Bastards' Secrets: Hidden Meanings in Bastard Names

[Lady Blizzardborn]

On 3/22/2017 at 9:08 PM, thereticent said:

 

I've heard this theory and think there is wordplay that serves as a hint: Walys was "half maester" because his pop was Walgrave. I doubt I'm the first to suggest that.

More tinfoily (and only related by parallelism to a bastard's name) is the idea that Qhorin Halfhand is Gerold Hightower. People have mentioned that he took a wound to the hand in the Kingswood. (Is there textual support for that hand wound, or is it just theorized, by the way?). More to the point, if we find out that Aegon V's Hand was a Hightower...It would be tough to dissuade me from Halfhand=White Bull.

Only problem there is that the text doesn't refer to Walys as anything but a full maester. I get the half-maester reference with Haldon but isn't he a bit on the young side for being Walys?

On 3/22/2017 at 9:21 PM, Isobel Harper said:

Not possible, unless an affair was involved.  Aurane is 22 and LF is 30-ish.  LF's father died only a few years before Game, so "Widow Baelish" wouldn't have sired Aurane either. 

They could possibly be descendants (unknowingly) of Rohanne Weber, as she also had grey-green eyes and even had a dimpled chin like Aurane.  More likely though is that grey-green eyes are a symbolism for something.  I think something related to the Grey King and Garth the Green, death and life, the sea, and potentially greenseeing.  And of course the author probably wants us to compare the two.  Besides the similar eyes, they are both called "mischievous" and "sly" and (what do you know!) both want to screw over Cersei.  LF would screw over anyone for power, but I think it's more personal with Aurane - his brother died on the Blackwater.

Well I did say it was very cracked. I forgot their ages. But an affair isn't out of the question either. LF might be a bastard himself. Not uncommon for a firstborn son to take after his mother looks-wise even in real life. And if he looked like his mother, then daddy wouldn't have been any the wiser.

On 3/22/2017 at 9:32 PM, Isobel Harper said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it, but Daena and Danae have a lot in common.  Their names are even anagrams.  Both were locked in a tower so they couldn't have children, in a sense, though for different reasons.  They ended up conceiving sons anyway, and these sons would go on to become great warriors.  The only thing missing in Daena's story is the "golden rain."

That actually occurred to me while I was posting about Danae. Though not the whole thing, just the name similarities.

On 3/23/2017 at 10:05 AM, Jak Scaletongue said:

There's totally something fishy with the Walys/Luwin Winterfell swap....the timing seems too...convenient...and didn't Catelyn make some comment about Luwin delivering *all* her children?  If so, then that timeline doesn't fit...he'd have to have stopped at Riverrun on his way to begin his posting at Winterfell (I would detour to Riverrun too, if I knew that the new Lord of Winterfell's new wife was to give birth soon - or even just to join her so neither of you feel weird wandering in to your new home completely alone).

And they may not run off, but can they be recalled to the Citadel? Like, send Maester Luwin to Winterfell with a message calling Maester Walys back to the Citadel (for whatever reason they deem plausible...). If he was a Hightower bastard, then maybe some Hightower string-pulling was used to get Walys out of Winterfell in a plausible way.  Or who knows - maybe he *did* just run off....it may not be common, but there's always *someone* who will do the unthinkable for all sorts of reasons - from nefarious ones to completely altruistic reasons.

ETA: just remembered that Cressen managed to get himself transferred from Storm's End to Dragonstone to stay with Stannis. So there's clearly *some* wiggle room for a maester's personal preferences....especially when someone is well-connected. Maybe Walys asked to leave, for reasons we aren't yet privy to...for all we know, he could've wanted to go study the Skagosi...and ended up in a pot!

I don't see the timeline as fishy so much as fuzzy. But then fuzzy to me may be the same as fishy to you. Walys could have died, or requested an assistant (much like Cressen did) due to his old age, or made the mistake of accompanying Lord Rickard to KL.

Luwin either going to Riverrun from Winterfell, or going straight there from the Citadel during the war makes a lot of sense actually. The Lord whose castle he has been assigned to serve is off at war, and said Lord's young bride is carrying his firstborn child and hopefully heir. If you can't do anything else for your new master, you make darn sure that his wife and baby have the best possible medical attention. Luwin would not have wanted to leave that birth to chance and whatever maester was at Riverrun. Kind of like what Dr. Meade said to Scarlett in Gone With the Wind. Something about how Ashley is off fighting, maybe dying, and how they owe him a well born child.

I don't remember anything in the text about maesters being recalled to the Citadel. I suppose it's possible. We'll have to see if that comes up at all. I would definitely find that way more likely than Walys just running off. Somebody would have mentioned that. Lady Dustin for instance with her Sothron Ambitions and grey rats speechifying. Or Bran or Rickon being worried that Luwin might leave them because they heard that Winterfell's last maester disappeared. 

Cressen probably only got permission to go to Dragonstone because Robert had just been crowned king and the Citadel thought it would be a good idea to do anything asked of them by anyone named Baratheon. At that point Stannis was Robert's heir and could have ended up being king himself.