Seams

We know that the author frequently manages to convey more than one layer of meaning, so you may be right. My own interpretation is that "Ser Pounce" is a slant rhyme with "serpents." Tommen has a dragon kitty.

Well I guess I should have done a little digging before assuming this topic had not been covered. That's what I get for maintianing only intermittent contact with the forum the last few years.

Excellent work, Holmes! I think this also brings us back to the topic by helping us to tie Ami and Pia together on another level: Pia is from a buttery, and Ami is a Darry heir! (I don't know GRRM personally, but I'm pretty sure this is how his mind works. No shortage of potty jokes.) And "Baelor Butthole" (Bonifer Hasty) sends Pia away from Harrenhal. Let the wild rumpus start! Drogo's fatal wound is a cut on his breast that slices off his nipple. No milk for the Khal, but he does give off blood from the wound. So Dany may have to find a lover who has milk symbolism: Jon Snow has been to the source of the Milkwater (he sees Mance's camp from a cliff overlooking the river) and he is a milk brother through Willa - similar to Willas, the off-stage heir to Garth Greenhand. This may explain why Olenna Redwyne Tyrell is a key player in all of this fertility mumbo jumbo - she carries the wine symbolism and seems to direct Butterbumps as well as the entire Tyrell household populated with fertility symbols. Maybe she is like the mother of Dionysus? I've assumed that Tyrion is supposed to be a Dionysus parallel, because he drinks so much wine. But I'm not feeling that kind of maternal connection between him and Olenna. I could be wrong, though. Maybe the wine connection to "butts" is sort of the older generation. The dairy connection is the next generation. All are part of keeping the fertility cycle running properly.

In the current, "Wow, I never noticed that" thread, @Fun Guy from Yuggoth just shared some really interesting insights about the parallels between Valhalla and the Wall. I can't remember a thread analyzing the Night's Watch castles and their meaning, so it seemed like a good time to build on Fun Guy's points and to come up with other ideas that will help us to understand GRRM's thinking and what might be in store for these castles. Part of Fun Guy's information about Valhalla: Here is a link to the wiki reminding us of the names of the largely-abandoned castles that Jon Snow is trying to bring back into functional use. https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Night's_Watch#Castles_of_the_Night.27s_Watch Sable Hall? Really? How did I not notice that one, with all my speculation about the sable cloak of Waymar Royce and the Bael / Sable wordplay? Long Barrow seems like good evidence in favor of the idea that undead warriors at the Wall are waiting to be reactivated. What other hints can we find?

Really excellent insights. Thank you. I think we need a thread about the castles along the Wall and Jon Snow's efforts to repopulate them. I've long suspected that the Shadow Tower is a residence for dead Night's Watch brothers. (Perhaps explaining why Qhorin Halfhand didn't mind dying to advance Jon Snow's secret mission.) But it might make sense that all of the castles perform that function, or a version of it.

This is all very helpful. I'm thinking of Patrek of King's Mountain more than Jon, though. Although maybe the point is to see them as parallels - Jon doesn't act on his attraction to Val, but Ser Patrek decides to try the "stealing" strategy for winning the heart of a wildling woman. I assume that any follower of Selyse is part of the earth fertility symbolism attached to Garth Greenhand and his descendants and heirs, including House Florent which sees itself as the rightful heirs of Highgarden. So Patrek's death by Frost Giant is probably part of the "end of summer" symbolism but also a necessary part of the cycle that each candidate for king undergoes in the quest for the throne. Patrek may be a symbolic part of the quest of Stannis, or may be part of Jon Snow's efforts on behalf of House Stark or Targaryen. I know that everyone has settled on the cloth of silver and blue star of Ser Patrek's sigil as a reference to the Dallas Cowboys. (How interesting that Val's sister was named Dalla.) I think it may also allude to the colors adopted by Ser Hugh of the Vale - Ope! There may be a Val allusion! - the young squire-turned-knight who died in the Hand's Tourney. Certain symbolic characters have to die in specific ways in order to fulfill the requirements of the fertility cycle.

Yes. sole and sol. The two Norse words I found include one for the Norse word for "sole" (the link shows a picture of the sole of a shoe) and one for the Norse word relating to "sol" as in solar. Apparently the English words and the Norse words both work as puns.

Google is your friend. sóli wiktionary.org https://en.wiktionary.org › wiki › sóli From late Old Norse sóli, from Latin solea via Old English sōle or Middle Low German sōle. PronunciationEdit · IPA: /ˈsouːlɪ/. Rhymes: -ouːlɪ ... Sól (Germanic mythology) Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Sól_(Germanic_myth... Sól (Old Norse: [ˈsoːl], "Sun") or Sunna (Old High German, and existing as an Old Norse and Icelandic synonym: see Wiktionary sunna, "Sun") is the Sun ...

I just re-read the comments so far, and I do think this dairy motif has large clues for us. Because of his dairy name, I remembered Butterbumps, and his strange role in the conversation between Sansa and the Queen of Thorns. Olenna Tyrell seems like a key player in the last of the Targaryens - she was betrothed to Daeron Targaryen, uncle of Mad King Aerys. She also carries wine symbolism (Redwyne surname) and flower symbolism (Queen of Thorns + Tyrell rose sigil). During her mad tea party scene with Sansa and with Margaery's "hens," she demands that cheese be served, giving us another dairy link. So how does she fit with this pattern we are seeing with sexually active women, flowers, severed heads, mummers, dairy foods and the conflict between boars and hounds? And am I correct in seeing the planting of seeds, green, brown and the black that follows fire as part of the equation for fertility in ASOIAF? I suspect that the broken betrothals of Jaehaerys and Shaera to Olenna Redwyne and Luthor Tyrell may tell us something important the decline and fall of the Targaryens. The children of Aegon V all rejected the matches arranged by their father, who had been steered to the throne by Bloodraven in a series of complicated maneuvers. I think the betrothals to Houses Redwyne and Tyrell were intended to provide an infusion of fertility to House Targaryen -- for hatching dragon eggs, if not for healthy human heirs. Butterbumps lays a big egg, appears to ingest a chick and then causes the chick to appear from the sleeve of Lady Bulwer, one of Margaery's hens. It seems likely that the egg references here - maybe all egg references in the books - are telling us things about how to hatch dragons. Maybe the point is that the newly-hatched chicks appear to be ingested but then re-emerge in unexpected ways. Could be a hint for Sansa about the dragon-acquisition options open to her. Butterbumps juggles oranges, including bouncing one off his rump and eating one whole, slapping his cheek and then blowing orange seeds out of his nose. So there are some seeds for us to consider as part of this larger fertility motif. We know that Sansa is obsessed with lemon cakes and that an upcoming lemon shortage will be a challenge for her supply of lemon cakes. Olenna asks Margaery to call for Butterbumps saying that she hopes to make Sansa smile. I have wondered in the past whether there is wordplay on smile and limes. Oranges come up in Brienne's quest for Sansa, as Septon Meribald takes a special interest in distributing oranges to the poor. Based on clues in the Dunk & Egg stories, I think oranges are linked to House Targaryen, perhaps most strongly to characters named Aegon. Lots of citrus going on. (And citrus is often an ingredient in mulled wine, mentioned earlier in this discussion.) I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the seeds Butterbumps produces for Sansa are an indication that she will be the "mother" of the next Aegon. I know, I know - not the literal mother and fruit seeds cannot impregnate a human but this is literature and I am the magic literary analysis fairy. My thread, my rules. This may be GRRM's wacky, madcap version of the immaculate conception. At this mad tea party, Olenna is trying to turn Sansa into the Lady of Highgarden, bride of the heir to Highgarden, Willas Tyrell. So Sansa would become, essentially, the goddess of the earth's fertility or queen of the Westeros equivalent of the Garden of Eden. In a way, she would be the heir of Renly, because Renly had bedded Ser Loras Tyrell. The flaw in the Renly / Loras love match, insofar as we are examining the fertility symbolism, is that there were no eggs in the relationship. Renly had the option of bedding Margaery, but didn't get around to it. Joffrey also will miss his opportunity to bed Margaery and Tommen is too young at the end of the fifth book. Who will be the next Garth Greenhand? Westeros wants to know. But I mention all this because I am guessing that we will see Olenna and Butterbumps parallels in the arcs of these other fertility goddesses - Pia, Cersei, Lollys, Jeyne Poole, Gatehouse Ami, Brienne, Tysha, Gilly, the daughter of the captain of the Myraham. Maybe they won't be mothers of Aegons, but they might be mothers of other important reborn heroes and archetypes. We saw Dany's dragons hatch after the gang rape of Mirri Maz Duur. If that sexual violence is part of the fertility cycle for dragon eggs, there are going to be a lot of dragon eggs hatching pretty soon.

I bet you're right. I see Jon Snow looking in faceted mirrors when he is surrounded by Grenn, Pyp, Satin, Leathers, other Night's Watch pals, possibly even Sam. We never really see Jaime surrounded by kings guard members until he returns from Riverrun and Cersei has appointed the new motley crew to the six positions. But Jaime leaves on his Riverlands mission and surrounds himself with his own squires, hostages, fighters such as Strongboar and - plucked from the dark dungeon - Ser Ilyn Payne. These fellow travelers are likely aspects of himself and reflect his evolving personality or world view. We never hear of Josmyn Peckleton until Jaime departs on this quest. Names that start with J are significant, I think, and possibly linked. Just as Tyrion resisted the idea of riding the pig when it was suggested by Joffrey and, for awhile, by Penny, I think Jaime resisted the idea of sleeping the Pia but eventually came up with a solution by encouraging his squire to lovingly and gently sleep with her. This reminds me very much of Lady Tanda trying everywhere to find a husband for Lollys but failing in all of her attempts both before and after Lollys is raped. Bronn, a right-hand-man for Tyrion, finally marries Lollys and he says he genuinely likes his wife. @Nevets picked up on the motif of sexual violence in parallel characters. I suspect these victims of sexual violence are all part of GRRM's fertility motif that undergirds the overall plot: If I am reading the clues correctly, he is telling us that the planting of crops in Westeros is an act of sexual violence inflicted upon the earth. I've written elsewhere that Ser Gregor is a "green" character - he and his men inflict irrational, unspeakable violence on Pia. Bronn is a "brown" character - the fertility goddesses may be safe with these brown characters, who represent soil where the planted seeds are quietly nurtured. Perhaps Josmyn Peckledon represents the brown character in Jaime's retinue. Josmyn's name sounds suspiciously like Osmund Kettleblack, though. Could Josmyn be a black character? I think part of GRRM's earth fertility cycle involves fire - the burning of Wat's Wood in The Sworn Sword, for instance. Maybe Bonifer (bonfire) Hasty represented the fire at Harrenhal, freeing Pia who had never been outside of that castle. Her new friendship with Josmyn could represent the fallow aftermath of the fire and she will soon germinate, in spite of Jaime's observation that she had never been pregnant during her many years of sexual activity. There is fire at Winterfell before Jeyne Poole arrives as the fake Arya. A body (Bannen) is burned at Craster's Keep before the mutiny and rape of Craster's wives, resulting in Gilly's escape. What is the timeline of the fire at the Tower of the Hand - set by Cersei - and either Lollys giving birth or Jaime freeing Pia? I wonder whether that fire is part of the fertility cycle involving characters touched by Lannisters? Edit: I stand corrected. I see that Peck (Josmyn Peckledon) emerged from the Blackwater, before Jaime's Riverlands sojourn. I think a Blackwater origin could mean that he is any color, as black absorbs all colors and I have a theory that the battle was a giant "black hole" with light and color passing through to emerge in a new spectrum on the other side. Peck testified that Tyrion dumped wine on the ground after Joffrey's death - this is part of the fertility ritual, as shown in The Sworn Sword when Ser Eustace Osgrey pours wine into the berry patch (bury patch) where his sons were buried. But Peck then becomes one of three squires on Jaime's quest, along with Garrett Paege and Lewys Piper.

Swaggering, as though drunk. Or swaying like a flower in the breeze perhaps? I bet the swaggering is intended to hide the word "egg." Egg wings? Egg wars? If the three heads of Daario represent eggs, Dany may have to "hatch" the three eggs in order to progress in her arc - she does become a dragon rider, finally, shortly after Daario leaves and she marries Hizdahr zo Loraq, so that could be the meaning of an "egg wing" hint. The word "swagger" appears 20 times in the books, according to the search website. It does seem as if it might have a bird or flight connection: Since peacocks have tails full of eyes, this could tie back in to the discussion of blue flowers and hearing, mentioned earlier. Daario gives Dany flowers which, we suspect, helps her to improve her hearing. Maybe the swagger helps her open her eyes? There is a lot about maiming and severing - feet, heads, ears, noses, frostbitten fingers - in the books. People lose eyes in various unexpected ways. This could tie back to the threatened butchering of Pretty Pig and Pia's "parts" and the feet that could be severed by Vargo Hoat. Because of the egg / Ei / eye connection (Ei is the German word for egg), maybe the attractive swagger of Daario ties into the need for Dany to open a third eye, as Bran undertakes with help from Jojen and Bloodraven. Or consider this interesting insight about swaggering: So apparently swaggering is something that gods do when they walk on earth. I wonder whether Dany will swagger when she walks, now that she has flown on a dragon?

I have the feeling that Pretty Pia is an important allegorical character, perhaps linked to Lollys and Tysha because of the sexual violence inflicted on them. She works in the buttery at Harrenhal, and that might mean she is linked to House Darry (wordplay on dairy), milk brothers, The Milkwater, Whitewalls (an egg symbol), Lord Butterwell and other elements of the dairy motif. (Cheese alone offers dozens of possible interpretations.) For what it's worth, Gatehouse Ami (Amerei Frey), is also promiscuous and is linked to House Darry (her father is Merrett Frey and her mother is Mariya Darry). Pia wants to have sex with Jaime Lannister but he declines. Ami wants to sleep with her husband, Lancel Lannister, but he becomes religious and won't consummate the marriage. Arya sees three Frey men-at-arms raping the captive Pia in the courtyard at Harrenhal. She is being punished for sleeping with Lannister supporters before the northmen break out and (supposedly) take over Harrenhal under Roose Bolton's command. Strongboar is Lyle Crakhall. Amerei Frey's grandmother was a Crakehall. Strongboar is part of Jaime's force sent to end the stand-off at Riverrun. He ends up at Darry in AFfC and promises Amerei that he will hunt down The Hound (Sandor Clegane) and kill him, although the outrages believed to have been committed by The Hound were mostly committed by others wearing his helmet. I believe that Pia also has a pig connection. For a sound-alike name, Pretty Pig seems like a possible parallel to Pretty Pia. Pretty Pig is part of the mummer jousting act. GRRM is deliberately vague about whether Groat or Penny "rides" Pretty Pig. When Tyrion finally joins Penny's act, he rides Pretty Pig. Could this be the consummation, finally, of the characters trying to seduce Jaime and Lancel? Pia was punished for sleeping Lannister bannermen, so maybe that counts. But Tyrion is finally the genuine Lannister who rides the pig. But Pia and Gatehouse Ami also have parallels to Brienne. Brienne is given the ironic nickname of Brienne the Beauty. Pia also becomes physically unattractive, making "Pretty Pia" an ironic name: Brienne is associated with the color blue - she has beautiful blue eyes, her horse wears blue bardings in the melee where she defeats Ser Loras, she becomes Renly's blue guard, the blue water around the Isle of Tarth leads to Jaime's rumor about her family fortune in sapphires. Gatehouse Ami's first husband was named Pate of the Blue Fork. Jaime ends up taking Pia away from Harrenhal, at the request of the pious castellan, Ser Bonifer Hasty (possibly the father of Rhaegar Targaryen). She travels with him to Darry where she hooks up with one of Jaime's squires, Josmyn Peckleton. The trip to Darry brings Amerei and Pia together: @Evolett and @Sandy Clegg recently opened a very interesting line of discussion on flowers and foxes and hearing. I noted that Daario gives Dany some severed heads but also a series of wildflowers. Jaime's reflections on giving a severed head and flowers to Pia seem to fit with those linked motifs. It looks as if this could go on and on, with analysis of every reference to Pia. She makes mulled wine for Jaime and his cousin, Daven Lannister, who has been compelled to abandon a Redwyne betrothal and accept an arranged marriage with the Frey family. (Relevant to the fox analysis: Ser Daven wears a fox fur cloak.) I think it's very significant that Jon Snow makes mulled wine for Lord Commander Mormont and Arya makes it for Roose Bolton. Pia's switch from dairy to wine may be significant. At one point, Jaime dreams of smashing Cersei's teeth the way that Ser Gregor smashed Pia's teeth. But I want to make this last point in this initial post: Pia is threatened with having her feet cut off if she doesn't act quickly on behalf of Vargo Hoat, who is the castellan at Harrenhal when Arya arrives there. When Bonifer Hasty indicates his desire that she be taken away, he says, "She is a font of corruption," said Ser Bonifer. "I won't have her near my men, flaunting her . . . parts" (Feast, Jaime III). If Pia and Amerei Frey and Pretty Pig are all linked to Mycah, the butcher's boy who is cut into pieces and mistaken for a slaughtered pig, this could explain why there is a conflict between these characters and Ser Gregor and The Hound: supposedly, The Hound killed Mycah. (Although The Hound won his trial by combat with Ser Beric Dondarrion, so maybe something happened off-stage to Mycah that has not been revealed to the reader.) By the way, I noticed that "Dondarrion" contains the word "darri." Just sayin'.

This is still at the stream-of-consciousness stage. I wonder whether the Forget-me-Nots are the equivalent of "hearing" something that others don't hear? "The North remembers" - the same thing as "forget me not"? And the words of House Royce: We remember. Maybe the forget-me-not blue flowers are part of uniting blue and red: red fox, Robar the Red. Brienne (blue) hates roses (red) because Red Ronnet Connington memorably rejected a betrothal with her and gave her a red rose. But she loved Renly (green) and Renly loved Loras (forget-me-nots). Widow's Wail is also the name of a blue flower. And then there's this: Of course, Daario also gives severed heads to Dany. And I would throw in one other famous literary reference to blue flowers. In the Tennessee Williams play called "The Glass Menagerie," the heroine has a disease called pleurosis. The love interest turns a misheard, mispronounced version of this word into a nickname for her: Blue Roses. GRRM may have had this literary allusion in mind as he devised the symbolism for his books.

This is good stuff. I think we need to consider Gilly, named after a flower, and Sam's mother, Melessa Florent in this analysis. "Melessa" sounds like an echo of "Melisandre," who is a self-styled expert on Azor Ahai. If we can definitively link the blue flowers to House Florent, this also helps us with the three forks of the Trident, in my opinion. Garth Greenhand was the father and his two daughters, Rose of Red Lake (formerly Blue) and Florys the Fox, as red and blue. But focusing on those three colors may be wishful oversimplification on my part: the many offspring of Garth and connections to great houses show that GRRM has a complex purpose in mind for his bloodline. Here's a possible "forging" scenario that may give us a secret, real Lightbringer: When he emerges from his frozen cloak tent / egg shell after a night outside Craster's Keep, Gilly asks Jon Snow to save her baby. Basically, he says he can't. Gilly and Sam travel together including going under the Wall and emerging in the kitchen of the Night Fort. I have theorized in the past that the Winterfell crypt is a forge where young Starks are hammered into weapons; maybe a trip through the Black Gate has a similar magic sword quality - Mance's baby gets the mojo in one direction and Bran gets it in the other direction. Mance Rayder has a baby with Dalla. Gilly had her baby with Craster. I think Mance and Craster are two aspects of the King Beyond the Wall so their babies are two aspects of this royal tradition. The babies are milk brothers and are swapped so that the baby with "king's blood" will not be vulnerable to Melisandre. The swap takes place shortly after Jon becomes Lord Commander and moves into the blacksmith's quarters (the Lord Commander's tower has been burned but a Karstark is soon quartered there). In other words, Jon is now a blacksmith / Lord Commander. Gilly takes Mance's baby on a trip with Maester Aemon, who knows what the real Lightbringer would feel like, and Sam. Mance's baby is now Gilly's baby. Aemon and Gilly and the baby travel together on a wayn piled high with furs. I think the furs are a skinchanger allusion because they are skins that can be worn or taken off. But I think skinchanging is also linked to pregnancy - having a being inside of you, invading your body. We know that Lump - Varamyr Sixskins - got his name when his mother was pregnant. A wayn is an agricultural wagon, so there may be harvest symbolism involved there. The point could be that Maester Aemon is ready to be harvested and has started his "second life" infiltration of Mance's baby as soon as Gilly climbs under the furs with him. On the boat, Sam has sex with Gilly. I suspect that Kojja Mo is part of the process of forging the sword - she is the captain's daughter, like the young woman who sleeps with Theon on the Myraham. She babysits while Sam and Gilly are getting it on. Ships seem to be part of the egg symbolism, with characters "hatching" by emerging from ships after long voyages. Maester Aemon spends time with the baby again but then soon dies. Maester Aemon's body is not buried at sea, it is preserved in a barrel of rum. Sam has just had rum for the first time to toast Aemon's life, and we learn that it is like fire: "The liquor was strange and heady; sweet at first, but with a fiery aftertaste that burned his tongue" (AFfC, Samwell IV). Since tongues are where words come from, the burning tongue could be a fiery sword / words wordplay. Aemon's death resulted in Sam acquiring a fiery sword. Gilly and Sam finally come up with the name Aemon Steelsong or Aemon Battleborn after Sam tells Gilly that "Maester" is not a name. But I do think that there is wordplay around maester and stream. Streams flow, so the symbolic linking of the baby to the name Maester may mean that he is also a flower. Mance's baby, who has undergone a complicated recipe of forging rituals with Mance, Aemon, Gilly, Sam's Florent heritage and Kojja Mo, may also be a sword. I wonder whether the death of Alester Florent was a necessary ingredient in forging another child-as-weapon: maybe Shireen? Actually, I have the feeling that Davos might be the sword in that set of forging rituals. He comes up from the sunken Black Betha or the Blackwater, or from his dungeon confinements, instead of the Black Gate. I know this kind of stream of symbols is why a lot of people hate literary analysis, but I think you are on the right track with the fox as part of the forging process and/or the flaming sword itself. Gilly and the Tarly connection to House Florent could be part of the forging process for a different sword.

I do not believe there are red herrings in these books -- except maybe for literal red herrings in a sigil somewhere. (Oh ha ha, maybe Harren the Red. That would be just like GRRM to throw that in.) Bloodlines are one allusion in the rivers. The passage of time. Water as a necessary component for life. Flowing water as part of a larger set of liquids such as tears, piss, wine. Some people live on, along or in rivers. Some go there to die. Rivers as barriers. Bridges are super important symbols. Fords. Rivers too swollen to cross. Trees and rocks that fall into rivers. Why is there an oxbow in the Shy Maid's encounter with the stone men? Why does the course of the river shift away from the inn at the crossroads? Why is the Elder Brother waiting for the river to deliver another ruby? And then there are the other rivers that may or may not link to the Trident - the Milkwater, the Blackwater, the Green Blood, the Tumblestone. What do they represent in the river symbolism? Yes, the three named forks of the Trident flow together. But I don't think GRRM is limiting their meaning to the merger of intermarried houses, if that is what you mean by bloodlines. I think they represent qualities that GRRM sees as necessary components to bring about, perhaps, justice in the land. What qualities or values do Catelyn, Jaime and Brienne represent? Or consider other characters associated with the three colors - Renly and the Tyrells with green; House Arryn and the Blue Bard with blue; House Royce and maybe House Redwyne with red. (Robar Royce was Renly's red member of the Rainbow Guard.) If we can figure out the underlying meanings of the colors, I think the Trident symbolism will also become clearer. It's probably also worthwhile to look at forks - why do the sailors give Arya a silver fork and why does she throw it in the canal in Braavos? Is Meera's frog spear also a trident? Trident means "three teeth." What is the symbolism of teeth and how does that motif relate to the river? If it were simple to sort out the author's intent, these books would not be so marvelous.

Without a doubt, colors are extremely complicated in ASOIAF. The Lannisters are always crimson, for instance, not usually red. I'm not sure about anything, but exploring the possibility that Jaime is somehow uniquely red or becoming red within the larger crimson family. But there could be an entirely different symbolism that will become apparent some day.

Don't you think that is at the core of Jaime's mission in the Riverlands? We get a ton of detail about how his Bracken and Blackwood hostages are negotiated and selected, and which of the Lord's children were not chosen as hostages. And we are left with Jaime about to descend into the Underworld beneath Pennytree, the community between the two teats. I believe that what he finds there, and how he reconciles whatever Gordian Knot lies there, is at the heart of the series. One house is associated with a "buxom" or thick physical build; the other with a slim build, "flat as a boy." It is interesting language that Aegon IV "gave her Barbra's teats." Sounds as if the king had the power to create a griffon or harpie or chimera by taking body parts from one woman and giving them to another. In ADwD, Lord Jonos Bracken says of Hoster, the second son provided as the hostage from Tytos Blackwood, "A weakling, this one. Water for blood. Never mind how tall he is, any one of my girls could snap him like a rotten twig." So the Blackwood side may also represent water and twigs that are snapped - we know that branches and broken branches and twigs appear often in the series as wooden swords, fuel for the fire made by Melisandre and the framework for the glass house in Sansa's snow castle. I think the twig symbolism could also be an important wordplay clue involving wand / wall. The German word for a wall is Der Wand. The etymology involves the history of wall building: in ancient times, sticks would be woven together (if I remember correctly) and the framework would be covered with mud or adobe or whatever substance was at hand. So the stick as a magic wand and as the inner core of a wall are related ideas. That line from Jonos Bracken may be telling us that Jaime is bringing together a magic wand (Hoster Blackwood) and the daughter of House Bracken who can wield the wand and build a wall with it. Pennytree is a royal fief in the center of the disputed Bracken and Blackwood lands. So Jaime has to finish the job that the Blackwoods and Brackens as well as the Tullys, Tywin Lannister and Aegon IV were unable to do on an ongoing basis: unite the Blackwoods and Brackens under one banner. Bring peace to the Riverlands. I think Jaime will do this both by bringing together the young people who are hostages of the two houses and by whatever he does with Brienne in their shared quest that starts from Pennytree. The Trident has three branches: red, green and blue. I think Catelyn may represent green (she sees her drowned reflection in Renly's green armor and that is where the Freys throw her body), Jaime represents red and Brienne represents blue. The three branches have to flow together to create the united Trident River. Reconciling the Brackens and Blackwoods is part of this.

This is a great insight. After he catches and eats a live rat in the dungeon, his lowest point and very much a hound-like behavior, Theon is led out of the dungeon by the Walder Frey wards of Catelyn Stark. (I think Catelyn may be a central figure in the notion you highlight of the women who are abused but get to "come back as bitches.") Theon is dressed up as Theon again, but he doesn't feel like Theon until after he goes into the crypt with Lady Dustin and after he has an epiphany at the gods wood pond where he hears the raped and abused Jeyne Poole crying. At that point, he is taken into the circle of the spearwives, also known as the washer women. They are warriors disguised as camp followers: washer women who followed armies would make a living by washing clothes and, often, by becoming prostitutes. Thistle was also a spearwife. The washer woman all have tree and nature names: Frenya, Holly, Myrtle, Rowan, Squirrel, and Willow Witch-eye. A recent thought about a possible parallel between House Whent and JRR Tolkein's "Ent Wives" opened up a new line of thought about the symbolism of Catelyn's mother's blood line and the symbolic purpose of Harrenhal. But ents are sort of tree beings. In the washer women, GRRM is giving us a group of women who seem to be trees or nature people. I wonder whether there is a link between the mysteriously disappearing ent wives and the place where whores go? GRRM's variation on a theme by JRRT. Your concluding paragraph about unsuccessful skinchanging may be a key to this set of symbols. Ramsay prefers the hunted women who fight back - they are permitted to come back as bitches; a different kind of second life. Maybe these warrior women surrounding Theon are reborn figures who were especially fierce in their previous lives. I'm also thinking here of Catelyn's conversation with Brienne: I wonder whether women who die in childbirth are part of this group of fierce women who come back as hunting dogs? We know that Catelyn will be reborn as Lady Stoneheart and that vengeance against the Freys will be her motivating force. She is protecting her children by taking out the people who threaten House Stark. Also interesting to note here that Catelyn makes an explicit distinction between ladies and non-ladies - perhaps the non-ladies are part of Tywin's broad category of whores. I wonder whether we need to figure out where ladies go in addition to discovering where whores go? Or do they go to the same place? I have to admit, one of my clues for the importance of Mole's Town is an anagram: Lost Women. In addition to the fantastic detail about the entrance being a privy, we have this added clue about it being a place where missing women might be found. Maybe Rohanne Webber went there, too. But the name can also be anagramed to spell out "Two Lemons." Maybe Sansa's constant quest to find lemons links up to the lost women and Tyrion's search for Tysha.

Not far-fetched. My brain just melted when I read your post. How could this connection have eluded me so long? It took a long time to piece together the wolf-flow-fowl wordplay around the Starks, telling us that each Stark child would have a wolf, the river (flow) heritage from their Tully side (flow might also refer to blood flow and to rain, which is a complex symbol in ASOIAF) and a "fowl" aspect - Arya as Squab, Sansa as The Hound's "Little bird," Bran's friendship with crows, Jon Snow as a Night's Watch crow, etc. But your elegant point makes it clear that there is probably a fourth bit of wordplay that come from the union of House Stark and House Tully: fallow. The land must be fallow in order to become or remain fertile. And being fallow ties in with falling - the thing that happens to Lysa, Bran, Ashara Dayne. Leaves fall from Weirwood trees and become humus in the Winterfell gods wood. And poop falls into privy shafts and befouls the river, below. When Catelyn tells Jon Snow, "It should have been you," she is saying that he should have been the one to fall from the Old Keep and suffer the near-death injury. Both Jon Snow (manure) and Catelyn (water) are holding Bran's (seed? soil?) hand at this point. Both are needed for Bran's rebirth. Maybe when Winter returns to Westeros (signaled by a white fowl), the falling of snow flakes brings about the necessary fallow time needed to rejuvenate the soil. Catelyn will get her wish when snow falls. Ash is something that also can be used to fertilize soil. This would help to explain the group of names that include an "ash" syllable: Ashara, Asha, Tysha, Shae, Shagga. Here's an interesting fertility moment that I stumbled on when I was looking for that moment that Catelyn and Jon Snow shared at Bran's bedside: Walder Frey uses the same words Catelyn used on Jon Snow. He is supposedly negotiating for Robb Stark to marry one of his daughters or granddaughters, but he is using the words that signal someone is going to fall. Foreshadowing for Catelyn's fall into the river, I'm thinking. It's appropriate that the fecund Lord Frey is part of our symbolic fertility cycle.

My guess for Tysha's location is Mole's Town, although there might be a Mole's Town parallel in Essos where she will go. Mole's Town could fit with your theory because of the underground tunnels, similar to a sewer network. The sewer / sewer parallel might offer another clue about Tysha, if you are right about the toilet connection. The people who teach highborn girls to sew are Septas. Maybe Tysha will become a Septa or a Silent Sister.

Now that I'm thinking of it, I will also note that "hasty" is an anagram of Tysha. That could tie into Ser Bonifer Hasty - referred to by Jaime as Baelor Butthole. Since Ser Bonifer might be the secret biological father of Rhaegar, this could tie in again to the fertile soil theory of the shit motif.

Might have guessed you would go down the anagram route! This one made me chuckle, but ... gosh, I think even George might have his limits when it comes to all this 'shit' wordplay - (turdplay? eww no). Hang on ... isn't Oppo an anagram of POOP? Dammit, you've got me doing it now ... Even I sometimes hesitate. I feel very protective of Tysha, after all she suffered, so this does seem like insult to injury. The reason I don't discount it entirely is that I feel very strongly that a lot of the rape violence in ASOIAF links to GRRM's idea of the cycle of crops and the fertility of the earth. I suspect that the shit motif will lead to replenishing the soil as a good steward of the land might bring about by spreading manure. (There are other ingredients in healthy soil - compost and, notably, Catelyn's early reference to the 1000 years of humus in the Winterfell gods wood. I think GRRM also uses blood as a component of nourishing the soil, giving us the red grass field and Maester Luwin bleeding out on the roots of the weirwood. And we all know that water is necessary for crop growth, which is why there is a related huge motif around rain - the Rains of Castamere, Princess Rhaenys - and rivers.) As the central figure of Tywin and Tyrion's, "Where do whores go?" line of thinking, Tysha as fertilized soil might be a logical metaphor. She is usually described as a crofter's daughter (meaning farmer's daughter), and no one else in the books is identified with that phrase. (Although maybe, just maybe, there is rhyming wordplay in crofter and Craster, which would suggest that Gilly is a parallel for Tysha. Perhaps strengthened by the knowledge that Craster's compound is built on shit.) In my symbolism-obsessed and literary analysis-obsessed brain, Tysha and Lollys Stokeworth are parallel characters, initially because they are both gang raped . Lollys comes from the family that controls the food supply for King's Landing and she is impregnated by half a hundred small folk - I think this might be a metaphor for farm workers planting seeds. So the Stokeworth lands as the breadbasket for the capital city is a logical fit for this symbolism. Lollys goes on to marry Bronn, who is a brown character and she has a baby named Tyrion (who is a metaphor for the continent of Westeros, I suspect). The idea of brown characters is another invention I came up with to explain a category of characters - Brown Ben Plumm, Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield, probably Nimble Dick Crabb who is described as very dirty, and probably Ser Hyle Hunt who has a brown sigil and seems to be the reborn Dick Crabb, becoming visible at the moment Dick dies. There are others that can be teased out based on brown in their sigils, dirtiness and names. When dried out and nasty Ser Bennis (who hates water) finally leaves Standfast in The Sworn Sword, the rains return, the Chequy Water is reunited with the crops and cropland (and banner men named after fruits and beans) and Rohanne Webber is united in marriage with Eustace Osgrey. Balance is restored to the cycle of crops. Dunk remembers that Ser Bennis used to be a decent guy but he became a jerk at some point. I think he embodied land that had been dry and had not been nourished with manure or compost or blood as well as water and seeds. Ser Eustace poured wine in the berry patch, but the rain was needed to solve the larger problem. The brown characters contrast with green characters - Jon Snow's friend Grenn, Ser Gregor Clegane, House Gardener, the green men, The Green Grace, Renly with his green armor and marriage to Margaery / Ser Loras. I suspect we are looking for a balance of green and brown and that the cycle of seasons will be balanced again if we can bring green and brown into harmony. I mention the green category in this shit discussion only because I think GRRM is setting up a cycle of brown and green - a growing season and a fallow season. The glass house at Winterfell was destroyed in the fire. Sansa, a maiden who represents spring, could not quite rebuild the glass house when Baelish was helping her with her snow castle in the courtyard at the Eyrie. Restoration of the panes in that glass house will tell us that the growing season can continue. Did I say panes? Wouldn't this tie into Paynes? Like Ser Ilyn and Podrick? I think so. Anyway. That is my big picture theory about the purpose of the shit motif in the larger scheme of things. I'll let you get back to the focus on shit. Except to say that I think "crofter's daughter" holds anagram clues for us. (Ha! Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.) I think the anagrams might contain the word "truth" and that Tyrion's mission to figure out where whores go is a search for The Truth. Truth a Sacred Forge? So he may find the missing sword Truth (formerly held by House Rogare and possibly House Martell).

I think this is part of the motif - Tyrion's work to clear the drains. And that probably connects back to the Rains/Reynes of Castamere and Tywin drowning the entire family by sealing up their castle and mines - plugging the drains - and diverting a river into the structure. We know that he was motivated to do this by his disdain for the Reyne-Tarbeck widow of his uncles, whose family had finagled gold from Tywin's father and then refused to repay it. Lady Ellyn might have been a whore, in Tywin's eyes. Tywin's father, Tytos, also took a mistress who was the common-born daughter of a candlemaker. When Tytos died, Tywin forced her to take a walk of atonement through Lannisport. So there is a pattern of Tywin persecuting women he perceives as unworthy or greedy. Here are some shit-related motifs that might help to enrich our understanding of the whores ---> john symbolism. Jon Arryn oversaw the moon door. Moon doors are associated with outhouses in the bygone days before plumbing in the U.S. Jaime has shit for honor, he tells Catelyn. On the spot where Jaime knelt to take the oath for the Kingsguard, there is now a privy. Jaime was once betrothed to Lysa Tully, who flies out of the Moon Door. Sweetrobin throws a chamber pot at Maester Colemon. The bloody flux, also called the pale mare, is the name for dysentery in ASOIAF. The character called Nurse might have died of this or might have died from mushrooms administered by Tyrion. I believe there may be privy / viper wordplay, linking Jaime to the Red Viper, Prince Oberyn. Tywin Lannister shits gold and there is a lot of descriptive language tying him to bad smells. He dies on a privy. In The Mystery Knight, there is a (SPOILER ALERT) In the cabin he ends up sharing with Penny, Tyrion becomes covered with pig shit from Pretty Pig, the acorn-eating mount for the mummer jousting act. People have speculated that Edd Tollett has a toilet connection. Since he is close to Jon Snow, this could reinforce your theory of Jon and the toilet connection. Craster lives on a midden heap that looks as if it is made of shit. Maybe anagram wordplay: Tysha = A Shyt? So there is a strong association between Lannister men and shit, although the relationship does not appear to be exclusive. I would also note that trebuchets may have a Lannister connection. The ones at the Red Keep during the Battle of Blackwater are nicknamed The Three Whores. Tyrion has the City Watch use them to launch wild fire grenades but Cersei lets Joffrey use them to launch Antler Men at Stannis. There are probably others I have forgotten.

You are right to call me out on this. I can't point to anything specific but I've developed this hunch that Baelor the Blessed and the other Bael characters are somehow good and right kings for Westeros and other kingdoms. Maybe that's just something I made up in my head to try to redefine GRRM's deliberate grey areas in terms of black and white. The Targaryen succession became pretty complicated and the blood lines were watered down. One claimant seemed to have no better rationale than another. Somehow I came to the conclusion that the Bael characters are true north on the compass (speaking figuratively, not referring to the North lands in Westeros) and the succession become murky again each time a Bael character is knocked out of the throne or line of succession. It could be that Bael figures are often near-misses as kings, or they have to team up with someone who embodies other qualities. Baelor the Blessed needed his cousin, the Dragonknight, to perform certain functions and he realized that an alliance with Dorne was important to solve other problems. So maybe I shouldn't think of Bael figures as freestanding kings, but as people who assemble teams (or choose successors?) that rule effectively. Bael the Bard at Winterfell impregnated the Stark lord's daughter, but did not become Lord in his own right. I think that's more the approach being taken by Petyr Baelish. I am fully open to other ideas about kings and Harrenhal. Jaime was inducted into the Kingsguard there and then sent away by Aerys. I am a follower of @sweetsunray's long-ago explanation of tourneys as foreshadowing for power struggles and lines of succession. (I can't remember if it was I who pointed out the wordplay on "tourney" - sounds like "turn knee" - and "bend the knee," with the latter phrase indicating that someone has surrendered to another's claim of victory.) Jaime being barred from the tourney may confirm that he was knocked out of the line of succession for the Iron Throne. (Unless he was a mystery knight.) Rhaegar, who sang and played the harp, was a Bael-like figure at Harrenhal. Or he tried to be. But he was defeated by the mystery knight. So we will have to speculate who defended the little Crannogman in Meera's story. If we can pin down the identity of the mystery knight, we may be able to figure out the eventual king of Westeros. I've interpreted Sansa's several experiences of fluttery tummy as symbolic pregnancies. Here she has been impregnated by Joffrey and her baby will be a bat. GRRM often refers to children and babies as monsters, so Sansa's symbolic bat baby is not so strange in this context. If the lamb woman is to be believed, Dany's stillborn or short-lived baby, Rhaego, had wings. So Joffrey impregnates Sansa with a bat and Jaime gives a bat shield to Brienne. Why? (Hmm. I wonder whether the shield somehow symbolizes birth control?) I have speculated that shields are portable doors, so maybe Jaime is giving a door to Brienne that allows her to access something others cannot reach. This may fit the code we need to crack for Harrenhal. People are trying to access something there or to prevent others from accessing it. Aegon the Conqueror melts the towers of Harrenhal and destroys its centrality as a place where kings are chosen. Danelle Lothston is one of the Great Bastards, right? And she is associated with Harrenhal and bats. In the Dunk & Egg era, GRRM tells us that she specifically stays out of the Blackfyre Rebellion clashes, except for the second. For reasons we are not told, she does not want to see Daemon II / John the Fiddler ascend to the throne so she supports Bloodraven's side in the Whitewalls situation. So maybe Sansa and Brienne are playing kingmaker - or king-preventer? - roles with their bat associations. If this is true, I think the future of Ser Shadrich, the Mad Mouse, may involve flying through the Moon Door. A bat is a mouse that flies, right? Sansa's bat baby may be "born" when she causes a mouse to fly. Whatever the correct interpretation of bats might be, I think the bat wings are important. Giving someone wings or helping them to fly is a big deal in ASOIAF. Brienne meets Shadrich soon after sharing a meal with Illifer the Penniless and Creighton Longbough. I think Illifer is going to be a key to figuring out the bat symbolism because he has such a strong reaction to her shield and says his great-great-grandfther killed the last person (a Lothston) who was entitled to carry that shield. In playing with anagrams as potential clues to minor characters, a lot of possible solutions for Ser Illifer the Penniless involve the word "serpent," which is a synonym for dragon. So he may be a symbolic Aegon the Conqueror or generic Targaryen. He doesn't want the Lothston bat to rise again.

I think this (and the whole Pod/foot) thing may be a huge breakthrough! Nice work. On that new Harrenhal thread, I just pulled up Melisandre's quote about glamors, which is a variation of the theme of skinchanging: My point in that thread was about people becoming the "Hand of the King" by taking possession of a king's finger bones. But the same sentence tells us that old boots are a way to assume someone's identity. And we know that Robert's heirs were not really his heirs because of their hair. So this is all coming together very nicely. Very nice. This word is unique to Pod then, but doesn't it sound a bit like Tumble Stone? We know that the three branches of the Trident are important, but the Tumblestone River is part of the fork on which Riverrun is built. When Catelyn sends Brienne and Jaime to King's Landing in the hope of trading for her daughters, Brienne drives off the pursuers sent from Riverrun by throwing big rocks down on their boat. I have been assuming that Brienne represents the blue fork of the Trident because of all of her blue associations, but maybe Pod represents the Tumblestone and he is a necessary part of defending the quest to return Arya and Sansa. Lovely stuff.