Sandy Clegg

1 minute ago, Frey family reunion said:

Jon as a “king”?  Does he mean King of the Iron Throne, does he mean King of the North or does he mean something else?

Exactly, he allows us to draw the connection between Jon and King using R+L=J, but he's then able to have fun with that (Corn King, also Night's king?).

6 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

George has done very little to set up Jon’s story arc to take advantage of Rhaegar being Jon’s father.  In fact we see just how awkward that reveal turned out to be in the HBO show.

A good example of a wrinkle.

24 minutes ago, Hippocras said:

I think it is all of those things. The man is non-committal, and his books are character driven. Which means that he needs to work out the actual twists and turns of his story before deciding which "seeds" to flesh out. It is a case of history being constructed to match the story as he writes it, but with enough elements planted ahead of time that it doesn't feel arbitrary and unearned.

Yeah I scratch my head over this a lot. He's definitely got the end of the series half-formed in his head - he's said that he knows all the major 'set-pieces' for example, so he is working to a plan for sure, he just delights in creating side characters I think. The new characters all bring in different ways to foreshadow the main story, probably - to me it seems as though he is invested in this style of storytelling over 'getting to the end' because the journey to him is more interesting the destination, especially when he knows what that end is. I mean, it'll be worth it I'm sure, if he can get it all written. 

56 minutes ago, Hippocras said:

All the rest is really about him dropping seeds, each one of them being one he may or may not in future choose to water.

I may be wrong, but isn't George's gardening style a little more varied than this?

Some seeds get watered and bloom in the editing process all in one book, some blossom one book later and others are long-term seeds which he may return to in book seven. He does say that he goes back and 'weeds out' a lot of stuff in a given book before that book goes to the publisher (i.e. seeds that seemed interesting at the time of writing, but which turn out to be dead ends or he can't work out how to use them, etc). So the gardening process is sometimes over with by the time we get a book. But others seeds may be part of further reveals, which seems to be the common belief.

Essentially, aren't there short-term, medium-term and long-term yields, just like with actual gardens? I think we could use a separate thread on this as even I'm confused on it at times.

38 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

I recently learned that there are two brothers in a cadet branch of the Habsburgs called Sandor and Gregor. I can't for the life of me work out what the significance could be, but surely it's not a coincidence.

The only thing I can think of is the Habsburg Jaw, a product of inbreeding:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/distinctive-habsburg-jaw-was-likely-result-royal-familys-inbreeding-180973688/

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

a simple R+L=J is simply not his style - whatever the real answer might be.

I would say Jon's parentage is a kind of Schrödinger cat issue right now.

Regardless of whether R+L=J is true or not in the long run, GRRM leans on the assumption that he is quite a lot, to weave symbolism around Jon. Like the 'bastards must not hit princes' foreshadowing in the training yard with Joffrey. In fact he does this so much that the finally revealed truth may end up being less important than the symbolism clues he is able to plant around Jon being the 'hidden king'. Another famous one is:

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"Kings are a rare sight in the north."

Robert snorted. "More likely they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned!" The king put one hand on the wall to steady himself as they descended.

I mean, GRRM is within his rights to have Jon be the son of whomever he pleases come ADOS, but ... in the meantime the R+L=J assumption makes the symbolism that much more meaningful.

So I think using symbolism to tell a story is also very much GRRM's style, even more so than using red herrings or subverting expectations. But to do so he needs he and the reader to be working from some common (albeit unstated) assumptions. R+L=J is one of the foundational blocks that enable him to do so, so for me at least its useful to assume its 'generally true' but with the caveat that there may likely be wrinkles or additional details, rather than it not being true at all.

2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Big Rob the simpleton to be Robert Baratheon. As for stot, isn’t it another word for an old horse too?

Rob is a good first go-to, but George fills his books with these common names to make the world feel real, so it might not be the only reference. I'd use the nicknames or surnames usually to dig into what's going. on. If the dream is meant to make us ponder the Tower of Joy, then Jon is probably as good a connection as any. He's one of the more subtle 'fool' symbols in the book ('you know nothing, Jon Snow') and the red wound in the belly of Rob the Simpleton could be referencing Lynna's bloody pregnancy as much as Robert's fatal boar wound. Jon was the babe that needed to be 'buried in the sand' after the Tower of Joy, metaphorically speaking. His Targ nature was essentially 'buried' by Ned. In this sense we can just see Rob as being synonymous with 'very common name', just like 'Jon'.

As for the horse, yes it's one meaning. George has spoken about his fondness for secondary and tertiary meaning too, though, so we should usually be on the lookout for these I think.

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

“… die?” said Big Rob the simpleton from the bottom of the grave. Lying there, so still and cold, with a ragged red wound gaping in his belly, he did not look very big at all. 

With Dunk the Lunk, and the stot, that's three metaphorical 'fools' who end up in the grave:

stot (dialect) noun

• A bullock, steer
• A stupid, clumsy person

Yeah, George doesn't just write Dunk & Egg as separate fun adventures, there's a lot of keystone symbolism in there which can be used to interpret the main series. As with dreams, there are many ways to interpret the body of ASOIAF work George has given us. 

On 5/1/2024 at 6:26 PM, Melifeather said:

ory joins Robert's hunt for boar before the king departs Winterfell for the south. It is my belief that hunting for boar and being gored by a boar are parallels of Lyanna. Jaime Lannister was squire to Sumner Crakehall for four years. The Crakehall sigil is a striped boar.

The sigils are very interesting at the Tower of Joy, especially if you hold them up against the events as Ned's men are slaughtered. For example, Jory's horse being cut from underneath him, Ned cradling his body in the mud. Then you see the sigil of House Ryswell (a ToJ member) and it conjurs up a very evocative image, with the horse, and its bloody red mane against a muddy background: https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Ryswell

On 5/1/2024 at 5:12 PM, Melifeather said:

And what had just happened right before he blacked out and had the dream? He was attacked by Jaime and his men. All of Ned's men were killed. And Ned imagined the Red Keep's walls looking red as blood. Let me repeat that. His last waking moments were of the Red Keep and its sandstone walls red as blood.

I agree, and might add:

• His last thoughts would have been of holding the body of a Cassel  ... (Jory)
• He dreams of a bloody death in a tower, or let's say a small Castle ..... (Joy)

The Eyrie has an interesting connection to the meaning of 'visionary' ... something which has links to Sansa perhaps? The castles she sees in the sky ....?

aery or aerie /āˈ(ə-)ri/ (poetic) 

adjective

1. Aerial
2. Incorporeal
3. Spiritual
4. Visionary

This shares its spelling/pronunciation with the Eyrie which we see in the books:

eyrie or eyry (also aerie, aery or ayrie) /āˈri, ēˈri or īˈri/ 

noun

1. The nest of a bird of prey, esp an eagle

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And for this poor Symon wound up in a bowl of brown, Tyrion mused.

I'm bored. Anyone want to speculate as to connections between 'poor Symon' and 'persimmon'? 

11 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Bloodraven assures Bran that the warg's spirit in the raven will not harm Bran, is this also the same for Orrel's eagle?   

It seems as though Varamyr and Bloodraven provide conflicting testimony here.

Perhaps Bloodraven is being specific, and that particular raven will not harm Bran rather than all ravens? Orell's hatred wouldn't really hurt Bran either, I suppose, just taint his feelings somewhat towards Jon slightly. I guess we'll find out.

1 hour ago, KingStoneheart said:

It's possible, my only thought behind it is that realistically Bran should at some point become the master of warging, weirwood network, etc. and so really should be able to remove this hatred / virus from his feelings.

Hopefully he'll be able to master this, but I guess the Varamyr prologue's function was at least in part to set up the mechanisms for warging and the possible dangers one can face when doing so. In this sense it feels like the 'leftover hatred' might be a significant piece of foreshadowing, if not from One-Eye then maybe as a separate plot point. 

Wargs who take over a previous warg's beast are basically opening themselves up to a (mild?) form of emotional infection. 

48 minutes ago, Hippocras said:

there is an underlying process involved. Something that ties it all together. I really don’t think GRRM just writes his histories for fun (Fire and Blood, Dunk and Egg etc.), rather, he is trying to work out some of the details of the backstory that are actually needed for the main series. He wants the web of families to be complicated and tangled, and he wants that to also be justified. But some strands are more tied together than others.

We need diagrams. Sometimes I wish this site allowed posting images in posts. Maybe that should be a reward for hitting Council Member?

Just what the title says really. We know that the hatred Orell feels for Jon lived on in his eagle, which varamyr claimed. It seems that strong emotions may linger like a virus within wargs.

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Varamyr knew the truth of that. When he claimed the eagle that had been Orell's, he could feel the other skinchanger raging at his presence. Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well.

Varamyr's spirit then went into his wolf One-Eye.

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True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake. Then he found himself rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him. Half the world was dark. One Eye, he knew. He bayed, and Sly and Stalker gave echo.

One-eye's wolfpack are then subdued by Summer, who now leads the pack.

So is there a possibility that Bran may at some point warg into One-Eye, and be touched by Orell's hatred of Jon, as the emotions 'linger' within warged beasts? And if so, might this have any consequences for any future contact between Bran and Jon?

On 4/15/2024 at 3:37 PM, CalmRazmatazz said:

The iron figure at the prow of the Silence:

“Victarion's gaze was drawn to the iron figurehead at her prow, the mouthless maiden with the windblown hair and outstretched arm. Her mother-of-pearl eyes seemed to follow him. She had a mouth like any other woman, till the Crow's Eye sewed it shut.” (AFFC, The Reaver)

Curious how a mouth on an iron sculpture can be sewed shut? Victarion thinks the eyes are following him, because maybe they are? I don’t think the iron sculpture is merely a decorative element.  I think it’s another artifact Euron found in Essos (Asshai?).

I'll add some ideas here because I think this is a fascinating motif. The other mouthless maiden that intersects Victarion and Euron's stories is of course the Dusky Woman. Having her tongue cut out renders her mouthless, or voiceless so to speak. So this figurehead might also be some foreshadowing of her importance?

The eyes following Victarion would then also be foreshadowing of the Dusky Woman's behaviour during the voyage to Slaver's Bay. As a gift from Euron, she is no doubt 'poisoned' as Vic himself suspects. And the fact that he trusts her due to her absent tongue may be something that comes back to bite him on the ass:

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"She'll be my wife, and you will be her maid." A maid without a tongue could never let slip any secrets.

I mean, that is just tempting fate. Is Euron somehow using the dusky woman to observe his brother? The only way that could happen is if she is sending ravens, or through skinchanging, and we have no evidence of the latter on Euron's part apart from symbolic clues. Thistle attempting to bite out her tongue in her mental battle with Varamyr Sixskins might be the main clue we get linking Euron to skinchanging:

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When he tried to scream, she spat their tongue out. - ADWD, Prologue

Every time I look at the pronouns used in that sentence it just gives me the creeps more. The battling of wills that precedes a forced takeover of a mind and the brief merging that takes place while it happens - this is the stuff of pure horror. And that alone would seem to be a big clue that this is where Euron's story is headed.

Just been reading up on Alleras / Sarella. If there is any doubt left that they are one and the same, then there is one clue which I think has been overlooked.

Sarella's mother being captain of the ship Feathered Kiss is more than just an allusion to her being a Summer Islander, and therefore captaining a Swan Ship (swans have feathers, etc). 

Because Alleras is famed for his archery, as we see in the apple scenes. And what better ASOIAF-style metaphor for an arrow hitting its target could there be than .. a feathered kiss? Arrows use feathers in their fletching in the world of Westeros, as we see many times in the story, e.g.:

Jon hung a quiver from his belt and pulled an arrow. The shaft was black, the fletching grey. As he notched it to his string, he remembered something that Theon Greyjoy had once said after a hunt. "The boar can keep his tusks and the bear his claws," he had declared, smiling that way he did. "There's nothing half so mortal as a grey goose feather." - 

Including those used by Alleras:

Far and fast the apple flew . . .
. . . but not as fast as the arrow that whistled after it, a yard-long shaft of golden wood fletched with scarlet feathers. 

And kisses are often used as metaphors when using a piercing weapon:

Ebben drew his dagger. "A steel kiss will keep her quiet."

Kurleket grabbed a handful of hair and yanked his head back in a hard jerk, baring his throat. Tyrion felt the cold kiss of steel beneath his chin. "Shall I bleed him, my lady?"

So it's fitting that the daughter of the captain of the Feathered Kiss would be skilled at producing ''feathered kisses of a more deadly kind.

This is very much a 'spitballing' post - I really just wanted to post my ideas before I lost the thread of what I was trying to get at. Anyway ...

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"Fuck your quiver." Mollander scooped up the windfall. "This one's wormy," he complained, but he threw it anyway. The arrow caught the apple as it began to fall and sliced it clean in two. One half landed on a turret roof, tumbled to a lower roof, bounced, and missed Armen by a foot.

"If you cut a worm in two, you make two worms," the acolyte informed them. - AFFC

These damn apples are fated to come back to haunt me forever, it seems. This time, I was pondering on the connection between wormy apples and Gerold Dayne:

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She could not believe they would inform on her . . . but that left only Darkstar, and if he was the betrayer, why had he turned his sword on poor Myrcella? He wanted to kill her instead of crowning her, he said as much at Shandystone. He said that was how I'd get the war I wanted. But it made no sense for Dayne to be the traitor. If Ser Gerold had been the worm in the apple, why would he have turned his sword upon Myrcella? - AFFC, The Princess in the Tower

These are the only two references to wormy apples in Feast. Such specificity makes me suspicious, especially when we have a name like Darkstar's

If we run with Armen's metaphor, and split Darkstar's 'wormy apple' in two pieces, then we are left with the names of two of the Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy:

  Gerold Hightower  /  Arthur Dayne.

Ok. So, one half of Alleras' fallen apple clearly falls in a place that symbolises 'Hightower':

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One half landed on a turret roof, tumbled to a lower roof, bounced, and missed Armen by a foot.

It bounces on a turret, then another roof- so not hitting a 'low tower' - then lands at the foot of an acolyte of the Citadel. And The Hightower's built the High Tower which is at the heart of the Citadel. So that gives us the Gerold half. 

But the fate of the other half of the apple is not described. Would it presumably symbolise Arthur Dayne, if we take Darkstar to be the key to this? Or is George just having fun with us?

Might these arrows and apples in some way be telling us about events at the Tower of Joy? We have one cored apple, and one apple which survives to fall into the river, then this wormy apple which might represent two of the kingsgaurd in one. Any thoughts? 

10 hours ago, LynnS said:

it pecked at his brow, driving its terrible sharp beak deep into his skull. He screamed until he was certain his lungs must burst.

As soon as Bran wakes up, the very next page is a Tyrion chapter, which starts by comparing Pycelle's head to an egg.

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"Commendable," Tyrion admitted, breaking a large brown egg that reminded him unduly of the Grand Maester's bald spotted head. "I take a different view. If there is food I eat it, in case there is none on the morrow."

This just after Pycelle complains of not sleeping as he did whe the was younger. George definitely likes to use the chapter transitions to draw parallels.

45 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Great OP.  I enjoyed reading it.  I'd add one more possibility - agent for Bloodraven.  In other words, he has been in contact with BR and is acting on his behalf.  In which case, I would place him south of the Wall.

This is something of a puzzle to me as well.  It reminds me of Bran:

A Clash of Kings - Bran II

 

This is an egg-cellent catch (I regret nothing!)  

The 3-eyed raven pecking through skull as a metaphor of releasing Bran's 'third eye' fits perfectly the image of the raven pecking at the egg. Not sure this has much to do with Benjen specifically, but it's probably a deliberate parallel by George.

Just a thought, but perhaps the power dynamic is important here? The raven 'belongs' to the Old Bear, so is therefore subservient. So if this raven is a Bloodraven parallel, might he be 'in service' to an even higher power? George has funny ways of using his imagery.

9 hours ago, Evolett said:

I'm not sure how the dwarf's missing head would fit into that idea unless the "Sphinx" receives a brand new head of it's own. This also follows the idea of transformation. 

One head is absorbed?

6 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

I know only my opinion and that is that their stuff is usually ridiculous tbh. Instead of finding possible clues to something and trying to work out a cogent theory, they seem to have ideas they find interesting and then try to shoehorn these ideas into the text

I would agree, but even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day. I think the idea is at least worth discussing on is own merits. Benjen is a fairly enigmatic figure in the story - GRRM might have a heel turn in store for him. That said, there isn't much to go on here yet.

I've just noticed the idea of mummery and pretence is tied in with the idea of 'playing roles' in Quentyn's first chapter:

Back in the Planky Town Quentyn had played the wineseller, but the mummery had chafed at him, so when the Dornishmen changed ships at Lys they had changed roles as well. Aboard the Meadowlark, Cletus Yronwood became the merchant, Quentyn the servant; in Volantis, with Cletus slain, Gerris had assumed the master's role. - The Merchant's Man

And the only other time the word 'role' appears in ADWD is when Barristan is musing on Quentyn's death:

Grief and guilt had been known to drive good men into madness, and Archibald Yronwood and Gerris Drinkwater had both played roles in their friend's demise.  - The Queen's Hand

I don't completely buy into the 'Quentyn is alive' theory but this careful use of the word 'role' might be significant. Are we being led to assume some 'mummery' on the two friends' part in the events surrounding Quentyn the Crisp?

4 hours ago, Evolett said:

The souls of the dying are consumed, then transformed, and they are "reborn" witless, mindless, (symbolized by the old man's missing head), no longer in control of their actions, but controlled / absolutely obiedient to another, like the wights but thinking also of Gregor/Robert Strong here. 

I was thinking it has to be a clue to the way the big 'magical processes' work too. It could equally be related to the Fire end of that spectrum, though. Dragon bonding rituals probably demand sacrifice, consuming one 'head'. 

In Braavos, three-headed Trios has a tower with three turrets.

1. The first head devours the dying
2. The second head ....  ???
3. The third is where those reborn emerge

One time, the girl remembered, the Sailor's Wife had walked her rounds with her and told her tales of the city's stranger gods. "That is the house of the Great Shepherd. Three-headed Trios has that tower with three turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the third. I don't know what the middle head's supposed to do. - The Ugly Little Girl

He also has a temple in Tyrosh. Penny's tale, ADWD:

We went to Tyrosh first. My brother thought that would be far enough, but it wasn't. We knew a juggler there. For years and years he would juggle every day by the Fountain of the Drunken God. He was old, so his hands were not as deft as they had been, and sometimes he would drop his balls and chase them across the square, but the Tyroshi would laugh and throw him coins all the same. Then one morning we heard that his body had been found at the Temple of Trios. Trioshas three heads, and there's a big statue of him beside the temple doors. The old man had been cut into three parts and pushed inside the threefold mouths of Trios. Only when the parts were sewn back together, his head was gone." - Tyrion VIII

What is the second head meant to do? Any thoughts?