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Small Questions v 10027


Stubby

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Do we know why the defiance at Duskendale took place? Seems like a pretty terrible plan to me. Did the lord there ask for a ransom, or independence, or what?

"It began when the Lord of Duskendale refused to pay taxes, demanding a new town charter and certain rights for citizens..."

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Defiance_of_Duskendale

Edit: It's worth noting that up to the Defiance, House Darklyn had been staunch Targaryen loyalists - to the point where they've contributed 7 Kingsguard knights over the years, one of whom became the Lord Commander of Rhaenyra's Queensguard during the Dance.

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Do we know why the defiance at Duskendale took place? Seems like a pretty terrible plan to me. Did the lord there ask for a ransom, or independence, or what?

Hmm, thanks. I still call it a terrible plan, lol.

It was a terrible plan. But in short:

Lord Darklyn asked for more right for his small folk, and some other small favors, and was refused by Aerys. Under the influence of his myrish wife, Darklyn then refused to pax taxes to the crown. Aerys, having heard the rumours about "It's Lord Tywin who rules the Kingdoms, not the King" decided not to let Tywin take care of it, but instead took one KG knight and a small force of men and rode down to Duskendale to arrest and execute Darklyn. Of course, Lord Darklyn panicked, and took the king captive.

The Defiance lasted half a year.

Actually, it was a rather normal reaction from the Lord himself. I mean, the King himself knocked on his door to come and execute him. Which every way you turn the tables, you´ll end up dead. Either the King kills you, or you kill the King and the Crown Prince and Hand kill you.

The truly, truly stupid part of the plan was believing that the rest of the Darklyn family would be spared.

when will R+L=J equation thread dies out?

Not for a very very very long time :) Even now they still manage to find new hints and parallels etc. Especially with the new episode that has aired.

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Thank-you TheCrannogDweller!

The error crept in from translation

What would be the translation error? Someone who speaks a language in a country where gender is extremely important translates gender neutral words into words that reflect their bias. Why wouldn't valonqar also be gender neutral - because you live in a patriarchal society, it has to be male? :P

What does Syrio say about seeing? :lol:

The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years.

The error had to do with the word for dragon, not the fact that the language is gender neutral. Otherwise the bolded part is a total non-sequitur.

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Do we ever learn from which knight Bronn took Shae?

We don't get a name, but we get a vague description:

He asked her about the man Bronn had taken her from, and she named the minor retainer of an insignificant lordling. “You need not fear his like, m’lord,” the girl said, her fingers busy at his cock. “He is a small man.”

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The error had to do with the word for dragon, not the fact that the language is gender neutral. Otherwise the bolded part is a total non-sequitur.

Let's go back to the quote, shall we?

Bloody hell, the quote system will not allow me to type below the quote. :P

We don't really know what Aemon means exactly, the quote is open to interpretation. You and I are interpreting this differently, as do many other people. I read this in two parts: first, the story of The Prince Who Was Promised. The quote is saying he and Rhaegar both thought it had to be a son, and the error crept in from the translation, but it is Daenarys who is TPWWP, and the dragons prove it. If the error came in from the translation about a prince/princess, why? I take that to mean the word for the person in line to inherit the throne is gender neutral. Their society is patriarchal, they translated the word as prince, a change that crept in over a thousand years.

I tried to change the quote to show the way GRRM wrote the paragraphs sentences in the book split up, which the quote system has now split into three quotes. Danaerys is TPWWP because she has dragons, not because dragons are neither male nor female. [eta for comprehension]

We obviously don't know all the details of the legend, we don't know the actual words, what the context is. I assume GRRM will provide us with the exact wording of the legend some time in the future. It obviously has something to do with dragons that we don't know about, like maybe TPWWP will ride a dragon who they interpreted was a dragon of a certain sex, otherwise why would the fact the dragons can be male or female matter? Male rider/male dragon? MR/FemaleD? FR/MD? FR/FD? If dragons are hermaphrodites, can the rider be either sex?

I know there are threads where the idea that Valyrian is a structurally neutral language was discussed, but when I read them I had just done my first read and there was way too much that went over my head. I'm the first to admit my searching skills suck, but I'm sure there are thousands of threads that have been deep-sixed to create room. I will ask around if anyone remembers other arguments regarding valonqar being gender neutral. For some reason I really believe there are, but you know the way it's done in the books, with little hints. :)

“No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought. The smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet.

What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame.

The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.”

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Can someone kindly direct me to the place where we find out 'valonqar' translates into 'little brother'? The Wiki merely directs you the AFFC where Cersei dreams about the visit to Maggy, and Maggy only says the valonqar will wrap HIS hands around her neck. I for one believe the valonqar will be male for that reason, but now I would like to track down the reasoning I saw once upon a time for thinking valonqar is a gender neutral word. I remember being convinced that it could be gender neutral. :)


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I guess we're just gonna hafta agree to disagree. For the record I think the prophecy probably said something about the prince that was promised being a dragon or dragonprince (in the sense that Rhaegar was "the last dragon," not a literal dragon.) Even if you were right in your interpretation of Aemon's quote, it's still a big leap to assume the whole language would be gender neutral. Especially in light of the little brother thing.

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I guess we're just gonna hafta agree to disagree. For the record I think the prophecy probably said something about the prince that was promised being a dragon or dragonprince (in the sense that Rhaegar was "the last dragon," not a literal dragon.) Even if you were right in your interpretation of Aemon's quote, it's still a big leap to assume the whole language would be gender neutral. Especially in light of the little brother thing.

I agree with this. But also think about the potential meaning of the word Valonqar.. If it means little sister instead of little brother, who could be the one to fulfill the prophecy?

But to be certain: that one word is gender neutral, doesn't automatically mean that the entire language is gender neutral.

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Well, if GRRM had written the Maggy scene by using the neutral "they", as in "they shall wrap their hands around your throat", I would agree Arya is the obvious choice. Then again, the vision in Maggy's mind could simply have been "valonqar strangles Cersei" and she used "he" as a neutral.



But thanks, The Titan's Bastard, for the reference, which I vaguely remembered but could not find. So Cersei was told by someone who not a Valyrian what valonqar meant.



Eh, I feel like a dog with a well-worn bone on this one. Presumably a non-speaker who was taught Valyrian knows genders. But also I bet Cersei did not explain the context of the word, perhaps it could mean both, perhaps its valonqar for the male and valonqare for the female and she didn't realize they were pronounced the same way. Lol, George is just so sneaky. Or it just means "little brother".


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Arya, of course.

So "little sister" in the sense that it doesn't need to be a sibling of Cersei who kills her?

That the entire Valyrian language most likely isn't gender neutral, doesn't automatically mean that only the word prince is gender neutral. Just as one word being gender neutral doesn't mean everything is gender neutral. It's fairly possible that the gender neutrality of the word for prince/princess, and it's erronous translation, is a hint towards "little brother" possibly meaning "little sister". It would certainly be interesting.

But Maggy the Frog stating "his hands around your neck" does suggest a male, especially if she has seen the event.

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Well, if GRRM had written the Maggy scene by using the neutral "they", as in "they shall wrap their hands around your throat", I would agree Arya is the obvious choice. Then again, the vision in Maggy's mind could simply have been "valonqar strangles Cersei" and she used "he" as a neutral.

But thanks, The Titan's Bastard, for the reference, which I vaguely remembered but could not find. So Cersei was told by someone who not a Valyrian what valonqar meant.

Eh, I feel like a dog with a well-worn bone on this one. Presumably a non-speaker who was taught Valyrian knows genders. But also I bet Cersei did not explain the context of the word, perhaps it could mean both, perhaps its valonqar for the male and valonqare for the female and she didn't realize they were pronounced the same way. Lol, George is just so sneaky. Or it just means "little brother".

It's a tough one. Hell, valonqar may not even directly translate to little brother.

From Tyrion in ADwD:

“He had learned to read High Valyrian at his maester’s knee, though what they spoke in the Nine Free Cities … well, it was not so much a dialect as nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues.”

The meaning of valonqar would depend on Maggy's origins and the translation given to Cersei could be completely different to what Maggy meant.

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Yes - see that's exactly what George does! He gives you these hints that all might not be as you expect. :)



And then he throws in little details about people that draw your interest and make you wonder if they are important or not, like the family in The Sisters with the webbed hands. And when asked, George says, what, those minor characters? :p


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