The Red Wedding "Omens?"

[HouseFrancis93]

Hey guys, so I've browsed and posted here very infrequently but i'm on a 3rd re read and I think we can all agree the Red Wedding had some serious omens I guess you could call it? The references to the petty arrogant and angry manner of Lord Walder, and various other things. I know this topic in itself is kind of pointlessly petty but it really stuck with me in curiosity so... Well first off what omens do you guy see or kind of foreshadowing before the wedding's untimely end? 

I personally am wondering when in Storm of Swords, Caetlyns chapter when shit hits the fan... she mentinos the mucisians are not very good. She mentions the music is terrible, and wonders at Walder Freys hearing, judging by how badly the music...

So in my opinion this is because they are musicians they are mercenaries, or soldiers or something, judging by the fact they.. you know whip out crossbows and kill people? not that crossbows were the hardest weapons to master... but you still wouldn't want those trained in the creative music art to try and kill the deadliest northmen in the hall, with a weapon that requires a long reload?

So A) i just wanted to ask your opinion on the idea that THATS why Martin keeps referring to the music being bad, and B] (sorry going from ) to } but a  shows up when you do B ) lol) what other omins and foreshadowing you all saw

[HouseFrancis93]

So i guess my main curiosity is "IS the focus on the musicians to highlight they ARENT musicians but soldiers? Bad music, a famous Frey known for his music won't be playing, and again, CONSTANT mention of reasons the music is poor?

[Adam Targaryen]

I can't answer your question but when Arya and the Hound are travelling toward the Twins, the chapter ends with the Hound saying something like "maybe we'll even be in time for your uncle's bloody wedding", and the next chapter ending with him saying something like "It's your bloody brother I want", which is very foreboding in hindsight.

[Mladen]

Are we speaking just about RW chapter or the hints and clues that are being thrown all over the place...

If we speak about the latter, there are so many RW hints that it is kinda surprising that we didn't catch it.

1. We have Dany's HotU vision and even though some argue that it wasn't about RW, the imagery is rather similar.

2. Melisandre's leeches, one named Robb Stark

3. Roose Bolton going to hunt wolves.

4. The Frey boy in Harrenhal not getting married to Princess, as he complained, ironically, to Arya.

5. Ghost of High Heart's visions

6. Patchface's song 

7. The story of the importance of Guest Right

8. Duskendale massacre of Northern army

I think these cover all.

 

As for chapter itself, it is masterfully written. You could sense Catelyn being restless and that something is really off. And when "Rains of Castamere" started, when you read the horror in Cat's heart... It's too late.

[Seams]

I think you are right that the musicians at the wedding are bad at playing because they are killers, not professional musicians. I bet you will find even more foreshadowing in the songs played at the wedding -- look at who is singing, the titles of the songs, etc.

We know that the signal to start the Red Wedding massacre was the song The Rains of Castamere, which is a song written in tribute to Tywin Lannister, who massacred the Reyne family after (he felt) they took advantage of his father's generosity. So any reference to that song or to the killing of the Reynes and Tarbeks would be worth examining to see if there was foreshadowing about the Red Wedding or about Tywin's wrath.

One of the earliest hints I noticed about bloodshed at wedding feasts was in a Dany POV, where she described the celebration feast after her wedding to Khal Drogo. I don't have the book handy, but she says something about the Dothraki don't consider the celebration to be complete unless someone dies at the feast. At Dany's feast, during a dance in which people have sex out in the open, two naked men are fighting over a woman. They fight, one man dies, and the winner of the fight turns to a different woman, apparently forgetting about the woman for whom he was fighting. I think this is a symbolic replay of Robert and Rhaegar fighting for Lyanna, and Robert turning to Cersei after Rhaegar dies. Not necessarily Red Wedding foreshadowing, but an example of how one wedding death can represent another, fwiw.

But the line from the Dany POV about expecting at least one or two deaths at every wedding feast has proven to be true for almost every subsequent wedding in the books. (When Tommen marries Margaery, they deliberately skip organizing a wedding feast, so soon after Joffrey's death at his wedding feast.)