Butcher Kings

[Seams]

Exploration is underway, looking at butchers and, more specifically, butcher kings in ASOIAF and related texts. The Butcher Kings have always interested me but, until recently, I hadn't noticed common elements that would tie together the various butchers presented to the reader by GRRM. Now I may have pinpointed a few common elements that would allow this forum to put together the rest of the pieces and come up with an explanation for the butcher kings.

King Cleon of Astapor is the clearest butcher king in the books. A former slave and butcher, he was part of a council of three men Dany installed to rule Astapor after she deposed the slave-holding Good Masters. Cleon kills the other two councilors and declares himself king. He is slain, in turn, by his own army. The Green Grace priestess has a vision of Cleon leading his people to victory in battle so his body is disinterred, dressed in armor, strapped to a horse and sent out in front of the army. The enemy soundly defeats Cleon's army.

Per the wiki: "For her failed prophecy, the Green Grace of Astapor was impaled upon a stake in the Plaza of Punishment and left there until she died. Quentyn Martell, one of the besiegers, recalls the priestess in her torn robes, impaled upon a stake and attended by a cloud of glistening green flies." (ADwD, Chapters 25 and 30.)

Another important butcher reference is indirect: Arya's friend Mycah is the son of a butcher, and is usually referred to as the butcher's boy. Sandor Clegane admits that he cut down Mycah after the boy was accused of striking Prince Joffrey with his wooden sword. On the same day Mycah dies, Ned kills Sansa's direwolf, Lady, to appease Cersei who wants a wolf to die after Arya's direwolf, Nymeria, bites Joffrey. When Ned agrees to be the one to kill the wolf, he says, "She is of the north. She deserves better than a butcher." (AGoT, Eddard III)

It is probably not a coincidence that Janos Slynt, commander of the City Watch and a participant in the execution of Eddard Stark, is the son of a butcher. Slynt lifts Ned's severed head and holds it up (Clash, Sansa I). Later, after Slynt is forced to join the Night's Watch, Jon Snow will cut off Slynt's head as punishment for insubordination.

As Ned and Slynt's stories show, there is definitely a message that a person can be a butcher one day but can become the meat when circumstances change. Passages in the book state this directly:

Dany: "Do you take me for the Butcher King?"

Daario: "Better the butcher than the meat. All kings are butchers Are queens so different?"

Dany: "This queen is." (Dance, Daenerys IV)

Later, Dany thinks to herself, "We are not so different, Daario and I. We are both monsters." Another chapter in ADwD, The Windblown (Quentyn Martell POV), describes the "second death" of King Cleon: "The rest was butchery, but this time it was The Butcher King on the wrong end of the cleaver."

Several important characters self-identify as butchers:

Jaime to Ned: "I'll butcher you like Aerys if I must, but I'd sooner you died with a blade in your hand." (AGoT, Eddard IX)

Sandor to Sansa: "I killed my first man at twelve . . . . They're all meat and I'm the butcher." (ACoK, Sansa IV)

The first use of the word butcher is a bit of a surprise. When Maester Luwin wants to discuss with Catelyn the appointment of a new Master of Horse for Winterfell, she has other things on her mind and says, "I would gladly butcher every horse in Winterfell with my own hands if it would open Bran's eyes, do you understand that?" (AGoT, Catelyn III)

With all of the violence and all of the food in the books, you might guess that the numerous butcher references are just a colorful way of acknowledging that bloodshed and meat are common in Westeros and the author uses butchery as one of a number of synonyms to describe this milieu. But there are unexpected details that indicate that the butcher references are intended as a trail of interrelated symbols forming a motif.

A butcher reference that helped to expose part of the pattern was a battle near the God's Eye called The Butcher's Ball that was part of the Dance of the Dragons civil war involving the "greens" (supporters of Queen Alicent) and the "blacks" (supporters of Princess Rhaenyra). A Kingsguard knight named Ser Criston Cole, also called Criston the Kingmaker for convincing Aegon to claim the Iron Throne instead of allowing his half sister to ascend, was killed at The Butcher's Ball. Just before the slaughter at the Butcher's Ball, "at the village of Crossed Elms, Criston's forces were attacked by men disguised as corpses." (wiki)

This next part is a bit convoluted; or maybe tenuous is the word.

In AFfC, The Soiled Knight (Arys Oakheart POV), Princess Arianne Martell compares her father's bannerman, Anders Yronwood, to Criston Cole, persuading Ser Arys that Yronwood is trying to bypass her by elevating her younger brother, Quentyn, to rule Dorne.

As you will recall, Quentyn was a witness to the torture death of the Green Grace of Astapor who promoted the bad idea of putting the deceased Butcher King Cleon at the head of the Astapori army.

I know this will alienate some readers, but I suspect there is an anagram connection between the Green Grace and Gregor Clegane.

Like the Green Grace, Ser Gregor suffered a slow death that began with being impaled. After he died, like the Butcher King, he was put into a suit of armor and appears poised to participate in combat. (In this case, single combat to defend the Queen.)

Ser Gregor is made a member of the Kingsguard specifically for the purpose of championing a member of the royal family, perhaps evoking the glorious life and death of Criston Cole.

In his first life, as a bannerman for House Lannister, he is the person most often described as a butcher for his ruthless attacks on people and property in the Riverlands.

Gregor's brother, Sandor, is the guy who killed the butcher's boy, Mycah.

Other butcher imagery:

Roose compares Ramsay to a butcher: "Ramsay is ferocious, I will grant you, but he swings that sword like a butcher hacking meat." (ADwD, Reek III) Ramsay's weapons also fit with the butcher and meat motif: "On one hip he wore a falchion, its blade as thick and heavy as a cleaver; on the other a long dagger and a small curved flaying knife with a hooked point and a razor-sharp edge. All three blades had matched hilts of yellow bone." (ADwD, Reek III)

In the World book, GRRM mentions a member of House Durrandon whose details are mixed in with those of others from the long line of Storm Kings: "It was Durran the Young, also known as the Butcher Boy, who dammed the river Slayne with Dornish corpses, after turning back Yoren Yronwood and the warrior maid Wylla of Wyl in the Battle of the Bloody Pool . . . but was he the same king who became besotted with his own niece in later life and died at the hands of his brother Erich Kin-Killer? These, and many similar questions, will most likely never be resolved." (TWOIAF, p. 224, The Stormlands, House Durrandon)

The fifth Blackfyre Rebellion took place during the reign of Jaehaerys II, and was known as the war of the Ninepenny Kings. One of the band of nine was known as Spotted Tom the Butcher. The World book says only that he was the captain of a free company in the disputed lands.

Here are the butcher-connected elements I'm seeing in common for a number of these stories:

• Dead men used as fighters or soldiers pretending to be dead men. I suspect this might also include The Others, as L.C. Mormont notes that two Night's Watch brothers were "butchered." (AGoT, Jon VII)
• The color green (Criston Cole was on the "green" side in the Dance; the Green Grace of Astapor is connected to King Cleon)
• The Kingmaker (Cole urged Aegon to take the throne; Dany is horrified to realize that she gave Astapor their Butcher King; Janos Slynt helped to clear away Ned for Joffrey.)
• The loyal friend or champion who dies.

Can you identify other elements that might help to get at what GRRM is doing with this Butcher King motif?

I admit that I have selectively presented butcher examples so far in this post. Other characters engage in butcher behavior, although some of it is specifically directed at animals: Brienne butchering animals as part of her training to be a knight, Ser Jorah butchering a lizard lion, Mord butchering the oxen at the Eyrie, Meera and Coldhands butchering the elk. Tyrion is described as a butcher for killing Tywin. Mad Axe butchers his Night's Watch brothers (and is mentioned alongside the prince-and-bacon pies at the Night Fort). Lord Karstark butchers the young Lannisters, Orell's eagle is a butcher for attacking Jon Snow, and Theon is called a butcher by Ser Rodrick. I haven't done a search on sausage yet, but I suspect that Craster might qualify as a Butcher King who makes his own sausage. Stew and Lord Manderly's Frey pies might also be part of the butcher / meat motif. I don't know if all or any of these examples fit the Butcher King pattern I am trying to nail down, or if they undermine it.

[Quoth the raven,]

You could also say that the man who was slaughtered in front of Winterfell's weirtree in Bran's vision was butchered and that the Stark dominance of the North was built upon this act of butchery. 

[ravenous reader]

8 hours ago, Quoth the raven, said:

You could also say that the man who was slaughtered in front of Winterfell's weirtree in Bran's vision was butchered and that the Stark dominance of the North was built upon this act of butchery. 

I agree.  Given that it's the last vision Bran sees in the retrograde sequence, I read that scene as the pivotal moment marking the acquisition of greenseeing power by the Starks.  As per @GloubieBoulga, that was probably the moment in which the 'wolf blood' was stolen by the Starks, consecrating their heart tree.  The act of butchery can not be divided from theft nor cannibalism, as reflected in how Bran tastes the blood of the sacrificed man, whom I believe was the first person named 'Brandon Stark', as suggested by the ambiguity of the sentence construction, 'as his life flowed out of him in a red tide, Brandon Stark could taste the blood'.

8 hours ago, Seams said:

Dead men used as fighters or soldiers pretending to be dead men. I suspect this might also include The Others, as L.C. Mormont notes that two Night's Watch brothers were "butchered." (AGoT, Jon VII)

'It was cold butchery'...

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.

When he found the courage to look again, a long time had passed, and the ridge below was empty.

 

[GloubieBoulga]

23 hours ago, Seams said:

Here are the butcher-connected elements I'm seeing in common for a number of these stories:

• Dead men used as fighters or soldiers pretending to be dead men. I suspect this might also include The Others, as L.C. Mormont notes that two Night's Watch brothers were "butchered." (AGoT, Jon VII)
• The color green (Criston Cole was on the "green" side in the Dance; the Green Grace of Astapor is connected to King Cleon)
• The Kingmaker (Cole urged Aegon to take the throne; Dany is horrified to realize that she gave Astapor their Butcher King; Janos Slynt helped to clear away Ned for Joffrey.)
• The loyal friend or champion who dies.

some ideas for precisions :

- the green color is associated with kingship (no matter the "legitimity"), like Renly butchered by a shadow, the shadow of his own brother. The association is also with the summer season. And the shadow is strongly linked to the Others with the sword, the cold and the wind

- the loyal friend is linked to horses, perhaps particularly a red stallion : Ned has a horse's face, he is the loyal friend of king Robert (another butcher butchered) whom young Renly is living portraiture in appearance; Drogo's red stallion is butchered to save Drogo and Daenerys has same kind of thinking than Catelyn saying she could butcher herself all the horses of Winterfell to make Bran open the eyes. But with Drogo, we learn that the real price for the life was a children/boy/baby of the same blood (remember that following the legends, Others as shadows have no mercy for maiden nor suckling babies);the Mountain-that-rides

- the "resurrection" of the king butchered : Drogo and his queen Daenerys (threatened by bloodriders of horriible death and rape like being "impaled"); Renly and Loras (the real queen, and the price for the Lannister-Baratheon to keep the IT and to have the Tyrell's alliance is Joffrey's death.;; a boy); Cleon and the Green Grace => the "prince promised" appears as the promise of the "dead prince". And at Winterfell, what says Theon to the heart tree ? 

Quote

 

A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… Bran," the tree murmured.

They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran's face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran's ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water. "I had to have two heads, else they would have mocked me … laughed at me … they …"

A voice said, "Who are you talking to?"(ADWD, a Ghost at Winterfell)

 

The real price wasn't paid. But the miller's sons were butchered by Ramsay

- Last but not least, the connection between the "horned lord" and the Stallion (same constellation, depending if you are a wildling or a "southron"). Horn isn't only a horn to blow and produce a sound but also a ...horn : stags, rams,goats, bulls wear horns and horn is a word for a piece of antlers. For exemple, the Baratheon are horned lords and the great she-wolf at the end of first Bran's chapter had a horn in her throat, like a dagger. Question : is the horn of Joramun a blowing horn or was it a mis(single)-interpretation of the word ?

 

Thanks to @ravenous reader for the tag; nothing to add to her intervention^^

 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

I think it is worth noting that GRRM may have been inspired to use the word butcher by the stories about British general Douglas Haig from the first world war. He was nicknamed "Butcher Haig" because the British suffered 2 million casualties under his command, around 400,000 just at the Battle of the Somme.

[Seams]

On 7/8/2017 at 4:32 PM, Quoth the raven, said:

You could also say that the man who was slaughtered in front of Winterfell's weirtree in Bran's vision was butchered and that the Stark dominance of the North was built upon this act of butchery. 

Yes and no. For this kind of close reading, the best way to uncover the clues GRRM is trying to convey is to look at the words he uses. If the scene in front of the weirwood tree didn't use words such as "butcher" or "slaughter" or "cleaver" or "meat," etc., then it isn't clearly part of this set of butcher symbols, imho. Blood might be the link, if it's used to describe details of that setting, but I'm specifically interested in the author's words here, not just the fact that all bloodshed is horrible.

The references to Ramsay Snow as a butcher are much clearer than references to Starks as butchers. If Ramsay turns out to be the son of, say, Brandon Stark (the uncle), that would bring the butcher motif back to the Starks.

On the other hand, it's amazing how many of the references to meats are found in Stark POVs throughout ASOIAF. Once a wolf, always a wolf, apparently.

On 7/9/2017 at 4:09 PM, GloubieBoulga said:

some ideas for precisions :

- the green color is associated with kingship (no matter the "legitimity"), like Renly butchered by a shadow, the shadow of his own brother. The association is also with the summer season. And the shadow is strongly linked to the Others with the sword, the cold and the wind.

This sounds right; a "green = royal" interpretation would then strengthen the association with the "kingmaker" aspect of the butcher-related symbols. The title "Green Grace" already unites the color and the form of address used for the king or queen in Westeros.

On 7/9/2017 at 4:09 PM, GloubieBoulga said:

- the loyal friend is linked to horses, perhaps particularly a red stallion : Ned has a horse's face, he is the loyal friend of king Robert (another butcher butchered) whom young Renly is living portraiture in appearance; Drogo's red stallion is butchered to save Drogo and Daenerys has same kind of thinking than Catelyn saying she could butcher herself all the horses of Winterfell to make Bran open the eyes. But with Drogo, we learn that the real price for the life was a children/boy/baby of the same blood (remember that following the legends, Others as shadows have no mercy for maiden nor suckling babies);the Mountain-that-rides

This could be true, although recently I've had such a huge load of thoughts about horse meat and horses that it's hard to know whether the death of the loyal friend is the same thing as the death of a horse. In the ACoK direwolf re-read, as you know, we explored the symbolism of eating horse meat and linked it to Daenerys eating the stallion's heart as well as the mirror images of the Stallion that Mounts the World and the Mountain that Rides. (The horseflesh discussion begins with this post but continues for several follow-up comments to the  analysis of the Bran VII chapter.)

The notion of "loyal friend death = horse death" could work, as Jon, Bran and Dany experience the losses of Qhorin Halfhand, Maester Luwin (among others) and Rhaego and Khal Drogo shortly after eating horse flesh.

And then I went on to speculate that Ser Gregor beheading his own horse at the Hand's Tourney could be symbolic of his status as a giant: giants and beheadings are often linked. (See the bottom few paragraphs of this post for details.) So, I thought, maybe horse meat is linked to real / symbolic giants.

I always like to begin a close reading of the text by carefully considering the first time that a key word is used by the author. That line from Catelyn about killing horses introduces the butcher symbolism: "I would gladly butcher every horse in Winterfell with my own hands if it would open Bran's eyes, do you understand that?" (AGoT, Catelyn III)

When I was looking for details unique to the butcher motif, I was thinking that the deaths of loyal friend Mycah and loyal Criston Cole and loyal Gregor Clegane were the examples that fit the category of "the loyal friend or champion who dies." Maybe the deaths of horses point us toward the sacrifice of other loyal supporters I hadn't considered such as Jory Cassel, slain in the scene where Jaime tells Ned that he is willing to butcher him (Ned) as he did Aerys. Ned's horse falls in that scene, but does not die, if I recall correctly. The death of Jory reminds me of the death of Mycah.

I'll have to see if I can think of other examples. Or maybe people here can think of other cases.

On 7/9/2017 at 4:09 PM, GloubieBoulga said:

- the "resurrection" of the king butchered : Drogo and his queen Daenerys (threatened by bloodriders of horriible death and rape like being "impaled"); Renly and Loras (the real queen, and the price for the Lannister-Baratheon to keep the IT and to have the Tyrell's alliance is Joffrey's death.;; a boy); Cleon and the Green Grace => the "prince promised" appears as the promise of the "dead prince". And at Winterfell, what says Theon to the heart tree ? 

The real price wasn't paid. But the miller's sons were butchered by Ramsay

I searched on the word "slaughter" and this led me to pretty strong evidence that King Cleon, who was an obvious Butcher King (and who also wanted to marry Dany and gave her shoes that were too small), is linked to the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq (who succeeds in marrying Dany and whose wedding requires her to wear the restrictive tokar and to reopen the fighting pits in order to - ironically - end the "slaughter" of unsullied and others in the streets of Meereen). I think it's GRRM's way of showing that the slave and the noblest high-born master can all be butchers. Cleon's resurrection didn't go so well; we don't yet know whether Hizdahr will have an opportunity for resurrection.

Maybe the resurrection will be Dany's when she returns from Drogon's "dragonstone" to resume command of her Unsullied and her quest for the Iron Throne. Her remarks in the scenes with Daario showed that she was starting to self-identify as a monster (= butcher?) like Daario.

On 7/9/2017 at 11:29 PM, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

I think it is worth noting that GRRM may have been inspired to use the word butcher by the stories about British general Douglas Haig from the first world war. He was nicknamed "Butcher Haig" because the British suffered 2 million casualties under his command, around 400,000 just at the Battle of the Somme.

That's insane. It is good to remember that GRRM is putting out a message about the horrors of war in the real world, not just war in a medieval fantasy world.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

2 hours ago, Seams said:

That's insane. It is good to remember that GRRM is putting out a message about the horrors of war in the real world, not just war in a medieval fantasy world.

Very true. His vivid descriptions of wartime violence are not for nothing. He constantly reminds us of the horrors of war.

And yes, the raw number of casualties at the Somme was insane, but what is more insane are the methods by which those casualties were accumulated. For instance, barbed wire in "no man's land" was a huge problem for advancing infantry in WWI. The British generals experimented with ways to get clear the barbed wire and the foremost enemy trenches, namely by using artillery. But at the first day of the Somme, it was obvious after the first wave of infantry getting slaughtered that neither the barbed wire nor the trenches had been effectively destroyed. And you think, OK, oh well, it was worth a try, they had to do something. But the "butcher" part is when the British proceeded to send wave after wave after wave of infantry against the German defenses, even though it was clear off the bat that their overall strategy had failed. The British infantry were being annihilated by German machine guns, and at the few places were there were gaps in the barbed wire, German gunners were concentrating their fire, and dead bodies rapidly piled up in the gaps, providing yet another obstacle for the British. 21,000 British soldiers died in a single day.

Side note - Ser Alliser Thorne is almost certainly a reference to Sir Alistair Horne, a historian and author. Specifically, I suspect GRRM has read his account of the Battle of Verdun, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. 

[Seams]

If you missed it on a related thread, I shared some of the butcher / slaughter analysis in the recent discussion of just what Bran and his travel companions might have been eating when Meera said that Coldhands found a sow:

tl;dr: GRRM seems to be deliberately ambiguous about characters eating human flesh or animal meat in some key scenes. In addition to the scene with Bran, I cited a scene where Arya stops in mid-meal to wonder about the sources of the white meat she is eating in the House of Black and White. The Kindly Man assures her it is just pork. There is also evidence of a sausage link, so to speak: fat fingers are compared to sausages, with Sam as one example (although Manderly and the maester at The Twins also fall into the fingers = sausages category).

Searching on the word "slaughter" showed that GRRM uses it alongside the word "butcher" to tell the reader where to look for related symbolism. Consider this pair, for instance:

The rest was slaughter, though the dwarf held on for another dozen moves. (Tyrion allowed customs official Qavo Nogarys to defeat him at Cyvasse while Haldon gained information about Volantis scuttlebutt. ADwD, Tyrion VI)

The rest was butchery, but this time it was the Butcher King on the wrong end of the cleaver. (ADwD, The Windblown - Quentyn Martell POV)

These two similar turns of phrase occur in chapters 22 and 25 of ADwD, relatively close juxtaposition. I suspect the author wanted us to notice them in order to underscore his longstanding metaphor of cyvasse compared to the bloodshed involved in "A Game of Thrones." But he is also making the logical connection between slaughter and butchery. (I'm also intrigued by the comparison of King Cleon and Tyrion.)

Cleaver references are also interesting parts of the butcher symbolism. Here are a few situations where cleavers turn up, often in unexpected hands:

When Tywin sends Tyrion to King's Landing to run things in his stead, complaining that Cersei has granted Harrenhal to low-born Janos Slynt, he criticizes Slynt's newly-invented bloody spear sigil and says, "A bloody cleaver would have been my choice" (AGoT, Tyrion IX). We know that Tywin is literally talking about Slynt and his status as the son of a butcher, but the phrasing suggests a double meaning: that Tywin's personal sigil could be a bloody cleaver. Tywin is described a number of times as engaging in slaughter, both directly and when the work is being done by Ser Gregor.

Stannis used a cleaver to cut off fingers from Davos Seaworth's hand, as punishment for smuggling. (ACoK, prologue.)

Hot Pie is emboldened by carrying a weapon: ". . . it was just a shortsword and he handled it like a cleaver" (ACoK, Arya III). This brings up an interesting pattern where bakers and butchers are closely linked in some excerpts. I'm going to try to take a systematic analysis of these linked symbols next time I get access to the Search of Ice & Fire site. (I can log in only from the public library.)

After Aeron Greyjoy injures his brother, Urri, during a game of finger dancing, a maester tries to treat the infected wound but Urri dies anyway. When Balon returns from a voyage, he has the maester's fingers cut off with a cleaver and the maester also dies from his wound. (AFfC, The Prophet)

Tyrion admires Ilyrio's valuable jeweled rings and muses, "I could live for years on his rings . . . though I'd need a cleaver to claim them" (ADwD, Tyrion I). Not long after, the reader is told of the aftermath of a battle at sea, with the survivors looting bodies of the slain: "One of the corpses was so fat that the ship's cook had to cut his fingers off with a meat cleaver to claim his rings" (ADwD, The Merchant's Man - Quentyn Martell POV).

"He had heard it said that there were three good cures for greyscale: axe and sword and cleaver" (ADwD, Tyrion V).

". . . she had a sword in hand, a short sword with a broad thick blade, almost like a butcher's cleaver" (ADwD, The Wayward Bride - Asha Greyjoy POV).

Observations:

Like the comparison of low-born King Cleon and high-born Hizdahr, it does seem as if GRRM is making a point to show cleavers used by kings and lords (Stannis and, symbolically, Tywin) as well as low-born people (Hot Pie and the ship's cook). This may be especially relevant in showing how Dany has gradually been persuaded to abandon her principles as she agrees to marry Hizdahr in order to end the slaughter in the streets by the Sons of the Harpy. Although she agrees that the fighting pits can reopen, she bans mock combat involving children and:

The queen had also wished to forbid the follies, comic combats where cripples, dwarfs, and crones had at one another with cleavers, torches, and hammers (the more inept the fighters, the funnier the folly, it was thought), but Hizdahr said his people would love her more if she laughed with them, and argued that without such frolics, the cripples, dwarfs, and crones would starve. So Dany relented.

(ADwD, Daenerys IX)

Somehow, Dany is persuaded that disabled people and elderly women should be forced (allowed?) to engage in mortal combat in order to be fed. As noted in a previous comment, Dany finds herself becoming more like Daario, who said it was better to be a butcher than to be the meat. The reference to laughter in the passage about the follies may also be wordplay on the slaughter motif.

Cleavers are associated with cutting off fingers, although not exclusively.

If the butcher and baker link is deliberate, the nursery rhyme would imply that there should also be a candlestick maker involved with slaughter and cleavers. The double function of obsidian might explain this, as it is used to make daggers, spearheads and arrowheads but it can also become a glass candle in the hands of someone like Maester Marwyn.

 

[ravenous reader]

 @Seams  In line with your related WORDS / SWORDS and @GloubieBoulga 's LAUGHTER / SLAUGHTER wordplays,  I think what you're dealing with here is a CLEVER / CLEAVER pun.  

What weapon is more devastating than the human mind?  It came to me while I was reading the new Lann the Clever thread by @SwaggingAllOverTheWorld examining evidence for Lann as a greenseer -- One meaning of 'Lann' is a sword or sharp blade and he winkled his way into the rock 'with nothing but his wits', hence the mind is the sharp instrument responsible for the carnage and other carnalities.

 

[Seams]

On 7/13/2017 at 5:02 PM, Seams said:

Hot Pie is emboldened by carrying a weapon: ". . . it was just a shortsword and he handled it like a cleaver" (ACoK, Arya III). This brings up an interesting pattern where bakers and butchers are closely linked in some excerpts. I'm going to try to take a systematic analysis of these linked symbols next time I get access to the Search of Ice & Fire site. (I can log in only from the public library.)
...

If the butcher and baker link is deliberate, the nursery rhyme would imply that there should also be a candlestick maker involved with slaughter and cleavers. The double function of obsidian might explain this, as it is used to make daggers, spearheads and arrowheads but it can also become a glass candle in the hands of someone like Maester Marwyn.

I got back to the library, finally, and used the search site to look at bakers.

The first mention of a baker in the books is accompanied by a butcher. The baker is actually a "baker's helper" in a kitchen at the Red Keep when Arya is escaping the gold cloaks after Ned has been taken into custody. Arya knocks over the baker's helper and then almost runs into a "portly butcher" in the same kitchen. Also present and in her way are cooks and pot boys. (AGoT, Arya IV)

The second reference to a baker comes from Mirri Maz Duur, describing the Dothraki attack on her people, known as the lamb men, and enlightening Daenerys that she did not "rescue" Mirri Maz Duur because she (Mirri) had already been raped three times before Dany stopped the fourth rape while it was under way. Many of her people are killed in the indiscriminate Dothraki attack, and Mirri describes seeing the severed head of the baker who made her bread. Because the people of Mirri Maz Duur are called the lamb men, and because we see a lot of lamb and mutton eaten in the story, I include the Dothraki attack as an example of slaughter and part of the butcher motif. So the dead baker is found again in the presence of butchery.

I suspect that understanding of butchers and bakers will come into focus only if we also examine meat and bread at the same time. The first mention of meat and bread together comes from Jon (AGoT, Jon I) at the very first of a number of super-important feast scenes: "The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread."

A fourth passage that struck me as likely to be helpful came from Joffrey in ACoK, Sansa III, as he menaces Sansa with a crossbow and quarrel. He corrects her accusation that he killed her direwolf, saying that Ned had done that but that he (Joffrey) had killed Ned and wishes he had actually beheaded him. He says that he did kill a man with a crossbow when a mob in King's Landing had begged for food at the wall of the Red Keep: "They came to the gate shouting my name and calling for bread like I was some baker, but I taught them better, I shot the loudest one right through the throat."

Sansa asks whether the man died but, looking at the deadly "iron head" of the crossbow quarrel, answers her own question. I suspect that this little detail of the iron head is a major clue in deciphering the symbols: it is an allusion to Gregor Clegane / Ser Robert Strong and further evidence that Ser Gregor is a weapon in the hands of the Lannisters. (Read the earlier posts in this thread to see how Ser Gregor is intertwined with the butcher motif.) When Ser Gregor is reanimated by Qyburn's dark magic, he no longer has a human head but will wear the helmet from his suit of armor at all times. So Joffrey is telling us that it would be a mistake to think of him as a baker and he is showing us that he uses the well-known butcher (iron head = Gregor Clegane) to kill hungry smallfolk. (Just like Tywin.) Without directly using the word "butcher," the author has found a way to link butchers and bakers in this passage, and to show how Joffrey fits into the symbolism.

Elements of the pattern I'm seeing:

• Bakers and butchers are linked - not opposites, exactly, but people who produce food in very different ways. Although the death of the baker in the attack on the lamb men might make it seem as if bakers are passive victims, I think that would be inaccurate. Baking is an act of producing, not a passive activity.
• There may be an element of class differences at work, but maybe also class mobility (both upward and downward): Hot Pie is a baker's boy but he gets to carry a cleaver-like sword. Cleon was a slave and a butcher, but he becomes a king. Joffrey is a king but he acts like a butcher. Ramsay Snow is a bastard (and the son of a miller's wife - a maker of flour for bread) but he becomes a lordling, carries a cleaver and cuts off people's fingers. Lord Manderly apparently has people butchered and baked into pies.
• Bakers and butchers are part of a larger group of kitchen and food workers: cooks, pot boys, pot girls, greengrocers, fishmongers, brewers, scullions. I suspect that a crofter's daughter might also fall into the category of a food worker. This makes sense to me: feasts and dreams about feasts have been discussed in a number of threads in this forum. If feasts are allegorical, it is logical that production of feasts would be part of the larger set of symbols. Most of the feasts include a king or a king-like figure sitting in a throne. The author seems to compare butchers and kings. So what is the comparison for bakers?
• Meat and bread are paired, but they are often served with root vegetables. Stew is supposed to be made with meat, but POVs that describe stew often emphasize the carrots, onions and turnips in it and lament that there isn't more meat.

My early guess is that bakers are also kings, a different kind of king than butcher kings, and that they tend to be lower-profile; possibly even hidden kings. This doesn't necessarily mean that Hot Pie is a hidden Targ - we're talking about symbolism here. A lot of the people who move in and out of the lives of major characters represent aspects of their growth and development and self-awareness but don't necessarily have a major role of their own in the plot. So the people who throw rotten meat at Cersei during her walk of shame, for instance, are contributing to the symbolism but are not necessarily butcher kings.

The thing that interests me now is the characters that seem to have a balance between meat and bread, butchers and bakers. Or maybe these characters are evolving away from being butchers (or butcher lovers) to being bakers. Arya befriends both a butcher's boy (who dies as a result of her confrontation with Joffrey) and a baker's boy (who she brutally attacks with her wooden sword before Yoren pulls her off and reminds her that the Night's Watch recruits are her brothers). Jon and Tyrion and Theon all eat stew out of trenchers made of stale bread. (In several of these cases, the author seems to emphasize that the POV character makes his own bowl with the loaf or heel of bread. Does this put them in the category of bakers or baker's helpers?) Meat pies combine butchered meat with a flour-based dough crust. Qhorin Half-hand instructs his ranging group to mix blood from a butchered horse in with their oatmeal to give themselves added protein for their long, cold journey.

According to the search site, the word bread appears in the books 255 times. I didn't want to take the time to review all of these references, but I dipped into the list and noticed some things. As I mentioned, Jon's first POV is the first place where bread and meat appear together, and it is the first place where bread is mentioned at all. Then Tyrion has a bread orgy in his first POV, while discussing the comatose Bran Stark with his siblings:

A servant approached. "Bread," Tyrion told him, "and two of those little fish, and a mug of that good dark beer to wash them down. Oh, and some bacon. Burn it until it turns black."

...

"Lord Eddard had a brother named Brandon as well," Jaime mused. "One of the hostages murdered by Targaryen. It seems to be an unlucky name."

"Oh, not so unlucky as all that, surely," Tyrion said. The servant brought his plate. He ripped off a chunk of black bread.

...

"If he wakes," Cersei repeated. "Is that likely?"

"The gods alone know," Tyrion told her. "The maester only hopes."

He chewed some more bread. "I would swear that wolf of his is keeping the boy alive. . . . "

...

"Tyrion, my sweet brother," he said darkly,"There are times when you give me cause to wonder whose side you are on"

Tyrion's mouth was full of bread and fish. He took a swallow of strong black beer to wash it all down, and grinned up wolfishly at Jaime. "Why, Jaime, my sweet brother," he said, "you wound me. You know how much I love my family."

POVs often describe food or order food, but I think it is infrequent that we actually witness people with food in their mouths. So Tyrion's ripping and chewing of bread comes early in the books and it is also fairly unique in that he is clearly ingesting the bread. This is in contrast to a scene in a nearby chapter in which Catelyn wakes up and orders food but does not eat. (Of interest to me is the next bread scene, in which Septa Mordane eats bread and honey. This seems like part of the symbolism around the "Sing a Song of Sixpence" nursery rhyme that has been discussed elsewhere in this forum. In that song, the queen is in the parlor, eating bread and honey. Could this be another clue about Septa Mordane's secret past or her status at Winterfell?)

Jon Snow's meals frequently include a "heel" of bread - the rounded, crusty end of a loaf. I suspect this is part of the major set of symbols and wordplay around feet - as far as I know, no one has examined this motif. The heel reference might be an allusion to a hidden king, as the name of the famous King Oedipus of Greek legend translates as "swollen foot." Achilles is also famous for his vulnerable heel. In the few passages of the 255 featuring bread, I found Jon Snow carrying or manipulating or mentioning bread, but not eating it. I'm not sure whether that's significant or not, but the corn king and/or communion symbolism in his story might govern the examples where he is directly described as chewing or eating.

With most of the 255 mentions of bread unexplored, however, I realize that it is difficult to draw conclusions. I am only pointing out some early associations of characters with bread and bakers. The author does seem to set up a lot the major symbols in the very early chapters of AGoT, so it will be interesting to note whether or how these early associations are carried through later in the books.

Before I finish, here are a few more notes and observations about bakers and surrounding elements:

Bronn seems to be connected to the bakers in Tyrion's arc. When Tyrion arrives at King's Landing, he notes the tension around the food shortage in the city. Seeing security guards at the doors of merchants, he thinks, "Bakers found sellswords cheaper than bread" (ACoK, Tyrion I). When he ascends the Iron Throne to conduct business as the Hand of the King, it is Bronn who tells him that bakers, butchers and greengrocers are clamoring to be heard. "They want protection. Last night a baker was roasted in his own oven. The mob claimed he charged too much for bread" (ACoK, Tyrion IV).

Shae is also linked to the baker symbolism. (And Bronn procured her for Tyrion, so Bronn and Shae are linked, too.) When Tyrion ponders how to get Shae situated in King's Landing, in spite of his father's orders, he notes, "The Red Keep has sufficient cooks. Butchers and bakers, too. You'd need to pose as a scullion" (ACoK, Tyrion X). Shae makes a joke about being such a bad cook that she would poison anyone who ate her food, and being a better whore. I believe this is the first place where bakers and whores are linked. Varys tells Tyrion that Shae is so attractive that she might be vulnerable to sexual assault if she works in the kitchen: "Bakers will knead her breasts with floured hands."

The speculation about Shae's vulnerability to flour-covered hands is juxtaposed with an Arya POV in which we have an update on Hot Pie: "He took another sip of ale, and began talking lovingly of breads and pies and tarts, all the things he loved. Arya rolled her eyes" (ASoS, Arya II). So the breasts of Tyrion's lover are being compared to bread dough, basically. Does this mean that Tyrion is being compared to a baker? For what it's worth, I recall that, when Theon takes over Winterfell, Osha emerges from the kitchen with evidence of floury handprints on her clothing and she indicates that the cook has regularly used her for sex.

When Jaime returns to King's Landing, he notes the proximity of bakers and whores: "Elsewhere milled the usual crowds; gold cloaks, bakers' boys and whores" (ASoS, Jaime VII). Brienne witnesses Randall Tarly dispense justice to a thief, a baker and a whore (AFfC, Brienne III). When Cersei begins her walk of shame from Baelor's Sept, she notes that the baker's boy selling pies "sang counterpoint" to the Septa calling, "Shame upon the sinner." Then she thinks about Baelor expelling whores from the area (ADwD, Cersei II). Perhaps returning to the image of Shae's breasts assaulted by bakers, Kevan Lannister's sole POV notes that Cersei has lost the credibility to rule because "Every baker's boy and beggar in the city had seen her shame and every tart and tanner from Flea Bottom to Pisswater Bend had gazed upon her nakedness, their eager eyes crawling over her breasts and belly and women's parts" (ADwD, Epilogue).

The link between bakers and whores becomes especially interesting in an excerpt from Tyrion's trial, in which he tries to defend Sansa against accusations that she might have been involved in Joffrey's death:

"The gods killed Joffrey. He choked on his pigeon pie."

Lord Tyrell reddened. "You would blame the bakers?"

"Them or the pigeons. Just leave me out of it." (ASoS, Tyrion IX)

This notion that bakers would be blamed for Joffrey's death took on a new meaning after discovering the link between Shae and bakers. Shae really, really wanted to serve food at Joffrey's wedding feast, and to see the pigeons fly out of the pie. She also arranged Sansa's hairnet for her. She also said that her cooking would poison Tyrion if she were disguised as a cook. Hmmm.

The pie connection, of course, is also consistent with "tart" as a synonym for a sex worker or woman of loose morals. A couple other wordplay possibilities worth considering might include Shae as a "scullion," and the association of "skulls" with death. Ser Ilyn hands Joffrey a sword with a skull on its hilt just before he begins to choke. I am also curious about a possible pig / pigeon pun. Pretty Pig makes his ASOIAF debut at the wedding feast, Tyrion eventually rides the pig and crunchy bacon also appears in that very first Tyrion AGoT POV involving bread (the dog that carries the second jouster in Penny's act is named Crunch).

Shae is also called a "pot girl," and that immediately brings to mind the pot calling the kettle black, and the mysterious Kettleblack family that seems to serve Petyr Baelish.

Pies have been explored elsewhere in this forum, although much more analysis could be useful. Following these linked symbols - butchers to bakers to bread and dough and pies to poison and whores - might be the way to understand GRRM's more complex trails of clues that convey underlying meanings.

On the other hand, the Tattered Prince tells Quentyn Martell that he might not want to know how a secret password was obtained from the guards: ". . . a prince should know better than to pose such questions . . . In Pentos, we have a saying. Never ask the baker what went into the pie. Just eat" (ADwD, The Dragontamer).

Some random baking-related thoughts:

Aerys roasted Rickard Stark in his suit of armor. Aerys = baker.

Dany's dragons won't eat raw meat but they can cook their own meat. Dragons = bakers. But dragons also = butchers?

The Red Keep = a symbolic oven or forge. It was built by and for Targaryens.