Sandy Clegg

I guess two 'Jons' in the book would be confusing, which also explains the JonCon titles sufficiently. Well, there must be more to it then. I'll reiterate GRRM's quote about the book titles, which I think might equally apply to his chapter titles: I like titles that work on several different levels where the title seems to have an obvious meaning but, if you think about it, also a secondary meaning, perhaps even a tertiary. That's what I'm striving for here. Possibly not all the chapter titles are meant to have deeper meanings, but I'll bet that enough of them do. For the most part they just seem fairly self-explanatory, though, and serve mainly to add flavour to the books. For me, the 'parallel stories' idea rings truest, as there is so little else to glean from the titles in the way of e.g. symbolism or wordplay. The Captain of the Guard, for example - such a dry title, I can't really see what deeper meaning there could be. Maybe this is one of those things that will all make sense in retrospect, once ADOS comes out ...

It does feel like the intuitive answer is that 'these characters are not fully themselves', but I agree this isn't consistent. Self-actualisation comes with getting a 'named' chapter is a also a common idea, but the old thread brought up the Jon Connington inconsistency in this regard: So, I'm wondering if this isn't part of a pattern-breaking clue by GRRM. We pretty much expect these 'newer' POVs to all have specialised chapter titles, or that getting their own name back is a sign of them becoming fully who they are again. But JonCon doesn't get his name at the top, even though he's seemingly embraced his true identity at this point and is no longer Griff. Perhaps the greyscale coursing through his body prevents this? Likewise, Melisandre has only one single chapter, yet her name is front and centre. Surely if the pattern holds, her chapter should have been called 'The Fiery Priestess' or similar. The fact that it wasn't named as such may signal some 'strength of will' on her part. Or has the pattern not been broken, and we are meant to read the name 'Melisandre' as being a 'title' much as 'The Prophet' or 'The Reaver'? We do glimpse a memory of 'Melony, lot 7' indicating that this used to be her real name, making 'Melisandre' a kind of identity story she has created for herself.

Thanks. @aceluby actually mentioned an interesting idea in that thread: I mean, GRRM is pretty evasive in that original interview. I feel like if the point of the non-named titles was something broadly thematic, like 'this is just how these POV characters see themselves' then GRRM would just come right out and say it, as that's kind of a non-spoilery interpretation. But instead he draws that link to Gene Wolfe and mentions his enigmas and puzzles, which leads me think there might be something more along the lines of what @aceluby proposes, above. I know nothing about Gene Wolfe but I might give him a try. His fans, by the way, seem to not only struggle with meaning in his books in much the same way as we do with ASOIAF, but some of the analysis they produce feels like PhD material compared to what we see on these forums! This is from a random search I made when looking for an overview of 'Gene Wolfe enigmas and puzzles' Pirate Freedom seems to have escaped much of the exegetical explosion that An Evil Guest received on the Urth mailing list for Wolfe enthusiasts, even though both books involve reality distortion and time travel (well, I think there’s some type of reality distortion in Pirate Freedom), fictional devices that admit no logical limits on narrative analyses. His latest, The Sorcerer’s House, certainly has reality-distortion (alternate realities in the form of the venerable faerie-land and also in the possibly demented imagination of one of the main focal characters); there’s also at least putative differential time-flow, though this is only considered time-travel by the scrupulous. https://jgoodwin.net/blog/gene-wolfes-the-sorcerers-house-or-why-i-like-puzzle-box-fiction/ Makes my head hurt Back to my original point - I do like the idea that there are echoes of the past rippling through the current story, and that GRRM lets us glimpse these echoes through various means including chapter headings. I'm just not sure I can draw those parallels to any specific events, like Robert's Rebellion.

I was reading some old GRRM interviews and came across this gem: From the fourth book you have been uncovering some chapters with nicknames, like ‘The Prophet’ or ‘The Kraken’s Daughter’. Why do you do that? Well… [Thinks for a long time with an enigmatic smile] I don’t know if you know Gene Wolfe, one of the best science fiction and fantasy writers, in my opinion. Well, his work is full of puzzles and enigmas and you have to put a lot of attention on what he is saying. I remember one day I asked him: “Why do you use that? Is there a deeper reason beyond?” And he didn’t say anything at the beginning. He just smiled me ironically and said to me: “What do you think it means?” And I told him my theories. Then, he answered: “Interesting…” [Laughs]. That’s all you're gonna get out of me, but I have to say this is not an accident [Laughs]. http://www.adriasnews.com/2012/10/george-r-r-martin-interview.html?spref=tw Two things: a) It's good to know that deep down GRRM is just one of us, and has had his own obsessions with puzzles in other fantasy works. b) any thoughts on what deeper reasons may lie beyond the titles such as 'The Prophet', etc?

Ok, Waymar is now shish kebab. She knows now that she was wrong-footed by George and that clearly Ned is a much safer bet. Oh, and she thinks Lady is the cutest direwolf.

Some interesting points here. But GRRM doesn't use 'omniscient narrator, remember, so Tyrion is very much in the role of 'acute observer' in the books. These comments from Tyrion are likely just George's way of subtly foreshadowing the burning of the library, rather than drawing us to conclude that it was Tyrion who did it. In fact, if he was going to burn the library, why warn the Septon about it first? Still, I am partial to the idea - in general - that Tyrion (among others) is a somewhat unreliable narrator and omits information from the reader at crucial times. The catspaw dagger feels like a mystery that has been kind of wrapped up, though. For me, the most damning evidence against Tyrion being guilty is that (being a relatively astute fellow) he would surely have chosen a more competent assassin than the wretch we see committing the deed.

My friend just started the first book and is very enthralled by this dashing young Night's Watch guy, Ser Weymar Royce. Says she can't wait to see how his character blossoms and matures in the next four books. She's a fast reader though. I'll keep you guys updated!

Faulkner's other quote that GRRM likes is: “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” But I suspect the one he uses most often is “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” If he's contemplating dreams, that could mean anything. Maybe he's feeling inspired?

Well, the fact that George was even interested enough to ask about the code could be kind of telling? But, like Ran said in that thread, it's really not in George's interest to provide a code that could be deciphered so specifically. This isn't to say that he doesn't embed clues, etc. - just that they are much more symbolic or thematic in nature. All the better to tie in with other themes and characters, making the books feel organic.

It's been giving me a headache, but I think I might have a kind of theory about how this all works. If I get time tomorrow or Tuesday then I might start a new thread for it, rather than taking over this one. Some nice ideas generated here!

It was debunked by George:

Sooo many. Judging the complexity of the challenge when George keeps the scale of that complexity his most closely-guarded secret? This is one of the most infuriating, yet delicious aspects of ASOIAF. I'm kind of reminded of James Joyce, who took 7 years to write Ulysses and 17 to write Finnegan's Wake. He apparently said of his work: "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant." It's debated in some circles whether he actually did say this, but there have been countless academic books written on his last two works, trying to decipher all the hidden riddles and they'll still be writing about him through the rest of this century. So clearly there's a lot to unpack. 'Riverrun' is a name lifted directly from the first line of Finnegan's Wake, let's not forget. A novel that ends with a sentence that joins back on to that first sentence, making the whole novel a closed loop ("We should start back ...") Not to say that GRRM is on Joyce's level, of course. Much of Finnegan's Wake is unreadable to me, but thankfully ASOIAF has remained very readable despite whatever else GRRM has embedded into it. But Joyce does at least give us a benchmark for what kind of thought processes can occur in the minds of certain writers, and the parameters of ambition that we might be faced with. Leaving a legacy of puzzlement is something that great writers can, and do, occasionally strive for.

I'm definitely in the "crafty George" camp. His tinkering with ideas and creative mysteries are a huge reason why the books take so long. For example, he says that the AFFC prologue took him a year to write, as he tried out multiple POVs from which to write it. This is just extra work that he doesn't need to put himself through, surely, unless he has a very specific checklist of things he needs to accomplish with this prologue. That's going beyond the surface plot details, which are frankly not that complex. A group of acolytes enjoy some drinks, provide some exposition, then one of them meets an assassin in an alleyway, gives him a key and is murdered. Most of that plot happens in the last two pages. So what took him a whole year? The 'too-cleverness' probably. Themes, symbolism, language clues and foreshadowing all needed to be stuffed in there. But yeah, the guy is a genius and I'm glad we have these books to analyse for decades to come.

At some point, GRRM does have to close the curtain around this mystery and leave some things ambiguous, and this is where we simply can't say for sure. Again, it's a matter of what use of language rings true for us readers: Maggy waxing poetic and referring to a poison as 'he'. Or she is being purely literal - in which case we have to resolve 'the' valonqar. Again, GRRM plants seeds as to his views on personification of objects. I mentioned Lady Lu, above. The axe Garth the jailer threatens Davos with. He also has a rod of black iron called 'The Whore': Once Garth brought his ladies by to introduce them to the dead man. "The Whore don't look like much," he said, fondling a rod of cold black iron, "but when I heat her up red-hot and let her touch your cock, you'll cry for mother. And this here's my Lady Lu. It's her who'll take your head and hands, when Lord Wyman sends down word." So GRRM shows us that characters in his universe can refer to objects as he or she. And if we have precedent for its usage here, then it can be applied elsewhere. Also, I think it's worth mentioning. Maggy is totally fucking with Cersei in that prophecy. It's not like she wants those kids to be able to understand them outright. She has to be allowed some 'fortune-teller flair'. I just don't think 'the' valonqar fits that kind of flavour. But I guess personal taste on one's reading of Maggy's use of language will still be the deciding factor here. GRRM is keeping this thing under wraps, but I think the seeds of its resolution are definitely sprinkled throughout the books.

I've heard of lillebror. The Danish basically use the same word to mean 'little brother' and 'younger brother', so that doesn't really help with the distinction if you're Danish I guess. But the majority of languages do have discrete terns to differentiate between younger and little, it seems, when it comes to age/size. I'm sure Asian languages might work differently, but probably GRRM himself keeps his sphere of language references closer to Europe? I mean, how much time does he have to research linguistics just to write a book?

There are a few good points worth looking at here. In English this is the case yes, but in many e.g. Latin languages you can use a modifying suffix at the end of a word to ascribe meanings of ‘big’ and ‘little’. In Italian casa is a ‘house’ but cassetta literally means ‘little house’ because they use the suffix -etta. Similarly, libro is ‘book’ and librone (lib-roh-neh) is ‘big book’. You can put that suffix -one at the end of most nouns and it just becomes a 'big one'. So maybe valonqar is little brother and something like valonqaro is big brother. My Valyrian is a little rusty, so I couldn't swear to that But that brings us back to your second point. Although many languages can use suffixes to make objects bigger or smaller (in one word), I don't know of any that can refer to 'younger brother' in one word. In Spanish, 'younger brother' is hermano menor, but a 'little brother' is 'hermanito'. Same in Italian. Which makes it even less likely that valonqar would be a word meaning 'younger brother' - if we're using our own languages as a baseline. If anyone knows of any languages that express 'younger sibling' in one word I'll be happy to know more. But from where I'm standing, it looks like Cersei has misread the meaning of the word, and is only thinking of the 'younger' meaning of 'little' because she has a Tyrion revenge fixation. In fact, GRRM may even have slipped in an early reference to this phenomenon, with the Frey cousins Big Walder and Little Walder. Here, the older one (Big Walder) is physically smaller than the younger (Little Walder). So GRRM is at least aware of the subtle ambiguities in things like 'big and little' when referring to family members age as opposed to size.

Good point, and it's another anomaly, but this time more explainable through straightforward grammar, whereas calling Tyrion "the little brother" is less so. If Maggy knows that the valonqar poison is known as the Strangler, then we only need to reconcile the idea that she is using metaphorical language. Strangler poison conjures up the image of strangler's hands. Cressen himself feels no hands around his neck as he chokes, but nevertheless resorts to the metaphor when describing his own death: Cressen tried to reply, but his words caught in his throat. His cough became a terrible thin whistle as he strained to suck in air. Iron fingers tightened round his neck. It's a relatively natural human thing to do in speech - personifying the non-human. Ascribing fingers to something that does not have fingers. Also, referring to items using personal pronouns such as 'he' or 'she' is a very human trait. A ship is a woman, just as Lady Lu, the axe, is female. So Maggy may have been running with the metaphor. Which is also a slightly odd way to phrase things, but is it any odder than referring to Tyrion as "the" valonqar rather than "your" valonqar. In the end I think it comes down to which feels more natural - and plausible - in terms of speech.

I have a different take, and it's something I've mentioned before on the forums I think. We need to look at the usage of the word valonqar, not just its meaning. The first time we hear someone other than Cersei say the word aloud, it is clearly in the context of presenting her with what is ostensibly the head of Tyrion (her little brother): Your valonqar. But when Maggy the Frog first gives Cersei the prophecy she phrases it like so: The valonqar. Cersei never muses on the subtle grammar difference here, but I think it is an important one. If Maggy had wanted to refer to Tyrion, she could easily have said "your valonqar". Now, the meta answer to why she doesn't is obvious: GRRM wants to have as wide a choice of suspects as possible, and "your valonqar" would have narrowed it down to only two. Jamie (younger by seconds) and Tyrion. This feels kind of clunky, though. Maggy's speech isn't otherwise given to grandiloquence in its style of speech. She talks, albeit like a crotchety old crone, in a fairly common way. Most tellingly, Maggy uses no such vague terms when referring to Melara's fate: No riddling use of "the" here. Just your death; her breath; she is close. Maggy can, and is, very specific with her language when she wants to be. So then why, for Cersei's fate, does she refer to her death as "the valonqar" as if it were some legendary creature? The yeti? The devil? The Loch Ness Monster? We use 'the' for legendary beings. Jamie and Tyrion are neither, and Maggy, knowing the future, also knows this. She also knows, as we have seen with Melara, how to use English correctly when foretelling the future. So Maggy is likely not referring to any brother of Cersei's, but rather something else - commonly known as 'the little brother'. Something that has the power to strangle, but whose original name perhaps has been ... 'lost in transit' from one continent to another perhaps? Well, there is a very likely candidate for such a thing, introduced in the prologue of ACOK: GRRM is clearly teasing (or distracting) us with the idea that it is Tyrion who will be the valonqar, as he is Cersei's number one suspect. But since when has Cersei been right about anything? Jamie is the next candidate, surely, but this presents us with the same problem of how to resolve the odd phrasing ('the valonqar'). Plus, having one metal hand, Jamie can hardly 'wrap' both of them around anything, let alone Cersei's neck. But then GRRM also presents us with this scene, nicely juxtaposing the valonqar idea with the image of being poisoned. Hidden in plain sight, as it were: The valonqar shall wrap his hands about your throat, the queen heard, but the voice did not belong to the old woman. The hands emerged from the mists of her dream and coiled around her neck; thick hands, and strong. Above them floated his face, leering down at her with his mismatched eyes. No, the queen tried to cry out, but the dwarf's fingers dug deep into her neck, choking off her protests. She kicked and screamed to no avail. Before long she was making the same sound her son had made, the terrible thin sucking sound that marked Joff's last breath on earth. Even in Cersei's own imaginings, she is subconsciously associating the valonqar with the death - by poison - of her own son. For this reason, I think we have to assume that 'The Valonqar' is simply what they call 'The Strangler' in places where Valyrian is spoken, but presumably only experts in such poisons - Essos equivalents of maesters - would know this nickname-like usage. The poison known as "the Little brother". Only Cersei doesn't ask a maester to translate the word for her. She asks someone rather more pure of heart - a septa: "Tyrion is the valonqar," she said. "Do you use that word in Myr? It's High Valyrian, it means little brother." She had asked Septa Saranella about the word, after Melara drowned. A phrase can have multiple meanings, and potions do have euphemistic names, like Demon's Blood or the Tears of Lys. But this septa clearly did not know how to draw any such connection. At the very least, we can say that Cersei only knows the literal meaning of valonqar, not its full usage. That much is clear. Essentially, it comes down to this. Maggy wouldn't have used 'the' when she could have said 'your'. Why use specificity for one silly girl's fate but not for the other? However, it is logical that she would put 'the' in front of a name of for a poison that uses 'the' in its Westerosi translation. Cersei's death will be by poison, not her brother's hands. And I suspect (but this is pure speculation) she herself will be the one to administer it.

Has anyone else ever delved into the meaning of the name Tom/Thomas? Apparently Thomas (Greek) is of Aramaic origin, meaning .... twin. https://www.etymonline.com/word/Thomas Could this be something GRRM was aware of and wove into his story? According to the wiki ... Tom is a given name in Westeros. Characters named Tom include: Spotted Tom, a member of the Band of Nine Tom of Sevenstreams, a singer and outlaw Tom the Strummer, a knight and singer Tom Barleycorn, a ranger of the Night's Watch Tom Codd, an ironborn captain Tom Costayne, a member of the Kingsguard Tom Flowers, a bastard of House Caswell Tom Tanglebeard, a man of Dragonstone Tom Tangletongue, a man of Dragonstone Tom Tidewood, an ironborn sailor Tom Turnip, a court fool Tomard, a Winterfell guard known as Fat Tom Tommard Heddle, a rivermen knight TomToo, Tomard's son See also Thomas the Threadbare, a knight Thomax, a maester Toman, a maester Tomarro, a braavosi Not to mention Tommen, and the one-eared black Tom (cat) that Arya tries to catch.

This kind of goes against my previous comment, above, but I am a firm believer in the idea that many of the things we perceive as secret identities may rather be instances of parallelism or symbolism. So rather than lies and secrets, we may be seeing clues and foreshadowing which relate to entirely separate characters. Reading this blog, for example: https://stormcloudrising.tumblr.com/post/737532441197248512/the-secret-song-of-florian-and-jonquil-part-9 - made more aware of the idea that The Hound's relationship with Sansa may be foreshadowing of her future connection to Jon Snow, once he comes back from the dead more 'wolf-like'. Sandor being hidden on the Quiet Isle - a kind of limbo - may therefore have something to do with Jon's future 'limbo-state'. So we haver the idea that several instances of secret identities may in fact all be foreshadowing the same future instance of an identity shift (with Jon being suspect number one for such a phenomenon, but not the only candidate). In this reading of the text, then no wonder we have so many repeated instances of secret identities. Hope that made some sense. I'm on vacation and enjoying the sun far too much to be bothered to edit for legibility

I agree inasmuch as it's futile to ascribe quotas (always subjective) to how many 'secret identities' there may be out there. Such identities - as you've just mentioned - are not scarce in the books, but rather they droppeth as rain from the heavens. When people decry identity theories because there are 'already too many' I just feel like this is a case of personal taste rather than analysis. That's no longer theorising, it's just stubbornness. If we want to take each on its own merits, though, then sure. There are good ones and bad ones. But quantity has nothing to do with it.

We could add baby Aegon's departure from King's Landing, too, perhaps? Actually Stannis would have been present both times just before baby royalty flees the scene.

Well dang, as first posts go this is a corker. Thanks You know, for every weird idea that I post, there's at least three more that I discard as being too tenuous. So I do exercise some quality control, surprising as that may seem to some. You might like these recommends. My favourite long reads out there at the moment are by the ever-wise @sweetsunray at https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com and more recently StormCloudRising's essays at https://stormcloudrising.tumblr.com/scr-meta-index so check those out too. I forget her username on here for the moment, apologies. @Seams has a long-running and always interesting Puns & Wordplay thread which is right up my alley, too: https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/137544-puns-and-wordplay/. Here you'll find all sorts of language-related musings. Parallels, yes! We so don't need Mance to be Rhaegar when him serving as a narrative parallel is so much more intriguing. Of course, Leathers and Monster are somewhat separated by the continent of Westeros a the moment which kind of ruins the symmetry. This is a great point, and I think it can't be overstated enough. Looking for one-to-one story parallels between characters will only get us so far, because George splits his mysteries up like jigsaw pieces and scatters them among his cast of characters at will. He has a bank of very significant 'pre-GOT' events that he teases to readers, such as the KOTLT and the TOJ, among many. Likewise for key characters, Lynna, Rhaegar, etc. By the end of ADOS no doubt we will get a much clearer idea of what actually happened in these instances, but in the meantime George uses their currency as enticing mysteries to plant parallels and clues throughout his story. I'm not sure that's the right way to phrase it, and even less sure how to prove it, but I just do have this enormous sense that there is some meaning to be gleaned from George's use of parallels beyond 'thematic layering'. I'm working on it. Jeor does put lemon in his beer, for example, to keep his teeth in good order. For completion's sake more than anything, here are some leather-related collocations. Make of them what you will: leatherback: variety of sea-turtle leather-coat (Shakespeare): apple with a rough coat (golden russet) leather-head: a blockhead (fool) leatherjacket: name applied to various fishes leatherwood: N. American tree with leathery bark

I've certainly considered it. However I feel it might, maybe, just more likely be a coincidence. Once we start analysing all the words we're going to brush up against homophones etc. It really all depends on GRRM's personal taste for this kind of stuff. But I think once GRRM decides to use the whore/hoar homophone (which I think he does), then he's less likely to muddy the waters by using a whores/horse homophone. On a separate note, I just realised that GRRM has used the word john in reference to "one who visits prostitutes" when he talked about "book Shae" as opposed to her TV counterpart, on a commentary track for one of the seasons: GRRM using the phrase 'sex kitten' also makes me kind of grin. He's a child of the sixties I guess

Darry is an early mention from Dany's memories and yes - he is tied to Lemongate (among other things). So I feel that he is a minor yet very important figure that George isn't done with yet. Thanks for the second opinion, too. I do wonder, myself, whether these connections are just instances of 'pattern-seeking' as opposed to 'pattern-finding'. For me, it's the subtle language links that provide the strongest echoes. I guess my aim has recently been to figure out what George means when he says: "I plant the seed but I try to do a little literary ‘sleight of hand’. And while I'm planting the seed, my other hand is up there waving - and is distracting you with some flashy bit of wordplay, or something that's going on in the foreground, while the seed is being planted in the background. So, hopefully the seed is there. The foreshadowing is there. But maybe you won't notice it … because it's surrounded by so many other things." - 2006 podcast He plants and he hides. Yes, the use of Old Bear Mormont compared with Darry the 'gentle old bear' may indeed be mirrors of each other, from a certain point of view. Naming them both 'bear' is quite on-the-nose, in fact. But how far does that get us? And does it preclude alternative mirroring? Is it perhaps designed to do so? Leathers and Darry .... It's a subtle connection I agree, but again, it all comes down to the GRRM quote above. I wonder if, in this scenario, there can ever be such a thing as 'too subtle?' Rather, I am inclined to dismiss clues in the text that are too obvious. Flashy wordplay versus hidden seeds. The Hound, for instance, saying he'll take Arya to Robb's "bloody wedding" feels too close to the former, to my taste, whereas the Leathers/Darry connection might well be evidence of the latter. Of course, there will never be any way to be sure until we read the next books. But I kind of feel in my gut that this is the kind of stuff GRRM was talking about. And we should never be afraid to explore the ultra-subtle when we have the author telling us to be on the lookout for just that very thing, no?