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[TWOW SPOILERS] March 2014 Preview Chapter Part IV


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Yeeees, with the addition of releasing lord of Riverrun and RW hostages and retaking Riverrun.



IMO with Jamie and Daven gone, Lannister army falls apart, Lannister grip on Riverlands breaks. Freys that live through RW 2.0 must retreat to the Crossing and not get out. The North suddenly has free hands to act (and witnesses against Roose IIRC).



So, while I agree it is small scale event, the ripples it would send would influence the world around them greatly, and UnCat might get a lot more notorious.



Still, I agree that Arya is better suited to Dance of Dragons 2.0.



ETA:


looking trough the now closed tread:


Cat is a vengeful spirit incarnate, a literal curse of the gods, or one god, on those who violated the guest right. Of course she's not the woman she used to be. Meanwhile, vengeful spirits pass on when they're done with their unfinished business from life. Cat, unfortunately, has a LOT of unfinished business, and I expect her to be around for a while

Edited by Sand Snake No. 9, Yesterday, 12:34 AM



:agree:

Edited by Mirijam
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Anyway, I did just want to say I think many things make LS different from Beric, even with his multiple reanimations. The insanity and grief at her moment of death, the days in the water, and her erroneous belief that all her children are gone. Quite frankly, I think Cat herself would be horrified to realize the type of things she is doing if and when the thought of her live children reach her.

This is why Lady Stoneheart is not entirely Catelyn, as UnBeric was not really Beric. Beric died in a moment of being brave and dutiful and trying to bring justice to the Riverlands - so he gets to relive that over and over, until all other aspects of life are gone from him.

Lady Stoneheart died in a situation of ultimate grief and rage at the destruction of everything she loved - and that is what Lady Stoneheart is reliving over and over, past the point where all of Cat's warmth and love and compassion are long gone.

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This is why Lady Stoneheart is not entirely Catelyn, as UnBeric was not really Beric. Beric died in a moment of being brave and dutiful and trying to bring justice to the Riverlands - so he gets to relive that over and over, until all other aspects of life are gone from him.

Lady Stoneheart died in a situation of ultimate grief and rage at the destruction of everything she loved - and that is what Lady Stoneheart is reliving over and over, past the point where all of Cat's warmth and love and compassion are long gone.

Good observation! We can extend the connection to Khal Drogo. He was barely conscious in the hours before his death, and he came back as a vegetable. If this is a pattern, how will Jon be when resurrected (if he needs resurrection)? Perhaps he will become obssessed with Arya, or become paranoid, living his entire life in the memory of the betrayal.

If we extend the pattern to shakier, spiritual ground, this could offer a grim view of the possible afterlife in asoiaf. Resurrected characters always return in the state where they died. Could this mean death in asoiaf consists of living forever you last moments *shivers*. But I digress. This is unproven, unstable, and unrelated ground that GRRM probably doesn't mean to tackle.

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Agree. The 5 year gap was the perfect plan. I am still not sure two books are enough to finish now. The Dany story seems a book long to get to Westeros alone.

How so? Do you think the characters need a few years to grow or something?

I don't see much need for a 5 year jump.

Other than maybe to get the ages of the Stark kids closer to adults.

Edited by Drake Heath
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Yeeees, with the addition of releasing lord of Riverrun and RW hostages and retaking Riverrun.

IMO with Jamie and Daven gone, Lannister army falls apart, Lannister grip on Riverlands breaks. Freys that live through RW 2.0 must retreat to the Crossing and not get out. The North suddenly has free hands to act (and witnesses against Roose IIRC).

So, while I agree it is small scale event, the ripples it would send would influence the world around them greatly, and UnCat might get a lot more notorious.

Still, I agree that Arya is better suited to Dance of Dragons 2.0.

ETA:

looking trough the now closed tread:

:agree:

Well, yeah. I imagine it will help the North and the Riverlands in the long run.

On another note more on the snakes.

Gooseprickles covered her legs. Her coverlet had twisted around her like a snake. She unwound it, threw the blanket to the bare plank floor and padded naked to the window. Braavos was lost in fog. She could see the green water of the little canal below, the cobbled stone street that ran beneath her building, two arches of the mossy bridge… but the far end of the bridge vanished in greyness, and of the buildings across the canal only a few vague lights remained. She heard a soft splash as a serpent boat emerged beneath the bridge’s central arch. “What hour?” Mercy called down to the man who stood by the snake’s uplifted tail, pushing her onward with his pole.

The waterman gazed up, searching for the voice.

This is from one of her chapters in AFFC:

Slender boats slid in and out among them, wrought in the shapes of water serpents with painted heads and upraised tails.

^This also sounds sexual.

Looking up stuff I realized that a snake being cold-blooded, hairless (Arya isn't completely but she is bald), and always shedding their skin (it's identities for Arya), and the fact that they spend a lot of time hiding can relate to her. ETA: Also, since she has learned about poisons that could qualify her as venomous.

In this chapter I don't think she is a snake per se but I definitely think the snake is trying to mate with her. In the books snakes are associated with dragons literal or people and Dornishmen.

Zeus- He coupled with Rhea, his mother, who had taken refuge in the form of a snake, by taking the same form and becoming an 'insoluble knot' with her;

The serpent was used by the Egyptians in nearly all symbols, but mainly the sun-symbol: it even formed part of the hair-style of Isis

Snakes are associated with the sun god Apollo. I guess it makes sense for Dornishmen to be represented by snakes and to also be represented by the sun with Sunspear.

The uraeus serpent was regarded as a representative of a goddess who had many names; in it, one saw the embodiment of the eye of the sun god; according to mythology, it rises up on its tail end on the sun or on the forehead of the sun god and destroys its enemies with a breath of fire;

I remember Arya wishing she had a flaming sword in ASoS so she could set people on fire but overall I don't think she is like this goddess that much.

Among the oldest predynastic Goddess figures in Egypt was the serpent-mother Iusaset, or Ua Zit, or Per-Uatchet whom the Greeks called Buto. Pyramid Texts say she is the Celestial Serpent, giver of the food of eternal life. 3 Her symbol, the uraeus, meant both "serpent" and "Goddess." She was also Mehen the Enveloper, the female serpent like Ananta who enclosed the phallus of Ra the sun god every night.

Mehen protects the sun God Ra during the Night as he journeys to the Underworld.

On Wadjet:

Her name means "papyrus-colored one",[7][8] as wadj is the ancient Egyptian word for the color green (in reference to the color of the papyrus plant) and the et is an indication of her gender.

She is the one depicted as a uraeus

In whatever manner that the Uraeus was displayed upon the pharaoh's head, it was, in effect, part of the pharaoh's crown. The pharaoh was recognized only by wearing the Uraeus, which conveyed legitimacy to the ruler.

^Which reminds me of Izembaro asking for his crown for legitimacy purposes.

The she-serpent is the invisible serpent principle which dwells in the lower levels of consciousness and the deeper strata of the Earth. It is secret and equivocal, its decisions are unpredictable and as swift as its transformations. Ever ambivalent, it toys with its own sexuality; it is both male and female, twins within the same body, like so any of the culture- heroes who are always depicted initially as cosmic serpents. The serpent does not therefore depict an archetype but an archetypal complex, linked to the freezing, clammy subterranean darkness of the beginning of things.

'All possible snakes together form one single primordial manifoldness, an inseverable primordial Something which yet is ever coiling and uncoiling, which is ever melting away and re-emerging' (KEYM p. 222).

As a symbol of evil the coiled serpent of Midgard encircled the earth in the mythologies of the Noresemen. A serpent entwined the Tree of Life in the Garden of Paradise and first whispered the words of corruption to Eve. The woman succumbed and, like Hecate and Artemis who carry the snake in their hands or the grotesque Medusa whose tresses are made of reptilian coils, the shadow of sin endangered the spirit.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_brotherhoodsnake08.htm

As I mentioned in the last thread part of Syrio's words to her was quick as a snake which comes up a lot so she has been likened to a snake in the series.

Arya has also already been an eel in AGoT:

She saw a window above her, high and narrow, scarcely more than an arrow slit. Arya leapt, caught the sill, pulled herself up. She held her breath as she wriggled through. Slippery as an eel.

Raff was the eel in this chapter. I didn't know it but back to salt water that's where eels apparently spawn.

More than snake or fish, the eel points to a slippery temptation, on the intrigues which threaten us.

A fish with elongated body. Looks like a snake with weak developed fins, far-famed for its slip body. Eel is a freshwater fish and characterized by migration from fresh water to salt water to spawn.

Edited by ARYa_Nym
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Was doing a reread of the Theon chapters in ACOK and noticed that Mercy pops up a couple of times in his thoughts. Could this mean that we will see an Arya-Theon meeting sometime during the next two books? Might be interesting since he is currently not in Arya's prayers but would definitely make the list when she finds out what he has done to her family.


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Was doing a reread of the Theon chapters in ACOK and noticed that Mercy pops up a couple of times in his thoughts. Could this mean that we will see an Arya-Theon meeting sometime during the next two books? Might be interesting since he is currently not in Arya's prayers but would definitely make the list when she finds out what he has done to her family.

Arya knows what Theon has done so if he isn't on her list now I doubt she will add he. It doesn't mean she won't kill him when she sees him though. Arya's list tends to be people who she personally witnesses being bad rather than people who are bad to her or her family.

I do think Theon and Arya will meet up. She may even be sent to assassinate him if Euron finds out he it's alive and hires another faceless man. With Arya's association with water I think she may end up sorting out the Iron Islands, maybe helping Asha take on Euron or instating Theon as a puppet king/lord.

Edited by jet199
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Interesting notice of the Balck pearl. Arya seem in admiration of her on acount of her appearance commenting her atire with approval. Which is sort of a first for Arya and a contrast ot the first time she met her when sh did not comment on her appearance at al. Yet is it just me who hears her being a bit snide when she speaks to Daena calling her the "brown pearl"? Sort of in the line OMG she is fabulous - that bitch. Could she actually be jealous of her?



Anyway, it is a sure bet will be seeing the Black Pearl again.


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Interesting notice of the Balck pearl. Arya seem in admiration of her on acount of her appearance commenting her atire with approval. Which is sort of a first for Arya and a contrast ot the first time she met her when sh did not comment on her appearance at al. Yet is it just me who hears her being a bit snide when she speaks to Daena calling her the "brown pearl"? Sort of in the line OMG she is fabulous - that bitch. Could she actually be jealous of her?

No, I think she's just being somewhat coldly observational. The woman is referred to as "Black", because of her ancestor being from the Summer Islands, but in truth she's not as exotic as the Braavosi like to say she is. It is a bit like the story of the Sealord's housecat, and how Syrio saw true, to how ordinary it actually was.

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No, I think she's just being somewhat coldly observational. The woman is referred to as "Black", because of her ancestor being from the Summer Islands, but in truth she's not as exotic as the Braavosi like to say she is. It is a bit like the story of the Sealord's housecat, and how Syrio saw true, to how ordinary it actually was.

I still think there is a marked difference between her thoughts, which are appreciative if not admiring and her words. It still seems the line is in Mercy chitchat gossipy mode. Coupled with Arya's thoughts on Mercy's appearance, I think Arya is starting to notice looks and care more about her own. It is only natural if you think about it. Most kids become more aware and attentive of their appearance and grooming as they grow up and her circumstances in a mummers troope would encourage this. If nothing else she should be sick and tired of being dissed because she looks bedraggled.

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No, I think she's just being somewhat coldly observational. The woman is referred to as "Black", because of her ancestor being from the Summer Islands, but in truth she's not as exotic as the Braavosi like to say she is. It is a bit like the story of the Sealord's housecat, and how Syrio saw true, to how ordinary it actually was.

Yeah, especially that part where She was so lovely that the lamps seemed to burn brighter when she passed.

I still think there is a marked difference between her thoughts, which are appreciative if not admiring and her words. It still seems the line is in Mercy chitchat gossipy mode. Coupled with Arya's thoughts on Mercy's appearance, I think Arya is starting to notice looks and care more about her own. It is only natural if you think about it. Most kids become more aware and attentive of their appearance and grooming as they grow up and her circumstances in a mummers troope would encourage this. If nothing else she should be sick and tired of being dissed because she looks bedraggled.

:agree:

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So, looks like GRRM released the Arya chapter because it coincides with who she kills, and how she kills him in the show.

Makes sense. D&D must have known about how Raff dies ahead of time and that's how they chose to kill off Polliver on the show.

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So how do you see Arya doing this? Slipping a knife between her mother's ribs? Cutting her head off? Crushing her temple, shooting an arrow through her eye, hanging her, setting her on fire, some other sweet mother-daughter bonding moment I haven't thought of? Besides getting rid of a character you may not like, how is Arya's matricide better than Lady Stoneheart's revenge?

I'm sure GRRM will get rid of Lady Stoneheart in his own good time, but as much as he's given to horrible endings I can't see him having one of his favorite characters euthanizing her mother with an axe, or whatever, especially when there's so many other people Arya could be killing.

No, Arya is not going to shoot an arrow through her mother's eye. I think Stoneheart, having reached a place of peace or sufficient vengeance and seeing at least 1 of her children alive and thriving, will ask for the gift. And Arya will gently give her mother the gift so she can finally be at peace. It will be poignant and beautiful.

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My, my that chapter was a little untoward wasn't it? The blatant return of the Ayra personality is not going sit well with the Many Faced God Church of Black and White, her training has taken a huge step backward and was that Needle she used?...FM are not supposedly out for personal vengance...This is the second time the Ayra personality has done this (the first Daeron the NW singer)...She seems to be on the ragged edge of being exiled on the first ship back to Westeros should the Kindly Man discern her actions...


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Yeah, especially that part where She was so lovely that the lamps seemed to burn brighter when she passed.

It did not seem to me that she should be appreciative one second, then snide about it the next.

Although ... Wouldn't it be interesting if the lights really did burn brighter as she passed? Perhaps the Black Pearl also traditionally knows some shadowbinding magic / glamours?

I still think there is a marked difference between her thoughts, which are appreciative if not admiring and her words. It still seems the line is in Mercy chitchat gossipy mode. Coupled with Arya's thoughts on Mercy's appearance, I think Arya is starting to notice looks and care more about her own. It is only natural if you think about it. Most kids become more aware and attentive of their appearance and grooming as they grow up and her circumstances in a mummers troope would encourage this. If nothing else she should be sick and tired of being dissed because she looks bedraggled.

\You're right - could be the Mercy influence in her head too.

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Is it me or does this chapter hint at Arya having had some combat training? The way she kills Raff the Sweetling by cutting him in his thigh without having any worries of him being able to get up and attack her seems odd for a 12 year old unless she knew exactly what she was doing. Does this mean there is more to Izembarro or his group of mummers, or did someone at the house of black and white teach her?

Edited by SandorsRedemption
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