The Grey King fought Garth the Greenhand

[LmL]

On 3/9/2017 at 11:53 AM, Pain killer Jane said:

So what do we make of this little tidbit

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That's a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwright, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father's ships in grief. 

Oh hey @LmL remember the scene when Nymeria's people burned their ships and some turned into Orphans of the Greenblood. This seems like a reference to that and his father was a dreamer dreaming of the bloody blue-green sea. 

Well, this all seems to be about going into the see, though perhaps we are bring shown two methods. The first is the non-face carving way, something more copacetic with elves who love the trees and join with them by the tree's invitation. Brandon loves the see - he's never burn it. But if you burn your ships, you're setting fire to the sea dragon - burning the weirwood, setting fire to it. This is carving the face on the trees and forcing your way in, which is the naughty greenseer thing. Brandon the Burner is the Grey King / AA figure, while his dreamy loving father would be the Green fellow. 

We see this cycle reversed - starting from the other spot first -  with Durran Godsgrief, who is a moon breaker (AA / Grey King type). His wars on the children, which is like setting fire to the tree. He takes the Rainwood from them - he's stealing trees from the children, including a lot of weirwoods. But his son Durran the Devout gave the Rainwood back to the cotf. Bran the Builder learned the language of the children and lines up with the last hero, so he's a green / summer type, not a moon-breaker. He mighty have been the son of a fellow named Brandon of the Bloody Blade, who killed so many cotf and giants so as to turn blue lake red. He was in turn the son of garth the Green, a summer king. So round and round it goes, it would seem.

The orphans of the greenblood would be like team green that did not go naughty, right? Most of Nymeria's folk burned the ships and adapted to the red desert. But these orphans (which makes you think of children) still love the greenblood and still live on boats. I think these should be analogous to the cotf we have left, right?

On 3/9/2017 at 1:20 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and by the grace of the gods rightful heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, was broad of shoulder and sinewy of limb, with a tightness to his face and flesh that spoke of leather cured in the sun until it was as tough as steel. Hard was the word men used when they spoke of Stannis, and hard he was. Though he was not yet five-and-thirty, only a fringe of thin black hair remained on his head, circling behind his ears like the shadow of a crown. His brother, the late King Robert, had grown a beard in his final years. Maester Cressen had never seen it, but they said it was a wild thing, thick and fierce. As if in answer, Stannis kept his own whiskers cropped tight and short. They lay like a blue-black shadow across his square jaw and the bony hollows of his cheeks. His eyes were open wounds beneath his heavy brows, a blue as dark as the sea by night. His mouth would have given despair to even the drollest of fools; it was a mouth made for frowns and scowls and sharply worded commands, all thin pale lips and clenched muscles, a mouth that had forgotten how to smile and had never known how to laugh. Sometimes when the world grew very still and silent of a night, Maester Cressen fancied he could hear Lord Stannis grinding his teeth half a castle away.

This implies he has blue blood, doesn't it? His eyes are 'open wounds,' but they are blue-black? I mean, the Others have pale blue blood, but it's interesting. It also speaks of shade of the evening and Euron and the Warlocks. These dark AA types seem to have the frozen fire component to them, or some kind of ice / fire dichotomy. Connigton and Robb and Bran, for example. The "blue eyed king with a red sword." Makes me think of Brienne the Blue with Oathkeeper, quite a lot actually. Will Jon be resurrected with blue yes, yet not be under the control of the Others, perhaps? I already think late stage AA = NK, and he made the Others, but was he himself a blue eyed fellow by the end? 

[LmL]

25 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

There is a reason Robert and Renly did not get along, and it's because they are nothing alike.  We get ample time with both of them to determine this. 

Robert was a warrior, Renly was not.

Robert was a manly man, Renly was flamboyantly gay.

Robert drinks excessively, Renly does not, he prefers to dance.

Robert has no interest in politics, and Renly enjoys it.

Robert is aggressive, Renly is passive.

Robert is coarse, Renly is kind.

Donal Noye describes Robert as true steal and Renly as copper.

They are literally nothing alike.

That all being said, the night I commented on your post I had a few too many and my tone and choice of words were both rude.  For that I apologize.

 

Ok, see, those are all attributes of their personality which are important for their roles in the main plot of the story. But we are talking about symbolic archetypes, and those depend on the types of parallels that we have all been drawing between Garth, Renly, and Robert. Martin has many people play the same archetype - Jon and Dany are both "AA reborn, for example" - and they have many parallels. But they have important differences too, because they need to be different characters. The two ideas are not in conflict with each other. Robert and Renly are very similar in many ways, and very different in others. The symbolic interpretations always depend on what Martin is choosing to emphasize to us in a given passage. In a scene where Renly is compared to Robert and called Robert's Ghost, we are to draw the association for whatever purpose Martin might have in that scene. The symbolic archetypes are not static - Martin loves transformations, they're really important - so you have to pay attention to each scene and what Martin is showing you about the character with the words and description he is choosing and how they fit the context of the scene. 

[LmL]

@Crowfood's Daughter, check this out:

When King Urragon III Greyiron died during the Age of Heroes, his eldest son Torgon had been away raiding along the Mander. His brothers sent him no word of the kingsmoot, hoping that one of them would be chosen. However, Urrathon IV Goodbrother was chosen instead and later had all of Torgon's brothers killed. When Torgon returned he denounced the kingsmoot as unlawful and revolted against Urrathon, with the aid of priests, lords and Urrathon's own captains.[3] 

So, Urrathon is an AA / evil type. The Goodbrothers are usually the green man people, but he is BADbrother, an intentional inversion. He sacrificed 13 kings and 50 priests on Nagga's Hill and made the weirwood ribs an offering of their blood. And so, he is both preceded and followed by a Greyiron, a Green Sea King. 

It's the same as with House Dayne, which also gives us "Sword of the Evening" Vorian Dayne and Darkstar Gerold Dayne. Round and round we go, when it stops, it starts to snow. 

[Pain killer Jane]

8 minutes ago, LmL said:

Well, this all seems to be about going into the see, though perhaps we are bring shown two methods. The first is the non-face carving way, something more copacetic with elves who love the trees and join with them by the tree's invitation. Brandon loves the see - he's never burn it. But if you burn your ships, you're setting fire to the sea dragon - burning the weirwood, setting fire to it. This is carving the face on the trees and forcing your way in, which is the naughty greenseer thing. Brandon the Burner is the Grey King / AA figure, while his dreamy loving father would be the Green fellow. 

Do you think that Brandon the Shipwright's fate being lost at sea is a parallel to those greendreamers that were impaled on the sharp ice spears in Bran's vision? 

19 minutes ago, LmL said:

The orphans of the greenblood would be like team green that did not go naughty, right? Most of Nymeria's folk burned the ships and adapted to the red desert. But these orphans (which makes you think of children) still love the greenblood and still live on boats. I think these should be analogous to the cotf we have left, right?

Hmmm.....wouldn't they be the Starks after Brandon the Burner?

41 minutes ago, LmL said:

This implies he has blue blood, doesn't it? His eyes are 'open wounds,' but they are blue-black? I mean, the Others have pale blue blood, but it's interesting. It also speaks of shade of the evening and Euron and the Warlocks. These dark AA types seem to have the frozen fire component to them, or some kind of ice / fire dichotomy.

I wonder if this is another way to link House Hoare of the black blood to the Others. 

[LmL]

14 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

 

58 minutes ago, LmL said:

Well, this all seems to be about going into the see, though perhaps we are bring shown two methods. The first is the non-face carving way, something more copacetic with elves who love the trees and join with them by the tree's invitation. Brandon loves the see - he's never burn it. But if you burn your ships, you're setting fire to the sea dragon - burning the weirwood, setting fire to it. This is carving the face on the trees and forcing your way in, which is the naughty greenseer thing. Brandon the Burner is the Grey King / AA figure, while his dreamy loving father would be the Green fellow. 

Do you think that Brandon the Shipwright's fate being lost at sea is a parallel to those greendreamers that were impaled on the sharp ice spears in Bran's vision? 

Oh yes, that's possible. I'll have to think about that. I do associate those with the greenseers who became Others, that much is for sure. Like I was saying on the Grey King vs Garth thread, I tend to associate the Others with a frozen summer king. 

14 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

58 minutes ago, LmL said:

The orphans of the greenblood would be like team green that did not go naughty, right? Most of Nymeria's folk burned the ships and adapted to the red desert. But these orphans (which makes you think of children) still love the greenblood and still live on boats. I think these should be analogous to the cotf we have left, right?

Hmmm.....wouldn't they be the Starks after Brandon the Burner?

 

Yes, I suppose they could be.

[Crowfood's Daughter]

8 hours ago, LmL said:

Hey @Crowfood's Daughter and  @Unchained, sorry I have been away so long, I have been having a major brainwave and have been putting some things together, and I just had to step away. I'll respond to thoughts from both of you. As ever, you two are on the same page as I am, though I had never noticed the grey ash armor until recently, and hadn't connected it with Renly directly in this scene. So, they came through the burned trees, through the 'ash.' They had a burning tree banner, or course. This is Azor Ahai the horned lord being reborn through the weirwoodnet, through the ash tree weir-drasil (TM LmL). This is the Grey King stage of the cycle, as you say. Grey King was grey and corpse like, but he possess the living fire of the sea dragon, so he was still a fiery dude. 

This Greyiron thing is fabulous. It shows the transition - a green sea king man putting on the black crown. He'll be drowned in no time, ha ha. That's a great find! 

Don't forget that Nagga's ribs are on the 'crown' of Old Wyk, and a wick is something that catches on fire. So, that hill has a petrified stone crown that is waiting to catch on fire, or probably we should say it did catch on fire (OLD wyk) and is now a dead tree crown. 

 

The Titan of Braavos. Old Nan had told them stories of the Titan back in Winterfell. He was a giant as tall as a mountain, and whenever Braavos stood in danger he would wake with fire in his eyes, his rocky limbs grinding and groaning as he waded out into the sea to smash the enemies. “The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls,” Nan would end, and Sansa would give a stupid squeak. But Maester Luwin said the Titan was only a statue, and Old Nan’s stories were only stories.

 

The Titan’s Daughter cleaved through the grey-green waters on billowing purple wings. Arya could hear the cries of seabirds overhead. There, where Denyo pointed, a line of stony ridges rose sudden from the sea, their steep slopes covered with soldier pines and black spruce. But dead ahead the sea had broken through, and there above the open water the Titan towered, with his eyes blazing and his long green hair blowing in the wind.   His legs bestrode the gap, one foot planted on each mountain, his shoulders looming tall above the jagged crests. His legs were carved of solid stone, the same black granite as the sea monts on which he stood, though around his hips he wore an armored skirt of greenish bronze. His breastplate was bronze as well, and his head in his crested halfhelm. His blowing hair was made of hempen ropes dyed green, and huge fires burned in the caves that were his eyes. One hand rested atop the ridge to his left, bronze fingers coiled about a knob of stone; the other thrust up into the air, clasping the hilt of a broken sword. He is only a little bigger than King Baelor’s statue in King’s Landing, she told herself when they were still well off to sea. As the galleas drove closer to where the breakers smashed against the ridgeline, however, the Titan grew larger still. She could hear Denyo’s father bellowing commands in his deep voice, and up in the rigging men were bringing in the sails. We are going to row beneath the Titan’s legs. Arya could see the arrow slits in the great bronze breastplate, and stains and speckles on the Titan’s arms and shoulders where the seabirds nested. Her neck craned upward. Baelor the Blessed would not reach his knee. He could step right over the walls of Winterfell. Then the Titan gave a mighty roar. The sound was as huge as he was, a terrible groaning and grinding, so loud it drowned out even the captain’s voice and the crash of the waves against those pine-clad ridges. A thousand seabirds took to the air at once, and Arya flinched until she saw that Denyo was laughing. “He warns the Arsenal of our coming, that is all,” he shouted. “You must not be afraid.”

 

Maybe Bravos has a parallel story as well?

[LmL]

7 hours ago, Crowfood's Daughter said:

 

The Titan of Braavos. Old Nan had told them stories of the Titan back in Winterfell. He was a giant as tall as a mountain, and whenever Braavos stood in danger he would wake with fire in his eyes, his rocky limbs grinding and groaning as he waded out into the sea to smash the enemies. “The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls,” Nan would end, and Sansa would give a stupid squeak. But Maester Luwin said the Titan was only a statue, and Old Nan’s stories were only stories.

 

The Titan’s Daughter cleaved through the grey-green waters on billowing purple wings. Arya could hear the cries of seabirds overhead. There, where Denyo pointed, a line of stony ridges rose sudden from the sea, their steep slopes covered with soldier pines and black spruce. But dead ahead the sea had broken through, and there above the open water the Titan towered, with his eyes blazing and his long green hair blowing in the wind.   His legs bestrode the gap, one foot planted on each mountain, his shoulders looming tall above the jagged crests. His legs were carved of solid stone, the same black granite as the sea monts on which he stood, though around his hips he wore an armored skirt of greenish bronze. His breastplate was bronze as well, and his head in his crested halfhelm. His blowing hair was made of hempen ropes dyed green, and huge fires burned in the caves that were his eyes. One hand rested atop the ridge to his left, bronze fingers coiled about a knob of stone; the other thrust up into the air, clasping the hilt of a broken sword. He is only a little bigger than King Baelor’s statue in King’s Landing, she told herself when they were still well off to sea. As the galleas drove closer to where the breakers smashed against the ridgeline, however, the Titan grew larger still. She could hear Denyo’s father bellowing commands in his deep voice, and up in the rigging men were bringing in the sails. We are going to row beneath the Titan’s legs. Arya could see the arrow slits in the great bronze breastplate, and stains and speckles on the Titan’s arms and shoulders where the seabirds nested. Her neck craned upward. Baelor the Blessed would not reach his knee. He could step right over the walls of Winterfell. Then the Titan gave a mighty roar. The sound was as huge as he was, a terrible groaning and grinding, so loud it drowned out even the captain’s voice and the crash of the waves against those pine-clad ridges. A thousand seabirds took to the air at once, and Arya flinched until she saw that Denyo was laughing. “He warns the Arsenal of our coming, that is all,” he shouted. “You must not be afraid.”

 

Maybe Bravos has a parallel story as well?

Well, every place has its own parallel version of the main events, or at least some part of the main sequence. The Titan I have alluded to but have been saving for the right time... not only is he a green warrior with a broken sword, he also heralds the rise and set of the sun, like a Morningstar / Evenstar. His eyes appear to be a single star from far off, but then it splits into two ( Comet splitting to go with the broken sword symbol). @ravenous reader, this might be the idea of the warrior who emerges from the see when trouble arises, or I could be showing a hero who goes into the see when need be.

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

Well, every place has its own parallel version of the main events, or at least some part of the main sequence. The Titan I have alluded to but have been saving for the right time... not only is he a green warrior with a broken sword, he also heralds the rise and set of the sun, like a Morningstar / Evenstar. His eyes appear to be a single star from far off, but then it splits into two ( Comet splitting to go with the broken sword symbol). @ravenous reader, this might be the idea of the warrior who emerges from the see when trouble arises, or I could be showing a hero who goes into the see when need be.

Besides the giant symbolism evoked by the Titan -- which naturally brings to mind Bran making the giant leap by skinchanging his various giants, starting with Hodor -- I'd like to touch on something about the color scheme which struck me.

Note, in keeping with @Crowfood's Daughter's thesis about the grey-green cycling duality, fittingly the sea in the passage quoted is described as 'grey-green'!  

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The Titan’s Daughter cleaved through the grey-green waters on billowing purple wings. 

Moreover, the titan is a composite patchwork of grey and green; and he's ablaze adding fiery colors to the mix.  This is a reiteration of the Donniger sigil of the red sun (the firebrand) -- depending on ones perspective -- either setting into or rising from a grey-green sea.  Bravos is also described as a grey city in a green sea.  

I've been interested in this idea for a while, -- ever since I first identified 'grey-green' as a quote from Kipling...the 'great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees ... '  (notice, Kipling also hyphenates the compound color term, and seems to enjoy alliteration just as much as GRRM) -- although I never seem to get to the end of compiling quotes into a meaningful synthesis.  Recently, however, with the insights contributed by the current thread, together with the inspiration provided by @hiemal's 'colors of magic' thread, I've been musing on its significance once more.  Interestingly, grey-green in ASOIAF seems to be present at transitions / in liminal states, especially dawn and dusk, which dovetails nicely with Crowfood Daughter's idea of one archetype transforming into another.  

The hyphenation of grey and green itself hints at a patchwork of identity, with the Grey King and the Green King representing two phases of the same cycle:  Old Age and Youth, Winter and Summer , Death and Life, Night and Day, Salt and Rock, Grim grey Reaper and bountiful green Fertility god, Cain and Abel, respectively.  The grey seems to be the 'corrupted' -- fire-transformed / ashen-- form of the green; except it's important to acknowledge that each contains within itself the future potential or lingering ghost of the other (yin-yang concept).

Besides the sea/see --  which is the main gist of it -- 'grey-green' is also more explicitly associated with greenseeing, skinchanging, the godswood and personified trees (e.g. the grey-green sentinels), the old gods and the underworld,  the drowned god and/or the storm god; the direwolves (e.g. Summer a grey wolf is 'Prince of the Green', Grey Wind rumbles as one with the Green Fork of the Trident, gray shadows emerge from a green wood); corpses (described as both rotting and blooming as they decay!) and 'undead' (e.g.the Others, Lady Stoneheart), characters like Bronn, Davos, Sandor Clegane, and the Manderlys (the 'leviathan' vs. 'kraken' locked in unending battle might be a grey-green echo...are krakens green/red sea dragons? vs. leviathans usually grey); the eyes of Littlefinger (also from Braavos with Titan sigil!) and Aurane Waters; magic, temptation, treachery, executions and rebirths.  And so much more!

ETA: I found an interesting quote regarding Aurane Waters, he is described as 'Rhaegar Targaryen returned from the ashes' -- what do you think about that in the context of what you've been discussing re: Renly come again?

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A Feast for Crows - Cersei III

Cersei refused Mace Tyrell as well, and later Lancel. The others took the hint, and no one else approached her. Our fast friends and loyal lords. She could not even trust the westermen, her father's sworn swords and bannermen. Not if her own uncle was conspiring with her enemies . . .

Margaery was dancing with her cousin Alla, Megga with Ser Tallad the Tall. The other cousin, Elinor, was sharing a cup of wine with the handsome young Bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters. It was not the first time the queen had made note of Waters, a lean young man with grey-green eyes and long silver-gold hair. The first time she had seen him, for half a heartbeat she had almost thought Rhaegar Targaryen had returned from the ashes. It is his hair, she told herself. He is not half as comely as Rhaegar was. His face is too narrow, and he has that cleft in his chin. The Velaryons came from old Valyrian stock, however, and some had the same silvery hair as the dragonkings of old.

P.S. @Isobel Harper and @Pain killer Jane: what do you think of the latest 'grey-greeneries'..? 

Edited March 11, 2017 by ravenous reader

[Pain killer Jane]

2 hours ago, LmL said:

this might be the idea of the warrior who emerges from the see when trouble arises, or I could be showing a hero who goes into the see when need be.

this is going to sound utterly ridiculous but when I read this, I thought of DC's The Swamp Thing, and John Carpenter's The Thing. 

[Pain killer Jane]

1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

I've been musing on its significance once more.  Interestingly, grey-green in ASOIAF seems to be present at transitions / in liminal states, especially dawn and dusk, which dovetails nicely with Crowfood Daughter's idea of one archetype transforming into another.  

I agree that this is correct since we know the seat of the Reeds is named Greywater Watch and we know that Green Fork turns green at the Neck. So we have Grey water turning Green. The Neck is a crossing regardless of what Walder Frey thinks about the Twins. 

 

1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

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A Feast for Crows - Cersei III

Cersei refused Mace Tyrell as well, and later Lancel. The others took the hint, and no one else approached her. Our fast friends and loyal lords. She could not even trust the westermen, her father's sworn swords and bannermen. Not if her own uncle was conspiring with her enemies . . .

Margaery was dancing with her cousin Alla, Megga with Ser Tallad the Tall. The other cousin, Elinor, was sharing a cup of wine with the handsome young Bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters. It was not the first time the queen had made note of Waters, a lean young man with grey-green eyes and long silver-gold hair. The first time she had seen him, for half a heartbeat she had almost thought Rhaegar Targaryen had returned from the ashes. It is his hair, she told herself. He is not half as comely as Rhaegar was. His face is too narrow, and he has that cleft in his chin. The Velaryons came from old Valyrian stock, however, and some had the same silvery hair as the dragonkings of old.

P.S. @Isobel Harper and @Pain killer Jane: what do you think of the latest 'grey-greeneries'..? 

'Grey-greeneries' sounds like the some vegetables got left in the back of the freezer and now are freeze burned and dried out. 

But I agree with your assessment of the grey-greeneries being flags pointing at transitions. From the quote about The Titan's Daughter, the use of the word 'cleave' also points to the struggle as a very violent transition from one period to the next. Trauma inducing I would say. 

[LmL]

Aurane Waters is like Rhaegar (AA reborn as black dragon) returned from the see. He's back from the ash tree weir-drasil, and he looks like a dragon but now has green eyes. Which he got from the sea snake family of green aquatic dragons. He becomes pirate lord of places like Bloodstone and Grey Gallows in imitation of Daemon Targaryen and before him the Bloodstone Emperor, who rode the grey gallows horse.

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

I agree that this is correct since we know the seat of the Reeds is named Greywater Watch and we know that Green Fork turns green at the Neck. So we have Grey water turning Green. The Neck is a crossing regardless of what Walder Frey thinks about the Twins. 

So you're saying the waters are 'green' north of the Neck; 'grey' south of the Neck.  In other words, green at Grey-water and grey at the Green Fork of the Trident -- very intricate!

So when Meera says the only knights at Greywater Watch are below the water, those are dead (i.e. 'grey') knights submerged in the green water.  It reminds me of the 'bog bodies' I told you about, in which the special chemical composition preserves the dead bodies in pristine condition.  When these bodies are raised out of the bog, it's like raising history from the dead (like the brothers on the Quiet Isle fishing the regurgitated offerings, the 'gifts', out of the river) - in figurative terms, the seemingly decayed 'grey' blooms 'green' again.

Another example, when Meera a 'green' crannog person from Grey-water traps Summer (the Prince of the Green) a grey wolf with her net and pronged spear.  So is that a grey wolf caught in a green net or a green wolf caught in a grey net..?  Or maybe : a grey-green wolf caught in a green-grey net!

Summer and Bran under the see are the ashen creatures caught in a green net...or maybe they're the hibernating green creatures of summer biding their time in a grey sea till they're fished out of that sea of ash again.

ETA: the passage in question, so you can judge for yourselves:

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A Clash of Kings - Bran IV

Meera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching, watching . . .

"Yai!" the girl shouted, the spear darting out. The wolf slid to the left and leapt before she could draw back the spear. Meera cast her net, the tangles unfolding in the air before her. Summer's leap carried him into it. He dragged it with him as he slammed into her chest and knocked her over backward. Her spear went spinning away. The damp grass cushioned her fall but the breath went out of her in an "Oof." The wolf crouched atop her.

Bran hooted. "You lose."

"She wins," her brother Jojen said. "Summer's snared."

He was right, Bran saw. Thrashing and growling at the net, trying to rip free, Summer was only ensnaring himself worse. Nor could he bite through. "Let him out."

Laughing, the Reed girl threw her arms around the tangled wolf and rolled them both. Summer gave a piteous whine, his legs kicking against the cords that bound them. Meera knelt, undid a twist, pulled at a corner, tugged deftly here and there, and suddenly the direwolf was bounding free.

"Summer, to me." Bran spread his arms. "Watch," he said, an instant before the wolf bowled into him. He clung with all his strength as the wolf dragged him bumping through the grass. They wrestled and rolled and clung to each other, one snarling and yapping, the other laughing. In the end it was Bran sprawled on top, the mud-spattered direwolf under him. "Good wolf," he panted. Summer licked him across the ear.

Meera shook her head. "Does he never grow angry?"

"Not with me." Bran grabbed the wolf by his ears and Summer snapped at him fiercely, but it was all in play. "Sometimes he tears my garb but he's never drawn blood."

"Your blood, you mean. If he'd gotten past my net . . . "

"He wouldn't hurt you. He knows I like you." All of the other lords and knights had departed within a day or two of the harvest feast, but the Reeds had stayed to become Bran's constant companions. Jojen was so solemn that Old Nan called him "little grandfather," [so Jojen's also a grey-green man] but Meera reminded Bran of his sister Arya. She wasn't scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown. They were both older than Bran, even though his ninth name day had finally come and gone, but they never treated him like a child.

"I wish you were our wards instead of the Walders." He began to struggle toward the nearest tree. His dragging and wriggling was unseemly to watch, but when Meera moved to lift him he said, "No, don't help me." He rolled clumsily and pushed and squirmed backward, using the strength of his arms, until he was sitting with his back to the trunk of a tall ash. "See, I told you." Summer lay down with his head in Bran's lap. "I never knew anyone who fought with a net before," he told Meera while he scratched the direwolf between the ears. "Did your master-at-arms teach you net-fighting?"

"My father taught me. We have no knights at Greywater. No master-at-arms, and no maester."

"Who keeps your ravens?"

She smiled. "Ravens can't find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can."

"Why not?"

"Because it moves," she told him.

Talking of crossings and gateways to the underworld, the Twins also has characteristic grey and green elements, specifically the Green Fork of the river spanned by the grey of the bridge (this coincides with the grey psychopomp figures such as Sleipnir, Grey Wind, Drogo's grey smoky stallion, Dany's silver wind, etc. -- thus the grey vehicle carries one across the green, or back to the green):

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn IX

It was near midday when their vanguard came in sight of the Twins, where the Lords of the Crossing had their seat.

The Green Fork ran swift and deep here, but the Freys had spanned it many centuries past and grown rich off the coin men paid them to cross. Their bridge was a massive arch of smooth grey rock, wide enough for two wagons to pass abreast; the Water Tower rose from the center of the span, commanding both road and river with its arrow slits, murder holes, and portcullises. It had taken the Freys three generations to complete their bridge; when they were done they'd thrown up stout timber keeps on either bank, so no one might cross without their leave.

The timber had long since given way to stone. The Twins—two squat, ugly, formidable castles, identical in every respect, with the bridge arching between—had guarded the crossing for centuries. High curtain walls, deep moats, and heavy oak-and-iron gates protected the approaches, the bridge footings rose from within stout inner keeps, there was a barbican and portcullis on either bank, and the Water Tower defended the span itself.

Another such grey-green crossing might be represented by the Narrow Sea:

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI

"Yes, my sun-and-stars," Dany said. Drogo would take his bloodriders and ride in search of hrakkar, the great white lion of the plains. If they returned triumphant, her lord husband's joy would be fierce, and he might be willing to hear her out.

Savage beasts he did not fear, nor any man who had ever drawn breath, but the sea was a different matter. To the Dothraki, water that a horse could not drink was something foul; the heaving grey-green plains of the ocean filled them with superstitious loathing. Drogo was a bolder man than the other horselords in half a hundred ways, she had found … but not in this. If only she could get him onto a ship

The Dothraki are afraid of making the crossing.  If only they understood that a ship is a metaphor for a swift horse...The 'kenning' for ship in Old Norse / Icelandic poetry is 'sea-steed'!

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'Grey-greeneries' sounds like the some vegetables got left in the back of the freezer and now are freeze burned and dried out. 

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But I agree with your assessment of the grey-greeneries being flags pointing at transitions. From the quote about The Titan's Daughter, the use of the word 'cleave' also points to the struggle as a very violent transition from one period to the next. Trauma inducing I would say. 

'Cleave' is a very interesting word in English, conveying equivocal, specifically opposite, meanings simultaneously.  Thus, 'cleave' may mean separation as well as adhesion, in the same way the hyphen of 'grey-green' both separates and joins the terms.

And on a more accessible note:

Since I've been told you need to 'work out your kink,' 'cleave' inevitably reminds me of 'cleavage' -- namely Pennytree right between the teats!  The weirwood sprouts from the (meteor) impact site -- the site of cleavage is the site of growth.

Yes, folks, the 'hyphen' is all...

1 hour ago, LmL said:

Aurane Waters is like Rhaegar (AA reborn as black dragon) returned from the see. He's back from the ash tree weir-drasil, and he looks like a dragon but now has green eyes. Which he got from the sea snake family of green aquatic dragons. He becomes pirate lord of places like Bloodstone and Grey Gallows in imitation of Daemon Targaryen and before him the Bloodstone Emperor, who rode the grey gallows horse.

Impressive seadragon gymnastics there   So the grey of his grey-green eyes is a remnant of the burning transformation of the ash tree?

 

Edited March 11, 2017 by ravenous reader

[Pain killer Jane]

5 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Since I've been told you need to 'work out your kink,' 'cleave' inevitably reminds me of 'cleavage' -- namely Pennytree right between the teats!  The weirwood sprouts from the impact site -- the site of cleavage is the site of growth.

Yes, folks, the 'hyphen' is all...

 Don't forget that Dacey Mormont was cleaved in the vagina with an ax at the Red Wedding. Another place of growth as well. 

12 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

.  In other words, green at Grey-water and grey at the Green Fork of the Trident -- very intricate!

So when Meera says the only knights at Greywater Watch are below the water, those are dead (i.e. 'grey') knights submerged in the green water.  It reminds me of the 'bog bodies' I told you about, in which the special chemical composition preserves the dead bodies in pristine condition.  When these bodies are raised out of the bog, it's like raising history from the dead (like the brothers on the Quiet Isle fishing the regurgitated offerings, the 'gifts', out of the river) - in figurative terms, the seemingly decayed 'grey' blooms 'green' again.

Another example, when Meera a 'green' crannog person from Grey-water traps Summer (the Prince of the Green) a grey wolf with her net and prongs.  So is that a grey wolf caught in a green net or a green wolf caught in a grey net..?  Or maybe : a grey-green wolf caught in a green-grey net!

Meera also fights with a Frog Spear, that should be accurately called a Trident. 

As to Summer and the net, I have no idea on how to express that. If the swirling of the colors is an indication of a wheel of season than it could be both. 

20 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

The Dothraki are afraid of making the crossing.  If only they understood that a ship is a metaphor for a swift horse...The 'kenning' for ship in Old Norse / Icelandic poetry is 'sea-steed'!

Oh the Dothraki, can't they understand that they are greenland Ironborn. 

[ravenous reader]

7 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Don't forget that Dacey Mormont was cleaved in the vagina with an ax at the Red Wedding. Another place of growth as well. 

I see -- going straight for the 'kink'...

Yeah, there are all those axes 'planted' in people's heads -- the most memorable of these being Bran's 'third-eye' opening being compared to the splitting headache of an axe in his forehead.  The brain as the ultimate venue of growth.

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A Clash of Kings - Bran II

That night Bran prayed to his father's gods for dreamless sleep. If the gods heard, they mocked his hopes, for the nightmare they sent was worse than any wolf dream.

"Fly or die!" cried the three-eyed crow as it pecked at him. He wept and pleaded but the crow had no pity. It put out his left eye and then his right, and when he was blind in the dark it pecked at his brow, driving its terrible sharp beak deep into his skull. He screamed until he was certain his lungs must burst. The pain was an axe splitting his head apart, but when the crow wrenched out its beak all slimy with bits of bone and brain, Bran could see again. 

 

7 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Oh the Dothraki, can't they understand that they are greenland Ironborn. 

It's right there monotonously staring them in the face every day -- the great grey-green Dothraki sea!

Edited March 11, 2017 by ravenous reader

[Pain killer Jane]

1 minute ago, ravenous reader said:

It's right there monotonously staring them in the face every day -- the great grey-green Dothraki sea!

That blooms with red flowers in the autumn and looks like a sea of blood. 

[Crowfood's Daughter]

1 minute ago, ravenous reader said:

I see -- going straight for the 'kink'...

Yeah, there are all those axes 'planted' in people's heads -- the most memorable of these being Bran's 'third-eye' opening being compared to the splitting headache of an axe in his forehead.  The brain as the ultimate venue of growth.

It's right there monotonously staring them in the face every day -- the great grey-green Dothraki sea!

Splitting axe headache sounds like the birth of Athena, goddess of wisdom

[Pain killer Jane]

1 minute ago, Crowfood's Daughter said:

Splitting axe headache sounds like the birth of Athena, goddess of wisdom

absolutely and we need to remember why Athena was born out of Zeus's head.

Her mother, Metis, was eaten by Zeus because she was foretold to bear a child that would be greater than Zeus. 

[ravenous reader]

5 minutes ago, Crowfood's Daughter said:

Splitting axe headache sounds like the birth of Athena, goddess of wisdom

Hi Crowfood's Daughter -- great (grey-green) essay!  

It's also reminiscent of some accounts of Kali's birth (the raging death aspect of the mother goddess) who sprang forth -- burst -- out of the forehead of one uncontainably enraged:

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There are several traditions of how Kali came into existence. One version relates when the warrior goddess Durga, who had ten arms each carrying a weapon and who rode a lion or tiger in battle, fought with Mahishasura (or Mahisa), the buffalo demon. Durga became so enraged that her anger burst from her forehead in the form of Kali. Once born, the black goddess went wild and ate all the demons she came across, stringing their heads on a chain which she wore around her neck. It seemed impossible to calm Kali’s bloody attacks, which now extended to any wrongdoers, and both people and gods were at a loss what to do. Fortunately, the mighty Shiva stopped Kali’s destructive rampage by lying down in her path, and when the goddess realised just who she was standing on, she finally calmed down. From this story is explained Kali’s association with battlegrounds and areas where cremation is carried out.

From: http://www.ancient.eu/Kali/

 

Edited March 11, 2017 by ravenous reader

[Pain killer Jane]

39 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Hi Crowfood's Daughter -- great (grey-green) essay!  

It's also reminiscent of some accounts of Kali's birth (the raging death aspect of the mother goddess) who sprang forth -- burst -- out of the forehead of one uncontainably enraged:

 

You know that story sounds like the story of Shekmet, the lion headed goddess who was the eye of Ra. 

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

The Dothraki are afraid of making the crossing.  If only they understood that a ship is a metaphor for a swift horse...The 'kenning' for ship in Old Norse / Icelandic poetry is 'sea-steed'!

Oh the Dothraki, can't they understand that they are greenland Ironborn. 

Dany tries to describe the boats that can cross the black salt sea as winged horses in AGOT. It's a nice merger of sea dragons - as - weirwoods and weir-drasil - as - a - horse.