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

[Pain killer Jane]

46 minutes ago, hiemal said:

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..

 

And Littlefinger mints gold with his mouth. Isn't the phrase privy purse? 

I don't think the age matters. It's part of mythical landscape symbolism. 

[hiemal]

3 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

And Littlefinger mints gold with his mouth. Isn't the phrase privy purse?

Even better.

4 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

 

I don't think the age matters. It's part of mythical landscape symbolism. 

I was thinking about the mundane/mythical below/above causality. For example, could this pierced and jolted heart be unifying the Seven Kingdoms and not just the Riverlands? Does it predate the Conquest? Oldstones? Am I chasing bright shiny objects?

[Pain killer Jane]

1 hour ago, hiemal said:

Even better.

I was thinking about the mundane/mythical below/above causality. For example, could this pierced and jolted heart be unifying the Seven Kingdoms and not just the Riverlands? Does it predate the Conquest? Oldstones? Am I chasing bright shiny objects?

Nah chasing bright shiny objects is standard human protocol. We're magpies.

If the tree is meant to be the Westerosi verison of the House of the Undying and its heart full of corruption, I would say perhaps but the parallel to that is the Hightower/Citadel in Oldtown. 

I will say that the allusions the trees carries need further research. We don't really have all that much on Pennytree. We will probably get more in tWoW due to Brienne's and Jaime being in the area, if they aren't dead. So we will have to wait on any associations to Oldstones or the conquest. 

For parallels to the riverlands I would investigate the Rhoynar, it's not a coincidence that they have a person resurrecting after being drowned; Lady Stoneheart and Shrouded Lord.

[Pain killer Jane]

On 5/10/2017 at 8:54 PM, hiemal said:

Florain the Fool, our Percival, the perfect knight and perfect fool and I think the swords Dawn, Just Maid, Ice, and Lightbringer as possible Excalibur analogs and permutations. I'm here looking today looking for grails, though, the yin to all those stabby yangs.

In addition to the grail knights you have listed and combined with the madonna/whore theme, we do have the prologue of Feast with Pate reminiscence about being named after Spotted Pate, the plucky, unlikely hero and Pate in the prologue schemes and steals in order to earn a gold dragon to buy Rosie's maidenhead.  

[hiemal]

2 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

In addition to the grail knights you have listed and combined with the madonna/whore theme, we do have the prologue of Feast with Pate reminiscence about being named after Spotted Pate, the plucky, unlikely hero and Pate in the prologue schemes and steals in order to earn a gold dragon to buy Rosie's maidenhead.  

I wonder if Pate could be related on a mythic level with the Knight Without Armor and maybe even back to the Maesters and the Citadel where we meet our own ill-fated pig boy? Knight w/o armor=knight of the mind?

Could Clarence Crabb be a Cuchalain analog?

Back to Pennytree: If gold is solar and silver lunar would copper be the element of earth or of sky? Is the lightning coming up or down?

[Pain killer Jane]

3 minutes ago, hiemal said:

I wonder if Pate could be related on a mythic level with the Knight Without Armor and maybe even back to the Maesters and the Citadel where we meet our own ill-fated pig boy? Knight w/o armor=knight of the mind?

If Spotted Pate acted in the same manner as Pate of the Prologue. I consider the Knight without armor a Knight without Honor and thus a Blue Falcon. Honor has been identified as honor (Littlefinger tells Ned this in Game) and wearing armor does weigh a person down such as Davos not drowning at the Blackwater but Ser Mandon Moore did drown because of his armor and 

Spoiler

why Ser Vardis Egen's death was changed in the show and Lysa tells Bronn, "you do not fight with honor" and he replies back "No but he did."

But I do think you are right as a blue falcon is often an intelligent, sharp, bright person. So yes a knight without armor is a knight of the mind. Nice connection. 

14 minutes ago, hiemal said:

Could Clarence Crabb be a Cuchalain analog?

The Hound is the most up front allusion to Cu Chulain. But yes Ser Clarence could be a reference to Cu Chulain as the Hound of Ulster's teacher in weaponry was the warrior queen Scathach, whose name meant shadow and her epithets meant "great taker of heads" and her castle was on the island of Sky. Since we have all these warriors receiving gifts from goddess from the sky, it stand that Ser Clarence's wife falls into the goddess giving a warrior magic to defeat his enemies.

  

20 minutes ago, hiemal said:

s solar and silver lunar would copper be the element of earth or of sky?

Copper is mostly to do with the sun actually. In the newly minted House Thenn, their sigil is now a fiery copper disk made to look like a sun. Plus copper stars are suns as the the sun is a star. Even our modern times, copper is highly prized for is ability to conduct electricity. 

27 minutes ago, hiemal said:

Is the lightning coming up or down?

I tend to think it is both. @ravenous reader explains it better as there is this curious directional thing with the meteor strikes coming from and arrows coming towards.  

[LmL]

41 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

1 hour ago, hiemal said:

I wonder if Pate could be related on a mythic level with the Knight Without Armor and maybe even back to the Maesters and the Citadel where we meet our own ill-fated pig boy? Knight w/o armor=knight of the mind?

If Spotted Pate acted in the same manner as Pate of the Prologue. I consider the Knight without armor a Knight without Honor and thus a Blue Falcon. Honor has been identified as honor (Littlefinger tells Ned this in Game) and wearing armor does weigh a person down such as Davos not drowning at the Blackwater but Ser Mandon Moore did drown because of his armor and 

I've been following this thread, though I haven't had time to comment, but I just wanted to put it in that the name Pate is introduced to us as the most common name in all the land, more or less. It's almost as good as being nameless or faceless.   Then a Faceless man wears his skin! Or his face, at least. He's a pig boy, and following @ravenous reader's shitty new theory about the Others (that's fair game, ha ha, you asked for it), Pate is now a faceless man and a shitty pig boy. 

So, Ravenous, whose name is rapidly shifting from 'poetess' to 'proctologist,' (again, fair game, lol), are you positing a symbolic link between the Faceless Men and the Others? Clearly the HOBAW is like the inside of a weirwood - and I'd argue it's black moon / white moon symbolism is good evidence for my ww portal-between-moon idea - so are the FM men like the Others or like the black shadow NW brothers? Or are they showing us that they come from the same place, with their black and white robes? Do they represent a reconciliation of all the polar opposites? Jaquen is like a ww-borne assassin at the Harrenhall godswood, but what door is he coming out of and who is he? 

By the way I notice that the cold fire and burning ice don't stay well apart form one another. You were just associating lighting with burning ice - which makes sense - but then you paralleled a cold lightning strike to Mel burning the eagle out of the sky. The latter event is all fire, with black burning blood and everything. Similarly, though I like the lightning / ice associations, I also equate the thunderbolt of the storm god which set the tree on fire with a moon meteor, which would be more on the black and red fire / frozen fire end of the symbolism. Is it the Dawn meteor which is "setting the weirwoodnet on fire"? Bloodraven is a symbol of the dragon meteor that set the tree on fire, but he is both a white dragon and a black crow, with his red eye described as blood or like a coal... shit is hella ambiguous, overall. Should we imagine a rain of yin yangs falling from space?

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

I've been following this thread, though I haven't had time to comment, but I just wanted to put it in that the name Pate is introduced to us as the most common name in all the land, more or less. It's almost as good as being nameless or faceless.   Then a Faceless man wears his skin! Or his face, at least. He's a pig boy, and following @ravenous reader's shitty new theory about the Others (that's fair game, ha ha, you asked for it), Pate is now a faceless man and a shitty pig boy. 

Firstly, I do not consider this 'my theory' but a joint enterprise with @Pain killer Jane who, if you recall, first fearlessly delved into the nether regions of the text we were all avoiding, a long time ago!

Secondly, I knew you'd hate it -- you think only attractive things are associated with 'mooning'...

As far as the 'pate' symbolism, his name also means a 'balding head', therefore an uncovered head without a helm, another name for which is 'hilt', so a 'sword without a hilt' which is what the Others are.  It's a way of 'swinging' or manipulating an assassin at a distance from the action (the way LF managed to get Joffrey killed).  So, to return to the Prologue (I know you luv it as much as I do...) Will at a safe distance up his tree is greenseer-orchestrating the action by summoning the Others.  However, after swinging them on down, he loses control of them, and the weapon backfires -- because you can't really control 'a sword without a hilt', can you?

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So, Ravenous, whose name is rapidly shifting from 'poetess' to 'proctologist,' (again, fair game, lol),

And for that 'unfair game' Luciferous-- you deserve some poetry from your revolting muse... muah-hah-hah...

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Now, at the name of the fabulous artificer, he seemed to hear the noise of dim waves and to see a winged form flying above the waves and slowly climbing the air. What did it mean? Was it a quaint device opening a page of some medieval book of prophecies and symbols, a hawk-like man flying sunward above the sea, a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve and had been following through the mists of childhood and boyhood, a symbol of the artist forging anew in his workshop out of the sluggish matter of the earth a new soaring impalpable imperishable being? 

-- James Joyce

From:  'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'

 

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Into this wilde Abyss, [ 910 ]
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain [ 915 ]
His dark materials to create more Worlds,
Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,
Pondering his Voyage: for no narrow frith
He had to cross.

-- John Milton

From:  'Paradise Lost'

 

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are you positing a symbolic link between the Faceless Men and the Others?

Yes, the equivalent of what you've identified as the 'cat's paw' split off from the real, invisible wielder behind the assassination order (the one truly 'operating' the 'sock puppet' as it were).

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Clearly the HOBAW is like the inside of a weirwood

Yip.  There's tons of symbolism for that, including 'whispering,' and 'rustling' , hollow hills and the black cesspool, the obsidian sea/see, in the middle, etc. (you saw my summary on my 'killing word' thread?)

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- and I'd argue it's black moon / white moon symbolism is good evidence for my ww portal-between-moon idea - so are the FM men like the Others or like the black shadow NW brothers?

More like the Others I'd guess.  I think Arya has more Other symbolism -- waterdancing is an Other not NW activity...think of the Other's fluid motions with the 'moonlight running on water' armor, and not to forget that ice is the solid form of water -- and she is the quintessential faceless man, but maybe you'll prove me wrong in your upcoming Arya essay!    Also, the assassins don't tend to use the 'front door' of the establishment, ha ha!  Doesn't Arya remark on that?  I can't find the quote right now.  

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Or are they showing us that they come from the same place, with their black and white robes?

I love that idea.

The black shadows and the white shadows both come from the weirwood.  We have found enough textual evidence for that.

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Do they represent a reconciliation of all the polar opposites? Jaquen is like a ww-borne assassin at the Harrenhall godswood, but what door is he coming out of and who is he? 

The ones with red symbolism are usually 'front door' entities.

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By the way I notice that the cold fire and burning ice don't stay well apart form one another. You were just associating lighting with burning ice - which makes sense - but then you paralleled a cold lightning strike to Mel burning the eagle out of the sky.

I'm not sure of that particular analogy; that's why I asked @Pain killer Jane to elaborate on what she meant by the significance of the 'back door' aspect between Cotter Pyke and Denys Mallister, lol.  I think the lightning strike in the case of Varamyr's eagle is a 'hot lightning' strike (Mel is a 'hot' lady!), but the one which struck Waymar was definitely a 'cold lightning' strike, or he wouldn't have 'come back' as a blue-eyed wight.  It's the difference between Drogon and potential future wighted ice dragon Drogon (who would have one blue eye like the ice dragon constellation and Waymar)!

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The latter event is all fire, with black burning blood and everything. Similarly, though I like the lightning / ice associations, I also equate the thunderbolt of the storm god which set the tree on fire with a moon meteor, which would be more on the black and red fire / frozen fire end of the symbolism.

For sure.  There's 'red' fire and 'blue' fire -- corresponding to 'front' and 'back' door, and 'frozen fire' and 'burning ice,'  respectively.

By the way, how do you explain the cold pool at Winterfell in such close proximity to the hot pools?

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Is it the Dawn meteor which is "setting the weirwoodnet on fire"?

I don't know.

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Bloodraven is a symbol of the dragon meteor that set the tree on fire, but he is both a white dragon and a black crow, with his red eye described as blood or like a coal...

I'm not sure through which door Bloodraven entered the weirwood (and there is all that shifty 'milk snake' and 'grave worm' tentacular action penetrating 'through his breeches,' which you've attributed to the 'eternal female,' lol...so I'm not sure about him...).  But Bran entered via the front door (or maybe he didn't -- I'm not sure what to make of the 'Black Gate').  For some reason, I doubt he'll take that same door on the way out-- there are two options for him (together 'back door' options, just as there are two 'back door' options in the Eyrie, i.e. Moon Door and icy sky cells), namely the 'sinkhole' to the north, and the underground black river/tunnels 'the sunless sea...'

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shit is hella ambiguous, overall. Should we imagine a rain of yin yangs falling from space?

[Pain killer Jane]

18 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I'm not sure of that particular analogy; that's why I asked @Pain killer Jane to elaborate on what she meant by the significance of the 'back door' aspect between Cotter Pyke and Denys Mallister, lol. 

And I don't think I answered that. The backdoor aspect of the Orelle's Eagle is the buggering. The original meaning for the word 'fagot', a bundle of sticks used to start a fire. It is one of the reason's why Renly was stabbed in the back with a shadow sword and then resurrected as a fiery stag man at the Blackwater and why Cotter Pyke says Denys should be buggered by a red hot sword and related to the sexual connotation of 'buddy fucker'.

EtA: I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea with Martin using the word in conjunction to Renly and the negative association of Blue Falcons. Martin is drawing attention to the our modern usage of words and wants us to think on their origins and meanings. 

[ravenous reader]

6 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

And I don't think I answered that. The backdoor aspect of the Orelle's Eagle is the buggering. The original meaning for the word 'fagot', a bundle of sticks used to start a fire. It is one of the reason's why Renly was stabbed in the back with a shadow sword and then resurrected as a fiery stag man at the Blackwater and why Cotter Pyke says Denys should be buggered by a red hot sword and related to the sexual connotation of 'buddy fucker'.

EtA: I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea with Martin using the word in conjunction to Renly and the negative association of Blue Falcons. Martin is drawing attention to the our modern usage of words and wants us to think on their origins and meanings. 

Great explanation.  But I think @LmL was enquiring re: how the 'red fire' vs. 'blue fire' dichotomy would apply in that case?

[Pain killer Jane]

Btw @ravenous reader I recently thought about the joke of ale being piss and there are several mentions of bloody piss thrown about so I thought that maybe it is in line with the the blood/wine theme. 

[Pain killer Jane]

2 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Great explanation.  But I think @LmL was enquiring re: how the 'red fire' vs. 'blue fire' dichotomy would apply in that case?

That I wouldn't know. We would have to investigate Cotter and Ser Denys a bit more. Actually what does come to mind is the personalities of the two men. Cotter is very upfront with his words and Ser Denys is the picture of cold courtesy, Ser Denys is very much a Grey King in his physical description and Cotter is balding and hot tempered. So I would say that Cotter is the blue fire and Ser Denys is the red fire. Since red fire is significantly cooler than blue fire. 

[ravenous reader]

3 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Btw @ravenous reader I recently thought about the joke of ale being piss and there are several mentions of bloody piss thrown about so I thought that maybe it is in line with the the blood/wine theme. 

The symbolic concept of 'back door' should be extended to include all kinds of toxic waste by-products, including urine too.  The idea of the black pool as a poisonous cesspool is shown by the HOBAW pool whose drink means death, as well as the black river of Asshai whose waters are so polluted from some major toxic fallout that the fish are blind and deformed.

Regarding the 'wine', fermentation is a transformative, almost alchemical, process which also yields a toxic product, which nevertheless may have some useful applications (the healing/harming dualism again).

[Pain killer Jane]

32 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

As far as the 'pate' symbolism, his name also means a 'balding head', therefore an uncovered head without a helm, another name for which is 'hilt', so a 'sword without a hilt' which is what the Others are.  It's a way of 'swinging' or manipulating an assassin at a distance from the action (the way LF managed to get Joffrey killed).  So, to return to the Prologue (I know you luv it as much as I do...) Will at a safe distance up his tree is greenseer-orchestrating the action by summoning the Others.  However, after swinging them on down, he loses control of them, and the weapon backfires -- because you can't really control 'a sword without a hilt', can you?

Oh Pate, I consider him and Florian the fool, Lann the clever, and Hugor of the Hill to be the same person. Lucky bastards that sacrificed women to get their luck. 

Btw I always thought his name could be pah-tey, ground up goose liver. But that is a line of inquiring I researching. 

[Pain killer Jane]

2 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

The symbolic concept of 'back door' should be extended to include all kinds of toxic waste by-products, including urine too.  The idea of the black pool as a poisonous cesspool is shown by the HOBAW pool whose drink means death, as well as the black river of Asshai whose waters are so polluted from some major toxic fallout that the fish are blind and deformed.

Regarding the 'wine', fermentation is a transformative, almost alchemical, process which also yields a toxic product, which nevertheless may have some useful applications (the healing/harming dualism again).

Exactly. That reminds me. In the prologue of Feast there is a mention of a seminar in the Citadel about the healing properties of piss.

[hiemal]

Musing on Hugor's unfortunate swan maiden's:

Does their presence in Essos indicate some kind of human/weirwood pact?

Random thought- for some reason I keep back circling back to Joyce's Bird Girl in Portrait...  and the swan maidens thus as misused sacraments- Someone's heavenly hosts violently transubstantiated.

[Pain killer Jane]

On 5/10/2017 at 8:54 PM, 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. So Dawn, Lightbringer, both, or Lightbringer becomes Dawn (if say the meteor was brought from Starfall to Essos to be worshiped and turned into Lightbringer and then redeemed by the LH during the Battle for the Dawn)...

Cersei thinks this when trying to figure out how to kill Margaery

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 Even in the tent. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her."

Knowing what needed to be done was one thing, though; knowing how to do it was another. Jaime could no longer be relied on. A sudden sickness would be best, but the gods were seldom so obliging. How then? A knife, a pillow, a cup of heart's bane? 

-Cersei VIII, aFfC

And Cersei here is talking about her sun-figure brother. And there is a Valyrian Steel sword named Heartsbane, that is in the hands of Lord Tarly.

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Lord Randyll shared the platform with Lord Mooton, a pale, soft, fleshy man in a white doublet and red breeches, his ermine cloak pinned at the shoulder by a red-gold brooch in the shape of a salmon. Tarly wore mail and boiled leather, and a breastplate of grey steel. The hilt of a greatsword poked up above his left shoulder. Heartsbane, it was named, the pride of his House

-Brienne III, aFfC

 

[Pain killer Jane]

On 5/13/2017 at 7:26 PM, hiemal said:

Musing on Hugor's unfortunate swan maiden's:

Does their presence in Essos indicate some kind of human/weirwood pact?

Random thought- for some reason I keep back circling back to Joyce's Bird Girl in Portrait...  and the swan maidens thus as misused sacraments- Someone's heavenly hosts violently transubstantiated.

Well we are told in the tWoIaF that there were Children of the Forest-esque people in Essos. And we suspect that at least one LN happened in Essos at Asshai and we have the Undying of Qarth, mirroring the Others or the Merman's Court. 

The transubstantiation of the Swan maidens is accurate. We get evidence for that with Jon's dream of Ygritte (Ygritte is pronounced like Egret, the bird, which means Silver Crane and is a corruption of the french word for Comb. We have Rose of Red Lake giving birth to House Crane whose female descendants are said to skinchange cranes. And Red Lake is the place where Brandon of the Bloody Blade errand his name by killing scores of CotF. It is also the place where Silverwing, Queen Alysanne's dragon made its lair-had children.) being boiled in the black pool of Winterfell; Dolorous Edd talks about a brother drowning himself in a barrel of wine- which is referencing the transubstantiation of the Blood of Christ-and links to Maester Aemon's body being stored in a barrel black belly wine.