Frey family reunion

There is a very real possibility that the blood ritual transferred the spirit of Rhaego into Drogo. Remember when Dany ate the heart of the stallion, her son was declared to be the Stallion that Mounts the World. And the Stallion imagery continued with Rhaego right up to the time of the blood tent ceremony: Dany thinks back, that when she ate the heart of the stallion, the strength and courage of the stallion went into her son: Then in the blood tent ritual, the parallels between the stallion and Rhaego continued: And like Dany transferred the strength of the stallion to her son when she ate the Stallion’s heart, Mirri is transferring the strength of the stallion into Drogo: So, I’m interested to know whether Mirri was trying to transfer the strength of the “stallion” into Drogo, or all along was she transferring the strength of the “stallion that mounts the world” into Drogo.

It just kind of occurred to me that the imagery of the burning of the undying, might be an intentional parallel to another burning of a place of learning, the Winterfell library. ”Crumbling parchment”, certainly parallels the burning of a book, and the imagery of wood soaked in tallow, makes me think of a tallow candle melting into the wooden table in a library. And after the Winterfell library catches on fire, a knife wielding assassin appears to kill Bran. After the House of the Undying catches fire, a knife wielding Pyat Pree tries to kill Dany.

While I'm inclined to agree, is it that much stranger than the Black Gate that Bran and company pass through?

In full agreement there. And yes there is a segue between the two halves of the dream, but the segue itself is a bit surreal: So Lyanna's screaming coincides with a clearly metaphysical portion of the dream. It's like the two dreams are bleeding into each other. Ned calls it an old dream so these clearly are two events that have Ned at least has subconsciously linked together. I'm just not sure if they are linked together in time and space.

in Dante's Divine Comedy, the 9th and final circle of hell is a frozen one. The sinners are all trapped in a large frozen lake, divided into four rings based the final and most serious of the sins according to Dante, treachery. The first of the inner circles is betrayal of the family, then betrayal of community, than betrayal of guests, and finally betrayal of lords. It's reserved for traitors, betrayers and oathbreakers.

It's possible, but it seems that the Bael tale is a wildling tale only. I think it's doubtful that the Starks would pass this tale on from generation to generation, especially the version told by Ygritte.

Yea, the Harrenhal gift shop must have had a pretty good floral section.

I think you’re right to point out the parallel between these two stories, but I’m not sure the conclusion you drew about the outcomes is necessarily true. There seems to be a possibility that the two jousts are connected by the fact that both jousts were rigged to guarantee a particular outcome. If you read between the lines a bit, the reason that Jorah starts to anger is that Barristan is implying a less than noble reason for why Jorah won the joust. In other words, after Lady Lyndsey gave her favor to Ser Jorah, Lord Hightower helped ensure that Ser Jorah would win the tourney. Likewise, Ser Barristan subtly hints that he may have thrown the joust at Harrenhal on Rhaegar’s behalf: It doesn’t really follow that Ser Barristan would equate the quality of his knighthood with losing a joust. After all, in the quote just above, he explains that anyone can lose a joust for a variety of reasons, it doesn’t make someone less a knight. However, Barristan probably does equate the quality of his knighthood with his honor. So the implication is that his loss to Rhaegar was not honorable. And the way it wouldn’t be honorable is if Ser Barristan threw the tilt and give the tourney to Rhaegar.

I think the fever dream is a little more literal, only because Ned has specific memories of both halves of the dream. The thing that may not be so literal, is the linking of the two scenes together. In fact it’s the segue between the two that most resembles the surrealism of Dany’s visions.

I can’t agree with this sentiment enough.

You misunderstand me. You stated as evidence that Rhaegar had shifted emphasis from his son Aegon, that the three kingsguards were protecting Lyanna and baby Jon at the tower of joy. The problem is, we don’t have any evidence that Lyanna was at the tower of joy. The only thing “linking” her to the tower of joy is the chronology of Ned’s fever dream. He dreams of the tower of joy, then the scene shifts and he dreams of Lyanna’s death. Of course that doesn’t mean that in life those two events were actually linked in chronology and geography. There’s an SSM out there somewhere, where George warned a fan about taking Ned’s fever dream too literally. Which is odd, since Ned has an independent memory of the tower of joy, and he has an independent memory of Lyanna’s death. The only part of his dream that isn’t corroborated by his memories, Is one event immediately following the other. So while it may be tempting to assume that Ned would have traveled there to rescue his sister, that’s still a fairly big assumption based on the actual evidence we’re given. Of course GRRM uses the fever dream to push us into coming to that conclusion, but we have to ask what is Martin’s motivation to do this? Is it a clue or is it a misdirection? The fact that both Ned and the Kingsguards seem fairly resigned to the fact that their meeting was a battle to the death, makes me think that perhaps Ned and company traveled to the tower of joy to prevent the kingsguards from carrying out their last assigned task. Now was that Aegon at the Red Keep? Perhaps, perhaps not. My thought is if Rhaegar had Aegon switched, he wouldn’t have used Varys. And I would also add that I’m not sure the Kingsguards were at the tower to protect anyone. LIke I stated their “vow” may have been to carry out Rhaegar’s plans for his Prince that was Promised.

I don’t disagree with your analysis. I just believe that George may like to play word association a bit, and all of the associations you bring probably are inspirations behind George’s use of the name. I wish I could find the links to some of Snowfyre’s posts regarding the Bael fruit, though, it was pretty interesting stuff. Especially in connection with George’s other “apple” symbolism. As for Baal, yes I think it also links back to some of the darker symbolism we talked about with the tower of joy. Like the bull headed Moloch, Baal Hammon has also been linked to child sacrifice. He has also been depicted as a man flanked by two sphinxes.

I think it’s a safe guess, that absent her “visions” of her brothers’ deaths, the rest of the visions are probably more symbolic than literal. Otherwise, do we really believe that the vision is simply showing Dany a parade with a cloth dragon, or is this representative of a mummer’s dragon, i.e. Varys’ dragon? The other vision that is almost assuredly symbolic is the blue flower growing from the chink of ice filling the air with sweetness. Even the blue eyed king with the glowing red sword (like sunset). Is he actually not casting a shadow or is that symbolic of something else? For that matter is the sword actual or symbolic? So I don’t think it’s a stretch that pretty much all of these visions are symbolic to a certain extent. If the blue flower from the chink of ice represents a character, or if the cloth dragon represents a character than it seems a safe bet that the stone beast may as well.

I tend to agree. At this portion of her vision quest, many of the images appear to be less literal than the images she received earlier. My gut instinct is that the image may refer to Tyrion Lannister. A stone beast flying from a tower evokes a stone gargoyle come to life. And there have been a number of images linking to Tyrion to a gargoyle. However, Tyrion has never been described as a “beast” in the story, or even “beastly”. We’ve had a wide variety of critters throughout the series that have been described as beasts. And while the dragons have been referred to as such, the animals that has been most commonly referred to as beasts are actually the direwolves. My thought is to first look at characters that have already been characterized in the story as a “beast”. In association with being a warg, Jon has, on numerous occasions, been referred to as having the “mark of the beast”. When the Freys discuss the Red Wedding they refer to Robb as a beast. Ramsay Snow has been described as a “beast in human skin”. Rorge as the beast in the Hound’s mask, and Gregor Cregan’s has also been referred to as a beast. Of course then we would have to decide how the rest of the vision would apply. The “stone”, the smoking tower, taking flight, and the shadow flame. The most interesting character who has been referred, although obliquely, to as a beast, is Petyr Baelish. First from Eddard Stark: Then from Tyrion Lannister: While, I’m not sure that Petyr is to blame for the assassin attempting to kill Bran, he is certainly the party trying to frame Tyrion as the murderer. And as for the stone bit: And he is from the area of Westeros that names their bastard children “Stone”. And the most famous smoking towers in Westeros are the towers of Harrenhal: And finally, as pointed out by Snowfyre, just like Sansa is a type of apple Petyr Baelish leads us to the bael which is also a type of fruit,otherwise known as a stone apple.

Ah yes, the fever dream (fevre dream?), the house of cards so many theories are based on. Well we don’t really know what was the vow that bound the tied the three kingsguards to the tower of joy. Perhaps it was a vow that they would sooner die than see fulfilled. After all, Rhaegar may have left unfinished business behind. What exactly does it mean to be a Prince (or Princess) that was Promised, or the “head” of a dragon?