Holy Grails, Broken Vessles, and Wombs of Ice and Fire: Spitball and Tinfoil

[Pain killer Jane]

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

1a. There is no Holy Grail in Westeros for the same reason there are no virgin births;  although women are seen as weaker and are routinely subjugated they are not viewed as being spiritually inferior or cursed. There is no need to "compensate" for this in order to produce a hero so the cycle we see in ASoIaF is one of broken vessels- women who die delivering the hero as opposed to miracle virgins.

I would disagree in a sense. There are direct references to the madonna/whore dichotomy in the novels giving birth to heroes or representations of heroes. Ser Glendon Flowers, whose mother was a whore by profession, coupled with a Lightbringer character and produced a knight of trees. Accompanied with that is the selling of these women that are referenced as madonna, i.e. Dany is a good example, prized for whatever reference and then subsequently regulated as a whore. Tyrion's wife Tysha is an example, Cersei as the Queen o' Whores is another, Lyanna is a good example with theory that she willingly left with Rhaegar and people in the novels would call her a whore, Chett and Bessa. (Mind you it is the tagging of the whore moniker by others that frames some of these woman in the madonna/whore dichotomy.) 

 

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

The structure of the Seven compared to the Holy Trinity, for example- the closest I can find to Eve and the Apple is the Crone letting Ravens into the world. There doesn't seem to be any Original Sin, so no redemption, so no Holy Grail.

Ravens have dark wings and dark words. So she let dark words into the world. I tend think that the Crone gave rise to lies becoming the truth. There are quite a few references to moths being lies and then moths being trapped in lanterns and turning into lantern bugs. Through this I say that the Crone's lantern should be seen as lies turning into the burning truth. But in order to achieve that, a burning sword is needed. Thus the sin is compounded by the Maid giving Ser Galladon of Morn, the Just Maid. 

[Pain killer Jane]

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

1b. Also on the Seven, however, the Stranger is male and female- so maybe a sword could be a grail as well- and a sword made from a meteor would even better.

It is a grail. The association is this quote 

Quote

Arya had no more cups, but there was something better to throw. She drew the dagger they'd robbed off the dying archer and tried to fling it at the Tickler the way he'd done. It wasn't the same as throwing a rock or a crabapple, though. The knife wobbled, and hit him in the arm hilt first. He never even felt it

A dagger and a sword can be the same thing. And the fact that many times the phrase 'the taste of cold steel' is used to means to me that in order to taste the cold steel it needs to be served by the edge of a sword like a cup.  

[hiemal]

16 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

I would disagree in a sense. There are direct references to the madonna/whore dichotomy in the novels giving birth to heroes or representations of heroes. Ser Glendon Flowers, whose mother was a whore by profession, coupled with a Lightbringer character and produced a knight of trees. Accompanied with that is the selling of these women that are referenced as madonna, i.e. Dany is a good example, prized for whatever reference and then subsequently regulated as a whore. Tyrion's wife Tysha is an example, Cersei as the Queen o' Whores is another, Lyanna is a good example with theory that she willingly left with Rhaegar and people in the novels would call her a whore, Chett and Bessa. (Mind you it is the tagging of the whore moniker by others that frames some of these woman in the madonna/whore dichotomy.)

How about the Sailor's Wife and her serial virginity?

25 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Ravens have dark wings and dark words. So she let dark words into the world. I tend think that the Crone gave rise to lies becoming the truth. There are quite a few references to moths being lies and then moths being trapped in lanterns and turning into lantern bugs. Through this I say that the Crone's lantern should be seen as lies turning into the burning truth. But in order to achieve that, a burning sword is needed. Thus the sin is compounded by the Maid giving Ser Galladon of Morn, the Just Maid. 

Are you thinking of the scene where Cersei urges a moth to "Die already!" as it were? That had been fluttering around in my head as well. Burning truth- that makes a lot of sense.

13 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

It is a grail. The association is this quote 

A dagger and a sword can be the same thing. And the fact that many times the phrase 'the taste of cold steel' is used to means to me that in order to taste the cold steel it needs to be served by the edge of a sword like a cup.  

That seems about right.

[Pain killer Jane]

18 minutes ago, hiemal said:

How about the Sailor's Wife and her serial virginity?

Yes she is an example of the theme. The Sailor's Wife forever will be an allusion to the song 'Jolly Sailor Bold' to me and its original Irish version The Banks of Claudy. 

18 minutes ago, hiemal said:

Are you thinking of the scene where Cersei urges a moth to "Die already!" as it were? That had been fluttering around in my head as well. Burning truth- that makes a lot of sense.

Yes that is one of the scenes. Edit: She is acting like the moth fluttering is a tell-tale heart reminding her. And a burning heart was compared to a moth burning in a flame. (Dany's dream of Rheago.)

The lies being moths is given to us by Ned seeing Littlefinger speak them in his fevered nightmares in the black cells. There is also the reference of the lantern bugs/fireflies/lightning bugs also being torches in the Arya scene where Yoren is killed by Armory Lorch. 

[Pain killer Jane]

18 hours ago, hiemal said:

2. Sticking to the idea of male/female mergers: The Grail is now a horn. The Horn of Winter and Dragonbinder, maybe?

I would say so since Arya acting as a weasel steals a silver-banded drinking horn from a knight that didn't know how to read in order to pay his gambling debts to Weese, who also says he has his eye on her. 

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

It is a grail. The association is this quote 

Quote

Arya had no more cups, but there was something better to throw. She drew the dagger they'd robbed off the dying archer and tried to fling it at the Tickler the way he'd done. It wasn't the same as throwing a rock or a crabapple, though. The knife wobbled, and hit him in the arm hilt first. He never even felt it

A dagger and a sword can be the same thing. And the fact that many times the phrase 'the taste of cold steel' is used to means to me that in order to taste the cold steel it needs to be served by the edge of a sword like a cup.  

That's really cool!  It is reminiscent of the wordplay involved in the 'Dornishman's wife' song, in which the 'Dornishman's wife' is conflated with the 'Dornishman's knife'.  'Tasting the Dornishman's wife' thus has the double meaning of having had sexual knowledge of her, as well as having succumbed to the blade of her husband.  Likewise, being kissed by the wife is akin to being kissed by the knife.  The narrator of the song, however, claims that the cup though bittersweet was well worth it, comparing her to a 'peach' which is a metaphor for the sweet temptations of illicit sex, ambition, and murder, with the messy 'sticky juice' of the peach a metaphor for bloodshed and the moral stain that goes with it  (e.g. Renly daring Stannis to eat the peach).  Incidentally, 'fork and knife' or 'trouble and strife' is Cockney rhyming slang for 'wife'!  GRRM has used this technique before, e.g. the 'porky pies' = lies told by the Freys resulting in them receiving their corresponding poetic justice!

Quote

The Dornishman's wife was as fair as the sun,

and her kisses were warmer than spring.

But the Dornishman's blade was made of black steel,

and its kiss was a terrible thing.

The Dornishman's wife would sing as she bathed,

in a voice that was sweet as a peach,

But the Dornishman's blade had a song of its own,

and a bite sharp and cold as a leech.

As he lay on the ground with the darkness around,

and the taste of his blood on his tongue,

His brothers knelt by him and prayed him a prayer,

and he smiled and he laughed and he sung,

"Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done,

the Dornishman's taken my life,

But what does it matter, for all men must die,

and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife!"[1]

Another which springs to mind is Arya being initiated into the HOBAW by having to drink from the cup which tastes like biting into a lemon, a clever analogy simultaneously conveying the idea of the lemon biting her back -- since 'tart' flavors, like spicy ones tend to have a 'bite'!

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Watcher

The feast continued late into the night, presided over by the grinning skull on its pillar of black marble. Seven courses were served, in honor of the seven gods and the seven brothers of the Kingsguard. The soup was made with eggs and lemons, the long green peppers stuffed with cheese and onions. There were lamprey pies, capons glazed with honey, a whiskerfish from the bottom of the Greenblood that was so big it took four serving men to carry it to table. After that came a savory snake stew, chunks of seven different sorts of snake slow-simmered with dragon peppers and blood oranges and a dash of venom to give it a good bite. The stew was fiery hot, Hotah knew, though he tasted none of it. Sherbet followed, to cool the tongue. For the sweet, each guest was served a skull of spun sugar. When the crust was broken, they found sweet custard inside and bits of plum and cherry.

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

Still as stone, she thought. She sat unmoving. The cut was quick, the blade sharp. By rights the metal should have been cold against her flesh, but it felt warm instead. She could feel the blood washing down her face, a rippling red curtain falling across her brow and cheeks and chin, and she understood why the priest had made her close her eyes. When it reached her lips the taste was salt and copper. She licked at it and shivered.

"Bring me the face," said the kindly man. The waif made no answer, but she could hear her slippers whispering over the stone floor. To the girl he said, "Drink this," and pressed a cup into her hand. She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya.

 

36 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

I would say so since Arya acting as a weasel steals a silver-banded drinking horn from a knight that didn't know how to read in order to pay his gambling debts to Weese, who also says he has his eye on her. 

That's a good example of the cup as sword.  Another would be how Arya tricked Jaqen into giving her more than three death wishes.  Effectively, she turned him into a bottomless wishing well or horn of plenty.  In that scenario, Arya is the greenseer figure with Jaqen as Other proxy assassin -- or in other words, the silver drinking horn.  In keeping with the thesis of the grail as weirwood, Jaqen is weirwood color-coded and emerges from the trees.  Before Arya meets him, she'd just before, stimulated by seeing the bloodstained hand leaves of a weirwood been imagining climbing down off the tree to find her father sitting at the foot of the weirwood -- and then Jaqen appears following her prayer, just as the Other appears following Will's prayer in the Prologue.

[Pain killer Jane]

3 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Another which springs to mind is Arya being initiated into the HOBAW by having to drink from the cup which tastes like biting into a lemon, a clever analogy simultaneously conveying the idea of the lemon biting her back -- since 'tart' flavors, like spicy ones tend to have a 'bite'!

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Watcher

The feast continued late into the night, presided over by the grinning skull on its pillar of black marble. Seven courses were served, in honor of the seven gods and the seven brothers of the Kingsguard. The soup was made with eggs and lemons, the long green peppers stuffed with cheese and onions. There were lamprey pies, capons glazed with honey, a whiskerfish from the bottom of the Greenblood that was so big it took four serving men to carry it to table. After that came a savory snake stew, chunks of seven different sorts of snake slow-simmered with dragon peppers and blood oranges and a dash of venom to give it a good bite. The stew was fiery hot, Hotah knew, though he tasted none of it. Sherbet followed, to cool the tongue. For the sweet, each guest was served a skull of spun sugar. When the crust was broken, they found sweet custard inside and bits of plum and cherry.

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

Still as stone, she thought. She sat unmoving. The cut was quick, the blade sharp. By rights the metal should have been cold against her flesh, but it felt warm instead. She could feel the blood washing down her face, a rippling red curtain falling across her brow and cheeks and chin, and she understood why the priest had made her close her eyes. When it reached her lips the taste was salt and copper. She licked at it and shivered.

"Bring me the face," said the kindly man. The waif made no answer, but she could hear her slippers whispering over the stone floor. To the girl he said, "Drink this," and pressed a cup into her hand. She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya.

Beautiful catch on the food biting back. It feeds into my theory that GRRM inverts the roles of predator and prey such as Robert a predator is a Stag and is killed by a boar, a prey animal. 

8 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Incidentally, 'fork and knife' or 'trouble and strife' is Cockney rhyming slang for 'wife'!  GRRM has used this technique before, e.g. the 'porky pies' = lies told by the Freys resulting in them receiving their corresponding poetic justice!

Fantastic!!! I never knew that. Thank you for adding that to my knowledge base. 

And your example of the Dornishman's Wife is right on the money. I wanted to add something to the idea of serving the taste at the edge of a sword. The edge or tip is just as important as the cup or the sword. In order to receive the taste it must first go over the edge, a thin line between containment and spillage. That is your dagger between the teeth btw as a representation of silence aka "having words at the tip of your tongue."

14 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Another would be how Arya tricked Jaqen into giving her more than three death wishes.  Effectively, she turned him into a bottomless wishing well or horn of plenty.  In that scenario, Arya is the greenseer figure with Jaqen as Other proxy assassin -- or in other words, the silver drinking horn.  In keeping with the thesis of the grail as weirwood, Jaqen is weirwood color-coded and emerges from the trees.  Before Arya meets him, she'd just before, stimulated by seeing the bloodstained hand leaves of a weirwood been imagining climbing down off the tree to find her father sitting at the foot of the weirwood -- and then Jaqen appears following her prayer, just as the Other appears following Will's prayer in the Prologue.

Yes I agree completely. 

[Pain killer Jane]

10 hours ago, hiemal said:

Pools, wells, and mirrors- I've been pondering them all but I'm still short on conclusions...

The pool in Winterfell's Godswood.

The Black Well at the Nightfort- which leads to another analog, the Black Gate, which was... masculated (?) with a male face.

The Maidenpool where Florian met Jonquil (any relation to the Maiden and Galladon- the world needs to know!).

In Mesoamerican mythology, pools of water, wells and mirrors represented gateway into the underworld. Like the Bog/swamps, the cenotes also received sacrifices. Via this action of people, pools of waters and wells can be thought of as wishing wells. Throwing coins to pay for wishes coming true is the same as sacrificing people and throwing them into these wells to bribe the gods into answering prayers. Tezcatlipoca was the jaguar god of the Mexica/Aztecs, whose name in nahuatl means smoking mirror aka obsidian mirror. 

Jonquil and her sisters are analogous to the Swan Maidens that were sacrificed by Hugor of the Hill to the seven. 

[hiemal]

So would that make the penny-tree an "antenna" to the underworld? An attempt to the hack the weirnet? Or to ape it?

[Pain killer Jane]

15 hours ago, hiemal said:

So would that make the penny-tree an "antenna" to the underworld? An attempt to the hack the weirnet? Or to ape it?

Dr. Frankenstein's lightning rod to make his dead patchwork monster live again.  

[LmL]

22 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 I differ slightly in nuance with @LmL about this -- he prefers to see the weirwood as exclusively female, specifically heterosexual, whereas that's not quite what I'm seeing in the text!

I would say not exclusively, but predominately. But a heart tree isn't just a tree womb, it's a merger of tree womb and greenseer, who as you say, both impregnates the tree and lies within like a baby waiting to be reborn. The main way I see the tree is as a womb / tomb, or like a cauldron / grail in terms of the conversation here. But I also liken it to the moon-as-sock puppet hand of the king idea. And this is where the female turns into an impregnating, stabbing implement - when the moon explodes and turns into moon meteors, stabbing implements. But those meteors are still moon meteors, they are pieces of moon, or reborn Nissa Nissa's you might say. So the sock puppet - the moon is like a fist, as Benerro says:

Quote

Benerro jabbed a finger at the moon, made a fist, spread his hands wide. When his voice rose in a crescendo, flames leapt from his fingers with a sudden whoosh and made the crowd gasp. The priest could trace fiery letters in the air as well. Valyrian glyphs. Tyrion recognized perhaps two in ten; one was Doom, the other Darkness.

The sun is the fire that animates the moon fist, turns it into a fiery hand sock puppet, the "hand of the king." That is very like the weirwood being animated by the greenseer. Once the greenseer is in side the weirwood, he can use it like a grasping hand, and he can make it do things. The point is that once we have the greenseer and tree merge, it's a male / female thing. Like Baphomet. Same for the hypothetical moon meteors - they are bits of moon which drank the fire of the sun. Now they are stabbing implements, capable of impregnating. 

Hopefully this makes sense to people who haven't read all my claptrap. I'll use Dany as an example. She is the moon of Drogo's life before she goes in the pyre, and plays a more traditional female role up to that point. But after her rebirth and fulfillment of the AA reborn prophecy, she becomes Khaleesi and leads. She wears Drogo's lion pelt to show she has Drogo's strength inside her - that's kind of what I am saying about the weirwood with a greenseer's fiery spirit inside. Or about the moon with the sun's fire inside and the moon meteors bathed in the sun's fire. 

So I am absolutely cognizant of the male / female gender bending action. Arya is of course another great example of a girl playing male roles - she's called boy about a billion times to make it clear. Or like the allusion's to Jon as a maid. Cersei's talk of wearing the armor and Robert the gown, or about how she should have been born with the cock, not Jaime. 

I also agree with the three fold symbolic death of hanging on the tree, impalement on the tree, and drowning in the green see. Of course, before and above all of these, we have the rebirth in fire, the fire of the burning tree / burning bush that is the weirwood, with it's canopy a blaze of flame amongst the green. So maybe it's a four-fold death, who knows. 

As for three-fold things in particular, check out the gates of Sunspear and the walls of Qarth. Sorry if those have been suggested already. 

[LmL]

2 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Dr. Frankenstein's lightning rod to make his dead patchwork monster live again.  

I was watching Penny Dreadful last night, which uses the Frankenstein story and runs with it, and I had an oh duh moment. What have I been saying for months now? That the lightning striking the tree in the Grey King myth constitutes something about the moon meteors and the weirwoods (which look like burning trees). And that when Grey King "possessed the fire of the gods" through this burning tree struck by the thunderbolt, he became a zombie. 

A zombie. When the tree was struck by lightning. It's Frankenstein!!! It really is. AA reborn and his zombie NW brothers were a Frankenstein crack commando unit. Hilarious, right?

[LmL]

Here's a good example of how the genders merge when the people (or the things they symbolize) do:

Quote

 

Asha had known other lovers; some shared her bed for half a year, some for half a night. Qarl pleased her more than all the rest together. He might shave but once a fortnight, but a shaggy beard does not make a man. She liked the feel of his smooth, soft skin beneath her fingers. She liked the way his long, straight hair brushed against his shoulders. She liked the way he kissed. She liked how he grinned when she brushed her thumbs across his nipples. The hair between his legs was a darker shade of sand than the hair on his head, but fine as down compared to the coarse black bush around her own sex. She liked that too. He had a swimmer's body, long and lean, with not a scar upon him.

A shy smile, strong arms, clever fingers, and two sure swords. What more could any woman want? She would have married Qarl, and gladly, but she was Lord Balon's daughter and he was common-born, the grandson of a thrall. Too lowborn for me to wed, but not too low for me to suck his cock. Drunk, smiling, she crawled beneath the furs and took him in her mouth. Qarl stirred in his sleep, and after a moment he began to stiffen. By the time she had him hard again, he was awake and she was wet. Asha draped the furs across her bare shoulders and mounted him, drawing him so deep inside her that she could not tell who had the cock and who the cunt. This time the two of them reached their peak together.

 

 

[Pain killer Jane]

7 minutes ago, LmL said:

A zombie. When the tree was struck by lightning. It's Frankenstein!!! It really is. AA reborn and his zombie NW brothers were a Frankenstein crack commando unit. Hilarious, right?

Lol. A holy/heroic zombie. I have a theory that Martin rooted some of his allusion in American marine military legends.

And it doesn't surprise me that Frankenstein is a part of the Grey King/AA. Mary Shelly's book makes many parallels and allusions to Paradise Lost, John Milton's epic poem. 

[LmL]

3 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Lol. A holy/heroic zombie. I have a theory that Martin rooted some of his allusion in American marine military legends.

And it doesn't surprise me that Frankenstein is a part of the Grey King/AA. Mary Shelly's book makes many parallels and allusions to Paradise Lost, John Milton's epic poem. 

I was literally watching Dr. Frankenstein try to catch a lightning bolt to animate a dead body and I was like "WAIT A DAMN MINUTE...!"

I wonder if this should encourage us to think about the greenseers who theoretically called down the thunderbolt (moon meteor) as separate from the AA reborn zombies that were created by the fire of the gods? I see a lot about the person dragging down the moon being the same one struck by the moon meteors and transformed, but who knows. There are more than two players in this sequence, as we have all identified.

[SeaWitch]

So is Qyburn's Mad Science something he found at Oldtown? And maybe what Sam is about to stumble on?  Resurrection for Fun and Prophet, as it were.

[Pain killer Jane]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

I wonder if this should encourage us to think about the greenseers who theoretically called down the thunderbolt (moon meteor) as separate from the AA reborn zombies that were created by the fire of the gods? I see a lot about the person dragging down the moon being the same one struck by the moon meteors and transformed, but who knows. There are more than two players in this sequence, as we have all identified.

Hmm...Well I don't think so. Berric shows both sides the progression. His ancestor called down the lightning to strike his enemies but Berric was made to swallow the fire of the gods and resurrect. So I think that first the fire of the gods was used as a weapon and when the weapon was used against other greenseers, the resurrection happened. 

[Pain killer Jane]

2 hours ago, LmL said:

I was literally watching Dr. Frankenstein try to catch a lightning bolt to animate a dead body and I was like "WAIT A DAMN MINUTE...!"

It was like my moment of the Blue Falcon while I was watching Expanse and my husband explained the concept. I was like holy crap. I had a similar moment recently when I realized Stannis was Martin's version of the Tin Man/Tin Woodman as his name derives from Stannum (Latin for Tin) and he is running around with a heart sigil. My chemistry professor look at me and said Stannis instead of Stannum for the chemical symbol. 

[hiemal]

Do we have any estimates on the age of the Pennytree?

 

Tywin was frequently said to mint gold from his arse, as it were, while Varys hints to Tyrion (I think) that his sister has her own inexhaustible purse(y). Both seem like profane grails to me..

 

[hiemal]

6 hours ago, SeaWitch said:

So is Qyburn's Mad Science something he found at Oldtown? And maybe what Sam is about to stumble on?  Resurrection for Fun and Prophet, as it were.

If we take Qyburn at his word and as true to his archetype, he is going beyond anything they taught him at the Citadel but he did speak favorably of Marwyn the Mage so he may he learned a few tricks from him or elsewhere- his history is pretty vague between leaving the Citadel and hooking up with the Goat. I don't think we know anything about what he was doing before he was at the Citadel.

I think Sam will have his hands full without dabbling in necromancy. And I hope he would know better. Marwyn is leaving, too.