Ser Barristan as The Stranger. Renly, too. And Ser Ilyn . . .

[Seams]

I am starting to ponder an unexpected role played by Ser Barristan Selmy in the books: Stranger. In other words, an embodiment of death, as personified in the Faith of the Seven.

Our first introduction to him comes in AGoT, Sansa I. From the wiki:

When she nears the camp, Sansa sees a crowd gathered around the wheelhouse; the council has sent an honor guard from King's Landing to accompany them the rest of the way. The party includes two knights in fine armour: a strong old man in white armor and a beautiful young man in green armor. There is also a gaunt, grim man that Sansa finds so terrifying that she backs right into Sandor Clegane. Sansa kneels and hugs Lady and, next thing she knows, the two new arrivals are standing above her. Joffrey explains that the terrifying man is Ser Ilyn Payne, the King’s Justice (the royal executioner).

In the book, Sansa actually mentions that there are two strangers kneeling before the Queen. They turn out to be Ser Barristan and Lord Renly. Then she spots Ser Ilyn and refers to him as the third stranger.

(Sandor Clegane is NOT described as a stranger in this chapter. Based on his position here, facing off against Ser Ilyn over Sansa, as well as some other details in the books, I am starting to picture him in the role of an entity that defeats the Stranger. Based on some details elsewhere he seems to embody a shadow and the night, but that's a topic for another thread.)

The butcher's boy, Micah, dies in Sansa I. In Sansa II, Ser Hugh of the Vale, the former squire of Jon Arryn, dies. Two youths. Immediately following Sansa II, Ned and Ser Barristan look over the body of Ser Hugh.

I stood last vigil for him myself," Ser Barristan Selmy said as they looked down at the body in the back of the cart. "He had no one else. A mother in the Vale, I am told."

 

In the pale dawn light, the young knight looked as though he were sleeping. He had not been handsome, but death had smoothed his rough-hewn features and the silent sisters had dressed him in his best velvet tunic, with a high collar to cover the ruin the lance had made of his throat. Eddard Stark looked at his face, and wondered if it had been for his sake that the boy had died. Slain by a Lannister bannerman before Ned could speak to him; could that be mere happenstance? He supposed he would never know.

 

"Hugh was Jon Arryn's squire for four years," Selmy went on. "The king knighted him before he rode north, in Jon's memory. The lad wanted it desperately, yet I fear he was not ready."

 

Ned had slept badly last night and he felt tired beyond his years. "None of us is ever ready," he said.

 

"For knighthood?"

 

"For death."

(AGOT, Eddard VII)

Ser Barristan's full-time job is protecting the king and the royal family. He's an honorable guy and regular participant in tourneys, so it's not entirely out of character that he would feel some need to pay respects to a young knight who died in a tournament by standing vigil. But it struck me as a little bit of an odd role for him to watch over the body of a young knight unknown to anyone in King's Landing.

Selmy's concern for the young knight might be explained by his introduction at the side of Lord Renly. Ser Barristan is old, and Renly embodies youth. Yet they appear as a team. Later, Renly will hold a spot on his rainbow guard in the hope that Ser Barristan will come to serve him. Ser Barristan will begin to train up young boys from Meereen to be knights in the service of Queen Daenerys. On a recent re-read of the AGoT prologue, I really noticed that youth / age interplay between Ser Waymar and Gared. I suspect that the "two strangers," Renly and Barristan, are embodiments of this youth / age motif.

Barristan is also notably the savior / mentor of another boy who will become a knight, Ser Dontos Hollard, who was otherwise supposed to be killed along with his family for their connection to the Duskendale kidnapping of King Aerys. Because everything in ASOIAF seems to go in a series of linked circles, I will note that Ser Dontos, in his Florian and Jonquil role-playing with Sansa, seems to become a mummer version of Sandor Clegane. What does it mean that Barristan would save someone who represents the opponent of the Stranger?

Then Ser Barristan shows up in Essos, disguised as an old squire in the service of Strong Belwas. How does this fit with the possibility that he is the Stranger, if at all?

What does it mean that there are three strangers in close proximity in that first Sansa POV? Is it a case of the dragon having three heads? If Renly and Barristan represent youth and age, what does Ser Ilyn represent? (In other situations, Ser Ilyn has seemed to me to represent the Lannister's direwolf - and he is silent like Ghost.) Why would it be important to have youth and age and ghost aspects for the Stranger? What does it mean that our introduction to the first two strangers shows them kneeling before Cersei?

What can we learn about Ser Barristan (or infer about his future) from the fate of Renly? Renly seems to live on as a ghost, with Ser Garlan wearing his armor, references to him in a song at Joffrey's wedding feast, etc. Ser Barristan seems to be unbreakable. Is he also some kind of ghost? Maybe youth and age are supposed to work together somehow? Strike a balance?

Does the foreshadowing add up to Sandor Clegane eventually slaying Ser Barristan? What is the difference between a knight, embodied by Barristan the Bold, and night, embodied by Sandor Clegane?

I am away from my books so I apologize for not having all of the direct quotes that would be useful here.

[Prof. Cecily]

An impressive memory you have!

Ser Barristan the Bold is an arresting figure.

 

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But it struck me as a little bit of an odd role for him to watch over the body of a young knight unknown to anyone in King's Landing.

Hang on.

How could the King's Hand's squire be unknown in KL?

That doesn't really make sense, yet it's what we're told.

[hiemal]

"She turned her back upon the night, to where Barristan Selmy stood silent in the shadows. "My brother once told me a Westerosi riddle. Who listens to everything yet hears nothing?"

"A knight of the Kingsguard." Selmy's voice was solemn."... ADwD

This, combined with their vows, does remind me of the Silent Sisters, the Gray order of Death in Life.

[Springwatch]

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One knight wore an intricate suit of white enamelled scales, brilliant as a field of new-fallen snow, with silver chasings and clasps that glittered in the sun. When he removed his helm, Sansa saw that he was an old man with hair as pale as his armour, yet he seemed strong and graceful for all that. From his shoulders hung the pure white cloak of the Kingsguard.

His companion was a man near twenty whose armour was steel plate of a deep forest-green....  Cradled under one arm was an antlered helm, it's magnificent rack shimmering in gold.

As well as youth and age, we can say Renly and Barristan represent Summer and Winter. This makes for a beautiful allegorical picture with Cersei as Sun Queen, I'm certain. There are many, many quotes linking Cersei to the sun - I'll pick out her chosen title: 'Light of the West', which neatly suggests the reign of the sun queen is nearly over.

Ser Illyn must fit in somewhere! The only thing that stands out is that he has no horse and the others do, which to my theories suggests his nature is an enigma. Well, we knew that!

I get a death-like vibe from all of them (in hindsight): - Barriston's whites are the colour of icy death, Renly feels like a fertility god awaiting sacrifice, and Ilyn has that terrible effect on Sansa (he acts very unnaturally there, or maybe, he acts more like a force of nature and less like a human being).

4 hours ago, Seams said:

...

What can we learn about Ser Barristan (or infer about his future) from the fate of Renly? Renly seems to live on as a ghost, with Ser Garlan wearing his armor, references to him in a song at Joffrey's wedding feast, etc. Ser Barristan seems to be unbreakable. Is he also some kind of ghost? Maybe youth and age are supposed to work together somehow? Strike a balance?

...

More and more, I'm getting the feeling that the supernatural does leak through into the characters, letting them do impossible things. Not so much ghosts, but gods and goddesses, heroes of song and legend, that kind of thing. So a character marked as the Stranger might indeed have extra death-dealing powers. Or from another angle, maybe the Long Night will begin at the death of Cersei, and the death of Barristan may be necessary to end winter. This is a very faint and fuzzy theory, but I'm not marking it as tinfoil yet!

ETA another quote:

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Ser Barristan felt very tired, very old. Where have all the years gone? Of late, whenever he knelt to drink from a still pool, he saw a stranger's face gazing up from the water's depths. When had those crow's-feet first appeared about his pale blue eyes? How long ago had his hair turned from sunlight into snow? Years ago, old man. Decades.

 

[BalerionTheCat]

I don't know for Barristan, Renly and Ilyn. But for me, Lady Stoneheart is related to the Stranger:

A trestle table had been set up across the cave, in a cleft in the rock. Behind it sat a woman all in grey, cloaked and hooded. In her hands was a crown, a bronze circlet ringed by iron swords. She was studying it, her fingers stroking the blades as if to test their sharpness. Her eyes glimmered under her hood.
Grey was the color of the silent sisters, the handmaidens of the Stranger. Brienne felt a shiver climb her spine. Stoneheart.

The silent sisters never speak. And we had a previous description of them with Cat:

But outside her chambers she found Utherydes Wayn waiting with two women clad in grey, their faces cowled save for their eyes. Catelyn knew at once why they were here.

I believe LSH has been resurrected by the Stranger, not by R'hallor. What use R'hallor would have of her anyway? Like the Others, she is the punishment of the gods. Like Dondarrion before her.