own. Then it was her wish that I should die, so her own blood might inherit my father’s wealth. She should have sought the favor of the Many-Faced God, but she could not bear the sacrifice he would ask of her. Instead, she thought to poison¹ me herself. It left me as you see me now², but I did not die.

1. Metaphor

2. Psychologically

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doesn't this sound a little bit like someone else we know?

Strangely, it reminds me of the dynamic between Jon and Catelyn:

'The only child of an ancient house'...Jon was the only child of Lyanna and Rhaegar but not Rhaegar's only child, so that doesn't really work; still, the 'ancient house' might be House Targaryen

'My father's heir' ...Jon could be Rhaegar's heir, assuming Aegon is fake

'Mother died...never knew her'...Lyanna died in childbirth

'My father wed again'...doesn't really work, except Catelyn was definitely the stepmother figure, since Jon and the rest believed Jon was Ned's bastard

'Her wish that I should die'...Indeed, Catelyn cruelly told Jon as much to his face, when Bran was lying on his coma sickbed ('it should've been you'...'no-one wants you here', etc.)

'So her own blood might inherit'...She made this abundantly clear in her ludicrous attempts at Oldstones to persuade Robb to choose any other heir (however distantly related), just not Jon

'She sought to poison me'...As far as we know, Cat never went that far

'But I did not die'...Yes, Jon's a survivor.

 

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

19 hours ago, Steelshanks Walton said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Ahah, one of the souls seeking relief at the temple of black and white

 

 

 

 

16 hours ago, bilplat said:

Isn't this the waif's quote?

Yes it is. Sorry, I wasn't meaning to be cryptic, this is definitely the Waif's story. Albeit mildly edited.

16 hours ago, bilplat said:

Are we supposed to be able to tell who the waif really is based on this? Does anyone remember off the top of their heads which parts of the sentence are true and which are false?

I've always wondered. She says there's an "untruth" and an exaggeration, and Arya guesses the exaggeration to be the amount of money the Waif's father paid to the House of Black and White. But we never find out what the untruth was.

I once thought to go through every known noble house to try and figure it out, but I quickly realised it would be too hard. And besides, it's probably a Bravoosi noble house. There's a theory that she's Roose Bolton's daughter, which is a bit of a stretch for me. (I don't like all these theories that have Roose pursuing his own mysterious agenda for years prior to the start of the series, I think that conflicts with his characterisation.) I wouldn't be surprised if, once we've learned more about Braavos in subsequent books, we're able to actually piece it together.

But we should bear in mind that we shouldn't necessarily trust a liar when they say they only lied once. Although given that the Waif is trying to train Arya to detect lies, I suppose we ought to take it at face value.

13 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

But I have to ask if there's a point to this other than the possibility of a great new game?

I just thought it was interesting that the Waif's story echoed someone else's quite closely. GRRM is fond of giving things their reflections elsewhere in the story, and at the very least, it appears this might be such a reflection. Although I never thought of Alicent and Rhaenyra, or Sweetrobin, but maybe that goes to show that there are lots of echoes here. Indeed, this story, while not totally central to the series, does get at one of the main themes, which is the cruelty of feudalism and/or patriarchy. The Waif's family tragedy is brought on entirely by the political system that her family is part of. (Well, that and the human capacity for evil.) But I had something more specific in mind...

10 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Strangely, it reminds me of the dynamic between Jon and Catelyn...

This is what I was getting at. I thought it was interesting that the Waif, whether deliberately or unknowingly (i.e. as a sort of meta-echo), is telling Arya her own brother's story. (Or cousin.)

Of course we don't yet know the precise details of Jon's parentage, but a number of theories fit the Waif's story pretty neatly. For instance, if Ned or Brandon is Jon's father, and Jon was born before Robb, then Jon would've have been, at birth at least, "the only child of an ancient House, my noble father's heir."

The mother dying young ties in neatly with Lyanna or even Ashara.

The father wedding again when the Waif was six is more problematic, but hey, maybe Ned's the father and the Waif meant six months.

10 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

'She sought to poison me'...As far as we know, Cat never went that far

Not literally, but figuratively: compare the Waif's literal poisoning leaving her physically deformed with Catelyn's figurative poisoning leaving Jon psychologically scarred. (And her other children, I might add: would Robb have married Jeyne Westerling if he hadn't been left with such a hang-up about fathering bastards?)

------------------------------------------

Obviously, it doesn't line up perfectly any particular way, but maybe it's not supposed to. None of the echoes in this story do.

More importantly, though, if you don your tinfoil hat, it goes beyond mere echoes.

Is Jon Ned's true heir? Are Catelyn's children all bastards because Ned's marriage to her was invalid? (Order of the Green Hand on youtube has a theory that he'd already married Ashara.) Has Catelyn been up to some sneaky shit? (Order of the Green Hand on youtube has a theory that she conspired with Luwin to get Ned to leave for King's Landing and send Jon to the Wall.)

(I've been watching a lot of Order of the Green Hand videos lately, as you can see. But I've always wondered whether Catelyn somehow embodies the wicked stepmother archetype, and they seem to be going in that direction, which intrigues me.)

And also: what if the Waif's lie is that the story is about her at all? What if she knows it's about Jon? In which case, how would the House of Black and White know this stuff, and how does it change their relationship to Arya if they do?

Or maybe it's just an interesting echo.

[GloubieBoulga]

8 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

 

This is what I was getting at. I thought it was interesting that the Waif, whether deliberately or unknowingly (i.e. as a sort of meta-echo), is telling Arya her own brother's story. (Or cousin.)

Of course we don't yet know the precise details of Jon's parentage, but a number of theories fit the Waif's story pretty neatly. For instance, if Ned or Brandon is Jon's father, and Jon was born before Robb, then Jon would've have been, at birth at least, "the only child of an ancient House, my noble father's heir."

The mother dying young ties in neatly with Lyanna or even Ashara.

The father wedding again when the Waif was six is more problematic, but hey, maybe Ned's the father and the Waif meant six months.

Not literally, but figuratively: compare the Waif's literal poisoning leaving her physically deformed with Catelyn's figurative poisoning leaving Jon psychologically scarred. (And her other children, I might add: would Robb have married Jeyne Westerling if he hadn't been left with such a hang-up about fathering bastards?)

------------------------------------------

Obviously, it doesn't line up perfectly any particular way, but maybe it's not supposed to. None of the echoes in this story do.

(...)

Or maybe it's just an interesting echo.

The waif's story begins like a fairy tell, I mean like Cinderella's story or Snow White (even if the new queen doesn't have own heir) or many others. 

Jon is also discretly (and in a humoristic way, I think) linked to Snow White : for example, Bowen Marsh whom he "steals" the place as lord Commander (remember that the young princess push out of the way the old queens), is plotting against him and has a nicknamed : the old "pomegranate". We could also speak about the Wall as a glass coffin. 

[Curled Finger]

Initial thought was Rhaenyra then Allyria Dayne.  

[ravenous reader]

9 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

This is what I was getting at. I thought it was interesting that the Waif, whether deliberately or unknowingly (i.e. as a sort of meta-echo), is telling Arya her own brother's story. (Or cousin.)

Of course we don't yet know the precise details of Jon's parentage, but a number of theories fit the Waif's story pretty neatly. For instance, if Ned or Brandon is Jon's father, and Jon was born before Robb, then Jon would've have been, at birth at least, "the only child of an ancient House, my noble father's heir."

Yes, I think the fact that Robb and Jon were approximately the same age, and that Jon technically could've been born before Robb, always bothered Catelyn in terms of inheritance concerns, giving rise to her fierce and nasty desire to shut Jon out at every opportunity.  Even when she and Robb are facing their own deaths, deciding on Robb's heir at Oldstones, she won't budge.

The other thing that's interesting is Tyrion's note that Jon has 'more of the north in him than his siblings' in terms of appearance -- this is not just a quaint metaphor -- which must have irked Catelyn, since her other sons looked less like Ned and more like her.  Taken literally as a potential 'clue' from GRRM as to his parentage, that would seem to indicate two northerners being Jon's parents (or perhaps it's a reflection of how the Targaryen phenotype tends to be recessive, which makes Tyrion's comment about how 'the mother left little of herself' in Jon particularly ironic).

Quote

The mother dying young ties in neatly with Lyanna or even Ashara.

The father wedding again when the Waif was six is more problematic, but hey, maybe Ned's the father and the Waif meant six months.

Not literally, but figuratively: compare the Waif's literal poisoning leaving her physically deformed with Catelyn's figurative poisoning leaving Jon psychologically scarred. (And her other children, I might add: would Robb have married Jeyne Westerling if he hadn't been left with such a hang-up about fathering bastards?)

That's a good point.  Had Catelyn been more generous to Jon, perhaps Robb would have treated women and sex more in the style of his uncle Brandon, and the Red Wedding would never have happened...  'Karma's a bitch..!'

Regarding the figurative poisoning, it's notable that GRRM uses that word explicitly to describe Catelyn's relationship to Jon in that pivotal scene at Bran's bedside:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon II

"I prayed for it," she said dully. "He was my special boy. I went to the sept and prayed seven times to the seven faces of god that Ned would change his mind and leave him here with me. Sometimes prayers are answered."

Jon did not know what to say. "It wasn't your fault," he managed after an awkward silence.

 Her eyes found him. They were full of poison. "I need none of your absolution, bastard."

Jon lowered his eyes. She was cradling one of Bran's hands. He took the other, squeezed it. Fingers like the bones of birds. "Good-bye," he said.

He was at the door when she called out to him. "Jon," she said. He should have kept going, but she had never called him by his name before. He turned to find her looking at his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time.

"Yes?" he said.

 "It should have been you," she told him.

I have no good answers to your other questions, below!

Quote

 

------------------------------------------

Obviously, it doesn't line up perfectly any particular way, but maybe it's not supposed to. None of the echoes in this story do.

More importantly, though, if you don your tinfoil hat, it goes beyond mere echoes.

Is Jon Ned's true heir? Are Catelyn's children all bastards because Ned's marriage to her was invalid? (Order of the Green Hand on youtube has a theory that he'd already married Ashara.) Has Catelyn been up to some sneaky shit? (Order of the Green Hand on youtube has a theory that she conspired with Luwin to get Ned to leave for King's Landing and send Jon to the Wall.)

We're suppose to question the legitimacy of Catelyn's children, when we're thrown Arya's tantalizing question to her mother about whether she's also a bastard like Jon.

I haven't seen any of the videos you referenced.  I wouldn't go so far to say 'conspire', but she and Luwin definitely urged Ned to take the post as Hand, even after he had decided not to (when he's at the open window in his chamber, before he's forced to turn towards them and close it, symbolically entombing himself along with them in the 'box' of Littlefinger's making...Starks tend to think better at open windows, preferably with lots of howling wind/direwolves and swirling snow to clear the head and make the heart beat faster!)

I think sending Jon to the Wall had been Catelyn's longterm fantasy.  Now -- as Lady Stoneheart -- she's one of the undead 'scarecrow' guardians of the kingdom herself (admittedly, gone a little rogue), condemned to stand at her post like the Sentinels for all eternity (as I said, 'karma's a bitch'!)

Quote

(I've been watching a lot of Order of the Green Hand videos lately, as you can see. But I've always wondered whether Catelyn somehow embodies the wicked stepmother archetype, and they seem to be going in that direction, which intrigues me.)

For sure -- she and Cersei are the two wicked stepmothers!

Quote

And also: what if the Waif's lie is that the story is about her at all? What if she knows it's about Jon? In which case, how would the House of Black and White know this stuff, and how does it change their relationship to Arya if they do?

Or maybe it's just an interesting echo.

I think the Faceless Men know a lot of stuff -- they're spies!  Also, I have this notion that their religion is related to that of the old gods for some as yet unfathomed reason -- there are many similar elements, e.g. the hollow hill; the still, cold, black pool; the presence of weirwood (the door and the chairs, the former which 'speaks' and is opened like the Black Gate by a special password); faceless, nameless gods; becoming 'no-one' is like going into the weirwood and losing your individuality; wearing masks is like skinchanging, literally; 'kindly man' reminiscent of Bloodraven, etc. 

The waif telling Arya the story of her closest sibling without her realising it could just be dramatic irony for the benefit of the reader, or perhaps the FM have an agenda for the endgame that goes deeper?

47 minutes ago, GloubieBoulga said:

The waif's story begins like a fairy tell, I mean like Cinderella's story or Snow White (even if the new queen doesn't have own heir) or many others. 

Jon is also discretly (and in a humoristic way, I think) linked to Snow White : for example, Bowen Marsh whom he "steals" the place as lord Commander (remember that the young princess push out of the way the old queens), is plotting against him and has a nicknamed : the old "pomegranate". We could also speak about the Wall as a glass coffin. 

Are you linking the 'pomegranate' to the poison apple?

I absolutely love your vision of the Wall as a glass coffin -- bravo!

It's potentially fitting that the Faceless Men should be telling Arya Jon's story in the context of her training towards becoming 'no-one,' since this is who or what Jon has had experience being his entire life:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon IX

But he had not left the Wall for that; he had left because he was after all his father's son, and Robb's brother. The gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as Longclaw, did not make him a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen. Three times the old man had chosen, and three times he had chosen honor, but that was him. Even now, Jon could not decide whether the maester had stayed because he was weak and craven, or because he was strong and true. Yet he understood what the old man had meant, about the pain of choosing; he understood that all too well.

Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Wherever he might go throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a lie, lest every man's hand be raised against him. But it made no matter, so long as he lived long enough to take his place by his brother's side and help avenge his father.

He remembered Robb as he had last seen him, standing in the yard with snow melting in his auburn hair. Jon would have to come to him in secret, disguised. He tried to imagine the look on Robb's face when he revealed himself. His brother would shake his head and smile, and he'd say … he'd say …

He could not see the smile. Hard as he tried, he could not see it. He found himself thinking of the deserter his father had beheaded the day they'd found the direwolves. "You said the words," Lord Eddard had told him. "You took a vow, before your brothers, before the old gods and the new." Desmond and Fat Tom had dragged the man to the stump. Bran's eyes had been wide as saucers, and Jon had to remind him to keep his pony in hand. He remembered the look on Father's face when Theon Greyjoy brought forth Ice, the spray of blood on the snow, the way Theon had kicked the head when it came rolling at his feet.

He wondered what Lord Eddard might have done if the deserter had been his brother Benjen instead of that ragged stranger. Would it have been any different? It must, surely, surely . . . and Robb would welcome him, for a certainty. He had to, or else . . .

Also, 'Jon Snow' is an obvious wordplay on 'John Doe' -- the generic name given to patients and bodies in hospitals and mortuaries (and to prisoners), etc. if they cannot be identified for some reason, no family can be traced, and no-one (Ha-- see what I did there...) claims them.

[GloubieBoulga]

33 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Are you linking the 'pomegranate' to the poison apple?

Absolutely yes ! There is also the internal reference to the pomegranate that LF offers to Sansa at the end of ASOS (Sansa VI, if I don't mistake)

35 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I absolutely love your vision of the Wall as a glass coffin -- bravo!

Thanks ! But I was well helped with Bran's vision in AGOT, during his coma dream : 

Quote

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him

.

 

38 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

It's potentially fitting that the Faceless Men should be telling Arya Jon's story in the context of her training towards becoming 'no-one,' since this is who or what Jon has had experience being his entire life:

to tell the truth, I thought that the parallelism was stronger between Sansa and Arya, with the waif as a mirror of Sweet Robin (the same poison is/was used for them). But there are many references to Jon in Sansa's chapter when she is Alayne Stone (not only the fact she makes the experience of being a bastard), and possibly more than in Arya's chapter (but to be sure of that, I must re-read AFFC)

[Therae]

23 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Strangely, it reminds me of the dynamic between Jon and Catelyn:

Same, and it still does, especially with the further conversation from RR and @Illyrio Mo'Parties and @GloubieBoulga.

But then the topic can't help but make you think about the Waif herself, and I got to thinking about her age (which is explicitly not a lie)... She's 36, the Ned was 35 at the start of GoT, and the Lying Game scene is roughly two years later? Maybe three? I wouldn't try to align her with a specific character based on that, but it's kind of interesting that she is pointedly within the same general age range (about a five-year spread) as Ned, Brandon, Lyanna, Robert, Stannis, Cat, Lysa, Gregor Clegane, Cersei and Jaime (and so on).

Granted, no matter how much of her Lying Game story was untrue, unless it's also a lie that she did not speak the Common Tongue prior to Arya's arrival, the chances of her having been Westerosi and having had anything to do with any of these people is between slim, none, and tinfoil, but it's still kind of interesting that she might have a coeval perspective on the period of Robert's Rebellion. If she was already in the HoBaW (alas, there are no safe assumptions when the evidence comes from the Lying Game), they could have had news of the events across the narrow sea ranging from wildly distorted sailor's tales to accurate reporting from an on-the-ground FM.

I doubt there's anything to be made of it, but it was a fun thought.

[Philokles]

3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

We're suppose to question the legitimacy of Catelyn's children, when we're thrown Arya's tantalizing question to her mother about whether she's also a bastard like Jon.

It was Sansa who asked Cat. Arya asked Jon. The sequence is primarily to show how much Sansa and Jeyne's bullying affects Arya. Besides there are no hints in Cat's POV that she was unfaithful.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

14 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

<snip

I just thought it was interesting that the Waif's story echoed someone else's quite closely. GRRM is fond of giving things their reflections elsewhere in the story, and at the very least, it appears this might be such a reflection. Although I never thought of Alicent and Rhaenyra, or Sweetrobin, but maybe that goes to show that there are lots of echoes here. Indeed, this story, while not totally central to the series, does get at one of the main themes, which is the cruelty of feudalism and/or patriarchy. The Waif's family tragedy is brought on entirely by the political system that her family is part of. (Well, that and the human capacity for evil.) But I had something more specific in mind...

This is what I was getting at. I thought it was interesting that the Waif, whether deliberately or unknowingly (i.e. as a sort of meta-echo), is telling Arya her own brother's story. (Or cousin.)

Of course we don't yet know the precise details of Jon's parentage, but a number of theories fit the Waif's story pretty neatly. For instance, if Ned or Brandon is Jon's father, and Jon was born before Robb, then Jon would've have been, at birth at least, "the only child of an ancient House, my noble father's heir."

<snip

Not literally, but figuratively: compare the Waif's literal poisoning leaving her physically deformed with Catelyn's figurative poisoning leaving Jon psychologically scarred. (And her other children, I might add: would Robb have married Jeyne Westerling if he hadn't been left with such a hang-up about fathering bastards?)

<snip

(I've been watching a lot of Order of the Green Hand videos lately, as you can see. But I've always wondered whether Catelyn somehow embodies the wicked stepmother archetype, and they seem to be going in that direction, which intrigues me.)

<snip

Or maybe it's just an interesting echo.

Patriarchy has little to do with the Waif's story. Clearly the stepmother was running the show there. Feudalism doesn't really play in either. Heirs and noble houses still exist even though feudalism is mostly gone from the world.

Jon would still be a bastard regardless, so he would not be the heir. It makes no sense that Ned would marry Catelyn if he were already married to Ashara. Unlike What OotGH maintains, Ned was not forced to marry Cat. All he had to do was say "Sorry I'm already married" and they would have found someone else for Cat, probably by bringing Tywin into the rebellion with the promise that Cat and Jaime would marry after the latter was released from the KG.

GRRM has said that the incident in Bran's room was a one-time thing when Catelyn was exhausted and scared out of her mind. There was no pattern of abuse. She did not scar Jon psychologically. She handled the situation far and away better than 99% of women in medieval Westeros would have done. A better comparison to the Waif's stepmother is Cersei ordering Robert's bastards killed.

The OotG may have some good ideas, but their Catelyn videos are pure BS. I don't understand how anyone could possibly miss the fact that the first evidence against Catelyn is based on them mistaking narrative for Catelyn's thoughts. That shows a basic lack of understanding of the third-person limited POV structure, and critical analysis issues. 

Interesting echo works. But it fits Alicent and Rhaenyra or Cersei and the bastards much better than Cat and Jon.

[ravenous reader]

12 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

12 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

your vision of the Wall as a glass coffin -- bravo!

Thanks ! But I was well helped with Bran's vision in AGOT, during his coma dream : 

Quote

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him

To add to your idea of the Wall as a glass coffin, there is this foreshadowing of Jon's impending entombment in the ice cells at the very base of the Wall:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon X

Carved from the base of the Wall and closed with heavy wooden doors, the ice cells ranged from small to smaller. Some were big enough to allow a man to pace, others so small that prisoners were forced to sit; the smallest were too cramped to allow even that.

Jon had given his chief captive the largest cell, a pail to shit in, enough furs to keep him from freezing, and a skin of wine. It took the guards some time to open his cell, as ice had formed inside the lock. Rusted hinges screamed like damned souls when Wick Whittlestick yanked the door wide enough for Jon to slip through. A faint fecal odor greeted him, though less overpowering than he'd expected. Even shit froze solid in such bitter cold. Jon Snow could see his own reflection dimly inside the icy walls.

In one corner of the cell a heap of furs was piled up almost to the height of a man. "Karstark," said Jon Snow. "Wake up."

Further evidence for the 'glass coffin' are the sentinels planted -- basically entombed alive -- in the Wall (like plants in a greenhouse or 'glass garden'):

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

"There are ghosts here," Bran said. Hodor had heard all the stories before, but Jojen might not have. "Old ghosts, from before the Old King, even before Aegon the Dragon, seventy-nine deserters who went south to be outlaws. One was Lord Ryswell's youngest son, so when they reached the barrowlands they sought shelter at his castle, but Lord Ryswell took them captive and returned them to the Nightfort. The Lord Commander had holes hewn in the top of the Wall and he put the deserters in them and sealed them up alive in the ice. They have spears and horns and they all face north. The seventy-nine sentinels, they're called. They left their posts in life, so in death their watch goes on forever. Years later, when Lord Ryswell was old and dying, he had himself carried to the Nightfort so he could take the black and stand beside his son. He'd sent him back to the Wall for honor's sake, but he loved him still, so he came to share his watch."

And of course, whomever is the ancient resident greenseer animating the 'Black Gate' is similarly entombed alive in the Wall.

Finally, it occurred to me that if Jon is a 'Snow White' or 'Sleeping Beauty' figure, with whom the 'prince charming' fell in love after espying her sleeping encased in a glass coffin or in the briar thicket respectively, then Jon is being cast in the role of the Night's Queen (the 'corpse bride' of ice), making whomever will resurrect him (Melisandre?  Bran?) the Night's King analogue (just as the Night's Queen was re-animated after the Night's King gifted her his seed and soul)!  

GRRM has cast Jon (and other men) in the 'female' role before, when for example it's Ygritte who is the more sexually knowledgeable and aggressive in chasing him, rather than the other way around.  In line with GRRM's 'gender role inversion', Jon even refers to himself as a 'blushing maid' driven to using a direwolf as sword-chaperone in order to fend off her amorous advances (in this scenario, Jon plays the lunar ice maid to Ygritte's fiery solar suitor in hot pursuit of him-- making Jon the one in a sense who is 'kissed by fire' in the transaction, perhaps foreshadowing later events surrounding his resurrection):

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A Storm of Swords - Jon II 

“What could you do if you did find her?” Jon asked, smiling. “You said she bit your member off.”

    “Only half. And half me member is twice as long as any other man’s.” Tormund snorted. “Now as to you . . . is it true they cut your members off when they take you for the Wall?”

 “No,” Jon said, affronted.

    “I think it must be true. Else why refuse Ygritte? She’d hardly give you any fight at all, seems to me. The girl wants you in her, that’s plain enough to see.”

    Too bloody plain, thought Jon, and it seems that half the column has seen it. He studied the falling snow so Tormund might not see him redden. I am a man of the Night’s Watch, he reminded himself. So why did he feel like some blushing maid?

    He spent most of his days in Ygritte’s company, and most nights as well. Mance Rayder had not been blind to Rattleshirt’s mistrust of the “crow-come-over,” so after he had given Jon his new sheepskin cloak he had suggested that he might want to ride with Tormund Giantsbane instead. Jon had happily agreed, and the very next day Ygritte and Longspear Ryk left Rattleshirt’s band for Tormund’s as well. “Free folk ride with who they want,” the girl told him, “and we had a bellyful of Bag o’ Bones.”

    Every night when they made camp, Ygritte threw her sleeping skins down beside his own, no matter if he was near the fire or well away from it. Once he woke to find her nestled against him, her arm across his chest. He lay listening to her breathe for a long time, trying to ignore the tension in his groin. Rangers often shared skins for warmth, but warmth was not all Ygritte wanted, he suspected. After that he had taken to using Ghost to keep her away. Old Nan used to tell stories about knights and their ladies who would sleep in a single bed with a blade between them for honor’s sake, but he thought this must be the first time where a direwolf took the place of the sword.

    Even then, Ygritte persisted. The day before last, Jon had made the mistake of wishing he had hot water for a bath. “Cold is better,” she had said at once, “if you’ve got someone to warm you up after. The river’s only part ice yet, go on.”

    Jon laughed. “You’d freeze me to death.”

    “Are all crows afraid of gooseprickles? A little ice won’t kill you. I’ll jump in with you t’prove it so.”

 

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A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

"Did you see a way down?" asked Jojen.

She shook her head. "No. It's a sheer drop, and the ice is so smooth . . . I might be able to make the descent if I had a good rope and an axe to chop out handholds, but . . . "

" . . . but not us," Jojen finished.

"No," his sister agreed. "Are you sure this is the place you saw in your dream? Maybe we have the wrong castle."

"No. This is the castle. There is a gate here."

Yes, thought Bran, but it's blocked by stone and ice.

As the sun began to set the shadows of the towers lengthened and the wind blew harder, sending gusts of dry dead leaves rattling through the yards. The gathering gloom put Bran in mind of another of Old Nan's stories, the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

Pursuing the resurrection theme associated with glass coffins, one might also liken the greenhouse at Winterfell -- the 'glass gardens' -- to the Wall.  Just as the planting of beings in the Wall may represent a death, since they are entombed in the glass coffin, at the same time this 'planting' hints at a potential rebirth or hatching from the Wall (note, as @LmL has shown, the wordplay associated with 'sentinels', which are also trees associated with greenseers, hence the 'seed' or 'planting' 'green men' metaphor at work here).  Likewise, the 'glass gardens' at Winterfell enable life to flourish in the unlikeliest of climes.  Besides growing food there as sustenance for the castle's needs, the 'blue winter rose' (which was stolen by Bael) represents a Winterfell person like Lyanna, Jon or Bran taken from one 'glass coffin' (Winterfell as prison) and spirited away to another, in Jon's case represented by the Wall (making Jon still the strongest candidate, besides Bran, for the blue flower Dany sees growing from the crack in the Wall in her prophetic vision).

Reflecting the promise of new life, even at this severe location, Jon muses on how useful glass might be at the Wall:

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon VII

A sudden gust of wind set Edd's cloak to flapping noisily. "Best go down, m'lord. This wind's like to push us off the Wall, and I never did learn the knack of flying."

They rode the winch lift back to the ground. The wind was gusting, cold as the breath of the ice dragon in the tales Old Nan had told when Jon was a boy. The heavy cage was swaying. From time to time it scraped against the Wall, starting small crystalline showers of ice that sparkled in the sunlight as they fell, like shards of broken glass.

Glass, Jon mused, might be of use here. Castle Black needs its own glass gardens, like the ones at Winterfell. We could grow vegetables even in the deep of winter. The best glass came from Myr, but a good clear pane was worth its weight in spice, and green and yellow glass would not work as well. What we need is gold. With enough coin, we could buy 'prentice glassblowers and glaziers in Myr, bring them north, offer them their freedom for teaching their art to some of our recruits. That would be the way to go about it. If we had the gold. Which we do not.

The 'magic beyond the wall' is associated with glass, again promising new life:

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A Clash of Kings - Jon III

The pale pink light of dawn [N.B. @LmL !)  sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.

So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he'd dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.

"Lord Snow?" he heard. Soft and meek. He turned.

Crouched atop the rock that had sheltered him during the night was the rabbit keeper, wrapped in a black cloak so large it drowned her. Sam's cloak, Jon realized at once. Why is she wearing Sam's cloak? "The fat one told me I'd find you here, m'lord," she said.

The 'rabbit keeper' dressed up in the cloak of a NIght's Watchman is an allusion to fertility (rabbits are notoriously fecund), sacrifice and rebirth.  Basically, we're being given the image of a pregnant-to-burst, ready-to-hatch Night's Watchman (undead greenseer zombie rising?)  In this vein, you might be interested Gloubie, that we previously identified on Seams' pun thread the punning trio of pain (suffering), le pain (French word for bread), and lapin (French for rabbits), which taken together has a Christian Easter connection ('Easter bunny') with Christ the sacrificed one thereby becoming the 'bread of life' for all, via the miracle of the resurrection.  To the punning trio, I have also added 'pay(ne)' as in Ilyn Payne, which also hints at the painful exaction of a payment (the sacrificial aspect) in exchange for any boon.

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"We ate the rabbit, if that's what you came for." The admission made him feel absurdly guilty.

"Old Lord Crow, him with the talking bird, he gave Craster a crossbow worth a hundred rabbits." Her arms closed over the swell of her belly. "Is it true, m'lord? Are you brother to a king?"

Here, rabbits (lapin), payment (a bow worth a hundred rabbits) and babies (she talks about rabbits as she touches her pregnant belly) are aligned.

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"A half brother," he admitted. "I'm Ned Stark's bastard. My brother Robb is the King in the North. Why are you here?"

"The fat one, that Sam, he said to see you. He give me his cloak, so no one would say I didn't belong."

"Won't Craster be angry with you?"

"My father drank overmuch of the Lord Crow's wine last night. He'll sleep most of the day." Her breath frosted the air in small nervous puffs. "They say the king gives justice and protects the weak." She started to climb off the rock, awkwardly, but the ice had made it slippery and her foot went out from under her. Jon caught her before she could fall, and helped her safely down. The woman knelt on the icy ground. "M'lord, I beg you - "

"Don't beg me anything. Go back to your hall, you shouldn't be here. We were commanded not to speak to Craster's women."

"You don't have to speak with me, m'lord. Just take me with you, when you go, that's all I ask."

All she asks, he thought. As if that were nothing.

"I'll . . . I'll be your wife, if you like. My father, he's got nineteen now, one less won't hurt him none."

"Black brothers are sworn never to take wives, don't you know that? And we're guests in your father's hall besides."

"Not you," she said. "I watched. You never ate at his board, nor slept by his fire. He never gave you guest-right, so you're not bound to him. It's for the baby I have to go."

"I don't even know your name."

"Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower."

"That's pretty." He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her. "Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?"

"For the baby, not for me. If it's a girl, that's not so bad, she'll grow a few years and he'll marry her. But Nella says it's to be a boy, and she's had six and knows these things. He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep's gone too. Next it will be dogs, till . . . " She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly.

"What gods?" Jon was remembering that they'd seen no boys in Craster's Keep, nor men either, save Craster himself.

"The cold gods," she said. "The ones in the night. The white shadows."

'Cold gods' is interesting...Is this a wordplay on 'old gods'?  Are the 'cold gods' the same as the 'old gods'?  In any case 'the thing that came in the night' certainly refers to the Others, 'the ones in the night.'

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And suddenly Jon was back in the Lord Commander's Tower again. A severed hand was climbing his calf and when he pried it off with the point of his longsword, it lay writhing, fingers opening and closing. The dead man rose to his feet, blue eyes shining in that gashed and swollen face. Ropes of torn flesh hung from the great wound in his belly, yet there was no blood.

Here, Jon is aligned with the wight in the oft-repeated (strangely Skywalkerian) gesture of the wounded black hand, fingers opening and closing (which of course also presages Jon's final feeble gesture when he fails to unsheathe his sword at his assassination).  This is foreshadowing of Jon's icy entombment and subsequent resurrection, 'the dead man rose'...

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"What color are their eyes?" he asked her.

"Blue. As bright as blue stars, and as cold."

She has seen them, he thought. Craster lied.

"Will you take me? Just so far as the Wall - "

"We do not ride for the Wall. We ride north, after Mance Rayder and these Others, these white shadows and their wights. We seek them, Gilly. Your babe would not be safe with us."

Her fear was plain on her face. "You will come back, though. When your warring's done, you'll pass this way again."

"We may." If any of us still live. "That's for the Old Bear to say, the one you call the Lord Crow. I'm only his squire. I do not choose the road I ride."

"No." He could hear the defeat in her voice. "Sorry to be of trouble, m'lord. I only . . . they said the king keeps people safe, and I thought . . . " Despairing, she ran, Sam's cloak flapping behind her like great black wings.

Jon watched her go, his joy in the morning's brittle beauty gone. Damn her, he thought resentfully, and damn Sam twice for sending her to me. What did he think I could do for her? We're here to fight wildlings, not save them.

Another way of expressing 'the morning's brittle beauty gone' might be that it had been 'shattered'.  Glass items are 'brittle', fragile, and easily shatter -- like illusions.  So awakening from ones naive illusions as to the way the world works is akin to shattering / breaking out of the glass coffin in which one has been sheltered from the uncomfortable truths presented by confrontation with the world 'out there' -- in the end, GRRM has written a 'Billdungsroman' ('coming of age' parable).  The ice or glass coffin might preserve 'life' in some form for a time, but without shattering or melting the protective, yet restrictive shell, via for example the reanimation by fire (represented in this vignette by the crude light of dawn, the breakfast cookfires, or the steaming hot piss of their ablutions), life cannot progress:

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Other men were crawling from their shelters, yawning and stretching. The magic was already faded, icy brightness turning back to common dew in the light of the rising sun. Someone had gotten a fire started; he could smell woodsmoke drifting through the trees, and the smoky scent of bacon. Jon took down his cloak and snapped it against the rock, shattering the thin crust of ice that had formed in the night, then gathered up Longclaw and shrugged an arm through a shoulder strap. A few yards away he made water into a frozen bush, his piss steaming in the cold air and melting the ice wherever it fell. Afterward he laced up his black wool breeches and followed the smells.

I think Jon shattering the hard icy cloak is symbolic of his moral development (eventually, instead of turning away from tough responsibilities, he will give his life in order to save the Wildlings, just as Gilly requested of him here); as well as his magical resurrection, with him eventually breaking out of the 'glass coffin' -- the glass shattering also reminds me of an eggshell breaking, with the hatching of the new lifeform from an egg.

10 hours ago, Therae said:

Granted, no matter how much of her Lying Game story was untrue, unless it's also a lie that she did not speak the Common Tongue prior to Arya's arrival, the chances of her having been Westerosi and having had anything to do with any of these people is between slim, none, and tinfoil, but it's still kind of interesting that she might have a coeval perspective on the period of Robert's Rebellion. If she was already in the HoBaW (alas, there are no safe assumptions when the evidence comes from the Lying Game), they could have had news of the events across the narrow sea ranging from wildly distorted sailor's tales to accurate reporting from an on-the-ground FM.

Hi Therae.  You do realise, don't you, that the Lying Game is precisely the 'game' GRRM is playing with us -- so you're right, there are no safe assumptions when it comes to disentangling the symbolic vs. literal fracture lines, the half-truths and the blatant misdirections..!  

[Therae]

@ravenous reader - yup. And thus I tend to insert caveats to pretty much any observations I may have (although in this case, I was just having fun: you guys! The Waif is Lyanna!).

P.S. I really like the image of Jon as Snow White.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

8 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Patriarchy has little to do with the Waif's story. Clearly the stepmother was running the show there.

Fair point, I was getting ahead of myself. But I disagree that the stepmother was running the show. If she was, she wouldn't have needed to poison the Waif. She could've just announce that she was disinherited.

8 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

It makes no sense that Ned would marry Catelyn if he were already married to Ashara. Unlike What OotGH maintains, Ned was not forced to marry Cat. All he had to do was say "Sorry I'm already married" and they would have found someone else for Cat, probably by bringing Tywin into the rebellion...

Well, the contention is that time was of the essence: they needed to reinforce Robert's army pronto, so perhaps there wasn't time to bring anyone else in. The timeline is very fuzzy. But given the choice between doing "the right thing" and saving the life of someone he loved, what would Ned do?

8 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

GRRM has said that the incident in Bran's room was a one-time thing...

GRRM says a lot of things. He says he's gonna finish the books one of these days, and we don't really believe that, do we?

8 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

There was no pattern of abuse. She did not scar Jon psychologically.

Jon disagrees. Read the scene. And also consider Jon's relationship with Ygritte, and the extreme hang-up he has about fathering a bastard with her.

8 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

The OotG may have some good ideas, but their Catelyn videos are pure BS. I don't understand how anyone could possibly miss the fact that the first evidence against Catelyn is based on them mistaking narrative for Catelyn's thoughts. That shows a basic lack of understanding of the third-person limited POV structure, and critical analysis issues.

Yeah, that was a bit thin. But who cares? It's interesting. And I don't think it's totally beyond plausibility that GRRM would play silly buggers with the language. He's done it before.