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Evidence that the Lemon Tree Was Not Originally in Braavos


Lost Melnibonean

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Terrific OP. Thanks!

I haven't read all the way through, just skimmed (so far) so excuse me if this has already been mentioned... About the lemon tree in Braavos - as well cultivation by the wealthy, are we forgetting that when our story opened, they were just coming to the end of a ten year summer ?

 I live on the west coast of Canada - about midway in NA's temperate zone (and to boot, temperatures are often milder on the coast). Looking at the Narrow Sea map, I think Braavos would  still be in planetos' temperate zone, though maybe closer to the northern edge.. (e.g., we haven't heard of Braavos' harbour being ice bound in a "normal" winter.)

Lots of people in my area have citrus and even banana trees (usually ornamental) in their gardens. (In a hot summer, I've passed houses that even show a cluster of bananas.)

 http://news.nationalpost.com/appetizer/lemons-and-olives-now-grow-on-vancouver-island-thanks-to-milder-winters

It's very far from impossible that a young Dany could have seen a fruit bearing lemon tree in Braavos.

I'm not sure it foretells bitterness for Dany in the long term though. It's for certain that the plans made for Viserys' and her future while they were in Braavos turned sour .. but her story continues.

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  • 4 months later...

Three physical things (apart from the connection to a safe childhood) are associated by Daenerys with the big house where she lived and which according to her memory was situated in Braavos:

  1. a red door (apparently the main entrance)
  2. a Lemon tree outside the window of her room
  3. great wooden beams, with carved animal faces on them

I wonder why 99% of the doubts if this house was really located in Braavos are based on the Lemon tree. I find the wooden beams with carved animal faces strange for Braavos too.

In Braavos I would rather expect fish carvings or paintings in stone. Not so many hunting occasions there.

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39 minutes ago, Greywater-Watch said:

great wooden beams, with carved animal faces on them

I wonder why 99% of the doubts if this house was really located in Braavos are based on the Lemon tree. I find the wooden beams with carved animal faces strange for Braavos too.

In Braavos I would rather expect fish carvings or paintings in stone. Not so many hunting occasions there.

1) The owner of the house is rich is enough to import wood and to show it off to his guests.

2) What does the availability of hunting grounds to do with the wood or the carvings? The nobility of Braavos seem to fancy animals judging from the tales of the sealord's menagerie. 

In Austria there's a chateau which some empress or queen or whatever had filled with paintings of scenes from Shakespears Midsummer Night's Dream. Why did she choose that instead of something from German culture? Because she happened to be a fan of Shakespear and the Mid Summernight's Dream in particular. 

Why does a noble from Braavos decorate his house with animal faces instead of the same old fish he sees every day (bonus point: fish are animals)? Because he happens to like animals and is rich enough to afford it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

When we see lemons, things don't usually end well... In Sansa I, Game 15, she was looking forward to lemon cakes in the queen's wheelhouse, but her day ended with her prince's loathing and contempt. Samwell's early childhood went from snitching lemon cakes to contempt, abuse, and banishment by his father. In Sansa II, Game 29, Sansa went from enjoying lemon cakes with Joffrey at the feast following the first day of jousting to being escorted back to her cell by the Hound. In Sansa III, Game 44, Sansa and Jeyne (poor Jeyne) looked for lemon cakes in the kitchen, but at the end of the chapter learned her father was sending back to Winterfell. Sansa shared lemon cakes with the Tyrells before being forced to wed the imp. On the morning Sansa was forced to marry the imp, along with the new gown, Cersei sent her favorite scents for Sansa's use too. Of course, "Sansa chose a sharp sweet fragrance with a hint of lemon in it under the smell of flowers." Before donning the ugly little girl's face, the kindly man gave a girl a drink so tart it was like biting into lemon. That made "no one" think of Arya's sister, and Sansa's fondness for lemon cakes.

In Arya V, Game 65, Arya offered to trade a fat pigeon for a lemon, but ened up at her father's execution. Jeor Mormont drank lemon in his beer every day. He still had his own teeth but his men mutinied and murdered him. At Bitterbridge, Renly's bannermen feasted on lemon cakes. Of course, Renly's campaign ened shortly thereafter. As Davos sailed with Stannis's fleet into Blackwater Bay, he observed Aegon's High Hill, dark against a lemon sky. That's an odd description for a sky, no? As Davos turned downstream, the mouth of the Blackwater Rush had turned into the mouth of hell.

At Edmure's wedding feast Catelyn noted that Ryman Frey had bathed in lemon water but failed to mask his sour sweat, and that Roose smelled sweeter but no more pleasant. The Feast did not end on a happy note. At Joffrey's wedding feast Tyrion had a slice of pigeon pie covered with a spoon of lemon cream. A few paragraphs later Tyrion stood accused of regicide. That was the last of 18 dishes served to Joffrey just before he choked. Cersei drank lemon water so tart she had to spit it out the morning she learned that Tyrion had murdered their father.

Lem Lemoncloak just reeks of bitterness and disappointment, and Doran's Water Gardens smell of lemons and blood oranges. Anybody think Dorne is going end up happy with their blood and fire? In The Queenmaker, Arianne noticed that Darkstar preferred lemon water to summer wine, and she served lemonsweet to Myrcella before Darkstar cut off Myrcella's ear amidst lemon orchards watered by a spider's web of old canals. Arianne’s first meal while locked in the tower included kind roasted with lemon. 

Stannis enjoys boiled eggs and lemon water for breakfast, and, well, I think we all know his end will be bitter and disappointing. In Jon IV, Dance 17, Stannis offers lemon water to Jon. Wisely, Jon refuses. Stannis drinks more.

The merry band aboard the Shy Maid enjoy a pike with lemon juice, but come on, who doesn't eat Pike without lemon? And Ysilla was from Dorne. Still, I woulda passed. Tyrion suspected Yezzan was drinking lemon water as the yellow whale bid on him and Penny. Tyrion served Nurse lemonsweet with the mushrooms from Illyrio's garden.The Green Grace accepted a goblet of sweeetened lemon juice from the Queen's hand, just before infected corpses started flying over the walls. Oh, and guess what kind of trees Daenerys has in her terrace garden in Meereen?

Oh... and dig the spices Cersei smelled when she entered Maggy the Frog's tent...

Quote

The inside of the tent was full of smells. Cinnamon and nutmeg. Pepper, red and white and black. Almond milk and onions. Cloves and lemongrass and precious saffron, and stranger spices, rarer still.

Cersei VIII, Feast 36

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  • 3 weeks later...
2 hours ago, Nezza86 said:

Doesn't this kind of support the Dorne theory? He obviously wrote Tyrosh in then changed the location specifically to somewhere lemon trees don't grow. 

So you're saying that the George was going to have Daenerys be raised (or even birthed) in Dorne with a fake backstory in Tyrosh. But he figured having Tyrosh as the fake backstory would not be recognizably fake cause lemons grow there too. So, he moved her fake back story to Bravo so we would realize that she was raised (and possibly birthed--I am looking at you, Ashara) in Dorne. Is that it? 

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Bingo, pretty much my thoughts. Although maybe not a fake back story, she maybe did live in braavos for a while, maybe just she's forgotten her earliest childhood except a few stand out things... red door, wooden beams and lemon tree. And if Viserys was told she was his sister he wouldn't care about her past, he's too self centred hed just tell her about braavos and talk about himself. So in time she's mixed the two together. Yeah I definitely prescribe to the ashara Dayne theory who I think could be quaithe, hence the mask to hide westeros most beautiful woman.

I think the lemon tree thing is hidden well enough that if you're not looking for it you wouldn't ever find it. But it makes for a better story twist if during the reread you realise the things that don't quite add up. I definitely didn't realise the lemon tree theory until I'd read it here first and now I know it it seems obvious. But if Tyrosh is further south than braavos then there's nothing to say lemon trees don't grow there, but there is textual evidence they don't grow in braavos. So if he'd left it as tyrosh then the twist when it does come wouldn't have as much impact. He just didn't count on us all poring over every word for a decade to find all the hidden clues.

just my two cents worth anyway.

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1 hour ago, Nezza86 said:

Bingo, pretty much my thoughts. Although maybe not a fake back story, she maybe did live in braavos for a while, maybe just she's forgotten her earliest childhood except a few stand out things... red door, wooden beams and lemon tree. And if Viserys was told she was his sister he wouldn't care about her past, he's too self centred hed just tell her about braavos and talk about himself. So in time she's mixed the two together. Yeah I definitely prescribe to the ashara Dayne theory who I think could be quaithe, hence the mask to hide westeros most beautiful woman.

I think the lemon tree thing is hidden well enough that if you're not looking for it you wouldn't ever find it. But it makes for a better story twist if during the reread you realise the things that don't quite add up. I definitely didn't realise the lemon tree theory until I'd read it here first and now I know it it seems obvious. But if Tyrosh is further south than braavos then there's nothing to say lemon trees don't grow there, but there is textual evidence they don't grow in braavos. So if he'd left it as tyrosh then the twist when it does come wouldn't have as much impact. He just didn't count on us all poring over every word for a decade to find all the hidden clues.

just my two cents worth anyway.

But Samwell tells us that trees do grow in Braavos, in the courtyard of the mighty, presumably like the place with the red door. 

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I guess that's from a Sam chapter in AFFC, do you know which one? So I can compare it to the bit I've read about there not being lemon trees in bravos. Mines from TWOW published chapters and I know folk are a bit funny about talking about those on here.

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5 minutes ago, Nezza86 said:

I guess that's from a Sam chapter in AFFC, do you know which one? So I can compare it to the bit I've read about there not being lemon trees in bravos. Mines from TWOW published chapters and I know folk are a bit funny about talking about those on here.

Just put content from Winds in spoilers. But I know the passage to which you are referring. It sparked a whole new lemon tree debate. Here's the bit about trees in Braavos...

Quote

Dareon had paid the innkeep double for a room with a hearth, but none of them had realized that wood would be so costly here. Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty. Nor would the Braavosi cut the pines that covered the outlying islands around their great lagoon and acted as windbreaks to shield them from storms. Instead, firewood was brought in by barge, up the rivers and across the lagoon.

 

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10 minutes ago, Nezza86 said:

I guess that's from a Sam chapter in AFFC, do you know which one? So I can compare it to the bit I've read about there not being lemon trees in bravos. Mines from TWOW published chapters and I know folk are a bit funny about talking about those on here.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy? That had some explicit lemon shenanigans.

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Spoiler
Spoiler

 

 

Yeah I guess if she was staying in a braavosi nobles house there'd be some suggestion that there could be a lemon tree. But as Georgie boy likes to do there's evidence the other way too. I wonder if it's mentioned if she stayed with a nobleman in braavos or was on the streets or staying in inns etc. was the pact for viserys to marry Arianne made at the sea lords palace?

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11 minutes ago, The Fresh PtwP said:

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy? That had some explicit lemon shenanigans.

Enough to heat the debate for months...

Spoiler

“Seven hells, this place is damp,” she heard her guard complain. “I’m chilled to the bones. Where are the bloody orange trees? I always heard there were orange trees in the Free Cities. Lemons and limes. Pomegranates. Hot peppers, warm nights, girls with bare bellies. Where are the bare-bellied girls, I ask you?”

“Down in Lys, and Myr, and Old Volantis,” the other guard replied. He was an older man, big-bellied and grizzled. “I went to Lys with Lord Tywin once, when he was Hand to Aerys. Braavos is north of King’s Landing, fool. Can’t you read a bloody map?”

Mercy, Winds

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In fact despite that a lemon tree wouldn't grow in a cold climate. And she doesn't remember any sort of greenhouse. 

The quote from TWOW even makes a joke at the idea of there being lemon trees in braavos. I know how to do spoilers now haha.

Spoiler

"Seven hells, this place is damp," she heard her guard complain. "I'm chilled to the bones. Where are the bloody orange trees? I always heard there were orange trees in the Free Cities. lemons and limes....... "Down in Lys and Myr and old Volantis," the other guard replied......... "Braavos is north of kings landing, fool. Can't you read a bloody map?"

It's like he's either taking the piss out of himself for getting it wrong first time or trolling us for not working it out before. Even though we did.

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1 minute ago, Nezza86 said:

In fact despite that a lemon tree wouldn't grow in a cold climate. And she doesn't remember any sort of greenhouse. 

The quote from TWOW even makes a joke at the idea of there being lemon trees in braavos. I know how to do spoilers now haha.

  Hide contents

"Seven hells, this place is damp," she heard her guard complain. "I'm chilled to the bones. Where are the bloody orange trees? I always heard there were orange trees in the Free Cities. lemons and limes....... "Down in Lys and Myr and old Volantis," the other guard replied......... "Braavos is north of kings landing, fool. Can't you read a bloody map?"

It's like he's either taking the piss out of himself for getting it wrong first time or trolling us for not working it out before. Even though we did.

There have whole threads here devoted to whether a lemon tree can grow in a cool climate. It most likely can if it's very well cared for, sheltered from extreme elements, and not expected to yield productively. 

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3 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Enough to heat the debate for months...

  Reveal hidden contents

“Seven hells, this place is damp,” she heard her guard complain. “I’m chilled to the bones. Where are the bloody orange trees? I always heard there were orange trees in the Free Cities. Lemons and limes. Pomegranates. Hot peppers, warm nights, girls with bare bellies. Where are the bare-bellied girls, I ask you?”

“Down in Lys, and Myr, and Old Volantis,” the other guard replied. He was an older man, big-bellied and grizzled. “I went to Lys with Lord Tywin once, when he was Hand to Aerys. Braavos is north of King’s Landing, fool. Can’t you read a bloody map?”

Mercy, Winds

I don't doubt it, I try to refrain from lemon threads. 

I feel any alternative Dany theories should start with adequately explaining Viserys.

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Haha you beat me to it. Typing on a tablet is hard. So the only way a lemon tree could grow in braavos is in a greenhouse. But it seems like something she might remember about the tree if it was there. I think your OP from way back in 2015 strongly suggests that GRRM changed that on purpose to emphasise the twist. It would help if he would release the next book though :P

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