Seams

We'll have to look at Brynden "Blackfish" Tully as well. Not only is he a pretty close parallel to Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers, but he sort of "cleans the sewer" by setting Hoster Tully's pyre/boat on fire as it floats. He swims under the grate to escape Riverrun. He also spent years overseeing the Moon Gate (not the Moon Door) at the Eyrie.

Excellent insights. I think this must be right. In terms of parallels, I think we have to add Arya into the mix. She is in the lower level of the Red Keep, emerging from the mouth of a dragon skull (kissed by fire?) when she overhears two men that readers believe to be Varys and Ilirio Mopatis discussing the death of the hand and other treasons. She becomes lost in the tunnels and ends up emerging from a sewer. I like the thought of Patchface as a parallel, too. At the same time this sewer scenario is playing out offstage in Dany's POV (or closely juxtaposed in the book), Tyrion is on trial with Oberyn Martell stepping in as his champion. In Jaime's POV, he is returning to King's Landing after Joffrey's death and sorting out his relationship with Cersei, deciding to get a gold hand and to fight with his left hand, establishing his command over the kings guard and to giving Oathkeeper to Brienne. The Jaime stuff seems like cleaning up aspects of his past while setting the groundwork for his future commitment to honor. And since we know he has had shit for honor, this is a direct match to cleaning out a sewer. I think the Tyrion trial chapters are also part of the sewer clean-up: his first choice of champion is Bronn, who I believe to be a brown part of the green/brown symbolism of the life cycle of plants (leaves and compost feeding each other). He wants Bronn to defeat Ser Gregor Clegane (Green Grace Log) who is a green character. Bronn refuses because he is now serving as fertilizer for house Stokeworth, the bread basket for King's Landing. The man who steps up as champion is Oberyn Martell. I realized that Oberyn must be part of the "bore" group of names - always showing up when it's time for a king to die. (If I'm right about the word "grace" being hidden in an anagram of Ser Gregor's name, he is a symbolic king.) With his last name in the mix, Oberyn Martell could also be part of the "Bael" group of characters - a fool / king who gains entry surreptitiously and then impregnates the princess or symbolically "fathers" the next generation. (I think Prince Baelor in the Dunk and Egg stories is a father figure for Dunk and Petyr Baelish is a father figure for Sansa / Alayne.) As for the battering ram and sex against the wish of the woman, this passage is helpful in understanding Oberyn and Tyrion combined into one battering ram: Oberyn is talking about having lusty sex with Cersei and Ellaria, and then switches gears to talk about Cersei wanting Tyrion beheaded. It dawned on me that GRRM is saying that noseless Tyrion is like a big penis. He has cleared out the sewers at Casterly Rock and now he has battered down the door at King's Landing like Joso's Cock. (Or so Cersei believes - Tyrion didn't actually kill Joff, as far as we know, and he was acting Hand of the King, not the actual Hand, so he didn't really have power, even though he sat on the throne.) But all of this ties back into bowls of brown, the favorite food of small folk in Flea Bottom. Tyrion and Bronn put a singer into the stew at a pot shop. Arya caught a pigeon to sell to a pot shop (but it fell from her belt and she lost it). Joffrey died from eating pigeon pie. I think Joffrey's time had come - he was a moon boy and it was time for the moon to set. Just as the transition from brown to green and back to brown is an endless cycle, it was Joffrey's time to die (and Jaime arrived back in town immediately after his death). Arya dreams of Nymeria dragging Catelyn's body out of the Green Fork just about the time that Jaime lets Brienne come out of the tower cell where he had put her for her own safety until she could explain to Ser Loras just what happened when Renly died. (Renly and Ser Loras are green characters and Brienne will team up with brown characters Dick Crabb and Ser Hyle Hunt as well as seed character "Pod" Payne.) And the moon boy / moon symbolism takes us back to sewers because of the traditional crescent moon on an outhouse door - the moon door. Sansa is stuck at the Red Keep until the fool Ser Dontos shows her the way out - symbolically leading her through the "sewer" (and she is a sewer - the other meaning and pronunciation - having learned embroidery from Septa Mordane). When they emerge, he delivers her to a Bael character who starts to nurture the seeds that have been planted (butterflies in her tummy, put there by Joffrey). Here's a wordplay theory to tie it all together: maybe GRRM uses "shit story" as an anagram of "history." The characters have to clear out the "shit" from past history (clear a sewer) in order to evolve to the next level. This might also explain why a character named Mushroom is an historian: mushrooms live in the dark and feed on shit. I think this is coming together! This just broke a dam for my attempts to analyze The Sworn Sword. Like Tywin, Ser Eustace Osgrey is constipated: his home is even named Holdfast. He spends his days looking at old relics and remembering the glory of his ancestors. The brown character, Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield, hangs around doing nothing. Dunk is the fool who becomes the ram. He crosses "her moat" (a mother). The log jam is symbolically broken, Ser Bennis disappears with a lot of the family heirlooms, the water flows, and the next generation can begin to nourish the fields (the berry patch as well as the small folk named after beans and vegetables as well as the melons rotting in the fields). This also makes sense with the wolf / fowl / flow wordplay discussed earlier in this thread.

Fascinating. Lots of potential meaning in this. In my ASoS re-read, I just got through Ser Barristan discussing the madness of King Aerys with Dany. I bet dam / mad is a wordplay pair, and that would bring us back to this meaning of weir. Just before the chat with Ser Barristan, Dany refers to Ser Jorah, Ser Barristan and selected others (Unsullied and Freed men, all chosen for the mission because they have no families) as Sewer Rats, for their mission to infiltrate the sewers of Meereen. I thought it was strange that she would come up with a nickname for this group and then Ser Jorah referred to himself by that term when he returned from the successful mission. In my head, I started speculating about a hidden meaning in an anagram and came up with the almost-anagram Weir Star, initially (interesting, but what could it mean?) and then Wer Strasse. The second possibility is intriguing: the Gendel and Gorne story involves tunnels. And I have also written that tree roots seem to be symbolic serpents, tunneling into the ground. Could roots of a Weirwood tree be traveling along a Strasse? So your "wer" etymology is very useful. The Jorah and Barristan chapters are closely juxtaposed with Tyrion's trial-by-combat, with the Red Viper fighting Ser Gregor. So the snake symbolism may be in play. Yes but the Mallister sigil is also indigo. I think they may represent one version of the Lords of the Underworld.

I'm still working my way through A Storm of Swords audio "reread". This struck me yesterday: I'm wondering whether there is wordplay on "Sam + Meera = Summer"? It's not an exact fit, so there must be more to it, but GRRM seems to go to some trouble to have them introduced to each other (Sam is caught in Meera's net) and to show Gilly coming out of the well while the direwolf Summer jumps down from the dome. Sam pushing his arm through the net is somewhat similar to the arms of Melisandre's shadow baby reaching out of her womb at Storm's End, just recalled by Davos in a nearby POV: Gilly is wrapped in furs (another fur stranger?) and she holds her baby. Summer is a shadow that detaches from the broken dome (swollen womb?). Seems like a Melisandre allusion. How does it relate to Sam and Meera?

This is fantastic. Very nice catch. There is a lot going on with changes from leaves to humus to dirt and then nourishing tree roots and entering the trees again. The carbon cycle, I guess it's called. So coal that turns to Kohl is an excellent symbol of the change from one state of being to another. This whole section of your post is so helpful! I noticed that GRRM uses "pale cold" and other references to pale and pails. Others in the forum said pails have to do with moon symbolism (I forget why) but I noticed that LC Mormont orders that a palisade be built around the ringfort at the Fist - "palisade" is derived from the noun "pale" meaning a sharpened stick used in a fence. When Jon Snow leaves the ring fort, he tells the guard he is going to fetch water for Mormont but notes that the guard didn't even ask why he had no pail. I bet all of this comes back to the defense system linked to wehr / weir. And you are definitely right to mention Lady Rohanne Webber's dam made out of trees. Lots of pieces come together all of a sudden!

I know people definitely think that about me! I'm glad to have company, though! Love this. Excellent insight. This is the best link yet. Fantastic insight. The Eyrie is built with marble quarried on Tarth and hauled up the mountain. I think there is something going on with blue, associated with Brienne as Renly's blue rainbow guard. She also had blue bardings on her horse before joining the rainbow guard and also comes from the Sapphire Isle. The bear already killed Amory Lorch, if I recall correctly. Lorch and Ser Gregor were the main agents along with Jaime in killing the last of the Targaryen royal family. I think Ser Gregor is a "green" character and Jaime possibly represents the setting sun. Not sure about the symbolism of Ser Amory, although others have commented on "Jaime" as the French "I love" and Amory as a possible variation on "amore." I suspect all of this relates to: Back to the bear pit. Pits are important symbols, including the meaning of a seed from which some fruits will grow. Brienne is closely associated with peach-eater Renly. Do we know what he did with the pit of the peach he ate in front of Stannis? We know that Ser Loras buried Renly at the roots of a tree. Maybe that's the symbolism of the gardener planting the pit. Dany "bearing" a living child has to be relevant as well. If the cycle of the moon represents the cycle of life, death and rebirth, I think the necessary pieces of the cycle are falling into place. These could include the death of a bear (Mormont = moon mort), the rescue of the maiden (could be either Jaime or Brienne as they were in a bath = pool together), Ser Galladon of Morne, and the Evenstar sigil with quartered crescent moons and suns. I have lately wondered about a parallel between Ser Duncan the Tall and Beric Dondarrion. While I am a believer that Dunk is probably the bastard son of Daemon Blackfyre, I also see "storm" symbolism in him with his horse named Thunder. He also seems to die in each story so far but he is miraculously "saved" by some amazing intervention, much like Ser Beric. Brienne is a descendant of Dunk (per some SSM) and is also a Stormlander. In The Sworn Sword, the sun rises in the west when Wat's Wood is set on fire and the people at Standfast mistake it for sunrise. So I bet that Storms End plays into the symbolism as well. Maybe Brienne luring Jaime away from Pennytree will lead to the "sun" setting in the east. I guess this is a little weak on linear thinking and more of a brainstorming response. Still some work to be done to clarify. Maybe I should stick with toilets and stilettos, as that seems to be my area of expertise. You might say I really know my shit.

Nice. I wonder whether arakhs and other curved blades are supposed to be like sickles and, therefore, symbolic of the moon being reborn? Daario carries an arakh and a Myrish stiletto. (The second blade may be the only stiletto in the book. This might be wordplay on a stiletto heel or on a toilet - taken together with "Myrish," an anagram could refer to a shit toilet. This might be a Jaime Lannister parallel, as he is famously associated with shit for honor and a privy is now located where he knelt to join the kingsguard. His right hand was taken off with an arakh. This sounds like a digression but Jaime was betrothed to Lysa who is strongly associated with the Moon Door. In a long-ago thread, the forum worked out that outhouses traditionally have crescent moons on the doors and a person exposes their "moon" when sitting on the seat. So the two blades could represent the new moon and the toilet moon - about to drown.) Dany is very attracted to Daario and to his sensuous matched blades. Maybe she's really attracted to the new moon of his curved blade? While Ser Jorah is an unattractive moon about to set. She flushes him by sending him on a mission into the sewers.

Very nice catch. I wonder whether an Ice Hat would be the same thing as the Ancient Crown of the King of Winter? Dolorous Edd may be a reborn version of Ned Stark (this idea came from @GloubieBoulga long ago, and I find it to be a fitting interpretation). In the larger comment about a hat for Craster, Edd is complaining about Mormont's order to bring an axe to give as a gift to Craster. Edd feels as if he is arming an enemy of the Night's Watch and that complying with the order will cause the ranging party to hasten its descent to hell. If Ned and Robert represent the winter and summer kings, but Craster thinks of himself as the King Beyond the Wall, the hidden meaning behind Edd's remark could be irony about Craster's sense of self-importance. (We also associate floppy (straw) hats with Egg, Young Griff, Arya and - in this ranging - Sam Tarly. So there could be a royal symbolism connected to them.) Of course, the axe is used in the uprising where Craster and Mormont die. So Edd may have been right to be reluctant to provide the axe that Mormont requested. There could also be an additional type of wordplay in the mix: I think the island of Naath is wordplay on "thana" the Greek prefix for death. Dolorous Edd could be suggesting "ice thana" for Craster - an icy death. This is a really interesting observation. I think there are several ferrymen, now that we're looking at this. In keeping with the "reborn Ned" interpretation, above, somewhere in this forum is a discussion of Ternesio Terys, the captain of the Titan's Daughter ship that carries Arya to Essos. In that discussion, there was a suggestion that Ternesio was another symbolic Ned Stark, bringing Arya to the next stage of her journey. The thread also noted that Ternesio captains a purple galley and he wears a notable "long captain's coat of purple wool." In my attempts to interpret color symbolism in ASOIAF, purple seemed to carry a possible royal symbolism (Dany wears lavender silk, I think, and Varys smells of lavender. The various shades of Targ eyes are in the purple family) but it is also associated with Parmen Crane of Renly's Rainbow Guard, who wears plums on his surcoat. There is plum/lump symbolism associated with pregnancy (Varamyr sixskins was called Lump after his mother's pregnant belly) so purple could be associated with rebirth. Arya also ends up having some significant scenes in an area called The Purple Harbor. She murders the old man there using a poisoned coin. But plums are also associated with Bloodraven (who takes on the identities of Ser Maynard Plumm and Plummer, the master of the lists at Ashford Meadow). And then there's this: I wonder, though, whether GRRM includes indigo in "team purple." Some Targaryens have indigo eyes, I believe. If so, this color is explicitly linked to House Mallister. I suspect that Denys Mallister, commander of the Night's Watch Shadow Tower, is an underworld figure who commands the dead members of the Night's Watch, like the supervisor of Valhalla, in a sense. Jason Mallister may be the Underworld representative in the Riverlands: he helps to launch the funeral boat for Hoster Tully but there is also significance in his failure to recognize Catelyn when he passes her on the road: she will later "die" at The Twins but be thrown back on the river bank of the Green Fork, as if Death has not yet recognized her as being officially dead; as if she did not have the coin to pay the ferryman. I know it seems like I digress but here's part of what I'm thinking that helps to tie this back to the search for Arya's ferrymen: purple is (or some shades of purple are) associated with dead guys but it is a precursor to birth. Maybe the point is that indigo and violet are the colors at one end of the rainbow but the life cycle starts over with red, orange and yellow. In my earlier comment on this thread, I speculated that these major characters are at turning points in their journeys. In ASOIAF, frequent symbolic rebirths may be the author's way of marking turning points. I have also speculated that ships are like eggs: Tyrion "hatches" from the cracked hull of the storm-tossed Selaesori Qhoran and Arya may hatch from the purple galley The Titan's Daughter. So plums and lavender eyes may be like purple eggs (Ei/eye pun) that will hatch. This does fit the Mallester eagle sigil. Plums have pits and this wordplay could refer to the Dragon Pit (dragons hatch from eggs). Petyr Baelish, with his plum doublet, is (imho) probably a descendant of Elena Targaryen, sister of King Baelor and possibly of exiled Targaryens or Blackfyres who may have reconnected in Braavos. His family sigil is the head of the Titan of Braavos. So there is the severed head coming back into the story, possibly symbolizing the gilded head of Bittersteel. The Baelish family sigil also connects with Arya's "rebirth" from the Titan's Daughter purple galley. Because Littlefinger and Ned are conflated as Sansa/Alayne's "father" in he Sansa arc, the Titan could represent yet another reborn version of Ned Stark. But I also checked anagrams of Ternesio Terys because that's what I do with deceptively unimportant minor characters. Possible anagrams, among many possibilities: Tor Entries Yes Tor Eyries Nest Yoren Steers It Yoren Tree Sits I mentioned the "tor" in connection with Myria Jordayne, heir to the Tor. This could also allude to Glastonbury Tor, which is a legendary entrance to the Otherworld in Britain. But the connection between the Eyrie and Yoren seems like a very important clue for us about the ferrymen who guide both Sansa and Arya. Ser Dontos may be a ferryman for Sansa, and he is paid with a bag of coins. Yoren is clearly a ferryman for Arya, who brings her close to Harrenhal. Is he reborn as Ternesio Terys, steering the galley? one fore and one aft, suggesting movement in both directions, back and forth. This is really good! We are usually focused on "the dragon has three heads" prophecy but each character usually has one head to start with and needs only two more to complete a trio. And maybe the point of having three heads is to be able to move back and forth. Oh this is getting good - I wondered why Arya has a named horse called Craven. We know that ravens can move back and forth through the door between life and death. And "craven" may be the opposite of the "strong" quality that characters need (described in your earlier post). So she sells Craven in order to get the money to pay for passage on the ship. That money is stolen (iirc) so she uses her "Braavos" coin to secure passage instead. Is she becoming a Master of Coins, able to travel back and forth between life and death? There's also this: Bran seems to take on a new sense of strength at the Queen's Crown and Dany stands up to various warlords in a closely linked chapter. Jon also seems to work up his inner strength, refusing to kill the silent old man at the ruined inn and making his escape from the wildlings. So summoning up inner courage seems to be part of the symbolic journey as these young characters reach their turning points. Back to the fore and aft heads: I'm already thinking of Janos Slynt (like the two-faced Janus), Daario bringing two heads to Dany and having matched weapons on his belt with golden heads. Maybe the Queen of Thorns having twin grandsons as her bodyguards is another example - Varys catches them trying to escape by rowboat, as I recall - another ferryman symbol. Like the statue of Trios, with three heads. This is fantastic. Pat on the back for you, my friend. The response from Yoren doesn't make sense at all except as a literary clue about "No One." I wonder whether "Mormont" is wordplay on "moon mort"? The death of the moon? Characters often speak of "a moon's turn," which I take as another way of saying a month. I think there is some kind of pairing of Jon at the Night's "Watch" and the word "time" in Arya's arc - the word comes up repeatedly in the resurrection of Ser Beric and in discussions of life and death in general. But, of course, we see Mormonts in the POVs of Catelyn and Dany as well as Jon, supporting Robb and Stannis. I think we're getting closer to cracking the code of the cycle of seasons, cycle of the moon and the death and rebirth symbolism. I think this is also spot on. I think Varamyr was a fur stranger who killed a lot of people. And who lives on in "second life" situations. But I'm also thinking of Benjen offering a bearskin to Tyrion and being surprised when Tyrion accepts. Tyrion later acquires a shadowcat cloak in a gambling game with Merillion. The cloak originally came from the dead body of a mountain clan attacker. When Arya kills Dareon, the Night's Watch deserter, he is wearing a purple cloak with vair (squirrel skin) lining. She takes his boots, as I recall, which is a skinchanging metaphor we see in Bran's occupation of Hodor. Like Varamyr, she is taking skins that belonged to other skinchangers.

Your strong / lame musings called up a passage I noted in my current re-read: I was connecting the coin, which bears a head of a faceless man, with the head of Gregor Clegane that will one day be given to House Martell. After his head is removed, Ser Gregor is known as Ser Robert Strong. In this same chapter, Arya had asked Thoros whether he could revive a man whose head had been cut off. The reader assumes she is thinking of Ned. In close juxtaposition with this chapter is a Bran POV where he recalls a conversation with Uncle Benjen: I've shared my suspicion that "First Ranger" is wordplay on "fur stranger," and that the Stranger among the gods of the seven is linked in some literary way to the First Ranger. So Benjen seems to be saying that Bran should be the god of death. The passage links to the Arya excerpt in the shared references to the ghost in the largely-ruined castles and possibly, as you point out, in its reference to Bran's crippled state. Since the Stranger is a faceless, hooded apparition, Arya's faceless man coin also connects to this idea of the stranger. Another common element is that the previous Arya POV featured the trial-by-combat duel between The Hound and Ser Beric Dondarrion, the Lightning Lord, while the Bran POV features Hodor reacting to thunder and lightning at the Queen's Crown by swinging his sword. Are we supposed to compare Hodor and The Hound in their solo battles against lightning? When The Hound finally departs from the Brotherhood Without Banners, Ser Beric says that Anguy should watch for him and shoot his horse if he turns up again. Of course, we later learn that The Hound's horse is named Stranger. I mentioned earlier that the head on the coin that Arya clutches reminds me of Ser Gregor's skull being sent to House Martell. In the Tyrion POV that takes place (I believe) between the Arya and Bran POVs, Prince Oberyn arrives at King's Landing to represent Prince Doran at Joffrey's wedding and on the High Council. GRRM lists many people in Oberyn's entourage who will not be mentioned again in the books: Any time GRRM gives us a Dayne character, it must be important. (I am still counting Septa Mordane as an unacknowledged giant in the story, even if only on a literary level). This Myria Jordayne is heir to a Tor. While a literal tor is a large, freestanding rock outcropping, I think there could be wordplay here on tower and tor (a gateway) and possibly the German Tür, which means door. The rumors about the demise of Ashara Dayne include a story that she leapt from a tower. Significant because this ties back into the Bran POV at the tower called the Queen's Crown where Hodor had been unable to open a door. (By the way, have we ever discussed "Ashara" as wordplay on "Sahara"? Could Oberyn's Sand paramour and offspring be linked to the Daynes? Are they all sandy Dornish?) What does it all mean? My partial guess is that Bran, Tyrion and Arya are all at turning points. The coins/heads pay passage, the characters pass through doors and/or towers to get to the next reality. They need strength to move forward (to pass through the magic doors) and, oddly, that strength comes from taking someone else's head: Bran is about to get inside of Hodor's head for the first time, Tyrion will advance to Essos when Oberyn kills Gregor, and Arya clutches the coin that will gain her passage on the Titan's Daughter and entree to the House of Black and White. Maybe The Hound is part of this turning point group as well: he loses his coins to the Brotherhood without Banners and he will leave his hound-shaped helmet on "his" grave before becoming the Gravedigger at the Quiet Isle. As they ride together from their meeting place back to King's Landing, Oberyn tells Tyrion that he has been in touch with Willas Tyrell and that they share a love of horses and that Willas does not bear a grudge against Oberyn for the injury that occurred in their jousting match. Something about this reminds me of Ser Beric's attitude toward the Hound's victory in their combat: he killed me fair and square. But it also loops in that symbolism of the crippling injury or the crippled man that you have put into the spotlight. I suspect the discussion of Willas counts as the requisite lame man for the Tyrion arc at that point. (They also discuss Prince Doran, who is another crippled man.) As far as I can recall, GRRM never refers to jousting competitions as tournaments. He always calls them tourneys. My guess would be that these are turning points, perhaps conflated with journeys. (And this raises a connection to his "a moon's turn" phrase and the passage of time in general.) Another partial guess about these symbols is that Bran, Tyrion and Arya all think they are going to go one way, but they end up going in another direction. Quaithe's cryptic advice applies to more than just Dany's journey. Tyrion would like to go be the heir to Casterly Rock but he ends up escaping to Essos. He also thinks that Bronn will be his champion but Oberyn steps up instead. Arya would like to go to Winterfell or Riverrun but she ends up going to Essos. Bran has a range of hiding places he would rather go but Jojen has a vision that takes the group to the cave beyond the Wall. Sansa would like to go to Highgarden, but she ends up going to The Fingers and The Eyrie. Joffrey is going to marry Sansa but he weds Margaery instead. (There is also a beheading at his wedding feast, with the dwarf jousting act somehow substituting a melon for a severed head.) I realize this is all more literary analysis than puns and wordplay, but this thread seems to have evolved. I think we can't sort out the literary analysis without uncovering the wordplay and vice versa.

Thoros of Myr and The Hound are offering important clues to the Azor Ahai / Lightbringer story: We know that Thoros uses a flaming sword and that he somehow has the power to resurrect Ser Beric. We know that the Hound's face was burned by his brother. If I'm not mistaken, this is a conversation between a smith (Thoros) and the night. (See the chapter where The Hound escorts Sansa from the Hand's tourney for clues to his identity as the night.) The non-sequitor about losing his razor is a reference to Azor Ahai. Usually I associate head-shaving with Targaryens trying to hide their distinctive hair. But it also makes them egg-like and one always wonders when or whether the egg will hatch. Arya's description of Thoros now: "That can't be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair." We've established that shaggy and sharp are paired opposites in ASOIAF so Thoros has somehow migrated from sharp to shaggy. Does the change from shaved to shaggy mean that he has hatched? Maybe being the first over the wall at Pyke was a way of hatching? That would fit with the Humpty Dumpty symbolism, too - the egg falling from the wall and breaking. Thoros also says, "Do you deny that House Clegane was built upon dead children? I saw them lay Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys before the Iron Throne. By rights your arms should bear two bloody infants in place of those ugly dogs." I associate the murder of the infant Aegon with the Humpty Dumpty symbolism because of the Aegon/Egg equation and because they always describe his head being dashed against a wall. What does it mean that he lost his razor in the woods? Here's a wordplay idea: "Wald" is the German word for woods, and I suspect that House Frey, with its many Walders and Waldas, is a symbolic forest. "Frey" is also a homonym for "fray," which is a synonym for "melee." Thoros and the Hound have engaged each other in three melees and (so far) Thoros has always won with his flaming sword. So maybe Thoros loses his razor in the woods (Wald) because he has used up his magic in three melees (frays/Freys) with the Hound. (We also saw Yohn Royce beat Thoros at the Hand's Tourney when the flames on the trick sword guttered out.) Now The Hound engages Ser Beric in single combat and (technically) wins. Maybe Ser Beric represents the bad steel sword tricked up with wildfire. The Hound hates fire but he manages to beat Ser Beric. In addition to Thoros letting his hair grow shaggy after losing his razor, "hatching" in the victory at Pyke, and using up his magic in three melee victories, maybe the tourney defeat by Yohn Royce sets up the mojo for The Hound to be the victor in the trial by combat. We don't notice that Thoros has lost power because he still manages to resurrect Ser Beric after the Hound kills him. But we soon learn that Ser Beric has given his last kiss to Catelyn Stark to create Lady Stoneheart. (Notice the references to the vain heart and to kisses in the Thoros dialogue with the Hound.) And here's the thing: Catelyn was killed by the Freys. Is this part of the melee and woods (fray and wald) symbolism, too? Maybe the woods/Walders killing Catelyn is similar to the symbolism of Thoros losing his "razor" in the woods. She worries about having her hair cut and she ends up with white hair (although the overall color Brienne describes is grey, like the hair of Thoros). I've wondered whether there is a wordplay parallel in Thoros and "roots" but perhaps also Roose. This ASoS interlude with Thoros wishing he didn't have droopy skin as well as Catelyn's "ragged strips" of facial flesh also seem to allude to the flaying habit associated with the Boltons. Another idea: What if The Hound is R'hllor? The opening line in that boxed excerpt, above, says his face is painted with orange shadows. There are descriptive passages where the flames of Melisandre's fires cast shadows (even though her emphasis is on the light of fire, a lot of the imagery around her focuses on the shadows created by the fire). Or maybe he is the Great Other. Note: I think it's significant that the Hound enters this scene bound with a rope. Ser Duncan the Tall uses a rope for a sword belt. There are other significant ropes in the series but I think The Hound is a sword in a rope in this scene, like the sword of Dunk.

Horn / Honor Joramun / Jon maur (Mauer is German for "wall") Armor / Arm Oro (gold arm) I am up to ASoS on my current re-read (listening to the audiobooks). There was just a chapter where Jon and Ygritte reach the top of the Wall and Ygritte becomes wistful because Mance never found the Horn of Joramun. The next chapter is a Jaime POV and he is thinking about his phantom hand and his nicknames, irritated that people don't know why he killed Aerys. Just as there is a cluster of chapters where disparate POVs all encounter an example of questionable, eye-of-the-beholder "justice," I think the horn and honor wordplay are encouraging readers to explore that theme. In the Jon POV at the Wall, he is also thinking a lot about his spy mission and whether he has broken his vows in a bad way or a good way. The idea of "Jon Maur" hidden in "Joramun" is a new thought. If it is correct, it could help us to sort out clues about Jon's internal struggle over desertion and keeping his oath. Similarly, the possibility of an "armor / arm oro" pun would require a variation on the Spanish word "oro," meaning gold. This could be useful in decoding Jaime's two suits of armor: white for the king's guard and gold for his Lannister heritage. Of course, he also has a gold arm that is unique in the series.

My re-read continues. In ASoS/Bran II, Meera tells her story of the little Crannogman at the God's Eye and the feast and then the tourney with the mystery knight. About forty pages later, in Sansa III of ASoS, Sansa finds herself trapped into marrying Tyrion. At one point in the post-wedding feast, I believe Joffrey refers to Sansa as a she-wolf, and this caused me to reflect on the parallels with Meera's story. What if Tyrion is the little Crannogman in the Sansa chapter? Or maybe Sansa is both the crannogman and the she-wolf? Instead of a tourney after Sansa's wedding, there is a dance. Sansa doesn't dance with Tyrion but instead with Ser Garlan Tyrell, who we know was the mystery knight at the Battle of the Blackwater. Instead of the three wolf brothers in Meera's story, Sansa's chapter gives us references to three Tyrell brothers: Willas (who Sansa planned to marry - there may have been a symbolic marriage between them because I think that's how fantasy magic works in ASOIAF), Garlan and Ser Loras. Ser Garlan speaks kindly to Sansa, acknowledging her tears (which she tries to hide), and also praises Tyrion as a good husband. Margaery dances with Joffrey at the feast. Maybe she plays the role of the justice-seeking maid that was played by the she-wolf and/or the mystery knight in Meera's story. Tyrion stands up to Joffrey, threatening to geld him, when Joffrey threatens to strip Sansa for the bedding. But Tyrion backs down and pretends he was joking. Tywin says they can dispense with the bedding. Earlier in Sansa III, Joffrey had threatened to marry Sansa to Ilyn Payne, who is the King's Justice. Between the Meera story and the Sansa/Tyrion wedding, there is a Dany chapter where she has a conversation with Ser Jorah: I think this cluster of chapters is giving us hints about the nature of justice: what happens when the three squires are unkind to the little crannogman, hope for a just outcome for Sansa and/or Tyrion in the lion's den, and Dany's exploration of justice and punishment for the slavers of Astapor.

Remember how Jaime described himself as having shit for honor as his slop bucket spilled in the dungeon at Riverrun? Back to back chapters in ASoS: Followed by: I think Jon is sending away his honor - a "pail" streak - when he sends away his direwolf. He has tipped over his bucket. He is about to break his celibacy vow with Ygritte and he can't have both honor and hot lust at the same time. I suspect this is like Jaime having gold armor (he was wearing when he killed Aerys) and white armor, and later having horses named Honor and Glory.

I think a passage from ASoS could be an important clue for us in understanding the literary function of flowers in ASOIAF. Catelyn is listening to her father's apparent delusional ramblings during his final illness. The key comes near the end, where Catelyn remembers a woman with a flower name who could re-sole (soul?) shoes. Is the information about Violet a clue about all women with flower names? Or just he purple ones? (Thinking also of Renly's imprisoned violet members of the Rainbow Guard, Ser Parmen Crane.) Could also be a clue about smallfolk. Soon after this, Catelyn meets Jeyne Westerling, whose mother is considered lowborn but who has the power to use herbs in potions. (I'm remember Egg in the Dunk & Egg stories musing about learning about potions made with plants that the smallfolk could teach to him.) Also significant is that Hoster confuses his wife, Catelyn and Lysa in his chatter - or that Cat suspects he is mistaking them for each other. I would not be surprised if these river women all have a power over rejuvenation, like the flow of a river that causes something to float down stream and emerge for a new use at the Quiet Isle. In my current re-read (listening to audiobooks) I am noticing that Catelyn seems to care about the passage of time in a way that other characters do not. But I'm not sure about a soul/sole wordplay pair. Feet and shoes are such complex imagery in ASOIAF. We hear a lot about feet. I guess souls exist in the thinking of Westeros residens, but it doesn't seem to be a major tenet of religions in ASOIAF. Maybe the significance is not about "new souls" but about the shoe symbolism. Septon Meribald is associated with oranges and bare feet and he tells a powerful story about the effect of war on the smallfolk who are forced to fight. Catelyn is also religious and there are several points where she bemoans the tragic outcomes of war. The only shoe thing I can think of with Catelyn is that Theon lifts her out of the boat when they arrive at Riverrun so she won't get her feet wet. I just searched on shoes and feet in Catelyn's POVs. The shoe references are mostly to horse shoes (and there are only four of them) and the feet references are mostly about other people "getting to their feet" except for the first one: Catelyn has no feet after they are swallowed by the godswood. They finally reappear at the Red Wedding, just as she suspects that something is not right about the way people are acting at the feast. I'm still trying to sort this out, as you can see. I think Violet looking for old shoes is a helpful hint, though. I'm just not sure what the hint is. Flowers? (Tansy, Pansy, Poppy, etc.) Violet? (And, perhaps, purple, lavender and plums?) Shoes? Soles and souls?

Wow to this whole list, @Sandy Clegg. I think you must be right that these archaic terms were known to GRRM. This one strikes me as particularly useful: The gardener motif is important to the return of spring and summer, I suspect. Robert bedded a Florent and produced a son. Stannis married a Florent. Renly married and bedded two different Tyrells. These people are all claiming to be the heirs of Highgarden, traditional seat of House Gardener. Then Joffrey takes Renly's Tyrell spouses into his keeping and then Tommen takes them. Sam Tarly is a Florent on his mother's side, I think. My guess is that, to be an effective king, a "gardener" is needed. But none of them is banking (so to speak!) on a master of coin that also counts as a gardener. This might explain why Catelyn so fondly remembers the "flowers in her hair" moment shared with Petyr Baelish in her childhood. He always chews mint and he has been in charge of the mint for the Iron Throne. But now he is focused on Sansa (and Sweetrobin). And the Manderlys wanted to start up a mint for Robb Stark. So they may be this kind of "gardener," too.

If Sansa and Margaery are each married to a half man, do the two add up to be a whole man?

I suspect that a "name day" has something to do with the Dayne symbolism. The first time "day" and "name" are used in the same paragraph, Catelyn Stark is telling us about the sword Ice: Robert tells Ned that Jon Arryn fell ill after a tourney on Joffrey's name day. Then Jon Snow tells Benjen that he will be fifteen on his next name day. Then this: Pretty clearly a link between Ashara Dayne and the words "name" and "day." Petyr Baelish says he lost the dagger with the dragonbone handle at Joffrey's name day tourney. Jon again tells Benjen that he will be fifteen on his name day. Next thing we know, Benjen has disappeared and Jon Snow recalls that Benjen promised to be back for Jon's name day, but he never returned. (When a character says something three times, it is important.) Then we hear about Dany's name day (in close proximity to mention of her unnamed horse called "my silver"). Bran's eighth name day is mentioned. Sam Tarly's father sends him to the Night's Watch on his fifteenth name day. Jon Arryn gave coppers to stable boys on their name day, according to Jory's interview of servants who might have noticed how Jon Arryn was killed. Lord Walder plans to take another wife on his 90th name day. Jaime gave Tyrion a horse on his 23rd name day, and that horse is butchered (by Bronn and the mountain clan men) and eaten on the way to the Eyrie. Syrio tells Arya of the day he was named first sword of Braavos. Bran feels that Robb has been transformed into "half a stranger" though he has not yet reached his sixteenth name day. This is followed by Joffrey referring to his own name day three times (!!) in one Sansa chapter (AGoT, Sansa VI) with the conclusion that he will give her Robb Stark's head on his name day. In the ACoK prologue, Cressen thinks about Shireen's upcoming tenth name day. Then he talks about Patchface washing up the third day after the shipwreck, when Cressen had gone to the beach to "help put names to the dead." But this was something that really caught my attention: Joffrey had initially planned to drown Ser Dontos in a cask of wine. Instead of killing him, Joffrey makes him into a fool. I think this is foreshadowing the nature of Joffrey's death: he appears to die after drinking wine (I know, I know - it could be the pie or the lemon cream on the pie) but symbolically, Joffrey may live on as Moonboy. So the "name day" magic transforms Joffrey into a fool. Then Tyrion arrives and becomes the new acting Hand of the King at the same name day tourney, perhaps a fitting bookend to the death of Jon Arryn after the previous name day tourney. Then we are back to Jon Snow. Smallwood tries to claim the title of First Ranger, but Mormont says that he is withholding that title until the day comes when he names a successor to Benjen Stark. A reference to Maester Aemon counting a hundred name days followed by Salladhor Saan telling Ser Davos about the Lightbringer story, with reference to 100 days and the name of Nissa Nissa. Ser Davos soon recalls attending Joffrey's previous name day tourney (apparently the one where Jon Arryn fell ill) and seeing Thoros of Myr with his flaming sword. But people realized the sword was a fake and Thoros was beaten by Bronze Yon Royce. The references go on and on. What I'm not sure of is the intended meaning of the link between "name day" and "Dayne." It seems to have something to do with coming of age and swords and (maybe) finding one's destiny. Robb becomes half a stranger before his name day. Jon Snow believes he has become a man on his name day. Sam Tarly is sent to become a brother of the Night's Watch. Joffrey may have become a fool on his name day. Dany contemplates her horse (while noting that her brother has become the Cart King). Anyone care to offer a theory about the name day / Dayne connection?

Spouses in love with hair - or are they in love with heirs? Awhile back, I had guessed that the melted gold on the head of Viserys was connected to the "auburn" hair of Catelyn and her children: Au is the periodic table symbol for gold and "burn" is similar to melt. When Catelyn is killed, the bite of the steel is cold (as at Renly's death). As Dany prepares Drogo's body for death, she compares him to "warm earth" and refers to him as the "sun of my life." Of course, she will set fire to his body (after smothering him). So I'm wondering whether the tinkling bells in Drogo's hair somehow represent cold, while the auburn hair of the Tullys represents heat? These excerpts may offer further clues. Viserys making it clear that he is not a bell-wearer nor connected to the warm earth: Dany removed Drogo's bells before putting his (still living) body in a hot bath: The word "tingle" is used only three times in AGoT: when Drogo makes Dany's skin tingle with his touch (possibly including cupping her breasts) the first time they make love; when the bells tingle in the wounded Drogo's hair just before he falls off his horse; and when Jon Snow "cups" ice water in his burned hand during his attempt at desertion - the cold water makes his skin tingle. My surmise would be that certain blood lines have to find a safe way to incorporate the bloodlines of their opposite numbers: House Stark, associated with winter, can marry into the "auburn" Tully line without entirely melting. Catelyn can bear the children of Ned Stark and have some with auburn hair and some with Stark hair, but the cold of a steel blade hurts her hand and then cuts her throat. If R+L=J, Jon Snow is a hidden Targ but he can drink ice water and feel reborn; his hand has been badly burned, but later he will be kissed by fire. Daenerys can marry Khal Drogo, whose hair features bells and who smells like the warm earth, but she can also survive the fire of his burning pyre. Viserys cannot withstand the melted gold, however. What is he lacking? My guess would be love. I may be wrong, though. Looking at the word "tingle" throughout the books, it appears 16 times. Almost always referring to a feeling in a wounded hand. The word "glint" describes eyes, armor and blades of weapons. There is a reference to light glinting off the Mander river and The Wall is glinting in one situation. And Jaime Lannister's hair also "glints" a couple of times. So his glinting hair may be the opposite of Khal Drogo's tingling hair bells. My first guess about the meaning of bells came from Robert's Rebellion and the Battle of the Bells - I thought there was wordplay on "rebel." That may still be true, but I suspect it could relate to this hair and bell motif. The gold used to kill Viserys is made from Khal Drogo's belt, that is covered with gold medallions. The only wordplay I could think of for "belt" was the German word "lebt," meaning "lived." But it may make sense that a "belt" is part of the "bell" wordplay, with Viserys dying because he cannot abide having "bells" in his hair. We are told in some of the backstory that Ser Barristan could not find Robert Baratheon at the Battle of the Bells. In ASOIAF, Ser Barristan feels tingling in his hand. Perhaps at this late stage in his life, after he has joined up with Dany, he is ready to sense the tingling associated with the bell motif.

This could also help us to understand (so to speak) the "Arya Underfoot" nickname. I wonder whether there is soul / sole wordplay at work?

Excellent comparison. Davos also survives on that rock by eating crabs, as I recall. When Tyrion is at The Wall, he joins in the crab feast with the officers of the Night's Watch. I wonder whether, in addition to his "wrestle" with Mord at the Eyrie, Tyrion is also wrestling with death at the blue ice structure known as The Wall? The crabs also have an armor symbolism, as well as the amputated hand symbolism with Jeor Mormont crushing a crab claw in his bare fist. Ser Alliser Thorne could represent the "spikes" (thorns = spikes) onto which Tyrion does not fall. But this points toward a further implied comparison by the author: Thorne = throne, and the Iron Throne is covered with spikes. We will eventually see Ser Alliser appear at court with the severed hand of Jaffer Flowers (I believe - adding to the flower = ghost symbolism) while Tyrion sits on the Iron Throne as acting Hand. So it might be that there are times when characters want to avoid falling onto spikes of blue ice (Bran's dream) and other times when they do want to be on the spikes. Is the difference in who is doing the inviting? (In the manner of the "Come into my castle" game?) Or do they need to eat crabs (wear armor) before coming into contact with the spikes? I love this. (The word is "amour," right? Only one "R"?) This could explain a major theme: love can protect people in a way similar to armor. This would help to explain why Jaime has a name similar to the French "I love" ( = j'aime ) and why Amory Lorch is a key figure in the background of ASOIAF. Maybe the point is that love can both protect and hurt, depending on the way it is applied. I have also been thinking again about the boar / bear puns - there are a few times where people talk about "the love you bear me" or a variation on that. I thought maybe bears have something to do with love. We see the same bear that kills Amory Lorch is soon killed by Brienne and Jaime working together. Maybe this is a moment that transforms Jaime's love from his unhealthy love for Cersei to his more noble love for Brienne. Lorch and Ser Gregor helped Jaime with the killing of the royal family. We have just discussed Cersei's link to Ser Gregor / Ser Robert Strong. The death of Amory Lorch and Jaime coming to the rescue of Brienne shows him turning away from Cersei, with the help of a bear.

I'm turning my thoughts toward Jaime. Excellent citation on Brienne. I think she does represent one of these "blue = death" characters - for Jaime and possibly Catelyn. Jaime wrestles with her on a bridge, similar to the ways that Bran, Jon and Tyrion wrestle or struggle against their death confrontations. He also befriends and arms her - with a sword made out of Ice (the Stark sword), an old shield with the Lothston bat sigil and saddlebags full of money and flour. (But the useful weapon called Pod comes indirectly from Tyrion.) Brienne is also obsessed with Renly. Soon after Renly gives her a cloak, he dies. (And his dying word is, "Cold." He has given away his last cloak!) I think Bran feels cold while he is falling, right? Tyrion gets the Benjen bearskin and then the mountain clan/ Merillion shadowcat cloak, which Mord tries to take from him. Jon is working on getting his black cloak. I need a better cloak reference for Bran, but this seems to be another element shared in these blue/death interactions. I also have to check whether Jaime gives a cloak or armor to Brienne. Could be fatal, if he does. But maybe Renly "arms" Brienne, too. It is Gendry, the Renly-look-alike, who saves her from Biter, who is eating her face. (Bran eats a berry from the glass house before the climbs the Old Keep; Jon Snow gives his blueberries to Toad; a few beans blow back into Tyrion's cell when Mord tosses his plate into the blue. Biter gets only a couple bites of the peach that is Brienne's cheek.) Gendry refuses to eat the food that Septon Meribald has carried and given / had confiscated at the inn at the crossroads. Brienne is sworn to Catelyn and seeking Sansa. Jaime was betrothed (or nearly betrothed) to Lysa. I think there is a "maid, mother and crone" trio here, and Jaime is linked to each of them (Joffrey is a mini-Jaime, imho). So Jaime befriending and arming Brienne may be a way of showing that he is battling Catelyn for control of death - or a powerful weapon equivalent to death. I.e., Brienne. Jaime is making peace in the Riverlands and he takes Edmure hostage - completely usurping the realm that Catelyn once prepared to rule. On the maid, mother, crone allusion: Toad talks about "having" Jon Snow's mother before they fight. Tyrion threatens to kill Mord, and we know that Tyrion "killed" his mother in childbirth. There is also a reference to Mord's "heavy white belly" giving a "quick shove," that could be a pregnancy and labor symbol. So we just need to find a Catelyn symbol in Bran's fall - it could be in Cersei, who is a parallel to Catelyn in many ways and who wants Bran to die because he witnessed the incest. Or it could be in the gargoyles Bran uses to climb the old keep - foreshadowing Lady Stoneheart. This is making some sense in my head but I'm sure I will come back later and find this is incoherent, stream-of-consciousness. In a nutshell, I'm finding that there is a motif around characters wrestling with death, and blue has something to do with it. They emerge from the confrontation on a friendly footing with "death" and can then use the personified death as an ally or weapon.

Bran, Jon and Tyrion. Any others? Our three main characters are confronted with Death, Toad and Mord. "Tod" is the German word for death; "mord" is at the root of the word "murder" in several languages, although it can also mean "bite". There is also an element of falling in each passage: Jon slams Toad's head against the earth, which is what would happen if Bran or Tyrion completed the falls in their situations. Instead of killing Mord, Tyrion makes a deal to give him all of the gold in his purse if the jailer will bring a message to Lysa. Mord uses the gold to fix his teeth. So Tyrion upgrades Mord's bite, it would seem. With help from the smith, Donal Noye, Jon Snow becomes friends with Toad and the others who are trying to beat him in this scene. If Tyrion and Jon Snow reach a detente with their "death" foes, what does this say about Bran's relationship with death? Each of our main characters is feeling a longing or compulsion toward blue ice, but each resists or, in Bran's case, learns to fly. Does blue = death? Other excerpts from these characters use blue in reference to rivers, mountains and The Wall. Does it represent winter? If so, what do we do with Brienne of Tarth? She is often mentioned in connection with blue. Lances and spears also feature in each passage. The Eyrie is built on a mountain called The Giant's Lance.

This gets back to Dany giving the horse "her head" and Ser Gregor cutting off the head of his horse when it show interest in the mare "in heat". Probably also whores / horse wordplay here. So intriguing.

My instincts tell me that this passage contains a ton of foreshadowing, except some of the hints have already played out: Catelyn is initially discussing Jon Arryn's death with Ser Rodrik, and which Lannister might have been responsible for murdering him. Readers eventually learn that Lysa and Littlefinger were responsible (although there could be some debate about whether Pycelle prevented his recovery by sending away the Arryn maester and administering additional poison at Cersei's request). But we also know that Lannisters were responsible for pushing Bran Stark off of a tower, hoping that it would look like a natural death. And Lysa will also be pushed off of a tower (although her death is a murder attributed to Marillion). But the sawdust in the puppet knight was my motive for highlighting this passage. I think it relates to this Dunk & Egg moment that is a turning point in The Hedge Knight and in the Targaryen succession: My latest guess about the meaning of the sawdust in the dragon is that Aerion was angry that Tanselle exposed the secret that there is "tree blood" inside of dragons. So what does it mean that Robert "Sweetrobin" Arryn is delighted to see tree blood coming out of battling knights? Unlike Aerion, would this Robert have a motive to celebrate the hidden tree blood within a battling knight? He is a Stark cousin, so maybe he is on Team Stark, and Starks worship trees. But Catelyn is a devout follower of the new gods: presumably her sister was raised in the same faith. So Sweetrobin is probably not a tree worshipper. (We are even told that there is no weirwood tree in the rocky soil at the Eyrie.) My tentative guess at Sweetrobin's "delight" over the red sawdust is that he is a symbolic version of Bran, who is a tree worshipper and who will eventually ingest Weirwood paste that seems to have veins in it. We hear Catelyn speculating about how the Lannisters would make a murder (attempt) look natural, and then immediately see a knight (Bran's lifelong ambition) cut in half - we know that Bran's spine is broken in the fall from the tower. How interesting that Bran has been taken away from his mother and perhaps may be in training to become strong enough to rule. Readers also eventually learn that Bran will never walk again but he will fly. Sweetrobin wants lots of stories about the Flying Knight, his favorite hero. Lysa Arryn was originally supposed to be betrothed to Jaime Lannister but the plan was undermined when Jaime joined the kings guard. But these kinds of pairings remain significant on a symbolic level in ASOIAF - we know that Sansa feels butterflies in her tummy after contact with Joffrey, for instance, and this is a symbolic pregnancy, even if she never literally slept with him. (Keep in mind Sansa having flying babies.) I think Jaime is a symbolic father of Sweetrobin (there can be more than one for a certain Celtic hero and in GRRM's fictional world) and probably helps to explain the question of whether the boy would be fostered with Stannis (Jon Arryn's plan) or the Lannisters (Robert Baratheon's plan). This again strengthens the implied reference to the Lannisters pushing Bran off the old keep and to the death of Lysa through the Moon Door. Bran's fall starts him on the path to flying and to meeting Bloodraven on the weirwood throne; Lysa's fall means that she can no longer site on the weirwood throne at the Eyrie and that throne is now clearly intended for Sweetrobin. Maester Colemon strikes me as important here because of his "lemon" surname, and the motif of lemon cakes associated with Sansa and Sweetrobin, as well as Dany's yearning to find a lemon tree. Lysa wanted to push Sansa out of the Moon Door but Sansa survives and become the guardian of Sweetrobin, symbolically breast-feeding him and teaching him to love lemon cakes. Interesting that Colemon also foreshadows the Red Wedding by remarking that the prospect of bloodshed has his nerves "a-fray."

I know that a literal reading would indicate that the bumps in the road are mountains. In GRRM's deliberate use of vague phrasing, however, this could be a description of Cersei's mode of travel: If Cersei is like a Mountain that Rides, this gives her a connection to this: By the end of ADwD, we know that Ser Gregor will be re-named Ser Robert Strong and will become Cersei's champion. From a literary analysis perspective, I think we may be seeing Cersei's dragon here. In order to "hatch" her dragons / to give birth to the Stallion that Mounts the World, Dany had to eat the heart of a stallion. Khal Drogo's horse was also part of the sacrifice in the pyre. At the Hand's Tourney, Gregor beheads his own horse because it was distracted by Ser Loras's mare in heat. That act by Ser Gregor may be related to these details: As a child, Cersei had fantasized about marrying Rhaegar and becoming a dragon rider. Rhaegar knighted Ser Gregor, which I always find intriguing. Ser Robert Strong is massive like Khal Drogo. Perhaps the missing head is less important if you live in the Red Keep, where dragon heads have been stored. Qyburn brought Ser Robert Strong to life, and his laboratory is in the dungeon near the dragon skulls. Ser Gregor also burned the face of Sandor, which is something a dragon might do. I think there may also be some magic related to Ser Gregor's skull going to Dorne, where Queen Rhaenys and Meraxes disappeared long ago. Perhaps Dorne has some special ability to harness dead dragon magic. And speaking of Meraxes, this is probably relevant to Robert's remark about the broken axles on Cersei's wheelhouse. There are also some important moments involving axes in ASOIAF, including Lord Commander Mormont giving a special axe to Craster shortly before they die together. The remark about burning the wheelhouse with Cersei having to walk as a result also ties into Dany and Viserys: the older sibling is forced to walk behind the khalasar after he attacks pregnant Dany during their trip through the desert. We are always trying to figure out the meaning of the prophecy for Dany: three heads, three fires, three mounts, three treasons. But Dany seems to be the mount for Khal Drogo, and we suspect that she is the "stallion" that mounts the world. For awhile now, I have seen the yin/yang relationship between the stallion that mounts and the mountain that rides. If I'm right about Ser Gregor being a symbolic dragon for Cersei, apparently each of these figures can have a "rider" who manipulates them, perhaps similar to Dunk as a puppet in the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms stories.