Melisandre: "A girl in grey" ... An alternative?

[a black swan]

“I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will.”
^{— JON VI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

 

Over at pureasoiaf reddit u/rustythesmith did an excellent job collecting all the evidence for who the girl in Mel's vision could be. She has resolved that most likely candidate is actually Arya. 

Focusing on 1 particular aspect of her case, the line about "the girl in grey"... suggestingvthe girl herself is not grey, but what she is IN is described as grey. The vision was seen by Mel, at that very moment, there was a girl in grey:

During Arya's time in Braavos, she is a girl in grey because Braavos is a grey city.

Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea. (AFFC Arya I)

[HoBW] windowless temple of dark grey stone (AFFC Arya I)

fog covered the ground like a frayed grey blanket (AFFC Arya II) This is the chapter when Arya throws away all her treasures/names except for Needle. She runs through the fog naked, back up the grey stone steps, where she hides Needle/Arya and returns to the dark grey stone of the HoBW.

The chill off the grey stone walls gave Cat gooseprickles. (AFFC Cat of the Canals) Arya later thinks "all cats are grey in Braavos". 

passing under the immense grey arches of the sweetwater river (AFFC Cat of the Canals)

a second cat appeared, a sad, bedraggled grey thing with a stub tail (AFFC Cat of the Canals)

When at last day came to Braavos, it came grey and dark and overcast. (ADWD The Ugly Little Girl)

Even on a cold grey day like this, the harbor was a busy place. (ADWD The Ugly Little Girl)

The patterns continues into Winds.

But Braavos can be described as a grey city, harbouring a Stark girl with her sad grey eyes - who is the girl in grey.

So much more detail and quotes provided here: 

Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/pureasoiaf/comments/6j0l62/spoilers_twow_lets_solve_a_prophecy_the_girl_in/

 

Part 2 

https://www.reddit.com/r/pureasoiaf/comments/6j0pq3/spoilers_twow_lets_solve_a_prophecy_the_girl_in/

 

 

 

 

 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

41 minutes ago, DutchArya said:

“I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will.”
^{— JON VI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Over at pureasoiaf reddit u/rustythesmith did an excellent job collecting all the evidence for who the girl in Mel's vision could be. She has resolved that most likely candidate is actually Arya. 

Focusing on 1 particular aspect of her case, the line about "the girl in grey"... suggestingvthe girl herself is not grey, but what she is IN is described as grey. The vision was seen by Mel, at that very moment, there was a girl in grey:

During Arya's time in Braavos, she is a girl in grey because Braavos is a grey city.

Nope.

The Men in Black wear black suits.

The woman in red wears a red dress.

A bride in white wears a white gown.

That's how "in" works in such sentences. And if Mel had seen a girl inside a grey city, she would've told that aloud.

[a black swan]

26 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

Nope.

The Men in Black wear black suits.

The woman in red wears a red dress.

A bride in white wears a white gown.

That's how "in" works in such sentences. And if Mel had seen a girl inside a grey city, she would've told that aloud.

Yeah, no the reading of visions is meant to be more symbolic than literal. Just like the "dying horse" may not be a literal dying horse. 

In this case, the girl herself is not described as grey, but what she is in i.e clothes is option, in which Arya spends most of the books wearing grey anyway. 

The idea of the girl being in grey would fit nicely with a grey city like Braavos and the actual grey rock she lives under in the HoBW.

[Wolf of The Wall]

1 hour ago, DutchArya said:

Yeah, no the reading of visions is meant to be more symbolic than literal. Just like the "dying horse" may not be a literal dying horse. 

In this case, the girl herself is not described as grey, but what she is in i.e clothes is option, in which Arya spends most of the books wearing grey anyway. 

The idea of the girl being in grey would fit nicely with a grey city like Braavos and the actual grey rock she lives under in the HoBW.

What makes you think that Braavos is a grey city. Even say it is still it's a bit of a stretch to interpret a girl in grey as a girl in grey city. And how does a city have a colour? I get it when it's described it's streets, smell and general atmosphere your mind generates an image but Arya wasn't exactly on the fancy parts of the city and we saw Braavos from her POV. Maybe it's more cheerful than you think. A pink city if you will.

[a black swan]

9 minutes ago, Wolf of The Wall said:

What makes you think that Braavos is a grey city. Even say it is still it's a bit of a stretch to interpret a girl in grey as a girl in grey city. And how does a city have a colour? I get it when it's described it's streets, smell and general atmosphere your mind generates an image but Arya wasn't exactly on the fancy parts of the city and we saw Braavos from her POV. Maybe it's more cheerful than you think. A pink city if you will.

 

Braavos was a city made for secrets, a city of fogs and masks and whispers. - Cat of the Canals 

In Winds:

Spoiler

Half-light filled the room, grey and gloomy. (TWOW Mercy)

She had fastened the shutters back so the morning sun might wake her. But there was no sun outside the window of Mercy’s little room, only a wall of shifting grey fog. (TWOW Mercy)

If the fog was thick there was nothing to see but grey (TWOW Mercy)

In the fog all cats are grey (TWOW Mercy)

The fog opened before her like a tattered grey curtain (TWOW Mercy)

Braavos was lost in fog. (TWOW Mercy)

When she is in the HoBW, she is literally living inside a dark grey rock. A girl in grey? Surrounded by fog most days, you are right, the imagery evoked is that grey vision. What does fog to to a city?

"We have flowered in Braavos amongst these northern fogs" - The Kindly Man 

A constant fixture in describin the city:

Fog rose all around as she walked through the streets of Braavos. She was shivering a little by the time she pushed through the weirwood door into the House of Black and White.  - Arya, AFFC

Even while she warged a cat, the fog is ever present. 

In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding silently beside the banks of a canal, stalking shadows through the fog. - Cat of the Canals, AFFC

Even while blind, she could feel the fog around her:

She could tell that the fog was thick from the clammy way her clothes clung to her and the damp feeling of the air on her bare hands. The mists of Braavos did queer things to sounds as well, she had found. Half the city will be half-blind tonight. - The Blind Girl, ADwD

 

It's just an alternative way to look at that part of the vision. 

 

 

 

 

[a black swan]

44 minutes ago, Wolf of The Wall said:

What makes you think that Braavos is a grey city. Even say it is still it's a  her POV. Maybe it's more cheerful than you think. A pink city if you will.

As Cat, she has ventured to a lot of places. When Brea got her moonblood, Cat would push her barrow through the nice parts of Braavos like the Moonpool and the Purple Harbour. She has a habit of traversing long routes in the city just so sge can experience the city more. She knows it so well, she can navigate while blind. 

What does the fog do to the "fancier" parts of Braavos?

[Wolf of The Wall]

1 hour ago, DutchArya said:

As Cat, she has ventured to a lot of places. When Brea got her moonblood, Cat would push her barrow through the nice parts of Braavos like the Moonpool and the Purple Harbour. She has a habit of traversing long routes in the city just so sge can experience the city more. She knows it so well, she can navigate while blind. 

What does the fog do to the "fancier" parts of Braavos?

Still reducing an entire city to a colour to fit in a prophecy is stretching too much for me. You may speculate but i don't think it will hold water. This is just my opinion and you don't have to (and by all means you shouldn't) give any fucks.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

2 hours ago, DutchArya said:

Yeah, no the reading of visions is meant to be more symbolic than literal. Just like the "dying horse" may not be a literal dying horse.

How would "dying horse" be symbolic and not literal?

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

BTW, if anyone wants to play along with this silliness, here's another "grey city" for your enjoyment:

Dany took the warlock's words well salted, but the magnificence of the great city was not to be denied. Three thick walls encircled Qarth, elaborately carved. The outer was red sandstone, thirty feet high and decorated with animals: snakes slithering, kites flying, fish swimming, intermingled with wolves of the red waste and striped zorses and monstrous elephants. The middle wall, forty feet high, was grey granite alive with scenes of war: the clash of sword and shield and spear, arrows in flight, heroes at battle and babes being butchered, pyres of the dead. The innermost wall was fifty feet of black marble, with carvings that made Dany blush until she told herself that she was being a fool. She was no maid; if she could look on the grey wall's scenes of slaughter, why should she avert her eyes from the sight of men and women giving pleasure to one another?

(...)

In this city of splendors, Dany had expected the House of the Undying Ones to be the most splendid of all, but she emerged from her palanquin to behold a grey and ancient ruin.

Huh! Grey outside, and grey inside. Grey all around!

And, for bonus points, another one:

Davos had always been fond of this city, since first he'd come here as a cabin boy on Cobblecat. Though small compared to Oldtown and King's Landing, it was clean and well-ordered, with wide straight cobbled streets that made it easy for a man to find his way. The houses were built of whitewashed stone, with steeply pitched roofs of dark grey slate. 

Enjoy.

[Springwatch]

1 hour ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

How would "dying horse" be symbolic and not literal?

Death of the spirit. Becoming No-one.

Actually it's not a very encouraging prophecy for Arya - crumbling into ash, if I'm remembering it right. Much safer to leave it to Alys Karstark: she might have been near death, but she saved herself by getting to the Wall.

[The Mother of The Others]

Pale horse of Death, Jim.     There's no benefit to this, though.    

It's born out of the wish for a competent mistress of fire.  If her visions are correct and it's the reader who's being dicked with, that'd be fun.   It doesn't gain us anything to reach now for the specifics of how Melisandre was accurate all along, though.   Just look for that stuff to unfold as part of the next book when it arrives 7 years hence.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

56 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

Death of the spirit. Becoming No-one.

Soooo.... the dying horse symbolizes Arya, despite that Arya has never been particularly associated with horses except for Jeyne Poole's childish insulting nickname "Arya Horseface" which only she ever used (even Sansa never actually called Arya that iirc; Sansa only failed to make Jeyne Poole shut up about it).

And despite that Arya in Braavos (if the interpretation of "girl in grey" correctly means "girl in grey city") didn't ride about on a horse there; she walked everywhere.

And despite that while Arya does identify herself with some animals (wolf obviously, cat while in Braavos, mouse while in Harrenhal), none of them are a horse.

And despite that the Ghost of High Heart, who is the only one who actually got a psychic read of Arya, calls her "wolf girl" and "dark heart", neither of which are reminiscent of horses really.

And how are readers supposed to read the phrase "dying horse" and interpret it to mean "not literally a dying horse, but actually something else entirely" (i.e. something that is not dying in the usual sense and also something that is not a horse in the usual sense, because it's Arya who is the one undergoing the not-death, definitely not the horse)? Because if the meaning of dying should be understood as "spiritual death" and the meaning of horse should be understood as "Arya" - thus making the girl in grey on a dying horse to be "spiritually-doomed-but-physically-alive Arya, who is simultaneously herself and the horse she's riding in on" (which is pretty amazing!) - how would a reader realize that this is the correct interpretation?

[chrisdaw]

The grey is greyscale, as grey always is. The horse is literal and symbolic, a rider on a dying horse means plague.

[Springwatch]

Apologies, @The Ned's Little Girl - I gave a one line answer, when in fact I was loading a whole new theory on top of the thread's theory - never a good idea.

It is enough to say that symbolic interpretations can always be made if you want them. Purple serpents anyone?

Mel's other visions seem to be possibly symbolic also, eg seeing snow/Snow when asking for a vision of Azhor Ahai.

1 hour ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

<snip>

... Because if the meaning of dying should be understood as "spiritual death" and the meaning of horse should be understood as "Arya" - thus making the girl in grey on a dying horse to be "spiritually-doomed-but-physically-alive Arya, who is simultaneously herself and the horse she's riding in on" (which is pretty amazing!) - how would a reader realize that this is the correct interpretation?

Is there any point to a vision that is so obscure it can hardly be understood at all? I can't answer that, but yes, a horse is usually the reflection of its rider (and the few exceptions are interesting too). The spirit horse idea came from here.

Personally, I believe the grey girl vision describes both Alys (literally) and Arya (spiritually, though not doomed!). Alys has fulfilled the vision perfectly already, here's the quote:

Quote

"... Her horse was dying under her. All skin and ribs it was, lame and lathered. They cut it loose and took the girl for questioning."

(Bonus: the horse is a mirror of Alys:  skinny, yes - dying, probably - set free, yes. Alys is described as 'coltish'.)

[a black swan]

1 hour ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

Soooo.... the dying horse symbolizes Arya, despite that Arya has never been particularly associated with horses except for Jeyne Poole's childish insulting nickname "Arya Horseface" which only she ever used (even Sansa never actually called Arya that iirc; Sansa only failed to make Jeyne Poole shut up about it).

 

Why did you feel the need to add that inaccurate caveat? This is not tumblr, so there is no point in trying to whitewash what happened. We know Sansa called her horseface, a name Jeyne made up. 

Quote

 

I will be a better wife than the real Arya could have been, he'll see."

Talk like that will get you killed, or worse. That lesson he had learned as Reek. "You are the real Arya, my lady. Arya of House Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter, heir to Winterfell." Her name, she had to know her name. "Arya Underfoot. Your sister used to call you Arya Horseface." - Theon, ADwD

 

About the horse... didn't Arya ride a horse for most of her travels with the Hound? Wasn't it called Stranger, named after a death God. Didn't Arya see what she thought was a deer floating down stream but was it was actually a dead horse? Didn't Arya wish for a red priest to find her in their flames? Reread Mel's convo with Mance about the girl in grey and the references to "a deer once". And also after Arya learns she was a captive of the BwB - she bolts away on a horse and goes through terrain that matches Mel's vision in every detail all in one scene.

Harwin catches Arya and compliments her riding skills which ended up being a point of comparison with Lyanna. 

 

 

 

[The Ned's Little Girl]

1 hour ago, DutchArya said:

About the horse... didn't Arya ride a horse for most of her travels with the Hound? Wasn't it called Stranger, named after a death God. Didn't Arya see what she thought was a deer floating down stream but was it was actually a dead horse? Didn't Arya wish for a red priest to find her in their flames? Reread Mel's convo with Mance about the girl in grey and the references to "a deer once". And also after Arya learns she was a captive of the BwB - she bolts away on a horse and goes through terrain that matches Mel's vision in every detail all in one scene.

Harwin catches Arya and compliments her riding skills which ended up being a point of comparison with Lyanna. 

Stranger was Sandor Clegane's horse, so I would think any symbolic meaning about him and his name apply to Sandor more than Arya. Arya did try to steal him and almost got her face bitten off, so any spiritual connection between her and that horse is unlikely, to put it mildly.

The point I'm making is that she isn't associated with horses. They're not part of her; she doesn't have any kind of extraordinary or other-worldly connection to horses like she does with other animals. Even as a point of comparison with her aunt Lyanna, Harwin didn't say Arya was "half a horse herself" as was said of Lyanna. Horses are Lyanna's spirit animal (thank you @Springwatch !), not Arya's; if they were, then an evocation of a horse as a stand-in for Arya makes sense. As they are not, the interpretation of Arya=horse fails in my opinion.

Arya is associated with wolves because her wolf Nymeria is a part of her; with cats because she was a cat; with mice because she was a mouse. Those animals are part of her, integral to her being. Horses are not; they are just transportation.

So a vision invoking a horse being taken to be a reference to Arya - I just don't see it. If it were a wolf (as the Ghost of High Heart said in calling her "wolf girl"), or a cat, or a mouse then yeah, I would see it.

Oddly enough, I think that arguing that Mel's vision is a literal one makes it much easier to maintain that it refers to Arya, than to argue that it means Arya symbolically.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

2 hours ago, Springwatch said:

It is enough to say that symbolic interpretations can always be made if you want them. Purple serpents anyone?

It is enough to say that, yes indeed. But there needs to be a reason to regard something as a different thing than it is on its surface.The purple serpents are a perfect example. Clearly, we don't have maids with literal purple serpents for hair so that's a clue that we readers should look beyond the literal meaning of the words, should regard that description as symbolic.

Another good example is the Ghost of High Heart's description of the dead Catelyn Stark as a woman who was a fish. The words make absolutely plain that they aren't to be taken literally because a woman who was a fish is simply not a thing.

Plus, on top of readers having a reason to look at the written words in a sense other than literal, the symbolism of them has to make sense. Which both of those examples above do, when the symbolism is decoded.

So, my problem with interpreting "a girl in grey on a dying horse" as symbolism, rather than what the words straightforwardly say, is that there isn't any indication or reason for the reader to look at those words differently than the way they are written. They absolutely can be literally true, which the examples I gave above can not.

Decoding "a girl in grey" to mean a girl who is currently residing in a city that has a lot of grey coloration is pretty tenuous and also doesn't make much sense. Same with the horse: it's either dying or it isn't. If it isn't dying, why is that word used and what state is the horse in? What does the descriptor "dying" mean, if it doesn't mean dying? And if it does mean spiritual death or becoming No-One, why is it applied to the horse and not to the girl (since Arya is the only one in the story undergoing that very process and representing her as a horse has a lot of problems with it)?

I guess my question boils down to, "What reason do I have to believe that these words are symbolic, not literal?" I don't actually see a reason to believe that. It seems to me that the vision's simplest form is the truest: a girl dressed in grey clothing riding on a nearly-dead horse. Could have been Alys Karstark and already happened. Could be Jeyne Poole and is imminent. Could be Arya Stark and is yet to happen (although not in the way that was described in the OP).

TL;DR I don't see any reason to read Mel's vision in any way other than literal and the examples given in the original post showing how the girl is Arya Stark in Braavos don't add up, and if the vision is regarded symbolically it makes even less sense.

[Springwatch]

19 hours ago, Wolf of The Wall said:

What makes you think that Braavos is a grey city. Even say it is still it's a bit of a stretch to interpret a girl in grey as a girl in grey city. And how does a city have a colour? I get it when it's described it's streets, smell and general atmosphere your mind generates an image but Arya wasn't exactly on the fancy parts of the city and we saw Braavos from her POV. Maybe it's more cheerful than you think. A pink city if you will.

If Yunkai is the Yellow City and Astapor is the Red City, then I'm not going to object to Braavos being a grey city. It's possible - even likely - that it has a higher frequency of 'grey' adjectives than any other city (I'm not going to test it. )

(Braavos has a bit of a purple connection as well, I think? At least the sails of the ships.)

It makes no difference to the vision, though, because both Alys and Arya are already 'grey girls' - grey is the colour of the ruling house of the North. They are wolves, therefore they are grey - anything more subtle than that gets lost under the weight of the obvious.

[Prof. Cecily]

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

20 hours ago, Wolf of The Wall said:

What makes you think that Braavos is a grey city. Even say it is still it's a bit of a stretch to interpret a girl in grey as a girl in grey city. And how does a city have a colour? I get it when it's described it's streets, smell and general atmosphere your mind generates an image but Arya wasn't exactly on the fancy parts of the city and we saw Braavos from her POV. Maybe it's more cheerful than you think. A pink city if you will.

I don't know if I accept the girl in grey = girl in grey city, myself.

I reckon Alys Karstark fulfills that visions quite nicely, but I'm happy to read other opinions!

Anyway.

I'm rereading AFFC and was struck by the description of Arya's arrival to Braavos.

Quote

The city had seemed like one big island from where the Titan stood, but as Yorko rowed them closer she saw that it was many small islands close together, linked by arched stone bridges that spanned innumerable canals. Beyond the harbor she glimpsed streets of grey stone houses, built so close they leaned one upon the other. To Arya's eyes they were queer-looking, four and five stories tall and very skinny, with sharp-peaked tile roofs like pointed hats. She saw no thatch, and only a few timbered houses of the sort she knew in Westeros. They have no trees, she realized. Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea.

A Feast for Crows - Arya I

 

[a black swan]

2 hours ago, Springwatch said:

If Yunkai is the Yellow City and Astapor is the Red City, then I'm not going to object to Braavos being a grey city. It's possible - even likely - that it has a higher frequency of 'grey' adjectives than any other city (I'm not going to test it. )

(Braavos has a bit of a purple connection as well, I think? At least the sails of the ships.)

It makes no difference to the vision, though, because both Alys and Arya are already 'grey girls' - grey is the colour of the ruling house of the North. They are wolves, therefore they are grey - anything more subtle than that gets lost under the weight of the obvious.

Yes, the Purple Harbour for the Braavosi ships and galleys. But when the northern fog settles in, everything is grey. Dunno if it's right or not, but it a nice observation another poster made that was worth considering. 

I think you mentioned earlier the point about  "Even as I watched she crumbled and blew away". I wonder if that is symbolic of her losing herself in HoBW?

RustytheSmith explains here:

The kindly man leads her down to the hall of faces and finally changes her face.

The girl took a deep shuddering breath, and realized it was true. No one was choking her, no one was hitting her. Even so, her hand was shaking as she raised it to her face. Flakes of dried blood crumbled at the touch of her fingertips, black in the lantern light. She felt her cheeks, touched her eyes, traced the line of her jaw. "My face is still the same." - (ADWD The Ugly Little Girl)

And Arya crumbled.

Arya has assumed many identities in the story by changing her name, clothes, behavior and other mundane things, but for the first time her identity changed through magic. Maybe that magic ended Melisandre's vision. Maybe that's why it blew away.

 

Regarding Alys, the lake in the vision is the Gods Eyes. If that is the case, that rules out Alys and Jeyne and marks them as red herrings.