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'The Killing Word' -- A Re-examination of the Prologue


ravenous reader

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3 minutes ago, LmL said:

The prologue of AFFC is a thorough parallel to the short story "The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde. The original story is conveniently filled with Lightbringer-compatible symbolism. Read the story and then reread the AFFC prologue and you will see it easily. The Nightingale itself appears in the AFFC prologue. 

 

You know, that the Nightingale in relation to the nurse Florence Nightingale, her nickname is The Lady with the Lamp as perhaps Martin used her as the inspiration for the Crone. 

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9 minutes ago, LmL said:

The prologue of AFFC is a thorough parallel to the short story "The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde. The original story is conveniently filled with Lightbringer-compatible symbolism. Read the story and then reread the AFFC prologue and you will see it easily. The Nightingale itself appears in the AFFC prologue. 

 

Will do!

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@ravenous reader

I think the black pools are symbolically significant and worthy of continued discussion. In many of the scenes they seem to represent the night sky in a literal sense - twice we see a pregnant woman in the pool. But being called "bottomless", I think they also represent a Void concept. A complete nothingness from which the universe and consciousness emerge, but simultaneously do not exist in it. And this means that the Heart Tree is always looking into the void, and the reflection means the void is looking back! In a way, it's delving into its own consciousness so far that it reaches the nothingness of death (or pre-birth) but is still alive. A Void-sih pool would be consistent with the idea of people passing through death in order to achieve complete consciousness and experience non-linear time, which I'm leaning towards considering an abomination. People aren't supposed to open that gate, because whatever comes out of it is necessarily a manifestation of the gate opener's subconscious. Which means that if you die while you're in the weirnet and figure out how to resurrect yourself, your undead self is nothing but your subconscious animal nature. 

With this idea of id projection, I wonder if we shouldn't be looking for two opposing AA-type figures. One whose subconscious manifests and fire and another whose manifests as ice. If the Dragons are "Fire made flesh", then the Others are "ice made flesh". 

Also, I think it's possible that "back door" represents a means of cheating this process, which could be part of the "naughty greenseer" trope. A person who attains some of the power/knowledge without actually passing through the void. Leaf's quote about not having explored all the dark tunnels and the dark sea thus refer to incomprehensibility of death and what lies on the other side of it.

Anyway, enough Jungian rambling. 

I really like the comparison of Tyrion's romp in the dragon skull cellar with Dany's pyre. In both cases dragons are set in flame, and the person steps into it. Both show fire as representing a force of life and procreation. 

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1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

You know, that the Nightingale in relation to the nurse Florence Nightingale, her nickname is The Lady with the Lamp as perhaps Martin used her as the inspiration for the Crone. 

 I would say they represent Jung's archetypes and act as character templates. 

The Crone's lamp could also be a grim way of showing her as a shepherd of the underworld, carrying the light that you follow into death.

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6 minutes ago, cgrav said:

 I would say they represent Jung's archetypes and act as character templates. 

The Crone's lamp could also be a grim way of showing her as a shepherd of the underworld, carrying the light that you follow into death.

Which would make sense in terms of the bynames for serial killer nurses as Angels of Mercy or Angels of Death as it relates to Lady Stoneheart or Mother Merciless. 

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If anyone can tell me why symbolically ‘the night was windless,’ I’d be most grateful!

This might be too obvious - but I always took it to be like the eye of the storm.  The wild winds and the wights are the storm that presage the Others, but around the WW and Night King himself, in their immediate presence, there is always this sense of preternatural calm.  

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"Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch."

I love "or perhaps from the cold".  Ser Waymar is obviously trembling from "fear", but the narrator nobly does not call it that - for what is bravery but the conquering of fear.  GRRM picking up the old paradox from Plato that without fear there is no such thing as courage or bravery.  And, of course, until now Ser Waymar's obliviousness has been the opposite of true bravery, because unlike Will and Gared he was not alive to the peril they were in.

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Note, GRRM's clever little line 'No one could move through the woods as silent as Will'.  Ha ha.  In other words, there is someone with whom Will is identified -- the nameless, faceless gods of the wood, or Others. It breaks down like this:  The greenseer-orchestrator sits in the central control hub of the tree's 'engine room' (that's the interconnecting root system of the 'weirnet') from which the Others -- the intermediary assassins -- are dispatched!  The greenseer is the king and the Others are his Hands.  That's why the leaves of the weirwood are described as 'bloodstained hands.'  The greenseer orders the murder, keeping his hands clean like LF and Euron, while the faceless assassins, the Others, get their hands dirty!

"Ser Waymar met it with steel. When the blades met, there was no ring of metal on metal; only a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing, like an animal screaming in pain. Royce checked a second blow, and a third, then fell back a step. Another flurry of blows, and he fell back again.

Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere."

 

Given the attention to symbolic detail the Prologue clearly invites, as the OP has masterfully show, what to make of GRRM's use of the critical adjective "faceless" to directly describe the WW?  

It fits with OP's argument of WW as OG/trees.  But faceless sticks out to me.  The FM and the Others are symbolically or thematically related (death/nature/natural processes) - but, apart from that, is there some direct link?

Also, are the WW literally faceless - or what does this mean?  Are they interchangeable, do their "faces" not have distinguishing features, what? 

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Hi @Aemon Targaryen  Thank you for contributing to our thread, and welcome.  I am glad you are enjoying this close reading of the Prologue, with which alas I am not yet spent, much to the consternation of some of my fellow forum users, who I imagine can only roll their eyes at my ongoing fascination.  ;)

On 5/7/2017 at 1:33 AM, Aemon Targaryen said:

If anyone can tell me why symbolically ‘the night was windless,’ I’d be most grateful!

This might be too obvious - but I always took it to be like the eye of the storm.  The wild winds and the wights are the storm that presage the Others, but around the WW and Night King himself, in their immediate presence, there is always this sense of preternatural calm.  

It's not obvious at all; and I love your answer -- very elegant and beautiful!

Etymologically, the word 'window' is derived from Middle English from Old Norse vindauga, from vindr ‘wind’ + auga ‘eye' -- so a window is an eye onto the wind, or an eye of the wind.  Using the definite rather than the indefinite article, the window, or the eye of the wind, brings to mind 'the third eye', when taken in conjunction with how frequently greenseers and old gods are associated with magically harnessing the power of the wind.  

As @Tijgy has pointed out on @evita mgfs's classic 'Bran's growing powers' re-read thread, Winterfell itself is configured as a giant tree skinchanged by a greenseer (this could be the subtext of the meaning behind 'there must always be a Stark in Winterfell'!).  Seen that way, the windows of the castle are analogous to the eye sockets of a skull or those carved into a weirwood which allow the resident greenseer, whom I've compared to the 'genius loci', to 'see.'  In support of this analogy symbolically, Bran the budding greenseer is often depicted gazing out his window, or even naughtily going out the window at night to go climbing (a metaphor for making a greenseeing 'trip').  

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A Game of Thrones - Bran II

It taught him Winterfell's secrets too. The builders had not even leveled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell. There was a covered bridge that went from the fourth floor of the bell tower across to the second floor of the rookery. Bran knew about that. And he knew you could get inside the inner wall by the south gate, climb three floors and run all the way around Winterfell through a narrow tunnel in the stone, and then come out on ground level at the north gate, with a hundred feet of wall looming over you. Even Maester Luwin didn't know that, Bran was convinced.

His mother was terrified that one day Bran would slip off a wall and kill himself. He told her that he wouldn't, but she never believed him. Once she made him promise that he would stay on the ground. He had managed to keep that promise for almost a fortnight, miserable every day, until one night he had gone out the window of his bedroom when his brothers were fast asleep.

He confessed his crime the next day in a fit of guilt. Lord Eddard ordered him to the godswood to cleanse himself. Guards were posted to see that Bran remained there alone all night to reflect on his disobedience. The next morning Bran was nowhere to be seen. They finally found him fast asleep in the upper branches of the tallest sentinel in the grove.

Therefore, the implication of the eye of the wind or the eye of the storm is that it is the epicentre from which a greenseer orchestrates the magic (as if the greenseer were a spider sitting at the very centre of the web), including as I've suggested on this thread the summoning of the Others (whether deliberate or inadvertent).  Another figure given 'greenseer styling' is Euron the Crow's Eye, who refers to himself as the Storm; so putting the imagery together, he is also an eye of the storm around whom the maelstrom swirls.

Two further very important passages involving windlessness include firstly Bran's communion with Theon in which he was able to mysteriously articulate both their names in the common tongue using the rustling of leaves in the absence of wind; and secondly, also involving Bran, when Bran sees the reflection of the weirwood ripple, dance and shimmer despite the absence of wind -- before Osha erupts out of the pool in a fashion analogous to the scene of the pregnant woman pledging vengeance who also mysteriously emerges from the 'bottomless black pool' without having been seen to enter it, which you brought up on your thread.  

The emergence without first having entered via that same portal is important symbolically.  As I've speculated on this thread, the 'front door' of the weirwood is represented by the bloody face (this is the door of fire), while the 'back door' of the weirwood is represented by the black pool (this is the door of ice).  Those emerging via the door of ice are symbolically Others.  However, I'm still unsure what that would mean for the logistics of how the Others were created historically, although I'm pretty confident it has something to do with the greenseers and that the Others are humanoid rather than a completely alien species.  I'll provide the relevant quotes for you below:

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A Dance with Dragons - A Ghost in Winterfell

And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. "Theon," they seemed to whisper, "Theon."

The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. "Please." He fell to his knees. "A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek." Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. "I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Bran II

Hodor knew Bran's favorite place, so he took him to the edge of the pool beneath the great spread of the heart tree, where Lord Eddard used to kneel to pray. Ripples were running across the surface of the water when they arrived, making the reflection of the weirwood shimmer and dance. There was no wind, though. For an instant Bran was baffled.

And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash, so sudden that even Summer leapt back, snarling. Hodor jumped away, wailing "Hodor, Hodor" in dismay until Bran patted his shoulder to soothe his fears. "How can you swim in there?" he asked Osha. "Isn't it cold?"

"As a babe I suckled on icicles, boy. I like the cold." Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and sniffed at her. "I wanted to touch the bottom."

"I never knew there was a bottom."

"Might be there isn't." She grinned. "What are you staring at, boy? Never seen a woman before?"

"I have so." Bran had bathed with his sisters hundreds of times and he'd seen serving women in the hot pools too. Osha looked different, though, hard and sharp instead of soft and curvy. Her legs were all sinew, her breasts flat as two empty purses. "You've got a lot of scars."

"Every one hard earned." She picked up her brown shift, shook some leaves off of it, and pulled it down over her head.

"Fighting giants?" Osha claimed there were still giants beyond the Wall. One day maybe I'll even see one . . .

"Fighting men." She belted herself with a length of rope. "Black crows, oft as not. Killed me one too," she said, shaking out her hair. It had grown since she'd come to Winterfell, well down past her ears. She looked softer than the woman who had once tried to rob and kill him in the wolfswood. "Heard some yattering in the kitchen today about you and them Freys."

"Who? What did they say?"

She gave him a sour grin. "That it's a fool boy who mocks a giant, and a mad world when a cripple has to defend him."

 

On 5/7/2017 at 1:48 AM, Aemon Targaryen said:

"Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch."

I love "or perhaps from the cold".  Ser Waymar is obviously trembling from "fear", but the narrator nobly does not call it that - for what is bravery but the conquering of fear.  GRRM picking up the old paradox from Plato that without fear there is no such thing as courage or bravery.  And, of course, until now Ser Waymar's obliviousness has been the opposite of true bravery, because unlike Will and Gared he was not alive to the peril they were in.

That's well observed.  I think Waymar's 'dance' is part of the 'kill the boy and let the man be born' theme.  Waymar is in the process of killing the green boy (himself, the inexperienced ranger from the Vale), via his figurative and literal death to follow, so that the adult man (the wight) can be born in all his corrupted glory.  It's a paradox whereby the 'unmanning' is simultaneously a 'manning-up', if that makes sense!

 

On 5/7/2017 at 2:35 AM, Aemon Targaryen said:

Note, GRRM's clever little line 'No one could move through the woods as silent as Will'.  Ha ha.  In other words, there is someone with whom Will is identified -- the nameless, faceless gods of the wood, or Others. It breaks down like this:  The greenseer-orchestrator sits in the central control hub of the tree's 'engine room' (that's the interconnecting root system of the 'weirnet') from which the Others -- the intermediary assassins -- are dispatched!  The greenseer is the king and the Others are his Hands.  That's why the leaves of the weirwood are described as 'bloodstained hands.'  The greenseer orders the murder, keeping his hands clean like LF and Euron, while the faceless assassins, the Others, get their hands dirty!

"Ser Waymar met it with steel. When the blades met, there was no ring of metal on metal; only a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing, like an animal screaming in pain. Royce checked a second blow, and a third, then fell back a step. Another flurry of blows, and he fell back again.

Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere."

 

Given the attention to symbolic detail the Prologue clearly invites, as the OP has masterfully show, what to make of GRRM's use of the critical adjective "faceless" to directly describe the WW?  

It's an interesting question to which I don't have a comprehensive answer, but as you highlight it seems significant that the faces of the Others are never described, in contrast to the wights who have faces.  In keeping with my speculation that the Others are related to the greenseers, even being a reflection or projection of themselves, perhaps the facelessness is an allusion to these assassins having been sent by another agent, the invisible player, in much the same way a faceless man is hired and essentially directed by another (this of course does not rule out the possibility of the assassins going rogue, as Littlefinger points out...)

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A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

"—I might have to remove her from the game sooner than I'd planned. Provided she does not remove herself first." Petyr teased her with a little smile. "In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you've planned for them. Mark that well, Alayne.

.A good example of this 'faceless' dynamic is Baelish/Littlefinger who often operates unnoticed behind the scenes, manipulating the action at a safe distance. Fittingly, his family has its origins in Braavos, the home of the Faceless Men!   'Faceless men' are also associated with wearing masks.  Paradoxically, the faceless god is also the god of many faces, conveying the idea of being able to change ones face (literal and/or metaphorical skinchanging), depending on the requirements of the situation.  Like the Others who are perfectly camouflaged to blend into the wintery woods, Littlefinger like a chameleon blends into whatever social milieu he's trying to penetrate, carefully observing and adeptly mimicking those around him, hence his moniker 'the mockingbird'.  When Sansa first meets him, for example, she notes that he affects the 'effortless manner' of someone highborn, 'a high lord'; later, she thinks of how many 'masks' the man seems to wear, to the extent that she sometimes cannot tell his various personae apart.  He would be the equivalent of the faceless greenseer, with those he manipulates into performing the moves he's planned out for them also faceless from a certain perspective, having been manoeuvred into position by another, and therefore not completely autonomous.  Indeed, Sansa is one who is being 'otherized' during her sojourn in the Vale, effacing her Stark identity and becoming instead Littlefinger's proxy.  So, the master and his proxy are both faceless in different ways.

Demonstrating this graphically, consider the implications of Ned's fever dream in which Robert Baratheon's face is revealed to be a mask, which is then stripped away (making Robert faceless) to reveal Littlefinger behind him, whose face in turn is also revealed to be yet another mirage, when he opens his mouth.  As Sansa correctly noted, yet so far has failed to correctly interpret the significance thereof, his smile does not reach his eyes; or otherwise stated, his words do not match his intent.  When someone via their words perversely becomes divorced from the end result of those words, this is an important component of being faceless.  One might refer to it as the anonymity or banality of evil.  Littlefinger is the 'head that speaks the words' that remotely bring about the 'hand that swings the sword' (this is the significance of the lies which fly like moths spreading their poisonous messages by proxy).  By manipulating Lysa and Cat, Littlefinger was able to get Robert to approach Ned, with the aim of luring him south.  Ultimately -- although I can't prove it (because he's 'faceless') -- I believe Littlefinger was also responsible for getting Ned killed, hence Ned's prophetic dream.  Remember, at this point Ned is in the pitch dark dungeon, so one might expect in his capacity as Lord of the Underworld for Stark 'eyes' to 'open' in the dark, and finally 'see' the 'truth that lies beneath' the lies of this world...

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Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened (ACOK -- Bran VII). 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IX

"Your father," said Prince Oberyn, "may not live forever."

Something about the way he said it made the hairs on the back of Tyrion's neck bristle. Suddenly he was mindful of Elia again, and all that Oberyn had said as they crossed the field of ashes. He wants the head that spoke the words, not just the hand that swung the sword. "It is not wise to speak such treasons in the Red Keep, my prince. The little birds are listening."

"Let them. Is it treason to say a man is mortal? Valar morghulis was how they said it in Valyria of old. All men must die. And the Doom came and proved it true." 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

I failed you, Robert, Ned thought. He could not say the words. I lied to you, hid the truth. I let them kill you.

The king heard him. "You stiff-necked fool," he muttered, "too proud to listen. Can you eat pride, Stark? Will honor shield your children?" Cracks ran down his face, fissures opening in the flesh, and he reached up and ripped the mask away. It was not Robert at all; it was Littlefinger, grinning, mocking him. When he opened his mouth to speak, his lies turned to pale grey moths and took wing.

Ned was half-asleep when the footsteps came down the hall. At first he thought he dreamt them; it had been so long since he had heard anything but the sound of his own voice. Ned was feverish by then, his leg a dull agony, his lips parched and cracked. When the heavy wooden door creaked open, the sudden light was painful to his eyes.

@Pain killer Jane has also made the absolutely brilliant observation that GRRM is referencing the movie 'The Silence of the Lambs' with the image of the moth emerging from the mouth.  This image is reiterated in the sigil of House Horpe with the three death's head hawk moths (the same species as in Silence of the Lambs) covering the positions where the eyes and mouth would be, which is strangely reminiscent of the movie's promotional poster of Jodie Foster's pale face with the two haunted eyes and the singular moth obscuring her mouth.  The film's theme of personal transformation obtained at the cost of someone else's death, specifically the villain's modus operandi of skinning his victims in order to wear a coat made of their skins that he hopes will transform him into something he is not, is echoed in ASOIAF with the skinchanging trope, e.g. the Boltons' predilection for flaying their enemies, which some have interpreted as an effort to emulate and/or appropriate the warg power of the Starks they envy (the infamous sable/martin coat in the Prologue and elsewhere 'crowning glory...soft and black as sin' embodies the same theme).  

In Littlefinger's case, he has spent his life slipping into other people's skins literally (e.g. seducing and impregnating Lysa) and figuratively, in order to transform himself and usurp the power of those who once made him feel small -- a narcissistic slight and corresponding wound he has never forgotten (this is an example of the 'counter-mocking' impulse in response to having been 'mocked' which I've described in the OP as driving the vicious cycle of revenge).  Lately @PrettyPig has had some very interesting thoughts on the 'Heretic' side surrounding Littlefinger's ambitious ascension which may even indicate that his talent for 'killing words' may have precipitated Robert's Rebellion, with the aim of getting his rival Brandon killed, which involved scapegoating Rhaegar.  @PrettyPig, your analysis of the duel fought between Brandon and Littlefinger, with the comparison to the description of the fallen prince with rubies flying from his chest in Dany's vision is ingenious!  :)  It strikes me that an interesting comparison might be made between the Brandon vs. Littlefinger duel and that of the Other vs. Waymar I've been focusing on here.  A few common elements I've noticed:

  • a green 'boy' from the Vale out of his depth in a fight:  Littlefinger -- Waymar
  • a superior opponent associated with the forces of Winter:  Brandon -- Other
  • 'pale blue':  Cat's scarf -- the pale blue light playing on the edges of the Other's blade
  • the water, whereby the duel is a kind of waterdancing like the braavos duelling on the Moon Pool:  Brandon and Littlefinger duel on the water stair -- the Other and his sword are described as 'moonlight running on water' facing off against Waymar who declares the duel a 'dance'
  • epic battle between Storm God vs. Drowned God or Dragon: 'rain of needles' -- 'raining steel'
  • 'Last Hero math' 12 wounds + 1 -- Littlefinger sustained 'a dozen' wounds + 1 (perhaps that was the one sustained by his non-existent heart!) -- Waymar's sable cloak was slashed a dozen times + 1 for the eye wound
  • the bright red color of the blood in which the victims get their hands covered, rendering them 'red-handed':  Littlefinger -- Waymar's blood is fiery red (like Rhaegar's rubies...rubies have the fire which garnets lack)
  • the loser of the duel is spared, survives, rises to take revenge; the mocker is counter-mocked -- Littlefinger spared by Brandon at Cat's request sets a trap for Brandon which ultimately gets him strangled to death-- wighted Waymar strangles Will

 

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It fits with OP's argument of WW as OG/trees.  But faceless sticks out to me.  The FM and the Others are symbolically or thematically related (death/nature/natural processes) - but, apart from that, is there some direct link?

Also, are the WW literally faceless - or what does this mean?  Are they interchangeable, do their "faces" not have distinguishing features, what? 

I've long speculated on a connection between the Faceless Men and the Old Gods religion and the greenseers, to which I believe the Others are connected -- and by which they were indeed generated -- in some way.  Below I've listed a few similarities, but I wouldn't be able to offer any convincing historical account of why there should be so many similarities, beyond the thematic symbolism:

 

RELIGION:  'old gods' 'cold gods' 'faceless, nameless ones' -- 'many-faced god' of 'many names', 'no one'

REGION:  Westeros (north) -- Braavos (south)

ISLAND:  Isle of Faces, God’s Eye -- Hall of Faces, House of Black and White

Crannog man took a boat and trained there -- Arya took a boat and is training there ‘you’ll be sewing all through winter’

FACELESS WATCHERS:  Green men -- Faceless men

VENUE HOLLOW HILL: lots of hollow hills in the north, e.g. Bloodraven's cave and Hollow Hill -- HOBAW built on a 'knoll', 'honeycombed'

UNDERGROUND LEVELS:  cave -- HOBAW 'sanctum' is underground too

WATER:  black, cold 'sunless sea' -- black, cold, poisonous pool at the center of the HOBAW 

MYSTERIOUS 'ODINESQUE' GATEKEEPER/MENTOR:  Bloodraven -- 'Kindly Man'

Bloodraven famous Targaryen bastard, his existence kept secret for a century (believed to have died 100 years ago, according to the singer Dareon) -- Braavos bastard child of Valyria, city's existence kept secret for a century

Secrets, fog, whispers, spies, assassins, lies, rustling (the leaves rustle and whisper -- in the HOBAW the masks also rustle and whisper)

APPRENTICE:  Bran -- Arya

MAGIC:  'Dark-seeing', blindness, skinchanging (trees and ravens vs. wolves and cats)

WEIRWOOD:  Trees -- doors and chairs in HOBAW

MASKS:  Wearing tree faces -- Wearing human faces 'leather hoods'

WEDDING:  Initiation weirwood bole, bitter taste at first, Bran's wedding to the trees -- similarly, Arya is cautioned that she must forsake worldly relationships if she is to join herself to the masks and cult; initiation drinking cup, bitter taste at first

THOUSAND:  1000 eyes, 1000 bloodstained hands -- 1000 faces 'gazing down on her'

SACRIFICE: human sacrifice ('Jojen paste', Isle of Faces) -- 'the Gift'

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6 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 Lately @PrettyPig has had some very interesting thoughts on the 'Heretic' side surrounding Littlefinger's ambitious ascension which may even indicate that his talent for 'killing words' may have precipitated Robert's Rebellion, with the aim of getting his rival Brandon killed, which involved scapegoating Rhaegar.  @PrettyPig, your analysis of the duel fought between Brandon and Littlefinger, with the comparison to the description of the fallen prince with rubies flying from his chest in Dany's vision is ingenious!  

Why thank you!   I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I love the extrapolation to the Prologue as well.

6 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Littlefinger like a chameleon blends into whatever social milieu he's trying to penetrate, carefully observing and adeptly mimicking those around him, hence his moniker 'the mockingbird'.  When Sansa first meets him, for example, she notes that he affects the 'effortless manner' of someone highborn, 'a high lord'; later, she thinks of how many 'masks' the man seems to wear, to the extent that she sometimes cannot tell his various personae apart.

 

6 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

In Littlefinger's case, he has spent his life slipping into other people's skins literally (e.g. seducing and impregnating Lysa) and figuratively, in order to transform himself and usurp the power of those who once made him feel small

I have so much to say about these observations I'm tripping over myself, but it's going full crackpot w/r/t Littlefinger  and his personas/masks and I don't want to derail.  As I mentioned in Heresy, though, the mockingbird (in real life) has another interesting habit besides mimicry:

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Some types of mockingbirds are known to lay "alien eggs", or eggs that are laid in another bird's nest. Similar to the cowbird, the mockingbirds' offspring will force the other nest inhabitants from the nest, taking all the food from the parents and forcing the foster-parents to rear and fledge them.

 This "mocking" behavior ties into my Major Tinfoil™ regarding Baelish himself and his origins - if I am on the right track, Littlefinger's facelessness and his becoming "no one" go all the way back to his birth...and it has nothing to do with Braavos.

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Wow, ravenous reader, a truly encyclopaedic post.  I can immediately thank you for your welcome, but it may take me much longer to respond substantively!  I had forgotten about Osha in the pool ... I will ruminate on that.  The link between magic and windlessness - like the phrase "preternatural calm".  I hadn't quite understood the door of ice/door of fire point, so that also gives me further food for thought.

Is it confirmed, to your mind RR, that there is no 'concrete' description of the faces/heads of the Others?  This is where show pollution gets difficult for me.

Thanks for digging up the roots of the 'facelessness' theme - I agreed with almost everything you said, but I am searching for a literal link that springs out, finally, of the web of symbols.

The Littlefinger stuff is fascinating ... the speculation about LF/Brandon/starting RR is intriguing.

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@ravenous reader,

 

I wanted to respond to your response to me on the poetry thread.  I am  doing it here becasue it goes into a tangent that involves mocking.  Its funny to me that you have associated me with self-deprecating.  Not because I don't do it, I constantly do.  In fact I pulled a nice one at work today after angering the god of the quality dept with a very real mistake.  He emerged from his cloud to throw lightening bolts of killing words as he is known to do but...

 

I know a third – if I should need – to fetter any foe; – it blunts the edge – of my enemy’s sword, – neither wiles nor weapons work.

 

I got him talking about some handbook no one knew existed and how it was understandable I hadn't read it.  Anyway, I think George also appreciates this tactic's ability to turn foes into fast friends, don't you?  You forced me into this rant with a couple comments about it.  First you said self-deprecation "melted" you then you referred to same type of thing as a "burn".  I think this is exactly what GRRM thinks as well.  Brienne has an icy shell of armor of sorts, she is one of the devil's icy moon maidens.  Jaime fails to penetrate it despite his best efforts with stabbing words and sexy swordplay thrusts, both of which he is very talented with.  However, once humbled who becomes his new best friend?  I think it is safe to say his vulerability melted her icy armor.  As a giant, it is safe to wonder if she could be a symbolic dragon and she was stolen from Cat.  Just saying.  To connect it to this thread and the prologue, The Other shows up with his mocking icy voice and reflective armor.  It overwhelms the pompous lordling, just like 2-handed Jaime, just like it fails to do to one-handed Jaime.  The Other so easily wins the fight that he does it lazily.  It reminds me of another icy giant who defeats its foolish northern enemy easily and casually.

 

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When at last he reached the bottom, a narrow, muddy trail along the water's edge, Littlefinger was lazing against a rock and eating an apple. He was almost down to the core. "You are growing old and slow, Stark," he said, flipping the apple casually into the rushing water. "No matter, we ride the rest of the way." He had two horses waiting. Ned mounted up and trotted behind him, down the trail and into the city.

 

Littlefinger then gets his armor melted by Sansa in the snow castle.  After which he becomes something closer to an ally.  The Other in the prologue easily defeats the pompous lording, but when he faces the most self-deprecating person in the story, the self styled craven Sam, the Other and his reflective armor literally melted.  Being humble is a bonus in this universe.  

 

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"Let me give you some counsel, bastard," Lannister said. "Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you." 

 

Jon later dreams of himself in black, icy bastard armor.  Other people would benefit from this advice.  

 

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"A modest lordling."
"Only a fool humbles himself when the world is so full of men eager to do that job for him." He kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck.

 

 

This is Asha, a thin mermaid, and Theon while she is in the process of humbling him for him.  Theon failed to humble and armor himself like a clever fool just like Walder Frey who is fed humble pie by a much fatter mermaid.  It is better sacrifice one's self to one's self than to let someone else take you down.  Although there is a downside for mermaids who humble.  

 

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Rain was falling by the time he reached the swaying bridge out to the Sea Tower. His stomach was crashing and churning like the waves below, and wine had unsteadied his feet. Theon gritted his teeth and gripped the rope tightly as he made his way across, pretending that it was Asha's neck he was clutching.  

 

This reminds of Cersei's little brother prophecy squeezing her neck.  She is another who needs to be humbled.  When she sends a raven to Tywin to ask the gods for help or whatever, she expects him as a true savior.  What she gets is Tyrion in all his mocking glory.  He mocks with talent and is armored with humility.  Anyway, he is the savior she needs and does save the city.  However after, he claimes his price from her perspective when she takes her child just like Jorah does to Dany after he saves her at the tent of Joy (obviously the Other in the prologue is another).  Mocking and taking souls after doing what they are asked, the summoned saviors seem like a combination of a friendly Aladdin style genie and the sort that takes children and souls after granting wishes.  That is basically what a grumkin is and

 

 
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"Why did he attack me?" Tyrion asked with a sidelong glance at the direwolf. He wiped blood and dirt from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Maybe he thought you were a grumkin."
Tyrion glanced at him sharply. Then he laughed, a raw snort of amusement that came bursting out through his nose entirely without his permission. "Oh, gods," he said, choking on his laughter and shaking his head, "I suppose I do rather look like a grumkin. What does he do to snarks?"

       

 

 

 

I am looking forward to learning what he does to snarks.  I have a follow up that is short and tinfoily for tomorow.              

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On 09/05/2017 at 7:52 PM, ravenous reader said:

Note, GRRM's clever little line 'No one could move through the woods as silent as Will'.  Ha ha.  In other words, there is someone with whom Will is identified -- the nameless, faceless gods of the wood, or Others. It breaks down like this:  The greenseer-orchestrator sits in the central control hub of the tree's 'engine room' (that's the interconnecting root system of the 'weirnet') from which the Others -- the intermediary assassins -- are dispatched!  The greenseer is the king and the Others are his Hands.  That's why the leaves of the weirwood are described as 'bloodstained hands.'  The greenseer orders the murder, keeping his hands clean like LF and Euron, while the faceless assassins, the Others, get their hands dirty!

That is the description of Ser Ilyn Payne, which is like an Other : tall, gaunt, silent and whom voice is cracking. But in this case, the Other is Justice. 

Very interesting because that shows the Other as an executioner, and matches with what Coldhands says to Bran "your monster, Brandon Stark". 

At the beginning, I used to see the Others as shadows like Melisandre's shadows, who were created very long before, for some crime (a kin- and kingslaying), and never disappeared. After, I changed a bit my mind, looking for who "they" (I don't eliminate the possibility that there is only one Other, who is a kind of spirit/mist, which can have different form : in the prologue, when the Others strike Waymar, they all strike in the same movement, and they look all as if they were the same) were before being Other, imagining "they" could be the soul of the murdered brother. Now,.. now... 

 

Did someone studied yet parallelisms between the Unsullied and the Others ? They have no name, they are totally loyal and obedient to their master, they are merciless and without empathy (the ultimate step of their training is to kill a baby in the mother's arms), in one word, they are trained to loose their humanity to become kind of robot-executioners. And when Daenerys take them the first time, they obey to one word - her word - like dragons do, and they kill the slavers of Astapor. 

 

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16 hours ago, Unchained said:

I wanted to respond to your response to me on the poetry thread.  I am  doing it here becasue it goes into a tangent that involves mocking.  Its funny to me that you have associated me with self-deprecating.  Not because I don't do it, I constantly do.  In fact I pulled a nice one at work today after angering the god of the quality dept with a very real mistake.  He emerged from his cloud to throw lightening bolts of killing words as he is known to do but...

 

I know a third – if I should need – to fetter any foe; – it blunts the edge – of my enemy’s sword, – neither wiles nor weapons work.

:rofl:  :whip:

Ha ha ha, Unchained -- brilliant application of the 'Ljothatal' to the challenges of the quotidian!

Although I've mentioned before that the 'killing word' is not only for killing -- as Paul Atreides says, 'will it be a healing word as well?' -- I had never until now, that you mention it, realised how many of the charms listed in the 'Havamal' are concerned with healing, defusing, soothing, quelling, deflecting, disarming, reconciliating, 'and 'returning curse to sender,' etc.; in general, deft diplomacy.  Let's call it 'killing with kindness'!  Paradoxically, as I've mentioned elsewhere, the only way to combat one 'killing word' is with another; just as the only way to combat a poison is with another, which we call the antidote.  And you, my friend (are we friends?  It's easy to get lost in all the layers of the counter-mocking...) have perfected the antidote! :P

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I got him talking about some handbook no one knew existed and how it was understandable I hadn't read it.  

Yes, of course you did...(and I wholeheartedly agree that it's eminently understandable that you haven't read that handbook because you're far too busy re-reading ASOIAF with some Hancock and sweetsunray thrown in...) :lol:

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Anyway, I think George also appreciates this tactic's ability to turn foes into fast friends, don't you?  

Indeed!  ;) 

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You forced me into this rant with a couple comments about it.  

I 'forced you into a rant'...?  LOL  I know I've been accused of over-using the whip emoji, and my ravenous direwolf's teeth are sharp, my raven's beak savage -- but still I am a honey at heart... and let's not forget that you are the one who is 'unchained' and on the loose, despite your seemingly contained demeanor; I surmise no one 'forces' you to do or say a thing!

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First you said self-deprecation "melted" you then you referred to same type of thing as a "burn".  I think this is exactly what GRRM thinks as well.  

I think I said you 'cracked my ice' -- but yes, indeed, we can say you 'melted my resistance', 'burnt my tokar,' ha ha.  I'm surrounded by dragons -- :o -- we'll call you 'Rhaegal Unchained'...he's the one no one sees coming...  And you have more than paid me back for 'mocking your adoration' of LmL on our initial acquaintance!  ;)  I love the application to ASOIAF.  You are wildly imaginative and, as always, 'on the money' with your perceptive analysis.  I mean that sincerely. :)

GloubieBoulga sent me the following quote today, which as it so happens is very apropos to the current discussion and theme of this thread.  She mentioned it in the context of 'words are wind', which she cleverly connected to 'dragon's breath', so the blast issuing from a dragon's mouth can be likened to 'killing words' -- from, say, a dragon like Tyrion:

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A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion V

"In gold or cheese?" quipped Tyrion.

Griff rounded on him. "Unless you can cut this fog with your next witticism, keep it to yourself."

Yes, Father, the dwarf almost said. I'll be quiet. Thank you. He did not know these Volantenes, yet it seemed to him that elephants and tigers might have good reason to make common cause when faced with dragons. Might be the cheesemonger has misjudged the situation. You can buy a man with gold, but only blood and steel will keep him true.

 

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Brienne has an icy shell of armor of sorts, she is one of the devil's icy moon maidens.  

B)

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Jaime fails to penetrate it despite his best efforts with stabbing words and sexy swordplay thrusts, both of which he is very talented with.  However, once humbled who becomes his new best friend?  I think it is safe to say his vulnerability melted her icy armor.  

Great point.  His vulnerability, which put him in need of rescuing, allowed her to be the knight she always wanted to be; reciprocally, the fragility of her naive, yet unflagging strength of purpose allowed him to cut the bullshit and finally open himself to the possibility of being forgiven, and perhaps even being loved (although he doesn't know this yet), which is all Jaime has ever really wanted.  They are quite a pair -- Ser Galladon, the Wench; and her Just Maid, the Kingslayer.

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A Storm of Swords - Jaime V

"The knights of the Kingsguard are sworn to keep the king's secrets. Would you have me break my oath?" Jaime laughed. "Do you think the noble Lord of Winterfell wanted to hear my feeble explanations? Such an honorable man. He only had to look at me to judge me guilty." Jaime lurched to his feet, the water running cold down his chest. "By what right does the wolf judge the lion? By what right?" A violent shiver took him, and he smashed his stump against the rim of the tub as he tried to climb out.

Pain shuddered through him . . . and suddenly the bathhouse was spinning. Brienne caught him before he could fall. Her arm was all gooseflesh, clammy and chilled, but she was strong, and gentler than he would have thought. Gentler than Cersei, he thought as she helped him from the tub, his legs wobbly as a limp cock. "Guards!" he heard the wench shout. "The Kingslayer!"

Jaime, he thought, my name is Jaime.

 

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As a giant, it is safe to wonder if she could be a symbolic dragon and she was stolen from Cat.  Just saying.  

Brienne as stolen dromond!  Jaime as dragontamer!  I agree; Brienne's allegiance has shifted and it's not going to go well for Lady Stoneheart, given that in the interim Brienne's heart has melted and now belongs to another...Oh, 'the things she'll do for love'!

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To connect it to this thread and the prologue, The Other shows up with his mocking icy voice and reflective armor.  It overwhelms the pompous lordling, just like 2-handed Jaime, just like it fails to do to one-handed Jaime.  The Other so easily wins the fight that he does it lazily.  It reminds me of another icy giant who defeats its foolish northern enemy easily and casually.

 

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When at last he reached the bottom, a narrow, muddy trail along the water's edge, Littlefinger was lazing against a rock and eating an apple. He was almost down to the core. "You are growing old and slow, Stark," he said, flipping the apple casually into the rushing water. "No matter, we ride the rest of the way." He had two horses waiting. Ned mounted up and trotted behind him, down the trail and into the city.

Great connection of Littlefinger to the Other via 'lazy parry' -- Bravo, Unchained (where is the clapping emoji...I'm not going to bow down to you, but hearty applause is warranted here)!!!

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Littlefinger then gets his armor melted by Sansa in the snow castle.   After which he becomes something closer to an ally.  

And to think Littlefinger mocked her father for 'melting' so easily...'what goes around comes around', sometimes 'trans-generationally', which is an idea GRRM seems keen on:

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard VIII

"Do you always find murder so amusing, Lord Baelish?"

"It's not murder I find amusing, Lord Stark, it's you. You rule like a man dancing on rotten ice. I daresay you will make a noble splash. I believe I heard the first crack this morning."

"The first and last," said Ned. "I've had my fill."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

Littlefinger ignored the jibe. He eyed Ned with a smile on his lips that bordered on insolence. "I have hoped to meet you for some years, Lord Stark. No doubt Lady Catelyn has mentioned me to you."

"She has," Ned replied with a chill in his voice. The sly arrogance of the comment rankled him. "I understand you knew my brother Brandon as well."

Renly Baratheon laughed. Varys shuffled over to listen.

"Rather too well," Littlefinger said. "I still carry a token of his esteem. Did Brandon speak of me too?"

"Often, and with some heat," Ned said, hoping that would end it. He had no patience with this game they played, this dueling with words.

"I should have thought that heat ill suits you Starks," Littlefinger said. "Here in the south, they say you are all made of ice, and melt when you ride below the Neck."

"I do not plan on melting soon, Lord Baelish. You may count on it." Ned moved to the council table and said, "Maester Pycelle, I trust you are well."

Additionally, isn't it marvellous that Sansa, despite being of Winterfell (or maybe because of that) is able to fell Winter by melting it -- more evidence of winter's fiery heart!

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The Other in the prologue easily defeats the pompous lording, but when he faces the most self-deprecating person in the story, the self styled craven Sam, the Other and his reflective armor literally melted.  Being humble is a bonus in this universe.  

It would seem.  But is it true humility, or just feigned?  Tyrion, for example, gets away with a lot of pompous overreaching due to his unassuming packaging in a dwarf's body together with his affected droll persona -- posing as a fool, in other words.  By rewarding characters such as Littlefinger or Tyrion (by allowing them to survive and thrive), is GRRM implicitly condoning such behavior, even admiring or encouraging a certain slick manipulation of others?  The thing is, neither Aemon nor Ghost was fooled by the 'fool's act'; they knew exactly who Tyrion is!  

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"Let me give you some counsel, bastard," Lannister said. "Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you." 

 

Jon later dreams of himself in black, icy bastard armor.  Other people would benefit from this advice.  

Great point.  I think it also signifies his 'ice dragon' status.  In the Prologue, having been ambushed by Will's 'daggers in the dark' (translated as the 'rain of needles' as I discussed above), and taken by the cold, yet resurrected -- as I expect Jon to be -- wighted Waymar is a kind of 'ice dragon,' a bit like this one perhaps...

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

Just north of Mole's Town they came upon the third watcher, carved into the huge oak that marked the village perimeter, its deep eyes fixed upon the kingsroad. That is not a friendly face, Jon Snow reflected. The faces that the First Men and the children of the forest had carved into the weirwoods in eons past had stern or savage visages more oft than not, but the great oak looked especially angry, as if it were about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after them. Its wounds are as fresh as the wounds of the men who carved it.

The first was the drunken ash on the hill, who climbed on high and cut off his nose to spite his own face (Will); the second the stoic chestnut bridgekeeper 'skeletal and leafless' (Gared); and the third the resurrected vengeful oak (Waymar).  Note the correspondence of the wounds carved into the tree (representative of the mocking) to the wounds of the ones who carved it (hinting at the counter-mocking), with the implication that the tree is seeking revenge on those who wounded it -- analogously, Waymar covered in 'sticky sap' sought revenge on Will whom he held responsible for inflicting the damage, as evidenced symbolically by the telltale 'sticky sap' Will likewise got on his hands and face, when he is in the tree saying the 'killing words'!

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"A modest lordling."
"Only a fool humbles himself when the world is so full of men eager to do that job for him." He kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck.

 

 

This is Asha, a thin mermaid, and Theon while she is in the process of humbling him for him.  

This is the paradox right here.  Frequently, someone who is secretly arrogant -- the 'trickster' -- humbles another, incurring the righteous indignation of the 'dupe'!  This is what transpired in the Prologue, when Will cut the impudent lordling down to size, only to however invoke the wrath of the one humbled.  Sometimes humbling feels like humiliation.

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Theon failed to humble and armor himself like a clever fool just like Walder Frey who is fed humble pie by a much fatter mermaid.

Perfect -- 'feeding and eating humble pie'...love the metaphor!  Great catch of Manderly as 'fatter mermaid'.  And, now that you've brought up 'mermaids' as tricksters, I can't resist asking your opinion as to how we ought to interpret the following:

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

"In time," Cressen replied. "If the gods are good, they will grant us a warm autumn and bountiful harvests, so we might prepare for the winter to come." The smallfolk said that a long summer meant an even longer winter, but the maester saw no reason to frighten the child with such tales.

Patchface rang his bells. "It is always summer under the sea," he intoned. "The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

Shireen giggled. "I should like a gown of silver seaweed."

Who are these 'merwives'?

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 It is better sacrifice one's self to one's self than to let someone else take you down.  

Like Odin!

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Although there is a downside for mermaids who humble.  

 

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Rain was falling by the time he reached the swaying bridge out to the Sea Tower. His stomach was crashing and churning like the waves below, and wine had unsteadied his feet. Theon gritted his teeth and gripped the rope tightly as he made his way across, pretending that it was Asha's neck he was clutching.  

 

This reminds of Cersei's little brother prophecy squeezing her neck.  

Unchained, you are really on fire here with your profound insights!  I should also reiterate how significant it is that the revenge on the mocker envisioned by those who are mocked is often strangulation -- since it serves symbolically to extinguish the 'killing words' at their source ('voice box', throat, tongue, lungs, etc.).  Of course, the real site of origin is in the cerebral cortex (check out the homunculus demonstrating the disproportionate area dedicated to the lips, mouth, tongue and larynx, as well as our grasping hands), so perhaps strangling someone, being akin to decapitation, ultimately betrays an urge to target the brain of the one who has used it to send 'dark wings, dark words'!  Neuroanatomy aside, for poetic purposes let's agree that to extinguish the offending word, one must extinguish the breath -- because 'words are wind'.

I'm also reminded of Symon's (Silver Tongue) ditty which Tyrion swore he'd never want to hear again, even going so far as to have the singer killed by his hitman Bronn in order to silence him; yet, ironically, even following his death, Tyrion nevertheless can't stop singing the song, almost as if the singer is 'counter-mocking' him from beyond the grave (a bit like Marillion's persistent nightsong in the Eyrie).  One might say Tyrion has been cursed by the singer as the 'killing words' follow Tryion around, taking on an ominous significance when he ends up killing Shae with the golden hands of the chain of the Hand.  Again, murdering Shae by strangulation was in retaliation for her treacherous words, for giving false testimony at Tyrion's trial.

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He rode through the streets of the city,

down from his hill on high,

O'er the wynds and the steps and the cobbles,

he rode to a woman's sigh.

For she was his secret treasure,

she was his shame and his bliss.

And a chain and a keep are nothing,

compared to a woman's kiss

Refrain:

For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman's hands are warm...

This song -- Tyrion's song (as Symon told him, 'every man has his song') -- bears a striking resemblance to, or at least undeniable echo to my ear of, that childhood idiom, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me..,'  which though delivered to a bully with bravado is of course not true.  Words are the principal means by which the world is structured, and people do get hurt because of them, often bringing their own comeuppance upon themselves via words which are too casually delivered (the 'lazy parry').  

This is the true meaning of 'words are wind' -- our word (and particularly breaking our word) has consequences.  Words matter; in fact, they are matter, in the sense of materializing in the world, often fatally, as someone as adept at duelling and trading in them, such as Littlefinger, has more than proved.

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From wikipedia:

"Sticks and Stones" is an English language children's rhyme. The rhyme persuades the child victim of name-calling to ignore the taunt, to refrain from physical retaliation, and to remain calm and good-natured.

First appearance[edit]

It is reported[1] to have appeared in The Christian Recorder of March 1862, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where it is presented as an "old adage" in this form:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.

The phrase also appeared in 1872, where it is presented as advice in Tappy's Chicks: and Other Links Between Nature and Human Nature, by Mrs. George Cupples.[2] The version used in that work runs:

Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names will never harm me.

Also throughout the web there are different essays about why each statement is true or false.

Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names will never down you

This version was featured in The Who's 1981 song, The Quiet One, in which the vocals were performed by bassist, John Entwistle, where he mentioned this term from another source he picked up and sang this term twice where he changed "your" from the first set to "my" in the second set.

 

 

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She is another who needs to be humbled.  When she sends a raven to Tywin to ask the gods for help or whatever, she expects him as a true savior.  What she gets is Tyrion in all his mocking glory.  He mocks with talent and is armored with humility.  

If I haven't commended you before on this, let me say how much I like this insight of yours.

P.S.  In light of your more personal observations above, should I conclude that you are comparing me to Cersei and yourself to Tyrion ('he mocks with talent and is armored in humility'), he he...?  (Goodness -- there's no end to your bottomless desire for (counter-)mocking...first it was Melisandre, now Cersei! :D)

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Anyway, he is the savior she needs and does save the city.  However after, he claimes his price from her perspective when he takes her child just like Jorah does to Dany after he saves her at the tent of Joy (obviously the Other in the prologue is another).  Mocking and taking souls after doing what they are asked, the summoned saviors seem like a combination of a friendly Aladdin style genie and the sort that takes children and souls after granting wishes.  That is basically what a grumkin is and

Have you seen the discussion we had with Tijgy who introduced the 'Water Goblin' myth on the poetry thread?  As you point out, there seems to be a price (an accompanying bane) for every boon granted.

Do you think we might be daredevils and stray outside the canon -- shock, horror, gasp -- and extrapolate this pattern you've identified of a child as payment to what may have taken place in the tower of joy?  In return for being rescued from the 'underworld', Lyanna had to give up her child Jon to someone (Ned, who then suppressed his true identity, symbolically killing the child...or another?)...?  I actually think 'the prince who was promised' has the connotation of a promissory note, i.e. a child who has been promised as surety to someone on account of some historical transgression (a bit like the practice of keeping a ward as hostage, e.g. Theon in relation to the Starks).

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"Why did he attack me?" Tyrion asked with a sidelong glance at the direwolf. He wiped blood and dirt from his mouth with the back of his hand.
 

[because, Tyrion, you opened your mouth...and 'woke the dragon'!]

 

"Maybe he thought you were a grumkin."
Tyrion glanced at him sharply. Then he laughed, a raw snort of amusement that came bursting out through his nose entirely without his permission. "Oh, gods," he said, choking on his laughter and shaking his head, "I suppose I do rather look like a grumkin. What does he do to snarks?"

       

 

 

I am looking forward to learning what he does to snarks.

Ooh, don't keep me in suspense!  What is your hypothesis as to 'snarks' and 'counter-snarking'..?!  :P

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 I have a follow up that is short and tinfoily for tomorow.              

Well, 'tomorrow' is now 'today' -- so I am looking forward to the follow-up!  

Thanks for all the great insights so far -- and most of all for your good humor.  Notice that Tyrion laughs when he's caught out (although there was a second there when he was thinking of something 'sharp' instead) -- that's his saving grace, and ours too.  To use Gloubie's excellent pun, the laughter defuses the slaughter, on the provision we laugh with each other in humility and compassion, and not at each other in derision.  Laughter like any killing word can go either way -- it can pierce; it can soften; it can crack; it can melt...Whether one hurts or heals all depends on the use to which it is put.  It's the same for greenseeing.  And sometimes, there's no laughter nor slaughter at all, only the silence at the far side of wit; and sometimes this silence is even more eloquent than the word itself:

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A Storm of Swords - Jaime VI

"Ser Jaime?" Even in soiled pink satin and torn lace, Brienne looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman. "I am grateful, but . . . you were well away. Why come back?"

A dozen quips came to mind, each crueler than the one before, but Jaime only shrugged. "I dreamed of you," he said.

 

 

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On 5/12/2017 at 0:53 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Cotter also calls Mallister a preening eagle on top of the Shadow Tower. And he makes a joke about buggering Ser Denys with a red hot sword. A man that has the name of a spear from a culture that is extremely associated with a the burning brand coming from the sea and talks about buggering him in the backdoor and Ser Denys being an eagle sounds like the issues between Cotter and Denys should end in Orelle's burning eagle

LOL, Jane!  You are determined to lead us down that scatalogical avenue (which admittedly, I did introduce...) and into the cesspool of the 'bloody blue', it would seem...  :o   You think the 'back door' aspect of the 'issues between Cotter and Denys' has some symbolic significance, in light of what I posited about the weirwood's 'front' and 'back' doors, the latter being used to 'excrete' the Others?

A quick summary for those who may be reading this thread for the first time, rolling their eyes as to what our minds are on about:  In a nutshell, I think there may be a link between the 'back door' of a weirwood and the creation of the Others.   Using a roughly physiological metaphor in order to demonstrate what I am getting at, the creation of the 'black shadows' proceeds via the same way the 'toxin' came in, namely via the 'front door' -- orally or vaginally in the analogy -- so the discharge of the 'black shadows' can be characterized as giving birth, vomiting or breathing shadow fire.  An example of this kind of shadow would be the dark shadow assassin -- the 'shadow baby' -- birthed by Melisandre after impregnation with Stannis's toxic emotions of envy and resentment, etc., and accompanying malignant impulses, towards his own brother, culminating in the perfidious fratricide by proxy.  

In contrast, the other (and 'Other') route I've been describing would be the creation of the 'white shadows' which does not proceed via the same way the 'toxic agent' came in, but rather through a 'back door' -- anally (or via abdominal/pelvic C-section) in the analogy  -- so the excretion of the 'white shadows' can be characterized as defecation, or even 'virgin birth,'  bypassing the vagina in the Macbethian sense 'not of woman born'.  (@hiemal, this may be the elusive 'grail' you were looking for, LOL; though yes, it is irretrievably corrupted, since it's been penned not by a medieval author but a post-modern one, who with his readers lives in a broken world...  @GloubieBoulga's remark above surrounding the similarities between the robotic, almost inhuman 'Unsullied' and the 'Others' gave me the idea!).  'Unsullied' here has a double meaning; firstly, the obvious meaning of  boys who have suffered castration and penectomy, extinguishing their sexuality, rendering them effectively lifelong virgins; as well as the connotation of having been stripped of all their human ties, affections, and individual identities (e.g. in the dehumanizing way they are repeatedly given new names of various vermin, and how even these names are recycled to prevent the boys from becoming attached to them), rendering them essentially 'nameless,' 'faceless,' and indeed 'motherless' creations.

It's not at all surprising that GRRM pairs 'white' and 'unsullied' soldiers such as the 'Others' with a passage usually associated with the darkness of corruption, since subverting the assumptions of the reader in this way is one of his favorite pastimes.  If I had to do a thorough exposition on how 'white' comes from 'black', and vice versa; we would be here all day with our heads aspinning in the piebald kaleidoscope of GRRM's 'subversions' (the author's facility with impartially switching 'black' and 'white' may even stem from his passion for playing chess, a game in which the outcome may be equally ruthless, regardless of the color of the pieces with which one is playing)!  

Supporting this counterintuitive idea of the 'back door' birth, to put it euphemistically, there are a number of instances in the text where figures having typical 'Other' symbolism emerge from sewers, middens, privies, etc.  It's important to note that whereas 'black swords' and the like are often dipped into or plunged into pools from a height as @LmL has described for example in the case of the putative falling black moon meteors; I however am talking about the reverse direction, namely in which 'white swords,' 'white ladies' and the like burst up out of pools from the bottomless depths -- in other words, from the 'bowels' of the earth or its related 'cesspool'.

Relating this back to the 'killing word' theme of this thread, I should also add that although I have primarily associated the 'front door' of the weirwood with its mouth -- as represented by the faces, particularly the bloody mouths, carved into the weirwood -- the 'back door' can also be thought of as a kind of mouth, not for eating but in the speaking sense.  When people are described as 'foul-mouthed,' the implication is they are figuratively 'speaking shit' or 'talking out of their arse' -- words are wind; and some people use their linguistic faculty in order to fart on others (e.g. Petyr Baelish who is rightly seen and described by Tyrion as someone whose pathological lying is compared to 'shitting in the woods', and who in 'eating mud pies' as a youth can be said to have a longstanding relationship with 'shit in his mouth').  Likewise, in the OP I've argued that Will's 'whispered prayer to the nameless gods' constituted a curse on his own brother, a 'poisonous vapour' of sorts which materialized as the summoned demonic Others.  Will, therefore, with his curses muttered under his breath was figuratively 'foul-mouthed', which is graphically demonstrated by the dagger he holds clenched in his mouth just before he utters the treacherous 'prayer', an assassin's prayer.  Otherwise stated, Will's 'dark words' were carried on 'dark wings' -- and materialized 'at the other end' as the white 'snow knights', the Others.  

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A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Joffrey slashed at Arya with his sword, screaming obscenities, terrible words, filthy words. Arya darted back, frightened now, but Joffrey followed, hounding her toward the woods, backing her up against a tree. Sansa didn't know what to do. She watched helplessly, almost blind from her tears.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Tyrion IV

Just for a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes, but what she said was, "Why would Petyr lie to me?"

"Why does a bear shit in the woods?" he demanded. "Because it is his nature. Lying comes as easily as breathing to a man like Littlefinger. You ought to know that, you of all people."

She took a step toward him, her face tight. "And what does that mean, Lannister?"

 

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A Feast for Crows - Cersei V

"Would that there were more like you, good ser. I tell you truly, I have grave doubts about Ser Bronn of the Blackwater."

Husband and wife exchanged a look. "The man is insolent, Your Grace," Falyse said. "Uncouth and foul-mouthed."

"He is no true knight," Ser Balman said.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Jon IV

"How did he come here?" Sam asked.

"Lord Rowan of Goldengrove found him in bed with his daughter. The girl was two years older, and Dareon swears she helped him through her window, but under her father's eye she named it rape, so here he is. When Maester Aemon heard him sing, he said his voice was honey poured over thunder." Jon smiled. "Toad sometimes sings too, if you call it singing. Drinking songs he learned in his father's winesink. Pyp says his voice is piss poured over a fart." They laughed at that together.

 

@Unchained for example has had some interesting ideas in support of this unusual hypothesis, which is undoubtedly unsavoury to many, yet nevertheless is borne out symbolically by the text in a number of ways.  Notably, he points out that the way Tywin was killed, by a shot to the bowels, effectively released those poisonous bowels, and with them Tyrion -- who I believe can be interpreted as an 'Other' figure, or as he self-identifies as a 'ghost' or 'revenant'.  In order to escape King's Landing, Varys had also planned a route for Tyrion via the sewers, underscoring the symbolism.

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@Unchained said:  I saw your ideas about the Others being a secretion from the WWnet due to poison and the front door/back door analysis.  Drogo's wound pus is showing us this, I think.  More uncomfortably, I am a believer in Tywin being poisoned before his death.  If he was, then his being killed by his "son" releases his bowels.  Tywin does not shit gold, he symbolically shits Others out the back door after being poisoned.  Arya escapes out the back door when her NW party is killed, showing a pretty clear allusion to escaping from a burning tree.

I have also seen both of you talk about weirwood treed purifying the enviroment, but not using the ACoK prologue.  That one can be read as an allegory as well to an extent.  Davos is AA unknowingly.  Cressen the dupe.  Melissandre is the prize I think.  Davos unwittingly gets Cressen to drink from his poison cup, just like Euron does to Vic when Euron offers Vic a drink of shade and Vic takes Euron's cup appearently fearing poison.  Anyway, Davos is the trickster AA.  Cressen in his antlered hat is the Garth tricked into throwing the fiery comet spear per @Crowfood's Daughter's work.  Mel is the weirwood tree that soaks up the poison and is immune.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion XI

The corridor was so poorly lit that Tyrion almost stumbled on the turnkey, sprawled across the cold stone floor. He prodded him with a toe. "Is he dead?"

"Asleep. The other three as well. The eunuch dosed their wine with sweetsleep, but not enough to kill them. Or so he swears. He is waiting back at the stair, dressed up in a septon's robe. You're going down into the sewers, and from there to the river. A galley is waiting in the bay. Varys has agents in the Free Cities who will see that you do not lack for funds . . . but try not to be conspicuous. Cersei will send men after you, I have no doubt. You might do well to take another name."

"Another name? Oh, certainly. And when the Faceless Men come to kill me, I'll say, 'No, you have the wrong man, I'm a different dwarf with a hideous facial scar.'" Both Lannisters laughed at the absurdity of it all. Then Jaime went to one knee and kissed him quickly once on each cheek, his lips brushing against the puckered ribbon of scar tissue.

So, Tyrion is instructed to become 'nameless' -- like the 'nameless gods of the wood', or 'Others'!

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A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion V

The sudden cold hit Tyrion like a hammer.

Symbolically, this represents the creation of an Other (like in Varamyr's Prologue).

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As he sank he felt a stone hand fumbling at his face. Another closed around his arm, dragging him down into darkness. Blind, his nose full of river, choking, sinking, he kicked and twisted and fought to pry the clutching fingers off his arm, but the stone fingers were unyielding. Air bubbled from his lips. The world was black and growing blacker. He could not breathe.

He's in the 'cold black pool' now.

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There are worse ways to die than drowning. And if truth be told, he had perished long ago, back in King's Landing. It was only his revenant who remained, the small vengeful ghost who throttled Shae and put a crossbow bolt through the great Lord Tywin's bowels. No man would mourn the thing that he'd become. I'll haunt the Seven Kingdoms, he thought, sinking deeper. They would not love me living, so let them dread me dead.

When he opened his mouth to curse them all, black water filled his lungs, and the dark closed in around him.

And when people are pulled back up and resuscitated following a near-drowning episode, they resemble Others, e.g. Patchface:

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

The boy washed up on the third day. Maester Cressen had come down with the rest, to help put names to the dead. When they found the fool he was naked, his skin white and wrinkled and powdered with wet sand. Cressen had thought him another corpse, but when Jommy grabbed his ankles to drag him off to the burial wagon, the boy coughed water and sat up. To his dying day, Jommy had sworn that Patchface's flesh was clammy cold.

No one ever explained those two days the fool had been lost in the sea. The fisherfolk liked to say a mermaid had taught him to breathe water in return for his seed. Patchface himself had said nothing. The witty, clever lad that Lord Steffon had written of never reached Storm's End; the boy they found was someone else, broken in body and mind, hardly capable of speech, much less of wit. Yet his fool's face left no doubt of who he was. It was the fashion in the Free City of Volantis to tattoo the faces of slaves and servants; from neck to scalp the boy's skin had been patterned in squares of red and green motley.

"The wretch is mad, and in pain, and no use to anyone, least of all himself," declared old Ser Harbert, the castellan of Storm's End in those years. "The kindest thing you could do for that one is fill his cup with the milk of the poppy. A painless sleep, and there's an end to it. He'd bless you if he had the wit for it." But Cressen had refused, and in the end he had won. Whether Patchface had gotten any joy of that victory he could not say, not even today, so many years later.

"The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord," the fool sang on, swinging his head and making his bells clang and clatter. Bong dong, ring-a-ling, bong dong.

Patchface is heralding the white rather than black shadows.

'Under the sea...the crows are white as snow...I know, I know, oh, oh, oh'.

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I don't think it is a coincidence either. I think the purple of the Mallister colors is supposed to be the blue in the Arryn sigil and the silver is the cream and the eagle is the falcon. And their words are super close as well; "Above the Rest" and "As High As Honor".  

Since I am on the colors thing, Daario is a good Blue Falcon, Jorah even says "his bread wears false colors," while on one level, that means that the hair dye in his bread and hair makes them false but as his bread was blue at that moment, then on another level we can safely say that blue is meant to be a color that denotes falseness. And the second time Dany talks to Daario, he has purple in his hair that makes his eyes almost purple and is a direct reference to Aegon VI but can also be taken as a reference to the this Mallister/Arryn association theory. 

Another thing which came up in a conversation with @Jon Ice-Eyes and @Darry Man is that 'purple,' 'blue',  'silver', and 'white' are all associated with being struck by lightning, or more specifically 'burning ice'.  Applied to the Prologue, we can see a parallel between the bickering Pyke vs. Mallister and the Other vs. Waymar respectively (or alternatively Gared vs. Waymar who are constantly bickering in the Prologue); with Sam/Will as the unseen player -- the 'weasely' one.  The analogy works rather well in terms of what you said firstly about the concordance symbolically of an eagle and falcon (Waymar comes from the Vale and represents the Eyrie, which can semantically-speaking designate any raptor's nest, including eagle and falcon); and then secondly about the eagle set on fire which would correspond with Waymar being struck by the Other's lightning rod (=the pale sword of the Other alive with light).  I suppose we could also say he was ambushed by his blue falcon brother (Will), who is not a falcon at all but just masquerading as his ally -- so figuratively-speaking he was 'stabbed in the back' or 'taken in the rear'...oh dear...

Likewise, applying the analogy to Robert's Rebellion and Littlefinger's potential meddling input, Littlefinger (the weasel) sets the Targaryens (Pyke/Other)  and Starks (Mallister/Royce) against each other, with the aim of shafting the Starks, who ultimately like lightning-struck Waymar or the burning eagle got burnt in the exchange, both figuratively and literally, with Aerys's 'roasting' of Lord Rickard -- which additionally has the connotation of someone having been skewered down the middle like a kebab.

On 5/9/2017 at 8:08 PM, PrettyPig said:

Why thank you!   I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I love the extrapolation to the Prologue as well.

 

I have so much to say about these observations I'm tripping over myself, but it's going full crackpot w/r/t Littlefinger  and his personas/masks and I don't want to derail.  As I mentioned in Heresy, though, the mockingbird (in real life) has another interesting habit besides mimicry:

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Some types of mockingbirds are known to lay "alien eggs", or eggs that are laid in another bird's nest. Similar to the cowbird, the mockingbirds' offspring will force the other nest inhabitants from the nest, taking all the food from the parents and forcing the foster-parents to rear and fledge them.

 

 This "mocking" behavior ties into my Major Tinfoil™ regarding Baelish himself and his origins - if I am on the right track, Littlefinger's facelessness and his becoming "no one" go all the way back to his birth...and it has nothing to do with Braavos.

PrettyPig, I would love to hear more about Baelish and his real origins!  As you can see from my 'treatise' above, I together with some of my more intrepid forum users are not afraid of discussing 'arseholes' at length (among whom we may readily classify Belish), nor is 'derailing' my chief concern here...:)

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16 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

LOL, Jane!  You are determined to lead us down that scatalogical avenue (which admittedly, I did introduce...) and into the cesspool of the 'bloody blue', it would seem...  :o   You think the 'back door' aspect of the 'issues between Cotter and Denys' has some symbolic significance, in light of what I posited about the weirwood's 'front' and 'back' doors, the latter being used to 'excrete' the Others?

Absolutely I am. I fully accept your premise of the others being backdoor shadows. 

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The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers. It was here the ravens came, after long flight. Their droppings speckled the gargoyles that rose twelve feet tall on either side of him, a hellhound and a wyvern, two of the thousand that brooded over the walls of the ancient fortress. 

-Prologue, aCoK

"The brotherhood without banners." Tom Sevenstrings plucked a string. "The knights of the hollow hill."

"Knights?" Clegane made the word a sneer. "Dondarrion's a knight, but the rest of you are the sorriest lot of outlaws and broken men I've ever seen. I shit better men than you." [And the Hound was a Knight of the Kingsguard with a white cloak but had Grey armor.......rather like the Stark sigil] He is even said to be a shadow as well in a Tyrion quote in aCoK.

"Any knight can make a knight," said the scarecrow that was Beric Dondarrion, "and every man you see before you has felt a sword upon his shoulder. We are the forgotten fellowship."

-Arya VI, aSoS

"It's been snowing on your castle, my lady," he pointed out. "What do the gargoyles look like when they're covered with snow?"

Sansa closed her eyes to see them in memory. "They're just white lumps."

"Well, then. Gargoyles are hard, but white lumps should be easy." And they were.

-Sansa VII, aSoS

To command the snowy sentinels on the walls, the squires had erected a dozen snowy lords. One was plainly meant to be Lord Manderly; it was the fattest snowman that Theon had ever seen. The one-armed lord could only be Harwood Stout, the snow lady Barbrey Dustin. And the one closest to the door with the beard made of icicles had to be old Whoresbane Umber.

-The Turncloak, aDwD

Outside the snow still fell. The snowmen the squires had built had grown into monstrous giants, ten feet tall and hideously misshapen. 

-Theon I, aDwD

And what is interesting with these excreted knights is that they are anointed. Martin points out that through Sandor's speech on knights to Sansa is that knights are knights only because they can kill and which means that knights are anointed with holy oils and glory, as much as being anointed with blood, shit, piss, and mud. Martin wants to understand that an anointed holy person can be shitty. 

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On the killing word and nightingales:

It feels significant to me that so many of our bards are heard rather than seen (or at least heard before they are seen or heard seperately from being seen):

When Arya first meets Tom O' Sevens from behind a wall at a farmhouse.

When Tyrion hears Symeon Silver-tongue with Shae

Sansa listening to Marillion from the Sky Cells

The Blue Bard "singing" his story from the Black Cells

 

 

 

 

 

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51 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

I fully accept your premise of the others being backdoor shadows. 

You know, PK, I think it may actually be your premise, which I've only now articulated.  As I once said to you, in the poetry dedication, your 'pearls of wisdom gleam silently and slowly reveal themselves with time'!  It would seem, I've only now comprehended the full import of what you were already then implying.  :)

Talking of 'pearls,' this also goes back to the idea encapsulated in your unpacking of the 'God-on-Earth' riding around in the hollow pearl, symbolising as you were saying the anointing of the dirt, or the warding against and/or excretion of the irritant, which is the history of the formation of any pearl -- and by extension anything of value (e.g. a diamond, such as that found in the hilt of the 'sword of the morning,' at least the constellation, is produced from the lowly and ubiquitous carbon as a result of immense pressure etc. applied deep in the darkest depths of the bowels of the earth).

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The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers. It was here the ravens came, after long flight. Their droppings speckled the gargoyles that rose twelve feet tall on either side of him, a hellhound and a wyvern, two of the thousand that brooded over the walls of the ancient fortress. 

That's a good example both of the anointing function of droppings, and the connection of gargoyles to turds, as you later point out with Baelish teaching Sansa the fine art of 'polishing a turd' when they are constructing fairytale castles together (otherwise known as selling 'the Emperor's new clothes'!)

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-Prologue, aCoK

"The brotherhood without banners." Tom Sevenstrings plucked a string. "The knights of the hollow hill."

"Knights?" Clegane made the word a sneer. "Dondarrion's a knight, but the rest of you are the sorriest lot of outlaws and broken men I've ever seen. I shit better men than you." [And the Hound was a Knight of the Kingsguard with a white cloak but had Grey armor.......rather like the Stark sigil] He is even said to be a shadow as well in a Tyrion quote in aCoK.

"Any knight can make a knight," said the scarecrow that was Beric Dondarrion, "and every man you see before you has felt a sword upon his shoulder. We are the forgotten fellowship."

That's a great catch.

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-Arya VI, aSoS

"It's been snowing on your castle, my lady," he pointed out. "What do the gargoyles look like when they're covered with snow?"

Sansa closed her eyes to see them in memory. "They're just white lumps."

"Well, then. Gargoyles are hard, but white lumps should be easy." And they were.

Cementing the analogy, during this scene Littlefinger also 'squats' in the middle of the yard as if symbolically 'taking a dump' -- which is quite clever of the author since the location of the dump taken by Littlefinger is at once the Eyrie as well as the symbolic castle they are building together, Winterfell.  Moreover, there is a third more sinister interpretation, when taken in conjunction with his double entendre, 'Can I come into your castle, my lady?' which throughout the history of literature has come to signify a man trying to seduce a woman, frequently one who is prudish or a virgin (see the poem I posted by Andrew Marvell, 'To His Coy Mistress,' together with Blake's 'Poison Tree,' as an example of the trope).  Baelish is simultaneously requesting entry into her 'castle' (note he does not wait for her consent before proceeding to straddle it) while symbolically shitting in the middle of that selfsame castle.  From this we may conclude he is befouling Sansa's womb in some way -- again the poisoned grail motif @hiemal has also happened upon.

It's significant in light of your further quotes about the transformed 'snow knights' that Sansa's initial impulse had been to construct a snow ball to use against her enemies, or a snow knight to defend against those enemies, which ultimately transformed itself into Winterfell, which ironically her real enemy unbeknownst to her helped her build!  Thus, we have the snow knight or castle growing out of the foundation of Littlefinger 'shitting in the godswood' (the center of Winterfell is the godswood, or heart tree to be exact).  I'm positing that the cesspool involved is represented by none other than the 'cold, black, seemingly stagnant pool' at the foot of the weirwood.

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-Sansa VII, aSoS

To command the snowy sentinels on the walls, the squires had erected a dozen snowy lords. One was plainly meant to be Lord Manderly; it was the fattest snowman that Theon had ever seen. The one-armed lord could only be Harwood Stout, the snow lady Barbrey Dustin. And the one closest to the door with the beard made of icicles had to be old Whoresbane Umber.

-The Turncloak, aDwD

Outside the snow still fell. The snowmen the squires had built had grown into monstrous giants, ten feet tall and hideously misshapen. 

-Theon I, aDwD

And what is interesting with these excreted knights is that they are anointed. Martin points out that through Sandor's speech on knights to Sansa is that knights are knights only because they can kill and which means that knights are anointed with holy oils and glory, as much as being anointed with blood, shit, piss, and mud. Martin wants to understand that an anointed holy person can be shitty. 

Yes, indeed.  Well said.

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19 minutes ago, hiemal said:

On the killing word and nightingales:

It feels significant to me that so many of our bards are heard rather than seen (or at least heard before they are seen or heard seperately from being seen):

When Arya first meets Tom O' Sevens from behind a wall at a farmhouse.

When Tyrion hears Symeon Silver-tongue with Shae

Sansa listening to Marillion from the Sky Cells

The Blue Bard "singing" his story from the Black Cells

It makes sense when you consider that songs can be weapons in the dark, such as the Rains of Castamere striking people with fear.  

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