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AFFC Reread Project - The Ironborn


cteresa

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I have very little to add here. I simply have never felt very enthusiastic about the Ironborn, it's not my favourite setting at all.

I agree with Elgernon that Aeron comes across as a rather sympathetic religious zealot, at least more so than he did in the Theon chapters in ACOK. I like the way GRRM presents the drownings, how he avoids to answer the question of whether Aeron really is reviving the drowned men with the help of some divine power or if it's just a matter of knowing the right technique.

As the rest of you have noted, the hinge is clearly significant. I'm in the "sexual abuse camp", but we really have very little info so far.

Oh, and the first sentence of the chapter is truly excellent.

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The five true brothers does include euron. The one who died from greyscale as well as the sickly boy and the two infants were all halfbrothers.

Unfortunately I don't have the book with me right now, but if I remember the quote correctly Aeron thinks not of his "true brothers" but of his father's "true sons". The greyscale victim (whose name I've forgotten) may be only a half-brother to Aeron, but he's still a whole son of the father. I think this fits better, as I can't see Aeron looking forward to spending time with Euron in the afterlife. Indeed, if Aeron thinks Euron is godless, I doubt he expects the Drowned God to welcome him into his halls.

Speaking of Aeron's half-brothers, do we know what exactly happened with the last one? I got the impression from my reading that he wasn't sickly so much as mentally retarded.

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You all seem to think Aeron hates Euron, but I'm not so sure. There's really no place in the chapter where this is clearly stated. It is stated several times though, that he thinks Euron is an ungodly man.

But I'm not sure even the religious part is all of it. Let me quote:

I've seen the storm, and its name is Euron Crow's Eye.

The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. Euron has come again.

Victarion. The king must be Victarion, or the storm will slay us all.

Additionally, it is described how the hall goes cold when Gorold's maester reveals that Euron sits the seastone chair. Aeron fears the Crow's Eye, that's what I think. He knows something about him that we do not, something so terrible even the Damphair fears he will become king.

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I don't have much to add. I think that in general Aeron's POV is what Melisandre's might be like.

Tarle the Thrice-Drowned must have crowned Balon when he started his first rebellion.

Balon did seem older the last time Aeron saw him. Could this be from the stress of the war or is there some Faceless magic at work there?

The hinge may have something to do with Urri and his death and also with Euron.

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I don't have much to add. I think that in general Aeron's POV is what Melisandre's might be like.

- I agree: both are true believers and violent fanatics. The only reason we have more sympathy for Aeron than for Mel is that Aeron isn't the worst fanatic in the neighborhood.

-BOTH Aeron and Mel are being seriously helped by the resurgence of magic - we get hints that Mel's effectiveness went way up when she arrived with Stannis (that's around the same time the dragons were born) and Aeron has a 100% recovery rate for his drowned men - something no one just doing CPR could pull off.

- Aeron's CPR is not the same thing as the Kiss of Life administered by Thoros. That involves breathing fire into a dying victim's throat, it seems. (am I wrong about this? No SOS in front of me.)

- GRRM's view of religion is very nuanced - for every Mel there's a Thoros, for every Aeron there's a Reader and an Asha, for every Head Sparrow there's an Elder Brother.

- To second a previous post - drinking Seawater isn't fatal. Drinking NOTHING BUT seawater is fatal, and there's no indication that Aeron is doing that.

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- Aeron's CPR is not the same thing as the Kiss of Life administered by Thoros. That involves breathing fire into a dying victim's throat, it seems. (am I wrong about this? No SOS in front of me.)

Definitely not the same mechanics or magic . . . but they are called the same thing and both presumably are granted by the strength/power/magic of the god to which they are related.

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Some more timeline details. (Remember that according to my timeline, this chapter is plays on 2 Nov and 3 Nov 299.)

Aeron had seen his eldest brother not a moon’s turn past, when he had returned to the Iron Islands from harrying the Stony Shore.

This is nothing new, the Ironmen harry the Stony Shore in the latter half of 299. I have "Reek takes Winterfell" in October 299.

. Seek the hill of Nagga and the bones of the Grey King’s hall, for in that holy place when the moon has drowned and come again we shall make ourselves a worthy king, a godly king.â€

Ah! This is great. This is the best information about when the Kingsmoot actually happens I have found so far. Even if the moon just "drowned" a few days ago, there can be no more than a month until it "drowns and comes again'. So the Kingsmoot is in December 299. If "coming again" means "returns to full moon" (which it may well do) Aeron says to wait for no more than one and a a half month.

The latest date for the Kingsmoot (and thus Kraken's Daughter and Captain) is thus 15 December 299. Two weeks before Joffrey's wedding. Four weeks before Cersei I, Captain of the Guards, and Brienne I.

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It just means that there is a big gap between The Drowned Man (at the Kingsmoot) and The Reaver (on the Mander). Euron has a Kingdom to organise before the Ironborn set out to attack the Reach. As far as I have checked, that all works out quite well. We'll see when we get there.

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Oooh, Happy Ent, thanks for providing some sort of dating system ;) I find that all very confusing most of the time and squint!

The Ironborn ... not my favorites. I'm sort of sympathetic to Aeron (although I don't want this to be a sexual abuse story or something because it seems like we're getting so many characters with unhappy childhoods to explain their current woes!) although I also dislike him because he can't consider that Asha might be a good queen and Asha is pretty much the only Ironborn besides the Reader whom I actually like.

As for the disaster of Euron's being King, well, it seems that perhaps Aeron is right - by the end of this novel, the Ironborn seem to have overreached themselves a lot, no? They may have gotten lots of plunder down south, but unlike the Starks in the North, the Tyrells, Redwynes, etc. are still strong and powerful and coming back to deal out punishment; and as for the dragon horn, well, he who summons a dragon must be prepared to deal with it! So perhaps Aeron just has a good sense of future developments.

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"- To second a previous post - drinking Seawater isn't fatal. Drinking NOTHING BUT seawater is fatal, and there's no indication that Aeron is doing that. "

I still think I disagree with this. Euron keeps seawater in his waterskin that he carries with him, both to drink from and to bless people with. I don't recall seeing him drink anything but from his skin. I'm going to go re-read this chapter while i re-read the next two (because I've been away and haven't done so yet!).

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There are a couple of other characters that have died and been reborn from the sea, and they are *not* Ironborn - Davos and Patchface. I think this is significant, especially seeing as we're getting so much more info on the Drowned God religion. Possibly they will serve to bring the Ironborn and Stannis together? Who knows at this stage.

I'm not sure if it had been previously stated in earlier books, but I found the tidbit that Stannis was the one who defeated the Iron Fleet during Greyjoy's Rebellion to be very interesting. It is first of all more proof that Stannis is a pretty badass general under all kinds of circumstances. We know he withstood a horrific siege, retired in amazingly good order from a battle in which he was betrayed, taken by surprise, outnumbered, and let down by the stupidity of his fleet commander, routed a huge army of wildings that included mammoths and giants, and defeated the best sailors in Westeros in their natural element.

It seems to me that given Stannis' (well, Davos') strategy of "a true king will defend the realm", there is an excellent chance he will ambush the ironborn with the majority of their fleet away reaving the south. This seems much more likely than going after the Boltons right away. I think any reconciliation with the ironborn could only follow Stannis' defeat of them. Perhaps the Asha/Reader faction of ironborn that rejects both the megalomaniacal ambitions of Euron and the Drowned God fundamentalism of Aeron will be the key.

The taking of the Shield Isles that occurs later seems very significant to me in this light. Much as the Young Wolf lost Winterfell even as he won the Riverlands, I could see Crow's Eye losing the Iron Islands even as he pillages the Reach and the Arbor. The Shields might become his new base of operations, since in fact Euron doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about the Iron Islands themselves.

So we could have, speculatively, Stannis ejecting the ironborn from Torrhen's Square, Deepwood Motte and the Stony Shore, seizing and/or building a fleet (Bear Island could figure here), invading the Iron Isles, cutting a deal with Asha and the Reader, but then having to deal with a religious insurgency led by Damphair against the introduction of the Red Woman's evil cult to the ironborn. That would mean a three-way tussle of ironborn spilling the blood of ironborn, which would be a lovely bit of ironic skewering to the sentiments expressed by Aeron in his first POV chapter.

An interesting loose end is Moat Cailin. It's held by the ironborn but under siege from the crannogmen and Maege Mormont, right? If it got into Stannis' hands via a deal with the ironborn it would virtually guarantee Bolton's ultimate defeat in the North by dividing his forces from his fortress.

A Poor Fellow

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It seems to me that given Stannis' (well, Davos') strategy of "a true king will defend the realm", there is an excellent chance he will ambush the ironborn with the majority of their fleet away reaving the south.

Although, I think your speculations are well supported, I still think Stannis will be going North to fight the Others and not south, unless we learn more about the nature of the fight with the Others (i.e. a smaller group has as much a chance of winning over such mystery). I am still very interested on how GRRM will deal with the battle between Light and Darkness. In typical fantasy novels, one hero or group of heroes slays the physical embodiment of evil in the land. I would be dissapointed if GRRM takes this course. It would not be in line with the tone and tenor of his writing.

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The ending of the kingsmoot chapter feels somewhat contrived to me. I mean, the choice of a king ends up depending on an outsider's claim that dragons exist. The moment Euron promises dragons, I'd expect a score of men--and certainly, Asha--jump at him with a challenge of proving there are any dragons alive, much like Asha had asked one of the contenders to stand up, and he couldn't. Not to say that Euron couldn't have won anyway, but I would have expected him to get a tougher fight.

It is interesting to me that at least in my interpretation of the reading GRRM presents Aeron, who is definitely a fanatic, in a very sympathetic way. In that his fanaticism is respectable, and you can tell that all of the ironborn, even those not strong in the faith respect Aeron Damphair.

This is in stark contrast to the fanaticism of the High Sparrow and that of Melisandre, both of whom's fanatical approach is clearly presented as a negative thing. Especially in the case of the faith of the Seven, wherein the new regime seems to be heading quickly in the direction of something much akin to the Inquisition of the real world Catholic faith.

The difference is only in that Aeron is given a POV, and the other two are not. I like the portrayal of the Drowned God's religion, however.

The most important hint in this chapter is the rusty hinge IMO. It will be mentioned again and again in Aeron's POV. What makes it special in this first chapter is that this is the only(?) time in the book where it is also connected with Urri - Aeron is half asleep, pondering Euron's return, remembers the sound of the rusty hinge and wakes up saying "Urri".

I'm sure that the rusty hinge is important. The problem, though, is that the reason why is withheld from the reader. As a result, the last sentence of the kingsmoot chapter (the only sound Aeron hearing is the sound of a rusty hinge) doesn't have the emotional impact it may have had if we knew what the hinge was all about.

Leo

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I find it more haunting precisley because I don't know waht's happenned

I didn't say it wasn't haunting. I said it lacked emotional impact. It's not about being mystified; mysteries are dime a dozen. When I read, I want to feel what the POV character is feeling. That said, I had a sense of dread coming from Aeron at the sound of the hinge, but the emotional impact wasn't strong because I couldn't fully identify with Aeron. If I knew what he was dreading, I would have felt the dread more strongly.

Leo

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Something that struck me when I first read this chapter, and when I read Theon's chapter in aCoK where he meets Aeron again, was the similarity between "drowning" and baptism, especially of early Christians.

The history and conflict among different Christian churches goes well beyond the scope of a single book, let alone this post, but it is interesting to see how similar Aeron's drowning is to early gnostic Chrstians for whom baptism was often a near-death experience. For some, in fact, baptism allowed them to gain the courage to face Roman tortures and "games" since they had already "died." Nowadays, in most churches, it is used on infants or new converts and range from a small sprinkling of water on a child's head. This is something that some Protestant groups such as the Baptists, soundly reject saying that a baptism can only be valid on a person who can be accountable, not an infant, and that a baptism must be fully immersive, similar to the way John the Baptist baptized Jesus.

This struck me as quite similar to Aeron's contempt for, what seems to be, the way drowning exists on the Iron Islands today:

Aeron snorted. That Steffarion Sparr had been given to the Drowned God soon after birth he had no doubt. He knew the manner of it too, a quick dip into a tub of seawater that scarce wet the infant’s head. Small wonder the ironborn had been conquered, they who once held sway everywhere the sound of waves was heard. "That is no true drowning," he told the riders. "He that does not die in truth cannot hope to rise from death.

This also brings up the question of what the Drowned God religion is like aside from Aeron, the only priest we've met. It seems that Aeron is the first of a breed that has died out, namely a zealous priest reminicient (sp?) of the time before the Conquer. It may be that other priests in the past may have been less strict or zealous in their application of the religion of the Drowned God. Another question that arises is women, are they drowned as well? Was Asha drowned?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm new to the forum and posting for the first time. Those who participate here have been very helpful in adding to my appreciation of this great series. Thanks a lot! I'm starting late with the re-read, but will catch up in January.

Like some others here, I cannot see why some posters have claimed that "we know" that Jaqen was hired by Euron to kill Balon. I do not recall any evidence of this. I don't even remember any evidence that directly points to this being done by a faceless man, though an FM is the most likely perp.

I agree that the rusty hinge is an important clue, but am not convinced that it means Euron was sexually abusive to his brothers. If that is the connection, then why did Aeron mutter "Urri', when he hears this noise in his dream?

There is one thing that no one seems to have commented on in this thread (unless I missed it). It comes in a paragraph (on p. 25) where Aeron is speaking about his great pissing prowess. Balon threatens to hang him from the mast of his longship Golden Storm "when he heard the sort of ram his brother proposed to mount upon her prow." Can this be anything but an erect penis? I laughed hard when at the the image GRRM engendered with that one.

I look forward to participating in this re-read, and I hope that the future brings a re-read of the entire series (which may have already been done before, but as I said, I'm new to this forum). Probably best done after ADwD, which I think GRRM will do his best to publish next year.

Geoff

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Like some others here, I cannot see why some posters have claimed that "we know" that Jaqen was hired by Euron to kill Balon. I do not recall any evidence of this. I don't even remember any evidence that directly points to this being done by a faceless man, though an FM is the most likely perp.

The ghost of high heart had a vision of a man with no face on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder was a drowned crow. The man with no face is a Faceless Man, the drowned crow is Euron who hired him and the bridge is the bridge where Balon died.

I agree that the rusty hinge is an important clue, but am not convinced that it means Euron was sexually abusive to his brothers. If that is the connection, then why did Aeron mutter "Urri', when he hears this noise in his dream?

Some have speculated that Urri protected Aeron from Euron.

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