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Seats of Power: Spitballing the Thrones


hiemal

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ASoIaF emphasizes the role of thrones as social tools hammering in the idea of elevation over subjects and can be seen in our many descriptions of thrones and related seats of power and in the role of relative position at court- where everyone else stands in relation to the throne (and where they sit at feasts and other events where the throne may be represented either by a less ornate or portable version or simply by physical elevation or poistion at the head of the table) and to each other as a physical representation of the host's perception of the socio-political moment. They are historical and symbolic artifacts as well as the social sun around which their attendants orbit. A lot going on here, but that's what spit and tinfoil are for. I believe that heraldry associated with the Houses holds secrets, as do their Words. What about their thrones?

So bring it! All of it!

Off along the primrose path that always seems to end in reckless speculation:

1. The Iron Throne. Westeros' own siege perilous. swords in stone, and Holy Grail all fused together into a symbol far more symbolic than a thousand plowshares. This is one of the images that first grabbed me when I picked up the series Its become such a central part of the landscape that I've included it in few tinfoils beyond being the goal for pretty much all of them. That ends today.  Here comes the crazy:

Lightbringer is hidden in the Throne among the trophy blades. At some point it will be released by dragonfire to be revealed flaming and hiltless among smoking pools of lesser steel.

2. The Throne of Arryn. This is made of weirwood, which is notable because weirwood will not take root in the Eyrie. This trophy seems to be all about dominance over the heathen order but it also fits the pale, lunar theme of the Arryn's.

3. The Driftwood Throne, of House Velaryon. Given Velaryon ambition, their history in the Stepstones, and the current trajectory of the Bastard of Driftmark I suspect that what I think of as "the Pirate Throne" may not have burned with High Tide.

4. Doran Martell's wheelchair in the Water Gardens and the elevated throne and pain in Sunspear. Very FDR.

5. The Gold Throne. Tywin's fatal privy, yet another Maegor the Cruel/Elvis Presley. GRRM's fascination with privies and chamberpots/thrones probably deserves it own scatological thread but I'm not sure I'm the one to start it so I'll just briefly mention it here. Alchemy and commentary on the feudal hierarchy?

6. The Seastone Chair. I'm all in with the Deep One/Lovecraft angle so I think that sitting on this thing would be a very bad idea.

7. The Throne of Winter. We've got nothing but stone representations in the crypts, I think? I wonder if the original exists somewhere (like under stone Torrhen's butt) and what it was made of.

8. The Oakenseat of House Gardner, This seems like a perfect symbol for the Gardner's gardening and manipulating the course of nature and its destruction fits with their lines apparent disappearance. Poor Lommy.

9. The Harpy Throne, likewise burned. What awaits Hizdhar's dragon thrones?

10. Relative positions at social events- aka the Bastard Problem, where to sit byblows and other outcasts seems more important (or at least more frequently mentioned) than proximity to rivals or more subtle distinctions in rank. Comets are the Bastards of the Celestial Court. Also, "below the salt"- salt purifies and preserves. The Wall?

11. Bloodraven's "throne", which compares with both the Arryn's stolen throne by material and the Oakenseat by living status. Possibly with the seastone chair in terms of mental influence. The living absorbtion/throning of the greenseers Bran sees deeper in the cave also warrant mention.

12. The outrageously decorated chairs of the Pureborn in Qarth, equal in size and elevation but striving to distinguish themselves each from the other by way of ornament and ostentation.

13. In ADwD Reek is brought before Ramsay to find him feasting in his father's seat. While this seems to me to speak amply of the recently elevated Snow's ambition I do wonder what the chair in question looks like given the Hall's skeletal sconces. And what Roose sits on when he holds court.

14. Hodor!

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Fun fact - small chairs made from wooden tree stumps were used by volva/spaekona in their rituals of prophecy.  Little silver representations of same have been found in grave goods. Thought to represent Hlidskjalf, Odin's throne.

Re the Seastone chair- Yeah, no, let's not sit on the eldritch furniture. I don't think even some fetching throw pillows would help there.

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4 hours ago, SeaWitch said:

Fun fact - small chairs made from wooden tree stumps were used by volva/spaekona in their rituals of prophecy.  Little silver representations of same have been found in grave goods. Thought to represent Hlidskjalf, Odin's throne.

Re the Seastone chair- Yeah, no, let's not sit on the eldritch furniture. I don't think even some fetching throw pillows would help there.

Good catch. Added 11. to OP

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Does the Stark "high seat" fall into your #10 category, or should it be singled out? Maybe it's your #7?

"Bran had welcomed them to Winterfell from his father's high stone seat with the direwolves carved into the arms, and afterward Ser Rodrik had said he'd done well. (ACoK, Bran II)

Osha and Hodor undid his straps and buckles, lifted him off Dancer's back, and carried him to the high seat of his fathers. (ACoK, Bran III)

I don't know if it's a typo or deliberate that the seat is initially "his father's high stone seat" (singular possessive) but subsequently "the high seat of his fathers," plural.

I wonder whether the saddle that Tyrion designs for Bran is a symbolic throne? When he rides Dancer through the feast hall, Bran momentarily forgets that he is broken.

GRRM makes a point of telling us that Craster has the only chair in his keep; everyone else sits on benches or the floor. Maybe this is already covered by your #10 "Social Events" category. The fact that Craster has a special chair helped to bolster my suspicion that he is a descendant of a Beyond the Wall Stark king that was deliberately split off from the Starks of Winterfell.

Here are the seats associated with Mance when Jon finally meets him in ASoS, Jon I:

. . . a grey-haired man in a tattered cloak of black and red sat crosslegged on a pillow. . .

The night your father feasted Robert, I sat in the back of his hall on a bench with the other freeriders, listening to Orland of Oldtown play the high harp and sing of dead kings beneath the sea.

The chapter concludes with Jon telling a "tale" to Mance about feeling snubbed because he was not seated near the royal dais at the same feast. He gives this as his reason for deciding to desert from the Night's Watch. Mance doesn't say that he believes it, saying only, "I think we had best find you a new cloak."

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1 hour ago, Seams said:

Does the Stark "high seat" fall into your #10 category, or should it be singled out? Maybe it's your #7?

"Bran had welcomed them to Winterfell from his father's high stone seat with the direwolves carved into the arms, and afterward Ser Rodrik had said he'd done well. (ACoK, Bran II)

Osha and Hodor undid his straps and buckles, lifted him off Dancer's back, and carried him to the high seat of his fathers. (ACoK, Bran III)

I don't know if it's a typo or deliberate that the seat is initially "his father's high stone seat" (singular possessive) but subsequently "the high seat of his fathers," plural.

 

Hmmmmm, good point. I wonder how many fathers. Thinking about it more, though, there is no reason that the Starks would have to dispose of their throne as they did their crown. Perhaps it is the same, and I'm emphasizing the Winter theme too much,

1 hour ago, Seams said:

I wonder whether the saddle that Tyrion designs for Bran is a symbolic throne? When he rides Dancer through the feast hall, Bran momentarily forgets that he is broken.

 

It is, it is! Like Doran's wheeled throne, but this one is both living and elevated. I wonder if Drogon counts as a throne?

1 hour ago, Seams said:

GRRM makes a point of telling us that Craster has the only chair in his keep; everyone else sits on benches or the floor. Maybe this is already covered by your #10 "Social Events" category. The fact that Craster has a special chair helped to bolster my suspicion that he is a descendant of a Beyond the Wall Stark king that was deliberately split off from the Starks of Winterfell.

 

I think a throne is relative- in a Hall of benches the sole chair is the throne. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Craster were wolfish.

1 hour ago, Seams said:

Here are the seats associated with Mance when Jon finally meets him in ASoS, Jon I:

. . . a grey-haired man in a tattered cloak of black and red sat crosslegged on a pillow. . .

The night your father feasted Robert, I sat in the back of his hall on a bench with the other freeriders, listening to Orland of Oldtown play the high harp and sing of dead kings beneath the sea.

The chapter concludes with Jon telling a "tale" to Mance about feeling snubbed because he was not seated near the royal dais at the same feast. He gives this as his reason for deciding to desert from the Night's Watch. Mance doesn't say that he believes it, saying only, "I think we had best find you a new cloak."

A pillow seems a fittingly egalitarian throne for the leader of the Free Folk. The bastards are seated "below the salt". A significant division?

A bit of wordplay: Thrones/thorns?

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Hodor may be less agile than Dancer but he is still more mobile than most thrones.  Also Summer, the ravens, and eventually, to some extant, the weirnet itself.

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